Opinion Editorials, May 2010

In Israel's Pockets:

The Shame of Britain's Political Parties

By Stuart Littlewood

Redress, May 3, 2010

As British voters head for the ballot box to elect the government that will run them for the next five years, one key question is conspicuous by its absence from the election campaign and the party leaders' televised debates: to what extent are the two main parties, the Conservative Party and the incumbent Labour Party, answerable to their members and to the British people, rather than to a foreign power, the State of Israel?

Below, we highlight the degree to which the Conservative and Labour parties are beholden to Israel, with the Conservatives significantly funded by Israel lobbyists and at least half, if not more, of their shadow cabinet being members of the party's Israel lobby group, Conservative Friends of Israel. We also remind our readers of the Labour Party leaders' self-confessed loyalty to Israel, and we look at how the Liberal Democratic Party, despite being the most British and least Israeli of the three parties, still lacks the courage to speak out against Israeli racism and crimes and to cleanse itself of Israel lobbyists.
 
"Cabbing" for Israel?

A question every voter should ask candidates in the coming UK general election
By Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood says that the forthcoming UK general election will be an opportunity for the British public to call to account those politicians – Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat – who are “cabbing”, or “stooging”, for a foreign power, Israel.

There can be few sights more pathetic than ex-ministers and chums of Tony Blair offering to use their government contacts to help influence policy on behalf of business clients.

"I'm like a cab for hire," said Stephen Byers when secretly filmed by Channel 4 TV’s “Dispatches” programme. Byers could be "hailed" for GBP 3,000 to 5,000 per day.

And so a new expression was born into the sleazy world of Westminster: “political cabbing”.
"I  will continue to do what I can both to defend Israel and to protect the security of Israel’s borders... I count myself not only a friend of Israel but someone who wants to support the future of Israel ...  we will do everything that we can to work with Israel."

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown

The latest revelations come only a few months after another Channel 4 “Dispatches” report, by Peter Oborne, showed how large numbers of MPs were stooging (or "cabbing") for Israel.

Mr Oborne reported that a majority of Conservative MPs and half the shadow cabinet are signed-up Friends of Israel, and millions of pounds flow into the bank accounts of MPs and parties, although only a fraction of these “contributions” are visibly accounted for. Sir Richard Dalton, a former British diplomat who served as consul-general in Jerusalem, observed: "I don't believe, and I don't think anybody else believes, these contributions come with no strings attached."
 
Mr Oborne showed how Labour and Conservative Friends of Israel take dozens of MPs on free trips to Israel, where they are guests of the Israeli government.

Few, if any, declare this interest when speaking in Parliament.
 
He showed how one of the Conservative Party's big donors has vested interests in illegal settlement development in the West Bank and in Bicom, an Israeli public affairs outfit, and how the party's leadership is subjected to foreign pressure.

What harm does “cabbing” for Israel do?

Large numbers of MPs (and many parliamentary candidates) are exposed to the Israel lobby's influence, and its message is carried through into parliamentary work, causing great damage to our parliamentary democracy, harm to Britain's reputation throughout the world and risk to our security because a just solution in the Holy Land is prevented by such partisanship.

The majority of Conservative MPs and MEPs are Friends of Israel. The lobby also claims a very large number of Labour MPs and ministers. Membership is said to be a necessary step to high office.

The Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel (LDFI) website brazenly states that its first aim is to maximize support for the State of Israel within the party and Parliament, and develop and maintain a broad-based LDFI membership inside and outside of Parliament.

Conservatives Friends of Israel have a “fast track” group for parliamentary candidates fighting target marginal seats.

Senior Conservatives try to justify their support for the foreign military power by insisting that Israel is "a force for good in the world" and "in the battle for the values that we stand for, for democracy against theocracy, for democratic liberal values against repression – Israel's enemies are our enemies and this is a battle in which we all stand together".
"The belief I have in Israel is indestructible – and you need to know that if I become prime minister, Israel has a friend who will never turn his back on Israel."

UK Conservative Party leader David Cameron

This partisanship undermines a number of the Principles on which our standards in public life are founded. One of these requires holders of public office not to place themselves under any financial or other obligation to outside individuals or organizations that might seek to influence them in the performance of their official duties.
Nowhere is this disregard for principle more dramatically demonstrated than in the appointment of Israel flag-wavers to the chairmanship of our most important security bodies – the Intelligence and Security Committee, the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Defence Committee.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown told Labour Friends of Israel that they were one of the great influences on the whole of the Labour movement... I will continue to do what I can both to defend Israel and to protect the security of Israel’s borders... I count myself not only a friend of Israel but someone who wants to support the future of Israel ...  we will do everything that we can to work with Israel.

Conservative opposition leader David Cameron has said: "The belief I have in Israel is indestructible – and you need to know that if I become prime minister, Israel has a friend who will never turn his back on Israel."

Both leaders are patrons of the Jewish National Fund, an organization with a sinister purpose.

Lobbying will be the "next political scandal", says Cameron blissfully unaware of the irony of his remark.
“Cabbing” to change the law and protect Israel’s thugs When Tzipi Livni, leader of Israel's main opposition party Kadima and foreign minister during the murderous blitzkrieg on Gaza civilians a year ago, recently cancelled a visit to Britain after an arrest warrant was issued against her by a British court, Israel complained that “we have to put an end to this absurdity, which is harming the excellent bilateral relations between Israel and Britain."

Gordon Brown responded by insisting that Livni was welcome and promising to change the law that allows British courts to issue warrants for war crimes suspects.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband reinforced this by saying the British government was determined that arrest threats against visitors of Ms Livni's stature would not happen again. "Israel is a strategic partner and a close friend of the United Kingdom. We are determined to protect and develop these ties," he said. "Israeli leaders – like leaders from other countries – must be able to visit and have a proper dialogue with the British government."

Livni is not even a serving minister. And far from apologizing for the slaughter of Gazans a year ago, this odious individual declared: "I would make the same decisions all over again." For decent people she is beyond the pale and unwelcome.

Nevertheless, the attorney-general has told the world that the government intends to protect high-ranking Israeli officials from arrest in the UK. Speaking at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Baroness Scotland said Israeli leaders should not face arrest for war crimes under the law of universal jurisdiction. "The government is looking urgently at ways in which the UK system might be changed to avoid this situation arising again. Israel's leaders should always be able to travel freely to the UK."

