r/ukpolitics • u/StemCellPirate • 11h ago
| U.K. to announce a trade ban on Israeli West Bank goods, setting up clash with U.S.
https://www.nbcnews.com/world/united-kingdom/uk-announces-trade-ban-israeli-west-bank-goods-burnham-huckabee-rcna596536•
u/Minute-Story301 11h ago
Not a political comment only curiousity, what goods are we talking about in theory here?
•
u/aesop_fables 11h ago
I think it’s fruits and veggies and some industrial things. It’s not much though
•
u/Flabby-Nonsense May we live in uninteresting times 6h ago
Realistically this is a political signal rather than a genuine sanction. The settlements really aren’t producing much and even if they did, it would be beyond easy for them to pass them through a non-settlement front for export.
But that doesn’t mean it’s meaningless either, we need to stand up against these settlements and this is a good way of signalling that, plus it paves the way towards more significant sanctions if Israel doesn’t do more to curb the settlements.
•
u/WillSym 10h ago
Do Sodastream still count?
•
u/itchyfrog 10h ago edited 10h ago
I was wondering this, they have factories in the west bank.
Edit: apparently they have moved their factory out of the west bank, which would suggest that international pressure and sanctions do work.
•
•
u/beenman500 9h ago
Well sodastream is Pepsi Co so it seems unlikley the government will just blanket ban pepsico from the UK as supposed to something targeted very specifically
•
u/Artistic-Blueberry12 8h ago
Didn't they already set up a clash with the UK by saying the Falklands are Argentine? And there was something else even though the oil exploration company is Israeli Israel wants to sanction the Falklands or the UK as well? I can't keep track of this anymore.
•
u/Minute-Improvement57 7h ago
It seems obvious that those PR releases are their diplomatic response to this. I don't imagine the US will actually back Argentina (given it would make the alliance with the UK non-viable and that would totally scupper US interests in NATO). Them making a very loud stink about it, though, is precisely what I would expect. A sanction on west bank goods is economically meaningless (and therefore geopolitically meaningless in practical terms) but clearly undermines the relationship and gives the UK no benefit.
At the moment, the EU is trying to play it both ways, having the US as its security guarantor but simultaneously trying to weaken the US because the EU would like to be the US's rival. The problem with that is the path doesn't run through the US shrugging and letting the EU ride all over it, but likely runs through the US feeling pissed off and deciding it might just let Eastern Europe get a bloody nose to put it in its place.
a.k.a. it's one thing to have rhetoric about the US "backing Russia"; it's quite another to put them in a position where they might just consider letting Russia have a slice of Eastern Europe to knock the EU down a peg or two.
•
u/QuirkyWish3081 8h ago
This might be a stupid question but if the West Bank ships to Israel and then to UK what happens then? This all sounds a bit half baked and just political postering to be honest with no real tangible impact.
•
u/EyyyPanini Make Votes Matter 7h ago
HMRC has teams that are responsible for detecting things like this. It’s the only way for sanctions of any kind to be effective.
•
u/Jaykwonder 6h ago
The government doesn't even need to be proactive, there will be plenty of activists combing through any Israeli goods in the UK and doing their own due diligence which they would then pass on to the government.
•
•
u/Significant-Branch22 9h ago
The entire Israeli state aids and abets the actions of settlers to the point that settlers are effectively agents of the state, sanctions should be put on the state of Israel in its entirety
•
u/SuperTed321 10h ago
Why just West Bank?
I’m not aware of any other countries where we would impose a trade ban / sanctions etc on specific occupied area rather than on the invading country as a whole.
•
u/dc_1984 9h ago
Trump has the mid terms to worry about in 8 weeks, if he comes out strongly pro-Israel it'll hurt Republicans even more (they might lose the Senate as it is, which is a huge deal). Now is the smartest time to do it while he is distracted.
•
u/SuperTed321 9h ago
Whilst I understand the sentiment Trump does not respond to anything apart from strength. We should make clear our positjon on any country which is committing genocide, call it out and impose sanctions as we would do for any other country who was invading multiple neighbours.
•
u/DakeyrasWrites 5h ago
Because there's a much stronger legal justification for considering products from the West Bank to be directly funding terrorism (see e.g. all the recent BBC reporting on Israeli settler attacks in the West Bank), whereas sanctioning Israel as a whole means making a legal argument about the actions of the Israeli state. Having that strong legal justification makes it easier to defend the sanctions domestically, whereas sanctions against Israel as a whole would be much harder to keep a decent level of public approval for.
Tl;dr is that it gives some British voters something they want without pissing off too many other British voters too badly.
Mind you, if more Israeli ministers make statements about the Falklands being Argentine that could change things.
•
u/SuperTed321 5h ago
Is that legal justification really true. The statement seems to be that it’s government supported terrorism but where and when else have we split up the implications of government supported actions to just some areas impacted rather than holding the government as a whole responsible.
I do agree that it seems this has been done to ‘split the difference’ by targeting the worst parts of the terrorism while not pissing off parts of the uk voter demographic that don’t want Isreal held fully accountable.
•
u/DakeyrasWrites 5h ago
The legal aspects are pretty clearcut, Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law and Israeli settler attacks are far more straightforwardly illegal than Israeli military actions against civilians, even if they're doing the exact same thing. Whether that's fair in the grand scheme of things is an open question, but the international legal system is determined by what states agree on and states tend to agree that their militaries will need to kill people sometimes, whereas (on paper) private citizens shouldn't do that.
The specifics of what the government is using as their rationale won't be clear until they announce the sanctions and explain their reasoning, though.
•
•
u/wappingite 10h ago
Wonder how much of this stuff ends up in the UK supply chain at the moment?
