A coalition of 102 former French and British diplomats is looking on their nations to collectively sanction Israel, warning in an open letter that Israeli coverage in occupied Palestinian territory threatens to completely erase the potential of a Palestinian state.
France and the UK “should act collectively to uphold worldwide legislation in Palestine”, stated the letter revealed on Saturday by French outlet Le Monde. It urged the 2 governments to push for “equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians”.
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The signatories embrace former British ambassadors to the United Nations, Jeremy Greenstock and Emyr Jones Parry, and former French Center East administrators, Yves Aubin de la Messuziere and Denis Bauchard, drawing on many years of diplomatic postings throughout the area.
“Palestinian home demolitions and rampant settler violence – with the connivance of the Israeli military and police – quantity to ethnic cleaning,” stated the letter. “The world now not sees Israel as a real democracy,” it added.
Such language, stated Nicholas Hopton, a former UK ambassador to Iran, Qatar and Yemen and one of many signatories, was not invented by the diplomats themselves.
“The phrases usually are not our personal,” he instructed Al Jazeera. “They’re taken from the worldwide authorized our bodies, the UN, those that have been observing from a impartial place and with experience.”
The letter arrives in opposition to the backdrop of Israel’s genocidal warfare on Gaza, which has killed greater than 72,000 Palestinians since October 2023. Regardless of a ceasefire that took impact in October 2025, Israeli assaults have continued, killing no less than 1,285 Palestinians since, in line with Gaza’s Ministry of Well being.
For Hopton, the extra instant set off was Israel’s renewed push to broaden settlements within the occupied West Financial institution.
“There’s a transfer by the Israeli authorities to permit settlements to be created within the West Financial institution in a manner that will virtually realistically forestall a future Palestinian state having the ability to be created there,” he stated.
France and the UK recognised a Palestinian state in 2025, a step the letter argues now must be “made actual by pressing motion.” The signatories hint their nations’ duty again to the mandates the UK and France held over Palestine, Syria and Lebanon after World Battle I, which formed the area’s trendy borders.
“Our two nations imagine that these accountable for warfare crimes and crimes in opposition to humanity should be held to account,” the letter states. “Solely then can our governments rebut the accusation of double requirements.”
What the diplomats demand
The letter lays out particular measures for France and the UK to undertake collectively: suspending EU-Israel and UK-Israel commerce agreements and halting arms transfers and army cooperation with Israel.
It additionally requires a ban on commerce with Israeli settlements, a ban on residents buying property on occupied Palestinian land, and assured humanitarian entry to Gaza by means of UNRWA and different UN businesses, with protected entry for journalists, diplomats and parliamentarians.
“These actions, imposing penalties for law-breaking, safeguard the rule of legislation and present that there’s a substitute for violence,” the letter states.
The letter, nonetheless, isn’t directed solely at Israel; it additionally calls on Palestinian management, which it describes as “unrepresentative and dysfunctional”, to make sure the internationally recognised state stays “democratic and law-abiding”, pointing to elections scheduled for November as a possibility for renewal.
For Hopton, although, the true check lies with governments keen to behave reasonably than merely condemn, and he singled out the USA as essentially the most consequential actor.
“The USA … has essentially the most affect over the actions of the Israeli authorities,” he instructed Al Jazeera, warning that continued inaction “will create a longer-term, irreconcilable drawback and retailer up future violence and future tragedies”.
