The city of London, witnessed a ‘bloodbath’ with the stabbing of three men in a street brawl incident that involved groups from the Sikh community.

The victims, Narinder Singh, 26, Harinder Kumar, 22, and Baljit Singh, 34 were stabbed to death and found covered in blood. One was stabbed in the neck, shoulder and chest, while another was discovered having been smashed in the head with a hammer,” reported the Mail.

Two people, who were also Sikhs, have been arrested after the incident in Elmstead Road, Seven Kings, Redbridge, on Sunday evening, reported The Telegraph India. Detective Chief Superintendent Stephen Clayman, said, “This investigation remains in its early stages and work continues to establish the exact sequence of events that led to this shocking incident. “We believe the parties involved were from the Sikh community and known to each other. A fight has taken place which has escalated, resulting in three people being fatally attacked.”

The victims were construction professionals and reports emerged that they died after a drunken row over unpaid work turned violent.

The Mail reported that a local businessman said the men were knifed to death after a large group of Indian men spilled out of a nearby restaurant, screaming and shouting in a furious drunken argument between two groups which had broken out over work.

The police said that they are in the process of establishing formal identification and informing all next of kin and conducting post-mortem examinations of the victims. The police have also said that a “thorough investigation led by homicide detectives from specialist crime is underway and crime scenes are in place in the area as officers continue a full forensic examination.”

The police have also implemented Section 60 in the whole of Redbridge borough till 8 a.m. on Monday, allowing the police to stop and search a person without officers requiring to have reasonable grounds for investigation.

Related:

Sikh-Muslim friendships started with Guru Nanak Dev Ji
Police Brutality, an American nightmare, once again becomes a reality in urban India

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The news of the current unrest in India due to the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) has reached beyond borders. The unrelenting protests, news of police brutality and the high-handedness of the state administration has received international attention. Solidarity for the students who have been beaten up in state-sponsored attacks and the fear of the marginalized and the minorities in India have led to people from all over the world to lend their voice to the cause of saving the secularism and the Constitution of India.

In another example of the same, a meeting was organized by the Ambedkar International Mission (UK) and the South Asia Solidarity Group in the UK Parliament (House of Commons) on January 20 to discuss the CAA, National Register of Citizens (NRC) and National Population Register (NRC) and the protests against them that are taking place all over India. At the meeting, several British MPs expressed their concern about the legislation, its implications for human rights and potential for mass disenfranchisement of Muslims, and the situation in India more generally.

Amrit Wilson of the South Asia Solidarity group introduced the meeting, highlighting the scale of the protests by students, women, Muslim communities, Dalits, urban and rural workers and many others and the violence which had been unleashed on the protestors. She also presented a report by the People’s Tribunals on State Action in Uttar Pradesh, India which documented the violence against Muslims by the police in a direct response to directions from the Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath who had called for ‘revenge’ to taken against the Muslim community for protesting.

At the meeting, lawyer and legal scholar Gautam Bhatia explained the brazenly discriminatory nature of the CAA, the potential for the mass disenfranchisement of Muslims and why it undermines the Indian citizenship guaranteed by the Constitution.

Satpal Muman, chair of the UK’s largest Dalit organisation, CasteWatchUK, reminded the audience of B.R.Ambedkar’s warning that ‘Hindu Raj’ would be a calamity for India, and expressed solidarity with the many thousands on the streets in India defending their fundamental freedoms. He also noted the active role of the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh and other overseas Hindutva organisations in blocking legislation in the UK which would make caste discrimination illegal.

Stephen Timms, MP for East Ham (Labour) said, “I have been struck by the diversity of the people who are protesting against these measures in India in my constituency. Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs are all coming together.”

On Gautam Bhatia’s explanation about how the CAA-NPR-NRC would give more power to the government to cancel OCI status, Rupa Huq, MP for Ealing Central and Acton (Labour) expressed her concern about the impact of the legislation and raised the question of how NRIs’ citizenship may be affected.

MPs Claudia Webbe and Pat McFadden too expressed their concern and pledged to call on PM Modi to revoke the discriminatory CAA which violates human rights.

Members of the audience who had come from all over the country and represented a wide range of sections of the Indian diaspora in the UK spoke about the global rise in fascism, drawing parallels between far-right party leaders like Brazi’s Jair Bolsonaro, Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. They emphasized the importance of sending a message to Modi about the opposition of the diaspora to these discriminatory measures by organising large scale protests and raising awareness in the wider community.

The press release also stated that there would be National Demonstration against Fascism on January 25, bringing together many different diaspora organizations in solidarity with the resistance. The rally at Downing Street and March to the Indian High Commission has been called by: South Asia Solidarity Group, CasteWatch UK, Tamil People in the UK, Co-ordinating Committee of Malayali Muslims, Kashmir Solidarity Movement, SOAS India Society, Indian Workers Association (GB), Ghadar International, Indian Muslim Federation(UK), Federation of Redbridge Muslim Organisations (FORMO) & other diaspora groups.

