Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas must condemn terrorist attacks against Israelis, rather than spread “disgusting antisemitic tropes,” British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said on Tuesday.
“When I meet with the leadership of the Palestinian Authority… I will make it clear that rather than spreading disgusting antisemitic tropes and outrageous distortions of history, they should be clear in their denouncement of violence,” Cleverly said as he addressed the World Summit on Counter-Terrorism in Herzliya.
“When I meet with the leadership of the Palestinian Authority… I will make it clear that rather than spreading disgusting antisemitic tropes and outrageous distortions of history, they should be clear in their denouncement of violence.”
James Cleverly
The PA “should be clear that there is no acceptance for brutality and terrorism,” Cleverly said. It “should be clear that there is no excuse to target Israelis, particularly Israeli civilians, because that is the only way that peace is possible,” he added.
Cleverly spoke after the highly publicized speech Abbas gave to a meeting of Fatah’s Revolutionary Council on August 24. Abbas alleged that Ashkenazi Jews stemmed from Europe, not the Middle East, and were murdered during the Holocaust due to hatred against them for their historical role as moneylenders. He also accused the United States and Great Britain of inventing the idea of Jewish statehood.
While in Israel and the Palestinian territories, Cleverly has met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, and PA Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh. He also spoke with Rabbi Leo Dee, a British-Israeli citizen whose wife, Lucy, and two daughters Maia, 20, and Rina, 16, were killed this year in a Palestinian terror attack.
Cleverly in his Herzliya address said Israel and the UK were united in their grief over the killing of the three women.
The foreign secretary also spoke out against extremist statements by Israeli politicians and settler violence against Palestinians.
Both Israelis and Palestinians, he said, must “crack down on activities that inflame violence, and spread racism and hate.”
He spoke out against vigilante settler activity, noting that he had raised the issue in his conversations with Israeli leaders.
“We do need to make sure there is respect of law.. that is something that I have been able to discuss here. I commend Israel’s taking of legal action against those settlers who have perpetrated violence,” Cleverly said.
Great Britain, he emphasized, “will always stand by Israel’s right to self-defense,” underscoring that Israel’s “right to self-defense belongs exclusively to Israel’s security forces who operate within the line of international law.”
Bashing Mahmoud Abbas's use of antisemitic tropes
Cleverly also stressed his continued support for a two-state resolution to the conflict at a time when Israelis are increasingly rejecting that option.
The “two-state solution is the best, perhaps the only route to a genuinely sustainable peace in the region,” he said.The “first step is always the hardest and it is only by reconciling with those with whom reconciliation seemed unthinkable can peace prevail,” he said.
“That first step would be for all sides, Israelis and Palestinians, to recommit and demonstrate unequivocal support for a two-state solution,” Cleverly stated.
He lauded the strong bilateral relationship between Israel and the United Kingdom and condemned Iran for its call to destroy the Jewish state as well as its support of terror against it.
“Iran refuses to take responsibility for their complicity in these attacks, but we in the UK are under no illusion about Iran’s maligned role,” he said.
The UK’s strategic partnership with Israel means that it must “counter Iran’s destabilizing actions in the region,” Cleverly said. He also spoke against Iranian military support for Russia in its invasion of Ukraine.