Lord Cameron has revealed that he wanted to sanction two Israeli cabinet ministers when he was foreign secretary.

The Tory peer said on Tuesday that he had drawn up plans to sanction Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s finance minister, and Itamar Ben-Gvir, its security minister.

He described the two men as “extremists” and said his plan was only stopped because it was viewed as “too political” ahead of July’s general election.

Lord Cameron told the BBC’s Today programme that he considered sanctioning the ministers over comments they had made about preventing aid getting into Gaza and their apparent encouragement of “appalling” settler violence in the West Bank.

No ‘blank cheque’ for Israel

“Saying to Netanyahu, ‘Yes we support your right to self-defence, no we’re not going to end our sale of arms, but actually when there are ministers in your government who are extremists and act in this way, we’re prepared to use the sanctions regime to say this simply isn’t good enough and has to stop,’” Lord Cameron said.

The 58-year-old former prime minister, who was brought back into government as foreign secretary by Rishi Sunak,  said he was “concerned” that Sir Keir Starmer’s Government had not picked up his plans to sanction the two ministers.

But while he said Israel should not be given a “blank cheque”, Lord Cameron also criticised the Government for imposing a partial arms embargo on the country.

“Fundamentally, if on one hand you’re protecting Israel from a state-on-state attack by Iran but at the same time, you’re withholding the export of weapons, that policy makes no sense,” he said.