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Thursday, September 10, 2026

09/09 Links Pt1: The UK government has swallowed the Great Lie of Israelophobia; What if the Palestinians Don’t Want Two States, Mr. Miliband?; IAEA board refers Iran to UN SC for nuclear ‘non-compliance,’ a first in 2 decades

From Ian:

Brendan O'Neill: The UK government has swallowed the Great Lie of Israelophobia
If it wasn’t for Israel, if it wasn’t for that monstrous, marauding state, there’d be peace in the Middle East. This is the Great Lie of Israelophobia. It’s the truthless, venomous current powering the global loathing for the Jewish State. You hear it on the street, on campuses, in mosques: that peace demands the muzzling, if not the outright destruction, of the bloodthirsty Jewish nation. Yesterday, staggeringly, we heard a version of this lie from the foreign secretary of the United Kingdom.

For me, this was the most striking thing about Ed Miliband’s statement to parliament: his propagation of the falsehood that the Jewish State is the prime barrier to a two-state solution and something like peace. With its war in Gaza, which Miliband said was unjustified in its barbarity, and its green-lighting of yet more settlements in the West Bank / Judea and Samaria, Israel has nuked the possibility of peace, he said. It has created ‘a set of facts on the ground’ that have made ‘the two-state solution unviable’. MPs giddily murmured their approval.

Contrast this with how he spoke about Hamas. He condemned Hamas, of course. All politicians engage in a spot of anti-Hamas throat-clearing before piling on the real monster of the Middle East: Israel. Hamas is a ‘terrorist’ outfit, he said. It caused Israel and Jews great ‘trauma’ with its attacks of 7 October 2023. The violence of that day was ‘vile’. And it must now ‘decommission its weapons’.

Spot the difference? Hamas is a pain in the arse, but Israel is the true menace to future peace. Hamas causes trauma, but Israel creates ‘facts on the ground’ that make peace and equality all but impossible. Hamas, in this twisted telling, becomes a bit-part player, albeit a ‘vile’ one, in a horror story authored by a murderous, expansionist Jewish State that is well and truly off its leash. And that’s why, said Miliband, we are rolling out a stringent package of sanctions against the Israeli settlements: to tame Israel’s ‘expansionist’ lunacy that creates ‘facts’ which torch all hopes of peace.

What Miliband said wasn’t only untrue – it was the public execution of truth. He didn’t only spread misinformation – he also inverted reality itself, depicting the seekers of peace as the destroyers of peace, and the Islamofascists who truly jeopardise our civilisation as mere causers of trauma. Like the keffiyeh mob, only in more moderate language, he infantilised Hamas and monstered Israel, presenting the former as a pest but the latter as a threat to all that is decent. It is one of the most misleading speeches a modern politician has given.

The very war that Miliband so stingingly condemned – the Israel-Hamas War – was born not from Israel’s hatred of peace but from Hamas’s. It is well established that Hamas’s carnival of Nazi-like violence on 7 October was designed to destroy not only Jewish life but also the Abraham Accords. These are the accords initiated by Donald Trump and signed in Washington, DC, in September 2020, with the aim of bringing about ‘normalisation’ between Arab states and Israel. The UAE and Bahrain recognised Israel for the first time. Sudan and Morocco followed. Then something extraordinary was reported: Saudi Arabia was considering signing up, too.

It would have been a region-changing development. More than that: a global quake. But it infuriated Hamas’s masters in Tehran, the theocratic freaks devoted to the fascistic annihilation of the Jewish homeland. Internal Hamas documents confirm that the October pogrom was in part designed to ‘thwart the Saudi kingdom’s process of normalisation’. Other documents gloat that Hamas’s savagery during the Second Intifada – when a thousand Jews were shot, stabbed and burnt to death – had helped to stall the Arab Peace Initiative, which Iran also hated.
To Britain: Peace requires recognizing Jewish rights, not destroying them
If Jews do not have the right to live, then ipso facto, Palestinian Arabs have the right to kill them, and it is not murder to do so.

If Jews do not have the right to their holy or archaeological sites such as the Cave of the Patriarchs or Joshua’s Altar, than ipso facto, Palestinian Arabs have the right to destroy those sites.

Declaring all Israeli and Jewish presence over the “green line" illegal extends to Jerusalem as well. It means that, despite Miliband's protestations, it is illegal for Jews to live in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, giving the Jordanian ethnic cleansing of the ancient Jewish community the British stamp of approval. It makes it illegal for Jews to pray at the Western Wall, where they have prayed for millennia.

All Ed Miliband has accomplished is to lend support to those who seek to erase the right of Jews to live anywhere. Once it is illegal for Jews to live in Judea and Jerusalem, it is not much of a stretch to say that it is illegal for Jews to live in Tel Aviv and Haifa. After all, to the typical anti-Zionist, all Jews are “settlers" no matter where they live, and the mandate applied to Gush Etzion no less than it did to Tel Aviv. Should the attempt to ethnically cleanse Judea and Samaria of Jews once again succeed - an ethnic cleansing the British government seems to support enthusiastically - then the next step will be to attempt to ethnically cleanse of all of Israel. This is exactly what happened after Gaza was ethnically cleansed of Jews in 2005 - Hamas attempted to ethnically cleanse all of southern Israel on October 7. And the nukhba terrorists called the Israeli Gaza Envelope communities "settlements" and their victims "settlers."

And once the precedent of it being illegal for Jews to live is established, that precedent will be applied by “anti-Zionists" to Jews around the world. If Jews can be barred from living in Jerusalem and praying at the Western Wall, then the obvious next step is making it illegal for Jews to live in London or New York or to pray in synagogues. Many are already trying to create this reality by targeting Jews at their synagogues and their schools in the British capital, the same people Miliband is pandering to. When Jews merely living where someone doesn’t want them is justification for sanctions, boycotts, and murder, it is a short jump to violence against Jews in the “enlightened" West.

