Letter from 112 Labour Party members to Jeremy Corbyn

It is time for Labour to say Goodbye to Labour Friends of Israel

Update:  People are still writing in saying they support this - so I am updating it continuously as many people feel strongly about allowing a lobby funded by another state to interfere in the internal workings of the Labour Party

I have just sent the following letter, from 112 members of the Labour Party/Momentum to Jeremy Corbyn MP.  In the light of the four Al Jazeera programmes on the penetration and destabilisation of the Labour Party (including the National Union of Students) by the Israeli Embassy, with the use of large sums of money, we call on the Labour Party to make a clean break with the Labour Friends of Israel.

LFI are not a normal group of party members seeking to win people to their point of view but an extension of the Israeli state and its Embassy in London.  It uses any manner of dirty tricks and black propaganda against its opponents in order to whitewash the Apartheid State of Israel.  It is as unacceptable for the LFI to use the £1+ million to subvert the democratic processes of the Labour Party as it would have been for the Apartheid government of South Africa to have done so 20 years ago.

Joan Ryan MP, Chair of LFI, wants to know where the loot is

Shai Masot, the Israeli Embassy agent has over £1m to disperse for dirty tricks, propaganda and of course MP visits to the land of Apartheid

The slush fund has been approved but is not yet in the bag as it were

Joan Ryan MP, Chair of Labour Friends of Israel makes a joke, delighted at having bagged over £1m in slush funds

Michael Rubin, LFI's parliamentary officer boasting of his work with the Israeli Embassy

Tony Greenstein

corbynj@parliament.uk

jeremy.corbyn.mp@parliament.uk

Jeremy Corbyn MP

Leader of the Labour Party

House of Commons

London SW1 1AA

Dear Jeremy,

We write as Jewish and non-Jewish members/ supporters of the Labour Party and Momentum.

We welcome the fact that you have called for a Government  inquiry into the revelations in the recent series of programmes by Al Jazeera TV.  However the programmes also raise very serious questions for the Labour Party, not least its relationship to Labour Friends of Israel and the Jewish Labour Movement.  We understand Free Speech on Israel has already called for a Labour Party Inquiry into the implications for the Labour Party.  We endorse that call.

In the second programme Joan Ryan MP, LFI Chairperson asks Shai Masot, the Israeli Embassy’s Political Officer, who was caught trying to ‘take down’ Government Ministers:

‘What happened with the names that we put into the Embassy Shai?  To which Masot replies ‘Just now we’ve got the money.  It’s more than £1m, it’s a lot of money...  it’s not physical, it’s an approval’ to which Ryan jocularly responds ‘ I didn’t think you had it in your bag!’.

The LFI’s Parliamentary Officer, Michael Rubin was filmed boasting that he was trying to take-down the democratically elected President of the National Union of Students, Malia Bouattia.   Rubin claimed to work “with the ambassador and embassy quite a lot”.

Joan Ryan in the third Al Jazeera programme was seen to concoct a wholly false allegation of anti-Semitism against a Labour Party conference delegate, Jean Fitzpatrick, who had come to ask Ms Ryan what LFI’s support for a 2 State Solution meant in practice and what they were doing to achieve it.  Getting no answer, Jean said that LFI had a lot of money, which is clearly true, a lot of prestige and that a friend of hers had got a good job at Oxford University on the basis of having worked for LFI. 

None of this was remotely anti-Semitic yet Joan Ryan had no hesitation in transforming this into getting a ‘big job in banking and the City’ and an ‘anti-Semitic attack’.  On the basis of this Jean was suspended from the Labour Party.  Subsequently the charge was dropped but this is an example of how false charges of ‘anti-Semitism’ have been concocted.

The reason for making false accusations of anti-Semitism, such as that against Ms Fitzpatrick, is to deter criticism of Zionism and the Israeli state.  Those who make these false claims of anti-Semitism are deliberately jeopardising Labour’s chances of electoral victory. 

Although LFI purports to support a 2 State Solution it is clear, as Jean Fitzpatrick demonstrated, that this is a smokescreen for its uncritical support for Israel’s military occupation and settlement of the West Bank and Gaza.  At no time has LFI ever condemned or criticised the Occupation or the Settlements.  LFI supports the 2SS  knowing that it will never happen but also knowing that it will make them appear as reasonable and even-handed rather than an uncritical supporter of Israeli expansion and racism.

