The UK Defies International Law to Target Jews

By Mark Swarbrick

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The United Kingdom has taken sides with Satan against the Israel of God. It has joined an economic attack on Jews living in Judea and Samaria, the biblical heartland of Israel, the ground of Joshua’s altar, and the land London now has the arrogance to declare “unlawful” for the Jewish people.

The UK has announced an import ban on goods from Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, penalties against those who finance, build, or advertise them, and an official determination that Israel’s presence there is unlawful. It has accused Jewish settlers of “ethnic cleansing.” Other Western governments have lined up behind London. Israel responded by giving the United Kingdom thirty days to close its consulate in Jerusalem and by cutting other British roles on the ground.

What the United Kingdom is doing is not merely bad policy. It is morally perverse and fundamentally dishonest. It treats Jews living in the biblical heartland of their own nation as though their very presence there were the crime. It repeats the loaded language of “occupation” and “illegal settlements” as though those political slogans were unquestionable statements of settled law.

London says it acted after hearing from the Palestinian Authority. But the Palestinian Authority is not some neutral or moderate voice in this conflict. The PA has operated the notorious system commonly called “pay-for-slay,” providing payments to Palestinian prisoners and to families of Palestinians killed or wounded in connection with attacks against Israelis. Under the longstanding system, payments to prisoners increased with the length of their sentences, meaning that those convicted of the most serious terrorist crimes could receive greater financial rewards. The result was a system that financially rewarded terrorism against Israelis, including the murder of Jews.

Nor is the ultimate objective difficult to understand. Palestinian rhetoric and maps have repeatedly depicted “Palestine” as extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. There is no Israel on those maps. That vision means Israel ceases to exist as the Jewish state. Taken to its logical and historical conclusion, it means eliminating Jewish sovereignty from the land,  driving the Jews from it, and killing any that remain

The Palestinian Authority is a terrorist regime, whatever diplomats prefer to call it. It has financially rewarded terrorists and their families while promoting a political vision in which the Jewish state disappears. Yet the United Kingdom has chosen to listen to the PA while imposing economic punishment upon Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. Strip away the diplomatic language and the direction of the policy becomes unmistakable. By taking the PA’s side against Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, the United Kingdom has chosen the side of Satan’s terrorists in his ancient war against Israel.

Land for Peace Never Works

Gaza already demonstrated what can happen when Israel surrenders land in the hope of peace. In 2005 Israel removed every Jewish community and withdrew its permanent military presence from Gaza. Hamas ultimately seized control, turned the territory into a base for war, and on October 7, 2023, terrorists poured across the border and slaughtered Jews in their homes, murdered families, kidnapped civilians, and carried hostages back into Gaza. That was the bitter harvest of the promise that surrendering land would produce peace.

Yet the United Kingdom now demands that Israel repeat the experiment in territory overlooking the very center of the country. London imagines that making Israel smaller and less defensible will somehow make Israel safer. It economically punishes Jewish communities while lending legitimacy to a terrorist organization demanding that Jews surrender their ancestral heartland. There is something grotesque about calling that a policy for “peace.”

This land is part of Israel. Joshua’s altar stands in Samaria. In a very real sense, that ground is Israel’s Plymouth Rock. God commanded Joshua to build an altar when Israel entered the land, and the stones remain there to this day as a witness to an Israelite presence reaching back thousands of years. Jews living within sight of that place are now called “illegal settlers,” as though they were foreigners who recently wandered onto somebody else’s soil.

They are not foreigners. They are living in the heartland of Israel, the land of Abraham, Joshua, Judah, Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel. The United Kingdom has aimed its sanctions at Jewish communities surrounding some of the most ancient ground in Israel’s national history and then declared the Jewish presence there unlawful. That is not a minor diplomatic disagreement. It is an attempt to use economic and political pressure to pry the Jewish people away from the very soil upon which their national history was written.

The Legal Case

I have already set out the biblical case for Israel’s title to this land in my previous article, The UK Turns on Israel. Here I want to concentrate on something London should supposedly understand very well: the legal case.

International lawyer Natasha Hausdorff has repeatedly pointed to the international-law principle known as uti possidetis juris, meaning essentially “as you possess under law.” The principle has been applied in the formation of new states to preserve the administrative boundaries of the preceding territorial unit unless those boundaries are lawfully altered. Its purpose is obvious: when a new state emerges, its borders cannot simply be left to whoever later decides to challenge them.

The territorial unit preceding the State of Israel was the British Mandate for Palestine. Under this argument, when Israel declared independence in 1948, the principle of uti possidetis juris supports Israel inheriting the boundaries of that territorial unit unless a binding legal arrangement established otherwise. Judea and Samaria were not the sovereign territory of a Palestinian state. There was no Palestinian state there. Indeed, there has never been a sovereign Palestinian state anywhere.

That is why the language London uses is so important. Words are being used to decide the case before the case is even argued. Call Judea and Samaria “occupied Palestinian territory,” and the listener naturally assumes that there was once a sovereign country called Palestine from which Israel seized the land. There was not. Call Jewish towns “illegal settlements,” and the listener assumes that Jews crossed an internationally recognized border and planted communities inside somebody else’s sovereign nation. They did not. The terminology quietly invents the historical premise necessary to reach the political conclusion.

