The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office on Sunday declined to comment on newly minted U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy’s past description of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “petty, small and vindictive.”
Lammy, who was appointed earlier this month after the Labour Party won the election, arrived in the Jewish state on Sunday for meetings with Netanyahu, his counterpart Israel Katz and President Isaac Herzog.
As part of his first official visit, Lammy also traveled to Ramallah in Samaria to meet with Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas.
“I am meeting with Israeli and Palestinian leaders to stress the U.K.'s ambition and commitment to play its full diplomatic role in securing a ceasefire deal and creating the space for a credible and irreversible pathway towards a two-state solution,” he said.
Lammy said earlier this month that he would seek a “balanced position” on the conflict between Israel and Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip.
However, while serving as a member of the British parliament in 2019, Lammy described the Israeli government’s decision to deny U.S. Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) visas for their self-stated visit to “Palestine” as “the behaviour of tyrants not democrats.”
“Petty, small and vindictive,” wrote Lammy. “Shame on Netanyahu.”
When the Israeli leader in 2019 celebrated six years since the completion of the security wall on its border with Egypt, Lammy tweeted, “Shame on you. Stop building walls. Start building bridges.”
Shame on you. Stop building walls. Start building bridges. https://t.co/gHFUHjD5P6
— David Lammy (@DavidLammy) January 18, 2019
British researcher David Collier, who works to combat antisemitism online, on Sunday also called out a series of online posts in which Lammy described former U.S. president and presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump as a “racist KKK and Nazi sympathiser.”
“I still cannot believe this is the current F.M. of the U.K. Government,” Collier said in response to a 2019 post in which Lammy mocked Trump’s complaints of political persecution as “snowflake” behavior.
Trump was shot in the ear on Saturday evening while speaking onstage at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., north of Pittsburgh, in what authorities are investigating as an assassination attempt on the former president.
Both the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office and the Foreign Ministry refused to comment on Sunday on the past remarks by London’s top diplomat.
Last week, The Guardian reported that London’s new government would abandon the United Kingdom’s effort to challenge the International Criminal Court over ongoing attempts to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu.
The previous government, under Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, joined Israel in fighting ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan after he applied to have the court issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes, along with Hamas leaders.
Britain’s new Prime Minister Keir Starmer told Netanyahu during a call last week that his government remains committed to continuing London and Jerusalem’s “vital cooperation to deter malign threats.”
