Dominic Grieve tells the Foreign Office that Israel cannot lawfully shut the mission in East Jerusalem, and urges Britain to challenge the decision in court.
Israel has no legal authority to close the British consulate in East Jerusalem, according to advice given to the Foreign Office by Dominic Grieve, who served as attorney general from 2010 to 2014.
Closure planned for 8 October
Israel has said it will shut the consulate on 8 October. The move is a response to the trade ban on goods from Israeli settlements that Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband announced this month.
Grieve, a Conservative MP from 1997 to 2019, argues that Israel is not entitled to take this step because the consulate sits in East Jerusalem. The United Nations and most of its members, including the UK, regard that area as occupied Palestinian territory.
The legal argument
Grieve says the UK should take the matter to the courts. In his view, Israel is claiming a right it does not hold as an occupying power, namely the right to impose sovereign control over East Jerusalem.
His advice comes in a paper sent to the Foreign Office by the British Palestine Project. It argues that keeping a consulate general in East Jerusalem, even after Britain’s recognition of a Palestinian state, preserves the UK position that the city’s final status is still to be settled. It does not concede Israeli sovereignty.
Grieve also points out that the government formally accepted the International Court of Justice’s July 2024 advisory opinion. That opinion said states should treat Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territory as unlawful. In his view, this puts the government under a duty to oppose the closure.
He adds that the closure would fall hardest on Palestinians rather than on Britain alone, since it would make aid delivery, oversight and reporting from the West Bank and Gaza harder. He described Israel’s approach in the city as creating facts on the ground through unlawful settlement building and property seizure, then pressing other states to recognise them.
Ministers’ response in the Lords
The issue came up in the House of Lords, where former UK ambassador Lord Hannay questioned the legality of Israel’s plan. Foreign Office minister Lord Wood said Hannay might have a point and knew more about the subject than he did. He also said he feared Israel could effectively make the consulate unable to operate, whatever the legal position.
A mission older than Israel
The UK’s Jerusalem mission dates back to 1838, more than a century before the state of Israel was created. It is separate from the British embassy in Tel Aviv. The consul general reports directly to the Foreign Office and has its own staff. The role covers Jerusalem, the rest of the West Bank and Gaza.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar has said the closure reflects Israeli sovereignty over the whole of Jerusalem. The UN Security Council has explicitly stated that Israel does not hold such sovereignty.
Dutch diplomats also targeted
Britain is not the only country affected. On Sunday, Sa’ar announced that Israel would revoke the credentials of Dutch diplomats to the Palestinian territories. This followed the Netherlands’ ban on imports from illegal Israeli settlements, which took effect on 22 September. Dutch customs say the rules cover companies and individual travellers, and apply to items bought before or after the law came into force, including gifts and souvenirs.
The move also bars the Dutch diplomats from Israeli-controlled East Jerusalem and is likely to force their Ramallah office to close. Because Israel’s occupation means diplomats need Israeli accreditation to work in Palestine, the measure carries real weight. Sa’ar has said Dutch diplomats can keep representing their country from Palestinian Authority territory. The Israeli foreign ministry did not immediately explain how that would work in practice.
Norwegian precedent
Israel took the same step against Norwegian diplomats in 2024, after Norway recognised Palestine. It led to the closure of Norway’s mission in the West Bank town of al-Ram. Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide called the decision extreme and unreasonable. Norway has since maintained its Palestinian relations through diplomats based in Jordan.
