UK Crackdown on Israeli Settlements Sparks Fury, US Backlash

The United Kingdom announced a broad package of new restrictions on Tuesday aimed at Israeli settlements in the West Bank, setting off an immediate diplomatic clash with Israel and drawing a pointed warning from a senior official in the Trump administration.

Within hours, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said that, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s approval, Israel would shut down the British Consulate in Jerusalem and introduce a range of retaliatory steps in response to the U.K. settlement sanctions.

Israel’s response also includes expelling British representatives from the International Gaza Support Center in Kiryat Gat, halting British-led programs that train Palestinian Authority security forces in the West Bank, and barring entry to 12 British elected officials and other U.K. nationals whom Israel accused of antisemitic or anti-Israel conduct.

“Measures against Israel will not go unanswered,” Sa’ar said. “Whoever acts against Israel, Israel will act against them, and they will lose their influence and relevance in the region.”

The diplomatic escalation followed Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband’s announcement in Parliament that Britain would prohibit imports of goods produced in Israeli settlements, sanction companies and individuals involved in enabling settlement growth, and withhold licenses for arms and other exports that make a material contribution to the occupation.

The U.K. action forms part of a coordinated effort with France, Canada and other European partners, who cited what they called “unprecedented levels of settler violence and settlement expansion” across the West Bank. The governments specifically pointed to Israel’s E1 project, warning that it could undermine the prospects for a future Palestinian state. The timing adds further weight to the dispute: world leaders are due to convene in New York for the U.N. General Assembly in just weeks, while Israel’s Oct. 27 election is less than two months away, intensifying pressure on already strained ties between Israel and several longstanding Western allies.

Even as they announced the measures, the foreign ministers acknowledged Israel’s “legitimate security interests” and again condemned Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack, describing it as “the worst antisemitic massacre since the Holocaust.” They said their goal remains a two-state solution in which Israel and “a sovereign, democratic and viable Palestinian state” can exist alongside one another in peace and security.

The timing has also become a political issue inside Britain. An unnamed Labor MP told The Telegraph that Prime Minister Andy Burnham had faced pressure from colleagues worried about Gaza-related campaigning and losing seats to the Greens, while Israeli officials have accused London of trying to influence Israel’s election — claims the British government rejects as it frames the measures as an effort to preserve the two-state solution.

“Today, I announce that the official view of the British government is that the occupation is unlawful,” Miliband told lawmakers Tuesday.

Miliband opened the statement by describing himself as a “proud British Jew” with “the deepest gratitude to the State of Israel,” recalling how his grandmother found refuge there after losing her husband and 60 other family members at the hands of the Nazis.

He stressed that the measures were aimed at settlements rather than Israel itself.

“The sanctions regime will target illegal settlement and settlement expansion. Not Israel,” Miliband said, adding that Britain would continue to support trade with Israel inside the Green Line and that he “wholeheartedly” opposed the broader Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

Miliband also condemned rising antisemitism in Britain, saying, “Holding British Jews responsible for the actions of the Israeli government is antisemitism, plain and simple.”

He reaffirmed Israel’s right to defend itself against terrorism, called for Hamas to disarm and dismantle its terrorist infrastructure under the U.S. -led 20-point Gaza plan, and announced sanctions against Hezbollah financing institution Al-Qard Al-Hassan. He also said Britain was reimposing major economic sanctions on Iran and would continue security cooperation with Israel against shared threats.

The measures drew immediate criticism from U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, who warned in an interview with BBC World Service Newsday that Britain could face economic repercussions in the United States.

“I think without a doubt there will be,” Huckabee said when asked whether the U.K. should expect consequences.

Huckabee pointed to Florida and other states with anti-boycott laws, arguing that British companies could face restrictions on doing business there.

“If the Brits do something like this with a partner, Israel, then they will not be able to do business in Florida,” he said, warning of a “huge economic impact on British businesses.”

He also challenged Britain’s policy on substantive grounds, arguing that Israel is permitted under the Oslo agreements to build communities in Area C and predicting that the sanctions would have “a very negative effect that does not meet whatever goal maybe that the Brits have.”

In a separate portion of the BBC interview, Huckabee said, “I feel like that it’s a discrimination against the Israeli government. It’s a discrimination against the Jewish people. And I don’t understand the rationale.”

The Trump administration also made clear Tuesday that Washington would not join the coordinated sanctions push. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the United States does not want to see “anything destabilizing” in the West Bank, but said Washington would not follow Britain, France and Canada in blocking imports from Israeli settlements, according to Reuters.

Sa’ar also accused London of interfering in Israel’s election campaign and said the settlement sanctions were driven by domestic British politics ahead of the Labor Party conference.

“The British move is morally distorted and constitutes blatant interference in the affairs of a sovereign state and in its electoral process,” he said.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog called Britain’s move a “grave miscalculation” Tuesday and argued that it amounted to “gross interference” in Israel’s upcoming election, according to a statement from his office.

Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, president and founder of the Tel Aviv-based Shurat HaDin-Israel Law Center, also criticized the measures, arguing that the economic impact would be limited while the political consequences could be significant.

“These sanctions are not serious economic policy; they are political theater staged at Israel’s expense,” Darshan-Leitner told News Outlet. She disputed Britain’s legal characterization of the territory, saying, “The territories are disputed, not sovereign Palestinian land, and their future must be negotiated by the parties under the Oslo framework.”

Darshan-Leitner also argued that because little of the roughly $8 billion in annual U.K.-Israel trade originates in West Bank settlements, the measures would have little direct economic effect while potentially influencing Israel’s political debate ahead of elections.

Miliband, however, argued that failing to act would allow continued settlement expansion to destroy the possibility of a two-state solution. He focused particularly on Israel’s E1 project east of Jerusalem, which Britain and numerous other governments say threatens the territorial viability of a future Palestinian state.

Sa’ar rejected Britain’s position that the E1 settlement project threatens the viability of a future Palestinian state.

The policy has also exposed divisions within Britain.

Conservative lawmaker Tom Tugendhat acknowledged in Parliament that illegal settlements were wrong and that some settlers had committed “outrageous abuses” against Palestinians, but argued that the government’s response risked hurting ordinary Israelis and Palestinians.

“What we reject here is not the intent, but the performative politics,” Tugendhat said, warning against acting without sufficiently broad international support.

Miliband rejected arguments that the measures were intended to isolate Israel.

“Our argument is not with the people of Israel, with whom the U.K. has unshakable bonds,” he said. “Our argument is with the conduct of its government.”

Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis also sharply criticized the measures, calling Tuesday “a truly dark day for British Jews.”

“Today our Government has chosen to ignore the deep concerns expressed by so many of us,” Mirvis wrote on X. “These measures will succeed only in bolstering the very extremism they seek to target.”

Mirvis argued that the sanctions would do little to advance peace and could deepen hostility toward Israel at a time of heightened concern about antisemitism in Britain.

“Gesture politics of this kind feeds into an increasingly hostile discourse about Israel,” he wrote, warning that the cumulative effect of such policies could “further embolden those, at home and abroad, who use hatred as a weapon against Jews.”