[jfman]

If you can’t disassociate legitimate criticism of Israel from antisemitism that says more about you than me, I’m afraid.

I’m not sure describing lobby groups as successful in steering political parties is an “extremely serious charge” given it is their objective to do so.

The pretence merely exists to delegitimise what is ostensibly a legitimate observation to make.

The alternative is they have no influence, unless of course it is pure chance that both major political parties have been broadly silent on the plight of the people of Gaza for too long. It’s a bad day when even Pierre, who robustly defended his position in that thread, is quicker to say Israel have gone too far before many of our politicians who still use mealy mouthed qualifications to avoid criticising Israel. You may insist this happens by chance however Occam’s razor would suggest it is by design.