Mahmoud Abbas has less reason to make peace now than he did yesterday. He has just seen over a dozen governments endorse his intransigence, his pay for slay program, and his laws imposing the death penalty for selling property to Jews. Why should he moderate, why should he acknowledge that Jews have any rights whatsoever, when his extremism, genocidal hatred, and demand for ethnic cleansing meets with such international approval?

If peace - real peace, not ethnic cleansing of Jews followed by a repeat of October 7 - is the goal, then the British government and its co-conspirators need to start acknowledging Jewish rights instead of destroying them. They should insist that Jews be allowed to live in Abbas' dream Palestinian State instead of endorsing the demand that the state be completely Judenrein. They should demand the end of pay for slay, the repeal of the racist law imposing execution for selling land to Jews, and the acknowledgement of the rights of Jews. Only when the other side starts acknowledging and treating Jews as human beings with rights can there be any hope of peace.
Jonathan Sacerdoti: What if the Palestinians Don’t Want Two States, Mr. Miliband?
If a Palestinian state is ever to exist, there is exactly one design for it that survives contact with the evidence, and it was set out by the man Miliband treats as the villain of the piece. In his Bar-Ilan speech of 2009, Benjamin Netanyahu publicly accepted a demilitarized Palestinian state, on terms he summarized simply: all the powers to govern themselves, none of the powers to threaten Israel. No army. No control of airspace. No military alliances with Israel’s adversaries. An Israeli presence along the Jordan Valley as a security buffer. Palestinian refugees resettled in a future Palestine rather than inside Israel. And a binding, unambiguous recognition of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.

Each one of those conditions exists because its absence has already been tested to destruction. Borders and airspace left unsupervised produce smuggled rockets — not a prediction but Gaza’s history, many times over. A right of return exercised into Israel rather than into Palestine does not produce two states; it dissolves one, which is rather the point of proposing it. And recognition of Israel as a Jewish state is demanded precisely because 90 years of refusal have demonstrated that the quarrel was never really about where the line goes. Self-government yes; sovereign war-making no.

Anyone who finds those terms intolerable is not arguing for a Palestinian state. They are arguing for a rematch. And a people who will consent to exist only if they are also permitted to threaten the existence of their neighbor have not made the case for a state; they have made the case against one. A country whose animating purpose is the unmaking of another country is not a nation waiting to be born. It is a war with a flag — and not worth one more drop of blood, or one more decade of diplomacy, to deliver.

So let us put the uncomfortable proposition plainly. Statehood, everywhere else on earth, is something a people demonstrates a capacity for: the ability to govern, to hold elections, to keep agreements, to refrain from massacring their neighbors. Here alone, in the Palestinian territories, it is treated as an entitlement that no amount of conduct can forfeit and no amount of conduct is required to earn. Ninety years of refusals, three wars of annihilation, two intifadas, the largest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust — and the British position is not merely unchanged but hardened, with the sanctions falling on the people who were invaded.

Keir Starmer, remember, already recognized the ‘State of Palestine,’ waving it into existence with the flourish of a man opening a garden center. There are, then, already two states for Britain’s Labour Party. What did Britain receive in exchange? Nothing was asked for and nothing was given. No disarmament, no election, no end to pay-for-slay. Recognition was handed over as a reward for Oct. 7 and produced precisely the improvement you would expect. Miliband’s answer to that failure is a larger version of it.

A policy which has failed continuously since 1937 is not made viable by British anger. A solution requiring the enthusiastic participation of a party which has refused it at every opportunity is not a solution at all. It is a wish, dressed as a plan, enforced against the only participant who ever said yes. In reality, there is no two-state solution to this problem because there is no solution at all to a problem which nobody will even have the courage to describe accurately. People who want solutions should stick to crossword puzzles.

You can’t navigate in a new world with an old map. Miliband chose his metaphor better than he knew. A North Star is a fine thing to steer by, but something by definition you never reach. It gives you your latitude and never your longitude. It is invisible from half the planet. And it disappears altogether under cloud.

Sailors understood these limits, which is why they built chronometers, then radio beacons, then satellites, and stopped betting the ship on a single point of light. Only in the Foreign Office is a man still on deck at midnight, rejecting the progress of modern developments and staring up into the overcast, insisting the star is there somewhere and that this amounts to knowing where he is.


Jonathan Tobin: Britain’s attempt to isolate Israel illustrates its irrelevance
The real problem is not a misguided foreign policy. Rather, it’s the way that the British government is attempting to use Israel as a whipping boy to demonstrate its left-wing bona fides to a portion of its voters.

It illustrates the sea change in the politics of Western Europe. Left-wing parties like Labor are not only themselves compromised by their abandonment of a belief in Western civilization and their own national identities. They are now placed in a position where they must compete with even more radical factions that espouse openly anti-Jewish or Islamist positions.

When Corbyn was openly advocating antisemitic stances during his time as leader of Labor from 2015 to 2020, he stood as a warning to the Democrats in the United States as to what might happen if they allowed their party to be hijacked by the far left. With the Democratic Socialists of America and their allies now on the verge of succeeding in accomplishing that goal, what’s happening now in Britain is little different from what one might expect from the next Democratic administration.

The demonization of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s just war against Hamas in Gaza and other Iranian terror proxies isn’t merely an unfair and even libelous characterization of the Jewish state’s policies. The acceptance of the blood libel about “genocide” or of Israeli soldiers defending their country against would-be murderers being war criminals is a permission slip for moves like Miliband’s announcement. Far from advancing peace, they merely act as an incentive for Hamas to continue to refuse to disarm and for Iran to similarly stick out the war, rather than renounce nuclear weapons and terror.

Some observers see the timing of the push against Israel as an attempt to intervene in the election that will be held there on Oct. 27. It’s far from clear whether such unfair foreign pressure will help or hurt Netanyahu.

