Rebuffing protest, Edelstein says he’s ‘proud’ to be a settler

Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein on Monday rebuffed Palestinian objections to his upcoming address to members of the British Parliament due to his place of residence.

“I am proud to represent the Knesset and the State of Israel, including as a settler of Judea and Samaria,” Edelstein said, using the biblical name for the West Bank.

Edelstein, who lives in the settlement of Neve Daniel in the Etzion Bloc south of Jerusalem and supports the firmly backs settlement enterprise, will address members of the House of Lords and House of Commons on March 2 in Westminster at an event organized by the British Inter-Parliamentary Union, the UK’s Independent reported Monday.

“The calls for a boycott by pro-Palestinian entities are hypocritical and inflammatory and they will not dissuade me from standing before Parliament and telling the truth about Israel,” Edelstein said in a statement.

His comments came as an unauthorized campaign by British pro-boycott supporters saw hundreds of anti-Israel posters plastered across the London Underground on Monday morning.

The Knesset speaker said opposition to his address was an effort to create “cheap, popular headlines and garner support for extremist groups.”

Manuel Hassassian, the Palestinian Authority’s ambassador to London, slammed the invite to the Knesset Speaker, claiming Edelstein’s appearance in Westminster would legitimize Israeli settlement policies.

“Mr. Edelstein lives on an illegal Israeli settlement built on Palestinian land and he publicly opposes Palestinian statehood,” Hassassian wrote in an article published by the Independent on Monday. “He even supports initiatives such as the Lobby for Greater Israel, whose members want to colonize what is left of Palestinian land.”

Hassassian said the tens of thousands of Israelis living in the West Bank constituted “a creeping annexation.”

He also decried the new directives published by the British government last week that prohibit publicly funded bodies from boycotting Israeli-made products.

“It is the failure of British Government to hold Israel to account for contravening international law that has led to popular action by the British public to make ethical choices and support BDS,” he wrote, referring to the Boycott, Divestment, Sanction movement. “This is being criminalized by the Government in its new ‘guidance’ on the Boycott movement, allowing Israel to act with total impunity.”

In response, the British Foreign Office said Edelstein’s address was not indicative of of a change in policy toward the Jewish state.

“The UK’s position on Israeli settlements is clear and unchanged: they are illegal under international law and are an obstacle to peace,” the office said in a statement according to the Independent.

Britain, as a member of the EU, follows the union’s November 2015 directive to label settlement products as having been made in the West Bank.