JERUSALEM, Sept 2 \u2014 Britain\u2019s foreign secretary vowed a tough response to \u201cappalling\u201d violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, drawing threats from Israel that it would retaliate if the UK imposed sanctions.<\/p>\n
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing allies have been ramping up support for settlements in the run-up to close-fought elections, despite increasing attacks by extremist settlers who seek to drive out Palestinians.<\/p>\n
But the issue has drawn mounting criticism from foreign governments, many of which had already seen their ties with Israel strained over its conduct of the Gaza war.<\/p>\n
Speaking in parliament on Tuesday, British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said the world had \u201cseen appalling settler terrorism and Palestinians driven from their homes\u201d, and vowed a \u201ccomprehensive reset of our policy\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis government will not acquiesce in the destruction of the two-state solution. We will act, and I will set out a comprehensive set of measures in the coming weeks,\u201d Miliband said.<\/p>\n
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar later told a podcast: \u201cIf Britain acts against the State of Israel, the State of Israel will act against Britain.\u201d<\/p>\n
Saar did not explain how Israel would retaliate against Britain, a veto-wielding member of the UN Security Council and the world\u2019s fifth-largest economy, but it has reportedly looked at expelling diplomats.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe era in which it was possible to act against the State of Israel and the State of Israel did not respond is over. If they act, I think they will be making a big mistake,\u201d Saar said, also accusing London of \u201cmeddling\u201d in the October 27 election.<\/p>\n
Hardening UK stance\u00a0<\/p>\n
British Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said that his predecessor Keir Starmer was too soft on Israel, which has come under intense international criticism over its relentless offensive that flattened much of Gaza in response to the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, the worst ever against Israel.<\/p>\n
Starmer\u2019s government did, however, announce sanctions in June on six entities and one person \u201cinvolved in financing, enabling and carrying out settler violence\u201d as part of a set of measures in coordination with a handful of other Western countries.<\/p>\n
Miliband on Tuesday called the so-called E1 development plan \u2014 under which more than 1,200 settler homes were greenlit by Israel last year \u2014 \u201cthe crossing of a red line, as it cuts through the heart of the West Bank and risks making a Palestinian state unviable\u201d.<\/p>\n
Israel recently went ahead with tenders for the project, which has long been opposed by the Palestinians as it would divide the West Bank\u2019s north and the south.<\/p>\n
Miliband, the son of Jewish refugees, said that Britain was looking at \u201cour wider economic relationship with the occupied territories\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do not want British companies financing, constructing or advertising new settlements,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Israel has fought against foreign governments making any distinction between goods from Israel and West Bank settlements, which are considered illegal under international law.<\/p>\n
Israel recently expelled two Dutch diplomats from a US-led centre in charge of coordinating a fledgling Gaza ceasefire after the Netherlands, traditionally one of Europe\u2019s more pro-Israeli countries, banned trade from settlements.<\/p>\n
The British embassy in Israel afterward said that it was participating in the centre at the request of the United States and to support the Gaza peace plan, and that removing it would \u201cundermine these joint efforts\u201d.<\/p>\n
Rising violence\u00a0<\/p>\n
More than 500,000 Israelis live in settlements in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, alongside three million Palestinians.<\/p>\n
Extremist Israeli settlers, many of whom believe in a biblical right to the territory, have been carrying out increasingly brazen attacks against Palestinians, including seizing their land and destroying their crops.<\/p>\n
In one of the latest incidents, settlers on Tuesday tried to set fire to a mosque in the northern West Bank, in what the Palestinian ministry of religious affairs said was the 13th such desecration of a mosque this year.<\/p>\n
The settlers left graffiti with threatening messages in Hebrew and criticism of the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, AFP pictures showed.<\/p>\n
Israel has long enjoyed robust support from the United States and Huckabee, an evangelical pastor, has long championed settlements.<\/p>\n
But Huckabee issued rare criticism and described a group of settlers as \u201cterrorists\u201d after they tried to cut off Palestinian homes in Qusra, including one belonging to a US citizen. \u2014 AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JERUSALEM, Sept 2 \u2014 Britain\u2019s foreign secretary vowed a tough response to \u201cappalling\u201d violence by Israeli settlers against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[74682,2673,37,11695,1189,54959,6905],"class_list":["post-273990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-e1-development-plan","tag-ed-miliband","tag-israel","tag-israeli-settlements","tag-jerusalem","tag-palestinian-state","tag-west-bank"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117198925481079182","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}