‘Special unit’ to counter human rights reporting

Leak reveals UK lawyers, Israeli government planned ‘special unit’ to counter human rights reporting. Here’s what we know.

By Anas Ambri December 1, 2024.

Leaked documents show the extent of collaboration between the pro-Israel legal advocacy group and the Israeli government, in their attempt to “counter” the work of human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

On 10 August 2017, pro-Israel advocacy group UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) approached the Embassy of Israel in London with a “pitch for business”: a proposal to setup “a rapid response unit to correct false narratives” regarding Israel.

According to the proposal, human rights organizations “such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty, routinely publish material condemning Israeli government policy [in Palestine] as disproportionate and discriminatory”.

To counter this, Steven Kay QC and Joshua Kern from London’s 9 Bedford Row International (9BRI) were offering to work with UKLFI “as a response unit to counter” such reports, in order to “develop content capable of responding” to them, at a “granular, detailed, or item by item level”.

This proposal, as well as emails from UKLFI to officials within the Israeli Ministry of Justice, are part of a trove of documents leaked in a hack by a group that calls itself “Anonymous for Justice”. The dataset has since been published by the non-profit journalist collective Distributed Denial of Secrets.

The documents show the level of coordination between UKLFI and the different organs of the Israeli government, despite recent denials by UKLFI of any links.

As part of the proposal, barristers from 9BRI worked with UKLFI to submit briefs to the International Criminal Court (ICC), challenging its jurisdiction over crimes committed in Palestine.

The leaked documents show how legal advisors from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and top officials from the Ministry of Justice, provided detailed input to be incorporated into the submissions made by 9BRI’s barristers.

This attempt in providing a counternarrative on Israel’s policies in occupied Palestine, which the ICJ recently ruled as apartheid, has been called an attempt to “muddy the waters” by at least one pro-Palestininan international law expert.

When reached for comment, UKLFI’s Chief Executive Jonathan Turner stated that UKLFI is “an independent association with no organisational relationship with the Israeli government”. “From time to time we correspond with some Israeli officials, as anyone would expect given the aims of our association,” he added.

Joshua Kern from 9BRI told Mondoweiss that “9BRi has no relationship, as a Chambers, with the Israeli government.”

Kern explained that, as part of their role as counsel, barristers from 9BRI “provide legal advice, produce reports, and make filings before international criminal courts and tribunals. As part of that work, counsel liaise with relevant stakeholders.”

Mondoweiss also contacted the Israeli Embassy in London, and the ministries of Justice and Foreign Affairs for comment. No reply was received at time of publication.