Why? There can be no hiding place for those accused of genocide, crimes against humanity, extra-judicial executions, war crimes, torture and forced disappearances.

States that are party to the Geneva Conventions – there are 194 of them, including Israel itself – are obliged to seek out and either prosecute or extradite those suspected of having committed "grave breaches" of the conventions and “bring such persons, regardless of their nationality, before its own courts. It may also, if it prefers, and in accordance with the provisions of its own legislation, hand such persons over for trial to another High Contracting Party concerned, provided such High Contracting Party has made out a prima facie case."  

The Geneva Conventions are treaties, solemnly entered into, that contain universal rules limiting the barbarity of war. "Grave breaches" means willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, the causing of great suffering or serious injury to body or health, and other serious violations of the laws of war. Israel is well practised in all of these.

"Brown and Miliband, 'cabbing' like fury, are happy to dismantle our obligations under international law in order to save their unsavoury friends and allow Israel’s worst thugs to walk the streets of our capital."

Brown and Miliband, “cabbing” like fury, are happy to dismantle our obligations under international law in order to save their unsavoury friends and allow Israel’s worst thugs to walk the streets of our capital.

“Cabbing” for Israel even extends to making light of the theft by Mossad agents of the passport ID of several British citizens in a mission to assassinate a Hamas operative in Dubai. It was not the first time this sort of thing has happened. Mr Miliband announced the expulsion of an unnamed individual on the Israeli embassy staff. This feeble slap on the wrist was not nearly enough to wipe the smirk off Ambassador Ron Prosor’s face.

George Galloway MP called for a more robust response – the closing of the embassy. “Every British citizen travelling in the Middle East has been endangered by the actions of Mossad operating from the Israeli embassy in London. Protecting British citizens abroad demands nothing less than closing that centre of espionage at home."

That’s more like it.

Miliband’s and Brown’s friends are not my friends – or anyone else’s as far as I can see. The idea that Israel and the gangsters who run it have any value to us as strategic partners, is a figment of their tiny imagination. George Washington’s warning of years ago seems all the more appropriate today: "The nation which indulges towards another a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave ... a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils."

Who , if they had any integrity, would "cab" for a regime that thieves, murders, assassinates, carries out ethnic cleansing and shows utter contempt for international law, human rights, UN resolutions and the normal codes of human conduct?

Who would “cab” for a regime that, by using overwhelming military might, has systematically impoverished its neighbours and resorted to starvation tactics to make them submit?

Who, if they had a shred of honour, would "cab" for a regime whose leaders are wanted for war crimes?

Be warned, you parliamentary candidates, when you come a-knocking for my vote. The first question will be “Are you cabbing for Israel?”

Israel's stooges battle for British votes

By Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood considers the British shadows of the US administration’s pro-Israel spivs and pimps – the Conservative and Labour parties – and argues that the unexpected rise in fortunes of Britain’s third main party, the Liberal Democrats, is likely to make its leader Nick Clegg, who is no rabid Zionist, a target of US-Zionist smears.

We can already see how disastrously the US election turned out, not just for Americans but the rest of us also. “The US president is simply the voice of the Zionist parasite,” writes a friend in Norway. “It is sickening and frightening that Obama is seen toeing the Zionist line.

“Zionism has the US administration and other Western governments by the balls.”

Well, that’s certainly the way it looks. Last month Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, slapped America in the face by approving more illegal settlements during Vice-President Joe Biden’s visit. What did Secretary of State Hillary Clinton do? She repeated the pathetic mantra: “We have an absolute commitment to Israel’s security. We have a close, unshakeable bond between the United States and Israel and between the American and Israeli people”.
“Zionism has the US administration and other Western governments by the balls."

Clinton completed her surrender to the Israeli terror machine by sharing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference platform with a triumphant Netanyahu.

Whereupon over half of America’s lawmakers topped Clinton’s performance by signing a letter committing to the US’s “unbreakable” bond with the racist regime.

Nine months earlier, speaking in a BBC interview, Obama said he believed the US was "able to get serious negotiations back on track" between Israel and the Palestinians. And when asked about Israel's defiance when called on it to halt construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, he urged patience. "Diplomacy is always a matter of a long, hard slog. It's never a matter of quick results."

The fact is, diplomacy doesn’t work with the Israelis. Everyone knows the problem: Israel’s contempt for international law and UN resolutions. And now we see Obama’s contempt too. In this wobbly leader's mind Israel is somehow exempt from the laws, conventions, codes of conduct and respect for the rights of others that apply to everyone else in the civilized world.

Forcing negotiations is immoral

And Obama should know better than to keep harping on about peace negotiations. It is absurd to put a weak party and a strong party together and expect fair results when the strong party is in permanent occupation and has its military boot on the weak party's neck.

It is immoral to expect the weak party to negotiate while the strong party is in flagrant breach of international law, commits acts of piracy, maintains a crippling blockade, carries out daily air strikes on civilians and continues to steal the weak party’s land and resources.

It is immoral for sponsors of negotiations to be so partisan as to refuse to recognize the democratically elected representatives of the weak party or its right to self-determination and territorial integrity.

It is immoral to force negotiations without first establishing a level playing field and ensuring both sides are compliant with international law. The international community has shirked this responsibility for decades, not because the peoples of the community of nations lack the will but because their leaders are gutless and corrupt.
"...the US taxpayer has been cheerfully funding Israeli operations to destroy Palestinian infrastructure ... and bring the whole civil society to its knees."

Then there’s the scandal of the US government’s aid to Israel which runs at nearly 3 billion dollars annually and totals well over 100 billion dollars since 1949. The money helps pay for Israel’s costly occupation of Palestinian territory, its F-16s, helicopter gunships, tanks, ordnance, Caterpillar bulldozers, and all the other tools of military oppression and territorial grand theft.

Israel gets more billions of dollars in indirect aid – military support, loan write-offs, rich technology transfers and special grants. Before George W. Bush left office he agreed an assistance package of 30 billion dollars over the next 10 years.

So the US taxpayer has been cheerfully funding Israeli operations to destroy Palestinian infrastructure (which in many cases has been paid for by British, EU and – yes – US taxpayers) and bring the whole civil society to its knees.

