Labour MP called in by chief whip over Jewish ambassador comments

Fox-Gould-werrity – http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2011/12/the-guardian-protects-gould-werritty/

A nasty triangle looking for a war in Iran and now the UK calling for greater sanctions on Iran

Flynn is spot on, having a self proclaimed zionist as ambassador to Israel is not going to be a critical friend and look at the links with Werrity, Fox, Atlantic bridge, it is all mapped out.

I wonder if certain barmy neo-cons sees a war in Iran and a wider conflict as the way of getting out of the incoming depression ?

Rubbish. I would of thought it obvious that there is a pro-Israeli bias in the west (especially in the UK and the US). I have to say I am very disappointed that the Chief Whip and Ed Miliband felt the need to actually address this ‘issue’. It’s a sad day when a representative is reprimanded for speaking his mind, and more importantly raising a perfectly valid point.

Flynn was 100% right. Given Israel’s appalling human rights record, its occupation of another country and its oppression of its people, and its mad nuclear arms policy, we need an Ambassador who can represent our interests even when they clash with Israel’s. If the Ambassador is FOR those Israeli policies which we might (and should) oppose, we have a problem.

I support a two state solution for the Palestine/Israel problem. That doesn’t necessarily  make me a Zionist. For me it’s the way to deal with the present reality.

If Matthew Gould is trying to serve two masters then he should probably not be serving in that particular post. I guess the same could be said of who gets to serve at the Vatican, but with the Middle-East being such a tinder box it would probably be wiser to be more careful. If Gould is innocent of the charge he deserves an apology.

Now we do have a problem of anyone moving outside of a certain politically correct box designated by Labour Friends of Israel or whoever is going to be pilloried. This is as wrong as Militant entryism. It besmerches the long history of Jewish members input into the Labour Party.

Off of Craig Murray’s blog I have copied the transcript of the exchange that bought Paul Flynn into the gun sights of the pro-Israel lobby. From this you can make your own mind up whether Flynn is an anti-semite.

Before pasting this let me make it clear I’m not particularly anti-Israeli although I have a lot misgivings about recent Israeli government policies. I do miss the common sense of the likes of Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan and the Israeli Labour Party and I do dislike the Revisionist Zionists like Netanyahu. (The Revisonist Zionists were those that believe in the greater Israeli state expanding to the borders of the Israel in the Old Testament. Netanyahu’s father was a leader of this ideology in the US.)  

I should also make clear that I am not anti-Jewish. In fact that would be a rather silly for me to be so as I come from an old East London family which would find it pretty hard to pass any Nazi like ethnic tests.

While I’m at it, the way the lobby jumps on anyone that feel is even slightly unsympathetic by shouting the loudest reminds me of the political tactics of groups nobody would want to be associated with. To bring that observation a bit more up to date it reminds me of those militant Muslim groups.

Let’s also remember that the Jewish Chronicle seems to be no longer a friend of Labour and seeing their overweight editor praising Murdoch on Question Time recently was rather sickening.

Lastly a quote from the South Wales Argus:

Mr Flynn said: “Luckily the local people have known me for a very long time and will know that I don’t have a racist bone in my body. This is a malicious attack.

So now to the transcript and make your own mind up:

Publc Admininstration Committee 24/11/2011

    Q Paul Flynn: Okay. Matthew Gould has been the subject of a very serious complaint from two of my constituents, Pippa Bartolotti and Joyce Giblin. When they were briefly imprisoned in Israel, they met the ambassador, and they strongly believe—it is nothing to do with this case at all—that he was serving the interest of the Israeli Government, and not the interests of two British citizens. This has been the subject of correspondence.

    In your report, you suggest that there were two meetings between the ambassador and Werritty and Liam Fox. Questions and letters have proved that, in fact, six such meetings took place. There are a number of issues around this. I do not normally fall for conspiracy theories, but the ambassador has proclaimed himself to be a Zionist and he has previously served in Iran, in the service. Werritty is a self-proclaimed—

    Robert Halfon: Point of order, Chairman. What is the point of this?

    Paul Flynn:> Let me get to it. Werritty is a self-proclaimed expert on Iran.

    Chair:> I have to take a point of order.

    Robert Halfon:> Mr Flynn is implying that the British ambassador to Israel is working for a foreign power, which is out of order.

    Paul Flynn:> I quote the Daily Mail: “Mr Werritty is a self-proclaimed expert on Iran and has made several visits. He has also met senior Israeli officials, leading to accusations”—not from me, from the Daily Mail—“that he was close to the country’s secret service, Mossad.” There may be nothing in that, but that appeared in a national newspaper.

    Chair:> I am going to rule on a point of order. Mr Flynn has made it clear that there may be nothing in these allegations, but it is important to have put it on the record. Be careful how you phrase questions.