Related:

Indians in US to observe Republic Day as “Day of Action”
Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019: The Fire that consumes India
International condemnation for CAA, travel advisories issued
Preparation for a genocide under way in India: Dr. Gregory Stanton

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Image Courtesy: CNN.com

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Image Courtesy: huffingtonpost.in

On October 1, UK Home Secretary Priti Patel vowed to “end free movement once and for all” saying that she would introduce an Australian-style points based system adding: “And one that is under the control of the British Government.”

This comes in at the same time when the New Zealand government removed a controversial Africa and Middle East ‘family link’ refugee policy derided as racist, while promising to increase its refugee intake.

The strong ‘anti-immigration’statement by Priti Patel came at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester. In her address, Patel accused the rival Labour party of “wanting to surrender our border control and extend free movement”.

“This daughter of immigrants needs no lectures from the north London, metropolitan, liberal elite,” Patel said to resounding applause from the audience. She also singled out Labour Party leaders Diane Abbott and Jeremy Corbyn as the only two dissenting voices to her view.

She claimed Labour would see Britain’s streets less safe and accused the Labour Party of “trusting our foes rather than our friends.”

To prepare for the implementation of the point system, Patel has sent Home Office staff to Singapore to look into how a “well-functioning immigration system is developed. Specifically ensuring we can count people in and out of the country.”

The plan, if implemented, would catch out any EU national not already part of the EU settlement scheme. The Home Office did not respond directly to news of Patel’s plan but stated: “EU citizens and their families still have until at least December 2020 to apply to the EU Settlement Scheme and one million people have already been granted status.

“Freedom of movement as it currently stands will end on 31 October when the UK leaves the EU, and after Brexit the Government will introduce a new, fairer immigration system that prioritizes skills and what people can contribute to the UK, rather than where they come from.”

Jeremy Corbyn vehemently condemned Priti’s statement calling it ‘an utterly ludicrous position’. In a visibly angry state, he asked her to not go ahead with the imposition of the new points system she spoke of.

Patel’s plans have already attracted anger from Liberal Democrats. The party’s home affairs spokesperson Sir Ed Davey said: “It is completely detached from reality and is next chapter in the never-ending saga of the utter mess they are making of Brexit.What would this mean for EU citizens who have made their home in the UK who have” travelled abroad when they try to return?”

Clare Collier, advocacy director at the human rights group Liberty, said: “Priti Patel is a politician with a consistent record of voting against basic human rights protections. For her to be put in charge of the Home Office is extremely concerning.

Why Priti Patel’s ‘anti-immigrant’ stance a cause for worry?

Priti Patel is the daughter of Indian parentsSushil and Anjana Patel who migrated to the UK in the 1960s from Uganda just ahead of Idi Amin’s decision to deport all Ugandan Asians. Arguably, she would not have risen to the position she is (and her family woul have met a sorry fate!) if UK had the same policy that she is now advocating.

As a teenager, Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher became her political heroine. This love of Thatcher, and her right wing instincts, have been the driving force behind her political career. A Eurosceptic, Patel was a leading figure in the Vote Leave campaign during the build-up to the 2016 referendum on UK membership of the European Union. 

The 47-year-old Brexiteer was forced to resign as International Development Secretary in November 2017 after holding 12 secret meetings in Israel without following protocol.

She has taken robust stances on crime, garnering media attention after she argued for the restoration of capital punishment on the BBC’s Question Time in September 2011, although in 2016 she said she no longer held this view.

Patel voted against the 2013 Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill, which introduced same-sex marriage in England and Wales.

When Lord Alf Dubs moved an amendment to allow Syrian refugee children to be able to come to the UK, Patel voted against it.

She was one of the authors of Britannia Unchained, a radical Tory pamphlet published in 2012 that prescribed shock therapy to correct what it saw as a nation beset by a workforce of “idlers”, a bloated welfare state and timid approach to entrepreneurship.

Why Her Stance Reminds Us of Trouble Close to Home

Priti Patel has declared her admiration for the RSS on a number of occasions including the launch of “RSS: A Vision in Action – A New Dawn”, hosted by the Hindu SwayamsevakSangh UK (the overseas wing of the RSS). During her tenure as Treasury Minister, she has shared platforms with RSS leaders at HSS events and has been part of meetings for Hindutva supporters like TapanGhosh at the House of Commons.

With the rise of Hindutva in the UK, caste discrimination has increased in the Indian communities. Legislation outlawing caste discrimination was passed by the last Labour government but never implemented. The Hindu Right groups, MPs like Blackman and a few academics like Prakash Shah, (QMUL), have come together to lobby against this legislation. These groups have no concern for Indian migrants facing detentions and deportations and, like Modi himself, are happy to barter their human rights for trade deals for Indian corporates.

