Richard Tice speaks of ‘enormous impact’ of visiting Nova Festival site in Israel

Reform UK’s Deputy Leader, Richard Tice, has told Jewish News of the impact of visiting the site of the Nova massacre during his first visit to Israel, saying “it will take a while to process it all.”

The MP for Boston and Skegness described how “in terms of the impact – visiting the site of the Nova music festival, now a memorial, talking to survivors from that horror, talking to emergency responders on the day, it will take a while [for me] to process it all, because it’s just so enormous.”

Tice who came to the country this week for a four-day visit, also met Israel’s President and Foreign Minister, visited Yad Vashem and the United Hatzalah headquarters, and saw for himself the significant aid operation taking place at Gaza’s border.

Additionally, he was personally taken around Kibbutz Kfar Aza by Mandy Damari, the mother of former hostage Emily Damari. He described how “walking around the kibbutz, seeing houses where the terrorists just brutally slaughtered people, was just utterly horrifying, and that will stay with me forever.”

The MP raised in Prime Ministers Questions a couple of months ago about how Emily Damari had confirmed, after her release, that she had been held in UNRWA facilities. He said this had reinforced his concern “that UNRWA is riddled with Hamas sympathizers, and so I challenged the prime minister on that, that we shouldn’t be funding UNRWA.

“I have deep concerns about, frankly, the performance of the wider UN and what I believe is a bad level of antisemitism amongst large chunks of the UN, ridiculous people like Tom Fletcher [the British UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs] spouting lies about famine amongst babies in Gaza.”

During his visit to the Kerem Shalom border crossing into Gaza, he described how he saw “humanitarian aid being transported in considerable quantities, standing amongst pallets and pallets and pallets of fresh fruit, avocados, bananas, onions, as well as other staples, flour, sugar and the like”.

“Those palettes – they hadn’t just brought them in for me. So that was also very educational. It allows me to talk with great knowledge about some of the absolute twaddle and nonsense talked about by the Left in the United Kingdom, both in the House of Commons and outside.”

Last month, speaking at the Britain Against Antisemitism march, Tice said that antisemitism in the House of Commons “was “way, way higher than 21%” – a reference to a recent YouGov poll about antisemitic attitudes in the UK in general.

“I stand by what I said”, he tells Jewish News. “There is a high level of antisemitism, a shameful level of antisemitism in the House of Commons. It is as simple as that. And when I stand to support and thank and defend Israel, I can feel it, from the people sitting behind me to the people sitting opposite me.”

Last week the leader of Australia’s opposition announced that her party would reverse recognition of a Palestinian state if they came to power – would Reform, who have strongly criticised the British government’s similar move, respond similarly if they win power? Tice says of recognition: “We think it’s completely the wrong action and therefore, implicitly, that goes without saying.”

The primary focus now, however, is on the peace deal put forward on Monday night by the Trump administration and agreed to by Israel and a wide range of Arab countries.

“I think our hopes and prayers at the moment are that this peace deal happens”, he says.

“There’s no recognition of a Palestinian state within this peace deal, quite rightly… the overriding sense here in Israel is that people are hoping and praying that all the hostages are immediately  released and that Hamas has no future involvement in running or managing Gaza, and that therefore everybody can try and rebuild, with all the challenges involved, towards a peaceful future.”