But those who blame the prime minister for these developments are wrong. Not even surrendering Gaza back to Hamas or agreeing to the ethnic cleansing of Jews in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem would satisfy the political forces that dominate Britain’s Labor Party. While Miliband and some Democrats in the United States may think they can differentiate their policies from the war to destroy the Jewish state, the fact is that no Israeli concessions short of suicide will ever be enough to satisfy Islamists and their Marxist allies.
Voice of the Jewish News: UK’s Israel sanctions are cynical, premature and dangerously timed
If only the United Kingdom had previously demonstrated an ability to answer some of the most difficult questions regarding a Two-State solution – such as the question of sovereignty of some of Judaism’s holiest sites – perhaps we could regard this next step with relative equanimity. Unfortunately, the opposite is true.

As part of its volte face in September 2025 in its decision to recognise a Palestinian state, the UK decided to recognise such a state based on the 1949 armistice line, meaning that suddenly it was the UK’s policy that the Old City of Jerusalem – including some of Judaism’s holiest sites – should be under Palestinian sovereignty. Despite repeated requests for the FCDO to further elaborate on this, vagueness appeared to a calculated aim.

The important thing for the government appeared to be announcing recognition of a Palestinian state – never mind the specifics. Of course, it could be argued that it was this exact vague approach by Britain to territorial disputes in the 20th century that has made the region the geopolitical challenge that it is today.

Likewise, if the United Kingdom married its regular and trenchant criticism of Israeli settler extremism with criticism of Palestinian extremism, this would also be of some comfort. But when it comes to the latter, the British state is silent. To give an example, last month it became clear that Palestinian Authority schools – not for the first time – were teaching children via questions designed to glorify the murder of Jews. Children were given the following maths problem: “At least 150 Israelis were killed in 1 day. What was the number killed in 9 days?”

In another example, the Fatah movement – led by Mahmoud Abbas, the aging President of the Palestinian Authority, has a society for female students at West Bank universities, called the “Sisters of Dalal” Committee. It is named after Dalal Mughrabi, a female PLO terrorist who led a raid into Israel from Lebanon which killed 48 civilians – men, women and children. Mughrabi, who was 18 at the time, and was killed in the attack, personally took part in the murders. Palestinian terror attacks in the West Bank have also previously killed British citizens – such as Lucy, Maia and Rina Dee, who were murdered in April 2023. Despite his lengthy statement to the House of Commons, Mr Miliband appeared to have had no room to acknowledge any of this.

The two-state solution, which this paper supports – as does a narrow majority of the UK Jewish community, with the number having dropped drastically after 7 October – depends on there being partners for peace. The British government appears to have been unwilling to wait for a couple of months to see whether such a partner would emerge on the Israeli side, as it yet could. When it comes to the Palestinian side – including questions as to whom exactly will succeed the PA’s nonagenarian dictator – the UK appears to have no answers at all.
Rabbi whose wife and daughters were murdered in West Bank blasts double standards sanctions, accuses Labour of ignoring Palestinian 'Pay for Slay
A British rabbi whose wife and two daughters were killed by Palestinian terrorists in the West Bank has slammed Andy Burnham for picking on 'Jewish Israelis like me'.

Rabbi Leo Dee, 54, hit out at the PM's 'hypocrisy' for boycotting products from Israeli settlements while taking no action against Islamist extremists.

In particular, he took aim at Mr Burnham for not taking any action against the Palestinian Authority's 'notorious pay-for-slay system'.

The sickening policy means the family of the gunmen who killed his wife Lucy, 48, and daughters Maia, 20, and Rina, 15, get thousands of pounds a year for life from the Palestinian government as a reward.

The PM and Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband sanctioned illegal Israeli settlements' goods over a deeply controversial project that risks killing off any hope of a two-state solution.

But they did not even mention the 'pay for slay' policy that encourages and finances extremist Palestinian terrorism in the West Bank that is arguably just as big a block to peace.

Rabbi Dee, who lives in Efrat, wrote: 'I am perhaps the British citizen who has suffered most directly from Britain’s misguided policies towards Israel and the Palestinians over the past 25 years.

'My Oxford-educated wife, Lucy, and my British-educated daughters, Maia and Rina, were brutally murdered by Palestinian terrorists in the Jordan Valley in April 2023.

'Since their murders, the terrorists’ families have been eligible for payments from the Palestinian Authority under its notorious “pay-for-slay” system.

'The terrorist organisations responsible for so much bloodshed have also flourished in an environment sustained for decades by international funding, including British support for the PA and UNRWA.

'And now you propose boycotting products made by Jews living in the West Bank.

'You insist that you are not against Israelis. Yet you are prepared to single out Jewish Israelis like me for economic punishment.

'That is the hypocrisy I find so difficult to accept.'
Adam Louis-Klein: The manipulated settler violence campaign to demonise all Israeli Jews
Rather than an exception, the “settler violence” accusation emerges from the same political ecosystem behind other inflammatory campaigns against Israel: antizionist activist groups variously linked to Fatah, the PFLP, the Muslim Brotherhood, and other terrorist organisations; far-left Israeli NGOs such as Yesh Din and B’Tselem, the latter of which advances the genocide libel from the premise that Israel is a settler-colonial state; and the UN, which does much the same. It’s the same actors, with the same intentions, doing the same antizionism.

The desire of left-wing Israelis not to live in a halachic state – with mandated religious observance, overly stringent status rules, or government-imposed gender segregation – is perfectly reasonable. The notion that antizionists – from lunatics such as Francesca Albanese to the latest member of the cultural elite penning a piece for The New Yorker, both explicitly calling for the removal of hundreds of thousands of Israeli Jews from the West Bank – are somehow allies in that struggle is not.

