Britain, France Threaten to Recall Israel Ambassadors

Religion Today | Updated: Dec 03, 2012

Britain, France Threaten to Recall Israel Ambassadors

Britain and France threatened to recall their ambassadors after Israel announced plans to build on land Palestinian Arabs claim as part of a future Palestinian state, CBN News reports. In protest to last week's U.N. vote that granted non-member observer state status to the Palestinian Authority, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made the announcement that Israel would build more than 3,000 new apartments in areas known biblically as Judea and Samaria. The U.N. vote abrogated agreements the Palestinians and Israel made to each other in the 1993 Oslo Accords, Israel said. Some lawmakers in Washington, D.C., wanted to cut funding to both the PA and the U.N., but the British and French governments objected to Israel's decision to build. "We don't tell the British or the French where to build in Paris or London and we do not expect anybody to tell us what do to," Israeli Minister of Infrastructure Uzi Landau said. Another part of the controversy concerns plans to expand Maale Adumim, a Jewish community just outside Jerusalem with a population of more than 40,000. Palestinians say the expansion would create a land barrier breaking the continuity of their future state, but for Israel, it would link the suburb to Jerusalem. Though U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and many nations call the land "occupied" territory, Israel says it is not "occupied" but "disputed," and that the nation has both a natural right and territorial claims to it. Meanwhile, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas addressed crowds in Ramallah after the U.N. vote, promising that "one day, a young Palestinian will raise the Palestinian flag over Jerusalem, the eternal capital of the state of Palestine."



Britain, France Threaten to Recall Israel Ambassadors