A total of 130 British deputies from all parties have called for sanctions against Israel if it goes ahead with its plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank. Current and former MPs from across the political spectrum have written a letter to the British Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary urging them to make clear to Israel that annexation is illegal under international law and “will have severe consequences including sanctions,” The Guardian reported. Organized by the Council for Arab-British Understanding (Caabu), the letter is signed by Lord Chris Patten, the former chair of the Conservative Party; Sir Edward Davey, the leader of Liberal Democrats, and Baroness Helena Kennedy. It demands actions not words in opposing any Israeli annexation. This would be “a mortal blow to chances of peace between Israelis and Palestinians based on any viable two-state solution,” the deputies wrote. The Israeli governments coalition agreement between the Likud party, headed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Blue and White’s Benny Gantz stated that the new government could advance legislation on annexation after July 1. The letter said, “We are writing to you to express our outrage at the new Israeli Government’s declared plan to annex areas of territories it occupied in June 1967. It is already clear that the Israeli Government will use the cover of the Covid-19 pandemic to seek to implement this egregious plan. It is vital that the UK does everything in its power to prevent this.” The British ambassador in Tel Aviv has lately joined envoys from Germany, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Belgium, Denmark, Finland and the EU by issuing a formal objection to the Foreign Ministry against the annexation. Saeb Erekat, the secretary general of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), said that the Israeli governments annexation of occupied Palestinian territories, in part or in whole, means destroying any possibility of reaching a peace agreement between the Palestinians and the Israelis. Speaking via Zoom to Forward Thinking in London and to Harvard University in the United States, Erekat said that he conveyed messages from President Mahmoud Abbas to a large number of countries, calling on them not to allow the Israeli government to implement the "apartheid" and annexation scheme, and the necessity of convening an international peace conference on the basis of international law and United Nations resolutions with the aim of ending the Israeli occupation. Regarding the positions of Arab countries, Erekat affirmed their commitment, without exception, to the Arab Peace Initiative, and that talk about any Arab country recognizing East Jerusalem with its al-Haram al-Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary) and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher as the capital of Israel or accepting the liquidation of the Palestinian cause are mere delusions.