LONDON, May 5: In what is viewed here as a timely move, the British government has directly intervened in the controversy over Jewish colonisation in Arab East Jerusalem after the formation of plans to build an illegal settlement within 50 metres of its consulate general in the city.

According to Saturday’s edition of the Independent, the British Ambassador Tom Phillips has raised serious concerns with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s office over proposals to demolish the empty Palestinian Shepherd’s Hotel in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood, and build apartments for 122 Jewish settler families in its place.

The newspaper said encroaching Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem, besides creating potential flashpoints between settlers and local Arab residents, also serves seriously to complicate any prospect of a negotiated settlement in the Israeli Palestinian conflict.

British officials are widely believed to have been the main authors of a still unpublished report prepared for EU foreign ministers in 2005 by all the EU consulates detailing how expansion of “illegal settlements” was one of many developments that showed a “clear Israeli intention” to turn the annexation of East Jerusalem into a “concrete fact”.

The British have told the Israeli authorities that the plans to build illegal settlements, which if implemented, could not only change the character of the historic and highly sensitive East Jerusalem district, but also pose a serious security risk to its diplomatic mission.