Bicom

Israel will resist any escalation

Thu, 15 Nov 2012 15:35:21 +0000

Israel made one tactical mistake in its limited war with Hizbollah in 2006 which it repeated in 2009 with Hamas. It let intense rocket fire on Israeli cities dictate a longer than necessary timetable for war.

In both cases this increased Israel’s diplomatic isolation while providing diminishing returns on military action. It also lessened the shock effect of dramatic opening moves in both conflicts.

And by placing major population centres under attack for an extended period while appearing unable to counteract it, Israel weakened its long-term deterrence.

The operation which began on Wednesday with the killing of Ahmed Jabari opened nearly as dramatically as the previous two conflicts, with an effective, surprising shock attack. This time, though, Israel’s leaders will resist being dragged into a longer escalation.

But if a rocket falls on a kindergarten or an old age home, or if a daring operation goes awry and soldiers are killed or kidnapped, the shock effect will be erased and the desire to push back even harder will be difficult to resist.

Once this round of fighting is done, Israel — and, for that matter, the entire international community — will need to have a serious think about the status of Gaza as a separate entity within the Palestinian state-to-be.

This was a status that emerged, largely unintentionally, following Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, the Palestinian elections in 2006, and the Hamas takeover.

Nobody on any side ever held separate governments for the two territories as a political desideratum before it happened in 2007. But everyone, it seems, has been committed to maintaining it since.

The ability of Israel or donor nations to influence internal Palestinian politics is limited. But the determination with which all outside parties seek to perpetuate the status quo cannot be counted on to last forever.

Shany Mor is senior research

associate at Bicom and formerly director for foreign policy at the Israeli National Security Council

‘Apartheid’ pollsters reject Bicom criticism

Anna Sheinman — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 17:30:00 +0000

A row has broken out between Bicom (British Israel Communications and Research Centre) and Hebrew University professor Amiram Goldblum over a poll which said Israeli Jews would “support apartheid”.

The controversial survey, which was reported by Ha’aretz last week, was commissioned by the Yisraela Goldblum Fund, a family foundation named after Professor Goldblum’s late wife, the former senior news editor of Kol Israel, who died in 2006.

The poll results, which focused on the attitudes of Israeli Jews towards Arabs if the West Bank were annnexed, were introduced with the words: “In case of annexation, most Jews will support apartheid.”

The poll concluded that 69 per cent of Israeli Jews objected to allowing Palestinians to vote in the event of annexation. It also found that “74 per cent support separation of Israelis and Palestinians on roads”, “47 per cent want to transfer part of the Israeli Arab population to the Palestinian Authority” and “59 per cent are for official preference to be given to Jews for government positions”.

Bicom chief executive, Dermot Kehoe, was highly critical of the poll and in last week’s JC called it “poor social science”, “deeply unhelpful” and its results “bogus”. He called the questions “poorly worded” and attacked the use of the hypothetical situation of annexation, saying that given that most Israelis support a two-state solution, the question was “pretty meaningless”.

But Professor Goldblum said: “The poll was discussed, decided upon and performed by the prime pollsters of Israel. Had he [Mr Kehoe] read the poll carefully, he would find that the most pressing issues are the internal racist attitudes of Jews in Israel.” He agreed that most Israelis wanted a two-state solution, but asserted: “it is well known that the Palestinian Authority is close to a decision to ‘return the keys’ to Netanyahu.”

Professor Goldblum requested an apology and a retraction from Bicom. Instead, Bicom issued a six-page report by its senior associate analyst, Shany Mor, entitled The Apartheid Smear, attacking many technical aspects of the survey as well as its reporting in Ha’aretz. Mr Mor said that “claiming ‘most Israeli Jews would support [an] apartheid regime in Israel’, grossly distorts the polling data”.

Mr Mor highlighted examples of how the questions were “deeply flawed”. For example, the question “Would you like Israel to annex the territories on which there are settlements?” could refer to annexing just the settlements or the whole of the West Bank.

