Israeli ambassador met with key UK Labour donors and lobbyists throughout Gaza genocide

The Israeli ambassador to the UK has met with an array of Labour donors, pro-Israel lobbyists and parliamentarians during Israel's genocide in Gaza, it has emerged.

Tzipi Hotovely's diary has been obtained and reported on by Declassified UK, after being released following a Freedom of Information request by lawyer Elad Man at Hatzlacha, an NGO promoting social justice in Israel.

Hotovely, who once called the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948, an "Arab lie" and is an avowed opponent of the creation of a Palestinian state, has become a prominent public figure in the UK and takes a markedly interventionist approach to British politics.

In recent months, for example, the ambassador issued an official complaint to the BBC over a documentary it aired on children in Gaza, because the child narrator was the son of a minister in the war-torn enclave. The film was ultimately pulled.

In July, she met Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, after complaining about the BBC iPlayer showing punk duo Bob Vylan chanting "Death to the IDF" during a performance at Glastonbury festival.

She also launched an unexpected attack on the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, over his annual Eid al-Fitr message. The Israeli embassy accused him of "spouting Hamas propaganda" for talking about suffering in Gaza. Khan's office responded accurately that he has "repeatedly" condemned Hamas.

Now, her diary reveals that Hotovely has met key Labour donors throughout Israel's ongoing genocide. 

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One of those is Stuart Roden, a chairman of Israeli venture capital firm Hetz Ventures, who donated over half a million pounds to Labour ahead of the 2024 general election that brought the party to power.

Roden said last year that he expresses "views on some of the things I care about" to the Labour leadership.

He is a hardline supporter of Israel's war on Gaza and declared in October 2023 that Israel was engaged in a "clash of civilisations".

He was filmed that same month shouting "You murdered children" at a crowd of peaceful pro-Palestinian protesters outside the Labour conference. 

Roden met Hotovely twice in July 2024 after Labour entered government, according to Declassified UK. 

One meeting took place at a gallery in London, and the other in the ambassador's residence.

Meetings with pro-Israel lobbyists

Hotovely also met Jonathan Goldstein, a property tycoon and former chair of the Jewish Leadership Council, an umbrella body that represents major British Jewish organisations.

Goldstein financially backed Foreign Secretary David Lammy's failed campaign to become London mayor in 2014. 

Declassified UK said it had approached the two for comment. 

The ambassador also twice met Michael Rubin, the director of lobby group Labour Friends for Israel (LFI). One of the meetings took place at the ambassador's residence.

She met Labour MP Jon Pearce, the LFI chair, twice.

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An LFI spokesperson told Declassified that Rubin and Pearce met Hotovely to "reiterate our longstanding support for a ceasefire, increased humanitarian aid to Gaza and the release of the Israeli hostages held by Hamas since the 7 October atrocities".

Luke Akehurst, a Labour MP and former pro-Israel lobbyist, had a meeting with Hotovely during the Labour conference last year.

Before becoming an MP, Akehurst was once photographed wearing a T-shirt describing himself as a "Zionist shitlord". 

In November 2023, he said that the "major West Bank settlement blocks" should become part of Israel as part of a land exchange with Palestine, adding that he wants the occupied Syrian Golan Heights "to remain part of Israel". 

Hotovely's diary further reveals that she met Lord Stuart Polak, a Conservative peer and director of the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI), on four occasions.

On two of those occasions, in July and September 2024, they were joined by Israeli diplomats Yossi Amrani and Meirav Eilon Shahar. 

The Israeli ambassador certainly has a busy schedule. And some of her meetings will arouse interest among those who follow her increasingly regular interventions in British domestic politics.