Founded in 1760, the Board of Deputies of British Jews bills itself as “the only democratically elected, cross-communal, representative body in the Jewish community” of the United Kingdom, and enjoys an authority to speak for its constituents without parallel in the U.S. Thus its decision to ignore Benjamin Netanyahu’s March 24 diplomatic visit to London, where he met with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to discuss the Iranian nuclear program, was a significant one. Melanie Phillips argues it was also a bad one:
You don’t have to agree with Netanyahu’s judicial reforms, nor with anything that he does, to be appalled by the Board’s behavior. Giving him the cold shoulder was not only a shocking discourtesy. It not only diminished his aim to gain urgent backing against Iran. It not only ignored a mission of deep importance to the defense of Israel against an unconscionable threat.
By treating Israel’s democratic prime minister as a pariah—as if he were a tyrant or dictator—it also revealed that the Board has all the acumen of a left-wing agitprop placard. By contrast, Gary Mond, chairman of the National Jewish Assembly, behaved like the grown-up in the room. The Assembly, he said, was “delighted” to welcome Netanyahu. . . . The judicial reforms and the Israeli demonstrations against them were “issues for the Israeli government and Israeli citizens to resolve” and it wasn’t the UK’s place to interfere.
The Board’s behavior also makes a mockery of the Jewish leadership’s professed concern that certain Israeli politicians promote hatred and division. The chief rabbi, Sir Ephraim Mirvis, wrote pointedly . . . on the eve of Netanyahu’s visit that Jewish unity was a “sacred responsibility—for politicians, leaders, activists” and everyone else. For the Board, however, Jewish unity somehow excludes Netanyahu.
Israel has been weakened when it urgently needs to be strong. And all those who have been telling the world that Israel is about to stop being a democracy and that its prime minister is a putative dictator who should become a political pariah have unforgivably helped empower the enemies of the Jewish people.
More about: Anglo-Jewry, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel and the Diaspora