UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said Monday that the British government has warned Israel not to annex parts of the West Bank in retaliation for Britain and other Western countries’ recognition of Palestinian statehood.
A spokesperson for the German government, which has held off on recognizing a Palestinian state, also said in a statement that there must be no further annexation of Palestinian territories by Israel.
The statements came a day after Britain, Australia, Canada and Portugal recognized Palestinian statehood. Six more countries — France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Malta, San Marino and Andorra — are set to announce their recognition of Palestinian statehood on Monday during a French- and Saudi-hosted United Nations summit on the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, ahead of world leaders’ addresses to the UN General Assembly.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected the recognitions as well as the idea of Palestinian statehood, and vowed to respond upon his return from the UN. Some government ministers are pushing Israel to annex part of the West Bank in response to the wave of recognitions, which they say reward the Hamas-led massacre of October 7, 2023, that sparked the war in Gaza.
Israel has controlled the West Bank since the Six Day War of June 1967, and its settlements there are considered illegal by most countries except the United States. Saudi Arabia, with which Israel has sought to normalize relations, has reportedly warned that annexation of the West Bank would have “major implications.” The UAE, with which Israel has relations, has also called annexation a “red line.”
Speaking to the BBC ahead of the two-state solution summit on Monday, Cooper said she has “been clear” in conversations with her Israeli counterpart Gideon Sa’ar that Britain’s recognition of Palestinian statehood was in Israel’s interest, and that Israel must not respond by annexing parts of the West Bank.
“I have been clear to the Israeli foreign minister [and] we have been clear to the Israeli government that they must not do that,” said Cooper. “We have been clear that this decision that we are taking is about the best way to respect the security for Israel as well as the security for Palestinians.”
“It’s about protecting peace and justice and crucially security for the Middle East, and we will continue to work with everyone across the region in order to be able to do that,” she said.
Cooper added that the UK had a moral obligation to keep the two-state solution alive even as “extremists on both sides” wanted it dead.
“The easy thing to do would be to just walk away and to say, ‘Well, it is all just too hard, ‘” Cooper said. “We just think that is wrong when we’ve seen such devastation, such suffering.”
“Just as we recognize Israel, the state of Israel … so we must also recognize the rights for the Palestinians to a state of their own as well,” she said.
Cooper also said that following Britain’s recognition of Palestinian statehood, the Palestinian Authority could now “set up an embassy” in the UK and name the head of the mission as an ambassador.
The British consulate general in East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed after the Six Day War but which the Palestinian Authority demands as the capital for a future state, would not yet become an embassy, said Cooper.
“The consulate general in Jerusalem has been there for longer than the existence of the Israeli state, so it will continue, and that will continue for now, and we will set out… the diplomatic processes with the Palestinian Authority about the next steps forward,” she said.
Reuters contributed to this report.