Prior to your election as Leader of the Labour Party you had never addressed a meeting of the LFI.  At the 2016 Conference you addressed the LFI fringe meeting for the second time.  It is clear from the Al Jazeera revelations that LFI operates as an emanation of the Israeli state within the Labour Party.  We saw this clearly when Shai Masot introduced Al Jazeera’s reporter, Robin Harrow to people as the Chair of Young LFI, a non-existent organisation.

If you continue to speak at LFI meetings you will be taken to be endorsing a group which favours continued settlement expansion and which opposes their dismantlement.  You will also be interpreted as  lending support to those who wage war on Palestinians living inside Israel.  Only last week a Bedouin village in the Negev, Umm al-Hiran, which had been there for 60 years, was demolished by bulldozers from the Jewish National Fund.  One resident was killed by police gunfire. 

Despite Palestinians occupying only 2% of the Negev, the Israeli government and the Jewish National Fund sought, as part of the programme of Judaisation, to demolish an Arab village in order to make way for the Jewish town of Hiran.  This is comparable to, if not worse than, the demolition in the 1970’s of Black ‘squatter’ camps in Soweto.

Neither LFI nor the JLM, which are always eager to accuse supporters of the Palestinians and opponents of Zionism of ‘anti-Semitism’ have anything to say about apartheid in Israel.  Ha’aretz newspaper recently warned, in an editorial ,that with the proposed annexation of Ma’aleh Adumim, ‘Israel will cease to exist as a Jewish and democratic state, and officially become an apartheid one’.

Ha’aretz also referred, in the same editorial, to the Israeli Labour Party ‘opposition’, of which the Jewish Labour Movement is the British wing:  ‘It is pointless mentioning the opposition at this stage, since the dead cannot speak’.

We would urge you to cease giving any support to the Labour Friends of Israel and not to speak at any future fringe meetings of theirs.  Both Tony Benn and Eric Heffer resigned from LFI in 1982 as a result of its support for the invasion of Lebanon.  Over the past quarter of a century they have not changed.

Yours sincerely,

        Barry Ackerman                       Enfield CLP                                                  

Jane Airs                                    Riverside CLP Liverpool

John Airs                                    Riverside CLP Liverpool

Peter Angell                                Castle Point CLP      

Ben Armstrong                           Brighton Momentum/Hove CLP

Clare N. Ayton-Edwards            Kenilworth & Southam (Warwickshire) CLP     

Georgina Baidoun                      Milton Keynes CLP 

Hilary Barker                              Penrith CLP             

Abdul Basīr                                Brighton Pavilion CLP   

Peter Bloomer                            Selly Oak CLP
Haim Bresheeth                          Hornsey and Wood Green CLP           

Tarin Brokenshire                       Cambridge CLP       

Andrea Burford                          Leicester East CLP   

Jackie Cairns                              Preston Labour Party      

Neil Cameron                             Sheffield Central CLP    

Valerie Gene Cane                     Brighton & Hove Momentum    

Marilù Cavaliere                         CLP: Luton South    

Ches Chesney                             Berwick-upon-Tweed CLP         

Brian Chinnery                           Enfield Southgate    

Mollie Collins                             Momentum and CLP South Dorset         

Andy Coombes                          Stroud CLP              

Graham Coupe                           South Norwood CLP

Patrick Darnes                            Congleton CLP        

Deborah Darnes                         Congleton CLP        

John Davies                                Liverpool Riverside CLP          

Helen Dickson                               Liverpool Riverside CLP
Theresa Dunningham                 Central Suffolk & North Ipswich CLP   

Sally Rebecca Eason                  East Surrey CLP       

Simon Milner-Edwards               Withington CLP       

Pete Firmin                                 Hampstead & Kilburn CLP        

Jenifer Flintoft                            Meon Valley CLP/Portsmouth Momentum

Philip Foxe                                 Enfield South gate CLP  

Christopher Fraser                      Rushcliffe CLP        

Craig Fraser                                Cheltenham CLP      

Suzanne Gannon                        Vice Chair Membership, Colne Valley CLP       

Daphne Gilbert                           Hexham CLP/Momentum          

Lynda Gilbert                             Milton Keynes North CLP          

Tony Goss                                  Torbay CLP             

Val Graham                                Chesterfield CLP     

Judy Granville                            Hove CLP                

Tony Greenstein                         Brighton Kemptown CLP

Jenny Hardacre                          South Cambridgeshire CLP

Dr. James Hall                            South Cambridgeshire Constituency Labour Party

