Shadow foreign secretary David Lammy addresses LFI 2023 Annual Lunch
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Thank yous
Thank you,
Chief Rabbi, Ambassador, friends… some of you old friends.
Sir David Garrard for the wonderful introduction.
Isaac Kaye.
Adrian Cohen.
Steve McCabe for your advice and support.
Tom Murray, Thomas Webster, Tina Bhartwas, Sam Rubens
…and in particular the excellent Michael Rubin at LFI.
Thank you for the work you do.
And for having me here today.
And it is an immense responsibility to follow Steve Brisley’s courageous and powerful words.
I will raise your family’s case directly with the Foreign Secretary…
…to ensure you receive the support you need at this awful time.
And Labour will go further.
By appointing a new envoy with a special remit to secure the release of UK citizens seized abroad…
…and creating a new legislative right for consular assistance.
It also is an honour to be joined by Joan Ryan, Louise Ellman and Luciana Berger
And I would like to pay special tribute to my dear friend, colleague and mentor Margaret Hodge…
…in what – sadly – may well be her last LFI lunch as a sitting MP.
Your tireless service to our party…
… The people of Barking…
… and the country…
… will leave a lasting legacy.
Intro
Even though we’re meeting in what I’m told is London’s most central venue …
… I’m a North Londoner…
And that’s how so many of you know me.
And I don’t think you can be a North Londoner…
… without being touched by the love and friendship of the Jewish community.
Something that has meant so much to me…
… and my family…
…all of my life
My father was from the Windrush Generation.
When he first arrived in London…
…in the wake of World War two…
…bedsits were advertised with… “No Blacks, No Irish, No Dogs…”
It wasn’t easy to find somewhere to live…
…except in North London…
… where the doors of Jewish homes were always open…
… where the landlords were generous and not racist.
And that’s why, talking of that time…
… my father would always say — “Thank God for the Jews.”
I’m a North Londoner…
… and when I think of what that means…
… generous and anti-racist…
… humorous and multicultural…
… I think it has a Jewish spirit.
It’s not just my father, who would have wanted me to say…
… Thank you.
But it’s me personally…
Growing up in inner city Tottenham was not easy.
But I always dreamt big.
I loved the TV show LA law.
In an era of few role models, there was a young black character called Jonathan Rollins.
I wanted to be him.
So I applied to Harvard Law school.
And remarkably I got in.
Harvard Law told me I would be the first Black Brit to study there…
…but it would cost 45 thousand dollars.
Of course, I didn’t have the money.
Then I was put in touch with the partners of DJ Freeman.
One afternoon they took me to lunch and offered to support me.
They are here today
… Tony Leifer,
… Jonathan Lewis,
…Colin Joseph
Please stand up
Without you, I would never have made it to where I am today.
And I’ve never had the chance to thank you publicly…
I am here, because you were there…
Thank you.
[Pause]
October 7th
Friends, we all know how this lunch has brought us together over the years.
Sometimes it has brought us together in worry.
Sometimes, in sadness. And sometimes… to rejoice.
But today it brings us together in grief.
On that bright, dazzling morning seven weeks ago…
Between the wheat fields and the avocado groves of southern Israel…
A morning that had been set aside for rejoicing…
Cakes had been prepared. Families were already gathering.
The first prayers had been said for the festival.
But it was not to be.
[PAUSE]
Over the course of my adult life It has been my honour to have been invited so many times, to come to a shiva, with you, for your loved ones.
What happened that morning…
… in Kfar Aza.
… in Be’eri.
… in Ofakim,
…and elsewhere…
[SLOW]
… was so awful, it feels like a shiva we have still not got up from…
…so great are the numbers and so great were the consequences.
But before we turn there, as we must.
I want us to remember them.
Musicians and dancers.
Scientists and farmers.
Holocaust survivors… and babies.
“Whoever destroys one soul, it is as though he destroyed the entire world,” taught Rabbi Hillel.
Words, I learnt from you…
… that have always marked me.
So let us — for their sake and for ours — say their names!
- Nathaniel Young
- Daniel Darlington
- Jake Marlowe
- Lianne Sharabi
- Yahel Sharabi
- Noya Sharabi
- Roi Popplewell
- Bernard Paul Cohen
- Deborah Abraham
- Yonatan Rapopport
- Tom Godo
- Aner Elyakim Shapiro
- Yakov Inon
Thirteen names.
Thirteen names out of over twelve hundred killed.
And these are only the British citizens killed on October 7th.
Mothers and fathers.
North Londoners and Glaswegians.
Arsenal and Spurs fans.
Families and ravers.
Their names are crying out to us.
This was not only an attack on the music festival and the kibbutzim.
It was the worst day the Jewish people have suffered since the Holocaust.
The darkest hours in the State of Israel.
And an attack on Jews everywhere.
[PAUSE]
Friends…
…Saturday, October 7th, was a day of horror.
