LONDON (Dispatches) – Former British Foreign Secretary William Hague has sensationally stepped into the controversy of whether to move the UK’s embassy in the Israeli-occupied territories from Tel Aviv to Al-Quds, warning Liz Truss that to do so would align her government with Donald Trump.
In a shock intervention that will have taken Downing Street by surprise, Hague, who is also a former Conservative Party leader, wrote in Tuesday’s Times newspaper: “Do not move the British embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem (Al-Quds).”
Hague told Truss: “This would be a breach of UN Security Council resolutions by one of its permanent members,… and align Britain in foreign affairs with Donald Trump and three small states rather than the whole of the rest of the world.”
Former U.S. President Donald Trump broke with international convention by moving the U.S. embassy in the occupied territories to Al-Quds in 2018 - a move which was then condemned by the British government. Only three other UN member states have embassies in Al-Quds: Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.
Hague, now a member of the House of Lords, is by far the most senior Conservative figure to come out in opposition to relocating the embassy.
He was the Conservative leader in opposition from 1997 until 2001 and served as foreign secretary between 2010 and 2015 in David Cameron’s Conservative-led coalition government.
Hague remains a respected figure, and his statement will encourage other Tories to follow suit, raising the prospect of another rebellion within the party against the crisis-hit Truss if she presses ahead with reviewing the location of the embassy.
Truss, who became prime minister last month, first floated the possible move in a letter to the pro-Zionist lobby group Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) during her Conservative leadership campaign over the summer.
She then confirmed she was considering the plan in a meeting with her Zionist counterpart Yair Lapid on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly last month.
At that point that embassy move looked like a done deal, especially since Middle East Eye understands that the review into the location of the embassy was carried out inside Downing Street rather than by the Foreign Office.
However, opposition has grown in recent days. Both the Archbishop of Canterbury, the most senior cleric in the Church of England, and his Roman Catholic counterpart, the Archbishop of Westminster, have cautioned against the move.
On Monday, Christian church leaders from 13 religious denominations in Al-Quds came together to warn against the move, stating that it would be a “further impediment to advancing the already moribund peace process”.
Several Jewish groups and the Muslim Council of Britain have also opposed any move.