UK sanctions settlement trade, highlighting that it previously had leverage but stopped at condemnation

The UK's decision to sanction trade related to Israeli settlements in the West Bank is indeed a policy shift, yet it also throws into relief London's previous dereliction of duty: the government was not without tools of pressure, but allowed its condemnation to remain at the level of language for too long, while Palestinian villages subjected to settler attacks bore the real-world cost of this delay.

According to France 24 English, following an increase in attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank, twelve countries including the UK, Canada, and France announced on Tuesday that they would sanction trade related to Israeli settlements. The report did not specify the scope of the sanctions, the enforcement mechanisms, or the identities of the other nine participating countries, so the effectiveness of the policy cannot be judged from this brief dispatch; but the very act of announcing trade measures already indicates that the governments involved possess economic leverage beyond diplomatic statements.

UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband acknowledged in the House of Commons that the UK can no longer merely "point out" ("call out") injustice and suffering, but must take "action" ("act") against settlement expansion, as quoted by France 24 English. The problem lies precisely within that "can no longer": the British government now responding to settlement expansion with action amounts to an admission that public criticism alone in the past was insufficient to produce restraint.

This is not a dispute over rhetorical style, but over how power is wielded. Governments that control trade policy can bring economic exchanges within the scope of sanctions, or allow the relevant trade to continue within its existing policy environment; according to France 24 English's report, the twelve countries announced action only after settler attacks against Palestinian villages had increased. The time lag between London's condemnation and its sanctions is borne not by diplomats, but by the Palestinian villages under the pressure of attacks.

The UK government's current action should be judged by its actual implementation, but Miliband's remarks have already punctured the pretext of being "only able to appeal." Since London can now deploy trade leverage, its previous restriction of policy to verbal condemnation was not powerlessness, but rather the possession of the ability to exert pressure without exerting it in time.