Not just for Israel, or for the Jewish communities spread around the world.
But for us, for Britain, and for the whole Labour movement.
This is a moment that calls for moral clarity.
Every time a Jew is intimidated and is forced to take off his kippah
… it is an attack on Britain.
Every synagogue defaced…
… is an attack on Britain
Every chant of hate…
… is an attack on Britain
Every Jewish child forced to stay home from school…
… is an attack on Britain
This is an attack on all of us.
And I know everyone in this room condemns the rise in Islamophobia we have also seen in recent weeks…
… just as much.
Because we stand — together.
There should be no safe space — for the merchants of hate.
Not online. Not in the streets.
And never again — in our party.
This is why, immediately after October 7th, Labour called for a surge in policing…
And it is why Labour supports the CST and the National Holocaust Memorial.
We oppose those who try to divide us — utterly.
We oppose those who use their anti-Zionism to cloak their anti-semitism.
And we call out those who – shockingly – refuse to call Hamas what they are…
…terrorists.
Black and Jewish history
Friends, for me, this is personal.
I want to take you back to London, in the 1960s,
… when Oswald Mosley,
… stood as an MP in East London,
… and fascists would come for blacks and Jews on Ridley Road up in Dalston.
My dad, he was there…
… and with the antifascists…
Blacks, Jews, everyone, they pushed them back.
This is not just a family story…
… this a proud tradition of Black and Jewish antiracism.
… from Hackney, to Johannesburg, to Washington DC.
The tradition of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel…
… who, marching with Dr. King…
… said it felt like his legs were praying.
This… is who we are!
My father would have expected nothing less…
… than for me to stand with you, in 2018…
… when we said “Enough is Enough” outside of Parliament.
… because of what had gone so wrong in our party.
My dad, he would have expected nothing less…
… than what Keir Starmer has made clear — there will be zero tolerance for antisemitism within the Labour Party.
This, for me, is the meaning of North London…
… and the meaning of Britain.
We live together.
We stand together…
We march together…
I was there at the vigil in London, on October 9th…
I was there at the vigil in Liverpool, on October 10th…
And I am with you here today, against antisemitism…
Now and always.
And we will stand, too, together against Islamophobia…
… and make Dr. King and Rabbi Heschel proud.
In London, In Manchester, in Glasgow…
Because, this… is who we are!
And if only it ended here.
[PAUSE]
Last week…
…I visited an Israel…
…I hardly recognised…
… dark rains and dark clouds…
… which matched the pain within.
Everywhere, I felt the presence of the taken… and the dead.
The fear of over a hundred thousand displaced from their homes…
…in the North and the South.
[PAUSE]
We must not forget…
…those who lost their lives October 7th.
And who they were…
One of those murdered that day was Vivian Silver.
The 74 year old Canadian-Israeli activist.
That morning, even from her safe room, as the sirens blared…
…she still gave an interview in which she said only a political agreement between Israelis and Palestinians can bring about peace.
I reject those who say this is hopeless idealism.
Visiting Cairo this October, I was reminded by the Egyptian foreign minister Shoukry, that fifty years ago his country and Israel were at war.
Tank battles thundered in the Sinai desert.
Whole armies faced encirclement by the Suez Canal.
And some feared this cycle of wars might never end.
But diplomats seized the narrow openings that presented themselves.
And only four years later, Anwar Sadat, the same man who had launched the offensive… made his historic visit to Jerusalem.
… laying out the path to peace.
It is not hopeless idealism to aim for peace, at a time of war.
This is what Henry Kissinger did in 1973.
This is difficult, painful, often failing, work.
But as George Mitchell, the Great American Peacemaker, said…
…diplomacy is 700 days of failure and one of success.
Visiting Egypt, Jordan and Qatar last month…
…one thing was clear to all sides.
Hamas had not only tried to set the land on fire…
…It attempted to detonate the entire region.
And the fact it was so volatile…
That this was even within their reach…
… was in part because the international community was failing…
… by desisting from pushing for that two state solution.
Meaning, these enemies of peace could appeal not only…
… for an intervention by Hezbollah or Iran…
… but for an Intifada in Jerusalem and the West Bank.
There is failure here.
Israeli failure and Palestinian failure.
American failure and Arab failure.
And yes, British failure.
A failure of attention.
A failure of dedication.
A failure of hope.
Gaza
From this failure, we must not avert our gaze…
I want us to look into the eyes…
…of the child hostages now being released.
But also the Palestinian children…
… homeless, cold, their families buried in the rubble.
We must meet their gaze…
Yesterday’s agreement to extend this cessation of hostilities is welcome.
My leader, Keir Starmer, has called on all parties to build on this progress and work urgently towards a further extension.
To secure the release of more hostages.
To deliver more aid to ease the unacceptable humanitarian catastrophe.
And crucially, to provide a stepping-stone to an enduring cessation of hostilities.
