Ed Miliband is the Foreign Minister and ill-informed puppet of the new British Prime Minister, Andy Burnham.
This is part of Ed Miliband’s statement to the British Parliament about Israel doing what it is entitled to do in an area of Judea that stretches between Jerusalem, Israel’s capital and the town of Maale Adumim located on the side of the major Israeli highway from Israel’s capital down to the Dead Sea and on to Eilat.
“This Israeli government’s publication of a tender for the E1 settlement project is an unacceptable and destructive act. E! 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. “ August 20, 2026.
“In the coming weeks we will set out a comprehensive set of measures to respond to the Israeli Government policies, protect the viability of the Palestinian state, target sanctions at those who participate in illegal settlement expansion, and support a just and lasting peace for Israelis and Palestinians.”
Israel’s Foreign Minister, Gideon Saar, immediately hit back saying, “There have been no new decisions regarding development in E1. The decision was made in 2025. The tender process has been under way for several months, with certain tender documents published only in recent days.”
Miliband is also threatening further restrictions on trade with Israelis in Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem.
The UK Lawyers for Israel are insisting that the British Government has got in all wrong.
E1 is in Area C which was maintained by Israel under the Oslo Accords. The area in question is between Jerusalem and the substantial town of Maale Adumim which every driver passes as they drive down to the Dead Sea and beyond to Eilat.
This is not land Israel is likely to give away but there is substantial Illegal building in this area as I have been warning for years having taken a field trip with the legal organization Regavim who have been banging on to deaf ears about Palestinian and European illegal occupation on this land with the further illegal action of transferring population into this area to produce “facts on the ground,” namely poor Arab shepherds and poor homeless Bedouin who re provided shelter, namely prefabricated structures by various EU governments. As I say, absolutely illegal. All without approved planning, without complying to safety regulations, no engineering oversight, without proper connections to any authorized electric companies. When I last visited there was no visible permanent or authorized water supply or even sewage.
UK Lawyers for Israel insists that this construction is being undertaken in breach of national and international law and against international agreement and this illegality is being done to create facts on the ground and prevent Jewish settlement. Completely the reverse of what Miliband is pushing.
It is extraordinary that in these circumstances the UK would choose to make this the issue they want to beat Israel with. It begs the question has Miliband taken a trip to this area with Regavim to see and learn for himself who, precisely, is breaking the law here.
It is not Israel.
If he and Burnham are so concerned about legality and actual peaceful relations in the region and instead make such outlandish remarks not founded in law, nor facts on the ground, they should ask for a guided tour of the area with a copy of the Oslo Accords as it relates to where they would be standing.
This, as Natasha Hausdorff suggests, is less about the actual facts on the ground here but more about political concerns in the UK.
The most serious charge (lie) that the UK Foreign Secretary made was that “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.”
Natasha asks, “Where has the Foreign Secretary been the last thirty years?”
A two-state solution is not viable and it is not Israeli building but Palestinian terrorism that has made this impossible.
What Miliband is pushing is the false and disgusting opinion that Jews should not reside in this area because they are Jews.
Gideon Saar, Israel’s Foreign Minister, criticized Miliband’s patronizing tone. It is not only his arrogant tone but his ignorance that is most jarring, and it came with a threat.
“Britain will not stand back and accept the destruction of the two-state solution,” said | Miliband in Parliament indicting he will make good on his threat “with a comprehensive set of measures to respond to the Israeli Government’s policy” and Israel expects that it will be followed by his proposed trade ban.
Israel law professor Eugene Kontorovich said, “The real illegal presence here is the UK’s Jerusalem consulate itself, which operate in Israel’s capital without having presenting their credentials or received authorization from the State of Israel, in violation of the clear provisions of the Vienna Convention on Consular relations. “
Kontorovich reveals a history of Britain itself refusing to comply with a real international law.
Saar said this British move to be “deeply unfortunate.”
Israel has already taken steps to show its displeasure with this British Government. It is a warning shot of other measures to come should Burnham-Miliband confront Israel further.
The disgraceful British Government is working on a plan, via the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, to take immediate steps to prepare a comprehensive ban on what it calls “illegal settlements in the West Bank” and what it calls “an end to trade in the West Bank and East Jerusalem” with “illegal settlements in the West Bank.”
It recommended, if not ordered, British business not to do business with these “illegal settlements” or any economic or financial activity with them.
This is a return to the past era of BDS (boycotts, divestments and sanctions that died a death in part because it actually damaged and negatively affected thousands of Palestinians who had received work and salaries on an Israeli scale including welfare benefits not afforded to them by Palestinian employment. In other words, the BDS Movement actually negatively impacted thousands of Palestinian families.
So determined is this left-wing government to obsess how further they could press on with their ban, they have proposed stopping any goods or services reaching Jews living in Judea.
Their justification for these steps is, they claim, that these “settlements” are illegal, which they are not, and that the UK has a “legal obligation” not to aid or assist Jews who are living in their ancient homeland.
