Jewish UK Labour parliamentarian rails at Israel after being denied entry to West Bank

A Jewish member of the UK’s ruling Labour party hits out at Israel days after he and a fellow Jewish Labour MP were blocked by Israel from visiting the West Bank.

In an op-ed published in the Guardian, MP Peter Prinsley states the experience demonstrated “how low Israel has been brought by its current government and how much it has changed, almost beyond recognition.”

Israel hasn’t publicly commented on the decision to block Prinsley and MP Simon Opher from the West Bank.

“It represents the extent to which the Israeli government has isolated itself. It saddens me to say that Israel today seems to be a world away from the inclusive, pluralistic, open and democratic principles on which it was founded in 1948,” Prinsley writes. “I am Jewish, one of just a dozen or so Jewish members of the House of Commons. I visited Israel for the first time as an idealistic medical student and have since returned for happy holidays, visiting family who live there. I am a member of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and a committed supporter of my local synagogue.”

He adds that he was denied entry on grounds of “public security or public safety or public order considerations,” but says he wasn’t given an explanation as to why he and the group he was traveling with were blocked from visiting hospitals in the West Bank.

“Israel once represented hope for a generation of Jews. It pains me greatly to say that the friendships that we in the Jewish community once thought eternal are now being undermined by the present Israeli government,” Prinsley says.