D.A.F.C Posted December 5, 2015 Share Posted December 5, 2015 Why does every major UK political party have a friends of Israel club? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
P45 Posted December 5, 2015 Share Posted December 5, 2015 The Israel club has the best snacks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ad Lib Posted December 5, 2015 Share Posted December 5, 2015 The need for and presence of, good lobbying by ex pat communities of a country that literally faces existential threats against it, giving rise to the need for strong diplomatic ties with the countries capable of obliterating their enemies, probably. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D.A.F.C Posted December 5, 2015 Author Share Posted December 5, 2015 Bit undemocratic, no? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Rational Posted December 5, 2015 Share Posted December 5, 2015 The need for and presence of, good lobbying by ex pat communities of a country that literally faces existential threats against it, giving rise to the need for strong diplomatic ties with the countries capable of obliterating their enemies, probably. Or you could have said 'they needs friends in political parties throughout the world in case it goes tits up'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ad Lib Posted December 5, 2015 Share Posted December 5, 2015 Bit undemocratic, no? No more undemocratic than Lib Dem Friends of Curry. You have hundreds of affiliated sub-groups in political parties. Friends of Israel, Friends of Palestine, Friends of Real Ale... you name it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ad Lib Posted December 5, 2015 Share Posted December 5, 2015 Or you could have said 'they needs friends in political parties throughout the world in case it goes tits up'. That would have been inaccurate though. It's about preventing it from going tits up, not in case it does. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D.A.F.C Posted December 5, 2015 Author Share Posted December 5, 2015 Seems legit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenconner Posted December 5, 2015 Share Posted December 5, 2015 Some of the MP "friends" will be genuine, i'd say the Jewish members obviously,others will be chancers like say the ex MP for East Renfrewshire. Btw, the early Israeli state was seen as a socialist state. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zen Archer (Raconteur) Posted December 5, 2015 Share Posted December 5, 2015 Why does every major UK political party have a friends of Israel club? I know, the b*****ds blew up our post boxes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
strichener Posted December 5, 2015 Share Posted December 5, 2015 The need for and presence of, good lobbying by ex pat communities of a country that literally faces existential threats against it, giving rise to the need for strong diplomatic ties with the countries capable of obliterating their enemies, probably. From whom? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ad Lib Posted December 5, 2015 Share Posted December 5, 2015 From whom? Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah to name but three. In the past, the threat has included other neighbouring nations, like Egypt. How serious those existential threats are and how likely they are to be given effect to is clearly an open question. Given two of these are terrorist organisations, who run neighbouring territories, and whose Charters commit themselves to the destruction of the State of Israel, while the other is a potential nuclear state run by Islamic theocrats whose leaders have on several occasions called for the destruction of Israel in its entirety, it's surely at least fair to say these threats are non-trivial. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
strichener Posted December 5, 2015 Share Posted December 5, 2015 Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah to name but three. In the past, the threat has included other neighbouring nations, like Egypt. How serious those existential threats are and how likely they are to be given effect to is clearly an open question. Given two of these are terrorist organisations, who run neighbouring territories, and whose Charters commit themselves to the destruction of the State of Israel, while the other is a potential nuclear state run by Islamic theocrats whose leaders have on several occasions called for the destruction of Israel in its entirety, it's surely at least fair to say these threats are non-trivial. Israel is an expansionist state. It has the second largest military budget in the world (per head or as a %age of GDP) and is itself a nuclear state. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
invergowrie arab Posted December 5, 2015 Share Posted December 5, 2015 No more undemocratic than Lib Dem Friends of Curry. You have hundreds of affiliated sub-groups in political parties. Friends of Israel, Friends of Palestine, Friends of Real Ale... you name it. dorothy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crossbill Posted December 6, 2015 Share Posted December 6, 2015 I suspect that one of the main objectives of these groups is to supress political support for Palestinians. Israel doesn't really have a lot to fear from it's neighbours in a military sense. They are more than capable of defending themselves, and as long as they have the continued backing of the US, the state of Israel is effectively invulnerable from direct attack. However, if a Palestinian state could be legitimised then Israel would find itself in a very awkward position. There seems to be immense political pressure being exerted to make sure that does not happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
THE KING Posted December 6, 2015 Share Posted December 6, 2015 Why does every major UK political party have a friends of Israel club?Because the Jewish lobby are very good at their job.For friends of Israel read friends of white South Africa, you're "a friend of Israel" as long as you don't won't a two state solution , or recognise the Palestinian people or have no problem with the 100s of illegal settlements built on "occupied territory" if you're happy with only Jewish people having a "right of return to Isreal" but not the 100s of 1000s of Palestinians...then you're a good friend of Israel. if only the SNP would follow the greens.. ONE of Scotland's fastest growing political parties has voted to campaign for an economic and cultural boycott of the "racist apartheid" state of Israel until it withdraws to pre-1967 borders and senior political and military personnel are tried for war crime. The Scottish Green Party has voted overwhelmingly in favour of South of Scotland Holyrood candidate Eurig Scandrett's motion accusing Israel of "systematic infringements of international law" and of perpetuating "the racist ideology of modern day Zionism". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
welshbairn Posted December 6, 2015 Share Posted December 6, 2015 How serious those existential threats are and how likely they are to be given effect to is clearly an open question. I'm not sure if you can have a not very serious existential threat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
THE KING Posted December 6, 2015 Share Posted December 6, 2015 From whom? From its Zionist leaders. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MassiveFanDan Posted December 6, 2015 Share Posted December 6, 2015 Peter Oborne made a decent wee documentary for Dispatches about the influence of the Israel lobby. It's up on Youtube. Worth a watch, but it's Youtube, so you have to ignore the comments underneath. It bothered me during the Liam Fox scandal when it came out that both Fox/Werrity and Jim Murphy (as Shadow Defence Sec) had been regularly palling around with the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AUFC90 Posted December 6, 2015 Share Posted December 6, 2015 Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah to name but three. In the past, the threat has included other neighbouring nations, like Egypt. How serious those existential threats are and how likely they are to be given effect to is clearly an open question. Given two of these are terrorist organisations, who run neighbouring territories, and whose Charters commit themselves to the destruction of the State of Israel, while the other is a potential nuclear state run by Islamic theocrats whose leaders have on several occasions called for the destruction of Israel in its entirety, it's surely at least fair to say these threats are non-trivial. They're pretty trivial to Israel in the grand scheme of things. None of the nation states are a threat to Israels military. They also have a nice shiny missile shield. The Palestinians and Hezbollah hate them but I can't blame them to be honest. They are a horrible country that have committed countless war crimes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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