How Zionist lobby shapes UK politics

The wealthy Jewish lobby in Britain working under the title of the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) has been tipped as the Conservative Party's paymaster.




The CFI as described by British political analysts is beyond doubt the most well- connected and probably the best funded of all Westminster lobbying groups. It works in support of the interests of the Israeli regime.


The CFI's finances may be legal but they are hardly transparent as the lobbying group is an unincorporated association. This is how the British media report about CFI's financial transactions.


The register of MPs' interests shows that CFI board members and their businesses gave the Conservatives over 2 million pounds in the last 8 years.


The reports also say more than 30,000 pound from CFI members went to campaign funds of the members of Prime Minister David Cameron's team when he was first elected as the party leader in2005.


Also in 2005, Cameron himself had received 15,000 pound from a pro-Israeli lobby facilitator. The facilitator had also donated 50,000 pounds to the Conservative Central Office.


“Donations from all CFI members and their businesses to the Conservative Party of Britain have topped over 10 million pounds over the past 8 years”, according to reliable sources inside the UK.


Here's an example of how the pro-Israeli lobby works in the UK.


After the 22-day Israeli war on the Gaza Strip a fact-finding team was appointed to conduct an inquiry into the war and identify the culprits.


A few weeks since the UN was to vote on a resolution following judge Goldstone's report who condemned Israel for abusing human rights in Gaza, the CFI ran up to now foreign secretary William Hague office and after consulting with David Cameron, he gave them this quote:


“Unless the draft resolution is redrafted to reflect the role that Hamas played in starting the conflict we would recommend that the British government vote to reject the resolution”.


But, it was under former Prime Minister Tony Blair that the Israel lobby first acquired real influence in government.
Former chairman of the Labour friends of Israel John Mandelson boasted:


“Zionism is pervasive in new Labour, it's automatic that Blair will come to Labour friends of Israel's meetings”.


Shortly before Blair became Labour party leader in 1994 he met Michael Levy the pop music millionaire at a social event arranged by the Israeli embassy. They became friends, played tennis and Levy became Blair's fundraiser. It's estimated that he raised almost 15 million pounds for Labour before the row over cash for peerages.


When Tony Blair became prime minister in 1997, he awarded Michael Levy a life peerage and made him his special envoy to the Middle East, but because Levy was unpaid and working directly to the prime minister, what he negotiated between the Israeli entity and Arabs on behalf of Britain was kept secret.

(source:presstv.ir)

Hamas leader accuses Israel of holding up Shalit deal

Noam Shalit meeting with the Sephardic Chief Rabbi, Shlomo Amar, in Jerusalem on Wednesday.
Report: Shalit talks to be deferred until after Eid al-Adha; Hamas: Shalit swap stuck on prisoner list.






A senior Hamas official in the Gaza Strip, Khalil Al-Hayya, accused Israel on Wednesday of holding up negotiations over a deal to secure the release of abducted Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit.

The Gaza leader told a Hamas-linked Web site that Israel had not met the demands of the groups holding Shalit. But he did not say that the deal had been torpedoed or had failed.

Meanwhile, the Al-Arabiya TV network reported on Wednesday that the negotiations over Shalit would be postponed until after the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, which begins on Friday.
Advertisement


Al-Hayya's comments came after other Hamas officials said the talks between Hamas and Israel have hit a snag over some of the top militants the Islamic group wants freed in return Shalit, and a deal is unlikely in the coming days.

Israel is objecting to some of the names put forward by Hamas, a senior official of the militant group familiar with the negotiations told The Associated Press. He said the German mediator shuttling between the sides has presented an alternative list of names provided by Israel, and Hamas leaders are studying it.

Shalit was captured by Gaza militants in a cross border raid in June 2006, and has been held prisoner since. Contention over the names on the list of Palestinian prisoners submitted by Hamas to Israel for release has held up the prisoner exchange on more than one occasion.

Meanwhile, an Egyptian source told Fox News that a final decision on the deal that would see Shalit released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners does not rest solely on Hamas, but rather it is Israel that must decide whether to green light several of the names on Hamas' list and make the exchange happen.

As officials in Israel awaited Hamas' final answer, Gilad Shalit's father Noam was hard at work soliciting support among government officials for the potential deal. Should both sides agree upon the terms of the exchange, it would only be carried out after the deal was approved in a cabinet vote.

Noam Shalit met on Wednesday with Israel's Sephardic Chief Rabbi, Shlomo Amar, who spoke with him about the Jewish imperative of freeing captives.

"After I pray for the return of Gilad to his home, I will add a prayer for the government to come to the right decision on this matter," Amar said.

Shalit is expected to also meet with Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger.

Noam Shalit also met with Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz and Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau on Wednesday. At the Knesset, Shalit told reporters that "we still don't have any news, we are in the process of meeting with ministers. That is the situation right now."


