Keyboard Warrior

How an undercover activist exposed London's Jew-hating elites
Photos: Mendel Photography
It was a remote place to pick for a high-level strategy meeting. In late 2016, a group of activists made their way to a building on an industrial estate in west London, climbed a staircase to the second floor, and seated themselves around a few tables.
The group was a Who’s Who of the anti-Israel movement in the BDS capital of the world. Just a few months before the centenary of the Balfour Declaration — and mere miles from where British foreign secretary Arthur Balfour had written his historic letter of support for Zionism — the activists were planning to mark the occasion with a new offensive against Israel.
All except one of the assembled. Despite his kaffiyeh, BDS badges, and regular appearances on London’s pro-Palestinian scenes, “John” Collier was not all he seemed.
That’s because his real name was David, he was actually a pro-Israel investigative blogger, and he was wired up with recording devices to share details of the meeting with the world.
“I sat next to one of the key figures in the movement talking about strategy,” recalls David Collier from the comfort of his North London home, “and suddenly it occurred to me that here I was in the belly of the beast, and that if they found out, I would be in real trouble.”
Six years later, with Amnesty International — a UK heavyweight in the anti-Israel world — releasing a report accusing Israel of apartheid, Collier connects the dots between that meeting and London’s status as BDS capital of the world.
The gathering at the industrial estate was just one of a steady stream of stories about the anti-Israel scene that Collier reported. His painstakingly researched investigations lit the fuse on the scandal of Corbynite anti-Semitism that blew up in 2018, contributing to the Labour Party leader’s downfall the following year.
But as the Amnesty report shows, Britain’s anti-Israel scene is as viciously effervescent as ever. Coming just three years after Jeremy Corbyn’s close brush with power, it raises the question of why one of the most historically tolerant of countries has become a central hub of bigotry.
From close encounters with the mix of hard-left and Islamist activists who drive the BDS campaigns, Collier has the answer: It’s a “Red-Green” coalition, or Britain’s history of socialism colliding with failed policies on representation of Muslim communities.
David Collier has an academic background, but he’s also a fighter. Now too well-known to his foes to report from the trenches, his blog and social media accounts are the conduit for a torrent of lacerating reportage and commentary trawled from the cesspools of the anti-Israel ecosystem. His language is combative — “the enemy,” he calls his foes, “hateful anti-Semites.”
But even as this lone ranger continues his keyboard war, contributing to tactical victories such as the fall of the Corbynistas, he’s alarmed by the creeping success of the Britain-born anti-Israel movement. It’s now urgent, he says, to fight back using different tactics.
“Amnesty’s report comes from a system so dark and filled with hate that it’s more suited to the 15th than to the 21st century. You can’t fight it by getting caught in their individual allegations, but by exposing how they want to destroy Israel.”
Oops! We could not locate your form.