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Louise Thomas
Editor
Benjamin Netanyahu should be “congratulated” for assassinating the leader of Hezbollah in Lebanon, Kemi Badenoch has said, as the region teeters on the brink of all-out war.
The Tory leadership hopeful said the killing of the militant group’s chief Hassan Nasrallah would “create more peace in the Middle East” and that what Israel did “was extraordinary”.
But, with Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon continuing, the assassination marks a major escalation in the conflict and Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed it “will not go unavenged”.
On the opening day of the Conservative Party conference, Ms Badenoch was asked what she would be saying to the UK’s allies, including Israel, if she was the party’s leader.
She told Sky News: “I would be congratulating prime minister Netanyahu, I think what they did was extraordinary. Israel is showing that it has moral clarity in dealing with its enemies and the enemies of the West as well.
“Hezbollah is a terrorist organisation, and I think being able to remove the head of Hezbollah in the way they did will create more peace in the Middle East.”
Ms Badenoch was also challenged over an article in the Sunday Telegraph in which she said not all cultures are “equally valid”, adding that she was “struck by the number of recent immigrants to the UK who hate Israel”.
“It’s not all Muslim immigrants,” she said, adding that “I have met many Muslim people who love Israel”.
She said: “It is not all Muslims, but there are some, those who buy into Islamist ideology, political Islam. They do not like it, and we need to be able to distinguish.”
She later told the BBC: “I don’t think that people who bring foreign conflicts here should be welcome.”
Ms Badenoch was the first of the four Tory leadership contenders on the morning media round to kick off the Conservative Party’s annual conference in Birmingham. She was followed by rivals Robert Jenrick, James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat.
Asked what he would say to Israel as Tory leader, Mr Jenrick said the country “cannot be expected to live alongside terrorists, whether that’s Hamas or Hezbollah”.
And he said Israeli forces are “doing as much as they reasonably can to try to limit the loss of civilian life”.
He told Sky News: “You have to remember that Israel is in a unique neighbourhood where it has on each side states that mean to do it harm and it’s important for us to support it in this difficult period.
“The way to end the conflict is obviously for the hostages to be released including the remaining British nationals who are still held in captivity.”
Mr Tugendhat meanwhile said he would urge Iran to stand down its conflict with Israel if he were Tory leader.
The Tory former security minister told Sky News: “I would be saying to Iran that this is no time for escalation, this is no time to be reinforcing your militias in the region and to be threatening democracies and countries around the region.
“Because the truth is we have seen countries like Jordan, like Israel, suffering under Iranian threats for many years and we have seen countries like Syria and Lebanon destroyed by Iran’s activities in the region over not just a few years but actually over two, three, four decades.”
And Mr Cleverly called for Israel to act with “professionalism and restraint’’
The former foreign secretary said he would say “what I’ve said to them already”, that they have the right to defend themselves but “they have to abide by international law”.
The UK government has asked Britons in Lebanon to “leave now” amid concerns over the escalating situation in the Middle East following.
A total of 1,030 people, including 156 women and 87 children, have been killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon in less than two weeks, the country’s health minister said.