Mr Kehoe said: “I’m not saying there aren’t reasons to be concerned about racism in Israeli society but I would be surprised if there is any poll that would say Israel Jews support apartheid.”

Ha’aretz has since issued a clarification of its report, and its author Gideon Levy has issued an apology acknowledging his article contained “a few mistakes”. But he maintained that the poll unearthed “serious and disturbing findings” and said criticism of the poll was “deviation from the important issue”.

UK policy on Israel: passion needed

Martin Bright — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 11:27:41 +0000

This week’s Bicom dinner, one of the set-piece events of the year for UK supporters of Israel, was a reminder, if anyone needed it, of just how stuck things have become. Ehud Barak gave a rather good speech, but his very presence was a reminder of how far we are from that Camp David handshake with Yasir Arafat in 1999. Conservative Party co-chair Grant Shapps was amiable enough, but his job was merely to repeat what David Cameron had said to the UJIA dinner earlier in the month: Iran is a major threat and Britain will always be a friend to Israel.

The most significant news came not from the politicians, but from Bicom itself, with the launch of an impressive journal, Fathom, which aims to promote a deeper understanding of Israel and the region.

It contains a thorough, mid-term analysis of the coalition’s relationship with Israel by Bicom’s director of research, Toby Greene.

Mr Greene concludes that UK-Israel relations have been affected by three phenomena: the global economic crisis, the Arab uprisings and the ongoing inertia in the peace process. The first has led William Hague to yoke UK foreign policy to trade, especially in its relationship to the Gulf states, but also with Israel, where the emphasis has shifted away from traditional diplomacy to a sharing of hi-tech expertise.

The FCO’s view on the state of the peace process was expressed by Sir Mark Lyall Grant, the UK’s ambassador to the United Nations at Chatham House in 2011: “Israel-Palestine remains the main poison in the well between the West and the Islamic world.”

Mr Greene also points out that Mr Cameron has not visited Israel since he became Prime Minister in May 2010, and the Foreign Secretary only once. Most of the heavy lifting in the relationship has been carried out on the UK side by Middle East minister Alistair Burt and the UK’s ambassador to Israel, Matthew Gould. He is not the first analyst to point out that Mr Cameron lacks the passion for Israel shown by his two immediate predecessors in office.

But there remains a strange disconnect between the FCO’s “poisoned well” rhetoric and the apparently half-hearted attitude of senior coalition politicians, which means they have hardly set foot in the country since they have been in government. If this is such a fundamental block on peace in the region, then you might expect the Prime Minister to be on the next plane out there, or at the very least, make it a priority of his next visit to the region.

'British Jews have new confidence' leaders tell Knesset

Nathan Jeffay — Thu, 24 May 2012 14:20:53 +0100

Israelis should stop sensationalising the problems facing Jews in the UK, a British Jewish leader urged in the Knesset on Tuesday.

Mick Davis, head of the Jewish Leadership Council and chairman of the UJIA, said: “The hyperbole and headlines which dominate the discourse in Israel about the UK often harm our community and bilateral relationship.”

Mr Davis was addressing a special meeting of a Knesset subcommittee on diaspora affairs, which chairwoman Einat Wilf convened “to address the challenges faced by the Jewish and pro-Israel community in Great Britain”.

He acknowledged that Britain was “the hub of hubs” of the movement to delegitimise Israel, saying that it “exports” deligitimisation due to the international importance of its media. He voiced concern about boycotts, saying that even when limited to settlement produce and not all Israeli goods, they are “the thin end of the wedge”.

But he insisted that the community was fighting back with new confidence. There was a “new approach in the public arena,” he said, and went on to argue that Israel’s supporters could take advantage of Britain’s importance and “recast London into a global hub of fighting deligitimisation”.

Dermot Kehoe, chief executive of Bicom, echoed this, saying: “We should not just see the UK as a threat, but as an opportunity to win the argument.”

