Britain sanctions Israel, then threatens its diplomats

Britain has warned Israel that if its consulate in Sheikh Jarrah closes on Thursday, London will expel 27 Israeli diplomats and their families. That’s confirmed across several independent outlets, and our confidence in it is high. Britain’s national security adviser flew in last week, without announcing it, to try to talk Israel out of the closure. He didn’t manage it.

Israel told London on September 8 that it had thirty days. That was the day Britain announced its ban on goods from Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria. The consulate runs Britain’s relations with the Palestinians, and it does it from a neighborhood of Israel’s capital. Israel answered a sanction with a decision about its own city. Expelling 27 Israeli diplomats over it means Britain is punishing Israel for governing its own capital, three weeks before Israelis vote.

Britain had a month. It spent it on an undisclosed visit that failed, on asking European capitals to lean on Jerusalem for it, and now on a threat aimed at Israel’s embassy in London. This is the government that has refused or suspended more than 80 arms export licences for Israel, and that imposed its sanctions shortly after Israeli intelligence, by Israel’s account, warned MI5 about an Iranian plot against RAF Fairford. Police in London made their seventh arrest in that case today. Israel has kept sharing anyway.

Watch Thursday. If the consulate closes, the question is how fast London moves on the expulsions, and whether it moves at all — London is reportedly still hoping for a deal. Watch whether the European governments London enlisted actually raise it with Israel. And watch Washington. The bombers that left Fairford last weekend were American, and so is the interest in Britain and Israel still talking to each other.

Uriel Zehavi makes the longer case in today’s Washington Examiner: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/op-eds/4755038/uk-israel-sanctions-intelligence-sharing/