Why was it left to the Qatar TV Station Al Jazeera to Expose the Israeli Embassy's Undermining of British Democracy?
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| Alan Duncan - on the hit list of the Israeli Embassy |
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| Corbyn humiliating himself at the Labour Friends of Israel fringe meeting 2016 - they hate him but invite him anyway - LFI is an extension of the Israeli state and hopefully Corbyn will learn his lesson |
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| The idea of doing a genuine investigation into who was behind the anti-Semitism allegations probably never occurred to the Establishment BBC |
Instead it was left to Al Jazeera
who in its six months investigation Israel’s
parliamentary plot against UK politicians have done what the BBC, Channel 4,
The Guardian or Independent should have done.
They should have conducted the investigation instead of leaving
it to a Quatari based TV station.
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| Channel 4's pathetic Dispatches programme proved there was a link between Momentum and Jeremy for PM! |
It is a telling indictment of the
Establishment-based politics of all these news organisations, including the ‘liberal’
Guardian, that none of them even thought to ask whether or not the ‘anti-Semitism’
campaign that erupted even before Jeremy Corbyn was elected, might be a
co-ordinated and systematic campaign, orchestrated by the Israeli and possibly
American embassies in conjunction with MPs who were in essence strategic assets
of both countries.
It is not as if they didn’t have
any clues. In a talk to Manchester PSC
last June, which I haven’t yet full transcribed, I made it clear what the origins
of the ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign were :
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| Shai Masot - a Mossad operative (MI6 equivalent) engaged in 'taking down' British politicians through dirty tricks |
Jeremy Corbyn’s election
last September, although many people
greeted it effusively, if you think about it, I’m not a conspiracy theorist by
any means, ... But if you believe, in Washington or Tel Aviv for that matter,
the election of someone who was so identified with the Palestine movement for
30 years, someone who is anti-Trident, who is anti-NATO and anti-capitalist is
going to be regarded with equanimity, and the US intelligence agencies, the
movers and shakers and the powers that be, said to themselves it’s a fair cop,
the Labour Party has gone to the left, we just have to accept it. I have to say if you believe that you are a
born innocent.
The CIA are past masters at
overthrowing and destabilising regimes, not simply in Latin America or Central
America or Iran or elsewhere in the Middle East or Asia, but in Europe ... They
had stay-at-home armies in virtually every European country.
So the idea that the
anti-Semitism scandal in the Labour Party was a product of genuine
anti-Semitism that suddenly sprang up out of nowhere is a total nonsense. We had the first manifestations of it, Corbyn
was accused of associating with holocaust deniers, in particular someone called
Paul Eisen.’
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| Ruth Smeeth, who made a false allegation of anti-Semitism at the Chakrabarti press conference against Black activist also collared a few thousand pounds from Labour Friends of Israel |
At
the Boycott Israel Conference on November 5th I responded to a question thus:
‘someone asked
about Mark Regev and the Israeli embassy, I don’t think Mark Regev began it but
certainly he’s involved in it. If you look at it from this perspective, when
Corbyn was elected or seemed likely to be elected to the Labour leadership, I
imagine panic set in, not just in the Israeli embassy but the US embassy.
Britain is the closest ally of the United States in Europe, the special
relationship; the idea that someone who is anti-NATO, anti-Trident and so on,
with his record, I would be amazed if the CIA and the Intelligence Agencies
weren’t doing something. I mean that’s what they’re paid to do all over the
world; why not in Britain? It would be bonkers if they didn’t; they would be
failing in their duties, so, yes, of course they have been behind this
campaign.
It
was quite easy to predict what was happening but the Guardian was at that time,
via Jonathan Freedland and Owen Jones, both of whom are reputed to have close
links to British Intelligence organisations, a key part in the false anti-Semitism
campaign. The Guardian ran a whole series
of articles for example Freedland’s Labour
and the left have an antisemitism problem
and Owen Jones’ Antisemitism
is a poison – the left must take leadership against it within two days of
each other.
The BBC of course has run so many
slanted and biased programmes on the ‘anti-Semitism’ crisis that one is spoilt
for choice. I made a long complaint
against one,
particularly egregious example. Andrew
Neils’ Sunday Politics programme last April.
