Anglo-Israel Association

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The Anglo-Israel Association (AIA) is a charity founded in 1949 by Sir Wyndham Deedes, a Zionist sympathiser, the year after the foundation of the state of Israel. According to its website the AIA has 3 main objectives:

1. To support educational programmes enabling the people of both countries to deepen their understanding of each other.

2. To promote a wider understanding of Israel in the UK.

3. To foster goodwill between the two countries. [1]

The AIA organises a wide range of activities ‘to promote education in particular and information in general about Israel.’[2] In the past, it has promoted talks by neo-conservative speaker Emanuele Ottolenghi and it has debated against the academic boycott of Israel. It has links with the Henry Jackson Society and the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies (INSS).

It is partially funded by foundations, including the Charles Wolfson Charitable Trust and the Lewis Family Trust, that are linked to Zionist and conservative thinks tanks.


People

Wyndham Deedes

Sir Wyndham Deedes was born in Kent, England, in 1883. In 1915 he was a brigadier general in Cairo where he worked to secure Arab support against the Turks. [3] From 1920 to 1922 he served as chief secretary under High Commissioner Sir Herbert Samuel. He strongly condemned the Arab riots of 1921 ans Deedes authorised the enlistment of Jewish volunteers to help defend Jaffa and Tel Aviv. He retired from military life in 1923 and moved to London, UK. In 1943 he founded the British Association for the Jewish National Home in Palestine. A year after the creation of the state of Israel in 1949 he formed the Anglo-Israel Association. He died in 1956.

Deedes was a deeply religious Christian and believed that the only way Christians could atone for their treatment towards the Jews was by working to establish a Jewish state in Palestine. [4] In 1918 he met and became close friends with Chaim Weizmnann, a Zionist leader who later became the first president of Israel. [5] In 1926 Deedes was invited by the Executive of the Zionist Organisation of Poland for a two week tour. [6]

On March 14th 1927, Deedes and Weizmnann attended a banquet at the mount Royal Hotel in Canada to celebrate the opening of a local branch of Keren Hayoda, a Zionist fund-raising organisation.[7] The same week the two friends also attended a lunch at the Commodore Hotel. According to the Jewish Daily Bulletin, Weizmann stated: ‘We Jews have no titles to confer. We have only one expression which may be properly applied to Sir Wyndham. He is one of the ‘Chassidei Umoth Ha’olam’ (Righteous men of the nations) and as such he will long be remembered.’[8] Wyndham also claimed his support for Zionism on the basis of moral and historical reasons, stating ‘I often fail to understand why some view Zionism as a purely national movement which is totally secular and is opposed to religion. So far as Jewish life goes, the national idea and religion are so closely interwoven that they are inseparable'.[9]

In 2006, his nephew William Deedes wrote an article in the Daily Telegraph stating that ‘Muslims can never conform to our ways’.[10]

Officers (as of December 2012)

  • Lord P. Bew (Chairman)
  • Mr M. Green (Vice-President)
  • Mrs L. Hochhauser (Vice-President)
  • Mr R. Bolchover (Co-Deputy Chairman)
  • Professor D. Hochhauser (Co-Deputy Chairman)
  • Sir Michael Latham (Vice-President)
  • Lady Sainsbury (Chairman of Council)
  • Mr G.R. Pinto (Vice-President)
  • MrJ. Marshall (Vice-President)
  • Mr A. Epton FCA (Hon Treasurer)

Executive Committee (Trustees)

  • Mrs J. Atkin
  • Lord P. Bew (Chairman)
  • Mr R. Bolchover (Co-Deputy Chairman)
  • Dr M. Brearley
  • Mr A. Diamond
  • Miss B. Dingle
  • Mr A. Epton FCA (Hon Treasurer)
  • Professor D. Hochhauser (Co-Deputy Chairman)
  • Mr A. Reeve
  • Mr W. Shawcross (resigned 4 October 2012)
  • Dr A. Sher
  • Mrs E. Tarling
  • Mr T. Vince
  • Mrs O. Polizzi

Officers (2011)

  • The Lord Bew (Chairman from 16 February 2011)
  • Sir Andrew Burns KCMG (Chairman until 15 February 2011)
  • Mr M. Green (Vice-President)
  • Mrs L. Hochhauser (Vice-President)
  • Mr R. Bolchover (Co-Deputy Chairman)
  • Professor D. Hochhauser (Co-Deputy Chairman)
  • Lady Sainsbury (Chairman of Council)
  • Mr G.R. Pinto (Vice-President)
  • Mr J. Marshall (Vice-President)
  • Mr J. Nedas FCA (Hon Treasurer until 4 April 2011)
  • Mr A. Epton FCA (Hon Treasurer from 4 April 2011)[11]

Executive Committee (Trustees) (2011)

