Ever since "Israel’s" genocidal assault on Gaza began, millions of people around the world have taken to the streets to protest the Zionist carnage. On October 15 in London, an estimated 150,000 shut down key sites in the capital’s epicenter. That march culminated in a series of speeches by political figures and activists, with former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn being the main event.

From the Israeli lobby’s perspective, Corbyn’s lifelong history of anti-racist campaigning and solidarity with the Palestinian struggle made his political destruction absolutely imperative. So Zionist operatives set to work, manufacturing a bogus “anti-Semitism crisis” to torpedo his leadership, discredit his supporters within the Labour Party, and ensure a crushing defeat in the 2019 general election.

The recently released Weaponizing Anti-Semitism by investigative journalist Asa Winstanley lays bare the lobby’s multi-year crusade to take down Corbyn and his supporters within Labour. A key figure referenced by Winstanley is Ruth Smeeth, Labour MP 2015 - 2019. Winstanley writes:

“She was so dedicated to sabotaging her own party that she didn’t seem overly concerned that her campaign ultimately came at the cost of losing her own Labour seat in 2019.”

Smeeth wreaked havoc in a variety of ways, wearing her Jewish heritage on her sleeve every step of the way. Yet, in her many media appearances during this time, in which she defamed Corbyn and Labour figures such as Momentum activist Marc Wadsworth and Derby North MP Chris Williamson as anti-Semitic, her background as director of public affairs and campaigns for the Zionist lobby group Britain "Israel" Communications and Research Centre (BICOM) was never mentioned by mainstream journalists.

This was hardly irrelevant, given that Smeeth received sizable donations from key BICOM figures after becoming an MP. A more critical media may have also asked why she was named a “strictly protect” US embassy informant in one of many diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks in 2011. The “strictly protect” designation means a sensitive and confidential information source. Now, The Grayzone can exclusively reveal there are further ties between Smeeth, the Zionist lobby, and the information war against Corbyn.

‘Lack of Credibility’

In late 2018, files related to the internal workings of Integrity Initiative, a Foreign Office-funded outfit staffed by British military and intelligence veterans, began leaking online. They showed the organization was conducting arm’s length, state-backed information warfare operations to tarnish “enemy” governments such as China and Russia, and left-wing, anti-war figures at home, including Jeremy Corbyn.

The disclosures meant the Integrity Initiative’s parent charity, the Institute for Statecraft, was forced to issue a public apology to Corbyn since it had used its official Twitter account to attack him and the Labour Party. Such party political activity is illegal under Foreign Office funding rules. This was but the proverbial tip of the iceberg, masking far more extensive efforts by the organization to undermine the Labour leader.

Unnoticed at the time, among the leaked papers was an Integrity Initiative event invite list, featuring Ruth Smeeth. The purpose of the meeting, convened on July 6, 2017, isn’t clear from the document itself, although prospective attendees included parliamentarians, journalists, high-ranking military officials, and other luminaries. 

Given this composition, and the timing – not a month after a shock general election that returned the Conservatives to power, but with a much reduced majority, after pollsters and pundits universally predicted a brutal routing for Labour – it is somewhat inconceivable the result was not a topic of discussion.

The first MP among four listed, Smeeth is notably the only invitee of dozens named without accompanying contact details. This oversight may be an irrelevant anomaly, but it is far more likely Smeeth had a pre-existing relationship with Institute for Statecraft director Daniel Lafayeedney, meaning she could be invited by him privately.

An SAS veteran whose business affairs once led a British high court judge to indict his “lack of credibility in January 2007, Lafayeedney attended "Israel’s" annual Herzliya Conference on “counter-terrorism” in "Israel". His official affiliation was given as BICOM. At this time, Smeeth was still the organization’s press officer, suggesting she may well have arranged Lafayeedney’s appearance. Chaim Zabludowicz, a key funder of BICOM who Winstanley claims personally donated to Smeeth while she was an MP, was also present.

How Lafayeedney came to be affiliated with BICOM isn’t clear. Aside from the Herzliya Conference listing, since deleted from the web, there are no other references to his role in the organization in the public domain. Still, his connections to high-level figures within the Zionist entity's military and intelligence apparatus were well-established by that point.

