announcement<\/a> that it would market tenders for 1,400 housing units in Israel\u2019s strategic E1 corridor. <\/p>\n\u201cContrary to the false claims of the Labour government, no new decisions have been made regarding development in E1. … The tender process has been underway for many months,\u201d Sa\u2019ar said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe claims regarding the severing of potential Palestinian territorial contiguity are also baseless. The decision of the government of Israel, taken more than a year ago, stipulated that two roads would be built: the first, Road 80, which will serve as a major transportation route from the Bethlehem area to the Ramallah area; the second, known as the \u2018Fabric of Life\u2019 Road, between a-Za\u2019im and al-Ezariya,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Sa\u2019ar added that the Israeli public overwhelmingly supports the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and just as overwhelmingly opposes the creation of a Palestinian state in its heartland. \u201cThis is something that the Labour government is attempting, through measures that are doomed to fail, to force upon Israel. It will not work.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an age-old conflict. Unfortunately, the Palestinians have always rejected proposals to resolve it and have never abandoned terrorism and incitement. This conflict will not be resolved through declarations from London or Paris, and a one-sided, anti-Israel approach only pushes the possibility of reaching a solution further away rather than bringing it closer,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
It is \u201cparticularly astonishing\u201d that the Labour government hasn\u2019t considered imposing sanctions on the P.A., which continues to fuel terrorism through its pay-for-slay program, which financially rewards terror acts, Sa\u2019ar added.<\/p>\n
He noted the Labour government\u2019s decision is the latest in an \u201cincreasingly escalating series of unilateral measures against Israel\u201d since it took office in July 2024. <\/p>\n
Among those actions are the recognition of a non-existent \u201cState of Palestine,\u201d the renewal of funding for UNRWA, some of whose employees took part in the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, and sanctions imposed on Israeli ministers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese measures by the Labour Government in Britain, along with biased and one-sided anti-Israel rhetoric, have already contributed significantly to the unprecedented rise in antisemitic attacks, including violent attacks against British Jews,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Sa\u2019ar\u2019s statement was bolstered by the U.K.’s shadow foreign secretary Tom Tugendhat, who protested Labour\u2019s move, which he said risked \u201cencouraging sectarianism and antisemitism at home.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sa\u2019ar posted to X that he spoke with Tugendhat and U.K. opposition leader Kemi Badenoch Tuesday evening, thanking them for their firm opposition to the Labour government\u2019s actions and welcoming their friendship with Israel. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that we have many friends in the U.K., but unfortunately we are faced with the ongoing hostility of the current Labour government. I also thanked Kemi for her warm wishes ahead of the Jewish New Year,\u201d Sa\u2019ar said.<\/p>\n
Coalition members of the Netanyahu government also expressed their dissatisfaction with Labour.<\/p>\n
Bezalel Smotrich, Israel\u2019s finance minister, called for the British ambassador to be \u201cexpelled\u201d immediately, adding: \u201cWe will not be a doormat trampled by an antisemitic government, in a country conquered by radical Islam, trying to save itself from economic and social decline by attacking Jews and the State of Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n
Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel\u2019s national security minister, in a Spanish-language post, called for Israel to recognize \u201cthat the Malvinas Islands are Argentine territory under occupation, which the British are violently stealing from the Argentine people,\u201d a reference to the decades-long British-Argentine dispute over the Falklands.<\/p>\n
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Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom Ephraim Mirvis. Credit: Office of the Chief Rabbi. <\/p>\n
The British decision also brought condemnation separately from U.K. Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis and the Board of Deputies of British Jews, a representative body of the community. <\/p>\n
In an X post on Tuesday, Mirvis wrote: \u201cThis is truly a dark day for British Jews. Today our Government has chosen to ignore the deep concerns expressed by so many of us. The measures announced amount to little more than political flag bearing for mendacious anti-Israel rhetoric and those who harbour a dangerous obsession with the Jewish State. These measures will succeed only in bolstering the very extremism they seek to target.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Board of Deputies said it \u201cfelt a deep sense of anguish about this breakdown in relations\u201d and warned that the Labour government\u2019s decision risked \u201cperverse consequences which go against the U.K.’s stated objectives.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, the organization also appeared to blame Israel, saying \u201cintolerable settler violence\u201d and \u201cprovocative measures\u201d undermine Israel\u2019s international reputation. It claimed that both governments appeared to be pursuing party interests over national interests.<\/p>\n
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, questioned by press about the U.K.’s decision, said the U.S. would not make any move similar to London\u2019s, but that Washington didn\u2019t want to see any \u201cdestabilizing moves\u201d in Judea and Samaria that could jeopardize progress with the 20-point plan announced by President Donald Trump to bring about a long-term resolution to the war Hamas launched with the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Sept. 8, 2026 \/ JNS) Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa\u2019ar declared \u201ccountermeasures\u201d against the United Kingdom following Tuesday\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":610322,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-610321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=610321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/610322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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