Hey, On the Nose listeners. Before we get started, I want to invite you to Jewish Currents Live on October 11th in New York City at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. If you're a listener to this podcast, you know that I've long believed that we need places to dig into the hard questions facing the Jewish left and the left writ large. That's why we're organizing JC Live. In partnership with dozens of other organizations and magazines, we're bringing together thinkers, organizers, and artists from across our movements This year's event is going to be the biggest and most ambitious gathering we've ever put on, with appearances by Molly Crabapple, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Andrea Long Chu, Hasan Piker, Fadi Quran, Masha Gessen, and more. We'll also be featuring live tapings of the popular podcasts Know Your Enemy and Between the Covers, and performances by Wallace Shawn and Laura Elkeslassy. I hope you'll join us on October 11th. Get tickets at JewishCurrents.org/live. That's JewishCurrents.org/live. And for the real freaks, the next day, Jewish Currents is co-sponsoring an event with the Jewish Diaspora Movement, an all-day skill-building boot camp for new Jewish institutions in Brooklyn, where we'll be talking about everything from capacity building to decision-making to fundraising to coalition building. You can register for the event at GiveButter.com/jdm-skills. That is GiveButter.com/jdm-skills. I will put both of these links in the show notes. Hope to see you there.

Hello, and welcome back to On the Nose, the Jewish Currents Podcast. I am Arielle Angel, your host. Today, we are going to be talking about the sanctions that the UK has announced on Israeli settlements in the West Bank in coordination with France and Canada. All three have announced an import ban on goods from West Bank settlements, in addition to a number of other sanctions, which we'll dig into in more detail during this episode. Meanwhile, nine other countries, including Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden, have confirmed their intention to support these measures, saying, quote, “They are actively considering these and other measures in accordance with their national procedures.” The timing here is significant because, at least on the UK side, they framed this as a response to the construction of 1,200 settlement homes in the E-1 area, which is an area near Jerusalem that would essentially cut the West Bank in half. And so, this is being framed by all of these countries as a way to protect the viability of the two-state solution. And maybe we can get into that as we talk in this episode.

UK Foreign Minister Ed Miliband, who is Jewish, made the announcement saying, “Today, we refuse to be bystanders to further suffering and to the destruction of the two-state solution.” He said that “settler terrorists were carrying out ethnic cleansing while the Israeli government turns a blind eye or worse. Members of it have made statements and taken actions to support the forced displacement of Palestinians.” So, meanwhile, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar said that in response, Israel was taking four steps. They're closing the British consulate in Jerusalem. They're removing British representatives from the International Gaza Support Center in Kiryat Gat in southern Israel. They are terminating British activities to train Palestinian Authority forces in the West Bank. And they're denying entry to Israel to 12 British elected representatives and other British nationals involved in antisemitic and anti-Israel activity—this is their words, obviously—as well as those who deny the very existence of the state of Israel. And on that list is Jeremy Corbyn, Naz Shah, Diane Abbott, all five Green Party MPs.

So, today I have three guests to talk about this. We have Emily Hilton, the international policy director at Diaspora Alliance. You may remember her from another episode we did on the UK and antisemitism last year.

Hi, great to be here.

Ryvka Barnard, the deputy director of Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which is the largest solidarity org in Europe, and was the main organizer of those huge national marches for Palestine in London, which many of you, I think, would have seen images from. As big as a million people at the height of the genocide. Ryvka, welcome to the podcast.

Thanks for having me.

And Maya Rosen, associate editor of Jewish Currents, also a reporter on the West Bank, frequently for Jewish Currents. Maya, welcome back.

Great to be here and great to talk with you all.

So, Ryvka, I was going to start with you. Can you say a little bit more about what these sanctions are and what they mean?

I think the first thing to say is actually, the announcement today that the government has made goes, I would say, well beyond a ban on import of settlement goods. I think that's the top line, but there's quite a bit of extra detail in there, which I think is quite encouraging. It also included reference to actions against specific companies and individuals that are involved in settlement financing and construction. So, that could include a wide range of companies. The detail of that is still to be determined. There was an announcement on a ban on advertising of settlements in Britain, which is a very live topic, I would say, after there was quite a controversial and highly protested event, just a few weeks ago actually, advertising settlement real estate. There was an announcement of further suspension of arms export licenses that follows on for a suspension of some licenses that was done a few years ago that were specifically targeting arms export licenses to Gaza. These ones will go further and focus on arms that are involved in the occupation. And a few other specific measures that were mentioned, including also looking specifically at people or entities that are involved in the restrictions on the entry of aid to Gaza.

