How Israeli president's advisor worked to set up Reform Friends of Israel group

How Israeli president's advisor worked to set up Reform Friends of Israel group Submitted by Imran Mulla on Wed, 07/01/2026 - 10:44 Middle East Eye looks at the pro-Israel group affiliated to Nigel Farage's party and the figures behind it Reform UK leader Nigel Farage speaks as deputy leader Richard Tice and MP Suella Braverman look on during a press conference in central London on 17 February 2026 (AFP) Off Israel 's lobbying of Nigel Farage's Reform UK is in the spotlight again following a parliamentary debate over pro-Israel influence on British politics last week. At the debate in parliament's Westminster Hall on a petition to "call a public inquiry into pro-Israel influence on politics & democracy", Reform's deputy leader Richard Tice declared : "This motion is antisemitic in its very motivation and at its core. As such, we should utterly reject it." But just last September, Tice visited Israel and met Israeli ministers on a trip funded by Reform Friends of Israel (RFI). Key Reform figures separately visited Israel in November and went to the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights in Syria. Declassified UK reported on Tuesday that the trip was funded by the Israeli foreign affairs ministry. So who is behind Reform Friends of Israel (RFI), whose funding sources are unknown? British-born Jason Pearlman, who has extensive political connections both in Britain and in Israel, was formerly the head of the group and was heavily involved in setting it up. Pearlman was the international media advisor to Israeli President Isaac Herzog until last December and was working on securing funding for RFI while still in that role. "Jason has helped guide the office of the president through perhaps Israel’s most challenging times with the international press," Herzog said when he left. 'I was honoured to be involved in setting up RFI but am no longer involved as I have returned to live in Israel for personal reasons' - Jason Pearlman But Pearlman told Middle East Eye on Wednesday that he has left his role with RFI. "I was honoured to be involved in setting up RFI but am no longer involved as I have returned to live in Israel for personal reasons," Pearlman said. He would not disclose who funds RFI but said "I can confirm that [RFI] did not and does not receive any funds from the Israeli or any other government." He added: "There was no overlap between my role in the RFI and any other organisation." Pearlman grew up in Sunderland in England. "My father’s mother came from London," he said in 2016, "and her mother, my great-grandmother Rose, was sitting next to [Theodor] Herzl at the Sixth Zionist Congress in 1903. I have a picture of her on my desk at work." He also worked as media director of the Board of Deputies of British Jews from 2004 for 18 months and then for the Israeli embassy's public affairs department in London, before moving to Israel in 2006. In 2007 Pearlman became the foreign press liaison for the Israel’s government press office. But in 2010 he moved back to Britain to work as the deputy director of the Westminster-based neoconservative think tank, the Henry Jackson Society (HJS). Mendoza and Farage The HJS's current director, Alan Mendoza, is another important figure within Reform and is a senior advisor on foreign affairs to Reform leader Nigel Farage. He is also the president of the UK branch of the Jewish National Fund (JNF), an organisation which has been widely accused of involvement in the displacement of Palestinians . Head of Jewish National Fund UK loses council seat in UK local elections Read More » JNF UK has donated £1m ($1.36m) to "Israel's largest militia" and has Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu , wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court, as an honorary patron. A former Conservative councillor in Westminster, Mendoza defected to Reform last year and lost his seat at the May local elections this year. The think tank he directs, HJS, is heavily pro-Israel and significantly influenced successive Tory governments' counter-terror policies. But some of the most pointed criticism of the think tank has come from former insiders. One of its founders, Matthew Jamison, later denounced it as a “monstrous animal” and a “deeply anti-Muslim racist organisation”. Another former member, Marko Atilla Hoare, described it as having become “an abrasively right-wing forum with an anti-Muslim tinge, churning out polemical and superficial pieces by aspiring journalists and pundits”. Mendoza last year opposed the government's plan to allow dependants of Palestinian students from Gaza into the UK, saying on TalkTV that "we don’t know what they believe. We don’t know what their tendencies are. We don’t know whether they mean us well or ill." Pearlman's dinner with Farage Israel's courting of Reform appears to have intensified in the second half of last year. In April, Pearlman told Declassified UK that he had "a dinner with Nigel [Farage] and some key backers" last year while he was working for Herzog, to discuss "seed funding" for RFI. 'I’m sure some of the people who fund CFI [Conservative Friends of Israel] and LFI [Labour Friends of Israel] will also be funding RFI' - Jason Pearlman Although he would not disclose RFI's donors, he said: "I’m sure some of the people who fund CFI [Conservative Friends of Israel] and LFI [Labour Friends of Israel] will also be funding RFI." Pearlman has appeared to be a staunch defender of Israel's actions in Gaza and the wider Middle East. During the US-Israeli attack on Iran earlier this year, Pearlman wrote a piece for LBC in support of the attack, criticising the Labour government for not sufficiently supporting it. And he has claimed Israel has not committed war crimes in Gaza. On his visit to Israel, Reform deputy leader Tice met the Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Saar. "Since Labour ministers and MPs, from the prime minister down, have made their pro-Palestinian allegiances very clear, it is left to others in Parliament to stand by our friends," Tice wrote after the trip. "This is how, just a few days ago, I found myself at an Israeli border crossing into Gaza." Tice claimed "the UN convince gullible diplomats and leaders that there is a real famine in Gaza. I have seen enough with my own eyes, and heard enough from credible top people, to be convinced that this is simply untrue." Inside the surreal UK parliament debate on pro-Israel influence dominated by lobby members Read More » Tice's assertion in parliament last week that the petition on pro-Israel influence in politics was "antisemitic in its very motivation and at its core" has been called into question, including by the author of the petition, Andy Kalil. The debate consisted mainly of MPs who are members of pro- Israel groups saying the petition was antisemitic, while a minority who spoke in favour of it posed detailed questions about lobbying and transparency which went unanswered. Earlier this week Kalil submitted a formal complaint to parliament's deputy speaker Nusrat Ghani, seen by Middle East Eye. "My primary concern is the repeated characterisation of the petition, its signatories, and several MPs who spoke in support of it, as antisemitic," he said. "In my view, this amounts to a sustained attack on a genuine and necessary call for transparency and accountability, rather than meaningful engagement with the issues raised." He added: "The debate did little to address fundamental questions relating to lobbying, political donations, parliamentary visits, transparency or influence." Kalil, whose petition gathered more than 118,000 signatures from members of the public, requested that the debate be held again. Israel-funded trip Israeli government data found by Berlin-based journalist Yossi Bartel shows that the Israeli foreign affairs ministry paid Jerusalem-based company Conexión Israel more than £50,000 to organise the trip last November for the Reform UK delegation. The delegation included Reform's then-chairman David Bull, Lancashire County Council leader Stephen Atkinson, London Assembly member Alex Wilson, and Gawain Towler, a board member of the party. The group visited sites of Hamas attacks on 7 October, including the site of the Nova music festival massacre. Bull said after the trip that it had been "life changing". He added that the group discussed "visa overstayers and asylum seekers" with the deputy mayor of Tel Aviv. Towler, meanwhile, said Israel's "fight is, in many ways, our fight. A fight for enlightenment ideals, international norms, democracy and the rest." MEE has contacted Reform for comment. Reform has also established ties with the United Arab Emirates, with Farage meeting Emirati ministers this year. Abu Dhabi is thought to have found common ground with Reform over a shared opposition to political Islam. Last September, Farage pledged to ban the Muslim Brotherhood, citing the fact that several Gulf states have done so. UK Politics News Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:19 Update Date Override 0