Mr Davis stressed repeatedly that British Jewry was, in the main, at one with the general British population. “Things are not as bad as I read about,” he said.

But the Zionist Federation’s representative at the meeting sharply dismissed Mr Davis’s assessment. Addressing Ms Wilf, Andrew Balcombe, chairman of the ZF’s Israel office, said: “I think, madam chairman, that you should understand that from an activist point of view, that speech would have been terrific five or 10 years ago.” He hit out at Mr Davis as removed from reality, saying that the top officials in the JLC — which the ZF has refused to join — are “maybe 27 levels above what is going on on the ground”.

Asked after the meeting about his objections, he said: “I disagreed with the description of the state of British Jewry in relation to Israel. The word antisemitism was hardly mentioned, the divisions in the leadership of the Jewish community were not mentioned, and the overstretched and underfunded work done by activists was hardly mentioned.”

Michael Dickson, Israel director of the organisation StandWithUs, told the meeting that on occasions pro-Israel action was “hindered by our own side”. One small group of UK Jewish leaders had tried to block a campus tour by a pro-Israel Muslim speaker for fear of “inflaming the campus atmosphere”, he said.

There had been a “strategic underinvestment in real pro-Israel grassroots action in the UK”, Mr Dickson said.

The meeting was organised to brief Israeli politicians on the situation in the UK, but there was one obvious problem — a lack of Knesset members. Only Einat Wilf remained for the whole meeting, and just one other, Anastassia Michaeli of Yisrael Beiteinu, made an appearance.

Asked about the absence of her parliamentary colleagues, Ms Wilf, who represents the Independence party, said: “I do my best to promote the subject. Sadly, still, Israeli-diaspora relations are an elite preoccupation among MKs.”

She pledged to bring the proposals, including Mr Davis’s suggestion of a “Big Conversation” between Israel and the diaspora, to a full plenum of the Knesset.

UK support for Israel 'declining'

Simon Rocker — Thu, 24 May 2012 14:17:36 +0100

Pro-Israel sentiment in the UK has dropped from 25 per cent to 17 per cent in a decade, while support for the Palestinians remained at the same level at 18 per cent.

Comparison of polls taken between 2001 and 2011 taken by Bicom showed that most people did not take sides and there was “a general public coolness” towards both Israel and the Palestinians, according to evidence presented in the Knesset.

Sympathy was at its highest for the Palestinians at 40 per cent in November 2006 (when it was 33 per cent for the Israelis) and for Israel at 36 per cent the following year (when it was the same figure for the Palestinians).

One in five blamed Israel for the failure to settle the conflict, compared with only eight per cent blaming the Palestinians in the most recent poll. Two thirds held both sides responsible and five per cent neither.

Sixty-four per cent supported Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state (although 46 per cent made it conditional on a peace agreement); eight per cent rejected the idea of a Jewish state.

Lorna bids a sudden farewell to Bicom

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 15:12:12 +0000

The chief executive of the UK's top Israel pressure group is to step down to "pursue new opportunities", after almost six years at the helm.

Former Labour MP Lorna Fitzsimons, below, will leave her role at the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (Bicom) next week. She led the team which launched the We Believe in Israel conference last year, attracting 1,500 people and more than 80 speakers from around the world.

But despite appointing a dedicated We Believe director, Luke Akehurst, this year's conference, due to take place in April, has been shelved, in favour of smaller, localised events.

Ms Fitzsimons took up her post in 2006, taking over from Israeli diplomat Danny Shek. The role of the organisation has largely been to counter anti-Israel propaganda and negativity in the media and the political arena, with many journalists and politicians visiting Israel on Bicom tours.

Ms Fitzsimons said: "I did not feel I could explore other opportunities while also devoting my full attention to the hugely demanding role of CEO, especially at this time of immense challenge and threat in the region. The organisation and the pro-Israel community need and deserve this focus from Bicom's CEO, and in all honesty I could not do that and review new roles at the same time. This decision has not been an easy one, but I think it is the right one at this time.

