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Ed Miliband is a “joke” and “no one wants to see him” in Israel following the Government’s decision to hit the country with sanctions, Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesman has warned. He attacked the Labour Government for “masquerading British politics” as foreign policy, which he said had caused “maximum upset” to the UK Jewish community.

The remarks come after the UK announced sanctions on Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, triggering a major backlash and a diplomatic crisis.

David Mencer, a spokesman for the Israeli prime minister, warned: “Just look at the timing. It’s on the eve of the Jewish High Holidays, designed to cause maximum upset to Britain’s Jewish community weeks before the Labour Party conference and during an Israeli election campaign.

“So our position is that these measures are strictly delivered because of Labour’s domestic political pressures, not by any realistic expectation of changing policy on the ground. This is about affecting most probably the electorate of Holborn and St Pancras.”

Asked if Mr Miliband could be banned from Israel, he added: “Ed Miliband is very much a failed figure.

“If you look at what he’s done on net zero, he’s a joke. His run to be prime minister was a joke, and what he’s doing is that he’s doing the same thing that he’s done in his career, except he’s dragging the whole country down with him, and Britain is sacrificing the very influence which it actually wants, and that’s the irony of this whole thing.

“Britain says it wants greater influence over the future of peace in this region, over all of the challenges which our people around here face – Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and Arabs alike, but the irony is, is that by pursuing this ridiculous student grandstanding, it just means that they have removed the influence that they once had.

“I compare it very much to France, mildly annoying but ultimately irrelevant. Miliband has made Britain irrelevant.”

Pressed again on a ban, he said: “I’m speaking from the prime minister’s office, and I’ll tell you very, very clearly that no one here in Israel wants to see Ed Miliband in Israel.”

Earlier, Mr Miliband said he rejected the chief rabbi’s warning that British Jews are at greater risk following the sanctions announcement.

He said he disagreed with UK Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis, who described the move as a “truly dark day” that would “succeed only in bolstering the very extremism they seek to target”.

“We all need to do more to tackle antisemitism,” Mr Miliband said, “but I believe we can do that and stand up for British values”.

The sanctions on trade with illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank come against a backdrop of rising antisemitic incidents across the UK.

Mr Miliband insisted “we all need to do more to tackle antisemitism”, adding, “but I believe we can do that and stand up for British values”.

The Community Security Trust (CST), an organisation that provides security support to the Jewish community, recorded 1,926 incidents of anti-Jewish hate across the UK in the first six months of 2026, a 21% increase on the same period in 2025.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham defended his Government’s decision, telling MPs that “Britain has to stand for fairness against injustice”.

“Where people are being bullied out of their homes … we will always stand with the underdog,” he said during PMQs.

There has been a mixed reaction within the UK Jewish community on the sanctions and possible implications for security.

The chief rabbi called the Government’s announcement “little more than political flag bearing for mendacious anti-Israel rhetoric”.

Asked about Mirvis’s comments, Mr Miliband told the BBC: “I don’t agree with the chief rabbi, somebody… of whom I have great respect.”

The Jewish Leadership Council (JLC) warned the government’s decision “risks becoming a de facto boycott of Israel” and accused Mr Miliband of “yielding to pressure from the most extreme elements of British society”.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews said the decision to make the announcement before Rosh Hashanah – the Jewish New Year festival that begins on Friday – brings “concerns for communal security at their highest levels… felt particularly acutely by British Jews”.

The sanctions have caused a diplomatic row with Israel, which has closed the British consulate in East Jerusalem and banned 11 MPs and a campaigner from the country.

On Wednesday, Israel’s Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli wrote to the head of Israeli border control recommending that several other British-linked organisations and individuals should be refused entry to Israel.

The list includes Oxfam, Save the Children, Norwegian Refugee Council, Islamic Relief Worldwide, and Medical Aid for Palestinians.