Utolsó frissítés: 2026.06.10. — Szerző: Anti-Propaganda News Blog
According to campaigners, the sanctions are merely intended to quell public outrage, rather than bring about real change in government policy.
By Mohammad Mansour | Published: June 10, 2026.
Israeli settlers and far-right ministers have been hit with new Western sanctions. However, according to human rights groups and Palestinian activists, these measures do not address the systemic state complicity in the occupation of Palestinian territories.
Although the latest measures have been framed as a firm stand against settler violence, political analysts and legal experts argue that isolating individual actors only distracts attention from the lack of broader institutional sanctions against the Israeli government.
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On June 9, the United Kingdom, together with Australia, Canada, France, New Zealand, and Norway, announced coordinated sanctions against networks that finance and carry out settler violence. The United Kingdom targeted six organizations and one individual, while France banned Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, three settler group leaders, and 21 settlers from entering the country.
Szmotrics and the far-right Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, have previously been criticized by several European countries for their rhetoric against Palestinians and their support for settler violence.
„Too little, too late”
Critics point out that the limited scope of the sanctions is not commensurate with the scale of the crisis.
Jennifer Larbie, Christian Aid’s head of advocacy in the UK, called the decision to sanction so few organizations „ridiculous” and cited it as a clear example of the British government „doing too little, too late,” while Palestinians are being driven from their land.
Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, shared this view. He told Al Jazeera Arabic that Western leaders are facing unprecedented public outrage over their relations with Israel.
„These governments are trying to cover up their shortcomings with token measures,” Barguti said, arguing that the sanctions reflect a need to manage public outrage rather than a genuine shift in government policy. He emphasized that the Israeli government is the entity that plans, finances, and implements the expansion of settlements.
Israel undermined the Oslo Accords, which called for a freeze on settlement activity. In the early 1990s, at the time of the Oslo Accords, there were approximately 250,000 settlers living in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. The number of settlers has now grown to more than 700,000, while some three million Palestinians live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which are under Israeli occupation.
Despite the fact that international law obligates states, and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) explicitly states that all states are obligated not to recognize or support Israel’s illegal occupation, the European Union has largely failed to impose a comprehensive trade embargo on entities based in the settlements.
Although EU directives stipulate that agreements with Israel do not apply to the occupied territories, member states regularly refrain from imposing mandatory economic embargoes, allowing goods produced on stolen Palestinian land to continue flowing into European markets.
Protection of Architects
By focusing on individual settler outposts or far-right figures such as Ministers Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, they risk drawing a false distinction between „extremist” settlers and the Israeli state apparatus.
Kristyan Benedict, Crisis Response Manager at Amnesty International UK, stated that targeting the settlers’ funding networks while ignoring the ministers who oversee the settlement campaigns does not constitute meaningful accountability.
„It leaves architects untouched,” Benedict said, calling on the United Kingdom to impose sanctions on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and other high-ranking officials. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant on charges of war crimes.
A UN investigation had previously found that Israeli authorities were directly involved in attacks carried out by settlers that resulted in the deaths and injuries of Palestinians and forced them to flee their homes, while Israeli forces actively provided protection.
Both Ben-Gvir and Smotrich have a long history of inciting violence and seeking to expand the occupation. Following a deadly settler rampage in the Palestinian town of Huwara in early 2023, Smotrich infamously declared that the village must be „wiped off the face of the earth” by the State of Israel.
Furthermore, exploiting his dual role within the Ministry of Defense, Smotrich quietly transferred administrative authority over the West Bank from military authorities to civilian leadership—a move that legal experts describe as a de facto annexation. Meanwhile, Ben-Gvir personally distributed thousands of assault rifles to members of the settler „national guard” and frequently praised settlers accused of killing Palestinians, portraying them as heroes defending Israel.
Mohanad Mustafa, an academic and expert on Israeli affairs, noted that figures such as Smotrich and Ben-Gvir do not travel to Europe regularly and rely primarily on political and financial ties with the United States.
„These sanctions are not aimed at the Israeli government,” Mustafa told Al Jazeera Arabic, explaining that the measures inadvertently create a convenient narrative for Israel by limiting extremism to specific ministers rather than presenting it as a state-sponsored enterprise.
For its part, Israel quickly rejected the sanctions.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein called them „shameful measures” aimed at forcing him to take a political stance on „the right of Jews to settle on the land of Israel.” Under international law, Israeli settlements built on Palestinian land are illegal. A September 2024 UN resolution called for an end to the occupation within one year, but Israel has not complied. In fact, it has redoubled its efforts and announced the construction of additional settlements.
Israel routinely denies that its troops protect violent settlers, claiming that such acts are isolated incidents that violate military protocol. However, reports from numerous media and human rights organizations indicate that Israeli forces are complicit in attacks against Palestinians. Thousands of Palestinians have been imprisoned without trial, and Palestinians have reported horrific abuse while in Israeli custody.
The Loopholes in Arms and Trade
Campaigners point out that Western countries are taking these steps while continuing to sell weapons to and engage in free trade with Israel, which is facing charges of genocide before the ICJ. According to most human rights organizations and genocide researchers, Israel’s actions in Gaza do indeed constitute genocide.
The British government recently updated its business guidance to explicitly advise against economic activity in illegal settlements, but emphasized that it continues to support trade with Israel within the 1967 borders.
Larbie called it „pathetic” that British companies are „merely advised” not to conduct business in illegal Israeli settlements when there are no real consequences for them, and he urged a complete ban on trade and investment with the settlements.
Claudia Webbe, a former British Member of Parliament, highlighted this contradiction, noting that Western countries themselves have enabled Israel’s long-standing impunity.
„What’s the point of imposing sanctions on five settler organizations? Sanctions should be imposed on the entire state, not just the settlement,” said Webbe, emphasizing that the United Kingdom and the EU remain complicit in arming and financing Israel.
Although the United Kingdom, under Prime Minister Keir Starmer, has put free trade negotiations with Israel on hold and suspended some arms export licenses, critics are calling for a complete halt.
Despite suspending approximately 30 of the 350 arms export licenses at the end of 2024, the United Kingdom continues to sell parts for F-35 fighter jets and other critical military equipment to Israel.
At home, the British government has cracked down on solidarity with Palestine, invoking broad public order laws to arrest activists and restrict mass demonstrations.
Other European powers have also maintained close defense ties with Israel. Germany, for example, is Israel’s second-largest arms supplier after the United States, accounting for about 30 percent of the country’s conventional arms imports.
Barguti pointed out that the European Union supplies as much as 19 percent of Israel’s weapons. He urged the EU to follow the demands of countries such as Spain to completely abolish the EU-Israel Association Agreement.
Spain and Ireland are among the few European nations taking concrete diplomatic steps. Both have officially recognized the State of Palestine, formally joined South Africa’s genocide case against Israel before the ICJ, and suspended all new arms export licenses to the Israeli military.
Spanish and Irish officials have repeatedly lobbied in Brussels to suspend the Association Agreement, which governs economic relations between the bloc and Israel.