Rising in Office with the privilege she attained by being allowed to live and study in the UK, today Patel is misusing the power she wields in her current position to hurt people of different backgrounds instead of fostering diversity.

In a very hypocritical manner, she has dissociated herself from her entire identity, her language around immigrants has been calculated and they exhibit stereotypes of a very specific, insidious kind of white British racism, all the while conveniently peddled by a non-white person.

The points based system, she said, would bring in the best and the brightest – scientists, academics and leading people in their field. Patel is the daughter of newsagents owners; fellow Conservative SajidJavid is the son of a bus driver; people who would have never been allowed into Britain under Patel’s agenda.

Her statement has just alienated entire swathes of communities of immigrants contributing to the UK – from academics to NHS staff, doctors, bus driver, shop owners – their contributions have been made moot.

Yes, she did the Indian diaspora proud by cutting through the glass ceiling to rise to one of the most important offices in the world. Yet, how are we measuring the success of the Indian community? Do we want to be remembered for the number of representatives or the depth of their compassion to the most under privileged people of the world?

Related

1. That’s all-white then – an all-white panel on ‘minorities and justice’
2. How neoliberalism is normalising hostility

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MPs have suggested a working definition of Islamophobia for the first time. John Gomez/Shutterstock
 

Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.

The culmination of almost two years of consultation and evidence gathering, the definition takes into account the views of different organisations, politicians, faith leaders, academics and communities from across the country. It also takes into account the views of victims of hate crime.

Islamophobia is still a relatively new word which entered the public and political lexicon little more than two decades ago. Yet, the process of establishing a working definition of Islamophobia has been ongoing and one that I have contributed to in various different ways.

In the hope of bringing about a more consistent and coherent approach to tackling Islamophobia, the drive for a working definition has been underpinned both by the need to help people better understand what Islamophobia is and isn’t, and also to record levels of Islamophobic hate crime.

For detractors however, Islamophobia is a problem for a number of reasons. Some, such as the writer Melanie Philips claim that Islamophobia just does not exist, that it is a mere “fiction”. Yet data on hate crimes against Muslims from the Metropolitan Police and Tell MAMA among others render such claims wholly unfounded.

Others such as the Quilliam Foundation find the term problematic, suggesting that it shuts down debate. At the most extreme, commentators such as Rod Liddle claim there just isn’t enough Islamophobia.
 

Comparisons with racism

Irrespective of whether the new working definition of Islamophobia has the potential to counter these narratives, it has much to offer. Short and accessible, the new definition is neither too complex nor overly academic, which maximises its potential appeal to both public and political audiences.

Celebrating Eid at Leeds Grand Mosque in Yorkshire. Danny Lawson/PA Archive

Aligning Islamophobia with racism is also likely to be helpful, because people intuitively “get” racism, and the majority deem it to be unwanted and unnecessary in today’s Britain. The same needs to be true for Islamophobia where people “get” that a Muslim woman being physically assaulted is equally unwanted and unnecessary.

Drawing comparisons with racism does have the potential for some confusion, not least in conflating religion with “race”. While religion has the potential to be changed and chosen, race is largely fixed and unchanging. This means it will be important to explain clearly that the comparison with racism is made to highlight similarities between the functions and processes of Islamophobia, rather than suggesting Muslims constitute a race. In this way, the new definition emphasises how Islamophobia targets markers of “Muslimness” and Muslim identity – evident in how perpetrators of Islamophobic hate crime disproportionately target visibly Muslim women – in the same way that racism often targets people for the colour of their skin.

Given the new definition’s emphasis on Muslimness and Muslims, this should go some way to allaying fears that it’s Islamophobic to not share the same beliefs as Muslims or disagree with some of their practices. Clearly it is not. Nor is it Islamophobic to appropriately criticise Muslims or condemn atrocities committed by any group or person who might claim to be acting in “the name of Allah” (or similar). But, as the new definition rightfully infers, if disagreements, criticisms or condemnations are used to demonise or vilify all Muslims without differentiation, then it’s likely at least some Islamophobic views will be underpinning such an approach.

The new working definition goes beyond merely replicating the working definition of antisemitism that was put forward by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance before being adopted by the British government in 2016. While I’ve previously advocated substituting Islamophobia for antisemitism as a quick and easy solution to the ongoing definition problem, the complexity and fallout from recent allegations of antisemitism in the Labour Party highlight the weaknesses and deficiencies of such an approach. Having two separate definitions for Islamophobia and antisemitism ensures that critical – and necessary – distance between the two phenomena is maintained.
 

What people do and say

While the working definition is a welcome development, it’s worth remembering that it is only a recommendation. Whether the government intends to adopt it or not is unclear at this stage.