Polarisation within the Jewish world – between left and right, secular and religious – blurs the line between an internal political argument and an external campaign of incitement. Many liberal Jews already regard the Israeli right as responsible for some of the country’s gravest political failures. So when antizionists take those same Israelis and recast them as embodiments of cruelty – through racist and violent imagery, such as the now-famous L’Espresso cover depicting a religious settler in the most unflattering light, with online iterations showing him with blood dripping from his teeth and clutching a Paleolithic bone axe – the instinct is often to avert one’s eyes. To object too forcefully would seem to compromise one’s standing on the liberal side of the argument. Yet evading the antizionism only makes them look less credible to the non-Jewish public.

Recognising the existence of antizionism does not mandate any particular policy response. It means focusing one’s vision and analysis on the behaviour of antizionists themselves, rather than on Israel’s supposedly endless moral flaws – real, imagined, or somewhere in between.

When an anthropologist hears about a small group of people doing something strange, different, and determined – while simultaneously being demonised by many others – their ears prick up. I am interested in understanding who the religious settlers are and why they believe it is in Israel’s interest to establish deep outposts in Judea and Samaria. Everyone knows that the Oslo Accords cannot last forever, and that some new arrangement will eventually be required if peace is to be reached.

In a recent piece for Tablet, I reported on how international media showed zero curiosity about who the settlers were, their side of the story, and their account of the confrontations that took place on August 29, 2026, in Qusra and Jalud in the Benyamin region of the West Bank. The lack of interest in the other side’s account conflicts with anthropological ethics, journalistic standards, and juridical principle all at once.

We must condemn acts of violence and crime even when committed by “settlers.” We must also demand accurate and nuanced reporting and journalism, scrutinise malevolent actors, and refuse racial stereotyping. No person should be assumed to be a criminal because they are a “settler” – and no antizionist should be assumed to be a neutral critic.

It is essential to listen to and think with others – not to “support settler violence,” whatever that means, but to support the human beings who are under a constant campaign of demonisation. That means challenging all those who continue to dehumanise others under the guise of moral principle – and recovering the capacity to see the human being beyond every type of polarisation.
How Miliband’s Israel sanctions could backfire
Announcing sanctions against Israeli businesses operating in settlements in the occupied West Bank, Ed Miliband talked tough.

However, the Foreign Secretary’s import ban could backfire on the UK in several ways.

Total trade in goods and services between Britain and Israel last year was £6bn, and experts have said that any disruption could have a disastrous impact on UK growth.

The potential fallout from the Foreign Secretary’s sanctions could also affect technology, intelligence-sharing and even the UK’s relationship with the US.

Intelligence partnership undermined
The imposition of sanctions could undermine Britain’s intelligence-sharing partnership with Israel, experts have warned.

Edmund Fitton-Brown, a former ambassador to Yemen, told Times Radio that Israel had “helped prevent a number of terrorist attacks from taking place on UK soil in recent years”.

He added: “Alienating intelligence and defence partners like Israel, and also adding to any US animus against us, strikes me as extremely unwise in a very dangerous world.”

The warning comes amid mounting concerns about potential attacks on the UK by Iran. Earlier this year, the Telegraph revealed how Israel had warned Sir Keir Starmer that Tehran had ballistic missiles capable of reaching London.

Writing for The Telegraph, Tom Tugendhat, the shadow foreign secretary, said Israel had helped thwart attacks on the UK between September 2022 and July 2024 when he was a security minister.

“I can tell you a lot of incidents did not happen because of co-operation with intelligence sources in Israel, who helped us to protect British people from terror attacks,” he said.

Impact on UK healthcare
There could be a dramatic impact on healthcare provision because of the dominance of Israeli drug firms.

It is estimated that one in seven medicines used by the NHS comes from Israeli companies, from antibiotics and pain reliefs to drugs that reduce cholesterol.

Each year, some 100m prescription items in England come from companies based in Israel.

The main Israeli drugs exporter to the UK is Teva, which specialises in treatments for disorders of the central nervous system, migraine, respiratory conditions and cancer.

On top of this, British and Israeli universities are working together to develop new treatments, technologies and drugs to combat cancer and dementia.

If Israel decides to hit back by restricting some of these drugs, it could have a severe impact on the NHS, which would have to source its medicines from elsewhere. It could also render the valuable partnerships between universities all but impossible.
Israel gives British Consulate in eastern Jerusalem 30 days to close
The British Consulate in eastern Jerusalem has 30 days from Tuesday to close, while diplomats assigned there will lose their accreditation, an Israeli official told JNS on Wednesday.

British officials at the U.S.-led International Gaza Support Center in Kiryat Gat were told to halt their operations immediately, the official said, adding that the same order was issued to the British Support Team, which trains Palestinian Authority police forces in the Samaria city of Ramallah.

Both contingents must depart within seven days, according to the Israeli official.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar on Tuesday evening unveiled several countermeasures in response to British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband announcing earlier in the day an import ban on goods made in Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.

In addition to closing the consulate and expelling British officials from Kiryat Gat and Ramallah, Jerusalem also decided to deny entry to 12 British elected representatives and other British nationals involved in antisemitic or anti-Israel activity, said Sa’ar.

“A boycott of goods from Judea and Samaria is a despicable practice that harms hard-working, law-abiding citizens. The Labour Government has decided to employ this practice of boycotts and BDS only against the Jewish state,” he continued, referencing the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

Sa’ar added that the Israeli public overwhelmingly supports the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and just as overwhelmingly opposes the creation of a Palestinian state in its heartland. “This is something that the Labour government is attempting, through measures that are doomed to fail, to force upon Israel. It will not work,” he said.

Miliband told Sky News on Wednesday that Jerusalem’s decision to close the British Consulate would be “damaging,” but said the government had weighed the costs and benefits before announcing the measure.