  • Mrs J. Atkin
  • The Lord Bew (Chairman from 16 February 2011)
  • Mr R. Bolchover (Co-Deputy Chairman)
  • Dr M. Brearley
  • Mr A. Diamond
  • Miss B. Dingle (joined 25 January 2011)
  • Mr A. Epton FCA (Hon Treasurer from 4 April 2011)
  • Professor D. Hochhauser (Co-Deputy Chairman)
  • Mr A. Reeve joined 25 January 2011
  • Mr W. Shawcross joined 5 July 2011
  • Dr A. Sher (joined 25 January 2011)
  • Mrs E. Tarling
  • Mr T. Vince
  • Mr G.A. Yablon (retired 5 July 2011).[11]


Executive Director

Mrs Ruth Saunders

Lord P. Bew

Paul Anthony Elliott Bew, Baron Bew (born 22 Jan. 1950) is a Northern Irish historian. He has worked at Queen's University Belfast since 1979, and is currently Professor of Irish Politics, a position he has held since 1991.[12] He was an unofficial adviser to the former Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble and they are both signatories of the Cambridge neoconservative think tank the Henry Jackson Society's Statement of Principles.[13] Bew was appointed to the House of Lords as a Life Peer in February 2007 and sits as a cross bencher.[14] He has been chairman of AIA from February 2011.

Bew has expressed praise for the Alliance for Middle East Peace, a group of over 70 leading non-governmental organizations working to foster reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians. In a debate on the European Union’s role in the Middle East peace process in January 2014, Bew stated that: the EU should focus on what it does well—state-building and creating an environment in which Israelis and Palestinians feel comfortable in engaging with each other in areas of mutual benefit, such as water and energy. The EU currently funds the Palestine Academy for Science and Technology, and could do even more to help the high-tech companies and thousands of technology graduates in the Palestinian territories.[15]

Mr M. Green (Vice-President)

Martin Green was elected deputy Chairmen of the Executive Committee, AIA in 1994.[16]

Mrs L. Hochhauser (Vice-President)

Mrs Lilian Hochhauser was born in 1926 in the UK.[17]

Professor D. Hochhauser (Co-Deputy Chairman)

Daniel Hochhauser is Kathleen Ferrier Professor of Medical Oncology at UCL. He is a consultant medical oncologist at UCLH specialising in the treatment of gastrointestinal cancer. On Thursday 13 January 2011 he participated at LSE at an event around the following motion: 'This house believes in an academic boycott of Israel'. Hochauser argued against the academic boycott and the motion was defeated.[18] In November 2012 he wrote a negativity review for Jewish Chronicles of 'The Making and Unmaking of a Zionist' by Antony Lerman.[19] In 2005 he was a signatory to a letter against academic boycott that was published by The Guardian.[20]

===Mr R. Bolchover (Co-Deputy Chairman)===   Bolchover is author of ‘British Jewry and the Holocaust’, published in 1993.[21]

Lady Sainsbury (Chairman of Council)

Lady Susan Sainsbury, was appointed as the new chairman of the Anglo-Israel Association in 2001. She is the wife of former Conservative minister Sir Timothy Sainsbury, who was also President of the Conservative Friends of Israel from 1997 until 2005.[22]

Mr G.R. Pinto (Vice-President)

Mr George Richard Pinto was born in the UK in 1929 and has been the Director of Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies since 1991.3 In the third quarter of 2013 he donated £10,269 to the Conservative Party.[23]

Mr J. Marshall (Vice-President)

John Leslie Marshall (born August 19, 1940) is a British Conservative politician. He was MEP for London North from 1979 to 1989. John Marshall was Mayor of the London Borough of Barnet in the Municipal year 2008-2009. He was appointed vice president of AIA in 1994.[24]

William Hartley Hume Shawcross

William Shawcross is (born 28 May 1946, Sussex) is the Chairman of the Charity Commission for England and Wales and a British writer and commentator.[25]

Shawcross was educated at Eton and University College, Oxford. He was a member of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees's Informal Advisory Group from 1995 to 2000. From 1997 to 2003 he was a member of the BBC World Service Advisory Council. In 2008 he became a Patron of the Wiener Library and in 2011 he joined the board of the Anglo-Israel Association and was appointed to the board of the Henry Jackson Society.[26]

His daughter Eleanor from his second wife Michal Levin is a member of the Council of Economic Advisers to George Osborne.[27] She had previously worked on Boris Johnson's mayor campaign. Eleanor is married to Simon Wolfson, Baron Wolfson, the chief executive of the clothing retailer Next and a Conservative life peer.[28] He is the son of former Next chairman David Wolfson, Baron Wolfson of Sunningdale, also a Conservative life peer.

Shawcross resigned in 2012 from the AIA and Henry Jackson board to become Chair of the Charity Commission.


Activities

The AIA organises a wide range of activities ‘to promote education in particular and information in general about Israel.’[29]


Ambassadors’ Round Table

Since 2009 it has organised every year an Ambassadors roundtable on a specific topic, bringing together academics, MPS, diplomats and scientist from both Israel and Britain. The 4th Ambassadors' Roundtable was held on Renewable Technology on 16 October 2012 in the Great Gallery in Lancaster House. The conference, opened by AlA's Chairman Lord Bew, was chaired by Oliver Morton, senior Editor of The Economist and the keynote speech was given by Nick Butler, Professor and Chair of the Kings Policy Institute. The Opening Remarks were given by Matthew Gould, UK's Ambassador to Israel, and HE Daniel Taub, Ambassador of Israel to the UK.[30]

The Third Ambassadors’ Round Table held on the 3 November 2011 was titled ‘The Challenges and Opportunities of Moving from Innovation to Entrepreneurship: The UK and Israeli Perspective’.

