Tag: United Kingdom

Israelis do not hanker for a return to the days of the British Mandate. Nor do they hide secret reservoirs of nostalgia for the sometimes-brutal British colonial police who once strutted about their streets. But they did react with undisguised pleasure to the decision by the UK Foreign Office last month that the future king, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, would this year make the first official visit to Israel by a senior member of the British royal family...

Sir Gerald Kaufman was more than just another veteran Labour politician. Having entered the House of Commons in 1970, he was the longest-serving parliamentarian of any political hue... And, as an Orthodox Jew, he should have been revered by the Jewish community. Instead, when he died last month aged 86, not a tear of sadness touched the cheek of British Jewry.

The British decision to uncouple from the EU, expected to take effect by 2019, was not unqualified good news for Israel: Britain, along with Germany, has been among Israel's most stalwart diplomatic allies in the EU and its voice within the decision-making forums of the EU will be missed, particularly on the vexatious question of the "Middle East Peace Process"...

If it was true that you can judge a man by the company he keeps, Jeremy Corbyn would be an Israel-hating, antisemitic, Holocaust-denier. The newly elected leader of Britain's Labour Party would vehemently deny he is any of the above, but some of his best friends are one or more of these things.