The innocents and children of Gaza…
… need aid, food, water, fuel and medicine, not in token amounts, but in huge volumes, to ensure hospitals function and lives are saved.
This is the meaning of our values…
… that every life – Israeli or Palestinian…
… Muslim, Christian or Jew…
… is of equal value…
… that even wars have rules, and even as they are fought…
… we must not let ourselves become blind to suffering.
Hamas sought to close the path to peace.
Which is why Israel must not…
… fall into their trap.
I welcome the five principles that Antony Blinken has brought back from his round of shuttle diplomacy.
These are…
No use of Gaza as a platform for terror.
No forcible displacement from Gaza.
No reoccupation of Gaza.
No attempt to blockade or besiege Gaza.
No reduction in size of Gaza.
Gaza cannot be left as a giant refugee camp…
Or we risk sleepwalking, into a lasting darkness…
… that none of us want.
In my first visit to Ramallah as Shadow Foreign Secretary, last July…
…I met young Palestinians, a generation in despair.
Men and women totally opposed to Hamas’ terrorism.
Who were as impressive as they were eloquent.
But their lives told a bitter story of diplomatic failure.
They were children, during the lost hopes of the Oslo process…
Adolescents, scarred by the Second Intifada…
They were facing adulthood under seemingly permanent occupation.
Their economic prospects vanishing…
Their lives blighted by restrictions.
[PAUSE]
Friends, we must take away the hopelessness and frustration…
… which gives Hamas its power.
Otherwise, there can be no peace in the land.
Because those young lives are bound up with those families of hostage victims I’ve met repeatedly in recent weeks…
… whose children hear rocket sirens instead of lullabies.
And whose only hope is a renewed push to a two state solution.
This is what Vivian Silver spent decades marching for.
Ultimately, there is no military solution…
… to the conflict, only a political one.
For the young people of Gaza…
…and of Israel…
… we must make this the last war.
[PAUSE]
Labour is a friend of Israel.
And as friends of Israel, we know that…
A two-state future is the only way to guarantee a future of security for Israel…
…and this is why we must stand against all those actions which undermine it.
We must oppose illegal settlements in the West Bank.
We must condemn hateful rhetoric and settler violence.
And we must never turn a blind eye to forced displacement.
Only by being firm on these principles…
…can we keep alive the hope – however distant – of two-states living side by side in peace..
Peace, said Menachem Begin…
… the Prime Minister who dared to sign a treaty with Egypt,
… was not only diplomacy.
… it was like the smile of a child, the love of a mother, the joy of a father, or the togetherness of a family.
It was the chance to live, not just to survive.
Two states
I know the moment is bleak.
But there may be narrow openings…
… with the necessity of a Palestinian Authority.
I want to emphasise that we know this institution needs to be reformed.
We should not assume them.
Or exaggerate them.
But we should be ready to seize the openings.
Like our predecessors did, after moments of conflict…
… at Rhodes, in the 1949 armistice agreements.
… as in Geneva, with the 1973 postwar conference.
… or in Madrid, in 1991 after the First Gulf War.
And some of you in this room…
…like Michael Levy as envoy to the Middle East in Tony Blair’s government…
…helped drive us forward.
I know Labour Friends of Israel passionately believes in this progress…
…and I want to thank you for the work you have done for championing the International Fund for Israeli-Palestinian peace.
As my colleague Rachel Reeves said last year…
… this fund has Labour’s full support.
And if I become Foreign Secretary, I will work with our partners around the world to help turn it into a concrete reality.
[PAUSE]
Words, I know, are easy.
Action, I know, is not.
In government, Labour will appoint…
A new Middle East Peace envoy, embodying our new resolve
… and focused on where we can make the greatest impact.
Working to replace the now defunct Quartet with a new diplomatic vehicle…
…to support a multilateral plan for the future of Gaza…
…to drive forward reconstruction…
… and to lead a renewed push for a two state solution.
We can and should build on the Abraham Accords…
When it becomes possible again…
…but we must do this in a way that includes…
… the Palestinian people as fundamental in the question of their own future.
And we must be clear-eyed about the challenge of Iran…
….And the threat from the IRGC…
…who suppress their own people and threaten regional stability…
…and who Labour believe should be proscribed.
I am realistic about Britain’s influence.
We hold no illusions.
This is hard.
But do not doubt my and Keir Starmer’s determination.
We will be dedicated to a just and lasting peace based on two states…
… in which all enjoy security, dignity and human rights.
This is why Labour stands with Israel against Hamas…
And why we stand too with the innocent Palestinian civilians and their just cause.
For peace not as a slogan — but a program.
Conclusion
I want to thank you…
… as Labour friends of Israel, for your work for peace.
Rabbi Hillel once said:
If I am not for myself who will be for me?
If I am not for others what am I?
And if not now when?
I would like to build on it.
If we are not for peace, who will be?
And if not now, when?
Thank you, friends…
… for the chance to speak, and for this chance to be with you at this time.