Former UK envoys warn on Israeli West Bank annexations

Posted: 28th April 2026

Mr Netanyahu and his Jewish supremacist Ministers (including Smotrich and Ben Gvir) are going for broke, trying to break Palestine forever. With Israeli elections due by October, their days in power may (only may) be numbered. So they are accelerating illegal settlement expansion and thus annexation in the West Bank, accompanied by state-sponsored settler murderous violence and forced displacement of Palestinians – ethnic cleansing. Genocide in Gaza is not ended – just unreported in Western mainstream media.

Below and here is a letter published on 24 April in the Financial Times, drafted by the Britain Palestine Project. Below that is the Opinion article about the US to which it responds.

There are many actions the British Government should take, ideally with European and Commonwealth partners. It has promised “concrete steps” against settlements. The letter proposes three. If you agree, please consider forwarding the FT letter to your MP, as we suggested with a similar letter in The Guardian earlier this month. Together, we are pouring water on a stone. Please keep pouring!

On 2 June the Britain Palestine Project holds its annual conference: “Recognition is the beginning” at the Greenwood Theatre near London Bridge. Please register to attend – in person if you can, on-line if you can’t.

With best wishes,

Sir Vincent Fean
Trustee, Britain Palestine Project

Letter to the Financial Times from Sir Vincent Fean and 60 other former British Ambassadors and former High Commissioners

24 April 2026

America is indeed falling out of love with Israel (Opinion, April 22). So is Europe. While the world watches Iran and Lebanon, Israel extends control over the West Bank and Gaza. Its accelerating annexation is unmistakable.

In a public letter on April 15, 390 European former ministers and officials wrote that Israel is breaking the EU-Israel Association Agreement, a key provision of which is “respect for human rights and democratic principles to guide their internal and international policy”. The same clause is in the UK-Israel Trade and Partnership Agreement. Israel is in breach of both agreements.

Three examples. First, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, voted for the discriminatory death penalty bill, which applies to Palestinians only. Second, having asked the International Committee of the Red Cross to rescue hostages from Gaza, he refuses to grant ICRC access to Palestinian prisoners in Israel. Third, systematic state-supported settler violence and ethnic cleansing are rampant in the West Bank.

The letter asks the EU to suspend Israel’s Association Agreement; ban trade with Israeli settlements; suspend arms transfers and Israeli engagement in EU programmes; penalise those who violate international law; and set human rights benchmarks for Israel’s future conduct, with more sanctions if needed.

Sir Keir Starmer seeks to move our country closer to the EU, in trade and foreign policy. Upholding international law is a shared core principle. He has confirmed that the 1967 Israeli occupation is unlawful — as advised by the International Court of Justice in 2024. Yet the British government has still not published its assessment of that opinion, which states that UN members should do nothing to prolong the unlawful occupation. Trade with settlements — all of them illegal — does prolong it. Britain and its European partners should ban all settlement trade — goods and services, including investment and insurance — and review those agreements with Israel.

Israel’s settlements project aims to kill the viability of the Palestinian state — Gaza, East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank — which Britain recognised recently. That aim needs to fail, for the sake of long-term stability and a just peace.

On June 1, Israel publishes tenders to build the E1 settlement, bisecting the West Bank. With partners, Britain should now warn potential bidders that they will endanger their business interests in and with the UK if they proceed.

Mere words of condemnation are ignored. While the world is distracted, grave contraventions of international law continue in occupied Palestine. We have drawn the EU letter to foreign secretary Yvette Cooper’s attention. Government action is now needed.

