By a Labour Party member
In the light of the many expulsions of Labour Party members over accusations of anti-Semitism, it is worth exploring just what is permissible in today’s Labour Party in relation to discussion on the policies of state of Israel. It seems, for example, that it is automatically deemed “anti-Semitic” merely to refer to the Israeli government’s ‘lobbying’ in British political parties.
Yet in a letter to Labour Party members in August 2018, leader Jeremy Corbyn made it clear that criticism of the Israeli government was not in itself grounds for disciplinary action. Indeed, he said, “Anti-Zionism is not in itself anti-Semitic and some Jews are not Zionists.” The Labour Party issued further guidelines in July 2019, as a PDF leaflet under the title, No Place for antisemitism. In it, the Party pointed out that fighting against anti-Semitism,
Struggle for Justice for Palestinians
“…does not mean limiting legitimate criticism of the Israeli state or its policies or diluting support for the Palestinian people’s struggle for justice, their own state, and the rights of refugees and their descendants. The impact that the creation of Israel had and still has on the Palestinian people means the struggle for justice for them and an end to their dispossession is a noble one; Labour supports Palestinian statehood and a two-state solution to the conflict.”
Yet despite this invitation to openness and free debate, the new leadership regime within the Labour Party seems to be operating a kind of ‘thought-police’ that forbids discussion of certain issues, and any reference to an ‘Israel lobby’ in the labour movement is forbidden. There seem to be right-wingers in the party, with little else to do with their lives but trawl through Facebook posts going back years, looking for anything that can even remotely be linked to anti-Semitism.
Embassies lobby politicians and media
Yet, if we ask the question, “do governments use embassies to lobby for policies in their interests?”, the answer has to be yes. All governments have press attachés and political officers in their larger embassies, who will not only read the local press, but will offer stories, news and information to the media that puts their own government in a good light. It would be naive in the extreme to imagine that these officials would not also talk to politicians to do the same.
Most of the time this is done openly. In London, the press attachés of the larger embassies even have their own organisation, called the Diplomatic Press Attaché Association of London. Established in 2010, it is a forum for public diplomacy officers in London and it networks with the British and foreign media, hosts networking events and shares contacts and best practice. But the question is to what extent governments – and here we are concerned with the Israeli government – do their lobbying in secret, rather than openly.
What is no longer secret, thanks to the published Register of MPs interests, is the financial support MPs get from outside politics. We know, for example, that Sir Trevor Chinn, an active supporter of the Israeli government, gives financial support, not the Labour Party as such, but to the private offices of selected Labour MPs.
Donations only to selected MPs
The website of the Jewish Leadership Council notes that Chinn is a Vice-President of that body and that from “1973 to 1993 he was Chairman of the Joint Israel Appeal (now United Jewish Israel Appeal), the major fund-raising organisation for Israel. Since 1993 he has been President of the UJIA”. The issue here is not Trevor Chinn’s faith but his political attachments to the Israeli state.
Labour Party members are entitled to ask why it is that Trevor Chinn, an active supporter of the Israeli government, and therefore a person unlikely to criticise its policies in relation to the Palestinians or anything else, gives money, not to the Labour Party, but to only to specific Labour MPs who have a similar view to his own. Labour members are entitled to ask, therefore, is this not an ‘Israeli lobby’ at work?
It is also worth recalling the exposés of the Al Jazeera television network in January 2017, when in a series of four programmes called The Lobby, they dealt with the political work of the Israeli embassy in London. That embassy, like the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs at home, is particularly concerned to counter the growing movement in support of BDS – to Boycott, Divest and impose Sanctions against Israel.
Hidden cameras and recordings
By means of hidden cameras and recordings, the Al Jazeera programmes outlined the work of staff of the London Israeli embassy. In the first programme, viewers were introduced to Shai Masot, a senior Israeli Political Officer at the embassy. He complained about the fact that whereas most Tory MPs joined the Conservative Friends of Israel, Labour MPs didn’t automatically join its equivalent, the Labour Friends of Israel (LFI). “We help” pro-Israeli organisations that are nominally “independent”, Masot suggests on tape, the “we”, presumably, being his employers the Israeli embassy. As well as LFI, the programme suggested that Masot had connections with the Fabian Society, including its youth wing. A leading Fabian member, again on tape, in fact said he was a “good friend” of Masot.
Indeed, it looks like the Israeli embassy offers something of a revolving door for pro-Israeli activists, employing them for a year or two in between other lobbying and political posts within a variety of organisations. The newly-appointed director of the JLM, Ella Rose, for example, was featured in the programme and she too had had a spell working in the embassy. She was most put out when this fact was publicized by the Electronic Intafada. Having expressed an interest in setting up a youth section for the LFI, Al Jazeera’s undercover reporter was also advised to send his CV to the embassy.
