In a historic shift in UK-Israel relations, Britain is imposing formal sanctions on hardline Israeli ministers Bezalel Smotrich (Finance) and Itamar Ben Gvir (National Security) after months of inflammatory statements about Gaza have caught the world's attention.
The sanctions, unveiled Tuesday, are to include asset freezes and travel bans, following similar measures from the governments of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and others. These countries have previously sanctioned various radical Zionist settler groups and individuals, something the US also did under Biden.
Ben Gvir has several times called for the "voluntary emigration" of Gazans, and he along with Smotrich have frequently made statements overtly backing an ethnic cleansing program.
"My right, my wife's, my children's, to roam the roads of Judea and Samaria are more important than the right of movement of the Arabs," Ben Gvir said for example in 2023 of occupied West Bank areas.
Both Israeli ministers have actively supported the most extreme settler groups operating in the West Bank, made up of individuals who call for the removal of Palestinians by force or even death. They've long been involved in movements and political parties who also advocate for the expulsion of all Arabs from Israeli society.
According to an Al Jazeera backgrounder:
The 47-year-old lawyer and politician has led the far-right party Jewish Power (Otzma Yehudit) since 2019, and was sworn into the cabinet after last year’s elections.
He was later appointed the national security minister and handed control of Israel’s Border Police division in the occupied West Bank.
A settler in Kiryat Arba, one of the most radical settlements in the occupied West Bank (all of which are illegal under international law), Ben-Gvir has been convicted of incitement to racism, destroying property, possessing a “terror” organisation’s propaganda material and supporting a “terror” organization – Meir Kahane’s outlawed Kach group, which he joined when he was 16.
Ben Gvir responded to the UK's sanctions move later on Tuesday. He expressed "contempt for the White Paper" - characterizing it as akin to the 1939 UK policy paper limiting Jewish immigration to British-administered 'Mandatory Palestine'.
"We survived Pharaoh, we will also survive Keir Starmer," he said. “I will continue to work for Israel and the people of Israel without fear or intimidation!”
At a dedication ceremony for a new settlement near Hebron, Smotrich, Ben Gvir said that "Britain has already tried once to prevent us from settling the cradle of our homeland and we will not allow it to do so again." He emphasized in front of settler groups, "We are determined to continue building."
But ironically many of the same Western governments now sanctioning the two Israeli officials have long supplied heavy weapons to the Israeli military. These governments still remain a party to one side of this war which has resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians, and utter decimation of the Gaza Strip in the wake of the Oct.7, 2023 Hamas terror attacks, but there appears no peaceful solution on the horizon.
