A Jewish group meet their MP – who is a Vice Chair of the APPG on British Jews

JVL Introduction

The recently elected MP for Hastings and Rye is Helena Dollimore who is also one of two Vice Chairs of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG)  on British Jews.  As in so many parts of the UK – and across the world – Jewish people who support justice for Palestinians and are critical of Israel have formed local groups  as a way of standing up to be counted.  Nationally, there is a growing movement to insist on representation, by thousands of people of Jewish heritage, many very prominent; currently visible on the Jewish bloc on the marches trying to influence the government to stop being so complicit and indeed directly involved in Israel’s military actions. Behind the scenes, a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury already has hundreds of signatures from people – us included – who are currently being silenced, while the Board of Deputies (BoD) is erroneously taken to be the voice of all Jewish people. There is growing urgency felt that the pro-Israel perspective by people of Jewish descent  should not be the only perspective taken into consideration by the Government, or cited in the media, as is almost always the case for decades. In the past year, this has become competently blatant – including the BBC’s supposedly ‘balanced’ reportage.

We trust that our comrades in other local and national groups might be interested in our recent meeting with our MP and the many important points outlined in this report, which, hopefully, could be useful in a meeting with your own representatives – not least that several Prime Ministers, both Labour and Tory,  did halt arms sales to Israel.

It took three months to get the meeting, but now at least our MP has some sense of an alternative Jewish voice.

FL

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On Friday 18^th October, Helena Dollimore MP met with Felicity Laurence and Teresa Thornhill, representatives of Hastings Jews for Justice (HJJ), a recently formed group of over 30 people of Jewish heritage in her constituency who take an Israel-critical view.

As described in this article in Hastings Online Times, HJJ is a “broad coalition of Jews and those of Jewish heritage who stand against the ongoing genocide, occupation and apartheid in Palestine and the continued violations of international law by the Israeli government”. We had for some months been requesting an urgent meeting with Ms Dollimore, in the face of continued UK Government refusal  to bring maximum pressure to bear upon Israel’s continuing and rapidly escalating actions, now in particular in Lebanon and in Northern Gaza.  Ms Dollimore finally reached out to us after an open letter to her was published, and the meeting was arranged for 18^th October.

Among Jewish people across the UK, and indeed elsewhere, including Germany and the United States, there is a growing expression of revulsion at Israel’s actions.  Groups like ours are springing up across the UK, collectively a valid and powerful alternative to the “pro-Israel” perspective of other groups within a diverse Jewish community; these include the Board of Deputies, which by no means speaks for everyone of Jewish heritage.

We contend with ongoing efforts to silence us; this has indeed happened here in Hastings, where attempts have been made to stop us from speaking publicly. But we too want our voice to be heard, respected, and consulted by the media and by our politicians. Accordingly, we asked Ms Dollimore to consider our views, and to represent our voice in Parliament. We will be sending to her a question for her to ask in the Commons, where she is commendably active in raising other issues for her constituents.

In our meeting, we stressed that we constitute a significant Jewish voice in her constituency, where most of us are visibly active in various contexts, some of us also with national and international profiles. We highlighted our own collective depth of understanding about Israel’s history and the present crisis. Many of us have worked in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. Between us, we have legal, educational, journalistic, academic, authorial, religious and political expertise.

Furthermore, we all have a connection with the genocide of Jewish people in the Holocaust, some as direct descendants. Many of us have experienced antisemitism in our lives too; we know what this looks like.

We emphasised to Ms Dollimore our core declaration;  that criticising Israel’s actions is not antisemitic.

Ms Dollimore agreed that the situation in Gaza is appalling, claiming strongly that the UK Government is doing absolutely everything possible to bring this war to an end, listing various Government actions. However, we disagreed on this point, and went on to present a number of specific arguments, focussing firstly upon the urgent need for a full arms embargo. Points we made include the following.

ARMS EMBARGO

• UK law states that if there’s a clear risk UK weapons might be used for serious violations of international humanitarian law, or international human rights law, export licences shouldn’t be granted. This comes from the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) Articles 6 and 7 and UK’s Strategic Export Licensing Criteria, criteria 1 and 2. Under ATT Art 7, the export authority must inter alia take into account the risk of the arms being used to commit violence against women and children. We know that women and children are the main victims of Israel’s assaults.

• The government argues that its reluctance to impose a ban on the sale of components for aircraft is partly because it is difficult to know which planes Israel uses in particular attacks. This is not true: there was a well-documented attack by an F35 on 13 July in which 90 people were killed and 300 injured in the ‘safe zone’ of Al Mawasi in Gaza.

