Before normal diplomatic relations are restored, Britain should be required to acknowledge that betrayal and pay billions in restitution.By Jonathan PollardJonathan Pollard (Courtesy)Britain announced sweeping new measures against Israel on Tuesday, banning imports from Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and imposing additional restrictions on businesses and individuals connected to those communities.Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband also accused Israelis of committing “ethnic cleansing.” The initiative was supported by 11 other countries.In response, Israel announced the closure of the British Consulate in Jerusalem, barred 12 British lawmakers from entering the country, ended British training of Palestinian Authority forces and removed British representatives from an international Gaza coordination center.Israel’s retaliatory measures fell far short of what Britain’s hostile actions demanded.Closing the British Consulate was an obvious first step. Israel should also have closed the British Embassy in Tel Aviv and conditioned its reopening upon Britain relocating it to Jerusalem and formally recognizing the city as Israel’s capital.Such a demand would not merely punish Britain. It would directly answer London’s presumption that it has the authority to determine where Jews may live in their own homeland.A government that seeks to divide our land should no longer be permitted to disregard our capital while enjoying full diplomatic privileges inside Israel.Britain’s conduct also cannot be separated from its historical record.During the darkest period in modern Jewish history, the British government severely restricted Jewish immigration to Mandatory Palestine, closing the gates of the Jewish homeland to Jews fleeing Nazi extermination.Before normal diplomatic relations are restored, Britain should be required to acknowledge that betrayal and pay billions in restitution.The British confrontation should also have prompted Israel to adopt a broader and long-overdue diplomatic policy: Every country maintaining an embassy in Israel must relocate it to Jerusalem.Governments refusing to recognize Israel’s capital should not expect Israel to continue accepting that insult indefinitely.The same principle should apply to the 11 governments that joined Miliband’s initiative.Their participation was not a symbolic disagreement with a particular Israeli policy. It was a coordinated attempt to discriminate against Jews based solely upon where they live.Israel should have responded by closing the Jerusalem consulates of every participating country.Those consulates are part of a much larger diplomatic fiction. Foreign governments maintain separate offices in Jerusalem and Ramallah because they continue treating Judea and Samaria as the territory of a future Palestinian state whose establishment is supposedly inevitable.Israel should reject that premise entirely.All foreign diplomatic offices in Ramallah should be ordered permanently closed. Countries wishing to conduct relations with the Palestinian Authority can do so through their embassies in Israel, subject to Israeli sovereignty and Israeli law.That brings us to the greatest lost opportunity of all: the government’s failure to declare the Oslo Accords dead.For decades, the Palestinian Authority has incited hatred against Jews, rewarded terrorists and their families, waged diplomatic warfare against Israel and promoted the destruction of the Jewish state.Its continued existence has not advanced peace. It has entrenched a hostile regime in the heart of our homeland.How much more Jewish blood must be spilled before this genocidal authority is dismantled?Once Israel acknowledges that Oslo has failed, the necessary conclusion becomes unavoidable: Israel must apply its sovereignty over Judea and Samaria.Exactly whom are we waiting to negotiate this with? Ed Miliband?Israel does not require Britain’s permission to exercise sovereignty in the Jewish people’s ancestral homeland.Nor should our future be determined by European governments that condemn Israel while rewarding those committed to its destruction.The Israeli government’s response to this sordid affair reveals something far more troubling than diplomatic caution. It demonstrates our political establishment’s chronic inability to think strategically and act decisively.Until Israel elects leaders prepared to abandon this mentality, we will continue wiping the world’s spit from our faces while pretending it is only rain.The post Pollard: Britain’s hostile attack on Israel demands a far stronger response appeared first on World Israel News.