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A picture taken from the E1 corridor, a super-sensitive area of the West Bank, shows cars driving on a highway near the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim in the background on April 16, 2025. (AHMAD GHARABLI \/ AFP)<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tBy Tovah Lazaroff<\/a><\/p>\n \n August 21, 2026\n <\/p>\n (JTA<\/a>) \u2014 JERUSALEM \u2013 The United Kingdom threatened to sanction Israelis involved in West Bank settlement expansion after the Jewish state\u2019s Lands Authority opened bids<\/a> for 1,234 homes in the largely underdeveloped E1 section of the West Bank settlement of Ma\u2019aleh Adumim.<\/p>\n Construction in E1 \u201cwould cut across the heart of Palestine and risks separating the West Bank from East Jerusalem, which would endanger the viability of a two-state solution,\u201d the British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said in a special statement<\/a> he posted on X on Thursday.<\/p>\n Targeted sanctions, Miliband wrote, would be part of a series of measures his government would take. His office also summoned Israel\u2019s charge d\u2019Affaires Thursday to demand a closure of the bidding process, which first opened on Tuesday, and a withdrawal of the construction project altogether.<\/p>\n \u201cBritain will not stand back and accept the destruction of the two-state solution,\u201d he wrote. Miliband has held his position for a month and is part of the new leadership Labour Prime Minister Andy Burnham appointed when he took office in July.<\/p>\n Israel\u2019s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa\u2019ar attacked Miliband on X, stating that Britain\u2019s \u201cdecision to damage the relationship between our countries is deeply unfortunate.\u201d<\/p>\n He said that the U.K. government\u2019s \u201csystematic policy of blaming only Israel while ignoring Palestinian extremism has already contributed to a massive wave of antisemitic hatred and attacks against the British Jewish community.\u201d<\/p>\n The Jewish people have the same right to \u201clive throughout the Land of Israel\u201d just as the British people have a right to live anywhere in the U.K., Sa\u2019ar wrote.<\/p>\n Plans to expand the built-up area of Ma\u2019aleh Adumim settlement by constructing some 3,400 housing units on a largely underdeveloped hilltop within the city\u2019s boundaries have been in place since 1994 when Yitzhak Rabin was prime minister.<\/p>\n Israel mostly froze those plans under pressure from the international community, including the U.S., with many countries warning that building homes in E1 would harm their diplomatic ties with Israel.<\/p>\n Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu began to advance the project in earnest in 2012 to protest the United Nations General Assembly decision to grant the Palestinians the status of a non-member state and has since pushed the project forward in spurts, particularly during election seasons.<\/p>\n The publication of the bidding process for the homes was first announced on Tuesday and is set to close on Oct. 19, one week shy of the Israeli elections on Oct. 27. Opening the bids is a move that plays well with Netanyahu\u2019s right-wing voter base, which opposes Palestinian statehood and believes that settlements like Ma\u2019aleh Adumim and the E1 area should be annexed into sovereign Israel.<\/p>\n But the move reverberated globally, with the U.K. signing onto a joint condemnation by France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Belgium, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, in which they warned that settlement building in E1 distanced peace and undermined the country\u2019s international standing.<\/p>\n They also reminded businesses who might bid for E1 construction that they could face legal or reputational consequences, given that such companies could be in breach of international law.<\/p>\n Palestinian Authority Vice President Hussein Al-Sheikh said he welcomed the condemnation, explaining<\/a> on X that such a position \u201creflects the importance of the international role in confronting settlement activity and safeguarding the two-state solution.\u201d<\/p>\n
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