While British Foreign Secretary Edward Miliband attempts to interfere in Israeli internal affairs, threatening to sanction Israel and to “reset” the relationship, eight hundred British citizens made their opposition heard in Parliament. The issue at hand is Miliband’s threat to sanction parts of Israel that have been part of the country since 1967 – communities in Judea and Samaria (erroneously referred to as ‘The West Bank’).
Today, C14 spoke with Steve Winston, Managing Director of the National Jewish Assembly, a congressional Jewish body with thousands of supporters who speak out publicly seeking to counter anti-semitic, anti-western, and anti-Israeli activities in the U.K, something they say, since 2024, “Under the Labour government, has been increasingly difficult to do.”
1+Winston says that the goal of letter-writing campaigns is to educate Members of Parliament and to get information in front of them, “in their inbox.” He also warned of the dangers of silence, stressing that for Jews and their allies, speaking out is a must. He says that Members of Parliament are generally expected to respond to their constituents, although it takes time.
NJA cites Jerusalem as an example criticizing Britain for promoting a ‘Palestinian’ state including East Jerusalem, despite what happened when Israel’s Jewish holy places last fell outside Israeli control.
They write,”Under Jordan’s control, Jews were expelled from the Jewish Quarter, synagogues destroyed, the Mount of Olives cemetery desecrated and Jews denied the Western Wall. Under Israel, holy places are accessible to all faiths…Jerusalem is Israel’s capital and should remain under Israeli sovereignty.”
1+In the letters to British Members of Parliament, members wrote, “The Government repeatedly invokes “settler violence” as though criminality by a small minority establishes a case against Israeli communities as a whole. It does not. Every country has citizens who commit violent offences; in functioning democracies, they are dealt with through that country’s police, courts and criminal justice system. Israel is no exception.”
The letters continued, “Even the reported scale of “settler violence” requires scrutiny: UN Watch has challenged OCHA’s methodology for including non-violent incidents and other categories that can overstate physical violence.”
NJA has successfully run a number of campaigns from letter-writing to counter-protests. They are preparing to encourage the British government to take action against the Muslim Brotherhood, planning a “Parliamentary Lobby Day” in January of 2027.