Conservative MP Angie Bray empty chairs despicable Palestine Solidarity Campaign event.

Rupa Huq (Lab.), Salim Alam, Jon Ball (LibDem), Tom Sharman (Green) last night.

Angie Bray, Conservative MP for Ealing Central & Acton, refused to attend last night’s West London PSC event Palestine is Still the Issue.

The event was held at St Mary’s Church, Ealing and was hosted by Salim Alam, chair of West London PSC. The rather unpleasant Mr Alam once threatened to knock a camera I was holding out of my hands.

The remaining panelists were three challengers for Angie Bray’s Ealing Central & Acton seat at the upcoming general election this May: Rupa Huq (Labour), Jon Ball (Lib Dem.), Tom Sharman (Green).

Huq, Ball and Sharman were all anti-Israel automatons. Their party leaders would have been proud. All three were ready to confine Israelis to hell just as long as they won themselves some votes last night.

Sharman wanted Britain to stop supplying weapons to Israel and to stop buying weapons from Israel. He said “Israeli weapons are road tested on the Palestinians and so they are attractive to the British government”.

Ball started off by saying he wasn’t an expert on the Israeli-Palestinian issue but then went on to call for a boycott of “settlement” goods and for “ending the arms trade with Israel”.

He did, however, reject economic sanctions against the whole of Israel but not on the ground that such action was wrong but on the ground that it would only “fuel the collective paranoia of the Israeli government and its supporters overseas” and make them more hardline and right-wing.

Huq, meanwhile, was obsessed with Ed Miliband being Jewish. It was something she repeatedly mentioned without explaining the relevance.

Her second main obsession was that Israel is, apparently, starving the Palestinians of water (see clip below). She said “they’re basically shutting off the water supply to the Palestinians”. Lies and utter nonsense from a woman who attended Cambridge University.

During the Q&A an elderly woman quoted Albert Einstein in the 1930s about making peace with the Arab communities. She then said she was saddened that “the Jews are not smart enough to understand this”.

It would have been the decent thing for Huq, Ball and Sharman to have called her out on her anti-Semitism but maybe they were worried that might cost them votes.

Finally, Alam announced that UKIP had not been invited to speak at the event because they were the antithesis of what the PSC stood for. That’s ironic because PSC events are some of the most racist and anti-Jewish one could attend being on a par with those held by far right extremists.

For example, I once attended another event chaired by Alam also in a church. Afterwards I recorded one of that event’s attendees mocking the way Jews died in the Holocaust. The sickening statement released afterwards by the West London PSC said that she had been “harangued”.

And one of the guest speakers that night was the Reverend Stephen Sizer who recently posted a link to his Facebook suggesting Israel was behind 9/11.

So while Huq, Sharman and Ball all lowered themselves by contributing to yet another sickening PSC hatefest Angie Bray’s refusal to attend was the only dignified response.

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Miliband E.: A disaster for Britain, a disaster for Israel.

New Labour leader, Ed Miliband (middle).

Ed Miliband’s (EM) election as leader of the Labour party while in opposition to the Conservative-Lib. Dem. coalition is a disaster on many fronts.

It wasn’t meant to be like this. His warmer, more charismatic brother, David (DM), was supposed to win.

The coalition is loving the result. It will be easy to paint the new leader as Red Ed and as in thrall to the unions who, in effect, made him leader.

EM does not have the support of either the majority of ordinary Labour members or of Labour MEPs and MPs under the arcane tripartite electoral system that Labour uses.

It was the three main trade unions; GMB, Unite and Unison, that won it for EM. Although it was a free vote the leaders of these three huge unions publicly backed EM and that was enough.

The trade unions favour the working class but their problem is that they would rather the country got poorer as long as everyone was more equal. They give no credence to capitalism whatsoever.

A form of communism-lite is still their preferred way forward. Being in government is not of great importance as long as they can go on strike and bring the country to its knees. Margaret Thatcher recognised the damage they can do. She smashed them but they are back with a vengeance.

Labour is also in financial trouble and multi-millionaire backers like Lord Sainsbury and Lord Alli could be set to lower their donations leaving Labour looking for even more support from the unions.

