Urgent call to expose “Friends of Israel” in Britain

Redress Information & Analysis highlights the influence of Israel’s stooges over the British government and the BBC and calls on readers urgently to help it name and shame members of “Friends of Israel” groups in the country.

With every passing day, the scale of the penetration by Israel’s network of stooges into the heart of the British government and media becomes increasingly apparent.

In just three weeks between 27 December 2008 and 17 January 2009, Israel murdered 1330 Palestinians in Gaza, including 437 children and 108 women, and injured 5450 others. Many of these innocent civilians were killed or maimed by phosphorous and other weapons, the use of which is internationally prohibited in civilian areas.

Yet, the “Friends of Israel” groups in Britain are showing no sign of shame or retreat. On the contrary, they are becoming more brazen in displaying the extent of their grip on the British government and the BBC. Just two examples will illustrate this.

• On 17 January, the day on which an Israeli tank attacked a United Nations-run school in Beit Lahiya, killing two children aged five and seven, Gordon Brown spewed out one of his most immoral and irresponsible announcements to date. In a desperate attempt to appease the Israeli war criminals and their stooges in Britain, he pledged to redeploy the British navy in the Middle East. “We'll send the Royal Navy to help fight [weapon] smuggling,” he said. Not to escort aid vessels or to defend the defenceless Palestinians of Gaza, but to deprive them of weapons with which they could defend themselves!

• On 23 January, the BBC, Britain’s state broadcaster, refused to broadcast a national humanitarian appeal for Gaza on behalf of the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) – an umbrella organization for 13 humanitarian aid agencies – leaving aid agencies with a potential shortfall of millions of pounds in donations. By convention, if all British broadcasters do not agree to carry a DEC appeal, none does, so the BBC deliberately scuppered the agencies’ attempt to provide urgent humanitarian aid for Gaza’s civilians.

It is a matter of national shame that agents of a foreign power and apologists for murder, in the shape of the “Friends of Israel” network of stooges, have achieved such a level of supremacy in Britain.

This need not be so. By and large, the British public has little sympathy for the racist, genocidal state of Israel.

Therefore, help us put an end to this national disgrace by naming and shaming Friends of Israel in government and other state bodies, political parties, the BBC and other media, think tanks, academic institutions and religious groups. Tell us who they and how you found out that they are Friends of Israel.

If you should harbour any doubt as to whether it is right to expose these “Friends of Israel”, then take a look at the document below to remind yourself of what these people are defending.

Evidence of Israeli war crimes in Gaza and Lebanon