Liz Truss, Prime Minister of the UK, and Yair Lapid, Foreign Minister of Israel (Credit: Simon Dawson/No 10 Downing Street)
Hamed Chapman
Prime Minister, Liz Truss, has been warned against following the example of former US President Donald Trump and moving Britain’s Israel Embassy to the holy city of Jerusalem, effectively breaching the international status of the holy city.
The warnings come from a host of British politicians, religious leaders, other countries as well as Palestinians, following Truss’s telling her current Israeli counterpart, Yair Lapid, that she was carrying out a “review of the current location of the British Embassy in Israel” at a meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York last month.
“This would be a breach of UN Security Council resolutions by one of its permanent members, break a longstanding commitment to work for two states for Israelis and Palestinians, and align Britain in foreign affairs with Donald Trump,” said former British foreign secretary, William Hague.
Hague, who is also a former Tory leader, made his public intervention known in an article for the Daily Telegraph in which he warned—in no uncertain terms— “Do not move the British embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.”
In a statement, the Council of the Patriarchs and Heads of the Churches in Jerusalem, representing Christian leaders in the holy city, also expressed “grave concern” about Truss’s move, saying it would be a “further impediment to advancing the already moribund peace process.”
Husam Zomlot, the head of the Palestinian mission to Britain, cited UN Security Council Resolutions and International Law as clear examples that “any change to the status quo in Jerusalem is illegal” and said it would be a “disaster” for chances of peace and would undermine the “Global Britain” label sought by the post-Brexit UK.
In addition, Osama al-Shaheen, a member of the Kuwaiti Parliament, also expressed his opposition in an interview with Middle East Eye, in which he even warned that such a move could scupper the free trade agreement between the UK and the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council.
Truss announced the possible relationship in New York after declaring she was a “huge Zionist” and “a huge supporter of Israel” at a meeting with the Conservative Friends of Israel, who had lobbied her in her campaign to replace Boris Johnson as Prime Minister during the summer.
Labour MP Naz Shah sent a letter on behalf of her Bradford West constituents to the new British Prime Minister, warning her it might be a “catalyst of uncontrollable catastrophic events” if she went ahead with a decision.
“To do so otherwise would contravene international law, negatively impact our relationships in the Middle East, bring no valuable benefits to British interests and establish a terrible precedent against the backdrop of Russia’s occupation of Ukraine,” Shah wrote.
“In accordance with international law, the UK has correctly stipulated that territories occupied by Israel through force, including the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, are illegally occupied; a stance upheld by nearly every other country in the world.
“Specifically on Jerusalem, the UK, through the United Nations Security Council with Resolution 252, insisted that the annexation of East Jerusalem following Israel’s occupation was “invalid and cannot change the status of these territories,” she said.
In 2018, US President Donald Trump broke with international convention by moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem—a move which was then ironically condemned by the British government. Only Kosovo, Honduras, and Guatemala have since followed suit.
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