International relations and the moral choices that go with them are complex. On what basis do we continue to trade with other countries with very different values from our own, and at what point do we cry ‘Enough is enough!’ and use economic sanctions to challenge what we regard as immorality? And what is our ethical basis, as a post-Christendom nation, for doing so?
During a speech in the House of Commons on March 1, 1848, Lord Palmerston said:
We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.
which is often shortened to ‘we have no permanent allies, only permanent interests.’ This can sound like offering a consistent ethnical approach to such questions—but perhaps it is just about putting Britain first, and protecting our own interests ahead of others.
If the present government was to decide that we should impose sanctions on one of our trading partners, who should we prioritise? The list of those we trade with who have abused human rights is long, so I have drawn up this table.
| Country | Human-rights concerns | UK trading relationship / sanctions position |
|---|---|---|
| China | Xinjiang/Uyghurs, Tibet, Hong Kong, political repression, censorship, arbitrary detention | Major UK trading partner; no comprehensive economic sanctions, but arms embargo and targeted sanctions. UK trade was about £105bn in 2025. Human Rights Watch |
| Qatar | Treatment of migrant workers, restrictions on expression, discrimination against women, LGBT people and religious minorities | Extensive trade and investment; no country sanctions. UK concluded a GCC FTA in 2026, though it is not yet in force. Human Rights Watch |
| Saudi Arabia | Restrictions on political expression, executions, women’s rights, treatment of migrant workers, abuses associated with the kafala system | Extensive UK trade, investment and defence relationship; no comprehensive sanctions. Human Rights Watch |
| United Arab Emirates | Suppression of dissent, unfair trials of activists, migrant-worker abuses, restrictions on expression | Major UK trading/investment partner; no comprehensive sanctions. Human Rights Watch |
| Bahrain | Suppression of political opposition, imprisonment of activists, restrictions on expression and association | UK has close diplomatic, defence and commercial relations; no comprehensive sanctions. Human Rights Watch |
| Kuwait | Restrictions on political expression, migrant-worker and stateless-person rights | Normal UK trade; no comprehensive sanctions. |
| Oman | Restrictions on expression and assembly, labour-rights concerns and treatment of migrant workers | Normal UK trade and close strategic relationship; no comprehensive sanctions. |
| Egypt | Arbitrary detention, torture, restrictions on civil society, expression and political opposition | Significant UK trade and investment; no comprehensive country sanctions. |
| India | Concerns over religious freedom, treatment of minorities, civil liberties, press freedom and political opposition | Major and growing UK trading relationship; no comprehensive sanctions. The UK-India trade agreement came into force in 2026. GOV.UK |
| Turkey | Political repression, imprisonment of journalists/opposition figures, restrictions on expression and association | Extensive UK trade; no comprehensive country sanctions. |
| Bangladesh | Political violence, arbitrary detention, extrajudicial abuses, restrictions on expression and labour rights | Significant UK trade, particularly garments; no comprehensive sanctions. |
| Pakistan | Restrictions on minorities, blasphemy laws, enforced disappearances, political repression and abuses by security forces | Significant UK trade and diaspora-linked economic relationship; no comprehensive sanctions. |
| Indonesia | Abuses in Papua, restrictions on expression/assembly and minority-rights concerns | Significant UK trading relationship; no comprehensive sanctions. |
| Vietnam | One-party authoritarian rule, imprisonment of dissidents, restrictions on expression, religion and association | Growing UK trade; no comprehensive sanctions. |
| Azerbaijan | Political prisoners, repression of journalists and opposition, restrictions on civil society | UK maintains trade and energy relations; no comprehensive economic sanctions. |
| Kazakhstan | Restrictions on political opposition, expression and assembly; abuses associated with the 2022 unrest | Normal UK trade and investment; no comprehensive sanctions. |
| Uzbekistan | Restrictions on political/religious freedom, expression and association, although some reforms have occurred | Normal UK trade; no comprehensive sanctions. |
I wonder if, dear reader, you were aware of the extent of human rights violations in these countries, and the extent of our positive trading relations with them. I am not sure I was before drawing up this table. But in fact these abuses are well known by governments; they just never get reported in our press. The US State Department’s country-report system, for example, documents human-rights issues across Qatar, UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait, Oman, India, Bangladesh and others.
But it gets worse. Not only are we not thinking about pursuing sanctions on any of these countries, we are seeking to development appeasing relations with them. Britain is currently pursuing a Gulf Cooperation Council free-trade agreement encompassing Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The agreement was concluded in May 2026, although it is not yet in force. I suspect this is part of our response to the loss of trade with the EU following Brexit.
Human Rights Watch specifically criticises this approach, arguing that the proposed UK-GCC agreement lacks explicit human-rights protections and that governments continue to put trade and strategic interests ahead of human-rights concerns. And this not to mention the appalling decision to go ahead with the 2022 football World Cup in Qatar, when it was known that the building of stadiums was based on abuse of workers. Migrant workers faced wage theft, unexplained deaths, dangerous working conditions and continued exploitation after the tournament—but not a word from our government (to my knowledge).
If we look more carefully at a few of these, the situation is even worse.
In China, Human Rights Watch describes systematic denial of freedom of expression, association, assembly and religion, repression in Xinjiang (home of the Uyghurs) and Tibet, and the dismantling of civil liberties in Hong Kong. Yet Britain had £105.3bn of trade with China in 2025, and the Government’s own Trade Strategy explicitly says that developing the economic relationship with China is in the UK’s national interest. (I hear echoes of Palmerston…) Britain is also actually licensing strategic exports to China: China received 622 permanent standard export licences in 2025, second only to the US.
In Saudi Arabia, Human Rights Watch reports at least 322 executions by early December 2025, including people convicted following trials raising serious fair-trial concerns, alongside arbitrary detention, suppression of expression and extensive migrant-worker abuses. Nevertheless, UK-Saudi trade was £17.2bn in the four quarters to June 2025, including £14.2bn of British exports. There is no comprehensive British economic sanctions regime against Saudi Arabia.
In UAE, Human Rights Watch reports the imprisonment of political dissidents and human-rights defenders, unfair mass trials, migrant-worker exploitation and allegations concerning UAE support for Sudan’s RSF who have been documented as committing war crimes on a vast scale in Sudan’s civil war.
With India, Britain has just entered a new trade agreement which came into force on 15th July, and UK-India trade was already £47.2bn in the four quarters to June 2025. This is despite substantial international criticism concerning religious freedom, treatment of minorities, Kashmir, freedom of expression and civil-society restrictions.
In Qatar, Human Rights Watch documents continuing migrant-worker exploitation, wage theft and dangerous conditions; discrimination against women; criminalisation of same-sex relations; restrictions on freedom of expression and religion; and arbitrary detention. Yet Britain continues substantial trade with Qatar—£6.1bn in the four quarters to June 2025—including £4.6bn of British exports. In relation to the conflict in Israel/Palestine, Qatar is a significant player. It has for many years hosted and protected the leaders of Hamas (with their considerable wealth); it has supplied Hamas with $1.8 billion over recent years, much of which was spent building a terror tunnel network one third larger than the London Underground; and it has filled social media with pro-Hamas propaganda, through funding Al Jazeera, and ‘news’ services on line such as Middle Eastern Eye (don’t be fooled if you have seen such sites!).
Yesterday, the Labour Government announced that it was putting in place sanctions on a trading partner because of concerns about the ethics of its actions.
Which of these countries do you think they chose?
