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‘We have to be here fighting’: Deborah Lipstadt opens up on her Poland-Germany trip with Douglas Emhoff
BERLIN (JTA) — Second gentleman Douglas Emhoff made headlines late last month during a trip to Europe, where he met with other foreign leaders working to combat antisemitism and returned to his ancestors’ town in Poland.
But the trip was originally Deborah Lipstadt’s mission.
The historian, an authority on Holocaust issues and now the U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, had planned to go to Krakow and Berlin on behalf of the Biden-Harris administration. The trip included a visit to the memorial and museum at Auschwitz-Birkenau on the 78th anniversary of the death camp’s liberation by Soviet troops and, in Berlin, a meeting with special envoys and coordinators who, like Lipstadt, are charged with the task of countering hatred against Jews.
The itinerary fit perfectly with Emhoff’s own anti-antisemitism campaign, so he asked Lipstadt late last year if he could come along.
As she reflected in an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency after returning home, Emhoff was not the only one to get emotional on the trip.
This interview has been lightly condensed and edited for clarity.
JTA: You met with special envoys on antisemitism from other countries, as you and Emhoff continue to work on a national plan to fight antisemitism at home. Did any concrete policy suggestions come out of those meetings?
DL: The meeting with the special envoys on antisemitism now is the third meeting we have had together.
But I think it was very important to send the message that we are all government appointees, and we speak government to government. So we have already gotten into that rhythm, and it was a very useful meeting. It was also a useful meeting because there were people there from the White House, from my staff, who are involved in this interagency process, and they got to hear from the people who are composing, writing, who have written national plans. And I think that was very helpful. So it was one of the most productive meetings.
You also attended an interfaith meeting with Jewish, Catholic, Protestant and Muslim participants, hosted by the Central Council of Jews in Germany in Berlin. What came out of that?
That actually went very well. The groups tended to talk about what they do together. …One of the things I urged the group, and it may have been bringing coals to Newcastle, but it is a sort of a new effort on their part… is that [talking about things that affect multiple faiths] is a good way of building relations. For instance, [my office had] a meeting in October, convened by the EU but with very strong support from the State Department, from my office, on ritual slaughter. Which of course affects both Jews and Muslims, kashrut and halal. So here is a tachles [goal], a brass tacks area which we could work on together. And that was an excellent meeting, a whole day at the EU.
What do you see as the main challenges in fighting antisemitism and hate today?
You know, some people say this is just like the 1930s. It is not. Back then, you had government-sponsored antisemitism. Whether it was Germany, whether it was other countries, even in the United States. We didn’t have government sponsored antisemitism, but there was a failure of the [U.S.] government [to respond].
On Monday morning, we were sitting in Topography of Terror [Berlin’s museum and archive on the history of the Gestapo], and it was government officials discussing “how do we fight antisemitism?” And everybody around that table is paid by the government. They are government officials, officially appointed. That’s a big difference. That is a humongous difference. That is a sea change.
And then we had the second gentleman there who could easily have said, “We came into office, we put a mezuzah up at our residence. We had a Chanukah party, a Rosh Hashanah party, we had a seder…” [Instead, it] is really clear that he has taken to this issue. He has really said it a number of times… and his wife [Vice President Kamala Harris] says, “He didn’t find this issue. This issue found him.”
RELATED: We’re visiting Auschwitz because the fight against antisemitism didn’t end with liberation
On the first day I met him, which was before I was sworn into office, he said he wanted to meet me and I spent some time with him. He said, “I want to work with you.” And then in October, we had a sukkah event at Blair House [the state guest house], where the State Department brought a sukkah, and we invited ambassadors and deputy chiefs of mission from Middle Eastern and Muslim-majority countries. So sitting around the table were the Israeli ambassador, the Turkish ambassador, the Pakistan ambassador, the deputy chief of mission from Qatar, the deputy chief of mission from Saudi Arabia… And [the Second Gentleman] and I were standing in the kitchen waiting to be escorted into the room, when people took their seats. And he said to me, “Deborah, where are you traveling, where are you going?” I said “Well, in January I am going to Auschwitz-Birkenau for the 27th.” And he said “I’m in.” And that’s how it happened.
You have been to Auschwitz many times…
Dozens of times, I can’t keep count. You know I have been many times, but I work very hard so that it never becomes de rigeur. That it becomes “min haminyan” as you would say in Hebrew. … All you have to do is remind yourself of what happened there. And so it doesn’t matter if it’s your first time or your 15th time. If you are cognizant of what happened there, it sits with you.
