‘Twinning must end’: Campaigners call on Hackney to cut ties with Israeli city
The city of Haifa in Israel. Photograph: Wikicommons
Pro-Palestinian campaigners have urged Hackney to end its twinning arrangement with the Israeli city of Haifa.
The borough’s link to Haifa was formed in 1968 and it is the borough’s oldest twinning agreement, but the outbreak of violence in the Middle East has led to increased scrutiny.
Sussan Rassoulie, a representative of the Hackney Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said: “This twinning must come to an end because Israel is an apartheid state and because Haifa was a major site of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians during the Nakba of 1947-49.”
“Palestinians have never had equal access to healthcare in Israel,” Rassoulie continued.
“Even when in labour, or dying of cancer, they must undergo time-consuming checks by Israeli officials.”
She continued: “Hackney has a proud history of fighting global injustice. In the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, it was at the forefront of the fight against South African apartheid.
“The people of Hackney today are equally united in their opposition to Israeli apartheid, as testified by the numbers pouring onto the streets of Hackney week after week to show their solidarity with the Palestinians and to express their revulsion about the complicity of our government, national and local.”
The organisation that runs exchanges between Hackney and Haifa defended the relationship.
Martin Sugarman, chair of Hackney Anglo Israel Friendship Association (HAIFA), says the agreement has evolved over the years.
The focus now is on “work and skills, rather than holiday junkets which most twinning in the UK used to do or still does”, he explained.
HAIFA has run an exchange programme between Homerton Hospital and the Rambam Healthcare Campus in Haifa since 1995.
The programme has been on hold since Covid, and the pause has continued amid the ongoing violence.
Sugarman said no financial assistance is given to HAIFA by Hackney Council, and that the council has “never actually participated except to give strong moral support to the twinning and to host well-attended welcome receptions for guests from Haifa, and bon voyage teas for our groups going to Israel”.
He added: “Local dignitaries like the Lord Lieutenant, religious and political leaders, and headteachers would meet and greet our guests in the Speaker’s parlour, with snacks provided for one and all.”
Sugarman said the exchange programme between Rambam and Homerton hospitals will resume “once things get back to normal”.
He added that the hospitals were “brought together and agreed to carry out multi-ethnic medical team exchanges involving work shadowing and training, and providing mutual hospitality”.
“Participants come from across the religious and ethnic spectrum of both ‘cities’,” he said.
“We have also been supported by local religious and educational leaders, and just ordinary people who have been to, worked or lived in Israel.
“This is aside from those in Hackney who have relatives, friends, and other ties to Israel – religious, emotional, and historic.”
Hackney is also twinned with Suresnes in France and St George’s in Grenada.
The council was approached for comment about the continuation of the relationship with Haifa and did not respond.
Homerton Hospital is yet to respond to a request for comment.
Update: this article was amended on 15 April to correct the surname of Sussan Rassoulie. It is not Nazar, as previously stated.
Sussan Rassoulie’s lies about alleged Apartheid in Haifa/Israel are typical of the anti-Jewish, simplistic, barbaric, ill-informed and hopelessly one-sided view of the PLO/PSC narrative on the Middle East, which emanate from extreme Left and Islamo-Fascist sources . As anyone who has been to Israel and observed and spoken to ordinary people will know, every citizen is equal before the law, Christian and Moslem and Druze serve in the parliament, the army, attend universities in very large numbers , are staff and patients in the hospitals receiving and giving equal treatment – the list is endless. Her lies about delayed treatment to patients are a disgraceful slur on Israeli doctors and nurses and academic health researchers, who are constantly pushing the boundaries and advances in medical science on a world scale.
Black South Africans who visit Israel time and time again testify – when not in the pay of their Iranian and other Middle East sponsors – how astonished they are at the excellent good relations between Jews and the minority groups in Israel. They have been quoted as remarking that Israel is about as far removed from Apartheid as it could be.
