Labour is so obsessed with attacking Israel it doesn’t realise a trade ban will cost PALESTINIAN jobs

IMAGINE Britain had an ally whose intelligence know-how was so vital to our safety that the head of MI5 said the ally had “disrupted a huge quantity of terror activity inside the UK” and “saved many, many lives on British soil”. Imagine the same ally’s military equipment had saved the lives of British soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Andy Burnham is poised to ban the import of any goods produced in the West Bank Credit: Getty Palestinian jobs are at risk from a planned UK boycott of exports from Israel’s West Bank Credit: Alamy Then imagine the ally was also a huge market for British trade, buying £3.2billion of British products a year and so backing huge numbers of British jobs. That ally doesn’t need to be imagined. It’s Israel. Sign up for The Sun newsletter Thank you! More than 1.7million of us work for firms exporting to Israel. One in eight of the drugs dispensed by the NHS comes from Israeli companies. Israel ranks eighth per capita among countries investing in the UK. Almost anyone using a mobile phone is using Israeli tech. There has long been a lobby within Labour that regards Israel not as an ally to be cherished but an enemy to be attacked. The Labour Government has spent the past two years doing just that. Most read in The Sun Now PM Andy Burnham is poised to go a stage further by banning the import of any goods produced in the West Bank — the disputed region which the Palestinians claim as their own but on which Israel has been building settlements for many years. The ostensible reason for the sanctions is that Israel is planning to build homes in an area of the West Bank known as E1. Labour says this will destroy all hope of a two-state settlement.Yet in every peace plan for the region, from Oslo to Camp David and beyond, E1 has been marked as remaining under Israeli sovereignty. There is no conceivable peace plan in which it would be part of a Palestinian state. The truth is that this is just an excuse. For a huge number of Labour MPs, attacking Israel has become core to their world view. They are so consumed by “Palestinianism” — the ideology and mindset that puts the campaign for a Palestinian state above everything else — that they will not rest until Israel is brought to heel. Burnham is now doing their bidding. Micheal Martin ordered the removal of an Israeli-made navigation system from Ireland’s new official jet because it would have required a deal with Elbit Systems, an Israeli defence firm Credit: EPA That jet is now unable to land in fog or rough weather Credit: Getty One of the first things he did on his return to Parliament was to apologise for “Labour’s initial response to the treatment of Gaza”. He said: “We got it wrong and I am sorry for that.” But there is also another factor at work. The emergence of a sectarian Muslim vote has changed politics on the Left. In the last General Election, so-called Independent Gaza candidates won four seats and came very close in others. The Muslim population is over 20 per cent in 37 constituencies, and there are another 73 seats where the Muslim population is between ten and 20 per cent. Labour MPs are terrified they will be booted out at the next election. Everything Labour does with regard to Israel should be seen in that context. It is all about showing the sectarian Muslim vote that Labour is their party. The sanctions have nothing to do with helping Palestinians because they will be hit the hardest. Roughly 30,000 Palestinians work in the settlement economy, earning several times what Palestinian employers pay elsewhere. A goods ban would cut their income without shifting Israeli policy at all. As for the impact here, it’s physically impossible to separate all goods produced on the West Bank from other goods. Almost anyone using a mobile phone is using Israeli tech Credit: Getty One in eight of the drugs dispensed by the NHS comes from Israeli companies Credit: Alamy There is no overall labelling system when they are exported from Israel. So this is really a bar on the import of all Israeli goods. If Burnham thinks the Israelis are just going to sit back and accept such treatment, he must be even more out of his depth than he already seems. As I’ve explained, we need Israel’s technological, military and intelligence expertise far more than they need us. When the Israelis respond, we will be the ones who suffer. Just look at Ireland. In 2024, Micheal Martin, the then-defence minister and now Irish PM, ordered the removal of an Israeli-made navigation system from Ireland’s new official jet because it would have required a deal with Elbit Systems, an Israeli defence firm. That jet is now unable to land in fog or rough weather. Perhaps Burnham thinks it is a good idea to ensure that the RAF won’t be able to fly its planes because they depend on Israeli technology. (And, by the way, Israel is the UK’s second largest defence supplier — and doesn’t buy British weapons. This is one-way traffic.) When Israel alone is singled out for boycotts — there is nothing over the Western Sahara, Northern Cyprus, China or any other conflict except Ukraine — it also changes the atmosphere at home. At a time when antisemitism is on the rampage, it is British Jews who will bear the brunt of the impact. Next time you hear Burnham or any Labour minister say they deplore anti-semitism, remember they are shameless hypocrites. Comment now