British Foreign Office Spokesman in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) recently visited the illegal Arab outpost known as Khan al Ahmar, where he declared the British government "is conducting a campaign to save this village."
Samuel, who speaks fluent Arabic, periodically releases video clips in which he expresses positions that are unmistakably and undeniably anti-Israel. In the clip recorded at Khan al Ahmar, Samuel says: "We're here in Khan al Ahmar, a village in the West Bank on occupied Palestinian land. Behind me are the tents of Bedouin who have lived here for a very long time, now threatened with demolition and displacement at the hands of the Israeli government."
Samuel added that "the British government is waging a campaign to save this village; both the British Prime Minister and Foreign Minister have expressed their opposition to the demolition."
In September 2018 Israel's Supreme Court rejected the fifth petition submitted by the residents of Khan al Ahmar, ruling there are no legal obstacles standing in the way of implementation of court's June 2018 decision.
On Tuesday, former Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman toured Khan al Ahmar and noted the Defense Ministry completed all necessary preparations for relocating residents of Khan al Ahmar "on the night between October 20th-21st 2018. On the day before the operation was scheduled to take place, I received a letter from the Prime Minister instructing me to delay the evacuation of Khan al Ahmar. The next morning, the 21st of October, the Cabinet convened and voted to delay the evacuation by a few weeks, but no later than the end of 2018."
Regavim, which has been at the forefront of the legal battle to evacuate Khan al Ahmar since 2009, draws a clear connection between the senior British diplomat's statement and Netanyahu's decision to indefinitely suspend implementation of the Supreme Court's decision: "More than two months have passed since Netanyahu's decision not to act on the court's ruling; taken alongside the arrogant and condescending statement of the diplomatic representative of the British government - which is acting to undermine the decisions of the government of Israel – it becomes clear that Prime Minister Netanyahu is allowing the British to act as though the Mandate is still in force," says Regavim Director Meir Deutsch, . "Unfortunately, Defense Minister Netanyahu's indecisiveness is given full expression in Foreign Minister Netanyahu's anemic diplomatic response to this blatant meddling in Israel's internal affairs."