36 hours after I first asked the FCO Media Department for a statement clarifying Shai Masot’s immigration and visa status, given that he was not on the Diplomatic List, the FCO has still not responded, despite my putting my request in writing as they asked. I am going to phone the FCO again in a few minutes, and I am very much afraid I may become heated and impolite.
Part 1 of Al_Jazeera’s excellent documentary on the bribing activities of the Israeli Embassy is absolutely essential viewing.
UPDATE The FCO told me they did not receive my questions in writing, and on checking that appears to be true, though I don’t know why. I have resent and they confirm they have now received.
Go for it. Ask to speak to Boris.
Isn’t it amazing how some letters but not others to public bodies go astray? Funny how it seems to be the ones you suspect they probably don’t want to answer.
I dunno, flamin’ immigrants coming over here and trying to metaphorically take down Tory politicians! Don’t they realise this is Britain. we queue over here and they need to join the back like everyone else;)
@ Becky Cohen January 12, 2017 at 11:43
So I presume that means you find nothing wrong in Masot’s (and those for whom he works) behaviour?
Try to make a joke of it all, already!
Thanks for posting the Al Jazeera episodes Craig, they’re illuminating. It will be interesting to se what answer the FCO comes up with, in response to your enquiry.
Shame my comment about Regev’s Twitter and a link to Lord Leigh who is on the board of CFoI was deleted.
The Israeli Lobby (Part 2)
https://twitter.com/AJEnglish
It isn’t a lobby, it’s a proxy.
I am fairly certain that the FCO (or for that matter any other Department if State) is not obliged, under the FoI Act or indeed for any other reason, to give information about anyone’s immigration and visa status to any member of the public even if that member is someone as distinguished as Craig.
If that is so, then the following question arises : why should it?
To enable a member of the public to continue milking this storm in a teacup for all it’s worth as part of what appears to be that member’s “human rights” obsession about Israel (but about very few other places, it seems) ?
@ Habbabkuk January 12, 2017 at 17:18
This ‘.. storm in a teacup..’ as you call it, promises to be anything but.
For openers, it justifies those of us in many countries who have leveled the accusation of Zionist lobby, only to be denounced as ‘anti-Semitic’ conspiracy theorists.
I’m sure AIPAC and the Israeli authorities are not as laid back and sanguine as you appear to be about this development, though Nationalists and pro-Palestinian Rights activists cannot help but be delighted by this exposure of gross illegality on Israel’s behalf.
And the media ‘coverage’ also speaks volumes about where they see their interests, and who controls them.
All in all, a good omen for 2017! May it so continue, Insha’Allah!
This is a scandal of immense proportions both political and journalistic. These Israeli embassy intrigues are the mirror which reflect perfectly the twisted values of our rubbish corporate media whereby intelligence gossip and innuendo (ie, the Trump bs) are now more newsworthy than rock-solid evidence of subversion (ie. Masot).
Call it CNN, BBC or FT. It no longer makes any difference. It is all crap.
You’re ‘fairly certain ‘ of nothing. You just make unsupported assertions based on your prejudices and trolling desires. So a waste of time and bandwidth.
Habba-
1.The part of Craig’s FOIA request relating specifically to Masot’s immigration status is more likely to be refused on the grounds that disclosure of the same would breach Masot’s rights as a ‘data subject’ under the Data Protection Act.
2.This episode of backbiting table talk between an Israeli spook and an MP’s reseach assistant can only be dismissed as a ‘storm in a teacup’ by ignoring the wider context. Fortunately the Mail exclusive on this was accompanied with a short article by an anonymous Tory MP which I reproduce below, and which sets out the context very clearly (emphasis in capitals added by me and not in original article)-
Last month Theresa May, like David Cameron each year before her, spoke to the annual lunch of the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI).
She oozed praise for Israel as a democracy, spoke of the constant terrorist threat they face, and condemned the way that Palestinians supposedly incite violence and anti-Semitism.
Her own policy that considers Israeli settlements on Palestinian land illegal received only a passing mention.
The reason is clear: the Conservative Party wants pro-Israel donors’ money, and principle in the Government’s foreign policy has been relegated.
Matters deteriorated further over Christmas after US Secretary of State John Kerry’s forceful condemnation of the extremism and conduct of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israeli government.
Instead of agreeing with his comments – which are identical to her own policy – she criticised Kerry.
