There was a time when any policy announcement from the foreign secretary of the United Kingdom was a momentous event.
Prior to World War I, Britain was the leading economic and military power on the planet with a navy that ruled the waves and an empire on which the sun never set. Even in the aftermath of the Second World War, as it began to divest itself of that empire and its debt-ridden economy became hampered by a massive experiment in socialism, London was still a major player on the world stage. Throughout the closing decades of the 20th century, its “special relationship” with the United States and possession of nuclear weapons made it a foundational element of the Western alliance and NATO that won the Cold War.
But that was a long time ago.
Fast-forward to 2026, when British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband announced that it would ban the sale of goods produced in Judea and Samaria—and then went on to accuse Israel of pursuing or acquiescing a policy of “ethnic cleansing” against Palestinian Arabs. Headlines popped up throughout the international press, acting as if they had time-traveled back to an era when the City of London’s financial might and the Royal Navy’s ships could enforce its will across the globe.
A third-rate power
It’s true that the statement was coordinated with the governments of France and Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Sweden, which made similar announcements. And there is no denying that this effort to isolate the Jewish state in this manner can damage the Jewish nation financially and worsen its growing diplomatic isolation. Europe remains Israel’s largest trading partner, and anything that limits its ability to conduct international commerce is harmful.
Still, the panic in some quarters about this development is overstated. So, too, is the angry lashing out at Britain—whereby some Israeli cabinet ministers are now supporting the right of Argentina, a country whose President Javier Milei is among Jerusalem’s greatest friends, to take over the Falkland Islands, whose few thousand inhabitants are English—similarly foolish.
The truth is that the United Kingdom is a third-rate power that is a shadow of its former self in terms of economic and military power. Its navy, which in its last gasp of greatness under the leadership of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher managed to take back the Falklands after their illegal seizure by Argentina in 1982, now has more admirals than ships. Should they have to do it again, it’s unlikely that they could repeat that feat. Nor has Britain shown any willingness to defend itself against aggression from more likely sources, like Iran.
Under the previous and now the new Labor government led by Prime Minister Andy Burnham, it’s shown that it has little interest in maintaining a “special relationship” with the United States. It has chosen to stand aloof from President Donald Trump and his efforts to ensure that the Islamist regime in Tehran could not obtain nuclear weapons or continue pursuing terrorism that threatens the West, even though it would be in the country’s interests to do so.
A Third World mentality
Those in the Anglophone world and many others still look to Britain as a cultural giant, and as such, have great affection for the country and its people. Still, the notion that it should be considered an important diplomatic partner is a relic of a bygone age. Like the NATO alliance itself, which has shown itself still dependent on the generosity of American taxpayers and unwilling to shoulder its responsibility to defend Europe, let alone the West’s interests elsewhere, the “special relationship” is a phrase emptied of its former meaning.
Worse than that, Britain’s foreign policy, at least under a government that seems likely to stay in power for the immediate future, is no longer dictated by the geostrategic imperatives of Western security. Instead, it is a product of a Third World mentality that is dictated by the false doctrines of settler-colonialism that deems both the United States and Israel as always in the wrong, and rationalizes and valorizes their foes.
That, in large measure, is a function of Britain’s irrelevance on the world stage. It’s also dictated by internal politics.
The Labor Party is dependent on both a left-wing base that embraced the antisemitism of its former leader Jeremy Corbyn and a growing Muslim population that has helped normalize antisemitism. For them, even Starmer’s unfriendly attitude toward the Jewish state was insufficiently hostile.
An antisemitic boycott
It should also be understood that Miliband’s attempt to claim that his policies are different from those of a full-blown BDS boycott is risible. So, too, is his assertion that boycotting Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria is part of a realistic push for a two-state solution that will bring peace to the Middle East. For the past century and up to the present day, the Palestinian Arabs have shown over and over again that they don’t want two states. What they want is the destruction of Israel, as the horrors of the Hamas-led Palestinian terror attacks amply demonstrated on Oct. 7, 2023.
He knows very well that even in a theoretical two-state peace agreement that has zero chance of happening, the settlements, where more than half a million Jews live, would remain in Israel. Attempts to boycott them would not only hurt the Palestinians who benefit from participating in the Israeli economy; any effort to try to single out some Israeli products for sanctions while leaving others alone will inevitably lead to a boycott of everything. A partial boycott of Israel is just the first step toward a full one.
Indeed, that is what the international movement led by a red-green alliance of Marxists and Islamists that now plays a major role in British politics seeks. That has made itself felt in Britain with mass marches that are openly antisemitic and seek to intimidate the Jewish community.
That Miliband actually stated that he took these steps “as a proud Jew” and as someone who supports the existence of Israel is outrageous since his positions are rooted in acceptance of false narratives about Israel and the war in Gaza, which amount to blood libels about “genocide” and “apartheid.”
