Llewellyn On The Lobby & Loewenstein On The Laxative: Pushing A One-State Solution At London's Frontline Club

Antony Loewenstein (see my previous post) participated in a session of London's Frontline Club. a fiercely leftist journalistic outfit that frequently bashes Israel, and which in consequence has featured on this blog several times. As Loewenstein enthuses on his blog (which has photos of the event) he found "a refreshingly young audience".

The session, on the subject of a one-state solution, was chaired by an ex-BBC Middle East correspondent, Tim Llewellyn (as I've observed before, certain current Al Beeb employees, notably Jeremy Bowen, have participated in Club events despite their obligation to be neutral).

Llewellyn's antipathy towards Israel is long-established.  To quote a post from CiF Watch earlier this year, for example:

'There was also a letter by Tim Llewellyn, the former BBC Middle East correspondent who has advanced the idea, not least in the Guardian, that the BBC is tainted by pro-Israel bias. He is also an advocate for Hamas and Hizbollah, believes that Zionism is a “calamity”, and has occasionally written obituaries for terrorists in the Guardian.

Here’s the winning passage from his Guardian letter:

What is more sinister than the reactions of Israel’s representatives and placemen to Jenny Tonge is that, in this third intervention against her over her candid remarks in recent years, the leaders of the Lib Dems, encouraged by senior figures in the two other main political parties, have disempowered a British parliamentarian under pressure from the backers of a foreign state – Israel. '

The bias of the Frontline Club can be seen in the fact that, to quote an enthusiastic attendee, Nigel Wilson, who notes on the Club's website that, before a "buzzing sell-out crowd," "the debate opened with a panel-wide wave of support for the single state solution."

Wilson tells us that

'Tim Llewellyn stressed the power of the Israel lobby in the West and argued that this has led to a tame approach from press outlets.

"If you read the best newspapers in the West, we don’t attack the problem in Palestine the way we attack the problem in the Arab world. We should be exposing this."'

Wilson also writes, inter alia: 

"Australian journalist Antony Loewenstein sprinkled a touch of humour to make a serious point, stressing the need for the Jewish community to adapt to modern reality. 

“The Jewish community establishment is so constipated, knowingly constipated about this question. And until there is a laxative used, forcefully… until there is an understanding that the Jewish community in the US, the UK and Australia has allowed the situation to continue. The establishment needs to realise that by backing blindly what they’ve done for 60 years, they have contributed a view that Judaism and Zionism are the same thing. And they’re not.”

Dismissing the long held idea of a Jewish state in the Middle East, journalist Ahmed Moor argued.

“While the idea of Jewish statehood could be somehow workable on the moon, to the extent that it’s got to occur in Palestine and to the exclusion of Palestinians or whomever, well that’s unworkable. There’s no good argument for that.”

Hat tip: reader Shirlee