So, it is quite a large and wide-ranging set of sanctions and other kinds of measures. In addition to that, and the first part of it, was a recognition by Ed Miliband, the foreign secretary, that the occupation is illegal in line with the International Court of Justice's ruling in July of 2024. Commonly, you'll see in British government statements that the settlements are illegal, but this is a step further, and I think it's quite a significant nod to that very, very important ICJ ruling from July 2024. So, there's really a lot to it. The devil is in the detail, and I think part of what we'll be looking to for sure, in the coming weeks and months, is: How will this be implemented? How will it be carried out? There's a lot of questions there, but it certainly, goes further, I think, than what a lot of people expected, and certainly, goes further than previous measures that previous governments have passed in order to look like they were doing something in the face of huge and widespread protest, obviously in this country, but around the world over Israel's genocide in Gaza.

Do you have a sense of, Ryvka, why now? Why is the Labor Party doing this? It may or may not be considered a political risk considering the vicissitudes of public opinion, but I know that your organization did a poll that suggests that actually, it's not so much of a risk.

Yeah, I think that's right. It's not surprising that the announcement referenced the Israeli government's announcement of the E-1 tenders, which you mentioned, but I think we can see it going much further back than that. When Andy Burnham, the new prime minister, came into office, one of the first things he did was issue a video apologizing for the Labour Party's position on Gaza previously, which was kind of unprecedented. On the one hand, it was a statement, and it was words without a whole lot of meaning, but it foreshadowed something to come. And that certainly was in reaction to the local elections in May, where there was a huge departure from voters away from the Labour Party. And as you mentioned, the polling that we did and polling other organizations did also suggested that a lot of that departure had to do with the Labour Party's position over Gaza and over Palestine in particular. So, I think there's a longer trajectory to that.

Well, and just to put a fine point on it, what you told me is that nearly three quarters, 74%, of voters who switched from Labour to other center or center-left parties since the 2024 general election said their opinion of Labour would improve if the next leader were to adopt a strong position on Palestine, such as imposing sanctions on Israel.

Yeah, it's very striking. We conducted that polling in the wake of the local elections in May because anecdotally, we knew that that was what was going on. We have a very broad membership, and we're in touch with a lot of people, including Labour Party or former Labour Party voters. And it was clear to everyone, I think, that that was happening, but it was useful to get that poll to understand what exactly people were saying about their reasons for moving away from the Labour Party. And that also is the result of, as I said, a huge amount of popular protest—the large marches, lobbying. Over the past three years, that's been really monumental. Of course, it's been happening for decades also, but I think the push from the public is really showing its force right now. And when Andy Burnham came into office, he was coming into office after Keir Starmer was forced to step down, partly over his position and the things that he either did in terms of complicity with Israel in the genocide in Gaza or failure to take into account what people were pushing back on him for. So, I think that is quite significant in the buildup to this, in the important political context to see how this has been building up.

I just want to flag that this push by these European countries and Canada has been framed as a way to save the two-state solution, which is obviously kind of wild because it's not just the settlements that stand in the way of the two-state solution. It's the entire Israeli government and Israeli state, the entire political system. And so, I just wondered if any of you have anything to say specifically on that point—just the fact that this is being framed as the last-ditch effort. Because on the one hand, I think on some level we've been waiting for the Western countries basically to say: We've had a policy of the two-state solution; why don't you defend it? And on the other hand, everyone on this call knows that ship has very much sailed. So, what do we do with that?

Yeah, I think that that's a really significant point. And it's not surprising, again, that the government and those other governments would frame it in the framework of the two-state solution, which is kind of the hardest addiction for them to crush. But as you said, I think some of the weaknesses in the announcement—what's missing from it, I think, is that fuller recognition of the fact that the occupation is a central project of the state of Israel. It's not separate from it. Not only the settlements are not separate from it, but the occupation itself is. So I think, again, looking at the implementation will reveal some of the fractures in what that looks like. But again, I think people have said this over and over, that the two-state solution is just, at this point, a figure of speech that people use to signal support for Israel without it really meaning very much.

Yeah, I would agree with that. I think also, this is the way that they can frame wanting to take stronger action against Israel, and that is a strategic move. But it's interesting because the fact that the occupation is inherently intertwined with broader Israeli infrastructure—economically, socially, politically—might also present an opportunity. We are seeing that the big warnings that came from the opponents to the sanctions was: This is going to result in a de facto ban on Israeli trade goods in general. To which I say: Great. Let's expose this inherent contradiction of trying to distinguish between what is inherently a one state reality, you know? I think that there's, again, opportunity here. Obviously, the risk is that that will potentially stop or prevent the government from taking action, but it sounds like—and I wonder if Ryvka agrees—it feels like to me that the Foreign Office, and Ed Miliband in particular, is quite intent on ensuring that these sanctions and this project is going to be implemented. So, I think with that, maybe this is actually an opportunity to reveal the inherent contradiction of trying to talk about a two-state solution when, in actual fact, we are dealing with a one-state reality.

