BRITAIN, ALONE AGAIN
Tuesday. Miliband stands up in the Commons, bans goods from Jewish settlements, calls the occupation unlawful, and accuses settlers of terrorism and ethnic cleansing.
By Tuesday evening Israel had closed the British Consulate in Jerusalem, pulled British reps out of the Gaza coordination centre in Kiryat Gat, ended the UK training mission for Palestinian Authority forces, and banned twelve sitting British officials from entering the country.
That is not a diplomatic disagreement. That is a country hanging up on you mid sentence.
Foreign Minister Saar called it blatant interference in a sovereign state's election, which is in seven weeks, and accused Britain of running a domestic political stunt for the Labour conference dressed up as foreign policy. Smotrich wants the ambassador expelled. Herzog said Britain will be on the wrong side of history. That is four separate senior Israeli officials, from different wings of a fractious government, agreeing on one thing this week.
Meanwhile in Washington, Huckabee went on the Today programme and pointed out that a quarter of the medicine in British hospitals is manufactured in Israel, and asked, not rhetorically, whether Britain had actually thought this through.
And Florida found the receipt from 2019. A state anti boycott law that already bankrupted Airbnb's attempt to do exactly this now applies to any British company that complies with Miliband's ban. Congressman Fine posted the whole mechanism publicly. Any company or nation that boycotts Israel is boycotted by Florida, one of Britain's largest trading partners.
So in the space of one afternoon Britain managed to lose its consulate, its West Bank training mission, its Gaza coordination seat, and access to the fourth largest state economy in America, in exchange for a settlement goods ban that even Miliband's own Foreign Office reportedly warned would not work because the two economies are too interconnected to separate cleanly.
And who is applauding.
Hamas welcomed the announcement. Iran's state media ran it as a win. Corbyn, who is now personally banned from entering Israel over it, called it a step in the right direction.
That is the guest list. Britain lost Israel, irritated its largest American trading partner, and picked up praise from the people who actually did the ethnic cleansing on October the 7th.
Tugendhat stood up in the same debate and said the quiet part. Illegal settlements are wrong, settler violence against civilians is real, and none of that required reducing an entire region to one sentence timed for a party conference.
You can hold two things at once. Britain apparently cannot.
Keep going like this and the only country still returning Britain's calls is going to be the one holding the phone for Hamas.
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