UK threatens sanctions after Israel opens bids for E1 settler homes

JTA – The United Kingdom (UK) threatened to sanction Israelis involved in West Bank settlement expansion after the Jewish State’s Lands Authority opened bids for 1 234 homes in the largely underdeveloped E1 section of the West Bank settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim. 

Construction in E1 “would cut across the heart of Palestine and risks separating the West Bank from East Jerusalem, which would endanger the viability of a two-state solution”, British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said in a special statement he posted on X on Thursday. 

Targeted sanctions, Miliband wrote, would be part of a series of measures his government would take. His office also summoned Israel’s chargé d’affaires on Thursday to demand a closure of the bidding process, which first opened on Tuesday, and a withdrawal of the construction project altogether. 

“Britain will not stand back and accept the destruction of the two-state solution,” he wrote. Miliband is part of the new leadership Labour Prime Minister Andy Burnham appointed when he took office in July. 

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar attacked Miliband on X, stating that Britain’s “decision to damage the relationship between our countries is deeply unfortunate”. 

He said the UK government’s “systematic policy of blaming only Israel while ignoring Palestinian extremism has already contributed to a massive wave of antisemitic hatred and attacks against the British Jewish community”. 

The Jewish people have the same right to “live throughout the Land of Israel” just as the British people have a right to live anywhere in the UK, Sa’ar wrote. 

Plans to expand the built-up area of the Ma’aleh Adumim settlement, by constructing some 3 400 housing units on a largely underdeveloped hilltop within the city’s boundaries, have been in place since 1994 when Yitzhak Rabin was prime minister. 

Israel mostly froze those plans under pressure from the international community, including the United States, with many countries warning that building homes in E1 would harm their diplomatic ties with Israel. 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu began to advance the project in earnest in 2012 to protest against the United Nations General Assembly decision to grant the Palestinians the status of a non-member state and has since pushed the project forward in spurts, particularly during election seasons. 

The publication of the bidding process for the homes was first announced on Tuesday and is set to close on 19 October, one week shy of the Israeli elections on 27 October. Opening the bids is a move that plays well with Netanyahu’s right-wing voter base, which opposes Palestinian statehood and believes that settlements like Ma’aleh Adumim and the E1 area should be annexed into sovereign Israel. 

But the move reverberated globally, with the UK signing a joint condemnation by France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Belgium, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, in which they warned that settlement building in E1 distanced peace and undermined the country’s international standing. 

They also reminded businesses that might bid for E1 construction that they could face legal or reputational consequences, given that such companies could be in breach of international law. 

Palestinian Authority Vice-President Hussein al-Sheikh said he welcomed the condemnation, explaining on X that such a position “reflects the importance of the international role in confronting settlement activity and safeguarding the two-state solution”.