Yeah. I remember that when there were these questions about like product bans, for example, there was a movement in Israel not to label settlement goods—that basically, it's just a product of Israel, which means that the government of the UK would have to get really involved in determining where things come from. And it's not like something developed or like grown in the West Bank might not be packaged “within '48” or whatever. Where do you draw the line? In a one-state reality, these things are not clean. Same with like weapons that would be used in the West Bank. There's no weapon used in the West Bank that isn't used elsewhere. That's an artificial distinction. Maya, I wonder if you have insight into some of this.

Yeah, as you were speaking, Em, I was thinking about something that I saw Elisha Yered post today. He is kind of one of the kind of thought leaders and spokespeople of the Hilltop Youth. And he said today: It's very clear that what's happening with these sanctions—this was what was clear to any schoolchild when the sanctions against individual settlers started, that sanctions against individual settlers are going to lead to sanctions against ministers, are going to lead to import bans. And his conclusion from that was that: It's not too late to stop the process, and that's why we need sovereignty, meaning annexation. He referred to it as a snowball that keeps growing, and we have to stop the snowball.

From his mouth to God's ears.

Exactly. We can take the snowball in our direction, and there is a momentum that builds. And so, it's certainly the case that there are many ways in which it's impossible to differentiate lots of different products in terms of their origins in the settlements. But once the snowball has momentum, it might only keep growing.

I also just want to shout out credit to Ryvka and the broader Palestine Solidarity Campaign and every organization and campaigner in the UK—particularly the last few years, three or four years, but not exclusively—who have not only kept the Labour Party's feet to the fire on this issue, and kept it in the mainstream political discourse, and ensured that it had political consequences for the Labour Party to take such a morally bankrupt position on the genocide in Gaza, but also made it essentially a publicly mainstream fundamental issue of social conscience. I think that is a huge success of this political moment and really speaks to the power of collective action and collective organizing. And I agree, of course, this is not enough. And of course, in the face of genocide, it can feel too little, too late in some instances. Of course. But it is actually a moment, I think, for us, and the left, and the Palestine movement to claim victory. I think it's very clear actually, from that response that you just spoke about, Maya, that this is actually something that is causing alarm on the ground in all the right people. And that should be a cause for us to take a moment to say: Maybe this is actually the beginning of something different and a new era, in terms of thinking about how Israel is held to account for its human rights violations.

So, I want to talk about the implementation issues and what we might expect to see. We've already touched on the fact that the way that this actually snowballs to like “'48 Israel,” that the indivisibility at this point of the settlement apparatus and the Israeli government creates an opportunity and a difficulty, because it seems like they don't actually want to be pushed into sanctions on the Israeli state. Some people do and some people don't, but it does seem like they're trying to avoid that—that that would be politically easier in some way. And so, that presents an opportunity and a challenge. They could lean into that and end up with sanctions, or they could lean away and it becomes more toothless. I mean, we did a piece on Petro, who was the president of Colombia before the election of a new right-wing president, who basically decided to stop coal exports to Israel and legally could not find a way, with the multinational coal corporations, to actually stop that much coal from leaving, because there were challenges to his jurisdiction. And I don't know, Maya. I was wondering about, first of all, we have a little bit of a precedent for this. Not as sweeping, but we saw the US enact sanctions on individual settlers under Biden that were then lifted under Trump. Is there anything that you could tell us about how that looked the first time around, and how the settlers lived with that, dealt with that?

Yeah. So, when the initial sanctions against individual settlers were announced by the Biden administration, there was a total uproar among the settler world. And at first, it was fairly strictly enforced by the Israeli financial system, and the individuals who had been sanctioned were unable to withdraw money from an ATM or make payments from their bank accounts. And it impacted their day-to-day life. They weren't able to buy groceries and pay their kids' school fees and things like that. And there was a tremendous uproar that this was unfair, untenable, that the government wasn't protecting its citizens, all of that kind of rhetoric. I interviewed at the time the wife of Yinon Levi, who— he was one of the settlers who was sanctioned at the time. He later killed Awdah Hathaleen, the activist from Umm al Kheir—that had not yet happened at the time. And she described to me how people they didn't know were driving up to their home in the outpost where they lived and handing them wads of cash, and that's how they were getting by. And there were these fundraisers that were happening that were raising hundreds of thousands of shekels that were going to these individuals to fund their lives after the banking system cut them off.

Since then, my understanding—and this is something that needs to be reported on more fully—is that the banking system found workarounds, and that these people are no longer in that kind of situation and are much more able to access financial infrastructure than they had been. And that happened actually very quickly because of pressure from the right. Because you have Smotrich as finance minister, basically. And so, while the heads of the bank who are motivated by capital and didn't want to face issues working with US financial institutions didn't care about Yinon Levi accessing his ATM card, when the entire settler apparatus got involved, the political price became too high, and workarounds were found.

Well, this is another example of the intertwinement of the state and the settler enterprise and how, if you wanted to hold the banks accountable to this, you would have to then set accountability measures for those banks or sanction those banks.

