from Religion Media Centre
The foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, has given an exclusive interview to Jewish News, following the government’s announcement of sanctions on illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
The sanctions will ban settlement goods and target people supporting settlement expansion. In the interview, he rejected allegations that he was putting the security of British Jews at risk, saying anyone who targets British Jews because of the actions of the Israeli government, is antisemitic.
The government’s decision is against the advice of the Board of Deputies, the Jewish leadership Council and the Chief Rabbi. Mr Miliband said he respected all three organisations and believed they were all committed to the two-state solution and were all appalled by the tragedy that has unfolded in the region. He said: “A strategy of passivity in the face of what is happening is not a strategy and we can’t see the destruction of the policy to which we are all ostensibly committed and just stand by.”
Jewish News report here. Later, the UK issued a joint statement with 11 other countries – France, Canada, Denmark, Spain, Finland, Ireland, Iceland, Norway, Poland, Portugal and Sweden – saying they are committed to the two state solution.
Reaction to sanctions decision:
The Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Saar, said the “hostile” Labour government was guilty of “outrageous lies”. He accused the UK of “blatant interference in the affairs of a sovereign state” and announced retaliatory measures. The British Consulate in Jerusalem has been closed, British officials from the US-led co-ordination centre for postwar Gaza have been expelled, and 11 MPs, including Jeremy Corbyn, Diane Abbott and all five sitting Green Party MPs, are banned from entering Israel, for “antisemitic and anti-Israel activity”.