The Deadline to Shut Britain’s Jerusalem Consulate Falls Tomorrow
Thursday marks thirty days since Israel’s foreign minister Gideon Saar ordered the closure of the British consulate general in East Jerusalem, in retaliation for Britain’s sanctions on illegal West Bank settlements. The national security adviser Jonathan Powell has held undisclosed talks in Israel without reaching an agreement. The Foreign Office did not respond to a request for comment.
Sir Vincent Fean, British consul general in Jerusalem from 2010 to 2014 and in effect the ambassador to the Palestinian territories, calls it “not the act of a friend or ally” and holds the closure to be unlawful: “Israel does not have the right to interfere with the diplomatic relations between the state of Palestine and the state of the United Kingdom. It is doing so by closing our office, and that is unlawful.” He is particularly concerned for the fifty or so Palestinian staff. A Britain Palestine Project brief endorsed by the former attorney general Dominic Grieve calls the order “an unlawful assertion of sovereignty over occupied Palestinian territory”. Security Council Resolution 478, passed in 1980 with Britain a permanent member, held Israeli attempts to alter the status of Jerusalem “null and void”; Resolution 2334 restated it in 2016. Britain recognised the state of Palestine in September 2025. Israel has also expelled Britain from the American-led coordination centre for post-war Gaza and barred eleven parliamentarians, Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana among them. Reports on Monday that Britain could expel twenty-seven Israeli diplomats are unverified. Fean’s practical warning is the one to watch: the consulate depends on Israeli electricity and water.