Labour has emasculated itself by voting for EM giving the governing coalition five years of an open goal with which to do as it pleases unchallenged. This is not good for us.

We will have to put up with five years of uncompetitive politics.

DM’s campaign must have suffered from complacency. But he showed his sharpness, warmth and humour yesterday when trying to evade a media scrum.

“Please ladies and gentleman, I am leaving,” he complained to which a reporter asked “Are you really leaving, Mr Miliband?”. DM turned around with the broadest of grins and replied: “I’m leaving the building”.

If DM does leave British politics for another job he will be missed. His brother is dull and uncharismatic by comparison.

More than that his brother has been an MP for just five years to DM’s nine and his only major brief was as Climate Change secretary. In contrast DM was Foreign Secretary and has striven the world stage gaining respect and experience. I doubt few overseas politicians would know EM.

And being in thrall to the unions does not bode well for Israel either. We know that many unions are ignorant of the true complexity of the Israeli-Palestinians conflict but their knee-jerk reaction is to be anti-Israel. Recently they voted to continue a boycott of Israeli settlement goods at the TUC conference.

This demonisation of the settlements and the settlers (both of which are perfectly legal) doesn’t help anyone. It entrenches the Palestinian position and leads to more dead settlers as we saw recently with the killing of four innocent Israelis near Hebron.

But thank goodness for small mercies as a full boycott of Israel was expected. Next year maybe.

In addition to communism-lite at home the Israeli-Palestinian conflict also gives the trade unions the chance to play Trotsky/Lenin abroad. Due to increasing cooperation with the Palestine Soldiarity Campaign a one state solution, where the Jewish state would disappear, is becoming the default position of many union members.

It is hard to see EM opposing any of this knee-jerk trade union anti-Israelism whereas DM, being a Blairite, would have been more open to persuasion and more independent.

None of this takes into account the background of the Milibands, whose late father, Ralph, was a Marxist academic and whose mother Marion Kozak is a leading member of the anti-Israel Jews for Justice for Palestinians (anti-Israel in the sense that they prefer that one-state solution).

With David “Gaza is a prison camp” Cameron, William “Israel acted dispoportionately” Hague and Nick “Ban arms sales to Israel” Clegg in the three most important positions of PM, Foreign Secretary and Deputy PM respectively and Ed Miliband as opposition leader and David Miliband, currently as shadow Foreign Secretary, things don’t bode well over the next five years for Israel.

It was DM who, while Foreign Secretary, took the decision to expel an Israeli diplomat from Britain over the assassination of a self-confessed Hamas terrorist in Dubai, without the allegation being proved, but he seems to be far more preferable to his brother for both Britain and Israel.

EM could surprise us and prove to that he isn’t in hock to the unions. We need a strong opposition. I hope to be proved wrong, but I am not hopeful.

And I hate to criticise a Leeds United supporter.

Hendon Hustings Hit Mill Hill Shul

Hendon Hustings, Mill Hill shul: Matthew Offord (C), Henry Grunwald (Chair.), Matthew Harris (LD), Andrew Dismore (L)

On wednesday night Hendon constituents heard the views of the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidates at the Mill Hill synagogue hustings.

Sadly, the Greens and UKIP, who are also standing, were not there.

All candidates should be allowed to both present their case and be questioned. Otherwise democracy hasn’t been fully administered.

And with the Greens being highly anti-Israel and UKIP generally more sympathetic, it would have spiced up the evening.

Admitedly, there is no chance of the Greens or UKIP getting an MP elected in Hendon, but that could be said of the Liberal Democrats. In 2005 the Liberal Democrats polled a miserable 5,589 votes, while Labour and the Conservatives polled 17,981 and 14,976 respectively.

It will be close on May 6th, but only between Labour and the Conservatives. It’s an exciting race, but a two-horse one.

Also, questions to the candidates were too controlled. There was no hands-up spontaneity.

A few audience members got to ask their previously emailed-in questions and that was it. End of.

After five years of what we have been through, voters should have had a chance to really vent their spleens:

– British soldiers coming back from Afghanistan in coffins.
– a hellish economy.
– inflation, deflation, inflation again.
– scandals involving the bankers and our politicians.
– increasing delegitimisation of Israel and British Jews.

