Failed British politician hired by leading Israel lobbyist

In between working for the weapons industry, Britain’s top pro-Israel advocate Stuart Polak is known to give charities a helping hand. Rivals can even benefit from his benevolent deeds, judging by one barely noticed addition to his entourage.

Although Polak has supported the Conservative Party for decades, he recently came to the “rescue” of a Labour Party politician who had been abandoned by voters.

Natascha Engel, the politician in question, lost her parliamentary seat in last year’s general election. Since then, she has been appointed to the advisory board of Polak’s consultancy firm TWC Associates.

The firm’s clients include Israel’s Elbit Systems, a manufacturer of drones and white phosphorus and other munitions which Israel has used while attacking Gaza.

Elbit stated last year that it wished to regard Britain as an “actual home market,” because its activities have grown significantly in that country.

Elbit now owns at least five subsidiaries in Britain. And it would appear that Stuart Polak has used his influence to enable Elbit gain to a stronger foothold in the British market.

Dick Applegate, an Elbit strategist, has told undercover journalists that Polak could arrange access to useful contacts “from the prime minister down.”

Engel did not reply to a query asking if she was concerned that Elbit’s weapons are used to kill Palestinians.

U-turn

Her willingness to embrace – at least implicitly – Israel’s arms industry is something of a U-turn. In December 2008, Engel was among a group of Labour politicians to sign a letter describing Operation Cast Lead, a major Israeli offensive against Gaza, as “an outrage.”

Despite signing that letter, Engel’s track record indicates that she was generally uncritical of Britain’s pernicious policies on the Middle East.

She sought to shield Tony Blair from accountability by opposing calls for investigations into the invasion of Iraq while he was still prime minister.

In 2011, she backed the West’s military assault on Libya.

In her view, the US and its allies were starting a war “for the right reasons,” albeit without being “clear enough” about the likely consequences.

We know now that the result of the assault was massive destruction in Libya – with many side-effects for the wider region. Engel’s caveat does not mitigate her responsibility for supporting a calamitous decision.

The activities of TWC Associates cannot be detached from Polak’s lengthy career as a pro-Israel lobbyist. He spent 25 years heading Conservative Friends of Israel.

He has been rewarded for his services to the Israel lobby with a seat in the House of Lords, the British parliament’s unelected upper chamber.

A number of Polak’s colleagues in TWC Associates have either worked for the pro-Israel lobby or developed strong business connections with Israel.

Scott Hamilton, a key member of the TWC management, was previously a consultant to European Friends of Israel, a Brussels-based pressure group that Polak founded.

Justine Zwerling, who also sits on the TWC advisory board, has worked in Israel for both the British government and the London Stock Exchange. She is involved in a project called Vibe Israel, which seeks to promote Israel as stylish and innovative, thereby distracting from its crimes against the Palestinians.

Engel is evidently enterprising. She set up her own firm – Palace Yard Communications – in July last year, just a few weeks after losing her parliamentary seat.

If she plays her cards rights, Engel could command a far higher salary than she did as an elected representative. By teaming up with Stuart Polak and Israel’s arms industry, she could gain a slice of the profits made through killing Palestinian children.

•First published by The Electronic Intifada, 22 February 2018.

Are weapons at the heart of Britain's romance with Israel?

What are British politicians really saying when they wax lyrical about Israel? Do they genuinely believe the myths about it being a thriving democracy? Or are they in awe of how Israel can – quite literally – get away with murder?

Gavin Williamson, Britain’s defense secretary, has hinted that there is something rotten behind the romance. After celebrating Israel as a “beacon of light and hope” during a recent speech, he described its military investments as “impressive.”

If Williamson has done a modicum of homework, he must know that the Israeli weapons industry brags – albeit in a coded way – about testing its products on Palestinians living under siege and occupation. His fawning betrayed an admiration for how a profitable industry has been built through subjugating an entire people.

The fawning occurred when Williamson addressed a reception organized by Conservative Friends of Israel, a pressure group within Britain’s ruling party. He was among kindred spirits: it is unlikely to a be a coincidence that some of the group’s most ardent supporters are also lobbyists for the arms industry.

Take James Arbuthnot. In 2015, Arbuthnot was hired by Thales UK, a branch of the French weapons-maker Thales. He had previously chaired Conservative Friends of Israel. He also sat in the British parliament for 28 years.

Announcing the recruitment, Thales UK stated that Arbuthnot would join its advisory board. As its advisers are not “formal officers” of the company, they are “expressly prohibited” from lobbying on its behalf, Thales added.

Submarine supporter

While Arbuthnot may not have directly solicited business for Thales since then, he has taken part in discussions of relevance to the firm.

After his appointment by Thales, Arbuthnot later in 2015 joined the House of Lords, the unelected upper chamber in the British parliament. He has used that platform to advocate that Britain should develop four nuclear submarines.

Thales works on Britain’s nuclear submarine program. By opposing disarmament, Arbuthnot was pushing a political agenda conducive to his employer and the wider arms industry.

