U.K. Border Agency sends Rabbi Yosef Elitzur letter signed by the home secretary, informing him that he could not enter Britain for the next three years.

The U.K. Border Agency is prohibiting fundamentalist Rabbi Yosef Elitzur, co-author of the controversial book "The King's Torah" ("Torat Hamelech" ), from entering Britain, the Jewish Voice website reported on Wednesday.

Elitzur received a letter last month from the U.K. Border Agency, signed by the home secretary, informing him that he could not enter Britain for the next three years.

A new short video documents the journey of a group of community organizers, artists, food growers and cyclists who traveled from London to Palestine by bicycle in 100 days this spring.

The group, who traveled under the banner P.E.D.A.L., uphold the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions as one of their primary principles.

In another victory for Palestinian rights, Ealing Council, in London , has failed to select Veolia for a comprehensive tender for its domestic refuse, street cleaning and parks maintenance contract. The contract is worth approx £300m in total over 15 years and one of Ealing Council’s largest single contracts.

A law passed by the Israeli Knesset (parliament) making it an offence to call for a boycott against the state of Israel or its West Bank settlements will have a chilling effect on freedom of expression in Israel, Amnesty International said today.

The controversial law, passed on Monday night, makes it a civil offence to call for an economic, cultural, or academic boycott of people or institutions in Israel or the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) for political reasons.

“[The government] must also halt Britain’s arms exports to Israel,” wrote Liberal Democrat leader and now Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg on January 7th 2009, as the world watched Israeli shells destroying a UN school in Gaza.  The title of Clegg’s article was unambiguous; “We must stop arming Israel”.

On Friday, the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee [BNC], a broad coalition encompassing all political factions, and a wealth of trade unions, NGOs and civil organisations, released a call for an immediate and comprehensive military embargo of Israel.

Israel’s former Defence Minister Amir Peretz is reported to have fled Britain to avoid an arrest warrant in relation to war crimes committed during Israel’s war on Lebanon.  http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4091748,00.html

It was also reported that Israel’s Foreign and Defence Ministries were warned of the arrest in enough time to bundle Peretz out of Britain.

The current issue of muckraking journal Private Eye reports that Heathrow Airport will have shiny new equipment for screening passengers installed with the help of several Israeli firms as part of preparations for next year’s Olympic Games. The sporting event affords an opportunity to run a “live test” on the Total Airport Security System (TASS), a 14.5 million euro ($21 million) project mainly financed by the European Union.

As it happens, details of the project were announced almost exactly a year ago.