How the UK Government Is Leaning Away From Its Decades-Old Policy on the Palestinian Cause

In a controversial move, British Prime Minister Liz Truss announced last September that she was seriously considering moving the United Kingdom's embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem (al-Quds).

Truss' decision represents a dramatic shift away from the policy that the British government has always adhered to and has maintained throughout the tenures of all previous prime ministers, from Margaret Thatcher to Boris Johnson.

"Israel" is active diplomatically in persuading more countries to move their embassies to Jerusalem, and believes that any step in this direction will further cement its claim that the entire city is its "eternal, undivided capital."

Four years ago, the United States moved its embassy to occupied Jerusalem, and three other countries—Kosovo, Guatemala, and Honduras—followed suit, while politicians in countries such as Romania promised similar steps.

At that time, the United Nations General Assembly issued a resolution condemning moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, and 128 countries, including Britain, voted in favor of the resolution.

 

Embassy Move

The Telegraph had reported on September 22, 2022, that "British Prime Minister Liz Truss informed Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, during their meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, that she is considering moving the British Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem."

Lapid thanked his counterpart Truss for announcing that she was seriously considering moving her country's embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, describing Truss as a true friend of "Israel" and noting that they would make the alliance between the UK and "Israel" stronger.

British officials said they would not speculate on the outcome, adding that Truss was aware of the sensitivity and importance of the British embassy's location in "Israel."

Truss had made a pledge during her tenure at the Foreign Ministry to review the site of the British Embassy in Tel Aviv in a letter to the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) lobby group during its competition for the party's leadership.

Israeli officials were happy that Truss brought up the idea of moving the embassy to Jerusalem, thus recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the city, as one of her first foreign policy moves as prime minister.

On the other hand, the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth quoted an Israeli political official who believed that the chances of success of the British move were weak, expecting that Britain's interests with the Islamic and Arab worlds would lead to a veto against the resolution in the UK.

Palestinian officials warned that moving the embassy would "undermine the two-state solution" and destroy their relations with Britain, while the Palestinian factions considered this a flagrant bias towards the Zionist occupation against the Palestinian people.

On September 23, the Palestinian ambassador to London, Husam Zomlot, expressed his dissatisfaction with the British government's intention to approve moving the UK's embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and warned that this would constitute a blatant violation of international law.

Zomlot also indicated that the British measure, if it happened, might undermine "the two-state solution" and inflame an already fragile situation in Jerusalem and the rest of the occupied territories.

It is noteworthy that many of the Palestinian public actually blame the British Balfour Declaration of 1917 for what they are suffering in the present. The declaration called for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine.

The pledge for it not to be at the expense of non-Jewish communities was entirely ignored by successive British governments, as the Zionist promise enabled the systematic colonial takeover of Palestine, a process that continues today.

The status of Jerusalem is one of the most thorny issues in the decades-old Israeli occupation of Palestinians.

East Jerusalem was occupied by "Israel" along with the rest of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the June 1967 war, while the international community still considers it an occupied territory.

 

British Breach

In the same context, The Guardian newspaper said in an article on September 25, 2022, that the British Prime Minister's announcement of her intention to consider moving the British Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem has raised concerns among the Palestinians and is a breach of international consensus.

The article's author, Donald Macintyre, said: "Liz Truss should be more careful about influencing Britain's global standing because this step would constitute a departure from the international consensus that has persisted since 1967, which former US President Donald Trump unilaterally violated among the leaders of advanced democracies."

Trump was the first world leader to break the international community's long-standing agreement that embassies will not open in Jerusalem until a "two-state solution" is reached.

His decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem in 2018 was met with outrage worldwide and drew widespread international condemnation. It also resulted in a wave of violence in which dozens of Palestinians were martyred at the hands of the Israeli forces. At the time, the British Prime Minister criticized the measure.

Macintyre indicated that "the annexation of East Jerusalem by Israel after the 1967 war is an illegal measure from the world's point of view, even all European countries, including Britain, still consider East Jerusalem the capital of a future Palestinian state."

The writer warned that "if the British embassy was moved to Jerusalem, this would help bury the idea that calls for dividing Jerusalem into two capitals, Israeli and Palestinian side by side, which was approved by former Israeli leaders such as: Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert, and even Lapid himself before changing his position."