Does Arbuthnot erase all thought of the fees he receives from Thales every time he chats with contacts amassed during his political career?

Arbuthnot remains active in Conservative Friends of Israel. Earlier this month, he attended a discussion between the group and Ofir Akunis, Israel’s science minister and a hardline apologist for the theft of Palestinian land.

Devoted to drones

Going by Arbuthnot’s track record, it is highly unlikely that he availed of that occasion to scold Akunis. Arbuthnot has backed Israel’s acts of aggression and their enablers. At the time of the 2011 Arab uprisings, he effectively praised Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian dictator, for his role in enforcing Israel’s blockade on Gaza.

The ghastly consequences of Mubarak’s orders were that Gaza’s inhabitants had no way of escaping Israel’s bombs during Operation Cast Lead, a major offensive two years earlier. Writing for the website Conservative Home, Arbuthnot ignored those consequences, while noting with apparent favor that Mubarak “kept the border [between Egypt and Gaza] secure.”

Arbuthnot’s support for Israel cannot be disentangled from his work on strengthening the weapons industry. He spent a total of nine years heading a key parliamentary committee on military issues. In that capacity, he tried to justify drones by contending that their operators had been unfairly maligned as “video gaming ‘warrior geeks.’”

That vote of confidence in remote-controlled killing machines probably did not go unnoticed by his current employer. Thales is developing a drone program known as Watchkeeper for the British Army. Another partner in that program is Elbit, the Israeli weapons giant.

Conservative Friends of Israel is also linked to Elbit. The lobby group’s erstwhile director, Stuart Polak, is a leading figure in a “political strategy” firm that numbers Elbit among its clients.

Like Arbuthnot, Polak joined the House of Lords in 2015. Last year, he was found to have arranged meetings between Priti Patel, then a British government minister, and a number of Israeli politicians without respecting official protocol.

Patel resigned her ministerial post amid the ensuing controversy, yet there were no repercussions for Polak – beyond some possible damage to his reputation.

Trip to Turkey

Polak and Arbuthnot both participated in a recent trip to Turkey, where they met Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the country’s president.

Hilal Kaplan, who wrote a puff piece on the visit for Istanbul newspaper the Daily Salah, observed that it took place following two lucrative weapons deals between Turkey and Britain. Kaplan did not spell out the British lords’ own connections to the arms industry or the pro-Israel lobby.

The lords appear to have been on their best behavior in Turkey, implicitly expressing their approval for its actions against Kurdish fighters in Syria. Their friendly gestures towards Erdogan are significant, considering that the Turkish president has posed as a defender of Palestinian rights.

As Polak is arguably Britain’s top pro-Israel lobbyist, it is hard to believe that he hasn’t briefed that state’s politicians or diplomats about his Turkish sojourn. It was financed by the Bosphorus Center for Global Affairs, an organization that monitors press coverage unfavorable to Erdogan.

The pro-Israel lobby in Britain is secretive about its precise activities, including its relationship to the arms industry. For all their talk about beacons of light, Israel’s supporters keep many things in the dark.

•First published by The Electronic Intifada, 16 February 2018.

Palestinian children need no lectures from Emily Thornberry

The detention of Palestinian children is a clear-cut issue. Israeli forces have no right to apprehend youngsters living under military occupation. Those youngsters, by contrast, have every right to resist the theft of their homeland.

Why should British politicians try and lecture an oppressed people? That is a question for Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary, to consider. She has suggested that Britain’s should tell kids not to throw stones at an enemy equipped with far more lethal weapons.

Last week Thornberry argued that Britain “must, of course, continue to urge Palestinians of all ages to act peacefully when protesting against the illegal occupation of their lands.” She added: “We must equally urge the Israeli authorities to act in a restrained and proportionate way when facing such protests, especially in relation to young people.”

Thornberry’s comments were contained in a letter to Boris Johnson, the man she wishes to replace as foreign secretary. Though she expressed concern about the plight of Palestinian detainees such as the teenager Ahed Tamimi, Thornberry did not advocate any sanctions against Israel.

Her letter was another indication that a Labour government would not differ in substance from one led by the Conservatives with regard to Middle East policy. She gave an even stronger signal a few months ago, when she assured the Israeli media that the current British approach towards Israel was “entirely in line” with that of Labour.

In tone, Thornberry’s comments on child prisoners were similar to those made by Jennifer Gerber, who directs the pressure group Labour Friends of Israel. Gerber faithfully copies and pastes Israeli propaganda by pointing out that of more than 300 Palestinian children in Israeli jails, most are held for security offences. Israel has been unfairly singled out, according to Gerber. She neglects to mention that Israel is the only state in the world which puts on trial more than 500 children per year in kangaroo courts administered by the military.