"To be able to work on an issue that you believe in and care about is a luxury not many people have. My belief in what we do and its importance has not diminished. Now, more than ever, Israel needs friends and I can assure you I will never stint in my efforts to promote and defend her."

Ms Fitzsimons's interim successor will be Dermot Kehoe, partner of the late chair of Labour Friends of Israel, David Cairns MP.

Bicom board chairman Poju Zabludowicz said the board had reluctantly accepted her resignation. He said that under Ms Fitzsimons Bicom had "excelled" in campaigning against boycotts of the state, and issues such as a nuclear Iran and Operation Cast Lead.

"Under Lorna's leadership Bicom has reached exemplary levels. She leaves a huge mark on the organisation, the pro-Israel community and Israel advocacy."

However, there were other less positive comments. One senior community figure told the JC that pro-Israel advocates in the UK and US believed it was time for a change in strategy from Bicom. One said: "Last time I was in Washington and mentioned Bicom to [US pro-Israel lobby group]Aipac representatives, they were surprised Lorna was still in position.

"If you do a survey which says a larger percentage of the British people hate Israel now than they did five years ago, clearly the strategy has not been working. To be very charitable, I would say nothing has been happening, and that Israel advocacy has got worse. It's time for change. Bicom should be focused on getting our community passionate, dynamic and loudly supportive."

Israel advocacy is strong, but we need your help to carry on

Lorna Fitzsimons — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 11:54:07 +0000

After five years at Bicom I have the chance to take stock. I believe Israel advocacy is now much stronger in the UK and better serves the community and Israel.

Before Bicom, my sole exposure to pro-Israel advocacy had been the Union of Jewish Students when I was at the National Union of Students, and Labour Friends of Israel when I was an MP. Both were, and are simply brilliant. Yet as involved as I was I didn't really know of Bicom. There was also nothing for me to get involved in as a non-Jew in between being a student and being an MP.

Over the past five years Bicom has committed itself to trying to achieve a more balanced hearing for Israel in the media and developing a more joined-up approach across the community towards pro-Israel advocacy. That was evident in that marvellous day last May when 26 organisations came together to inspire 1,500 people under the banner of "We Believe in Israel".

Five years ago many thought that pro-Israel advocacy was only done by Jews. Bicom is now run at the senior level by predominantly non-Jewish staff. Five years ago, there was no real coordination between UK and international advocacy organisations. Now Bicom is held up as an international example of best practice and regularly called upon to brief and train others.

We now have a well-developed and practiced crisis management system and protocol run jointly with the JLC. We used it to great effect in response to Operation Cast Lead, in 2010 as the first Flotilla hit the headlines, as well as last year during the Palestinian bid for UN membership.

Five years ago none of the British pro-Israel advocacy organisations had a presence in Israel and we weren't really on the Israeli government's map. Bicom now has an office there allowing us to provide a seamless service for journalists and sister organisations in the region. We are regularly brought into discussions by governments in the UK and Israel as trusted experts. Five years ago there was a lot of turning a blind eye in Britain. Today we have faced up to the use of London as a hub for delegitimisation and we are working hard to counter efforts to portray Israel as a pariah state. This work really started with the Stop The Boycott Campaign, whichlifted advocacy out of smoke-filled rooms to the front pages of every national newspaper. To this day no UK academic institution has boycotted Israel, despite the efforts of the BDS campaign.

Today the danger is bigger than at any other time I can remember, yet we are stronger and have more allies than we think. However there are more projects than we have money for. There is no shortage of the best of the best wanting to work with us, But we can't do it on thin air. The community talks about wanting a grass roots movement but it hasn't yet put its money where its mouth is. For example, it talks about the trouble in British Trade Unions yet one of our most underfunded organisations is Trade Union Friends for Israel.