Can't be that cost effective to buy stuff from Israeli settler farms in the West Bank?
•
u/MrSoapbox 5h ago
I'm not really interested in the whole Israeli/Gaza conflict, but anything except sucking off Russia is "setting up a clash" with the US. Not caring what they think is the sensible thing, which it seems Burnham/Miliband has done here.
•
u/-ForgottenSoul :sloth: 11h ago
Lets aggro America for no actual benefit great policy from Andy.
•
•
u/EyyyPanini Make Votes Matter 10h ago
Trump is on thin ice with US voters. I don’t think he’s in a good position to start another trade war with a close ally, especially not on behalf of Israel.
•
u/usrname42 10h ago
Worrying about what voters will think has never stopped him before! But if it isn't this issue then something else will trigger him raising tariffs again and we can't make our entire foreign and trade policies subservient to his whims. He's not happy with us for staying out of the war with Iran either but that was clearly the right move for us.
•
u/SmurfRiding 10h ago
You do realise that starmer had to suck up to trump to get those concessions on trumps independence day tariffs.
•
u/EyyyPanini Make Votes Matter 10h ago
The US is in an escalating trade war with Canada and their war with Iran is incredibly unpopular.
A trade war with us on behalf of Israel would combine the least popular parts of both of those issues, right before the midterms.
The US is not weak, but Trump is right now. If he starts a trade war with us now he’s putting the final nail in his own coffin.
•
u/thricedice88 9h ago
He can't run again, so he literally has nothing to lose. He'll still be very wealthy when his term is over. Essentially, he has a blank cheque with zero accountability and he knows this.
•
u/EyyyPanini Make Votes Matter 8h ago
He needs to hold things together for the midterms or he’ll end up gifting the House and Senate to the Democrats.
If the Democrats control congress, the trade wars end because they hold the ultimate authority on trade.
•
u/FamousInMyFrontRoom 8h ago
Let's aggro America? Sanctions on a small part of "Israel" has nothing to do with America. If they get upset about it, that's their problem. If anything we should be sanctioning Israel as a whole.
•
u/-ForgottenSoul :sloth: 7h ago
Israel is an American state so yes it does.
•
u/FamousInMyFrontRoom 7h ago
If you believe that then that's an even better reason to sanction them. Wasn't too long ago that the Americans kidnapped one head of state and assassinated another.
•
u/CJBill 10h ago
Yeah, fuck principles right?
•
u/thricedice88 9h ago
Practical realities outweigh moral ideals in a world of practical realities. That's what we call pragmatism.
•
•
u/-ForgottenSoul :sloth: 8h ago
Honestly? Yeah we should be caring about our citizens wellbeing before performative points that can damage the country.
•
u/radikalkarrot 8h ago
This country left the EU for performative reasons, if we are being pragmatic here let’s be pragmatic and rejoin first.
Then I will agree with you that UK is a pragmatic country that puts its citizens wellbeing first
•
u/bitch_fitching 10h ago
Strategically, this is a period with the most pro-Israel US president there's ever been. We predict that the next president whether they're Republican or Democrat, will be far cooler on Israel.
Also there's elections in Israel, and it's unlikely that the far-right/right coalition will be maintained. This gives more power to the far right in Israel and seems designed to help them during their election.
What is the government actually thinking about?
•
u/zka_75 9h ago
Constantly trying to placate an incredibly erratic and somewhat demented US president is just not really possible, I understand the need broadly not to go completely against the US but you can't just kowtow on every individual specific issue, it's not going to work. Also what in reality is the US going to do to the UK? Trumps tariff thing has already been struck down by the courts once and no doubt it will be again
•
u/bitch_fitching 8h ago
It's not about placating the president, it's about not antagonizing him for no gain. We're not giving him what he wants on this, we're going out of our way to annoy him.
We don't have the attention or the patience to wait 3 years? Wait a few months until after the Israeli and US elections?
If you're asking what can the US do, and referencing the tariffs, then you don't know. The US has a lot of leverage in many areas.
•
u/zka_75 8h ago
In theory the US has a million and one things it can do against other countries however the vast majority of those are very difficult to enact given the sign off it would need through the various branches of govt. That's why trump almost exclusively uses tariffs, because they're one of the few things he believes he has executive power over. It's already been struck down once in the supreme court.
Like I said we can't base all our foreign policy decisions on what may or may not rile up trump because you can do 99 things he likes and then the 1 thing he doesn't will lead to exactly the same response. All we can do as a sovereign nation is make the decisions we believe are correct and are in our global interests.
•
u/AdviceFit1692 9h ago
Best time at least, he's pretty angry with Israel at the moment, because he blames them for getting him trapped in this war just before mid terms, you know until he wakes up and decides something completely different in a few days.
•
u/EyyyPanini Make Votes Matter 7h ago
I don’t see how this move gives more power to the far right in Israel. It will force Likud to have an official position on these settlements (through action or inaction), which will either harm their electoral chances or distance themselves from the far right parties in their coalition (depending on their response).
•
u/bitch_fitching 7h ago
This covers settlements that Likud already had an official position on. They provide security, permits to build. What is unofficial about the settlements in Area C? In fact, the Israeli state provides funding for some settlements.
Israel already disputes that these settlements are illegal under international law.
So what does it even mean "force Likud to have an official position"? Is there an alternate universe you're operating from?
•
u/AutoModerator 11h ago
Snapshot of U.K. to announce a trade ban on Israeli West Bank goods, setting up clash with U.S. submitted by StemCellPirate:
An archived version can be found here or here. or here
If the above links don't work, try this one.
Some publications may require you to register a free account to read their articles.
Being connected to a VPN may interfere with archive links.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.