There is one thing to bear in mind when considering the actions of the Foreign Secretary, Ed Miliband, in imposing sanctions on Jewish settlements in the occupied territories and it is the stance of his mother, Marion, who died earlier this year. Marion Kozak was a Polish Jew who survived the Holocaust by taking refuge in a convent. She made her life here and, like her husband Ralph, was a social activist and campaigner for the causes she believed in. And one of those causes was a just settlement for Palestinians.

She was one of the founding signatories of a group called Jews for Justice for Palestinians, which calls for an end to the Israeli occupation of recognised Palestinian territories. On the expanding Israeli settlements, against which the Government has announced sanctions, it says, “Israel’s declared motive for its offensives policy is to suppress expected terrorist attacks. However, the continued settlement expansion makes it clear that much of its motive is to expand settlements under cover of the war on Gaza.”

It’s worth looking at the group’s website: its sentiments are of a piece with everything the Foreign Secretary has been saying about Britain’s current attitude towards Israel — or rather, towards the Israeli government. Miliband is his mother’s son. It’s also how many ordinary people, me included, feel about what’s going on in the occupied territories.

What can’t be said often enough is that there is an absolute distinction between Israel, and indeed Jews, and the actions of the government of Benjamin Netanyahu. And there is a real difference between being anti the policies of that government and being antisemitic. As the Foreign Secretary said, “We all need to do more to tackle antisemitism, but I believe we can do that and stand up for British values”.

When Jews for Justice for Palestinians say, as they do, “Not in My Name”, they echo the sentiments of many British Jews. Don’t take it from me: I speak as an outsider. At a gathering outside the Israeli Embassy the other day I saw a plucky little group with placards saying Jews Against the Occupation. You see them at almost every pro-Palestinian demonstration. They may of course be a small minority of the Jewish community but they single-handedly give the lie to the notion

that being Jewish is tantamount to being a supporter of the Netanyahu administration and its support for the settler violence in the West Bank. It is that strand of liberal Jewish identity that Miliband represents, as did his mother.

These liberal Jews are not alone in feeling repugnance at the actions of the Israeli PM. David Abulafia, a conservative Cambridge don who died recently, was contemptuous about Netanyahu: “I regard him as a crook,” he told me. He was an example of the diversity of British Jews; his family was one of those who had always lived in Jerusalem, from long before the establishment of the state of Israel.

One of the many tragedies of the present situation in the West Bank and Gaza is that it has increased antisemitic attacks by those Palestinian activists who cannot make the crucial distinction between being Jewish and supporting this particular Israeli government. That failure to distinguish between the Jewish community as a whole and the coalition behind the Israeli government is, to my mind, wicked. But the attacks unquestionably have escalated as the situation has worsened — and London’s Jewish community is justified in feeling under threat.

London Jews aren’t responsible for settlers in the West Bank attacking villages and attempting to deprive them of their homes, yet they are bearing the brunt of the indignation at what’s happening. The Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, a humane and intelligent man, has said that the imposition of sanctions marks a “dark day” for Britain’s Jews. Yet it’s not the sanctions which are causing anti-Jewish sentiment; it’s what’s happening in Israel. Sanctions are simply a reflection of the revulsion many British people feel at what’s going on.

A spokesman for the Israeli government in London declared that the sanctions create a fertile ground for antisemitism to flourish. They have, he says, nothing to do with the situation on the ground but “everything to do with politics”, by which he probably means the Labour MPs whose majorities depend on Muslim votes. Sorry, but that’s the wrong way round. It’s the situation on the ground which aggravates antisemitism.

And the actions of Jewish settlers in the West Bank are indeed tantamount to ethnic cleansing; even members of the Israeli military acknowledge as much and resent it. There are now hundreds of thousands of settlers in the occupied territories where they have no right to be. That’s the problem. As the Foreign Secretary has made clear, it’s a blatant bid to see off a two-state solution. We’re a long way from the kind of Israel politics that made possible the Oslo agreement, worse luck.

In other words, Miliband isn’t the problem. Sanctions aren’t the problem. It’s what a godawful government in Israel is doing that’s the real problem. And until that problem is resolved, British Jews will — iniquitously — be blamed for the actions of Benjamin Netanyahu.