NZ News
UK, France, Canada to ban imports from Israeli settlements – NZ critical but stops short of joining
Britain, France and Canada will ban imports from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, with a UK minister accusing Israel of turning a blind eye to the “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians there.
The moves prompted a furious Israel to unveil immediate counter-measures targeting Britain.
The three Western allies revealed the trade curbs in response to Israel’s West Bank settlements policy and reports of increasing attacks by settlers there against Palestinians.
“The British government agrees that there is ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank – perpetrated by settler terrorists,” British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband told parliament.
“All too often the Israeli government has turned a blind eye to this and worse, members of it have made statements and taken actions to support the forced displacement of Palestinians.”
London, Paris and Ottawa joined nine other European countries in issuing a statement saying they planned to introduce or support restrictions on trade with Israeli settlements.
Later Tuesday, British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian leader Mark Carney warned in another joint declaration that the settlements “pose a direct and urgent threat” to a two-state solution to the conflict.
‘End trade’
Earlier, Israel had announced its angry response, ordering the closure of Britain’s consulate in Jerusalem and banning 12 Britons from visiting the country, including lawmakers from the governing Labour party.
Israel said it would also expel British diplomats at a centre monitoring the US-brokered ceasefire plan in Gaza and bar British training for Palestinian Authority forces.
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“The accusations made today by the foreign secretary in the British parliament were outrageous lies,” said Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar.
The settlements mainly export agricultural products, as well as wine, Dead Sea cosmetics and various industrial products.
Trade between the UK and the occupied Palestinian Territories was only around £38 million ($51 million) in 2025, according to the British government.
Ireland and Spain have already taken measures against trade with settlements, and France has for weeks been pushing for a similar decision from the European Union, Israel’s leading trading partner, but has been blocked by some members.
Tuesday’s joint foreign ministers’ statement was also signed by Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Sweden.
They criticised “unprecedented levels of settler violence and settlement expansion” in the West Bank.
In France, Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on X the country “will end trade” with settlements there.
However, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the United States would not join the new sanctions, noting Washington does not want to destabilise the occupied territory.
New sanctions
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to continue establishing the settlements – illegal under international law.
The E1 plan – approved by Israel last year after decades of being frozen – would see 1,200 housing units built and further isolate Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank.
The approval was widely condemned.
AFP / Ilia Yefimovich
Israel has already faced intense international criticism over its relentless offensive that flattened much of Gaza following the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas militants.
In his statement, Miliband – the son of Jewish immigrant parents – said companies and individuals that provide services such as construction, financing, or real estate for settlements would face UK sanctions.
Advertising or promoting land and property within Israeli settlements will be prohibited in Britain, his foreign ministry confirmed.
It said five more individuals accused of inciting and conducting violent attacks against Palestinians, including in the West Bank, had also been newly sanctioned.
London has now hit 38 people with sanctions over settler activity, according to the ministry.
The moves signal a toughening stance towards Israel under Burnham, who replaced Keir Starmer as prime minister in July.
Starmer’s government last year formally recognised a Palestinian state and announced sanctions on selected entities.
More than 500,000 Israelis live in illegal settlements in the West Bank, among some three million Palestinians.
According to an AFP tally based on data from the Palestinian health ministry, Israeli forces or settlers have killed at least 1,105 Palestinians in the territory since the start of the Gaza war.
NZ joins call to end settlement expansion, but not import ban
The Foreign Minister says New Zealand joins its international partners calling on Israel to end the expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank, but has stopped short of joining Britain, France and Canada in banning Israeli imports.
A spokesperson for the minister said New Zealand did not traditionally use trade measures to address foreign policy issues.
Peters issued a standalone statement on the matter, following the news from the UK overnight.
He said New Zealand was “deeply concerned by the deteriorating situation in the West Bank.”
“There has been a marked escalation in Israel’s actions, jeopardising the prospect of a durable peace.”
Peters said the Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories were a violation of international law and expanding those settlements undermined prospects for a two-state solution to the longstanding conflict.
“New Zealand strongly condemns violence by settlers against Palestinian civilians and calls for accountability for those responsible.”
