UK charity Regulator rejected the request of Jews to investigate Pro-Palestinian Charity

The UK’s Charity Commission has recently rejected the Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL) application. It investigated the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA), a pro-charity Israeli organisation. In the complaint filed in April 2020, JVL described CAA as a G445, a highly politically partisan organisation that does not deserve charitable status. 

 Created in 2015 as per the CAA, its purpose is stated to be ‘to combat antisemitism. ’ The organisation was central in reporting cases of antisemitism within the Labour Party, especially during Corbyn’s leadership and has continued to document various Labour MPs. 

 In its JVL letter dated May 8, 2024, the Charity Commission noted that the applicant had failed to present convincing reasons for why he should have legal standing to bring the complaint against CAA’s registration. 

 JVL filed the initial complaint two years after CAA independently investigated it. The article published by the CAA in April 2018 labelled JVL as virtually marginal to the Jewish community and claimed that the organisation supported ‘extreme elements’ of the community and partnered with an organisation such as the BDS Movement, camouflaging as anti-Zionists. In JVL’s view, these were defamations. 

 In its unlawful racially discriminative April 2020 complaint report, The JVL successfully claimed that CAA blurred the difference between legitimate anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel and labelled several Labour activists as anti-Semitic on a relatively minimal evidence-based foundation. May and JVL again filed a complaint to the CAA on March 9 2021, accusing the commission of continued misconduct. In September 2021, the CAA defined JVL as an ‘antisemitism-denial group’ together with a ‘fake Jewish organisation. ” 

JVL filed another complaint in April 2022 when the CAA condemned journalist Yasmin Alibahai-Brown for stating that criticising the state of Israel is anti-Semitic, according to the newspaper The Guardian. In January 2023, the Charity Commission said it was ‘scoping concerns’ about the CAA and had opened a regulatory compliance case against it.

In the UK, a law states that any organisation cannot be registered as a charity for political aims.

Another legal expert, a lawyer who knows about human rights, Geoffrey Bindman, agreed with JVL’s point of view that the Charity Commission has a “duty to investigate.” He noted that it is a proper charitable cause to combat antisemitism, but criticising modes of expression regarding Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is not, save for being abusive.

Indeed, as highlighted above, MEE has learned that after the May 8 decision, JVL complained to the head of the Charity Commission’s customer relations. Liberals’ ex-shadows, the Liberal leader John McDonnell MP, among other influential individuals, have written to the Charities Commission demanding updates on the case involving the CAA. Rabbi Chaim Blayer of north London also said that he wanted clarification on this matter, insisting that the CAA’s chief executive painted the picture of many UK Jews who are in support of the peaceful protest against Israel entirely wrong.

The CAA came under criticism recently when it stopped a video of a police officer in a pro-Palestinian protest telling the organisation’s chief executive Gideon Falter he looked “openly Jewish” and could enrage demonstrators. More extended footage proved that Falter had entered the middle of the march to create a conflict.

It criticised Lord Mann, the government’s antisemitism tsar appointed late last year to oversee its efforts to counter Britain’s rising antisemitism, for accusing Falter of not being straightforward in its intentions. The CAA has been under fire before due to its propensity to conflate perfectly reasonable anti-Israel demos with anti-Semitism. The all-party parliamentary group against antisemitism cautioned the CAA that such superimpositions in 2015.

 Labour MP Margaret Hodge also criticised the CAA for using antisemitism allegations to undermine the Labour Party in April 2022.