• The deployment of F-35s by Israel has been repeatedly confirmed since the current onset of attacks on Gaza, including their role in dropping 2000lb bombs on densely populated areas .

• While David Lammy has banned the direct sale to Israel of parts for  F35 fighter jets (15% of each jet, according to UK Defence Journal), he has refused to ban the sale of these parts into the ‘global supply programme’, in the full knowledge that the US is free to buy them and donate or sell them on to Israel for use in Gaza.

Another crucial issue is that the UK has limited its assessment of possible violations of international law by Israel to looking only at restrictions on food and medical supplies, and torture of detainees; it has failed to make an assessment on air strikes. Al Haq (a long-established Palestinian human rights association) states that:

‘By avoiding an assessment of airstrikes the UK is turning a blind eye to flagrant violations of international law, including those that directly implicate the F-35 jet’

Senior lawyer at Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) Dearbhla Minogue says ‘This reads like they are doing this to protect the F-35 war plane over and above civilian lives’ (from Al Haq press release of 3.9.24)

Importantly, the government’s reluctance to impose a full arms embargo goes against earlier decisions taken by both Tory and Labour governments in the past:

Ted Heath banned sales of arms both to Israel and Arab opponents in the 1973 Yom Kippur war.

Margaret Thatcher instigated a ban on arms provision during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, a ban which continued for 12 years to 1994;  Thatcher refused to go along with US policy, telling Reagan that a “balanced policy” was best and warning that “unlimited support for Israel can only lead to growing polarisation and despair in the Arab world”.

Tony Blair imposed a secret arms embargo on Israel in 2002, during the second intifada.

And Gordon Brown in 2009  imposed restrictions on arms sales to Israel when it launched an attack on Gaza, “Operation Cast Lead”, in 2009, which killed over 1,400 Palestinians.

Some further points we made:

* Israel’s assaults on the Palestinian people are visible to all on social media and TV; the government cannot hide the acts of aggression to which it is turning a blind eye.

* The UK is now seen all over the global south as no longer respecting international law, which  undermines our authority in international affairs.

* Having ratified the Genocide Convention, the UK is under a legal duty to prevent and punish genocide but instead it is effectively condoning it. We would add here that it has recently been reported that the UK has flown 47% of 1600 ‘reconnaissance’ flights over Gaza in the last year, to assist Israel, which itself only flew 20% of the 1600. Furthermore, UK bases are among those being used for the airbridge built for the transport of weapons to Israel, with more than 1200 military cargo flights recorded.  This direct involvement surely in itself renders the UK unquestionably complicit in this genocide. 

We concluded with our view that Israel’s argument of self-defence does not hold water. The destruction of Gaza and its people does nothing to bring the hostages home, makes Israel less safe, makes peace more difficult to attain and makes Jews and Israelis vulnerable to attack all over the world. Some Israelis see this; they believe that their extreme right wing government is driving Israel into a hole it will never get out of. On 24^th October, this letter was published in the Guardian, signed by 2,000* Israelis who are begging for immediate international intervention to ‘save us from ourselves’.

We find that the message from our Government is an appalling one for our children and young people: they see for themselves that it is standing by while thousands of children and their mothers and fathers are being killed. It is deeply shocking for children to see this and will make them cynical about UK policy for decades to come.

Ms Dollimore listened carefully to us, and in her summing up of our meeting, mentioned also that she is listening to groups from all persuasions. Among these are other Jewish people, which will also be part of her work as a Vice Chair of the  All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) [for]British Jews, which, she explained, currently focuses upon antisemitism in the UK; its general charter includes consideration of the  challenges faced by  the UK Jewish community.

It was clear that Helena shares our distress at the terrible events in Gaza and beyond, and the unspeakable suffering of so many people, especially the children, as she said at the conclusion of our meeting.

We concluded with these requests: that, as a matter of protocol, Ms Dollimore forward our (updated)  letter directly to Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Foreign Secretary David Lammy, Attorney General Richard Hermer and Under Secretary of State for the Middle East Hamish Falconer, which expands upon the points discussed in the meeting;

* that she put forward our views concerning UK policy on Israel and Gaza, both in Parliament and in the APPG [for] British Jews;

* that she sign this Early Day Motion, calling for more urgent action to restrain Israel, and already attracting 54 cross-party signatories including many of her Labour colleagues.

It was agreed that she and her team would provide a list of actions taken once these have been completed

*as at 27.10.24 there are 3,200 signatories. (ED)