The historic relationship between top Tories and the Israeli government has been laid bare in a remarkable cache of leaked emails seen by Declassified UK, report Martin Williams and John McEvoy.
Ron Posor, ambassador to U.K., 2007-2011, Tel Aviv, 2016. (Wikimedia, Creative Commons)
By Martin Williams and John McEvoy
Declassified UK
The historic relationship between top Tories and the Israeli government has been laid bare in a remarkable cache of leaked emails seen by Declassified.
Over several years, senior figures within the party exchanged strikingly friendly correspondence in private with Ron Prosor, the former Israeli ambassador to the U.K.
In one email, a Conservative lord wrote simply: “If you don’t call me while you are here, I will cry.”
Another Tory grandee told Prosor: “You still have friends close to number ten!!!”
The correspondence was discovered by Declassified after thousands of Prosor’s private emails were published by the file sharing website Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoS).
In one case, in 2016, the director of a right-wing British think-tank boasted to Prosor about playing a “key role” in orchestrating critical news coverage about then Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn.
Tory Lord Dean Godson, director of Policy Exchange, said: “We played the key role in organising and placing this excellent double page spread in the Daily Mail, and the quotes inside from some dear comrades.”
The article’s headline accused Corbyn of backing “terrorists who bomb Israel,” and included quotes from the likes of Dave Rich from the Community Security Trust, Labour MP John Mann, and journalist Tom Gross.
Daily Mail article attacking Jeremy Corbyn and Labour, Feb. 19, 2016. (Screenshot, Daily Mail)
Godson attached the article, saying he was “delighted” with it. Prosor responded with a “big hug,” adding: “Phone me today.”
Tory Treasurers
The leaked emails reveal that at least four former Tory party treasurers have privately corresponded with Prosor.
In one message, Richard Harrington – who served as treasurer between 2008 and 2010 – wrote in 2011 about “behind the scenes work we [Conservative Friends of Israel] have been doing at Number 10 over the Statehood issue.”
In another email sent in July 2014, Mick Davis, a major Tory party donor, assured Prosor that “[David] Cameron and the new Foreign Secretary (Philip Hammond) are totally on side.”
Davis – who went on to become the party’s treasurer in 2016 – referred to Prosor as “my dear friend” and signed off his email: “I am thinking of you and my Country and her People and soldiers all the time.”
He appears to have been referring to Israel and the IDF.
The email was sent during Operation Protective Edge, which saw more than 2,000 Palestinian deaths, including over 500 children, and several thousands of people injured.
Destroyed Palestinian ambulance in Shuja’iyya in the Gaza Strip, Aug. 6, 2014, during 72-hour ceasefire between Hamas and Israel. (Boris Niehaus, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons)
“I never thought I would find myself praising Netanyahu – but so far he has done very well!!! The exit will be difficult!” Davis wrote.
Speaking to Declassified last month, Mick Davis claimed he had “no relationships with the current people in the Israeli embassy.”
When questioned, he said: “I’m finding this an exceptionally irritating conversation.”
And, noting the date of the email correspondence, he said: “What has 2014 got to do with 2025? … What has one got to do with the other?”
On a separate occasion, another Tory grandee exchanged friendly emails with Prosor, telling him in 2010: “You still have friends close to number ten!!!”
The Tory figure told Declassified he no longer has contacts with Israel and that he believes the IDF’s war aims in Gaza are “misguided.”
‘A Great Friend of Israel’
UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron on Oct. 7 aftermath tour in the Be’eri Kibbutz with Israel’s Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, Nov. 23, 2023. (Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing, Flickr)
By 2015, the Conservatives had won the general election outright, under Cameron.
The Conservative peer Lord Howard Leigh – who had been the party’s treasurer a decade earlier – emailed Prosor that year saying: “5 more years of Israel friendly Conservatives Thank God”.
He ascribed this success to the outgoing Israeli ambassador Daniel Taub, who “really made a mark” on the British political scene.
In April 2015, Leigh also introduced Prosor to Stephen O’Brien, a former Tory MP who had just been appointed as the United Nations under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs.
By this stage, Prosor had moved on from Britain and was now representing Israel at the U.N.
Lord Leigh described O’Brien as “a great friend of Israel in many ways” and encouraged him to “hook up” with Prosor.
Responding, O’Brien said he would “very much welcome Ron’s views in particular” and provided his personal email address for future contact.
The Israeli diplomat was particularly happy with this arrangement because “we have serious problems with the organization he is going to lead,” Prosor wrote.
