The New UK Government's Anti-Israel Policy Is a Disgrace
by Con Coughlin • September 12, 2024 at 5:00 am
The pretence that the UK's new Labour government has moved away from the blatant anti-Semitism that was rife under its former leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has been brutally exposed by the actions of David Lammy, the party's new Foreign Secretary.
It was during Corbyn's stint as Labour leader that his party faced constant accusations of anti-Semitism. A damning report produced by the Jewish Labour Movement in 2019 said the party harboured "endemic, institutional anti-Semitism" and that there was "overwhelming evidence that anti-Semitic conduct is pervasive at all levels of the party."
Having been a close political ally of two prominent Labour politicians accused of anti-Semitism, it is hardly surprising therefore that two of Lammy's first initiatives since his appointment as Labour's new foreign secretary in July have been aimed at discrediting Israel.
His first act was to withdraw the British government's official objection to attempts to persuade the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on war crimes charges.
At the same time, Lammy confirmed that the UK was to restore its funding to UNRWA, the UN agency responsible for supporting Palestinian refugees, after support for the organisation was withdrawn by a number of countries -- including the US -- over claims its staffers were directly involved in the October 7 attacks carried out by Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists against Israel.
Lammy has now added to his anti-Israel stance by suspending a number of UK arms contracts to Israel, a decision that was announced on the same day that Israel buried the latest group of hostages to be murdered by Hamas terrorists, a decision that was denounced by Netanyahu as "shameful".
As a junior minister in Tony Blair's government in 2006, for example, the Harvard-educated Lammy called for the British media to provide a platform for them to air their "poisonous" views.
His appeal came shortly after a cell of al-Qaeda terrorists had carried out their worst terrorist attack against the UK with the London bombings in July 2005, murdering 72 innocent commuters and wounding more than 700.
While Lammy's anti-Israel policies will undoubtedly appeal to the Labour's Party's hard-Left, they are also likely to place Starmer's government on a collision course with Washington, which has concluded there are no grounds for suspending arms deals with Israel, and that the creation of Palestinian state, as agreed in the Oslo Accords, is contingent on successful peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
Lammy's blatant anti-Israel agenda will also place the UK's long-standing strategic alliance with Israel under intense strain. Having worked closely on a number of vital security issues, such as Iran's nuclear programme and the threat posed by Islamist terrorists, the Israeli government will be disinclined to maintain cooperation with the UK's new Labour government so long as Lammy remains foreign secretary.
The pretence that the UK's new Labour government has moved away from the blatant anti-Semitism that was rife under its former leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has been brutally exposed by the actions of David Lammy, the party's new Foreign Secretary.
Prior to his appointment to one of the British government's key positions in Prime Minister Keir Starmer's new administration, Lammy had made his name as a Left-wing firebrand.
Having first come to prominence within the Labour movement for his campaigning on racial equality issues, he became closely associated with hard-Left members of the Labour Party, including both Corbyn and former London mayor Ken Livingstone.
