If you thought the UK would head in a more sane direction after weak, woke Prime Minister Keir Starmer left office this July, I’ve got some bad news for you… His replacement may be even worse.
On Tuesday, the government of new Prime Minister Andy Burnham announced sweeping sanctions against Israeli communities in the “West Bank”—a region that we know as the Biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria. These are places where Jews have lived for thousands of years and where a good chunk of your Bible happened.
Over half a million Israelis live in Judea and Samaria and will be affected by these sanctions.
Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband announced the boycott: “The situation in Palestine is a moral emergency. What the Netanyahu government is doing in Gaza is a stain on the conscience of the world. And there is increasing evidence that war crimes appear to have been committed, and we’re witnessing unprecedented settler terrorism in the West Bank. The British government has come to the same conclusion as a former prime minister of Israel and others that there is ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank perpetrated by settler terrorists.”
If only Miliband had such strong words for Hamas, Hezbollah, or perhaps the Iranian regime. Instead, Miliband, who is Jewish, reserves his moral outrage for the world’s one and only Jewish state—a lone democracy in a sea of Middle East tyranny.
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee in recent days has called out the very tiny segment of Jews in Judea and Samaria who have attacked Palestinians, while also making clear that the overwhelming majority of Jews who live in these areas are not engaged in that kind of behavior. If anything, they have been the victims of Palestinian terrorism time and time again.
Terrorism against Jews, however, doesn’t seem to matter to Miliband and other Western countries like Australia and Canada that are now lining up to enforce sanctions against Israel.
All of these countries have growing Muslim populations to appease, and they think bashing Israel will help them curry favor with their increasingly influential Islamic voting blocs. Good luck with that!
At a simpler level, it all boils down to a complete collapse of moral clarity throughout the Western world.
The U.K. made the announcement against Israel the very same week that Jews will celebrate Rosh Hashanah and begin the high holiday season—think about that! It also occurred just days before Americans of all backgrounds will mark the 25th anniversary of the Islamic terror attack of 9/11—an attack, by the way, that was cheered by Palestinians.
An NBC News report on September 12th, 2001, showed disturbing footage from the day before: “These are Palestinian celebrations in the wake of Tuesday’s terror attacks in the United States. Apparently, Palestinians took to the streets chanting [Allahu Akbar]. People were throwing [and] distributing candy to passersby. The U.S. government obviously has become increasingly unpopular, particularly in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, because Palestinians feel that the U.S. government has sided with Israel. Nawal Abdel Fattah, wearing a long black dress, threw sweets in the air… saying she was happy because, ‘America is the head of the snake. America always stands by Israel and its war against us.’”
How soon some forget.
I’ve quoted this passage from the book of Isaiah many times: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness” (Isaiah 5:20).
That is the world we’re living in right now.
