The Israel lobby in the UK or: Why Britain has gone to war in Yemen to support Gaza genocide
All evidence suggests that the UK puts Israeli interests ahead of its own. Its behaviour during the ongoing genocide in Gaza is further proof.
This article is the second of a two-part series on the Israel lobby and focuses on its actions in the UK. Read the first part about the Israeli lobby in the US here.
On January 27, The Telegraph in the United Kingdom published a shocking report. It revealed that “Britain’s warships cannot attack Houthi targets on land because they lack the firepower, in a situation described by former defence chiefs as a ‘scandal.’”
By the time of The Telegraph’s report, Britain was already two weeks into enthusiastically following America’s lead in routinely bombing multiple Houthi-controlled provinces in Yemen. The lack of firepower didn’t stop the British. The aggression against Yemen is to prevent the Ansarullah (also known as the Houthis) from blocking Israel-bound ships as long as the Israelis continue their genocide in Gaza. Since the publication of the report, the US and UK-led bombings in Yemen have only increased in regularity and intensity.
The humanitarian gesture by the Houthis has been deemed unacceptable by the United States and its European vassals, the United Kingdom chief among them. For a nation that has been struggling economically, scrambling for favourable bilateral trade deals with other states in the aftermath of Brexit, and dealing with myriad domestic issues ranging from a severely underfunded healthcare system to a cost of living crisis, it defies logic for it to bomb one of the world’s poorest countries — which lies nearly 4,000 miles away in another continent — instead of serving its own struggling citizens.
So why are they doing it? Certainly, the descendants of a people who ran an empire so vast that the Sun never set on it haven’t suddenly gone senile and demented. Having shipped a good amount of their resources to Ukraine to support its war against Russia — another nation that poses no threat to them — why are they exerting themselves even more and helping butcher another set of impoverished people living in the world’s largest concentration camp for nearly two decades?
As a trusted ally of the US, the UK is expected to plunge into all wars of aggression that its erstwhile settler colony starts, funds, and supports. The aggression against Yemen is no different. There is also the umbilical cord between Israel and Britain — considering the Balfour declaration set in motion the events that led to the creation of Israel — as an explanation for British affinity for the apartheid state.
More than anything, however, the disproportionate influence of the Israeli lobby in the UK offers a clear explanation for Britain’s behavior in the Middle East. The vilification and shunning of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn — the only pro-Palestinian leader of a mainstream political party in all of the West — by his own party is a clear indication that something more sinister is at play in British politics. Taken in conjunction with other cases like the firing of University of Bristol Professor David Miller and the scuppering of Alan Duncan’s appointment in the Middle East, the Israeli hand in the UK’s political discourse becomes apparent.
The Israeli lobby in the UK
The two main political parties in the United Kingdom — the Labour Party and the Conservative Party — have affiliated parliamentary groups, namely Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) and the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI), which are ostensibly dedicated to strengthening the political and business ties between Britain and Israel.
The LFI also works to strengthen ties between the British Labour Party and the Israeli Labour Party, while the CFI works to strengthen such ties between the Conservatives and the Likud Party in Israel.
The sheer premise of the CFI and LFI is absurd, to put it mildly. It’s akin to Britons in Israel starting a Likud Friends of the UK and a Labor Friends of the UK, both of which would work in cahoots with the British embassy in Israel to influence Israeli politics in favour of Britain. It’s hard to fathom. But accepted norms of decency don’t apply to Israel. Indeed, it’s a blight unto the nations.
How the Israeli lobby brought down Corbyn
Corbyn rose to the leadership of the Labour Party against all odds in 2015. His election to the role prompted a surge in the party’s membership, highlighting his popularity among the supporters of Labour. For the first time in its history, Britain had a pro-Palestinian leader. It would prove to be his undoing.
He wasn’t just popular, Corbyn delivered at the polls, too. In the first general election under his leadership in 2017, the Labour Party’s vote share increased by a remarkable 9.6 percent. However, by the time of the 2019 election, the campaign against him had become so vicious that the election was practically reduced to one issue: the bogey of antisemitism in the Labour Party under Corbyn’s watch.