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| Jeremy Newmark of the Jewish Labour Movement, Mark Regev of the Israeli Embassy and Shai Masot, the Intelligence Operative who is leaving quickly plus Labour MPs |
The
only reason therefore why it would not have been possible for a British news
organisation to have run with this story was because all of them, without
exception, were compromised. All news
organisations assumed that the anti-Semitism campaign manufactured and patented
in the Israeli Embassy and disseminated via the Jewish Labour Movement was
genuine. Not one establishment
journalist asked why would anti-Semitism just spring up under the Labour Party’s
new anti-racist leader, Jeremy Corbyn?
Of
course Corbyn’s pitifully weak response, despite having initially been accused
by the Daily
Mail and Jewish
Chronicle of anti-Semitism himself didn’t help matters. Instead of saying that he condemned anti-Semitism
but that he also condemned the false use of anti-Semitism accusations against anti-Zionists,
not least because it undermined the fight against genuine anti-Semitism, he
retreated. He kept saying that he wasn’t
an anti-Semite, which no one doubted but was irrelevant.
Whether
it was stupidity or political cowardice or both is for others to decide but Corbyn
made a rod for his own back because his accusers weren’t talking about the same
‘anti-Semitism’. When they spoke about anti-Semitism
they meant ‘new anti-Semitism’ i.e. anti-Zionism and the Home Affairs Select Committee
Report
has just redefined anti-Semitism.
Instead of Brian Klug’s simple definition of anti-Semitism as ‘hostility to Jews as Jews’ they have
come up with a 400+ word definition that conflates anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism.
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| Tory MP and Minister of State for Education whose aide was undermining a fellow Minister |
Even worse
when Theresa May recently endorsed this definition, Jeremy Corbyn even more
stupidly backed her. Despite his 30
years involvement in the Palestine Solidarity Campaign Corbyn seems to have learnt
nothing. See The Government's new definition of ‘anti-Semitism’ is
an attempt to criminalise support for the Palestinians and opposition to
Zionism - Jeremy Corbyn’s acceptance of this Tory definition of ‘anti-Semitism’
is shameful and must be reversed
Corbyn’s reaction to the anti-Semitism campaign
strengthened the Zionist attack. It is good
that Emily Thornberry has now called for an inquiry into the Israeli Embassy’s interference
in Britain’s political parties. However it
does not go far enough. On the basis of
what is already known and the liaison between Israel’s Mossad Agent and
Political Secretary at the Israeli Embassy, Shai Masot, the Labour Friends of Israel
should be proscribed. My understanding
is that the Jewish Labour Movement will also be shown in the documentaries to
come to have been working hand –in-hand with the Israeli Embassy, as we have
long suspected. If so, it should be disaffiliated
as the overseas wing of the Israeli Labour Party and in effect an intelligence
organisation operating inside the British Labour Party. Now is the time to call out the Zionists and
their secret state within the Labour Party.
We should have no doubt that Israel’s
Ministry of Strategic Affairs, which had a $50m budget with which to fight BDS
employed much of it subverting politics in this country. Not only did they seek to ‘take down’ British
politicians such as Alan Duncan, but they instigated and ran with bogus ‘anti-Semitism’
allegations whose purpose was to destabilise the Corbyn leadership of the Labour
Party.
Joan Ryan MP, the corrupt
right-wing Chair of LFI spoke
at their fringe meeting of welcoming “a
very strong commitment to a two-state solution. We don’t want to be living in
fear that we’re going to have to fight some battle in the party for a
commitment to that two state solution.’
Strangely enough, when the UN Security Council passed a resolution
condemning the settlements that are the main barrier to a 2 State Solution
these hypocrites were silent! They
support 2 states but also support the settlements.
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| Extract from Joan Ryan's entry in the Members' Register of Interests - Joan Ryan MP, Chair of Labour Friends of Israel, has the record for the largest amount of expenses claimed in a year - she trousered over £6,000 from LFI in expenses paid trips. |
Luke Akehurst, leader of the Right
in the Labour Party and Director of We Believe in Israel said:
“It’s a shame he didn’t make this speech
this time last year. ... given where he came from it was a carefully drafted
speech that had appropriate wording in terms of the way it addressed core
issues in the Middle East and the way it addressed antisemitism. My initial
sense was there was not much one could find to criticise in what was said.”