The professionals working in advocacy in the community are some of the best in the world but as the task gets bigger it can't all be left to a few dedicated people. The time is now if we want to have impact. We can still turn this around. Our polling shows that 22 per cent of the public are with us and 13 per cent against, 17 per cent don't give a damn and the rest are up for grabs.

The British people like an underdog, for sure, and they think Israel overreacts. But they also think Iran is the biggest problem, they place Hamas rejectionists second, and they did not like the Palestinians' unilateral moves at the UN. They want to see a Palestinian state but they don't blame Israel for that not having happened yet. As for their reaction to the Arab spring, it has been more astute than that of the political and media classes. They understood what Israel did, that the upheavals made peace more important than ever but also harder to achieve.

It has been an honour to work for Bicom and with so many wonderful and brilliant people. I will continue to advocate and indeed agitate for you and Israel whatever I do. Let me leave with two quotes that I have to constantly remind myself of. The first is from Abraham Lincoln: "Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other." The second is from Winston Churchill: "Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen."

Lorna Fitzsimons resigns as Bicom chief executive

Jennifer Lipman — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 12:44:47 +0000

The chief executive of the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre is to step down after nearly six years in the role.

Lorna Fitzsimons, who served as a Labour MP for Rochdale for eight years before joining Bicom, is leaving to pursue other opportunities.

Ms Fitzsimons, who was president of the National Union of Students between 1992 and 1994, took the job at Bicom in 2006 after Danny Shek stepped down.

Under her supervision, Bicom held the We Believe in Israel conference last year, attracting 1,500 people and nearly 100 guest speakers.

Bicom was set up in 2001 to counter anti-Israel propaganda. When Ms Fitzsimons, 44, was appointed its chief executive, she said that "Israel was at the forefront of a struggle that has a direct impact on us here in the UK.

Ms Fitzsimons said working for Bicom had been "the most amazing experience and privilege".

"To be able to work on an issue that you also believe in and care about is a luxury not many people have. My belief in what we do and its importance has not diminished and will not in the future.

"Now more than ever Israel needs friends and I can assure you I will never stint in my efforts to promote and defend her.

"I am leaving the organisation in good hands with Dermot Kehoe leading the team going forward." Mr kehoe will lead Bicom until a new chief executive is appointed.

Bicom board chairman Poju Zabludowicz said the board had reluctantly accepted her resignation.

"Under Lorna's leadership Bicom has reached exemplary levels. She leaves a huge mark on the organisation, the pro-Israel community and Israel advocacy."

Seeing is believing

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 15:34:26 +0000

Bicom chief executive Lorna Fitzsimons and Jewish Leadership Council CEO Jeremy Newmark were among the speakers at an advocacy meeting in Glasgow in Sunday held as part of the We Believe in Israel campaign.

The audience of 70 at Giffnock Synagogue included people who had travelled from Stirling, Perth and Dundee. Others came from church groups and the Scottish Friends of Israel.

Co-organiser Stanley Lovatt hoped the event would "encourage as many people as possible to fight all the anti-Israel misinformation that is out there".

Big Tent's pitch brings on applause

Jonathan Kalmus — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 12:10:16 +0000

The controversies over Manchester's Big Tent Israel advocacy conference, starting with the deadlock between organisers and Bicom over the political make-up of speakers, were sidelined on Sunday as Bicom chief Lorna Fitzsimons stole the show.

The 700-strong attendance, just under half the size of London's We Believe event last May, was drawn mostly from a community that represents around 10 per cent of Anglo-Jewry, while others came from London, Leeds and Liverpool. Most delegates stayed to be brought to their feet by the day's closing, rallying cry from Ms Fitzsimons.

"If you won't look your colleagues in the face and say you are proud to be friends of Israel, who will? That awful fear of social embarrassment: it's just not good enough to duck. I want to ask every single one of you to go out of this room and embrace your fear," she declared.

