Veteran Labour MP Dame Margaret Hodge has urged British Jews to join the growing worldwide protests against the new Israeli government’s controversial Supreme Court reforms, saying: “It’s not pro-Israel to remain silent”.
Speaking to the JC after a week in Israel last month, Hodge said: “The diaspora community, for which Israel really matters, has to support the many Israelis who are appalled by what’s happening.”
The outspoken MP said that the proposed reforms, which would give politicians the decisive voice in the appointment of judges and allow a one-vote Knesset majority to override judicial rulings, amounted to “an assault on the rule of law and judicial independence” that would have grave consequences for Israel’s global standing — not least with her own party.
Hodge, 78, has been the MP for Barking in east London since 1994, and was an outspoken critic of the antisemitism that infected the party when it was led by Jeremy Corbyn. For many years she enjoyed an enviable reputation for fairness and rigour as chair of the Commons government spending watchdog, the Parliamentary Accounts Committee.
Describing herself as “a longstanding, critical friend of Israel”, Hodge told the JC that in the course of her visit, which was hosted by Labour Friends of Israel and the New Israel Fund, she had met Israeli and Palestinian politicians of all political stripes, academic experts, journalists and leaders of NGOs.
Overall, she told the JC, her impression was that “Israeli politics are broken. Israel has a huge amount going for it: amazing history, wonderful people, and an extraordinary creativity.
“But this is a very dangerous moment. Tensions are rising between Jewish Israelis and we could be on the verge of a third intifada. Everyone I met is deeply concerned about their own security.”
Hodge mentioned two locations which had made a deep impression on her: a kibbutz near the Gaza border that has been repeatedly struck by rockets and bombs launched from the Hamas-controlled enclave, where families can have less than ten seconds to seek shelter when there is an alarm; and a booth set up amid the Palestinian homes in east Jerusalem by supporters of the right-wing security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir.
“Jewish protesters gather there every Friday, during Muslim prayers,” Hodge said. “I couldn’t help noticing that some of them wore black shirts.”
She was scathing about the weak state of the Knesset opposition, and condemned the failure of the Israeli Labour Party to agree a joint list with its ideological bedfellow Meretz — a decision that paved the way to the decisive victory won by Likud PM Binyamin Netanyahu and his far-right coalition partners.
“Israeli Labour felt to me totally dysfunctional, almost Corbynite in its approach, in the way its leaders claimed they could not compromise their principles for the sake of electoral gain,” Hodge said.
The consequences, she went on, have been disastrous, not only the threat to the judiciary, but “putting the peace process with the Palestinians in aspic, with no current prospect of talks”.
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Benjamin Netanyahu
Hodge said: “The international community has to start using diplomatic pressure to force a new dialogue. The ambition must be some kind of two-state solution, because there is simply no other way to provide the security both sides crave.
“What can we in the diaspora do in this increasingly febrile situation to a government that is doing terrible things?” Hodge asked.
“We can provide a voice of concern, not just about the judicial reforms, but to focus on building trust between the two communities.”
This, she went on, would help protect Jews in the diaspora, as well as in Israel: “If this is a scary moment for Israel, all my experience says that if Netanyahu and his partners get their way, it will cause an upsurge of antisemitism elsewhere.”
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Labour leader Keir Starmer (Photo: Getty Images)
Hodge also told the JC that Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer “has massively exceeded my expectations in the way he has dealt with antisemitism within the party.
“He’s made incredible progress and there’s a toughness in his approach that I’d never thought I’d see.”
Under Corbyn, she said, “we could report the most appalling cases of antisemitism to the party machine and never hear back. Now they’re dealt with swiftly.”
Hodge proclaimed her delight at the recent decisions by the former Labour MPs Luciana Berger and Mike Gapes to return to the Labour fold after leaving over Corbyn-era antisemitism. “Luciana deciding to come back was a very symbolic moment”, she told the JC.
