Norway weighing bill imposing up to 3 years in prison for trade with settlements, East Jerusalem, FM says

By Nava Freiberg

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14 September 2026, 2:33 pm

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Nava Freiberg is The Times of Israel's deputy diplomatic correspondent.

Norway Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide speaks on the sidelines of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting at the Philippine International Convention Center in Pasay, Metro Manila, July 22, 2026. (Rolex Dela Pena/Pool via AP)

Norway is weighing legislation this fall banning trade with Israeli settlements and providing for penalties of up to three years in prison for violations, Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide tells state broadcaster NRK, prompting backlash from Israel’s embassy in Oslo.

“The arguments [in support of the bill] have only become stronger because the situation in the West Bank has become even worse. In addition, so many other countries are now doing the same thing the government has already proposed through this bill,” Eide tells NRK in a Norwegian-language interview.

The trade ban law, which would apply to individuals and companies trading with settlements, according to NRK, follows the United Kingdom’s newly announced wide-ranging sanctions package against Israeli West Bank settlements last week. Norway, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden issued a joint statement shortly after expressing their intentions to take or support similar measures.

“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 says.

East Jerusalem, which holds a status different to that of the West Bank, is also covered by the bill, according to NRK.

While dozens of countries have recognized East Jerusalem as Palestinian territory and the capital of a future Palestinian state, Israel formally annexed the area in 1980, 13 years after capturing the territory during the 1967 Six Day War. Many of the dozens of Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem are, in practice, fully integrated neighborhoods of Jerusalem. The UK is undecided as to whether Jewish areas in East Jerusalem would be covered by its sanctions, a British official told reporters last week.

Trade between Norway and the Israeli settlements is not extensive, Eide notes to NRK, saying “the goods in question include, for example, wine and some agricultural products.”

Israel’s embassy in Norway decries the potential measure, calling the “proposal to criminalize trade” the “latest example of the Norwegian foreign minister’s obsessive anti-Israel activism on the global stage.”