UK Lawyers for Israel explained to the British Government that “The UK Government has no legal obligation to ban trade with businesses operating in the vicinity of Israeli communities established or re-established outside the 1949 armistice line (“the Green lines). “On the contrary, the measures under discussion, if implemented, would be liable to breach the UK’s legal obligations under ‘The Trade and Partnership Agreement between the UK and the State of Israel (the UK-Israel TPA), the Protocol on Ireland/Northen Ireland to the Brexit agreement) and the General Agreement on Tariffs in Trade (GATT) and the General Agreement on Tariffs in Services (GATTS).”
In addition, any UK steps in this direction could expose British companies to sanctions under US Federal laws.
If that wasn’t bad enough, these measures could lend fuel to the already high level of anti-Semitism currently festering in Britain.
Let me make it plain. These Jewish homes are NOT illegal under international law. What is being pressed by the current British government is an abuse of Article 49 of the 4th Geneva Convention as it goes after only Israeli property owners while ignoring the blatant and largescale transfer of Arabs into the area by the Palestinian Authority which would likely be an actual breach of international law primarily based on the Oslo Accord agreement with Arafat signed on behalf of the Palestinian Authority.
Ignoring all that, Britain is under no legal obligation to stop trading.
Putting it plainly. Jews living in Judea is not a criminal act.
The advisory handed down by the ICJ does not constitute a law. Neither does it authorize any government to react against Jews living in Judea or Samaria or Jerusalem. It did not order the enforcement or obligate any government to act against Israel in this matter. Neither did the ICJ subscribe any regulatory measures on this issue. It was simply an opinion requested by the UN General Assembly. As such, it binds no state. It creates no obligation to any country to act independently of it.
The ICJ did though expose itself to a prejudice against Israel by excluding decades and thousands of serious even deadly Palestinian crimes emanating into and out of this area.
It is claimed that the actions of Israel have created in “inhospitable environment for Arabs in east Jerusalem.” This despite the findings of a Palestinian news agency poll found that 93% of the Arabs residents living there prefer living under an Israeli authority in a united city rather than a Palestinian one, and an Israeli survey found that 86% of Arab residents living there are satisfied with their lives.
Incidentally, there are today, dozens of Arabs living illegally in Jewish owned homes in East Jerusalem ever since the arrival of the Jordanian army in May 1948 both in the Old City of Jerusalem and also in the Shimon HaZedek district of east Jerusalem. This despite the Jewish families desperately trying not only to re-establish their rights to their property but to evict the trespassing Arabs that sit in their homes to this day.
Those feeling the toughest effects of this nonsense are Palestinians themselves, especially those living and working in the area and who are receiving Israeli grade wages as well as Israeli grade social benefits.
British counter measures will seriously impact thousands of Palestinian workers if they lose their jobs due to British interference.
According to a Palestinian survey, quoted by Natasha Hausdoff of UK Lawyers for Israel, the number of Palestinians working in this area rose from 48,000 in the first quarter of 2026 to 53,000 in the second quarter of the year, and even in Israel itself, regardless of the uneasy state of security, Palestinian employment inside Israel itself rose from 30,000 in the first quarter to 35,000 in the second quarter.
Hardly a sign of Israeli discrimination against Palestinians that the British, as well as other faulty Western governments are prone to claim.
Israeli salaries, by the way, are twice as high as those under the PA.
This, by the way, during a time when Israelis possess a genuine fear of Palestinian intentions.
One would have thought that the British government would be invested in encouraging this growing employment of Palestinian by Israel. It is, therefore strange that the Burnham-Miliband government remained quiet about this positive Israel initiative. Do they not think this gesture should not be highlighted rather than abolish it? If not, why not? Do they not think this helps to reduce tensions and the conflict?
Britain is, therefore, imposing an arbitrary discrimination on Israel.
As an interesting sideline, the UK Lawyers for Israel have raised a comparison which accuses Britain of anti-Israel hypocrisy in that there is a similar situation with Morocco which is occupying the Southern Sahara. Britain has not only not brought measures against Morocco but, on the contrary, rather than decline to accept Moroccan products from Western Sahara, it has, in fact, increased them.
Hypocritical Britain!
This shows a particular discrimination of this British Government against Israel.
Barry Shaw,
The View from Israel,
Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.
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Thank you!
The British are still working to the playbook of Ernest Bevin of 90 years ago. 'It is better to upset the Jews than the Arabs'. To shape British foreign policy on the antisemitic prejudices of a man long dead is as obsolete as the dead man himself.
I intend to interview lawyer Maurice Hirsch who will inform the British Government of several facts and detail that both Burnham and Miliband forgot in their one-sided, and false, criticism of Israel which wiped both the forgotten responsibilities of the Palestian Authority toward Israel including the pledge of non-violence, but also the enormous damage that the British Gi=oernment will impose on thousands of Palestinians who enjoy gainful employment from the Jews of Judea that the ignorant British PM and FM are, apparently, ignorant about.