THE scheduled visit to the UK next Tuesday and Wednesday of Israeli president Isaac Herzog has enraged Labour MPs. The visit will take place just as the final, all-out Israeli military onslaught to kill, or drive out, a million Palestinian residents of Gaza City begins.
Herzog is expected to meet Labour government ministers, but PM Keir Starmer has not yet confirmed any meeting with him in Downing Street.
In fact, Starmer must cancel any meeting with Herzog and instead meet with the leader of the Palestinian delegation to the TUC, the general secretary of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions Shaher Saed and invite him to address the House of Commons!
In fact, Starmer last met Herzog in July 2024 in Paris, where they reconfirmed the ‘historic friendship’ between the UK and Israel, with Starmer declaring his full support for Zionist state’s ‘right to self-defence’.
At that time, after the International Criminal Court (ICC) found Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu guilty of war crimes, UK Defence Secretary David Lammy publicly called for Netanyahu’s arrest if he stepped foot on British soil, a move the UK would be obligated to make as a party to the ICC’s Rome Statute.
MP Zarah Sultana, who sits as an independent member of parliament after her suspension from Labour, said she was ‘beyond disgusted’ at the prospect of Herzog travelling to the UK and has called for his arrest for ‘war crimes’.
Her post on X said: ‘Beyond disgusted that Israeli President Herzog is set to visit London next week to meet Labour ministers. The Labour Party is living up to its reputation as The Genocide Party. Herzog should be arrested for war crimes the moment he sets foot on UK soil.
In a February 2024 interview with the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, Herzog arrogantly rejected ‘out of hand’ accusations of crimes against civilians after he had been named in the ICC war crimes trial against Netanyahu. This was in spite of Gaza’s Health Ministry’s declaration last month of a ‘man-made’ famine in the enclave and over 65,000 recorded deaths of Palestinians.
In a June appearance on Kuenssberg’s show, Herzog alleged that Palestinians shot while queuing for food at US-Israeli Gaza food aid sites were ‘Hamas operatives’, and rejected other reports of US-contractors and Israeli troops being responsible as ‘false’.
Israeli ministers have now declared their intention to move toward annexation of large parts of the West Bank, as well as the whole of Gaza, and military cooperation has continued with the UK government approving licences for UK parts for F-35 fighter jets for Israel.
Clearly the current Herzog visit has been planned to reverse any UK plan to conditionally recognise a Palestinian state, among further discussions about prosecuting the genocidal war in Palestine.
Herzog is not welcome in Britain and the working class must take action to oppose the visit. Starmer’s government must revoke his visa immediately and arrest him if he sets foot in the UK.
The annual TUC congress of trade unions is meeting in Brighton from Sunday 7 September and it must decide to call a general strike to bring down this pro-Israel Labour government for its unending military, financial and diplomatic support for Israeli war crimes.
Herzog must not enter Britain as the guest of an unravelling Labour government, mired in corruption with Deputy PM and Housing Minister Angela Rayner’s £40,000 tax avoidance offence, a bankrupt economy drowning in over £3.2 trillion of public debt and preparing an onslaught of NHS and public spending cuts and crippling tax increases against the working class in November’s Budget.
The call for a general strike by the TUC would bring down this crisis-ridden Starmer government and prepare the way for a workers’ government and socialism in Britain, with a nationalised economy planned to provide all the necessities of life to the working and middle class.
Join the TUC Lobby in Brighton on Sunday 7th. Forward to a Palestinian state! Down with capitalism, forward to the general strike and Socialism.