Behind this inconsistent and concerning attitude lies a serious and troubling problem. British foreign policy is in hock to Israeli influence at the heart of our politics, and those in authority have ignored what is going on.
For years the CFI and Labour Friends of Israel (LFI), have worked with – even for – the Israeli government and their London embassy to promote Israeli policy and thwart UK Government policy and the actions of Ministers who try to defend Palestinian rights.
Lots of countries try to force their views on others, but what is scandalous in the UK is that instead of resisting it, successive Governments have submitted to it, taken donors’ money, and allowed Israeli influence-peddling to shape policy and even determine the fate of Ministers.
Even now, IFI WERE TO REVEAL WHO I AM, I WOULD BE SUBJECTED TO A RELENTLESS BARRAGE OF ABUSE AND CHARACTER ASSASSINATION
The CFI is not affiliated to the Conservative Party. It is incorporated in a way that means it is not to transparent about donors. Yet it arranges for the support of MPs and funds regular visits to Israel which distort the truth. Cameron turned a blind eye to Israeli misconduct – if he ever cared about it – because he was persuaded any criticism would reduce Party donations.
It now seems clear PEOPLE IN THE CONSERVATIVE AND LABOUR PARTIES HAVE BEEN WORKING WITH THE ISRAELI EMBASSY WHICH HAS USED THEM TO DEMONISE AND TRASH MP’S WHO CRITICISE ISRAEL; an army of Israel’s useful idiots in Parliament.
THIS IS POLITICALLY CORRUPT AND DIPLOMATICALLY INDEFENSIBLE. The conduct of certain MPs needs to be exposed as the poisonous and deceitful infiltration of our politics by the unwitting agents of another country, which acts in defiance of international law, and whose government Kerry called its most extreme ever.
We need a full inquiry into the Israeli Embassy, the links, access and funding of the CFI and LFI, and an undertaking from all political parties that they welcome the financial and political support of the UK Jewish community, but won’t accept any engagement linked to Israel until it stops building illegally on Palestinian land.
This opaque funding and underhand conduct is a national disgrace and humiliation and must be stamped out.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4098082/Astonishing-undercover-video-captures-diplomat-conspiring-rival-MP-s-aide-smear-Deputy-Foreign-Secretary.html#ixzz4Vdt8p300
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What is the reason that the UK media is supremely uninterested in the Masot scandal?
Is it that Israeli subversion of UK democracy has been going on for so long that it is no longer news? Or is it that the spirit of true investigative journalism has been elbowed aside in favour of group-think gossip mongering?
Why is it that the testimony of a proven liar like James Clapper is worthy of front page respect whereas Israel subversion against the UK is a back-page blip?
Like I said – call it what you wish, CNN, BBC, or the FT. Pure trash.
Very well done video, embarrassing for the Israelis.
Yeh, but all that doesn’t count – it’s Putin that put Al Jazeera up to it! Blame him.
Slap on some more sanctions (and don’t forget to look under the bed before you go to sleep – those Ruskis are everywhere!).
To find a foreign entity with its provincial apartheid imperatives set on subverting our democracy through the use of the very processes of democratic access for we the people, is not only galling but in fact smacks of treason of the plethora of our SIS that have been caught “napping” and letting the said foreign entity that it’s founding terrorists have boasted about their terrorism as an act of nation building, to carry out their subversion and acts of terror through new constructs and methods of sowing fear through campaigns of smear and denunciations and blames of fictitious/trumped up hatred . The constructs that have been designed to impede and disrupt the functioning of our political and civil life through terrorising those whom stand to represent our values and interests that are deemed undesirable to the aims and imperatives of the said foreign apartheid entity.
Further to witness the activities of the paid stooges whose stories are being broadcast by Al-Jazeera investigative journalists and then to find the meaningless and inane interjection of the same kind of paid stooges that are being screened to have been suppressing and disrupting our right to freedom of expression and right to peaceful exchange of our views to be down playing the extent of the damage to our democracy, and our society by considering the subversion of our democracy as a “storm in a tea cup” and further disputing the freedom of information act’s remit by reinterpreting the said act because of the parochial imperatives of the said apartheid entity is clearly an indication of the vast extent of the operations of the said foreign entity in our country.
We need to stay with this story and to not let these terrorists* assigned to subvert our democracy and right to freedom of expression and holding accountable our government for its decisions to coerce us into forgetting it, through their usual misdirection and prevarications.
