VOTING for Labour MPs who have failed to back a ceasefire in Gaza is supporting complicity in genocide, a British-Palestinian independent candidate says.
Tanushka Marah, who is standing in Hove and Portslade, told the Morning Star that Labour MPs who abstained in last year’s ceasefire vote in the Commons have blood on their hands.
She was selected by pro-Palestine and socialist groups to challenge Peter Kyle, a member of Sir Keir Starmer’s shadow cabinet who has held the constituency for nine years.
The shadow science, innovation and technology secretary is a vice-chairman of Labour Friends for Israel and has consistently defended the pariah state.
He was named in a Declassified UK investigation this week as among the quarter of MPs who have accepted funds from pro-Israel lobbyists.
Wes Streeting faces a backlash over his support for Israel. (Photo: Imageplotter / Alamy)
Labour’s shadow health secretary has a long history of supporting Israel going back to his days at the National Union of Students—and has been rewarded handsomely for it.
Streeting was Keir Starmer’s first shadow minister to visit Israel
His visit in 2022 was paid for by Labour Friends of Israel, which “works really closely” with Israeli embassy in London
He has taken over £20,000 from Israel lobbyists Sir Trevor Chinn, Lord Mendelsohn and David Menton, with donations as recently as April
Pro-Israel newspaper said Streeting’s “track-record on Israel is clear” and called him “our friend at the NUS”
Streeting is being challenged by British-Palestinian independent Leanne Mohamad
Wes Streeting has received nearly £30,000 from Britain’s powerful pro-Israel lobby, Declassified has found.
Two years ago, Streeting became the first member of Keir Starmer’s shadow cabinet to visit Israel, in a move designed to signal a break with Jeremy Corbyn’s pro-Palestine position.
The trip was paid for by Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) and cost £4,700. LFI also paid for Sarah Harrison, one of Streeting’s staffers, to visit Israel with him.
Another Streeting staffer, Anna Wilson, was paid an undisclosed amount to visit Israel last July.
Her trip was funded by the European Leadership Network, a group whose UK branch is run by Joan Ryan, former chair of LFI.
LFI is a secretive organisation that does not disclose its funders, although undercover reporting revealed Ryan, then a Labour MP, discussing a £1 million payment from Israel with Shai Masot, an Israeli diplomat, in 2016.
In another covertly filmed conversation outside a London pub, LFI’s Michael Rubin said that he and Masot “work really closely together…but a lot of it is behind the scenes”.
Masot was eventually forced to quit his job at the Israeli embassy and return home after he was caught on camera plotting to “take down” British MPs.
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Israel is a serial violator of international law, and is judged to be practising apartheid against the Palestinians by both the US and UK’s top human rights groups, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Leading Israeli group B’Tselem has also reached the same conclusion.
It is currently being investigated by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for genocide, while the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor Karim Khan is seeking arrest warrants for prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes in Gaza.
Streeting described the ICJ case as a “distraction”.
An injured child is treated at a hospital in Rafah on 8 May 2024. (Photo: Rizek Abdeljawad via Alamy)
Seven months into Israel’s genocide in Gaza, there remains little appetite among the Britain’s political class to end the slaughter, even after close to 40,000 Palestinians have been killed.
But the indifference to Palestinian suffering does not appear confined to individual politicians and vested party interests. Rather, it is a culture across Westminster.
One example is the All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Prevention of Genocide (APPG-G).
This is a cross-party group which apparently aims to ensure Britain does all it can to stop genocides and crimes against humanity.
Yet the group has shown no urgency to save lives in Gaza.
Its chairwoman is Fleur Anderson, an opposition MP for Putney. She is also listed as a parliamentary member of Labour Friends of Israel (LFI).
Can her APPG really be committed to preventing genocide while she also participates in a lobby group that whitewashes settler colonialism and ethnic cleansing in Palestine?
Just in January, LFI organised its largest solidarity delegation to Israel in over a decade and proudly posed with president Isaac Herzog.
They went there even as Israel was on trial for genocide at the World Court and Herzog himself was singled out for his dangerous language as evidence of incitement.
A closer inspection of Anderson’s work is revealing. In November, during parliament’s vote for an immediate ceasefire, 56 Labour MPs defied the party whip and voted for it.
THE government’s “independent” adviser on political violence and disruption has received funding from pro-Israel groups while pushing for a crackdown on pro-Palestine protests, Declassified UK revealed today.
Former Labour MP John Woodcock — ennobled as Lord Walney for backing Boris Johnson in the 2019 election — was assigned in 2021 to produce a report investigating “the extreme fringes on both ends of the political spectrum” in Britain.
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During his time as a Labour MP, he was appointed chairman of Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) in 2011. He embarked on a trip funded by LFI, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Portland Trust the same year.
Lord Walney also accepted funding from the Australia-Israel Cultural Exchange during his time as an MP.
In January this year, while preparing to deliver his report concerning Palestine protests in Britain, Lord Walney visited Israel as part of a parliamentary delegation organised by the European Leadership Network, with flights and accommodation paid for by the organisation. He kept the trip under wraps and did not post about it on social media.
Labour MPs on a “solidarity mission” with Israel’s president. (Photo: LFI / X)
Twenty percent of Labour’s sitting MPs have been funded by pro-Israel groups or individuals – including 15 who have been directly funded by the Israeli state.
Israel lobbyists have paid for Labour MPs to travel to Israel on over 50 occasions
Remarkably, the number of MPs supporting Labour Friends of Israel has increased amid the Gaza genocide
Some 41 of Labour’s 197 sitting MPs have accepted money from the Israel lobby, Declassified has found.
The value of the donations amounts to over £280,000, with Israel lobby groups paying for Labour MPs to visit Israel on over 50 occasions since 1999.
The funders include parliamentary group Labour Friends of Israel (LFI), pro-Israel figures such as Trevor Chinn, and governmental bodies including the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Amid Israel’s genocide on Gaza, at least one Labour MP, Margaret Hodge, has continued to accept Israel lobby funds to travel to the country.
Labour Friends of Israel
LFI has described itself as a “Westminster based lobby group working with the British Labour Party to promote the State of Israel”.
The organisation does not disclose its sources of funding, but is closely associated with the Israeli state.
LFI currently counts 75 Labour MPs as parliamentary supporters or officers – a number which, remarkably, has risen since the onset of Israel’s war on Gaza.
One of LFI’s main activities is taking Labour MPs on “fact finding” missions to Israel.
The organisation has paid for 32 of Labour’s sitting MPs to travel to Israel since they were first elected to parliament, Declassified has found.
The value of these donations is over £64,000, with the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs often covering additional costs in Israel.
Fifteen Labour MPs have accepted financial assistance directly from the Israeli state for these and other visits.
