Summary
Recent British proposals concerning Israeli settlements, sanctions, and trade are criticized as politically motivated and insufficiently grounded in the Israeli-Palestinian agreements. The Oslo framework is presented as neither mandating a two-state solution nor prohibiting Israeli planning and construction in Area C pending permanent-status negotiations. Broad claims about “settler terrorism” are rejected as disproportionate, although extremist violence against Palestinians is acknowledged and condemned. Overall, the policies are portrayed as evidence that Britain is allowing domestic and European political pressures to undermine its relationship with Israel.
Key Takeaways
- UK policy toward Israel is portrayed as increasingly confrontational. Proposed sanctions, restrictions on settlement-related trade, and a broader reassessment of economic relations are characterized as harmful to longstanding British-Israeli ties and British interests.
- The legal and diplomatic basis for criticizing Israeli construction is disputed. The Oslo Accords are presented as leaving final territorial arrangements to negotiations rather than prescribing a two-state outcome, while Area C remained under Israeli control pending a permanent-status agreement.
- The characterization of settler violence as terrorism is strongly challenged. Violence by Israeli extremists is acknowledged as illegal and deserving punishment, but broad descriptions of it as “settler terrorism” are argued to unfairly generalize isolated acts while overlooking Palestinian violence and financial support for convicted attackers.
One may indeed ask oneself how far the British government, with its new Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband, intends to go to damage Britain’s traditional interests and its relationship with Israel?
This is to placate and appease a group of extreme, left-wing, and vibrantly anti-Israel politicians, and an increasingly powerful lobby of Islamist influencers intent on taking Britain’s government and its policies hostage, thereby damaging British interests.
Following publication in Israel of a tender for 1,200 housing units in a 12 square-kilometer tract of land called E1 between Jerusalem and the town of Ma’ale Adumim, Miliband called the tender an “unacceptable and destructive act” and said the government’s response could include sanctions targeting those involved in settlement expansion.
He announced his intention to undertake a “comprehensive reset” of UK policy on Israel in the “coming weeks,” claiming the “need to look at our wider economic relationship with the occupied territories and the different tools we have to tackle it,” adding “we do not want British companies financing, constructing, or advertising new settlements.”
He condemned “appalling settler terrorism in the occupied West Bank,” expressing his intention to take further action to ban trade in goods from Israeli settlements, adding “If you are for the two-state solution and you see it being destroyed by the facts on the ground, you must act.”
It might be expected that in determining any such change in governmental policy that could deleteriously affect relations with an historic ally like Israel, the British foreign secretary, rather than repeating irresponsible, ill-advised and misinformed political cliches borrowed from his more extreme European Union colleagues, would duly consult with the plethora of respectable British international lawyers and experts available to him to check the exactitude of his statements.
For example, his rehashing of the “two state solution” cliché displays amazing ignorance for a foreign secretary.
Anyone familiar with the Middle East and the legal and political documentation surrounding it is fully aware that the term ‘two-state solution’ has never been agreed to in the agreements between the Palestinians and Israel.
Originating in a 2002 vision voiced by former President George W. Bush at the UN expressing hope for a solution “of two states, living side by side in peace and security,” this was never part of the 1993-5 Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinians.
To the contrary, the parties agreed that the permanent status of the territories would be determined only by agreement between them in permanent status negotiations. The outcome of such negotiations could theoretically be a one-, two-, or three-state solution, federation, confederation, condominium, or any other permutation.
There was certainly no intention that any third party, whether this be the UN, the EU, or even the British government, would prejudge and predetermine the outcome of the negotiations and dictate, out of irresponsible wishful thinking, a political outcome favorable to them.
So Milliband’s fixation on a “two-state solution” is ill-informed and irresponsible.
No less irresponsible is his reference to what he declares as an “unacceptable and destructive act” in referring to Israel’s tender for construction in an area of 12 square kilometers in proximity to Jerusalem.
What Milliband appears to ignore, or to be totally unaware of, is the fact that this tiny piece of land is located in what was agreed between the Palestinians and Israel in the Oslo Accords to be Area C of the West Bank territory, under Israel’s complete jurisdiction and control, pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiation.
According to the Accords, Israel has the right and prerogative to conduct planning, zoning and construction in this area, in the same manner in which the Palestinians, pursuant to the Accords, are entitled to do in the Areas A and B, under their own control and jurisdiction.
As such, Milliband’s emotional and irresponsible use of the terms “unacceptable and destructive” has no basis and is clearly an ill-advised British intervention, indicative of an acute lack of knowledge both of the location, as well as of the details of the agreements between Israel and the Palestinians.
No less indicative of his lack of awareness is his irresponsible statement according to which “we do not want British companies financing, constructing, or advertising new settlements.”
While Milliband may be automatically echoing an oft-declared reservation to Israel’s settlement policy, he again appears to be unaware of the fact that apart from a reference to the fact that the issue of settlements is to be discussed in the permanent status negotiations, the Oslo Accords sanction construction by either party in the areas under their respective control and jurisdiction.
With all due respect to the UK foreign minister, neither he, European states, nor the British government have any prerogative to impose upon Israel their political positions. This ended with the dissolution of the British Palestine Mandate on May 14th 1948.
Finally, Milliband’s condemnation of what he calls “appalling settler terrorism” deserves some comment.
Here again, he seems to allow himself to irresistibly join the “settler violence” bandwagon and echo a malicious generalization adopted from his more extreme European colleagues, without bothering to examine the facts.
There exists no “settler terrorism” in Israel. This is a gross and malicious exaggeration and libel.
The fact that tiny, isolated groups of extremists carry out acts of violence against Arab residents is indeed regrettable as much as it is illegal, and needs to be more assertively prevented and punished.
To equate such isolated instances of violence by small numbers of extremists with worldwide mass violence, whether at sports events, political demonstrations, massive gang violence in large towns, and thousands of instances in which Palestinians have attacked Israelis, and to turn this into a “cause-célèbre” to single out and condemn Israel, is both an exaggeration and a clear example of crass political prejudice and bias.
Furthermore, one may wonder why Milliband is ignoring the official Palestinian policy of “pay for slay” in which considerable sums are officially budgeted as salaries for terrorists serving prison sentences for murdering Israelis, as well as for the families of terrorists killed while carrying out acts of terror. Is this not, in his eyes, “appalling terrorism,” and is this not destroying the “two state solution”?
Britain may have justifiably “brexited” from the EU to protect its sovereign, independent interests and policies. Still, when it comes to Israel, the question is whether Britain ever permitted itself to follow its own traditional, national interests, rather than to be aimlessly led on by Islamist elements at home and the prevailing European penchant for utter hostility towards Israel?
