Britain’s dangerous moral failure: The threat to boycott Jewish communities

Once again, Britain’s political leaders have completely lost their moral compass when it comes to Jews and Israel.

Moshe Phillips | Sep 7, 2026

Judenboykott 1933-04-01 Berlin Anti-Semitic Anti-Jewish Nazi boycott Jewish businesses shops in Germany SA NSDAP brownshirts singing chanting blocking allegedly Jewish-founded FW Woolworth Koningstr Bundesarchiv. By Uncredited photographer; unidentified, anonymous or unknown author. No known copyright restrictions. – Reddit, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

British government plans to boycott Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria (aka the ‘West Bank’) must be condemned. The U.K. policy echoes some of the darkest periods of recent Jewish history, and the British action must be called out as hateful and dangerous. Once again, Britain’s political leaders have completely lost their moral compass when it comes to Jews and Israel.

When British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said that his government does “not want British companies financing, constructing, or advertising new [Israeli] settlements,” what must be explained here is that he believes London has the moral authority to prevent Jewish families from living in the one region on earth that is the absolute richest in Jewish history, from the stories of Abraham in the Book of Genesis through the times of the kingdom of the House of David.

Hebron is the largest city in Judea and Samaria, and the Jews who make their homes there are included in this British boycott. More than just another unfair attack against Jewish families and communities in Judea and Samaria by U.K. foreign affairs bureaucrats, this outrage also targets the immediate suburbs of Jerusalem.

Expanding Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria-what Miliband calls “building settlements”-is not an “obstacle to peace.” Expansion only gives Jewish families homes and creates security.

The question is not if Jewish families (and that is what these “settlers” are in reality) are preventing peace. The real question that politicians in London need to ask themselves is what’s wrong with the society that Mahmoud Abbas and his PLO have created that its people demand a state just as devoid of Jews as what Hitler wanted for his Third Reich?

Israel is fighting to stop Hamas from restrengthening its position in Gaza at this very moment and that Miliband makes his threats when Hamas refuses to disarm is a moral disgrace. The effect on Jewish families in England not being able to buy wine and Jewish religious items from Judea-based businesses at their local stores is not what is at stake here; it is the fundamental right of Jewish families to live and be secure in their ancestral homeland.

This troubling posture is part of a continuous British opposition to Zionism. With the infamous 1939 MacDonald White Paper the British government severely restricted Jewish immigration and land purchases in the Land of Israel and stopped millions of Jews from escaping to our homeland.

Those Jews tragically became Hitler’s victims when the government in London decided not to help Jews. It seems Miliband wants his country to again side against Jewish rights.

Ed Miliband’s positions on Jewish security are well known, and his past political judgments reveal a long-standing disregard for these crucial concerns. In 2015, Miliband declared: “I’ll be offering Jeremy Corbyn my support and I hope people across the party do so too.” Just three years later, everyone knew what Miliband must have known then: Corbyn’s leadership represented an unprecedented threat to the Jewish community.

The international and political backlash against Corbyn’s record was unequivocal:

Angela Smith, Labour MP: (September 2018): “Jeremy Corbyn is an anti-Semite.”

Joan Ryan, then Labour MP (2018): “Jeremy Corbyn has presided over a culture of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.”

Emmanuel Macron, President of France (August 2018): “The fight against anti-Semitism is a fight that must be led by all of us. I condemn the anti-Semitic remarks made by Jeremy Corbyn.”

Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel (August 26, 2018): “Corbyn’s decision to lay a wreath at the graves of terrorists who murdered Israeli athletes at Munich and Hamas terrorists is something that should concern not only Israel, but the entire world.”

Isaac Herzog, then Chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel (August 2018): “Corbyn’s Labour Party has become a hostile environment for Jews.”

By aligning himself with Corbyn and others who fostered hostility toward the Jewish community and now pushing policies that target Jewish families in their historic heartland, Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband is repeating the disastrous moral failures of the past.

British policy is once again being driven by measures that undermine Jewish security and delegitimize Jewish life. The U.K.’s boycott plans against Israeli families are wrong, and they are also dangerous.