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Former Israeli PM and ex-IDF chief of staff back UK sanctions on West Bank settlers involved in ‘Jewish terror’
Ex-PM Ehud Olmert and former IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz describe violence against Palestinians as 'an effort at ethnic cleansing'
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and ex-IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz have backed UK sanctions against “Jewish terrorists” in the West Bank, describing such acts against Palestinians as “an effort at ethnic cleansing”.
The pair signed a statement that also sharply criticised the Israeli government’s response to the UK’s move, particularly its claim that sanctions targeting Jewish terrorists amounted to antisemitism.
“There is no basis for such a response,” they asserted. “This decision is precisely what the State of Israel should have received to remove the disgrace of Jewish terrorism from the face of the country.”
The statement, also signed by Yoram Ben-Zeev, an Israeli diplomat and former Israeli ambassador to Germany, Roni Bar-On,a former Minister of Finance, David Harel, President of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and Yuli Tamir, condemned the failures of Israeli authorities to prevent violence against Palestinians, saying “The failure of the police, the army, and the security services to prevent the Jewish terror is exposed for all to see.”
It pointed to the government’s “refusal to use administrative detention against Jews, and the extreme statements by government ministers—among them Defence Minister Israel Katz, Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich—which undoubtedly encourage Jewish terrorism in the territories.”
According to the signatories Benjamin Netanyahu’s refusal to condemn these acts “and the backing he gives to ministers and officials who refrain from taking action against Jewish terrorism constitute an inspiration that encourages its expansion.”
Under these circumstances, they said, “sanctions against Jewish terrorists, and not against the legitimacy of the State of Israel, as British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband announced, are an inevitable consequence of the Jewish terror and the failures of the government and the security bodies that do not prevent them.”
Israeli opposition lawmaker Gilad Kariv also placed the blame for the UK and other nations’ sanctions “squarely on the shoulders of Netanyahu, Smotrich, Katz, and Sa’ar.”
He argued, “All their belligerent tweets and empty threats will not conceal the strategic damage they are causing.”
Kariv continued: “A government that gives encouragement to the violence of extremist settlers, that effectively supports the dispossession of Palestinian communities, that is busy undermining the Palestinian Authority, and that openly ignores the requests of all our major allies regarding construction in E1, is leading Israel toward international isolation and the destruction of the strategic support network that Israel has in the world.
“For years, Netanyahu presented himself as playing in a different league on the international stage. Today, he is a disgraced bench player. Israeli citizens must not be made to pay the price for Netanyahu’s corrupt alliance with nationalist extremists.”
Kariv, a member of the Democrats party, also criticised Foreign Minister Gideon Saar’s retaliatory measures against the UK as “childish and populist, and serve a political campaign rather than the real needs of the State of Israel.”
He accused Saar of failing to manage Israeli foreign policy and of becoming “subordinate to the nationalist and extremist agenda of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.”
Kariv argued that Saar had joined the government’s conduct in the Palestinian territories “rather than working to restrain it in an effort to secure a place on Likud’s electoral list.”
He also highlighted the months-long absence of an Israeli ambassador in London as evidence of “the government’s negligence and lack of professionalism.”
In further support for UK foreign secretary Ed Miliband’s sanctions Democrats Gaby Lasky posted on X:”Listen up, everyone rushing to shout ‘antisemitism’
“Britain is making an important distinction here between the State of Israel and the annexation and settlement policy in the territories that isolates it in the world. The sanctions are not against the State of Israel. They are aimed against the Netanyahu-Smotrich-Ben Gvir government.”
Nimrod Sheffer, also listed for a seat by the opposition Democrats in the forthcoming Israeli elections, added:”The criminal policy of the Israeli government in the West Bank, which is bringing disaster upon us in every field, also harms Israel’s relations with the world.”
Other opposition figures, including Emilie Moatti pointed the blame for sanctions at the Netanyahu government.
In stinging criticism Eran Etzion said:”The world is sending a clear message—it distinguishes between the Netanyahu-Kahane government and the messianists, and the democratic-liberal State of Israel, the one the world established on the 29th of November 1947.
“The world continues—still—to support the ‘original’ State of Israel. It supports the original Zionist idea, which, in Herzl’s words, is “a national home for the Jewish people in the Land of Israel, *according to the law of nations*.”
“But it will not support nor tolerate a terror-enabling Judaea state, law-breaking, expelling Palestinians, and annexing territories. A state whose government refuses any negotiation for peace, and becomes an “threat to world peace and security.”
Opposition leader Yair Lapid, while calling the UK sanctions a “grave mistake,” nonetheless blamed Netanyahu’s government for failing to prevent the situation. “
The responsibility lies with another enormous diplomatic failure of the Netanyahu government,” Lapid posted on X. “This government is leading us into unprecedented diplomatic isolation, and does nothing but issue threats that no one takes seriously.”
The Israeli opposition has repeatedly accused Netanyahu of driving Israel toward international isolation through his government’s policies, including the ongoing war in Gaza.
Netanyahu himself acknowledged about a year ago that Israel is entering a form of isolation.
Netanyahu’s government has approved 104 new illegal settlements, since 2022, while 160 agricultural outposts have been established in the West Bank, according to Palestinian figures.
In the first half of 2026 alone, Israeli settlers carried out 3,488 attacks in the occupied West Bank, killing 17 Palestinians and fully or partially displacing 26 Bedouin and pastoral communities, according to the Palestinian Colonisation and Wall Resistance Commission, which also documented the establishment of 42 new illegal outposts.
Currently, around 750,000 Israeli settlers live in 194 illegal settlements and 400 illegal outposts across the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, according to Palestinian statistics.
Israel has occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since 1967.
The international community continues to consider Israeli settlements in the occupied territories illegal under international law, a position Israel rejects.
Olmert was Israeli PM between January 2009 until March 2009. After leaving office, he was sentenced to six years in prison in 2014 for accepting bribes and for obstruction of justice during his terms as mayor of Jerusalem and as trade minister. He was released on parole in July 2017.
In 2025, Olmert wrote an article that alleged Israel was committing war crimes against Palestinians in Gaza.
He criticised the large Palestinian death toll in the conflict, and questioned the goals of the IDF and its ability to win the war.
He labeled the Israeli government under Netanyahu a “criminal gang” and suggested that the war was being intentionally prolonged for Netanyahu’s political benefit.
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