No sympathy for terrorised Israelis from BDS crowd, says Michael Gove

But Margaret Hodge, the veteran Jewish Labour MP and campaigner against antisemitism, agreed, saying it “would not help the Jewish community” in the wake of the Hamas attacks and would worsen the problem it was supposed to solve.

Most of the criticism levelled at the Bill focused on a section that says that Israel, the Golan Heights and the Occupied Territories can never be the subject of boycotts by publicly-funded bodies in future, although boycotts of other countries — such as those engaging in slavery or environmental degradation — might be permissible.

Tory MP Kit Malthouse said that by including this clause, Gove was “playing into the antisemitism that we have seen rise in this country”, claiming that Israel “should be treated in the same way as other country”.

But Gove responded by saying that Israel alone was singled out for treatment of this kind, while all the main national Jewish organisations supported the measure in its current form. He read out a message he received on Wednesday from the Community Security Trust, saying BDS “has a chilling impact on Jews”, making it likely they would be “shunned”.

Gove said that if the measure were watered down in the way some demanded, “the very purpose of the Bill would be undermined”.

He concluded by asking: “If after the events of the last three weeks, the government removed this clause, what message would it send?”

The Bill will return to Parliament for its third and final Commons reading after the King’s Speech next month.

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