The Middle East minister has told an influential committee of Parliament that he takes “seriously” the concerns of British Jews about the unintended consequences of “blunt” measures aimed at targeting Israeli settlements.
Hamish Falconer was taking questions from the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee and was asked by the committee’s chair, Dame Emily Thornberry about “the ban on goods and services to settlements and the ban on sale of goods to the UK”.
Speaking to Parliament last week, Falconer had confirmed that the government was exploring taking more robust measures against Israel in response to settlement construction in E1 in the West Bank.
He told MPs then: “We are in discussion with partners, including those few countries who have explored how a ban on settlement trade might work. We are looking at further concrete steps to counter settlement expansion and promote peace and security.”
At the committee, Thornberry questioned why the government couldn’t easily distinguish between goods and services originating from Israel’s internationally recognised borders.
She noted that in the current trade agreement between the two countries “the West Bank is excluded” from the tariff preferences that Israel enjoys.
“If we can do it on a trade deal, why can't we do it otherwise?”, she asked, adding: “Why is it that other countries think that it can be done, and we're taking so long to be able to do anything?”
While Falconer said that he believed more robust measures could be introduced, there were questions that needed to be asked.
“There are enforceability issues, because this is a complex area, and everyone who has sought to implement a ban of this kind has faced enforceability issues.
“There is an effectiveness issue. I do worry about over compliance in any measure that we take in the Foreign Office, or indeed in HMG [His Majesty’s Government], you can have unintended consequences” he continued.
He went on to say: “There clearly exists within Israeli society people who do not accept the green line distinctions that we do. If we put in place measures, and as I say, we are in advanced and detailed work on those questions, I want to make sure they can be enforced effectively.”
Falconer was then pressed by Thornberry on whether there were any lessons the government could learn from the sanctions regime it had imposed against Russia, prior to Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, while restrictions were placed on Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk, and whether similar measures could apply to the West Bank.
He responded by saying: “There's obvious reasons why we will be more anxious about unintended consequences in relation to Israel than we would in relation to Russia.”
Under further questioning, he made his reasoning clearer: “There are legitimate and reasonable concerns from the British Jewish community, that if we were to take steps which were crude, which were untargeted, it could have unintended consequences on the lives of a community who are already under considerable pressure, and I do take that seriously, for obvious reasons.”
Elsewhere in the session, the JC’s report that high-level diplomatic communication between Israel and the UK was “non-existent” since the start of the war with Iran was raised by Conservative MP Aphra Brandreth.
She went on to probe Falconer on whether the government’s decision to unilaterally recognise a Palestinian state adversely affected London-Jerusalem relationships.
He responded: “I cannot escape in speaking to this committee the obvious acknowledgement that the relationship between myself and my Israeli counterparts and indeed other ministers in the British and Israeli governments are obviously not strong at the moment.”
The minister cited the government’s to sanction far-right Israeli ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, made last year, which he said he foresaw “would end up having an impact on the character and the nature of our relationship with the Israeli government” but said claimed the measures were “necessary steps to take”.
He also expressed hope that following Israeli elections the government would find it “easier to talk to our Israeli counterparts”, including on “the very considerable areas of common interest, whether that's in relation to the regional threat of Iran or other things”, but said that the straightforward answer to Brandreth’s question was that his relationship with the Israeli government “has got worse over the period of my time as Middle East minister”.
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