The imposition of sanctions on Israel by the Australian government is a logical step now that Foreign Minister Penny Wong has finally bowed to the inevitable in calling Israels West Bank settlements illegal. As Wong told the federal party caucus yesterday, it was time to “strengthen the government’s objection to settlements by affirming that they are illegal under international law and a significant obstacle to peace”.

Acknowledging the illegality of the settlements should not be a matter of controversy, no matter what the Israel lobby and its political and media friends might argue. As Yoav Shemer-Kun from the University of Strasbourg put it, in a recent article in the academic journal Frontiers in Political Science; Israeli law notwithstanding, all the Israeli settlements which were established in the territories occupied by Israel since 1967 are illegal under international law and consist a violation of numerous UN Council Resolution.

The illegality stems from Article 49(6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention (GCIV) which provides that [t]he Occupying Power shall not . . . transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.

In the United States, as Professor Marty Lederman from the Georgetown University Law Center, argues a long standing view among international law experts is a view that the illegality of the settlements in Palestinian territory is right under international law. As former Secretary of State John Kerry put it in 2016, for a long time the overwhelming consensus and international view has been that the civilian settlements in the territory Israel has occupied since 1967 violate Article 49(6), at least to the extent the Israeli government authorises, organises, facilitates, or subsidises them.

So all that Senator Wong is doing is bringing Australia into line with international law. That is easy.

What needs to happen is for the Australian government to do what it did in the 1970s when it was one of the nations to put the screws of apartheid South Africa, and that is impose sanctions on Israel to punish it for its contempt for GCIV. A contempt which is serious because the displacement of Palestinians and the annexation of their land continues unabated. As the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has reported, this year alone, the Israeli government has demolished or seized 568 Palestinian-owned structures and around 560 Palestinians have been displaced.

And, as the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect has observed in a series of actions the Netanyahu government is paving the way for more oppression. In March this year the Israeli government repealed part of the 2005 Disengagement Law legislation which had previously ordered Israeli settlers to evacuate parts of the Occupied West Bank. In doing so, the government allowed settlers to return to four illegal settlements and advanced over 7,200 new settlement housing units. The Israeli government has also authorised plans for a national guard at the disposal of the National Security Minister to target civil unrest, which experts warn will be used to target Palestinian communities, the Centre noted.

There is no difference between the Israeli governments doubling down on human rights abuses and breaching international law and that of the South African government when it expanded the apartheid state after the international community rounded on it in the wake of the 1963 UN resolution on a voluntary arms embargo. What is good for the goose is good for the gander.

The Australian government has the power, under the Autonomous Sanctions Act 2011, to impose sanctions on another country. The Act defines “autonomous sanction” to include measures intended to influence, directly or indirectly foreign governments, among other entities. Under this legislation commercial activity can be targeted. In other words, economic sanctions against a country can be imposed by Australia without having to resort to multilateral bodies for permission (bearing in mind Australia also works within the UN sanctions framework). Australia has used its sanctions legislation in relation to, for example, Syria, Russia and North Korea.

According to DFATs explainer on how the Australian government operates its sanctions regime, it is designed for a range of objectives which includes, [s]erious violations or serious abuses of human rights. When the Autonomous Sanctions legislation was introduced one of the aims was to enable Australia to seek to influence those responsible for giving rise to the situation of international concern to modify their behaviour to remove the concern (by motivating them to adopt different policies).

Given all this there cannot be a clearer case for the Albanese government to back up its commitment to finally recognising the illegality of the West Bank settlements by using its sanctions legislation against Israel. It cannot stand tall in remembering that this nations history in sanctioning one apartheid regime, South Africa, while sitting on its hands in relation to the latest manifestation of that odious practice in Israel.

If Senator Wong and her colleagues really do want to “strengthen the government’s objection to settlements, to use her phrase, then sanctions are a must.