Although Great Britain has good relations with the Jewish state, it insists that the latter has only “de-facto authority over West Jerusalem.” Thus London’s embassy is in Tel Aviv, even as the seat of the Israeli government is in Jerusalem. Stephen Daisley laments this situation:

As recently as 2016, Foreign Office briefing documents were still referring to Jerusalem as corpus separatum. (You know your foreign policy has really kept up with the times when it requires a working knowledge of Latin.) Jerusalem was designated a corpus separatum in the 1947 Partition Plan for Palestine, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly, accepted by the Jews, and rejected by the Arabs, who went on to launch a war for “the elimination of the Jewish state.” You can see why the Foreign Office would consider this a totally reasonable and unproblematic basis for UK policy on the Middle East.

Originally, corpus separatum meant Jerusalem would be run by the United Nations. These days Israel wouldn’t trust the UN to run a shawarma stand, and rightly so. So corpus separatum, as used by the UK government, has come to mean split sovereignty in Jerusalem, with Israel controlling the western parts of the city and a future state of Palestine the eastern portions. Curiously enough, the government only seems to like parts of the doctrine. Somewhere along the way, the part of the 1947 plan that said corpus separatum could be put to a referendum of Jerusalem residents after ten years has fallen by the wayside.

The result of all this ancient history and failed diplomatic dogma is that the UK must maintain the fiction that Jerusalem is not the capital of Israel. That the Palestinian Authority has a comparably strong claim to a city which has never been part of any Palestinian state, since none has ever existed. That re-dividing the city is the way to deliver peace and uphold religious freedom, when Israeli control is the closest Jerusalem has come to underwriting religious co-existence. That splitting a capital city between recently hostile nations is a viable policy, or one with any successful precedent in the contemporary world. That by keeping up these pretenses the UK is hastening the arrival of a two-state solution rather than delaying it by pandering to and rewarding Palestinian rejectionism.

Last Sunday marked the eighth anniversary of a Saudi-led alliance’s intervention in the Yemeni civil war, intended to defeat the Iran-backed Houthi militia that had overthrown the previous government. In the wake of the rapprochement between Riyadh and Tehran, diplomats are hoping that the talks between the Saudis and the Houthis—which have been ongoing since last summer—will finally succeed in ending the war. To Nadwa Al-Dawsari, such an outcome seems highly unlikely:

The Houthis’ military gains have allowed them to dictate the path of international diplomacy in Yemen. They know Saudi Arabia is desperate to extricate itself and the international community wants the Yemen problem to go away. They do not recognize and refuse to negotiate with the [Riyadh-supported] Presidential Leadership Council or other Yemeni factions that they cast as “Saudi mercenaries.”

Indeed, even as the Houthis were making progress in talks with the Saudis, the rebel group continued to expand its recruitment, mobilization, and stockpiling of arms during last year’s truce as Iran significantly increased its weapons shipments. The group also carried out a series of attacks. . . . On March 23, the Houthis conducted a military drill close to the Saudi border to remind the Saudis of “the cost of no agreement and further concessions.”

The Houthis are still part and parcel of Iran’s so-called “axis of resistance.” With the Houthis gaining international political recognition, . . . Iran will have a greater chance to expand its influence in Yemen with the blessing of Western powers. The international community is eager for a “success story” in Yemen, even if that means a sham political settlement that will likely see the civil war continue. A deal with the Houthis is Saudi Arabia’s desperate plea to wash its hands of Yemen, but in the long term it could very well position Iran to threaten regional and international security. More importantly, it might set Yemen on a course of protracted conflict that will create vast ungoverned spaces.

Meanwhile, tensions in Yemen between Saudi Arabia and its ostensible ally, the United Arab Emirates, are rising, while the Houthis are developing the capability to launch missiles at Israel or to block a crucial Middle Eastern maritime chokepoint in the Red Sea.