“I’d prefer that Israel hadn’t announced what it did, but overall, I strongly believe that what we did along with other international allies was absolutely the right thing to do,” Miliband said in the interview.
Diaspora Minister Chikli seeks entry bans for UK activists from pro-BDS, anti-Israel orgs.
Following the British government’s decision to ban trade with Israeli settlements, Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Minister Amichai Chikli has instructed ministry officials to create a proposal for the Population and Immigration Authority regarding preventing representatives and activists of British organizations that work to promote a boycott against the State of Israel from entering the country.

Among the organizations whose representatives the ministry recommended be barred from entering are Islamic Relief Worldwide, Oxfam, Save the Children, Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Palestine Action.

Chikli said that the organizations included in the proposal have for years conducted extensive anti-Israel activity in the international and British arenas, including promoting Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) and applying diplomatic and economic pressure on Israel.

Some organizations have alleged links to Muslim Brotherhood
Additionally, some of the organizations have purported links to entities associated with the Muslim Brotherhood movement and Islamist networks in Britain and Europe, as well as connections to other designated organizations such as Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

Accordingly, Director-General of the Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Ministry Avi Cohen-Skali recommended to the Population and Immigration Authority that it prevent the entry of these groups into Israel.

Taken together, their activities, and particularly their efforts to promote measures against the State of Israel, warrant consideration of preventing their representatives and activists from entering Israel, Chikli added.

Following the coordinated announcement yesterday that Canada, the UK and 10 European countries including France are imposing trade bans and economic sanctions on Israel, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar imposed retaliatory measures.
Tenney calls on Treasury to weigh anti-boycott penalties for U.K., countries sanctioning Israeli settlements
Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) urged the Trump administration on Wednesday to review whether the United Kingdom and other countries imposing trade restrictions and additional sanctions on Israeli settlements places those countries in violation of U.S. anti-boycott laws — and to consider whether the effort merits a response from the United States.

Tenney sent a letter, obtained by Jewish Insider, to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent asking him to review whether these countries’ targeting of West Bank settlements meets the criteria for being included on the Treasury Department’s international boycott list. She also asked Bessent to assess the implications of these trade restrictions for American businesses.

The New York lawmaker cited the anti-boycott provisions in the U.S. tax code, specifically noting how Section 999(a)(3) “reflects the United States’ bipartisan commitment to opposing foreign boycotts against friendly nations, particularly those aimed at Israel.”

“Under this law, the Treasury Department is required to maintain a list of countries that condition commercial participation on compliance with an unsanctioned international boycott,” Tenney wrote. “Inclusion on this list imposes specific tax reporting requirements and potential penalties for U.S. individuals and businesses engaged in certain activities in those countries.”

Tenney’s letter comes after U.K. Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband unveiled a sweeping new sanctions regime targeting Israeli settlements. France, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Poland also announced plans to implement similar sanctions or support in a joint statement on Tuesday with Ireland, Spain, the Netherlands, Norway and Belgium, which have already taken similar measures.

“All of these efforts are part of a broader effort aligned with the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to economically isolate Israel,” Tenney wrote. “Such policies not only promote economic discrimination, but also create legal uncertainty for U.S. companies operating in these countries.”
Jake Wallis Simons: We sanction Israel and hand out free cash to authoritarian regimes. Make it make sense
Nor have we stopped funding the Palestinian side, while we punish the Israeli one. The West Bank and Gaza received £138 million in 2024, up from £23 million two years earlier, with £116 million planned for this year. A further £10 million was routed through the World Bank towards Palestinian Authority salaries. Subscribe

That is the same Authority which continues to pay a stipend to convicted terrorists that rises according to the length of a prison sentence, so that the more Jews you murder, the better your family lives.

Set that against the country we have chosen to sanction. As I’ve been banging on about for days, Israeli spies have saved lives on British soil. Israeli tech keeps our armed forces safe. Israeli generic medicines fill a substantial share of NHS prescriptions. That’s before we get onto the British jobs and profits created by Israeli companies.

In the final analysis, the aid budget and the sanctions regime are performing the same function, which is to make ministers feel righteous in front of an audience that will never audit them. Sending £192 million into Taliban-run Afghanistan signals compassion; sanctioning the Jewish state signals virtue.

Neither requires anyone in London to think about consequences, because the consequences are borne by other people: by the Israeli farmer, by the British exporter, by the taxpayer in Cheshire who has never been asked whether he fancies subsidising contraception in Rawalpindi.

Used properly, an aid budget may buy influence, stability and goodwill. Used like this it buys nothing at all, while the one relationship in the region that demonstrably keeps British people secure and prosperous is being dismantled to keep a few dozen backbenchers quiet.


8 Muslim states, including UAE, call for countries to follow UK in sanctioning settlements
A group of eight Muslim-majority countries, including Israel’s ally the United Arab Emirates, praised the United Kingdom on Wednesday for announcing that it will impose sanctions on Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and called on other countries to do the same.

The foreign ministers of Qatar, Turkey, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, in a joint statement, said they “welcome the decision of the Government of the United Kingdom to ban the import of goods from illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

The statement came a day after British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband announced sweeping sanctions and a total ban on all dealings with West Bank settlements.

Shortly after Miliband’s speech, the leaders of the UK, France and Canada issued a joint statement confirming that they would “take steps to ban the importation of goods from settlements and enforce targeted measures against settlements and those who facilitate them or profit from them.”

Then, Canada, France, the UK, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Sweden released a separate statement promising they would also “introduce national and/or support European restrictions on trade in goods with settlements,” or were at least “actively considering” doing so.

Acknowledging these steps, the eight foreign ministers expressed “the hope that this decision will help mobilize the international community to take similar actions in line with international law and hold accountable settlement organizations and individuals engaged in illegal settlement activities.”

The ministers said they also “reiterate their call for Israel to rescind all measures taken in connection with settlement activities and other measures aimed at altering the geographic and demographic character of the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

Separately, the statement called for “the full and immediate implementation” of US President Donald Trump’s 20-point postwar plan in Gaza, and for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem, a notion that Israel rejects.
Palestinian officials tell ‘Post’ UK settlement ban, ‘a victory for the two-state solution'
Palestinian officials in Ramallah described Britain’s decision to ban dealings with Israeli settlements in the West Bank as a “significant political achievement,” particularly in light of growing incidents of violence by settlers against Palestinians recently.