…When I go to Auschwitz, especially when it was around my trial [after being sued by British writer David Irving for calling him a Holocaust denier], I had to look at things in a very forensic way, you know: How do we prove this, how do we show that. And that of course sits with me still. But I was well aware that this was [Emhoff’s] first time and what an emotional impact this was having on him. … The thing that always strikes me about Auschwitz, the thing that you hear resounding in your ears in a thunderous way, is the silence. The absence. The little kid that would have worn the shoes that you saw in the display. The people who wore the eyeglasses. The men who shaved with that shaving stuff.
So that is always there. And it hits me at moments and then I become the historian. Analyzing. But it was very powerful, and what was also powerful was, in a way, though this seems counterintuitive, going to Poland first, which was just laden with emotion, especially for him, he went to the town where his family comes from, and got a lot of information. And then going to Germany. One would have thought, go to Germany first and then go to Poland, but in a way the emotional part became the backdrop for the business meetings in Germany.
[Emhoff] very kindly at one point described me as his mentor. Well, if I am his mentor, he is an A1 student. He is really intent on showing not just his passion about the issue but in learning about the issue. He is an accomplished lawyer, an experienced lawyer, and he knows that feeling is not enough, you’ve got to have information, and he gathered that every place he went.
Do you really have the feeling that antisemitism is on the rise or is it just more acceptable to express it?
I think both. I am not out there crunching the numbers statistically, but certainly it is more acceptable. Certainly, it is increasingly normalized. Whether it’s among comedians, whether it is articles in the newspaper, whether it is at demonstrations, it is increasingly normal. And even becomes fodder for entertainers. So whether those same people felt the same before and didn’t say anything or they now suddenly feel that, I don’t know. But many people who might otherwise have been more reticent about expressing certain things previously seem to feel freer to say antisemitic things now.
If antisemitism keeps coming back, what gives you hope?
First of all, what gives me hope, what gives me strength, is I know what I am fighting for, I am not just fighting against. I have a very strong sense of my Jewish identity, I have a very strong sense of who I am, Jewishly. I am lucky, I had a great education, etc.
Earlier this year, I guess it was September, the president did a phone call, it was his practice during the vice presidency, before Rosh Hashanah, or between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, to do a phone call with — this time I think it was 1,200 rabbis. And I came along after he spoke with them to answer questions. And one of the questions was what gives me joy and what gives me strength. And what I said to the rabbis was that I never want to become a “because of antisemitism Jew.” Driving me out of the woodwork because everyone dislikes me, hates me, or wants to harm me. Not everyone — but there are people who want to harm me.
On Monday when I was at all those meetings [in Berlin], it was Jan. 30, 90 years after Hitler came to power, right there where we were standing. Not far from there people were marching in the streets with tiki torches! Championing among other things “death to the Jews.”
And here we were, back: Yes, the good news is here we are back, openly talking about fighting [antisemitism], here we are back, government officials tasked with fighting it, someone at the ambassadorial level from my country, the second gentleman, anxious to help in this effort, but nonetheless we were back there fighting. So on one hand, you can say, “Great, we have the special envoy, great we have the second gentleman who was so open to taking this on. This is unbelievable.” But we are here fighting. We have to be here fighting.
What was your most memorable experience from the recent trip?
On Saturday night [in Poland], one of the members of the White House staff that was with us after Shabbos had hired a car to go to the little village, shtetl, whatever, that her family came from. She wanted to go to the cemetery to see if she could find any names. Now the chances of her finding the names, in the daylight, when it is 70 degrees out and comfortable [would be hard enough]. Here it was below freezing, snow was falling, the ground was icy, and it was pitch black. We were with a genealogist, but the cemetery was locked. So we thought we would have to climb the fences. I thought, “Oh my God, we are going to have an international incident!” But our driver got the key to the cemetery from the people across the street, and I asked, “How did you know?” And he said, “The people across the street always have the key.”
So we didn’t have to break in. She wanted to say a prayer, and she was totally capable of saying the prayer herself but obviously she was deeply moved, and she asked me to recite the “El Maleh Rachamim” [prayer for the soul of a person who has died] for her. And when I stopped, she gave all the names of the people, many of whom were buried there but we couldn’t find the exact places. And then I said “shenikberu” [“who is buried here”], and the person holding the flashlight for me, I couldn’t see, it was tiny print, and he’s Israeli, he said, “po.” Here, here, here! I had never said an “El Maleh Rachamim” for people who were caught up in this tragedy, here. In situ. It was very powerful.
