UK Lawyers for Israel broadcasting regulator
complaint against BCfm Politics show dismissed by Ofcom
https://politicsthisweek.wordpress.com/2019/03/07/bcfms-weekly-politics-show-presented-by-tony-gosling-138/
I’m pleased to announce that Ofcom have ruled
there was no breach of Rule 5.13 after a
<http://www.uklfi.com/ofcom-launches-investigation-into-bristol-radio-show>complaint
– submitted by UK Lawyers For Israel – about this
show generally and specifically
<https://politicsthisweek.wordpress.com/2018/11/23/bcfms-weekly-politics-show-presented-by-tony-gosling-126/>our
broadcast on Friday 23rd November last year. The
complaint by UKLFI’s Jonathan Turner could have
led to this show being taken off the air
permanently – BCfm being fined, made bankrupt, or
having our licence revoked. The complaint
included several falsehoods, including that we’d
said -> • that the Manchester Arena bombing was
carried out by MI5 and the Rothschild family -> •
that “Illuminati” infiltrate and control the
government. These are both malicious
exaggerations. Jonathan Turner said – in his
complaint – that “The Politics Show is filled
with conspiracy theories, extremism, racism and
propaganda and in breach of multiple provisions
of the Ofcom Code.” He said “We identified and
analysed 14 breaches of the Ofcom Code in a
single episode of a programme that is broadcast
every week. This must be a cause for alarm. Ofcom
should ensure that an extremist is not permitted
a platform to spread his message of conspiracy
and hate.” So UK Lawyers for Israel tried to take
me off the air for running a neo-Nazi propaganda
show. An inversion of the truth which Ofcom have
now refuted. The actual Ofcom investigation
boiled down to three issues – first – the
peddling of conspiracy theories, which I
explained is a meaningless term used to smear
investigative journalists – by conflating real
conspiracies with fake ones – it was introduced
into the US media in 1967 by the CIA – after the
Warren commission into the 1963 assassination of
John F Kennedy – to cover up the CIA’s role in
the president’s murder. Second – lack of balance
with regard to the state of Israel – in response
I pointed out that on six occasions from August
2018 I’d aired extended interviews with five
Israeli cabinet ministers – including the prime
minister – more than any UK radio programme –
This was the most serious of the complaints
because it alleged the programme was racist and
antisemitic – In fact the prophet Mohammed –
instructed his followers to practice – much like
the right of self defence in international law –
the self-defence jihad – this part of the Koran
has been twisted by the Salafist and Takfiri
doctrines to justify sabotage and terrorism
against ones enemies, creation of a ‘Caliphate’ –
even the killing of fellow Muslims – is fairly
well understood – We decided to look at the other
side of the coin – extreme fundamentalist Zionist
doctrines – what some Jewish scholars call the
twisting of old testament prophecy to justify war
– and interviewed Canadian author David
Livingstone – who’s just about to come out with
another book examining these subjects – entitled
Ordo Ab Chao – latin for Order From Chaos – David
argues some nihilistic Zionists actually want a
Middle East war in order to evoke the Jewish
messiah – but that they may end up evoking the
antichrist instead. This programme includes many
justifications for creating the state of Israel –
not least of which last week is the Holocaust of
six million – suffered by European Jews under the
Nazis – but history teaches us that all religions
can be hijacked by ruthless people for political
and criminal purposes – and so November programme
was taking a balanced look at the extremes of
Zionist as against Islamist pseudo-religious
doctrine. Which I’m pleased to say – this station
– and last week Ofcom too – stood by. The final
comment Ofcom decided may have merit was that the
programme was biased against MI5 – this programme
aired on the week of parliament’s Intelligence
and Security committee – chaired by Dominic
Grieve MP’s report into the London and Manchester
terror attacks – every mainstream press headline
was critical of MI5 including the Manchester
press – and the show did include contrary views supporting MI5’s innocence.
