Arab News | Norway proposes 3 years’ imprisonment for trading with Israeli settlers

LONDON: Norway will introduce unprecedented legislation that will ban entities and individuals from trading with Israeli settlers in the occupied Palestinian territories and impose a penalty of up to three years in prison for those violating it.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide told the state broadcaster NRK that these measures align with recent European actions against trade with Israeli settlements, as violations against Palestinians in the West Bank have worsened.

The Norwegian ban will also extend to the 14 settlements in occupied East Jerusalem and another 265 in the West Bank.

Last week, the UK government announced a ban on goods produced in settlements. Norway joined Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden in issuing a statement endorsing the measures and indicating intent to take similar action.

“Israel has become far too accustomed to being able to intimidate Western countries by saying they were antisemites if they criticized Israel for abuses and violations of international law. Now the (protective cover) that Israel has in many ways enjoyed is gone,” Eide said.

Norway’s proposed bill covers East Jerusalem, which Palestinians regard as their future capital and which Israel occupied in 1967, later annexing it in 1980. The UK sanctions on trade with settlements in East Jerusalem remain unclear.

Eide said that trade with settlements mainly focused on wine and some agricultural products. Norway recognized Palestinian statehood in 2024. The bill will go to a vote after three months of consultation end on Sept. 19.

Israel’s Embassy in Oslo decried the bill, calling the “proposal to criminalize trade” the “latest example of the Norwegian foreign minister’s obsessive anti-Israel activism on the global stage,” according to the Times of Israel.