None of the above, but Israel, the only democracy in the region, and the only one which gives full democratic rights to its minorities, including 2.1 million Palestinian Arabs, the only one which grants equal rights to women and sexual minorities, and in fact the only one which is a functioning democracy.
(It might be claimed that we have a historical interest in this region. But we have a historic interest or role in many of the other countries listed above—and as Simon Sebag Montefiore highlights in his remarkable book The Cauldron, we were involved in the formation of all of the states in the region.)
Two reasons have been given. The first concerns the further building in Zone C in Judea and Samaria/the West Bank, in particular building in the E1 area next to Jerusalem. This is significant for Israel, since it would link up the city of Ma’ale Adumim with Jerusalem itself. It is highly contentious because it would block easy access between Zone A areas to the north and south, and divide PLA territory.
Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband claims that this is a sign that the prospect of a two-state solution is being destroyed by Israel changing facts on the ground. What he fails to mention is the historic problem with the two-state solution: that in the past, Israel has repeatedly accepted a two-state solution, but that the Arabs (who then in the late 1960s called themselves ‘Palestinians’) repeatedly rejected it—in 1947, in the Khartoum declaration in 1967, in the 2000 Camp David summit (chaired by Bill Clinton—who has stated very clearly in public why he things the talks failed), in the 2008 offer by Ehud Olmert. Palestinians demands that, as a condition of any agreement, Israel must give citizenship to every descendant of those expelled, in perpetuity, and in contradiction to every other situation after WW2 for those populations who were displaced by conflict. (If you are unsure of why this has sabotaged all peace deals, do read The War of Return.)
The current arrangements in the area were agreed as part of the 1995 Oslo Accords, which were only intended to be in place for five years until the Camp David agreements. But resolving these was sabotaged by the Second Intifada, in which more than 1,000 Israelis were killed and 8,000 maimed in a campaign of suicide bombing. None of this merited mention by Miliband.
And of course October 7th 2023 was the clearest rejection of a two-state solution, an action which polls showed was supported by 83% of those living in the West Bank. We need also to be clear that the Kairos II statement, debated in General Synod last July, also effectively rejects a two-state solution by arguing that the 1950 Law of Return, which is the very thing that makes Israel a Jewish homeland as well as a western democratic state, is racist and must be dismantled.
The second issue that Miliband mention was the ‘terrorist’ action of settlers. It is very hard for us to know exactly what is happening; I do not recall the BBC reporting of provocative Palestinian violence which certainly takes place. But the cutting off of water supply for the village of Fasayil is a poignant case. Reuters reported this as a spiteful and cruel action by settlers, claiming their religious and historic rights; some pro-Israel campaigners online claimed that the Bedouin in the village had been stealing this water for twenty years, and the settlers were just restoring the historic situation; but Reuters reported seeing historic documents supporting the Bedouin case. I think Reuters are correct here, and it illustrates that there is unacceptable violence and coercion happening against Palestinians.
Additional note: As I have commented below (and only learnt in responding to the comment) there is substantial, well-documented evidence of human-rights abuses by the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank. It is not merely a matter of allegations made by Israel or by pro-Israel organisations: Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the UN Human Rights Office and the US State Department have all documented abuses.
The main areas are arbitrary detention, torture and ill-treatment, suppression of journalists and political critics, excessive use of force, and restrictions on freedom of expression and assembly.
At the same time, the UK Government is funding the PA; it has been sending £10s millions annual in direct support, and also giving aid indirectly through the World Bank. Britain has also provided £932m in bilateral aid to the West Bank and Gaza since 2009 and tens of millions annually to UNRWA.
At the same time, the PA has been using its fund for “Pay per Slay” rewards, giving money to those who commit terrorists acts killing Israelis.
How on earth is this consistent with the government’s stance?
So how should Britain respond to this, and the diminishing possibilities of a settlement in the region? There seem to me to be several questions.
First, given the list above, why is this particular situation dominating both the Government and discussion in the media?
Secondly, our approach to perceived injustices at this level has been to put private pressure in discussions, rather than reach for sanctions. Why has that not been happening at all (for the most part) in other situations, and why has that not been the approach here?
Thirdly, why is Britain’s approach to Israel so different from its approach to other much more serious violations of human rights elsewhere? The IHRA definition of antisemitism includes ‘Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.’ How can the Labour Government avoid the accusation of antisemitism in its disproportionate approach here?
The stated aim of the leaders of Hamas is that October 7th would provoke Israeli retaliation which would turn the world against it, and this has been supported by a massive social media campaign. How can the Government avoid the accusation that it is helping Hamas to fulfil this aim?
And there are similar question to ask of the Church of England. Why has it demonstrated such a disproportionate interest in this situation? As I said in my speech in Synod:
How can we claim to stand against antisemitism when para 3.3 [of Kairos II]: “We consider the State of Israel, established in 1948, to be a continuation of that same colonial enterprise built on racism and the ideology of ethnic or religious superiority.”
How do we avoid the charge of anti-Israel bias, when we single out for censure the one democracy in the region — the only one that protects the rights of women and of gay people — yet have never once debated the oppression of women in the Arab world, the suffering of the Kurds, the Yazidi, the Uyghurs, the Yemenis, or the Christians of Nigeria?
How can we call this ethnic cleansing, when Israel’s first leaders urged Palestinians to stay and build a shared state, when 2.1 million Palestinians hold full democratic rights in Israel today—and when Jews were ethnically cleansed from every inch of the Palestinian Territories, and 900,000 more driven from neighbouring Arab states? As a Synod we were silent then. Did we protest then? Did we propose a debate, or a diocesan motion?
Yesterday was a dark day for our country, and, despite Ed Miliband’s claims, will make worse the already rising antisemitism in our land.
Additional Note
There was a salutary assessment summarised in today’s The Knowledge email.
Europe has a history of “dressing up domestic political pandering as righteousness on the world stage”, says The Wall Street Journal. So it is here. The impetus for this virtue-signalling wasn’t the E1 settlement, it was the British government’s desire to appease the Muslim and hard-left voters threatening to abandon Labour for the Greens. If anyone has been “destroying the two-state solution”, it’s the Palestinians. When Israel offered them a state in the West Bank and Gaza in 2000-01, they said no and “launched a terrorist intifada”. When Israel removed settlements from Gaza in 2005, they voted in Hamas. Yet Britain – along with fellow sanctions-imposers Canada and France – have “only carrots” for the Palestinian side. While banning imports from Israelis in the West Bank, they continue to subsidise the Palestinian Authority, which awards “pay-for-slay” salaries to terrorists who murder Jews. Rather than targeting Israel, Miliband should listen to what the Palestinians have long been saying: “they won’t live in peace alongside a Jewish state”.
Buy me a Coffee
Thank you Ian for bringing some balance to this discussion.
Exactly. Well said— and it needs saying.
It is a manifest and preposterous hypocrisy.
Thank you, Ian. Sanctified common sense at last
You say: “ Yesterday, the Labour Government announced that it was putting in place sanctions on a trading partner because of concerns about the ethics of its actions.
Which of these countries do you think they chose?
None of the above, but Israel”
No, the UK has announced an import ban on goods from Israeli settlements in the illegally occupied West Bank (which is ipso facto not de jure “Israel”).
a. It has put in partial sanctions. But why is it not doing so in relation to other countries with far worse records?
b. In particular, why turn a blind eye to all the abuses in the neighbouring countries?
c. The settlements in question are not ‘illegal’. They come under the agreements of the 1995 Oslo Accords, which the Palestinians agreed to. The reason why these temporary arrangements were not resolved was because Arafat sabotaged Camp David and institution the terror reign of the second Intifada.