Sir Vincent Fean
Former Consul-General, Jerusalem

Lord Kerr of Kinlochard
Former Permanent Secretary, Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Lord Hannay of Chiswick
Former Ambassador to the UN

Ann Grant
Former High Commissioner to South Africa

Sir Jeremy Greenstock
Former Ambassador to the UN

Sir David Manning
Former Ambassador to the United States

Sir Emyr Jones Parry
Former Ambassador to the UN

Frances Guy
Former Ambassador to Lebanon

Sir Tony Brenton
Former Ambassador to Russia

Anthony Cary
Former High Commissioner to Canada

Sir Roger Tomkys
Former High Commissioner to Kenya

Sir David Blatherwick
Former Ambassador to Egypt

Sir Colin Budd
Former Ambassador to the Netherlands

John Casson
Former Ambassador to Egypt

Edward Chaplin
Former Ambassador to Italy

Alan Charlton
Former Ambassador to Brazil

Sir Dominick Chilcott
Former Ambassador to Turkey

Sir Edward Clay
Former High Commissioner to Kenya

Peter Collecott
Former Ambassador to Brazil

Sir Richard Dalton
Former Ambassador to Iran

Sir John Goulden
Former Ambassador to Nato

Alan Goulty
Former Ambassador to Tunisia

Sir Richard Gozney
Former Ambassador to Indonesia

Sir James Hodge
Former Ambassador to Thailand

Henry Hogger
Former Ambassador to Syria

Michael Hone
Former Ambassador to Iceland

Nicholas Hopton
Former Ambassador to Iran

Alan Hunt
Former High Commissioner to Singapore

Peter Jenkins
Former Ambassador to the UN (Vienna)

Rupert Joy
Former EU Ambassador to Morocco

Robin Kealy
Former Ambassador to Tunisia

Robin Lamb
Former Ambassador to Bahrain

Richard Lavers
Former Ambassador to Guatemala

Anthony Layden
Former Ambassador to Libya

Norman Ling
Former Ambassador to Ethiopia

Richard Lyne
Former High Commissioner to the Solomon Islands

Sir David Madden
Former Ambassador to Greece

Richard Makepeace
Former Ambassador to the UAE

Mark Matthews
Former Ambassador to Chad

Boyd McCleary
Former High Commissioner to Malaysia

Peter Millett
Former Ambassador to Jordan

Colin Munro
Former Ambassador to Croatia

Patrick Nixon
Former Ambassador to the UAE

Richard Northern
Former Ambassador to Libya

Sir William Patey
Former Ambassador to Afghanistan

Sir Derek Plumbly
Former Ambassador to Egypt

Sir Kieran Prendergast
Former Ambassador to Turkey

Thom Reilly
Former Ambassador to Morocco

Sir David Richmond
Former Director General, FCO

Frank Savage
Former Governor, British Virgin Islands

Christopher Segar
Former Ambassador to Iraq

Sir John Shepherd
Former Ambassador to Italy

Adrian Sindall
Former Ambassador to Syria

Duncan Taylor
Former Ambassador to Mexico

Richard Thomas
Former High Commissioner, Eastern Caribbean

Sir Harold Walker
Former Ambassador to Iraq

Sir David Warren
Former Ambassador to Japan

James Watt
Former Ambassador to Egypt

Nick Westcott
Former High Commissioner to Ghana

Jon Wilks
Former Ambassador to Qatar

David Wright
Former Ambassador to Qatar

Why America is falling out of love with Israel

Who in America remembers Yitzhak Rabin? It is a safe bet that few under 40 would recall the courageous prime minister of Israel who sought peace with the Palestinians. His 1995 assassination by an Israeli extremist prompted the country’s rightward turn and the dawn of the age of Benjamin Netanyahu. That shows no signs of waning. There should be no mystery as to why younger Americans are as pro-Palestinian today as their forebears were once pro-Israeli. Rabin staked his life on peace. What will posterity say of Netanyahu?

The change in US sentiment is nevertheless stark. Sixty per cent of Americans now view Israel unfavourably, according to Pew. The younger they are, the higher that number. Three-quarters of 18- to 29-year-olds sympathise more with Palestinians than Israelis, according to a separate NBC poll last weekend. As boomers die off, America’s anti-Israeli tilt is likely to harden. Fewer and fewer Americans think of Israel as David standing up to the Arab world’s Goliath. More and more associate it with heavy-handed militarism.

