On Tuesday evening, I attended a London Jewish Forum discussion event at St John’s Wood Synagogue, where three MPs and a senior representative from the Metropolitan Police responded to questions from the audience. On its face, the event was presented as an opportunity to address rising community concerns following recent antisemitic attacks. In reality, however, it felt more like a hastily arranged election event just two days before the 2026 council elections.
I had intended to ask a question, but the moderator, Lord Grabiner, did not select me from among the numerous questions taken. I could not help but notice that, having opened by stating he did not wish to discuss Israel, it is perhaps no surprise that I was not called upon.
Fortunately, I have my own platform. I am therefore setting out here the question I would have asked, had I been given the opportunity. A copy has also been sent by email to all three MPs, and I will publish any responses I receive.
The letter follows below:
An open letter to Rachel Blake MP, Georgia Gould MP, and Joe Powell MP,
Thank you for attending the London Jewish Forum discussion event at St John’s Wood Synagogue.
I had intended to ask a question but was not selected, so I am writing to put it to you directly (in fact, one question broken into three parts). I am sending this by email and have also published the letter openly on my website.
You all spoke about the need to fight antisemitism, but in reality, all we heard on the night were platitudes. Let’s not pretend otherwise; the government is scrambling, unsure of what can be done beyond increased policing and ever taller walls for British Jews to hide behind.
Over 2,000 years, Jews have come to recognise antisemitism for what it is: a conspiracy theory that casts them as a unique evil, driving people to act in the name of protection – especially of their children.
Today, that same antisemitic impulse is often masked as the demonisation of Israel – and those who fail to recognise this will never be able to confront it effectively.
The recent surge in antisemitic violence does not arise in a vacuum – it has been fuelled by years of drip-fed false allegations about Israel, repeated on our streets, in activism, and at times in mainstream coverage.
False claims such as “genocide,” “starving babies,” or “deliberately shooting children” are antisemitic conspiracy theories that recast the Jewish state as uniquely evil. Even foundational narratives like the “Nakba”, presented as a simple story of passive victims and aggressive Jewish force, follow the same pattern. After decades of repetition, these ideas are so embedded that many have lost sight of reality – and the path back will be long.
If you only look at the outcome without understanding how it is fuelled, there is no hope of addressing it.
Nor should we ignore how this has been driven into the mainstream. The mass marches have been consistently organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign – a group that had already sought permission for their first demonstration by 12:50pm on October 7, even as Hamas was still massacring Israeli civilians.
It is this same organisation that has promoted conspiracy narratives and calls for Israel’s destruction.
Yet the Labour Party has maintained a long-standing relationship with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Each year, it is given an official exhibition stand at Labour Party conference – providing a platform to engage directly with MPs, key union figures, and other party members.
These images from the 2025 conference:
The Labour Party has, over decades, helped incubate this hostility. On the one hand, you say you want to combat antisemitism; on the other, your party maintains close ties with the key campaign group driving much of the rhetoric on our streets, while allowing it a platform inside the exhibition halls at your annual conference. Forgive me if I struggle to see how you can square this circle.
My question is straightforward.
One: How can you effectively combat antisemitism if you do not recognise it when it presents itself?
Two: Do you believe the Labour Party should take responsibility for enabling the spread of antisemitic narratives associated with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, and commit to ensuring that such groups are not given a platform at future Labour Party events?
Three: Will you commit to addressing these antisemitic narratives through education, particularly within schools and public institutions?
Yours sincerely,
David Collier
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The other false claim to be rectified, so that people know the truth, is that Israel is NOT an apartheid state, and for the highly uneducated, that does not include Judea & Samaria, otherwise known as the West Bank, nor Gaza.
It all seems performative. Suddenly the Police are arresting people although we have all been told that the Law does not support it…. seemingly overnight the Met is grasping at a herooic cop vibe when they have done sod all for 2.5 years. I write as a christian Londoner, and I worry this will all fizzle out as Starmer comes up with his next betrayal to our Jewish Britons, and to our country as a nation. And I have been frightened too, and I too can’t reasonably visit many favourite London haunts because of these terrorist supporters. Our broadcast media and newspapers have also contributed to supporting terrorists and their followers. They should be prosecuted. We’ll see…
BLAST FROM THE PAST:
The Sydney Jewish News, 2 May 1947
The Arab Killer-Nazi and the General.
By Our Special Correspondent, SOLOMON ITZHAKI (Jerusalem).
A few days after General Barker’s departure from Palestine, there was a new guest at the Lydda airfield named Fawzi Kawkadji.