I find it hard to believe that the Oslo Accords allowed Israel to seize land from the present inhabitants by force and take them over. Can you direct me to this provision please?
Steve, please distinguish between who rules over a plot of land and who farms/dwells on it. There is plenty of public land in Zone C.
How much is farming land from which settlers have already expelled indigenous families? How much is Firing Ranges, Palestinians are deliberately restricted from registering ancestral land rights, so their land is deemed “public”.
Good questions. Have you the answers?
What do you mean by ‘ancestral’ land rights, please, and how might these be proven?
Steve, the Oslo Accords do not allow that, and I am not aware of anyone who suggests that they do. But they do allow building.
If Arabs sell their land to an Israeli, then PA sentences them to death. Do you have any thoughts on that?
(Are you aware of the proportion of the Palestinian population who lives in Zone C?)
What appears to happen (well documented) is that the desirable parts of the West Bank are already farmed. Those who have lived there for decades / centuries are forcibly removed. That is the reason for the sanctions. We rightly expect a “democratic” country to respect ownership.
Evidence that the PA sentences them to death? “Under Palestinian Authority (PA) law, selling or attempting to sell land to Israelis is legally punishable by the death penalty. However, no legally sanctioned executions for land sales have been carried out because PA President Mahmoud Abbas has refused to ratify any death sentences since 2006.”
The proportion of Palestinian population in the West Bank is irrelevant. The proportion of land that belonged to Palestinians 50 years ago IS relevant.
I agree that we should sanction other unjust countries appropriately.
Illegal under what law?
Under both Israeli and International law.
There are only international treaties. What treaties to which Israel is signatory has it abrogated by these actions?
In reality it’s not clear that these sanctions will achieve very much. They are not sanctions on Israel proper. The goods emanating from the settlers in the West Bank – mainly agricultural – will find other markets and or be labelled as of Israeli origin.
Sound and fury from the UK and Israeli governments is for political home consumption.
In my view there is no solution in sight for the whole problem. The majority of those living in the West Bank and Gaza want a Palestinian State that encompases Israel (from the river to the sea) and an increasing proportion of those living in Israel can see no long term security in a two state solution. The wider Middle East seems to be a key factor in a peaceful solution. If the regime in Iran changes to become more benign and the wider Arab world changes its view on Israel then there maybe a peaceful solution. However, the underlying antagonism between Islamists and Jews makes this unlikely. Maybe if and when the world becomes less reliant on petroleum the Middle East will become less of a powder keg.
Maybe not: Zechariah 12:3.
Are you the Geoffrey Smith who wrote a booklet titled “God’s purposes for Israel and the church”?
No
It might be for political home consumption—but it will certainly contribute to antisemitism here.
Given the religious demographics in this country and the Iranian regime’s threats I fear that antisemetic attacks are now built in to our society. My local mosque has become more openly beligerent since Oct 7 in its online sermons – all be it in veiled terms e.g. frequent references to the enemy entity.
You may be right that Labour’s courting of the Muslim vote will further embolden antisemitism.
Trade and sanctions will always be a grey area. There are limits on the extent to which what goes on in other countries is our business.
I am tempted to draft a letter along the following lines to whoever is the incoming ambassador from Israel in London, to be signed by persons willing of my acquaintance:
We write to inform you that, in regard to UK sanctions against Israel concerning the so-called ‘West Bank’, the government of the United Kingdom does not reflect our views. We support Israel’s political hegemony over the whole of the so-called West Bank and Gaza. We support the IDF in doing whatever is necessary in Gaza to prevent a repeat of the atrocities of October 7th 2023, and we take note that Israel permits the inhabitants of Gaza access to food and water in contrast to blockades that were routine in two world wars. We support Jewish settlers in the ‘West Bank’ provided that they do not attempt to push peaceable Arabs off land that they have long lived on or farmed. (We are aware that the mass media often distort the truth about confrontations there, to the disadvantage of Jewish parties.) We are also aware that the Arabs of Mandatory Palestine boasted publicly to the United Nations Security Council on 16th April 1948 that they began the fighting, and that their attitude has remained the same.
It is clear to us that the UK and Israel face a common enemy; in the UK our foolish and treacherous politicians imported this enemy without necessity in recent decades, making life difficult for our esteemed Jewish community. Jews are an asset to a nation, anti-semites a liability. We are proud of the Balfour Declaration and its (unfortunately inadequate) implementation and we long for a change of mind in Westminster and for greater cooperation in the future.
Am Yisrael Chai!
I would sign
Ian has my email
I am grateful, Martin, but the draft will be circulated only around a prayer-for-Israel group with which I am involved.
Anthony
Simon Sebag Montefiore gave a fascinating long interview recently on Triggernometry on how the Middle East got to be how it is, pointing out that Jordan, Syria and Iraq had only become nation states in 1946, before launching their war against the new state of Israel in 1948.
Iraq and Jordan were British creations, Syria was French. None of these new Muslim majority states made ‘sense’ as nations, as the bloodshed that engulfed them in subsequent years has shown.
Worth seeing the interview.
His book ‘The Cauldron: the making of the modern Middle East’ was published just 15 days ago. My thanks to Ian for the heads-up in the main essay above.
When I hear Ed Miliband I am reminded of what David Niven wrote about Errol Flynn: “He was 100% reliable. He always let you down”.
The interview is 137 minutes long!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwN0K2ZSAoQ
Given that I can read at three times the pace of the spoken word, I think I’ll buy the book. It’s not free but it gives an excuse to spend a few hours in a quiet corner of the pub.
Make that pint last! I was thrown out of a pub once when I came for a quiet read and didn’t order a drink ….
I have never been thrown out of a pub for that reason.
Now, now, Anthony, we don’t want to know the actual reasons ….
I looked up the book on Amazon and it looks interesting but it’s 500+ pages and no photographs. Books don’t seem to get concise in these AI days.
Sebag Montefiore is certainly an accomplished historian with an interesting background. I see he wrote a major history of Jerusalem. I imagine he’s related to Hugh Montefiore, onetime Bishop of Birmingham.
Only distantly.
I rate his work very highly. We were in the same class at school and alternated in taking the lead at history, but when it came to the O level exams he smashed me into second place in English and also triumphed in history. Ancient History A level was the only exam where I turned the tables.
Ha! I thought you were an Old Harrovian!
From his excellent history of Jerusalem he chose to give his booklaunch talk on the ‘Ancient’ bit – namely the Jewish War 66-70. Why has no-one noticed that this is the greatest serial blockbuster never made (Masada excepted)?
I remember Peter O’Toole as the Roman commander who entered Masada and found all the suicides.
You can watch it in sections.
Dr. Paul, you write a compelling article and you have many supporters. yet, I wonder what you are doing to signal what I hope is you strong disapproval of the brutalization of Palestinians by the current (and most likely any soon to be) Israeli regime/s? I am deeply distressed by the widespread killing of the Palestinian populace. This is no ‘war time’ action but rather escalation of a decades long policy of dehumanizing Palestinians. Especially close to my heart is the intentional destruction of the Palestinian Christian population, churches, businesses, Christian-majority towns and villages. One can argue about the legal and common-ear definitions of ‘genocide’ and ‘ethic cleansing’ yet the on the ground reality is a relentless, intentional killing of non combatants and the destruction of culture, people and place to make way for a Jewish-only society.
Thanks Edward. Can you be specific? What is the evidence of the ‘dehumanising policy’? Are you aware that 96% of the Palestinian population lives in Zones A and B, which are not involved in this building?
