New Labour's secret pro-Israeli stance.

Recently, whilst reading John Kampfener's Book, "Blair's Wars", I came across the statement that Blair decided - after being schooled on the Middle East by Lord Levy - to make New Labour pro-Israel. This is something that Blair never made clear to the public, although it does go some way to explaining some of his more bizarre decisions, including his decision not to condemn the Israeli bombing of Beirut during the latest Israel-Lebanon war. It was a decision that stretched his relationship with the traditional Labour party too far and led to the coup that forced him to state that his speech to last year's Labour Party conference would be his last.

It was the rock on which his Premiership perished.

Labour has always traditionally backed the Palestinians as the occupied people rather than throwing their weight behind the occupiers, and many Labour MP's were unaware - as were most Labour supporters - that Blair had decided to reverse traditional Labour policy on this matter.

Indeed, it is only now that Blair is standing down that the influence that The Labour Friends of Israel group has enjoyed in Blair's Downing Street is becoming clear.

While Labour originally carried a reputation for having more voices sympathetic to the Palestinians – especially during the Thatcher years – the New Labour government of Tony Blair has reversed this orientation. Although one of Tony Blair’s first acts after becoming an MP in 1983 was joining LFI, the relationship truly developed in the early 90s, when as shadow Home Secretary, Tony Blair met Michael Levy at a private meeting at the latter’s house. Michael Abraham Levyis a former chairman of the Jewish Care Community Foundation, a member of the Jewish Agency World Board of Governors, and a trustee of the Holocaust Educational Trust. According to Andrew Porter of The Business, Levy expressed his willingness “to raise large sums of money for the party” which led to a “tacit understanding that Labour would never again, while Blair was leader, be anti-Israel”. The partnership proceeded as Levy started inviting potential donors for tennis at his palatial home where Tony Blair would join them for a set or two. Levy would then proceed to ask the guests for donations after Blair had left. The genius of Levy’s fundraising strategy ensured that most of Labour's election funds came from private sources, rather than its traditional source – the trade unions, thereby weakening their say over policy.

Levy’s investment eventually paid off, with Blair’s accession to power. The reward was not long in coming as Levy was ennobled and subsequently retained as a “special envoy” to the Middle-East, leading predictably to the development of a strong pro-Israel line. Given the fact that Levy has both a business and a house in Israel and his son Daniel used to work for Yossi Beilin – the former Justice Minister of Israel – speaks of a serious conflict of interest, especially when he is the man assigned by Blair to negotiate impartially with Palestinians and Israelis. The fact that Levy acted as a fundraiser for former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak casts further doubt on his capacity for impartiality. According to Neil Sammonds of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in 2002, Four of the previous five ministers with Responsibility for the Middle East had been active members of LFI.

I find it simply astonishing that this change of direction has never been made clear to the public or, indeed, to Labour's own supporters. Most Labour supporters instinctively back the Palestinians in their struggle against Israel's brutal colonial war and many would be shocked to discover that the Labour party have deserted the Palestinians simply because they have found, through Lord Levy and his contacts, a way to fund the party that circumnavigates the unions.

I was also dismayed to discover that Gordon Brown is also a member of LFI which means we can expect more pro-Israeli stances to be taken by New Labour when Brown takes over.

And the LFI have also gone as far as to use their influence to intimidate the BBC into adopting a pro-Israeli line when reporting on the Middle East.

LFI has used its influence to intimidate British media into adopting an openly pro-Israel position. A recent study by the Glasgow University Media Group revealed the systematic bias in BBC and ITV’s coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict which often reproduces the official Israeli narrative uncritically, whereas very little time or detail is devoted to the Palestinian side[20]. Some, who dared to criticize the Israeli position have faced bans, as Faisal Bodi, of BBC Radio 4’s The World Tonight did. According to Bodi, LFI members play a "crucial propaganda role, carrying the flag for Israel in parliament, and lobbying editors to toe the Israeli line".[21] Tim Llewellyn, a Veteran Middle East correspondent for the BBC, has gone to the extent of calling BBC’s reporting on the Israel-Palestine conflict downright “dishonest”. He has attributed it to the “unremitting and productive” efforts by “Israel's many influential and well organised friends”.[22] However, this still did not preclude LFI’s Andrew Dismore from expressing “concern” about the BBC for being “anti-Israeli and biased towards the Palestinians."[23] This charge could not have been more frivolous given that BBC has referred to Jerusalem as Israel’s ‘capital’ – a view otherwise shared outside of Israel by two out of the world’s nearly two hundred countries.

Blair's unremittingly pro-Israeli stance was what finally caused the fissure which ended his Premiership, with many Labour MP's and supporters simply baffled by his reluctance to condemn Israel's illegal and inhumane attack upon the Lebanese.

As it now transpires that this was an official policy and change of direction that the public have never heard debated, we can only expect more trouble amongst the rank and file once Brown comes to power.

The vast majority of Labour's supporters do not back the occupier in this dispute and it is dishonest and underhand that New Labour are not making this new policy clear to the people that they are asking to vote for them.

It is clear now that it was Blair's support for Israel that guided much of his foreign policy and led to his alliance with Bush and the neo-cons regarding Iraq and much else in the Middle East. The neo-con Middle East policy has been a disaster, and the intervention in Iraq has been an even worse British folly than Anthony Eden's intervention into Suez.

The British Labour Party are not supporters of the occupiers of the West Bank and Gaza and it is dishonest if they are being led by people who are, without those people ever making their views clear.

If Brown intends to continue to talk of "peace in the Middle East" whilst hiding the fact that, like Blair, he secretly favours the Israelis, then he is bound to come into the same conflict with the rank and file Labour members as Blair did. And, like Blair, that is a rock on which he will perish.

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Tags: Blair, Lord Levy, Labour party, pro-Israel, Iraq war, Israel, Palestine