Most of this aid violates US laws that stipulate US-supplied weapons can only be used for "legitimate self-defence" and military assistance is prohibited to any country that engages in “a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights". Military assistance is also banned to any government that refuses to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or allow inspection of its nuclear facilities. But thanks to the “unbreakable” bond with Israel these inconvenient laws might as well not exist.

Israelis fiercely attack any attempt to “delegitimize” their ill-gotten gains while more and more people argue that the state of Israel had no legitimacy in the first place. Nevertheless, the Zionist menace now has nuclear fangs and the capability to target most European cities and, as we have seen, has no sense of restraint whatever.

Gee, thanks, America. Before you go accepting any more peace prizes, Obama, how about bringing to heel this monster the US has been nurturing?

Israel’s “voices” compete for British vote

Here in Britain we have our own version of AIPAC. The Foreign Office has been under Zionist influence for decades. Our most important security bodies – the Intelligence and Security Committee, the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Defence Committee – are headed by Israel flag-wavers. They have embedded themselves in nearly ever nook and cranny of parliamentary life.

"Labour has been in power for 13 years and is now under Blair’s successor, Gordon Brown, a Zionist sympathizer and patron of the Jewish National Fund."

Right now these stooges are battling for our votes in a general election.
Before the election campaign the main parties, Labour and the Conservatives, were so wedded to the Zionist cause that both wished to change our laws to protect Israeli leaders from arrest on war crimes charges and provide them with a safe haven in Britain.

Now they keep very quiet about their pro-Israel antics, no doubt hoping the question won't be brought under the public spotlight or need explaining.

Labour has been in power for 13 years and is now under Blair’s successor, Gordon Brown, a Zionist sympathizer and patron of the Jewish National Fund. The party’s 115-page manifesto barely mentions the fate of the Holy Land except to say: "We support the creation of a viable Palestinian state that can live alongside a secure Israel." Note that it's a secure Israel but only a viable Palestine. Israel must remain comfortably secure while continuing its ethnic cleansing and thieving.

The Conservative Party is favourite to win the election – or was until its leader, David "I'm-a-Zionist" Cameron, flunked a televised leaders’ debate. Cameron too is a dutiful patron of the JNF. His party's 118-page manifesto says nothing about Britain’s responsibility towards the Palestinians apart from promising support for a two-state solution to the Middle East Peace Process. That's all, full stop.

"Eighty per cent of Conservative MPs and MEPs, it is claimed, are passionate admirers of racist Israel."
Eighty per cent of Conservative MPs and MEPs, it is claimed, are passionate admirers of racist Israel. But they don’t shout it from the rooftops at election time. No, they are furtive because they know deep down that it is a grubby, indefensible position and the public would react with revulsion if the party’s allegiance to a foreign military power that makes war of Christian communities was exposed in the mainstream media.

Sad to say, then, there is no sign of Labour or the Conservatives deviating from the path of betrayal.

Thankfully a third party, the Liberal Democratic Party, is emerging strongly. Its leader, Nick Clegg, is no rabid Zionist though readers will remember he recently sacked Baroness Jenny Tonge to appease the Israel lobby. However, the Liberal Democrats at least believe Britain and the EU must put pressure on Israel and Egypt to end the blockade of Gaza and talk of borders “which are secure and based on the situation before the 1967 conflict”.

This party looks less corruptible than the others and less likely to worship at the altar of Zionism. Not being considered serious contenders till now, Clegg and his team probably haven’t been groomed by the US administration’s spivs and pimps. So we can expect big efforts to discredit them in the days ahead.

In my simple way I see a glimmer of hope here.

When a proper history comes to be written, Americans will struggle to explain how the most powerful nation on earth was so easily conned and mugged for countless billions of tax dollars to finance the ambitions of a bunch of extremists bent on defiling the Holy Land and spreading their tentacles into every crevice of the Western world.

The British also will have some explaining to do.

Britain's pro-Israel lobby under the microscope

By James Jones and Peter Oborne

In a pamphlet accompanying British Channel 4 TV Dispatches team's ground-breaking programme "Inside Britain's Israel Lobby", first broadcast on 16 November 2009, James Jones and Peter Oborne investigate Britain's Israel lobby, which is working in support of the interests of the State of Israel and aims to shape the debate about Britain's relationship with Israel and future foreign policies relating to it. The pamphlet looks into how accountable, transparent and open to scrutiny the lobby is, particularly in regard to its funding and financial support of MPs. It also examines how the lobby operates from within parliament and the tactics it employs behind the scenes when engaging with print and broadcast media.

Pro-Israel lobby in Britain

This pamphlet is also available here.

Exposing Britain’s pro-Israel lobby: Channel 4 TV makes a bold start
By Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood welcomes Channel 4 TV’s exposure of Britain’s Israel lobby but says it left too much out: "[I]t didn’t name and shame enough individuals. It didn't tell the nation that our most important security bodies ... are all headed by Israel flag-wavers... It didn’t reveal that our Labour and Conservative leaders are both patrons of the Jewish National Fund…”

Channel 4's “Dispatches” programme on 16 November set out to investigate the pro-Israel lobby in Britain, and to boldly go where no TV team had gone before.

On the Dispatches website we are told that the lobby "aims to shape the debate about Britain's relationship with Israel and future foreign policies relating to it". So the programme would be looking at "who they are, how they are funded, how they work and what influence they have, from the key groups to the wealthy individuals who help bankroll the lobbying".

Political commentator Peter Oborne would explain how accountable, transparent and open to scrutiny the lobby was, particularly regarding its funding and financial support to MPs.

So it was with mounting excitement that countless thousands of citizens here in an increasingly Zionist-ruled Britain awaited the screening of this daring programme. Some of the reader comments on the Dispatches website showed the expectant mood:
"Finally someone will take this issue on. British politicians should represent Britain not a foreign interest."

"I expect the usual accusations of anti-Semistism of any attempt to show Israel in its true light."

"I hope the programme would expose how lobbyists for Israel trample over the UK democratic process. I expect Oborne to expose the destructive role of the Labour Friends of Israel in British politics, but I hope he won't stop there."

"The Zionist lobby counts many British politicians in its ranks where they function as a fifth column in support of Israel's illegal actions."

"I live in hope but I doubt this programme will truly unmask the Israel lobby that has played a critical role in destabilizing the Middle East… "

"Expect numerous cries of "anti-Semitism". Le’ts hope the programme doesn't pull its punches."