How many incidents have there been? I genuinely don’t know.
On the other hand, AI tells me:
I am not aware of the UK government taking any action on this, despite substantially financially supporting the PA, or any protests on social media.
As someone with deep roots in one of the countries listed in the table, I feel particularly sad that the UK has lost its moral compass. This country seems to have forgotten Christian ethics and virtue ethics, and has replaced them with a mixture of identity-based ethics, issue-based ethics and utilitarianism. As these approaches do not add up to a coherent theory, politicians and decision-makers have to pick and choose which considerations have the highest priority. Internationally, the UK has decided that the Palestinian cause has a higher priority than Israel’s, and that trade is more important than human rights in the countries listed in the table. Domestically, some people believe that religious freedom takes precedence over the rights of abused women, or that trans people have more rights than women.
The Church of England should be helping the country rediscover a coherent moral framework centred in Christ. Unfortunately, it seems that it has forgotten not just its duty, but also the content of such an ethics.
I’m not sure that it is any of Westminster’s business what goods I choose to buy from where provided that the choices of the British people as a whole do not impinge on our national security.
I would have no problem with the attachment at importation of tags to goods informing buyers how and where they were made. There are strident enough warnings on cigarette packets, after all.
Perhaps an ai generated qr code printed at the bottom of the supermarket receipt. It could tell you how many subsistence earners worked to make the items, how many sailors were away from home, for how long. Etc.
What I found particularly odious was Miliband’s high moral ground and tone, based on his own personal Jewish identy and family escape from the Holocaust and yet ascribing a fallacious moral equivalent of genocide to ‘Israel’ presumably the government and vicariously those who voted for the present incumbents.
If that does not stoke up, inflame, antisemitism in the UK and be complicit in the promotion of existing Palestinian movements and its underpinning religious-philosophy, I’m not sure what will garner and foster national public acquiesence, as it is supported by the new PM Burnham, presumably looking to rebuild the Red Wall in the mid-north with the Burnham ‘bounce’.
Of course we know the reason for this is politics. Muslims traditionally vote Labour and Burnham wants to win back those who flirted with the Greens under Starmer and Jews have more recently largely voted Conservative, especially when Corbyn was Labour leader. So Burnham can see more votes in sanctioning Israel over Jewish settlers in the West Bank and standing up for a 2 state solution than condemning the likes of Hamas who want to eliminate Israel.
The C of E Synod is supposedly standing up the for Palestinian Christian minority but ignores the fact Christians have more freedom in Israel than most Middle Eastern nations
Indeed. Isn’t it rather concerning that Jews are being used as pawns in Labour’s electoral games?
It is to be fair to Starmer he had been making efforts to clamp down on anti Semitism in Labour, expelling some Corbynites and even Corbyn himself after an anti Semitism row. As a result Labour won all 3 Barnet seats at the last general election (Barnet having the highest percentage of Jews in the UK) and control of Barnet council. Burnham though won on a more leftwing anti Israeli leadership platform and is playing to that agenda
Im not convinced the main motivating factor is votes.
An article on the Unheard site, while not citing votes as the “main motivating factor” focuses on the political reality, foreseeable consequences.
And in other questioning on the BBC, Miliband said he’d not be attending Hannukah celebrations in a Synagogue meeting of practicing Jews. And his dismissal of Simon Schama’s criticism of language of ethnic cleansing has been with a high- handed arrogance with no attempt to explain, define, justify.
He is after all a secular -politician-Jew.
To me, it is the inflammatory language that he has carefully chosen to use that is nevertheless careless.
As a party leader he lost the 2015 General Election. As energy minister (twice) he saw our bills rocket. And now this.
And as David’s brother?
You didn’t include countries that the UK and others do sanction significantly particularly with arms embargoes, such as Russia, Sudan, Myanmar, Iran, North Korea, Central African Republic, Afghanistan, Belarus etc.
Israel of course is a militarised settler-colonial regime with probably the world’s longest occupation and a long record of invasions, oppression and apartheid.
Israel is probably the only state that hasn’t declared its borders.
Mostly Israel is sanction free and showered with aid by the US but you must know that there have been sanctions, such as a 12 year arms embargo by none other than Margaret Thatcher after the particularly brutal invasion of Lebanon in 1982. (If you aren’t aware, check out the massacres of Palestinian refugees in the Beirut refugee camps by the Phalangist militia that Ariel Sharon enabled.)
Marc, I am responding assuming that you want to engage in debate, rather than just making a fly-by comment. Some things worth noting:
1. The state of Israel was established by the agreement of, first, the League of Nations, and second by its successor the UN. It has been established by international law.
2. Jews have lived in the land for the last 2000 years. In the nineteenth century, Jerusalem was majority Jewish. They used the Roman geographical term ‘Palestinian’ to describe themselves.
3. 60% of Israel is now Mizrahi—of Arab/Middle East ethnicity, consisting of those driven out by the Arab nations by pressure and pogroms, and their descendants.
4. At the end of the 1948 war, David Ben Gurion explicitly urged Arabs to stay and to contribute to building the new state. By contrast, in the Arab areas, all Jews were ethnically cleansed from Gaza and Judea/Samaria.
5. As a result, there are 2.1 million Palestinians/Arab Muslims living with full democratic rights and freedom of movement like all citizens in Israel. They comprise 30% of all doctors, and include leading politicians and high court judges.
6. Israel is the only state in the region which grants full equality to women and ethnic minorities, unlike in Gaza and the West Bank.
7. All of Israel’s wars have been in response to military threats from outside. They have repeatedly surrendered land won in those wars as a trade for peace with neighbouring states.
In the light of this, can you offer an explanation of your language of ‘settle colonial’ and ‘apartheid’? To what are you referring?
Marc Brown writes:
“Israel of course is a militarised settler-colonial regime with probably the world’s longest occupation and a long record of invasions, oppression and apartheid.
Israel is probably the only state that hasn’t declared its borders.”
Marc doesn’t seem to have heard of the partial occupation of Kashmir by India since 1948. Look at the maps in India and Pakistan and you’ll find very different drawings.
Russia has also declared new borders, with Crimea and ‘Novorossiya’. Presumably Marc doesn’t accept those.
All the standard agitprop words are there, except the ritual denunciation of Zionism.
It is of course standard for the BBC to preface all its comments about the West Back to say ‘These Israeli settlements are illegal under international law’, referencing declarations by the International Court of Justice, a body with no judicial power at all. The trouble with talk of ‘occupation’ is that the ‘West Bank’ was nothing other than British Mandate territory occupied and ruled by Jordan from the 1948 ceasefire until the Jordanian attackers were expelled by Israel in 1967.
The ‘West Bank’, in other words, was never a state in its own right or the property of another state: from the very beginning of the State of Israel the ‘West Bank’ wasn’t defined as a state and its borders simply the result of a ceasefire (rather like Kashmir). So calling it ‘occupied’ carries a big and fuzzy assumption.
The political borders of countries often change. There is no Yugoslavia now. The UK may split. There are disputed territories.
But Israel from its inception has never declared borders.
Israel has accepted the partition of mandate Palestine from the start.
On September 22nd 1948, during the war against the invading Arab nation and after thousands of Jewish soldiers had been killed, the Jews stated that all land they took control of within Palestine would remain part of their State. I regard that as eminently reasonable.
I’m not going to engage with someone spouting Hasbara as it’s pointless. No authority could change your mind about Jewish exceptionalism.
