By Sarah Young and Alexander Cornwell
LONDON/JERUSALEM, June 9 (Reuters) – Britain, Canada, France and Norway announced new coordinated sanctions on Tuesday against Israeli networks involved in financing, enabling and carrying out violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The move follows escalating violence by Israeli settlers, which diplomats say is intended to undermine prospects for a Palestinian state.
Hundreds of thousands of Israelis have settled among millions of Palestinians in land that Israel captured in a 1967 war. Nearly all countries and a range of U.N. bodies consider such settlements a violation of international law, although Israel disputes this, citing historical and biblical ties to the land.
The measures by the four countries were coordinated with sanctions already announced last week by Australia and New Zealand, underscoring anger in many Western countries towards Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, which has expanded settlements.
A joint statement by foreign ministers from the four countries as well as Australia said the steps aimed to “hold extremist settlers accountable for the horrific levels of settler violence against Palestinian civilians”.
“We continue to urge the Government of Israel to take action to ensure meaningful accountability for violence in the West Bank,” the statement added.
Israel’s foreign ministry rejected the measures, and said the governments imposing them had failed to control antisemitism and were fuelling it with such sanctions.
“The real essence of these steps is the attempt to impose a political stance regarding the right of Jews to settle in the Land of Israel and concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – camouflaged as measures against violence,” it said in a statement.
Yisrael Ganz, head of the Yesha Council, which represents municipal councils of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, said in response to the sanctions that Israel’s parliament should dismantle the Palestinian Authority and strengthen Israel’s presence and sovereignty throughout the West Bank.
Israel’s government has acknowledged that settler violence occurs and has at times condemned it, while also opposing foreign sanctions on Israelis and entities in connection with the West Bank, where it says Jews have a right to live.
SANCTIONS HIT ISRAELI FINANCE MINISTER, FINANCIAL NETWORKS
Tuesday’s sanctions did not all target the same individuals and companies.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said the government had banned Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, four leaders of settler organisations and 21 violent settlers from entering France.
Britain said its package was aimed at disrupting the flows of finance that have “allowed extremist settler groups to act with impunity” in the West Bank. It also included a construction company whose resources it said had been used to destroy Palestinian property.
Canada’s sanctions included a different construction firm and its owners, and prohibited Canadians from dealing with all those designated.
The joint statement threatened further action if the Israeli government did not take “urgent steps to address the situation on the ground”.
One concern is Israel’s plan to build a settlement east of Jerusalem, known as the E1 project, which would bisect the West Bank and cut it off from East Jerusalem, fragmenting territory Palestinians seek for an independent state.
France is due to hold a meeting on June 12 in Paris, bringing together Israeli and Palestinian civil society groups and about a dozen foreign ministers.
The meeting will mark a year since the adoption of the New York Declaration, a non-binding resolution endorsed by the U.N. General Assembly that set out a roadmap towards a Palestinian state, and led to 11 countries, including Australia, Britain, Canada and France, recognising a Palestinian state in September.
(Reporting by Sarah Young, Sam Tabahriti and Muvija M in London, Makini Brice in Paris, Gwladys Fouche in Oslo, Alexander Cornwell in JerusalemWriting by William James, Peter Graff and Gareth Jones)
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