Hampstead & Kilburn Labour calls for economic sanctions on illegal Israeli settlements

Hampstead and Kilburn Labour Party passed the following resolution on Tuesday. It was considered for submission to the Labour Party Conference but lost out on two other motions on the recent rise in anti Semitic incidents and the NHS. The NHS motion will go to Conference.

Israeli-Palestinian relations

Conference welcomes the Egyptian brokered ceasefire of 26^th August 2014 that brought to an end to fighting in Gaza.

Conference is alarmed by Israeli TV reports on 1^st September 2014 Israeli Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu told his cabinet that Israel would not be sending a delegation to Cairo to participate in further negotiations over the reconstruction of Gaza’s air and sea ports and the demilitarization of the area as stipulated in the ceasefire conditions.

Conference also notes that on Sunday 31^st August Israel announced the expropriation of almost 1000 acres of Palestinian privately-owned land, their declaration as state land and the intention to build the largest Israeli settlement on the land, being contrary not only to international but also Israeli law.

Conference suggests that this is an indication that the present government of Israel is not genuinely interested in a two state solution, despite surveys of the Israeli and Palestinian publics consistently showing majorities in favour of such an outcome.

Conference further notes that while past announcements of a similar nature have been condemned, deplored, described as unconstructive and harmful to a two state solution by the UN, the EU, the White House and UK government, the expansion of illegal settlement activity has continued, leaving the goal of a peaceful two state solution hanging by an ever thinner thread.

Conference therefore believes that these illegal settlements should be subject to not merely political censure but also economic sanction and that all commercial activity with them should be as illegal as the settlements themselves and therefore banned by a future Labour government.