I know we are British and it was in a synagogue hall but surely the sh*t should have been hitting the fan so these politicians know what we really think.

Instead each candidate calmly presented their views and were then politely questioned on:

– reducing public sector waste.
– the misery that is First Capital Connect and Mill Hill Broadway’s train service.
– the expenses debacle.
– financing for nursery schools.
– electoral reform.
– the superficiality of the televised leaders’ debates.
– the academic boycott of Israel and the use of extremist rhetoric by certain Liberal Democrat and Labour politicians.

Andrew Dismore (Labour), has been a hard-working MP and was responsible for introducing Holocaust Memorial Day and has also introduced the Holocaust (stolen art) Restitution Bill.

He also helped to reform the law on dissolving Jewish marriages, which has caused hardship to some Jewish partners.

These are serious achievements, enough to woo the Jewish vote alone especially when added to his constant support for Israel.

He also supports international arrest warrants being approved by the Attorney-General first, so putting these warrants on the same legal standing as actual prosecutions. This would stop Israeli politicians entering Britain being arrested at the whim of a single anti-Israel activist.

But his mention of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee’s targeting of him as “a Zionist” is slightly disingenuous, although understandable.

MPAC is an insidious organisation that unseated Lorna Fitzsimons in Rochdale in 2005 by claiming that she is Jewish. She isn’t. Sadly, in the current nationwide campaign death threats have already been made against some “Zionist” candidates.

However, in Mill Hill, specifically, usurping Dismore will only let in Matthew Offord (Conservative) or Matthew Harris (Liberal Democrat), both of whom are as “Zionist” as Dismore.

Neither did I think much of Matthew Harris’ claim that we should vote for him as a staunch pro-Israel voice among an increased intake of Liberal Democrat MPs, in light of the recent Clegg phenomenon.

As much as I like Harris you would have to strain every sinew in your body to vote for a party that still includes Jenny Tonge, after all she has said about Jews and Israel. Let alone allowing her to stay in the House of Lords!

The same could be said of voting Labour while Martin Linton and Gerald Kaufman are still there.

Harris felt that sacking Tonge from the party would just make her “a martyr”.

So let her be “martyred”.

Why should taxpayers continue paying her a comfortable daily allowance for just turning up to the Lords?

Matthew Offord (Conservative) proposes putting more police on the streets to deal with the increasing anti-Semitic incidents, which I agree with.

The Conservatives must also carry out their pledge to deal with the preachers of hate stirring up trouble in our universities as well as banning Hizb ut Tahrir.

Tough on anti-Semitism, tough on the causes of anti-Semitism.

Andrew Dismore pointed to the difficulty of banning Hizb ut Tahrir for lack of evidence that connects them to terrorist activity. But the government did manage to ban Islam4UK, so why not Hizb ut Tahrir? This is a cop out.

Surprisingly, there was no mention of the controversial JFS decision all evening.

While I am as concerned as anyone about the domestic ongoings of the last five year under Labour, this government’s moral integrity is highly in doubt when it comes to dealing with a supposed ally like Israel.

While our troops are fighting Taleban Islamist terrorism in Afghanistan, and even the Liberal Democrats support that war, the Israeli Army is being castrated in its efforts to fight Hamas Islamist terrorism.

The most cowardly manifestations of this by Labour were its recent refusal to vote against the Goldstone Report that claims Israel committed war crimes when fighting Hamas in Gaza last year and implicitly denouncing Israel for allegedly killing one self-confessed Hamas terrorist in Dubai, when it sacked an Israeli diplomat just because British passports were used.

Meanwhile, NATO troops are pinpointing and whacking terrorists regularly now in Pakistan.

But David Cameron does not quite get Israel and what it is up against either judging by his recent comment that east Jerusalem is “occupied”.

His comment is inexplicable seeing that he understands the problems that we have with preachers of hate radicalising our students.

What does Cameron think these preachers use to radicalise students other than Israel and Jerusalem? Instead of adopting some of their rhetoric he needs to be more nuanced.