"We have tried for years to have this shadowy support mechanism for Israel exposed. Please do not allow this programme to be pulled. Please do a proper exposé of all aspects…"

"It won’t change anything. Most of the British public are too stupid to realize how important this programme is."
Mr Oborne reported that a large majority of Conservative MPs and half the shadow cabinet are signed-up Friends of Israel, and millions of pounds flow into the bank accounts of MPs and parties, although only a fraction of these “contributions” is visibly accounted for. As Sir Richard Dalton, a former British diplomat who served as consul-general in Jerusalem, observed: "I don't believe, and I don't think anybody else believes these contributions come with no strings attached."


Channel 4 Dispatches: "Inside Britain's Israel lobby", broadcast on 16 November 2009. The video can also be viewed here.
Mr Oborne showed how Labour and Conservative Friends of Israel take dozens of MPs on free trips to Israel, where they are guests of the Israeli government.

He showed how one of the Conservative Party's big donors has vested interests in illegal settlement development in the West Bank and in Bicom, an Israeli public affairs outfit, and how the party's leadership is prey to foreign pressure.

Assuming the Conservatives win next year’s election Israel can rest easy in the knowledge that it continues to have sufficient stooges in place at the heart of our government.

Just as important, Mr Oborne showed how the BBC – or the ZBC, as it has become known for obvious reasons – allows itself to be relentlessly bullied by the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Zionist Federation who, the programme pointed out, don't represent anybody except an extremists section of the Jewish community. But he forgot to tell us that BBC Director-General Mark Thompson has Zionist links through marriage and Thompson himself went to Israel in 2005 to "build bridges" with the then prime minister, Ariel Sharon, considered by many a war criminal and mass murderer.

Interesting though the programme was, it left out too much. For example, it didn’t name and shame enough individuals. It didn't tell the nation that our most important security bodies – the Intelligence and Security Committee, the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Defence Committee – are all headed by Israel flag-wavers. How can that possibly be in our national interest?

It didn’t reveal that our Labour and Conservative leaders are both patrons of the Jewish National Fund or explain the sinister purpose of that organization.

According to Mr Oborne, ”the pro-Israel lobby, in common with other lobbies, has every right to operate and indeed to flourish in Britain. But … the present obscurity surrounding it can, paradoxically, give rise to conspiracy theories that have no basis in fact.” However, he spent the best part of an hour convincing us (well me, anyway) it is indeed a conspiracy and a very large and well organized one.

He didn’t mention that two years ago a group of individuals asked the Committee on Standards in Public Life to investigate the undue influence of the Friends of Israel lobbies.

Their main argument was that the lobbies existed in contravention of the Seven Principles of Public Life, which the Standards Committee had been formed to uphold. Some of those who signed the letter believed the strength of these alliances should be seen as bordering on treason.

They put it to the Standards Committee that "the activities of the Israel lobby in Westminster seriously undermine a number of those principles as defined by the committee itself, namely selflessness, integrity, accountability, openness and honesty.

A large majority of Conservative MPs and MEPs are Friends of Israel. The lobby also claims a very large number of Labour MPs and ministers. The Liberal Democrat FoI [Friends of Israel] website brazenly states that its first aim is to maximize support for the State of Israel within the Liberal Democrats and Parliament, furthermore to develop and maintain a broad-based LDFI membership inside and outside of Parliament…

“All MPs (and many parliamentary candidates) are exposed to the lobby's influence and a disturbingly large number apparently carry its message into their parliamentary work, causing great damage to our parliamentary democracy, harm to Britain's reputation throughout the world and risk to our security because a just solution in the Holy Land is excluded by such partisanship.

They even quoted George Washington: "The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave … a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils."

But their concerns were rejected out of hand. Not surprisingly, it was found that the Israel lobby had infiltrated the Standards Committee itself. Who could be summoned to investigate that?

Peter Oborne and the Dispatches team get an encouraging two cheers from me. It was a brave effort which went halfway and will no doubt draw considerable flak from Israel’s hirelings and admirers. A wholehearted third cheer will be earned if they go back and finish the job.

In the meantime it would be no bad thing if all our Westminster politicians had the Second Principle of Public Life tattooed on their forehead – “Integrity: Holders of public office should not place themselves under any financial or other obligation to outside individuals or organizations that might seek to influence them in the performance of their official duties.” (Note to tattooist: Apply back-to-front so that they can read it every morning when they look in the mirror.)
Exposing the ignorance and hypocrisy of Conservative Friends of Israel
"Israel continues to feed the hand that bites it...”

...says the British Conservative Party's “Voice of Israel”
By Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood asks British Conservative Party MP and mouthpiece of Israel James Arbuthnot pertinent questions about the propaganda, disinformation and humbug spouted out by him and his Friends of Israel colleagues about Israel and the Palestinians.

Each of the three main political parties in the UK has a “Friends of Israel” lobby group that ensures pro-Israel members are embedded at all key levels in Parliament and government. The Foreign Office minister responsible for the Middle East is a former chairman of Labour Friends of Israel. His opposition “shadow” is a member of Conservative Friends of Israel. You get the picture.

So, after visiting Gaza in November 2007 I wrote to the chairmen of the Conservative and Labour Friends of Israel enclosing a desperate appeal received from the Ministry of  Health in Gaza and an article describing the horrendous suffering of innocent civilians under the cruel siege imposed by Israel. "You and your family will, I hope, enjoy Christmas. But starving Gazans will not... What steps will you personally take, I wonder, to help end the humanitarian crisis?"

The Labour chairman didn't reply. Now, after more than six weeks, I have received an answer from the Conservative, James Arbuthnot. This is what he says (dated 17 January):

It is not in Israel's interest to see Palestinians in Gaza starving and suffering from a lack of medical attention. Publicity towards Israel has been far from favourable thanks to the situation in Gaza. However Israel, as a democracy, has a duty to protect its citizens. As a responsible democracy it must ensure that potentially dangerous materials and goods that could be used to harm Israeli citizens do not make their way into Gaza.

Terrorist organizations continue to take advantage of humanitarian aid that is delivered to the strip. Just last month an IDF [Israel Defence Forces] operation caught a truck at one of the crossing points in the West Bank carrying approximately 6.5 tons of potassium nitrate. The potassium nitrate was disguised in sugar bags that were marked as being part of the humanitarian aid provided by the European Union, and was intended for use by terrorists in the Gaza Strip. Potassium nitrate is a banned substance in the Gaza Strip due to its use by terrorists for the manufacturing of explosives and Qassam rockets.

