Dispatches, Britain and Israel

Tune in to Channel 4 at 8pm this evening, for Peter Oborne's investigation of the pro-Israel lobby in the UK. 

As unpleasant as some of Israel's neighbours and some of her opponents are, the who, what, why and where of this documentary is potentially fascinating. 

More on Inside Britain's Israel Lobby here. 

Comments

[Dave E]

Zionism must be very profitable, all the lobbyists were rich - and they want to keep it that way.

[Duncan]

Watched this and was disasppointed, very little in the way of interesting revelations.

Large donors to major political parties expect policy changes favourable to their interests. What a shocker.

[henry]

Bit weak, but significant now if only because it breaks a taboo and may be expressing the concerns of those who see Israel getting its own way on Iran (bomb, bomb, tiddly bomb).

But 90 NuLab MPs took Israeli sponsored trips as compared to 30 NuTories in the last parliament . . . and in policy terms it did pay dividends.

Not sure if you recall, by very shortly after Yasser Arafat popped his clogs, the PLO central command employed several PR companies to front their TV & Press - and they were fucking brilliant (in TV terms) fielding stunningly articulate, hollywood-looking young men and young women of Palestinian heritage who pole axed the Izzy Government spokesmen (sic) when ever they appeared together or crossed comments.... unfortunately Fatah quickly fell back into its old ways, and the Israelis changed their front of house team to the simpering females (I am a women I feel your pain! I am a mother too!) that they presently use.

Oh well - bomb bomb tiddly bomb, here we come.

[Paul Stott]

I rather enjoyed Melanie Phillipps critique of the programme on The Spectator blog, where she complained that the Israeli lobby is the least succesful one going.

In a peverse way, she is correct. They have achieved virtually blanket success at party political and government level, but at least in part because of that success, they are largely reviled by the general public.

And that is now the biggest crisis facing Israel. Its a proper cleft stick - the more they achieve diplomatically and poltically, the more endangered they actually are.........