What is UK Lawyers for Israel’s relationship to the Israeli government?
https://mondoweiss.net/2019/03/lawyers-relationship-government/
<https://mondoweiss.net/middle-east/>Middle
East
<https://mondoweiss.net/author/hilary-aked/>Hilary
Aked on March 12, 2019
<https://mondoweiss.net/2019/03/lawyers-relationship-government/#comments>10
Comments
The group UK Lawyers for Israel is one of the
quietest yet most influential Israel lobby actors
currently operating in Britain.
Since 2011, it has closely monitored the
Palestine solidarity movement and worked to
repress it, often with significant impact.
The ‘lawfare’ organisation has especially
targeted organisations promoting the
Palestinian-initiated Boycott Divestment and
Sanctions (BDS) – from
<https://artistsforpalestine.org.uk/why-did-riba-rescind-motion/>academics
to
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/hilary-aked/legal-attack-student-democracy-after-kings-college-london-backs-bds>students<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/israel-funded-infiltrators-behind-london-campus-provocation>unions,
<https://artistsforpalestine.org.uk/why-did-riba-rescind-motion/>architects
to
<https://www.thejc.com/comment/analysis/how-we-helped-justice-to-prevail-in-hackney-1.38985>local
councils – by lodging complaints with regulatory
bodies and sending letters threatening legal action.
It has even obstructed the work of charities such
as
<https://www.map.org.uk/news/archive/post/928-medical-aid-for-palestinians-statement-on-complaint-by-uk-lawyers-for-israel-and-the-lawfare-project>Medical
Aid for Palestinians and
<https://www.thejc.com/paypal-withdraws-donations-to-uk-charity-accused-of-having-terror-links-1.471410>War
on Want, working in close
<https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/opinion-charities-must-not-be-sucked-into-hate/>collaboration
with the US-based Lawfare Project to do so.
But where did UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) come from and who is behind it?
The UKLFI
<http://www.uklfi.com/about-us-2>website
describes the organisation as ‘a voluntary
organisation of lawyers who support Israel using their legal skills’.
Companies House records that UKLFI was first
registered in in October 2010, originally under
the name ‘Action 4 Peace Limited’. In September
2016, UKLFI also
<http://www.uklfi.com/uklfi-charitable-trust>registered
as a charity which has a
<http://uklficharity.com/>separate website but most of the same patrons.
These
‘<http://www.uklfi.com/about-us-2/our-patrons>eminent
patrons’ include a host of pro-Israel British
peers such as Lord Carlile, Baroness Deech, Lord
Howard, Lord Pannick, Lady Cosgrove, Lord Trimble and Lord Young of Graffham.
The organisation’s
<http://apps.charitycommission.gov.uk/Showcharity/RegisterOfCharities/PrintReport.aspx?RegisteredCharityNumber=1169041&ReportType=COLOUR>registered
address is that of Three Stone Chambers, where
Jonathan Turner – UKLFI
<http://www.uklfi.com/new-appointments>chief
executive and one of its listed
<http://www.uklfi.com/about-us-2/our-directors>directors
– works as a commercial barrister. Turner was
previously head of the UK Zionist Federation’s legal division.
Other
<http://uklficharity.com/about/our-trustees>trustees
include Harvey Rose and Alan Melkman,
respectively a
<https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/war-on-want-pushes-for-more-sanctions-1.20336>former
chair and
<https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/sep/06/protestors-greet-israel-in-cardiff-ahead-of-euro-2016-match-with-wales>volunteer
with the Zionist Federation; Adam Levin, also a
<http://apps.charitycommission.gov.uk/Showcharity/RegisterOfCharities/ContactAndTrustees.aspx?RegisteredCharityNumber=1169041&SubsidiaryNumber=0>registered
trustee of the neoconservative
<https://www.academia.edu/12964616/The_Henry_Jackson_Society_and_the_Degeneration_of_British_Neoconservatism_Liberal_Interventionism_Islamophobia_and_the_War_on_Terror>Henry
Jackson Society; and Helene Pines Richman, a
Conservative Party
<https://www.barnet.gov.uk/elections-and-voting/see-election-results/local-government-elections-results-2018>councillor
in Barnet.
