Donald Trump has questioned the timing of the UK’s ban on trade with illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The US president appeared unusually reticent to comment further on the sanctions imposed by Britain, Canada and France, saying he wanted to first speak to Israel to “find out their thinking”.
Trump’s response to the trade ban
Asked about the trade ban as he headed to a Republican convention in Texas, Mr Trump said: “Well, I’ve just seen it and I’ll be speaking to Israel. I’ll be speaking to them and I’ll find out what’s their thinking.”
“I understand exactly what’s going on, but I want to find out why all of a sudden does that happen.”
It has been reported that Mr Trump did not argue against the imposition of sanctions when informed about them in a phone call with Prime Minister Andy Burnham on Monday.
UK government defends the move
The move, announced by Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband on Tuesday, has triggered a diplomatic row with Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and sparked domestic criticism.
Mr Burnham defended his Government’s ban on trade with illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, telling MPs that Britain “must stand for something”. While at Prime Minister’s Questions in the Commons on Wednesday, Mr Burnham said the UK was showing “leadership on the world stage”.
Israel’s response and domestic criticism
But the move drew swift condemnation from Israel, whose foreign minister Gideon Saar announced the closure of the British consulate in East Jerusalem and banned 11 MPs, including former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, from entering the country.
The Government has faced criticism from some Jewish figures, including chief rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis, who described the ban as “gesture politics” that would “succeed only in bolstering the very extremism they seek to target”.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has also criticised the move, by saying that it was “performative politics, designed to appease Labour MPs and activists regardless of the consequences for Britain”.
Mr Miliband expressed “regret” at Israel’s response and acknowledged the closure of the consulate, which represents the UK in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, would be “damaging”. But he told Sky News the Government had “weighed up the costs and benefits in advance of this” and decided the ban was “the right thing to do”.
He added that the UK would “let our American friends speak for themselves” but noted the international community had been “quite frustrated, to put it mildly, with some of the actions of the Israeli government”.