And then on the 30th [in Berlin] after our special envoy meeting, we all walked over to the [city’s] Holocaust memorial. And Felix [Klein, Germany’s special commissioner on antisemitism and Jewish life] had brought stones. And we were standing there, and to borrow a phrase from Herman Wouk’s “The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial,” there was this pregnant pause. And I said, “Would you like me to recite a prayer?” And I recited the prayer, another “El Maleh Rachamim,” and I became totally verklempt [overcome with emotion]. Because I was just a 12-minute walk, if that long, from where it was planned and carried out, and that was very powerful as well.
So the trip was pregnant with meaning, but I think more than just meaning, hopefully also impact.
—
The post ‘We have to be here fighting’: Deborah Lipstadt opens up on her Poland-Germany trip with Douglas Emhoff appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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AOC urges Clavicular, who visited Tel Aviv, to ‘shed some light’ on the plight of the Palestinians
(JTA) — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said the influencer Clavicular should be informing his followers about the plight of Palestinians, in a sign of how widely Clavicular’s trip this week to Tel Aviv has registered among both Israelis and Israel’s critics.
Ocasio-Cortez, who has been sharply critical of Israel, was asked about Clavicular by a reporter from TMZ, the celebrity news site, on Tuesday in Washington, D.C.
“We should be focusing on Palestinians and the fact that many of them have been displaced,” she told the outlet, adding, “I hope maybe he uses his platform to give also some light to that issue as well.”
Clavicular sharply divided pro-Israel influencers during his time in Tel Aviv, with some arguing that his presence was a boon to Israel at a time when the country faces global approbation over its military operations in Gaza and others saying that Israelis should not embrace a celebrity with a record of objectifying women and engaging in antisemitism. Earlier this year, Clavicular, whose real name is Braden Peters, was part of a group of influencers who sang along to the Ye song “Heil Hitler” at a Miami nightclub.
One Israeli who appeared in Clavicular’s livestream, which appears on the platform Kick that is known for allowing content prohibited by other services, has faced penalties for doing so. Shira Braun has lost her job in the army spokesman’s unit and has been given a suspended jail sentence by the military after posing as the influencer’s girlfriend on air, according to Israeli media.
The end of Clavicular’s trip has prompted a new round of social media posts about him. The Instagram account Olim in TLV, which appeals to young immigrants in Tel Aviv, riffed on the country’s missile alerts in a graphic published on Wednesday.
“The event has ended — it is possible to exit the Protected Space,” the graphic said. “Clavicular has left Israel.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post AOC urges Clavicular, who visited Tel Aviv, to ‘shed some light’ on the plight of the Palestinians appeared first on The Forward.
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Israel is dominating Democratic politics. How did we get here?
For decades, American politicians considering a presidential run have traveled to Iowa cornfields and New Hampshire town halls to introduce themselves to voters before launching their campaigns.
Last week, two potential 2028 presidential contenders chose a different route.
Rahm Emanuel, the former Chicago mayor and Barack Obama’s White House chief of staff, traveled to Tel Aviv, where he delivered a speech defending the U.S.-Israel relationship but also cautioning about the growing erosion of Democratic support for the Jewish state in the wake of the Gaza war and amid settler violence.
A tiny fraction of the target audience was in the room. The majority was back home in the U.S., considering who in their party could possibly win as their party’s White House nominee — and more immediately how to use their votes this year to regain power.
Meanwhile, Rep. Ro Khanna, a leading progressive Democrat from California, took a high-profile trip to the occupied West Bank, where he was caught in an altercation with armed Israeli settlers who blocked his route to an elementary school that extremist settlers had destroyed. Khanna said he plans to share what he witnessed firsthand about the Palestinians’ “injustice” on the campaign trail if he runs.
The contrasting trips reflected a trend already reshaping Democratic politics. Graham Platner, the Maine Senate nominee who was forced to withdraw from the race following allegations of sexual assault, made opposition to Israel and AIPAC one of the defining themes of his campaign. His defiant parting message — in which he denied the allegations — included a vow to keep working to “end the genocide.”
