Photographer Sam Pearce
CFI’s Honorary President Lord Polak CBE has reflected in the Jewish Telegraph on Boris Johnson’s time as Prime Minister, stating that the Prime Minister “deserves our community’s gratitude in spades”.
“I have had the great honour of working with Conservative Party leaders and Prime Ministers for four decades now and every one has been deeply committed to Israel and the Jewish community… but in Boris Johnson we have had the greatest friend we’ve ever had”, he wrote.
“Israel is in his DNA”, Lord Polak continued, underlining that the Prime Minister has “stood steadfastly beside Israel at every turn”.
From his time on a kibbutz in Israel as a young man, which he still “fondly” talks about, to a visit with CFI coinciding with an “appalling” suicide attack in Tel Aviv’s Carmel Market in 2004, Boris’ travels to the country have been “formative”.
“The success of Israel is a perfect representation of his whole political ideology. Israel is, after all, the ultimate example of levelling up”, Lord Polak explained.
The 2004 visit resulted in “a personal relationship that has led to such highs in the UK-Israel bilateral friendship this year”, the “seemingly unlikely friendship” between Boris and Israel’s new interim Prime Minister Yair Lapid.
“As Prime Minister he has delivered time and again”, CFI’s Honorary President wrote, explaining that his support for Israel has “gone far beyond the hyperbole and rhetoric of political discourse and the usual warm words of bilateral relations. Under his leadership, the UK-Israel friendship is tangibly closer than it’s ever been. He has driven this from the front, making it a strategic priority. He has stood steadfast beside Israel at every turn”.
The Conservative Peer listed the Prime Minister’s actions in support of Israel and the Jewish community: “The proscription of the Hamas terror organisation. Stridently supporting Israel’s right to self-defence against terror groups. The UK’s resolute support for Israel in UN bodies. Opposing the International Criminal Court’s controversial investigation into Israel. Refusing to legitimise the antisemitic Durban Conference. A new long-term strategic bilateral framework to formalise ever closer ties with Israel. Concerted efforts to tackle antisemitism online and in the public square. And planned legislation to tackle the pernicious BDS movement – an essential piece of law which we at CFI look forward to working towards with Boris’s successor”.
Lord Polak concluded by highlighting that the Prime Minister’s “decisive defeat” of then-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is “arguably one of the greatest ever contributions to the safety and ongoing prosperity of the UK’s Jewish community”. He expressed that as a community we “owe the greatest of debts to Boris Johnson for seeing off this threat” and that he “will never forget the palpable fear emanating from Jewish doorsteps while campaigning for the 2019 election”.
He thanked Boris Johnson for his “unwavering” friendship, a sentiment likely “warmly felt by many more in our great community”.
