During the course of a hot summer Britain’s Labour party is in meltdown on a range of issues. But among the worst parts of its meltdown are those to do with its continuing effort to cover up the party’s serious anti-Semitism problem.

As we have pointed out here before, the party’s leader — Jeremy Corbyn — has such a long history of association and sympathy with some of the world’s most extreme anti-Semites that it is hard to see how the party’s problems could not trickle down as well as up. Now two developments suggest that the Labour body politic has become so wracked by this problem that it is unlikely to recover.

The first demonstration was the confirmation that one of this year’s two “inquiries” into anti-Semitism in the party had been hobbled before it even began. Anyone closely observing this review (ordered by Jeremy Corbyn, after a string of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel comments by Labour MPs, Councillors and members of the party’s National Executive Committee were exposed) knew that it was unlikely to be anything other than a whitewash. The person in charge of this review — veteran left-wing campaigner Shami Chakrabarti — had already demonstrated it was unlikely that her review would seriously probe the party’s problem; she talked of the problem of anti-Semitism only by also highlighting “Islamophobia and other forms of racism’. This circumlocution — beloved of Jeremy Corbyn himself — avoids tackling the specific problem of anti-Semitism and clearly aspires to dilute the problem in a sea of other challenges.

That the launch of Chakrabarti’s thin and shallow report itself included two anti-Semitic incidents made it look as though Labour’s low could get no worse. But since then, Chakrabarti was interviewed on a new television station in the UK (JTV) and was probed on precisely what she was offered in order to come up with the bland and unremarkable whitewash she had. Chakrabarti had already received criticism for becoming a signed-up member of the Labour party on the day that she was asked to write her “inquiry” into the party. But during her interview she was specifically asked about whether she had been offered the upgrade of a seat in the House of Lords (a peerage) before writing her report, Chakrabarti looked unusually uncomfortable and shuffled around before saying, “I don’t think I want to talk about my future ambitions at this point’. Pressed on the question, she played around with a glass of water before saying “You can ask the question, and I’m going to evade it at this point.”

Within days of this news emerging, the matter of the Labour party’s other anti-Semitism inquiry in the year also returned. Earlier this year, and before the Chakrabarti report, the Labour party commissioned somebody who had already gotten their peerage — Baroness Royall — to investigate accusations of anti-Semitism in the Oxford University Labour Club. Unlike the Chakrabarti whitewash, the Royall report was never published. A brief summary of conclusions released by the Labour party presented the findings as suggesting that there was in essence no particular problem. Now someone — presumably the report’s author herself — has “leaked” the full report. And it makes clear that the Labour party clearly attempted to cover up the negative findings of an inquiry that they themselves had commissioned.

The Royall report shows that students at the Oxford University Labour club who were Jewish were subjected to frequent anti-Semitism. It revealed that “There have been some incidents of anti-Semitic behaviour” and also that “some Jewish members do not feel comfortable attending the [OULC] meetings, let alone participating.” Although the Labour party had decided that there needed to be no action taken after their suppression of the Royall report, the report itself says as a consequence of what has been found, “It is appropriate for the disciplinary procedures of our Party to be invoked.”

So this is the tale of two inquiries. One inquiry, which found the Labour party to have an anti-Semitism problem, was suppressed by the Labour party. The other, which found the Labour party did not have an anti-Semitism problem, was released. The author of the suppressed report had to leak the report to the press herself. And the author of the whitewash report? Well, on Thursday of this week, in the least surprising news of the year, it was announced that the one person put forward for a peerage by the Labour party in the latest honours list is… Shami Chakrabarti.

Shami Chakrabarti, who wrote a report last month whitewashing the problem of anti-Semitism in the UK Labour party, was this week put forward by the Labour party for a seat in the House of Lords (a peerage). (Image source: Southbank Centre/Flickr)

When people wonder whether this problem will go away, here is the reason it will not: A party that suppresses the truth and elevates lies is not going to remedy its problems any time soon. A party that tries to silence those who identify anti-Semitism and rewards those who cover it up is a party where moral as well as political corruption is not an aberration, but systemic.

