Discovering Israel — Part 4

What I learned from the book: Friends of Israel by Hil Aked

This is the third book that Merton PSC (Palestine Solidarity Campaign) book club chose to read. It’s as much about Israel as it is about Britain. In fact, it’s about the presence and power of Israel in the politics, media, academia, even civil society in the UK. And what a mess!

The book does a good job of trying to organise this mess, but as you can imagine, since many of the topics overlap, this is not an easy task. Plus, one thing is connected to another, there is a domino effect with the whole thing. The book is easy to read, easy to grasp, but talking about it is another issue.

I’ll try to make this article as short as possible, and as simple as possible. To that end, I’ll start with a ‘case study’ we learn about from the book because it features all the main issues.

Tricycle Theatre affair (page 116) is a good example of how it all merges together. Here we have, religion, culture, international film festivals, media, civil society, and politicians all involved. We have lies, misleading information, manipulation, injustice, pressure, and , frankly, lack of activity from those who think differently — you name it, it’s all in this little affair.

So let’s take a look at this affair, pages 116–126:

“The UK Jewish Film Festival, founded in 1997, is predominantly an important Jewish cultural event. However, according to its chair, the festival had also been ‘associated’ with the Israeli embassy’s sponsorship reportedly totalled just £1,400 in 2014, the festival programme explicitly incorporated a focus on Israel which chimed neatly with the aims of the Brand Israel strategy, showcasing a range of ‘feature films, documentaries and shorts’ not only about British Jewish life but also about ‘the diversity of… Israeli life and culture’.”

In short, Jewish and Israeli should be the same thing. As a Bosnian, and you may have read about this already, we do not like to mix religion and nationality. During Yugoslavia, we were forced to be ‘Muslims’ by nationality, even though we were Bosniaks or Bosnians. We also were not allowed to call our language Bosnian, but ‘Serbo-Croatian’ — now Serbs and Croats often wonder and object to the fact that Bosnian language is richer than Serbian and Croatian combined. Anyway, we didn’t have the right to an identity. They used our religion to remove our country. The case of Israel is similar except the other way — they’re using religion to give life to a country. Just like I stated before, I’ll state it here again: religion and nationality are two very different things. For example, if you claim to be ‘whatever religion’ it is unlikely that anyone will ask for proof, but if you say you are Israeli, British, Bosnian, or any other nationality, it is likely that you’ll be asked to provide evidence. So, think about what that means.

However, after reading this book I started to wonder about Israeli culture. Do they even have one? The answer is ‘No!’ Israel can steal Palestinian culture, bring in elements from other cultures, but it hasn’t been around long enough to have culture of their own. To make matters worse, Israel has been too busy killing since it was established to have a culture. So in terms of ‘traditions’; what could Israel possibly have? And as for ‘diversity’ in Israel? — I was stunned! Do they mean how settlers (read migrants) have come with their different views and Israel has made it their own? Let me put it this way: England can boast about diversity because one little Bosnian (me) lives here freely and other people around me enjoy hearing about my culture that I have (inevitably) brought with me to England.

So, I am going to put a pin in ‘Israeli culture’ because it seems to me they will steal that like they steal everything else.

Page 186: “One day we headed to Mount Bental to look out over the boarder to Syria. From the top we could see the Syrian town of the Old Qunietra. It’s been a ghost town since the 1973 Yom Kippur War. In 1974 UN report notes Qunietra’s ‘deliberate and total devastation’ was in violation of the Geneva Convention, but that didn’t get a mention… As it turns out — also not mentioned — we were actually in Syria under the International law… When we’d come down from the mountain we went to a fancy winery and tasted delicious Israeli wine from a sovereign Syrian territory while listening to launge music.”

This part reminded me of the time I spoke to a school kid in London and she told me about their trip to Croatia, and how Mostar was the best. So I said to her that Mostar is in Bosnia. She was shocked. I couldn’t believe they managed to cross the border twice without knowing they were going from one country to another. Last time I crossed that border I was searched. Nothing too invasive, but my bags were turned inside-out.

Croats are also known for already claiming that a fictitious country, one that they made up called ‘Herzeg-Bosna’ is Croatia. The problem with their fictitious country is that the territory is real and belongs to Bosnia. However, they will talk proudly about this ‘project’. And now, the most powerful man in Bosnia is a German who is inclined to Croatia and unreservedly makes decisions that harm Bosnia, democracy and human decency just to serve Croatian interests in Bosnia. So I know only too well what these ‘little’ things mean. One day it’s just a bunch of school kids, the next day their flag is up there, day after that… Well, there could be blood if the politicians end up being the stupid kind.

Hence, I’ve learned to not take these things lightly. Just like Brits sided with Zionists to make Palestinians more ‘human’, EU is now hoping that Croats are the ‘humans’ of the Balkan. How can they be that stupid is beyond me. You’d think they had no ability to learn. Croats are one of the problems in the Balkan, and their culture is not rich. And Croatia has been around longer than Israel, so they do have enough of a culture to put on a show or two. However, Croatia has also spent more time and focus on stealing than evolving. So, they’re not all that. Hopefully, some day, they will get over their greed, and focus on becoming a decent country. They have the potential to be a decent country, but they will have to get over their greed.

