The indefatigable David Collier has published a long two-part report about a secret Facebook Group called ‘Palestine Live’ that includes among its membership Holocaust deniers, antisemites and conspiracy theorists.

Part one of the report can be found here and part two here.

The group was founded in 2013 by a London-based anti-Israel activist called Elleanne Green.

“The group is listed as ‘secret’. This means you cannot find it by using the Facebook search function and need to be invited or added by someone inside the group who has permissions to add new members. It changed from ‘Closed’ to ‘Secret’ in early November 2014.

Elleanne Green is an admin of the group, and the most prolific contributor. She is well-linked with other activists across the globe. Possessing an impressive networking skillset, Elleanne Green turned Palestine Live into one of the largest, and well-connected of the anti-Israel groups. Palestine Live contains high-placed representatives, from almost every anti-Israel activist organisation.

There are two other admins to the group. Tony Gratrex (added by Elleanne Green on 15 November 2013) and Carol Foster (added by Elleanne Green on 10 August 2015). Gratrex was at one time, an organiser of the Reading Branch of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Foster was co-chair of the Greater London Branch of the ‘Labour Representation Committee’ and was at the PSC 2016 AGM selling pamphlets such as ‘In defence of Trotskyism’ for ‘Socialist Fight’.

The aim of the group:

‘Created not so much for long and detailed discussion of words used and semantics but to gather together a group of good friends all of whom wholeheartedly support the people of Palestine in their struggle’“

Among the members of that group are several people who have appeared on BBC programmes such as Avner Gvaryahu of ‘Breaking the Silence’, Rebecca Vilkommerson of JVP, Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, Tony Greenstein, Haim Bresheeth and Glyn Secker.

Additional members of the group featured in other BBC content include Deborah Fink, David Ward, Jenny Tonge and Richard Falk.

However the name of one member of that secret Facebook group where antisemitic material, Holocaust denial and anti-Israel propaganda is regularly posted may come as a surprise (see Pt 2, p. 175).

The item promoted by Green appears to be Knell’s April 23rd 2016 report from Gush Etzion.

Whether or not Yolande Knell’s editors know about her membership in a secret group of anti-Israel activists where discussions are rife with anti-Israel conspiracy theory, gross antisemitism and Holocaust denial is unclear. What is however once again very obvious is that Knell’s position as an ‘impartial’ BBC correspondent reporting from the corporation’s Jerusalem bureau is severely compromised.

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