United Kingdom slammed for ‘contradictory’ response to Trump peace plan

Israeli soldiers arrest a Palestinian protester during a demonstration against a US brokered Middle East peace plan outside the West Bank village of Tamun near the Jordan Valley. (AFP)
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Updated 04 February 2020
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United Kingdom slammed for ‘contradictory’ response to Trump peace plan

  • British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has heaped praise on Trump’s proposal

LONDON: The UK government is facing calls to clarify its position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict following accusations of recklessness and confusion regarding its response to US President Donald Trump’s proposed peace plan.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has heaped praise on Trump’s proposal, saying on Jan. 29 that it “has the merit of a two-state solution” and “would ensure Jerusalem is both the capital of Israel and the Palestinian people.”

But on Jan. 31, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab highlighted Britain’s concern that Israel could start annexing parts of the West Bank. 

“The UK is concerned by reports of possible moves toward annexation of parts of the West Bank by Israel,” he said in a statement.

“Any such unilateral moves would be damaging to renewed efforts to re-start peace negotiations, and contrary to international law,” he added.

“Any changes to the status quo cannot be taken forward without an agreement negotiated by the parties themselves.”

Trump’s plan would recognize Israeli sovereignty over most of its settlements on occupied Palestinian territory, and over the Jordan Valley, which constitutes roughly one-third of the West Bank.

On Jan. 28, Raab welcomed the plan, saying: “A peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians that leads to peaceful coexistence could unlock the potential of the entire region, and provide both sides with the opportunity for a brighter future.”

Commentators and foreign policy experts have criticized the British government for welcoming Trump’s plan while also expressing concern over some of its central aims. 

Lisa Nandy MP, a contender for the leadership of the Labour Party, said she was very concerned by Raab’s response, lambasting “the reckless way in which this administration has approached the issue.”

Chris Doyle, director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, told Arab News: “The response of the British government is largely determined by managing its relationship with the Trump White House.”

He said: “It doesn’t want to be seen as criticizing the president directly, so it was soft on Trump. But it’s going to be much harder on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.”

This may explain why Raab’s statement was directed at Israeli moves toward annexation, not the plan itself.

Doyle said the relationship between London and Washington is much more nuanced than it used to be, and the “lukewarm” response to Trump’s plan suggests more complicated ties.

“These aren’t the days of (former British Prime Minister Tony) Blair and (former US President George W.) Bush. Normally we stand shoulder to shoulder (with the US), but this wasn’t the case with the Trump plan,” Doyle added. 

There are “really significant disagreements” between the UK and US governments “over Huawei, climate change, trade and digital tax,” he said.

“The look of British statements so far is that the UK will be closer to the EU position on settlements, Jerusalem and the issue of Palestinian refugees.”

But because Downing Street “doesn’t want to be having more than one fight at a time with Trump, it’s going to have to pick its fights,” Doyle said. 

This, he added, casts doubt over whether London will decide that the Israeli-Palestinian issue is worth fighting over.

“The initial response of the UK when Netanyahu first started talking about annexation (of parts of the West Bank in September 2019) was that it would have to be challenged, but we don’t know what that actually means,” said Doyle.

“There have been hundreds of statements saying settlements are illegal, for years and years, but the question is: At what point do we actually back that up?” he added.

“This question has profound consequences for international law. If this annexation is allowed to happen (other countries) will look at this and say: ‘Why can’t we?’”

Gilbert Achcar, professor of development studies and international relations at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, slammed Britain’s “contradictory position.”

He told Arab News that Trump’s plan is “breaking with decades of foreign policy consensus among Western countries. What Trump is doing isn’t endorsed by any Western governments, and this is why the British position appears weak.” 

The UK “doesn’t want to be negative about something Trump is doing, and they know that this is something to which Trump gives some importance,” Achcar said.

Middle East Minister Andrew Murrison told MPs on Jan. 30 that the UK’s view “remains that the best way to agree peace is through substantive peace talks between the parties leading to a safe and secure Israel living alongside a viable and sovereign Palestinian state based on 1967 borders.”

He added that London hopes to see “Jerusalem as the shared capital of both states, and a just, fair, agreed and realistic settlement for refugees.”

But Trump’s plan, which Johnson has welcomed, deviates substantially from the 1967 borders, recognizes Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem, and rejects refugees’ right to return home.

