LONDON — An Israeli minister has clashed with the U.K.’s leading Jewish organizations after lauding a leader of the English far right and inviting him to visit the country.
Tommy Robinson, a convicted fraudster with a violent criminal record who is well-known for inspiring rallies of mostly white, mostly male followers shouting soccer-style chants against Islam and immigration, accepted the invitation from Amichai Chikli, Israel’s minister for the diaspora and combating antisemitism.
Chikli called Robinson — whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon — a “courageous leader on the front line against radical Islam.”
Writing on X Friday, Chilki said he would be “proud to host” Robinson “on behalf of the State of Israel,” saying the British activist would visit in mid-October.
The Jewish Leadership Council (JLC), which represents the largest Jewish organizations in the United Kingdom, and the Board of Deputies, called Robinson a “thug” who “represents the very worst of Britain,” and criticized the invitation in the wake of a deadly terror attack at a synagogue in Manchester.
“In our darkest hour,” both groups posted on X Saturday, Chikli has “ignored the views of the vast majority of British Jews, who utterly and consistently reject Robinson and everything he stands for.”
There has been a rise in anti-Jewish hostility in Britain, predating the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza that started three years ago, according to community groups and the people suffering the first-hand effects in the United Kingdom.
Robinson’s invitation to Israel “undermines those genuinely working to tackle Islamist extremism and foster community cohesion,” the two groups added. “Minister Chikli has proven himself to be a Diaspora Minister in name only.”
Chikli, who has clashed repeatedly with Jewish groups abroad, said the Board of Deputies had “regrettably, become first and foremost a political organization — openly aligned with left-wing, woke, pro-Palestinian parties.”
The Board of Deputies says it is committed to fighting antisemitism, tackling extremism, and standing for security in Israel and the Middle East.
Neither Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office nor the Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism immediately responded to NBC News’ request for comment.
Robinson said he had accepted the invitation and that he would travel to Israel “immediately following my October 13th trial.”
The 42-year-old recently served an 18-month jail sentence for contempt of court, a charge stemming from a libelous video in which he falsely claimed a Syrian refugee teenager was a violent thug.
Elon Musk called for Robinson to be freed while he was imprisoned, and has since thrown his support behind the activist, most recently at far-right rally in London where the billionaire entrepreneur appeared by video link and railed against “uncontrolled immigration.”
Robinson was first jailed in 2005 for assaulting an off-duty police officer, and ordered to do community service in 2011 for leading a brawl involving more than 100 soccer fans. He was imprisoned again in 2013 for traveling to the United States on another person’s passport, then again a year later for mortgage fraud.
Robinson, who took his pseudonym from a soccer hooligan, was also given a five-year stalking protection order in October 2021 after he shouted abuse outside the home of a journalist, having learned she was planning a story about him.
During that time, he co-founded the English Defence League, or EDL, which rose out of a disparate network of far-right groups and whose virulently Islamophobic views were praised by Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in Norway’s worst peacetime atrocity in July 2011 and has frequently made Nazi salutes when attending court.
In 2023, organizers of a march against antisemitism in London demanded that the far-right leader Stephen Yaxley-Lennon stay away from their demonstration.
