These pictures are of a senior diplomat in the Israel Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Ishmael Khaldi. The photo on the left is taken from the stock image on his Wikpedia page. The adjacent photo is taken from a video, dated Wednesday 6th August 2014, of the recent picket outside Kedem Cosmetics, King Street, Manchester, UK. What was a senior Israeli diplomat doing at these pickets in the UK?
Ishmael Khaldi has served in the Israeli Ministry of Defence, Israel Police and Israel Defence Forces. In August of 2009, he was appointed a policy advisor to Minister of Foreign Affairs, Avigdor Leiberman (a founder of the far-right Yisrael Beiteinu).
The narrative peddled by both the Zionist lobby, the media and some of the local councillors in Manchester is that this is a ‘small, Jewish shop’ selling soap which is being attacked by pro-Hamas supporters; this in spite of vigorous efforts by the diverse group of peaceful picketers to stipulate that Kedem is being picketed because of its unlawful pillage of Dead Sea minerals, made possible because of Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian land
A member of the Boycott Israel Network (BIN) was able to recognise Ishmael Khaldi at the pickets and approached him to verify who he was. The BIN activist had astutely remembered that the senior Israeli diplomat had been chased off campus by students at Edinburgh University after they felt that ‘providing a platform for a representative of the Israeli state would be at the expense of the millions of Palestinians who live under Apartheid.’[1]
Far from being a ‘small, Jewish shop,’ the presence of a senior member of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs at Kedem Cosmetics in Manchester, UK seems to heavily suggest that there is, at the very least, some high level involvement between the government in Israel and this shop. The Government of Israel has a high stake in the continuation of Kedem Cosmetics and other such businesses as part of their PR strategy.
That this representative of the Israeli government is a Bedouin Arab is testament to the fact that the picketers quarrel is with a state which is engaged in a violent campaign against a defenceless population and not with Jews, many of whom make up the complexion of the picketers
[1]Israeli Minister sparks demo by students, Feb 3, 2011 (http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/israeli-minister-sparks-demo-by-students-1-1490370)
More on this story at the reader-owned co-operative, online newspaper Morning Star http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-1885-Israeli-diplomat-seen-with-zionist-shop-defenders#.U-vwkGO0BMg
