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Middle East Minister refuses to apologise for comments about Israeli ambassador

Hamish Falconer: it was clear that I wasn’t commenting on Hotovely personally in Parliament last week

January 13, 2025 12:09
Labour Friends of Israel GhHit9GXcAAJAYi.jpg
Middle East Minister Hamish Falconer MP (left) with LFI chair Jon Pearce (Photo: Labour Friends of Israel)
3 min read

Middle East Minister Hamish Falconer yesterday refused to apologise for appearing to suggest that Israel’s ambassador to the UK Tzipi Hotovely was not to the government’s “taste”.

Asked by the JC on Sunday whether he would apologise, following calls for him to do so by shadow foreign secretary Dame Priti Patel and a public rebuke by Israel’s foreign ministry, Falconer said he was “surprised” that his comments had been interpreted as a slight.

“I was asked in the House of Commons earlier in the week about why I was not expelling the Israeli ambassador”, he said, explaining that he was discouraging the questioner, John McDonnell MP, formerly Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow chancellor, “from focusing on the political nature of an ambassador, and said I would continue to talk to the ambassador and the Israeli government.

“That is, indeed, the only way to conduct diplomacy and try and change things on the ground like secure hostage releases.”