Harassment claim by pro-Israel lawfare group ‘wholly without merit’

A youth theatre in Brighton is the latest victim of bullying by UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI), a lawfare organisation that tries to stifle support for the rights of Palestinians by threatening legal action (previous reports here and here).

ThirdSpace Theatre runs drama classes in Brighton and the surrounding area for young people aged between five and 25. It receives funding from the government and the local council through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund. Classes are free for children from low-income families.

Later this month ThirdSpace is due to give four performances of its Christmas show, described in the press release as a collection of “radically joyful tales from wartorn areas”.

“As a company, we’ve researched stories from Haiti, Burma, many parts of the Middle East, Ukraine, and the Congo,” director Tanushka Marah says. “It’s important that these areas are not only known for the trauma they have lived through, but also for their rich history, folktales being part of this.”

UKLFI says the show was “inspired” by an “extremely offensive” Palestinian poem about kites. The show’s title is “Let It Be a Tale”, which is also the last line of the poem …

If I must die

If I must die,
you must live
to tell my story
to sell my things
to buy a piece of cloth
and some strings,
(make it white with a long tail)
so that a child, somewhere in Gaza
while looking heaven in the eye
awaiting his dad who left in a blaze —
and bid no one farewell
not even to his flesh
not even to himself —
sees the kite, my kite you made,
flying up above
and thinks for a moment an angel is there
bringing back love

If I must die
let it bring hope
let it be a tale.

Written late last year by Refaat Alareer, who lived in Gaza, the poem has been widely circulated, with translations into more than 40 languages. Its words are made more poignant by the fact that Alareer – to quote UKLFI – is “now deceased”. He was killed last December by an Israeli airstrike, along with six of his family (though UKLFI doesn’t mention that).

“The theme of kites in the context of the Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer is extremely offensive and intimidating to any Jewish participant,” UKLFI claimed in a letter to ThirdSpace.

It made similar claims earlier this year when activist groups in several countries – often quoting Alareer’s poem – flew kites as a gesture of solidarity with the people of Gaza. In connection with that, supporters of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, organised a kite-making workshop – primarily for children – which UKLFI attempted to sabotage with its legal threats.

UKLFI asserted there was a “link” between the kites workshop in Hitchin and kites previously used as weapons to set fire to fields and woodland in Israel. It cited an Israeli news report from 2018 regarding the incendiary kites and added that “Palestinian themed kites” were also “a grim reminder” of the October 7 massacre of Israelis when use of paragliders by Hamas had formed “a significant and striking part of this onslaught”.

‘Divisive’ content

According to UKLFI, ThirdSpace has a history of staging “performances with divisive political content, much of which had the effect of stirring up hatred against Jews and Israelis”. It cites last year’s Christmas show when a student recited “Don’t Mention the Children” by Michael Rosen, which it describes as “another anti-Israel poem”.

Rosen, incidentally, is Jewish and his poem actually refers to an incident in 2014 when the Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem attempted to place a radio ad about child deaths in Gaza which included names of some of the victims. The Israeli Broadcasting Authority banned the ad on the grounds that it was “politically controversial”.

ThirdSpace’s youth-led productions have tackled other challenging topics besides Palestine – among them climate change, authoritarianism and the Grenfell fire. Young people are exposed to these issues in their daily lives and ThirdSpace says one of its aims it to provide safe spaces to explore them. It stages a mixture of original theatre and classsics such as Shakespeare.

Harassment claim

UKLFI has also accused ThirdSpace of unlawfully harassing a Jewish school student. The student (who is not being named) attended theatre classes for five years but left earlier this year at the age of 16. His parent said this was because of antisemitism.

According to UKLFI, “the anti-Israel content of the course and activities there” created “an intimidating, hostile, and offensive environment” for the student – contrary to Section 29 of the Equalities Act 2010.