On Tuesday, House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, hoping to become speaker after the midterm elections, added his voice to the mix. In guidance issued to his members ahead of a vote to cut off aid to Israel — introduced by Republican Rep. Thomas Massie from Kentucky and co-sponsored by Khanna — Jeffries said that while he’ll oppose the measure, “given the strongly held views throughout the Caucus in this important area of foreign policy, we are not whipping this vote” against it. He added that going forward, “a meaningful change in direction is needed.”
The episodes in the past week highlight how quickly and powerfully the U.S. relationship to Israel — which has been receiving $3.8 billion annually under a 10-year memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Israel, which runs through 2028, plus additional billions in arms sales — has come to dominate Democratic Party politics.
A stew of different factors are in the mix — ranging from President Donald Trump’s fateful decision to wage war on Iran alongside Israel, the success of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the Democratic Socialists of America in showing how to mobilize voters on the issue, and voter backlash against massive spending on elections by U.S. supporters of military aid to Israel, all against the backdrop of the Gaza war and Israel’s continued military action in the region.
Sudden shifts
Israel’s role in Democratic politics this year signals a major shift — especially after a wave of insurgents who made condemning Israel central to their campaigns beat mainstream Democrats in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Colorado primaries.
The Democratic revolt is not entirely new. In the 2024 presidential race, the conflict in Gaza spurred some voters to stay home rather than cast ballots after the “uncommitted” movement blamed President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for civilian deaths — missing voters who may have swayed the results in Michigan, a swing state with a large Arab-American population. Activists said Democratic National Committee officials acknowledged that the Biden administration’s support for Israel contributed to Harris’ loss to Donald Trump.
But the protest movement has since swelled to include a bigger constituency — one not content to sit out elections or confined to moments of war. For many progressive candidates, challenging the U.S.-Israel alliance and advocating for Palestinian rights have become a marker of ideological identity and the party’s future.
Bill de Blasio, who himself evolved from a staunch supporter of Israel and an ally of AIPAC after he left office as New York City mayor and mounted an unsuccessful campaign for Congress, said in an interview that the shift reflects a deeper emotional connection to the conflict that is driving the engagement and organizing. Disaffected voters feel personally implicated by U.S. support for Israel, de Blasio said: “It’s a sense that this was done with our weapons and our money.”
In some districts with entrenched incumbents, such lines of attack by challengers went nowhere in Democratic primaries. But in some districts where the grassroots Democratic Socialists of America endorsed candidates and mobilized voters, they have scored significant upsets.
The result is a growing wave of democratic socialists and progressives winning Democratic primaries, portraying support for Israel as incompatible with progressive values.
Matt Duss, a former senior foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, said Gaza became a breaking point for many Democratic voters because of its human toll, but added that the political shift runs deeper. “It has come to stand for an issue of the establishment versus the insurgent populist left,” Duss said. Gaza, he added, “created this breaking point” where the “floodgates opened” to challenging the pro-Israel consensus that has dominated American politics for so long.
The Mamdani model
Zohran Mamdani’s left-field victory last year as New York City mayor showed candidates nationally that running against Israel could energize voters even in a local election. Mamdani, a young democratic socialist, rose to power by embracing pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel activism in a mayoral campaign otherwise focused on economic justice and progressive reform. Mamdani defeated establishment candidates despite refusing to scale back on his support for boycotts and declining to condemn the slogan “globalize the intifada” even as many Jewish voters heard it as a call to violence. Public opinion polls showed that Mamdani’s unapologetic criticism of Israel resonated with a majority of New York City voters.
The wins of three candidates endorsed by Mamdani in congressional primaries last month reinforced running against Israel as a winning strategy in progressive-leaning districts. Brad Lander, the former city comptroller allied with Mamdani, defeated two-term incumbent Rep. Dan Goldman by labeling Goldman as insufficiently activist on Israel, even as both — identifying themselves as liberal Zionists — touted similar views on addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Lander was the first Jewish candidate to call for an end to U.S. aid to Israel.
In Upper Manhattan and the Bronx, Rep. Adriano Espaillat, chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, lost to Darializa Avila Chevalier, a former organizer of the pro-Palestinian encampment at Columbia. Avila Chevalier drew backlash for inflammatory comments about Israel and for attending a Times Square rally on Oct. 8, 2023, widely condemned for celebrating Hamas — but won anyway.
And in Brooklyn, Assemblymember Claire Valdez beat the establishment favorite for an open House seat. Her supporters condemned her opponent, Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, for refusing during much of the campaign to call the Gaza war a genocide and for taking a 2015 trip to Israel.
