As arrests are made across the nation, the Government must heed our calls to proscribe the IRGC
Several Iranian nationals have been arrested under suspicion of planning an attack on the Israeli embassy in London, according to a report by The Times.
Arrests were made across the nation, with footage of one of the arrests showing a man being dragged out of a Rochdale home during a raid. Other arrests were made in West London, Swindon, Stockport and Manchester.
Four of the men, aged between 29 and 46, are being held in custody for questioning, following arrest. One man, aged 26, has been released on bail.
Whilst exact details of the plot are yet to emerge, this is another reminder of the urgency for the British Government to proscribe the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Iran’s paramilitary force that answers directly to the radical regime.
In 2023, then Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy said in Parliament: “We would proscribe the IRGC, either by using existing terrorism legislation or by creating a new process of proscription for hostile state actors.”
The same year, as Shadow Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper reiterated that a Labour Government would apply a full ban on the IRGC.
But since the establishment of the Labour Government, no action has yet been taken on the proscription of the IRGC.
So were our Government’s words just empty promises?
We have long campaigned for the proscription of the IRGC. But it isn’t just us. 93% of British Jews back our calls for proscription, according to our polling.
Earlier this year, Sir Richard Dearlove, a former head of MI6, said of a proscription: “I just don’t get why we haven’t done so. It is the agency through which Iran has conducted what I would call ‘arm’s length warfare’. The Quds Force is part of the IRGC, and they’ve made an absolute fundamental aspect of Iranian policy using this agency to destabilise and interfere in the affairs of other countries. I know the Foreign Office arguments for not banning the IRGC, but it should have been identified as a terrorist organisation a long time ago.”
A message to terrorists: sooner or later, you will be found
A man behind one of the most gruesome terrorist murders of our time has now been killed — and it’s thanks to India.
In 2002, Jewish American journalist Daniel Pearl was kidnapped by terrorists in Karachi, Pakistan.
They murdered him nine days later in a barbaric video titled “The Slaughter of the Spy-Journalist, the Jew Daniel Pearl”.
In his final words, he said: “My father’s Jewish, my mother’s Jewish, I’m Jewish.”
For more than two decades, Abdul Rauf Azhar — one of the men behind his murder — lived freely. But not anymore.
India’s government last week announced that it has eliminated Azhar.
Will that undo the horror of what happened? No. But it sends a message to terrorists: sooner or later, you will be found — and eventually, your crimes catch up with you, just as Azhar’s did.
Yet more scandals for our national broadcaster
“When things go awry for us, shoot the Jews, it fixes everything.”
“We shall burn you as Hitler did, but this time we won’t have a single one of you left.”
“We Are All Hamas”
These are reportedly the words from a freelance journalist who has appeared on BBC Arabic more than a dozen times.
As our national broadcaster goes from one disaster to another, it has reportedly reiterated its intention to launch a “thematic review” into its Gaza coverage and BBC Arabic.
Samir Shah, the Chair of the BBC, told Times Radio: “The [BBC] Arabic service, we are looking at it, we’ve been examining it. I think this whole business of how we’ve covered Israel-Gaza is a proper thing to examine thoroughly, which is why we’re going to identify…we’re going to get hold of an independent figure to look at our coverage.”
This comes after the BBC told Jewish media last month that it was “considering training for staff and launching an independent Thematic Review of our Israel-Gaza coverage,” promising that “The BBC is committed to upholding the highest possible editorial standards across our output, reporting impartially to maintain the trust of audiences. The conduct and welfare of all of our staff is an absolute priority and we have well-established and robust processes in place to handle any concerns or complaints raised with us.”
It is understood that this “thematic review” of the standard of the BBC’s Gaza coverage will be drafted for presentation to the BBC Board, and will be “independent and published in full”.
The announcement, such as it is, comes some two months after Mr Shah suggested before the Culture Media and Sport Committee that a thematic review might be on the table, and just days after yet another BBC Arabic contributor who reports on the Hamas-Israel conflict was alleged to have published antisemitic rhetoric on social media.
The scandal has arisen following the broadcast earlier this year of a so-called documentary, ‘Gaza How to Survive a War Zone’, which was narrated by the son of a senior Hamas official, whose family was paid with licence fee funds for the son’s participation. The BBC launched an internal review, which, almost three months since the broadcast, has yet to report its findings.
Why go through the charade of an internal review only to accept, weeks later, the need for an independent investigation? We called for that from the start but the BBC, as usual, tried to dig in its heels.
Given the BBC’s record, does anyone trust the Corporation to appoint someone truly independent to investigate itself? BBC bosses still haven’t got a grip on this scandal.
Enough is enough. The TV licence must be suspended, pending an independent investigation into the BBC. Sign the petition here.
Is it any wonder that 92% of British Jews look on the BBC’s coverage unfavourably?
Listen to what our Director of Investigations and Enforcement, Stephen Silverman, has to say on the matter here.
Just when you think things couldn’t get any worse.
Oghenochuko Ojiri, who has appeared on the BBC’s Bargain Hunt, has pleaded guilty to charges contrary to section 21A of the Terrorism Act 2000, after the court heard that he had sold art worth some £140,000 to a Hizballah financier.
Hizballah is a proscribed terrorist organisation in the UK.
The charges carry a maximum sentence of up to five years in prison.
The Met blocks Swiss Cottage protest again
The Metropolitan Police recently announced that it was imposing conditions under the Public Order Act, blocking an anti-Israel protest from happening last Friday.
This was just one of many weekly protests that have been taking place for over a year at Swiss Cottage, an area with a significant Jewish population.
These protests in Jewish communities just before or during the Sabbath (apparently this is the only time that these groups want to protest) should never have been allowed in the first place.
After a period in which the Swiss Cottage protests were stopped, the Met inexplicably decided to allow another one, before then deciding to ban last week’s protest.
Pressure from Campaign Against Antisemitism and others should not have been necessary before the Met reimposed conditions.
Now some sanity has been restored, but with vacillation like this, it is no wonder that the Met’s Commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, commands the confidence of just 5% of British Jews.
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