Sunak should acknowledge Jerusalem as Israel’s capital

When Liz Truss’s premiership came to an abrupt end, it appeared to spell doom for a historic policy shift raised in her leadership campaign. In a break from a widely held but diplomatically fruitless consensus, Truss stood on a platform of reviewing the location of the British embassy in Israel. 

That legation is still based in Tel Aviv despite Israel proclaiming Jerusalem its capital in December 1949 and placing its parliament, government and Supreme Court there. Successive UK governments have deemed Jerusalem a ‘corpus separatum’ and withheld recognition, noting only Israel’s ‘de facto’ authority over the western portions. This is despite Israel exercising all the functions of a sovereign in Jerusalem. 

Israel’s liberation of the eastern sections of the city in 1967, and application of its laws to a ‘complete and united’ Jerusalem in 1980, represented a historic national achievement for the Jewish people. It has also underwritten religious liberty in a city also cherished by Christians and Muslims.