Meet Simon Cobbs, founder of Sussex Friends of Israel

Shy & Withdrawn – Brighton’s very own Yeats Objects to an Invasion of his Privacy

Spare a tear for poor Simon Cobbs.  The shy and self-effacing founder and Secretary of Sussex Friends of Israel.  As you will see from the video, the SFI is committed to ‘fair, honest and open communication with the Sussex community to encourage greater awareness, understanding and support of Israel.’ 

And it has to be admitted that there is no better communicator than Simon, who is in a class of his own when it comes to being an Ambassador for Israel.  

Police Photofit

Simon’s grasp of the arts of communication are much to be admired with a vocabulary that is as extensive as it is varied.  Words like ‘scum’ ‘balls’ as in ‘you’ve got no balls’ and variations thereof, ‘dirty’  ‘filth’, ‘vile’ ‘you dirty scum’ ‘pure vile hate’ ‘be men’ ‘evil lies and hate’ are almost Shakespearian in their subtlety, depth and wit.  It’s not for nothing that he has been compared, given his literary and poetic talents, to W.B. Yeats at the height of his powers.

Not a happy bunny at weekly Sodastream picket

 This video can, unfortunately, only give a glimpse of this budding genius in the making. 

Simon is engaged, as SFI boasts, in ‘Educating our community in the history, culture and identity of Israel and Israeli society.’  He does a remarkable job, given his, quite limited circumstances.   And who can deny that Simon Cobbs gives an excellent example of Israel's 'culture and identity.'

Simon certainly lives up to the ambitious aims of SFI to ‘Engage meaningfully with those working towards a peaceful, just, democratic and lasting resolution of the conflict between Israel and its neighbours.’

Sussex Friends of Israel publicise BDS

As you will see from the video clip, taken outside the now closed shop of Sodastream in Brighton, Sodastream used to run a factory in the Occupied Territories employing cheap Palestinian labour on a settlement at Maale Adumim outside Jerusalem.  We objected to stolen goods being sold from a stolen land and people in Brighton agreed, because they didn’t shop there.  After Sodastream moved to Brighton everything went downhill for them.  They started making big losses, their share price plummeted, they ran into an international boycott campaign and were forced to close their shop in Brighton and their factory on the West Bank! 

Simon Cobbs communicating with his JDL friends

However Simon Cobbs is, as he protests in the video, a highly moral man.  He preaches morality wherever he goes and that included Exeter prison where he spent 9 months of an 18 months sentence for the minor offence of fraud.  

Before that he owned the BN3 club in San Antonio, Ibiza which was rumoured to be at the centre of the local narcotics trade.   Here is a little promotional video of a younger Cobbs which our detectives uncovered:

It is no surprise therefore that Simon, quite rightly, took exception to being featured on youtube.  His privacy was being breached, even though everything that was shown was in the public domain, since it was he who had chosen to make a fool of himself in public.

Brighton BDS received the complaint below from youtube regarding this video.   Knowing as we do that what Cobbs is really after is more publicity, we would ask you to share this on Facebook and Twitter in order that Cobbs can really be given the publicity that he seeks and deserves. 

It should be added that Cobbs is happiest of all when in the company of either the fascists of the English Defence League or the neo-Nazi Jewish Defence League.   Indeed the Jewish Chronicle once did a feature on the activities of what it thought were SFI, but they turned out to be the EDL. Jewish Chronicle 'mistakes' English Defence League for Sussex Friends of Israel

Sussex Friends of Israel Webpage

A quite understandable mistake in the circumstances.

Dear BrightonBDS,

This is to notify you that we have received a privacy complaint from an 
individual regarding your content:

-------------------------------------------------------------

Video URLs:

We would like to give you an opportunity to review the content in question and remove any personal information that may be used to uniquely identify or contact the complainant.

You have 48 hours to take action on the complaint. If you remove the alleged violation from the site within the 48 hours, the complaint filed will then be closed. If the potential privacy violation remains on the site after 48 hours, the complaint will be reviewed by the YouTube Team and may be removed pursuant to our Privacy Guidelines. For content to be considered for removal, an individual must be uniquely identifiable by image, voice, full name, Social Security number, bank account number or contact information (e.g., home address, email address). Examples that would not violate our privacy guidelines include gamer tags, avatar  names, and address information in which the individual is not named. We also take public interest, newsworthiness, and consent into account when determining if content should be removed for a privacy violation.

If the alleged violation is located within the video itself, you may have to remove the video completely. If someone's full name or other personal information is listed within the title, description, or tags of your video, you can edit this by going to My Videos and clicking the Edit button on the reported video. Making a video private is not an appropriate method of editing, as the status can be changed from private to public at any time.  Because they can be turned off at any time, annotations are also not considered an acceptable  solution.

We're committed to protecting our users and hope you understand the importance of respecting others' privacy. When uploading videos in the future, please remember not to post someone else's image or personal information without their consent.