The anti-Israel crowd is no longer content to protest Israeli real estate events at local synagogues. In Great Britain, the argument has now moved to Parliament, seeking to criminalize land purchases.

A debate broke out in Britain’s Parliament Monday regarding land purchases by British citizens in the disputed territories.

Baroness Jennifer Chapman of Darlington led the charge to criminalize such transactions, alleging that the settlements there are illegal under international law.

But Lord Martin John Callanan, a member of the British Conservative Party, pushed back hard.

“My Lords, we do not criminalize British citizens for buying property in disputed territories anywhere else in the world,” he reminded the governing body. “Why should the West Bank be singled out, particularly when such a measure could even extend to Area C, which is under full Israeli control under the Oslo Accords, and would criminalize British Jews for purchasing a home in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem? Is not the status of disputed territory ultimately a matter for states and international law rather than something to be determined through domestic criminal law applied to individual purchases?”

Lord Stuart Polak, who belongs to the same political party as Callanan, also highlighted the double standard.

“I appreciate the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, giving way, because the debate has been one-sided. The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, was right: the double standards on show are staggering,” he declared. “Is it OK for a Brit to purchase property in occupied Northern Cyprus? What useful objective does the Minister consider that this proposal will achieve, other than propagating the deeply antisemitic notion that Judea and Samaria — an area, I remind the House, that remained under Israeli administration throughout the Oslo Accords — should be ethnically cleansed of its Jews?”

Polak was expanding on a comment by Baroness Ruth Deech, who raised the issue of Northern Cyprus. Under international law, the Turkish occupation of Cyprus is illegal.

“My Lords, has the Minister considered the global legal implications of this Question?” Deech pressed. “What about British citizens who holiday or buy a property in illegally occupied Northern Cyprus? Or is the aim simply to target Jews? If this were implemented, which I am sure it will not be, in what way could it possibly contribute to lasting peace?”