Even the name Judea exposes the absurdity. The word Jew is derived from Judah, the same historical root from which Judea receives its name. We have therefore reached the astonishing point where Western governments speak as though Jews are foreign intruders in Judea. Think about what is actually being said: the people whose very name is bound to this land are being told that living there is unlawful.

Hausdorff is right to emphasize the power of this terminology. “Occupation” and “illegal settlements” are not merely descriptions. They function as legal and political weapons, preparing the public to accept the proposition that Jews must eventually be removed from Judea and Samaria. The language transforms the ancestral inhabitants into trespassers and then presents their removal as an act of justice.

The United Kingdom has neither the jurisdiction nor the moral authority to rewrite history and law according to the political fashion of the moment. Parliament cannot make the Jewish heartland foreign territory by declaring it so. A British minister cannot erase thousands of years of Jewish history or manufacture, by press release, a sovereign Palestinian state that never existed. That is not law. It is politics wearing a wig.

Israel has at various times withdrawn from territory or deferred the assertion of its claims in pursuit of peace. That does not mean politicians in London hold the deed to the land. It means Israel has repeatedly been willing to sacrifice extraordinarily valuable strategic and historical interests in the hope that its enemies might finally accept its existence.

October 7 should have shattered the fantasy that surrendering land automatically purchases peace. Land surrendered can become land from which rockets are fired, tunnels are dug, invasions are launched, and Jewish families are murdered. Israel has a right to defend itself and a right to maintain Jewish communities within its own territory. Annexation of Judea and Samaria would not be the theft of another sovereign country. It would be Israel formally asserting sovereignty over territory which is already rightfully hers.

What Will Come Back Upon the Nations That Do This

For the Christian, however, there is a dimension to this dispute that reaches far beyond international law. God has already spoken concerning nations that curse Israel and concerning the division of His land. “And I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse” (Genesis 12:3, LSB). Joel likewise warns of God’s judgment upon nations because “they have scattered them among the nations; and they have divided up My land” (Joel 3:2, LSB).

Those are not decorative verses to be printed on Christian posters and forgotten when governments begin applying pressure to Israel. They are warnings. Nations do not gain immunity from them because their officials sit behind polished desks, issue diplomatic communiqués, or invoke the language of international consensus. God has not surrendered His sovereignty to the United Nations, the European Union, the British Parliament, or any other earthly government.

Israel has now started the clock on the British consulate in Jerusalem and has warned that other countries following London’s path will face consequences. Those consequences may not remain merely diplomatic. U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee has already condemned the ban as discrimination against the Jewish people and said there would “without a doubt” be an American response, including possible consequences through state laws aimed at companies participating in boycotts of Israel. That could become enormously significant because roughly three dozen American states have enacted anti-BDS laws, executive orders, or other measures restricting state business with companies that boycott Israel.

Jason Rapert of the National Association of Christian Lawmakers, speaking from Israel after visiting Kfar Aza and standing in Samaria, has pointed to Arkansas and other states that already have such statutes and has said lawmakers are examining ways to strengthen them. Rep. Randy Fine, who was instrumental in Florida’s anti-BDS legislation, has likewise warned that countries such as Canada and France should not assume they are beyond the reach of economic consequences. The principle is simple: if foreign governments intend to punish businesses for dealing with Jews in Judea and Samaria, American states can examine whether businesses participating in that boycott should continue enjoying the privilege of doing business with American taxpayers.

The governments participating in this economic attack include the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden. Do not buy from them when you can reasonably buy elsewhere. But do more than change where you spend your money. Make Washington and your state government hear from you.

Call the United States Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121. Tell the operator what state you live in and ask to be connected to the offices of your two U.S. senators. Call again and ask for your member of the House of Representatives. If you do not know who represents you, go to Congress.gov and use the member information there to identify your senators and representative and obtain their contact information.

When you reach their offices, do not give them a twenty-minute speech. Tell them plainly: “I am your constituent. I oppose the boycott of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. I want the United States to treat foreign government measures targeting those communities as a boycott of Israel and to take appropriate action against governments and companies participating in it.” Ask the staff member to record your position and pass it to the senator or representative.

Then contact your governor and your state legislators. Search your state government’s official website for the governor’s office and the pages identifying your state senator and state representative. Call or email them and say: “My state has laws or policies opposing boycotts of Israel. I want to know whether those provisions apply to companies participating in foreign government boycotts of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, and I want those laws enforced to the fullest extent permitted by law.”

This is one of those moments when Christians should understand that silence is itself a choice. We cannot preach Genesis 12:3 on Sunday and then shrug on Monday while Western governments economically punish Jews for living in Judea. We cannot proclaim that God gave this land to Israel while remaining indifferent when powerful nations attempt to pressure Israel off that land. If we believe what Scripture says, then this is not somebody else’s political quarrel. It is a moment requiring Christians to decide where they stand.

The nations have chosen their side. Let there be no question which side we choose. Stand with Israel. Stand with the Jewish people. Stand against those who would divide the land God calls His own. Bless the people whom God has not cast away, because when the nations of this world have issued their rulings, imposed their sanctions, and exhausted their threats, they will discover that Britain, Europe, the United Nations, and the enemies of Israel do not have the final word. The God of Israel does.



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