As a catalyst for change, however, the definition is right to be more concerned with what people do and what they say, rather than laying claim to what or who they are. Using the definition to merely call out potential Islamophobes has the very real potential to be wholly counter-productive. Instead, it must be used to build new constituencies and alliances that can work together to advocate for change.

While the working definition is unlikely to appease those who ultimately deny Islamophobia’s existence, if it draws attention to Islamophobia and its negative consequences, that can only be a good thing. My hope is that it will also draw attention to how Islamophobia impacts the lives of many ordinary Muslims going about their lives in today’s Britain. This should neither be dismissed nor underestimated.
 

Chris Allen, Associate Professor in Hate Studies, University of Leicester

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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West Yorkshire Police hopes that the looser fit will result in more ethnic minority recruits.

Many forces already allow female officers to wear the hijab, or headscarf, but the new uniform is believed to be a UK first.
 

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Britain’s counter-terrorism officers are investigating a series of anti-Muslim letters calling on people to participate in a “Punish a Muslim Day” on April 3.

Residents in London, Yorkshire and the Midlands region of England have reported receiving the letters, which have been branded as “malicious correspondence” by police.

West Yorkshire Police said the investigation is being coordinated by the UK’s North East Counter Terrorism Unit (NECTU), and enquiries are ongoing.

Assistant Chief Constable Angela Williams of West Yorkshire Police said: “What I want to do is to reassure the communities of West Yorkshire that these communications are being taken extremely seriously.

“We understand that they may have caused concern and upset people, especially the more vulnerable members of society. Public safety remains our priority and I would urge our communities to be vigilant but not frightened.”

Counter-terrorism police are treating the letters as a possible hate crime.

Images of the note, which contains a list of violent acts alongside a number of claims of why they were executed, have been widely shared online. The note incites verbal abuse and assaults on Muslims, as well as attacks on mosques.

It asks people to carry out violent acts including verbal abuse, removing a woman’s hijab or head-scarf, physical assault and using acid as a weapon. These were ranked using a points-based system, with the letter stating: “There will be rewards based on action taken.”

Police said they have a couple of letters that will be analyzed to determine their origin.

Tell MAMA (Measuring Anti-Muslim Attacks), a project that monitors Islamaphobic hate crimes in the UK, said a photo of an envelope suggests at least one of the notes was dealt with at a Sheffield sorting office.

“This has caused quite a lot of fear within the community. They are asking if they are safe, if their children are safe to play outdoors. We have told them to keep calm,” said Iman Atta from Tell MAMA.

The group said it had received reports of people in Bradford, Leicester, London, Cardiff and Sheffield receiving the letters.

This article was first published on banglatribune.com
 

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Pixabay. CC0.

Why is an international coalition of human rights campaigners challenging the UK government’s mass surveillance programmes in the European Court of Human Rights?

We’ve known that governments have been spying on all of us since whistleblower Edward Snowden exposed the scale of mass online surveillance in 2013. At the start of November, Liberty and an international coalition of human rights campaigners challenged the programmes he uncovered in court.

The Snowden documents revealed how UK government ministers allowed GCHQ to collect and store a backup of every communication entering and leaving the UK so they could trawl through them later.

The Snowden documents showed us that those in power have access to our innermost thoughts.

They made public how UK intelligence services accessed the content of communications (including emails, chats, videos and images) gathered by the US government as it passed through American cables or was held by American companies like Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo!, Google, Facebook, Skype and YouTube.
The Snowden documents showed us that those in power have access to our innermost thoughts. They can pore over the ideas we share, track our travel plans, listen in on our meetings, browse our financial records, and quietly observe our conversations with friends, lawyers, doctors, colleagues and loved ones.

They can review which websites we visit, which forums we join, what games we play online. They can monitor our location, our movements and our interactions.
At Liberty, and at human rights groups around the world, we saw this for the rights violation it is, and the chilling effect on democratic freedoms that follow – so we took the UK government to court.

In December 2014, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal – the secretive court that oversees our intelligence services – decided that what the Government had been doing was, in principle, lawful.

But two months later, the court issued a second judgment. It ruled that the UK government’s access to US surveillance had unlawfully violated people’s rights before the legal challenge – because the agencies’ internal guidance for handling it had been kept secret.

The government had been allowed to make submissions about that guidance in closed court, without Liberty or the other organisations present. Unsurprisingly, we disagreed with the secretive court’s conclusion that safeguards shown to it in secret were an adequate protection of our fundamental rights.

And in June 2015, the Tribunal confirmed that GCHQ had carried out unlawful surveillance on two of the organisations taking the case alongside us: Amnesty International and the Legal Resources Centre.

The court didn’t rule out the possibility that the other organisations had been monitored too. If they had, the Tribunal simply didn’t disclose it because it didn’t consider it unlawful.