The same applies to his claim that “settler violence” in Judea and Samaria is out of control, and that it is intended to “ethnically cleanse” the territories. While a small minority of Jews may be guilty of committing crimes against Arabs, in the overwhelming majority of cases of incidents labeled as settler violence, it is the Jews who are defending themselves against Palestinian violence and attacks. Terror against Jews in the so-called “West Bank” is a daily occurrence. The whole point of these complaints about Jewish behavior there is to delegitimize all Jews living in Judea and Samaria, and to justify efforts to throw several hundred thousand people out of their homes in the heart of the Jewish homeland.
Even if one accepted the claim that the settlements are illegal, which requires ignoring and abrogating century-old international agreements that ensured the right of Jews to live in the territories, a question arises: Why don’t Britain and the other nations that want to sanction settlers apply the same standard to situations like Turkey’s illegal occupation of Northern Cyprus?
The collapse of Europe
The real problem is not a misguided foreign policy. Rather, it’s the way that the British government is attempting to use Israel as a whipping boy to demonstrate its left-wing bona fides to a portion of its voters.
It illustrates the sea change in the politics of Western Europe. Left-wing parties like Labor are not only themselves compromised by their abandonment of a belief in Western civilization and their own national identities. They are now placed in a position where they must compete with even more radical factions that espouse openly anti-Jewish or Islamist positions.
When Corbyn was openly advocating antisemitic stances during his time as leader of Labor from 2015 to 2020, he stood as a warning to the Democrats in the United States as to what might happen if they allowed their party to be hijacked by the far left. With the Democratic Socialists of America and their allies now on the verge of succeeding in accomplishing that goal, what’s happening now in Britain is little different from what one might expect from the next Democratic administration.
The demonization of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s just war against Hamas in Gaza and other Iranian terror proxies isn’t merely an unfair and even libelous characterization of the Jewish state’s policies. The acceptance of the blood libel about “genocide” or of Israeli soldiers defending their country against would-be murderers being war criminals is a permission slip for moves like Miliband’s announcement. Far from advancing peace, they merely act as an incentive for Hamas to continue to refuse to disarm and for Iran to similarly stick out the war, rather than renounce nuclear weapons and terror.
Some observers see the timing of the push against Israel as an attempt to intervene in the election that will be held there on Oct. 27. It’s far from clear whether such unfair foreign pressure will help or hurt Netanyahu.
But those who blame the prime minister for these developments are wrong. Not even surrendering Gaza back to Hamas or agreeing to the ethnic cleansing of Jews in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem would satisfy the political forces that dominate Britain’s Labor Party. While Miliband and some Democrats in the United States may think they can differentiate their policies from the war to destroy the Jewish state, the fact is that no Israeli concessions short of suicide will ever be enough to satisfy Islamists and their Marxist allies.
The end of the ‘special relationship’
The only country that can do something about the betrayal of Britain and the others joining in these sanctions is the United States.
The Trump administration was rightly angered by NATO allies refusing to join in a campaign against Iran whose goal was to assure the security of the West. And U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio reaffirmed that the United States won’t join in any British-led boycott. But he also didn’t condemn Miliband’s announcement or point out how this is just one more instance of Britain and other Western nations undermining American policies, in addition to its one reliable and democratic ally in the Middle East.
That may change. Still, if Washington doesn’t demonstrate that nations choosing to join the effort to isolate Jerusalem will pay a price for doing so, then it will serve to encourage further attacks on the Jewish state and American security interests.
What this demonstrates is that any lingering affection for the “special relationship,” as well as treating NATO as sacrosanct, is an exercise in nostalgia rather than a rational policy. Trump has been denounced for having the bad manners to tell the truth about these sacred cows. Britain and other nations, where immigration from Muslim nations has altered both their demography and their politics, may or may not be a lost cause as far as Jews and the West are concerned. Nevertheless, it’s time for everyone else to realize that American foreign policy that doesn’t acknowledge the reality of a changed Europe no longer remains sensible.
As serious as the consequences of Europe’s abandonment are to Israel, it also demonstrates the continent’s irrelevance to U.S. national security interests in the 21st century. That doesn’t mean that either Washington or Jerusalem should insult Thatcher’s memory by denying self-determination to the people of the Falklands. It does mean that a Britain whose foreign policy is dictated directly or indirectly by antisemites cannot be treated as a partner, let alone as “special,” by the United States. The same applies to a NATO alliance dominated by countries that adopt policies antithetical to friendship with Washington or, as in the case of Turkey, are open Islamist foes of American interests.
Britain and the other nations planning to boycott Israel will not succeed in breaking the nation or forcing a single Jew out of his or her home. They may hurt the Jewish state economically, but in the long run, the real threat that governments in thrall to Islamists and Marxists pose is to their own people, not those who reside in Israel.
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS. Follow him: @jonathans_tobin.