Praise from these people is
condemnation enough but we should also condemn people like Jon Lansman who
consistently backed up Jeremy Newmark of the Jewish Labour Movement. When Jackie Walker was secretly recorded at a
JLM training session and her remarks distorted, instead of leaping to her
defence Lansman said:
‘“I spoke to Jeremy Newmark of the
Jewish Labour Movement this morning, he’s very upset and I can understand that...’ For knifing Jackie in the back and supporting
an open racist, Lansman should be dispatched by the forthcoming Momentum
conference.
We should also be dispatching MPs
like the execrable Joan Ryan who received cool £6,627.02 for trips to Israel last
year. No doubt others MPs who sponsor Labour
Friends of Israel are in receipt of friendly support, official and unofficial.
Below is an article by Jonathan Cook, based in Nazareth and an ex-Guardian journalist.
Tony
Greenstein
8 January 2017
Al Jazeera are to be
congratulated on an undercover investigation exposing
something most of us could probably have guessed: that some Israeli
embassy staff in the UK – let’s not pussy around, Mossad agents – are working
with senior political activists and politicians in the Conservative and Labour
parties to subvert their own parties from within, and skew British foreign
policy so that it benefits Israeli, rather than British, interests.
One cannot really blame Israel
for doing this. Most states promote their interests as best they can. But one
can and should expose and shame the British politicians who are collaborating
with Israel in further harming Britain’s representative democracy.
It is not as though these people
cannot be easily identified. They even advertise what they are up to. They are
members of the Conservative and Labour Friends of Israel. They dominate
both parliamentary parties, but especially the Conservatives. According to
the CFI’s figures, fully 80 per cent of Tory MPs belong to the party’s Friends
of Israel group.
Once, no one would have hesitated
to call British politicians acting in the interests of a foreign power, and
very possibly taking financial benefits for doing so, “traitors”. And yet, as
Al Jazeera’s secretly filmed footage shows, Israeli spies like Shai Masot can
readily meet and conspire with a Tory MP’s much-trusted aide to
discuss how best to “take down” the deputy foreign minister, Alan Duncan,
over his criticisms of Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied territories.
Maria Strizzolo, MP Robert Halfon’s assistant, suggests engineering a “little scandal” to damage Duncan.
Masot and Israel’s intelligence
services cannot influence British foreign policy through the opposition Labour
party, but that doesn’t prevent them from also taking a keen interest in
Labour MPs. Masot is filmed talking to Labour Friends of Israel’s chair, Joan
Ryan, about “lots of money” – more
than £1 million – he has received from the Israeli government to send yet
another batch of Labour MPs on an all-expenses-paid trip to Israel, where they
will be wined and dined, and primed by top officials to adopt even more extreme
pro-Israel positions. LFI is known for sending the largest proportion of
MPs to Israel on these kinds of trips.
Does that have an effect on
British domestic politics. You bet it does! Israel isn’t a charity.
A large number of those who have
been making Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s life a misery belong to Labour
Friends of Israel. They are the same MPs who have been talking up an “anti-semitism
crisis” in the Labour party – based on zero tangible evidence – since Corbyn
became party leader. Were they following the dictates of their conscience? Did
they really fear an anti-semitism plague had suddenly beset their party? Or
were they playing deeply cynical politics to oust a leader who supports justice
for the Palestinian people and is considered by Israel’s rightwing government,
which has no interest in making peace with the Palestinians, to be bad news for
Israel?
Al Jazeera’s investigation has
not been shown yet, so we can only rely on the snippets released so far, either
by Al Jazeera itself or additional leaks of the investigation provided by the
Mail on Sunday.
It is worth listening to a Tory
minister in the government of recently departed David Cameron, who writes
anonymously in the Mail on Sunday. S/he warns of a double whammy to British
politics caused by Israel and its British partisans – one that is starting to
approach the damage done to the US political system by Israel.
