Palestine weekly: Settlement sanctions spark diplomatic crisis

This past week, a flurry of Western countries announced forthcoming sanctions on Israel – limited, for now, to its illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. Israel’s response was swift and aggressive: on September 9, it gave the United Kingdom 30 days to close its consulate in occupied East Jerusalem. As Israel hardened its international defiance, such diplomatic moves did little to slow the dispossession of Palestinian land and identity in Jerusalem and the West Bank, as well as the ongoing killings and deterioration of basic conditions in Gaza. Such efforts can be difficult to grasp as a single, coordinated process.