Leaked document seen by MEE reveals 2019 meeting between UKLFI leaders and senior justice ministry official

A pro-Israel legal advocacy group which is challenging the UK government over its partial suspension of arms sales to Israel asked the Israeli government for help to fight threatened legal action by two NGOs working in the occupied Palestinian territories, Middle East Eye can reveal.

The revelation comes after UK Lawyers For Israel (UKLFI) said it would seek a judicial review unless the UK government cancelled the suspension of 30 arms export licences, and separately filed a conduct complaint against the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor, Karim Khan.

Middle East Eye has learnt that UKLFI privately approached the Israeli government to request assistance in 2019 after it had been accused of making defamatory statements by two organisations, UK-based aid charity Interpal and a West Bank-based NGO, the Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCI-P). Threatened with legal action, UKLFI subsequently issued clarifications about both organisations in 2020.

Despite this, as a result of UKLFI’s work, Interpal - which provided humanitarian aid, education, health and community development for Palestinians in need - lost its banking facilities and gave up fundraising in 2021.

  • Maeve
    3•3 months ago

    Before that, on 17 May 2011, the Israeli foreign ministry released a statement saying that “lawyers in the UK have formed a new group called UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI).” It since appears to have been removed from the ministry’s website. Turner told MEE: “We are an independent organisation and are not linked to the Israeli government.” Of the 2012 seminar, he said: “It was an excellent seminar, with distinguished speakers and very informative.”… UKLFI earlier this month wrote to the British government threatening legal action unless it reverses its decision to suspend 30 out of 350 arms licences to Israel. Jonathan Turner, who is still the CEO of UKLFI, publicly called the Labour government’s move a “political decision to appease members of the public who hate Israel based on misinformation and biased media coverage of the war. As such, it was a misuse of the power granted by the legislation”.

    Lol. “Antisemites!”