UK must end all trade with Israel, says co-founder of BDS movement

Britain’s legal and ethical obligation to stop a genocide in Gaza requires it to take bigger steps than halting trade with illegal Israeli settlements or imposing further sanctions, Omar Barghouti, the co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement has said.

He described sanctions against individual settler groups or extremist ministers as a “smoke and mirrors cop-out and distraction” from the UK’s legal obligation under international law to end all support for Israel, including arms exports, trade deals and academic relations that “may directly or indirectly enable Israel’s illegal occupation” of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The British foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, promised on Tuesday to introduce a “comprehensive reset” of the UK’s policy on Israel in the coming weeks.

It has been reported that the UK is preparing to ban trade with illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Miliband told the Commons the government was looking at how to stop British companies “financing, constructing or advertising new settlements”.

Miliband has called plans for the E1 settlement, which would involve the construction of 3,400 houses through the heart of the West Bank, unacceptable and destructive, adding that, by cutting across the territory, critics say it will render a two-state solution impossible.

Tenders for the settlements are due to be handed out, potentially irreversibly, days before the Israeli elections on 27 October.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council have warned Miliband that a UK ban on trade with settlements may fuel antisemitism in the UK.

A third group of British Jews, Yachad, also met Miliband to highlight “the growing concerns of many British Jews about the entrenchment of occupation and effective annexation of the West Bank”.

Barghouti, an influential advocate for Palestinian rights for more than 20 years, said the litmus test for human rights law and the west still lay in Palestine.

He said: “In July 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) said Israel’s entire occupation of Gaza, and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is illegal and amounts to a violation of the racial segregation and apartheid prohibitions under international law.

“Dozens of UN human rights experts have said to fulfil those obligations a set of minimal steps are required: a full military embargo, export import, dual-use transfer and transit.

“They also said you have to end all trade, diplomatic and economic relations and academic relations that enable Israel’s illegal occupation.”

Barghouti added: “Further in January 2024, the ICJ said there is a plausible case of the violation of Palestinian rights under the Genocide Convention.

“The ICJ decided there is a plausible risk of genocide that is sufficient to trigger third state responsibilities. But UK government lawyers seem to ignore that part of the ruling and say the court has not ruled on genocide.

“But the genocide convention is very clear – where there is a risk, the obligation to prevent is triggered, and how do you prevent a genocide? You stop enabling it. You end all forms of complicity.”

The Israeli embassy referred to the warning by Gideon Sa’ar, Israel’s foreign minister, who said: “If Britain acts against the state of Israel, the state of Israel will act against Britain. We have the tools.” He added: “The period is over when people act against the state of Israel and the state of Israel doesn’t respond.”

Explaining why he regards UK sanctions as “totally performative”, Barghouti said: “They have no concrete effect in holding Israel to account or pressuring it to comply with international law.”

He added: “Israel has de facto annexed the occupied Palestinian territory, making it near impossible [to] differentiate so-called settlement goods and services.”

Pressed whether the BDS movement is trying to change the minds of Israelis through economic force, Barghouti insisted sanctions have to be legal and ethical.

“They have to target the perpetrators, whether entities or individuals that are involved in crimes, especially international crimes. They are actually measures of accountability, not sanctions that simply say settlers shall not have vacations in London.”

Despite South Africa feeling forced to return to the ICJ to point out Israel is not complying with court orders, he said he retained his faith in international law – for all its colonial origins – arguing it was not something engraved in stone, but dynamic.

“Humanity has agency to evolve and expand international law. We in the BDS movement have been pushing the envelope of its interpretation.”

Barghouti added: “So, in the BDS movement, we try to hold states, corporations and institutions accountable to end their own complicity in genocide rather than just wait for the messiah of international law to come and save us.

“We definitely need international law, just as we need to maintain the ethical high ground. Both are necessary, but not sufficient. We need people power to achieve liberation. There is no other way.”