London mayor cuts West Bank trip short due to ‘security risk’

After making the controversial comments, Johnson was forced to cancel a string of events and meetings scheduled for his visit to West Bank on Wednesday after the Palestinian authorities warned him about their fears of protests.

Johnson told reporters accompanying him that two of the three meetings had been called off by organisers after Hamdallah warned him that security “would perhaps be at risk” if he went ahead following remarks he had made in recent days.

“Instead of whitewashing Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people, Mr Johnson should be urging Israel to abide by worldwide law”. One cornerstone of a democratic society is free speech, the willingness to allow someone to say things with which you disagree, without penalty or punishment.

“He would have had a chance to visit young Palestinians living under occupation”.

Her words were echoed by War on Want security campaigner Ryvka Barnard, who asked: “Is it any wonder Palestinians have denied Boris Johnson a platform, when he continues to deny the brutality of Israeli apartheid and the global movement for Palestinian rights?”

Speaking in Tel Aviv, Mr Johnson said a “completely crazy” trade boycott against Israel lacks support and used a lecture to hit out at a few “corduroy, jacketed, snaggletoothed, lefty academics in the UK” who are pursuing the cause. Indeed, he might justifiably have gone further and noted the whiff of anti-Semitism that emanates from parts of the Left-wing anti-Israel mob.

The Palestinian youth group retracted its invite to Johnson, saying his statements reflected a stance which “failed to acknowledge” Palestinian existence.

On social media, Johnson admitted his comments had been very much “whipped up”.

“I think a few people have taken remarks I made about the boycott – which after all is British government policy – have taken offence at that”, he said.

A Palestinian youth group called the Sharek Youth Forum rescinded its invitation to Johnson, asserting that his remarks about the BDS movement were “inaccurate, misinformed and disrespectful”, according to the Guardian.

“Why boycott Israel? And by the way I think there is a few misunderstanding over here about it. The supporters of this so-called boycott are really a bunch of, you know, corduroy-jacketed academics”.

“There’s a few stuff going on on social media apparently, so rather depressingly we can’t do the youth forum and one other meeting”.

Representing the women’s peace organization, Code Pink, the two activists-both named after an angel, a modern Jewish city in Samaria, and a Disney mermaid-proudly expressed their “Jewish opposition to the Israeli occupation of Palestine” and endorsed “the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement as a nonviolent strategy to bring about a just peace in Palestine and Israel”.