Israeli Jews praying at the Western Wall or visiting the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem is not considered unlawful, the British government has clarified.
When foreign secretary Ed Miliband unveiled a ban on West Bank settlement goods on Tuesday, he accepted the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) advisory opinion that Israel’s occupation of the entire territory taken from Jordan in 1967 was “unlawful”.
The government’s previous legal position had been that just settlements were illegal – as opposed to Israel’s control of the entire territory east of the Green Line, and parts of Jerusalem – and that the status of the city should be determined as part of a negotiated settlement between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
The new position could imply that the presence of Israelis by the Western Wall or in the Jewish Quarter is, in the view of the UK government, unlawful.
However a foreign office spokesperson clarified that this was not the case.
They told the JC: “The government will always protect religious freedoms – including the rights of Jews to pray at the Western wall.
"It is not the government's position that the presence of Israelis in Jerusalem, including the Jewish Quarter or at the Western Wall, is unlawful.”
Miliband said when unveiling the trade ban that “the government believes the unlawfulness of the occupation should be reflected in the economic relationships we choose to have with the occupied territories”.
Announcing what he described as a “new comprehensive sanctions regime”, the foreign secretary added there would be “appropriate religious exemptions”.
But questions remained about the government’s stance on the status of Jerusalem.
The Western Wall – the last remaining site of the first and second temples – along with the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem were taken by Israel from Jordan in the Six-Day War in 1967 and are therefore beyond Israel’s 1967 borders, also known as the Green Line.
East Jerusalem was formally annexed to Israel in 1980, though many countries do not recognise Israeli sovereignty over the territory.
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