US Press
Analyst says EU's Israel trade dwarfs Britain's new ban
Graphic: Times of Palestine
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Britain's ban on imports from Israel's West Bank settlements is a moral statement, but the European Union holds the economic leverage that could actually change Israeli policy, Anchal Vohra, a Brussels-based columnist, argued in a piece carried by the Quincy Institute's Responsible Statecraft on 11 September.
The argument#
Vohra, who writes on European affairs for Foreign Policy, laid out the gap in scale: the EU is Israel's largest trading partner, with roughly €43 billion a year in trade between them, dwarfing Britain's own commercial exposure.
Eleven countries have coordinated with London's restrictions on settlement goods, and nine more have signaled they are considering similar bans, but the EU bloc itself has so far enacted only narrow sanctions — on 12 individuals and 9 entities.
"The EU has long discussed a hierarchy of possible measures … but has dithered on moving forward," Vohra wrote, attributing the delay to the unanimity or qualified-majority support a bloc-wide trade measure would need, with Germany and Italy among the member states resisting.
Why it matters for Palestinians#
Vohra's own reporting elsewhere has quoted EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas backing what she called a "principled stance" on a settlement trade ban, but Vohra's analysis is that growing European reliance on Israeli defense technology, not principle, will decide whether that stance becomes bloc-wide policy.
Her conclusion: national measures like Britain's, not EU consensus, are the realistic near-term path, and even those prospects she rates as low. The Quincy Institute, which publishes Responsible Statecraft, is a Washington think tank that argues for restraint in US foreign policy and has been a sustained critic of unconditional US military support for Israel.
