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Unite leader forced to respond to complaints

January 11, 2013 10:00

ByMarcus Dysch, Marcus Dysch

1 min read

The general secretary of Britain’s biggest union has written to supporters of Israel to defend comments he made during Operation Pillar of Defence.

Unite had issued a statement signed by Len McCluskey six days into the violence between Israel and Hamas in November. It “unreservedly condemned outrageous Israeli aggression” and accused Israel of “terrorising an entire population”.

The statement claimed the conflict had followed “the illegal Israeli assassination of Palestinian leaders in Gaza”, but made no mention of the thousands of terrorist rockets fired on Israeli civilians in the preceding decade.

The We Believe in Israel advocacy group encouraged supporters to write to Mr McCluskey to complain about the “one-sidedness” of the statement. Around 200 people did so.