They emphasized that the move represents an important step toward protecting the two-state solution and is widely regarded as a setback for far-right policies and “radical elements within the Israeli government.”

A senior Fatah official hailed Britain’s move as “an excellent and outstanding step,” calling it "a victory for those working for peace and for the two-state solution."

The official pointed out that the UK, as a major world power and the country behind the Balfour Declaration, is now sending a strong message by taking this position. "This shows Britain’s understanding of international relations and its support for Palestinian statehood," he told The Jerusalem Post.

"The decision tells Israel that it cannot expect to enjoy security or normal ties with other countries while it continues settlement expansion and aggressive actions and policies against Palestinians," he said.

'World rejects Israeli settlement policies'
He added that the move gives Palestinians hope, demonstrating that the "world rejects Israeli settlement policies and stands with Palestinians' rights."

Another Palestinian Authority official told the Post that “It affirms that the world cannot accept the continued Israeli occupation and settlement activity, which violate international law.”

Other Palestinians added that "this is a meaningful action to protect the two-state solution," noting they are pleased with any initiative that restricts settlement activities.

A former official from the PA foreign affairs ministry told the Post that Palestinians have urged other countries to follow Britain’s example.

A statement issued by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the PA "appreciates the determination of these countries to impose restrictions on trade with Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, and to support the adoption of similar measures at the European level."

The statement considered it an "important practical step," and called on the entire international community to expedite the translation of these positions into binding measures, including imposing sanctions on extremist settlers and those supporting them."

It also called to "immediately halt settlement activities, cancel the E1 plan, and refrain from all measures aimed at annexing Palestinian land or displacing its residents."


Iran greets Ed Miliband’s settlement sanctions as step towards ‘the end of Israel’
Britain’s sanction targeting settlements in the West Bank have been greeted in Iranian state media as a step towards “the end of Israel”.

The announcement yesterday by foreign secretary Ed Miliband of a raft of measures has been broadcast repeatedly by Islamic Republic propaganda outlets.

Iranian broadcasters claimed years of activity by regime-backed “resistance groups” have succeeded in persuading the “naïve UK government” to take action against Israel.

The reports quote Miliband as branding the settlers as “terrorists” supported by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, and accusing them of “committing ethnic cleansing in the West Bank”.

Iran Radio accused the foreign secretary of “plagiarism”, saying credit for branding “Israeli occupiers” as terrorists should go to the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

The sanctions were hailed on the broadcaster in a report that said: “Ultimately, European countries, including Britain, have come to the conclusion that Israel has no future and that, as our martyred leader said, Israel will not survive the next two decades.

“Many political observers believe this is the beginning of the end of Israel – an end that Imam Khomeini also predicted.”


'BETRAYED!' | Labour Talks About Protecting Jews, Then ‘STABS Them In The BACK’
Author Jake Wallis Simons warns that the Government’s ban on imports from Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories will inflame antisemitism and deepen fears within Britain’s Jewish community.

He accuses Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband of pursuing “gesture politics” and appeasing activists hostile to Israel, arguing that the policy ignores the country’s importance to Britain’s trade, defence, medicine and intelligence capabilities.

Jake condemns violence by a small number of Israeli settlers as “reprehensible”, but says the Government is allowing a fringe group to define its wider relationship with Israel. He also argues that the Palestinian leadership’s record on terrorism, education and rejecting peace proposals has not attracted equivalent British sanctions.




The Brink: Dan Hodges: The real politics of Miliband’s Israel sanctions
In this episode of The Brink, Andrew is joined by political commentator Dan Hodges for a wide-ranging conversation about Labour’s sanctions against Israel, the growing crisis inside Reform UK and why he believes Nigel Farage’s grip on the party may be approaching its end.

Hodges begins by examining the political calculation behind Andy Burnham’s approach to Israel. He argues that Labour is attempting to shore up its left flank against the Greens and pro-Palestinian challengers, and explains how pressure from activists, backbenchers and senior cabinet figures previously pushed Keir Starmer towards recognising a Palestinian state.

The conversation then turns to Reform and the fallout from the protests in Dover and Portsmouth. Hodges argues that the emergence of Rupert Lowe and Restore has dragged Reform away from its strategy of professionalisation and towards an increasingly populist battle for its own base, while figures including Zia Yusuf and Robert Jenrick position themselves for what could eventually become a leadership contest.

Hodges also discusses the mounting scrutiny of Reform’s finances and Nigel Farage’s response to it. He argues that attempts to portray journalists and parliamentary investigations as part of an establishment conspiracy resemble the playbooks of both Donald Trump and Jeremy Corbyn, and warns that Reform’s once formidable political “force field” is beginning to break down.

Finally, Hodges makes a striking prediction: Reform may have a future, but Nigel Farage may not have one at its head. With Farage increasingly divisive among the wider electorate, he assesses the potential successors and explains why a future leadership contest could ultimately come down to Zia Yusuf and Robert Jenrick.

Chapters
00:00 Introductions
02:19 The Politics Behind Miliband’s Israel Sanctions
07:26 Andy Burnham’s Political Strategy
13:42 Why Israel Is Losing The Propaganda War
19:56 The Dover Protests & Reform’s Response
22:23 Has Rupert Lowe Got Inside Farage’s Head?
25:08 Farage, Reform & The Populist Playbook
31:02 Why Dan Hodges Is Targeting Reform
38:34 What’s Really Going On With Reform’s Finances?
42:45 Can Farage Copy Trump’s Playbook?