Rocket attacks from Gaza continue hitting western Negev towns. Last month alone there were 113 identified rocket hits. One Qassam fell near a school in the town of Sderot sending 20 civilians, 10 of them children, into shock. Last month there were 17 Israeli casualties and two Israeli deaths from rocket attacks. Since December last year there have been 896 rocket hits in western Negev towns like Sderot.

Israeli actions in Gaza are not a military incursion but a defensive response to try to bring to an end the constant attacks made on Israelis in their homes, schools and on their streets. Terrorists in Gaza fire rockets from their homes and schools (one example being a UN-run school) and places where they deliberately hide behind civilians. Israel always takes care to avoid civilian casualties. Death tolls could be much higher and the risk to Israeli personnel far less.

Stopping the attacks is the obvious precursor to any hope for peace negotiations and bettering of the humanitarian situation in Gaza. The fact that attacks are continuing sends out a clear signal that Hamas is not responding to any attempt to move forward.

Despite all this, Israel continues to feed that [sic] hand that bites it. Terminals are open for fuel and gas to be supplied to the strip. The electricity supply and the northern Gaza water purification project continue to be maintained. Since the Hamas takeover a total of 8,759 patients have undergone a medical evacuation. Trucks of aid continue to be unloaded at the Sufa, Erez, Nahal Oz, Karni and Kerem Shalom terminals. Since 16 June 2007, when Hamas took over in Gaza, a total of 14,279 trucks of aid and 326,563 tons of aid have been delivered to Gaza. Merchandize such as rice, fruit, vegetables, meat, chicken, fish, dairy products, sugar, legumes, flour and yeast have all been delivered to the strip.

This is the same man who said:

"Some people say that the occupation by the Israelis is the problem. Well, if that were the case, when Israel withdrew from Gaza they could have expected some benefit from it, but instead what they got was a rain of rockets coming out of Gaza" – that's according to the Conservatives' humorously named magazine "Informed"

Mr Arbuthnot's email address is arbuthnotj@parliament.uk.

How should I reply? Where to begin? Ummmm
Dear Mr Arbuthnot,

The question I put to you simply asked what you personally propose doing to help end the humanitarian crisis in Gaza where 1.4 million civilians are suffering under Israeli blockade, which shows no sign of being lifted and only bites deeper. It's called collective punishment, one of the nastiest crimes in the book. You don't answer.
 
Can we therefore conclude that you are happy to see Gaza turned into the worst kind of ghetto? And quite relaxed about its Christian community being crushed and reduced to dire circumstances alongside their Muslim friends and neighbours?

I see you visited Israel quite recently with “The Friends”. How far did you stray from the Israelis' carefully planned programme, I wonder? Did you talk to Jeff Halper of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions [[http://icahd.org/eng/]] (ICAHD) and learn what the Israeli government is really up to, how it plans to make the occupation permanent and how every step it takes is designed to achieve just that?

Did you visit Muslim leaders? Or the Catholic Church, which operates in every town and village, teaches Muslim as well as Christian children, and has a superb intelligence network? Did you pop in for a chat with the Latin Patriarch and hear how his priests are treated? When visiting Bethlehem did you talk to Open Bethlehem, [[http://www.openbethlehem.org/]] listen to the mayor, meet with the survivors of the 40-day siege of the Church of the Nativity? Did you queue for ages with citizens at the Israeli checkpoint as they tried to get to work?
 
Did you stop to admire the monstrous wall, with its gun-towers encircling the cradle of Christianity? Do you think Jesus would be impressed? How would the good citizens of Hartley Wintney and Fleet, whom you represent, like to live their lives surrounded by that and not be able to travel to London?

Did you take a Palestinian taxi and journey through the occupied West Bank, only to find yourself barred from Jews-only highways? Did you call in at Hebron, Tulkarem, Nablus and Jenin? Did you note the Israeli vandalism and mega-destruction of villages and olive groves? Did you enjoy the endless delays at hundreds of armed checkpoints and the rudeness of the IDF, or IOF (“O” for Offence) as they are more correctly called?

Then to Gaza. Did you notice how Israel still occupies Gazan airspace, airwaves and coastal waters, seals all exits in order to ruin trade and livelihoods, and barges in with tanks, bulldozers and helicopter gunships to commit murder and mayhem whenever the mood takes it? Did you check the food stores and supermarket shelves? Did you record Israel's destruction of vital infrastructure, some of which the British taxpayer paid for?
 
Did you tour the hospitals, talk to the overworked doctors, see the dialysis machines and other equipment standing idle through lack of spares thanks to Israel's blockade? Did you note the zero stock of medical disposables and cleaning materials, check the dispensaries to find them out of vital drugs, watch chronically sick cardiac and renal failure patients dying in agony through lack of medication and because the Israelis won't allow them to cross the border for proper hospital treatment?

Did you partake of the meagre rations? And if you are a Christian, did you drop in on the Christian community to hear about their difficulties? Did you know that their priest hasn't visited his family in Jordan for nine years because, if he leaves, the Israelis won't let him back into his parish? And the schools – how are they managing without books, do you know? How are university students able to get on with their studies?

Did you request a briefing on the economy, crippled after decades of strangulation and nearly two years of siege? Did you stroll along the deserted beach and ask the 3,000 licensed fisherman why they can't take their boats to sea? Did you wander through the refugee camps? Did you stop off for coffee and a chin-wag at the houses of Fatah and Hamas?

Did you stay a few days to enjoy the long nights without light and power, tapping the keyboard of your laptop until the battery gave out and watching the children study for exams by candlelight?

And when you waved goodbye, how was your three-hour shuffle through the maze of steel bars and high-tech pens of the Erez crossing? Did the inhuman “security” process give you a buzz?

In short, Mr Arbuthnot, what do you really know about the situation in the Holy Land and Israel's conduct? Do you ever get the feeling you're being used? That's a cruel thing to say, but maybe all MPs caught up in Friends of Israel ought to ask themselves the question, or at least consider what kind of impression they create in the minds of a public who are increasingly learning the truth.
 