The British government skews its
foreign policy to avoid upsetting Jewish donors, s/he says. MPs, meanwhile, act
like agents of a foreign power – s/he generously assumes unwittingly –
rather than representatives of the British people. Forget international law,
these politicians are not even promoting British interests.
Here is what the minister writes:
British foreign policy is in hock
to Israeli influence at the heart of our politics, and those in authority have
ignored what is going on.
For years the CFI and Labour
Friends of Israel (LFI), have worked with – even for – the Israeli government
and their London embassy to promote Israeli policy and thwart UK Government
policy and the actions of Ministers who try to defend Palestinian rights.
Lots of countries try to force
their views on others, but what is scandalous in the UK is that instead of
resisting it, successive Governments have submitted to it, taken donors’ money,
and allowed Israeli influence-peddling to shape policy and even determine the
fate of Ministers.
Even now, if I were to reveal who
I am, I would be subjected to a relentless barrage of abuse and character
assassination. …
It now seems clear people in the
Conservative and Labour Parties have been working with the Israeli embassy,
which has used them to demonise and trash MPs who criticise Israel; an army of
Israel’s useful idiots in Parliament.
This is politically corrupt, and
diplomatically indefensible. The conduct of certain MPs needs to be exposed as
the poisonous and deceitful infiltration of our politics by the unwitting
agents of another country …
We need a full inquiry into the
Israeli Embassy, the links, access and funding of the CFI and LFI.
It is rare that I agree with a
Tory government minister, but such an inquiry cannot come too soon.
Note too that it is an
indictment of the UK media that Al-Jazeera, rather than the
British fourth estate, has exposed Israel’s moves to subvert the
British political system. It is not as though reporters from the BBC, Guardian,
Times and the Mail haven’t had have ministers like the one above complaining
to them for years about interference from Israel. So why did they not
long ago send in undercover teams to expose this collaboration
between Israel and British MPs?
We have had weeks of stories
about the supposed efforts of Russia and Putin to subvert the
US election, without a hint yet of any evidence, and based on a
central allegation against the Russians that they damaged the election by
releasing truthful information about wrongdoing in the Democratic party.
Russian diplomats have been expelled based on these evidence-free claims, and
President Obama has vowed to take other, covert action against Russia.
Here we have documented
evidence of the Israeli government secretly plotting with “friendly”
British MPs to oust a British government minister. If that isn’t
interference in the British political system I don’t know what is. Will we
similarly have weeks of coverage of this story in the UK media, or will it
be quickly filed away and forgotten?
And will any action beyond the
removal of Masot be demanded by the British government. It seems
unlikely. The Foreign Office has already issued a statement
saying that, following Masot’s dismissal, it considers the matter
closed.
UK
MPs urge probe into Israeli plot against politicians
Al Jazeera reveals discussions
between Israeli diplomat and UK civil servant to "take down"
anti-settlement politicians.
Senior
members of parliament have slammed comments made by an Israeli diplomat on
plans to "take down" the
UK's deputy foreign secretary over his criticism of Israel's settlement policy
in the occupied West Bank.
Emily
Thornberry, the Labour Party's shadow foreign secretary, called the statements
by Shai Masot - a senior
political offficer at the Israeli embassy in London - "extremely disturbing" and demanded
a probe into the potential extent of political "interference" in the
United Kingdom.
Masot's comments were secretly captured on
film during a six-month undercover operation by Al Jazeera's Investigative
Unit, which reveals plots by the
Israeli diplomat and a British civil servant to destroy the careers of senior
politicians .
"It is simply not good
enough for the Foreign Office to say the matter is closed. This is a national
security issue," Thornberry said in a statement.
"The embassy official
involved should be withdrawn, and the government should launch an immediate
inquiry into the extent of this improper interference and demand from the
Israeli government that it be brought to an end," she said.
In
the recorded conversation with Maria Strizzolo, who was then chief of
staff to MP Robert Halfon, the deputy chairman of the ruling Conservative
Party, Masot asked if he could give her some names of parliamentarians he would
suggest she "take down".
Masot
named Deputy Foreign Minister Sir Robert [? Alan —MM] Duncan, who in 2014 said
while he fully supports Israel's right to exist, he believes settlements on
occupied Palestinian land represent an "ever-deepening stain on the face of the globe".
