World
Norway readies bill to ban all trade with Israeli settlements
OSLO, Norway — The Norwegian government said on Friday it planned to ban all trade with Israeli settlements in the West Bank as well as Jewish neighborhoods in Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem.
“Norwegian people and Norwegian companies should not contribute to sustaining illegal settlements. The policy of colonization undermines the possibility of achieving a two-state solution,” the foreign ministry in Oslo said in a statement.
Specifically, the government said it wants to ban trade in goods produced in Israeli settlements in Gaza — none of which currently exist — and the West Bank as well as areas of Jerusalem that most in the international community consider to be occupied.
Israel has controlled the West Bank since capturing the territory from Jordan during the 1967 Six-Day War, a conflict that also saw Israel take the Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights. Israel annexed East Jerusalem — a move not recognized by most of the international community — while the West Bank has remained under varying forms of Israeli military and civil control ever since.
There have not been any Jewish settlements inside Gaza since the 2005 Disengagement. While some far-right elements of the government have called for such settlements to be reestablished in the Strip, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly reassured allies that Israel would not do so.
Oslo also plans to outlaw “the purchase of property in the settlements, the provision of services relating to the construction, renovation, purchase or sale of property in these areas, and the acquisition of commercial enterprises whose head office and production facilities are located in the settlements,” the ministry said.
The government has drafted a bill to this effect, which will be subject to consultations for three months, until September 19.
“We want to ban all commercial activity with these illegal settlements,” Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said in the statement.
The bill stresses that Norway will continue trade and other ties with legitimate Palestinian activities on Palestinian land, as well as the provision of humanitarian aid.
“The colonies undermine the very foundations of the Palestinian state,” Barth Eide said.
Norway, which is not a member of the European Union, recognized the state of Palestine in 2024, at the same time as EU members Ireland and Spain did, a move which angered Israel.
Ireland is pushing for the 27-nation EU to ban all trade with Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories.
The bloc said last week it would look at options for “restricting” trade with settlements. But there remains no consensus among the bloc’s member states to take further steps against Israel, such as ending the EU-Israel preferential trade agreement.