GCHQ had carried out unlawful surveillance on two of the groups taking the case alongside us: Amnesty International and the Legal Resources Centre.

These rulings were the first time this closed-doors court had ever ruled against the security services in its 15-year history. It was the first time it admitted publicly that the UK government had used its surveillance powers to target political and human rights activists.

We are human rights campaigners. Our organisations exist to stand up for people and challenge the powerful. We regularly communicate with activists in the UK and overseas, as well as journalists, whistleblowers, victims of state abuse, government officials and lawyers.

Some of our fellow claimants work in countries where basic rights and freedoms are under sustained and violent attack. Without strict confidentiality and protection of sources, their work is dangerously undermined and they and those they communicate with are at risk.

Industrial-scale state spying is a violation of our fundamental human rights. It jeopardises everything on which our freedom stands – our privacy, our free press, our right to speak, think and associate freely.

No democratic state has ever deployed powers like this against its citizens and remained a rights-respecting democracy.

So we weren’t satisfied with the 2014 ruling that mass surveillance is, for the most part, lawful – and we took our case to the European Court of Human Rights.
At the hearing earlier this month, our barrister had the government’s lawyers on the back foot.

We argued that the UK government should not be able to scoop up and access all of our communications on a massive, international scale.

We argued that, without limits on government surveillance, free expression, democracy and the rule of law are gravely threatened.

We argued that, without limits on government surveillance, free expression, democracy and the rule of law are gravely threatened.

We argued that surveillance is only acceptable when it’s based on suspicion of serious criminal activity, and that independent judges should decide when to allow it – instead of the spy agencies and Home Secretary themselves.

Several of the judges posed questions, mostly to the government.

They wanted to know more about the lack of safeguards in place for sensitive information like that handled by human rights organisations, doctors, elected representatives and lawyers.

The court wanted confirmation that surveillance warrants are in fact issued on a rolling basis, with the Home Secretary having signed just one single certificate to green-light the collection of millions of people’s messages. And the judges wanted more information on what safeguards existed to restrict the scope of these warrants.

The government did its best to answer these questions. But it’s not easy to defend policies lifted from the pages of a dystopian novel.

If we win this battle, a vital blow will be struck against mass state surveillance that treats us all as suspects first and citizens second.

We’ll be one step closer to reclaiming our fundamental right to express ourselves and communicate without fear – protecting our freedom and democracy for generations to come.

(Silkie Carlo is Senior Advocacy Officer at Liberty where she leads Liberty’s work on technology and human rights, advocating for the protection of rights in areas including state surveillance, new policing technologies, uses of big data, artificial intelligence and free expression online).

(This story was first published on openDemocracy).

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Priti Patel who had served as Secretary of State for International Development in Prime Minister Theresa May’s government. (Photo: Russell Watkins/Department for International Development)

Those covert meetings brought about the downfall of Priti Patel on Wednesday night. She was forced to resign as international development secretary, responsible for Britain’s overseas aid budget, admitting her actions “fell below the standards of transparency and openness” expected of a minister.

Her position became untenable as further revelations this week showed she had held two additional unrecorded meetings with Israeli officials in London and New York in September, organised and attended by a prominent Israel lobbyist.

All meetings conducted by British ministers on official business are supposed to be recorded by government civil servants.

Although the office of Theresa May, the British prime minister, has insisted it did not know of these meetings until the BBC revealed them on November 3, a report from Britain’s Jewish Chronicle newspaper suggested otherwise. It claimed that, while the meetings were not authorised beforehand, May’s officials learnt of them almost immediately through Israeli counterparts.

During her vacation in Israel, Patel also dispensed with sightseeing to head instead to the Golan Heights, Syrian territory illegally occupied by Israel since 1967. Thoughtfully, the Israeli army accompanied her and had the chance to explain in detail their “humanitarian work” running a field hospital patching up those injured in southern Syria, including al Qaeda combatants.

Patel was reportedly so impressed she wanted to give the Israeli army a chunk of Britain’s limited international aid. Her department’s budget is apparently so tight that, according to the Independent newspaper, she approved cuts last year in aid to the Palestinians of £17 million, including projects in Gaza.

In other words, Patel hoped to give British aid intended for the most unfortunate directly to one of the best-funded and equipped armies in the world, one that already receives $4 billion a year in military aid from the United States, and which has used its swollen budget to sustain a five-decade belligerent occupation of the Palestinians and enforce its continuing occupation of the Syrian Golan.

All of this was done unofficially. In an example of under-statement, the British media called all of this a “breach of ministerial protocol”. The Guardian newspaper characterised Patel’s behavior as a sign of her “incompetence”. But is that plausible?

Was Patel so astoundingly ignorant of government protocol that she held meetings off the books with senior Israeli officials? Was it political naivety that led her to venture into the Golan under the auspices of the Israeli army and into an area from which Israel has been deeply meddling in the six-year Syrian proxy war raging just a few miles away?

