Who liked Dispatches?

We have alreadywritten on this blog about how, despite Peter Oborne's assurance that in making Monday's Dispatches, Inside Britain's Israel Lobby, "we haven't found anything resembling a conspiracy", the tone and structure of the programme and its associated promotional media material, risked encouraging exactly that conclusion. So it is worth looking at how much notice some people took of Oborne's warning not to take Dispatches as confirmation that such a conspiracy exists.

Where better to start than the British National Party's legal advisor, Lee Barnes. On Monday, before the programme was broadcast, Barnes republished an article from that day's Guardian promoting the programme, with a comment from him that:

The Tories are nothing more than Zionist stooges of the Zionist Murdoch and run by the Zionist bankers.

It is a sign of how much the old ideas of left and right have changed, and in particular assumptions about the natural home of this sort of discourse, that a BNP official cites a Guardian article approvingly, to prove his view that the Conservatives are "run by the Zionist bankers."

After the programme, Barnes wrote another posting, claiming that the programme proved that "Zionist agents" have a "death grip" on British politics, due in part to "the Zionist dominated media", and called for supporters of Israel to be deported:

There is a word for those who work for the interests of a foreign power and who use their wealth, social standing and political influence to put pressure on, or bribe, British politicians to put the interests of Britain secondary to another nation - they are TRAITORS.

The Israel Lobby on Channel 4 revealed what we have always known, but the media are usually too gutless and too frightened to mention - that the Zionist agents of Israel dominate politics in Britain.

Not only politics but the media - from the lip sticked Zionist pitbull Melanie Phillips to Richard Desmond and Rupert Murdoch and the rest of the unctuous Israel arse lickers that infest the British media, the agents of the Zionist entity have the British political and media systems in a death grip.

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When the Tories get into power Israel will run Britain,

At the moment Israel via the US runs Britain, but after Camerons 'Conservative Friends of Israel' Cabal are elected into power solely by a sickened British people who cannot vote Labour (and who are brainwashed by the Zionist dominated media not to vote BNP) then the Zionist entity will control Britains political system directly.

Next stop will be WW3 against Iran, the latest insane venture of the Zionists in their evil quest for global domination by Israel and its puppet America.

All those Tories and Labour traitors in the pro-Israel groups should be arrested and charged with treason if it can be proved that they have at any time put the interests of Israel before Britain and the British people.

Those people who have spent their entire careers and lives acting as agents for Israel and acting as the propagandists for the interests of Israel should be deported to the Israel if they put the interests of Israel before the interests of Britain and the British people.

Barnes then followed that up with a third post, republishing in full an article by Gilad Atzmon titled "Britain Must De-Zionise Itself Immediately". Barnes writes that he does not like using the term "Jewish lobby", as "the most fanatical, insane and craven Zionist Nazis are Fundamentalist Christians like Bush and Blair", but Atzmon has no such qualms, using the terms "Israel lobby" and "Jewish lobby" interchangeably:

 On Monday the British TV broadcaster, Channel 4 screened Inside Britain's Israel Lobby, a devastating expose of the Jewish lobby in the UK*. 'We couldn't find a conspiracy' affirmed Peter Oborne the Daily Mail's political commentator behind the film. He was right. After running the show for so many years, the Jewish lobby's purchasing of British politicians and media presence is in the open.

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The Jewish community is not happy at all. After so many years of setting the tone, bribing UK politicians and controlling the BBC they are used to being untouchable.

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Mark Gardner from the Zionist 'Community Security Trust' is not happy either. He complained that Dispatches producers behaved as if they were investigating a "criminal gang rather than various Jewish community-linked organizations,"

Gardner is also correct. It is indeed tragic to admit that the Jewish lobby is far more worrying than a criminal gang. It is there to serve a murderous state with a devastating record of crimes against humanity. Thanks to the Jewish lobby, we are all complicit in the Zionist crime. Not only are those lobbyists heavily corrupted and removed from any ethical value system, they also corrupt everything they touch. They obviously contaminate every politician who is happy to take their shekels. Consequently they incriminate us all as a society.

As well as Lee Barnes' blog, Atzmon's article was also published on the anti-Zionist Redress website and the news site Middle East Online.

Another website that welcomed Dispatches was Middle East Monitor (MEMO - not to be confused with Middle East Online), whose Director is Daud Abdullah of the MCB. MEMO's article, from which the picture at the top of this post is taken, gives a lengthy overview of the programme:

The authors describe just how entrenched the pro-Israeli agenda is within Westminster. All the major political parties have fallen prey to the lobby. Following generous donations from the lobby they find their options are considerably limited to either taking a soft line on Israel or giving unreserved support for its policies.