 


Syrian state news agency reports Israeli strike in Aleppo region

Updated 09 November 2024
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Syrian state news agency reports Israeli strike in Aleppo region

  • The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, reported that the strikes had targeted military installations

 

DAMASCUS: Syrian state media reported an Israeli strike Saturday on the countryside of Aleppo and Idlib that injured soldiers and caused damage.
“At around 00:45 after midnight, the Israeli army launched an air aggression from the direction of southeast Aleppo, targeting a number of sites in the countryside of Aleppo and Idlib,” the official SANA news agency said.
The report added that the attack had “resulted in the injury of a number of soldiers and some material losses,” without providing further details.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, reported the strikes had targeted military installations.
The war monitor also said members of the Iranian revolutionary guards and pro-Tehran factions were based in the area.
Since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria, mainly targeting army positions and Iran-backed fighters including from Hezbollah.
The Israeli military has intensified its strikes on Syria since it launched its war on Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon.
Israeli authorities rarely comment on the strikes but have repeatedly said they will not allow arch-enemy Iran to expand its presence in Syria.
 

 


 


UN probe says women, children comprise the majority of Gaza war dead

Updated 09 November 2024
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UN probe says women, children comprise the majority of Gaza war dead

  • The report detailed a raft of violations of international law since Oct. 7

GENEVA: The UN on Friday condemned the staggering number of civilians killed in Israel’s war in Gaza, with women and children comprising nearly 70 percent of the thousands of fatalities it had managed to verify.
In a fresh report, slammed by Israel, the United Nations human rights office (OHCHR) detailed a raft of violations of international law since Hamas’s deadly Oct. 7 attack in Israel sparked the war in the Gaza Strip.
Many could amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity and possibly even “genocide,” it warned, demanding international efforts to prevent “atrocity crimes” and ensure accountability.
“Civilians in Gaza have borne the brunt of the attacks, including through the initial ‘complete siege’ of Gaza by Israeli forces,” the UN said.
“Conduct by Israeli forces has caused unprecedented levels of killings, death, injury, starvation, illness and disease.”
It pointed to “the Israeli government’s continuing unlawful failures to allow, facilitate and ensure the entry of humanitarian aid, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and repeated mass displacement.”
Israel’s mission to the UN in Geneva “categorically” rejected the report, decrying “the inherent obsession of OHCHR with the demonization of Israel.”
“Gaza is now a rubble-strewn landscape,” Ajith Sunghay, head of the UN rights office’s activities in the Palestinian territories, said via video-link from Amman.
“Within this dystopia of destruction and devastation, those alive are left injured, displaced and starving.”
Friday’s report also found that Hamas and other armed groups had committed widespread violations that could amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, including seizing hostages, killings, torture and sexual violence.
Those violations, it said, were especially committed in connection with the October 7, 2023 attack, which resulted in 1,206 deaths, mostly of civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
The report also tackled the contentious issue of the proportion of civilians among the nearly 43,500 people killed in Gaza so far, according to the health ministry in the Palestinian territory.
UN agencies have been relying on death tolls provided by the authorities in Hamas-run Gaza due to lack of access. This has sparked harsh criticism from Israel but the UN has repeatedly said the figures are reliable.
The rights office said it had now managed to verify around 10,000 of the more than 34,500 people reportedly killed during the first six months of the war.
“We have so far found close to 70 percent to be children and women,” Sunghay said, highlighting the stringent verification methodology that requires at least three separate sources.
He said the findings indicated “a systematic violation of the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law.”
He said 4,700 of the verified fatalities were children and 2,461 were women.
The rights office found that about 80 percent of all the verified deaths in Gaza had occurred in Israeli attacks on residential buildings or similar housing.
Children between the ages of five and nine made up the largest group of victims, with the youngest victim a one-day-old boy and the oldest a 97-year-old woman, it said.
Israel says its operations in Gaza target militants and are in line with international law.
But Friday’s report stressed that the verified deaths largely Gaza’s demographic makeup rather than that of combatants.
This, it said, clearly “raises concerns regarding compliance with the principle of distinction and reflect an apparent failure to take all feasible precautions to avoid, and in any event to minimize, incidental loss of civilian life.”
UN rights chief Volker Turk called on all countries to work to halt the violations and to ensure accountability, including through universal jurisdiction.
“It is essential that there is due reckoning with respect to the allegations of serious violations of international law through credible and impartial judicial bodies,” he said.
“The violence must stop immediately, the hostages and those arbitrarily detained must be released, and we must focus on flooding Gaza with humanitarian aid.”


