More Israeli dirty tricks regarding October 7th?
"7 October Parliamentary Commission Report Chaired by Lord Roberts of Belgravia
P R E PA R E D B Y T H E A L L - PA R T Y PA R L I A M E N TA R Y G R O U P
F O R U K - I S R A E L" March 2025
The company that funded a report on the Hamas-led attacks on 7 October 2023 for a parliamentary group on Israel is no longer listed in a British peer’s register of interests days after a complaint naming the firm was filed with a standards watchdog.
Cedarsoak Ltd is a UK-based company in which Lord Mendelsohn, the former chair of Labour Friends of Israel, and Lord Polak, the former chair of the Conservative Friends of Israel, are the sole directors.
The company is credited with funding the report published on 18 March by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on UK-Israel which described its aim as being "to chronicle the facts of 7 October with clarity and precision".
APPGs are informal groups of MPs and peers and the report, titled "7 October Parliamentary Commission Report", states that it is not an official publication and has not been approved by either parliamentary house or their committees.
But the report was nonetheless lauded by Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu who described it as “independent and brutally honest”.
At its launch, Israeli ambassador Tzipi Hotovely told Lord Roberts, the historian and peer who chaired the report, it was a historic reference work that would help remind everyone why Israel is fighting in Gaza.
"This report is such an important evidence to stop the historic distortion and all of this horrible fake news that is disturbing the truth," Hotovely said.
Several days later, campaigner Gary Spedding filed a complaint with the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, asking for an investigation into why the parliamentary group had not mentioned Cedarsoak’s financial contributions - or any funding - in the latest APPG register, published on February.
In correspondence seen by Middle East Eye, he suggested the register should have included both Cedarsoak's support for the report, the work for which started in January 2024, as well as the funding for trips to Israel taken by those researching and writing the report.
Spedding also asked the commissioner to investigate how Cedarsoak Ltd is funded, and whether it may have received support from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Parliament sets out extensive rules for how APPGs should register financial and material benefits they receive, including the registration of financial and material benefits within 28 days of their receipt.
In 2023, foreign governments were banned from directly or indirectly funding APPG secretariats.
Prior to this, APPG registries show that the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, along with Cedarsoak Ltd, previously provided financial support to the APPG on UK-Israel.
At some point after Spedding filed his complaint and tweeted a screenshot of Lord Mendelsohn's register of interests, Cedarsoak Ltd disappeared from the page.
Also now gone from Lord Mendelsohn’s webpage are a list of details filed in the register of interests of his staff member, Talia Ingleby, including two “fact-finding visits” to Israel in March 2024 and this February which were fully funded by Cedarsoak Ltd, of which Spedding had also taken a screenshot.
However, the remuneration she receives from an organisation listed as CedarsOak UK for consultancy work remains listed.
Lord Mendelsohn and Ingleby did not respond to requests for comment about why the webpage had changed, why Cedarsoak funding had not been recorded on the APPG registry, and whether it has received funding from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The chair of the APPG, Conservative MP Bob Blackman, also did not respond to a request for comment.
Spedding was told by the Office of the Standards Commissioner in his exchanges that the watchdog would not be looking into his concerns that Cedarsoak was not listed on the APPG register because he had failed to provide evidence that “the registrable threshold” had been met.
MEE asked the office if it would explain what was meant by “registrable threshold”, among other questions, and was directed to the commission’s Press FAQs.
Spedding said: "It's outrageous that the defence of not taking any action is that I haven't been able to demonstrate that the registrable threshold has been met. All of the evidence is publicly available.
"It's clear the system is designed to protect rather than scrutinise."
Spedding told MEE he had now requested a review into the office's decision-making processes and conclusions.
CEDARSOAK LTD Company number 09325933
3 officers / 1 resignation
MENDELSOHN, Jonathan Neil, Lord
- Correspondence address
- New Derwent House, 69-73 Theobalds Road, London, England, WC1X 8TA
- Role Active
- Director
- Date of birth
- December 1966
- Appointed on
- 25 November 2014
- Nationality
- British
- Country of residence
- United Kingdom
- Occupation
- Company Director
MENDELSOHN, Jonathan Neil, Lord
- Correspondence address
- New Derwent House, 69-73 Theobalds Road, London, England, WC1X 8TA
- Role Active
- Director
POLAK, Stuart, Lord
- Correspondence address
- 45b, Westbourne Terrace, London, United Kingdom, W2 3UR
- Role Active
- Director
- Date of birth
- March 1961
- Appointed on
- 25 November 2014
- Nationality
- British
- Country of residence
- United Kingdom
- Occupation
- Director
MIRVIS, Noam Asher
- Correspondence address
- 10 Cedars Close, London, United Kingdom, NW4 1TR
- Role Resigned
- Director
- Date of birth
- March 1987
- Appointed on
- 5 January 2015
- Resigned on
- 31 October 2017
- Nationality
- Irish
- Country of residence
- United Kingdom
- Occupation
- Director
AboutAbout
"A PR/Marketing/Digital Communications professional experienced in helping fast-growing companies achieve ambitious growth goals. Previously a lobbyist in the House of Lords in the British Parliament. As an exceptional communicator, I enjoy storytelling and simplifying complex products to match customer pain points, and taking them to market. Strong networking skills with a proven track record of building up relationships with the media and motivating stakeholders."
