UK: Pro-Israel group takes subdued tone at conference

The UK’s Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) reception reportedly took a subdued tone amid increasing anger at the ruling Labour Party’s policies towards Israel, the Middle East Eye reported on October 1st.

The event took place on September 30th, against a backdrop of Labour delegates voting to recognise that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, and it was part of the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool.

British Chancellor Rachel Reeves was the keynote speaker, and she told the audience: “I know as well in the last couple of years, in the last 15 months, you haven’t always been pleased with the decisions of this government.”

She continued: “I understand. I feel your pain. But know in me, you always have a friend.”

Reeves described the October 7th, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel as “the biggest loss on a single day of Jewish people since the Holocaust” and condemned “what is happening in the Middle East and the aggression of Iran and others in the Middle East”.

It was unclear if “others” referred to Israel or not.

Reeves declared: “As long as I am in the cabinet, as long as I am Chancellor of the Exchequer, I will always stand up for the Jewish community, stand up for Israel.”

She added: “I’ll be here with you next year and the year after and the year after that and the year after that” before pledging: “I’ll always be a friend of Israel. I’ll always be a friend of everybody in this room.”

Another speaker was Daniela Grudsky, the deputy Israeli ambassador to the UK, who criticised the UK government’s recognition of a Palestinian state claiming that the UK is “rewarding terrorism”.

Grudsky said: “I must be honest in this room. We strongly disagree with the UK government’s position to recognise a Palestinian state. It is not a path to peace but to more violence.”

“Rather than rewarding terrorism, the world must step up its pressure on Hamas to meaningfully accept and abide by the peace deal.”

It is unclear whether “we” refers to LFI as an organisation or to specific individuals within the group.

Claims that Hamas would benefit from the recognition of a Palestinian state were dismissed on July 29th, with British Transport Minister Heidi Alexander saying that Britain’s plan was not a “reward for Hamas.”

She stated that the decision was “about the Palestinian people” and “about those children that we see in Gaza who are starving to death.”

There was seemingly no mention of how the UK government faced scrutiny over its ongoing surveillance operations in Gaza, where the intelligence gathered was shared with Israeli authorities.

On August 26th, it was reported that UN Special Rapporteur for Palestine, Francesca Albanese, would participate in a tribunal set up by MP Jeremy Corbyn to examine alleged British complicity in Israel’s war on Gaza.

Middle East Eye, Maghrebi.org