2 min read
What a difference a week makes. The Conservative gathering in Birmingham had none of the underlying tension over Israel that was felt among Labour activists at their conference.
The Conservative Friends of Israel event with Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond was as packed as any fringe session to be found throughout the entire conference season.
The dozens of young party activists crammed into the room may have been drawn by the free drinks and A-list speaker, but they left with the knowledge that the Tories stand more firmly behind Israel than any of the other political parties.
That was a point rammed home in no uncertain terms by Theresa Villiers who went for the Lib Dems and Ed Miliband with all guns blazing.
Elsewhere, there were few references to Israel in the main speeches of any of the party heavyweights, and in the fringe sessions the focus was almost entirely on the economy, jobs and domestic issues.
Nonetheless, the Conservative Middle East Council's session with Sir Alan Duncan was well-attended, and featured a cameo from Channel 4 News presenter Jon Snow.
The broadcaster, who was criticised over what some saw as biased reporting from Gaza during the conflict, boldly suggested that many Israelis he had met were now sufficiently confident in their nation's strength that they would happily settle for a one-state solution and take on whatever challenges might come along.
Tory MEP Sir Robert Atkins made an even more bizarre claim when he told the session: "The burgeoning Israel lobby in the UK is now almost as strong as the one in the United States."
The apparent lack of any focus on Israel throughout the rest of the conference only served to show how wrong he was.
Some might have expected to hear more from the cabinet on antisemitism and issues affecting British Jews, but it is worth remembering that a trio of the party big beasts - Prime Minister David Cameron, Home Secretary Theresa May and Chief Whip Michael Gove - had already addressed such concerns in the weeks before the conference.
The contrast with Labour was stark, where an uneasy truce was struck between Israel supporters and the party leadership.
While all the pre-conference chatter had been about the prospect of a push for boycotts, the party's determination to avoid hostility on the issue was sufficient to see off anti-Israel motions on the conference floor.
But it was at the fringe events and in the hotel bars that the true state of relations became clear.
At Labour Friends of Israel's packed session, Shadow Foreign Secretary Douglas Alexander was received with loud cheers. Many had expected him to be given a rough ride after his repeated criticism of Israel's military action. Indeed one shadow cabinet member admitted that the warmth of the welcome had been a surprise.
But scratch below the surface and there was still resentment. A senior Israeli embassy source said it had been a "cheap shot" for Mr Alexander to "buy off the crowd" by using the majority of his short address to rail against rising antisemitism rather than concentrate on the Gaza issue.