Douglas Murray, a British author, news analyst and commentator, is based in London, England.

The Co-operative Group is the only major British retailer to boycott Israeli goods. It is the fifth-largest retail grocery chain in the UK, with thousands of Co-op minimarkets throughout the United Kingdom. The Co-operative Group (formerly known as the Co-operative Wholesale Society) is closely linked to — and a major funder of — the Co-operative Party, which has an electoral pact with the Labour Party, the UK’s official opposition. The Co-operative Party has, like the Labour Party itself, been infiltrated by a strong anti-Israel faction.

The Co-operative Group is the fifth-largest retail grocery chain in the UK, with thousands of Co-op minimarkets throughout the United Kingdom. Right: The Co-operative Group head office in Manchester. (Image source: Co-operative Group/Wikimedia commons)

The “co-operative movement” in England began in 1844 when a group of people in Rochdale, Lancashire decided that local stores were charging too much for food, and decided to set up a co-operative retail outlet. From there, the movement mushroomed until, at one time, it even had a flagship department store in London’s premier shopping street, Oxford Street, as well as farms, pharmacies and funeral services, to say nothing of the Co-operative Bank, its most lucrative enterprise.

The co-operative movement is also linked to the Co-operative Party, a political party with close links to the British Labour Party, a relationship that dates back to the Co-operative Congress held in 1917, which eventually led to an agreement between the Co-operative Party and the Labour Party to elect joint “Labour Co-operative” candidates. At the last general election in 2015, 21 members of parliament were elected on the Labour and Co-operative ticket.

In 2013, a scandal hit the Co-operative Bank, when it was discovered that there was a massive shortfall in funds due to corruption and mismanagement at the top. The Co-operative Group suffered a terrible financial blow, losing many millions of pounds. This resulted in an entire re-organization of the Co-operative Group, including the sale of the pharmacies and most of the Co-operative Bank (the Co-operative Group still has a 20% share but the bank has demutualized, meaning it is now mainly owned by a hedge fund and is no longer a mutual fund owned by the members).

The Co-operative Group is finally on the road to recovery thanks to new management and the policy of opening minimarkets throughout the United Kingdom, backed up by a massive TV advertising campaign. However, the boycott of Israeli produce remains.

A certain pressure group within the co-operative movement, formed in 2008, caused the Co-operative Group to boycott Israeli agricultural produce exported by the four major Israeli produce exporters. The Co-op Group has refused to stock products from Jewish communities on the West Bank since 2009, but in 2014 its board extended the boycott to the four main exporters of Israeli fresh produce — Agrexco, Arava Export Growers, Adafresh and Mehadrin — because they do not distinguish between produce from Israel within the 1949 armistice lines borders and (Arab- and Jewish-grown) produce from beyond it. This assumes that those advocating the boycott know exactly where the new borders between Israel and a future Palestinian state will be, despite that they are yet to be determined through negotiation. Ironically, most of the produce from Jewish settlements currently beyond the Green Line (the 1949 armistice lines between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria) is produced by kibbutzim that were there before 1948, when the West Bank was lost in Israel’s War of Independence.

One such area is the Etzion Bloc of four kibbutzim, for which the land was purchased from its previous owners long before the British withdrew from Palestine. The Etzion Bloc will, in fact, almost certainly become part of Israel after a final settlement.

A substantial proportion of the produce marketed by Israel’s four agricultural exporters is produced by Arab farmers, operating both inside and outside the pre-1967 borders, as Israel does not discriminate between them. According to The Guardian, in April 2012, the Co-Operative Group said in a statement that it had decided to stop buying products from companies known to source from Jewish “settlements.” The decision affects contracts valued at £350,000 (about $500,000) — a practice apparently begun in 2009. Presumably it had still been doing business with Israeli pharmaceutical products; if not, according to one Co-operative Group board member, “the shelves of the pharmacy would have been bare.” Unfortunately, the Co-operative pharmacies had to be sold when the Co-op Group faced virtual ruin due to the mismanagement of the Co-op Bank’s directors.