He
also likened the situation in Hebron in the occupied West Bank to apartheid.
Strizzolo
later hinted that "a little scandal"
might see Duncan dismissed.
At
the same dinner table conversation, Masot described British Foreign Secretary
Boris Johnson, Duncan's boss, as an "idiot
… without any kind of responsibilities", while Strizzolo said he was
"solid on Israel".
Since
the announcement by Al Jazeera's Investigative Unit of its findings - and the
international media coverage that followed - the Israeli embassy tweeted a response saying that
Masot would be "ending his term
shortly", adding that Mark Regev, ambassador of Israel to the UK,
had apologised to Duncan "and
made clear that the embassy considered the remarks to be completely
unacceptable".
Al
Jazeera learned on Sunday that Strizzolo had resigned from her post.
Scottish
National Party MP Alex Salmond reiterated the call on Sunday for Masot's
deportation.
"Boris
Johnson must right now revoke Mr Masot's diplomatic status and remove him from
the country as would most certainly have happened had the circumstances been
reversed. Perhaps then the Israeli government representatives will regard the
foreign secretary as less of a fool."
Salmond also backed an official probe into the matter
"so that we can be confident our elected officials are free to carry out
their jobs to the best of their ability and without fear of having their
reputation smeared by embassy officials who do not agree with their
views".
Ben White,
a researcher and journalist who has written about the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, told Al Jazeera it is not surprising that Israel would seek to
influence British politicians, but he added this case was unique because it
involved a secret video that has been publicised.
"We know that the Israeli
foreign ministry - and also interestingly the Israeli ministry of strategic
affairs, which it actually seemed that this individual [Masot] is an employee
of - are very focused on fighting what they see as dangerous, powerful solidarity
activism with particular focus on trying to thwart and undermine the Boycott Divest and Sanctions campaign," said White.
Al Jazeera
reveals discussions of Israel diplomat and British civil servant to 'take down'
anti-settlement politicians. Shai Masot, senior political officer at the
Israeli embassy [Al Jazeera]
The incident is just
one among the Investigative Unit's many findings, which will be revealed in a
four-part series "The Lobby" that will broadcast daily on Al
Jazeera from January 15 at 22:30 GMT.
The
undercover investigation shows how the Israeli government is involved in a
brazen, covert influence campaign in Britain.
For
half a year, Robin (an alias), an undercover reporter working with Al Jazeera's
Investigative Unit, met with members of Britain's lobby network that enjoys
strong support from the Israeli government by way of the Israeli embassy in
London.
Robin
posed as a graduate activist with strong sympathies towards Israel who was keen
to help combat the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement prominent in
Britain.
Shaping foreign policy agenda
Strizzolo,
while advising Robin, revealed she had a strategy of manipulation to ensure
Israel remains at the top of the UK's foreign policy agenda.
"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'," she said.
She
also advised trying to infiltrate Prime Minster's Questions, a weekly session
in which the leader of the country answers questions from MPs. The debate is
televised live.
"If they already have the
question to table for PMQs [Prime Minister's Questions], it's harder to say:
'No, no, no, I won't do it'," she said.
Strizzolo
then boasted how her own efforts once made an immediate impact on the national
debate.
While
in Israel with the Conservative Friends of Israel parliamentary group in 2014,
she persuaded MP Halfon to question the prime minster in public over three
missing teenagers believed to have been kidnapped and murdered "to get a response from the government",
Strizzolo said.
Halfon
took the request and called on former prime minister David Cameron to support
the Israeli government, which he said should do "everything possible to take out Hamas terrorist networks". In response, Cameron promised that
Britain would "stand by
Israel".
Changed Times - UPDATE
Al Jazeera Investigative Unit's series "The Lobby" can be viewed on Al Jazeera at the following times:
Al Jazeera Investigative Unit's series "The Lobby" can be viewed on Al Jazeera at the following times:
Episode One - Wednesday, January 11, 22:30 GMT
Episode Two - Thursday, January 12, 22:30 GMT
Episode Three - Friday, January 13, 22:30 GMT
Episode Four - Saturday, January 14, 22:30 GMT
The series will also be available online.
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