To our government: we warned you what these sanctions could mean. You didn’t listen

Hate to say we told you so.

If we’re honest, we all tend to feel a sense of self-satisfaction when our predictions are proven right. But as a Jewish leader these days, I too often find myself really hoping I will be proven wrong.

Just over a week on from the UK Government’s announcement of sanctions against Israel’s West Bank settlements, I feel far more sad than smug.

We warned the UK Government then that “protesters who cry ‘From the River to the Sea’ will not be placated by any measures short of the destruction of the world’s only Jewish state”. That is clearly the case, and since last week’s announcement, far from damping down cohesion issues, Labour’s politicians at a national and local level are reaching towards ever more divisive and extreme rhetoric.

There have been a range of such things over recent days. At the gentler end – we have Newham Labour councillors raising the Palestinian flag above their town hall, a move that had been ruled out as a ‘divisive’ by Newham’s previous Labour administration, who said that they would only ever raise the Palestinian and Israeli flags in tandem, in support of the two-state solution. Separately, the First Secretary of State, Louise Haigh told the Trades Union Congress that the UK will ‘no longer stand by while innocent children are killed in Gaza’. Of course, nobody should stand by when children are being killed anywhere. But the important missing context that this is a war that started when Palestinian terrorists slaughtered innocent children in Israel on 7 October 2023. They abducted some 35 children to Gaza, some of which, like the Bibas children, they murdered with their bare hands. Surely this is something that those who care about innocent children should also be referencing. At the more extreme end, a Birmingham Labour MP, Tahir Ali, has even asked “Isn’t it about time that military action is taken against Israel?” This latter call is not so much ‘Stop the War’, as ‘Start the War’.

We warned that our community would likely be “impacted directly by heightened rhetoric about the conflict”. And so it has come to pass. Fireworks fired at Lauderdale Road Synagogue on Rosh Hashana – the Jewish New Year; three Jewish schoolboys assaulted on a bus in Mill Hill, reports of abuse shouted at a synagogue and a separate report of abuse of rabbi and his sons facing abuse and being spat at.

With the wide-ranging announcement coming in the midst of Israel’s heated election cycle, we warned of “perverse consequences which go against the UK’s stated objectives”.

Israel is very divided on the path its country should pursue. Some will continue to put their trust in Israel’s longest-serving Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Some believe it is time to say a firm farewell to Bibi.

The UK’s official stance has become increasingly predicated on a partisan view of Israeli politics. It believes that an Israeli Government without Netanyahu, and particularly without his far-right coalition partners, is more likely to see determined action on the atrocious settler violence in the West Bank; a more pragmatic approach to Gaza that advances the Trump Peace Plan and allows for the reconstruction of the Strip; and a less incendiary approach to relations with the Palestinian Authority and other Arab states.

A new government in Israel, the reasoning goes, might bring a close to the series of smouldering conflicts, and finally begin to allow the region to heal. This in turn would also bring down the anger in Western countries and support community relations here.

It may be that this is all true.

But we predicted that the UK and international action during the election was likely to assist rather than weaken the Netanyahu Government. Again, so it has proven.

The current Israeli Government decried foreign interference, and what it portrayed as an imperialist and condescending attitude by the UK. It has taken a series of retaliatory responses which weaken the UK’s local diplomatic options. And it has used the whole episode to suggest that only the current Netanyahu government can withstand international meddling. The Israeli opposition was also bounced into voicing its disapproval of the UK stance. What have the polls made of all this? They have narrowed over the last week, favouring the Netanyahu camp.

The sad reality is that, while we urged the UK Government to wait until the Israeli elections on 27 October to assess its options, it has proven far more interested in 27 September: the start of the Labour Party Conference.

In view of the above, the evidence so far is that Labour’s decision to move last week, far from stimulating movement in the right direction, has in fact been counterproductive.

This new UK administration has choices to make: between politics and progress, and between posturing and peace. If it chooses politics and posturing, nobody will gain – certainly not Palestinians or Israelis on the ground. Community relations here will continue to be an open sore. But if it chooses progress and peace – the UK may once again be using its agency towards a better future for all. We must hope they make that choice.

Phil Rosenberg is the President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews