Perched high above Sheikh Jarrah, a neighbourhood in East Jerusalem, I used to watch the Friday protests from the British Consulate General – our Embassy to Palestine in all but name. I clearly remember the Palestinian family sitting on a weather-beaten sofa outside a house in the valley, come rain and shine, silently protesting outside the house where they used to live before being evicted for Israeli settlers.

Outside the consulate, I spent most of my time in the West Bank, where I worked alongside the British Support Team. It was tasked with building a capable and peaceful Palestinian security force – providing security for both Palestinians and Israel – ready to take on full responsibility if and when a two-state solution could be reached.

Both the British Consulate General and the British Support Team will now close, two of Israel’s four “counter-measures” against the UK in response to Tuesday’s ban on goods from Israeli settlements.

These sanctioned settlements sit east of the “Green Line” – the 1949 Armistice Agreement that became the recognised dividing line between Israel and captured territory in 1967. It runs straight through the middle of Jerusalem and breaks out to delineate the kidney-shaped West Bank from Israel. The line is at points a six-lane highway, at others parks, concrete walls or high-tech fences. But it’s hugely significant – it represents the de-facto starting point for negotiations on the shape of a future Palestinian state, side-by-side with a secure Israel.

The Green Line is, quite literally, Foreign........

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