Talk of Moving UK’s Embassy to Jerusalem
Brexit could open the way for a U.K. embassy in Jerusalem.
Craig Murray writes in Consortium News:
Following U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton’s talks with Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his ministers in London last week, the Foreign & Commonwealth Office has been asked to speed up contingency planning for the U.K. to move its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, with an eye to an “early announcement” post Brexit.
The U.K. is currently bound by an EU common foreign policy position not to follow the United States in moving its embassy to Jerusalem. As things stand, that prohibition will fall on Nov. 1. FCO officials had previously been asked to produce a contingency plan, but this involved the construction of a £14 million new embassy and a four-year timescale. They have now been asked to go back and look at a quick fix involving moving the ambassador and immediate staff to Jerusalem and renaming the consulate already there as the embassy. This could be speedily announced, and then implemented in about a year.
Johnson heads the most radically pro-Israel cabinet in U.K. history and the symbolic gesture of rejection of Palestinian rights is naturally appealing to his major ministers: Home Secretary Priti Patel, Chancellor Sajid Javid, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab. They also see three other political benefits.