There is, of course, no proof that the Israeli companies with which the Co-op continues to do business do not source any products from Jewish “settlements” because many Israeli businesses in the West Bank are mainly involved in manufacturing. These enterprises employ many local Arab workers, whose livelihoods are endangered by the boycott.

Although the Co-operative Group also claims to reject exports from the Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara, also alleged to be an illegal occupation, in practice the boycott only affects Israel, because the Western Sahara boycott is applicable only to a few tins of sardines. The Co-op Group continues to refer to Israel’s “illegal settlements” as if these and those in the Western Sahara (included “for balance” no doubt) were the only disputed territories in the world. There is no boycott, of course, of major exporting countries with appalling human rights records, such as China (invasion of Tibet), Russia (invasion of the Ukraine) and other countries whose occupation of other areas is not recognized internationally, such as Nagorno-Karabakh or Northern Cyprus. It should be remembered that in none of the above cases were the occupying countries threatened; the aggression came purely from one side, the side that was victorious This is the exact opposite of what happened in the case of Israel, but with a bloc of 58 Muslim countries in the United Nations, supported by most of the members of the European Union, might proves to be right in this case.

To set the record straight, the so-called “occupation” of the West Bank by Israel is not an occupation at all, since the territory was taken from Mandate Palestine, after it had been abandoned by the British and was occupied by the Kingdom of Jordan (then known as Transjordan), in its attempt to destroy the new State of Israel in 1948-49. Between 1948 and 1967, the West Bank was occupied by Jordan, an occupation that could indeed be said to be illegal, being recognized only by the United Kingdom (which had colluded therein) and Pakistan. This former “no man’s land” was taken by Israel during the Six-Day War against it in 1967. The massive Muslim bloc in the United Nations has ruthlessly pursued the concept of an “occupation” to divert attention from the appalling human rights abuses that their dictatorships continue to maintain in their own countries.

By no means everyone running the Co-operative Group is in favour of the boycott in fact; ironically, some of the newer members of the Group’s management even seem to be unaware of it. A recent statement made by a new member of the Members’ Board at a members’ meeting in London implied that whether or not one bought Israeli goods (presumably from the Co-op) was a mere matter of preference. As usual, of all the countries in the world, Israel is being singled out. For the boycotters of the Co-op Group, Israel is the usual soft target.

Myra Carr is based in the United Kingdom.

The UK Labour Party, which once stood proudly in solidarity with the victims of terrorism, now, under the would-be leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, seems to have become a haven for anti-Semites, Islamists and their apologists.

It is hard to believe that the party once led by Prime Minister Tony Blair, who assisted President Bush in leading the war on terror and fighting expansionist Islamist movements, is now led by a man who voted against banning Al Qaeda as a terrorist organization months after more than 200 people were killed in the 1998 terrorist attacks on the American embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam.

Jeremy Corbyn alleges that he stands on a platform where “There is no place for anti-semitism or any form of racism in the Labour Party, or anywhere in society.” He also says that Labour have taken “decisive action.”

Despite Corbyn’s protestations that he is an avowed anti-racist who condemns Islamism, and that he continually condemns anti-Semitism, this leadership has tolerated anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic dialogue and has drawn Islamists into the Labour Party. When Corbyn was asked to do more to tackle the rising climate of anti-Semitism, which has seen Labour MP Louise Ellman face anti-Semitic abuse, his brother, Piers Corbyn, tweeted: “ABSURD! All Corbyns are committed Anti Nazi. Zionists can’t cope with anyone supporting rights for Palestine.”

The remark suggests that anti-Semitism is just a recent prejudice, created only to aid Zionists, as response to the pro-Palestinian movement, rather than a movement of a people who have inhabited that area — a sizeable section of which is even called Judea — for nearly 3000 years. Until 1948, Palestinians did not even exist — except as the accepted name of those Christians Arabs and Jews who lived under the British Mandate (1923-1948), after the Ottoman Empire collapsed.

