Labour is considering economic measures against Israeli settlements in the name of preserving the possibility of two states. Yet there are powerful reasons to doubt that this would really advance peace – either in the Middle East or here at home.
That is why the warnings from the Chief Rabbi, the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council must not be simply dismissed. They are not defending extremist settler violence, which all three have condemned, nor arguing that Israel should be beyond criticism. Their concern is that the planned steps would achieve little for the two-state solution while harming Britain’s relationship with Israel and, above all, British Jews at a time of extraordinary insecurity.
There is first the question of timing. Israel is approaching an election, and British sanctions introduced now will not strengthen Israeli moderates and even those who favour punitive action should ask what is gained by imposing it at this particular moment. If the purpose really is to influence Israeli policy, waiting would be the more sensible course.
Then there is the wider British interest too. Israel is a technological and military power with which Britain has every reason to deepen constructive relations. Ministers should hesitate before taking steps that could become the beginning of a broader economic estrangement.
The Chief Rabbi has raised the concern that “domestic political considerations” rather than genuine foreign-policy judgment may be influencing Labour’s decisions. But if ministers are allowing politics at home to shape policy abroad, they should be worrying less about lost votes that are unlikely to return and more about the consequences for social peace and British Jews.
Measures applying to territory beyond the 1949 armistice line could touch places at the heart of Jewish religious, cultural and historical consciousness. The Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem and the Western Wall are part of a civilisational inheritance stretching across millennia. A policy that appeared to render ordinary commercial, charitable or institutional relationships with such places suspect would therefore reach far beyond its ostensible foreign-policy purpose.
The danger does not end there. Boycotts rarely remain as precisely delineated in political culture as they appear in ministerial documents. As the Jewish Leadership Council has warned, action aimed at settlements could lend legitimacy to a wider movement whose target is not particular Israeli policies but Israel itself. British Jews, with often close connections to Israel, would inevitably be drawn into that argument.
Ministers would be mistaken to pretend that hostility towards Israel and hostility towards Jews exist in hermetically sealed compartments. Recent British experience shows how hatred directed at Israel is being transferred onto Jews. That is why repeated ministerial declarations that antisemitism has “no place” in Britain ring increasingly hollow unless accompanied by an understanding of the environment in which contemporary antisemitism flourishes. Policies made in Whitehall do not remain confined to diplomatic communiqués but help shape the political climate at home. Nor is an exclusive concentration on Israel a serious strategy for creating a Palestinian state or for securing social peace at home. There are profound obstacles on the Palestinian side from incitement and the glorification of violence to the absence of democratic renewal. As Board of Deputies President Phil Rosenberg has warned, an approach that “focusses narrowly on the actions of the Israeli government” while failing sufficiently to address the responsibility of Palestinian leaders and other regional actors “fuels a climate of hatred not only towards Israel but towards British Jews”.
The government has not yet published the details of its proposals, which gives it an opportunity it must use. Even those convinced of the case for the measures have a responsibility to consider the potential domestic fallout. There is no urgency that requires ministers to disregard the warnings of British Jewish leaders, no evidence that hastily imposed trade restrictions will bring a Palestinian state closer, and every reason to fear consequences abroad and at home that cannot subsequently be wished away.
As the first anniversary of the murderous Yom Kippur attack on Heaton Park Synagogue approaches, Britain’s Jews need more than another assurance that antisemitism will not be tolerated – they need ministers to hear them when they explain how government policy affects Jewish life, because listening now would not be weakness but responsible government.
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