News
'Challenge those who delegitimise Israel', Hilary Benn tells Friends group
November 17, 2015 18:27
Labour’s Shadow Foreign Secretary has urged the party to combat delegitimisation of Israel, but did not spell out opposition to boycotts of the country.
Hilary Benn told supporters of Labour Friends of Israel that the bonds between his party and the country were “strong and run deep”.
A number of senior party members spoke at the Westminster lunch on Tuesday, but none mentioned the name of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who did not attend.
Mr Corbyn had been heckled at an LFI reception in September after failing to mention the word “Israel” during his speech.
Mr Benn did not refer to Mr Corbyn’s anti-Israel activism, but told the audience that the party was committed to supporting Israel.
“Our future relations must be built on cooperation and engagement, not isolation of Israel. We must take on those who seek to delegitimise the state of Israel or question its right to exist,” he said.
Mr Benn praised Israel for its “progressive spirit, vibrant democracy, strong welfare state, thriving free press and independent judiciary”. The country had become, he said, “an economic giant, a high-tech centre, second only to the United States. A land of innovation and entrepreneurship, venture capital and graduates, private and public enterprise”.
It was essential to work towards a peace process for Israelis and Palestinians, and a two-state solution. “There should be an urgency about the search for peace rather than the shrugging of a shoulder,” Mr Benn said.
The “spirit and leadership” of Yitzhak Rabin were needed “now more than ever”, he added.
On specific foreign affairs aspects, he said he understood some supporters of Israel had “grave reservations” about the nuclear deal with Iran, but it was, he said, “the right thing to do. We must, of course, hold Iran to the undertakings it has made, and while having no illusions about its activities in the region”.
The Shadow Foreign Secretary said: “Whether it is Paris, Tel Aviv, Tunisia, Beirut or Ankara, the scourge of terrorist violence affects us all and we must stand against it. In the case of Isil/Daesh we are all agreed that they must be defeated, but it is negotiation that will bring the Syrian civil war to an end.”
Attendees had earlier observed a minute’s silence for the victims of the Paris terror attacks.
Mr Benn described his family connection to Israel and said his grandmother had been an active member of the Council of Christians and Jews who taught herself Hebrew and collected water from the River Jordan for her grandchildren to be baptised in.
LFI chair Joan Ryan MP opened the lunch, which was attended by Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, communal leaders and more than a dozen Labour MPs.
Ms Ryan said: “Our task is to help support the prerequisites for peace: the stepping stones towards a just and lasting settlement.
“To do that, at the forefronts of our minds must always be the question: by our actions and our words, who are we empowering?
“Are we assisting those who strive for peace, promote co-existence and seek reconciliation? Or are we strengthening those of violence, those who foster division and reject compromise?”
She said the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against Israel was both “wrong in principle” and did “nothing to serve the cause it claims to advance”.
Shadow cabinet members Andy Burnham, Luciana Berger, Michael Dugher were among the audience, as were former front-benchers Yvette Cooper, Tessa Jowell, Ivan Lewis, Jim Murphy and Chuka Umunna.