Stu Littlewood
19/01/08
British premier stresses his pro-Israel credentials
Gordon Brown tells British Zionists he always loved Israel
By Redress Information & Analysis

18 July 2007

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has appointed Israel apologists to key positions and has been at pains to reassure British Zionists of his support and affection for Israel

If anyone had harboured illusions that Britain’s new prime minister, Gordon Brown, might adopt a less biased position towards Israel than his Zionist predecessor, Tony Blair, now is the time to dispel them.

To begin with, Gordon Brown has appointed Israel apologists to key positions in his government, with arch-Zionist James Purnell heading the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which has oversight responsibilities for the British media, including the BBC, and Douglas Alexander, a recipient of Labour Friends of Israel hospitality, taking over the Department for International Development.

They are complemented by another Israel apologist, Jim Murphy, who has become minister of state for Europe with responsibility for the BBC World Service and the British Council. Mr Murphy served as chairman of Labour Friends of Israel during 2000-02 and has also been a member of the Anglo-Israeli All-Party Parliamentary Group.

In addition, Gordon Brown has appointed Simon McDonald, a former British ambassador to Israel and a man described by Israeli officials as "a true friend to Israel", as his chief foreign policy adviser.

Another Israel fanatic, Meg Munn, becomes parliamentary under-secretary of state with responsibility for foreign affairs. Ms Munn is a former chairwoman of Labour Friends of Israel and is a recipient of hospitality from the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

Gordon Brown has also been at pain to stress his Christian Zionist credentials. In a speech to the Labour Friends of Israel annual fundraising dinner in April 2007, quoted by the Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post, Brown described how his father, a Presbyterian preacher, had been a passionate supporter of Israel who had taken him to the racist Jews-only state at least twice a year for most of his adult life to show solidarity with the usurpers of Palestinian land. He said:

Many of you know my interest in Israel and in the Jewish community has been long-standing... My father was the chairman of the Church of Scotland's Israel Committee. Not only as I've described to some of you before did he make visits on almost two occasions a year for 20 years to Israel – but because of that, although Fife [Scotland], where I grew up, was a long way from Israel with no TV pictures to link us together – I had a very clear view from household slides and projectors about the history of Israel, about the trials and tribulations of the Jewish people, about the enormous suffering and loss during the Holocaust, as well as the extraordinary struggle that he described to me of people to create this magnificent homeland.

Indeed, Gordon Brown made a strong impression on his Zionist hosts. Jane Kennedy, chairwoman of Labour Friends of Israel, said:

I have always felt that Gordon Brown is instinctively a good friend of Israel and I look forward to working with him. The combination of Gordon as prime minister and Tony Blair as Quartet Middle East envoy is a really exciting prospect and gives real hope for progress in the Middle East peace process.

We ourselves have never harboured any illusions about Gordon Brown. For those of our readers who have, we suggest you take comfort in the fact that, as far as international relations and the Middle East are concerned, neither the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland nor the Quartet are of any consequence whatsoever. While the has-been great power of bygone years is nothing but an appendage of the United States, the talking shop that has just appointed a war criminal as its peace envoy is no more than an international cover for US support for Israel.

As far as we are concerned, Britain, the Quartet, Gordon Brown and Tony Blair are irrelevant.

Britain’s Gordon Brown becomes patron of Zionist agency

By Redress Information & Analysis

28 July 2007

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has agreed to become patron of the UK arm of the Jewish National Fund, whose funds have contributed to Israeli ethnic cleansing, the destruction of Palestinian villages and the expropriation of Palestinian land, and whose constitution requires it to promote and implement policies that discriminate against Israel’s Arab population.

Gordon Brown has crossed a new threshold on the path to becoming a fully-fledged Zionist.

According to a report in the Jewish Chronicle, Gordon Brown has agreed to become a patron of the British arm of the Jewish National Fund (JNF UK) “following an invitation from JNF UK President Gail Seal, who wrote conveying her good wishes the day after he took office”.

In a letter to Gail Seal, Gordon Brown said that he was “delighted to accept your offer to become a patron of JNF UK”. A spokesman for Brown confirmed that the British prime minister had “agreed to become a patron of JNF UK”, and that he had done so “in order to encourage their work to promote charitable projects for everyone who lives in Israel”.

In fact, far from being “a charity” that benefits “everyone who lives in Israel”, the JNF is a principal tool of Israel's discriminatory system of land administration. Founded in 1901 to help establish a Jews-only state in the Arab country of Palestine, the JNF’s constitution requires it to benefit Jews exclusively. It therefore promotes and implements policies that discriminate against the Arab population of Israel.

The JNF is also guilty of ethnic cleansing, the destruction of Palestinian villages and the expropriation of Palestinian land. According to PalestineRemembered.com, in its operation in Israel, the JNF has expropriated illegally most of the land of 372 Palestinian villages which had been ethnically cleansed by Zionist forces in 1948. The owners of this land are over half the UN-registered Palestinian refugees. The JNF had actively participated in the physical destruction of many villages, in evacuating these villages of their inhabitants and in military operations to conquer these villages. Today, the JNF controls over 2500 sq. km of Palestinian land which it leases to Jews only. It also planted 100 parks on Palestinian land.

In addition, the JNF has a long record of discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel as reported by the UN. The JNF also extends its operations by proxy or directly to the occupied Palestinian territories in the West Bank and Gaza. All this is in clear violation of international law and particularly the Fourth Geneva Convention, which forbids the confiscation of property and settling the occupiers' citizens in occupied territories. Ethnic cleansing, expropriation of property and destruction of houses are war crimes. As well, use of tax-exempt donations in these activities violates the domestic law in many countries where JNF is domiciled.

Since becoming prime minister at the end of June 2007, Gordon Brown has appointed several Israel apologists to key positions in the British government. He has also been at pain to stress his Christian Zionist credentials.

As patron of JNF UK, Gordon Brown will join a club that includes prominent British politicians and religious figures who, on the one hand, speak of the need for peace and justice in the Middle East while, on the other, promote and defend the racist Jews-only state of Israel. They include Tony Blair, Conservative leader David Cameron and Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, who is said to be a close friend of Brown.

