UNDER CONSTRUCTION
The Israel lobby in the United Kingdom is a term used to describe the loose coalition of groups and individuals who attempt to influence British foreign policy in support of Israel and its policies. Various groups in the United Kingdom lobby on behalf of Israel, as is the case with the Israel lobby in the United States, but to a lesser degree.
It is, as a loose coalition of individuals and communal organizations, a group that seeks to influence media in London and the United Kingdom[1] [2][3] as well as a group of leading Zionists, British Jews and Christian Zionists in Britain who fund pro-Israel political lobbying and public relations.[4]
It is defined as actively working to move British foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction. It is not a single, unified movement with a central leadership and nor it is a cabal or conspiracy that "controls" British foreign policy or interests. It is, simply, a powerful interest group, made up of both Jews and gentiles, whose acknowledged purpose is to press Israel's case within Britain and influence British foreign policy in ways that its members believe will benefit the Jewish state.
It's leading proponents are the Friends of Israel (FoI) British political support groups and the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM).
Although powerful in itself, thoughtful individuals recognise that the FoI and BICOM are not representative of mainstream opinion in the British Jewish community or Britain more boradly.
It must be stated that it is not unique or illegal to have political lobbying groups in Britain, as does America. Other lobbying groups in the UK include British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection – campaigning to halt the breeding and use of animals in experiments; British Roads Federation – aiming to focus attention for a higher standard of service from the UK road network; Earth First – campaigning against the destruction of the environment; Liberty – campaigning to defend and extend human rights and civil liberties; Unison – trade union for public sector workers; National Union of Students (NUS); National Union of Teachers (NUT); National Farmers Union (NFU); British Medical Association (BMA); Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR); Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA); National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC).
The many components of the Israel lobby consists of organized lobby groups, political action committees, influential individuals within and outside of the British government, think tanks and media watchdog groups.
Some of these groups and individuals consist of the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM) which directly lobbies the legislative branch of the U.K. Government (UK version of AIPAC), the Friends of Israel (of whom the the three main British political parties have one as a support group), the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Jewish Leadership Council.
It also consists of controvercial party doners Lord Levy, David Abrahams, Jonathan Freedland, Poju Zabludowicz, Louise Ellman and Christian fundamentalist zionists in Britain, Stephen Green of the Christian Voice organisation, Andrea Minichiello Williams of the Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship and John Pearce of the Carmell Christian Centre, whom all featured heavily in the May 19, 2008 Channel 4 documentary 'Dispatches - In God's Name', whch documented to a certain extent Christian Zionism and the Israel Lobby in the UK.
Other prominent British Christian Zionists today include Walter Riggans, Lance Lambert, David Pawson and Derek Prince.[5]
In 2002, Dennis Sewell wrote an article called "A Kosher Conspiracy"[6][7] in the New Statesman about what he described as the "Zionist lobby" in the United Kingdom and alleging "pro-Israel lobbying" in the United Kingdom by "pro-Israel organizations." The article alleged that arms trader Shlomo Zabludowicz funded the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM). It repeated allegations that under Conrad Black, owner of the British publications Daily Telegraph and Spectator, as well as the Jerusalem Post, "serious, critical reporting of Israel is no longer tolerated in the Telegraph Group," further alleging organized letter writing and "smear" campaigns against journalists who criticised Israel, including against The Times' foreign correspondent Sam Kiley, The Independent's columnist Deborah Orr and Middle Eastern correspondent Robert Fisk and The Guardian's Suzanne Goldenberg. It also described his wife Barbara Amiel as an "enthusiastic Zionist columnist". According to Sewell: "That there is a Zionist lobby and that it is rich, potent, and effective goes largely unquestioned on the left." However, he concluded "The truth is that the 'Zionist lobby' does exist, but is a clueless bunch."[8]
The cover of the magazine, entitled "The Zionist Lobby: John Pilger and Dennis Sewell on Britain's pro-Israel lobby," and portraying a gold star of David sitting on top of a Union Flag, met with some protest. Mortimer Zuckerman and Bernard Harrison cited it as an example of "new antisemitism."[9]. Emanuele Ottolenghi of St Antony's College, Oxford, told a British all-parliamentary inquiry into antisemitism that it evoked "classical anti-Jewish stereotypes" implying "wealth, "conspiracy" and "dishonesty" on the part of British Jews.[10] Peter Wilby, the editor of The New Statesman, subsequently apologised for the cover, stating that while the magazine remained opposed to the policies of Israel, "We (or more precisely, I) got it wrong," and that the cover "used images and words in such a way as to create unwittingly the impression that the New Statesman was following an anti-Semitic tradition that sees the Jews as a conspiracy piercing the heart of the nation."[11] Jessica Hodgson of The Guardian stated that "The grovelling editorial follows a protest last week by a group of activists calling themselves Action Against Anti-Semitism, who marched into the magazine's offices demanding it print an apology."[12]
