Israel shuts UK consulate

LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — British foreign minister Ed Miliband on Wednesday condemned as “regrettable and damaging” Israel’s decision to order the closure of the UK’s consulate in Jerusalem as retaliation for London-led Western sanctions over settler violence.

“We anticipated this might happen because we saw other countries, the Dutch, for example, who had announced sanctions, who had seen these reprisals from Israel. I think they’re regrettable and damaging,” Miliband told BBC Radio.

Israel on Tuesday ordered the closure after 12 countries including Britain, Canada and France announced they would sanction trade with Israeli settlements in the West Bank, following a surge in settler attacks against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

Israel said it would also expel British representatives at a center monitoring the United States-brokered ceasefire plan in Gaza, bar British training for Palestinian Authority forces and ban 12 Britons, mostly members of parliament, from visiting the country.

Miliband rejected suggestions that the sanctions would impact intelligence cooperation with Israel.

“We have important intelligence and security relationships with Israel, and I’m confident they will continue,” he said, declining to go into details.

“And I was very clear yesterday that we do believe in working with our Israeli partners when it comes to the threats they face from Iran,” he added.

Miliband also dismissed the criticism of the sanctions by Britain’s chief rabbi.

Ephraim Mirvis on Tuesday called the measures “little more than political flag-bearing.”

He said it was a “truly a dark day for British Jews,” predicting that the measures “will succeed only in bolstering the very extremism they seek to target.”

Several antisemitic attacks in London this year have targeted synagogues and other Jewish sites.