Lib Dem foreign affairs spokesperson met Israeli president accused of inciting genocide
The Liberal Democrat party's foreign affairs spokesperson Calum Miller has been photographed meeting Israeli President Isaac Herzog in February - after Herzog was found to have incited genocide by the United Nations' top investigative body on Palestine and Israel.
The meeting came on a trip last month, not previously reported in the British press, which Middle East Eye understands was organised by the Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel (LDFI) group.
The Lib Dems have accused Israel of genocide and party leader Ed Davey boycotted the royal banquet held for visiting US President Donald Trump last year over Gaza.
Members of the delegation to Israel last month included former party leader Tim Farron and the honorary president of LDFI, Lord Monroe Palmer.
Gavin Stollar, LDFI's honorary chair, and the group's honorary vice president, Baroness Sarah Ludford, also participated.
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Miller, a Lib Dem MP and the party's foreign affairs spokesperson, was photographed shaking hands with President Herzog.
A report last September by the UN commission of inquiry on Palestine and Israel found Herzog committed the crime of incitement to genocide, a substantive crime under Article III of the convention.
The president said on 13 October 2023 that "it’s an entire nation out there that is responsible [for the Hamas attack on 7 October]. It is not true, this rhetoric about civilians who were not aware and not involved. It is absolutely not true."
A Lib Dem spokesperson defended the trip, telling MEE: "As liberals, we believe it's vital to engage with all sides of the conflict, even on those issues where we fundamentally disagree."
The Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine group told MEE: "We were dismayed to learn that our foreign affairs spokeperson and MPs met the president of a country that the party recognises as having committed genocide, especially when the president himself is accused by the UN commission of inquiry of incitement to genocide."
Miller said: "My role as a foreign affairs spokesperson is to engage with representatives of other countries, to listen, to challenge and to engage.
"There will be no just peace if there is no dialogue," he told MEE. "I respect the views of those who disagree but I will continue to be open to exchange."
'Entirely inappropriate'
The Lib Dem delegation visited sites of the 7 October Hamas attack, where they were photographed with members of the Israeli military.
They also engaged with opposition figures including Yair Lapid, the leader of the Yesh Atid party, and met the Palestinian mayor of Ramallah, Issa Kassis, in the occupied West Bank.
According to Israeli media reports, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir denied a request by the Lib Dem delegation to meet a senior police officer in Jerusalem because of their meeting with Kassis.
The Lib Dem spokesperson told MEE that Miller "met with a range of stakeholders and policy-makers, including the mayor of Ramallah and Palestinian civil society actors. He met last year with President Abbas on his visit to London.
"We raised the urgent need for more humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, the importance of halting and reversing the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and the need to secure genuine progress towards the two-state solution.
"This remains the only outcome which will deliver security, peace and justice for both Palestinians and Israelis."
The party has also been criticised by the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP).
The group's head of public affairs and communications, Jonathan Purcell, told MEE: "It’s entirely inappropriate for the Lib Dem’s foreign spokesperson to meet with the Israeli president, who has been found by the UN commission of inquiry to be inciting genocide.
"Frankly, it makes a mockery of the party’s position on Gaza, coming six months after leader Ed Davey called Israel’s attack on Gaza a genocide."
In September 2024, almost a year after Israel's war on war started, the Lib Dems called for a full arms embargo on Israel - becoming the largest British party in terms of parliamentary seats to do so.
A year later, Davey accused Israel of genocide. In his speech to the party's annual conference, he declared that "nothing - nothing - can justify what the Netanyahu government is doing to innocent men, women and children in Gaza.
"We have all seen it. The baby boy - starving and skeletal - held tight in his mother’s arms... The bodies of children, killed as they queued for water. Children. A famine unfolding before our eyes."
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