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This is a scandal in Britain right now.
How many British MPs are working for Israel?
Jonathon Cook
8 January, 2016
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 minister’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, education
minister Robert Halfon’s assistant, suggests engineering a “little
scandal” to damage Duncan.
Masot
and Israel’s intelligence services cannot infuence 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 rely only
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 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 collusion 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 compromised the election result 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.
Israel apology after plot against UK politicians
Al Jazeera reveals discussions of Israeli diplomat and UK civil servant to 'take down' anti-settlement politicians
Al-Jazeera,
8 January, 2017
The Israeli embassy has apologised to UK deputy foreign secretary Sir Alan Duncan for comments made by one of its staff members on plans "to take [him] down" due to his criticism of Israel's settlement activity in the occupied West Bank.
The
comments, made by a senior political officer at the Israeli embassy
Shai Masot, 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.
In
a conversation with Maria Strizzolo, who was then chief of staff to
MP Robert Halfon, the deputy chairman of the ruling Conservative
Party, Masot asked her if he could give her some names of MPs he
would suggest she "take down".
Masot
named Duncan, who in 2014 said that 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.
Shai
Masot, senior political officer at the Israeli embassy [Al Jazeera]
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".
RELATED:
Israel's parliamentary plot against UK politicians
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".
But
this latest disclosure is just one among the Investigative Unit's
many findings, which will be revealed in a four-part series "The
Lobby" that will be broadcast daily on Al Jazeera from January
15 at 22:30 GMT.
The
undercover investigation reveals how the Israeli government is in the
midst of a brazen, covert influence campaign in Britain.
For
half a year, Robin (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 eager to help combat the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions
movement prominent in Britain.
Shaping
foreign policy agenda
Strizzolo,
while advising Robin, revealed that 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 effect 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".
Al
Jazeera Investigative Unit's series "The Lobby" can be
viewed on Al Jazeera at the following times:
Episode
One - Sunday, January 15: 22:30 GMT
Episode
Two - Monday, January 16, 22:30 GMT
Episode
Three - Tuesday, January 17, 22:30 GMT
Episode
Four - Wednesday, January 18, 22:30 GMT
The
series will also be available online.
Anshel Pfeffer
Temporary employee at London embassy about to be thrown out on his ear promoted by Daily Mail to "senior diplomat"
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