“I do so as a proud British Jew,” UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said on Tuesday, right before announcing the most comprehensive list of sanctions against the only Jewish state.
“Proud Jew” Miliband did this in direct contravention of the desire of the British Jewish community.
Just over a week ago, the foreign secretary met with UK Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis to discuss what potential sanctions and trade bans could mean.
Mirvis told Miliband that the UK Jewish community will view such measures with deep dismay, at a time when the vilification of Jews, Judaism, and Israel has already reached unprecedented levels.
Mirvis also said that the intended policy would not influence Israeli decision-making in the way the government intends and would instead disproportionately affect British Jews.
Labour government blinded by self-interest
“Proud Jew” Miliband did not listen to him. Nor did he listen to similar concerns expressed by the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Jewish Leadership Council, Jewish politicians, government counterterrorism officials, and more.
The current Labour government is so blinded by self-interest and its own political longevity that the real-life pressing concerns of – and the tangible threats facing – the Jewish community have fallen by the wayside.
On Tuesday, Miliband not only introduced sanctions; he curated a new British governmental narrative that far exceeded any previous government in the nature of its demonization of the Jewish state.
In the same breath as he declared his “unwavering support for the State of Israel,” Miliband accused Israel of ethnic cleansing. He declared the “occupation” unlawful.
To support his words, he cited the very bodies that we know hold Israel to a double standard: the United Nations and the International Court of Justice (ICJ). He didn’t present the claims as up for debate, nor did he cite the extensive body of research that negates the concepts of ethnic cleansing and occupation.
Instead, he chose to add fuel to an already raging fire. It was not necessary to declare that Israel is enacting ethnic cleansing and occupation, but he was surely aware that this rhetoric would curry favor with the very voters Labour seeks to secure in the upcoming by-elections and the future general election.
The only ticket to Labour success against the Greens – which seemingly runs exclusively on anti-Israel campaigning – is to use the same language.
But by using it, he is playing into the hands of all the quasi-legal pro-Palestine organizations and grassroots antisemites who have been grasping for more legitimacy to their bogus claims.
British Jews can now expect an extra wave of antisemitic acts in the name of the “illegal,” “ethnic cleansing,” “occupation” that Britain said Israel is, and such acts would be effectively in line with government policy.
Perhaps the most egregious element of Miliband’s heroic announcement on Tuesday was the sheer oxymoronic hypocrisy at its nexus.
He declared the Israeli settlements across the Green Line to be illegal, despite the fact that successive peace efforts, from Oslo to Camp David and beyond, have envisaged a final agreement in which this area would remain under Israeli sovereignty.
He said the sanctions regime will target illegal settlements and settlement expansion, not Israel, without acknowledging that he has given further incentive for the demonization of the Jewish state on a very public stage.
A British Jew investing in property in a Jewish neighborhood of east Jerusalem may now face restrictions, yet Britain does not impose comparable restrictions on British citizens buying property in Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus.
Miliband argued that holding Jewish people responsible for the actions of the Israeli government is antisemitism while simultaneously penalizing them for the actions of a small number of settlers who commit violent acts in a country they may have never been to.
Sanctions will affect Jews in Britain
And while some may say the sanctions won’t tangibly affect British Jews, they will.
British Jewish businesses that supply kosher wine to hundreds of families shouldn’t have to worry about losing half of their inventory.
People who – rightly – wish to make Aliyah due to rising antisemitism shouldn’t have to fear attending a real estate event that advertises houses in Maale Adumim.
And there are other implications. What about someone who has obtained a degree at Ariel University? Will it be invalid? Can Yeshivat Gush Etzion advertise to British Jewish schoolboys?
Can a Jewish artist in the Jewish quarter of the Old City have their work stocked in a British store?
These are not questions that British Jews should have to ask their government on the eve of Rosh Hashanah.
In the words of the chief rabbi, it “is truly a dark day for British Jews.”
Not especially because of the sanctions – the success of their implementation and enforcement is yet to be seen – but because the government made a Machiavellian display of canvassing Jewish opinion and seemingly taking on board its concerns, only to completely and flagrantly ignore them and then some.
And funnily enough, these measures may incentivize the very extremism they seek to target.
If, God forbid, another terrorist attack were to target British Jews, the prime minister and foreign secretary would undoubtedly stand before the cameras, condemn antisemitism as “un-British and an attack on British values,” and assure the Jewish community that Jews must never be held responsible for the actions of Israel.
They will be right.
But governments cannot simultaneously tell Jews that they are not responsible for Israel and adopt rhetoric that helps activists collapse the distinction between the two.
And Miliband cannot have it both ways: He cannot invoke his identity as a proud British Jew while fueling the very same fire that seeks Jewish destruction.