Overall there are far more in the Conservative Party than the other parties, including Matthew Offord and the likes of Michael Gove, that do get Israel and the problems of radicalisation in this country.

They should be given the chance to prove themselves.

(If anyone wants an audio of the hustings feel free to contact me).

Miliband puts Israel on tourist warning list

The Foreign Office has just added this official warning on its site for visitors who wish to travel to Israel:

“UK passport holders should be aware of a recent Serious Organised Crime Agency investigation into the misuse of UK passports in the murder of Mahmud al-Mabhuh in Dubai on 19 January 2010. The SOCA investigation found circumstantial evidence of Israeli involvement in the fraudulent use of British passports. This has raised the possibility that your passport details could be captured for improper uses while your passport is out of your control. The risk applies in particular to passports without biometric security features. We recommend that you only hand your passport over to third parties including Israeli officials when absolutely necessary.”

David Miliband, Britain’s Foreign Secretary, made a statement that an Israeli diplomat will be expelled from the UK, eventhough this had been on the BBC website since this morning implying a Foreign Office leak to the BBC.

David Miliband, Britain's Foreign Secretary

But all such statements should first of all be made to us, the British public, via our elected MPs, and not to the unelected BBC.

Miliband would not name the Israel diplomat except to say that he or she had been picked by the Foreign Office which seems to imply that this person is directly responsible for the faking of the passports that allowed for the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai.

There was agreement with Miliband’s action by both William Hague (Cons. Shadow Foreign Secretray) and Ed Davey (LibDem. Shadow Foreign Secretary).

At no time was a specific allegation made by these three that Israel carried out the Dubai assassination.

Then we had the MPs who were there specifically, in a relatively empty House of Commons, to get their prime TV time at the expense of Israel:

Gerald Kaufman (Labour) spoke of Israel’s corrupt government and Israel’s corrupt Ben Gurion airport (although, hilariously, Julian Lewis (Cons.) said it was highly unlikely that Israel would clone Kaufman’s passport.)
Mark Durkan (SDLP) was unhappy with Miliband’s use of the term “alleged murder”.
Angus MacNeil (SNP) demanded that Israel apologises.
Ming Campbell (LibDem) spoke of the “killing” in Dubai.

Others also spoke and generally expressed the sentiment that this assassination was “murder” and should be tried accordingly as should the charge of fraud for cloning the passports.

It is a sad state of affairs that while our soldiers are attempting to kill terrorists in Afghanistan to try to make us safe on Britain’s streets Israel is condemned and punished for trying to do that for its own citizens.

But this is not about the killing or the passports, it is about the fact that British passports were used. Miliband said that of all the cloned passports used for the assassination the highest number were British. Hence the Foreign Office warning above.

Presumably, there would therefore have been no such outcry had none of the passports had been British.

But without such a cloning al-Mabhouh would still be alive today planning more atrocities against Israel’s civilians. And it is highly unlikely that Mossad, if it was Mossad, would clone British passports in the future after the current uproar.

In addition in the House today there was no criticism of al-Mabhouh or Dubai, which let al-Mabhouh come and go on many a false passport. In fact Miliband said he would continue to support Dubai in its investigation!

Not only has Israel lost a diplomat but tourism to Israel will now suffer due to this warning.

More than that, yet again, our Parliament has been demeaned by the sight of Israel-bashing MPs having an opportunity to paint a grotesque portrait of Israel while going unchallenged even by the likes of Miliband, Hague and Davey.

Lib Dems launch Mezuzah War

A mezuzah.

With the general election and the Jewish festival of Passover both approaching it is ironic to see some politicians making the same decision the Almighty made when smiting the first born son of each Egyptian family to persuade Pharoah to release the Jews.

Thousands of years ago Jewish families marked the front of their own homes so the Almighty would “pass over” and leave their own first born sons unharmed. It worked and Moses was allowed by the evil Pharoah to finally lead the Jews from slavery to freedom.

This time it is the Lib Dems who are deciding which houses to “pass over” but with a view to entering not so much the Promised Land as the House of Commons.

