Anti Terrorism laws, Genocide, Minority rights, Open letters, Palestine, Shrinking Spaces

Response to Damien Egan comments in The Jewish News

2 July 2025

Damien Egan MP has taken to the pages of The Jewish News today 2nd July 2025 to demand restrictions for various organisations in the wake of the Palestine Action proscription debacle. This list includes IHRC, based on spurious claims.

Contents

Introduction

As this is not JN’s first foray into demonising and maligning IHRC (we refer readers to this site for some further, though far from exhaustive examples), we expect no response to the IHRC Chair’s email to the editor, which you will find below, alongside a context article on Damien Egan himself.

Response from Massoud Shadjareh, IHRC Chair

Dear Sir,

We write in response to Damien Egan MP’s recent article expressing confusion over our use of the phrase “on the right side of history” alongside an image of Ayatollah Khamenei.

We wish to clarify his confusion: it is because Khamenei opposes the killing of Gazan children. He opposes the killing of hungry civilians at aid distribution points. He opposes the death and destruction visited upon the people of Gaza since October 2023. It is this stance, his condemnation of the genocide against Gazan civilians, that led us to characterise him in that manner.

We strongly suspect Mr. Egan’s confusion is shaped by his commitment to Zionism, and we would like to politely suggest to him that his support for Israel has most likely dulled his moral compass when it comes to recognising the humanity and suffering of Gaza’s children and civilians. This moral blindness, regrettably, leads him to become confused when genuine moral courage is lauded.

Mr. Egan may wish to note that future students of history will study what went wrong amongst those who supported Israel’s crimes, much like how apartheid South Africa is examined today. As part of this study, they will look to articles like his to better understand the mentality and justifications of those who supported and enabled policies that caused immense suffering. They will debate and ask how people like Mr. Egan came to find themselves on the wrong side of history when it was obvious they were supporting an immoral occupier state pursuing a murderous policy – much as historians and students today debate how ordinary people supported apartheid in South Africa or political repression under the Stasi or genocidal movements that resulted in mass killings.

We hope this letter clarifies any confusion for Mr. Egan and your readers, and sheds light on the context of our statement.

Yours faithfully,

Massoud Shadjareh

Article on Damien Egan MP

This article from Electronic Intifada is illuminating. Asa Winstanley writes:

A new UK Labour Party lawmaker is married to a former Israeli soldier who recruited from Israel’s deadly Unit 8200 spy agency.

Damien Egan, candidate for the UK’s main opposition party, won a by-election in the southwestern English constituency of Kingswood on Friday.

As the result was announced, he was photographed celebrating with his Israeli husband, the Google software developer Yossi Felberbaum.

But the British media failed to report one crucial fact: Felberbaum is a former recruiter of officers from the deadly Israeli spy agency known as Unit 8200.

The signals and cyber-warfare arm of Israel’s military intelligence, Unit 8200 plays a vital role in the targeting, murder, blackmail and mass surveillance of Palestinians.

Read Winstanley’s full article here [EXTERNAL LINK].