After Hamas rejection of hostage deal, US asked Qatar to expel the group

Updated 09 November 2024
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After Hamas rejection of hostage deal, US asked Qatar to expel the group

  • Negotiators from Israel’s Mossad spy agency have repeatedly met mediators in Doha over the last year and Qatari government officials have shuttled back-and-forth to Hamas leaders in the political office

WASHINGTON/DOHA: The US has told Qatar that the presence of Hamas in Doha is no longer acceptable in the weeks since the Palestinian militant group rejected the latest proposal to achieve a ceasefire and a hostage deal, a senior administration official told Reuters on Friday.
“After rejecting repeated proposals to release hostages, its leaders should no longer be welcome in the capitals of any American partner. We made that clear to Qatar following Hamas’s rejection weeks ago of another hostage release proposal,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
Qatar then made the demand to Hamas leaders about 10 days ago, the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said. Washington has been in touch with Qatar over when to close the political office of Hamas, and it told Doha that now was the time following the group’s rejection of the recent proposal.
Three Hamas officials denied Qatar had told Hamas leaders they were no longer welcome in the country.
Qatar, alongside the US and Egypt, has played a major role in rounds of so-far fruitless talks to broker a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages the militant group is holding in the enclave.
The latest round of Doha talks in mid-October failed to reach a ceasefire, with Hamas rejecting a short-term ceasefire proposal.
The spokesperson for Qatar’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for confirmation or comment.
Last year, a senior US official said Qatar had told Washington it was open to
reconsidering the presence of Hamas
in the country once the Gaza war was over.
This came after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken
told leaders
in Qatar and elsewhere in the region that there could be “no more business as usual” with Hamas after the group led the Oct. 7 attacks on Southern Israel.
Qatar, an influential Gulf state designated as major non-NATO ally by Washington, has hosted Hamas’ political leaders since 2012 as part of an agreement with the US Doha has come under criticism from within the US and Israel over its ties to Hamas since Oct. 7.
Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani has said repeatedly over the last year that the Hamas office exists in Doha to allow negotiations with the group and that as long as the channel remained useful Qatar would allow the Hamas office to remain open.
Negotiators from Israel’s Mossad spy agency have repeatedly met mediators in Doha over the last year and Qatari government officials have shuttled back-and-forth to Hamas leaders in the political office.

 

 


US defense chief holds first call with new Israeli counterpart

Updated 09 November 2024
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US defense chief holds first call with new Israeli counterpart

  • Katz was sworn in before parliament the previous day
  • The US defense chief also discussed “the need to improve the dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza“

WASHINGTON: US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin discussed Lebanon and Gaza on Friday in his first call with his new Israeli counterpart Israel Katz, the Pentagon said.
Katz was sworn in before parliament the previous day, after his predecessor’s shock dismissal by the prime minister over a breakdown in trust during the war in Gaza — a conflict that began with a devastating Hamas attack against Israel on October 7, 2023.
Austin “held an introductory call today with the new Israeli minister of defense, Israel Katz, and congratulated him on his recent appointment,” Pentagon spokesman Major General Pat Ryder said in a statement.
He told Katz that Washington is committed to a deal that allows Lebanese and Israeli citizens displaced by more than a year of cross-border violence to return to their homes, as well as to the return of hostages seized by Palestinian militant group Hamas, Ryder said.
The US defense chief also discussed “the need to improve the dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza,” after he and Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Israel in a letter earlier this month that it needed to allow more aid into the small war-wracked coastal territory.


Palestinian leader tells Trump ready to work for Gaza peace

Mahmud Abbas told Donald Trump he was ready to work toward a “just and comprehensive peace” in Gaza. (Reuters)
Updated 09 November 2024
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Palestinian leader tells Trump ready to work for Gaza peace

RAMALLAH: Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas expressed readiness to work toward a “just and comprehensive peace” in Gaza during a phone call with US President-elect Donald Trump on Friday, his office said.
Trump’s victory came with the Middle East in turmoil after the outbreak of the Gaza war in October 2023, triggered by the unprecedented attack on Israel by Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Congratulating Trump on his victory, Abbas expressed “readiness to work with President Trump to achieve a just and comprehensive peace based on international legitimacy,” his office said in a statement.
It said that Trump also assured Abbas that he will work to end the war.
“President Trump stressed that he will work to stop the war, and his readiness to work with president Abbas and the concerned parties in the region and the world to make peace in the region.”
While Trump struck a note of peace during his campaign, he also touted his status as Israel’s strongest ally, even going so far as to promise Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu he would “finish the job” against Hamas in Gaza.