British Prime Minister Theresa May is expected to tell her Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu that a plan to build new settlements in the occupied West Bank undermines the Middle East peace process.
Netanyahu arrived at 10 Downing Street in London Monday to meet the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, whom he plans to court to build closer ties between Britain, Israel and the United States as a trio, and win their support on a harder line against Iran, he told reporters Sunday in a video posted to his Twitter account.
“I would expect the Prime Minister to set out the government’s position that we think the continued increase in settlement activity undermines trust,” a spokeswoman for May told reporters last week, according to the Press Association.
“Our focus is on how we make a two-state solution, with an Israel that is safe from terrorism and a Palestinian state that is viable and sovereign, work,” she said, adding that the government understood the Israelis’ position and “their right to live free from the threat of terrorism.”
Israel plans to build more than 5,000 new homes in the West Bank, in Tel Aviv’s first major construction plans in 20 years.
Netanyahu’s meeting with May comes just hours before Israel’s parliament looks set to vote on a bill to retroactively legalize thousands of settler homes in the West Bank.
The settlement program is illegal under international law, but Israel disputes that finding and insists the status of the West Bank is more ambiguous than international law allows.
Iran’s ‘extraordinary aggression’
Netanyahu said Sunday that Iran would be the first issue he discusses with May and Johnson, following the country’s ballistic missile test eight days ago.
The United States on Friday imposed fresh sanctions on Iran following the test, carried out as Tehran-Washington tensions erupted over US President Donald Trump’s controversial travel ban on seven Muslim-majority nations, including Iran.
“They try to test the limits in extraordinary aggression, with unusual audacity and defiance,” Netanyahu said, speaking of Iran.
“I think the most important thing now is that countries like the United States, who will lead, but also like Israel and Britain, will stand together against the Iranian aggression and set clear boundaries for it,” he said, adding that new leadership in the US and UK provide “opportunities” for Israel.
Iran denies the test violated a UN resolution, saying that it had a right to carry out such exercises in defense of its country.
Netanyahu has been staunchly opposed to a nuclear deal with Iran, brokered by the Obama administration, that saw sanctions on the country relaxed in exchange for a dramatic downsizing of Iran’s nuclear program. The Israeli leader has called the accord “weak.”
Also on the agenda for the meeting is the Syrian conflict, cybersecurity cooperation and trade.