But there’s a problem. Camden council contains the two parliamentary constituencies of Hampstead and Kilburn, where the MP is Glenda Jackson, and Holborn and St. Pancras, where the MP is Frank Dobson.

In Hampstead and Kilburn the election will be close. In 2005 Jackson got 14,615 votes and the Conservatives and Lib Dems received 10,886 and 10,293 votes respectively.

Jackson was elected as Labour MP in 1992 and with her majority on the slide ever since it is highly probable that she will be out of a job after 6th May.

In Holborn and St. Pancras in 2005 Dobson secured victory for Labour with 14,857 votes. The Lib Dems came second with 10,070 votes.

And so the Lib Dems are in with a chance of not only being in control of Camden council but they could turn Camden completely yellow if they take these two parliamentary seats as well.

But the Lib Dems are already not fighting fair before the general election has even been officially called.

Chris Philp, the Conservative Candidate, has written about the different leaflets put out by the Lib Dems depending on whether a family is Jewish or Muslim.

Chris Philp (right) at a Conservative Friends of Israel event

We know how horrendous the Lib Dems are about Israel.

Without needing to mention Baroness Jenny Tonge, Chris Davies MEP and Sarah Teather MP the most hostile of all to Israel, because he is the one who ultimately makes the decisions, is Nick Clegg MP, the Lib Dem leader.

Clegg advocates Israel being left without any defence against Hamas rocket barrages by calling for Israel to be disarmed.

So if Nick Clegg becomes Foreign Secretary, a distinct possibility with recent opinion polls implying a hung parliament, Israeli citizens could be fearing for their lives.

Clegg’s hostile attitude is now reproduced in Lib Dem leaflets in Holborn and St Pancras, with its large Bangladeshi community, where Israel is continuously vilified by Jo Shaw, the Lib Dem candidate.

“Stop Arming Israel” screams her leaflets.

Jo Shaw's leaflet in the Holborn and St Pancras constituency

But if you are living in the adjoining constituency of Hampstead and Highgate, with its disproportionately high Jewish population, the story is completely different.

There, Ed Fordham, the Lib Dem candidate has inserted into his leaflets photos of himself in Israel and has even included Hebrew. These leaflets are aimed at placating the Jewish households.

Chris Philp thinks that the Lib Dems might “have compiled a list of Jewish people in the area”.

It is much easier than that. All these crafty Lib Dems need do is see if there is a Mezuzah on the front door. If there is then through the letterbox goes the Israel-friendly leaflet. If there isn’t then that letterbox gets “passed over”.

Ed Fordham (left) in Israel

Sadly, attempting to manipulate the feelings of religious minorities has paid off before. In the 2005 General Election Lorna Fitzsimons, the then Labour MP, lost in Rochdale.

The 2006 Report of the All Parliamentary Committee into anti-Semitism found that the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, in order to help unseat Fitzsimons, distributed leaflets stating “she had done nothing to help the Palestinians because she was a Jewish member of the Labour Friends of Israel”.

One problem, Lorna Fitzsimons is not Jewish.

A similar deligitimising campaign is already underway against Luciana Berger who is standing as the Labour Party candidate in the Liverpool Wavertree constituency. She has already been labelled that “well-known Zionist”.

I am sure that the average voter is savvy enough not to be fooled by Lib Dem mind games but at least when Jewish families are sat around their passover tables and they hear that political leaflet drop on to the mat they will finally be able to answer that all important Passover question:

Why is this political leaflet different from all other political leaflets?

Luciana Berger: Liverpool Wavertree's Labour Candidate

Dont vote Liberal Democrat if you value Israel

Just when I have my mind on starting another thread George Galloway has hit the headlines yet again. If this man could divide himself into three it wouldn’t be enough.

George is a sometime TV personality, a Respect Party MP, a Radio presenter, a newspaper columnist and one of the most committed pro-Palestinian activists this country has seen. He would fit in well with Liberal Democrat foreign policy but he did an Ariel Sharon and set up his own party after leaving Labour.

Last year on a speaking tour of North America he was banned from entering Canada and now he has been deported from Egypt, according to activists, having tried to get back to the Rafah crossing into Gaza to join the Viva Palestina convoy that crossed into Gaza on wednesday, after much violence and the death of an Egyptian border guard at the hands of a Palestinian sniper.

