Why Miliband is wrong

By no means everything which UK foreign secretary Ed Miliband said today was wrong. He was right to condemn Hamas violence: he was right to condemn Settler violence: he was right to say that blaming British Jews for the actions of the Israeli government is anti-semitism.

But as someone who supports a two-state solution, I have to say that the approach taken by the British government today is a wholly misguided way of trying to achieve that aim, and it will not work.

Leaving aside the far from trivial practical difficulties such as trying to sanction products from West Bank settlements but not from Israel as a whole, this approach ignores the fact that there are two sides to the problem of trying to negotiate a two-state solution. It is not just Netanyahu and elements of his government which are currently opposed to the two-state solution: it is also many of the representatives on the Palestinian side.

If you are trying to promote a particular approach, I have my doubts about trying to sanction either side as a means of persuasion, but trying to sanction one side and not the other when both needs to be persuaded is a diplomatic disaster waiting to happen.

I also share the concern of British Jews that this apparently one-sided approach may encourage anti-semitism here.

This is what the Board of Deputies of British Jews had to say.






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