Martin Hall                                 Wythenshawe and Sale East CLP           

Abe Hayeem                              Harrow East CLP     

Jeremy Hawthorn                       Liverpool Riverside CLP
Rosamine Hayeem                     Harrow East CLP     

Professor Dave Hill                    Brighton and Hove Momentum

Simon Hinds                               Islington North         

Doug Holton                               Hackney North and Stoke Newington CLP        

Carole Hope                               Tewkesbury CLP     

Anna Hubbard                            Southport CLP          

      Steve Jansky                               North West Cambridgeshire CLP/Momentum    

Helen Jenner                              Otley and Yeadon CLP/Chair Leeds UNISON

Peter Jenner                                Otley and Yeadon CLP  

Helena Kearns                            Northern Ireland Labour Party

Chris Knight                               Streatham Momentum Group,

Kay Lawrence                            Torfaen CLP            

Marie Lynam                               Hamsptead and Kilburn CLP    

Doug Macari                               Canterbury CLP and Momentum           

Professor Moshe Machover        Hampstead and Kilburn CLP

Dr Alan Maddison                      Houghton and Sunderland South CLP

Miriam Margolyes OBE              Lambeth Constituency Party & Vauxhall CLP   

Helen Marks                               Riverside CLP          

Becky Massey                            Hove CLP

Patricia McCarthy                      Milton Keynes CLP
Kathy McCubbing                           East Reading CLP

Steve Mckenzie                          Bexhill and Battle CLP   

Tricia Neda McLaughlin             Gillingham and Rainham CLP    

Ellen McNay                              Sunderland Central CLP 

John Metson                               Durham City CLP    
Anne Mitchell                             Hove CLP                

Brian Mogford                            Gower CLP              

Brendan Morgan                         N. Ireland CLP         

Wendy Morgan                           Aberconwy CLP      

Elizabeth Morley                        Ceredigion CLP/Momentum       

Suresh Nesaratnam                      Milton Keynes         

Dr Joseph O' Neill,                      Cheshire West CLP
James O’Sullivan                        East Worthing and Shoreham CLP         

Gill Page                                     Richmond (Yorkshire) CLP

Pam Page                                    Brighton Kemptown CLP

Frankie Patterson                        Gosport CLP            

Allan Pearson                             South Ribble CLP     a

Nicola Pratt                                 Coventry South CLP

Claire Pyper                                South Birmingham Momentum  

Daniel Read                                Portsmouth CLP       

Janine E Reed                             Islwyn CLP              

Joan Rudderham                        Coventry North West CLP         

Professor Richard Seaford          Exeter CLP              

David Selzer                               City of Chester CLP 

Sam Semoff                                Riverside CLP
Lynda Sergeant                           Riverside CLP          

Mehrnaz Shahabi                        Bristol West CLP     

Paul Stygal                                  Rochford & Southend East CLP

Jean Sullivan                              Warrington South CLP   

Anne Tanner                              Cardiff West CLP    

Max Tasker                                Clwyd West CLP     

Andrew Thompson                     Birmingham Ladywood CLP/Momentum/LRC  

Julian Townsend                        Camberwell and Peckham CLP  

Gareth Walker                            Tottenham CLP         tr

Jackie Walker                             Thanet CLP

Clive Walder                              Birmingham Northfield Momentum       

Adam Waterhouse                      Southampton and Romsey CLP 

Daniel Waterman                        International Member Labour Party       

David Watson                             Walthamstow CLP   

Ian Watson                                 Edinburgh Pentlands CLP          

Sarah Wilkinson                          Ludlow CLP           

Eric Willoughby                         Editor, Palestine Media Digest    

Sara Wood                                  Hampstead and Kilburn CLP     

Ken Willingale                            Southend West CLP  h

Charley Young                           Ceredigion CLP       

Sue Young.                                 Ceredigion CLP        

Saying that LFI have lot of money is an anti-Semitic 'trope' - even though it's true!

This used to be called 'verballing' when the Police made up a confession

Inventing an anti-Semitism allegation - they call them 'tropes' probably because they think the victims are dopes

Jean Fitzpatrick, the LP delegate accused of anti-Semitism never even mentioned the City of London but in the hands of these racist frauds she didn't stand a chance

If you oppose Zionism and Israeli racism, it is a 'trope' - their favourite word