The Nature Of Israel Lobby

The Nature of Israel Lobby Asa Winstanley Speaker’s biography: Asa Winstanley is an investigative journalist who writes about Palestine and the Middle East. He first went to Palestine at the end of 2004 and worked in the occupied West Bank until 2007. He was media coordinator for the International Solidarity Movement, and later wrote for and was an editor at the late Palestine Times, the first Palestinian English-language daily newspaper published in the occupied West Bank. He is the editor of Electronic Intifada. Summary: In this episode Asa Winstanley talks about the nature of Israel lobby, which is extremely well founded, very influential and powerful in many ways and are supported by the friends of Israel in British political parties but it is in its historical decline and can be defeated. Surprisingly the left of the Labour party in 1950s was the most pro-Zionist where British MP, Richard Crossman in a lecture in Jerusalem said that Zionism problem is that it came a little bit late because it would have been welcomed as a colonial enterprise even at the expense of wiping out the indigenous population! But things are changed. Nowadays every party in the UK, except the Conservative party has pro-Palestinian group. They are not well-founded unfortunately but they do a lot of good work. That is a big advance historically. Also the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement has became one of the most powerful ways that ordinary people can influence the situation. It has so much of effect that Israel identifies it as the greatest strategic threat to Israel. BDS is against oppression, against the occupation, and seeks for equal rights for Palestinians in West Bank and Gaza, and the return Palestinians refugees to their homeland. We can ultimately win, it can be hard struggle but we were in it for long term.