I don’t know if Israel had the same potential. I’d like to think that it does, but probably not on Palestinian territory. Culturally, Palestinians are way ahead. Israel should have worked with Palestinians not against them. In short, Israel has politics, and military, though even its military might be just a copy. Its politics seems to be unique, but the name of this ‘political system’ is a bit of an enigma since it hides behind a whole bunch of lies.

To get back to the affair in London… The Jewish film festival had been hosted annually since 2006 at the Tricycle Theatre in London. In 2013, a group of anti-Zionist Jews protested outside the Tricycle for it being a part of Israeli PR campaign. A year later, when Israel bombed Gaza intensely, the board of the Tricycle decided to ask the festival to remove the Israeli embassy’s logo from its promotional materials. They offered to reimburse the small amount of sponsorship money involved to ensure the festival could go ahead.

That’s it, that’s all the Tricycle did. The artistic director said that they just didn’t want to take sides. Sounds like an apology for not supporting Israel without question. Almost like we must all bow to Israel’s every wish. If they want to bomb Gaza, who the heck are we to be against that.

Stephen Margolis (chair of the festival) claimed that it was, in essence, a cultural boycott. I’d like to ask: How? And the… So what if it was? Boycotting Israel is fine. And, perhaps more importantly, is Stephen calling Tricycle director a liar?

Judy Ironside (founder of the festival) accused the Tricycle of choosing ‘a boycott over meaningful engagement’. I’d like to ask: engagement with whom? Israel? Killers? Boycott in such situations is the least moral obligation we must all fulfil. In these situations, boycott becomes meaningful because it is at least an attempt to stop a wrongdoing. Engagement in these situations is equal to promoting a wrongdoing. It is literally taking part in supporting evil in the world.

Media then got involved. Starting with the Jewish Chronicle and Huffington Post, but then spreading to the BBC, Telegraph, Daily Mail, Independent and Times, and later even in the Guardian. Articles made it sound like the theatre banned the festival.

Let’s just pause for a moment. What is one logo compared to ‘meaningful engagement’? If the organisers were truly concerned with Jewish culture, would they have made such a big deal about this issue? I mean, it was just the involvement of the Israeli embassy, what’s the big deal? Or is it that without the embassy this festival doesn’t have a meaning? Is the embassy central to all of this?

On 15th of August, just a week after the first story appeared in the media, the Tricycle reversed their decision. In one week, different elements of Zionist movement had mobilised to apply pressure.

Let’s pause for a moment again to consider some vital questions.

1. How much freedom do we have?

2. How much power do the Zionists have?

3. Where is the line? Is Israeli embassy the force in this country?

4. What is going on with our media?

5. How did we stoop so low? When? How did we not see it until this genocide in Gaza?

The book goes on to describe some ‘grassroot’ groups that emerged in the summer of 2014. However…

“Campaign Against Antisemitism (one of the grassroots that emerged just before the Tricycle affair) enjoyed remarkable levels of elite support as well as proximity and access to state power. For instance, several members of the Parliament supportive of Conservative Friends of Israel (Bob Blackman, Matthew Offord, Eric Prickles and Mike Freer) were originally listed as its patrons, alongside Labour Friends of Israel Stalwart Lord Parry Mitchell. In addition, Campaign Against Antisemitism’s chair lobbied at the very highest political levels, meeting then Home Secretary Theresa May in January 2015…”

I have been in the sector for more than two decades. I have been involved in many grassroots. In fact, grassroots were always my favorite of all the Voluntary Sector organisations. I have never heard of anything like this. I’m not saying it does not exist, it might, but generally speaking, people who have access to power, do not need a grassroot. Why would they bother with creating a grassroot organisation if they have access to people in power? And they make it look so easy to have a meeting with the Home Secretary. But, I will talk a lot more about the Voluntary sector. For now, let’s get back to the Tricycle affair.

The grassroots were also seen to be ‘leaning to the right’, with extremely questionable beliefs about humanity. It is a surprise that such groups were allowed, under the British Legal system, to even operate, let alone have such power. And they had the power to shape the media narratives regarding the Tricycle affair. Most grassroots I know struggle to get their voice heard at all, let alone have the power to control the narrative. And if that wasn’t enough, they organised protests, sent provocative and offensive emails, and made phone calls accusing the theatre of racism. One of the placards had the slogan ‘Boycott Divides, Culture Unites’ — odd! Boycotts are uniting people, as far as I can tell. We are getting really good at boycotting Israel.

The book gives more details on the pressure that the theatre faced from all kinds of ‘players’, yet it could not get its side of the story out.

