Iranian-Tied UK Human Rights Group Holds Webinar On The ‘One State Solution’

The Islam­ic Human Rights Com­mis­sion (IHRC) has announced on its web­site it will be hold­ing a webi­nar in ear­ly Novem­ber 2020 on the ‘One state solu­tion’ for the Pales­tin­ian / Israeli con­flict. Accord­ing to the announce­ment:

Octo­ber 24, 2020 The fail­ure of the Two state solu­tion, due to the destruc­tive actions by Israel, and con­tin­ued build­ing of ille­gal set­tle­ments on Pales­tin­ian land, has brought about renewed inter­est in the Sin­gle, demo­c­ra­t­ic state solu­tion to the set­tler-colo­nial con­flict in Palestine…This solu­tion was the offi­cial posi­tion of the PLO until 1988, and is the only solu­tion which offers equal rights for all in Pales­tine, and an end to the rav­ages of mil­i­tarised Apartheid.

Read the rest here.

The webi­nar is expect­ed to host 4 speakers:

• Muham­mad Maran­di – pro­fes­sor of Eng­lish Lit­er­a­ture and Ori­en­tal­ism at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Tehran, described in the announce­ment as an aca­d­e­m­ic and polit­i­cal ana­lyst. US-born Maran­di, who received his Ph.D. at Birm­ing­ham Uni­ver­si­ty, is known to have defend­ed the exe­cu­tion of 2 oppo­si­tion­ists who took part in the unrest, which fol­lowed the 2010 Iran­ian elec­tions. He is the son of Iran­ian politi­cian and for­mer Health Care Min­is­ter Alireza Marandi.

• Awad Abdl Fet­tah, for­mer Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of the Arab-Israeli anti-Zion­ist Bal­ad Par­ty, is described in the announce­ment as a polit­i­cal activist and writer who leads a Haifa-based cam­paign based pro­mot­ing the foun­da­tion of one demo­c­ra­t­ic state ‘in the whole of Palestine’

• Gha­da Kar­mi – UK aca­d­e­m­ic described in the announce­ment as a lead­ing author on Pales­tine and the Israeli occu­pa­tion and a life-long polit­i­cal activist. Kar­mi has pub­lished an arti­cle on a news por­tal linked to the Mus­lim Brotherhood/Qatar, where she wrote: “Ter­mi­nat­ing Zion­ism is the only way to a per­ma­nent peace.”

• Michel Warschawsky – described in the announce­ment as a vet­er­an jour­nal­ist and peace activist and founder of the Jerusalem based Alter­na­tive Infor­ma­tion Cen­ter (AIC), a Pales­tin­ian-Israeli news orga­ni­za­tion that dis­sem­i­nates infor­ma­tion, research, and polit­i­cal analy­sis on Pales­tin­ian and Israeli soci­eties. Warschawsky (aka Mika­do) was the leader of the Israeli far-left Marx­ist Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Com­mu­nist League (pre­vi­ous­ly Matzpen-Jerusalem). In 2016 he spoke with the IHRC about “his trans­for­ma­tion from a Zion­ist sol­dier to pro-Pales­tin­ian advo­cate and activist.”

The webi­nar is sup­port­ed by sev­er­al far-left groups, as well as two groups tied to the Iran­ian influ­ence net­work in the UK. The Ahlul­bayt Islam­ic Mis­sion (AIM) is a UK based group, which an Israeli think-tank described as the UK branch of the Ahlul Bayt World Assem­bly, an Iran­ian Shi’ite cler­i­cal orga­ni­za­tion with glob­al out­reach. Shab­bir Has­analy, who served as Direc­tor in the now inac­tive Mus­lim Chan­nel along­side the IHRC’s chair­man Mas­soud Shad­jareh, had devel­oped an app for the AIM.

The Inminds Human Rights Group, anoth­er sup­port­er of the webi­nar, is known to be close to the IHRC’s chair­man Mas­soud Shadjareh.

Estab­lished in 1997, the Islam­ic Human Rights Com­mis­sion (IHRC) is a UK based NGO in Spe­cial Con­sul­ta­tive Sta­tus with the Eco­nom­ic and Social Coun­cil (ECOSOC) of the Unit­ed Nations since 2007. Its web­site says it works with dif­fer­ent orga­ni­za­tions from Mus­lim and non-Mus­lim back­grounds “to cam­paign for jus­tice for all peo­ples regard­less of their racial, con­fes­sion­al, or polit­i­cal back­ground.” The IHRC is con­sid­ered sup­port­ive of the Iran­ian regime, and for many years has been cen­tral to orga­niz­ing the events of the annu­al Inter­na­tion­al Quds Day, ini­ti­at­ed by the Iran­ian rev­o­lu­tion­ary regime. The IHRC’s chair­man is Mas­soud Shad­jareh, who is close to the anti-Israel web­site inminds.com and served as a direc­tor in the now inac­tive Mus­lim Chan­nel; his wife Arzu Mer­ali is a co-founder, writer, and researcher at the IHRC. Anoth­er Mus­lim Chan­nel direc­tor Shab­bir Has­s­analy, a schol­ar and web devel­op­er, is said by the UK Times to have been “one of a num­ber of indi­vid­u­als and orga­ni­za­tions in the UK…whose views and activ­i­ties are close­ly aligned to the reli­gious ide­ol­o­gy of the Iran­ian gov­ern­ment.” He devel­oped appli­ca­tions for oth­er pro-Iran­ian orga­ni­za­tions such as the Iran­ian TV chan­nel Press TV and Ahlul­Bayt Islam­ic Mis­sion (AIM). In Octo­ber 2019, the Times report­ed that since 2013, the IHRC has also been receiv­ing dona­tions through the UK tax­pay­er-fund­ed Gift Aid scheme for char­i­ta­ble organizations.