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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Comment
Editorial

The Guardian view on Britain’s new Middle East policy: an unlawful occupation must carry a price

Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband making a statement on Israel-Palestine in the House of Commons, central London, on Tuesday 8 September.
Ed Miliband addresses the Commons. ‘Mr Miliband has delivered perhaps the toughest official British indictment of Israeli conduct in recent history.’ Photograph: House of Commons/PA

Rarely in recent years has the Commons felt like the cockpit of history. On Tuesday it did. The foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, placed Britain at the head of a 12-country coalition considering economic restrictions on Israel’s illegal settlements, with the UK, France and Canada committing to national trade bans.

The move comes after escalating numbers of attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinian villages in the West Bank. International opinion seemed to shift decisively after Israel gave the go-ahead for 1,200 homes in the E1 settlement that would cleave the West Bank into two – using illegal settlements to bury Palestinian statehood for good. Mr Miliband added that evidence of war crimes in Gaza was mounting, making the overdue case for Britain to recast its economic and military relationship with Israel.

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