UK changes course dramatically on Israel-Palestine

“The impact of settler violence and terrorism has been catastrophic for Palestinian communities. Settlement expansion and attempts to create irreversible divisions on the ground threaten peace, security and the prospects for a viable Palestinian state. Britain will not stand back and accept the destruction of a two-state solution.”

So stated the new British Foreign Secretary, Ed Miliband, on 19 August. It was the forerunner to a dramatic change in policy.

This week, Miliband renounced Britain’s bystander status on the Israel-Palestine imbroglio and introduced product bans and sanctions against settlements.

The Netanyahu coalition responded by closing the British Consulate in Jerusalem. It has also closed entry to Israel for 12 MPs on Labour’s Left and the Greens.

Miliband spoke as “a proud British Jew” who “unwaveringly” supported the state of Israel and its right to defend itself, but vehemently opposed the actions of its government. He expressed gratitude to Britain for taking in his family, which had fled Belgium before the Nazi advance in 1940 and to the State of Israel for giving sanctuary to his grandmother.

The main charge is that Israeli construction in the E1 region, which connects the Palestinian population centres of Jerusalem, Ma’ale Adumim and Ramallah, will prevent territorial contiguity – and thereby wreck the basis for a two-state solution. It had been strongly opposed by the Europeans for decades, and now with an election looming, it has been resurrected by Netanyahu.

Miliband noted that more settlements have been initiated under the current Netanyahu coalition than in the past 20 years. He also noted that former prime minister Ehud Olmert and Ephraim Sneh, a minister in Yitzhak Rabin’s government, termed the occupation “unlawful”.