The similarities in tone may not be accidental. Thornberry has cultivated strong links with Labour Friends of Israel. Addressing the group’s 2017 annual lunch, she smeared campaigners for a boycott of Israeli goods and institutions by alleging that they are motivated by bigotry against Jews (despite how the Palestine solidarity movement emphatically opposes racial and religious discrimination). Her stance is hypocritical. She has argued that Palestinians should not used violence. Yet when Palestinians adopt peaceful tactics – such as boycotts – Thornberry makes baseless accusations against them.

Thornberry’s smears are redolent of the tactics that the pro-Israel lobby employed against Labour’s overall leader Jeremy Corbyn. By winning a much higher share of the votes in last year’s general election than almost every pundit could imagine, Corbyn has earned respect from many erstwhile critics. Labour Friends of Israel, however, seems unwilling to forgive Corbyn for his history of defending Palestinian rights. The aforementioned Jennifer Gerber has kept on peddling the fiction that Corbyn tolerates anti-Semitism.

Gerber’s case rests on how Labour has not expelled Ken Livingstone, the former London mayor, for pointing out - in a less than polished TV appearance – that the Nazis had struck an accord with the Zionist movement over the transfer of German Jews to Palestine. Recalling historical facts makes you guilty of anti-Semitism, according to Labour Friends of Israel.

Emily Thornberry has enabled the witch-hunt against Palestine solidarity campaigners. She has stated that there is no place in Labour for people who deny Israel’s “right to exist”. Predictably, that has endeared her to Mark Regev, Israel’s ambassador to Britain whose previous job as spokesman for Benjamin Netanyahu saw him try to justify the bombing of Gaza’s schools.

Instructing political activists not to question Israel’s legitimacy is a form of McCarthyism. States do not have an intrinsic right to exist – especially when they are established through the expulsion of an indigenous people. States – like Israel – that are constituted in such a way that they privilege one ethnic group over another must have their “right to exist” examined.

Labour appears to have plenty of room for truly dangerous and destructive people. The last time I checked Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, the men who oversaw and found money for the invasion of Iraq – a crime against humanity - were still members. Labour’s most recent manifesto commits Britain to retaining and upgrading Trident. That would mean violating a 1996 verdict from the International Court of Justice confirming that countries with nuclear missiles have an obligation to disarm.

It is perfectly acceptable, then, for Labour activists to support weapons of mass destruction. Yet, under Thornberry’s logic, probing Israel’s origins is taboo.

The stalwarts of Labour’s left have refused to be cowed in the not-so-distant past. John McDonnell complained during a 2012 attack on Gaza that Israel was attempting genocide against the Palestinians. The complaint was accurate: genocide, as defined by the United Nations, involves inflicting physical or mental harm on a people.
McDonnell has not, as far as I know, repeated the charge of genocide since he was appointed shadow chancellor. Doing so would undoubtedly draw an apoplectic response from Labour Friends of Israel.

But why should the principled left be intimidated by the bellicose right, the wing to which Labour Friends of Israel belongs? Before last summer’s election, Corbyn highlighted the connections between Britain’s aggressive foreign policy and what he called “terrorism here at home”. He thereby became the first Labour leader to prove it is possible to win votes by telling the truth about Britain’s often pernicious activities.

Britain’s electorate would mainly welcome a government that holds Israel accountable. And that idea must horrify Labour Friends of Israel. Speakers at the group’s events tend to recite a list of Labour grandees who have been devoted time and energy to the Zionist project. The speakers are too polite to underscore that Labour governments have been complicit in the dispossession of the Palestinians. The ignominious track record of Labour includes how Ramsay MacDonald – prime minister when Britain ruled Palestine between the two world wars – affirmed in 1931 that Zionist colonisers were free to bar Palestinians from jobs. It includes, too, how Harold Wilson’s administration rubber-stamped the exports of battle tanks used by Israel when seizing its neighbour’s territories in June 1967 and how Blair enthusiastically backed the 2006 assault on Lebanon.

For the past few years, Labour Friends of Israel has been chaired by Joan Ryan, an MP who denies that Gaza is under Israeli occupation. That view is contradicted by the voluminous evidence that Israel retains control of Gaza by land, air and sea. Ryan would not dare to visit protesters fired on by Israeli troops on Gaza’s periphery and tell them they are free of the despised occupation.

Thornberry is more nuanced than Ryan but comparably dangerous. Although she professes to shun goods from illegal colonies in the West Bank, Thornberry has said she would buy other Israeli goods “positively”. The distinction is a false one: it depicts the gobbling up of Palestine as an aberration, when it has always been central to the Zionist project.

In a speech last year, Thornberry dismissed people who advocate a one-state solution for Palestine as extremists. She did not explain what is unreasonable about wanting to swap an apartheid system for a democracy that guarantees justice and equality.

First elected in 2005, Thornberry is not responsible for the worst crimes of Blair and Brown. She has every opportunity to ensure that a future Labour government will learn from previous crimes so that they are never repeated. Sadly, she appears to be squandering those opportunities.

●First published by Middle East Eye, 15 February 2018.