The British media — across the left-right spectrum — ran a campaign of slander against Corbyn to depose him. Research by British investigative journalist Matt Kennard revealed that the British establishment worked hand-in-hand with the media to make him unelectable. “Officials in the UK military and intelligence establishment have been sources for at least 34 major national media stories that cast Jeremy Corbyn as a danger to British security,” wrote Kennard.
Anti-Corbyn stories in the British media quickly reached absurd levels and not just by the much-maligned tabloid rags. Consider this for a header from the aforementioned British establishment mouthpiece The Telegraph:
The headline isn’t clickbait. Here’s a paragraph from the article: “[A] tie is a sign of ambition. When Jeremy Corbyn at last began to wear one, teamed with quite a smart suit, for television appearances during the election, a chill gripped my heart. I realised for the first time that he actually wanted to win.” Imagine the gall of a politician to actually want to win an election!
The piece’s writer — a classic case of a “truth-to-power-speaking journalist” — was rewarded for his life-long efforts in pushing establishment narratives with a seat in the House of Lords, the upper house of the British parliament, in 2020.
A London School of Economics (LSE) report on media vilification of Corbyn reached the following conclusion: “Corbyn was thoroughly delegitimised as a political actor from the moment he became a prominent candidate and even more so after he was elected as party leader, with a strong mandate. This process of delegitimisation occurred in several ways: 1) through lack of or distortion of voice; 2) through ridicule, scorn and personal attacks; and 3) through association, mainly with terrorism.”
The pro-Israel Jewish leadership in the UK was at the forefront of the antisemitism smear campaign against Corbyn. Britain’s chief rabbi Ephraim Mirvis took the lead in this unprecedented assault when he declared: “A poison taken from the very top has taken root in the party.” His line would be repeated ad infinitum by the British press to highlight the concerns of Jews in case of a Corbyn win.
Myriad pro-Israel groups in the UK — among them Campaign Against Antisemitism (which was revived in 2015 with the express aim of bringing down Corbyn) and Campaign Against Antisemitism — as well as Israeli politicians, have since publicly declared their role in Corbyn’s political assassination. One Israeli politician had the audacity to publicly write: “Bye bye @jeremycorbyn. Justice is done. Proud I was part of this puzzle.” Imagine an Iranian politician writing something similar about a British politician.
Indeed, multiple investigations into the alleged antisemitism problem in the Labour Party during Corbyn’s leadership found no basis in those allegations.
In the Al Jazeera documentary series, The Lobby - UK, historian Ilan Pappe puts it bluntly: “It’s very surprising that people suddenly were talking about the fundamental issues of antisemitism in the Labour Party once a certain person was elected as a leader. That’s the only reason people were looking for antisemitism, and you know if you look for something, you’ll always find it, whether it exists or it doesn’t exist.”
Nevertheless, his party has banned him from contesting elections as a Labour candidate at the next election, while the incumbent leader of the Labour Party, Sir Keir Starmer — don’t miss the mark of knighthood before his name — in the wake of the Israeli genocide in Gaza, declared that “Israel has the right” to cut off the Gaza concentration camp’s power and water supply while its inhabitants were relentlessly bombarded with sundry incendiary bombs. As a matter of fact, Sir Starmer is a human rights lawyer.
Other than taking the opposite of Corbyn’s every stance, there’s another reason for Starmer’s support of genocide. A report by British publication Declassified last November revealed that 40 percent of Starmer’s shadow cabinet ministers are funded by the Israel lobby. The recipients of Israel’s largesse include Starmer himself as well as his deputy Angela Rayner, among a host of other high-profile Labour leaders.
Another Declassified article from last month reported: “LFI currently counts 73 of Labour’s 197 MPs as parliamentary supporters or officers of the organisation, as well as 37 lords and 4 MSPs [Members of the Scottish Parliament].”
The situation is no different in the ruling Conservative Party. A 2021 report by the same publication showed that a third of Boris Johnson’s cabinet had their bread buttered by “Israel or pro-Israel lobby groups”. A follow-up last October revealed that the situation was similar for Rishi Sunak’s cabinet.