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In the mid-2000s, Lafayeedney helped direct and fund Oxford University’s now-defunct Pluscarden Programme for the Study of Global Terrorism and Intelligence, thereafter serving on its advisory committee. In its first year of operation, it hosted events where Yaakov Amidror, Isaac Ben-Israel, and Yoram Dinstein spoke. Amidror, a former major-general in the Israeli army, is a Zionist hawk who served as the head of Israeli military intelligence’s research department and later became an advisor to Benjamin Netanyahu. 

Ben-Israel is a former general who as Israeli space agency chief launched various spying operations against Iran. Meanwhile, Dinstein is a legal scholar who covertly transformed Amnesty International’s "Tel Aviv" branch into a wing of the Israeli Foreign Ministry while heading the chapter in the 1970s.

‘The Muslim Mindset’ 

A core component of the Integrity Initiative scandal was the organization’s creation of “clusters” across Europe and North America. These clandestine networks of journalists, academics, pundits, politicians, and security officials ceaselessly spread black propaganda to influence government policy and public perceptions. All their members were formally trained in the art of online trolling.

Many cluster members, and other figures - in particular journalists - named in the Initiative files had a pronounced predilection for attacking Corbyn and his close advisor Seamus Milne. The similarity and timing of their messaging and smears strongly suggested cloak-and-dagger coordination of some kind.

There is no indication Smeeth was a cluster member. But not long after the Integrity Initiative event to which she was invited, she became vice chair of the parliamentary Labour Party, which necessitated weekly private meetings with Corbyn. The contents of these rendezvous would’ve been of intense interest to the Initiative — and the US embassy, of course.

That Integrity Initiative sought expert, insider help in neutralizing the threat of Corbyn is amply underlined by a secret presentation delivered by Oxford Brookes academic Glen O’Hara at the Institute for Statecraft’s central London headquarters, titled Who Are the Corbynites, and What Do They Believe? This offered granular insight and breakdowns on the demographics of hardcore Labour supporters and their assorted motives for backing the party’s then-leader.

Emails between O’Hara and an unknown Institute representative released under freedom of information laws place his presentation in the first weeks of 2018. In June of that year, leaked files show Lafayeedney traveled to "Israel" to “make contacts” with unnamed targets and “build a relationship” with them based on “common interests".

With whom Lafayeedney met is uncertain. Nonetheless, his speaking notes from the trip indicate he supplied a “concept paper looking at an alternative way to structure our navies for modern war at low cost,” which he felt his audiences would find “of particular interest.” This strongly suggests his audience was comprised of Zionist military and intelligence operatives.

He explained:

“Much of our work to improve the effectiveness of our armed forces for all forms of modern warfare is, of course, very sensitive as we feed it into the highest levels of MOD [Ministry of Defence] and the armed forces. What we seek to do is to help the Forces become more competent to fight modern war with all kinds of weapons…we have supported the creation of special Army reserve units [for example 77th Brigade].”

He then boasted of Statecraft’s work “addressing the radicalization of Muslim communities” for the British government, “exploring the fundamental cause of radicalization, i.e., the Muslim mindset.” 

This included a British state-funded program, Shared Outcomes, under which young Muslims were treated to “adventurous training laid on by the Army.” It appears this effort is a component of Prevent, the British government’s highly controversial counter-extremism program:

“[W]e... make no mention of deradicalization. This is a social integration program. If it were badged counter-radicalization, no one would participate in it [emphasis added].”

Lafayeedney went on to describe Integrity Initiative to his Zionist listeners and its constituent clusters - which he dubbed “a network of national networks” comprising people “in all European countries who understand the problem” of “disinformation” and “are willing to tackle it.” He said the organization was “of course…interested to know if there might be interest to have such a cluster in Israel.”

It is uncertain what came of Lafayeedney’s meetings in "Israel". But not long after, the campaign to torpedo Corbyn’s chances of becoming prime minister became turbocharged. Smeeth, Integrity Initiative, and the Israeli lobby in Britain were all central to that subterfuge, the effects of which were absolutely devastating. One mephitic upshot is that Labour is now led by Keir Starmer. His campaign for leader was financed in part by Trevor Chinn, a member of BICOM’s executive committee.

During his leadership bid, Starmer professed to “support Zionism without qualification,” and in the years since, he has repeatedly made his deep affinity for "Tel Aviv" clear, endorsing the poisonous lie that “anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism.” Starmer has also almost completely purged the party of its left-leaning membership and was recently reported to be considering ousting various “problematic” Labour parliamentarians. 

It may be for this reason that for the first time in the history of Britain’s Palestine solidarity and anti-war movements, no Labour MP attended the October 15 protest.