There is even a non-trivial risk that Israel could fall out with President Donald Trump. At some point Trump will strike a deal with Iran’s regime to end Operation Epic Fury. Whatever the contours, Israel is almost certain to be against it. Americans have taken note of Netanyahu’s sway in convincing Trump that it was a good idea to attack Iran in the first place. Pro-Israeli groups have wasted a lot of goodwill accusing those who observe Netanyahu’s influence of spreading antisemitic tropes. That would make antisemites out of millions of Zionist Americans.

To be sure, Trump is solely responsible for embroiling America in this war of whim. But as The New York Times reported, the most prominent voice urging Trump to go ahead was Netanyahu’s. Trump’s own advisers, including Marco Rubio, the secretary of state; JD Vance, the vice-president; John Ratcliffe, the CIA director; and Dan Caine, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, expressed varying degrees of scepticism. Netanyahu was no puppet master pulling the strings. But his Trump persuasion skills were material.

The other dramatic trend against Israel is among Democrats. Forty out of 47 Democratic senators last week voted to block US arms sales to Israel. A few years ago, Democrats eagerly sought money from the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, the country’s most powerful pro-Israeli lobby. AIPAC still styles itself as bipartisan. Democrats are now pledging not to accept what they see as tainted money.

The party’s White House hopefuls are likewise in a bidding war to see who can distance themselves furthest from Israel. The pace is being set by Rahm Emanuel, the former mayor of Chicago, who has pledged to end America’s annual $3.8bn Israel subsidy. It can buy weapons at market value like any other ally, he says. Were Israel to break the rules of war, he adds, America should impose an embargo. Other Democrats are threatening to withhold the sale of defensive weapons, including for Israel’s protective Iron Dome.

Barring Bernie Sanders, such politics would have been unthinkable a few years ago. That Emanuel’s middle name is “Israel” and he was briefly a civilian volunteer in the Israel Defense Forces only reinforces the shift. But Netanyahu has made the bed that he may yet have to lie in. When Emanuel was Barack Obama’s chief of staff in 2009, Netanyahu reportedly called him a “self-hating Jew”. Emanuel’s sin was to have opposed new Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Such tactics have laid the ground for today’s backlash. Netanyahu’s feud with Emanuel illustrates the uneven accusations of so-called dual loyalty. Anyone who implies that a prominent Jewish American has ties to both the US and Israel risks being accused of antisemitism by AIPAC and other Netanyahu allies. Yet when a Jewish American figure such as Emanuel has a diverging take on US national interests, they are branded as disloyal or worse. Democrats, including a majority of Jewish senators, are alert to such double standards. Most are also troubled by the misapplication of one of history’s most deadly prejudices. If anything, such overuse increases America’s disenchantment with Israel.

The next act will be Trump’s efforts to find a way out of Epic Fury. It is hard to see how he will get a US-Iran settlement that is much better than what Obama negotiated in 2015. Netanyahu broke precedent by telling Congress that the Iran-US nuclear deal was “very bad”. He also played a role in 2018 in persuading Trump to pull out of it.

Most of Iran’s estimated 440kg in highly enriched uranium — enough for around 10 nuclear weapons — was enriched since then. Trump is aiming for an indefinite suspension of enrichment — against Obama’s 15 years. But if Trump’s framework fails to curb Iran’s ballistic missile programme and to sever Iran’s ties with its regional proxies, Netanyahu will hate it almost as much.

Both the US and Israel, meanwhile, face elections later this year. Netanyahu is too canny to risk a campaign without Trump’s support. But Trump’s self-preservation instinct will probably stop him from risking mass US casualties by sending ground forces into Iran. Netanyahu’s quandary is thus pre-baked. The one thing he can bank on is that whoever comes after Trump is likely to be far less friendly.

[email protected]