Stuart Littlewood
The Israeli regime doesn’t give a four-X for decent folks’ pleadings to stop the genocide and end their illegal military occupation of Palestinian territory. Why? Because these apartheid psychopaths don’t want peace. That would get in the way of their craving for domination and their cruel plan for satisfying it.
What plan is that? It’s the Zionist “Plan Dalet”, a bloodthirsty blueprint for Israel’s takeover of the Holy Land – from the river to the sea – by military force. They’ve been pursuing it relentlessly since 1948 in defiance of international and humanitarian law and all codes of human decency – you can hardly fail to have noticed. And with the connivance of certain Western governments.
Up to this moment they had no fear of the feeble protests of other governments, or even the UN whose charter obligations they simply ignore with impunity. Government such as ours in the UK are well and truly “sewn up”. You can see it by the way our political leaders shake in their boots at the thought of directly criticising Israel or allowing any of their MPs to do so.
Why so scared? Because Israel over the years has succeeded in embedding its pimps, stooges and influencers at all levels in the corridors of power, even to the extent of ensuring that each major party has it own “Friends of Israel” power group. The purpose of these groups is to promote the interests of Israel, an unhinged foreign military power, within our Parliament and across our country. And anyone who opposes them is branded anti-Semitic by absurdly distorting our laws of free expression.
Could we eliminate Israel’s undue influence in OUR Parliament?
You might ask, why were agents of a foreign military power allowed to meddle in our democratic and parliamentary processes in the first place? Good question. That’s what a group of concerned citizens wanted to know back in December 2007. So they pressed the Committee on Standards in Public Life to examine whether there was undue Israeli influence at the heart of British government. They pointed out, among other things, that:
MPs are surely not at liberty to act in the interest of a foreign military power at the expense of our own national interests, or to let foreign influence cloud their judgment. Such conduct is at odds with the second of the Seven Principles of Public Life, namely Integrity…Friends of Israel organisations go to great lengths to influence those in power, a good many of whom reach positions of power with FoI help. The political director of Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) claims that with over 2,000 members and registered supporters alongside 80 per cent of the Conservative MPs, CFI has become the largest affiliated group in the party.
Its website states that the CFI “strives to support the Conservative Party at all available opportunities. In the run up to the 2005 General Election… CFI supported candidates up and down the country. As candidates are now being continuously selected for target seats, CFI has developed a special programme of weekly briefings, events with speakers and a chance to participate in delegations to Israel. CFI encourages all members to help campaign for parliamentary candidates and also for local council, London and European elections.”
It also has a “Fast Track” group for Conservative parliamentary candidates fighting target marginal seats at the next election. The political director himself is seeking election to Parliament. If successful where will his loyalty lie?
Senior Conservatives try to justify these activities 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”.
Such claims do not bear examination. Israel is no Western-style democracy. It is an ethnocracy with racist policies and an apartheid agenda. It is a cruel oppressor, stands in breach of numerous UN resolutions, ignores International Court of Justice rulings and continues an illegal occupation, abusing its neighbours and stealing their lands and resources. It cares little for world opinion. How could anyone of fair mind and knowing the situation on the ground possibly support such a regime in the name of the British people, unless unduly under its influence?
And that was written well before Israel enacted its Nation-State Law, which reinforced its apartheid policies.
The Standards Committee refused to look into it, saying it had “no remit to help you in this matter”. Yet this public watchdog was formed to uphold the Seven Principles of Public Life and “to examine current concerns about standards of conduct of all holders of public office, including arrangements relating to financial and commercial activities and make recommendations as to any changes in present arrangements which might be required to ensure the highest standards of propriety in public life”.
The Seven Principles apply to everyone in public service, and one Principle above all is relevant here: Integrity. This says that holders of public office should not place themselves under any financial or other obligation to outside individuals or organisations that might seek to influence them in the performance of their official duties.
It was felt that others of the Seven Principles were also being violated, so the group pushed the matter back to the chairman of the Standards Committee in these terms:
Twenty signatories, mostly senior professionals, took the trouble to write to you… about the undue influence of the Israel lobby at the heart of British government. They anticipated the courtesy of a personal reply but received a dismissive note from your administrator…
It is plain to us that the matter falls squarely within the Standards Committee’s remit. The man in the street is entitled to look at the Seven Principles and say that the activities of lobbies like Friends of Israel are against the declared intentions, both in word and spirit, of the Principles. Otherwise what is the purpose of having them enshrined in the Committee’s constitution?
