Israel lobby group UKLFI investigated over ‘vexatious and baseless’ threats to silence Palestine support

The UK lawyer group ‘UK Lawyers for Israel’ (UKLFI) is under investigation after a formal complaint that it threatened supporters of Palestine with legal action in an attempt to silence or stifle them.

The group, which is notorious for using its approach to force a hospital to take down art by Palestinian children and trying unsuccessfully to have a Palestinian doctor struck off from the UK General Medical Council, was one of two groups recently criticised in a report by human rights and justice group CAGE. It has been accused by a the Public Interest Law Centre (PILC) and the European Legal Support Center (ELSC), to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), of sending eight letters that “demonstrate a seeming pattern of vexatious and legally baseless correspondence aimed at silencing and intimidating Palestine solidarity efforts”, which the complainants say constitute “serious breaches” of the principles and code of conduct that the SRA supposedly demands of its members.

An SRA spokesperson confirmed that it had received the complaint and was investigating “before deciding on next steps.”

In its own words, UKLFI exists “to combat BDS [the pro-Palestine Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement] and the delegitimisation of Israel” by “employ[ing] advocacy, legal research and campaigning to support Israel, Israeli organisations, Israelis, and/or supporters of Israel against BDS and other attempts to undermine, attack or delegitimise them.”

The complainants say UKLFI uses “strategic lawsuits against public participation (Slapps), which are lawsuits intended to limit freedom of expression on matters of public interest” – a form of lawfare to silence criticism of Israel and pro-Palestinian advocacy. The SRA’s website says that it considers Slapps as a “type of abusive litigation” that can “undermine freedom of expression, the rule of law and amount to a misuse of the legal system”.

The group also hit the headlines recently when its CEO Jonathan Turner accused medical experts of ignoring the supposed health benefits of Israel’s blockade of food into Gaza because “one of the biggest health issues in Gaza prior to the current war was obesity.” Natasha Hausdorff (pictured above), one of its main spokespeople, also went viral when she was ‘rinsed‘ by Piers Morgan and Jewish-American commentator Dave Smith for claiming that discussion of Israel’s genocide in and starvation and ethnic cleansing of Gaza are “blood libels” and “propaganda” and that Israel is in full compliance with international law.

Gaza is now officially in famine, with more than 500,000 people in grave danger of death from malnutrition.

One of the letters that triggered the PILC/ELSC complaint was sent by UKLFI director Caroline Turner to the Scottish Storytelling Centre in Edinburgh, which was planning to host a Palestinian film festival in May. The complaint states that UKLFI’s letter claimed the scheduled events were “inherently antisemitic and anti-Zionist in nature” and likely to lead to a referral to the Scottish charity regulator. UKLFI demanded the festival’s cancellation.

Another was sent by Turner and UKLFI to the Cornelius Cardew Concerts Trust accusing it of “siding with the viewpoint” of Hamas and committing a probably offence under the Terrorism Act 2000 for planning a classical music concert called “The World Stands With Palestine” in November 2024 featuring music “in response to the struggle of the Palestinian people”. The venue capitulated and the concert was cancelled.

PILC founder Paul Heron said:

UKLFI are acting in a manner that chills public participation and intimidates those who stand in solidarity with Palestine … We will not allow legal threats to shut down the public’s right to speak out on Palestine. The SRA has a duty to step in, to uphold professional standards, and to protect civil society from intimidation dressed up as law.

On its website, UKLFI claimed that the allegations against it were unfounded:

We are accused of writing vexatious and baseless letters, and the complainants say they have acquired eight examples from a period of over three years [and address] hundreds of requests for help every year from Jewish members of the public expressing genuine concerns in many areas of life including medical services, retailers, education and the arts.

Many of the concerns relate to conduct creating an intimidating, hostile and offensive environment for Jewish patients, workers, customers or students, and sometimes excluding them altogether.

If appropriate, we write to the relevant organisation and point out what is happening, the effect that this has had on the Jewish or Israeli customer or patient, and how applicable laws or regulatory requirements are being breached. We also explain how the problem may be solved.

This narrative is contradicted by the fact that a 2023 Freedom of Information Act request to the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, which had taken down a display of plates featuring paintings by Gaza children in response to an approach from UKLFI claiming that the display had made Jewish patients feel “vulnerable, harassed and victimised“, revealed that the hospital had received zero complaints from patients. In contrast, the hospital received hundreds of complaints about the display’s removal.

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