The AIPAC factor
The trend is not limited to New York. Across the country, Israel has become a defining issue, even in races with relatively small Jewish electorates or where foreign policy would once have played little role. In Colorado, Melat Kiros, a democratic socialist, unseated a 15-term incumbent using Israel as a wedge throughout the campaign.
In California, State Sen. Scott Wiener, a candidate for Congress who is one of the leading Jewish Democrats statewide, has found himself navigating intense pressure and confrontations from progressive activists even after he capitulated to demands that he characterize Israel’s military campaign in Gaza as a genocide.
According to data compiled by Milan Singh, a fellow at The Argument, a liberal opinion-focused media publication, insurgent progressive candidates for Congress mentioned Israel in 48% of their fundraising emails.
Opposition to AIPAC and criticism of the Israeli government have increasingly become shorthand for challenging “entrenched power, big money politics and the party establishment,” said Democratic strategist Lis Smith.
Nowhere is the changed climate being tested more vigorously than in Michigan’s open Senate race. The Aug. 4 primary between Rep. Haley Stevens and former Wayne County health director Abdul El-Sayed has become one of the most expensive races in the country this year.
Like other candidates who have run campaigns with Israel front and center, El-Sayed has focused heavily on condemning AIPAC, the campaign group backing congressional candidates who support U.S. military aid to Israel.
AIPAC has returned the favor with massive spending to attempt to defeat El-Sayed. Its super PAC, the United Democracy Project, has already spent $14.9 million backing Stevens. AIPAC also raised several million dollars for Stevens by directing its donors to online portals that funnel money directly to the candidate’s campaign.
Until this year, AIPAC was obscure to most voters. But its massive spending to support favored House and Senate candidates has been matched by progressive opponents using it to rally voters to shun those candidates.
In primaries this year, AIPAC and -aligned groups are pushing back against candidates who made Palestinian rights and support for restricting offensive arms sales to Israel a theme of their campaigns. AIPAC is also spending heavily to defend a seat in St. Louis, Missouri, that it helped win in 2024.
Duss said the politics surrounding Israel increasingly functions as a broader test of credibility for candidates seeking to dislodge Democratic Party leaders seen as holding back progress — not just on Israel, but also on such goals as Medicare for All. “It’s become an issue that you could speak out on if you want to demonstrate your anti-establishment bona fides,” he said.
In Michigan, voter scrutiny has broadened beyond just Israel to the question of why powerful interests are aligned with Stevens.
The changing politics is beginning to impact how incumbents are voting in Washington. In April, 40 Senate Democrats voted to block $295 million for the transfer of bulldozers — used by the Israeli military to demolish homes in the West Bank and Gaza — and 36 of them also supported a measure to block the sale of 1,000-pound bombs to the Jewish state. Those counts shattered a previous high of 27 Democrats who backed a similar pair of resolutions last year.
The governing challenge
The electoral victories may only be the beginning. The real test will come should the Democrats regain control of the House in November.
Matt Bennett, executive vice president at the centrist Democratic group Third Way, said that Israel “has exploded as a divisive issue in democratic politics” at a moment when Democrats have no power, as the minority in both the House and Senate, to shape the foreign policy of the United States. “It’s remarkable how anger is being directed at people who have no agency over these questions.”
If they win back the House, he said, those divisions will become much harder to avoid.
Whether driven by outrage over Gaza, frustration with the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or broader resentment of political institutions, Israel has become a defining issue — something few Democratic strategists expected even a few years ago.
Smith, who advises political organizations Majority Democrats and the Bench, called the events of the 2026 primary seasoin a “turning point” in the Democratic Party’s stance toward Israel. “I think that relationship is going to be strained for the foreseeable future,” she said.
The combination of Netanyahu’s actions in Gaza, Lebanon and the West Bank, and Trump’s actions in the war on Iran, are going to have a “lasting impact on our politics,” said de Blasio. “I don’t think that it can be put back in the bottle.”
Israel’s election crossroads
Throughout the debate over Israel, mainstream Democrats have tried to direct their criticism at Netanyahu and his far-right partners. Even Bernie Sanders, the elder in the progressive caucus, framed the charge for ending U.S. military aid as opposition to the “extremist Netanyahu government.”
Israelis will get a chance to change leadership in the upcoming Oct. 27 Knesset election. Recent polls show that Netanyahu, seeking a seventh term in office, is trailing an opposition bloc led by two contenders for premier — former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and former IDF chief Gadi Eisenkot.
