UK Muslim Groups Reject Interfaith Pact With Jewish Leaders Because Chief Rabbi Is a ‘Zionist’

Ailin Vilches Arguello

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The signing of the Drumlanrig Accords at Buckingham Palace. Photo: Screenshot

A coalition of Muslim organizations in the United Kingdom has rejected a recently announced Muslim-Jewish reconciliation agreement aimed at improving relations between the two communities, condemning the landmark pact over the involvement of British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, who they denounced as a “staunch Zionist.”

In a joint statement, more than 25 Muslim groups, including Friends of Al Aqsa and The Cordoba Foundation, expressed strong opposition to the Drumlanrig Accords over Mirvis’s support for Israel. They also argued that the agreement, which was drafted in January and signed last month, lacked legitimate representation as it was backed by “self-appointed” Muslim leaders who do not represent the will of the Muslim community.

The signatories “failed to consult widely with grassroots organizations supported by the Muslim community before they signed these accords with the chief rabbi, who is a staunch Zionist,” the statement said.

“Rabbi Mirvis has supported Israel’s war on the Palestinians in Gaza,” the coalition continued, before citing debunked casualty figures supplied by Hamas-controlled authorities. “We cannot in good faith acknowledge these accords when the chief rabbi has made public statements supporting Israel despite the horrific actions of the Israeli Occupation Forces.”

In January, representatives of 11 denominations from Judaism and Islam met at Drumlanrig Castle in Scotland to agree to a pact aimed at improving relations between the two faiths. The signatories said the accords were designed to unite the Jewish and Muslim communities in Britain to “help tackle both antisemitism and Islamophobia, as well as poverty and isolation,” while promoting mutual respect and solidarity.

Jewish and Muslim leaders formally signed the agreement last month and presented it to Britain’s King Charles III at Buckingham Palace in London.

“The Drumlanrig Accords represent a bold first step toward rebuilding a meaningful trust between Muslim and Jewish communities over the long term,” Mirvis said in a statement following the signing of the accords. “They do not gloss over our differences; they acknowledge them.”

“They also send out a powerful message that in times of division, when it is far easier to retreat into fear and suspicion, we are prepared to take the more challenging path to reconciliation,” he continued. “We do so not because it is easy, but because it is necessary.”

In their statement released earlier this week, Muslim leaders explained they would only accept and support the accords if the UK’s chief rabbi condemns the “genocide and apartheid being enacted against the Palestinian people,” welcoming a collective multi-faith movement against oppression.

“Until then, we wholly reject these accords made purportedly on behalf of the Muslim community,” the coalition said. “A central facet of Islam is the complete rejection of oppression. As a community, we do not shy away from rejecting oppression in all its forms against anyone.”

The statement did not acknowledge Hamas’s widely recognized military strategy of embedding its terrorists within Gaza’s civilian population and commandeering civilian facilities like hospitals, schools, and mosques to run operations and direct attacks.

In Monday’s statement, the groups also argued that the Muslim leaders who signed the accords were “self-appointed” and do not represent the wider British Muslim community, but rather they only speak for a small minority.

“These self-appointed Muslims were fully aware that they only represent a small minority of the overall British Muslim population,” the statement read. “The majority of the British Muslim community do not even know who these individual Muslim ‘leaders’ are. Their actions and decisions were made independently without consulting the wider Muslim community.”

According to their statement, these Muslim groups would be “wholly supportive” of interfaith relations if carried out in good faith.

“We note the significant rise in anti-Muslim hatred within the Jewish community and support engagement on challenging hatred in all its forms,” the signatories said.

The signing of the accords came amid an ongoing surge in antisemitic crimes across the UK since the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel, amid the ensuing war in Gaza.

Last month, the Community Security Trust (CST), a nonprofit charity that advises Britain’s Jewish community on security matters, released data showing the UK experienced its second worst year ever for antisemitism in 2024, despite recording an 18 percent drop in antisemitic incidents from the previous year’s all-time high.

In one of the latest incidents, a visibly Jewish man in England was brutally attacked after a prayer service, leaving him fearing for his eyesight, with local police investigating the assault as a hate crime.

Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists started the war in Gaza when they murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages during their invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Israel responded with a military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.

In January, both sides reached a ceasefire and hostage-release deal brokered by Egypt and Qatar with the support of the United States.

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