For others who may want to learn I suggest starting with Ilan Pappé’s book, Ten Myths About Israel.
Hi Marc
I am not sure exactly to whom you are referring. But I don’t ‘spout Hasbara’. It is odd that you have engaged only to resort to insults.
If you have come here for a rational discussion, that is great. Do please point to any of my 7 point above and tell me where I am wrong.
Pappe has been described even by his friends as ‘the world’s sloppiest historian’ (Benny Morris). Here is a quick list of the factual errors he makes in his works:
A History of Modern Palestine (2004)
1. Tel Aviv’s founding date — Pappé gives July 1907; Tel Aviv was founded in 1909 (11 April).
2. Arab Higher Committee — he dates its establishment to 1934; it was established in 1936.
3. Stern Gang and Palmach — he describes them in the context of the period before the 1936–39 Arab Revolt. The Lehi/Stern organisation emerged in 1940 and the Palmach in 1941, so they could not have played the role he attributes to them before the revolt.
4. 1969 aircraft hijackings — he places the PFLP’s multiple aircraft hijackings in 1969; the famous coordinated hijackings occurred in September 1970.
5. Eshkol and Golda Meir — he says Golda Meir defeated Levi Eshkol politically in 1969; Eshkol had died in February 1969, after which Meir became prime minister.
6. 1936 general strike — he puts the declaration of the Arab general strike in October 1936; it was declared in May 1936 and ended in October.
7. Lewis Andrews — Pappé dates his assassination incorrectly and calls him “Major Andrew”; Andrews was the civilian acting District Commissioner for Galilee and was assassinated in September 1937.
8. UNSCOP — he gives 29 November 1947 as the date of its report; 29 November was the date of the UN General Assembly partition vote. UNSCOP’s report was submitted on 31 August 1947.
9. Lawrence of Arabia and the Arab Revolt — Pappé attributes a role to T. E. Lawrence in the Anglo-Hashemite correspondence which led to the Arab Revolt; the correspondence was initiated by the Hashemites, and Lawrence was not responsible for it in the way Pappé suggests.
10. Arafat’s birthplace — he gives Jerusalem; Yasser Arafat was born in Cairo.
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2006)
11. Plan Dalet was not a master expulsion plan — Pappé presents the 10 March 1948 Plan Dalet as the culmination of a pre-existing plan to expel Palestine’s Arabs. The actual document was a military operational plan, prepared by the Haganah Operations Department under Yigael Yadin, primarily concerning securing the proposed Jewish state and its settlements against anticipated Arab attack. Whether particular operations under it involved expulsions is a separate question.
12. The origin of Plan Dalet — Pappé says its blueprint was drawn up by Haganah intelligence shortly after the December 1947 killing of Yehoshua Globerman and named after him. The documented plan was prepared by the GHQ Operations Department under Yadin, and the chronology does not work: Globerman was killed on 8 December 1947, well before Plan Dalet was conceived.
13. Two versions of Plan Dalet — Pappé claims there was a version for politicians and another for military commanders. Gelber argues that this is false: there was one plan, with brigade commanders additionally receiving the operational details relevant to their own areas.
14. The Ben-Gurion quotation — Pappé famously attributes to Ben-Gurion in 1937: “The Arabs will have to go … [and] one needs an opportune moment … such as a war.” The complete sentence does not occur in the sources Pappé cites. The Journal of Palestine Studies itself subsequently acknowledged that the cited source did not contain the quotation. This is particularly important because Pappé uses the quotation as evidence for his argument about a pre-existing Zionist plan for expulsion.
15. Tantura — Pappé treats the alleged May 1948 Tantura massacre as established fact. There is evidence of serious abuses and possibly executions of prisoners at Tantura, but the precise scale and nature of the alleged massacre remain contested; presenting the most extreme version as an uncontested established fact goes beyond the evidence. Even Benny Morris, while accepting that killings probably occurred, has been considerably more cautious about the evidential basis for the larger claims.
16. The “master plan” chronology — Pappé depicts the expulsions as the implementation of a decision taken on 10 March 1948, immediately followed by systematic military orders and the uprooting of almost 800,000 Palestinians. The documentary record instead shows a much more complicated pattern: expulsions, flight from combat zones, local military decisions, psychological warfare, and later expulsions varied considerably from place to place. Even historians who accept substantial Israeli responsibility for the refugee exodus dispute Pappé’s highly uniform chronology.
And this is quite apart from the ideological bias he overlays on this.
So I think you need a better source—and I would love to hear your comments on my seven points.
For better perspective on the settler violence and how the media often misportray it, please see “the Israel guys” YouTube channel.
This is just repeating Israeli political propaganda; The sanctions (which I agree will be difficult to enforce) are against produce of illegal Israeli settlers of which there are now 700000 in Palestine. Recently they have stepped up attempts to bully and kill Palestinian residents, with the passive aand sometimes active support of the IDF
As regards Palestinian atrocities what about the Israeli atrocity of killing 73000 Gazan civilians, of whom more than 20000 were children. Not to mention obliterating 85% of the civilian infrastructure in Gaza, which is clearly against international law. despite signing a ceasefire last October, Israel has killed more than 1000 Gazan civilians since then, including very recently an entire family with an 8 year old child.
Graham, the possibility of building in Zone C was an explicit part of the agreement in the Oslo Accords, which Yasser Arafat signed up to for the PLO in 1995. Israel has a court process to control who can build what where.
96% of Palestinians under the PA live in Zone A, completely unaffected by building in Zone C. And have you looked at a map? The building in E1 is immediately adjacent to Jerusalem.
What makes you say this building is ‘illegal’?
Where to begin? Hamas themselves have admitted that over 30,000 of the casualties you mention were combatants, as they will pay compensations to their families. They also embedded themselves in the ‘civilian infrastructure’ you mention, booby trapping houses, digging tunnels under hospital, schools, mosques. They also shamelessly recruit teenagers as soldiers, and count them among the children casualties. It’s a war; it is unbelievably sad, but children die in wars. It’s a war that Hamas could have stopped at any moment and still choose not to.
As for the settlements, they are almost all on area C, which the PA has let Israel manage since the Oslo Accords. These accords may very well need to be revisited, but that does not make the settlements illegal.
The responsibility for this catastrophe lies with the Western powers which allowed Hamas to take over in 2007 and become the proxies of Iran.
The west, i.e. the US and Europe, should have intervened to depose Hamas and restore a measure of freedom and prevent the creation of an Iranian-sponsor terror-state on Israel’s doorstep. But no politician in the west wants to grasp that nettle. The United Nations were also part of the problem, as major enablers of Hamas.
As a result the cancer grew until the outburst of October 7th and the resulting catastrophe. There will be no peace until Hamas is finally excised. The comparison with Nazi Germany is in this case quite fair.
The destruction and death rate have been utterly horrific compared to what we are used to, but a couple of historical reminders are in order.
First, the defeat of Hamas has actually entailed fewer civilian deaths and less destruction than the Russian capture of Berlin in 1945, and the American capture of Manila from Japan in the same year.
Second, as you have noted, almost all the methods of Hamas have been in violation of conventions of warfare that seek to reduce risk to civilians (itself a slippery category). The Israelis have been fighting asymmetric warfare in Gaza against an enemy that as openly using hostages as its primary bargaining chip. Worst of all has been the spreading of an Islamist ‘martyr ideology’ among Gazans that is the principal cause of so many deaths.