Embassy financed Union of Jewish Students
In his discussions about starting an LFI youth group, the reporter discusses with the parliamentary officer of the LFI who says he has a discussion with Masot “most days”. Another organisation featured was the Union of Jewish Students, which had received finance from the Israeli embassy.
To give an idea of the political slant of the lobby, it might be apposite to quote a short speech by an Israeli MP (and Strategic Affairs minister) at a social event of the ‘Jewish Labour Movement’. He made the point that he was brought up in the tradition that “the land of Israel totally belongs to the Jewish people”.
The second programme in the Al Jazeera series deals with a recorded discussion about an event planned at the forthcoming Labour Party conference of 2016. Many well-known personalities were expected to attend, including another MK from Israel, and Luke Akehurst. Akehurst, currently nominations for Labour’s NEC, was then the director of We Believe in Israel; he is described in the recording by Masot as a “great guy” and a “great campaigner”. Akehurst, Masot says, is “one of the best in the inside…In all the party.” Part of the secret recordings, in this and later episodes, features the then parliamentary director of the LFI including an admission that he worked very closely with the Israeli embassy, although, he emphasises, “a lot of it is behind the scenes”.
LFI conference stall
The third programme Includes recordings from fringe meetings and discussions around the Labour Party conference. There is a very interesting and revealing example of how an anti-Semitism charge might arise when a woman delegate, at her first Party conference, asks questions to Labour MP Joan Ryan at the LFI stall. This woman later had her words distorted – and some completely invented – so as to describe her as “anti-Semitic” and worthy of being officially reported.
This entire episode, unknown to Joan Ryan, was recorded by the Al Jazeera undercover reporter and if there was any anti-Semitic ‘trope’ used, it was entirely a fabrication of Ryan herself. Yet Ryan’s complaint led to the woman being investigated by the Labour Compliance Unit and there was a formal investigation.
It is clear in this case that the accusation of anti-Semitism arose because a Party member in all innocence asked questions about how a two-state solution was feasible with Palestinian land fragmented by Jewish settlements – questions Joan Ryan was unable or unwilling to answer. In this case the Labour investigation found case of anti-Semitism not proven, but one would ask whether it would have been dismissed in the current climate in the party, where those charged are usually deemed guilty until proven innocent.
Preparing parliamentary questions
In the fourth and final Al Jazeera programme, there was more time given to the Conservative Friends of Israel, which apparently includes the overwhelming majority of Tory MPs. It was clear from a secretly-recorded interview that Israeli lobbyists were prepared to promote parliamentary questions and comments by MPs, even to extent of preparing parliamentary questions and speeches for them.
There was also a reference to AIPAC, (American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee) which is the most powerful pro-Israeli lobby in the USA, and the programme points out that it has a presence in London. It was in this programme, too, that the Israeli embassy’s senior Political Officer, Shai Masot, talked about “taking down” some MPs, including the Tory deputy Foreign Minister, Alan Duncan, after which the Israeli ambassador apologised.
One of the benefits of links with the embassy was featured a number of times – the invitation to go on delegations to Israel, paid for by the Israeli government. Members of the Labour Friends of Israel, the Union of Jewish Students and others, have been taken to see the ‘facts on the ground’ from the point of view of the Israeli government. The overall costs of these delegations must run to millions of pounds – that sum is heard mentioned by Masot in conversation with Joan Ryan – but for the Israeli government it is no doubt counted as an ongoing expense and money well spent.
Ongoing and effective liaison
The Al Jazeera programmes were not world-shattering, and what they revealed over four episodes could have probably been compressed into one or two at most, but they certainly make it clear that there was and more than likely still is an ongoing and effective liaison between the Israeli embassy’s political officers and parts of the labour movement, a liaison that includes the coordination of financial support and visits.
It is interesting to note that after those Al Jazeera revelations, Emily Thornberry, the then Labour Shadow Foreign Secretary, called the statements in the programme by Shai Masot, “extremely disturbing”. According to The Guardian, “…the Shadow Foreign Secretary…has called on the Commons foreign affairs committee to conduct an inquiry into the matter, saying it amounted to ‘improper interference in our democratic politics’ by a foreign state.”
Witch-hunting atmosphere all-pervasive
Sadly, if Emily Thornberry were to make the same comments today, calling for a House of Commons inquiry into the activities of the Israeli embassy in British political parties, she would probably be accused of anti-Semitism and expelled from the Party.
The witch-hunting atmosphere in the Labour Party now is so all-pervasive that even this article, without a hint of antagonism or antipathy towards Jewish people as Jews, would be charged as anti-Semitic by some people. Big Brother is indeed alive and well and he has a hotline to Labour’s Compliance Unit.
The Al Jazeera programmes are still available to watch and can be found on YouTube or the Al Jazeera website. Watch them; judge for yourself.
September 17, 2020
