London wants to lecture Israel on ‘occupation’? Wait until Jerusalem mentions the Falklands

Britain’s settlement sanctions were never going to stay in London. Days after Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband announced an import ban on goods from Israeli communities in the West Bank and penalties for those who help them expand, 11 other governments said they would follow. Norway is now moving a bill that would make buying or selling those goods a crime punishable by up to three years in prison. Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide says the case is stronger precisely because so many others are piling on. That is why Israel’s first reply was a mistake. Closing the British Consulate in East Jerusalem and barring a few officials is the sort of gesture Miliband already priced in. He told the BBC Britain had weighed Israeli retaliation “and we thought we simply could not stand by.” A priced-in slap does not deter the next capital drafting a prison term.Former Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel now says Jerusalem is weighing trade limits and a pullback of Israeli investment from Britain. That would be the second mistake. Bilateral trade is nearly 6 billion euros. Israeli exporters, funds, and tech firms would pay as surely as the city would. Europe wants a fight on a field where Israel has something to lose. Don’t give it one. Recognize Argentina’s claim to the Falkland Islands instead. Argentine President Javier Milei has restated the claim and threatened sanctions on the Sea Lion field — about 1.7 billion barrels, operated by Israel’s Navitas Petroleum with a British partner. Miliband’s answer was that the islands “are British and will remain so.” Britain has administered them since 1833 and the islanders want to stay British. Argentina, most of Latin America, and U.N. resolutions calling for negotiations do not treat that as the last word. Argentina’s title argument is uti possidetis juris: a new state inherits the administrative lines of the colony it left. Spain ran the islands as part of the Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata. On that doctrine, title passed to Buenos Aires at independence. The same doctrine is the one Israeli lawyers use for the British Mandate. Natasha Harsdorff of UK Lawyers for Israel puts it cleanly: When a new state forms, it inherits the preexisting administrative lines unless there is another binding settlement. In 1948 that was the Mandate west of the Jordan. The rule came out of Spanish withdrawal from South America and has been applied to mandates, African borders, and the breakup of communist federations. London cannot lecture Jerusalem about “occupation” from islands it took off a Spanish successor state and then feign shock when someone quotes the doctrine back. The move also serves Washington. President Donald Trump is close to Milei, still annoyed that Britain sat out the U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran, and has put a premium on the hemisphere under what officials now call the “Donroe Doctrine.” The Treasury’s $20 billion swap in October 2025 helped carry Milei through midterm elections. Milei’s Isaac Accords, launched with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on April 19, were built for exactly this map: Israel, Argentina, and like-minded governments against Iranian networks in the Americas. Latin America already sides with Argentina on the islands. It is also home to some 360,000 Jews. That is a better return than a tariff war with a declining Labour Cabinet. Republicans have already started asking why European governments should sanction an American ally for free. Ambassador Mike Huckabee warned of consequences. Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) pointed to state law that can shut boycotting firms out of public business. The White House has so far been muted. An Israeli recognition that helps Milei gives those members something real to work with, and tells Norway that a three-year sentence for a bottle of wine is not a cost-free virtue signal. ROBERT KRAFT DREW A LINE IN A WEEK. JOSH SHAPIRO HAS HAD A YEARIsrael has done this kind of recognition before. When it recognized Somaliland in December 2025, the question was whether anyone had heard of the place. Senators and policy shops followed. First movers look eccentric until they set the agenda. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said Jews have the right to live throughout the Land of Israel “just as the British have the right to live in London.” Fine. Britain does not have an unquestioned right to the Falklands. If Miliband wants a conversation about sovereignty, give him one that actually costs him something — and make the next European foreign minister think twice before writing a prison term. Lawrence Solomon is a founding columnist at the Financial Post and managing director of Energy Probe Research Foundation.