Does the UK have a pro-Israel lobby? And is it as powerful or as prominent as its (in)famous US counterpart? Tonight’s Dispatches on Channel 4, fronted by the Daily Mail columnist Peter Oborne, sets out to answer these questions and shine a light on this sensitive subject, one of the few remaining taboos in British politics and British political journalism.
The urge to avoid accusations of anti-Semitism, and the company of neo-Nazi conspiracy theorists, has meant that the rather secretive agglomeration of individuals and groups which lobbies on behalf of Israel — and often apologises for Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian land — tends to get very little coverage on television or in print.
Channel 4’s decision to commission this film is, therefore, a bold if unpopular move. The pre-publicity for Dispatches mentions Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) , Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) and the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre.
There are, of course, many other influential organisations the film could and should touch on — for example, the Jewish National Fund (JNF), which describes itself as “Israel’s leading humanitarian and environmental charity” and “entirely non-political”, having been founded in 1901 to buy and develop land in Palestine for Jewish settlement. It now owns 13 per cent of the land in Israel. But as one of Israel’s leading revisionist historians, Ilan Pappé, writes:
The true mission of the JNF has been to conceal these visible remnants of Palestine not only by the trees it has planted over them, but also by the narratives it has created to deny their existence. Whether on the JNF website or in the parks themselves, the most sophisticated audiovisual equipment displays the official Zionist story, contextualising any given location within the national meta-narrative of the Jewish people and Eretz Israel. This version continues to spout the familiar myths of the narrative — Palestine as an “empty” and “arid” land before the arrival of Zionism — that Zionism employs to supplant all history that contradicts its own invented Jewish past.
So what link is there between the JNF and domestic British politics, you might ask? Well, guess who happens to be a JNF patron? None other than our own “neutral” Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. As Mick Napier, chair of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, pointed out back in October 2007, soon after the Prime Minister first accepted the invitation to become patron of JNF-UK:
Gordon Brown may try to pretend that JNF-UK is somehow insulated from the guilt of the JNF’s activities in Israel and the occupied territories, but around the world, and in particular in the Middle East, his willingness to support the JNF “brand” will be seen as evidence of the UK’s support for Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians.
In his comment piece in today’s Guardian, Oborne lists influential backbenchers and ministers who happen to be members of CFI and LFI, but adds:
It is important to say what we did not find. There is no conspiracy, and nothing resembling a conspiracy.
Yet, as we demonstrate in Dispatches on Monday night, the financial arrangements of a number of the organisations that form part of the pro-Israel lobby are by no means widely known. The pro-Israel lobby, in common with other lobbies, has every right to operate and indeed to flourish in Britain. But it needs to be far more open about how it is funded and what it does. This is partly because the present obscurity surrounding it can, paradoxically, give rise to conspiracy theories that have no basis in fact. But it is mainly because politics in a democracy should never take place behind closed doors. It should be out in the open for all to see.
Who, I wonder, could disagree with any of that?
Disclaimer: I worked as an editor in the news and current affairs department at Channel 4 for two years before joining the New Statesman in June. However, before the more Islamophobic and conspiratorial among you start posting comments claiming a “Muslim hand” behind tonight’s film, let me state on the record that I had nothing to do with the commissioning or production of this film — both of which occurred after my departure from the channel.
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