NDP response to the ban on trade with illegal settlements

NDP Foreign Affairs Critic Heather McPherson issued the following statement:

"New Democrats welcome today’s announcement by UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband signalling a reset in UK-Israel relations in response to Israel’s ongoing occupation and genocide, and we are encouraged by a joint statement that Canada will soon follow suit.

Collective action by the global community is crucial to ending Israel’s brutal decades-long occupation of the West Bank and the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

The UK government’s announcement includes a ban on trade in goods and services from illegal Israeli settlements, with a ban on advertising the sale of settlements – a concern that Canada must also address.

In 2021, members of the New Democratic Party of Canada voted to make a ban on trade with illegal settlements official NDP policy. In the years since, New Democrats have urged the Liberal government to take concrete action as illegal settlements expand, Palestinians are driven from their homes, and the Israeli government continues its brutal assault on Palestinian life in the West Bank and in Gaza.

Canada has failed to uphold international law, including Canada’s legal obligations, as tens of thousands of Palestinians are killed, hundreds of thousands are displaced and injured, and an entire people endures unimaginable devastation in Israel’s ongoing genocide.

We are now watching, in real time, as Israeli and American officials and investors discuss plans that would amount to the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, while violent settlers, backed by the Israeli government, attack Palestinians, steal their land and force families from their homes in the West Bank.

A Canadian ban on trade with illegal settlements is a first step. Canada must also cancel the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement, end all military cooperation and arms trade with Israel, and impose sanctions on the Israeli government. Canada must also officially recognize the genocide in Gaza, as it has done in other cases, and support international justice efforts including at the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.

Canada must also ensure students in Gaza who have been accepted to Canadian universities are granted their visas immediately. Today in the UK Commons, Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said the UK is proud to have welcomed students from Gaza and would continue to do so. It is shocking that Canada refuses to take the same action."