Definitely. If you wanted to hold the banks accountable, you'd need to have a revolution in the government. You would need to have an entire different series of ministers, not have Smotrich as your finance minister. But I think that that points to one of the reasons that sanctions against institutions have the potential to have much stronger teeth and to be much more effective than handpicking individual violent settlers in the West Bank. I think that the ways that institutional sanctions against violent organizations, along with other measures around withholding visas and all of that kind of stuff—actually, there's a lot more to do that we have not sufficiently seen the envelope pushed on, and we don't actually fully know what is even possible in some of the other routes of the ways that pressure might be applied.

Yeah. If I can just step in on that, I agree. I think that is one of the weaknesses—aside from the political weakness of the focus on individual settlers, as though it's a few bad apples or whatever Netanyahu said, that it's kind of a few wayward youth or something like that—I think that is a weakness in the implementation of those, but also in the political logic of it. I think one of the promising things about the announcement today was the inclusion of actions against companies that are involved in this. And presumably, that doesn't just mean Israeli companies; it means British companies, which are involved in the financing or the development of settlements. Again, this is something that we need to see the detail on, but I would be surprised if that's not already in the view of those who put these measures together. And we know that they've been looking at this for months and months, so I don't think it was a throwaway comment, for sure.

I think there will be other questions. Some of what was said today presumably will require new legislation, but some of it is already within the capacity of the British government to carry out. So, for example, the suspension of arms export licenses. The government can do that under the policies that they have in place already around the arms export regime. And something that Em was mentioning before: I think the problem in the past has not been a lack of legislation or the ability to implement things. It's been a lack of political will in the past, and I think, hopefully, what we've seen today is a change in that, and it will open new doors, I think, to new action. But also that's the work of the movement, is to hold the government to account on this. I don't think they would mention that much detail as they did today if they weren't planning on implementing it and following through. So, I think, again, there's a lot to be seen. I'm certain that there will be loopholes. In fact, there was already a loophole admitted to today in the debate after the statement was made, in relation to the F-35 parts. That was a loophole that existed before.

What was that loophole?

Previously, there was a suspension of 30 different export licenses for arms that were to be used in Gaza, but there was a loophole in it for components of the F-35 fighter jets, which were being used in the airstrikes against Gaza because it's a global program. So, they were saying: We'll continue to contribute to the global production and distribution of the F-35s. They said: Well, that's not direct to Israel. It's part of this global program. And again, they affirmed today that they will continue to contribute to the F-35 global program, which means that the F-35 components, some of which are made in Britain, will continue to be exported to Israel. So, there are things like that that will need to be challenged. I think the positive thing, again, about the signal from today is that there will be more avenues to be able to challenge some of those things and to hold the government to account on them.

Yeah, I think the continual sale of any weapons and also surveillance technology, or what they call defense technology, and the partnership between Israel and the UK in terms of this, that has been essentially revealed also by the implementations of these bans and sanctions program from the British government today, is still concerning. Obviously, it's important to give credit where credit is due, and it's also important to say we still need more. I think that any government who is serious about challenging Israel's impunity has to be serious about full arms embargoes and a full end to cooperation with Israel around security, or intelligence, or defense, or however they frame it.

Emma, I want to ask you about the communal response in the UK. I know that Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis said that it was “truly a dark day for British Jews” and that “sanctions were little more than a political flag bearing for mendacious anti-Israel rhetoric” that would embolden people who, quote, “use hatred as a weapon against Jews.” Obviously, the Board of Deputies of British Jews is not happy with what happened. What are you seeing? What does it mean?

Well, first to say that the response from the Jewish communal establishment mainstream—and even to some extent the center-left; I'm thinking of the Jewish Labour Movement, which is the supposed Jewish affiliate of the Labour Party—has been abysmal. But I think it's also revealing in two ways. I think the first is, it really shows a dwindling moral authority of these institutions, not only the fact that they are so out of step with broader public opinion in terms of—if not holding Israel accountable for its crimes against Palestinians, at least that those crimes against Palestinians are bad, and unacceptable, and something that government and the wider society should take action around. So, I think that's one thing.

And I think particularly, as we are seeing in the UK, a growing minority but still a strong growing minority of Jewish people, who do support Palestinian human rights, who no longer identify as Zionists, particularly younger generations, that these organizations are having their last gasps at attempts to claim to represent anyone. I think that is significant, and I think it is very interesting that these sanctions are coming from, I think, the first Jewish foreign minister of Britain—and I didn't agree or particularly like Ed Miliband's framing of how he connected his Jewish identity to this decision, but I do think it's very interesting that that seems to be a response to, I think, some of these attacks from the Jewish establishment.

