By Pete Gregson
A pro-Palestinian advocacy group has launched a letter-writing campaign to challenge pro-Israel UK lawyers for Israel who want to ban Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss from touring the UK.
Rabbi Weiss, the spokesman for Neturei Karta International – Jews United Against Antisemitism based in New York and was invited to the UK to tour with Palestinian author and broadcaster Dr Azzam Tamimi in the “Muslim & Jew Tour: Beyond Israel”, organized by the group One Democratic Palestine.
The free tour is booked to visit 15 cities across the UK from 24 April to 14 May.
On the trip, the Rabbi was going to explain why many Orthodox Jews do not recognize Israel and what should stand in its place.
UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) has written to the UK Government’s Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, asking her to refuse the entry of a Rabbi to the UK.
They declared that he should be excluded “on grounds of public policy, public security and/or that his entry into the UK would not contribute to the public interest.”
UKLFI’s case to the British Government is full of mistruths, especially about the tour organizer, Pete Gregson, chairman of One Democratic Palestine.
Any Democratic Palestine works with other groups in the Middle East and focuses on trying to bring peace to that area by explaining that Zionism must give way to true democracy.
They seek the same kind of solution that led to the end of apartheid in South Africa, with Palestine becoming one democratic state for all its people, as surveys show that this is what most Palestinians around the world want.
UKLFI is determined to stop the tour from going ahead. They are famous for rewriting textbooks, shutting down demonstrations or getting people fired for the temerity to support Palestinian voices.
The pro-Israel group recently forced a London hospital to remove Gaza children’s artwork, after it argued that some Jewish patients felt “vulnerable, harassed and victimized” by the display at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.
– Pete Gregson is an activist based in Edinburgh. He is the chairman of the Edina-Gaza Link Association and One Democratic Palestine. He contributed this article to the Palestine Chronicle.
