UK: Jews kicked out of Labour’s pro-Palestinian event

Police booted Jewish activists from an event hosted by a Labour MP in Parliament after they asked “disruptive questions.”

Police booted Jewish activists from an event hosted by a Labour Member of Parliament (MP) last week after they asked “disruptive questions,” the British Daily Mail reported over the weekend.

MP Mark Hendrick chaired the pro-Palestinian event in Parliament on Tuesday, organized by the controversial Palestine Return Centre (PRC), which has been linked with Palestinian terror elements, including the Hamas terror group.

The main event speaker was Kamal Hawwash of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, who used his speech to call Israel “an expert at inciting hatred.”

At a previous Labour event, he said he considered a man who stabbed two Israelis to death, and injured a woman and toddler, to be a “martyr” carrying out an “act of revenge.”

He was referencing Muhannad Halabi, who in October 2015 stabbed and murdered Rabbi Nehemiah Lavi, a father of seven, and Aharon Benita, and injured Benita’s wife, Adele, and their two-year-old son as they were returning from prayer at the Kotel, the Western Wall. He was subsequently killed by Israeli security forces.

If people find his actions “unacceptable,” he said, “that’s up to them.”

Biased Anti-Israel Panel at the British Parliament

The Jewish activists challenged the presentations during the question-and-answer session. In response, Hendrick summoned police armed with machine guns to eject them, leaving them “shaken and upset.”

Titled “The Question of Jerusalem: Occupation, Discrimination and Displacement,” the event offered Palestinian perspectives on Israeli conduct in the city. No pro-Israel speakers were on the panel.

In a recording of the question-and-answer session, one person can be heard saying: “What I find very concerning is the bias of a panel in the House of Commons,” to which Hendrick responded: “This is a Palestinian Return Centre meeting. It is not supposed to be a cross-section of views.”

Another person stated that “it’s particularly sickening that in half an hour we didn’t hear one reference to [Israel’s] safety and security.”

Another added: ‘Hamas is a terrorist organization that murders people in the same way that innocents were murdered outside our houses of Parliament here.’

A heated exchange ensued, during which Hendrick accused the activists of being disruptive.

The MP then demanded that armed officers “take them out of here,” while an audience member protests, “I asked a question, I didn’t say anything wrong.”

According to the Daily Mail, four Jewish activists were thrown out of Portcullis House by seven armed officers, who took their details before releasing them without charges.

The activists told the Daily Mail that they were left “shaken and upset.”

“I was thinking, oh my God, I feel it’s really wrong to be told to leave for just giving my opinions,” said Mandy Blumenthal, 52, a member of West Midlands Friends of Israel. “But I saw a policeman with a machine gun and I didn’t want to argue.”

“The House of Commons is supposed to be the heart of free speech. But this Labour MP wanted it to be an echo chamber, not a debating chamber,” she added.

Another activist, Jonathan Hoffman, said that “the evening was peppered with false facts, innuendo and downright lies. Parliamentary facilities were being used to create a platform for hate and anti-Semitism.”

“These four activists have been going to every single meeting, always causing disruption, barring civilized debate and discussion. They came intentionally to make trouble. They coordinated their shouting and disruptive questions together,” a spokesman for the PRC claimed.

When questioned by the Daily Mail, Hendrick claimed he did not know the views of the pro-Palestinian speakers when he agreed they could speak. He further claimed that he was unaware of their past pro-terrorism comments.

“I regret hosting the meeting because it turned out the way it did,” he conceded.

When asked whether he regretted working with the PRC, he said, ‘”Don’t put words into my mouth. Those people were being deliberately disruptive, asking disruptive questions.”

By: World Israel News Staff

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