And was it simply a coincidence that her unusual holiday excursion occurred as analysts have begun warning of an imminent renewed outbreak of hostilities between Israel and its northern neighbors, Syria and Lebanon?

It is worth picking through the debris in an attempt to work out what she, and Israel, might have been trying to achieve.
 

Meetings with Israeli officials

Patel is a prominent member of Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI), a pro-Israel lobby group to which 80 per cent of the ruling Conservative party’s members of parliament, including most government ministers, belong. They and a similarly entrenched group of opposition Labour MPs belonging to Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) are there to advance Israel’s case in parliament and in British foreign policy.

Such MPs are invited on official “educational” trips to Israel where they get access to Israeli leaders and are wined and dined. The damaging influence of these lobbies on British politics – and the covert nature of their activities – were highlighted earlier this year in a four-part undercover investigation broadcast by Al Jazeera.

In the episode on the Conservative party, an Israeli embassy official was filmed plotting with party officials to “take down” a government foreign office minister, Alan Duncan. He is seen as a rare outpost of support for the Palestinians in the Conservative party. This disturbing incident was largely ignored by the Conservative leadership and the British media.

Patel’s membership of CFI is hardly surprising. But her level of commitment to Israel, beyond that of her CFI membership, is suggested by the nature of her choice of “holiday” destination and the endless round of meetings she held there. They were organised by Stuart Polak, who accompanied her and is the honorary president of CFI.

Patel has argued that the meetings touched on entirely innocuous topics. Netanyahu apparently took time out of his busy schedule – including his frantic efforts to staunch a corruption scandal that could lead to his resignation and jail time – to chat about Patel’s “experience growing up in an area of the UK with a thriving Jewish community” and “her political journey”.

More likely, Israeli officials were keen to talk to Patel for more pertinent reasons. Some are easier to identify than others. Most obviously, Patel’s role was to oversee Britain’s aid to the Palestinian Authority and human rights groups that monitor Israel’s appalling record of abuses in the occupied territories.

Patel had already proven her willingness to cut aid to the Palestinians. It was reported that in October last year she also temporarily suspended £25 million in funds to the Palestine, though her department denied the story.

A foreign office source told the BBC: “She has been pushing to get her hands on the PA aid budget and we have been pushing back.” Israeli officials may have hoped they could extract more concessions from her or persuade her to tie aid to greater Palestinian compliance with Israeli demands.

Netanyahu has additionally been leading an aggressive campaign to silence Israeli human rights groups and prevent them from receiving foreign, mainly European, funding. In a sign of how high a priority this is, Netanyahu asked the British prime minister at a meeting in May to end Britain’s supposed funding of an Israeli army whistleblower group, Breaking the Silence. In fact, the group receives no money from the British government.

Patel’s account of her meeting with Israel’s police minister, Gilad Erdan, at least hints inadvertently at another topic that both sides may have hoped would be of mutual benefit. Notably, she met Erdan a second time at the Houses of Parliament in September, in contravention of a decision by her department officials. The meeting was arranged through her constituency office and went unrecorded.

She says she discussed with Erdan the problem of antisemitism in the UK. He, meanwhile, stated in a Tweet that they spoke about ways to “counter attempts to delegitimise Israel in international institutions”. 

Erdan’s full title is minister of public security, communications (hasbara – or “propaganda” in English) and strategic affairs. He is charged with smearing Israel’s critics abroad and has established a “dirty tricks unit” to try to destroy the growing international BDS movement that campaigns for a boycott of Israel. Netanyahu has claimed that “delegitimisation” – criticism – of Israel is the biggest threat facing his country after an Iranian nuclear bomb.

As the Al Jazeera documentary indicates, the dirty tricks campaign has often relied on Israeli embassy officials and allies in western political parties, like the most zealous members of the CFI and LFI, to weaponise accusations of antisemitism against Israel’s critics.  

Since Jeremy Corbyn became leader of the opposition Labour party two years ago, the British media have been flooded with stories of a supposed antisemitism crisis under his watch. In judging the plausibility of these accusations, it is hard to ignore the fact that Corbyn is the first leader of a major British political party to place the rights of Palestinians above Israel’s right to carry on regardless with the occupation.

Was Patel plotting with Netanyahu and Erdan to help Israel in further damaging Corbyn, possibly by stoking yet more claims of antisemitism in his party, at time when the Conservatives have no parliamentary majority and are in a permanent state of crisis that may yet force elections Corbyn is well placed to win?

And, more cynically still, as some of her fellow ministers have suggested to the BBC, might the ambitious Patel have seen seeking to prove her credentials with Israel and its wealthy supporters and lobbyists in the UK, including Lord Polak, to help in a future leadership bid?
And if that is what these meetings were at least in part about, did Patel take on this task on her own initiative or on behalf of CFI? And was there really no coordination with the party leadership?

