By IRNA
London : A parliamentary committee is being urged to investigate the pervasive influence of the Israeli regime’s lobby in Britain that have been embedded in the country’s major political parties for over 50 years.
Secretary of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, Charles Ramsden is being asked to examine the variety of so-called “Friends of Israel” groups that are at the centre of the British political establishment and at the very heart of government.”
But according to the Jewish Chronicle, the call led Israel boycott campaigners is being dismissed as an attempt to “smear” the Israel lobby.
In a letter to Ramsden, British MPs in the friendship groups are accused of “eating out of the Israeli government’s hand” and being a powerful influence on the government’s Middle East policy.
It focuses on the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI), questioning the loyalty to Britain of its director, Stuart Polak, and points out that Foreign Office Minister for the Middle East Kim Howells is a former chair of Labour Friends of Israel (LFI).
“I am proud not just to be a Conservative, but a Conservative Friend of Israel; and I am proud of the key role CFI plays within our Party,” the CFI website quotes the party’s leader David Cameron saying.
Parliamentary chairman of CFI, is also James Arbuthnot, a former defence minister and the current chair of the Defence Select Committee in the House of Commons.
“We present the case for Israel but we also inform people about the good and the bad sides of the conflict [with the Palestinians],” Arbuthnot was quoted saying.
Unlike CFI, LFI is completely controlled by Labour MPs and includes many former ministers on its Policy Council, the most senior being former Home Secretary David Blunkett, former Trade Secretary Stephen Byers and Europe Minister Dennis MacShane.
But Ramsden was quoted saying that any investigation was “very unlikely” to be held by his committee, which acts as a watchdog on the conduct of MPs, saying that it only dealt with “issues involving individuals.”