Terrorism can take many forms but it always centres around suppression of masses through fear in a bid to disrupt and affect the masses conduct.
Gob smacked! That’s how I will describe Part 1.
What shocked me more is how these students are so easily manipulated.
Whats also concerning is how the influence and what impact the Israeli’s has in Britain’s political sphere.
Part 2 no doubt will reveal the threat, and it is a threat “to take down” a UK government minister aka in take down the Deputy Foreign Minister (Alan Duncan).
He should be extradicted back from Israel and charged with threatening a sitting British member of parliament and a minister within the current government.
An apology will not suffice.
I guess when AIPAC (USA) gives lots of money…They probably think that Lloyd Blankfein (Goldman Sachs) is GOD their Wallflower Bankster and they’re doing GOD’s work.
What emerges from Part 1 is how the Conservative Party is almost completely compromised whereas on the Labour side, Corbyn remains the chief obstacle to major Israeli bi-partisan domination of UK foreign policy in the Middle East. But we see how Regev and Co are playing the long game, ie. planting the seeds that will eventually sprout into good little Zionist MPs in a decade.
What is needed now are Labour/Conservative/Liberal Friends of Britain.
Fact that the party official who was asking for directions and taking instructions from the zionist intelligence agent in respect of bringing down a minister of the crown* one Maria Strizzolo, whom worked as an employee of our government’s Department for Education, posted as a senior adviser to Minister of Skills Robert Halfon, formerly a minister without a portfolio, whom of course started as chief of staff for Oliver Letwin and needless to point out was a Conservative friends of Isreal.
However recollecting that Paul Flynn MP raising the question of dual loyalties of Matthew Gould in the Fox, Weritty, Gould affair the then the ambassador to Tel Aviv was scurrilously attacked as an antisemite by the very Robert Halfone whose aide was busy taking instructions to bring down Minister Alan Duncan.
Given the latest revelations and the extent of the penetration of the various Friends of Isreal outfits, and their staunch support for the zionist cause that as a part of it’s remit is to take instructions and directions from the relevant foreign embassy in the way of clarification of attacking any of our political actors who is slightly interested in promoting the cause for Britain and our values and interests, that is inevitably not conducive to the zionists cause. Does this not yet again stand as an incitement to the subversion of our democracy and perversion of our values by the foreign parochial entity?
* My, the zionists are only content with taking the ministers down and no longer bomb them assassinate them or kidnap these ministers of the crown these days.
Change any references to Israel with Russia and imagine the front page outrage and embassy expulsions. We live in a truly f..ked up world.
Precisely Andrew.
Watched. Enjoyed!? Where is the money coming from?
At least we are getting our borders back(sic).
Masot supposedly has ‘resigned’.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/israel-embassy-scandal-shai-masot-resigns-threat-take-down-mps-labour-nus-critical-pro-palestinian-a7524446.html
Israel embassy plot: Labour pushes for inquiry into Shai Masot scandal
#IsraelLobby
Shadow foreign secretary calls for investigation by powerful foreign affairs committee into ‘national security issue’
http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/labour-calls-parliamentary-inquiry-improper-interference-israeli-official-920504394
‘powerful foreign affairs committee’ LOL
How many of them are Friends of YouKnowWho?
‘Boris Johnson says matter of Israel embassy plot is ‘closed’. He’s wrong – it’s a scandal’:
http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/if-russia-had-plotted-take-down-british-minister-all-hell-would-have-broken-loose-1311627112
‘Anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism in British politics@:
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2017/01/170111143904887.html
‘…An anti-Zionist, on the other hand, is someone who opposes Israel as an exclusively Jewish state or challenges the Zionist colonial project on the West Bank.
Israeli propagandists deliberately, yes deliberately, conflate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism in order to discredit, bully, and muzzle critics of Israel; in order to suppress free speech; and in order to divert attention from the real issues: Israeli colonialism, Israel’s apartheid, its systematic violation of the human rights of Palestinians, and its denial of their right to independence and statehood. The propagandists persistently present an anti-racist movement (anti-Zionism) as a racist one (anti-Semitism).
Pro-Israeli prime ministers
In British politics there is a striking disconnect between the public which is largely pro-Palestinian and the political elite which is overwhelmingly pro-Israeli.
