Israel’s Ambassador to the UK Daniel Taub and his wife, Zehava, will be returning to Israel this summer, the Israeli embassy announced on Friday.
Ambassador Taub took up his post four years ago and since then Israel-UK trade has doubled.
In a statement, Mr Taub said: “It has been an extraordinary privilege to represent Israel here in the UK and to help deepen the friendship and cooperation between the two countries in so many fields.
“We will head back to Israel confident that these relations, like the wonderful warm friendships we have enjoyed here, will not end when we leave but will last and thrive for many years to come.”
The Israeli embassy said in a statement, “The four years since Ambassador Taub took his post have seen Israel-U.K. trade double and a significant deepening of academic, business and cultural links between the two countries.”
British Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills Sajid Javid told an audience at the British Israeli Business Awards earlier this month that total trade between the two countries has entered a “golden era.” Over 300 Israeli businesses have set up operations in the U.K., according to the Israel-Britain Chamber of Commerce, and annual bilateral trade is over $5.5 billion. Javid had put the figure closer to $7 billion.
Taub, who was born in the U.K., became Israeli ambassador in 2011. Once, as a peace negotiator, he travelled to Northern Ireland with his Palestinian counterpart to learn from the situation there.
Many years before Britain’s largest student union voted to adopt a boycott of Israel, Taub said in 2012 during an interview with the Jewish Chronicle that he was “concerned about the atmosphere on some [college] campuses,” warning administrators to make sure “that every view, including those supportive of Israel, can be expressed freely and without fear of intimidation.”
In 2014, Taub defiantly visited Bradford after the city’s representative to parliament, George Galloway , declared the area an “Israel-free zone.”
His successor has yet to be announced.
Source: Jewish Chronicle and The Algemeiner