In a separate email, Prosor said he was “Looking forward to giving [Lord Leigh] a big hug.”
‘Money Maker’
The leaked emails also reveal how one of King Charles’s top advisors offered Prosor more than $14,000 per day to provide his hedge fund with updates on the Middle East.
The firm, CQS, was set up by Lord Michael Hintze – a Conservative peer who served as an advisor to the Prince’s Council while Charles was the Prince of Wales.
Lord Michael Hintze at the Acton Institute, 2011. (Wikimedia Commons, CC ATT 2.0)
An email from CQS dated April 2016, which Hintze was copied in to, reveals that Prosor was asked to provide “e-mail updates from time to time about significant developments in the Middle East.”
The message said the role would include speaking to staff and investors “from time to time”, adding: “It will always be appreciated if you are able to introduce us to any potential investors.”
CQS offered him $100,000 for “around seven days’ work a year” – working out as $14,285 per day.
It is not clear whether Prosor accepted the role, but the emails show that he consulted his son about the offer.
“It looks fine and these people are good,” his son replied. “… I don’t know if there is a way to return to them and ask for more money without looking like a ‘hog’ or being repetitive.”
Separately, Labour’s Lord Jonathan Kestenbaum also tried to help Prosor find new work after his stint at the U.N.
His correspondence with Prosor included emails with the subject line: “From London with love.”
In 2016, Kestenbaum emailed the oil giant BP “at the suggestion of my friend and colleague Lord [John] Browne” – the company’s former chief executive – to recommend Prosor as an “exceptional asset.”
“He was a distinguished Israeli Ambassador to the U.K. and has just completed a successful assignment as Ambassador to the United Nations,” Kestenbaum wrote.
“He has an extraordinary blend of skills … He is now building a portfolio and I think would be an exceptional asset. May I discuss with you on the phone for a couple of minutes?”
It is unclear whether the introduction led to any paid work.
Kestenbaum, who was formerly a director of pro-Israel lobby group BICOM, went on to donate £5,000 to Keir Starmer in 2020.
Prosor is now Israel’s ambassador to Germany.
Lord Kestenbaum, Lord Godson, Lord Harrison, Lord Leigh, Lord Hintze and Stephen O’Brien did not respond to our request for comment.
Martin Williams is Declassified UK’s chief investigator. He previously worked for The Guardian, Channel 4 News and openDemocracy, where he was U.K. investigations editor. His book, Parliament Ltd, exposed widespread corruption in British politics and sparked multiple inquiries by Westminster authorities.
John McEvoy is chief reporter for Declassified UK. John is a historian and filmmaker whose work focuses on British foreign policy and Latin America. His PhD was on Britain’s Secret Wars in Colombia between 1948 and 2009, and he is currently working on a documentary about Britain’s role in the rise of Augusto Pinochet.
This article is from Declassified UK.
Views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
I find “our captors – in this case the Jews” both antisemitic and wrong. Antisemitic because of all the Jews who oppose Zionism. And wrong because, firstly, most of us have no say in British ruling class machinations, and secondly, these ruling class elements are hardly captives – they’re allies and business partners, and very rich. powerful and influential to boot. ‘CQS [Charlie, basically] offered him [Prosor] $100,000 for “around seven days’ work a year” – working out as $14,285 per day.’ Most UK citizens can only dream of $100,000 a year: for Charlie, it’s what he offers as a fee in order to maintain and increase his already massive private wealth! And you call him a captive?
I feel so sorry for the wonderful Robert Skidelsky, the only real human in the UK “House of Lords”, who is often the only person who speaks up with fairness truth and decency in the nest of vipers making up the disgraceful partner to the so-called House of Commons”.
Read Lord Skidelsky’s marvellous biography of John Maynard Keynes
This makes me think it’s like a case of collective Stockholm syndrome throughout the West – where we become enamoured of our captors – in this case the Jews.
How do we break free of this enslavement, captivity, indoctrination – whatever one might call it? How do we regain our real national & cultural sovereignty in the West, free of the shackles of a small foreign country in the Middle East that exerts grossly disproportionate power and influence over our affairs and policies.
And, equally important, how do we stop the conflation of opposition to these states of affairs with antisemitism, which it mostly isn’t.
Perhaps Israel has now broken, or severely damaged, its hold on us by its obscene treatment of the Palestinians – so extreme, and so publicly visible, that even the hardest cynics and supporters are starting to acknowledge the atrocities.
My reply to you ended up as a separate comment above, whether due to my clumsy fingers or a quirk of the website I know not!