British-born Rabbi Leo Dee, whose wife and two daughters were murdered by Hamas in April 2023, arrived in Liverpool on Monday to protest during the Labour Party’s annual conference against the British government’s recognition of a Palestinian state.
The conference opened on Sunday and runs through Wednesday.
On April 7, 2023—six months before Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre of some 1,200 people—Dee and his family were traveling from their home in Efrat to Tiberias in two cars. His wife, Lucy, and daughters Maya, 20, and Rina, 15, drove in one vehicle, while he drove in another. Palestinian terrorists ambushed Lucy’s car, killing all three inside.
“I am the British citizen most affected by Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s recognition of a Palestinian state, because I have three family members—three British citizens—who were murdered by Palestinian terrorists,” Dee told JNS.
He stressed that these terrorists were funded by the Palestinian Authority, led by Mahmoud Abbas—“the person Starmer is negotiating a Palestinian state with.”
Last week, the United Kingdom, along with France, Canada, Australia and several additional countries, recognized a Palestinian state amid Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza.
Rabbi Leo Dee visited Labour Party conference today to protest Sir Keir Starmer's decision to recognise a ‘Palestinian state’.
— Campaign Against Antisemitism (@antisemitism) September 29, 2025
He brought to the conference the story of the impact of antisemitic Islamist terrorism on his own family: in 2023 a Hamas terrorist murdered his British… pic.twitter.com/EVBQCdPmkc
“After the murder of three British citizens by these terrorists, and after more British citizens were murdered and taken hostage on Oct. 7, Keir Starmer is rewarding them with the recognition of a Palestinian state, which is clearly quite offensive,” Dee said.
He said that while most people understand Hamas is a terrorist organization, the government is overlooking the fact that the Palestinian Authority is “equally a terrorist organization.”
“The terrorists who killed my wife and daughter were killed three weeks after the attack, but their families are still being supported financially by the Palestinian Authority, which spends hundreds of millions on pay-for-slay for terrorists,” Dee said.
Nearly one billion shekels ($278 million) of tax revenue collected annually by Israel on behalf of the P.A. goes toward this policy, which provides monthly stipends to terrorists and their families.
“It’s the biggest incentive scheme for terror in the world,” Dee said. “It’s run by the P.A. under Abbas, a terror leader, and this is the person Starmer believes will set up a state in Israel.”
Dee compared Starmer to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who in 1938 recognized Nazi control of part of Czechoslovakia, calling it “peace for our time.”
“In 2025, Keir Starmer is recognizing a Nazi state in Israel run by the Palestinian Authority, saying peace for our time. But in the seven years after Chamberlain’s announcement, half a million British people—soldiers and civilians—were killed because of his bad judgment. I believe Starmer’s bad judgment now puts the lives of millions of British people at risk,” Dee said.
He described Starmer’s decision as “strange on multiple levels.”
“As the former director of public prosecutions in Britain, his job was to prosecute terrorists. He knows what a terrorist is and how dangerous they can be, yet he is prepared to recognize a terror state on Israel’s border, one mile from Jerusalem and 10 miles from Tel Aviv,” Dee said.
He also noted Starmer’s career as a human rights lawyer, arguing that if he had examined the Palestinian Authority’s record, he would have seen it has one of the worst human rights records in the Middle East. Recognizing a Palestinian state, Dee said, means “creating yet another corrupt terror state that funds terrorism.
“In the last two years, hundreds of thousands of people waving Palestinian Authority flags marched through London, Manchester and Birmingham. As they marched with red, black, white and green flags, Starmer walked out with his white flag and surrendered to them. This isn’t foreign policy—it’s surrendering to mob violence,” said Dee.
“Jews should be on red alert. Thank God this time we have Israel, but it looks like the world is becoming increasingly racist and moving in the direction it did in 1938,” he said.
