Speech by Gordon Brown to the LFI Annual Reception - 25 September 2007

“This is one of the great events of the Labour Conference. I have been proud to be a member of Labour Friends of Israel over three decades and you have gone from strength to strength and this is one of the great gatherings, not only of this week but of all the events I have been when Labour Friends of Israel have held meetings at the Labour Party Conference. So I want to thank all of you for coming this evening, for the support that you give to Labour Friends of Israel, for the support that you give to Israel itself, and for the support that you are giving to the peace process in the Middle East.

I am particularly privileged to be here, following the work that Tony Blair has done when he has been Prime Minister and I want to continue that work now as Prime Minister. I was talking to Tony only a few days ago and he has been in the Middle East for two weeks, he is now in America and he is using all his efforts and all his energies to push forward the Middle East process and I will give him all the support that I can, and I know that you will wish him all the best that you can. He has our support in everything that he does.

I was talking at the conference yesterday about my upbringing in Kirkcaldy in Fife in Scotland. And you may think it is a long way from Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and so many of the cities and towns of Israel, but for me when I was growing up, Kirkcaldy and Tel Aviv were linked very closely because my father used to spend many weeks in Israel, he was the chairman of the Church of Scotland’s Israel Committee, he went on visits to meet people twice a year for more than 20 years and as I was growing up in my early years as then in my teens I was brought up on slides on an old projector, all these photographs that he brought back of Israel’s history, books about Israel, and I learned very young and at first hand from my father of the struggles, the sacrifices the achievements of the new state of Israel and of the Israeli people.

So I just want to say to you who are also friends of Israel that I was brought up with a very strong understanding that the future of Israel matters not just to Israel itself but matters to the whole of the world and I will continue to do what I can both to defend Israel and to protect the security of Israel’s borders with all the work that is being done on that but also to work on the Middle East peace process that we want to see.

I also have been a visitor to Israel myself and seen the sights that were described to me when I was growing up in the town of Kirkcaldy. And I was invited one year to give the Balfour Lecture. And it was a very strange experience, because I was invited to speak I think it was at the Hilton hotel. And I assumed that, when I agreed to give the Balfour Lecture I was speaking at the Hilton hotel, London.

And it was only at the last minute as I was making my arrangements for how I could get there that I found it was the Hilton hotel Tel Aviv. But such was my commitment to do the Balfour lecture that I got over there very quickly and I actually managed to give it and it was a very great honour for me to be able to do so.

You may think that I do not know much about foreign affairs when you hear this story, I started off as Member of Parliament in 1983 and then in about 1984, Gerald Kaufman, became the foreign affairs spokesman for the Labour Party. And Gerald – I do not know if he is here, is he? – so I can tell the story…. Gerald wanted to go to the theatre or the opera or to the cinema in the evening and when Tony and I had just arrived as young Members of Parliament, we were on the same corridor as Gerald. He used to ask us to stand in for him, even though we were just junior backbench spokesmen. He used to ask us to stand in for him when he was actually doing his job because he wanted to go to the cinema this night, he asked me would I do a radio interview for him for a station, a radio station down under on the state of the Labour party and what reforms we were making.

And this was my big break, it was my first interview on foreign affairs, my first chance to talk to the world and I was quite excited about it. And Gerald fixed it all up, he went out to enjoy himself. At ten o’clock the telephone rang and I was put through as I was being told to a radio station where I was to give this interview. And so I went through to the station, the guy said “we are putting you straight onto the programme, you are going to be live on the programme, you are just about to be interviewed, stand by”.

I stood by and the guy said, “Mr Brown” he said. “ We are really interested in what is happening to the British Labour party, you under Neil Kinnock are making all these great reforms, you are doing really well but our Labour Party here seems just stuck in the mud. What do you think of that?”

