Revealed: Pro-Israel lobbyist’s secret funding operation

Pro-Israel lobbyist Stuart Polak consulted one of Israel’s top diplomats and a US billionaire about sourcing new funding opportunities, Declassified can reveal.

The information comes in an email exchange between Polak and Israel’s then consul general in New York, Ido Aharoni.

The exchange took place in June 2015, when Polak was director of Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI), one of Britain’s leading pro-Israel lobby organisations.

“I have made some real progress in obtaining support for my work for Israel from Paul Singer in NYC”, wrote Polak.

Singer is a New York-based billionaire hedge fund manager and major donor to Friends of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), a group which raises funds for the Israeli armed forces.

He donated $1.7m to Friends of the IDF between 2011 and 2019, including over $1m in 2015.

Singer is also among the top funders of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which is the leading pro-Israel lobby outfit in the US.

In his exchange with Aharoni, Polak added: “I would also like you to consider whether you can arrange for me to be introduced to other Paul Singers – together with you to further help our work”.

The information appears to shine a crucial new light on CFI’s sources of funding, which have been shrouded in secrecy for decades.

CFI was the largest donor of free overseas trips for MPs between 2012 and 2022, but has never disclosed who is funding its pro-Israel jaunts and other lobbying exercises.

The correspondence also offers insight into the relationship between Britain’s pro-Israel lobby, the Israeli state, and Zionist businessmen in the US.

Declassified accessed the emails via the file sharing website Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoS) after they were hacked by a group named Handala.

Peter Oborne, journalist and author of Complicit: Britain’s Role in the Destruction of Gaza, told Declassified: “We know very little about where CFI gets its money from. Hence the importance of these revelations.

“It is especially interesting that CFI, which lobbies for a foreign country, has approached US sources to fund its work”.

Stuart Polak

Polak joined CFI in 1989 and spent 25 years as the organisation’s director before stepping down in August 2015 to take a seat in the House of Lords.

He nonetheless remained CFI’s honorary president, and in 2017 was found to have played a pivotal role in organising private meetings between then development secretary Priti Patel and senior Israeli officials.

Patel was forced to resign while Polak remained one of Israel’s loudest advocates in Westminster, even amid the genocide in Gaza.

In January 2024, he led a “solidarity visit” to Israel with CFI, during which MPs met with Israeli president Isaac Herzog.

“He’s given his entire life to CFI, when the Conservatives have been in government and out, and when Israel has had lots of friends and few friends”, said one former associate.

Former foreign minister Alan Duncan recently accused Polak of “exercising the interests of another country, not that of the parliament in which he sits”, and called for him to be removed from the House of Lords.

‘Hope you liked it’

The leaked emails also expose correspondence between Polak and Ron Prosor, who was representing Israel at the United Nations (and had previously been their ambassador in London).

“Hope you liked it….”, Polak wrote to Prosor on 14 March 2014 in an email with the subject line “Cameron”.

The date and subject line suggest Polak was referring to then UK prime minister David Cameron’s visit to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories the day before.

During that visit, Cameron “poured praise on the country’s [Israel] values and vowed that Britain would steadfastly oppose any boycott of Israel”.

The Israeli government had been particularly concerned about the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and would go on to lobby the UK government to undermine it.

Cameron also used the visit to denounce Iran as a “despotic regime still intent on arming Israel’s enemies, adding that he believed he would be fighting the threat posed by extremism all his political life”.

CFI was pleased with these remarks.

In its annual review for 2014/15, the group boasted how Cameron “demonstrated his solidarity with Israel in a rousing speech to the Knesset where he underlined his ‘unbreakable’ support for the Jewish state”.

Whether Polak was really responsible for Cameron’s statement remains unclear, but Prosor seemed convinced.

He told Polak: “Dear Stuart, I loved it. Amazing work. Will try to reach you on the phone. Big hug”.

This was not the first time that Prosor had given Polak credit for guiding British foreign policy towards Israel.

In an email dated October 2011, the Israeli diplomat told Polak that the Foreign Office was a “problem” but “David and George sem [sic] to keep it in place due to your hard work”.

The names appear to refer to David Cameron and George Osborne, then the UK chancellor of the exchequer.

Polak responded: “Think UK govt just about behaving – certainly PM being v helpful”.

Polak, CFI, and Singer were approached for comment.