Layla Moran vows to pursue accountability, sanctions on Israel

One of Parliament's most prominent and longstanding advocates for Palestine, Liberal Democrat MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, Layla Moran, has vowed to continue pressing for accountability and pursuing UK sanctions on Israel.

Speaking to The New Arab, she said she is focused on working with Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband on the sanctions.

"I really want to make sure that voices of Palestinians, both in Britain and in Palestine, are heard as this debate goes through."

Getting the legislation right is important to Moran.

"There will be a small handful of British companies on [the sanction list], but I think we also need to be looking at the banks. We need to be looking at the people who are financing these deals. We need to be looking at the charities that are inadvertently supporting these settlements," she explained.

"It needs to go very wide, and a strong message from government isn't enough. It needs to bite, and if need be, people need to go to jail," she continued.

Her comments come after the Israeli government in September banned 12 British politicians from entering the country after the UK announced sanctions on Israeli settler groups in the West Bank.

Missing from that list was Moran.

"I'm genuinely surprised I'm not one of them," Moran told The New Arab.

Moran is the first and only British Member of Parliament with Palestinian heritage. Her mother's family left their home in Jerusalem in the late 1960s, after the Six-Day War of 1967.

"All my life we would hang on to the hope that one day we would have a homeland again," she said.

"It's just heartbreaking," she continued.

Despite her family's forced displacement and exile, Moran acknowledges that there is a small community of Jews in Israel who support the rights of Palestinians.

"I'm really careful not to tarnish everybody in Israel with the same brush, because you're encompassing in that also Palestinians, and also those really brave Jewish citizens who are standing by the Palestinian compatriots and standing up against the occupation, quite often getting hurt in the process."

"...I'm not trying to overblow this, but if we in the West don't support those [pro-Palestine Jewish] voices, if we can't work with them, then we're doing them a disservice."

**Responsibility in parliament **

Moran also explained she feels the responsibility of being the only British-Palestinian in Parliament, which is reflected in her approach to politics.

"I'm really, really careful about what I say and how I say it."

"I vehemently disagree with huge swathes of policy in Israel. But when you disagree, you have to disagree in a way that shows a level of pragmatism and grown-upness."

The MP has long championed Palestinian causes that eventually became government policy.

She pushed for UK recognition of the State of Palestine, which came in September 2025, and for sanctions against Israeli settler groups in the West Bank, which followed a year later.

She has reiterated hopes that the sanctions are not just confined to the West Bank and Israel.

"I listen very carefully to those who say, 'Well, why are you doing this to Israel and nowhere else?'"

"It's not the only place in the world where there is a genocide, and I very much hope that we are also going to be levelling this kind of thing elsewhere in the world."

The parliamentarian has reaffirmed her commitment to seeking justice, and ensuring the sanctions target the right individuals, companies and groups.

"I've got a good track record when I put my mind to something, so watch this space."

Some quotes have been edited for length and clarity.