‘Doesn’t this encourage terrorists?’: Britain imposes more sanctions on Israel
News24 host Chris Kenny questions whether Britain’s latest sanctions and what he describes as the continued demonisation of Israel could ultimately encourage terrorists rather than help defeat them.

“More sanctions against Israel, more demonisation of Israel,” Mr Kenny said.

“Doesn’t this just encourage the terrorists instead of helping to defeat them?”


‘Shameful’: Israel hit with bans on goods from West Bank settlements
Spiked Online Editor Tom Slater says it’s “shameful” as European nations place trade embargoes on Israel.




Jewish groups call on UK to boycott UN ‘Durban 25’ event
Twenty five years after a United Nations conference against racism that developed into a global forum for antisemitism, two UK-based grassroots pro-Israel organisation are calling on the British government to confirm it will not participate in its anniversary event in New York on 28 September.

Durban 25 will commemorate the United Nations’ 2001 World Conference Against Racism.

That year, in a signed declaration just one week before the September 11 terrorist attacks, Israel was the only UN member state singled out by name in a document intended to combat global racism, claiming it was an alleged perpetrator of racism and singling out “the plight of Palestinians under foreign occupation”.

It laid the groundwork for what non governmental organisation UN Watch calls The Durban strategy: “exploiting the language of universal human rights to wage a coordinated campaign to demonize and boycott the Jewish state”, which “continues to be used throughout the world today to spread antisemitism disguised as anti-Zionism.”

UN Watch, which monitors the actions of the United Nations, describes the 2001 “inflammatory speeches against Israel” as “ubiquitous”, recalling that “PLO chairman Yasser Arafat told conference delegates of the ‘ugliness’ of ‘Israeli racist policies and practices against the Palestinian people’, whilst Cuban dictator Fidel Castro spoke of “the dreadful genocide perpetrated, at this very moment, against our Palestinian brothers.”

Israel and the US subsequently left the conference.

The UK stayed away from Durban anniversary events in 2011 (Durban III) and 2021 (Durban IV) because of longstanding concerns over antisemitism but has yet to confirm it will do so this year.

In a call to action to supporters, We Believe in Israel and the National Jewish Assembly claim the event “became the worst international manifestation of antisemitism in the post-war period.”


IAEA board refers Iran to UN Security Council for nuclear ‘non-compliance,’ a first in 2 decades
The UN atomic watchdog’s board on Wednesday reported Iran to the UN Security Council for the first time in 20 years, citing it for failure to cooperate in a long-running investigation into uranium traces detected by inspectors at undeclared sites.

Western officials suspect that the traces could provide evidence that Iran had a secret nuclear weapons program until 2003. Iran says that it’s not pursuing nuclear weapons, and that its program is entirely peaceful.

Reporting Iran to the Security Council opens the country to possible sanctions and asset freezes, though such punitive measures are unlikely because Iran’s allies Russia and China hold veto power on the panel.

Twenty-three countries on the International Atomic Energy Agency ’s 35-member board of governors voted for Wednesday’s resolution at IAEA headquarters in Vienna.

China, Russia and Niger opposed it, while eight countries abstained and one didn’t vote as it was in arrears, according to diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the outcome of the closed-door vote.

The resolution was put forward by the United States, Britain, France and Germany.

The diplomatic move has been under consideration since June 2025, when the IAEA board found Iran officially in noncompliance with its nonproliferation obligations because of Tehran’s lack of cooperation in the investigation.

Iran’s ambassador to the UN in Vienna, Reza Najafi, rejected the resolution, describing it as a “political tool” and saying that it ruined confidence in the IAEA’s “independence, impartiality and credibility.”

He suggested that compliance with any obligation to allow UN inspections of nuclear sites inside Iran was, in any case, impossible at the moment because of the country’s continuing war with the US and Israel.

The US this week destroyed five Iranian oil tankers and Tehran hit back at American targets in Jordan, the latest burst of back-and-forth strikes that have lurched the sides back toward open hostilities in a more than 6-month-old war.

The draft resolution requested IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi to report the agency’s concerns “to the Security Council and the General Assembly of the United Nations, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the IAEA Statute.”


Israeli man sentenced to 13 years for killing Aysha Rabi in Jewish terror attack
The Central District Court in Lod sentenced a man on Wednesday to 13 years in prison for killing Palestinian mother Aysha Rabi in a rare conviction for Jewish nationalist terror relating to a 2018 attack, concluding the trial stage of an unusually long and closely contested case.

The court also ordered the defendant to pay Rabi’s family NIS 258,000, the maximum compensation available under the law, and imposed an additional suspended prison term.

The defendant, whose identity remains barred from publication because he was a minor at the time, was 15 years and 10 months old when he carried out the attack.

On October 12, 2018, he positioned himself with two or three unidentified people on an embankment overlooking Route 60 near the West Bank settlement of Rehelim, the court found.

After identifying an approaching car by its Palestinian license plate, he threw a rock weighing approximately 2 kilograms through its windshield. The rock struck Rabi directly in the head as she sat beside her husband, Yacoub, and in front of their nine-year-old daughter.

Rabi, a resident of the Palestinian town of Bidya and a mother of nine, died from her wounds. The court found that the defendant acted from a nationalist motive, intending to harm the car’s occupants and disregarding the possibility that they could be killed.

In March, judges Michal Barak-Nevo and Michael Tamir found that the defendant had committed the offenses, while then-presiding judge Liora Brody voted to acquit him, contending that the very high standard of proof beyond any reasonable doubt had not been met.

Because the defendant was a minor at the time, the juvenile court first determined that he had committed the offenses without immediately entering a formal conviction. It formally convicted him on Wednesday as part of the sentencing decision.

He was convicted of manslaughter in circumstances amounting to an act of terrorism, aggravated stone-throwing at a vehicle, and intentionally damaging a vehicle, with all three offenses classified as terrorism-related.


Hamas says Israeli strike in Gaza killed top operative freed in 2011 Shalit deal
The Hamas terror group on Wednesday announced a top member was killed by an Israeli strike in Gaza City.