In 2003 British MP Tam Dalyell claimed that Prime Minister Tony Blair was "being unduly influenced by a cabal of Jewish advisers."[13] [14] [15] [16]
The London-based Jewish Chronicle reported in 2006 that Brian Kerner, former chair of Joint Israel Appeal argued that there was "the need for a body able to orchestrate British Jewry’s political and public relations" after the outbreak of the Second Intifada. The day after it began, fifty Jewish leaders met with the Israeli ambassador and “raised an initial £250,000 fund for pro-Israel lobbying and public relations.” The article also noted that "a debate goes on in the community’s upper echelons over whether Bicom[1] should remain a mainly-behind-the-scenes player focussing on media or a more upfront pro-Israel lobby similar to the American Aipac...”[4]
The British-based Muslim group Muslim Public Affairs Committee UK (MPACUK), insists there is a "British Israel Lobby", stating that "there are over 100 members of the Friends of Israel lobby in the Labour party alone. This gives them a very loud voice simply because they are active, each and everyone is giving and working for the good of their community."[17] In September 2006, a MPACUK article about Friends of Israel stated: "We would like to apologise to all the Warmongers, Anti-Ceasefire camp, pro-war camp, anti-Islam camp, anti-Muslim camp, Zionists, Israel Supporters, terrorists, extremists, fascists, right-wingers, Neo-Cons, Tony Blair, well pretty much everyone who doesn't believe in the existence of the British Israel Lobby for exposing you for hijacking our countries foreign policy, which promotes hatred/war/injustice and who can forget the rejection of the ceasefire in Lebanon."[18]
The group claims to be the "UK's Leading Muslim civil liberties group", and is strongly opposed to the Israel Lobby in Britain and works to educate individuals whom "don't believe in the Israel Lobby". [19] [20] [21]
Lady Michèle Renouf, after having her "attention called" "to the repression of Holocaust Revisionism" with the David Irving-Deborah Lipstadt trial in 2000, she became an active supporter of persecuted revisionists and her 2006 documentary 'Jailing Opinins' discusses the influence of the Israel Lobby in Britain during this trial.
Member of Parliament Baroness Jenny Tonge, who in 2004 openly declared sympathy with the palestinian situation by declaring: "I think if I had to live in that situation, and I say this advisedly, I might just consider becoming [a suicide bomber] myself,"[22] and consequently was relieved of a shadow party position, said in 2006: "The pro-Israeli lobby has got its grips on the western world, its financial grips. I think they've probably got a grip on our party." In response, Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell chastised Tonge, saying her remarks were "unacceptable" and had "clear anti-Semitic connotations." An all-party group of lords led by the former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, said her "irresponsible and inappropriate" comments "evoked a classic anti-Jewish conspiracy theory" and were symptomatic of the rise of anti-Semitism in the UK. John Benjamin, chief executive of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, was quoted as saying: "If someone makes comments that are so at odds with what the party feels, and hopefully at odds with common decency, then one would hope that they are no longer made welcome in the party itself." In response Tonge said that Walt and Mearsheimer's article "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" that appeared in the March 23, 2006 issue of The London Review of Books provided extensive research supporting her assertion that the "'Israel lobby' had a disproportionate voice in Anglo-American foreign policy."[23]
In 2006 Chris Davies, MEP for the northwest of England wrote to a constituent in reference to what he called "the racist policies of apartheid being put into practice by an Israeli Government”: “I shall tell them that I intend to speak out against this oppression at every opportunity, and I shall denounce the influence of the Jewish lobby that seems to have far too great a say over the political decision-making process in many countries.” In comments to TotallyJewish.Com he "confessed he didn’t know the difference between referring to the ‘pro Israel lobby’ and the ‘Jewish lobby’," and added “I’m quite prepared to accept that I don’t understand the semantics of some of these things.”[24] Commenting on Davies' use of the term, David Hirsh of Engage writes Davies "has had to resign because his laudable instinct to side with the underdog was not tempered by care, thought or self-education." Davies resigned as leader of the Liberal Democrats group in the European Parliament.[25]