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/because-were-jewish/
"It was because I was Jewish that growing up in London, I had to get used to occasional low-level antisemitism — from schoolboys of the local non-Jewish high school shouting abuse, to the salesman in a well known Oxford Street shop telling me with pride that he heard that the longer a Jew’s sidelocks, the richer they were.
"Despite this, the UK is a fantastic place to be Jewish. Being an Orthodox Jew, I proudly wore my kippah in the places I worked, including in Parliament. I would never have imagined that six years after concluding my job advocating for Israel in the Houses of Parliament, the very walls I looked at whilst discussing Israel over tea with parliamentarians on the terraces would be lit up in the Blue and White of Israel’s flag as a result of the brutal, heinous and evil murders of 1,400 of her own citizens by the terrorist hands of Hamas, all because they were Jewish.
"With King Charles issuing an unprecedented statement condemning “the barbaric acts of terrorism in Israel” and both Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer unequivocally condemning Hamas and being extremely supportive in our time of sorrow, UK Jewry has a lot to be thankful for.
"However, these past two weeks have also shown us who are not our friends. With antisemitic incidents increasing by 1,353 percent since Hamas launched their terror on Israel and hundreds of thousands attending Pro-Palestinian rallies across the country openly supporting Hamas and the murder of Jews, there is genuine cause for worry. Many British Jews just don’t feel safe anymore.
"My decision to leave the UK in 2017 and to emigrate to Israel—my spiritual homeland—was simple. Immediately in Israel, I felt something I’ve never felt before—I felt safe. I could walk the streets without a worry because I was Jewish. So, every year on 16th October I celebrate the anniversary of the day that I made ‘aliyah’ and moved from London to Israel.
"Last week, I was in no mood to celebrate. I spent the anniversary in prayer for my country and for the estimated 210 hostages still being held captive in Gaza by Hamas.
"50 Years After the Yom Kippur War, Israel Was Again Caught Off Guard
"On that fateful morning of Saturday 7th October, I was giving my two-and-a-half-year-old daughter breakfast at 6:30am in our apartment in Ra’anana, about 20 miles north of Tel Aviv, when we heard the siren. Running out to our stairwell, our next-door neighbour Chana shared the news that 300 rockets had just landed in Israel from the Gaza Strip. Sitting on the stairs, holding on tightly to our eight-month-old son, I had two concurrent thoughts.
"What would the world look like when he is eighteen, the age of conscription to the Israeli army? Will he still have to be defending Israel’s borders whilst deadly rockets indiscriminately land from those who want us dead, simply because we’re Jewish?
"My mind then went to our wonderful elderly neighbour, Chana. It suddenly dawned on me that it was exactly 50 years ago that Chana’s husband was murdered as an Israeli soldier in the Yom Kippur War in 1973. I was shaking as I held my son, the future of the Jewish State, in my arms whilst hearing the pain of fifty years of grief, relaying the news of history repeating itself. Little did we know the harrowing details of what was unfolding.
"Two weeks ago, for the first time in six years, my sense of safety in Israel changed. Every time I’ve needed to leave my apartment to go on the two-minute walk to my local supermarket, I’ve been petrified. Would the siren go off again and I would have to run for cover? With terrorists still on the loose, would I be safe?
"A Fight for Israel is a Fight for Humanity
"Sitting in the bomb shelter of my local synagogue a week ago on Saturday, I shuddered when we read the Biblical verse of Genesis 3:9, “God called to Man, ‘Where are you?’” Every decent and moral human being should stand up and condemn Hamas as evil terrorists and be on the right side of history. The refusal of the BBC and others to do so plays into Hamas’ warped and deadly narrative. Not only is this Israel’s war on Hamas; this is humanity’s war against Hamas. The soul and survival of our very nation and the world is at stake.
"When my children are old enough to ask why this war happened, I will reply “Because we’re Jewish.” When they ask why Israel was able to defeat Hamas, I will reply “Because humanity stood with Israel to defeat evil.”
"Many have asked me if I am considering leaving Israel at this worrying time. My answer has been unequivocal. We are going nowhere—this is our home and there is nowhere else we would rather be." END.
About the Author: Noam Mirvis is a communications professional living in Israel. Prior to making Aliyah from London in 2017, he spearheaded the first ever pro-Israel lobbying group in the House of Lords in the British Parliament.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.