i24 News – Liz Truss, who replaced Boris Johnson as prime minister of the United Kingdom, following a reshuffle within the Conservative Party, confirmed her commitment to the fight against antisemitism and support for Israel.
In an interview with the London-based Jewish Chronicle earlier, the new prime minister stressed that there is no greater friend of the UK than Israel, even suggesting during the campaign within her party that she would be open to the transfer of the British embassy from Tel Aviv to Yerushalayim, as the United States did under former president Donald Trump.
Like Johnson, who had friendly relations with Jews and Israel and whose maternal great-grandfather was a Jew from Moscow, Truss said she too had close relations with the Jewish state.
“I had a lot of Jewish friends at school,” said Truss, a former chair of the University of Oxford Liberal Democrats, a left-leaning party popular with British Jews.
“A close friend of mine has moved to Tel Aviv. I saw him recently when I was on an official visit.”
While working for Shell oil company where Truss began her career, she worked under the orders of an Orthodox Jew. He was “the best boss I’ve ever had and he was a huge influence on me,” she added.
She claimed to have realized that her former boss was modeling the values upheld by her conservative political party. “The British Jewish community is incredibly proud of this country and so are the Tories.”
Responding to a survey by the Jewish Chronicle that indicated a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents in British schools, Truss said: “I want to see the scourge of antisemitism eradicated. That means driving it out of our culture, starting with schools.”
The prime minister also said she “cannot allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.”
While serving as UK foreign secretary, Truss had challenged Israel’s banishment from the United Nations, ensuring that Britain “votes with Israel.”
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