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Israel supporters thrown out of Palestine meeting by armed police
When the activists asked questions during the Q&A, the Labour MP chairing the meeting called in the police to have them removed.
April 28, 2017 13:29
When the activists asked questions during the Q&A, the Labour MP chairing the meeting called in the police to have them removed.
April 28, 2017 13:29Pro-Israel activists have been ejected from a meeting in Parliament by armed police after asking what were deemed “disruptive questions” at an event organised by a Palestinian rights group.
The four Israel supporters were removed from a panel discussion held by the Palestine Return Centre and chaired by Mark Hendrick, the Labour MP for Preston.
According to MailOnline, Mr Hendrick summoned police officers when the activists attempted to participate in a question and answer session.
One of the activists, Mandy Blumenthal, 52, a member of West Midlands Friends of Israel, said: “I was thinking, oh my God, I feel it's really wrong to be told to leave for just giving my opinions.
'But I saw a policeman with a machine gun and I didn't want to argue.'
At one point during the meeting, on Tuesday, Mr Hendrick responded to a question about the panel’s anti-Israel bias, by saying: “‘This is a Palestinian Return Centre meeting. It is not supposed to be a cross-section of views.”
In a blog post published by Richard Millett, one of the pro-Israel attendees, he described how he had asked one of the panel "whether she had any sympathy with Israelis left bereaved and disabled by suicide bombers who got into Israel before the [security] wall, which she condemned, had been built?
"[Mr] Hendrick immediately intervened on her behalf saying that this was a meeting about Palestine, not Israel. When I pressed that she should be allowed to answer he went outside to call armed police.
"I was then politely asked to leave the room by police and then asked to give my personal details. At one stage I was surrounded by seven heavily armed police". He then described how his fellow activists "were all similarly led out".
Mr Hendrick told MailOnline the activists were being “deliberately disruptive, asking disruptive questions”.
A spokesperson for the PRC claimed the four Israel supporters had attended the meeting “intentionally to make trouble”.
The PRC has been declared an illegal association in Israel, with the Israeli government accusing it of being closely affiliated with Hamas.
The spokesperson told MailOnline: “We have always denied having a connection with Hamas. We have met with them, but we meet all Palestinian stakeholders. We do not condone violence and antisemitism”.
