Israel criticism has ‘crossed all sane boundaries’, says Andrew Mitchell
Shadow foreign secretary tells a Conservative Friends of Israel reception: 'Israel is one subject on which I have changed'
Lee Harpin is the Jewish News's political editor
People who fought against Nazi Germany and South African apartheid would “turn in their graves” at the phrases genocide and apartheid being applied to the situation in the Middle East, Andrew Mitchell has said.
The shadow foreign secretary told a Conservative Friends of Israel event at the Tory conference in Birmingham that a “vitriolic outpouring of hostility has crossed all boundaries of sane debate” about the Middle East.
In a well-received speech Mitchell admitted his views around Israel “have changed.”
He said “politics is a journey of sorts” and that “where you end up is not necessarily where you began.”
Mitchell continued:”Israel is one subject on which I have changed. It wasn’t that I hadn’t considered myself to be a friend of Israel. I always considered myself a strong, if critical friend.”
But he said that on October 7, “everything changed.”
“Like everyone here, I was utterly horrified by the brutal scenes unfolding in southern Israel,” added Michell. “Innocent civilians, women, children, babies. In their homes. Their beds. Dancing at a music festival for peace. Murdered. Raped.
Taken hostage.”
He added:”I saw my own family in all of them. I have two daughters and a grandson. I remember saying to my wife, it could have been them.
“And that was the moment. My generation is the post-war generation. We grew up with the Holocaust seared into our consciousness. After it emerged that that more Jewish people died that day than at any time since the Second World War, I thought of all those in Israel and around the world who descended from Holocaust victims and survivors.
“The collective, generational trauma that October 7 unleashed was not lost on many in the non-Jewish community. Perhaps that was the moment things changed for many
people.”
Mitchell said he issue of Israel is “not about the political rights and wrongs.”
“It is at heart about the survival of the Jewish people in their own homeland,” he added.
Mitchell said a few weeks later after the massacre David Cameron was made Foreign
Secretary “but it was I who went into bat in the House of Commons week in, week out.”
Speaking at the Tory fringe event, Mitchell likened the situation to the phrase that the night is always darkest before dawn, and insisted there was hope for peace.
But the shadow foreign secretary had harsh words for the most vocal critics of Israel, telling the audience: “In Parliament, on the streets of London, in university campuses around the world, we have witnessed a form of hysteria. Words like apartheid, genocide.
“Words that would make those who fought against Hitler and against the apartheid in South Africa turn in their graves. The vitriolic outpouring of hostility has crossed all boundaries of sane debate.
“Some of it may be well intentioned, people must be free to express their anger and protest the government of Israel and the genuine humanitarian concerns for the suffering we are witnessing.”
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