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Several Israeli Jews from Zohar Sabah approached al-Mu’arrajat, a Palestinian village just north of the city of Jericho. Casually dressed, some wearing flip flops, kippahs and makeshift masks, they were settlers from a small, illegal farming outpost built on Palestinian land.
Three of the settlers, carrying clubs, marched into a school as teachers scrambled to bolt classroom doors to protect children, many screaming in terror during the incident last month.
Refusing to leave, they began beating the principal, vandalising his office, and dragged him to a car in an attempted abduction, while continuing to bang on windows and doors in an attempt to gain access to the classrooms. More settlers arrived outside the school, one shouting “You’re murderers.”
Israeli police and soldiers arrived minutes later to diffuse the situation but not before arresting the principal and another Palestinian who complained about the attack.
The violence witnessed at al-M’u’arrajat on 16 September is but a tiny fraction of the chaos engulfing the Israeli-occupied Palestinian West Bank which has seen successive UK Governments roll out sanctions over the past year targeting Israeli settlers.
Last week, further sanctions were introduced to ratchet up the pressure on Israel to rein in settler attacks on Palestinians which have reached unprecedented levels since Hamas operatives killed nearly 1,200 Israelis on 7 October 2023.
“Today’s measures will help bring accountability to those who have supported and perpetrated such heinous abuses of human rights,” UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy said in a statement as the Government rolled out sanctions targeting illegal outposts and organisations bankrolling the settlers.
“The Israeli government must crack down on settler violence and stop settler expansion on Palestinian land, he said.
The sanctions by Keir Starmer’s Government targeting eight individuals, three illegal outposts, and four organisations, are meagre in the face of the settlers’ decades-long campaign of terror and swelling influence.
Over 20,000 settlers live in at least 100 illegal West Bank outposts and close to half a million more are in other Israeli-recognised settlements on Palestinian territory which violate international law.
Hamas’s brutal assault and the subsequent catastrophic war in Gaza which has left over 43,000 dead have only served to accelerate the goals of the settlers to seize more land and reestablish a foothold in the decimated enclave.
“The sanctions Western governments have imposed on Israeli settlers in the West Bank are not effective,” said Dr Ahron Bregman, a senior teaching fellow in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London told Byline Times.
“They send a signal that the governments imposing sanctions don’t care about seriously tackling the problem of illegal settlements.”
Crucially, the sanctions ignore the settlers’ main sponsor; the Israeli state.
Under the fog of war, Israel’s government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has set about deepening a regime of occupation in the West Bank and Gaza with settlers now embedded in every level of the Israeli army, police, and government, including the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, and the minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir.
“Israel is doubling down,” said Kristyan Benedict, Amnesty International UK’s Crisis Response Manager.
Smotrich has openly pledged to “thwart” aspirations to create a Palestinian state while Ben-Gvir has praised and actively armed settlers attacking Palestinians.
The consequences have been dire, with at least 800 ‘civilian defence squads’ proliferating throughout Israel and the West Bank and operating under the umbrella of the army and the police, both complicit in supporting settler attacks or having a dismal track record of investigating settler-sponsored violence against Palestinians.
Israeli organisation, Yesh Din, says a study of Israel Police investigations into violence committed by Israelis against Palestinians in the West Bank shows that from 2005 to September 2023, some 94% of investigations it was able to review were closed without an indictment, and just 3% ended in a conviction, the Times of Israel reported on October 18.
“Sanctions should be directed against the leaders and imposed on ministers such as Ben Gvir and (Bezalel) Smotrich,” said Dr Bregman. “Only proper sanctions on settler leaders and even threats that they could be arrested will deter them.”
Pressure to sanction ministers in Netanyahu’s far-right coalition is intensifying in the UK. “I called on the last government to sanction these extremist ministers in [Israel’s] government,” said Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday. “Will the prime minister sanction Ben-Gvir and Smotrich?”
Starmer responded that they were under consideration but he did not provide further details. Rishi Sunak’s Government backpedalled on sanctions tabled for Smotrich and Ben-Gvir as elections approached, former Foreign Secretary David Cameron revealed this week.
“I was working up sanctions on these two ministers [Ben-Gvir and Smotrich],” he said during an interview on BBC Radio 4. “I couldn’t do them during an election period because it would have been too much of a political act.”
Some experts believe the UK Government must go further than targeting ministers arguing the only difference now is that Israel is simply more brazen about its goal of annexation than in the past.
“UK politicians need to drop any pretence that the problem is just one or two Israeli ministers,” said Benedict.
For tangible changes to occur, the narrative on the settlers and the Israeli governments that fund them must shift, explained Tahani Mustafa, a senior Palestine analyst at International Crisis Group, a Belgian-based think tank.
“A few hundred settlers aren’t the main problem, it is the entire system, one that stretches across all Israeli institutions and society, she told Byline Times, adding: “Settlers are part and parcel of the Israeli state and a strategic part of annexing Palestinian land.”
“Labels must change,” Mustafa continued, arguing that redefining the settlers as actors would force Israel’s hand.
For the UK to have any impact on the conflict, some human rights groups and non-governmental organisations have argued sanctions must be all-encompassing and accompanied by a stringent arms embargo, with the one currently in place already being derided by critics as too weak.
The International Criminal Court has also tabled arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Israel’s defence minister Yoav Gallant for committing alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
“They should support [these] international justice measures – such as championing the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice in all cases, including acting on all rulings and recommendations from the ICJ and executing possible ICC arrest warrants for all suspected perpetrators,” said Benedict.
If not, Israeli settlers will likely continue to act with impunity as the UK government risks being relegated to the sidelines and potentially complicit in supporting a state that is creating a blueprint for permanent occupation and war.