From the author's view, the danger in moving the embassy is also that it will help directly enable the Israeli right to move forward with its continued expansion of illegal settlements in East Jerusalem and in the West Bank, tightening the noose around the Palestinians and leading to their expulsion.

He also expected that "the reason for Truss's intention to move the embassy to Jerusalem would be to pave the way for concluding an early trade deal with Israel or to enhance the chances of her friend Lapid to win the Israeli elections next November."

In turn, Dr. Sara Husseini, director of the British Palestinian Committee, said in an article in The Independent on October 4, 2022: "By the step she intends to take, the British Prime Minister is taking her country on a dangerous path of isolation from the international consensus, which has repeatedly condemned the Israeli Occupation, as well as Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem."

She highlighted that successive Israeli governments have claimed, since the Nakba and the establishment of the so-called "State of Israel" in 1948, that Jerusalem is the capital of the Jewish people to the exclusion of other peoples, allegations that deny the existence of a complete Palestinian society before 1948.

Dr. Husseini pointed out that the Israeli governments have taken measures since 1967, and have developed complex methods to obliterate the identity of Jerusalem (al-Quds) and erase the Palestinian presence in it, which includes the expulsion of the original Palestinian residents of Jerusalem from their city, and depriving them of citizenship rights.

 

Israeli Lobby

Parties and figures opposed to the Conservative government also criticized the move, and on October 5, 2022, the UK's Labour, Liberal Democrat, and Scottish National parties announced that they were against moving the British Embassy in "Israel" to Jerusalem.

Meanwhile, former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn told Al Jazeera on September 25, 2022, that "the Prime Minister had no right to move her country's embassy to Jerusalem without consulting Parliament."

He expressed his belief that there is an influence of the Israeli lobby and the Israeli government on Truss, noting that moving the embassy would face strong opposition in Parliament if it was brought up for discussion.

"The majority of the British people do not support the idea of moving the embassy to Jerusalem, support the Palestinian right and witness to all the atrocities and crimes committed by the occupation," Corbyn added.

In an article on October 5, 2022, Middle East Eye revealed a memorandum distributed by the CFI group as part of a lobbying campaign to support the contentious decision by British Prime Minister Liz Truss.

The British government owns land west of Jerusalem that has been designated as the site of the new embassy in "Israel," according to the memorandum.

The memorandum claims that "the procedure for moving the British Embassy from its current location in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem would be an administrative matter out of recognition of the reality on the ground."

The CFI group says it has two goals, the first is to support "Israel," and the second is to promote the idea that underpins the Conservative Party in Britain.

It adds that it is active at all levels within the Conservative Party and includes most of the cabinet ministers of Truss and 80% of the members of Parliament for the Conservative Party.

On October 2, 2022, Liz Truss, accompanied by a number of other ministers, attended a meeting organized by the CFI group to celebrate the opening of the party's conference. At the meeting, she spoke to the audience, saying that she is a great Zionist and a big supporter of "Israel."

In turn, activist Mohammed Kozbar explained in a statement to Al-Estiklal that "there has been no change in the position of the British government so far. However, such a step would change the government's position on this issue to one that is completely biased towards the Israeli Occupation against the Palestinian cause."

"It is worth noting that so far, there is no practical step in this direction, but there are pressures from the Zionist lobby in Britain to push the new prime minister to take a step in this regard," he added.

Mr. Kozbar also indicated that "such a step would greatly harm Britain's relations with the Arab and Islamic world, especially since Jerusalem is in the heart of every Muslim wherever he is, and also such a measure is a clear violation of international law and United Nations resolutions, which will make Britain one of the violators of United Nations resolutions, which is a permanent member of its Security Council, which will encourage other countries to carry out similar violations."

He also noted that "such an illegal step will complicate the negotiations, which face many difficulties and challenges due to Israeli intransigence, arbitrary measures against the Palestinians, expansion of settlements, and the willful killing of Palestinian citizens."

"Rights do not lapse with the progress of time, and Palestine and its capital Jerusalem will remain the destination of every Arab and Muslim citizen," Mr. Kozbar stressed.