‘Disgrace’: Knesset Diaspora panel chair pans Chikli for inviting British firebrand

The chairman of the Knesset panel on Diaspora affairs on Tuesday assailed Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli for inviting Britain’s far-right anti-Islam activist Tommy Robinson to Israel, and then pillorying British Jewish groups for opposing the visit.

Robinson’s visit to Israel last week was “a slap in the face to British and Diaspora Jews,” which shows that Chikli “uninterested in fighting antisemitism or strengthening world Jewry,” Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs committee chairman Gilad Kariv of The Democrats party declared.

Addressing a committee hearing on Israel’s relations with “extremist political parties with antisemitic roots,” the liberal opposition lawmaker denounced what he described as hypocritical “attempts by Israeli politicians to prioritize politics over the best interest of our brothers and sisters in the Diaspora.”

“When this is coming from the person responsible for the relationship with Jewish communities around the world, it’s a disgrace,” he added.

Chikli, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, announced earlier this month that he had invited Robinson to visit Israel in response to the deadly terror attack at a synagogue in Manchester on Yom Kippur, in which two Jews were killed.

On Saturday night, Robinson spoke at an event attended by over 1,000 people in Tel Aviv. Chikli attended. A heckler who called Robinson a racist was violently accosted.

Anti-immigration activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, known as Tommy Robinson, speaks during a public address in Tel Aviv, Israel, October 18, 2025. (REUTERS/Ammar Awad)

Related: Tommy Robinson draws crowd of 1,000 in Tel Aviv amid controversy; protester attacked

Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, is the founder of the far-right English Defense League, an anti-immigrant group whose members have been accused of racism, xenophobia and terrorism.

He has been imprisoned five times in the last 20 years for a range of offenses spanning from fraud and drug offenses to, most recently, libeling a 15-year-old Syrian refugee.

British far-right anti-Islam activist Tommy Robinson arrives at Ben Gurion Airport, October 15, 2025 (X screenshot)

“We’ll continue to fight attempts by Israeli politicians to provide kosher certification to dubious figures and groups, including those with antisemitic backgrounds, whether on the far right or far left. We will not allow the state of the Jews to turn into the kosher certification board of moral abominations from any side,” Kariv declared on Tuesday.

He also lamented the fact that the Diaspora Ministry did not send a representative to the discussion and demanded to know whether it was a partner in financing the recent visit, which saw a former Times of Israel staffer physically assaulted by attendees after yelling “Tommy Robinson is a racist!” during a public appearance in Tel Aviv.

A representative of the Foreign Ministry told the committee that he was not aware of the visit being coordinated with the foreign service, while a spokesperson for the Diaspora minister told The Times of Israel that Robinson was a guest of the minister, not the ministry.

Fighting with UK Jews

Chikli’s invitation, and concomitant praise for Robinson as a “courageous leader” and “true friend of Israel and the Jewish people,” elicited harsh condemnations from Jewish communal organizations in the UK.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews, Anglo-Jewry’s 1760-founded main representative organization, and the UK’s Jewish Leadership Council reacted to Chikli’s announcement with a joint statement describing Robinson as a “thug who represents the very worst of Britain.”

Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli attends a session at the Knesset in Jerusalem, May 7, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Chikli, who has clashed repeatedly with Jewish organizations abroad throughout his tenure, responded to the UK Jewish groups’ criticism by accusing the Board of Deputies of having become a “political organization — openly aligned with left-wing, woke, pro-Palestinian parties.”

Despite Chikli’s endorsement and Robinson’s own repeated expressions of solidarity with Israel and the Jewish people, the British activist has a long record of antisemitic rhetoric.

In 2022, he published — and later deleted — an article titled “The Jewish Question” on his website Urban Scoop, in which he claimed there are “powerful Jewish people, claiming to be Zionists, who have their fingers on buttons of power in the entertainment industry, in big tech, in mainstream media, in the music industry, in Hollywood and in governments.”

Addressing Robinson’s visit via Zoom during Tuesday’s committee meeting, Board of Deputies Chief Executive Michael Wegier said that British Jews “were shocked” by Chikli’s invitation, and that it caused the Jewish community “great embarrassment.”

“Tommy Robinson is a thug who represents the very worst of Britain. His presence undermines those genuinely working to tackle Islamist extremism and foster community cohesion. Minister Chikli has proven himself to be a Diaspora Minister in name only. In our darkest hour, he has… https://t.co/BswfB4mXZ6 pic.twitter.com/LZ1rkPFzOe

— Board of Deputies of British Jews (@BoardofDeputies) October 4, 2025

Yigal Palmor, a spokesman for the Jewish Agency for Israel, also criticized the visit, stating that “only local Jews can tell who is an antisemite and who isn’t, and we in Israel are not to tell them that we know better.”

“They know who puts them at risk and who doesn’t. They know who’s hostile to them and who isn’t. And it’s not for us, from our safe distance, to tell them what’s right and what’s left, what’s right and what’s wrong,” he said.

Far-right outreach

Since taking over the Diaspora Ministry, Chikli has worked to strengthen Israel’s relationship with Europe’s far-right parties, which the Jewish state had long boycotted due to their ties to antisemitism and Nazism. This outspoken support has drawn condemnation from European countries.

In March, French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy and two German officials canceled their participation in an Israeli conference on combating antisemitism, organized by Chikli, after learning that a series of far-right European figures had been invited.

In December, Romania’s ambassador to Israel condemned Chikli for holding a phone conversation with presidential candidate Calin Georgescu, who has praised Romanian leaders who oversaw the deaths of some 280,000 Jews during the Holocaust.

Last year, French President Emmanuel Macron complained to Netanyahu about Chikli after he publicly endorsed the presidential candidacy of National Rally’s Marine Le Pen in the country’s election.

Speaking with The Times of Israel following Tuesday’s meeting, Kariv called on Chikli to apologize to British Jews, arguing that the visit had been arranged “only in order to serve the local political needs of both Minister Chikli and Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana.”

“The fact that different ministers and the speaker of the Knesset allow themselves to have a separate foreign policy without dialoguing with the Foreign Ministry is another sign of the lack of strategy in the current cabinet. It’s another sign of the weakness of the Prime Minister’s Office and the prime minister himself. Israel deserves a much more coordinated and well-established foreign policy than the one we have because of those solo players in the government,” he said.

President of the National Rally parliamentary group Marine Le Pen arrives to meet resigned French prime minister Sebastien Lecornu for a round of consultations with political parties ahead of the announcement of the new government, in Paris, October 3, 2025. (Alain Jocard, Pool Photo via AP)

Asked for comment, a spokesman for Chikli said that “for years, the State of Israel has sought to curry favor with elements that are not friendly toward it — and at times even ignored those who do support it — simply because they do not align with the views of the old Western elites.”

“The Diaspora Ministry is proud to bring about change and strengthen ties with conservative forces throughout Europe and the world – including Tommy Robinson from Britain, the VOX party in Spain, the Rassemblement National in France and more,” he said.

“This axis is sympathetic to Israel, has shed negative symbols that existed in the past, and is the future of Europe and the solution to Israel’s political isolation. It is an axis that understands the threat of radical Islam and Israel’s place as the front line of defense of the free world,” the spokesman continued, adding that Robinson was “one of Europe’s most prominent voices in support of the State of Israel and against radical Islam.”

Times of Israel staff and Stav Levaton contributed to this report.