Pro-Israel right targets another Labour MP with fake antisemitism smear

Clive Lewis accused of ‘blaming Jews for far-right riots’ by right-wing smear group calling for his expulsion – which bears no relation to what he said

Notorious right-wing pro-Israel group ‘Labour Against Antisemitism’ (LAAS) is targeting soft-left Norwich South MP and former army officer Clive Lewis and demanding his expulsion from the Labour party for comments critical of Israel – bu mischaracterising them as ‘blaming Jews’ for the consequences of Israel’s actions.

The group has accused Lewis of breaching the supposed ‘official definition’ of antisemitism by commenting on Twitter/X, after yet another murderous attack by Israel on refugees sheltering in a school in Gaza, that:

The link between the daily inhumanity being meted out to Palestinians and rising Islamophobia in the UK, are not unconnected. The inhumanity being shown to one is giving ‘permission’ for the other.

These actions diminish us all.

Alex Hearn, a director of the rabidly anti-left group, claimed that Lewis’s comment was ‘highly irresponsible’ and demanded his expulsion by Keir Starmer:

It is very concerning that people across the political spectrum, from “anti-racists” to the far right, have fantasised that ‘Zionists’ and Israel are to blame for unrest across Britain,” he said.

A recent report by the Community Security Trust showed antisemitism in the last six months has gone up 105%, and that the pretext for these 1,978 incidents are often Palestine. This includes synagogues targeted 76 times and 121 assaults.

For a Labour MP to blame a conflict thousands of miles away for the recent racism in far-right riots in Britain is highly irresponsible.

When attacks against British Jews exploded following the Hamas 7 October massacre, no such link was made by Mr Lewis.

Labour Against Antisemitism call for his immediate suspension and for the whip to be removed while he is investigated. We believe that his comments in the context of sectarian violence and record attacks against British Jews warrant expulsion.

The Community Security Trust (CST) is a UK charity deeply committed to promoting Israel and combating the pro-Palestinian ‘boycott, divestment and sanctions’ (BDS) campaign against goods and services from illegally-occupied Palestinian territory. It has equated opposition to Israel’s genocide with antisemitism, naming anti-genocide campaigners as the main source of antisemitic incidents.

The so-called ‘official definition’ of antisemitism, the ‘IHRA working definition’ has been widely condemned as unfit – including by eminent Jewish legal experts – because it targets criticism of Israel as antisemitic and enables false accusations of antisemitism. An array of Israeli and international civic organisations have called for it to be abandoned because of its flaws and dangers. Despite most countries rejecting it and it not actually defining anything – and its own author calling unfit– its pro-Israel cheerleaders continue to describe it as ‘the international definition’.

LAAS is notorious for its smear campaigns against the Labour left when Jeremy Corbyn was party leader. Despite having no official link with the party, hostile media continually turned to it for comment against Corbyn and amplified its claims. One of its founding signatories was kicked off Twitter for racist comments, A director of the group committed suicide while embroiled in a disastrous (for the defendants) lawsuit brought by a left-winger against him and other pro-Israel activists whose smears put him and his family in danger.

In 2018, LAAS was accused of a serious data breach after it emailed Labour constituency party secretaries with its demands, when it should have had no access to their contact details. An LAAS member was imposed by Starmer’s Labour as a candidate last year despite having received a ‘reminder’ from the party over comments against left-wing Jews and being involved in a lawsuit against Labour which she had boasted was going to bankrupt the party.

The ‘7 October massacre’ referenced by the group in its statement against Lewis has been admitted by the Israeli military and Israeli media to have involved the killing of an ‘immense’ number of Israeli citizens by their own forces, through the repeated use throughout the day of the ‘Hannibal directive’ ordering troops to kill Israelis rather than allow them to be taken captive. The UK media have ignored these admissions.

Israel has repeatedly denied murdering civilians in schools, hospitals and refugee camps then, when those denials fall apart, claimed Hamas is using civilians as ‘human shields’. Under international law, even if the claims were true it would not justify killing the civilians. Israel is now on trial with the International Court of Justice for genocide and the International Criminal Court has been asked by its chief prosecutor to issue war crimes arrest warrants for Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Yoav Gallant.

Israeli troops have been caught using Palestinian prisoners as human shields, raping Palestinian prisoners and executing women and children. So far, since 7 October, Israel has slaughtered almost 200,000 Palestinians in Gaza almost half of them children, and hundreds in the West Bank.

UK far-right groups have deep and well-documented links with pro-Israel groups. ‘Tommy Robinson’, the founder of fascist group the so-called English Defence League, has been funded by them.

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