Received from: National Education Union
Congress stands united in its full opposition to the Prime Minister’s proposal to consider moving the UK Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Congress believes that such a move would have disastrous implications for the rights of Palestinians, rewarding Israel for the policies it has carried out since its occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967, all designed to assert exclusive sovereignty over the city, and deny the centrality of the city to Palestinian life, economically, politically, and culturally.
Moving the embassy would contravene numerous UN Resolutions including UNSC Resolution 478, which declared Israel annexation of east Jerusalem “null and void” and called upon “all member states to accept this decision”, and “those states that had established diplomatic missions at Jerusalem to withdraw such missions..”.
Moving the Embassy would undermine a cornerstone principle of international law, that states should not annex conquered territory, a principle the UK has supported elsewhere, most notably in response to Russia’s annexation of territory in the Ukraine.
Congress therefore resolves
- to write to the Prime Minister calling upon her to abandon any proposals to move the Embassy and not consider any such move unless within the context of a comprehensive peace agreement endorsed by both sides; and
- To write to the leaders of opposition parties asking them to publicly commit to reversing any decision made to move the Embassy to Jerusalem, if in Government following a General Election.
Moved: NEU
Seconded: UCU