The British Labor Party’s decision to boycott Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria — and the swift Israeli countermeasures that followed — has reignited a bitter debate over whether the UK government is fighting antisemitism or fanning it, according to reporting by American Thinker’s Joseph Puder.
What Miliband Announced
Labor Party foreign secretary Ed Miliband told Parliament that the British government would boycott products and services originating from Jewish settlements, a move Puder characterizes as an attempt to deny that Jewish people in the region live in actual communities rather than something more abstract.
The announcement went beyond trade. According to the report, Miliband said Britain would impose immediate sanctions on individual Israeli citizens living in Judea and Samaria, refuse to respond to license requests for arms that contribute to what he called the “occupation,” and oppose Israel’s E1 construction project. Britain would also adopt the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, which holds that Israel’s control of the territory is not legal.
Miliband, who is Jewish, also denounced what he described as “ethnic cleansing” by “terrorists” in the areas — language the source calls false, noting that more Palestinian Arabs live in Judea and Samaria today than ever before. Puder argues the foreign secretary ignores the attempted “ethnic cleansing” of Jews in North London, who he says face routine physical and verbal antisemitic attacks, mostly by Muslims, forcing many to leave the UK.
Britain’s Jewish communities, the piece contends, are in a state of perpetual anxiety: schools, synagogues and cultural institutions sit behind fences, and community leaders warn their own government that its relentless demonization of the world’s only Jewish state fans the flames of antisemitism.
Timing and Political Calculation
The boycott comes ahead of Labor’s party conference on October 27, 2026, and Puder argues the timing is meant to appease the party’s anti-Israel constituency — particularly an alliance of Muslim and leftist elements. It is a charge that echoes the reaction from British Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch, who said Labor’s “anti-Israel obsession shows it hasn’t changed since Jeremy Corbyn was leader” and that the party “should be securing our borders and restoring law and order on our streets — instead they’re obsessing about Israel.” Badenoch added that a settlement trade ban amounts to a de facto boycott of the Jewish state that “cannot be squared with claim to fight antisemitism.”
Huckabee’s Blunt Response
US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee accused the UK of “Jew hate” and “discrimination,” writing on X that “the Brits have lost it” and that “the Jew hate of their government knows no boundaries and knows no facts.” Huckabee assured the British government there would be a Trump administration reaction to what he described as an anti-Israeli and antisemitic move.
He also asked why Britain’s outrage and sanctions do not extend to China, North Korea, Russia, or the many Middle Eastern states that trample on their citizens’ human rights — arguing Miliband’s measures single out Israel and the Jewish people for discriminatory treatment.
Israel’s Countermeasures
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud-led government reacted immediately to the sanctions and the accusations from Britain’s foreign secretary. Israeli foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar announced on Tuesday, September 8, 2026, that Israel would close the British Consulate in Jerusalem and impose a series of countermeasures: removing 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 — accused of antisemitic or anti-Israel activity.
According to Puder, the British Labor Party’s move against the Netanyahu government is part of coordinated action with France, Canada and other European partners, framed around what those governments describe as “unprecedented levels of settler violence and settlement expansion” in the “West Bank,” including the E1 project that they argue threatens a future Palestinian state. The source counters that the E1 infrastructure project near Jerusalem, and construction in Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria driven by population growth, are decisions that rest squarely with the Israeli government.
A Longer History and a Legal Argument
The piece places the current row in a longer pattern, claiming Labor has a long history of anti-Jewish actions — pointing to the government of Clement Attlee (1945–1951) and foreign secretary Ernest Bevin, who kept the gates of Mandatory Palestine closed to Holocaust survivors in what Puder calls a blatant attempt to appease the Arab world.
It also revisits the record under Keir Starmer’s leadership: suspending arms export licenses, halting trade negotiations, restoring funding to UNRWA, changing Britain’s approach to the International Criminal Court, and recognizing a Palestinian state while Israeli hostages remained in captivity.
On the legal question, Puder invokes Professor Eugene Rostow, a former dean of Yale Law School, undersecretary of state and co-author of UN Security Council Resolution 242 of November 22, 1967, who resolved that under international law “Jews have the same right to settle in the West Bank as they have in Haifa.” Rostow emphasized, according to the source, that resolutions calling for Israel’s withdrawal from “all” the territories — which would return Israel to the “fragile and vulnerable” lines of roughly 9 to 15 miles wide rather than “secure and recognized” boundaries — were defeated in the Security Council and General Assembly.
The through-line of the argument is that a Labor government tainted by antisemitism and determined to appease its Muslim and far-left constituents will keep demonstrating outright hostility to the Jewish state. What happens next may hinge less on Westminster than on Washington — where the ambassador has promised a response, and where an Israeli government has already shown it will answer sanctions with sanctions of its own.
Source: www.americanthinker.com — https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/09/britain-s-labor-party-boycotts-israel-to-appease-muslims-and-the-far-left/