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REGEV BLASTS BACK OVER WEST BANK ANNEXATION 11 JUNE 2020/19 SIVAN 5780
@TheJewishWeekly 145
BY DAVID SAFFER
Israel’s UK Ambassador Mark Regev has vehemently defended his nation’s West Bank annexation plans. The emissary’s hard-hitting response follows an open letter from 42 high profile people in the UK Jewish community (published in Haaretz last week) calling on him to convey their “concern and alarm” at the proposal by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s unity government as it poses an “existential threat” to the traditions of Zionism in Britain and to Israel. Signatories including Lord Daniel Finkelstein, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, former Labour MP Luciana Berger, Holocaust survivor Sir Ben Helfgott, historian Sir Simon Schama and former JC chairmen Alan Jacobs and Steven Grabiner, backed by large numbers of the Jewish community, argue that the coalition’s proposal damages Israel’s international standing, security
and will inflame tensions in the region. Further, it has grave consequences for the Palestinian people, destabilises peace with neighbours Jordan and Egypt, and emboldens Iran and its proxies. The impact on Diaspora Jewry and relationship with the State of Israel would also be profound. Signatories conclude that a principled global defence of “annexation” or “extending sovereignty” would be near-impossible. Regev has long defended Israeli rights and beliefs in challenging times. And in a detailed no-nonsense retort in writing to signatories, makes it clear that a policy of consecutive Israeli governments has “always been” that Israeli law “must be extended” to parts of the West Bank as part of a peace deal. Recalling Levi Eshkol and Golda Meir’s Labour governments rejecting a return to pre-67 lines, as it brought Israel “neither peace nor CONTINUED ON PAGE 4
Ambassador Mark Regev
ISRAEL’S NEW AMBASSADOR TO THE UK
As the Jewish Weekly went to press it was announced that the current Minister of Settlement Affairs, Tzipi Hotovely, has been appointed as Israel's new Ambassador to the UK, replacing Mark Regev whose posting comes to an end this summer after five years.
PHOTO: WIKIMEDIA
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