Taking action against illegal Israeli settlements on the West Bank has enormous implications, writes Andrew Marr

Let me start tonight by listing some of what it means. From the White House and Israel, fury and economic threats, many of which may be carried through.

It means a greater likelihood of the United States decisively siding with Argentina over the Falkland Islands, which, as a result, we might lose.

It means individual British companies, whether trading with Israel or the US, facing new sanctions or even full bans. None of that is good for what the government says is its number one priority, economic growth.

Beyond all that, there is the real possibility of the proposed embargo either failing to have any real effect, being purely symbolic, or worse, actually encouraging the Israeli far right in it sense of being besieged, self-righteous and ever more aggressive.

Well, that's a formidable list. Let's add that Antisemitism is alive and growing in this country.

I don't know about you, but I feel increasing difficulty about how and where to anchor myself, morally. And that's what I want to talk about tonight.

If the Israeli settlements continue to go ahead and expand - If Arab land continues to be stolen, and Arab villages persecuted, threatened, and attacked in order to allow this - then what has been the desperate one-day hoper of a two state solution vanishes completely.

Without the West Bank, there is no Palestine, there is no homeland for the Palestinian people. They become eradicated, cancelled, a fiction.

Ed Miliband spoke today of ethnic cleansing, and provocative as the phrase sounds, it's completely accurate. I am about as pro-Jewish a non-Jew as you'll find.

That's partly my age, growing up in the dark, vivid aftermath of the Nazi holocaust, and it's partly about my Jewish friends, some of the most civilised, generous, well-educated people on the planet.

I have no time for Hamas or Islamism. But I just think allowing the Palestinians to be wiped out as an idea is intolerable.

It is morally completely unacceptable. Looking for that moral anchor, I know who my enemies are.

They are the literalists, the extremists, in any religion - Islam, Judaism and Christianity as well.

Anyone who tells me God has given me this land, or God instructs me to do this violent act, I can't even have a conversation with. Of course you may think differently, but that's my best effort at plain dealing.

Andrew Marr is an author, journalist and presenter for LBC.

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