In 2007 the Oxford Union, a British private debating society, entertained the proposition: “This House believes the pro-Israeli lobby has successfully stifled Western debate about Israel’s action.” The debate, moderated by British journalist Tim Sebastian, featured professor Norman Finkelstein, journalist Alexander Cockburn, former US Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk and British journalist David Aaronovitch. Two-thirds of students voted that the pro-Israel lobby stifles debate.[26]
In a 2007 opinion piece about the publication of Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer's book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy in Haaretz, Dave Rich, Deputy Director of Communications at Community Security Trust, contended: "The problem on this side of the Atlantic is that British politics lacks anything approaching the American system of openly declared political lobbies; a similar, AIPAC-style operation in Westminster would not just influence policy, it would also subvert fundamental democratic mechanisms."[27] However, the BBC asserts that "many decisions made in the Houses of Parliament are made as a direct result of lobbying, the influencing of members' votes either by parliamentary colleagues, constituents or outside pressure groups." And that "nowadays, the term lobbying often refers more specifically to the work of private companies known as `lobbyists'."[28] Rich concluded, "If there is a Jewish conspiracy, it is remarkably ineffective."[27]
In October 2007 Amjad Barham, head of the Council of the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees claimed that the "Israel lobby in the UK" was behind the University and College Union (UCU)'s decision to cancel the UK speaking tour of some Palestinian academics, and that they could "detect the not-so-hidden hand of the lobby in this latest episode of stifling debate on issues pertaining to Israeli policies and the complicity of the Israeli academy in perpetuating them."[29]
Ghada Karmi, a Palestinian research fellow at the University of Exeter and vice-chair of the Council for Arab-British Understanding wrote on the Guardian's blog that "the newest and least attractive import from America, following on behind Coca-Cola, McDonald's and Friends, is the pro-Israel lobby,” referring to the Israel lobby in the United States. She alleges legal and other threats against the Oxford Union, Britains who sought to boycott Israeli universities, and the Royal Society of Medicine for inviting psychiatrist Dr. Derek Summerfield to a conference. She opines the threats succeeded because "Britain is different, naively innocent in the face of US-style assaults on its scholars and institutions. No wonder that those who have been attacked give in so quickly, nervous of something they do not understand."[30]
In December 2007 a group of British academics and physicians including professor Mona Baker, psychiatrist Derek Summerfield and David Sedden of British Committee for Universities of Palestine wrote a letter to the Committee on Standards in Public Life, an advisory non-departmental public body of the British government. In it they claimed that the "Israel Lobby" - and specifically Friends of Israel - has "embedded itself in the British political establishment and at the very heart of government. Its stated purpose is to promote Israel’s interests in our Parliament and sway British policy." They charged that British Members of Parliament are "eating out of the Israeli government’s hand". According to Committee Chair Charles Ramsden, "It is very unlikely that this will come up on the agenda, because we deal with issues involving individuals."[31]
This parliamentary committee had been urged to investigate the pervasive influence of the Israeli regime's lobby in the United Kingdom that are said to have been embedded in the country's major political parties for over 50 years. The Secretary of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, Charles Ramsden, has been asked to examine the variety of so-called "Friends of Israel" groups that are at the centre of the British political establishment and at the very heart of government. According to Britain's Jewish Chronicle, the call, led by Israel boycott campaigners, is being dismissed as an attempt to "smear" the Israel lobby. In a letter to Ramsden, British MPs in the friendship groups are accused of "eating out of the Israeli government's hand" and being a powerful influence on the government's Middle East policy.[32]
However, the Israeli based Israel Academia Monitor and Indymedia have reported that the Committee on Standards in Public Life initially turned down a request by a group of 20 top academics, surgeons and others. [33][34]
In 2008, in an article titled "New Israel lobby ‘not taking on Bicom’," the Jewish Chronicle reported that a new, yet unnamed London-based organisation would examine whether Israel received fair media coverage, but that it "would not compete with other Israeli lobbying groups such as Bicom, the Britain-Israel Communications and Research Centre, which seeks to present Israel’s case to journalists." Instead, it "would be keen to co-operate with communal organisations."[35]
On May 17 2008 the Al Jazeera news network produced the 2 part documentary Balfour to Blair[36] in which it documents the Israel lobby and Christian Zionism's influence in British politics thoughout history to the present day. Many leading British academics, journalists and authors viewed their opinions on the influence of the Israel lobby and Christian Zionism in British politics but have not viewed them on a British broadcast documentary.