I think the second thing that somewhat ironically has happened is that this has really been the death knell, I think, in public discourse around liberal Zionism, because these are some of the most basic, bare minimum measures, arguably, that the government can take. This is such low-hanging fruit that really should have been taken decades ago. And even that, even sanctions on the most violent, extreme settlers that we can witness receive ire from these institutions. They receive condemnation: It's about the timing. It's about the risk allegedly of creating antisemitism, which is as wrong as it is offensive. This really shows us that these institutions do not care about the lip service they pay to condemning extremist settler violence. They do not care even about the two-state solution that they claim to support. This is about ensuring that Israel is defended, no matter what, often at the expense of the safety and well-being of the Jewish communities in the UK they claim to represent.

And I'll just end on this point. I don't know if people saw, but last week, the Prime Minister Andy Burnham hosted a meeting with mainstream Jewish institutions to talk about security for High Holy Day services around synagogues. And obviously, this is a very sensitive conversation in the UK because last year, on Yom Kippur, there was an attack on a synagogue in Manchester, Heaton Park Synagogue, where two people were killed—one by police and one by an attacker. And these institutions, it was reported, basically spent the entire time talking to the prime minister about this settlement trade ban, why he shouldn't do it. And I think that what this demonstrates is these institutions should be roundly ignored by the government, they should be roundly ignored by the press, and they should be roundly ignored by any Jewish person who wants to be a Jewish person of conscience. These institutions are not leading us; they're keeping us in this position of fear and isolation.

So, what I think is interesting is that we're getting mixed messages from the American government here. So, Axios reported that British Prime Minister Andy Burnham briefed Trump ahead of the sanctions announcement, and sources said that Trump actually didn't push back on the sanctions, and that even though they weren't planning to follow suit, that they expressed that they shared the British government's concerns about Israel's West Bank policy. Mike Huckabee, who is the American ambassador to Israel, took a different tack, suggesting that the US could retaliate against the UK over the sanctions and condemned the UK government's, quote, “Jew hate.” He also referenced Florida Congressman Randy Fine's warning that British companies that complied with sanctions would be banned from doing business with the Florida government because of their anti-boycott laws that are on the books there. But a White House official told Axios that Huckabee's remarks, quote, “were not coordinated with the White House or State Department.”

So, I think that's potentially interesting and a seemingly important acquiescence from Trump, at least, that he's not going to stand in the way of this, even if he's not willing to go the distance. And meanwhile, I do think that we're seeing American Jews, particularly liberal Zionist American Jews, in support of this. Like I got a press release from New Jewish Narrative, which used to be Americans for Peace Now and is often partnered with groups like TRUA, Partners for a Progressive Israel, these kinds of groups, New Israel Fund. And they are welcoming these sanctions and basically calling on the US government to follow suit, saying—this is from their statement—that “the United States is out of step with these important initiatives.” And I do think that polling suggests that liberal Zionists in the United States are pro the sanctioning of West Bank settlements, which is interesting. I, of course, don't think that our mainstream communal institutions would reflect that, but I do think that these measures would be popular even among American Jews who consider themselves Zionists.

I think that's accurate. I saw J Street also just put out a statement a couple of hours ago, and several of these organizations have specifically praised the language of the sanctions for drawing a distinction between Israel and the settlements, which goes back to the conversation we were having earlier that, in a certain sense, it allows them to maintain the illusion of that distinction. But at the same time, I don't take it as a given that those kinds of organizations would be supporting that, or that they would have a few years ago. And so, I think there are places to see progress and to see the ways that this trend might continue.

Yeah, and also, I don't think the UK and the US Jewish context completely maps on. I think also, in general, the Jewish community in the UK tends to be more conservative, is a lot smaller, and also hasn't got such a cultural secular Jewish life as there is in the US, which I think impacts the political nature of this. But I do think also, the other thing that is revealing is, of course, the J Street-equivalent organizations in the UK have been also been very welcoming of this and have also said this is really important. And in some ways, you could say that's actually indicative of a limitation in their politics, particularly because those organizations were either late or didn't really fully come out in support of a ceasefire around the genocide in Gaza until 2024, when thousands and thousands and thousands of Palestinians had been killed by Israel. So, it is an interesting political moment.

I think that's why the proof will be, as others have said on this call, in the implementation, in this being the beginning, not the end. But I do think, in terms of the breakdown or the discrediting of these institutions that have been so harmful, in terms of the conflation of criticism of Israel with antisemitism, in consistently calling the Palestine marches hate marches, the fact that the government has still gone ahead and done this, I think, is indicative of a winds of change where perhaps, the previous Labour government and previous governments before that have felt much more concerned about being accused of antisemitism by these institutions than they do now. And that, I think, is also part of a growing challenge to the consensus of the monolithic idea of all Jews supporting Israel, which has successfully, I think, been punctured over the last few years as well.

Yeah, I want to jump into that in a second, but I do just want to say it is a little more complicated—because, Em, I think you were arguing that this is the death knell for this establishment but also this mask-off moment for liberal Zionism. I just want to point out that there are at least some liberal Zionist organizations who are taking succor from this like, who actually are saying: This actually represents the policy change that we want to see. And that is also interesting, that there are people who are saying like: We're the two-state solution people, and this represents our policy. And also, I think this speaks to how much farther, as we've been saying, these sanctions need to go.