…Claims that the lobby’s activities are transparent are untrue since seldom, if ever, do its members declare an interest when speaking or writing about the Middle East. This is an unacceptable state of affairs in the “Mother of Parliaments”.
The aim of Friends of Israel is to promote the interests of Israel and its government, which is racist in its treatment of its own Arab population, the Palestinians and the Bedouin. MPs who align themselves with Israel are not acting in the public interest of the UK but against our own anti-racist laws.
The Israel lobby and associated Friends of Israel groups, in supporting a racist regime with racist policies in contravention of international law and human rights, are a disgrace to Parliament and an insult to the people whose Parliamentary democracy this is…
Furthermore the British people should not have to tolerate dual allegiance in their Parliament and Government, since obviously it puts national security at risk. As one peer wrote: “I ask over and over again why Israel is allowed to get away with breaking international law and the answer is silence from the government… they are afraid of the Israel Lobby who label anyone who speaks out as anti-Semitic and withdraw their support.”
Back came the reply: “This committee commented on lobbying in their first report in 1995 and re-addressed the issue, including the changes instigated by their first report, in a review in 2001. The committee has no plans to review this area again in the near future.”
Again the group batted the ball back into the committee’s court, pointing out there was nothing in the 1995 report about MPs and legislators representing the interests of foreign countries within Parliament or placing themselves under the influence of a foreign country’s political lobby. Nor could they find any mention in the 2001 report. They asked for chapter and verse. No response.
And there the matter rests. I should add that two members of the Standards Committee at that time were signed-up Friends of Israel and they didn’t declare their interest. The committee was violating the very principles they were supposed to uphold. So, par for the course among our rotten Establishment.
UK’s role as a trusted peace broker compromised by weird attachment to another people’s problematic national movement
Standards of conduct among the political élite continue to nose-dive. Even the horrors of Israel’s genocide in Gaza and its senseless destruction of social infrastructure and erasure of Arab (including Christian) heritage aren’t enough of a kick up the backside to persuade our politicians to do the right thing. Which is to demand an immediate ceasefire and a speedy withdrawal of Israel’s military and illegal squatters from Palestinian territory – i.e. a long-overdue end to the occupation as required by international law and repeated UN resolutions. And in the meantime to pull the plug on all UK-Israel collaboration, cooperation and “favoured nation” privileges, and to ban “Friends of Israel” groups from being connected in any way with Westminster parliament or central or local government.
The huge support throughout the world for the Palestinians, revulsion for their tormentors, and deep concern for their indescribable suffering, together with the mass outrage at Israel’s utter contempt for human decency and international and humanitarian law, has taken most people by surprise after being lulled for decades into a couldn’t-care-less stupor by the prevailing pro-Zionist narrative peddled by mainstream media and corrupted politicians. Ordinary folk are having none of that any more as the truth about the last 75 years – and even the last 108 years – reaches all corners of the globe.
There’s a growing realisation that this popular uprising must be harnessed, expanded and given new direction within a fearless international framework to challenge and change the behaviour of Western governments. Here in the UK it would mean the likes of Palestine BDS [Boycott, Divestment, Sanctios], Stop the War Coalition, the Muslim Association of Britain, JVP [Jewish Voice for Peace], Friends of Al-Aqsa, Palestine Action, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, etc merging to form a campaigning super-force not afraid to take the apartheid luvvies and warmongering psychopaths head-on.
A prime task is to rid government of Zionism. You’ll remember that Balfour, when issuing his infamous “Declaration” in 1917, wrote: “In Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country. The four powers are committed to Zionism and Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long tradition, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now occupy that land.”
Zionism was already embedded in UK government circles at that time and is, to a considerable extent, still ingrained, posing a serious obstacle to our ability to act as a trusted peace broker. Zionism and its adherents, who have insulted our intelligence for far too long, have to go. Or, as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (former president of Iran) so delicately put it, “must vanish from the pages of time”.
C-Redressonline.com