“The real threat to the theatre’s funding came from Sajid Javid, Conservative secretary of state for culture, media and sport at the time. A long standing member of the Conservative Friends of Israel, Javid had visited Israel several times and praised the country for its ‘warm embrace of freedom and liberty’. On 12 August 2014, senior figures in two key pro-Israel organisations wrote to Javid urging him to intervene in the matter…

On the same day that ‘this’ letter was sent, Javid was quoted in the press criticising the Tricycle. However, what even these leading supporters of Israel apparently did not yet know was that behind the scenes and away from the media furore, Javid had in fact already been closely personally involved in the row several days before — making what seems to have been decisive intervention…

However, correspondence disclosed through freedom of information requests reveals the full extent of their (Javid’s and ambassador Daniel Taub’s) behind-the-scenes activities, which went entirely unreported in the press…

Interestingly, Javid appears to have acknowledged that interference in the Tricycle case would be inconsistent with the principle that government should not meddle with freedom of expression in cultural sphere… In pro-Israel circles, Javid claimed credit for the theatre’s U-turn more explicitly, making clear that his involvement had gone far beyond public criticism alone.”

Javid probably acted for his personal gain in terms of promotion. The damage he has cause by acting like a dictator rather than a representative in a democracy cannot be measured. However, what’s really shocking and what we must pay attention to is what he chose to serve to gain personal benefit — working closely with the Israeli ambassador! Can we claim sovereignty if our politicians see their power in serving interests of another country? This affair was never about banning the Jewish film festival. It was about removing Israeli embassy logo at the time when Israel was bombing Gaza and killing innocent people. In short, this whole affair was to make sure that the logo of the Israeli embassy featured in the film festival. No questions asked. The logo MUST be there. No objections on any grounds welcome. And one of our own politicians saw to it.

This affair should be studied in schools. We must all know all the details of this affair. Of course, I am assuming academic freedom. Let’s be honest, academia in the UK is not free of the Israeli influence. It’s not free now, and hasn’t been for a long time.

Page 150–153 is all about recognising Universities as ‘the leading venue for anti-Israel activity’, even though there is institutional cooperation between universities, the anti-Israel activity is from the bottom up, at grassroot level. The main reason why this is worrying for Zionists is that future leaders are educated in environments ‘hostile to Israel’. So, it’s not about the truth of Israel. The main concern is that our students must learn only that which Israel believes is a good lesson. Otherwise, they will call us all ‘hostile’ to Israel. This lack of responsibility for one’s action that Zionists are showing is shocking. Have they ever thought that maybe they should change their ways? From this, we can see that Israel knows the truth is causing the opposition. They could change the truth. The truth about them could be very different. Or am I being too romantic? You know how we say: You can’t negotiate with terrorists? Well, the word terrorist has lost all meaning since we have ‘double’ standards. But if we didn’t, that sentence should be: You can’t negotiate with those who want to murder innocent people.

“Reut Institute Identified London specifically as the ‘hub of hubs’ of global ‘delegitimisation network’…”

I am so proud. And it fills me with hope that there is still enough free thinkers among us to be immune to such powerful lies and manipulations.

Zionists of course fought back, using all means at their disposal, completely oblivious to the effects this might have on the UK. Combination of legal and financial tactics brought into the game by Zionists kept this threat at bay. And then introducing ‘pro-Israel studies’ was meant to remove the ‘anti-Israel’ activism. In short, the Zionists have done their utmost to silence voices they do not agree with, and amplify the voice they do agree with. This is pretty much in line with their common tactic called ‘carrot and stick’ — I’ll mention it some more later on.

Their attack on the academia could be a huge lesson in exercising individual thought and understanding, asking the right questions, researching some more on your own initiative. When someone insists you look left, and only left, it could be that there is something on the right they wish to hide. That something on your right might just be something you need to see. After all, what is the point of a ‘nice park’, if it’s made by killers?

The book gives a bunch of other events that need to be examined in detail. If you decide to read this book, please think about the consequences of ‘privatisation of universities’? Think about WHY does Israel have to work so hard, harder than any other country in the world, to make us have a good opinion of it? Especially consider that we all had a good opinion of it. They lost our good opinion. How and why? Maybe, just maybe it’s because they’re trying so hard to manipulate us while they carry out crimes against humanity that are worse than any I’ve heard about in a long time. In fact, I don’t think there is another country in the world that can compare to the torment that Israel inflicts on innocent human beings.

Money seems to be the main tool Zionists use to ‘abuse’ our world. This might explain why more and more of our institutions depend on individual donations rather than our tax money. However, money is just a tool, and they don’t throw it around, though it is fascinating to see how many rich people give to ‘Israel’.

Zionists have an all-round approach:

Politics — from ‘befriending’ current politicians, to raising new generations of politicians that will support Israel. We’ve had cases where we honestly have to wonder if our representatives are more concerned with Israeli interests than with UK’s interests. The consequences of this could be huge.

Media — I don’t know if it would be too far to say that Zionists own the major media outlets in the UK. BBC is not independent of the government, and this book goes from reports of BBC fearing Zionist bullying, to making sure that the voices they broadcast are ones Israel approves of. But then, Zionists complain about the BBC. Please note WHAT they are complaining about! And then ask yourself: Why are they complaining? And one of the reasons might be to put on a show. To make us believe that they do not have this kind of power in our media.

