Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said his country will close the UK consulate in East Jerusalem after Britain's Labour government on Tuesday imposed sanctions on Israeli settlements.
The move is a major escalation of the diplomatic breakdown between Israel and some of its most important western allies.
The consulate comprises dozens of staff and is the centre of the UK’s engagement with Palestinians in the occupied territories, ranging from consular matters to political engagement with the Palestinian Authority and aid programmes.
Mr Saar also announced Israel would remove British military and security personnel who train PA security officials based in a mission in Ramallah, remove British officials from the Civilian-Military Co-ordination Committee overseeing the aid and reconstruction process in Gaza, and bar 12 British MPs from entering Israel and the occupied West Bank over “anti-Semitic and anti-Israel activity”.
Mr Saar did not mention any measures to be taken against 11 other western nations who have declared a similar stance to Britain, such as France, Canada, Denmark and Poland.
After UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband announced the sanctions in a speech in the House of Commons, Mr Saar accused the British government of “racism” and of engaging in “blatant interference in the affairs of a sovereign state and in its electoral process”.
One of the most important election campaign seasons in Israeli history is already under way, as the ultranationalist government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approaches the end of its current term next month.
“The Israeli public overwhelmingly supports the communities in Judea and Samaria, and overwhelmingly opposes the establishment of a Palestinian terror state in the heart of our land,” Mr Saar said, referring to the occupied West Bank by a biblical term widely used in Israel. “This is something that the Labour government is attempting, through measures that are doomed to fail, to force upon Israel. It will not work.
“We did not return to our land after 2,000 years only to lose it under pressure from jihadists, Islamists, anti-Semites, far-leftists and wokes. Not only will you fail to harm us, you will harm yourselves and your own influence,” he added.
The British politicians Israel banned include former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and veteran Labour politician Diane Abbot.