Cementing these right wing credentials, Mark
Lewis – a
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/uks-foremost-libel-lawyer-sets-his-sights-on-israels-enemies/>UKLFI
director until he moved to Israel late last
year – was also involved in the
<https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/more-than-70-attend-re-launch-of-uk-zionist-party/>relaunch
of Herut UK which espouses revisionist Zionist
ideas like those of Vladimir Jabotinsky.
Most interestingly, UKLFI appears to have – at
the very least – an informal working relationship
with the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA).
For example, in January 2017 the group
<https://bbcwatch.org/2017/01/15/an-upcoming-event-for-uk-readers-3/>hosted
a talk by the former director general of the MFA.
But this relationship has been apparent since its
very early days. In January 2013, it gave a
platform to Arthur Lenk of the MFA’s legal
division. As far back as June 2012, UKLFI
<https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Farchive.is%2FYzmn2&data=02%7C01%7C%7C8a1669350a2c4472039908d69b326ac7%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636867038172863649&sdata=xqJ98H4oky6hESAEHTZ4X897pPPNTeagpxEZqZn2k3s%3D&reserved=0>co-hosted
a two-day seminar with the MFA and the Israeli Embassy in London.
In fact, UKLFI’s connection to the MFA may go
back right to the start. Curiously, there is a
page on the official MFA website dated May 2011
dedicated solely to
<https://mfa.gov.il/MFA/internationalLaw/Pages/UK_Lawyers_for_Israel.aspx>announcing
the creation of UKLFI.
The MFA page states that UKLFI was formed
‘following the Maale HaChamisha conference’.
Besides clearly having taken place in Israel, the
precise nature of this conference is not clear.
Neither English nor Hebrew google searches reveal further information.
However, in 2012, Hebrew-language daily Israel
Hayom
<http://www.israelhayom.co.il/site/newsletter_article.php?id=18326&newsletter=19.06.2012>reported
that Israeli government officials were ‘training
legal experts around the world to deal with the
demands of delegitimization against Israel’.
Might UKLFI have emerged from such an
MFA-convened event, making it, effectively a
civil society organisation established at the behest of a government?
The evidence suggests it is possible. The Israeli
government’s involvement in so-called ‘lawfare’
is well established. In particular, there are
numerous reports and examples of its role in anti-BDS efforts around the world.
In 2011, the MFA held a
<https://mondoweiss.net/2015/05/standwithus-lawsuit-olympia/>co-ordinating
meeting with StandWithUs, an Israel lobby group
funding a law suit filed against a Washington
food co-operative boycotting Israeli goods.
Then in 2013, the Israeli Embassy in London
<https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/.premium-israeli-sues-uk-union-for-boycott-1.5333357>acknowledged
its involvement in an attempt by Israeli
negotiator Moti Cristal to sue a British trade
union and healthcare trust which withdrew a speaking invitation from him.
In 2017, Haaretz reported that the Israeli
government had for some time been
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.818938>outsourcing
counter-BDS work in Europe and North America to
private law firms. The newspaper stated that
‘secrecy surround[s] the contracts’ and related
this to the fact that ‘Israel does not want to be
revealed as supporting such actions, to avoid the
perception that it is interfering in the internal affairs of other countries.’
Israeli government representatives also have a
track-record of
<https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/comment/2017/1/10/smears-and-astroturfing-uk-israeli-embassys-techniques-revealed>astroturfing
pro-Israel bodies in civil society, including in
the UK. Filmed as part of Al Jazeera’s 2017
undercover documentary
<https://www.aljazeera.com/investigations/thelobby/>The
Lobby, Israeli diplomat Shai Masot – who worked
for the anti-BDS Israeli Ministry of Strategic
Affairs in London – was
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/08/israeli-diplomat-shai-masot-plotted-against-mps-set-up-political-groups-labour>recorded
saying of such groups ‘it’s good to leave those
organisations independent. But we help them, actually’.
Indeed, Ministry of Strategic Affairs Gilad Erdan
<https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/Erdan-We-have-a-broad-government-program-to-fight-boycotts-453276>hinted
at this policy of instrumentalising ostensibly
independent third party groups in 2016 when he
said: ‘It’s not necessarily good that the
government is at the front of this battle… it’s
better that the response comes from civil
society…They need to see where we can help them in the government.’