We’ve all see that our media is inclined to abuse language like the Zionists like to do. So, for example, children in Gaza ‘die’ while children in Ukraine are ‘murdered’. This level of double standards implies that we have no standards in the media. This is very troublesome.

Law — our legal system is there to protect us. We all know what it means to our security and prosperity. Sure, it’s not perfect, it is constantly in the state of ‘development’, and there are cases where the rule of law was not upheld. However, at least when we have good legal system, good laws, we have a hope. Zionists have decided that they don’t like our laws. And since they have power in our government, they can change our laws. Again, I will ask you to think about what this could mean. What is the difference between disrespecting the laws versus having bad laws?

Education — As you’ve seen, they have more power at institutional level than grassroot level, but they’re doing their utmost to exercise the top-down power like people don’t even matter.

Civil Society — this is one area I’d like to look into a bit more. It is my favorite field, and this one is not so easy to manipulate. So let’s talk about citizen activism and our freedoms.

This book has made me love democracy even more, and I am now even more certain that I must get on with organising the ‘Lessons from Bosnia’ project. There will be some changes, so stay turned; leave a comment, write to me, get involved. This is one of the great lessons of this book.

In fact, I’ll start with that. Zionists are proof that ‘slow and persistent’ does the trick. That is the best way to approach social change. And being active — they attend to everything no matter how big or small, if it’s about Israel, and it’s something negative, they are on it. We MUST copy these two things (being active and persistent) from them to bring back democracy. Which is ironic, because Zionists don’t like democracy, democracy goes against them, and anything that is against them, they like to eliminate. However, they’ve got the mechanics of social change down to a ‘t’. It’s a shame they don’t believe in a fair and just world. Could have been really cool.

I’ve already mentioned the Rule of Law. It’s almost like they know they can’t go against the Rule of Law, however, they have an alternative: change the laws that they don’t like. To me, that’s worse. At least with decent laws we have a chance to protect our society. With the bad laws, brought to us by the Zionists, I’m not so sure we have a chance. So I’ll ask the question again, because it is important: are bad laws better or worse than no laws?

In my opinion, bad laws are far worse than a lawless society. Bad laws have been known to normalise fascism. This is something we should NOT copy from the Zionists. So, while they are a great lesson in what can be accomplished through persistent activism, they are also a great example of what NOT to do.

Some of the other things we must NOT ever do include:

- Stoop down so low to use smear campaigns. Page 170, students discussed smear campaigns, meaning they had nothing real to use. This gives BDS far more legitimacy than anything else. It also implies complete lack of values.

- Lack values — having values is like having a map. No, it’s not just about the destination. The journey matters, it matters a lot. In fact, the journey will determine what we’ll have at the end. Zionists seem to have only an objective. I’m not seeing any values. In fact, they seem to be having negative effect on those who claim to have values. Have I said the word ‘values’ enough? I’m hoping to drill it in because having values is vital.

- Be afraid of the truth. If you fear the truth, you’re on the wrong side, and fighting a losing war. Zionists can win a million battles with lies, the truth will win the war. It’s just one of those things.

- Change the meaning of words! Manipulate the language. This is pathetic, annoying, and so telling. This is what makes a campaign sound like an advert.

- Control the narrative — this is pushy. If we want equality, we must accept that the path to equality is paved with all sorts of narratives. There are parts of this book that I don’t agree with (I’ll get to that), but I appreciate the author for speaking their mind. Plus, generally speaking, when it comes to the truth, people very often see the same thing, so the narrative doesn’t need controlling. Controlling the narrative takes creativity. This means more effort than just telling the truth. So if there is nothing preventing us to just tell the truth, that’s the path we are more likely to take. And, sometimes, we all need to get involved to bring the truth to light either by liberating the ‘tellers’ or by informing them. So, again, back to what we should do, be active, write more, get involved much more, speak our mind much more and in various places and spaces.

So that’s the short summary of the main lessons I took from this book, the do’s and don’ts if you will. And this book is a shocker from page 1.

“I focus on the way the Zionist movement has been forced to mobilise in response to a resurgent Palestine solidarity movement. In particular, since its launch in 2005, the growth of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign — which puts pressure on Israel to comply with international law — has prompted a backlash which throws into sharp relief the existence of the Zionist movement and the power it can wield in some circumstances.”

BDS puts pressure on Israel to comply with international law! You’d think we had mechanisms and institutions to deal with this sort of thing. I mean, what is the point of having laws if Israel can just get on with acting contrary to the laws? And yet, here we are. Then again, civic action happens when there is government failure. We just don’t expect our governments to fail this badly. And if the failure to make Israel respect the laws wasn’t bad enough, our governments are inclined to assist Israel in fighting against BDS, like Israel is naturally above the law. Except that we can’t say that, because that would be too much truth in one place, so if we insist that Israel must comply with the law, then we must change the laws so that our Laws are more acceptable to Israel. Man alive! That’s bad. Seriously! All kind of unacceptable sh*t can be normalised if we go down the path of changing our laws to suit Israel.

