Boris Johnson’s Failure To Act Over Israel’s Illegal Annexation Would Be A Dangerous Precedent
Witnessing injustice, in person, leaves an indelible mark.
When I visited Jerusalem and the West Bank back in 2008, I was shocked by how individual Palestinians and whole Palestinian communities were treated by the Israeli government.
From the illegal settlements to daily humiliations at checkpoints, the evidence of gross injustice and the human suffering it brings is indisputable.
It is not enough to say that the Middle East and Israel/Palestine in particular is complex – with right and wrong on all sides.
Abuse of human rights and international law demand resolution – whoever is responsible. Yet, peace talks for the longed-for two-state solution have never seemed so far away.
And thanks to President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu, the situation is set to get significantly worse next week.
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Backed by Trump’s misnamed “peace plan”, Netanyahu has announced he plans to annex parts of the lands Israel occupied in 1967, from next Wednesday, July 1. In other words, the Israeli Government plans to break international law, again. And formally steal Palestinian lands, it has been informally stealing for years.
When this happens elsewhere in the world, there is an outcry. Resolutions at the UN Security Council. Calls for sanctions.
When Russia annexed the Crimea in 2014, the US, the UK and much of the rest of the world rightly acted, to demonstrate a commitment to upholding international law. Back then, I was a member of Britain’s National Security Council, and when we backed sanctions against Russia, it was on the basis of a serious breach of Ukrainian sovereignty....
