The self-righteousness of the British Labor Party in defending the Muslim Palestinians in Judea and Samaria, while ignoring Palestinian terror against Israel and Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas’s incitement to violence against Israeli Jews, is a case study in hypocrisy.
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The British government’s decision of Labor’s Prime Minister Andy Burnham to boycott the Jews of Judea and Samaria, including trading with them, is hateful and discriminatory. Labor is holding the party’s conference on October 27, 2026, and the timing of the declared boycott is apparently intended to appease the anti-Israel constituency of the Labor Party, particularly the alliance of Muslim and leftist elements.
Labor Party foreign secretary Ed Miliband announced in Parliament that the British government will boycott products and services coming out of the Jewish “settlements.” Such verbiage is an obvious attempt to negate the fact that Jewish people in Judea and Samaria live in actual communities. Miliband’s announcement went farther by stating there will be immediate sanctions on individual Israeli citizens living in Judea and Samaria; Britain will refuse to respond to requests for licenses for arms that contribute to the “occupation,” and it opposes Israel’s E1 construction project. In addition, Miliband said Britain would adopt the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice in the Hague, which claims that Israel’s control of Judea and Samaria isn’t legal.
Foreign secretary Miliband, who is Jewish, also lashed out at what he called “ethnic cleansing” by “terrorists” in these areas. This libelous accusation of “ethnic cleansing” is not only false, but outrageous. There are more Palestinian Arabs living in Judea and Samaria today than ever before. Miliband hypocritically neglects to concern himself with the attempted “ethnic cleansing“ of the Jews in North London, who are routinely subjected to physical and verbal antisemitic attacks, mostly by Muslims, forcing many to leave the U.K.
Britain’s Jewish communities are in a state of perpetual anxiety. Fences surround their schools, synagogues, and cultural institutions, and they find themselves warning their own government that its relentless demonization of the world’s only Jewish state fans the flames of antisemitism.
Reaction to the British Labor Party perfidy was rather swift. British Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch reacted to Labor’s decision, stating that “Labor’s anti-Israel obsession shows it hasn’t changed since Jeremy Corbyn was leader,” and “Labor should be securing our borders & restoring law and order on our streets — instead they’re obsessing about Israel.” She continued, “Settlement trade ban is de facto boycott of the Jewish state — and cannot be squared with claim to fight antisemitism.”
U.S. ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee accused the U.K. of “Jew hate” and “discrimination.” Huckabee wrote on X, “The Brits have lost it. The Jew hate of their government knows no boundaries and knows no facts.” Ambassador Huckabee assured the British government that there will be a Trump administration reaction to what amounts to an anti-Israeli and antisemitic move by the Labor government.
Huckabee further noted that if Britain is truly concerned about injustices and situations that are unacceptable, then where is its outrage, and where are its sanctions, against China, North Korea, and Russia and against the many Middle Eastern states that trample on the human rights of their citizens? Miliband’s sanctions, Huckabee declared, are discriminatory against the government of Israel and the Jewish people.
Under Keir Starmer’s leadership, the UK government suspended arms export licenses, halted trade negotiations, restored funding to UNRWA, and changed Britain’s approach to the International Criminal Court. Repugnantly, the U.K. recognized a Palestinian state while Israeli hostages remained in captivity.
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The Labor Party in Britain has a long history of anti-Jewish actions. The Labor Government of Clement Attlee (1945–1951) and Ernest Bevin (secretary of state for foreign affairs, 1945–1951) kept the gates to Mandatory Palestine closed to Jewish survivors of the Holocaust in contravention of the Mandate and in a blatant attempt to appease the Arab world.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud-led government reacted immediately to the discriminatory and libelous charges by Britain’s foreign secretary. Israeli foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar announced Tuesday, September 8, 2026, that Israel would close the British Consulate in Jerusalem and impose a series of countermeasures in response to the U.K. sanctions, including the removal of British representatives from the International Gaza Support Center in Kiryat Gat, ending British activities training Palestinian Authority forces in the “West Bank,” and denying entry to 12 Brits — elected officials and nationals — whom Israel accused of antisemitic or anti-Israel activity.
The British Labor Party’s move against the Netanyahu government is part of a coordinated action with France, Canada, and other European partners to what has been described as “unprecedented levels of settler violence and settlement expansion” in the “West Bank,” including Israel’s E1 project, which they argue threatens the viability of a future Palestinian state.
The gross interference, whether related to the E1 infrastructure project around Jerusalem or the extension of construction in Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria due to population growth, is a decision that rests with the Israeli government.
In fact, Professor Eugene Rostow, a former dean of the Yale University Law School, undersecretary of state and a co-author of the Nov. 22, 1967 U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, resolved that under international law, “Jews have the same right to settle in the West Bank as they have in Haifa.”
Rostow emphasized that resolutions calling for Israel’s withdrawal from “all” the territories, which would force Israel back to the “fragile and vulnerable” lines (about 9–15 miles wide) rather than to “secure and recognized” boundaries, were defeated in the Security Council and General Assembly.
It is clear that the Labor government in Britain, tainted by antisemitism and a determination to appease its Muslim and far-left constituents, will continue to demonstrate outright hostility to the Jewish state.
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Image via Pxhere.