Britain and France were among 21 countries to sign a joint statement Thursday calling Israel’s approval of a major settlement project in the West Bank “unacceptable and a violation of international law.”
Israel approved the plans for the roughly 12-square-kilometer (five-square-mile) parcel of land known as E1 just east of Jerusalem on Wednesday.
“We condemn this decision and call for its immediate reversal in the strongest terms,” said the statement of foreign ministers, whose signatories also included Australia, Canada and Italy.
Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden also signed the statement, as did the European Commission’s foreign affairs chief.
The statement noted that Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said the plan “will make a two-state solution impossible by dividing any Palestinian state and restricting Palestinian access to Jerusalem.”
“This brings no benefits to the Israeli people,” the foreign ministers said.
“Instead, it risks undermining security and fuels further violence and instability, taking us further away from peace.
“The government of Israel still has an opportunity to stop the E1 plan going any further. We encourage them to urgently retract this plan,” they added.
Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy, left, and his French counterpart, Jean-Noel Barrot, at the British Library in London ahead of a bilateral lunch meeting, July 9, 2025. (James Manning/Pool Photo via AP)
The plan seeks to build around 3,400 homes on the ultra-sensitive tract of land, which lies between Jerusalem and the Israeli settlement of Ma’ale Adumim.
All of Israel’s settlements in the West Bank, which it captured from Jordan in the 1967 Six Day War, are viewed as illegal by the vast majority of the international community, regardless of whether they have Israeli planning permission.
The Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA) has slammed the latest move, which has also been criticized by UN chief Antonio Guterres and the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Philippe Lazzarini.
The project would “completely cut off the northern and central West Bank from the southern West Bank — meaning that there would no longer be any territorial contiguity,” said Lazzarini.
He said Israel was taking decisions that would make the creation of two states “increasingly impossible.”
Israeli Ambassador to the UK Tzipi Hotovely arrives to attend a Service of Thanksgiving at Westminster Abbey on V-E Day in London, May 8, 2025.(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Britain on Thursday summoned Israeli Ambassador to the UK Tzipi Hotovely to the foreign ministry to protest the decision.
“If implemented, these settlement plans would be a flagrant breach of international law and would divide a future Palestinian state in two, critically undermining a two-state solution,” the foreign office said in a statement.
Hotovely later hit back at the UK over its criticism of the project, telling the Daily Mail, “I wouldn’t tell the British where to build in London.”
“We see E1 as part of greater Jerusalem,” she added.
Europeans gave Israel ‘green light to take more’ of West Bank
Also Thursday, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said Israel’s decision to approve E1 settlement project was a response to the decisions by Western countries to announce plans to recognize a Palestinian state.
Huckabee told Al Arabiya that US President Donald Trump’s administration hasn’t taken a position on the E1 approval, but did reverse longstanding US policy in his first year by declaring that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are not a violation of international law.
“One of the reasons we’re seeing the more aggressive decision to move into some of these areas is because it’s in reaction to what the Europeans have done — in concert with the Palestinian Authority — pushing for a unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state… that has had a totally disastrous effect, not only on the tension in Judea and Samaria, but it’s had a detrimental effect on resolving things in Gaza,” Huckabee said, using the biblical names for the West Bank.
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee speaks to The Times of Israel, August 12, 2025. (Courtesy)
The US has argued that Hamas hardened its stance in ceasefire-hostage negotiations after countries began to recognize a Palestinian state, but the French decision that began the trend came after the terror group submitted its response that led to the collapse of negotiations in Doha last month.
Moreover, the Knesset passed a non-binding resolution in favor of annexing the West Bank, also prior to France’s decision.
“I don’t know what the Europeans thought they were going to accomplish, but by their actions, they’re accomplishing something that I don’t think they wanted to do, and that is to essentially to give a green light or encourage the Israelis to go ahead and take more pieces of Judea and Samaria, either by declaring sovereignty or annexation,” Huckabee said.
“I don’t think that was their goal, but pushing for unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state without the cooperation and participation of Israel is a violation of Oslo,” he added.
“If there’s going to be this massive violation of the Oslo agreement, then I think people have to prepare for the consequences of that on both sides of the conflict.”
Israel has also been accused of violating the Oslo Accords due to a number of its policies in the West Bank and through its withholding of billions of shekels in tax revenues that belong to the PA.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
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