Bernard Spiegal

UK Lawyers for Israel: The enemy within?

An obsessive, multi-faceted erasing entity

Here in the UK we have our own homegrown – but substantially supported by Israel and its fellow-travellers – UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI). It is committed, to the point of zealotry, to supporting Israel by the particular method of seeking to erase virtually any reference to Palestine and Palestinians wherever they may be found. A bevy of peers of the realm seem proud to be patrons of this outfit.

An indication of the nature and orientation of the organisation can be gleaned by recalling that Lord Carlisle resigned as one of its patrons in September 2024. He did this because he disagreed with UKLFI’s decision to sue the Government for suspending arms sales to Israel. (You may need to read that last sentence again: UKLFI was suing the government for suspending arms sales to Israel. This in 2024 when Israel’s savage eliminatory campaign against Gaza was well under way). The obvious question so far as Lord Carlisle is concerned is: What took him so long?

UKLFI is highly effective. It proceeds by intimidation and threats.  Be you a hospital displaying art works by Gazan children, a museum labelling artefacts as from ‘Palestine’, a university using the term ‘ancient Palestine’, or a Council organising a Palestinian kite-making workshop, UKLFI will fall upon you warning of dire legal consequences if you fail to adhere to its stipulations. Those stipulations are directed at erasing not only the tangible representations of Palestine and Palestinians – artefacts, maps etc – but also the very idea of Palestine, to render it insubstantial, of only mythical account.

UKLFI know no limits: it has initiated or been involved in several complaints to the General Medical Council targeting doctors. UKLFI often allege that their target is antisemitic, supports terrorism, and/or uses inappropriate social media in relation to Israeli-Palestinian. These actions have resulted in interim suspensions for some doctors, while other cases have been dismissed.

 Promoting antisemitism – does it realise? Does it care?

UKLFI relies on its claim to represent Jews, in the sense that it prays-in-aid the claim that Jewish people will feel vulnerable, uncomfortable, harassed and victimised if, for example, they encounter a Palestinian child’s artwork as they walk down a hospital corridor on their way to an appointment.

It is surely an irony that UKLFI would claim that they are protecting Jews from antisemitic sentiment, when in fact their unrelenting references to alleged Jewish fears of, for example, the Palestinian flag, are as likely to give the impression that all Jews think alike, and are concerned only to pursue their own interests. A stereotypical, antisemitic trope.

UKLFI: its calculation

UKLFI is successful by its own lights. It surely knows, indeed it is part of its calculations, that its victim/targets have not the resources to push back against accusations, no matter how spurious.

Pushback

Notwithstanding its bevy of peers, UKLFI is a bullying, scurrilous outfit, that must be opposed, resisted. There are indications that this is beginning to happen.

UKLFI is under investigation by the UK Charity Commission and is the subject of a formal complaint to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). The complaints allege that UKLFI uses “vexatious and baseless” threats, including “Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation” (SLAPPs), to intimidate and silence supporters of Palestine, human rights organizations, and academics.

We look forward to the curtailment, though better still the elimination, of UK Lawyers for Israel.