Corbyn’s followers, however, do not seem to be as keen as he claims them to be to condemn the rising culture of anti-Semitic mythology that tends to be propagated by many of his self-proclaimed acolytes.

The party that claims to be the epitome of anti-racism, has, in recent months has, rightly suffered at the hands of UK media exposés for its tolerance of racism — in this instance anti-Semitism. It is a view that often seems to go hand in hand with apologists for extremist Islam and radical Islamic terror.

Labour Party MP Naz Shah (left), was recently suspended from the party for composing and sharing anti-Semitic tropes. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn (right), has a tendency to hang around with Holocaust deniers, anti-Semitic hate-preachers and others of a similar ilk, and is a self-declared “friend” of the terror outfits Hamas and Hezbollah.

John Tummon, for one, repeatedly called, at the Left Unity 2014 Conference, for the restoration of a Caliphate comprising the entirety of the Middle East. He posited that a Caliphate, with the strict imposition of Islamic sharia law, would see that “diversity and autonomy are protected and nurtured and the mass of people can effectively control executive authority.”

What strict implementation of Islamic sharia law usually sees, however, are women’s personal, economic and political rights obliterated. The rights, in fact, of other religious minorities such as Yazidis, Alevis and Baha’i, as well as the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community and the Jews, would also suffer extreme persecution, as the latter already has, often with calls for annihilation, such as “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the Gas.”

The idea that a single totalitarian Caliphate would bring increased democracy and stability, let alone civil and political rights, to an increasingly factional, corrupt and unstable Middle East, appears more a childlike, logic-defying fantasy.

Tummon’s motion also condemns secular politics by disparaging notions — such as rights for the religious to worship free of persecution, and the separation of church and state — as a “Eurocentric brand of secularism” which, he claims, forces Middle Eastern people to abandon their religious faith.

Wait, isn’t it usually secular societies that protect the rights of religious minorities, including Muslims, to practice their faith? And that prevent religious extremists from dominating state politics and forcing their beliefs on others? Were the Christians in orange jump suits who had their throats slit by ISIS allowed to practice their faith? Was Asia Bibi, a Christian woman in Pakistan, on death row for having drunk water from the same well as Muslims and then refusing to convert to Islam, allowed to practice her faith?

Is it nations such as Saudi Arabia that Tummon apparently aspires to emulate: those with sharia law that do not allow a single place of worship for those outside Islam?

John Tummon has described the Islamic State (IS) — a terrorist organization trying to convert or wipe out Yezidis, Kurds, and Christians in Syria and Iraq — as an organisation with “progressive potential.”

“Progressive potential”? Why is Tummon not defending LGBT rights instead of defending an organization that throws gays off rooftops?

Why is Tummon not defending women’s rights instead of defending an organization that forces its sex slaves to take contraceptives so they can be raped without consequences? (In Islam, it is forbidden to rape a woman if she is pregnant.)

What sort of person would want to be associated with a party whose members have views such as these?

The headache for Labour does not simply end with Tummon’s support for a Caliphate; he has also said: “and I advocated critical support for the development [of] ISIL.” Is he arguing that that the UK should be providing military support for ISIL — an organization that commits genocide against the religious minorities Tummon claims a caliphate protects?

Consider also the case of Gerry Downing who, until March was a Labour member. In March, live on UK television, Downing refused to condemn the murderers of 2,996 people in the 9/11 attacks, and continued on to say that the 9/11 attacks “must never be condemned.” Does he therefore find some part of 9/11 supportable?

Downing was reinstated to Labour after his suspension, even after his comments on various blogs were known to the party. The Prime Minister, David Cameron, challenged Corbyn on Downing’s views in Parliament, Corbyn didn’t reply to the question.

Corbyn not only seems slow to react to issues of anti-Semitism; he also does not seem to stand in solidarity with the victims of terrorism. And that is supposed to be a qualification for a leader of the Labour Party? Was the association of Gerry Downing with the Labour Party desirable or even morally correct?

