Page 10 - TORCH Magazine #14 - July 2019

we saw huge investments both ways, partly actually as a result of that trip. We did a lot
of good business but we want to step it up. There’s much much more to be done and I will be actively supporting trade and commercial engagements of all kinds.”
But the media attempted to stoke up controversy when his visit to the so-called West Bank was cancelled over comments he made earlier in his trip about the anti-Israel boycott movement.
“I cannot think of anything more foolish” than to boycott “a country that when all is said and done is the only democracy in the region, is the only place that has in my view a pluralist open society,” he said.
Whilst initial reports said the visit was cancelled by the Palestinians, it later emerged that the decision was based on security concerns resulting from the comments.
“Anti-Semitic syndrome”
Boris reaffirmed his opposition to Israeli boycotts in an interview with Jewish News, conducted days before his appointment as Prime Minister. He said that the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel is part of an anti-Semitic “syndrome,” adding that “anybody who knows anything about it knows that actually, the boycott and disinvestment movement will probably hit hardest Palestinian community people who are in jobs, are benefitting from Israeli investment, Israeli farming, whatever.”
Boris likewise condemned the Palestinian leadership’s policy of paying salaries to terrorists:
“I think it’s ludicrous that there should be any kind of financial incentive or compensation for terrorist activities,” he said, vowing to continue raising the issue with Mahmoud Abbas if he became PM.
Clarification
But Boris was pressed in the interview to clarify remarks he made in 2014, in which he described the Israeli military campaign in Gaza against Hamas as “disproportionate.”
“Israel has a right to respond, Israel has a right to defend itself. Israel has a right to
meet force with force. I absolutely agree with that, but all I was saying is I believe in Israel. I support Israel. I will always support Israel. I just joined with those who say ‘I want the Israeli response to be proportionate’.”
In 2017 following a question by Conservative MP, Crispin Blunt, asking if the international community should engage with Hamas, the then Foreign Secretary responded saying Hamas “have to renounce terror, have to recognise" the right of Israel to exist, “have to cease vile” antisemitism.
Opposition to anti-Israel bias
Boris’s tenure as Foreign Secretary saw him take a strong stand against the United Nations, describing its bias against Israel as “disproportionate and damaging to the cause of peace”. Boris became the UK’s first Foreign Secretary to vote against “Item 7”, a permanent U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) agenda item that singles out Israel for criticism. He also promised that the UK would vote against all anti-Israel resolutions after six months unless things changed. His successor, however, only partially honoured this ultimatum.
Despite acting in defence of Israel on multiple occasions, Boris as Foreign Secretary in December 2016 confirmed that Britain was closely involved in the formulation of UN Security Council Resolution 2334 concerning settlements and commended John Kerry’s critical speech on Israeli policy.
CUFI took action in response to the
UK’s involvement in the blatantly anti-Israel resolution with thousands of supporters challenging the Government’s decision. The pressure placed upon the Government led to Britain blocking the EU’s adoption of the Paris Peace Summit statement a few weeks later.
Embassy move
Sir Winston Churchill, one of Boris’s heroes about whom he has written a biography, said, “You ought to let the Jews have Jerusalem; it was they who made it famous”.
We hope this sentiment of recognition of rightful Jewish ownership of Jerusalem will run deep through the corridors of the