Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband’s pledge, during questioning by MPs in the UK parliament, follows weeks of increasing attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinian villages in the occupied territory.
It also comes after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to keep establishing settlements in the West Bank despite mounting international pressure, promising a major wave of immigration to the occupied Palestinian territory.
Some of the violence by settlers in recent weeks had drawn rare condemnation from Netanyahu and unusually strong criticism from the US ambassador, as well as more typical critics in European capitals.
“We need a comprehensive reset of our policy,” Miliband said Tuesday.
“This government will not acquiesce in the destruction of the two-state solution. We will act, and I will set out a comprehensive set of measures in the coming weeks.”
He called the so-called E1 development plan for more than 1,200 homes greenlighted by Israel last year, “the crossing of a red line, as it cuts through the heart of the West Bank and risks making a Palestinian state unviable”.
Miliband, son of Jewish refugees to Britain, was speaking in parliament as foreign secretary for the first time since being appointed to the role in mid-July by Prime Minister Andy Burnham.
Britain’s top diplomat said the UK was “looking indeed at our wider economic relationship with the occupied territories” and “we do not want British companies financing, constructing, or advertising new settlements”.
More than 500,000 Israelis live in settlements in the Palestinian territory — which are illegal under international law — among some three million Palestinians.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967. Violence against Palestinians by Israeli settlers has increased since the unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas from the Gaza Strip.
Addressing the spike in violence against Palestinians in recent weeks, Miliband said the world had “seen appalling settler terrorism and Palestinians driven from their homes”.