Waiting on Meshal

Hamas' Damascus-based political leader Khaled Meshal was scheduled to relay to the Hamas delegation his decision on the latest compromise drafted by the German mediator. Simultaneously, Israel's security cabinet was also set to meet Wednesday afternoon on another previously scheduled issue.

The London-based Arabic language daily Al Hayat reported that the Hamas leadership was split over the Israeli compromise proposal. According to the report, senior Damascus-based Hamas officials are in disagreement: while the more extreme officials insist on the release of all the prisoners on their list, more moderate Hamas leaders contend that it is futile to expect that Israel meet all of the group's demands.

The Arab daily also said that for the first time since Shalit's abduction over three years ago, Israel has agreed to release Palestinian prisoners considered "heavy" - or having committed serious crimes. However, Hamas sources told an Al Hayat reporter in Cairo that Israel still refuses to release some of the prisoners on the list, and has even turned down a Palestinian proposal to deport those men from the Palestinian territories following their release.

Among the prisoners Israel refuses to release are Ibrahim Hamed, the former commander of Hamas' military wing and the mastermind behind the terror bombing at Moment cafe in Jerusalem; Abdallah Barghouti, a relative of Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti and another mastermind of the Moment attack as well as terror attacks at Sbarro pizza parlor in Jerusalem and on Allenby Street in Tel Aviv.

The sources confirmed to Al Hayat that progress has been achieved in the negotiations over the prisoner swap, but added that the final decision will be made on Wednesday as the Damascus-based Hamas leadership reviews its options.

Earlier Wednesday, a senior Israeli official told Army Radio that the U.S. administration was opposed to the emerging understandings between Israel and Hamas surrounding the deal. "The U.S. does not support negotiations with terror organizations," the official said. "Washington knows that any release of Palestinian prisoners to the West Bank could harm Palestinian President Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) and become a victory for Hamas," he added.

The pro-Israel lobby AIPAC also voiced concern over the possible prisoner swap but refrained from explicitly criticizing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Senior AIPAC strategist Josh Block said: "This is a wrenching situation and a reminder of the kind of difficult choices Israel must make when it is beset by enemies. And it is entirely for the democratically elected government of Israel to make these decisions, not for anyone else, and that as Americans who support Israel, we have only empathy for Israel."

Source:haaretz.com/

Arab states lobbying the EU over Israel's nuclear program

August 14, 2009 (Pal Telegraph)- Arab states are lobbying the European Union for support in their drive to force Israel to open up its secretive nuclear program to international perusal, documents made available to The Associated Press show.



In a letter addressed to Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, Amre Moussa, secretary general of the 22-nation League of Arab States, urges Sweden to back an Arab resolution entitled "Israel's Nuclear Capabilities." The document is to be submitted for a vote at next month's 150-nation general assembly of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Sweden currently holds the EU's rotating presidency. Diplomats from EU member countries and from other nations accredited to the IAEA told the AP Thursday that the same letter was sent to the foreign ministers of the other 26 EU member countries. They demanded anonymity for commenting on a confidential issue.

While Israel has never confirmed its status, it is commonly considered to have nuclear weapons, and Arab states regularly push at the annual IAEA conference for it to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and open its facilities for IAEA perusal.

General conference resolutions sponsored by the Arab League express concern about "Israeli nuclear capabilities" and ask the IAEA to help implement the nonproliferation treaty regime on Israel.

A draft of the resolution prepared for next month's conference that was attached to the letter to Bildt gives voice to those same concerns and demands.

But in a new twist, it welcomes "recent initiatives calling for a 'nuclear weapons-free world'" an allusion to President Barack Obama's April call to abolish nuclear weapons that appeared calculated to generate extra support for the anti-Israel resolution.

While the Americans are not expected to end their support for Israel at the weeklong conference, which opens Sept. 14, the phrase was expected to give a platform for U.S. rivals such as Iran in their criticism of Washington's backing of the Jewish state.

Muslim nations consider Israel the region's main nuclear threat. The United States and its allies see Iran's defiance of the U.N. Security Council in its development of technology that could be used to make the bomb as the greatest me-nace to Middle East peace.

Iran says it wants to perfect the technology uranium enrichment not to make the fissile core of nuclear warheads but for fuel to generate power.

"We are hopeful that your country would support the Arab draft resolution," says the June 29 letter to Bildt. "Un-fortunately," Sweden was among the EU nations voting to block action on the document last year, Moussa wrote.

In Stockholm, Swedish foreign ministry spokesman Anders Jorle said Thursday the Swedish EU presidency was preparing an answer on behalf of the European Union but no final stance had yet been decided.

The votes of the 27 members of the EU are important for both opponents and proponents of censuring Israel at the conference the motion critical of the Jewish state was only narrowly defeated last year. That indicated growing support for the Arab initiative, particularly among developing countries.