Genocide-denying Israel lobby group ‘UK Lawyers for Israel’ has been described by human rights group CAGE as a key UK “apartheid apologist” and caused widespread outrage recently when its chief executive criticised medical experts for not concluding that Israel’s blockade of food into Gaza was helping reduce Palestinian obesity.

The group is also notorious for using its ‘lawfare’ approach to intimidate a hospital into taking down art by Palestinian children and trying unsuccessfully to have a Palestinian doctor struck off from the UK General Medical Council, while its chief spokeswoman was slammed by a Jewish interlocutor for claiming that discussing Israel’s genocide and starvation blockade are “blood libels” and “propaganda”.

UK Lawyers for Israel is currently under investigation by the Solicitors Regulation Authority for alleged “vexatious and baseless” legal threats to silence support for Palestine. Incidentally Natasha Hausdorff, one of its main spokespeople, reportedly screamed at far-right US podcaster Charlie Kirk at an ‘intervention’ about his plan to abandon his support for Israel and for ‘platforming’ right-wing critics of Israel.

Now UK Lawyers for Israel is at it again, this time with a letter to broadcasters Netflix and the BBC that tries to intimidate them out of any participation in an ongoing industry boycott – because of Israel’s genocide in Gaza – of Israeli films and shows.

UK Lawyers for Israel: at it again

The boycott has been publicly supported by thousands of Hollywood figures, including ‘A-listers’ like Olivia Colman, Tilda Swinton, Emma Stone, and Joaquin Phoenix.

The letter follows UK Lawyers for Israel’s typical pattern of threatening that the recipients might be breaking equality laws without ever quite saying that they are, since the intention is to intimidate and deter with propositions unlikely to stand up if actually tested in court, for example (emphases added):

[The Equality Act 2010] is the key legislation in the U.K. protecting against racism and discriminatory treatment. If the U.K. television and film industry colludes with acts contrary to this legislation, organisations are themselves likely to be in breach. It also creates a dangerous precedent: one that condones the exclusion of individuals and/or organizations based solely on their nationality, ethnicity, and/or religion.

It also claims that the boycott – which of course is not meant to apply to Palestinians in Israel – is:

selective application — exempting some institutions based on the ethnicity or religion of their members — [which] strongly indicates that [its] operation is based not only on nationality but also on religion and ethnicity.

UK Lawyers for Israel also claim that if that word again] the boycott is found to be in breach of the Equality Act, it might lead to funding and insurance being pulled from productions and therefore:

render a film ineligible for government funding, or trigger clawback of finance already granted [and be] highly likely to be a litigation risk and a notifiable event.

None of the organisations receiving the threatening letter appear to have responded publicly.

‘Unimpressed’

Film Workers for Palestine (FWP), the group behind the boycott, described the UK Lawyers for Israel letter as “desperate” and “pitiful” and said nothing would prevent FWP continuing its campaign to “end complicity in Israel’s genocide and apartheid” in Gaza and the West Bank:

We are unimpressed by pro-Israel lobby group UK Lawyers for Israel’s desperate attempt to curtail our signatories’ freedom of expression through its pitiful letter. This kind of intimidation tactic is used so commonly and unethically by UKLFI that a formal complaint was filed with the Solicitors’ Regulation Authority in Britain over ‘a seeming pattern of vexatious and legally baseless correspondence aimed at silencing and intimidating Palestine solidarity efforts.

We will never be deterred from our work to end complicity in Israel’s genocide and apartheid and will continue contributing to a global movement aimed at Palestinians achieving their UN-stipulated rights. It is a legal and moral imperative all should uphold, and we thank our community of artists who stand resolutely for humanity.

Featured image via the Canary

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