I want to pick up on what you were saying about the relationship between this slate of new policies and what this Burnham administration has inherited, which is a track record of very harsh crackdown on the Palestine movement. Obviously, we're in a situation still where Palestine Action is considered a terrorist group. Most people can barely speak the name of that, so I won't ask you guys to go too far into that. The US has followed suit now and has declared Palestine Action a terrorist group. How can you both be enacting sanctions on Israeli settlements and also cracking down on Palestine activists? Like, what's happening here? And do you think we'll see kind of like a softening there or not?

Yeah, I think it's a really important question, actually. I think there is a lot yet to be seen. One of the things that was striking when Burnham came into office and he did a reshuffle of the cabinet is that he retained Shebana Mahmood, the home secretary, who oversaw some of the draconian measures, including the ban on Palestine action. It was enacted before, but she maintained the position as the legal challenges came, and she also was key in pushing forward the Crime and Policing Bill and certain measures within that piece of legislation. There were attacks on other parts of the protest movement for Palestine, including on the large, very mainstream marches for Palestine. So, we've seen that repression happening in all directions against protests. I think it's important for us to raise it, and it's important for us to see them as connected.

One of the demands that we had—the Palestine Solidarity Campaign—when Burnham was coming into power, is to overturn the Draconian use of counterterrorism measures, including the ban on Palestine action. We haven't really heard any sounds on that. And in the meantime, court cases are ongoing. So that, again, as you said, it's kind of a very live issue, and I think it'll be interesting to see where the government goes with it. But that also was very unpopular. And I think the growth of groups like Defend Our Juries, who was organizing the groups of people who were standing with the signs saying, “I oppose genocide,” “I support Palestine Action,! I think that has given a lot of pause to people in government. Certainly, when we were organizing against the Crime and Policing Bill, which was giving police new powers to be able to restrict protests—even though it passed, it had significant opposition from people across parties. So, I think there is a shift in that.

I think one of the senses that we're getting from parliamentary allies that we have is that there might be a different approach, at least in people being able to speak on some of these issues within Parliament and within the Labour Party, because that was one of the major issues under Keir Starmer. Labour MPs were facing disciplinary action over the smallest moving out of line. I think one of the things that Andy Burnham wanted to do was broaden the party, so to speak. Still a lot yet to be seen on that. I mean, he came into government over the summer when Parliament wasn't sitting. This is only the second week now of Parliament sitting. So, there's a lot to be seen. The Labour Party conference is coming up, and there's a lot of political dynamics there. Not to get too deep into the Labour Party elements, but I think it is very important for us to be continuing the demand for the government to totally overhaul its approach to protest, whether that's protest in the form of direct action or protests in large mobilizations.

It is worth mentioning, and one of the things that's been striking for us, is that just a few years ago, the British government under the Conservative leadership was floating and pushing through an anti-boycott bill that was modeled on some of those state laws like the one in Florida that's being discussed. And the Labour Party was fairly prepared to go through with it, in fact. That wasn't that long ago, and the fact that now this shift has happened, I think again, speaks to the pressure that's come to bear, because of the movement and also just the horrors of what everybody has seen unfolding. On the one hand, it's a major shift. On the other hand, as Em said, it's kind of the bare minimum you would expect in the face of unfolding genocide.

Yeah, I think also what is important to understand here is the interconnection between foreign and domestic policy in that, in some ways, it's much easier for the government to make a decision about another country violating rights, and violating human rights, and looked at as the heroes or the challengers to that than to have to face the division that exists in the UK and the culture of repression that could become much more of a thorn in their side. And then, I think particularly in the UK context, we have seen successive governments basically want to quash protests. We saw this start actually around climate activists and Just Stop Oil and increasingly harsher sentences in the courts for protesting. There are activists serving prison sentences of up to seven years because they attended a Zoom meeting planning to block a road in the UK. This is something that was happening also before the outbreak of the genocide, and sometimes, I think it's hard to discern whether this is an issue around Palestine specifically or it's a proxy for this broader culture of repression. But hopefully there will be a shift away from these particularly draconian measures that have been implemented over the last few years.

Maya, I know you've been tracking, all day, the responses from both members of the Israeli government and also members of the movement. So, I have a two-part question. One is: What do we know about the people who have been sanctioned? Who are these people? And if you know anything about any particular companies, you could talk about that too. But I know that there was a specific list of individuals. And also, how have the Israeli government and Israeli settlement leaders responded to this news?