He was even more explicit in 2017, when he
<https://main.knesset.gov.il/EN/News/PressReleases/Pages/Pr13526_pg.aspx>explained
to the Knesset that much of the ministry’s
anti-BDS work was ‘not of the ministry, but
through bodies around the world who do not want
to expose their connection with the state’.
Likely due in part to fear of these state-civil
society connections being exposed, the Ministry
of Strategic Affairs is
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/MAGAZINE-inside-the-clandestine-world-of-israels-bds-busting-ministry-1.5453212>highly
secretive. Its director general Sima Vakini-Gil
has
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-using-black-ops-against-bds-says-veteran-analyst>declared:
‘A major part of what we do stays under the radar’.
Noticeably, Caroline Kendal, who
<https://www.facebook.com/uklfi/posts/press-release24-august-2015since-starting-from-scratch-in-2011-uk-lawyers-for-is/884959814924505/>joined
UKLFI in August 2015 as its first and only
employee (on a
<https://twitter.com/benabyad/status/613712964558962688>salary
of between £40-50k, approximately $52-65k),
<https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/taking-the-lead-the-legal-experts-who-are-showing-the-way-to-defend-against-antisemitism-1.147992>describes
her organisation’s modus operandi in remarkably
similar terms: ‘As an organisation we won’t seek
out publicity…We only want to be effective, and
often it’s operating below the radar, and actually not publicly.’
Moreover, co-founder Jonathan Turner
<https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/the-lawyers-who-stopped-gaza-flotilla-1.30449>claims
that UKFLI played a critical role in scuppering
the 2011 flotilla of ships seeking to reach Gaza.
The organisation, he asserts, advised Greek
coastal police through ‘a top Greek
lawyer…grounds on which the ships could be arrested’.
Also working to obstruct the flotilla was Shurat
HaDin, an Israeli law firm whose extremely close
ties to the Israeli state were
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/israeli-lawyers-group-shurat-hadin-unmasked-mossad-proxy>revealed
in a leaked US embassy cable which said it ‘took
direction’ from Mossad and Israel’s National
Security Council on which cases to pursue.
The 2011 flotilla incident is one in which Shurat
HaDin is known to have collaborated closely with
the Israeli government, as scholar Orde Kittrie
has
<http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190263577.001.0001/acprof-9780190263577-chapter-8>documented.
It therefore seems very likely that during its
work on the flotilla case, UKLFI co-ordinated
with both Shurat HaDin and the Israeli government.
UKLFI also held a
<https://bbcwatch.org/2016/04/15/an-upcoming-event-for-uk-based-readers/>joint
event in May 2016 with NGO Monitor which attacks
human rights organisations in Israel just as UKFLI does in the UK.
Like Shurat HaDin, NGO Monitor is a body with
close ties to the Israeli government. For
example, as
<https://972mag.com/what-is-ngo-monitors-connection-to-the-israeli-government/90239/>this
investigative article by Israeli journalist Yossi
Gurvitz points out, NGO Monitor’s director Gerald
Steinberg previously worked as a ‘consultant to
the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs’.
Given all this, it seems reasonable to ask: is UKLFI merely a front?
Four of UKLFI’s leading figures – Caroline
Kendal, Jonathan Turner, Julian Hunt and Adam
Levin – were each contacted twice and asked a
series of specific questions about the organisation.
These included a request to clarify what role, if
any, the Israeli government had in the creation
of UKLFI or the Maale HaChamisha conference
through which it was founded; how closely UKLFI
has worked with Israeli government since then,
for instance on the 2011 flotilla case and
hosting joint events in the UK; what UKLFI’s
relationship is to Shurat HaDin; and who funds the organisation.
None responded.
--
Please consider seriously the reason why these elite institutions are not discussed in the mainstream press despite the immense financial and political power they wield?
There are sick and evil occultists running the Western World. They are power mad lunatics like something from a kids cartoon with their fingers on the nuclear button! Armageddon is closer than you thought. Only God can save our souls from their clutches, at least that's my considered opinion - Tony
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