The expected announcement from the UK government comes after Israel announced tenders for the construction of about 1,200 settlement houses in the so-called E1 area, a strategically important area east of Jerusalem. The plans drew widespread international condemnation.
Israel has delayed construction plans in the area for decades under global pressure.
In his first address to parliament as foreign secretary last week, Miliband said the plans were “illegal under international law” and called them “crossing a red line as it runs through the heart of the West Bank and risks making a Palestinian state unviable.”
Prime Minister Andy Burnham also warned that Israel’s E1 announcement could “jeopardize or end” the two-state solution in the Middle East.
Tuesday’s expected intervention comes almost a year after Sir Keir Starmer’s government recognized the state of Palestine and said Britain had a moral responsibility to support a peaceful future for Israelis and Palestinians.
The government believes the prospect of a two-state solution is being jeopardized by rapid settlement expansion.
Labour’s foreign affairs select committee chairwoman Emily Thornberry said it was “not enough” for the UK government to recognize a Palestinian state but “must do everything possible” to protect its ability to exist alongside a secure Israel.
She denied the expected announcement would increase support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the upcoming election, telling BBC Radio 4’s Today program that “Israel is a democracy with many different views” and “equating Netanyahu’s extremism with all of Israel” does not do the country justice.
Asked whether a significant distinction could be made between goods from the settlements and those from Israel, she noted that the UK already has a trade agreement that gives “preferential” treatment to goods from the latter – “so they recognize that there is a difference.”
Meanwhile, Peter Prinsley – MP and vice-chairman of Labour’s Friends of Israel – said that while he supported a two-state solution, he had “a number of concerns” about the expected announcement, including its ability to influence the elections.
He told the BBC he was also concerned that “opponents of Israel” would not differentiate between the Israeli government’s policies and those of British Jews, and said he had warned Miliband that the move carried a real risk of increasing attacks on the British Jewish community.
The government’s independent expert on terrorism law said there was a “risk that if you stir the pot by making Israel a rogue state, it will reignite the flames we have seen” around a spate of anti-Semitic attacks in Britain in recent years.
Jonathan Hall told Newsnight on Monday that he was worried about “delegitimizing everyone who is Israeli, of course, and Jews, many of whom support Israel, and painting a target on their back”, but he hopes ministers will be careful in how they describe the expected announcement.
The proposal for an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital, that could exist alongside Israel, has received international support for several decades.
He proposes the creation of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with its capital in East Jerusalem. It will exist next to Israel.
Israel rejects the two-state solution. It says any final settlement must be the result of negotiations with the Palestinians and statehood should not be a precondition.
The Palestinian Authority supports the two-state solution, but Hamas does not because it is against Israel’s existence.
Hamas says it could accept an interim Palestinian state based on the de facto 1967 borders without formal Israeli recognition if refugees were given the right to return.
Israel has built some 160 settlements, home to 700,000 Jews, since it occupied the West Bank and east Jerusalem during the 1967 Middle East war. An estimated 3.3 million Palestinians live nearby.
Since the start of the Gaza War, sparked by the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, there has been a surge in settler attacks on Palestinians and their property in the West Bank.