The day, dedicated to sparking a new, grass-roots movement to counter delegitimisation campaigns against Israel in the UK, opened with keynote speaker, Israel's ambassador Daniel Taub.

Drawing from Manchester's history as "the centre of world Zionism" created by Chaim Weizman, he told the opening plenary: "If Manchester played such a crucial role in the establishment of the state of Israel, I think what brings us all here to Manchester today is the sense that that battle is not fully over."

Speaking just before the ambassador, MP Ivan Lewis praised the Big Tent's convenor, Rabbi Jonathan Guttentag, and noted that, "far too often, those who claim the mantle of leadership in our community would rather ignore some home truths. And the leaders who have the integrity to speak out in a very moderate and balanced way are sometimes vilified."

Mr Lewis said: "Let us respect our differences, free of some of the rancour and personal vitriol we have seen over the last few weeks."

During the day's 22 panel sessions, the storms over inter-communal bickering were repeatedly, although momentarily, washed away with applause.

Douglas Murray of the Henry Jackson Society told 200 delegates that as an "outside observer" of the Jewish community, he noted that "pro-Israel groups spend more time attacking each other than they do their mutual enemies.

"It's like the scene in the Life of Brian when no one remembers who their enemy is," Mr Murray said. The sentiment was echoed in more serious terms by many of the conference's 40 or more speakers.

But the day did not pass without controversy, the least of which came from 14 pro-Palestinian protesters. Denied entrance to the Manchester city-centre hotel where the event took place, the group shouted outside for about half an hour. Earlier in the week, a writer for a vehemently anti-Israel website, Electronic Intifada, had complained of being unable to gain press access while claiming he would have reported the event critically but "accurately and honestly".

The Big Tent, living up to its name, included speakers from a wide range of political positions. Hannah Weisfeld, director of the left-wing Israel advocacy organisation Yachad, strenuously defended the right of pro-Israel groups to criticise the Israeli government.

"I challenge the notion and strongly refute [the belief] that you cannot engage with critics of Israel by admitting Israel's flaws," she said.

But Douglas Murray, who admitted a cross-political effort for Israel was needed, countered: "If this argument for Israel is going to be won - and, let's face it, it is being lost - we need a tool-box approach to doing that. That tool-box will include people who are hammers, and there will be some spanners in it."

A more potent clash broke out later in a public relations panel debate with Jewish PR guru Shimon Cohen, who told Lorna Fitzsimons he did not agree with a word she had said on positive PR efforts by the Israeli government.

Mr Cohen, who led the recently successful, pro-shechita campaign, said: "Israel's PR sucks," and urged the audience to try to focus the media on positive Israel stories rather than countering the negative. He also attacked Jewish communal leadership.

"When we started Shechita UK, I was told we didn't need it; our leaders would have a quiet word at the top. That is utter rubbish. People matter, opinions matter, voices matter. Thanks to the great Jewish public, a voice got across and we won," he said, urging that the same PR effort should now be made for Israel.

If there was an absence in the conference, it was of younger participants. The Union of Jewish Students' campus sessions appealed to around 20 students who attended, but most delegates were aged 50 and over.

King's College, London, medical student, Adam Showman, 26, had travelled from the capital to attend, but observed: "I don't think this has engaged a lot of young people."

Manchester University student, Corinne Abrahams, 19, who spent the day on one of the youth-movement stalls representing Hanoar, said the lack of youth was "a massive shame. The topics of the sessions were very good and people would have been interested."

But the aim of the Big Tent to create a grass-roots activism movement worked for Brian Freeman, 70, from Hale, who pledged to use his recent retirement to start a local pro-Israel group. He was one of hundreds of delegates who signed activism pledge cards.

"The day has brought perspective to the problem; for me it's brought it to life," he said. Big Tent organisers said they were already planning "mini Big Tent events" across the UK over the next year.