A survivor of the Heaton Park terror attack has said it is “disgraceful” that Parliament is debating calls for a public inquiry “into pro-Israel influence on politics and democracy” at a time of rising antisemitism in the country.
Over 100,000 people signed a petition claiming there was an “urgent need to scrutinise how pro-Israel organisations, networks, and lobbying efforts may shape government decisions, party policy, and public debate”, meaning that Parliament’s petitions committee was required to consider allowing a debate on the topic.
Alan Levy, who was inside Heaton Park synagogue when it was attacked by terrorist Jihad al-Shamie last Yom Kippur, told the JC it was “absolutely disgraceful that Parliament is even considering having this ridiculous debate on the 'Israel lobby' given the rampant antisemitism across the country".
Levy also accused ministers of ignoring the appeals of the Jewish community for far too long when it came to taking meaningful action to tackle antisemitism.
“Whilst we're grateful for the level of additional funding the government has provided to help keep us safe, how can it be right that I now have to go to my shul to pray behind bigger security fencing and bigger gates and stronger doors with big locking ugly bars attached to them?”, he asked.
The 68-year-old also questioned why, in his view, the government had failed to crack down on antisemitism during pro-Palestine marches and had only belatedly moved to proscribe Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
“Going back well before the [Heaton Park terror] attack, they [the government] have been told by our communal leaders that allowing the hate marches to go on is going to provoke antisemitism and is going to lead to attacks on Jews. The government did nothing at the time”, he said.
"The government has previously resisted proscribing the IRGC as a terrorist organisation until recently,” he went on, adding that Jewish communal leaders had to lobby for the legislation, “despite bans already been put in place by the UK's allies, particularly the US and the European Union.”
Levy likewise blasted the UK’s decision to unilaterally recognise a Palestinian state while Hamas still held Israelis hostage, saying: “Our communal leaders argued that granting statehood to Palestine after a major act of terrorism created an incentive for potential future extremist violence to be used against Jews as a tool for them to achieve their goals.
"All of these things that the government has done, in my view, have led to what has happened subsequently to the Jewish people in this country.”
Last year, Heaton Park’s Rabbi, Daniel Walker, linked the “demonisation” of Israel to the attacks on the shul.
He told a conference in Krakow: “Someone didn't wake up one morning and decide to go attack my synagogue and kill my friends. He was he was born in an atmosphere of hate, and we have to find ways of challenging that.
“We have to acknowledge that the root of that hate is definitely in the demonisation of Israel.”
Recounting how he witnessed al-Shamie shout “they are killing our kids” during the attack, Walker said: “The first thing that occurred to me was the ridiculousness of suggesting that two of the nicest people they're ever going to meet, Melvin Cravitz and Adrian Daulby, would ever harm a fly. They never killed anyone's kids, [they were] the loveliest, most wonderful people.
“It comes from the language of ‘genocide’, the language of condemnation.”
He then spoke of the need to “challenge that language” and to “make political points in a reasonable way without inserting hate and discrimination into the conversation.”
The petition that started the “Israel lobby” debate was set up by Andy Kalil who, according to Scottish nationalist outlet The National, is originally from Merseyside but is based in Norway. Kalil was reportedly angered by the proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation by the government, which motivated him to launch the petition.
Despite the objection of Jewish communal organisations, the debate will go ahead on June 22, with the chairman of the petitions committee saying that it would have been wrong to block the debate after similar debates had previously been held about Russian and Chinese influence.
However, one Labour frontbencher criticised the committee for agreeing to hold the debate: "This petition comes close to endorsing conspiratorial antisemitic tropes about Israeli influence on British politics and the state. Unlike with other countries such as China and Russia, Israel's not trying to undermine British democracy.”
Jewish communal organisations, and the government’s former independent adviser on political violence and disruption, lamented that the petition has been amplified by far-left and Islamist outlets and questioned how appropriate it was given rising antisemitism across the country.
“If those speaking in this debate, including from the front benches, are sincere in their efforts to fight antisemitism, they will be clear in linking the rhetoric in this petition to the increased threat to the Jewish community”, the Jewish Leadership Council previously told the JC.
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