UK Ditches Former PM Truss’s Plan to Relocate Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak leaves 10 Downing Street to attend Prime Minister's Questions at the House of Commons in London on Nov. 2, 2022. (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

Britain’s new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has abandoned plans by his predecessor to move the UK Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, Downing Street has revealed.

Then-Prime Minister Liz Truss had ordered a review into whether the UK should follow the Trump administration in relocating the embassy from Tel Aviv.

Asked whether the government is still considering a move, a spokeswoman for the Prime Minister’s Office said on Nov. 3: “It has been looked at. There are no plans to move the British embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv.”

Prime Minister Liz Truss meets with Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid at the UN building in New York on Sep. 21, 2022. (PA)

Sensitive Issue

Since the creation of Israel in 1948, the UK has had its embassy in Tel Aviv, even as Jerusalem has been designated as the official capital.

During her campaign to become Conservative Party leader and prime minister, Truss, who was then foreign secretary under Boris Johnson, wrote a letter to the Conservative Friends of Israel, in which she promised to review if the UK should move its embassy to Jerusalem.

She wrote in the letter that she understands “the importance and sensitivity” of the location of the UK Embassy in Israel, and she would review a move to ensure the UK is “operating on the strongest footing within Israel.”

After she became prime minister, Truss told Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly that she was considering moving the UK Embassy to Jerusalem.

US Decision

While Palestinians seek to claim East Jerusalem as the capital of a state they want to establish in the West Bank, Israel regards the entire city, including the eastern sector it annexed in the 1967 Six-Day War, as its “eternal and indivisible capital.”

Shortly after he arrived in the White House in 2017, President Donald Trump promised to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. He followed through with that pledge, opening the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem in May 2018.

When Trump announced his plan to move the U.S. Embassy, Palestinian general delegate to the UK Manuel Hassassian told the BBC it would be like “declaring war” on the Middle East but there was muted opposition from Arab states.

In September 2020, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain normalised relations with Israel. In October 2020, Sudan normalised relations with Israel, and following that in December 2020, Morocco normalised relations with Israel.

Chris Summers and PA Media contributed to this report.