UK government urged to act over proposed illegal Israeli settlement | West Bank
A group of prominent former British ambassadors and high commissioners has called on the UK government to threaten action against any companies proposing to build an illegal Israeli settlement “designed to split the West Bank in two and destroy the viability of Palestine”.
In a letter published in the Guardian, 32 former diplomats said tenders for the planned E1 settlement, which will include the construction of 3,400 homes “in Palestinian territory” as part of Israel’s “systematic annexation of the West Bank”, will be held on June 1.
The letter called for the UK’s trade ban on settlement goods and services, as well as “the suspension of trade concessions granted to Israel for its breach of the human rights provision in the UK-Israel trade and partnership agreement”.
The letter, whose signatories included former US ambassadors Sir David Manning and Sir Peter Westmacott, said criticism of the E1 plans by Britain, Germany, France and Italy “has not deterred this Israeli government, which has become accustomed to fruitless rhetorical condemnations for decades”; Sir David Richmond, former director general of the Foreign Office; and Sir Vincent Fean, the former British consul general in Jerusalem.
Last month, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said: Israel’s new settlement initiative in the West Bank was a “big mistake”. He described it as “move for annexation” and called for a united European response to the E1 project, which some officials say poses an “existential threat” to the future of the two-state solution.
Keir Starmer he told parliament “Israeli settlements, including the E1 agreement, are a clear violation of international law and threaten the viability of the two-state solution,” he said last month. He added the government recommended “settlement products are labeled so that consumers are informed”, adding: “We will continue to take the necessary action to defend Palestinians and protect the two-state solution.”
The letter calls for Britain to take the lead. “The Prime Minister agrees with the international court of justice’s recommendation that the 1967 occupation of Gaza, East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank was ‘illegal’. These areas constitute the state of Palestine, which the UK recognized last year alongside France, Canada, Australia and others,” the statement said.
“The UK is ideally placed to lead like-minded European and Commonwealth partners, both through this decision and its historic responsibilities in the region, to: Warn now that any bidder offering contracts to design, build or finance the E1 deal is jeopardizing its trade interests within and with the UK; ban the UK from trading goods, services and investments with the settlements; and strip trade privileges with Israel for breaching the human rights clause in the UK-Israel trade and partnership agreement suspend.”
The statement added: “The illegal occupation must end peacefully. Without consequences, illegality will grow unchecked and further violence will be inevitable.”
The E1 plan, which has been on hold for two decades and is fiercely opposed by the international community, would expand the existing Ma’ale Adumim Jewish settlement into Jerusalem, further cutting off occupied East Jerusalem from the West Bank and further separating the north and south of the region.
Last year, Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, himself a settler and supporter of the plan and Israeli sovereignty over the occupied West Bank, said he believed construction on E1 would yield positive results. “Bury the idea of a Palestinian state.”