The Second Ambassadors Roundtable, held on Tuesday 26th October 2010 looked at problems and issues relating to media coverage of Israel, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and wider Middle East and brought together a journalists, media commentators, scholars and parliamentarians from Israel and the UK. Present was also Nachman Shai MK, Kadima Party Member who commented:

‘The conference was very important and focused on a very critical issue, how the media deals with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the way Israel is portrayed by the liberal press in Britain. We have a lot of questions on how the British media treats Israel and why Israel is treated differently. The conference delved into these issues and provided an excellent insight into these concerns.’[31]


Annual Dinner

Each year AIA holds an Annual Dinner attracting over 400 guests and supporters prominent in British society. The 2012 Annual Dinner hold at the Savoy Hotel generated an income of £55,781.[32] The guest speaker of the night was Major General Aharon Zeevi Farkash the former head of Israeli Military Intelligence. According to the AIA, website, Major Farkash’s main concern was that the West did not realise that its true enemy is Radical Sunni Islam.[33] The Israeli Ambassador, Daniel Taub was also present.


Notes

  1. ↑ The Anglo-Israel Association, http://www.angloisraelassociation.com/index.html, accessed 17 February 2014
  2. ↑ http://www.angloisraelassociation.com/index.html accessed 17 February 2014
  3. ↑ Spencer Tucker, ’The Encyclopaedia of the Arab-Israeli Conflict: A Political, Social, and Military History’ (ABC, 2008), p. 292
  4. ↑ Ibid.
  5. ↑ Ibid.
  6. ↑ http://www.jta.org/1926/12/19/archive/polish-zionists-invite-sir-wyndham-deedes
  7. ↑ The Canadian Jewish Chronicle, http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=883&dat=19270311&id=nY8cAAAAIBAJ&sjid=1WEEAAAAIBAJ&pg=2761,2630523, 11 March 1927, accessed 17 February 2014
  8. ↑ Jewish Daily Bulletin, Sir Wyndham Deedes, Distinguished Visitor, is Feted by Zionists, http://pdfs.jta.org/1927/1927-03-21_722.pdf, accessed 17 February 2014
  9. ↑ Ibid.
  10. ↑ William Deedes, ‘Muslims can never conform to our ways' Daily Telegraph, 20 October 2006
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Annual report and financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2011, Anglo-Israel Association, accessed 10 March 2014.
  12. ↑ Richards Huw, ‘Paul Bew: Belfast's history man’, The Guardian
  13. ↑ Signatories to the Statement of Principles, http://henryjacksonsociety.org/about-the-society/signatories-to-the-statement-of-principles/ accessed 19 February 2014
  14. ↑ http://www.parliament.uk/biographies/lords/lord-bew/3832
  15. ↑ HL Deb, 14 January 2014, c191
  16. ↑ The Independent, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/appointments-1438994.html,28 May 1994 accessed 17 February 2014
  17. ↑ https://www.duedil.com//director/901580298/lilian-hochhauser, accessed 17 February 2014
  18. ↑ http://www.lse.ac.uk/publicEvents/events/2011/20110113t1800vOT.aspx accessed 17 February 2014
  19. ↑ Daniel Hochauser, Book Review, http://www.thejc.com/arts/books/90167/communal-courtier-controversy, The JC, November 9, 2012, accessed 19 February 2014
  20. ↑ In 2005 he was a signatory to a letter against academic boycott that was published by The Guardian.
  21. ↑ http://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/history/twentieth-century-british-history/british-jewry-and-holocaust, accessed 17 February 2014
  22. ↑ http://thepeerage.com/p20556.htm accessed 19 February 2014
  23. ↑ Search the Money, ‘Conservative Party donors revealed for Q3 2013’, http://searchthemoney.com/blog/7 accessed 17 February 2014
  24. ↑ Search the Money, ‘Conservative Party donors revealed for Q3 2013’, http://searchthemoney.com/blog/7 accessed 17 February 2014
  25. ↑ http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/appointments-1438994.html4
  26. ↑ http://www.williamshawcross.com/index.php?page=cv accessed 17 February 2014
  27. ↑ Ane Merrick, ‘George Osborne aide too posh for future tory leader’, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/george-osborne-aide-too-posh-for-future-tory-leader-8537668.html, The Independent, 17 March 2013, accessed 17 February 2014
  28. ↑ Ibid.
  29. ↑ http://www.angloisraelassociation.com/index.html accessed 17 February 2014
  30. ↑ http://www.angloisraelassociation.com/events.html accessed 17 February 2014
  31. ↑ http://www.angloisraelassociation.com/events.html accessed 17 February 2014
  32. ↑ Anglo-Israel Association Report and Financial Statements Year Ended 31 December 2012
  33. ↑ http://www.angloisraelassociation.com/events.html accessed 19 February 2014
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