Let’s see what else we learn from this tiny paragraph: The power of Zionists! The author and I disagree with how much power the Zionists have. Zionists may not win every battle, but when you consider what they want, and how the world has changed, it seems they have a lot more power than the author is willing to admit. Then again, the author seems afraid of repeating the blame that led to Jews being hated, the hatred that led to the Holocaust. I’m not afraid of this because I’m against collective punishment, and I see collective punishment as the main problem that led to the Holocaust. Hiding this truth about Zionists is more about allowing the ‘misbehaviour’ of Zionists to go on, then about rising hate towards anyone. And the fact is, they do have power. However, we do not deal with it the way fascists did. We learn from the Zionists, become more active, and beat them with their own tools. As simple as that. There is no need for hate. They got this power from us, we almost gave it to them. So take a deep breath, call a spade a spade, and hang on to our values. That’s all we have to do. We can solve this problem without hate, let alone murder of innocent people. In fact, we are trying to prevent murder of innocent people. That’s why I’m here. Doing this. And I’m not afraid of the truth, so I intend to use it.

In other, Zionists fear the truth like a heart attack. Using the truth is honourable; i.e. it respects my values. I know enough about society and lies that lead to hate and mass murder to know how to present the truth. So of course I intend to use the truth as much as possible. And the truth is, Zionists have so much power, it is shocking. However, as I said, we do not hate them for it, we learn from them and use it to take that power back. Plus, since we also learn what NOT to do, we might end up with a much better world. Two for one. Why the heck not?

Zionists have an ‘all-round-action’ strategy, as stated earlier. Their strategy is not that complicated: slow and steady, a lot of repetition, fixing things along the way, and nothing is left un-replied — they have teams responding to comments in newspapers. This part we can copy. When they face criticisms, they turn to carrot-and-stick strategy. This is a diminutive way of saying ‘reward and punishment’. Basically, those who support, get rewarded for it, those who don’t, get punished. I do not like this. I do not feel we have the right to ‘punish’ those who disagree with us. Plus, rewarding or being grateful to those who agree seems good enough. So I’m more in favour of ‘carrot and air’ strategy — reward, where reward is due, move on where reward is not due. We must hear all sides, even reply to all sides, but that doesn’t mean we over react to the negative. Overreaction to positive seems fine to me, but not to negative.

However, what is complicated is covering all the areas: Politics, Academia, Media, and Civil Society. Then again, they seem to be connected, so we might benefit from domino effect.

The area I am most interested in is Civil Society. That is what I’ve studied, that’s what I am passionate about. And it might be the thing that could cause the domino effect. It seems Zionists too have detected it as a vital field, however, they failed to use it — we will see why. Even before I read this book I had the idea that Civil Society is the way to go to cause a change that is democratic, i.e. good for the people. But now, I’m even more certain.

To put things into perspective, I need to say a little bit about the Civil Society sector, or the Voluntary sector, as it is often called in the UK. Other names for the sector include Not-for-profit, and Non-Government; i.e. we know what they are not, though we are not too sure what they are. But that’s okay, even knowing what they’re not can help.

If it doesn’t have a name, we can assume that the sector is not really understood. Making sense of it is my dream, that’s what I’d love to do with my life. At the moment, it is sometimes referred to as a ‘loose and baggy monster’ — in fact, there is a book about the sector by that name.

My favourite name for the sector is ‘voluntary’ because it speaks about the motivation of the people who join or take part in some way whether as founders or members or donors or just supporters. It brings to light the importance of the objectives of the organisation at least to some extent. And I feel this should be our main focus.

Objectives of these organisations cover pretty much every area of our society, so putting them into one category is impossible. They range from humanitarian issues like prevention of poverty, helping the homeless, or less abled, elderly, children, etc, to a bunch of rich professionals coming together to pat each other on the back and perhaps unite to do something positive for the world in their spear time. There are highly sophisticated research organisations, and pretty simply mutual aid organisations. Advocacy, lobby, citizen awareness, you name it, it is covered.

Now, if people (like you) are going to spend your limited resources in an organisation, you’ll probably look at the objective first — many of us support numerous objectives. This is great because the objectives are in fact connected; one issue is often caused by something else that some other organisation is dealing with. So competition in this sector is stupid. I won’t go into that right now, just take my word for it. I will discuss it more at some other time. However, it is very obvious from this book as well.

Second thing you’re likely to look at is how much can you trust the organisation. In fact, trust is often referred to as the greatest currency in this sector. Obviously, if an organisation is hiding something, you may not be inclined to trust them all that much. So transparency is very important. And you will find that many organisations have nothing to hide, in fact, they are bending backwards to get their voice out there and get people to listen. So rather than hiding, they are fighting to be heard.

