The Labour government went into meltdown this week after Israel barred two of its Members of Parliament from entering Israel. But Israel, a sovereign democratic nation that is currently at war, is within its rights to determine who it enters through its borders. Britain has long exercised the right to deny entry to individuals it considers dangerous, destabilising, or simply unwelcome. But the real story in this saga is the hypocrisy demonstrated by Britain’s governing party.
The two Labour MPs, Abtisam Mohamed and Yuan Yang, were denied entry to Israel last weekend. Both politicians are anti-Israel. They were not visiting in an official capacity, and their destination was the West Bank (Judea and Samaria). Mohamed has accused Israel of deliberately starving civilians in Gaza – a blatant lie – and has called for a boycott of Israeli goods. Yang meanwhile has called for sanctions against Israeli politicians. Israel will ‘rue the day that they did this to British parliamentarians’, Labour’s Emily Thornberry told SkyNews.
The two MPs were offered hotel accommodation by Israel, which they refused, and paid for the politicians’ flight back to London. Nevertheless, the situation caused an emergency statement in Westminster, attended by 70 Labour MPs in contrast to 20 Labour MPs that attended the statement on the British steel crisis. Clearly, Labour MPs regard international travel a far higher priority than pressing domestic challenges.
Leading the outrage against Israel’s decision is Britain’s Foreign Secretary, David Lammy. He accused the Israeli government of suppressing free speech. Ironic, when you consider the British politician’s track record of calling for people who disagree with him to be barred from entering the UK.
For example corrupt ICC has an active arrest warrant for Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu. One of Lammy’s first actions in government was to drop the UK’s joint action with Germany seeking to have the arrest warrant overturned. On this basis, should the Israeli leader seek to come to the UK he would be arrested and extradited to the Hague.
This is the same David Lammy who in 2017 posted on Twitter that he had written to the Prime Minister ‘asking her to ban Donald Trump from entering the United Kingdom’. In a further Twitter tirade, Lammy once said he would chain himself to Number 10 if Trump was allowed in the country. Needless to say he didn’t.
In 2008, Lammy was part of the Labour government that barred Israeli politician Moshe Feiglin from entering the UK as it would ‘not be conducive to the public good’.
This was not the only example of politicians being banned. Dutch politician Geert Wilders was also banned from entering Britain in 2009, being turned away at Heathrow airport. The Labour government cited Wilders’ criticisms of Islam for the reason.
As demonstrated this week in its reaction to Israel, the Left criticises the right of democratic nations to deny entry where legitimate concerns exist, but weaponises the right when it suits their political bias. They claim to be champions of free speech and liberties, but the record of Left governance shows quite the contrary. It is a complete double standard.
In the case of Israel’s decision to bar two Labour MPs, Britain’s ally in the Middle East – fighting for its survival – determined that there was no credible evidence that they were part of any official parliamentary delegation. Israel has no obligation to invite politicians who seek to damage Israel from within and stoke up anti-Israel rhetoric back home.
Responding to CUFI UK’s Podcast this week, CUFI supporters agreed.
Commenting on the CUFI UK podcast channel, Marian said, “Well done to Israel. You are a sovereign country and have every right to control your borders.”
Another contributor said, “I live in Yang’s constituency and I know she’s anti-Israel and anti-Christian.”
Sarah said, “Israel has every right not to allow ‘enemies of the state’ into their country. Is should not even be up for discussion! Any person(s) openly hostile to Israel should by default not be allowed entry. This will send a very clear message to anyone else with evil intent towards this nation. The absolute hypocrisy when this county has openly said that Netanyahu would be ‘arrested’ if he came to the UK – it just defies belief!