For sure life is different on the West Bank and of course Gaza, because these are disputed lands and until there is an agreement and solution, there will be conflict. Arabs living there are not and do not want to be, citizens of Israel and are ruled by military Law until such solutions to the land issues are found through peaceful negotiations, and not PLO terrorist violence. This has nothing to do with the Twinning of Hackney and and Israeli City of Haifa which has been part of the sovereign state of Israel since independence in 1948.
Rassoulie’s remarks about Haifa in 1948 are a ridiculous fabrication which the reading of any book on the history will show. Arabs make up one third of the city and they have had Arab mayors and Councillors for decades; the Jews of Haifa pleaded with the local Arab population not to leave in 1948 as Haifa was not in a disputed area and had been allotted to the Jews in the partition plan and very little fighting occurred in or around the city. But they were persuaded to leave in some numbers by their own leaders and totally unfounded rumours of massacres. This happened widely over the country at the time.
Haifa is also the capital of the Bahai faith which has millions of adherents world-wide as a breakaway sect of Islam. Persecuted in Arab countries for centuries, their great library and gardens are a beautiful asset to Haifa and attract tens of thousands of tourists every year; their founder is buried in a huge tomb in nearby Akko/Acre. So much for Apartheid.
There have not been any ‘pourings’ of Hackney people onto the streets since October 7th, as Rassoulie lies – a typical PSC wild, propaganda exaggeration to spread fear and unease – but just a few violent, abusive crowds shouting and bawling outside the Town Hall with anti-semitic posters (‘From the River to the Sea’) – which encourages the murder of Israelis and the destruction of the only liberal democracy in the Middle East, not to mention attacks on Jewish schools and community centres cemeteries, synagogues and individuals on a large scale never seen before since the 1940’s Fascist rallies in Ridley Road. Shame on her and her supporters for bringing this squabble in the Middle east onto our streets in Hackney and causing social dis-cohesion between Jews and non-Jews.
It is with dismay I read the call by Sussan Rassoulie for the ending of the twinning arrangements between Hackney & Haifa.
Haifa is a diverse & progressive municipality with a proud history of co-existence between Jews & Arabs, who contrary to Rassoulie’s assertions, enjoy full civil rights and fully contribute to the civil & political life of the city.
The twinning partnership promotes professional & social relationships in the medical & social spheres and helps to strengthen the progressive forces in Israe
Asher Eisen
London N16
Sussan Rassoulie says that, 'Haifa was a major site of the ethnic cleansing of Palestians during the Nakba of 1947-49.' Mr Sugarman calls this, 'a ridiculous fabrication which the reading of any book on the history will show.' furthermore he says, 'the jews pleaded with the local arab population not to leave.' The following is an example of their pleading :
On 29th November 1947 the UN passed resolution 181 giving 10% of the population (ie the jews) 50% of the land in Palestine. A few days later, in early December 1947 :
"75,000 Palestinians (in Haifa) were subjected to a campaign of terror ….. jewish troops rolled barrels full of explosives and huge steel balls down into Arab residential areas, and poured oil mixed with fuel down the roads, which they then ignited. The moment panic stricken Palestinian residents came running out of their houses to try to extinguish these rivers of fire, they were sprayed with machine gun fire. The Hagana (Hebrew for defence) brought cars to Palestinian garages to be repaired, loaded with explosives and detonating devices, and so wreaked death and chaos…….'mistarvim' literally Hebrew for 'becoming Arab' that is jews who disguised themselves as Palestinians were behind this kind of assault"
Although,"Shabtai Levi the town's jewish Mayor a decent person by all accounts beseeched the Palestinian people to stay and promised no harm would befall them, the Commander of the troops Mordecai Maklev was the one calling the shots not Levi and the orders he issued to his troops were plain and simple, 'Kill any arab you encounter; torch all inflammable objects and force doors open with explosives' (He later became the Israeli army chief of staff)"
(From a history book describing zionist terror in Haifa 1947 – 1949)