Interestingly, when the meetings first came to light, Patel claimed that the foreign office was fully informed. Only under pressure from Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, and May did she start backpedalling.

Now, the evidence appears to indicate that May’s office too may have been engaged in a cover-up. Michael Oren, deputy minister in the Israeli prime minister’s office, reportedly told senior British government officials about Patel’s meeting with Netanyahu the day it occurred.
The Jewish Chronicle has also reported that May and Patel spoke face to face in September about the latter’s meeting with Netanyahu, shortly before the British prime minister spoke at the United Nations General Assembly. May is said to have agreed with Patel on her “plan for UK aid to be shared with the Israelis.”

So given this context, what can we make of Patel’s extraordinary trip to the Golan?
 

Israel and the Syrian civil war

The field hospital that so impressed her is rather more than an example of altruistic “humanitarianism” by the Israeli army. Although it is widely reported that the hospital cares for “Syrian nationals” injured in the fighting in Syria, its primary role appears to be to treat foreign fighters from al Qaeda-affiliated groups injured in battles with Syrian government forces and their Lebanese ally, Hizbullah. A significant number of wounded have been transferred to hospitals inside Israel.

This barely concealed fact – it was even documented by the United Nations in 2015 – caused outrage among the Syrian Druze population living under Israeli occupation in the Golan, as well as Druze families in Israel. It looked to them like the Islamist fighters were being patched up so that they could carry on butchering Druze relatives a few miles away in southern Syria.

In summer 2015 that anger peaked, and several ambulances carrying fighters to Israeli hospitals were attacked by Druze, in the Golan and Israel. In one attack masked men managed to stop an ambulance and beat a fighter to death. In September two Israeli Druze men were convicted of another, failed attempt to stop an ambulance. They face up to 20 years in jail.

But in fact, Israel’s ties to al Qaeda groups and Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria extend beyond medical help. The UN reported that the Israeli army was seen transferring boxes to al-Qaeda groups in Syria. There are credible reports that Israel has also armed and trained al Qaeda fighters, and provided them with maps and intelligence. The strong suspicion is that Israel has forged links to these Islamic extremists to help them wear down Hizbullah and the Syrian army.

Israel has carried out more than 100 air strikes inside Syria, all against government forces, precisely to weaken the military alliance between Iran, Syria and Hizbullah, and thereby helping al-Qaeda groups. The Islamic extremists have also received assistance from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf and less directly from the US.

Why was a British minister in charge of humanitarian aid getting mixed up in all this?
 

Creating an “alternative” government policy?

The episode has troubling parallels with events from 2011 when Liam Fox, Britain’s defence minister, resigned after his own murky dealings with Israel. The official grounds for Fox’s departure were that he had broken ministerial protocol by allowing a close friend and lobbyist, Adam Werritty, to attend defence meetings posing as an adviser.

But in fact, Fox’s ties to Werritty were even more problematic than admitted. Craig Murray, a former British ambassador turned whistleblower, has argued that the official story about Fox was used to deflect attention from far more serious violations of government protocol.
Fox and Werritty were active in a shadowy group called Atlantic Bridge that had close ties to the neoconservatives who were deeply embedded in the administration of George W Bush. The neocons openly promoted an aggressive policy designed to destabilise the Middle East, all in a bid to help Israel.

The neocons had served as a long-standing pressure group for attacks on Iraq, Iran and Syria – chiefly because they were seen as bulwarks against Israel’s hegemonic influence in the region. In 2003 they succeeded in persuading the Bush administration to invade Iraq, unleashing a lethal collapse of central authority there.

Israel and the neocons have been trying to engineer a complementary attack on Iran ever since, and there is overwhelming evidence that they have been seeking to undermine Syria too.

The most significant of Fox’s off-the-books meetings occurred in February 2011 when he and Werritty, supported by the UK ambassador to Israel, Matthew Gould, secretly met Israeli officials in Tel Aviv.

According to Murray, drawing on his contacts in the diplomatic service, the Israeli officials were, in fact, Mossad agents. And the topic they discussed was Britain’s possible role in helping to create a favourable diplomatic environment for Israel or the US to carry out an attack on Iran.

Separately, the Guardian newspaper revealed that Fox’s ministry had drawn up detailed plans for British assistance in the event of a US military strike on Iran. That included allowing the Americans to use Diego Garcia, a British territory in the Indian ocean, as a base from which to launch an attack.

Unnamed government officials told the Guardian Fox had been pursuing an “alternative” government policy. Murray, more directly, suggested that Fox, Werritty and Gould had conspired in a “rogue” foreign policy towards Iran, against Britain’s stated aims.  

Although Fox was forced to resign over his links to Werritty, he was quickly rehabilitated once May became prime minister. He was appointed secretary of state for international trade last year.