A legal opinion from King’s Counsel, obtained by Third Space, describes UKLFI’s harassment claim as “wholly without merit” and says the theatre’s actions “do not and cannot amount in law to a breach of the harassment provisions of the Equality Act 2010”.

Harassed by flags

ThirdSpace is by no means the first organisation to be targeted in this way by UKLFI. Its complaint letters often allege harassment, either citing the Act directly or referring to “an intimidating, hostile, and offensive environment” (words which form part of the Act’s test for harassment).

In October, a Jewish Israeli visiting the Courtauld Institute in London noticed that a staff member scanning tickets had a small badge of a clenched fist in the colours of the Palestinian flag with the words: “Free Palestine – end Israeli occupation”. UKLFI found “this intimidating and offensive” and complained to the Courtauld that “any Jewish or Israeli person” seeing the badge “is likely to feel harassed, according to the definition at Section 26 of the Act”.

In April, following a software update on Apple iPhones, some users noticed that typing “Jerusalem” in the search box caused an emoji of a Palestinian flag to pop up. Apple responded swiftly, saying the flag was unintentional. It blamed a bug in the software and promised to fix it.

Nevertheless, UKLFI informed Apple: “The flag creates ‘an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment’ for Israeli and Jewish consumers and therefore amounts to ‘harassment’ as defined in section 26(1) of the Equality Act.”

Last September the Barbican arts centre in London hosted an event called Voices of Resilience, described in the publicity as “an evening of testimonies reflecting upon the resilience of Palestinians in Gaza accompanied by traditional Arabic music and a visual score”. It also included “testimonies from people experiencing what Amnesty International has called ‘alarming signs of genocide’.”

UKLFI said this would “amount to harassment” under the Equality Act and demanded its cancellation: “Any Jewish or Israeli person attending the event is likely to feel that there is an intimidating, hostile and offensive environment, given the content of the show.” The ploy failed, though, and the performance went ahead without incident.

Complaint to regulator

Another of UKLFI’s tactics when targeting Palestine-related activity by registered charities is to complain to the Charity Commission (the official regulator). One line of attack is to accuse them of activities that go beyond their stated charitable objects. In a complaint against Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) for example, UKLFI noted that “relief of sickness” was one of its stated objects and argued that this did not allow MAP to provide “medical care for injuries caused by armed conflict”.

ThirdSpace, though, is neither a registered charity nor a conventional business but something in between. It’s a Community Interest Company (CIC) – a relatively new type of organisation that exists “for the benefit of the community and not purely for a profit”.

UKLFI has now complained to the CIC regulator alleging that ThirdSpace Theatre “carried out activities which were not for the public benefit, and that could have been interpreted as political campaigning, which are not allowed under the rules for CICs”.

The regulations say a CIC is not allowed to be a “political campaigning organisation” and its activities must be “carried on for the benefit of the community”. The regulations also prevent CICs from promoting or opposing government policies, though there’s a possible exception where such activities “can reasonably be regarded as incidental to other activities, which a reasonable person might consider are being carried on for the benefit the community”.

It appears from this that the question for the CIC regulator is to decide whether political opinions expressed in theatre productions amount to “campaigning”.

The underlying issue, though, is much more fundamental. It’s about whether artistic activity should engage with politics. Those who want art to be relevant say that it should – and there are few things more relevant at the moment than the apparent genocide taking place in Gaza.

UKLFI says its aim is to create a “supportive climate of opinion” in Britain towards Israel but its targeting of theatres, concert halls, cinemas and art galleries seems to be having the opposite effect. The arts and culture community is nothing if not vociferous and doesn’t take kindly to outsiders telling it what to do, especially when the underlying message is to keep politics out of art for the sake of Israel.

Letters from UKLFI still scare some venues into cancelling events but as word of its activities spreads there are signs of growing resistance. Several of the targeted organisations have stood their ground with no adverse consequences while others which caved in have been shamed by petitions, boycotts, sit-ins and withdrawal from exhibitions by Palestine supporters.