And I said, “look the British Labour Party is making all these great reforms” I said, “ but so too are you, I mean I have just spoken to Bob Hawke, the Australian Prime Minister the other day and I am really proud of what you are doing, it is very similar to us”. And he said, “Mr Brown, this is Radio Auckland, our Prime Minister is David Longe and you are speaking to the people of New Zealand”. I thought my career was over at that point.

Now seriously, it is an enormous pleasure and privilege to be speaking to you this evening, as has just been said and I thank all the officials of the Labour Friends of Israel group. The work that is done over the year, organising events that I have spoken at that many of you have also attended and been responsible for organising, great events that have raised which some of the great issues of our time to the people of this country.

But we are at an important time. As I was saying, talking to Tony last week, he is optimistic as I am that despite all the difficulties of the last year – and there have been enormous difficulties as we know, there is still a will that we can actually achieve a lasting peace settlement and I want us to work together over these next few months, Condoleezza Rice, Tony the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Olmert whom I have got a great admiration for, for what he is trying to do even in difficult circumstances. I brought him together when I was chairing the G8 with the Finance Minister then and now the Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, and what we believe is that there is not only a chance of making progress on security but that the borders and security of Israel must be protected, but there is also a chance of making progress on making economic co-operation.

So we published as a government only a few days ago – and anybody wishes copies of this, I think you will find this an interesting document – what we said was a roadmap, and economic roadmap to the peace process in the Middle East. And what we are saying to the Palestinians is that we are prepared, the Portman Trust, I know there are people here involved in it, who have drawn up similar plans that we draw on for economic development.

The American Government and the European Union are offering support as well. And we published this proposal that would allow for small business development, industrial parks, infrastructure development, micro credit and we believe that if we can stimulate the economic prosperity and at least the economic progress in these areas then there is a real chance that economic prosperity could start to underpin the peace process as well.

So we have the talks taking place, we have the proposals that have come from the Arab League, we have the determination on the part of so many people to try and make these talks work and at the same time, we now believe that we can mobile substantial funds that would make it possible to underpin that peace and security process with the prospects of economic development.

What I can tell you is that we will continue to try but the basic principles as you know are that Israel must be safe and secure within its own borders and we need a viable Palestinian state based on the prospects that they do could be economically viable for the future to come.

I want to also say that I have had the privilege over the last year of publishing a book called ‘Courage’ And in that book I have been honoured, indeed privileged, to write about two people who in the war years, Dietrich Von Hoffer and Raoul Wallenberg fought the persecution of the Jewish people, in both cases, giving their lives to try and save the life of others.

And all though my life I have been impressed by the courage of those people who have been prepared to stand up against the persecution of the Jewish people and I have strong sense of the injustices that have been done to the Jewish people over these years and that is why as Chancellor, I wanted to put money into the Holocaust Educational Trust so that people never forget what happened and people understand what …. and that is why also, I have been anxious like so many other people to promote the Community Security Trust and any anti-semitism in this country will be fought and we will do everything we can to attack any manifestation of it wherever it comes in our country.

I was telling the story a few days ago of the Swedish Prime Minister Olaf Palme, and the visit he had to the United States of America when he met President Reagan in the 1980’s. And Olaf Palme was known as many of you know and remember as the great fighter for international aid and international development. And he went to see Ronald Reagan in the United States of America and Ronald Reagan did not quite what to make of this guy. And he said to his advisers before he arrived “is he a communist?” And his advisors said, “No Mr President, he is an anti communist”. And Ronald Reagan said “I do not care what kind of communist he is” And Ronald Reagan asked Olaf Palme, he said “What do you believe in?”. And Palme said to him “I believe that everybody, every single individual should have the chance to realise their potential to the full”.

So this is our mission, to fight discrimination, injustice inequality, persecution, wherever it manifests itself and this is our mission and why Labour Friends of Israel is so successful because it promotes this.… both in the Middle East and of course in our own country can be achieved. Let us work together to do it. Thank you Labour Friends of Israel.”