So, I believe there were five individuals sanctioned by the UK today. One of them is Eliav Libi, who runs a construction company that provides infrastructure and building materials to a large number of outposts in the West Bank. Really, the actual building of outposts is what Eliav and his brother, Harel Libi—that is how they make their living. I have been following Eliav Libi very closely for a number of months now because he's one of the founders of a new initiative that popped up this spring called the Habaita Forum, or the, like, Homeward Forum, which is a movement for Israeli takeover of Areas A and B, so, the cities and towns of the West Bank that are under Palestinian Authority control. Libi, his son was killed in Gaza, and together with another father named Joshua Sherman, whose son Yehuda was killed in Area A of the West Bank, they together have created this movement of bereaved fathers, as they call themselves, that really has this political goal of full West Bank takeover and expulsion even from the cities of the West Bank. So, that's Eliav Libi.

Three of them are people who are deeply involved in Meir Kahane's circles and in the Kach political environment that explicitly calls for the transfer of Palestinians outside of the land of Israel. So, you have Meir Ettinger, who's actually Kahane's grandson. He's the son of Kahane's daughter, Tova, and he's very involved in the Hilltop Youth Movement, in price tag attacks. He has been involved in several kind of large-scale attacks, including the Duma arson attack a number of years ago. You have Baruch Marzel, who originally is American but lives in Hebron in the Jewish settlement there. He worked very closely with Kahane. He hosts celebrations regularly celebrating the Goldstein massacre, when dozens of Palestinians were killed in the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron. I was once at a memorial event for people killed in Gaza in 2018, and Baruch Marzel showed up, and as the names of victims in Gaza were read, he started doing L'Chaim shots to each person killed and then punched activists in the face. I mean, these are, these are very unsavory characters.

And Bentzi Gopstein is the third in that list, who was a student of Kahane's. He's been indicted on incitement to terrorism. He's one of the founders of Lehava, which is an organization that works to discourage relationships between Jewish women and Palestinian men, a deeply racist organization. He's also been very involved in anti-LGBT organizing. And then, the last person is Avichai Suissa, who's the head of Hashomer Yosh, which is an organization that offers material support to building outposts. So, those are the five people and what we know about them.

But does it feel kind of random? I can see, for example, people who are actually dealing with the logistics of construction. But some of the other guys, it's kind of like—don't you, as someone who has spent a lot of time in the West Bank, feel like you could add 100 people to that list off the top of your head?

Yes, without even having to pause to think between names. I don't see any reason why Elisha Madan, who was announced for the Knesset this morning, would be any less eligible. As far as I know, all of the five who were sanctioned have already been sanctioned by the EU or other countries. And so, in a certain sense, they might just be easy targets because, first of all, a lot of the work that has to be done to prove their involvement and the documentation already exists, and it's in some ways an easy case to make. I think especially those who are actively involved in Kahane and Kach activities, which was banned from the Israeli Knesset itself as a recognized terrorist organization. I think those are just easy cases. And maybe, Ryvka, you can speak more to the internal British politics that would've chosen these five, but I imagine that in a certain sense, it's more of a gesture that like: There are really bad people out there. We are not stopping from going after individuals. Here are five that are really bad and are involved in really, really terrible things. But it's an easy case to make. There's no groundbreaking decision here by actually finding settlers who nobody has sanctioned before, who are not yet on the international stage for the violence they've committed.

So, take me through the government response and the settlement response.

Sure. So, this morning after the announcement, you had every politician and every head of any settlement council making a statement against it. One interesting thread that popped up in a lot of these statements was statements to the effect of like: The British Mandate is over, a kind of reversal of colonial language. Smotrich put up this tweet where he said: Israel's no longer going to be the doormat that's trampled upon by the antisemitic regimes. The British Mandate has ended. The head of the Efrat Council, a settlement in the West Bank, put out a statement that: Just so you know, the British Mandate ended in May 1948. It seems that somebody in London got confused. And there's a kind of defiant streak in the responses that this is an impingement upon Israeli sovereignty. This was very much the line that was taken by Regavim in the statement that they put out this morning. And basically across the board, the response has been that we are going to build, and the settlements will grow as a response to this.

So, Yisrael Gantz, who's the head of the Binyamin Regional Council and also the Yesha Settler Council, called for reducing funding to the Palestinian Authority the amount that Israel is harmed by these sanctions. And then put out this: Any attempt to harm settlements, we're going to respond to with building settlements and Israeli sovereignty. Dovi Shefler, who I mentioned, who's the head of the Efrat Council, in response, explicitly called for Israel taking over Solomon's Pools, which are these three ancient reservoirs in the southern central West Bank. They're south of Bethlehem near Al-Khader, which are in Area A under the Palestinian Authority's control but have become an area that settlers are increasingly taking over. Zvi Sukkot went swimming there recently and created a whole media storm. As we talk about increasing settler takeover of Areas A and B, it's become a real hotspot, and so Solomon's Pools are now on the list, that there should be sovereignty there in response to the British sanctions.

