What if Miliband & the Chief Rabbi are both right?

Britain’s Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said something in Parliament this week with which I find it very difficult to disagree. “Holding British Jews responsible for the actions of the Israeli Government is antisemitism, plain and simple.”

Of course it is.

A Jew living in London or Manchester is not responsible for a decision made by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. But that doesn’t mean they won’t be held responsible for it. And that, I think, is where the argument that has erupted between Miliband and Britain’s Chief Rabbi, Sir Ephraim Mirvis, becomes more complicated.

On Tuesday, Miliband announced a major shift in British policy towards Israel and the West Bank. Britain will ban imports from Israeli settlements, sanction companies and individuals involved in settlement expansion, prohibit the advertising of settlement property in the UK and refuse licences for arms and other exports that materially contribute to the occupation.

He also said something no British government had said before. Britain now regards Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories as unlawful. And he used extraordinarily strong language. “The British government agrees that there is ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank, perpetrated by settler terrorists,” he told Parliament. He accused members of the Israeli government of making statements and taking actions that support the forced displacement of Palestinians.

Mirvis responded by calling it “truly a dark day for British Jews”. He warned that the measures would bolster the very extremism they were intended to confront.

Miliband rejected that.

What makes this argument particularly interesting is that Miliband is himself Jewish. He began his statement by describing himself as a “proud British Jew”. His grandmother found refuge in Israel after her husband and 60 other members of her family were murdered by the Nazis. He recalled visiting her in Tel Aviv and picking oranges as a child on the kibbutz where his cousins lived. So this isn’t an argument between a British government that doesn’t understand Jewish attachment to Israel and a Chief Rabbi who does. It’s an argument between two British Jews about what happens when a government takes action against Israel.

But I think they are talking about two different things.

Miliband is saying British Jews must not be blamed for the actions of an Israeli government. Mirvis is warning that some people will blame them anyway.

Miliband’s own statement tells us why that concern cannot simply be dismissed. He spoke about rising antisemitism in Britain, the attack at Heaton Park, attacks in Golders Green and Jewish children who now go to school with security guards outside. The British government announced more than £250 million this year to increase protection for Jewish communities over the next three years. So there is something uncomfortable about having to say both things at once. British Jews are not responsible for Israel. And Britain is spending hundreds of millions of pounds protecting British Jews at a time of growing antisemitism.

That doesn’t mean Britain shouldn’t criticize Israel.

For nearly two decades I reported from Israel and the Palestinian territories, including Gaza when foreign correspondents could still move in and out freely. I don’t believe criticism of Israel is inherently antisemitic. It plainly isn’t. There are also senior British rabbis who support what Miliband has done. Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg, a senior rabbi of Masorti Judaism, Rabbi Jeremy Gordon of New London Synagogue and Rabbi Alexandra Wright of London’s Liberal Jewish Synagogue are among those who have argued that settler violence and settlement expansion cannot simply be ignored. Wittenberg was in the Palestinian village of Umm al-Khair when Miliband delivered his speech and said he had seen the consequences of settler violence himself.

But there is another reality which anyone who has reported on antisemitism will recognize.

Criticism of Israel can be entirely legitimate. It can also sometimes provide cover for something that isn’t. People who would never openly say they hate Jews can express that hatred through language about Israel, Zionists or “the Jews”, moving between those terms as though they mean the same thing.

I’ve encountered the problem from both directions. As a Jewish journalist, when I criticize Israel, there are Jews who accuse me of being a sellout. When I criticize Palestinians or parts of the Muslim world, there are people who tell me I only say it because I’m Jewish. And when I don’t criticize a side, that side tends to keep quiet. Perhaps that’s why I’m wary of arguments that require everything to fit neatly into one category.

Miliband was careful about the distinction he was making. His measures target settlements and settlement expansion, not Israel as a whole. He said Britain would continue to trade with Israel inside the Green Line and explicitly rejected the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, or BDS. He also told Parliament that holding British Jews responsible for the actions of Israel’s government is antisemitic.

He’s right. But saying that in Parliament doesn’t mean everyone outside Parliament will respect the distinction.

We are seeing more and more how events in Israel are felt by Jewish communities thousands of kilometers away. Jews can find themselves answering for decisions they didn’t make and policies over which they have no control.

That cannot give Israel immunity from criticism. Nor should a British government refrain from acting against policies it believes are wrong because an antisemite might attack a synagogue. But it also doesn’t make Mirvis wrong to worry about what happens next.

Miliband is right that British Jews should never be held responsible for the actions of Israel’s government. Mirvis is worried that they will be. And increasingly, they are.