British Labour party leader Keir Starmer and senior shadow cabinet ministers have hosted officials from Israel’s Labor party in a move designed to underline the contrast with Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, The Guardian reports.
According to the report, nine officials have been hosted, including the deputy mayor of Tel Aviv, Chen Arieli, the party’s chief executive, Nir Rosen, and senior staffers from the Israeli leader’s office.
The Guardian reported that the shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, hosted the delegation for dinner and the group also met the shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, and discussed campaign tactics with senior figures in Labour HQ including the general secretary, David Evans, and campaign director Morgan McSweeney.
When Corbyn was Labour leader, he faced ongoing accusations of antisemitism, both over his history of hostility towards Israel and support for anti-Israel terrorist groups, as well as the rise in anti-Jewish rhetoric within the party.
Dozens of Labour members have been suspended over their antisemitic statements in recent years, while the party has been criticized for its failure to deal with the antisemitism within it.
In the most recent British parliamentary election, Labour recorded its worst performance, in terms of seats, since 1935.
Corbyn eventually stepped down and was later suspended from Labour following the publication of a report which found numerous cases where the party leadership under Corbyn underplayed, belittled or ignored complaints by Jewish members, and sometimes actively interfered to support political allies.
He was reinstated to Labour after appearing to apologize for belittling the report.
The former leader of the Israeli Labor party, Avi Gabbay, cut ties with Corbyn in 2018 over the handling of antisemitism within the Labour party.
Starmer, who became party leader after Corbyn stepped down, apologized shortly after being elected for how the Labour Party has handled antisemitism within its ranks and committed to making change.
He later committed to setting up an independent complaints process for anti-Semitism in the party, saying it is “very important to me to seek to address the disgrace of anti-Semitism in our party as soon as possible.”
Jonathan Cummings, international adviser to current Labor leader, Transportation Minister Merav Michaeli, said it was a “great relief” to be in contact with the British Labour party and said they were struck by the time they had been given by senior politicians.
“Our main concern was always about antisemitism and the Jewish community – anti-Israel, anti-Zionism, that was almost a secondary issue. We wanted to be on the right side, supporting the community here,” he said, according to The Guardian.
Michael Rubin, director of Labour Friends of Israel, said the visit was “an important landmark in the rebuilding of the deep and historic relationship with our sister party”.
(Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)