The British embassy in Tel Aviv has joined a wider European trend of boycotting Jewish towns in Judea and Samaria. Embassy officials announced Wednesday that they had canceled a planned relocation after discovering that the owner of their intended new office was involved in construction projects in Judea and Samaria.

The intended new location was the Kirya tower in Tel Aviv, which is partly owned by Africa-Israel. The owner of Africa-Israel, Lev Levayev, also owns a subsidiary company that has built homes in Har Homa, Maaleh Adumim and Matityahu East.

All three towns are located in “settlement blocs,” or large concentrations of Israeli neighborhoods located near the 1949 armistice line. Polls show that most Jewish Israelis support maintaining Israeli sovereignty over “settlement blocs” under any future peace deal with the Palestinian Authority, and the Israeli government sees construction in those towns as legitimate.

British embassy officials said the deal was canceled before any leases were signed. Africa-Israel's ties to construction projects in Jewish cities in Judea and Samaria were “part of the reason” for the move, officials said.

The decision to cancel the move does not represent a change in British policy, but rather a more active approach, said embassy spokeswoman Karen Kaufman. “The UK government has always regarded settlements as illegal, but what has happened in recent months is that we are looking for ways to make a difference on this issue,” she explained.

The British government refuses to deal with Jewish companies based on Judea and Samaria and has criticized the practice of marking goods from Judea and Samaria as “made in Israel.”

British officials were pressured by several groups opposed to the presence of Jews in Judea and Samaria to reject the move to the Kirya tower. Among the groups were branches of the Israeli-Arab group Adalah and representatives of the Palestinian Authority towns of Bilin and Jayous.