Israeli Government Cutout Takes Credit For UK's Ban On Hassan Piker And Cenk Uygur.

An Israeli Government Connected Lobby Group Takes Credit For The Ban On American Political Commentator Hassan Piker.

As I covered yesterday , the American political commentators Cenk Uygur and Hassan Piker were barred entry into the UK over their criticism of Israel.

For many Americans, the fact that the UK would ban two well known American pundits for their criticism of a foreign nation has come as a shock.

However, these blatant suppressions of free speech are nothing new to Israel critics within the UK, who have faced severe repression domestically for supporting Palestine since the start of the genocide in Gaza in October of 2023.

Furthermore, the same Israeli government-connected forces behind the domestic suppression in the UK appear to have influenced the UK’s decision to deny entry to Uygur and Piker.

Most notably, the UK-based Israeli government cutout Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA), took credit for the ban on Hassan Piker.

On May 28th, before the ban was in place, CAA wrote on X “David Taylor, the Labour Member of Parliament for Hemel Hempstead, has called on the Home Office to revoke Mr Piker’s visa. We echo this.”

After the ban was revealed CAA took credit for it writing:

We understand that, following calls to do so from CAA and others, Hasan Piker’s visa has been revoked and he is now barred from entering the United Kingdom.

Being a guest in this country is a privilege, not a given.

This country has no need of people who have previously spewed hateful drivel about Jews and made pro-terrorist remarks.

We sadly have plenty such cases here already.

For context, journalist Tony Greenstein reported that “The Campaign Against Antisemitism was formed in August 2014 during a major Israeli offensive against Gaza. Its purpose was to paint Palestine solidarity campaigning and opposition to Zionism, Israel’s state ideology, as anti-Semitic.”

Investigative journalist Rebecca Gordon-Nesbitt and Asa Winstanley uncovered that the CAA is directly funded by the Israeli state, reporting that “the CAA has been given almost half a million dollars by the UK partner of the Jewish National Fund (JNF), Israel’s quasi-governmental settler-colonial agency.”

The reporters noted that the JNF, “is one of Israel’s four key ‘National Institutions’ which, since 1948, have worked ‘to advance the Zionist enterprise.’ The JNF has been described by noted Israeli historian Ilan Pappé as a ‘colonialist agency of ethnic cleansing.’”

They added:

Founded in Britain in 1908 and registered in 1939 as a charity operating in “Israel” – a state which had not yet been established – the JNF’s British partner group JNF UK says it has been “building Israel for over a century.”

It does so by fundraising in the UK and passing the money collected onto Israel, primarily for projects in the southern Naqab desert, displacing Palestinian citizens of Israel in favor of Jewish settlers.

JNF UK has also funded a number of projects supporting illegal settlements in the West Bank – a war crime under international law.

They noted that the CAA also directly coordinated with the Israeli government to combat international criticism, writing:

The CAA has also taken part in the main conferences at which the Israeli government draws up strategy to combat “delegitimization.” In both 2015 and 2018, it attended Israel’s “Global Forum for Combatting Antisemitism” in Jerusalem.

During the 2018 conference, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs even tagged the CAA in several tweets, suggesting a kind of official Israeli endorsement of the group.

A report from the UK Human Rights organization CAGE noted that “CAA’s focus is on enforcing and expanding the scope of criminal prosecutions for antisemitism, acting as a pressure group to push regulators and institutions such the CPS and EHRC for prosecutions or investigations, and initiating private prosecutions in certain instances.”

CAA, the report noted, “flood the judiciary, regulators and employers with disingenuous and dishonest complaints of antisemitism, seeking to suppress and criminalise support for Palestine in the UK.”

The report added that CAA, “has contributed to an intensifying wave of repression: wearing a pin or keffiyeh for Palestine becomes a sackable offence; speaking out against the Gaza genocide risks referrals to regulators; and tearing down factories arming genocide results in lengthy custodial sentences.”

The report documented that:

-CAA has been instrumental in persuading the UK government and related institutions to adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism

-CAA pushed for full proscription of Hezbollah and called for the government to end engagement with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

-It has further come out against the national demonstrations against Israeli atrocities in Palestine. It dispatched its ‘demonstration and event monitoring unit’ to gather evidence on marches and sought to have them banned

-CAA pushed for a ban on further Palestine marches.

-It associated a chant about Al Aqsa with Hamas, implying that it was grounds for prosecution.

Perhaps the most significant lawfare victory achieved by CAA was getting the direct action activist group Palestine Action- know for disrupting the UK-based facilities of the Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems, which fuelled the genocide in Gaza- proscribed as a terrorist organization.

After the UK’s Home Secretary Yvette Cooper passed the ban on Palestine Action, CAA took credit for it , writing, “We are pleased that the Home Secretary has listened to our representations over the last week.”

Since the ban went into effect, thousands of pro-Palestine demonstrators have been arrested on terrorism charges for simply holding signs reading, “I oppose genocide — I support Palestine Action.”

The same Israeli government cutouts responsible for destroying any semblance of free speech in the UK are now taking the suppression campaign internationally, barring Israel critics from even entering the UK.

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