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✡ Partnerships Political support 53

What activity connects the first
Zionist Congress in 1897, the 1917
Balfour Declaration and the 1920
San Remo Conference?
It’s lobbying: the business of actively
trying to influence political policy.
These three significant historical
events ultimately led to the rebirth
of the State of Israel in 1948.
Had it not been for lobbying, the
modern State of Israel may never
have been realised.

Jewish people are a small minority in Britain, and anti-Semitism is on the rise

again. But many Christians are working with the Jewish community to ensure

that their interests are brought to the attention of Parliament...

Pursuing political support

A Jewish perspective by Alan Aziz contacted by constituents in regards have dogged the party since the veteran
to a specific subject matter, they are back-bencher came to power.
The United Kingdom is known as one likely to pay attention to it! And, un- On the other hand, the concentra-
of the most important stages for the fortunately, even if you’ve written the tion of Jews in only a few areas means
ongoing struggle between pro- and most eloquent, accurate or passionate that the vast majority of MPs would
anti-Israel narratives. Unsurprisingly, letter, quantity tends to trump quality. be unlikely to hear from Jewish con-
anti-Israel forces have expended an One letter is just a letter – no better stituents.
inordinate amount of effort on pressur- or worse than any other. A sack-full of The solution, in retrospect, seems
ing British politicians to break ties with letters, on the other hand, is a demand simple, and yet it is impossible to un-
Israel – despite the obviously negative that cannot be ignored. derestimate how novel it was. There
impact such a severance would have on This has for many years proved was only one option for the Jewish
both countries. to be a stumbling block to the Jewish community – we would have to move
No matter how important they are, community in the UK when it came to out of our comfort zone, and reach out
or how involved they are in the day-to- advocating for Israel. Contrary to the to a hitherto untapped resource: the
day running of the country, each MP age-old conspiracy theories about Jew- sizeable Christian community.
also has the important responsibility ish influence, the Jewish community On paper, the plan made perfect
of looking out for the interests of their has always been too small to have much sense, but that didn’t mean it was easy.
constituents. of an electoral impact. The number of The two communities had previously
The relationship between the MP Jews make up less than one per cent of had little contact, but it didn’t take
and their constituents is at the heart the overall population of the UK. long for all those involved to realise
of ‘lobbying’. If an MP is regularly This is compounded by the fact how much we could achieve by working
that Jews tend to be concentrated in together. Once a relationship had been
only a few areas. On the one hand, this established between the Zionist Fed-
Alan Aziz is the former CEO
of the Zionist Federation and means that in a few constituencies the eration and Christian Friends of Israel,
the Jewish National Fund, and ‘Jewish vote’ can have some sway in an we formulated what would become the
is currently the Director of election. This was, for example, almost annual ZF/CFI Lobby Day for Israel.
Development and Events at the certainly the case in the 2017 snap elec- Over the many years since we sat
United Synagogue. Having started his Jewish tion, where London constituencies such down and planned the first such event,
education at Hasmonean primary and second-
ary schools, he graduated from City University as Hendon resisted the surge towards the Lobby Day has been successfully
after a year in Israel. He was a chartered Corbyn that the rest of the capital ex- established, repeated and improved. In
accountant by profession before moving into perienced – almost certainly down to the morning, representatives of the two
communal life. the allegations of anti-Semitism that communities who have travelled from