Other things that may influence your decision include the reaction of others to you supporting a cause. Media plays a big part in this. In fact, let’s just use the idea behind the Social Origins Theory to describe the shape that these organisations are likely to take. The theory states that the shape of the organisations is affected by the political system, media, and cultural heritage. In short, how far is the government allowing such organisations, how does media treat existence and taking part in such organisations, and do people have the kind of upbringing that leads them to take part.

In a democracy, people should be free to organise themselves into whatever kind of organisation they wish as long as it doesn’t cause social harm. Hence, in democracies we see a very vibrant Voluntary sector. It is not uncommon for a democratic government to work with a Voluntary organisation. This does not make the organisation part of the government. In fact, this is about democracy and the government acting as a representative of the people. If people have spoken through an organisation, clearly there is a problem, and that might mean that the government should get involved.

However, these are non-government organisations. These organisations are not supposed to act on behalf of the government. This is a big NO NO! Even if they get funding from the government, the organisation must stay true to its objectives and achieving them in the way they believe is best.

Money in this sector is a tool to achieve the objective. Many fundraising teams work on the ‘profit maximisation’ strategy, i.e. raise as much money as possible with as few costs as possible. However, the way that money is used is what makes these organisations ‘not-for-profit’. Going back to the idea of them being voluntary and participants being passionate about achieving the objective, rather than taking part to get money or some other gain.

In short, we have the importance of freedom for ordinary citizens to organise action that is of benefit to their society. That media and cultural heritage shape these organisations, maybe even give power to them. That trust and, hence, transparency are vital. That they must remain devoted to the objective they (ordinary citizens) have chosen, rather than seek monetary or self gain. And since they are about giving power to the ‘ordinary citizens’ they must remain independent of the government. Some people will rightly argue that in theory this is great, but that’s not what’s happening, and they will cite their own experience. As someone who has studied the whole sector, this is only a small part of the truth. However, we are inclined to a collective ‘opinion’ far more than we realise. While the sector as a whole could be seen as chaotic, it does not mean that every organisation deserves to suffer. Having said that, if more organisations fail to honour the theory of the sector, the more the sector as a whole suffers. This is probably one of the main points I wish to make very clear. Until there is a better way to protect the sector from the organisations that do not ‘play by the rules’, we must strive to remove those that certainly do not ‘play by the rules’ so that they don’t damage the organisations that do ‘play by the rules’. Organisations that are pure and simple in their fight to give citizens the power to improve their communities whether we talk about their neighbourhoods or the global village.

Civil Society is a very vague name. We pretend we understand what it means, but in reality, everyone who has the right to vote is a member of the ‘civil society’. This is something I intend to bring up with the ‘Lessons from Bosnia’ project, but in a practical way. So we will put a pin in this topic for now. The important lessons are that this is a sector for the people, by the people. It is non-government, not-for-profit, yet free for all.

I think that’s enough about the Voluntary sector for me to show what I have learned about Zionists’ wrong approach and damage to the sector.

Pages 44–45 “As well as seeking to mobilise and coordinate existing Zionist groups through hubs like the Global Coalition for Israel, the Israeli government has also sought to supplement its support networks by helping to create new ‘manufactured civil society’ organisations. Such tactics were advocated by some Zionist strategists at the aforementioned 2010 Herzliya Conference: ‘NGOs can be established’, they pointed out, to advance the Israeli government’s hasbara goals. And, according to an in-depth 2012 study by Israeli think-tank Molad, the Israeli government had acted on this advice. Clearly influenced by new public diplomacy thinking, Molad’s report noted that governments ‘are not generally good persuasive agencies’ and are therefore more likely to achieve their objectives ‘by working through parties and organisations trusted by people in the target country’ and building ‘cooperative networks’ involving ‘organisations in the private non-governmental sector’. Effective public diplomacy, Molad argued, ‘passes through a network of private, non-governmental organisation who benefit from broad public legitimacy in the target country’.

Israel, Molad asserted, had absorbed and implemented those ideas, based on a ‘working assumption’ that civil society organisations ‘have access to key resources and players that the state is denied, and thus have an ability to advance Israeli interests reaching beyond the power of the state’. The Israeli government, it stated had ‘established organisations in various countries throughout the world whose purpose is to deliver hasbara messages through ‘indirect channels’ without officially identifying themselves as such’. Corroborating this account, in 2011, the Reut Institute hailed the ‘successful creation of a global ‘anti-delegitimization network’ in global civil society — and credited the ‘critical contribution’ made by the Israeli government to its construction.”

These two paragraphs sum up the Zionist involvement in the ‘sector’. They saw an opportunity in this space to make their claim more legitimate. Honestly, I’m surprised it took them so long, at the same time I am disturbed by their lack of thought for the effect they will have on the sector. And, as I said earlier, this sector is vital to people.

1. Using already existing organisations may (and probably already has) damaged the reputation of those organisations. So you see how Zionists saw an advantage in this sector because the sector has access to resources and players that the state doesn’t, and how the sector is trusted? Well, they’ve ruined all of that by getting the state so involved. However, as I mentioned earlier, it’s not just about these organisations, it’s about the whole sector, and innocent organisations suffering loss of trust due to these acts.

