Manuel Hassassian, the Palestinian ambassador to Britain, has assailed the British approach towards resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a “charade” and is attempting to scuttle the visit to London of Yuli Edelstein, the Speaker of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.
Hassassian believes his appearance will be seen as legitimization of Israeli occupation. “Mr Edelstein lives on an illegal Israeli settlement built on Palestinian land and he publicly opposes Palestinian statehood,” he writes in an article published by The Independent. “He even supports initiatives such as Lobby for Greater Israel, whose members want to colonize what is left of Palestinian land.”
Mr. Edelstein, a longtime resident of the West bank settlement of neve Daniel, recently relocated to the Tel Aviv suburb of Herzliya for personal reasons.
He added: “I am quite incredulous that Mr Edelstein is being given a platform in Parliament itself… the self-same Parliament that only a short time ago voted to recognize the Palestinians’ right to self-determination and a state of their own…The current British Government is reneging on its long-held policy positions on illegal Israeli settlements and on the two-state solution. Are these positions just empty words?”
The British Foreign Office replied: “The UK’s position on Israeli settlements is clear and unchanged: they are illegal under international law and are an obstacle to peace.”