Campaigners urge probe into UK-based pro-Zionist lobby group
Saeed Pourreza
Press TV, London
Pro-Palestine campaigners have called on Britain’s charities regulator for an urgent investigation into a London-based pro-Israel lobby group. The move comes a month after the group accused anti-Israel demonstrators at a protest rally against the Israeli ambassador to the UK of extremism, racism and intimidation.
Demonstrations are a stable of the British democracy. A protest rally last month against the Israeli ambassador Tzipi Hotovely was one of them, leaving a debate at the London School of Economics.
The event passed off peacefully. Police made no arrests. But then came a torrent of criticism from British officials and anti-Semitism allegations from pro-Israel organizations -- chiefly from the Community Security Trust CST, a charity with the purported mission of looking after the Jewish community in the UK. Campaigners say the CST misrepresented the event as violent, and linked the protesters to terrorism.
The pro-Palestine campaigners have also criticized the preferential treatment the Community Security Trust and other pro-Israel organizations receive in the UK while their Muslim counterparts are frequently demonized. They say the ball is now in the charities regulator’s court, to hold the CST to account or to throw its own integrity into question.
And now they’re fighting back. In a letter to UK charities regulator, the Charity Commission, pro-Palestine campaigners have called for an urgent investigation into the Community Security Trust for engaging in political activity.
The letter accuses the organization of routinely attacking those who organize or take part in campaigning for the rights of the Palestinians with tactics such as character assassination and false accusations, all aimed at shielding Israel from criticism.
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