Farah Hamed was described by Hamas as a “commander and fighter” in the terror group’s military wing, and a member of the “Military Council of the al-Qassam Brigades in the West Bank.”

Hamed was a member of the “Silwad cell,” which operated during the Second Intifada and carried out a series of deadly shooting attacks in the West Bank.

Originally from the Ramallah area, Hamed was among the 1,027 Palestinian security prisoners who were released and deported to the Gaza Strip in 2011 as part of the exchange deal for kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. In May 2024, the head of the cell, who was also released in the Shalit deal, was killed in Rafah.

Hamed was targeted in a strike in Gaza City’s Sheikh Ijlin neighborhood earlier Wednesday, according to Palestinian media.

The Israel Defense Forces did not immediately issue a statement on the strike.

Earlier in the day, the IDF confirmed launching strikes on Tuesday across Gaza that destroyed three weapon depots and a rocket-launching site.

The military said the weapon depots, belonging to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, were used to store dozens of weapons, including rockets and assault rifles.

Recently, according to the IDF, Hamas operatives were spotted arriving at the weapon depots and using the guns stored there for “guarding and establishing control over the Gaza Strip.”

In addition, the strikes on Tuesday also destroyed a rocket-launching pit that had been used during the war to fire projectiles at Israel, the military said.

The IDF added that it would continue “to operate decisively to degrade the capabilities of terror organizations in the Gaza Strip while thwarting any attempt to rebuild capabilities or possess weapons intended to harm our forces.”


The Free Press: War Expert Defends Israel's and the US's Wars | John Spencer
The fear of the forever war has captivated the American mind—and not for entirely wrong reasons. Twenty years in Afghanistan. Nearly nine years in Iraq. In the wake, Americans have turned inward: A 2023 poll showed 53 percent of Republicans now say the United States should stay out of world affairs.

Even some of Donald Trump’s most ardent defenders have joined his critics. Kentucky congressman Thomas Massie asked, “Why are we going to war with Iran?” He added, “American families in my district want to know how this is going to help them pay for groceries. How does this make them any safer in their schools or in their neighborhoods? How does this help them pay for housing? Have we learned nothing?” Former Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene took a similar tack: “It’s always a lie, and it’s always America last.” Their critiques were echoed by congresspeople across the aisle. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said, “People of rational sense in this country are opposed to this senseless Iran war.” Ro Khanna added, “Another war in the Middle East is not America first.”

What does someone who has actually seen wars up close think? I sat down with John Spencer, an Army Ranger veteran and West Point strategy professor who has studied conflict firsthand across the world’s most active battlefields—he’s been in Gaza seven times. His new book is Twenty Times I Almost Died. We discuss the status and strategy of the wars in Iran, Ukraine, and Gaza, and I ask: Is our involvement in these conflicts good—or not—for Americans?

We also dive into the challenges and debates spilling out of each conflict: Is America’s missile stockpile dangerously low? Has Israel been careful or careless when it comes to Palestinian lives? Is Ukraine asking for too much in negotiations? Has the peace deal in Gaza been successful or not? Hear about all of this, and more, in my conversation with John Spencer.


Netanyahu to sue ‘Haaretz’ over claim UAE warned him prior to Oct. 7
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that he had instructed his lawyers to file a defamation lawsuit against Haaretz, journalist Shlomi Eldar and others over the newspaper’s claims that the United Arab Emirates had warned him ahead of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre.

Netanyahu said reviews by the Prime Minister’s Office, National Security Council and military secretariat found no record of a conversation between him and UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan from the beginning of September through Oct. 7, 2023. He also said entry records showed no visit by an Emirati representative who, according to Netanyahu, would have been required to facilitate such a call.

Netanyahu called the report a “malicious fabrication” and said it was meant to divert attention from what he described as failures by then-Israel Security Agency Chief Ronen Bar and then-Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, whom he blamed for not acting on warning signs before the attack or alerting him in time.

Haaretz reported on Tuesday, citing unnamed senior foreign sources, that Mohammed bin Zayed had warned Netanyahu shortly before Oct. 7 that Hamas was planning a major attack. Netanyahu’s office denied the report that day, while the UAE Foreign Ministry declined to confirm or deny the alleged conversation.

“The UAE government does not comment on media stories or speculation regarding conversations between government leaders,” the ministry said in a statement posted on X.

“The UAE’s engagement since October 7 was consistently directed toward de-escalation, regional stability and preventing violence,” it continued. “UAE and Israeli government entities have maintained open and direct lines of communication since the inception of the relationship more than five years ago. When necessary, all relevant intelligence has been and continues to be communicated between the relevant entities,” the ministry said.
‘Complete fiction,’ Blinken says of ‘Haaretz’ report on Oct. 7 hostage offer
Former U.S. secretary of state Antony Blinken denied a report from Haaretz that he had refused an offer to secure the immediate release of Israeli hostages, whom Hamas kidnapped on Oct. 7.

The Israeli outlet claimed in an article published on Tuesday that Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani told Blinken just hours after the attack began that Hamas was willing to release all of the “civilian” hostages immediately and that Blinken rebuffed the offer.

The top U.S. diplomat preferred to wait until he could travel to Israel days later, according to the report.

“For the record, this is false,” Blinken wrote on Wednesday in response to a social media post about the article. “Complete fiction.”

It’s not clear if Blinken was saying that the story was false in whole or in part. JNS sought comment from Blinken.

The Haaretz article is based on a forthcoming book, “Hostages: 843 Days of Abandonment,” that purports to offer bombshell revelations about Oct. 7, including that the leader of the United Arab Emirates gave forewarning of the attacks to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

It also claims that Netanyahu failed to pass that warning along to Israeli intelligence and that both Israel and the United States ignored early offers from Hamas to secure the immediate release of hostages.





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