CANZUK (an acronym formed from the initial letters of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK), is an advocacy body promoting the idea of close formal cooperation between those founder members of the defunct British Empire. The organization must be rubbing its hands in satisfaction, metaphorically speaking, at their first truly joint initiative.

For on June 10, the CANZUK group of nations, joined by Norway, collectively imposed sanctions on two Israeli cabinet ministers, Itamar Ben-Gvir (national security minister) and Bezalel Smotrich (finance minister). To be quite clear, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich are not charged with any criminal or illegal activity.

According to the document signed by the parties involved, their offense was “inciting violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.” In other words, it was not for anything they did, but for what they said, that sanctions were imposed.

The document proceeds to provide the signatories’ opinion about the behavior that merited the punishment: “Settler violence is incited by extremist rhetoric which calls for Palestinians to be driven from their homes, encourages violence and human rights abuses and fundamentally rejects the two-state solution.”

The CANZUK nations and Norway apparently believe that right-wing rhetoric not only incites settler violence but, sin of sins, induces people to reject that article of faith of the Western world – the two-state solution. Discounted, or ignored, is the fact that for nearly a century Arab leadership has rejected umpteen opportunities to embrace a two-state solution, starting in 1937 with the Peel Commission, but including the UN’s proposal in 1947.

Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir. (credit: FLASH90)
Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir. (credit: FLASH90)
Most Palestinians still do not want a two-state solution. The most recent poll of Palestinian opinion, conducted in the first few days of May 2025, reveals that some 60% of respondents reject the idea. What the majority want was revealed in a poll conducted by Birzeit University in November 2023. It found that 74.7% of Palestinians supported “a Palestinian state from the river to the sea,” that is, across the entire land including today’s Israel, essentially eliminating Israel’s sovereign status.

Nevertheless, the West is intent on forcing a two-state solution on them. That would involve creating a Palestinian state sited within easy striking distance of Tel Aviv and Ben-Gurion Airport, and certain to act as a launch pad for jihadists seeking Israel’s destruction and the slaughter of as many Jews as possible. Such considerations are ignored or discounted.

There seems to be a consensus that settler violence against Palestinians has been on the increase, while government action against the perpetrators has been inadequate. Reports in the media suggest that, since October 7, there are on average about four incidents of settler violence each day across the West Bank.

President Isaac Herzog has explicitly condemned the rise in extremist settler actions. He has described settler attacks on Palestinians as “illegal and immoral,” and condemned violent, cruel, and unrestrained riots by settlers against innocent Palestinian residents as a sort of revenge for terrorist attacks. Herzog emphasized that such acts contradict moral and Jewish values.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also publicly condemned settler violence – directed at times against the IDF in its attempts to restore calm – but the political imperative of maintaining the integrity of his coalition is widely believed to have held him back from taking effective action against it. A few violent settlers have faced legal restrictions or arrests, but the vast majority of complaints of settler violence have not resulted in convictions.

Sanctioning Israeli ministers emboldens the enemy

So the issue is real, and more needs to be done to bring it under control. But in what sense is it the business of foreign governments? As each of the sanctioning governments are aware, outspoken extremists from both Left and Right emerge occasionally in democracies. Western governments may have no sympathy at all with the views held passionately by right-wing Israelis, but sanctioning two democratically elected members of the Israeli government for giving voice to their opinions is unprecedented. The main effect of targeting Israeli ministers will be to embolden Hamas and its fellow jihadists.

“We remind our partners,” said US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, “not to forget who the real enemy is.”There are at least seven members of the UK Parliament who have consistently promulgated unsubstantiated charges against Israel, advocated action aimed at boycotting the state, and given comfort to those intent on eliminating Israel altogether. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. The most appropriate action the Israeli government could take in response to Britain’s sanctions is to impose sanctions on those whose statements stir up antisemitic violence on the streets of Europe’s major cities.

When two on-the-record anti-Israel Labour MPs – Yuan Yang and Abtisam Mohamed – were turned back at Israel’s borders on April 5 because they had “supported campaigns aimed at boycotting the State of Israel,” what a furor there was in the UK Parliament. Britain’s Middle East minister, Hamish Falconer, opened an 80-minute debate on the matter by telling the Commons that this was “no way to treat democratically elected representatives.”

There is also a distinct group of MPs in Parliament dedicated to an anti-Israel agenda. In the general election of July 2024, a number of Muslims decided to contest Labour-held constituencies with significant Muslim populations. In four of them they managed to unseat the sitting Labour MP. A fifth winning contestant was Jeremy Corbyn, the left-wing former leader of the Labour party who once described Hamas and Hezbollah as his friends.

The five, calling themselves the Independent Alliance, have became a sort of anti-Israel lobby in Parliament. The members are:

Shockat Adam: “Israel has done everything in its capacity to try and destroy any chance of Palestinian statehood – through settlement, land theft, and now the wholesale decimation of Gaza.”

Adnan Hussein: “They let Gaza burn... Now let’s make Israel burn, let’s make Israel burn. We will stop their funding...”

Ayoub Khan: “The government have done little to change the course of Israeli aggression.”

Iqbal Mohamed: “Find every brand... that has been supporting Israel and Zionism... Put the list on your fridge.”So there are at least seven members of Britain’s Parliament spreading hatred of Israel and encouraging its boycott. If sanctions on rhetoric are now the order of the day, why should Israel not declare to the world that it will no longer tolerate active advocacy of anti-Israel action?

These seven, at least, might each have the sanction of persona non grata slapped on them, and be told that their presence in Israel would be unacceptable in any circumstances.

The writer is the Middle East correspondent for Eurasia Review. His latest book is Trump and the Holy Land: 2016-2020. Follow him at: www.a-mid-east-journal.blogspot.com.