I agree with much of that, but I believe Hamas-II will regrow in Gaza if the place is physically restored and subsidised by the West and its present inhabitants are permitted to run it on a daily basis, becaue their hearts will not have changed. Nor am I sure that the West should have ‘intervened to depose Hamas’; I don’t believe it is fair to ask British troops who haved sworn allegiance to crown and country to take part in a lethal urban warfare in Gaza – and then when they are gone, what next?
What should have been done – and still can be done – is for Western governments not to give a penny in aid to Gaza. Let’s see what the Arab nations can do, when pressed as they have not been. Will they rehome the Gazans in their own territories?
There is no point, and much evil, in having two million people living on western handouts and Iranian bribes on Israel’s doorstep. A recipe for crime and terrorism. Half the population needs to be relocated to new homes in the Arab world – but I doubt they will have their ‘brethren’.
Then Gaza needs to be rebuilt as a place in a mutually beneficial relationship with Israel -if such a thing is possible.
If Hamas were to be deposed, it’s founding religious ideology, would not be irradicated, but would appear in a different guise, either in a formal structured organisation or informal guerilla groups. It will not be in the pursuit of a western system of democracy, but a theocracy, no matter how loosely it may be descibed, even when embracing overt aspects of democracy in self-serving their driven purposes.
Yes, this battle is fought on the horizontal level but it is but the outworking of the battle in the heavenly realms, between principalities and powers.
Geoff,
We know the abolition of sin will only come with the Millennium. That doesn’t mean we resign ourselves to it now. Most Muslim countries, Afghanistan included, were better places 50 years ago, when Islamist thought was much less prominent.
Hello James,
This is not a suggestion to withdraw into Christian piety, as some would advocate, but to recognize the Spiritual battle that is being greivously played out.
A friend, a retired dentist, was a member of the medical corps in Aden. David Pawson was his pastor there. Pawson pressed the point that Islam at its core was to be propogated by the sword, the sword being not merely a symbol or metaphor.
Is that recognition absent today, or is it now generally, culturally, accepted in the ‘West’ that Islam is a religion of peace?
And what of taqiyya and non-Muslims?
Is a two state solution even feasible?
Geoff,
We are not in disagreement. As for Islam’s spread today, it is definitely by aggressive means, immigration included, along with secular multicultralism which created a space for it in the west.
Most of the west’s problem today can be traced directly to the demographic collapse among the indigenous population from the 1960s, as contraception, abortion and the mass entry of women into the workforce reconfigured society radically.
The collapsing birthrate among indigenous Europeans and Americans created the opening for mass immigration of lower skilled Asians and Africans. This in turn changed the cultural, social and political landscape, especially in British cities as Labour became identified with the aspirations and life issues of the immigrant communities – something which had never really happened before in British history.
The most significant disruptive factor was the importation of Islam into the British cultural bloodstream. A culture whose core affiliation is with Asia or the Middle East can never be at home here. All across Europe a similar story is being told.
A famous book was written within one week immediately after the fiasco/miracle of Dunkirk, and with the Battle of Britain in the air looming to prevent invasion. The book was called Guilty Men and its three anonymous authors were drawn from the three main political parties. It wasa a polemical but largely accurate two fingers to the appeasers of the 1930s and many of its copies wer sold from street barrows.
Who will write the Guilty Men of today? And when – i.e., in what circumstances?
The Abp of York not only applauded the government for its ‘principled action’ yesterday, but also called for further sanctions on Israeli banks. I despair.
Appalling.
You only despair if you consider that he has influence. He long ago surrendered any moral influence and he has very little worldly influence. Fortunately.
He has influence in parliament, in the House of Lords which may cascade down to the CoE.
This is exactly where he called for further sanctions, in the HoL.
I think most of the Lords titter discreetly at the bishops. Fortunately.
I really don’t want to get into the weeds of the subject here because it incorporates far too many separate issues into one argument. Even if unintended, it unfortunately comes across as being largely pro Israel special pleading. I would defend anyone’s right to do that but, given the current situation, I’m not sure that it will or should change many minds. There are of course Christian principles of love, truth, justice, and peace involved; these should not be negotiable by God’s people.
The following separate issues would all seem to have a bearing:
Whom do we choose to believe, as our sources of information?
Who, and what interests, are controlling the dominant narrative where we live?
The degree to which we can trust what is being disseminated from all sides
Whether we have personal experience of what’s happening on the ground – not just from taking a trip or two there, paid by…?
How democracy functions in reality and its dependency on the moral character of voters
The psychological block to admitting our past judgement may have been wrong
The state of our own democracy and political and social culture here in the UK before we start pontificating about what should be happening in other countries
The morality of economic sanctions (whom do they most directly affect?) and their doubtful efficacy in terms of changing hearts and minds
What was the moral justification (and benefit for the ordinary people in the home country) for any nation to build an empire draw maps which affect millions of people thousands of miles away?
In particular, what right did Britain have to play its hand in creating the State of Israel in 1948 at the expense of people who had inhabited the land for centuries?
To what extent have Christians historically, and even today, contributed to injustice and bloodshed on the basis of misapplied biblical teaching about Israel?
We hardly created the nation of Israel in 1948! We withdrew from Mandatory Palestine then, being tired of getting pecked by Arabs for letting Jews in and by Jews for not letting Holocaust survivors in, and having let India go and with it our principal interest in the Suez Canal. Of course I accept that we started the ball rolling with the Balfour Declaration of 1917, but you can find that it was made for primarily secular political reasons during World War I in the analysis by (secular Jewish historian) Barbara Tuchman in her book “Bible and Sword”. I do believe that Balfour was possible because there was no institutional antisemitism in the largely nonconformist war cabinet led by Lloyd George, in contrast to the high-Anglican war cabinet of Asquith which it replaced; but they were hardly a bunch of Christian Zionists (as I am, because of the Abrahamic covenant – not the Mosaic).
‘We hardly created the nation of Israel in 1948!’
I didn’t say that we did. But are you aware of how UN votes and much else besides are brought to fruition? Big geopolitical players sort these things out over decades, far removed from public view. We’re talking personal arm-twisting, trading arrangements, arms deals, military alliances, big finance, access to resources, promise of high profile appointments, perhaps a nice little bit of bribery, or even blackmail. The fading British empire still had a great deal of ‘soft power’ at its disposal. It had long since laid the groundwork, and doubtless played a big role thereafter. It’s not cynicism to take account of that which is inherent to a complicated but also sinful world!
Regarding the Abrahamic covenant, do you think that the Israelites who descended into sinful rebellion, culminating in killing the Son of God, nevertheless had the moral right to expect God’s continued generosity? Certainly Moses warned them that God would ‘utterly destroy’ them if they forsook him and worshipped other Gods (Deuteronomy 4:25–26).
When Jesus cried out on the cross ‘it is finished!’ he was announcing both the completion of the old covenants and the start of a radically different New Covenant. Any and every Jew who chooses to receive Christ as a saved individual (not as a biological inheritor) is welcomed with joy. That’s grace and forgiveness beyond measure – just as it is for us Gentiles. To start raising an issue of ancient land rights when you’ve just been given eternity with God would seem shocking in its ingratitude.
I suggest you raise that with some Jewish believers within the IDF currently fighting Hamas and Hezbollah.
The UK actually abstained in the November 1947 UN vote. The big players – who agreed, for totally different reasons – were the USA and Russia.
Don
If you are quoting Deut 4:25-26 I suggest you follow Moses comments through to 4:30-31 where he says that following the dispersion “in later days there will be a return”, and God “will not forget the covenant with your forefathers”. The plural “forefathers” implies the “Patriachal Promise” with Abraham, Isaac & Jacob. Since the Patriachal promise is concerned with the Nation and the Land, we are correct to understand the return in our generation as a fulfilment of these promises.
