The UK has sanctioned two extreme Israeli Ministers, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich. [1] Is this a sign of action at last Sadly, not. The telling line is that they have explained, elsewhere, that UK policy is at all times “governed by international law”. The policy of Starmer and his Ministers is to do the absolute minimum necessary to avoid the possibility of a legal case against themselves for complicity in genocide. Not a whit more. There has been some small reduction in arms licenses and now we have sanctions against two Israeli Ministers for their calls for ethnic cleansing, and in one case mass starvation as a tool to achieve it. [2] These are personal sanctions which will have no effect on anything. That Smotrich cannot visit the UK is hardly going to bother him. He is, no doubt, too busy inciting violence against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank and visiting illegal settlements to want to visit the UK, – and I find it unlikely he has any significant assets left in the UK since this move has been trailed for weeks. The government is going out of their way to emphasise that these are personal sanctions and not aimed at the Israeli people. However; according to polls, a clear majority of Israeli Jewish people support expelling Gazans. [3] Unfortunately, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir are not outliers. They represent a large proportion of Israelis. The UK government is openly deluding themselves about the problem.
The UK government also has the sheer nerve to say this: “The UK is committed to protecting the viability of a two-state solution and human rights, including by challenging those inciting violence. “. But the two-state solution is totally dead. Firstly; there has been a two-state solution on the cards since the Oslo agreements; but all the facts on the ground go in the opposite direction; Israeli settlement in the West Bank has simply continued and expanded. Netanyahu openly repudiates the two-state solution; that is, the open and official policy of Israel rejects the two-state solution. And, as of yesterday, the US does too. [4] This is just a totally cynical lie – to pretend to be interested in the two-state solution and to pretend that there is some viable political path to be had. Meanwhile, while all this cynical pretence goes on, the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Palestine by extreme violence – in Gaza, mass killings of civilians and starvation, in the West Bank, an accelerating campaign of violence and intimidation carried out by settlers supported by the army, continues apace. The US is assisting the ethnic cleansing in Gaza with massive supplies of weaponry. There is no two-state solution. The process of ethnic cleansing can be stopped by only two ways – by pressure from European states or by military force. It is obviously not going to be stopped by stopping Smotrich and Ben-Gvir visiting London. It is not even clear if full EU sanctions would stop it, but they might.
Meanwhile the world sits back and simply watches the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. Why? When there was a, (massively exaggerated), campaign by Serbia against the Kosovo Liberation Army, at the end of the 90s, a “terrorist” group fighting for independence, – the West, NATO, bombed Serbia to force them to stop. Unfortunately, it seems that Palestinians don’t count.
For the record; I do understand that the position of Hamas, that does not, recognize the State of Israel, (beyond a non to “Palestinian consensus”), does mean that they are inviting a fight to the death. Many such groups do take hardline and extreme positions. In the normal course of events, the basis of state response in the West is to carry out controlled operations against terrorist leaders while also trying to find a political solution. Israel’s policy is far, far, beyond this. They are seeking annihilation rather than restoration of peace. It is striking that despite the clear gulf between normal Western standards and what Israel is doing, the West, (I am thinking of Europe), essentially does nothing more than proffer token protests.
Update
Interestingly, it is being reported that a group of 41 Israeli intelligence officers have signed a letter [5] withdrawing support for the “unnecessary” war and opposing “illegal orders”. The Guardian also quotes one alleged intelligence official as saying: “I felt that it was immoral and insanely excessive. I felt that they stopped thinking and feeling, and they were willing to do everything to achieve a goal that wasn’t really a real goal … and if there is a goal, it’s to try to get rid of Gaza’s population by any means”.
This is significant. Even people within the Israeli intelligence community recognise they are engaged in a an exercise in killing which has no valid or legal political and military aims.
Notes
- https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-and-partners-unite-to-sanction-ministers-inciting-west-bank-violence
- https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jun/10/uk-and-allies-sanction-two-far-right-israeli-ministers-itamar-ben-gvir-bezalel-smotrich-over-monstrous-gaza-comments
- https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-05-28/ty-article-magazine/.premium/yes-to-transfer-82-of-jewish-israelis-back-expelling-gazans/00000197-12a4-df22-a9d7-9ef6af930000
- https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/10/mike-huckabee-independent-palestinian-state
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/11/israeli-government-orders-must-not-be-obeyed-idf-intelligence-officers