The case of David Miller
, a professor at the University of Bristol in the UK who is a vocal critic of Zionism and its role in promoting Islamophobia, had his employment terminated for trumped-up charges in 2021. However, a UK court this week ruled that Miller was discriminated against and unfairly dismissed by the university.Allegations against Miller began soon after he started at the university in September 2018. A complaint was filed in the wake of a lecture he gave about Islamophobia — a Zionist in attendance recorded the session. It had a section on how Zionists contribute to the rise in Islamophobia in the West. The Community Security Trust — a pro-Israel lobby group that is seen as the British equivalent of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) — then filed a complaint against him that was rejected since CST wasn’t a student at the university. So, the lobby group encouraged the President of the University of Jewish Students in London to complain. The UJS President then roped in the Bristol Jewish Society’s (BJS) President — whom Miller never taught — to file a complaint. The complaints by the heads of the UJS and the BJS set in motion the witch hunt against the professor.
After years of harassment and legal cases, Professor Miller stands vindicated.
In an interview with TRT, Professor Miller recounted the sequence of events:
“Six weeks later [after the first inquiry gave him a clean chit], I went to a public meeting, and I referred to the fact that I had been, and I am quoting again, ‘attacked and complained about’ by these two individuals, the heads of the Bristol Jewish Society and the head of the Union of Jewish Students and after that, all hell broke loose. There was a huge campaign to have me sacked because using the words ‘attacked and complained about’ was somehow targetting and bullying students. Plainly ridiculous.
“But something like 20 or 30 different Zionist organisations, which most people in Britain would struggle to name that many Zionist organisations complained about me.
“There were questions in the House, there were debates in the House of Commons. Over a hundred members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords wrote to the university, calling for me to be sacked. Zionist professors at my university called for me to be sacked, and I was investigated and again I was found to have said nothing antisemitic, obviously. But the university decided that I would be sacked because I had upset students when I had talked about Zionism and Islamophobia, and that was upsetting to Zionist students, and that I shouldn’t upset Zionist students, and so they sacked me.”
Miller’s case highlights the coordination with which the various Israel lobby groups act once they hone in on their target. The links of these lobby groups run deep into the Israeli government. Those involved in Miller’s witch hunt were no different. Reporting on the matter for The Electronic Intifada,
revealed in 2021: “The two students [who filed the complaint against Miller] acted in collusion with the Community Security Trust – which has links to Israel’s deadly spy agency Mossad – and the Union of Jewish Students – which is funded by and acts as a front for the Israeli embassy in London.”The Lobby - UK
A four-part documentary series by Al Jazeera released in 2017 under the title The Lobby - UK sheds some light on the workings of the pro-Israel groups in the UK and how they influence British policy and public discourse by manipulating media coverage and manoeuvring pro-Israel political appointments in the country.
In the series, the Al Jazeera journalist, operating under the pseudonym Robin, becomes acquainted with a senior Israeli embassy official named Shai Masot and subsequently goes on to meet various Israel lobby operatives working at various levels of British society and politics to shape policies and narratives in favour of the apartheid state.
The operation reveals myriad pro-Israel organisations in the UK — just like in the US — with seemingly innocuous names that hide the sinister work they do in British politics. Other than the CFI and the LFI, other groups included BICOM (Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre), Israel Britain Alliance, Jewish Labour Movement, We Believe in Israel, Young Fabians, Conservative Future, and Sussex Friends of Israel, among a whole host of others. Nearly all of them pretend to be independent grassroots organisations, with no links to the Israeli state. However, as the documentary reveals, the pretense of independence from Israel couldn’t be further from the truth.
In the series, Masot tells the undercover journalist that “for years, every MP that joined the Parliament, the first thing that they used to do was to go to join the LFI. They are not doing it anymore in the Labour Party. CFI, they are doing it automatically.” He goes on to add: “Out of 40 new MPs who just got in at the last elections…all of those ones were in the CFI, Conservative Friends of Israel. In the LFI, it didn’t happen, obviously.”
The undercover journalist is recruited by Masot to start a Young LFI to catch Labour leaders young and put them in service of Israel advocacy once they reach positions of power. (At the time there was a Young CFI but no corresponding Young LFI.) The mandate for Masot’s potential new hire was clear: “You need to get more people onboard.” At a later meeting, Masot goes on to tutor Robin about the ways of establishing an organisation such as the one he was was being primed for.