Another, member of the Labour Party, Vicki Kirby, was originally suspended in 2014 from the party for tweeting that “Hitler was a Zionist God,” and “We invented Israel when saving [the Jews] from Hitler.”

Kirby’s views provide a greater insight into her, and possibly other individuals joining Corbyn’s Labour Party, than into Israel or Jews.

Kirby seems to completely misunderstand the nature of Zionism, which is not to strip Arabs of their rights to land or form an expansionist Israeli state, but rather to protect Jews from being attacked and safeguard their rights. She also argued that “ISIS should attack Israel” — a sentiment less than neighbourly. She also didn’t fail to deploy the cliché that “Jews have big noses,” apparently failing to observe that many Italians, Arabs and other people do too.

By mid-March, it must have been apparent even to Corbyn that Kirby might be a liability. An “investigation” into her remarks is still pending. Kirby is still suspended.

And what is Corbyn’s answer to Beinazir Lasharie, who said that “Many people know about who was behind 9/11 and also who is behind ISIS. I’ve nothing against Jews… just sharing it!” Such remarks — which wrongly attribute Islamist terrorist attacks to Jews — seem intended to marginalize them in Britain; no wonder British Jews might feel at risk.

After being expelled from the Labour Party for her anti-Semitic views, Lasharie was quietly readmitted to the party in December .

Did I forget to mention Tony Greenstein, who, it is alleged, has claimed that Jews supported the Third Reich’s Nuremberg Laws, which restricted Jews in virtually every area — including political involvement, clothing, marriage, employment, and ultimately their existence. How then is it that there are many Arab members of Israel’s Knesset? Greenstein maintains he is not anti-Semitic.

Khadim Hussain, a Labour Councillor and the former Mayor of Bradford, seems another part of the same pattern. He posted an image claiming, “[The UK] school education system only tells you about Anne Frank and the six million Zionists that were killed.”

Not only is he falsely conflating Jews with Zionists; what is at least as worrying is that his remark indicates that the extermination of six million people is, or should be, forgettable. It also implies that the history of young Anne Frank, forced to hide, then herded into a concentration camp where she died for the “crime” of being a member of a religious and ethnic group — a circumstance she did not choose and which occurred in another European country — is not necessary to teach to children.

It is, and remains, absolutely necessary to teach children what people can do to each other when slaughter is officially sanctioned.

If these are the folks who make up Corbyn’s Labour Party — people who defend 9/11, support ISIS, marginalize Jews and liken Israel to Hitler — are we all really supposed to rush out and vote for them?

I used to be a member of the Labour Party, until it was Corbynized. I do not feel like celebrating Hitler, demeaning the Holocaust, spreading racial smears about the Jews — or anyone for that matter — or claiming that Islamism and sharia law are “progressive.”

I am not a Jew, and I have no links to Judaism. But if being a Jew offends anti-Semitic racists, then I am happy to call myself a Jew, and to stand up and be counted with the Jews as a minority facing increased persecution across Europe.

When I was growing up, my grandfather showed me a picture:

A now-famous photograph, in which a man identified as August Landmesser refuses to give the Nazi salute, was taken on 13 June 1936.

“Be like this guy,” he said,” no matter what the personal cost, because you should always do the right thing.” My grandfather was right. I want to be that “guy” in the photograph who is standing up against the anti-Semitism re-emerging then in Europe and saying that enough is enough. I only wish more people in UK Labour were half as impressive and had half his character.

Robbie Travers, a political commentator and consultant, is Executive Director of Agora, former media manager at the Human Security Centre, and a law student at the University of Edinburgh.

Mere weeks after the terrorist attacks in Britain — on May 22 in Manchester and earlier in Westminster — there is planned in London, on July 8-9, a major event which its organizers describe as:

Palestine Expo: the biggest social, cultural and entertainment event on Palestine to ever take place in Europe. In a year of immense significance for Palestine, we are pleased to announce, Palestine Expo 2017

The “biggest ever in Europe”: heady stuff. In a major coup, the exposition will take place, not in a scruffy hall on the outskirts of the city, but in the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in Westminster, near the Houses of Parliament, in the shadow of Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. The prestigious centre is owned by the UK Government and its operation is conducted by an executive agency of the Department for Communities and Local Government. It has 2,000 square metres of exhibition space, four main auditoria, seven conference rooms and many smaller rooms, and specialises in events for more than 1,000 delegates. Palexpo[1] will occupy five of its six levels.