But why do so many normally reasonably minded people in the world not get what Israel and Egypt both get: That Gaza is trouble.

True, the people of Gaza are hemmed in. But that does not mean they are not receiving basic provisions. As Jonathan Hoffman has reported, in December alone:

– Six more water desalination systems were transferred to the Gaza Strip;
– 15 truckloads of cellular communications equipment were delivered to the Palestinian mobile phone carrier, Jawal;
– Strawberries and flowers were exported;
– Glass was brought in for home repairs and renovations in preparation for the winter;
– 750 tons of aggregate were transferred for maintenance of the North Gaza Wastewater Treatment plant.
– 2179 truckloads (48,237 tons) of humanitarian aid entered via the Kerem Shalom cargo terminal and the Karni conveyor belt.
– 7,173,468 litres of heavy-duty diesel for the Gaza power station and 2276 tons of cooking gas were delivered via the Kerem Shalom crossing and the Nahal Oz fuel depot.

But then you have the leader of one of our more respectable political parties, Nick Clegg MP of the Liberal Democrats, also being consistently anti-Israel.

Nick Clegg MP, Liberal Democrat leader.

For many years this hasn’t mattered but with the British general election in June this year expected to be close we could find the Conservatives or Labour (i.e. the biggest party but not big enough to form a majority) trying to entice the Libs into coalition and one of the jobs offered to the Libdems could be that of Foreign Secretary. Worryingly, David Cameron has suggested that he would work with the Liberal Democrats in coalition.

And the current Liberal Democrat Shadow Foreign Secretary is Ed Davey, who has called on the British Government to act on the Goldstone Report which has accused Israel of committing war crimes during the Gaza War.

Ed Davey MP, Liberal Democrat Shadow Foreign Secretary

It is worrying for Israel that a party of only 63 MPs and 11 MEPs (one of whom, Chris Davies MEP for North West England, told a Jewish constituent that he hoped she enjoyed wallowing in her own filth) is so packed with anti-Israel polemicists.

Then there are Lord Steel of Aikwood, the former leader and Baroness Tonge, who recently said: “The way Israel behaves is just not kosher. Jewish people should be totally ashamed of themselves that they are not doing more to stop them. It’s absolutely disgusting.”

Sarah Teather, the Liberal Democrat MP for Brent East, is also a regular at anti-Israel events.

And now to Nick Clegg, the current leader. He just doesn’t get Gaza or how dangerous it is. If both Israel and Egypt think Gaza is dangerous (both are building walls to keep the terrorists out of these respective countries) what right does Mr Clegg have to call for a complete ban on the sale of arms to Israel, which he did last January when Israel was fighting Hamas.

Now he has called for a lifting of the blockade of Gaza by both Israel and Egypt as if this is all just some big game.

The Liberal Democrats have always been anti-Israel (it still amazes me how many Jews vote for them) but putting the civilians of another country at risk by not selling the country arms to defend itself against Islamist terrorists illustrates how misguided these polticians are.

This thursday afternoon Kassam rockets were once again hitting Israel’s southern towns.

The Kassams were fired by the Popular Resistance Committee. Luckily, no one was injured but Israel hit back and, once again, has dropped thousands of leaflets telling the people of Gaza not to co-operate with the terrorists or approach the security wall.

William Gladstone, Liberal Party founder

The Liberal Democrats have some very reasonably minded people in their party, including Vince Cable and Chris Huhne, and a small but active Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel. But a few individuals apart it is a shame that the party founded by William Gladstone has been brought so low that it can call for a country like Israel, which is defending itself against brutal terrorists who target innocent civilians, to be essentially disarmed.

Things are, sadly, hotting up again on Israel’s southern border and when Israel has to fight Hamas again and Britain has a new government with, possibly, Ed Davey as its Foreign Secretary, don’t be surprised if Britain’s support, minimal as it is now, becomes totally non-existent.

The Liberal Democrats may have some interesting and innovative domestic policies but their biased musings on the Middle East conflict will not contribute to peace in any way, shape or form.