Masot tells the journalist that he has helped start many such organisations in the UK. He says: “It’s good to leave those organisations independent. But we help them actually…establish.” However, he tells Robin that links between the Israeli embassy and the organsations that they help start and fund, such as the Young LFI, must remain hidden.
The undercover reporter is told by Masot to seek Michael Rubin’s help in setting up the Young LFI. Rubin, then-Parliamentary Officer for the LFI, fills him on the importance of hiding clandestine operations’ ties with the Israeli state: “We’ve got to be careful because I think there are some people who would be happy to be involved in a Young LFI but wouldn’t necessarily be happy if it was seen as an embassy thing.”
To break it down, the Israeli embassy was going to run an undercover operation to influence young Labour leaders in the UK into doing Israel’s bidding.
Rubin further reveals that the LFI and the Israel embassy work in tandem. “We do work really, really closely together, it’s just publicly we just try to keep the LFI as a separate identity to the embassy, of course.” He adds: “Being LFI allows us to reach out to people who wouldn’t want to get involved with the embassy.” He then lays bare the modus operandi of the LFI and its motives further: “Keeping it as a separate thing is actually best for everyone because ultimately we want the same end goal of getting more people to be pro-Israel and understand the conflict.”
Notice how, despite LFI operating out of Labour, Britain’s interests find no mention in Rubin’s brief. Israel first, last, and everything in between.
Later in the series, Masot, having introduced Robin as the chairperson of the LFI at events, attempts to extricate himself from any potential trouble by telling the undercover reporter that he can speak about the ideas Masot gave him but without letting out the source of those ideas since he was an Israeli working at the Israeli embassy and not a British national.
His involvement, if publicised, would be deemed interference in British politics.
Israel lobby in student politics
The series also covers how the first major story about the Labour Party’s alleged antisemitism problem that arose out of Oxford University — based on the promotion by students of Israel Apartheid Week, which Winstanley lays out in the series, is an event marked in campuses around the world — was fanned by pro-Israel students at the university. The British media went to town with the non-story.
The leader of the National Union of Students (NUS), a Muslim student named Malia Bouattia became the target of the lobby’s ire after she called herself an anti-Zionist in a televised interview. Her position was undermined by Richard Brooks, a NUS vice-president, one of her deputies, who worked in cahoots with the lobby to slander her. He claimed that Bouattia’s position of being anti-Zionist amounted to antisemitism.
How did he learn the invaluable lessons about what and what doesn’t constitute antisemitism? Brooks tells the undercover journalist, “I got taken on a trip to Israel with the UJS…So I kind of learned loads on that, and from there on in, I felt confident enough to start talking about some of the stuff more seriously.” He says all of it with a straight face with no self-awareness that the Zionists sponsor such curated trips to the settler colony precisely to have those returning spout views like his. Indeed, Al Jazeera’s investigation revealed that the funds for trips with UJS came from the Israeli embassy.
Moreover, Bouattia’s opponent in the race for the presidency of UJS received donations from Israel to set up a campus-based think tank named The Pinsker Centre, which the documentary revealed worked as a conduit for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) to channel money into British campuses.
Two states, one fiction
The undercover journalist heads to the annual Labour Party Conference in Liverpool with the Israeli delegation. At the conference, Labour member Jean Fitzpatrick, a first-time attendee, walks up to the LFI stall and queries Joan Ryan — an MP and chairperson of the LFI — about Israel’s plans for a two-state solution.
She mentions the heavy atomisation of the West Bank and wonders if a two-state solution is even possible if the Israeli settlers kept encroaching on Palestinian lands. In response, Ryan keeps repeating like a mantra one or another version of the well-worn line: “We believe in a two-state solution.”
“How will that come about, do you think?” Fitzpatrick probes. Some more pussyfooting by Ryan follows: “Our job is to support any possible means that can bring about and facilitate…” As Fitzpatrick keeps up her pursuit of finding an answer to her question, Ryan sticks to the script like a parrot and, at one point, blows her nose in a napkin, which inadvertently is a perfect summation of the Israeli desire to give the Palestinians a state. Which is to say, they don’t want to give Palestinians their state. They couldn’t be more explicit.
