SCOTTISH Labour leader Anas Sarwar has defended the UK Government’s decision to play host to Israeli president Isaac Herzog despite the genocide in Gaza.
Herzog – who was specifically cited in the International Court of Justice’s provisional ruling which said Palestinians’ right to be protected from genocide was facing a “plausible” risk – is expected to visit the UK on Wednesday and Thursday next week.
Sarwar, who on Monday first publicly described Israel’s campaign in Gaza as genocide, defended the visit, saying that diplomacy involved speaking to people “who you fundamentally disagree with and whose actions you find absolutely abhorrent”.
He went on: “The most important thing is that we end this war in Gaza right now, and the only way that war is going to come to an end is that Benjamin Netanyahu, his government, sees sense and stop this atrocious abomination and genocide that's happening in Gaza right now.
“Let's not forget it's a Labour Government that's going to be recognising the state of Palestine in a very short space of time as we head towards the UN General Assembly.
“But recognition itself is not going to stop the war. What's going to stop the war is diplomacy, and that's going to take hard work.”
Asked if such diplomacy meant that Herzog had to be welcomed to the UK, Sarwar said he did not “know the processes or the back story of how this meeting is happening”.
He went on: “But I'm sure that Labour ministers are going to make it very clear to any representative of the Israeli government that we believe their actions are abhorrent, completely unacceptable, that they are doing a deliberate famine and starvation of the people of Gaza, that their indiscriminate killing is only making it harder to achieve peace and security for the Israeli people – and also the Palestinian people, and that we are going to recognise the state of Palestine and we're going to continue to demand that the war stops right now.”
Asked if he was comfortable with Labour ministers meeting with the Israeli president, Sarwar said: “It's not a question of comfort.
“What matters to me is that people in Gaza stopped dying, and whether I feel comfortable or uncomfortable is not really that important.
“What's important is that these Israeli ministers understand that their actions are in clear breach of international humanitarian law, that the world is watching, that they will be held to account and to justice for their inappropriate actions, and that the killing and the starvation of the people of Gaza has to end.
“And ultimately diplomacy is the only way we're going to get that to happen rather than turning our back on people who we fundamentally disagree with.”
Douglas Alexander, a Scottish Labour MP and UK Government minister, also defended the Herzog visit on Friday.
“It is right that we are engaging with politicians from across the region, because the suffering is incalculable and it needs to stop,” Alexander said.
If Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was to visit the UK, the Labour Government would be obliged to arrest him due to a warrant from the International Criminal Court, where he is facing charges of crimes against humanity.
Responding to Herzog’s visit, Scottish Greens co-leader Gillian Mackay said that “any war criminal travelling to the UK should be arrested the moment their plane lands”.
The decision to host the Israeli president has also sparked anger from Labour MPs including Sarah Champion, the chair of the International Development Select Committee at Westminster.
“The UK’s recognised the ‘real risk’ of genocide perpetuated by Israel, so unless this meeting is about peace – what message are we sending?” Champion asked.
Herzog has previously asserted that all Palestinians in Gaza were “unequivocally” responsible for the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023.
"The entire [Palestinian] nation out there that is responsible. It is not true this rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved,” said Herzog in October 2023 in comments that were later cited by the International Court of Justice in its genocide ruling.
Herzog has also defended Israel’s illegal settlement of the West Bank, claiming it is a “positive, wonderful, and thriving project”.
