UK, France and Nine Other Nations Ban Israeli Settlement Goods, Miliband Calls Settlers 'Terrorists' Committing Ethnic Cleansing

Since Israel opened tenders in August for roughly 1,200 new settlement housing units in the West Bank's E1 corridor, European governments have gone from condemning the plan to acting on it. On Tuesday, September 8, 2026, Britain, France, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Sweden announced they will restrict or ban trade in goods produced in Israeli settlements.

UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband delivered the announcement in the House of Commons, calling it the strongest condemnation of Israeli government policy any British government has issued. "The British government agrees that there is ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank, perpetrated by settler terrorists," Miliband told MPs, according to NPR. He added the Israeli government has "turned a blind eye to this and worse."

Miliband, who opened his remarks noting he is "a proud British Jew" whose grandmother lost her husband and 60 relatives in the Holocaust, said the UK would enact an import ban on settlement goods, sanctions on firms and individuals who finance or build settlements, a ban on advertising settlement property in the UK, and tighter arms export licensing. He said the legislation would take effect within six to nine months, per NPR and the Guardian.

The 12-country joint statement, reported by Euronews, said the Israeli government's actions in the West Bank "are undermining the possibility of a two-State solution" and called August's settlement tenders "unacceptable." The statement also condemned the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack as "the worst antisemitic massacre since the Holocaust" and affirmed Israel's "legitimate security interests," according to the New York Post.

Foreign Minister Gideon Saar closed the British consulate in East Jerusalem, calling Miliband's remarks "outrageous lies" and accusing the UK of "systematically working against the state of Israel," the Guardian reported. Saar also banned 12 British public officials from entering Israel, including former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and MPs Zarah Sultana and Diane Abbott, along with all five Green Party MPs, and barred the UK from participating in the U.S.-led Gaza coordination mission, according to the Independent and the Guardian.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog had warned days earlier that such a move would be "a grave miscalculation and a decision that will fall on the wrong side of history." The UK's Chief Rabbi, Sir Ephraim Mirvis, called the sanctions "a truly dark day for British Jews," warning the measures "will succeed only in bolstering the very extremism they seek to target," the Independent reported.

The U.S. did not sign on. U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee told BBC Radio 4 the ban was "irrational," asking "where are the sanctions against North Korea, China, Russia?" Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. does not agree with the sanctions, warning they risk "destabilizing" the region and complicating progress on Gaza's 20-point peace plan and border arrangements, according to the New York Post. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer spoke with President Trump by phone on Monday, September 7, ahead of the announcement, with Downing Street saying Starmer stressed the UK's commitment to a two-state solution.

On the ground, the case for action rests on documented incidents. The UN has said settler violence has reached what it calls "an all-time high," according to the BBC. In January 2026, roughly 600 residents of Ras Ein al-Ouja fled after sustained harassment by settlers, the largest single displacement of a Palestinian community in three years. In March, settlers assaulted a Palestinian shepherd during a raid on Khirbet Humsa, the BBC reported. Settlements themselves are widely regarded as illegal under international law, a position the UK and other signatories now say they are treating as the operative legal reality; Israel's government disputes that characterization and says it acts within its rights.

The Israeli government's defenders make a straightforward counter-argument: that singling out Israel while dozens of other territorial and human-rights disputes worldwide go unsanctioned is selective, that the ban punishes ordinary settlement residents and businesses rather than policymakers, and that it undercuts an ally fighting a war triggered by an attack the sanctioning countries themselves called an antisemitic massacre. Huckabee's China and Russia comparison and Rubio's timing concern reflect that view directly.

On the settlements themselves, Jordan Valley date farmer Avigdor Arbel told the BBC he expects to route around any European boycott by selling more to the U.S. and to new markets like India. "As soon as we have a situation of pressure and boycotts, we always break out and look for other markets," he said.

The practical bite of Tuesday's announcement won't be tested for months. The legislation implementing the bans isn't expected to take effect until some point between March and June 2027, giving both Israeli exporters and European retailers a runway to adjust supply chains before enforcement begins.