As Fitzpatrick probes for an answer, she brings up the topic of LFI’s influence. Fitzpatrick: “You’ve got a lot of money, you’ve got a lot of prestige in the world. A friend of mine’s son’s got a really good job at Oxford University on the basis of having worked for Labour Friends of Israel.” Ryan distorts Fitzpatrick’s statement of fact and fabricates it into “good job at Oxford and the City.” City is London’s financial centre. Interestingly, just hours earlier Masot is caught on the journalist’s camera telling Ryan about securing £1 million from Israel ostensibly to fund trips to Tel Aviv.
To Fitzpatrick’s horror, her statement of fact about a son of her friend getting a job at Oxford University due to his ties with the LFI gets turned into an allegation of antisemitism against her by Ryan, ultimately leading to a formal inquiry by the Labour Party.
Taking down MPs
The part of the documentary that caused the biggest stir in the UK was the Israeli embassy official, Shai Masot, concocting plans with British civil servant Maria Strizzolo to “take down” British MPs. Sir Alan Duncan, a critic of the Israeli settlements in the West Bank, was a prime target for Masot.
Strizzolo, who previously worked with pro-Israel MP Robert Halfon, was open to Masot’s suggestion. She recounts an instance of a heated discussion between Duncan and Halfon, implying that something could be manufactured out of that story, if needed. Rather ominously, she remarks: “Well, you know, if you look hard enough, I’m sure that there is something that they’re trying to hide.”
Furthermore, Strizzolo reveals how the lobby influences British parliament proceedings: “If at least you can get a small group of MPs that you know you can always rely on, when there is something coming to parliament, and you know you brief them, you say: ‘you don’t have to do anything, we are going to give you the speech, we are going to give you all the information, we are going to do everything for you. Then I think it becomes easier. And from that little group, it might grow and grow…So, if you already have the question to table for PMQs [Prime Minister’s Question Time], it’s hard to say, ‘Oh no, no, no, I won’t do it.’”
She then goes on to recount how she got Halfon to table a question to then PM David Cameron about the killing of three people in Israel while she was in that country.
Following the release of the documentary, Strizzolo resigned. Despite the bombshell revelation, the quisling faced no inquiry.
Israelis dictate British political appointments
Duncan, who was Boris Johnson’s deputy in the foreign ministry from 2016-19 and whose downfall the Israeli lobby operatives plot, wrote in his memoir, In the Thick of It, about the Israeli control of the British Foreign Office. Duncan:
“I call Simon McDonald and brief him similarly. I teasingly reminded him of what happened and what I said to him on my first day as a minister. ‘Simon … didn’t I tell you? The CFI and the Israelis think they control the Foreign Office. And they do!”
McDonald was a Foreign Office official.
Duncan would know a thing or two about Israeli interference in British politics as the apartheid state prevented him from taking up a post in the Middle East.
Here’s an excerpt from a report in Declassified by Matt Kennard, recounting Duncan’s account from his book about how his portfolio was dictated by Tel Aviv loyalists in Britain:
Before hard evidence emerged of Israeli efforts to “destroy” him, Duncan had already been targeted by the CFI to stop him being promoted within the British government.
On 16 July 2016, Duncan wrote: “All seems clear and agreed that I will be Minister for the Middle East, as expected. Permanent Under-Secretary Simon McDonald called to say it’s all been agreed and he would recommend it to the Foreign Secretary.”
He continued: “But when I see Boris [Johnson] at 6pm it seems a massive problem has arisen, which is nothing short of contemptible. Boris says the Conservative Friends of Israel are going ballistic.”
Johnson reported that Eric Pickles and Stuart Polak, both senior figures in the CFI, “have both called him incessantly saying I must not be appointed”.
Duncan wrote that the opposition from the CFI is “for no other reason than that I believe in the rights of the Palestinians”.
“Whereas they pretend to believe in two parallel states, it’s quite clear that they don’t, and so set out to destroy all genuine advocates for Palestine,” he added.
He concluded: “They just want to belittle and subjugate the Palestinians.”
