UK government urged to act over proposed illegal Israeli settlement
A group of leading former UK ambassadors and high commissioners has called on ministers to threaten action against any companies bidding to build the illegal Israeli settlement known as E1, which involves 3,400 houses in the West Bank. The settlement is viewed as a move designed to divide the West Bank in two and undermine the viability of Palestine.
In a letter published in , 32 former diplomats warned that tenders for the E1 settlement, which would entail construction on Palestinian soil as part of Israel’s systemic West Bank annexation, were due to be issued on 1 June.
The letter urged the UK government to impose a trade ban on products and services originating from settlements, as well as to suspend trade concessions with Israel for breaching the human rights provisions in the UK-Israel trade and partnership agreement.
Criticism of the settlement plans by Britain, Germany, France, and Italy, the letter stated, has not deterred the current Israeli government, which has become accustomed to rhetorical condemnation without consequences over decades. The letter’s signatories include Sir David Manning and Sir Peter Westmacott, former ambassadors to the US; Sir David Richmond, former Foreign Office director general; and Sir Vincent Fean, former British consul-general to Jerusalem.
Last month, Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz described the E1 plan as “annexation moves” and called for a unified European response. Some officials have warned that the project poses an existential threat to the future of the two-state solution.
Keir Starmer, leader of the Labour Party, stated last month that the Israeli settlements, including E1, are a flagrant breach of international law and threaten the viability of a two-state solution. He added that the government recommends that settlement products be labelled to inform consumers and pledged to continue taking necessary action to defend Palestinians and protect the two-state solution.
The letter calls for Britain to take a leading role in addressing the issue. It notes that the prime minister agrees with the International Court of Justice’s advice that the 1967 occupation of Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the rest of the West Bank is unlawful. These territories constitute the state of Palestine, which Britain recognised last year alongside France, Canada, Australia, and others.
“Britain is ideally fitted, both by that decision and its historic responsibilities in the region, to give a lead to like-minded European and Commonwealth partners by: warning now that any bidder for contracts to design, build or finance the E1 settlement endangers their business interests in and with the UK; banning UK trade in goods, services and investment with settlements; and suspending trade concessions with Israel for its breach of the human rights provision in the UK-Israel trade and partnership agreement.”
“The unlawful occupation needs to end peacefully. Without consequences, illegality grows unchecked, and further violence is inevitable.”
The E1 plan, which has been on hold for two decades and strongly opposed by the international community, would extend the existing Jewish settlement of Ma’ale Adumim towards Jerusalem. This would further isolate occupied East Jerusalem from the West Bank and deepen the separation between the northern and southern parts of the territory.
Last year, Israel’s far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, a settler himself who supports the plan and the imposition of Israeli sovereignty over the occupied West Bank, stated that he believed construction on E1 would proceed.