* * *
The skies of Eretz Israel still remain heavily clouded, while the name of two “stars” suddenly appeared before the astonished Yishuv: the well-known and “glorious” General Evelyn Barker, G.O.C. British Army in Palestine “unvisibly” left the country, while only a few days later, another “glorious” personality touched the earth of the Holy Land—the famous Arab-killer Nazi, the enemy of Britain and Russia and of the Jews (of course) Fawzi Kawkadji arrived by plane directly from Paris to Lydda, and he, too, was “unvisible” to British detectives and C.I.D. officials, who are great experts in hunting illegals… Kawkadji was certainly an illegal passenger: he reached Palestine without a British visa, but—he is not a Jewish refugee, who escaped the crematories and the gallows: Fawzi wass a killer-Nazi and seemingly he is not considered as dangerous as the unhappy Jewish refugee. This unhappy Jewish refugee… If he dies before discovering his dreamland, his Eretz Israel, the powers will be grateful to him, because he brought relief to the international problem. And if, he dares take his fate into his own hands and strives to reach the country of his longings without a certificate—the mighty machinery of the British power wll rise against him and hunt him down on land sea and in the air and finally he will be deported to another camp in Cyprus.
He is suspected of communist or terrorist activities and “anti-British tendences in general” and his presece is unde sirable everywhere.
PROFESSIONAL TROUBLE MAKER.
But Kawkadji was an Arab refugee, a professional instigator and rebel and a sworn enemy of Britain. He didn’t worry. Many loyal friends were on his side, aeroplanes will bring him to his place of destination and certificates will not be lacking, Yes, the unbelievable has happened: Fawzi Kawkadji the ringleader of the Arab gangs in Palestine in 1936-39, the accomplice of the Iraqi Nazi-leader Rashid Ali who started the rebellion against the Allied Powers in 1941, the faithful satellite of Hitler until the collapse of thes Third Reich—has been released by the Russians in whose detention he has been, firstly in Sophia then in Berlin, the French Secret Service delivered a passport to him, they allowed him to leave France by air for the Middle East, and he has not been arrested by the British when the plane landed in the Lydda airfield before the very eyes of His Majesty’s mighty army.
SYRIAN, NOT PALESTINIAN.
Kawadji is an “old glory.” Already in 1925 he practised in inciting rebellions when he organised an uprising against the French administration in Syria, his birthplace. Following the defeat of that uprising he escaped to Baghdad, where he deliberated as to how to return and renew the activities against the French. It was easy to prepare anti-French movements in Iraq, where the British are the sole rulers… But the French were careful and Kawkadji’s movement has been abated.
Then he found another sphere of action: Palestine.
At the outbreak of the bloody Arab disturbances aiming at the killing of Englishmen and of Jews he became the head of the gangs, and directed their activities until 1939. Jewish “Haganah” members under the leadership of the unforgotten Charles Ord-Wingate, finally got him: the rebel’s camp was cordoned off, by the British Jewish Army, however for reasons which are unclear to this day the iron ring was not closed and Kawkadji again succeeded in escaping to Baghdad.
In Iraq he was one of the most ferocious anti-British fighters, under the orders of the famous Nazi-agent Dr. Grubbe[a], but during an open battle near the Iraqi capital he was wounded and transported by a special plane of the German Embassy to Berlin.
His activities during the war years are well known, he was the aide-de-camp of the ex-Mufti of Jerusalem, he went to Yugoslavia and Bulgaria to mobilize Moslem citizens of these countries against Russia and Great Britain, he spoke tens of times on the Nazi radio calling the Arab world to rise up against “British Imperialism and Bolshevist Judaism”; he became a bemedalled SS-man and got even a Nazi wife.
What’s going on behind that international story the hero of which is Fawzi Kawkadji? Whom will he serve at present? The Russians, the French, the British?
In any case, with the arrival of Kawkadji in the neighbourhood of Palestine ,the list of the Arab ‘ leaders who, during the war, were engaged in hostile activities aga inst the Allied Nations, has been completed…
The British could easily arrest him. There is no doubt, that he IS one of the great war-criminals, but—the official communique of, the Palestine Government naivelyI stated today:
“Fawzi Kawkadji regretfully escaped the vigilance of the Palestine Frontier Control…”
BARKER’S FRIENDSHIP FOR NAZIS.
On the other hand, you may be told in Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv: “Don’t worry, Kawkadji isn’t as dangerous as… General Barker. And the General has already left, Baruch Ha’shem.”
Because, among all those who headed the British administration for the last thirty years there has been no person whose principal line in his relation to the Yishuv was that of hatred to Jews, racial hatred of the notorious type.
Gen. Barker was known here even prior to his arrival. His excessive friendship for the Nazis in Germany, in Schleswig-Holstein, and his spiritual intimacy with the Nazis reached a stage which compelled the Danish press to demand his removal. This was the spiritual preparation which brought him to the country of, Jewish National Home. A few months after his arrival he staged the “Black Sabbath” of June 25th. All the acts committed by the British troops against the Yishuv were largely due to his plans. The attempt to destroy the Jewish political representation, the desire to disgrace it by seizing its premises, the attempt to desrtroy the Jewish defensive force.
https://www.nli.org.il/en/newspapers/sydneyjn/1947/05/02/01/article/30