If Netanyahu loses, some centrist Democrats believe a different Israeli government will help ease tensions.
“The intense emotion surrounding the issue could lessen somewhat,” said Matt Bennett of Third Way. Though the next Israeli leader will not dramatically break with Netanyahu’s policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or Gaza, “not having Netanyahu there would matter a lot because he has become he has inserted himself into partisan politics in the United States to such a degree that he has become the face of these campaigns,” he added.
Progressives are less convinced. They see the shift and generational reassessment of the U.S.-Israel relationship as a larger challenge. “If you had a different figure, one who is not so odious, that would give an opportunity to change the relationship,” Duss said. “But I don’t think it’s going back because the differences here are not just about one person; they are systemic.”
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UK lawmakers press government on why West Bank imports haven’t yet been banned
(JTA) — British lawmakers from across the political spectrum are pressing the government to ban imports from Israeli settlements in the West Bank, saying that explanations for why such a ban has not yet been imposed were inadequate.
During a three-hour House of Commons debate on Thursday, lawmakers argued that Britain’s long-standing position that the settlements are illegal under international law means it should fall in line behind other countries advancing bans, particularly at a time of rising settler violence and efforts to expand Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
The debate — the latest in a number of formal discussions about a potential ban in Parliament — was led by Abtisam Mohamed, a politician from the governing Labour Party who is the first Arab woman and first Yemeni member of Parliament. She was denied entry into Israel in 2025, a year after being elected.
“I want to pose a simple question to the government today, a question that sits at the heart of this debate,” Mohamed said in opening the session. “If settlements are illegal, why have we not made an outright ban on trade? What exactly is it that we’re waiting for?”
Lawmakers from other parties piled on.
“There is no excuse that we have to wait for other countries to move because they’ve moved ahead of us,” said Ellie Chowns from the left-wing Green Party, which has made opposition to Israel part of its platform. “There is no excuse that this is too technically difficult because the legal framework already exists.”
And a member of the Conservative party, which has traditionally favored strong ties with Israel, said he was unconvinced by the argument, made recently by a government official, that other measures that are potentially less complicated to administer could achieve the same pressure on Israel.
“We’ve done everything except the obvious, which is just the ban,” said the lawmaker, Kit Malthouse. “The question I’m left asking is, why? Why the reluctance? Why the hesitation? Nobody’s buying the complexity argument.”
On Monday, EU foreign ministers met to discuss a ban on products from Israeli settlements in the West Bank, in order to gauge if there is enough support for the move. The EU’s foreign minister said a ban on imports was the most popular option under discussion and said she expected that the conversation would soon advance.
The discussion in the House of Commons comes as the British Labour government is in flux, with a new prime minister set to take over from Keir Starmer next week. It also comes as the government is taking steps to reassure a Jewish community that has been rattled by a number of violent incidents. This week, the government both allocated more than $300 million in security funding for Jewish institutions while also formally declaring Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, seen as tied to many of the attacks, to be a terrorist group, in a move that enables more intense prosecution.
In an appearance before the Foreign Affairs Committee earlier in July, the government’s top Middle East minister fended off allegations that the Labour government was slow-walking pressure on Israel. Hamish Falconer also noted that British Jewish leaders are urging against an import ban.
“There are legitimate and reasonable concerns from the British Jewish community that if we were to take steps which were crude, which were untargeted, could have unintended consequences on the lives of the community who are already under considerable pressure,” he said. “I do take that seriously for obvious reasons.”
The Board of Jewish Deputies, an umbrella organization for almost 200 Jewish groups in Britain, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that it was reluctant to comment on a potential ban on West Bank imports before a new prime minister is installed. But the group has previously weighed in strongly against efforts to boycott Israel, arguing in a 2017 report that “to hasten a solution to the settlements would be to assist the chances of negotiations through promoting peace, rather than the problematic boycott campaign.”
Falconer also signaled that all bets could be off if the Israeli government moves forward with a settlement project known as E1, telling the Foreign Affairs Committee, “I have said repeatedly that no one should benefit from a profit made on land that has been unlawfully procured.”
The E1 initiative would expand Jewish settlements on a stretch of land east of Jerusalem, bisecting the West Bank, and is seen by both its proponents and critics as a bid to undercut a potential future Palestinian state. The current right-wing Israeli government has moved the E1 project significantly toward actualization, approving it formally.
If the project proceeds further, Falconer told lawmakers, “then we and our friends and allies would take tangible action in response.”
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