Events listed include:

Inspirational Speakers
Interactive Zones
Knowledge village
Food Court
Live Entertainment
Academic Workshop (“will be run by a group of academics from leading UK universities”)
Student Hub
Gallery
Shopping Quarter

On the surface, it might appear that this is merely a cultural event designed to give the British public a taste of Palestinian cooking, music, art, in particular, history (starting in 1948!). A closer examination, however, reveals something less pleasant. Underneath the surface, this exposition is dedicated to a presentation of Palestinian victimhood and “resistance” (read terrorism), the same “resistance” as in Israel, and on similar false pretexts.

In Israel, the false pretext is that Jews — who have lived in Canaan and Judea for 3,000 years, as is substantiated by enough documentary and archaeological evidence to sink a supertanker — are supposedly occupying “Palestinian land”. In Europe, the false pretext is “revenge for colonialism”, which has historically existed under the Muslims, in their conquests of Iran, the Byzantine Empire, North Africa and the Middle East, northern Cyprus, Spain and most of Eastern Europe. This expansion has continued in the present day to Lebanon, northern Cyprus, Indonesia, the Philippines and is working its way through Europe, Canada and Australia. The Europeans are evidently gullible enough, it seems, to swallow all pretexts without bothering to check any facts.

The Queen Elizabeth II Centre is the venue for the upcoming “Palestine Expo 2017”, organized by the anti-Semitic pro-Hamas activist group, “Friends of Al-Aqsa”. (Image source: Jdforrester/Wikimedia Commons)

Who has organized this massive upcoming London event? One might have expected it to be the Palestinian Mission of the UK (often treated erroneously as an embassy, as it claims to represent the “State of Palestine”, which does not exist). However, although the Mission will probably be a participant in the exposition, a direct link for it cannot be found. The same is true for the West Bank’s Palestinian Authority.

The organizers of the event are, in fact, a relatively small British organization, Friends of Al-Aqsa (FOA), founded in 1997 by a British optician, Ismail Patel, closely involved in several Islamic organizations such as the British Muslim Initiative (BMI). The BMI is a front group for Hamas, and has been for many years “the most active organization in the U.K Muslim Brotherhood”. Patel was a spokesman for the BMI. And the BMI was the chief organizer of London’s 2008 IslamExpo, which Britain’s Minister of Communities and Local Government at the time, Hazel Blears, strongly criticized:

“It was clear that because of the views of some of the organisers, and because of the nature of some of the exhibitors, this was an event that no Minister should attend. Organisers like Anas al-Tikriti, who believes in boycotting Holocaust Memorial Day. Or speakers like Azzam Tamimi, who has sought to justify suicide bombing. Or exhibitors like the Government of Iran.”

Friends of Al-Aqsa is, itself, an anti-Semitic pro-Hamas activist group. It helped establish in London the anti-Israel al-Quds Day events, in which extremists march to support the terror group Hizbullah and the theocratic Iranian regime that calls for England, Israel and America to be wiped from the pages of time.

Patel himself is an outspoken upholder of these values. In 2009, he addressed a Stop the Gaza Massacre demonstration in support of Hamas:

“Hamas is no terrorist organization. The reason they hate Hamas is because they refuse to be subjugated, occupied by the Israeli state, and we salute Hamas for standing up to Israel […] to the state of Israel: you no longer represent the Jewish people.”

Hamas has, in fact, been condemned as a terrorist group by the US, the UK, the EU countries, Egypt, Japan, New Zealand, and Australia. Terrorism itself has been difficult to define legally, mostly because the countries that use it do not wish to define it; nevertheless, several countries have matching definitions. The British 2006 Terrorism Act provides a basic list of activities that constitute terrorism:

(1) In this Act “terrorism” means the use or threat of action where-

(a) the action falls within subsection (2),

(b) the use or threat is designed to influence the government or an international governmental organisation or to intimidate the public or a section of the public, and

(c) the use or threat is made for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause.