The lobbying worked. Despite the appointment not being announced, “Now Number 10 are telling Boris I cannot have the Middle East”, Duncan wrote. He continued that Johnson was “somewhat indignant at this pressure and its propriety (or lack of it)”.
Duncan then offered a compromise: to take the Middle East minister job but to exclude the issue of Israel-Palestine from the brief. Johnson “likes the idea”, Duncan reported, but added that “on any level it is appalling that a [prime minister]’s appointments can be subject to such lobbying. Our own national interest is being taken for a sucker.”
He continued: “In any other country the conduct of Eric Pickles and Stuart Polak would in my view be seen as entrenched espionage that should prompt an inquiry into their conduct.”
Duncan also wrote that Downing Street chief of staff Nick Timothy was “in cahoots with CFI lobbying”.
He continued: “This whole issue of Israel is utterly out of proportion, but, worse, is permitted to empower interested parties in Number 10 to decide what a minister’s responsibilities should be. This is improper. It’s wrong. I actually think it’s corrupt, but the whole system buys into it without realising how wrong it is.”
The situation then escalated further as Duncan reported that the Board of Deputies of British Jews ran a webcast in which Labour MP Louise Ellman said that Duncan should not be foreign minister.
“My appointment isn’t even public yet. How did they know?” Duncan wrote. “Clearly Pickles and Polak have been actively lobbying against me, linking CFI, Labour Friends of Israel and the Board of Deputies.”
Duncan continued: “This is the most disgusting interference in our public life. I find it astonishing the system allows it to happen, all the more so as anything I have said has been wholly in tune with government policy. The difference seems to be that I believe in that policy, whereas CFI and the government itself do not!”
Duncan was then informed that his appointment to Middle East minister would be blocked. “This is so wrong on all levels,” he wrote, adding that Simon McDonald “is rather perturbed by what is going on”.
He added: “The only people who are acting improperly are CFI and those who accept their browbeating lobbying”.
In the end, Duncan was offered the role as Minister for Europe and the Americas, and served in that position for three years. However, he told McDonald that “he should never forget what it is the [Foreign Office] has submitted to”.
“The most powerful political lobby”
The release of the Lobby - UK — in which an Israeli embassy official in London was seen plotting with a British civil servant to “take down” UK parliamentarians deemed insufficiently servile to Israel and calling the then-British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson an “idiot” — led to the firing of the said Israeli embassy official and an apology from the then-Israeli ambassador to the UK, Mark Regev. And not much else.
These nominal gestures were deemed sufficient by Johnson, as he rejected calls for further action against Israel and declared in the British parliament that “the matter can be considered closed.” All that Johnson could muster about Masot was a line: “Whoever he was and whatever he was doing, his cover can be said to have been well and truly blown.”
The LFI, which was at the heart of the documentary, faced no action from the Labour Party. In his book, In the Thick Of It, Duncan recounts that Labour was in no mood to press the matter further: “Quick chat with Emily Thornberry to see if Labour intend to table an Urgent Question on the Al Jazeera allegations. They won’t, because it would risk stirring up more anti-Semitism accusations against them.” Thornberry was the Shadow Foreign Secretary at the time.
The bogey of fake antisemitism charges had scared Labour into not pursuing their case against the lobby’s clandestine operations despite clear evidence of wrongdoing.
Peter Oborne and James Jones, in a 2009 report titled The pro-Israel lobby in Britain, write:
“Michael Mates, a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee and former Northern Ireland minister, told us on the record that ‘the pro-Israel lobby in our body politic is the most powerful political lobby. There’s nothing to touch them.’ Mates added: ‘I think their lobbying is done very discreetly, in very high places, which may be why it is so effective.’”
Oborne and Jones write that the people they interviewed about their report were too scared to speak to them for fear of reprisal from the powerful lobby:
Privately we would be met with great enthusiasm and support. Everyone had a story to tell, it seemed. Once the subject of doing an interview was raised the tone changed; “Anything at all I can do to help…” quickly became “Well, obviously I couldn’t.” or “It wouldn’t be appropriate for me to.”
