We think that the experiences outlined in Palestine Post #20: A special issue on Israel’s interference in Britain’s internal affairs pose some important questions for ourselves in the UK:
- Why was the Foreign Secretary so insistent that the matter of taking down of Sir Alan Duncan be closed? Peter Oborne argues that if something similar happened with Russia, all hell would have broken loose and a full-scale diplomatic crisis would have erupted. Craig Murray asked: why has Israeli spy Shai Masot not been expelled?
- Don’t we expect a country like Israel that is supposed to be Britain’s ally, to behave better than Russia?
- How many British MPs are working for Israel? See article by Jonathan Cook.
- Why must we rely on Al-Jazeera to tell us about the activities of the pro-Israel Lobby? Why is the BBC, to which we pay our license fee, not investigating it? Last year the BBC gave enormous publicity to allegations that the Labour Party had an anti-Semitism problem, but it failed to shine an investigative light on those responsible for the allegations. The only such investigation in the UK was Oborne’s Channel 4 report of 2009
- Has the UK gone far enough in regulating the Press? Notwithstanding the Leveson Inquiry, the behaviour of The Times group and other news media suggests there remains a serious problem.
- Do we underestimate the harm that Israel is capable of doing to the UK? It is worth recalling that Zionist forces carried out a ruthless insurgency against the British forces in Palestine during the 1940s, that they assassinated Lord Moyne (the British Resident Minister of the Middle East) and Count Folke Bernadotte (a top UN official), and tried to assassinate a number of senior British public figures including Ernest Bevin, Anthony Eden and Winston Churchill (Source: Suarez, 2016). While conditions have massively changed, and Israel is formally an ally of the UK, it clings to largely the same underlying doctrines that inspired the 1940s insurgency, and has become more extreme in recent years (as we explain on our website). 1940s style terror (from Mondweiss review, Oct 13, 2016)
1940s style terror (from Mondweiss review, Oct 13, 2016)
But this is not all. We also have some important questions for the Lib Dem Party:
- Isn’t it time for Lib Dem leaders to speak up in the same way as some distinguished Tories, as well as Labour and SNP leaders, have already done on the Al Jazeera revelations, and demand a thorough investigation? In the words of Alan Duncan: ‘Justice for Palestine’, like all the ‘isms’ which define our moral being, should now be a cross-party, international cause. Have we lost the spirit of Charles Kennedy, who opposed the Iraq war?
- Isn’t it high time the Lib Dem Party defended Jenny Tonge’s performance in the House of Lords meeting of 25th October 2016?
- Why, for the second year in the succession, has the Party refused a serious conference motion on the Israeli-Palestinian issue? We believe that it has been taking the path of least resistance, with a view to keeping the peace with the pro-Israel lobby.
- Is it reasonable and legitimate for the Party to remain equidistant between Friends of Israel, an internal Party organisation that seeks to defend a nation engaged in an occupation that contravenes international law and human rights, and LDFP, another internal organisation that, while acknowledging Israel’s right to exist, promotes an end to the occupation and equality for all in the region, Israeli and Palestinian alike?
In attempting to get LDFP and LDFI to agree a motion, we believe the Party has been seeking to paper over an internal division which could cause the pro-Israel lobby to attack it, in the savage way it has attacked the Labour party. Unfortunately, this makes the Lib Dem position with regard to Palestinian human rights no improvement to the Conservative position, one of countless expressions of concern and regret without action to change the unjust status quo. Unless we in Britain can change this posture we are, sadly, part of Israel and Palestine’s problem, not part of the solution.
