B’nai B’rith President Robert Spitzer and CEO Evan R. Bernstein have issued the following statement:

CEO Evan R. Bernstein said:

“B’nai B’rith International is deeply disappointed by the decision of 12 countries to restrict trade with Israeli communities. Regardless of the problematic actions in the West Bank, this one-sided measure singles out the Jewish state, will not produce peace and risks inflaming antisemitism when British Jews already face record hostility.”

Situation

The countries—the United Kingdom, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Sweden—announced a joint plan Sept. 8, to ban settlement goods and sanction individuals and companies, just days before Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year. In announcing the sweeping sanctions, U.K. Foreign Secretary Edward Miliband said the U.K. would now consider Israeli settlements unlawful and raised accusations of settler ‘ethnic cleansing’ against Palestinians.

West Bank violence is condemnable, and those responsible must be held accountable. But sweeping economic measures, coupled with such grave and inflammatory language, do little to advance the stated goal of peace. Such measures are unlikely to meaningfully influence Israeli government decision-making while establishing a precedent for increasingly expansive economic restrictions and boycotts.

Israel has longstanding relationships with many of these countries, including France, the United Kingdom and Canada, which together are home to approximately 1.2 million Jews and have large, longstanding Jewish communities. At a time when Jewish communities already face heightened insecurity and antisemitism, policies and rhetoric that further strain these relationships risk further alienating Jews around the world and exacerbating an already highly charged public climate.

A durable resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will not be achieved through broad economic punishment or rhetoric that drives Israelis and Palestinians further apart. It requires sustained diplomacy, accountability for violence wherever it occurs, and practical steps that strengthen security, dialogue and the prospects for lasting peace.