2. Creation of new organisations has further damaged the sector in terms of it being non-government and therefore a place where citizens could take part to make changes they feel are right. Pushing one set of organisation (whether using money or promotion) damages the ‘democratic’ value in this sector. Of course, Zionists are not the only ones abusing the sector, but they are one of the worst ones to do this much damage.

3. Lack of transparency has removed trust in the sector as a whole. If we normalise this, if organisations can gain more through this kind of behaviour, this will spread.

Hence, in this case, one issue is the power that Zionists have, but a far greater issue is that they’ve used that power to cause damage.

Lack of transparency is repeated in numerous places in the book:

Page 47 “If you want to win the campaign you have to do it with a great deal of ambiguity… One of the principles for success is keeping our methods of action secret… Since most of the ministry’s actions are not of the ministry, but through bodies around the world who do not want to expose their connection with the state, we must protect the information whose exposure could harm the battle.”

Page 74–75 “The amount of missing data is symptomatic of the lack of transparency surrounding many organisations, including those working in Parliament.”

Page 108 “Zionist think-tanks note that the Israeli government has ‘established organisations in various countries throughout the world’ to ‘deliver hasbara messages through indirect channels without officially identifying themselves as such…”

Further proof that these are not what we would call ‘civil society organisations’ is their lack of freedom. As stated earlier, in a democracy citizens should be free to organise themselves into action that they consider would benefit the society. Many of the organisations connected to Israel do not enjoy that freedom.

Page 44: “…the nature of ‘help’ given by the Israeli government to Zionist civil society organisations has included considerable semi-covert funding. But the Global Coalition for Israel also facilitated the flow of information across state-private networks, enabling the government to seek to keep its supporters ‘on message’.”

Page 53: “…the Israeli government’s strategy was ‘not to act, but to activate’ civil society bodies in line with the principles of new public diplomacy.”

Page 54: “…’the government would have to insist on coordination with itself’, since ‘it was inconceivable that a body organised with the name of Israel should undertake action without reference to the information, the advice and views of the Government of Israel’.”

Page 108: “The evidence suggests that many of the hyperlocal ‘Friends of Israel’ groups which emerged post-2010 were at least partially created by the Israeli embassy, in collaboration with pre-existing pro-Israel civil society groups.”

As if lack of transparency and government involvement in the sector wasn’t bad enough, Israeli government also works to restrict freedom of citizen action that they ‘do not like’. This book focuses on the BDS movement and Israeli backlash to that, however it is very clear that Israeli government will try to restrict democratic freedom of citizens to organise, which is restricted only when there is a ‘negative’ effect on the society. So, for example, an organisation that supports ethnic cleansing might be restricted in its freedom to operate in a country that does not support ethnic cleansing.

Page 76 “The Jewish National Fund UK is the British affiliate of the Israeli national institution of the same name which has been a pivotal organisation in the historic and ongoing colonisation of Palestine. In 2011, the main focus of the British group was, in its own words, ‘seeking to make a real difference’ in the southern Negev region of Israel, an area which the Israeli government is seeking to ‘Judaise’ and ethnically cleanse of Palestinians.”

This is an example of an organisation that may not have the right to operate in the UK due to its support of negative social actions, such as ethnic cleansing. In other words, restricting an organisation that helps ethnic cleansing has nothing to do with democratic right to organise, but a humanitarian and legal restriction to organise to cause harm.

Attacks on organisations as well as individuals in Israel and around the world who do not support Israel’s ideas is mentioned throughout the book. (page 41) Breaking the Silence was taken to court on charges of treason. While six Palestinian civil society bodies were designated as ‘terrorist organisations’, including prisoner solidarity body Addameer. This is interesting because from Breaking the Silence organisation we learn that Israeli army goes into Palestinian homes randomly, and they do what they deem right, which includes taking innocent people to prison. I.e. when a soldier comes into your home in the middle of the night and takes you away at gunpoint for no reason at all, you are not a prisoner, you are a hostage. In the eyes of Israel, an organisation that is helping these ‘prisoners/hostages’ is a terrorist organisation. In short, Israel fights back against the truth, and all those who help the victims of the actions Israel knows the world would not approve of. As I said, Israel is terrified of the truth.

Page 46 talks about Israel’s efforts to use all sort of tactics, and not just on Palestinians but on all of us who might be against Israeli actions.

Page 107 “… the British government’s broader agenda to limit the independence of civil society institutions.”

This would be worse than introducing competition into the sector. But that’s a topic for another article. What we’re seeing here is how much our country is changing, and the change is not good.

However, this change is also not surprising. In the UK politics, Israeli ‘Carrot and Stick’ strategy is working too well. Politicians who do not support Israel are bashed, smashed, and almost dehumanised. While those who support Israel are rewarded. Israel also works to ‘nurture UK politicians’ to be supportive of Israel. And then we have politicians who will use their position in the UK to advance the objectives of Israel.