Gordon Brown puts Israel lobbyist in charge of Britain's Middle East policy

By Redress Information & Analysis
11 June 2009

Britain’s prime minister has put a notorious pro-Israel lobbyist in charge of policy in the Middle East, Iraq and Iran, reaffirming his determination to continue with his Zionist policies even as his administration approaches the end of its life.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has appointed an Israeli agent of influence and proponent of genocide in Gaza to a key position at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Britain’s foreign ministry.

On 9 June, Ivan Lewis was given a major promotion in Mr Brown’s government when he was appointed Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office with responsibility for Middle East policy, Iraq, Iran, counterterrorism and Anglo-American relations. According to one source, he is now “just one step away from the cabinet”.
Speaking after his promotion, Mr Lewis said: “My responsibility for the Middle East peace process is particularly poignant. I have never hidden my pride at being Jewish or my support for the State of Israel”.

According to the Independent newspaper, Mr Lewis’s appointment has “raised eyebrows in the Foreign Office”. It said:

Lewis has a long history of interest in the region as vice-chair of the Labour Friends of Israel. Earlier this year, he became – not without controversy – one of the most outspoken political supporters of Israel's military assault on Gaza. Critics can't help but wonder how objective Lewis is likely to be in his new post.

Mr Lewis is also a trustee of the Holocaust Educational Trust, a body founded in 1988 by British pro-Israel lobbyists Greville Janner and Merlyn Rees with the aim of maintaining a culture of gentile guilt and Jewish victimhood in British schools.

Ivan Lewis’s support for the racist state of Israel and for the genocide in Gaza is not the only example of his questionable morality.

In 2007, when he was junior health minister, he was forced to apologise to a civil servant, Susan Mason, after she told managers she was unhappy with the nature of their relationship.

It emerged that Mr Lewis, who at the time was 40 years old, had been sexually harassing Ms Mason, aged 23, with numerous smutty text messages. After complaining to her bosses, Mr Lewis’s victim was moved to a different job before resigning from the Civil Service. Speaking of her former boss, she said: "He wasn't the nicest man to work for."

A year earlier, Mr Lewis had walked out on his wife of 16 years, Juliette, and their two sons, aged nine and 11, in order to have an affair with a 50-year-old married woman, local government councillor Margaret Gibb.
They have no shame

Instead of saying "sorry" Israel’s stooges keep pumping out the poison

By Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood highlights the disinformation and lies of Israel’s stooges in the British Liberal Democratic Party – and the Labour and Conservative parties – who would not be shamed even by Israel’s mass murder of civilians in Gaza.

In January, while Israel's military was pulverizing Gaza for 22 days and nights and incinerating its women and children with phosphorus bombs, the Liberal Democrat Party in the UK published an article by its Friends of Israel wing, entitled “Israel has no option but to defend itself against Hamas and Iran”.

According to this, "Israel is fighting in Gaza to stop the firing of rockets at towns and cities well within Israel’s internationally recognized, pre-1967 borders. These rockets are not home-made fireworks; they are sophisticated weapons, which often kill innocent people. They are fired without precision..."

So sophisticated are the rockets, in fact, that only 1 in 400 actually kills somebody. But rockets never were the issue. There are no rockets coming out of the West Bank. Yet the illegal Israeli occupation there continues and so does the ethnic cleansing, the land theft, the illegal settlements, the colonization, the demolition of Palestinian homes, the throttling of the economy, the abduction and “administrative detention” of civilians and the massive block on freedom of movement. There is no let-up in the oppression of West Bank Palestinians who DO NOT fire rockets, and no sign of an end to their misery.

The bloody assault on Gaza therefore has more to do with Israel's ambition to expand its racial dominance in the Holy Land than crude and erratic rocket-fire. Stroppy Hamas and the unflinching Palestinians holed up in Gaza stand in the way of the Grand Plan and must be removed or totally subdued.

Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism, said the Jewish state would stretch “from the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates". At the UN Special Committee of Enquiry on 9 July 1947 Rabbi Fischmann, a member of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, said in his testimony: "The Promised Land extends from the River of Egypt up to the Euphrates, it includes parts of Syria and Lebanon." A map of “Greater Israel” presented by the Word Zionist Organization soon after World War II shows the geographical extent of Zionist greed. Gaza and the West Bank are totally engulfed by it.

"The harsh reality is that Israel has no option but to abort this Iranian-backed war machine (including missiles with an ever-longer range) in Gaza," the Liberal Democrat article continues. "Israel is targeting Hamas’s rocket-firing capacity and is seeking to limit Palestinian civilian casualties."

“War machine” is a fanciful description. One Israeli soldier dismissed it as a bunch of farmers with rifles who don't even take aim when shooting.

The article claims that Hamas has no interest in peace and no desire for the two-state solution, and is "pledged unequivocally in its 1988 charter to the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews".

Hamas's Charter, however correctly points out that “the Zionist invasion is a vicious invasion; it does not refrain from resorting to all methods, using all evil and contemptible ways to achieve its end". We have indeed been treated to many demonstrations of those evil methods. As for murder, Israeli Jews have been murdering Palestinians wholesale since 1948 and before. Has Israel ever worked for peace? Has Israel shown any inclination to end its land theft, ethnic cleansing, dispossession and colonization?

A Peace Now report based on data from Israeli government sources reveals that "the Ministry of Construction and Housing is planning to construct at least 73,000 more housing units in the West Bank... at least 15,000 housing units have already been approved and plans for an additional 58,000 housing units are yet to be approved".

Of the units already approved, nearly 9,000 have been built, the report says. "If all the plans are realized, the number of settlers in the territories will be doubled."

Why, you may ask, does a self-respecting political party allow it membership to support and wave the flag for a thuggish, racist entity like Israel, which repeatedly shows itself devoid of decency and lacking in respect for international law and human rights, and has a criminal disregard for everything the Liberal Democrats stand for?

In its constitution the Liberal Democratic Party sets a very high moral tone...
"Liberal Democrats believe that human rights represent fundamental standards of humanity and that all states have a duty to promote and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms..."
"We are supporters of international law..."

"Liberal Democrats welcome the extension of international law to hold individuals to account for crimes against humanity." If governments engage in large-scale violations of human rights, or are unable or unwilling to protect their populations from catastrophes, then this responsibility must be fulfilled by the international community...”
"Liberal Democrats condemn all cases of prolonged detention without charge or trial, which undermines the rule of law and gives scope for the abuse of other human rights."

