Talk:Conservative Friends of Israel

Source request
Are there any sources for the recently added claim that Conservative Friends of Israel are working for "maintaining the role of the Jewish community"? -- H eptor  talk 17:49, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Relevant information
Can you please clarify which bit is bizare and for what reason:

William Hague criticised Israeli actions in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict saying ""I think we can say that elements of the Israeli response are disproportionate, including attacks on Lebanese army units, the loss of civilian life and essential infrastructure and such enormous damage to the capacity of the Lebanese government."
 * 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict

Lord Stanley Kalms, former Conservative party treasurer and member of CFI, writing in The Spectator accused Mr Hague of behaving like an "ignorant armchair critic". Iain Duncan Smith, has criticised the policy while Liam Fox, the shadow defence secretary, pointedly said that there could be no "moral equivalence" between democratic Israel and Hizbollah firing missiles across its borders. CFI also expressed it's dissatisfaction with Hague. Robert Halfon, Political Director of Conservative Friends of Israel and Conservative Party's parliamentary candidate for Harlow said "We do not dis-agree with anything said by Lord Kalms".

David Garrard (property developer) who was regarded as a devotee of the Conservative Party cause and was praised in 2001 by Iain Duncan Smith at the CFI Conference. He attended a fundraising breakfast shortly after Michael Howard became leader in November 2003 and paid £70,000 for a call centre at Conservative Central Office. The party showed its gratitude by putting up a plaque in his honour at Central Office. In the same year he made a £200,000 donation to Labour and subsequently became embroiled Cash for Peerages saga.
 * David Garrard

Jonathan Metliss who sits on the Executive board of Conservative Friends of Israel, has become a regular guest of Cherie Blair, who invited him to watch Trooping of the Colour from No10. In July 2006, he bacame embroiled at centre of NHS sleaze row with Mrs Blair. Mr Hayman, Metliss's boss at Nexus Healthcare credited him with arranging exclusive access to a Health Adviser - intimation that he persuaded Mrs Blair to use her influence suggested the Mail on Sunday.
 * Jonathan Metliss

Chris Grayling, Shadow Leader of the House of Commons, said "They should not be getting the Civil Service to arrange meetings for businessmen with members of the Government. This should not happen and the fact that the documents obtained by The Mail on Sunday show it did happen is very worrying."

Linesman 11:59, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


 * None of these statements or actions were made on behalf of CFI, as representatives of CFI, etc. In fact, none of these have anything whatsoever to do with CFI. They're mostly just smear stuff, innuendo, etc. Just because you're a member of CFI and do something, it doesn't mean it's relevant for the article on CFI. These people are members of lots of different groups and organizations. Jayjg (talk) 16:15, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


 * People would be interested to know more about individuals connected with the group. I.e Jonathan Matellis who's exec on board of CFI  Linesman 21:22, 19 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Only a certain kind of smearing, innuendo-type information, apparently. If you feel these people need biographies on Wikipedia, and believe they would survive WP:AFD, feel free to create them. Of course, then you'd have to abide by WP:BLP as well, which would frown on this kind of stuff. Jayjg (talk) 21:35, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Point of View
This very important subject matter deserves better coverage on Wikipedia. Though for some reason it seems to have been written in a "nudge nudge, wink wink" conspiracy theory manner. The group obviously exists, one would assume it to be a political lobby promoting the Jewish / Zionist agenda. Pleas can someone explain a little more about it's funding and activities. So much of the financial, political, medical, education, media and entertainment seems to be predominated by such a small group of people with Israeli / Jewish connections, whether direct or indirect. It is about time this subject no longer hides under the cloak of: "Anti-Semite". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.178.187.199 (talk) 08:40, 15 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree with you. This subject does require more open platform, but I'm afraid given the nature of Wikipedia and how it's 'reliable source' rules effectively make it a mirror of the mainstream media, then Wikipedia is never going to be an accurate source for such issues. Vexorg (talk) 17:33, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Not much discussion of how much money has been channeled into the Conservative Party via CFoI ( and other organisations ? )
[ The YOUTUBE link might be added to footnote 1 ? I have more or less just asked the same question in the Talk section of Labour Friends of Israel and Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel ] I have just been watching the following Despatches documentary ( as mentioned in the article ) ... and I wondered whether anybody has tried to properly assess how much money had been received or arranged to be received by CFoI and for what purposes : it would appear that these 'Friends of Israel ' groups are being deliberately not incorporated so that they can avoid having to disclose their donors and donees, or indeed anything else : the CFoI seem to be better than the LFoI which won't even allow their own opinions to be publicly examined on their own website - a great vote for something other than open and democratic government for the UK ! AND NO ... this enquiry is not about Israel's political lobbying per se but about the accountability of our elected representatives in the UK - to us. The documentary does not mention LDFoI but the issue is the same in all cases - it does make out the case that Conservative Friends of Israel have been the vehicle for receiving and arranging the receipt of large sums of money that CFoI ... well ... they say that all donations by themselves and their individual members can be examined but it seems to be that this means ' if you know where to look ' which is hardly the basis of good accountancy practice - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZHrskzonH8 - and is of general political interest to those who care about good government both in the UK and also in Israel ( which I believe has similar problems anyway.) DaiSaw (talk) 23:41, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

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