Peters joined international partners in calling on the government of Israel to “end the expansion of settlements, prevent and address settler violence, and refrain from actions that further undermine the prospects for peace.”
But he also said New Zealand “strongly opposes actions that advance annexation or threaten the forcible displacement of Palestinians.”
“Such measures are incompatible with international law and risk perpetuating the cycle of violence and insecurity.”
A spokesperson for the minister said the UK-led statement referenced a “future trade ban on settlement goods.”
“New Zealand has not traditionally used trade measures to address foreign policy issues.
“They are different from sanctions. To do so would be complex and require a full policy process. We are not in a position to do that ahead of the election.”
The spokesperson said New Zealand had consistently raised concerns about settlements and settler violence for years, placing travel bans on 38 Israeli settlers and two Israeli ministers, the most recent of which were announced in June.
“This is a clear signal that this violence is unacceptable.”
– AFP with additional reporting by RNZ political reporter Lillian Hanly
Source: RNZ
Latest News
Opportunities to mitigate multi-million-dollar RNZ budget blowout likely missed – experts
Multiple opportunities to identify and mitigate a multi-million-dollar budget blowout at RNZ appear have been missed, according to the former executive director at Audit New Zealand.
The public broadcaster on Monday revealed a near $12 million shock financial loss after a litany of financial blunders, which will now lead to sweeping job cuts.
The $11.8m loss is more than 25 times the $470,000 RNZ had expected to lose over the year to June.
CEO Paul Thompson took responsibility for the result, and said internal reports gave an inaccurate picture of the finances, meaning the scale of the loss only became clear in October.
RNZ’s former chief financial officer Hilary Parker resigned unexpectedly in early October.
The board said it would commission an independent review into what went wrong.
Independent contractor Stephen Walker, who left the Audit Office earlier this year, said the size of the loss was surprising, as was the length of time it took to identify it – months after the financial year ended.
Supplied / OAG
“Probably more of a concern is that they had seemingly been unaware that they were running up a significant deficit until they were in the preparation stage of their annual report in October.”
Walker said public entities typically produced monthly financial reports.
An interim audit also took place before the end of the financial year, he said, but if the organisation hadn’t identified significant losses at that stage, the auditor could also be in the dark.
“It seems that there’s a real weakness in forecasting and budgeting that’s occurred here and that the monthly accounts, when they’re produced, either haven’t identified these significant variances against budget or the magnitude of them really hasn’t come to light until right towards the end of the financial year,” Walker said.
“And really at that point, there’s no opportunity for the chief executive, the leadership team to take, and the board to take, any corrective action because the year has effectively been completed.”
Walker said the “significant miss” was difficult to account for given it was more than 10 percent of RNZ’s total funding.
He said based on RNZ’s annual report, financial complexity didn’t appear to be a factor.
“This $11.8m loss isn’t made up of one particular item … it seems to have been contributed to by a number of separate expense lines running over budget. So I don’t think it’s necessarily to do with complexity.”
Among the errors, RNZ wrongly counted $2m from land sales as income in its budget. Staff costs also came in $3.2m over budget, including $1.4m in redundancy payments.
Professor at Auckland University’s business school Norman Wong said based on media reports the issues identified were “significant and troubling”.
Supplied / University of Auckland
“But recognising the sale of land as income in their budget is a basic error that one would have expected to have been caught and corrected well before it got to this point.”
With funding reductions at RNZ over the past two years, Walker expected greater scrutiny of financial results.
“Virtually every public entity has had their annual budget reduced. And so you would expect … the leadership team on a monthly basis and board – I’m not sure how frequently the board will consider the information – but you would expect them to be interrogating the results on a regular basis throughout the year,” he said.
Walker said initiating an independent review was the correct course of action and that he’d want to understand what information the leadership team and the board were regularly receiving.
He said he’d “love to say” surprising financial results were rare, but conceded they occured on a semi-frequent basis during his time leading the Audit Office.
“The benefit of independent scrutiny by the Audit Office – and the auditors providing that support to the Auditor General – [is] that the reporting is fairly presented at the end of the year, whether it’s good, bad or ugly.”
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