The head of Ma'ale Adumim put out a similar statement calling for the increasing of industrial growth in the Mishor Adumim area, which is an industrial area by Ma'ale Adumim, very close to E-1. Put out a statement about how many factories have already opened, how many more are planned, and you know that this is going to do nothing to stop E-1. Now this is all rhetoric. This is them speaking to their base and getting the crowds fired up. I think the question is really, as we've been saying this whole time, whether the implementation will actually impinge upon them or give them fire to continue on the destructive path that they're going down.

One thing I want to raise or highlight is that Yair Lapid, centrist former prime minister, basically said something that I think a lot of these guys in the center often say, which is that these kinds of measures only strengthen the right, and that this kind of measure before an election only ensures that the settlement movement is going to succeed at the ballot box. Obviously, I don't think that's a good argument, but I wonder how you see that kind of rhetoric, Maya.

I think that there is a sense in which the Israeli right thrives off of feeling embattled and feeling like the world hates them. And there is nothing like being able to call the UK antisemitic that really fills them with a certain joy and sense of victory for their upcoming elections. At the same time, is that a long-term winning strategy? Certainly not, because it's going to undermine the entire stability of their project. I do think it's possible that it'll give the right some kind of boost. It fits into a right-wing narrative, but I don't think that that's a reason to stop the pressure. That's the reason to amp it up.

I mean, that was one of the major arguments that was being used in the run-up to the government announcement saying the British government needs to be careful it doesn't embolden the Israeli right by imposing sanctions. I see what you're saying, Maya, and I agree. It is the narrative that the so-called Israeli right loves, but it's also the narrative that the Israeli center and so-called left loves, too. Again, we'll see how that plays out. But I think also, just on the point of the individual settlers who were sanctioned, The previous British government under Keir Starmer did impose six sanctions in June. I think it was five individuals and one company, a much, much, much more limited set of sanctions and measures. And they got absolutely destroyed over it in Parliament by their own MPs even and across the bench, who said: This is ridiculous; you might as well have done nothing, in a sense. There was a political moment in which that happened, which is that Keir Starmer was already on his way out, so it emboldened MPs to speak against it. But I think that was quite telling. There was a sense that individual sanctions are just not enough. And so, I don't think it's surprising. I think what Maya has said probably tracks in that these people who were renounced today were the easy targets. But again, that hasn't been the major thrust of the announcement today. So in some way, I wouldn't be too over-concerned about whether those sanctions were too symbolic or too easy, because I think what we should be expecting in the coming weeks and in the coming months is something much larger than sanctions on individuals.

I do have a question, which is basically about whether we can expect something else from the EU. One country that's missing from this list is Germany, and I know also that Slovenia has already come out to be like: We are standing by Israel. So, I just am curious if there's any sense of: Can we expect some coordinated action considering how many of these European countries, how many EU members, are kind of stepping out with this announcement?

Yeah, I mean, it's a great question, and obviously, Germany is its own psychodrama around this issue, though I think we should note that we have seen Merz go strongly against Ben-Gvir and other very specific incidences, which is still a change of pace from previous years, where Germany has not said anything to challenge or criticize Israel's treatment of Palestinians. I think it is definitely possible that due to the politics of the EU, both related to Israel/Palestine and not, that in terms of coordinated movement on the EU level, this might still take time. But I do think we're going to see increasing action from individual member states, which is what we have seen with the announcements today and that that will probably and likely move toward more action, hopefully on the EU level. But again, I think it's not clear yet as to how that's going to work. But hopefully, given that the European Union is Israel's biggest economic trading partner, this will result in further action.

But I just wanted to come back to something that we were talking about earlier in response to Yair Lapid and this idea that when you sanction or implement these policies that you're enabling the Israeli right. The biggest thing from my perspective that enables the Israeli right is the failure of the Israeli center and the Israeli left to actually put forward an alternative that includes the human rights of Palestinians, and that it's very easy for Yair Lapid to say these things when he has consistently condemned any kind of attempts to hold Israel accountable from the international community. And that is actually just a reflection of the fact that the majority of Israeli politicians, particularly Jewish Israeli politicians, are not even factoring in Palestinians when they're thinking about this election. It's not really even part of the discourse, in terms of an alternative to settler expansion, de facto annexation, continual control of Gaza, and attacks on Gaza. So, that's a bigger problem.

But I think it also speaks to this tension for organizers, for campaigners, as to whether this change and whether a resolution that ensures equality, and freedom, and justice for everyone is going to come from within Israel or it's going to come from external pressure. I think that at this point, given the political direction of Israeli society, this international pressure is the only thing that might shift things, and we have to be full steam ahead in spite of these potential protestations from supposed center-left Israeli politicians.

I think that's a great place to stop. This has been another episode of On the Nose. Thank you to our editor, Jesse Brenneman. Thank you to our guests, Emily Hilton, Ryvka Barnard, Maya Rosen. If you like this episode, share it, rate it, leave us a review. And as always, subscribe to Jewish Currents, JewishCurrents.org. Thanks a lot, everyone. See you next time.