With fitting irony, Patel was on a trip to Africa with Fox when she was called back to the UK as the scandal deepened. Under pressure from an embattled May, she has resigned.

Was Patel pursuing an “alternative” policy towards Israel, or its neighbors? And if so, what was that policy, and did anyone senior to her authorise it?

Her role in talking to senior Israelis bypassed the foreign office. Did she do so because officials there like Alan Duncan were not seen as sympathetic enough to Israel, and might try to sabotage it? The permanent bureaucracy of the foreign office has often been seen as holding “pro-Arab” views not unrelated to western interests in the Gulf and its plentiful oil.

And how does May, a fervent supporter of Israel, fit into this picture?

Given British government secrecy, it will likely never be possible to provide definitive answers. But it is worth remembering that Israel, its still-powerful neocon allies in Washington and the Saudi regime are angling for the Israeli army to reverse the decisive gains Assad and his allies have made in taking back control of Syria in recent months.

This week Daniel Shapiro, a former US ambassador to Israel, wrote in the Haaretz newspaper that the Saudis were meddling yet again in Lebanese politics, forcing Hizbullah into greater political prominence, to provide the pretext for Israel to renew its confrontation with the Lebanese militia and thereby stoke a new war between Israel and Lebanon and Syria.

In his words: “Israel and Saudi Arabia are fully aligned in this regional struggle, and the Saudis cannot help but be impressed by Israel’s increasing assertiveness to strike at Iranian threats in Syria … When the moment of truth arrives, Israel’s allies, with the United States in the lead, should give it full backing.”

When the time comes, Israel will, as ever, rely on well-placed friends in western capitals to support and misrepresent its actions. Until her resignation, Priti Patel would undoubtedly have been one of those prominent champions of Israel helping out in a time of need.

Courtesy: http://mondoweiss.net

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A police official seen pouring water on the body of one the victims who was attacked by a suspected noxious substance on July 25, 2017. Courtesy: Daily Mail

Acid attacks have emerged as a new weapon in communal violence in Britain and the Muslim population, specially Bangladeshi communities living in Britain, have become the primary targets of this aggression.

Frequent acid attacks on Bangladeshi communities have been spreading fear and anxiety among the Bangladeshis living across the Britain. Parents can no longer breathe a sigh of relief until their children return to the safety of their homes.

At least eight acid attacks have been launched in last month and a half in different Bangali-inhabited areas of East London. The latest acid attack was on two Bangladeshi youths at Tower Hamlets on July 25 this year.

The hate crimes on the Muslim community in Britain have increased manifold in recent times, after the terrorist attacks in Manchester and London. Muslim women have been facing physical assault because of their attire.

Bangladeshi community activists in London have organised a meeting to discuss and protest the series of acid attacks. The meeting was chaired by Councilor Maiyum Mia.

Also Read – Acid attacks have become a gruesome criminal trend in the UK

Maaj Selim, a renowned face in Britain’s anti-racism movement whose father was killed by the white supremacists in Birmingham last year, said: “What is going on in Britain right now is not acid attacks, it is racially-motivated acid terrorism.”

KM Abu Tahir Chowdhury, a senior leader of the Bangladeshi community in Britain, said that more than 400 acid attacks have been recorded in London and Wales by London metropolitan police in the last six months.

“Most acid attacks have been taking place in the Newham, Barking and Tower Hamlets areas, where a large number of Bangladeshi people live,” Tahir added.

Asked about the reason behind such frequent attacks, Tahir replied: “The current government of Britain has reduced the number of police officers in the name of budget cuts, which is a vital reason behind the increased number of crimes.”

Also Read – Five hurt in acid attack robberies in London

“During the tenure of former Mayor Lutfur Rahman, 41 policemen were recruited in Tower Hamlets with the council fund, but the number has been reduced to six in recent times.”

“It is quite difficult to maintain law and order in such a big area with such a small number of policemen,” he added.

Former councilor and leader of ruling Conservative Party Dr Anwara Ali said the government has to undertake three initiatives to prevent acid terrorism.

Firstly, the availability and sale of corrosive substances must be controlled. Secondly, strict punishment should imposed on perpetrators and thirdly, awareness campaigns need to be arranged across the country.

President of the UK-Bangla Press Club Reza Ahmed Faisal Chowdhury Shoaib said: “In 2014, some 200 acid attacks took place in London while the number increased to 431 in 2015.”

“According to the statistics, it can be derived that an acid attack has been taking place every 20 hours.”

Experts opine that the rise of extreme nationalism in the changed world order is one of the primary reasons behind the persecution of migrant communities taking place in many parts of the world. As more and more Muslims become the victims of hatred in the streets and underground stations in London, a metaphorical wall is being built between native Britons and migrant communities that undermines tolerance and leads to more enmity.

Republished with permission from Dhaka Tribune.

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