North Herefordshire MP calls new Government sanctions on trade with Israeli settlements “critical and overdue”
Ellie Chowns has welcomed the Government's move
North Herefordshire Green MP Ellie Chowns has called the Government’s announcement of sweeping sanctions on trade with Israeli settlements in the West Bank “critical and overdue”.
The party’s foreign affairs spokesperson, Dr Chowns said the moves announced yesterday by Labour’s new foreign secretary Ed Miliband, “mark a critical and overdue step towards upholding the UK’s obligations under international law, which the Green Party has long fought for and strongly support”.
She said Mr Miliband’s earlier promise of a “reset” in Britain’s relationship with the Israeli government “could not be more welcome, nor more needed”.
“It is critical that our work does not end here,” Dr Chowns added. “The UK has a legal and moral responsibility to use every lever to end its complicity in the Israeli government’s crimes, including the ongoing genocide in Gaza.”
The Israeli government meanwhile announced this week a ban on Dr Chowns and the Greens’ four other MPs, along with six other left-wing British parliamentarians from its territory.
A Green Party spokesperson said on the move: “We will not be bullied into silence by the Israeli government.
“We are proud of our MPs for standing up for Palestinian rights and demanding an end to British complicity in genocide and illegal occupation.
“Banning our representatives only strengthens our resolve.”
Meanwhile the UK’s Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis has said the announcement of sanctions by Mr Miliband, who is Jewish, was “truly dark day for British Jews”.
The measures amounted to “political flag-bearing for mendacious anti-Israel rhetoric and those who harbour a dangerous obsession with the Jewish state”, and would “further embolden those who use hatred as a weapon against Jews”, he claimed.