The Abrahamic covenant is technically known as a “covenant of grant”, meaning it is unconditional and cannot be revoked. (Paul calls it “irrevocable”).
The Mosaic / Sinai covenant is a totally different beast. It was conditional from the outset, (aligned with the ANE legal treaties, Hittite etc); so always held a built in potential for demise.
Nonetheless in Hebrews 8:13 the writer will not admit it is yet defunct only that it is “becoming obsolete” (so RSV). Among scholars there is a general view this means the Old Covenant has not yet completely passed away.
For example Paul Ellingworth says that the writer anticipates “the supersession of the old dispensation … yet the continued existence of the first covenant is never completely denied”. This is significant since the whole of the book of Hebrews places so much stress on a better covenant, better sacrifice, better priesthood and so on, yet still will not say the the Old is fully extinguished. He also points out that it is the priestly / temple / sacrifice aspects of the old which have now been overtaken, that does not have to mean that the moral, ethical, salvific aspects of Torah are no longer valid. Matt 5:17-18 is perhaps relevant here.
By “Old covenant” Hebrews refers to the Sinai covenant, particularly its priestly aspects. It has nothing whatever to do with the Patriachal promise, which is a separate matter.
I would understand that when Jesus says “It is finished” he is referring to his salvific mission. There is no need at all to read a mention of old covenants into the text. With respect, that may be your reading, it is not mine.
Hi Don, can I just note that I have nowhere in any of my posts offered any defence for any of Israel’s actions.
All I have done is offered a comparison, and asked whether that is reasonable.
For example, do you think it is moral and consistent for the UK to have continued funding PA without asking any questions about the well-documented series abuses of human rights?
It is not a complex question. Would love to hear your answer.
Ian, the reason I asked questions and didn’t make assertions on behalf of either side was because I didn’t want to ‘get into the weeds’ when there are so many contested rights and wrongs about the whole issue. I think there’s merit in demonstrating that we Christians can look at these things with a different perspective, particularly when so much blood is being spilled and that injustice is intimately involved with what’s happening.
Your two articles and response tally to comments on the Israeli/Palestinian issue (along with raising the ‘anti-Semitism’ trope) certainly gave me the impression of Israeli support. That would absolutely be your right – something I would always support whether or not I agreed with your position.
In answer to your question: no, UK taxpayers should not be funding anything which involves possible human rights abuses without serious questions first being asked. I also think precisely the same thing about sending £billions and significant military support to the Ukraine regime.
Whatever our differences of views, the worst possible outcome would be ever more silencing of dissenting opinions in favour of one dominant narrative. That kind of thing is dangerous for all of us.
That is not the impression you have given in your posts. You have consistently been positive towards Israel and her actions in the circumstances, both in the main blog posts and responses to comments, and generally have been negative towards the Palestinian/Muslim Arab view.
I suspect others would agree with me.
Peter, what I have consistently sought to do is correct the wild accusations and false claims circulating both on social media and in our press, driven ultimately by Hamas propaganda, mediated through Qatar-funded media outlets like Al Jazeera.
I am very happy for Israel to be judged on the facts—but for most people they are scarce on the ground. For example, yesterday I had engagement with a friend who made a particular claim about how awful things are in the West Bank—but he had not heard of Oslo, and did not know of the different Zones or their dynamic.
People are increasingly willing to Pronounce very loudly on the basis of no knowledge.
In other words I am seeking to try and level the playing field of debate.
Hamas said explicitly that the aim of October 7th, which they knew would be contained, and knew that there would be a severe backlash, would ultimately serve their purposes by turning world opinion against Israel. They appear to have succeeded in that.
Well done Ian, I at least am learning a lot from you. Keep going.
Thanks you Don for a more reasonable, questioning, eirenic and compassionate comment than most of the contributions on this topic.
To your list I would also add the need to consider the vastly different resources that the opposing groups have had to pursue their respective positions and lead safe and productive lives.
There is a clear difference between the common people and those with power on each side of any miliary or political settlement, which seems remote.
It is a truism that those abused more readily become abusers…….
Thanks Chris. I am curious about your comment on the ‘vastly different resources’ the different groups have.
What did that balance look like in 1947? Why do you think it has changed since then?
And how are Palestinians who are citizens of Israel doing?
Ian,
I am quite prepared to be corrected but it is my understanding that VAST resources have supported the Israeli State, flowing largely from Germany and USA since at least the early 1950s.
A case has to be honestly made whether this has been proportionate.
However looking backwards is not useful unless it informs looking forward…
The power of the State of Israel and its neighbours is now entirely asymmetric and it is little wonder that an “asymmetric” response is the result aided by “bad actors” of every stripe on every side.
On your second question. It is also my understanding that non Jewish Israeli citizens are not well integrated with their Jewish compatriots and in large measure form an economic and social “underclass”. Again it is my understanding that the State of Israel favours in law its Jewish citizens over its non Jewish citizens.
My Christian mind and heart feels compassion for both Jew and Arab including my brother and sister Arab and Jewish Christians.
The scars of being hated run deep in the minds (literally and metaphorically) in Jews who have been abused over years and years and I am serious concerned for the welfare of the many young men and women of the IDF trained to treat others as less than human. They are being abused by their State just as Gazans and others have been by their leaders.
Keeping a score card of who is to blame and who is in the right, is in my mind not a productive or Jesus informed approach to great suffering in this world.
More compassion and more humility in the face of this most intractable problem is surely a wise approach?
Indeed, Don. @September 10, 2026 at 12:46 pm
So, the Jews are building their cities.
Is this the end time gathering ?
With so much anti – Semitic activity, world-wide it would seem; will it be long before armies are surrounding their land ? Jeremiah 30:7 Zechariah 14:3-5 Joel 3:11-16
Are the times hastening on ? when that oft rebuilt city
Will become the centre of the world-wide dominion of God
And His Worship ?
Mat 24:6 “And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet” Shalom.
In the meantime, the in-between time, what as a Church
are we tasked to do ?
Well Build!
Soak ourselves in those end-time prophets
Haggai and Zechariah the last word before the Advent of
Christ and His Kingdom.
Build – Edify
In the Bible, the motif of edification is the underlying theme and architectural metaphor of spiritually “building up” individuals and the church community into a mature, cohesive temple for God.
The English word “edify” shares its roots with the word “edifice” (a building). In the New Testament, it translates the Greek verb oikodomeō and noun oikodomē, which literally mean the construction or building of a house.
The Bible weaves this architectural motif through several major layers:
1. The Architectural Metaphor (God’s Building)
Instead of looking at the church as a static physical location, the New Testament uses edification to describe a dynamic, living construction project:
The Foundation: Jesus Christ is established as the chief cornerstone and foundation of the building (1 Corinthians 3:11).
The Living Stones: Individual believers are treated as “living stones” being fitted together into a grand, spiritual house (1 Peter 2:5).
The Ultimate Goal: The final structure is meant to become a holy temple where the Holy Spirit dwells (Ephesians 2:21-22).
2. The Purpose of Spiritual Gifts
The motif of edification serves as the primary metric for evaluating spiritual practices. In his letters, the Apostle Paul argues that the value of any spiritual gift is measured by how effectively it builds up others rather than the individual:
YouTube·Grace Bible Church of Bend +1
Public vs. Private: In 1 Corinthians 14, Paul prioritizes prophecy over speaking in tongues because prophecy clearly communicates God’s word to the whole room, directly edifying the community.
