Controversial Muslim advocacy group CAGE has been accused of “excusing deliberate murder and inciting hatred” in a social media response to the killing of the two British-Israeli sisters Maia and Rina Dee.
In an inflammatory Twitter thread posted on the official CAGE page on the platform, the parents of the two sister’s, who were shot dead in the West Bank last Friday, were openly accused of provoking the scenario in which their two daughters lost their lives.
Condemning Rabbi Leo Dee, and wife Lucy, who later also died as a result of the injuries she sustained in the terror attack near the Jordan Valley, for moving from their home in Radlett, Hertfordshire to the West Bank settlement of Efrat, the group tweeted:”We are told of two sisters killed. We are not told of the choices made by parents to put them in harms way.”
In an angry response to the threat, the leading barrister Simon Myerson KC, wrote:”Thread by antisemites excusing deliberate murder and inciting hatred.”
Myerson added in a further post:”Antisemites resort to pomposity in desperate effort to blame murders of three women on the victims for their choice of home (within the borders of Israel as set out in 1948). Racism isn’t acceptable and CAGE are racist.
“Shun them – for your own self-respect.”
CAGE have previously been condemned “as “apologists for terror” with one member of the group previously describing ISIS killer Jihadi John a “beautiful young man”.
The Community Security Trust have also condemned the group’s website for displaying “antisemitic” material.
Elsewhere in their threat CAGE also attempted to compare and contrast the outpouring of shock and horror at the murder of the British-Israeli Dee family, with what the reaction to Shamima Begum, the 15 year-old girl who travelled to Syria to join ISIS, and lost her legal case to return to the UK.
They wrote:”We do not mourn as a UK nation the actions of “stupid” and “impressionable” schoolgirls that go off to Syria and are killed.
“Our leading policymakers and judges unite to exclude the survivor Shamima Begum from returning home.”
In a thread posted in the early hours of Monday morning CAGE alleged: “This journey started in practical terms from the moment two British citizens decided to take a further journey to the land of Palestine, with their family.
“There, they consciously chose to settle in a territory that has been colonized by a state that has no right to exist under international law.”
CAGE continued :”We are told of two sisters killed.
“We are not told of the choices made by parents to put them in harms way. Tragic as it is for any loss of life, the family that took this choice did so knowingly of the provocation they were making when doing so.”
The sinisterly worded “Thread on the death of two British Citizens in Palestine” had begun with the claim it had been posted “to understand how we got to where we are.”
In their own response to Jewish legal expert Myerson, CAGE tweeted:”You eviscerate the horrors of antisemitism and dehumanise Palestinian victims when you lay that charge on any examination or criticism of settler colonialism and the apartheid state.”
The group added:”Getting emotional on twitter is fine. However, please avoid using antisemitism as a cover for old fashioned settler colonialism. The type of people Israel and UAE are promoting in the West are dangerous for both Muslims and Jews as well as other minorities.”
CAGE were not alone in attempting to blame the Dee family for the tragic murders.
Following confirmation on Monday that 48 year-old Lucy Dee, the two sister’s mother, had become the third victim of Friday’s terror attack, the Brighton BDS group tweeted:”So sad that the family, who today lost their mother as well as 2 daughters, decided to leave the UK to move to an illegal West Bank settlement, knowing they were part of a policy of political/religious colonialism that is based on the violent dispossession of Palestinians.”
Jewish News have contacted CAGE for further comment on the response to the Dee family murders.