(2) Action falls within this subsection if it-

(a) involves serious violence against a person,

(b) involves serious damage to property,

(c) endangers a person’s life, other than that of the person committing the action,

(d) creates a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or a section of the public, or

(e) is designed seriously to interfere with or seriously to disrupt an electronic system.

Section 1(3) to (5) goes on to expand on the effect and extent of this definition.

The Canadian Department of Justice definition reads in similar terms. Another definition also attributed to Canada reads:

“A terrorist is a man who murders indiscriminately, distinguishing neither between civilian and innocent and guilty nor soldier and civilian.”

Under these definitions, Hamas is exposed as a terrorist organization both by its repeated use of indiscriminate killing and the contents of its two Charters from 1988: (“la hall li’l-qadiyya al-Filastiniyya illa bi’l-jihad — There is no solution for the Palestinian problem except through jihad.” Article 13) and 2017:

“Hamas confirms that no peace in Palestine should be agreed on, based on injustice to the Palestinians or their land. Any arrangements based on that will not lead to peace, and the resistance and Jihad will remain as a legal right, a project and an honor for all our nation’s people.” — Article 21. (Emphasis added.)

Hamas is not the only extremist organization to which Friends of Al-Aqsa has lent its support. The outlawed Northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, which has close Hamas affiliations, is led by Shaykh Raed Salah. Salah has aided organizations that fund Hamas, and claims that Jews were behind the 9/11 attacks (and that 4,000 Jews stayed away from work at the World Trade Center that day). Salah has also called Osama Bin Laden a martyr, and has said that honor killings of young women are acceptable.

According to Tamar Pileggi:

“In late 2015, Israel banned the radical Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement, accusing it of maintaining links to terror groups and of stoking a wave of violence that saw dozens of deaths in a spate of stabbing, car-ramming and shooting attacks.”

Before that, in 2011, FOA along with other extremist groups brought Salah to the UK, despite a travel ban. When Salah was arrested and to be deported, Patel spoke out in support for him. But Salah had well before that delivered bloodcurdling sermons calling on Palestinians to become martyrs while attacking Israeli soldiers.

According to UK Media Watch:

“Friends of Al Aqsa” is one of the more extremist (sic) Islamist organizations at work in Britain today. It supports the Muslim Brotherhood-linked charity “Interpal” (proscribed by the US Treasury) and advertises it on its website. It collaborates with the Khomenist Iranian-funded faux human rights organization known as the Islamic Human Rights Commission in organizing events such as Al Quds day at which public support is expressed for the Iranian proxy militia Hizbollah.

For the Jewish community of the UK, Friends of Al-Aqsa and Patel represent a real threat. The group has published anti-Semitic authors. One, the journalist Khalid Amayreh, claimed that Jews control America, and that the Iraq war “was conceived in and planned by Israel through the mostly Jewish neocons in Washington”. Another was the Jewish British self-declared Holocaust denier Paul Eisen, who runs the anti-Israel organization Deir Yassin Remembered. Friends of Al-Aqsa has also published material by Gilad Atzmon, who has accused the Jews of Germany of waging war against Hitler and has said of the Holocaust:

“The Holocaust became the new Western religion. Unfortunately, it [the Holocaust] is the most sinister religion known to man. It is a license to kill, to flatten, no nuke, to wipe, to rape, to loot and to ethnically cleanse. It made vengeance and revenge into a Western value.”

Of the speakers listed for Palexpo, several are well-known for their pro-Hamas, anti-Israel and anti-Semitic views. Ilan Pappé of Exeter University is a highly radical and much-criticized historian who has called for the elimination of Israel and its replacement by a single Arab state.

