Young Communist League & Palestinian Democratic Youth Union Joint Statement:
On the Terrorist Settler Violence in the Occupied West Bank and the Foreign Minister’s Announced Measures:
We Will Not Accept Words in The Face of Ethnic Cleansing
The Young Communist League, in solidarity with the Palestinian Democratic Youth Union, our fraternal youth organisations and the Palestinian people, unequivocally condemn the fascistic attacks of terrorist settlers in the Occupied West Bank, the apartheid, genocidal State of Israel which arms and supports them, and the British government which is wholly complicit.
According to UN statistics, over 76 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank from January to August this year, including over 18 children murdered either by settler terrorist or IDF forces. These attacks are part of the over 4500 settler attacks have been recorded this year, an average of 18 per day. These attacks involve ‘killings, including of children, as well as assaults, sexual violence, physical and mental abuse, arbitrary detention, arson, property destruction, and theft.’ Since January 2023, over 130 Palestinian communities have been ethnically cleansed, including the refugee camps of Tulkarem and Jenin.
The terrorist settler gangs and Israeli state are indivisibly linked in colonisation efforts. From the protection offered to settlers expanding onto Palestinian land by the IDF to the official recognition of over 39 of 363 outposts. The Israeli state also approved 9,972 housing units in the Occupied West Bank since January 2026, already approaching the 10,958 of 2024 and 2025 combined. The most insidious plan however is the tenders for the long touted E1 settlement block. This aims to both link the illegal settlement of ‘Ma’ale Adumim’ to illegal settlements in occupied East Jerusalem, cut the final artery linking the North and South of the West Bank and further erode the possibility of establishing a sovereign Palestinian state as is openly touted by Israeli ministers.
These actions constitute an ever accelerating ethnic-cleansing campaign under the cover of a genocidal assault on the Gaza strip. These policies of the Israeli state cannot be separated, as they share the same objective – the complete liquidation of the Palestinian people on their land. We are clear in stating that the settlers are the face of the settler-colonial project of Zionism and always have been – from the village-by-village appropriations of the mandate period, the massacres of the Nakba to the blockade of Gaza. We reaffirm the right of the Palestinian people who continue to struggle against this and exercise their right of resistance by any means they deem necessary, including armed struggle in line with UN General Assembly Resolution 37/43.
Following the accession of Andy Burnham to the British premiership, his government has failed to materially distance itself from the genocidal governments of Starmer and his Tory predecessors. The words of Burnham and now-Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband fail to commit to any significant action, most egregiously in Miliband’s 8th September statement, announcing a so-called sanctions package against goods emanating from illegal West Bank settlements. In announcing these measures, the Foreign Secretary made clear that the government ‘wholeheartedly oppose the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions or BDS campaign’ and any trade with Israeli goods from within the green line will not be affected. This completely disregards the extensive interconnectedness of the settlements into the wider Israeli economy and seeks to draw a demarcation which the Israeli government is actively erasing – given Israeli policy of labelling goods from these territories, the occupied Syrian Golan or occupied West Bank as simply ‘Made in Israel’.
It is abundantly clear that the British government intends to continue to fly in the face of the UN Genocide Convention and the ICJ’s interim ruling. Instead, it rewards a genocidal power with free trade agreements and takes no meaningful measures against it for its policies in the occupied West Bank or in Gaza – in fact, again, the Foreign Secretary refused to join the majority of the British public or the world in labelling the world’s first live-streamed genocide as such. It only took 59 years and 2 months, from 10th June 1967 and 8th September 2026, for the British state to finally recognise the illegality of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank.
Once again, a British government has put imperial interests above the interests of the British working class, with even less regard given to the Palestinians who endure these horrors every day. It is estimated over 1,300 British citizens have served in the IDF since October 2023, allowing these sadists and terrorists to walk our streets freely poses a direct danger to working class men, women and children. Furthermore, in contravention of British law, an estimated £28 million has been funnelled to illegal West Bank settlements from Britain, with tax rebates subsidised by the taxes of a British working class that has spent the last 4 years facing price hikes in energy, rising cost of living and stagnating wages.
On the 8th of September, this government attempted to offer the minimum distraction to a British public that demands action, whilst putting no real pressure on the Israeli economy or war-machine – Miliband plays smoke and mirrors over the ashes of homes and bones of children. The responsibility remains with us, the British working class and youth, to act to pressure our government to follow international law.
The Young Communist League, as part of Britain’s anti-imperialist youth, reaffirms our full commitment to struggling alongside our fraternal comrades and organisations leading the Palestinian struggle. We renew our calls for the following:
- A full and comprehensive arms embargo on Israel
- The end of all trade agreements between Israel and Britain
- An end to all charitable status recognition for organisations who have funnelled money to illegal settlements and the investigation of all relevant persons for fraud
- The investigation and imprisonment as war criminals for all British nationals who served in the IDF since 2023
- The evacuation of all Israeli settlements and occupying forces from the West Bank;
- The establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state on the borders of June 1967 with the right of return for refugees.
Long Live the Palestinian Struggle! Long Live the Struggle of Britain’s Youth!
Right is our weapon, and we will resist!
International Department,
Young Communist League of Britain,
London
Palestinian Democratic Youth Union (PDYU)
Jerusalem,
Palestine
15th September 2026