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In the case of the politicians what is clearly alarming is the fact that the main beneficiary is a foreign country - Israel.  Only in October this year a former NASA scientist in the US was caught attempting to sell military secrets to Israel.  Although Orborne and James did not explore the issue of dual loyalty their report may well lead to a rigorous debate about this matter.

MEMO conclude by calling for a much more in-depth investigation to be done to "finally expose the size and power of the pro-Israel lobby in Britain":

Last night's report has certainly laid the ground work for what needs to come. The reality is that it probably only touched the tip of the iceberg. While the programme appeared to place a lot of focus on BICOM and the CFI, it completely underplayed the role of the Board of Deputies of British Jews for instance. However, it has certainly opened up public debate on the issue and has underscored the need for further investigation. Perhaps the next step is for a larger more exhaustive study to be undertaken, perhaps in the form of a book akin to Mearsheimer and Walt's in the USA, which will finally expose the size and power of the pro-Israel lobby in Britain.

For others, Dispatches was not an opportunity for any kind of in depth study, but simply a re-affirmation of pre-existing paranoia. One blogger blamed the lobby for blocking his efforts to upload the programme to YouTube. An Indymedia user posted an article citing Conservative Friends of Israel supporters as "Your unelected leaders", with this graphic:

But there were some anti-Israel campaigners who were disappointed with Dispatches, which they felt had pulled its punches. One commenter on the Medialens message board called it "a hit and miss broadcast":

I notice that they were careful to avoid the impression of a 'conspiracy'. However, if you consider the evidence presented that several pro-Israel lobby groups have considerable influence amongst the leadership of both parties, and the combination of political pressure and substantial monetary investment, it is arguably an active conspiracy to divert GB from its duty to uphold international humanitarian law. Otherwise, why would you bother with all the wining and dining?

The last word should go to Stuart Littlewood, an anti-Israel activist and the author of several articles on "Zionist stooges" in Britain. Writing on the Redress website, he described his feelings of anticipation:

Channel 4's “Dispatches” programme on 16 November set out to investigate the pro-Israel lobby in Britain, and to boldly go where no TV team had gone before.

On the Dispatches website we are told that the lobby "aims to shape the debate about Britain's relationship with Israel and future foreign policies relating to it". So the programme would be looking at "who they are, how they are funded, how they work and what influence they have, from the key groups to the wealthy individuals who help bankroll the lobbying".

Political commentator Peter Oborne would explain how accountable, transparent and open to scrutiny the lobby was, particularly regarding its funding and financial support to MPs.

So it was with mounting excitement that countless thousands of citizens here in an increasingly Zionist-ruled Britain awaited the screening of this daring programme.

Confirmation of his fears of Zionist penetration of British institutions:

Assuming the Conservatives win next year’s election Israel can rest easy in the knowledge that it continues to have sufficient stooges in place at the heart of our government.

Just as important, Mr Oborne showed how the BBC -- or the ZBC, as it has become known for obvious reasons -- allows itself to be relentlessly bullied by the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Zionist Federation who, the programme pointed out, don't represent anybody except an extremists section of the Jewish community. But he forgot to tell us that BBC Director-General Mark Thompson has Zionist links through marriage and Thompson himself went to Israel in 2005 to "build bridges" with the then prime minister, Ariel Sharon, considered by many a war criminal and mass murderer.

Disappointment that the programme did not go far enough:

Interesting though the programme was, it left out too much. For example, it didn’t name and shame enough individuals. It didn't tell the nation that our most important security bodies -- the Intelligence and Security Committee, the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Defence Committee -- are all headed by Israel flag-wavers. How can that possibly be in our national interest?

It didn’t reveal that our Labour and Conservative leaders are both patrons of the Jewish National Fund or explain the sinister purpose of that organization.

But ultimately, satisfaction that where Oborne and Dispatches had been too cautious, viewers could fill in the gaps themselves:

According to Mr Oborne, ”the pro-Israel lobby, in common with other lobbies, has every right to operate and indeed to flourish in Britain. But … the present obscurity surrounding it can, paradoxically, give rise to conspiracy theories that have no basis in fact.” However, he spent the best part of an hour convincing us (well me, anyway) it is indeed a conspiracy and a very large and well organized one.