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Netanyahu in UK for talks with May on trade and peace

The priority for Downing Street is building a stronger bilateral relationship with Israel and improving trade post Brexit.

A police officer carries an Israeli boy during an operation to evict occupants from the West Bank settler outpost of Amona after a court ruled homes were built on Palestinian land
Image: A police officer carries an Israeli boy during an operation to evict occupants from the West Bank settler outpost of Amona after a court order
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Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets Theresa May today hoping to gloss over differences and build on common ground.

Top of the list of differences are Israeli settlements, built on occupied land in contravention of international law, though that is disputed by Israel.

With Resolution 2334 the UN Security Council in December yet again condemned settlements as a 'flagrant violation of international law'. Britain led efforts behind the resolution.

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Police move in to evict hundreds of illegal Israeli settlers

Israel has shown its contempt for the resolution and its backers by approving thousands more settlement homes since then.

Palestinians don't like settlements because they are built on land they need if they have any chance of building a viable state of their own, unless it is one that will look like a Swiss cheese as George W Bush put it.

They are also in some cases built on stolen Palestinian land. Despite that, while the two PMs meet, the Israeli Knesset will likely vote on a law that will retrospectively legalise that land theft and other settlement activity today.

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Mrs May knows settlements are eating away at the territory left for Palestinians to build their state and so destroying the basis of a two state solution to the Middle East conflict.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gestures during a Likud faction meeting at the Knesset (Israel's Parliament) in Jerusalem on January 2, 2017. Netanyahu denied any wrongdoing ahead of his expected questioning by police in a graft probe, telling his political opponents to put any 'celebrations' on hold
Image: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will talk trade with Theresa May

But will she stand up to Israel's prime minister and tick him off over the thousands more settlement homes that are planned?

It will come up, we are told by Downing Street but won't be the focus. The reason? The priority is building a stronger bilateral relationship with Israel and improving trade post-Brexit.

"Simply not good enough," says Jeremy Corbyn. The Labour leader says the Government should "stand unequivocally behind the rights of the Palestinian people".

But Mrs May knows the rigmarole. Britain protests about settlement building, Israel carries on building them. And neither lets the issue get in the way of closer ties. That's the way it has been for decades.

This time Israel wants a quid pro quo on Iran. Israel shows willing on better post-Brexit trade ties and the UK takes a firmer line on the Islamic republic.

The age of US Iranian detente ended the day Barack Obama left the White House. Britain must decide whether it continues its rapprochement with Tehran or follows Washington's lead. And Benjamin Netanyahu is here to give it a nudge in that direction.