Shocked by What he Saw on the West Bank

Laurence Brass (left) next to war criminal Blair, Rabbi Sacks and Israel's far right ambassador Ron Prossor

 The Board of Deputies of British Jews has an appalling record on most issues.  In the 1930’s it told Jews to keep their heads down and stay indoors as Sir Oswald Moseley and his British Union of Fascists strutted through the East End.  At the Battle of Cable Street, when Moseley and the BUF were prevented from marching, the Jewish population, in alliance with ordinary trade unionists, Catholic dockers and the unemployed, ignored them as 100,000 people defied the Metropolitan Police’s defence of the anti-Semitic BUF.  Today the Met opposes ‘anti-Semitism’ as part of its attacks on Muslims.

Brass

The Board of Deputies Attitude to Israeli Attacks on Palestinians

Laurence Brass says he had been 'bursting to criticize the Israeli administration' for six years and took the board to task for preventing honorary officers from expressing personal opinions.

BOD Does Its Best to Associate British Jews with Israeli Crimes

The treasurer of the United Kingdom Jewish Board of Deputies, the representative body of British Jewry, has stepped down saying he “could not contemplate another three years of not being able to speak freely,” the Jewish Chronicle reported.

Laurence Brass, an asylum judge, had been tipped to run for board president in the May election after being twice elected as treasurer. But he told a plenary meeting of the executive on Sunday that “I decided that to be true to my principles and beliefs was more important than seeking office.”
Brass said he had been “bursting to criticize the Israeli administration” for six years and took the board to task for preventing honorary officers from expressing personal opinions.

Laurence Brass“I felt constrained not to have been able to speak out on subjects that are close to my heart, such as the treatment of the Palestinians in the occupied territories and the discrimination still being suffered by Arab citizens of Israel,” Brass said.

“There have been countless occasions over the last six years when I’ve been bursting to criticize the Israeli administration, but I’ve restrained myself.
“I want to be released from the chains of office to contribute to the wider debate on the Middle East, as well as on the critical political issues that I consider to be important here at home.”

Saying that he had encountered “very harsh and often quite abusive personal criticism” when speaking out, Brass called for his replacement to be free to speak out.

Brass received a standing ovation after his speech, the Chronicle reported, but board president Vivian Wineman cautioned other executive members to maintain their silence.

“People aren’t interested in our private opinions; they’re interested in what the Board thinks and what the Jewish community thinks,” Wineman said. “When we express ourselves, we always have to bear that in mind.”

See Envoys support Laurence Brass in Israel criticism row

Board of Deputies treasurer ‘shocked’ by visit to West Bank

Mr Brass, who was spending Pesach in Israel, took part in a private capacity in a one-day trip organised by Yachad UK and led by a guide from the anti-occupation Israeli army veterans’ group, Breaking the Silence.

His experience, as one of around a dozen Anglo-Jewish participants taken to the Palestinian village of Susiya, was shocking, he said.

“The village spokesman told us that he was very worried at the prospect of local Palestinian children being attacked by settlers on their way to school.
"Just 48 hours after we left, a six-year-old girl from the neighbouring village of Atuwani was admitted to hospital with head wounds after being stoned on her way to school, just as we had been warned might occur.
“I was shocked that this type of behaviour goes unchecked by the IDF.”

Mr Brass added that the abiding memory of his visit would be “the sight of an old rusty car being
dumped down the village well, thus preventing the locals from having fresh water.

“I had also not known previously that, on the majority of the road signs in the area, the Arabic words have been deliberately obliterated. I had also not previously appreciated the ever increasing number of settler outposts which have sprung up all over Area C, which, although illegal, no one appears willing to prevent.”

“Area C” represents West Bank zones under the control of Israel.

Mr Brass said: “The miserable existence of the Palestinian villagers we met will stay with me for a long time. It was difficult to reconcile that we were celebrating the festival of freedom, while these villagers were surviving in such squalid surroundings. I returned very depressed.”

Yachad, which campaigns for a two-state solution, ran 17 trips to East Jerusalem or the West Bank in 2013, for over 400 members of Zionist youth movements.