Israel
You are like Churchill – but heed his warnings on the Palestinians, Boris tells Israelis
November 11, 2015 09:12
London Mayor Boris Johnson delivered the inaugural annual Winston Churchill Lecture last night, at the end of his second 15-hour work day in Israel.
Ebullient, garrulous, even loving towards his Israeli hosts, Mr Johnson wove into his speech ideas that may come to be elements of a new, Johnsonian foreign policy.
Massaging his audience like putty, drawing laughs and bursts of applause, Mr Johnson stressed the qualities Mr Churchill shared with Israel— “daring, audacity, derring-do, and indomitability” but added that Mr Churchill “was sometimes wrong, as in the gold standard, abdication crisis and over India.”
He made quick work of BDS advocates, asking if anyone could imagine anything more ridiculous than a collective organised by “snaggle-toothed, corduroy-wearing lefty academics”, and moved quickly on to celebrating Israeli technological prowess, including “a crucial advance for humanity — the epilator Lady Shave”.
By Jacob Jaffa