Page 133 “This is not the first time Akehurst had leveraged elected office to further Israel’s cause, however, having previously done so while still serving as a councillor.”

Page 132 “We Believe in Israel’s director, Luke Akehurst, observed that since ‘a lot of councillors go on to hold national political offices’, this network (Local Government Friends of Israel) was also of longer-term strategic value for Israel’s supporters, allowing them to build relationship with aspiring MPs ‘at the start of their political careers’.”

Page 133 and 134 go on to describe how the group combined politics and law to silence a five minute speech about BDS in Hackney Council. I don’t know of another group that would go this far to silence someone so much.

Page 166 “’In a number of cases’, Greene (Toby Greene former BICOM and Labour Friends of Israel researcher) notes, ‘rising Blairites had their first contact with Israel…from travelling to Israel on a trip sponsored by the Union of Jewish Students’ and ‘went on to become MPs active in LFI’.”

While I agree with the author that this illustrates the centrality of Israel to the work of the UJS, it does so much more than that.

1. These trips to Israel! Everyone who is anyone has been on one of these. Media professionals, academics, politicians, etc, Israel likes to call them over. Remember the importance of transparency to trust? These trips might be organised to give an illusion of transparency. However, it seems these trips are well organised to show what Israel wants to be seen. Furthermore, considering the size of the issue, I’m starting to think that Israelis are also good at choosing who should go. Either that, or they feed them something… I don’t know what. Some kind of funny mushroom, by the sounds of things. How can so many of our educated people go on these trips and fail to see that throwing a family out of their home so that a migrant can move in can NOT be democratic, right, fair, or just? How is it possible that they see the walls and checkpoints, and our ‘smart’ people don’t immediately think ‘this is a prison, those people are in jail, why’?

2. Blairites?! — Labour Friends of Israel is older than the Conservative Friends of Israel. However, LFI had a period where it lost a lot of support (no prizes for guessing why). Then, with the coming of Tony Blair, that support was repaired (page 87), only to make sure that LFI never loses support again (page 95 “…holding a role within LFI was previously ‘seen as a kind of stepping-stone to promotion’ by ambitious young members of Parliament” — plus, on the same page, read about the creation of Young LFI and Israeli embassy involvement in that, though it is hush-hush). If Conservatives were smart, they too would drop their support for Israel, get a lot of money, and get back the support. Or maybe that’s the stupidest idea ever?! Hmm…

3. What do our votes mean if the people who make it in politics are pre-selected by Zionists? Or, if they make it in politics but they get ‘thrown out’ by Zionists?

While you might think Jeremy Corbyn is the only example of a British politician who went through hell because he dared to criticise Israel (and JC is mentioned a lot, he is a big lesson for us), this book also mentions

Page 93 “…Masot was working at the Israeli Embassy in London when he was filmed talking to Maria Strizzolo, an aid to leading pro-Israel MP Robert Halfon, about the need to ‘take down’ Alan Duncan, a Conservative MP critical of Israel. Masot also described another MP, Crispin Blunt, as being on a ‘hit list’…”

On the other hand:

Page 92 “In 2011, Conservative defence minister Liam Fox was revealed to have been pursuing, in effect, a freelance foreign policy, accompanied by a close friend and unofficial adviser, the Scottish businessman Adam Werritty. The pair made visits to Israel, Iran and Sri Lanka, many of which were funded by the charity Atlantic Bridge and private company Pargav. These bodies shared several donors in common… While the affair briefly shone light on the potential influence of unaccountable private networks, forcing Fox to resign his ministerial post, a few years later he was made trade secretary.”

I won’t even start with Priti Patel — read the book. Again, trips to Israel are involved.

From the Liam Fox we see that it might be time to democratise foreign policy, or someone might just take over. Secondly, back to our values, previously mentioned and will be mentioned again. Should a man like this ever have a job in politics?

Maybe that’s not so surprising considering

Page 92 “The Henry Jackson Society hosts Israeli political and military figures in Westminster and pushes for draconian US-style counter terrorism measures domestically.”

All we need now is for Israel to decide who is a ‘terrorist’ and there we go, we have a dictatorship.

The threat to the UK from Zionists is real and huge, much bigger than the threat of BDS to Israel at the time this book was written, yet Zionists didn’t just let BDS get on with it, they took measures to prevent the work of the BDS. However, this shows just how ‘smart’ they really are. Zionists are stupid. BDS will win, that is now inevitable. The threat of BDS to Israel has now increased, but only because Israel decided to carry out a genocide. Israel has crossed all lines. It is horrific. At this point, the world has two options: 1. Israel will lose and we’ll work hard to get back to our values, or 2. Fascism will be normalised leading to hell on earth, and Israel will still lose but far more violently, and it might pull us down with it.

In short, our main concern now is to make sure we uphold the rule of law. We must make sure that we never ever allow anyone to narmalise fascism. After that, we must all learn how did we let it get this far, and what should we have done differently.