John Pilger is an Australian journalist and film-maker, one of whose documentaries has been described as “a veritable encyclopedia of every anti-Israel canard in existence today”. He has suggested that terrorist group Hezbollah represented “humanity at its noblest”; approvingly cited the arguments of the above-mentioned anti-Semite and Holocaust denier Gilad Atzmon; has suggested that “influential” Jews around the world are culpable in “Israeli crimes” and has likened Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians to the Nazi’s treatment of the Jews. According to Pilger , “the Zionist state remains the cause of more regional grievance and sheer terror than all the Muslim states combined.”

Pilger has also asserted that “killing children seems like sport for the IDF [Israel Defence Forces]”. His distortions are breathtaking. He has defended Hamas strenuously. Here, for example, he accuses his most hated countries, American and Israel, of distorting the truth:

“The majority [of Gazans] voted for the ‘wrong’ party, Hamas, which the U.S. and Israel, with their inimitable penchant for pot-calling-the-kettle-black, describe as terrorist.”

He added the astonishing comment that, “Indeed, the vote for Hamas was actually a vote for peace” — about an organization whose Charter declares that, as mentioned, “The only solution to the Palestinian question is through jihad”.

Ben White is one of the UK’s most extreme anti-Israel speakers and writers. In his eyes, Israel can do no right; the Palestinians, including Hamas, no wrong. He “writes extensively about what he terms ‘Palestine/Israel’ to the point of near obsession and was a regular contributor to [the Guardian’s] ‘Comment is Free’ and the virulently anti-Israel ‘Electronic Intifada'”. Here is a list of quotations from his writings. He is a supporter of the anti-Jewish one-state solution and an ardent promoter of the fiction that Israel is an “apartheid state”. He regularly downplays Hamas and Palestinian terrorism, and instead places all blame for violence on Israel.

Among other speakers with reputations for extremist views are Miko Peled, who regards the Israeli army as terrorists (despite international recognition of it as “the most moral army in the world”). His anti-Semitism became clear when, commenting on a US-Israel aid deal, he said:

“Then theyr [sic] surprised Jews have reputation 4being sleazy thieves. #apartheidisrael doesn’t need or deserve these $$.”

Peled has compared Israel to Nazi Germany and called for a Palestinian state to replace Israel.

Tariq Ramadan is a famous Egyptian-Swiss Muslim scholar, philosopher and writer closely linked to the Muslim Brotherhood (he is the grandson of the Brotherhood’s founder, Hasan al-Banna’). He is famous for duplicity and use of doublespeak.[2] He has donated money to the terrorist group Hamas, which is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, and he has been denied a visa to the United States for his links to Hamas. He “was barred under a section of the Patriot Act, which bars entry to foreigners who have used a ‘position of prominence … to endorse or espouse terrorist activity.'” He “has often been accused of being an Islamist, anti-Semitic, and sexist. He has drawn severe criticism from numerous Western public figures, ranging from scholars and journalists to political, religious, and community leaders”.

The other speakers listed fall into similar categories as supporters of trying to destroy Israel through economic means, Palestinian “resistance” to Israel, and anti-Semitism.

Currently, Friends of Al-Aqsa and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign are planning to sue Jewish Human Rights Watch (JHRW) for libel, forcing the rights group to instruct lawyers to act in their defence. From the evidence presented here, JHRW could scarcely have a better case. Its appeal to the management of the Queen Elizabeth II Centre for the cancellation of a terror-linked event is entirely in line with British concerns about radical and terrorist ideologies, anti-Semitism, and international terrorism. Friends of Al-Aqsa, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, their supporters, and the various organizations to which they are linked, have never changed their beliefs regarding Israel, the Jewish people, or the West.

Dr Denis MacEoin PhD (Cambridge 1979) is a scholar of Islam and Persia, a former lecturer in Arabic and Islamic Studies and currently a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute.

[1] Not to be confused with Geneva’s Palexpo: Palais des Expositions et des Congrès

[2] See Caroline Fourest, Brother Tariq: The Doublespeak of Tariq Ramadan, New York, London, 2008 and Paul Berman Flight of the Intellectuals, NY and London, 2011, Chapter One. See also Christopher Hitchens here.