Mandelson says ‘overwhelming majority’ in Labour have ‘unwavering’ support for Israel
Peer tells a Yom Ha’atzmaut event that he fears a two-state solution for the region was 'further away' today than 30 years ago
Lee Harpin is the Jewish News's political editor
Lord Mandelson has insisted that the “overwhelming majority” in the Labour Party have an “unwavering” belief “not only to Israel’s right to exist, but it’s right to defend itself against those who want to extinguish the state today”.
Speaking at at a Yom Ha’atzmaut event at the Israeli Embassy in London, the Labour grandee also spoke of his regret that a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians seems “further away” than when he first wrote an article in favour of one in 1975.
In a friendly jibe directed at Israeli ambassador to the UK Tzipi Hotovely, who hosted Tuesday’s event, and has openly spoken against a two-solution, Mandelson referenced the article he wrote back then.
He said: “It was an article, sorry ambassador, advocating the case for a two-state solution.”
But the former business secretary said: “I just have to say I’m just sorry that the creation of a two-state solution I’m afraid is even further away.”
Mandelson spoke of his struggle with the “ultra left militants” inside and outside Labour who argued for opposition to Zionism.
He said: “In the 1980’s I became increasingly aware of the need to defend Labour’s support for Israel from ultra left militants and forces both inside the Labour party and outside. Those who had climbed on and who were pushing the ‘Zionism is racism’ bandwagon that had initially been created by the United Nations General Assembly.”
Describing the late Yitzhak Rabin as “my hero” and a “great diplomat and peacemaker” before he was assassinated, Mandelson said he was “thrilled” to visit the museum in his name on a recent visit to Israel.
He said that throughout all the wars, and incursions into the Jewish state “I had an unwavering belief in Israel’s right to exist, as so many of us, the overwhelming majority do in the Labour Party.”
He also poured scorn on those who sought to ignore the horrors of the Hamas terror attack in Israel concentrating only instead on what happened as Israel responded to the massacre on October 7.
The peer spoke also of his father Tony, someone who, despite being Jewish, was a “militant atheist” up until “Israel ever attacked, at which point he would jump up out of his seat as he did in 1967 and again in 1973.”
Deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden also spoke at the event.
He praised the Tory government’s record saying:“We have made the protests safer and less intimidating.
“We have published a new definition of extremism that tackles the radicalisation behind such intimidation and we’ve increased the funding for the wonderful Community Security Trust to a record £78million.”
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