‘Listen to the Chief Rabbi – don’t sanction Israel’, MPs urge Burnham

“Over recent years, we have seen repeatedly that when rhetoric towards Israel escalates, hostility towards Jews is never far behind,” he said.

Shadow ministers and Labour MPs have urged the government to heed the Chief Rabbi’s advice and are calling on Andy Burnham not to push ahead with new anti-Israel measures.

The timing of the move has also come under fire, with concerns it could coincide with Rosh Hashanah, precede the Israeli Knesset elections and fall around the yahrzeit of the Yom Kippur terror attack on Heaton Park synagogue.

The shul’s Rabbi Daniel Walker said this week that British Jews are in a “harder position” today than they were immediately after the attack when Melvin Cravitz, 66, and Adrian Daulby, 53, were killed.

Now the Chief Rabbi has warned that life could become less safe for British Jews if the government pushes ahead with sanctions on Israel. His concerns have been echoed by Jewish communal leaders and MPs, who have raised concerns about the impact on British Jews and Britain’s relationship with Israel and the US.

Shadow foreign office minister, Wendy Morton, said the reported plans “will inevitably lead to a de facto boycott on the whole of Israel. British businesses will struggle to separate ‘legitimate’ from ‘illegitimate’ activities, resulting in blanket decision-making.

“It is especially concerning that Labour look set to do this during Israel’s election period, when the Israeli Government there is unable to make policy announcements. Labour should not be trying to interfere in another country’s elections and we have raised this matter directly with the Foreign Secretary.

“Labour have done enormous damage to our relationship with Israel, including by recognising Palestine with no strings attached. The Conservatives will always stand up for our allies.”

Conservative MP and chair of the 1922 Committee Bob Blackman said: “Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis is right. Every time rhetoric towards Israel escalates, hostility towards Jews in this country follows, and British Jews will bear the consequences of this policy. The Foreign Secretary should listen to what he was told.”

Greg Smith, Parliamentary Chair of Conservative Friends of Israel in the Commons, said: “A ban on trade with Israeli communities in the West Bank would amount to an effective boycott of the whole Israeli economy.

“Ministers will appreciate that in a modern economy with highly complex supply chains, it is simply not possible for British businesses and consumers trading with Israeli companies to separate products entirely produced or manufactured from one side of the Green Line to those which may have had involvement from the other side.

“I urge the government even at this late hour to not give in to the anti-Israel hostility on their backbenches and instead put the UK’s national interest first.”

Criticism has also come from the government benches. One Labour MP said they were “concerned” that an announcement ahead of the Knesset elections at the end of October would turbo-charge the Israeli hard right.

“They will tar the left with being associated with the UK government somehow,” he said.

“[I am] concerned backlash could damage our trade, intelligence and defence relationship and maybe even cause action by the US under anti-BDS laws,” they added.

A US State Department spokesperson told the JC it was “tracking” the UK’s announcement of sanctions against Israel “closely” amid growing concern in Washington.

The Labour MP said that if “anything” is to be done against violent settlers, “it should target violent extreme settlers and/or decision makers on E1 [settlement in east Jerusalem], not peaceful people living in major settlement blocks that Clinton Parameters suggest would become part of Israel under land swaps.”

Another senior Labour source described the timing of the move, ahead of the Knesset elections, as “perverse”.

“This feels more about domestic handling and the timing of party conference than effective diplomacy to influence what is pretty appalling settler violence that should be cracked down on.”

They added of the timing of the announcement: “I doubt many in No 10 will have noticed that the timings of the Jewish calendar means this will be happening just as the Yahrzeit of Heaton Park comes up.”

The Chief Rabbi’s warning was echoed by the Jewish Leadership Council (JLC) and Board of Deputies (BoD).

The JLC said: “We share concerns about settler violence and extremism. However, there is a deeply troubling question of why Israel is being singled out for this form of economic action.”

It warned that if the government proceeds with this approach, “it would be the latest in a series of punitive acts taken towards a supposed ally of this country.

“None of these actions have had any influence on the situation on the ground. As Israel approaches pivotal elections on October 27, we urge the government to carefully consider that the only impact of further interventions will be to embolden extremist factions within Israel.

“We also urge the government to consider the unintended consequences for our community of the proposals that are being considered. These include the risk of harming the legitimate connection between British Jews and places of great religious, cultural and historic significance, including the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest site.

“Broad, untargeted measures may inadvertently become a wider boycott of Israel, giving legitimacy to those who reject Israel’s very existence, and placing increased scrutiny on British Jews at a time when antisemitism in the UK is more prevalent and more violent than ever.”

BoD president Phil Rosenberg said: “Our community condemns violence by extremist settlers. But we have significant concerns about unintended consequences. We’ve also stressed to the government that any approach to the conflict that focuses narrowly on the actions of the Israeli government, and doesn’t sufficiently address the actions and responsibility of Palestinian leaders, fuels a climate of hatred not only towards Israel but towards British Jews.”

Progressive Judaism leaders, however, argued that action against settlement expansion is necessary if the prospect of a two-state solution is to be preserved.

Rabbis Charley Baginsky and Josh Levy, leaders of Progressive Judaism, said in a joint statement: “E1 is not an isolated planning decision. It is part of an explicit project, led by Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, to establish permanent Israeli control and make a viable Palestinian state impossible.

“Settlement construction, administrative annexation and escalating violence are interconnected and incompatible with the justice, human dignity and peace we seek to uphold,” they said.

But they stressed that any measures taken by the government must be “lawful, targeted and effective” and “distinguish Israel from settlement activity and avoid unintended harm” and “uphold international law and help preserve a credible path towards peace”.

“Those opposing meaningful action must offer an alternative. After decades in which condemnation has achieved so little, how should E1 be stopped, Palestinians protected and those enabling violence held accountable? If we support two States, what should the international community do while that possibility is systematically dismantled?”

Left-wing British Jewish peace group Yachad said it had also engaged with the Foreign Office, highlighting “growing concerns of many British Jews regarding entrenchment of occupation and annexation of the West Bank”.

The group said it had stressed during a meeting with Ed Miliband that “there is a diversity of opinion in the Jewish community on a broad range of issues relating to Israel and Palestine”.

It also highlighted “the growing voices from within Israel against the far-right [and] settler violence.”