UK Won’t Lend Hand to Israel Boycott

Against a backdrop of recent reports of German support for new EU labels identifying goods imported from Yehudah and Shomron, Britain has made it clear it will not lend a hand to any boycott of Israel, The Jerusalem Post reported on Tuesday.

The British government “clearly and unambiguously” opposes boycotts of Israel, British Ambassador to Israel Matthew Gould declared Monday night at a celebration of Queen Elizabeth II’s 87th birthday. “They [boycotts] do nothing to build understanding, they put up walls when we should be tearing them down,” he said.

While Gould acknowledged that the two countries “don’t always agree on everything,” referring to Israeli policy on Yehudah and Shomron, he said that “the important thing is that we disagree as friends, and we will stand alongside Israel as a friend.”

This year, the annual event was held at Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot to celebrate and honor scientific relations between the two countries.

Speaking to the guests at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Gould lauded bilateral cooperation in science and technology and the shared search for peace.

“The friendship isn’t limited to science,” he stressed. “In the past year we’ve [made] huge strides in building a relationship in technology; we’ve continued to grow the level of trade between Britain and Israel, so we are now Israel’s biggest export market in the world, after the United States.”

This article appeared in print on page D29 of the June 5th, 2013 edition of Hamodia.