    Paul Flynn:> Indeed. The two worst decisions taken by Parliament in my 25 years were the invasion of Iraq—joining Bush’s war in Iraq—and the invasion of Helmand province. We know now that there were things going on in the background while that built up to these mistakes. The charge in this case is that Werritty was the servant of neo-con people in America, who take an aggressive view on Iran. They want to foment a war in Iran in the same way as in the early years, there was another—

    Chair:> Order. I must ask you to move to a question that is relevant to the inquiry.

    Q Paul Flynn:> Okay. The question is, are you satisfied that you missed out on the extra four meetings that took place, and does this not mean that those meetings should have been investigated because of the nature of Mr Werritty’s interests?

    Sir Gus O’Donnell:> I think if you look at some of those meetings, some people are referring to meetings that took place before the election.

    Q Paul Flynn:> Indeed, which is even more worrying.

    Sir Gus O’Donnell:> I am afraid they were not the subject—what members of the Opposition do is not something that the Cabinet Secretary should look into. It is not relevant.

    But these meetings were held—

    Chair:> Mr Flynn, would you let him answer please?

    Sir Gus O’Donnell:> I really do not think that was within my context, because they were not Ministers of the Government and what they were up to was not something I should get into at all.

    Chair:> Final question, Mr Flynn.

    Q Paul Flynn:> No, it is not a final question. I am not going to be silenced by you, Chairman; I have important things to raise. I have stayed silent throughout this meeting so far.

    You state in the report—on the meeting held between Gould, Fox and Werritty, on 6 February, in Tel Aviv—that there was a general discussion of international affairs over a private dinner with senior Israelis. The UK ambassador was present. Are you following the line taken by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government who says that he can eat with lobbyists or people applying to his Department because, on occasions, he eats privately, and on other occasions he eats ministerially? Are you accepting the idea? It is possibly a source of great national interest—the eating habits of their Secretary of State. It appears that he might well have a number of stomachs, it has been suggested, if he can divide his time this way. It does seem to be a way of getting round the ministerial code, if people can announce that what they are doing is private rather than ministerial.

    Sir Gus O’Donnell:> The important point here was that, when the Secretary of State had that meeting, he had an official with him—namely, in this case, the ambassador. That is very important, and I should stress that I would expect our ambassador in Israel to have contact with Mossad. That will be part of his job. It is totally natural, and I do not think that you should infer anything from that about the individual’s biases. That is what ambassadors do. Our ambassador in Pakistan will have exactly the same set of wide contacts.

    Q Paul Flynn:> I have good reason, as I said, from constituency matters, to be unhappy about the ambassador. Other criticisms have been made about the ambassador; he is unique in some ways in the role he is performing. There have been suggestions that he is too close to a foreign power.

    Robert Halfon:> On a point of order, Chair, this is not about the ambassador to Israel. This is supposed to be about the Werritty affair.

    Paul Flynn:> It is absolutely crucial to this report. If neo-cons such as yourself, Robert, are plotting a war in Iran, we should know about it.

    Chair:> Order. I think the line of questioning is very involved. I have given you quite a lot of time, Mr Flynn. If you have further inquiries to make of this, they could be pursued in correspondence. May I ask you to ask one final question before we move on?

    Sir Gus O’Donnell:> One thing I would stress: we are talking about the ambassador and I think he has a right of reply. Mr Chairman, I know there is an interesting question of words regarding Head of the Civil Service versus Head of the Home Civil Service, but this is the Diplomatic Service, not the Civil Service.

    Q Chair:> So he is not in your jurisdiction at all.

    Sir Gus O’Donnell:> No.

    Q Paul Flynn:> But you are happy that your report is final; it does not need to go the manager it would have gone to originally, and that is the end of the affair. Is that your view?

    Sir Gus O’Donnell:> As I said, some issues arose where I wanted to be sure that what the Secretary of State was doing had been discussed with the Foreign Secretary. I felt reassured by what the Foreign Secretary told me.

    Q Chair:> I think what Mr Flynn is asking is that your report and the affair raise other issues, but you are saying that that does not fall within the remit of your report and that, indeed, the conduct of an ambassador does not fall within your remit at all.

    Sir Gus O’Donnell:> That is absolutely correct.

    Paul Flynn:> The charge laid by Lord Turnbull in his evidence with regard to Dr Fox and the ministerial code was his failure to observe collective responsibility, in that case about Sri Lanka. Isn’t the same charge there about our policies to Iran and Israel?

    Chair:> We have dealt with that, Mr Flynn.

    Paul Flynn:> We haven’t dealt with it as far as it applies—

    Chair:> Mr Flynn, we are moving on.

    Paul Flynn:> You may well move on, but I remain very unhappy about the fact that you will not allow me to finish the questioning I wanted to give on a matter of great importance.

I think that the most outrageous aspect  of Paul Flynn’s comments about the new Zionist ambassador to Israel is that more Labour  MP’s have not done likewise.   As a party that believes in social justice, we should not support the ‘apartheid’ state  of Israel, nor a self-proclaimed Zionist.