From Before sanctions announcement, UK officials believed Israel would not advance E1 plans before elections — report
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British officials left an August 11 call with Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar believing Israel would not advance plans to build in the E1 settlement block before the October 27 elections, The New York Times reports.
Sa’ar and Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband held a tense phone call over the controversial construction plans, several weeks before the latter announced sanctions against West Bank settlements, three officials familiar with the call told the Times.
The Foreign Minister denies the characterizations of the call published in the Times.
A week after the call, the government issued a tender for the construction of seven residential compounds housing 1,234 housing units in the E1 area east of Jerusalem, where Israeli settlement activists seek to divide the West Bank.
While the Foreign Ministry itself said the move would not change anything on the ground in the area, British officials viewed it as an about-face from what Sa’ar had told Miliband, officials tell the Times.
Miliband’s office declines to comment on the report.
Miliband announced last week that Britain would ban all dealings with West Bank settlements, as well as sweeping sanctions and a range of other punitive measures, due to what he charged was “ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank – perpetrated by settler terrorists.” Canada, France and other nations announced similar measures.
The new “comprehensive sanctions regime” is expected to take effect within six to nine months, with what Miliband called “appropriate religious exemptions.”
Israel’s government reacted with fury to the UK move and announced a series of retaliatory measures, including the closure of the British consulate in Jerusalem, which serves Palestinians. Other measures ordered by Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar included the expulsion of UK representatives from an international Gaza support center and the termination of British activities to train Palestinian Authority security forces.
The Times of Israel Community.