Many people who privately voiced concerns about the influence of the lobby simply felt they had too much to lose by confronting it. One national newspaper editor told us, “that’s one lobby I’ve never dared to take on.” From MPs, to senior BBC journalists and representatives of Britain’s largest charities, the pattern became depressingly familiar. Material would come flooding out on the phone or in a meeting, but then days later an email would arrive to say that they would not be able to take part. Either after consultation with colleagues or consideration of the potential consequences, people pulled out.
One prominent British journalist wrote in the wake of Israeli terrorism in Gaza in 2014:
“I didn’t join the marchers in London because, well, I was worried that I would lay myself open to charges of anti-Semitism.”
What hope, then, does an ordinary citizen have against the Israeli colossus working against his interests?
Conservative Friends of Israel
While the Al Jazeera journalist infiltrated the Labour Party’s Israel lobby group, the Conservative Party’s Conservative Friends of Israel exerts no less power. In a 2012 article, Oborne wrote:
The Conservative politician and historian Robert Rhodes James, writing in the Jerusalem Post in 1995, called it “the largest organisation in Western Europe dedicated to the cause of the people of Israel”. Its power has not waned since.”
He went on to add:
“Some 80 per cent of all Tory MPs are members [of the CFI], including most Cabinet ministers. No other lobbying organisation – and certainly not one that acts in the interests of a foreign country – carries as much weight at Westminster.”
It works very similarly to the LFI, including funding trips to Israel to present a sanitised picture of the apartheid state.
They don’t even try to hide it.
A glowing tribute to the CFI in right-wing Israeli paper Jerusalem Post in 2020 laid out the lobby group’s task of indoctrinating the incoming MPs thus:
“One vitally important method of gaining the interest, sympathy, and eventually support of parliamentarians is by bringing them to Israel, escorting them on visits around the country, demonstrating some of the achievements – as well as some of the problems facing the nation – and providing them with briefings from Israeli leaders and experts.”
The British leadership has been so deeply in bed with Israel that two recent Home Secretaries have lost their jobs over it. Priti Patel failed to disclose her clandestine trip to Israel in 2017 put together by the CFI’s Stuart Polak.
About Patel’s action and the fact that Israel only got an oblique reference despite its central role in Patel being relieved from her role, Duncan pulls no punches. He writes:
“The Conservative Party and the PM remain in total denial, and once again brush it under the carpet. It reeks, it stinks, it festers, it moulders – all rotten to the core. The rules of propriety, and all the morality and principle that goes with it, are discarded and rewritten to accommodate this exceptional pro-Israel infiltration into the very centre of our public life.”
More recently, Suella Braverman was fired after writing an article in which she accused the British police of being lenient towards pro-Palestine protesters in London. Remarkably, she called the protesters “pro-Palestinian mobs” and “hate marchers.”
In a March 2023 interview with The Jewish Chronicle, Braverman laid out her association with the Zionist state. She declared: “My husband is a proud Jew and Zionist. He’s lived in Israel. We have close family members who serve in the IDF.”
No ceasefire under the UK’s watch
There has been much chagrin at the UK’s refusal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. But to expect Britain to call on Israelis to restrain from wanton calling is an exercise in futility.
In The pro-Israel lobby in Britain report, Oborne and Jones write:
When William Hague denounced Israel’s 2006 invasion of Lebanon as “disproportionate”, the CFI (as I revealed in a film on the pro-Israeli lobby for Channel 4’s Dispatches) complained in person to David Cameron. It obtained a promise that the word would never be used again.
In effect, Israel dictates what comes out of a British politician’s mouth. If the Israelis want genocide, the UK can’t say “ceasefire” until the Zionist state’s bloodlust is sated.
It’s clear in whose interests the UK’s political system works.
In an entry from 2019 in his book, Duncan laments:
“We are supposed to be Great Britain, but I fear we are too willing to let others pull our strings.”
This article is the second of a two-part series on the Israel lobby and focuses on its actions in the UK. Read the first part about the Israel lobby in the US here.
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THE CONVENTION ON THE PREVENTION AND
PUNISHMENT OF THE CRIME OF GENOCIDE (1948)
https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/Genocide%20Convention-FactSheet-ENG.pdf