The Mandate: He explicitly commands,
“Let all things be done for building up [edification]” (1 Corinthians 14:26).
growmagazine.site +2
3. The Fuel of Edification: Love and Truth
The structural integrity of this spiritual building depends on how its parts connect. The Bible outlines two necessary elements for structural stability:
Love vs. Pride: Knowledge on its own can lead to arrogance, but love provides actual substance. As Paul writes,
“Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up [edifies]” (1 Corinthians 8:1).
Communication: Edification requires clear, truthful, and life-giving speech. Believers are instructed to speak only what is “good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear” (Ephesians 4:29).
4. Communal Interdependence
Edification is rarely an isolated or individual pursuit in scripture. The motif positions the church like a self-repairing and self-growing ecosystem. Leaders (pastors, teachers, evangelists) are not tasked with doing all the heavy lifting; rather, their role is to equip everyday believers so that the entire body builds itself up in love (Ephesians 4:11-16) Shalom.
I was struck by the contribution to the debate in Parliament by the Conservative MP, Edward, Leigh, the Father of the House. He’s a long time Thatcherite, on the right of the Conservative Party and a committed Christian. He said: ‘I love the Jewish people and faith … what is happening in the West Bank is absolutely violent and egregious… it is ethnic cleansing. The Israeli Government could quite easily differentiate between general trade and trade with these illegal settlements. I am proud to say as the longest serving member of the Conservative Friends of Israel I absolutely and fully support what he [the Foreign Secretary] is doing today.’ When even a veteran MP who is 100% behind Israel has reached that conclusion I think we need to press the pause button and question whether he might just have a point. I trust that no-one will claim that he’s badly informed, stupid or prejudiced against Israel or in favour of Islam or dismiss his views immediately.
Perhaps we might pause and reflect that our views on this most complex, tortuous and long-running of issues need to be held with less certainty, more willingness to admit ambiguity and less rush to prove our side is right.
Edward Leigh does make an important point, as a philosemitic supporter of Israel. There is no doubt that some in the hard right are acting in a provocative bullying way towards Arabs in the West Bank. Will Jews and Arabs ever be able to live in peace next to each other?
Edward Leigh is a prominent traditionalist Catholic, and a longtime member of Conservative Friends of Israel which supports a two-state ‘solution’. With friends like that…
I was rather struck by the fact that both Hamas and the Iranian government applauded our government’s decision, like Leigh.
Hamas remains on the UK government’s list of proscribed terrorist organisations.
Anthony, but the people who fund and support them don’t.
is it not a criminal offence in the uk to support or fund a terrorist organisation?
Perhaps our government should prosecute itself given the amount of our money that has been funneled to the Arabs of Palestine this century.
Yes, it’s all very ambiguous and messy. We can’t choose who might agree or disagree with us or what reasons. Who would expect Edward Leigh, Jeremy Corbyn, Hamas and the Foreign Secretary to be in agreement over anything at all? Part of the problem in this dire situation is the claim to moral superiority and certainty in a hideously complex situation in which so many groups like to portray themselves as innocent victims of others’ violence. None of us has the perfect and unclouded view of it all.
Whose Morality, whose sense of Justice ?
Arab , Jewish, Western philosophical , Etc? Jehovah’s?
God’s, blueprint, laws received or rejected ?
“ All the world lies in the Evil one says St. John.
The Ancient Fathers drilled down extensively into these words, we in comparisons are quite shallow thinkers.
At the end of The Topical Bible’s entry “Morality” @Biblehub.
there are several in-depth papers by the Fathers
including two short extracts from Wm. Law worth perusing
“ Now Learned Reason, when Pretending to be a Master of Morality…and
“Thus Far the Masters of Morality and Human Discipline May Go… From his “The way to divine knowledge”
Be blessed .
Call me cynical, but I wonder if the timing of this has more to do with trying to persuade voters in the ” Holborn and St Pancras ” constituency not to vote Green, as it would be very embarrassing for Labour if they lost Keir Starmer’s safe seat.
Tim, I call you honest and realistic.
Though we do have to be careful at reading others’ motives – it’s not a precise science where we can be certain.
You may not be certain, but from your comments it can be deduced the arguments you find persuasive.
Like Frank Booth Ian has set forth facts and arguments of which I was not aware, cumulatively, in this and other articles such as ABoC visit to Palestine. There is a cumulative weight that I’ve not found elsewhere, particularly from Miliband.
I really don’t know what you do with the ‘evidence’ adduced by Ian? Like a juror who has ideologically made a judgement, in the face of, contrary to the evidence, sided with the prosecution.
Isn’t Ian doing what MP’s should be doing? Let alone journalists and other public opinion formers.
I only said be careful, not that we can be certain either way. It’s an opinion that Milliband’s decision was motivated by the byelection, not a fact. And we tend to be less harsh on those whose views we agree with than those we disagree with, and maybe more inclined to read negative motives into their actions. If you’re more able to be definite and certain than me that’s ok, but please allow others of us not to be persuaded.
I find the story of how Israel developed since 1948 quite hard to follow so I recognise I am not well versed in all the wars & peace deals (that the Palestinians have never agreed to) etc .
But, I watched short video clips from various sources including the body cameras Hamas wore in October 7th & many of them I could not watch through.
I never in all my life imagined such horrors could be carried out.
If terrorists like Hamas (ie. Palestinians), attacked Britain in the same way & lived right on our borders, I would expect our government to go all out to destroy the Hamas/ Palestinian equivalent including where they attacked from – the network of tunnels with openings all over, under hospitals, schools, people’s homes etc & also the fact that there were booby traps set all over the place.
These different areas A, B & C in the West Bank are new to me and I would not condone activist aggressive settlers. But from what I understand, these are a minority – which does not make them right, but what about our “rape gangs”? Should Israel take some form of action against us because our government, police, etc have turned a blind eye to the rape gangs for years?
But the two things that finally settles it for me as to how wrong Miliband has been, is the hypocrisy in our trade agreements with other countries that Paul has documented in his article , and secondly and most especially, the fact that Hamas & the Iranian regime are praising Miliband for the stand he has taken. As far as I am concerned that says it all.
Thanks for commenting. Lots of good questions! You might like to read The War of Return, which explains the current situation well.
The IRA, living both on the British border and within the UK, murdered many British citizens in Northern Ireland, and in England over many years including an assassination attempt on the then Prime Minister. The British government did not go ‘all out’ to destroy them.
Yes Peter, but that is hardly comparable. The comparison is supposing that the IRA occupied the whole of Wales, was funded by Qatar and Iran, and had launched 20,000 rockets at random at English cities.
I think the response would be rather different.
The IRA – to the best of my knowledge – have not vowed to occupy the whole UK and annihilate the last living Briton. Hamas have continually stated that as their aim.
No European country could conceivably tolerate something like Hamas on their borders, (or so some would argue, what should be within their borders).
And don’t forget that when Fatah speak of freeing the “occupied territories” they actually mean pre-1967 Israel, as their written constitution using that phrase was drawn up in 1965, before the Six day War, when Gaza & the West Bank were both in Arab hands. The Arab street know this well.
For the avoidance of doubt, Fatah was not around in 1965, but the PLO was. Fatah is a re-vamped version of the PLO, modified for the consumption of Western Liberals. It still uses the same written constitution, which still means what it was always intended to mean, the reversal of the Naqba (disaster), meaning the eradication of the State of Israel.