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News ID: 35759
Publish Date : 18 January 2017 - 21:06

British PM Rejects Probe Into Zionist Influence



LONDON (Dispatches) -- British Prime Minister Theresa May has dismissed a call from opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn for an investigation into allegations of improper Israeli influence in British public life.
A spokesperson for May on Wednesday reiterated that the government did not intend to take any further action over revelations in an Al Jazeera documentary series in which a secretly filmed member of staff at the Zionist embassy discussed "taking down" a government minister and talked about a "hit list" of MPs.
"The Israeli ambassador (Mark Regev) has apologized and is clear these comments do not reflect the views of the embassy” or the Zionist regime, the spokesperson told Middle East Eye.
"The UK has a strong relationship with Israel and we consider the matter closed.”
Labor leader Corbyn wrote to May last week to urge her to launch an investigation, suggesting that the evidence raised by the films should be treated as a "national security issue.”
The films included footage of Shai Masot, a senior political officer based in the embassy who was forced to resign after being exposed by an undercover reporter, discussing "taking down” foreign office minister Alan Duncan because he was causing "problems."
Masot also talked about setting up a pro-Zionist youth group within the Labor Party and described Corbyn, a long-time supporter of Palestinian activism, as "crazy."
"I am sure you will agree that such improper interference in this country's democratic process is unacceptable, whichever country is involved," Corbyn wrote.
The occupying regime of Israel’s embassy has sought to play down Masot's activities, describing him as a "junior member of staff" whose actions were "completely unacceptable". He has since left London and resigned from the Israeli foreign ministry.
Members of May's Conservative Party have also called for further action over the scandal, with Crispin Blunt, the chair of the foreign affairs select committee, indicating that he hoped to include it within the committee's wider inquiry into the Middle East peace process.
"This is clearly interference in another country's politics of the murkiest and most discreditable kind," Blunt, who was also identified in the tapes as one of the MPs on Masot's "hit list", told MEE.
Al Jazeera's undercover recordings also raised issues about recent cases of allegations of anti-Semitism within the Labor Party. One episode examined how a party activist who raised questions concerning illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank with Joan Ryan, the chair of the Labor Friends of Israel (LFI) lobby group, became the subject of an anti-Semitism complaint.
The activist, identified in the documentary as Jean, was subsequently cleared.
Labor last year conducted an internal inquiry into anti-Semitism within the party following a series of reports of allegedly anti-Semitic incidents after Corbyn, a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, became leader in 2015.
The Jewish Chronicle newspaper reported on Tuesday that the party's national executive committee (NEC) disputes panel had cleared two members of the Oxford University Labor Club who had been accused of anti-Semitism in complaints raised by Zionist students.
The Al Jazeera documentary contained footage in which Michael Rubin, the parliamentary officer for LFI, who also talked about working "really close together behind the scenes" with the Israeli embassy, said that he had conducted the investigation into the Oxford anti-Semitism allegations in his former role as the chair of Labor Students.