ICJP: Relocating UK’s Israel embassy to Jerusalem against commitments to international law

London (QNN)- A UK-based Palestinian legal group slammed on Thursday the British government’s potential move of its embassy in ‘Israel’ from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, stressing that such a decision directly contradicts the UK’s recognition of East Jerusalem as an occupied territory and its commitments to international law.

In a statement, the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) condemned British Prime Minister Liz Truss’s remarks that she is weighing the relocation of Britain’s embassy in Tel Aviv to the occupied city of Jerusalem.

Truss told Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid about the move during a meeting last month at the United Nations summit in New York City.

During her campaign for the leadership of the British Conservative Party, Truss also told the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) lobby group that she would review the UK’s decision to remain in Tel Aviv if she became the British leader.

“I understand the importance and sensitivity of the location of the British Embassy in Israel. I’ve had many conversations with my good friend Prime Minister Yair Lapid on this topic,” she said.

In response, the ICJP expressed its concern over the move’s legality and “the implications this may have on any permanent status negotiations between Israel and Palestine.”

The group called the move a “radical shift in the UK Government’s position on Jerusalem.”

The ICJP iterated that Israel’s “status as an occupying power comes with the responsibility of maintaining that status … under international law” and stated that Israel’s “actions of destruction and confiscation of the land fall squarely in violation with its obligations”, one of which is the attempted annexation of the eastern part of occupied Jerusalem.

“Israel’s desire for His Majesty’s Government (HMG) to move the UK embassy to Jerusalem must be viewed as another step towards Israel’s unlawful and consistently condemned attempts to transform the status of Jerusalem by international bodies and the international community”, the ICJP stated.

Any move of the British embassy to the holy city, it said, would directly contradict the UK’s long-held and current position that “no state has sovereignty over Jerusalem”.

The group pointed out the fact that the UK has confirmed numerous declarations of that status, such as the Venice Declaration, the Declaration of Principles, and the Interim Agreement which was “signed by Israel and the PLO [Palestinian Liberation Organisation] on 13 September 1993 and 28 September 1995, respectively, as leaving the issue of the status of Jerusalem to be decided in the ‘permanent status’ negotiations between the two parties.”

The ICJP also quoted the UK’s Political Coordinator at the UN, Fergus Eckersley, as saying in a speech at the UN General Assembly (UNGA) on 1 December 2021, that the country “opposes unilateral action in Jerusalem, absent a final status settlement and remains supportive of the historic status quo”.

While “every other UN member State has opted to refrain from moving their embassies to Jerusalem so as to not prejudge the final status negotiations between Israel and Palestine”, the ICJP statement said, the “move of Britain’s embassy would do just that, reversing its longest-held foreign policy position on Israel and Palestine, thereby undermining the two-state solution.”

The embassy move would be a “tacit recognition of Israel’s illegal annexation of Jerusalem, and Britain would, therefore, be viewed by the international community as supporting violations of international law.”

The statement concluded that for London to make such a decision at this point of dire, inhumane, and cruel conditions for the Palestinians subjected to Israeli control sends out a signal that the British Government has no concern, not only for UN obligations, or the Geneva Convention but rules-based accountability in its diplomatic processes.”