BICOM

Labour’s Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry attended Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas’ antisemitic speech earlier this week and, despite posting a lengthy statement on Facebook about her experiences, did not mention the antisemitic statements.

Thornberry confirmed that she attended and spoke at the conference in Ramallah in a Facebook post on 1 May, she said that Abbas was “right” to argue the Trump peace team cannot act as impartial mediators for peace when they are “sowing the seeds of discord”.  Thornberry issued another statement yesterday evening which said Abbas’s remarks were “regrettable” and “out of keeping with the tone of the Council as a whole”.

Speaking at the conference, the Shadow Foreign Secretary promised that a future Labour government would “formally recognise the State of Palestine, and urge other countries to do the same, not in due course, not when the time is right, but now and without delay”. She also said that, as a matter of urgency, a Labour government would host an international funding conference to address the humanitarian needs of the Palestinian people and Palestinian refugees she cited the the gaps in funding caused by US President Donald Trump’s “cruel and spiteful” cuts.

Thornberry also attacked the Government of Israel, calling for its “breaches of international law when it comes to the detention, ill-treatment and unfair prosecution of Palestinian children” to be investigated by the UN Security Council.

Abbas’s speech, where he said that Jews caused the Holocaust with their “social behaviour,” has been further condemned by politicians and leading commentators. Israeli President Rivlin, said: “How can a leader who expresses such dark antisemitic ideas present himself as a partner in peace?” Antisemitism doesn’t create a ‘dialogue’, there is no negotiating with antisemites.”

UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Nickolay Mladenov, said Abbas’s remarks were “unacceptable, deeply disturbing and do not serve the interests of the Palestinian people or peace in the Middle East”. Mehdi Hasan, commentator and Al Jazerra presenter, condemned Abbas’s speech on Twitter as “dumb, offensive, ahistorical and, yes, deeply, deeply anti-Semitic”. The British Government is yet to make a statement about the speech.