Six to nine months. The runway is the one British officials have secretly provided themselves with to determine just how strict or loose the landmark ban will be on West Bank settlement trade how they act during the interim between election and government, in particular, may either broaden or constrict the ban. In a statement to reporters this week, a high-ranking official in the UK was careful not to say that the sanctions regime announced by Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband would never be eased or withdrawn. The door is open the other way, however London is still making its final decision on what the policy will include and Israel's actions in the coming weeks, until next spring, will help answer the question.

That one admission puts what appeared to be an exclusory, punitive penalty on the table into a more live, real negotiation, set against the backdrop of an Israeli election set to go on October 27, in which polling indicates a right-wing bloc headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is tied with an opposition coalition, neither of which is expected to reach the 61-seat majority needed to win. Britain has essentially said to Jerusalem: convince us you're right about the course of the settlement enterprise or convince us you're wrong. Both responses will help determine the extent of this import ban.

The British side says it was not a general violation of the settlers' rights but a specific broken promise. Israel has stated it won't take any new steps on the controversial E1 corridor near Jerusalem before the election—and then issued a housing tender there just a week before voters go to the polls. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar has strongly protested against that interpretation, stating that the approval of E1 dates back to 2025 and the tender process was far advanced, implying that this was a continuation of the administrative process and not provocation. Both readings appear legitimate on the record and the issue of intent is precisely why trust between the two governments has broken to the extent that Netanyahu and new UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham have not spoken directly since Burnham took office in late July.

But the fact that there is still a very real question regarding geography is inconsequential from the headlines, and the details are more important than what the story says. Whether it includes Jewish neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem or the Jewish Quarter in the Old City remains "undecided," in the official's own words, but the planned ban does apply to settlement goods throughout the West Bank, including the Jordan Valley. This isn't a small detail. Israel annexed East Jerusalem thirteen years after taking it in the Six Day War, while the rest of the world still considers it as being internationalized by the war. There, dozens of Jewish neighborhoods operate, in every practical way, as ordinary Jerusalem suburbs, not frontier outposts: namely, why should they be legally and politically part of a settlement trade ban when they are not?

In addition to the import ban, a parallel system is being developed that imposes discretionary sanctions on companies, organizations and individuals that finance or construct what the British call "the settlement project. Ministers plan to pick and choose who they'll pursue in settlements, saying they might exempt institutions like Israeli banks from being caught up in the settlement net because they are so deeply connected to the economy that a blanket designation would be more harmful than intended.

Next to the diplomatic din, there are economic stakes on both sides. Total trade in goods and services between the UK and Israel was estimated to be around £5.8 billion in the previous 12 months, with UK exports valued at about £3.3 billion and imports from Israel at around £2.5 billion, placing Israel 44th in the list of top UK trading partners. That is not a symmetrical equation that applies to London: the difference between good and bad partners may be the difference between life and death for individual Israeli exporters who are tied to the settlements.

Those exporters aren't silent. Owned by the Israeli company Psagot Winery, which is located on Palestinian land, according to Israeli and Palestinian rights organizations, Yaakov Berg states that the British market consumes about 60 percent of his company's exports, and that the sanctions are a "formula of antisemitic hostility" instead of sound policy. In the Jordan Valley, date farmer Moses Gazi poses the stakes more starkly in human terms: If he loses access to the European market he might have to close down, shoving Palestinian workers off his payroll, many of whom have large families to feed, out of work altogether a scenario that critics of the measure have pointed out would harm the Palestinian workforce it is supposed to pressure.

Israel's response is already on the ground. Britain has been granted 30 days to shut down its East Jerusalem consulate, which has served as the UK's eyes and ears on Palestinian affairs since long before the current leadership of both countries. Twelve British parliamentarians have been denied entry, British trainers have been warned not to work with Palestinian security forces, and officials in the Palestinian territories have been ordered out. For the British, the decision to send their troops back home was contrary to the American-facilitated plan for a 20-point postwar programme for Gaza and not a “proportionate response”.