Plaid Cymru calls for Israel boycott over Gaza

Plaid Cymru members have called for a sporting and economic boycott of Israel over the war in Gaza in a vote at their party conference on Saturday.

The party’s Westminster MPs backed a motion which described Israel an “apartheid state” and accused it of “ethnic cleansing and war crimes”.

It came after the the Palestinians’ top envoy to the UK, Husam Zomlot, called for Wales to pressure the UK government at conference on Saturday afternoon.

He told the conference Israel must be “compelled” to comply with international law.

He accused the country of “waging war on the global rules based order”, and was applauded when he called for an arms embargo of the country, and for the immediate recognition of the state of Palestine.

Saying Israel was committing a “genocide”, Mr Zomlot added: “It is heart-breaking that death in Gaza has become the best of options, the easiest of options.”

About 1,200 people – mostly Israeli civilians – were killed in the Hamas 7 October attacks just over one year ago.

Since then, some 42,000 people have been killed as part of Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

The motion proposed by the party’s members in Ceredigion and backed by Plaid’s MPs condemned “in the strongest possible terms” the “murders of tens of thousands of Palestinians, including over 10,000 children, by the state of Israel”.

It criticised the “violence perpetrated by Hamas against innocent people in Israel” but says the “increasingly oppressive apartheid regime maintained by the Israeli government makes a two-state solution less likely to bring about a just peace”.

The motion said the UK government should “expel the Israeli ambassador”, ban arms sales to Israel, and that all Plaid members should support an “economic and cultural boycott”.

That would include Welsh national sports teams boycotting the country.

It also said councils should divest from companies that “support the apartheid Israeli state”.

Ben Lake, MP for Ceredigion Preseli who proposed the motion at conference, said: “We should offer no assistance to states that are in contravention of UN Security Council resolutions and ICJ rulings.

“We urgently need a political settlement to this war – that should include official recognition of Palestinian statehood.”

The Plaid motion cited Amnesty International, which in 2022 said Israel’s laws, policies and practices against Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories amounted to apartheid.

It said it maintained “an institutionalised regime of oppression and domination of the Palestinian population for the benefit of Jewish Israelis”.

At the time, Israel’s foreign ministry had accused Amnesty of recycling “lies, inconsistencies, and unfounded assertions that originate from well-known anti-Israeli hate organisations”.

Palestinians have accused Israel of genocide in Gaza, which the country has denied.

The UN human rights special rapporteur Francesa Albanese has said she believes Israel has committed “acts of genocide”, while the International Court of Justice ruled in January that the country should “take all measures to prevent genocidal acts”.

In an interview with the BBC, party leader Rhun ap Iorwerth hinted at a difference of opinion on the matter, declining to confirm whether he personally endorsed the motion.

Ap Iorwerth said Israel had acted contrary to international law. “Individuals will take different positions on matters like boycotts,” he said.

“Those attacks a year ago were appalling, and we condemn them. We need to see the release of surviving hostages, but we also need to call out the state of Israel.”