Our last four prime ministers have all been proud partisans of the state of Israel. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were honorary patrons of the Jewish National Fund UK, a body which, as its name indicates, caters exclusively for the Jewish and not the Arab citizens of the state of Israel. So was David Cameron until he decided to resign. Theresa May, the current prime minister, is one of the most pro-Israeli leaders in Europe…..’
Let’s see if I have this right:
International Jewry fund Jews to go to Palestine, and buy or appropriate land;
American politicians are ‘persuaded’ by Jewish cash to favour Israel, particularly after the 1967 Six-Day War;
Increasing amounts of American taxpayer funds are sent to Israel thanks to Jewish lobbying;
Large amounts of this ‘aid’ are channeled back to America to further Israel’s influence in America via powerful lobbies such as AIPAC;
The American Politicians are ‘persuaded’ to send ever increasing ‘aid’ to Israel;
Israel uses this ‘aid’ to further it’s subversion of other countries’ political process, including of course the UK.
As Colonel Oliver North would say: ‘Neat trick’; or as Baldrick would say: ‘..A cunning plan..’
I think it would be a safe bet that just like the CIA ‘Mockingbird’ takeover of the Media, Israel is highly likely to be into the same game.
Indeed, as ‘Wall Street is the CIA, and the CIA is Wall Street’ (as Webster Tarpley says), there’s likely not a knat’s kneecap distance between the Mossad and the CIA.
The other two parts are on this link.
http://www.aljazeera.com/investigations/thelobby/
Thanks Sharp Ears, this is the crowning turd of Joan Ryan’s service to the people and the labour party. Her conduct is akin to the Witchsmeller Pursuivant if it were not so serious would have made rank comedy.
Sad fact is these ne’er-do-wells have in fact high jacked the debate and they are openly, wilfully and deliberately controlling the debate through countering any opposition to their sick fantasies with the cries of antise………..
It appears that Jeremy Corbyn has written to Teresa May asking for an explanation.
Former Tory minister attacks Israel’s Netanyahu over his country’s threat to ‘take down’ Boris Johnson’s deputy
•Sir Nicholas Soames launched an attack on the Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu
•The attack was over his country’s threat to ‘take down’ Boris Johnson’s deputy
•Warned not to repeat threat by Israeli diplomat Shai Masot against Sir Alan Duncan
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4120990/Former-Tory-minister-attacks-Israel-s-Netanyahu-country-s-threat-Boris-Johnson-s-deputy.html
Well it was expected, now the Krav Mega expert who was crying her heart out because some antisemi———- had outed her as an employee of the Isreali embassy and blown her cover included the boasts of beating up a little old lady, a J**ish lady at that a black J**ish lady in fact.
However in the best traditions of the belligerency now the same bunch are intent on taking legal actions for “selective” representation and intrusions on their privacy!
Don’t spy on us who are spying on you to subvert your institutions and democracy!
J**ish Labour group may take legal action against Al Jazeera over undercover filming
Netanyahu’s media scandal: Who bribed whom?
The latest revelations throw a glimmer of light on the systemic corruption in Israel, analysts say.
15th January 2017
Jonathan Cook from Nazareth
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/01/netanyahu-media-scandal-bribed-170112085111121.html
Is there any update? Has any reply been received from Her Majesty’s Foreign and ‘Commonwealth’ Office?
If you heard that name, ‘Shai Mascot’, you’d think it was a fictional creation by, say, John irving or Salman Rushdie or Don de Lillo, a kind of postmodern mockery of the Left, as in ‘Che Mascot’. Of course, truth often outstrips fiction, as the election of Donald Trump surely illustrates.
The Israeli aggression is intensifying.
Monday, 16 January 2017
IOP headlines for 14 JANUARY 2017:
Israeli Navy opens fire on Palestinian fishing boats – fisherman wounded
Israeli soldiers in Hebron beat up and hospitalise 11-year-old child
Israeli Army position opens fire on Gaza farms and UN refugee camp
Israeli Army home invasions, abduction, robbery and assault on elderly resident
Night peace disruption and/or home invasions in refugee camp and 4 villages
7 attacks (5 Israeli ceasefire violations)
19 raids including home invasions 5 beaten – 7 injured 3 abducted (aged 16 to 17)
6 children terrorised (aged 10 to 15)
6 acts of agricultural/economic sabotage
18 taken prisoner – 9 detained
http://palestine.org.nz/phrc/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3879&Itemid=44
Details are below the headlines