UK’s Miliband calls Israeli response to sanctions ‘damaging,’ rejects chief rabbi’s claim that British Jews have been put in danger

By Lazar Berman

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9 September 2026, 2:05 pm

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Lazar Berman is The Times of Israel's diplomatic reporter

In this video grab taken from footage broadcast by the UK Parliamentary Recording Unit (PRU) via the Parliament TV website in the House of Commons on September 8, 2026, Britain’s Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband delivers a speech on an import ban of goods from West Bank settlements. (PRU/AFP)

UK Foreign Minister Ed Miliband rejects British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis’s position that new sanctions announced by London yesterday will harm British Jews.

“I don’t agree with the chief rabbi,” Miliband tells the BBC, arguing that he is not singling out Israel, but can’t sit by and watch the suffering of Palestinians without doing anything.

“This is truly a dark day for British Jews,” wrote Mirvis after Miliband announced that the UK would be imposing sanctions on West Bank settlements.

“Today our Government has chosen to ignore the deep concerns expressed by so many of us,” Mirvis continued. “The measures announced amount to little more than political flag bearing for mendacious anti-Israel rhetoric and those who harbour a dangerous obsession with the Jewish State. These measures will succeed only in bolstering the very extremism they seek to target.”

Miliband calls Israel’s countermeasures announced yesterday “regrettable and damaging,” and says Israel closing down the British consulate in East Jerusalem is “damaging for the Palestinian people.”

Asked about Jews who will feel less safe in synagogue over Rosh Hashanah this weekend, Miliband, who is Jewish, responds: “I don’t go to synagogue.”

“We all have a responsibility to call out and act on antisemitism, and I could not be clearer and could not have been clearer yesterday about our responsibilities as a society,” Miliband continues.

Miliband denies that the timing of the sanctions is connected to Israeli elections, while arguing that Israel’s government is making the country more isolated.

Asked whether they will apply to Israeli banks, Miliband says London is “seeking to have an impact on the services provided to expand the occupation.”

He says he is “confident” the country will succeed in implementing the sanctions.

Miliband says that the UK’s “important intelligence and security relationships with Israel” will continue.