UK sanctions against settlements may backfire by fuelling a sense of Israel being under siege, a former British ambassador to Tel Aviv has warned.
Matthew Gould also warned that even mainstream Knesset politicians who may be opposed to settlements will “come out against” what will be seen as an attack on Israel.
The former ambassador was writing in the Sunday Times as the UK government considers what measures it will take in response to settlement expansion.
Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband warned last week of an upcoming “set of measures” after the launch of a tender for 1,234 homes in the E1 area of the West Bank. Sanctions may be announced before Labour’s annual conference at the end of September, it was reported last week.
Gould, who served as UK to ambassador to Israel from 2010 to 2015, said that the distinction between opposition to Israel’s settlement policy and support for foreign sanctions against settlements was an important one in Israeli politics.
He also warned that not all settlements should be viewed the same way.
Matthew Gould in Be'er Sheva, 2011 (Photo by Uriel Sinai/Getty Images)Getty Images
Recalling his own experience in office, he writes: “Throughout my time as ambassador and ever since, my heart sagged whenever Israel announced more settlement building.
“For all my efforts to build links between Britain and Israel in positive ways, the settlements were a constant source of disagreement, and have almost no international support outside the US.
“The settlement project was and remains in large part an effort to frustrate a two-state solution, and entrench Israeli sovereignty and control over the West Bank.”
However, he adds: “But not all settlements are created equal and there is a hierarchy of damage that they cause.”
Large settlement blocs close to the Green Line, such as Ma’ale Adumim and Gush Etzion, which contain three fifths of the Israeli settler population potentially be incorporated into Israel through a future land-swap agreement.
“These blocks do little to damage the prospects of a two-state peace deal. The land they occupy could be made up for in land swaps and their existence does not require Palestinian freedoms to be curtailed,” he said.
However, more isolated settlements deep inside the West Bank pose a greater challenge to the territorial contiguity of a future Palestinian state, he argues.
The distinction matters because, in Gould’s view, many Israelis who are hostile to the more ideological settlement movement nevertheless do not support foreign governments imposing penalties on settlements.
While Britain may regard sanctions as a way of defending the possibility of a two-state solution, many Israelis across the political spectrum could interpret the same action as Britain taking punitive measures against Israel.
He notes that Israeli political debate ahead of the country’s forthcoming election has not centred on a settlement freeze or a commitment to a two-state solution. Even politicians critical of the government’s settlement policy may therefore resist measures imposed by Britain.
Gould wrote: “Whatever mainstream Israeli politicians think about the wisdom or otherwise of a settlement project, they will come out against what will be taken as an attack by the UK on Israel, and Netanyahu’s narrative of an Israel under siege will be strengthened.”
The possible measures have already prompted concern within Labour and among pro-Israel groups about whether it would be possible to distinguish effectively between settlement-related trade and trade with Israel more generally.
Labour Friends of Israel has warned that a settlement trade ban could become a “de facto boycott” of Israel, while officials have raised practical difficulties in identifying the origin of goods.
Israel has made clear the strategic importance it attached to E1. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who is one of two far-right ministers in Netanyahu’s coalition, is a prominent advocate of settlement expansion, and has described it as “burying” the idea of a Palestinian state.
Israel has so far opened a tender for 1,234 homes in the E1 area of the West Bank, the first tranche of a 3,400-home settlement project approved by the government.
Palestinians residing in the West Bank view expansion as reducing the territory available for a future Palestinian state. They have been subject to attacks by settlers, with their land and homes burned, and their grazing land and roads blocked.
Polls have shown that about half of Israelis believe the Israeli security forces are too lenient with settlers who commit violence against Palestinians.
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