Thursday, March 01, 2007

Labour Friends of Israel

In December 2006, I emailed a group called "Labour friends of Israel" as follows:

Subject: B'Tselem annual report
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2006 07:01:13 +0000
From: Joe McGonagle
To: mail@lfi.org.uk

Hello,

Israeli civil rights organisation "B'Tselem" published it's
annual report two days ago. Some of the low-lights are:

* 660 Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces, at least
322 of which were not involved in active hostilities at the time,
and 141 of which were minors. This is in comparison to a total of
23 Israelis killed by Palestinians including 17 civilians, one of
which was a minor.

* Israel demolished in the order of 300 Palestinian homes,
rendering about 1,800 Palestinians homeless. The Palestinians
didn't demolish any Israeli homes.

The report can be read in all of it's gory detail at:

http://www.btselem.org/english/Press_Releases/20061228.asp

Please can you advise:

1) What pressure LFI is bringing to bear on Israel to curtail
their inhumane activities against the Palestinians?

2) Does LFI regard B'Tselem as a reliable source of information?
If not, why is that?

3) What are LFI's views about the contents of B'Tselem's annual
report?

Regards,

Joe McGonagle
(UK voter, Stoke-on-Trent)

Guess what? No response.

Taking a look at the members list of LFI is reminiscent of the "cash for Honours" scandal. Elsewhere, I mentioned a reported scam whereby US grants to Israel were being filtered back to lobby groups and political parties in the USA. Could something similar be happening here? Let's hope the "cash for honours" investigation turns something up.

Joe McGonagle

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