THE UK Government has been told it risks sending a “dangerous message” that Palestinian lives are not valued by allowing an event selling land in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank to go ahead in London.
The Great Israeli Real Estate Event is set to take place in London on Sunday and is openly promoting the sale of land in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Ahead of the event, Amnesty International UK has called on the UK Government to take “immediate action” and prevent it from taking place, arguing it is an attempt to normalise illegal settlements by marketing them alongside properties in mainstream Israeli cities.
The Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) also launched a Stop Stolen Land Sales campaign in response to the event and called on the UK Government to intervene.
When approached by The National on whether the UK Government would step-in with the event, a spokesperson did not address the calls, but instead said ministers would “bring forward updated guidance in the coming days, giving greater clarity to UK businesses on how to avoid ventures which support these illegal settlements”.
They added that the expansion in the West Bank is “wrong” and that the UK Government has “imposed sanctions both on those responsible for that violence and on individual members of the Israeli cabinet for inciting it”.
Kristyan Benedict, Amnesty International UK's crisis response manager, said that the UK Government is right to say Israeli settlements are illegal under international law, but added: “It is long overdue for them to halt all trade, co-operation and investment relations enabling unlawful occupation and apartheid”.
Benedict told The National: “The UK must be proactive in stopping companies from advertising the sale of stolen Palestinian land in this country, just as it most likely would if stolen Ukrainian land was being sold here.
“Lack of meaningful action from the UK Government to stop Israel's continuous crimes and those who enable them sends a dangerous message that Palestinian lives are not valued and that unlawful occupation and apartheid are acceptable.”
Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are illegal under international law and have been condemned by the UN Security Council and the International Court of Justice.
Amnesty said Israeli settlements form a “central pillar” of what the organisation previously reported as a “documented system of apartheid against the Palestinian people”.
The human rights organisation said the event forms part of a “broader pattern” of international activity promoting settlement investment, at a time when the Israeli government has “dramatically accelerated settlement construction and land annexation across the West Bank”.
Jeanine Hourani, a representative of the PYM, said on Monday that they launched the campaign to stop the Great Israeli Real Estate Event in a bid to “reject the ongoing ethnic cleansing and dispossession” of Palestinians.
Hourani told The National on Tuesday: “As Palestinian youth living in Britain, we are painfully aware of the ongoing role this country has played in selling our land to the highest bidder.
“We refuse to allow the sale of Palestinian land to continue this weekend and that’s why we launched the Stop Stolen Land Sales campaign.
“Whether in the West Bank, Gaza, Jerusalem or the 1948 territories, we have a right to return to our homelands and Britain has an obligation to act now to correct its historical wrongs.”
On Monday, some 140 Labour MPs told the UK Government that it must end its “unacceptable” failure to act against Israel's war crimes and ban all trade with illegal settlements.
In a joint letter signed by former ministers and all of the Labour chairs of Westminster select committees, the UK Government was told there is an “urgent need for accountability and concrete consequences in response to Israel’s violations against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, which are spiralling by the day”.
The letter to Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper was co-ordinated by Melanie Ward, the Labour MP for Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy and the former chief executive of Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP).
Last month, the European Council issued sanctions against Israeli settlers, including Daniella Weiss, who was featured in a Louis Theroux documentary about the West Bank.
The council took action against four entities and three individuals under the European Union's Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime, which had previously been blocked by Hungary's former prime minister, Viktor Orban.
Measures against those identified included an asset freeze and a full travel ban, with the council adding that those listed are “responsible for serious and systematic human rights abuses against Palestinians in the West Bank”.
Adding: “They abuse the right of everyone to enjoy the highest attainable standard of physical and mental integrity, the right to property, the right to private and family life, to freedom of religion or belief and the right to education.”