But the Liberal Democrats are not the worst hypocrites. The Conservative and Labour parties have far higher concentrations of Israel stooges spreading poison and besmirching the noble words and sentiments on which the parties were founded.

The ruling Labour Party says it is committed to peace, freedom, democracy, economic security and environmental protection for all. You wouldn’t think so, the way Gordon Brown (and Tony Blair before him) stood back and did nothing while Israel committed horrendous war crimes against Gaza and even now is blocking humanitarian aid to the smoking ruins and devastated population.

And while the ferocity of the Israeli blitz increased, William Hague, the Conservative shadow foreign secretary, was condemning Hamas’s rocket responses as “acts of terrorism”. He was careful not to use the T-word to describe Israel’s conduct and showed little regard for the plight of Gaza’s civilians, his main concern being that if Israel continued the slaughter for too long, Hamas might try to declare victory and there might be trouble on Israel’s border with Lebanon.

Two telephone calls to party headquarters failed to produce a copy of the constitution, so what the Conservatives actually stand for remains a mystery to me. However, as the killing spree continued over 90 Conservative MPs attended a jolly Friends of Israel reception on the House of Commons terrace.

I‘m writing this just as the Viva Palestina convoy threads its way into Gaza, breaking the evil siege. Bravo, everyone who took part! And bravo all those who supported and encouraged the convoy along the route! George Galloway told happy crowds at Rafah that Tony Blair doesn’t speak for the British people. ”WE DO!”

I would add that neither do Brown, Miliband, Cameron or the rest of the Zionist lackeys at Westminster. They spout their lies. We don’t need them. We have a voice of our own.

High-minded British Liberal Democrats suffer a credibility gap on Palestine
By Stuart Littlewood

13 September 2008

Stuart Littlewood asks why Britain’s Liberal Democratic Party fails to condemn the Israeli occupation, land grab and human rights abuses, and why the party still harbours an Israel supporters club despite Israel’s contempt of everything the Liberal Democrats claim to stand for.

The party conference season is in full swing in the UK and the Liberal Democrats begin theirs this weekend.
 
The agenda includes a motion to endorse Policy Paper 74, "Britain’s global responsibilities: the international rule of law, as a statement of party policy on international law".

This document contains an abundance of high-minded and praiseworthy declarations, for example:
"Liberal Democrats believe that human rights represent fundamental standards of humanity and that all states have a duty to promote and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms, regardless of their political, economic or cultural systems, and without distinction of any kind as to race, colour, sex, language or religion, political opinion, origin, property, birth or other status."

"We are supporters of international law…"
"Liberal Democrats welcome the extension of international law to hold individuals to account for crimes against humanity."

"There is an emerging norm in international law concerning the responsibility to protect. This was endorsed at the World Summit in September 2005 where world leaders agreed that there was an individual and collective responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity…"
"If governments engage in large-scale violations of human rights, or are unable or unwilling to protect their populations from catastrophes, then this responsibility must be fulfilled by the international community. The measures which are used must draw on all peaceful means, from humanitarian assistance and diplomatic pressure to targeted sanctions, but where these are ineffective then force must be available as a last resort."

"Liberal Democrats condemn all cases of prolonged detention without charge or trial, which undermines the rule of law and gives scope for the abuse of other human rights."

Fine words. It is disappointing, then, that the party has not made its position clear on Israel, which for more than 40 years has occupied, dispossessed and brutalized the Palestinian people, stolen their lands and precious resources and, incidentally, caused just as much misery to the Christian communities as to their Muslim neighbours in the Holy Land.

The continuing blockade of Gaza, the mounting slaughter of civilians, the wrecking of their infrastructure and the ruination of their economy have not been enough, it seems, to stir Liberal Democrats to roundly condemn the rogue regime or apply real pressure for humanitarian action.
 
The Liberal Democrats were the first British political party to start a Friends of Israel campaign group. Clutching such a viper to their bosom all these years has surely been at odds with their high ideals. So I put it to Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrats' Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, that Israel pursues racist policies and is responsible for countless horrors – 4 million Palestinian refugees, 254 km of Apartheid Wall that bites deep into Palestinian territory, 562 humiliating check-points, 468,831 new settlers on occupied land, the destruction of 350 churches and mosques…

He surely knew that Israel had kidnapped and imprisoned 30-plus members of the Palestinian parliament and that at least 10,000 others (including women and children) are cooped up in Israeli jails, many without charge or trial.
 
And he was reminded in particular that Israel is busy creating “facts on the ground” designed to normalize the occupation and make it permanent, and that this so-called ally of ours is the world leader in UN violations and ignores International Court of Justice rulings.

The challenge for Mr Davey and others in the party’s leadership is that turning a blind eye to the ethnic cleansing of innocent people for whom Britain once had a special responsibility (some say, still has) and to Israel’s blatant attempts to erase their history and wipe their country off the map, is inexcusable in any British political party or government. The Liberal Democrats, more than others in the murky game of British politics, pride themselves on being high-minded, but their credibility on the moral and justice issues surrounding the Israel-Palestine conflict has taken a hard knock. This gap needs closing, and many will be at a loss to understand why the party still harbours an Israel supporters club – a band of apologists for a foreign military power that is apparently contemptuous of everything the Liberal Democrats claim to stand for.
 
Policy Paper 74 also says Liberal Democrats would "actively enforce the OECD [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development] Convention on Bribery and work to strengthen it to include the bribery of foreign political officials". Would this, I wonder, include the bribing of the gang in Ramallah that’s now in control of the Palestinian Authority, you know, the Fatah high command who are in breach of the Basic Law and trying to destroy – on behalf of Israel and the West – their rivals, the “inconvenient” but nevertheless democratically elected authority in Palestine, whose defiant remnants are still holed up in Gaza? Isn't this what the cruel siege of Gaza and the murderous torment to its civilians is really all about?
 
During conference I hope Mr Davey and his team will make a point of hearing the remarkable Jeff Halper, who is scheduled to speak at a fringe meeting, and carefully note this Israeli insider's expert analysis of the situation.

Liberal Democrats, you opposed the Iraq war and all credit to you. Why will you not condemn the Israeli occupation, land grab and human rights abuses just as vehemently? Not until you do so will you be able to claim the moral high ground in the debate on Britain’s global responsibilities and the (sadly subverted) international rule of law.
Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. For further information please visit www.radiofreepalestine.co.uk.

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