Gibraltar Lawyer Named as Owner of Trust Behind Pro-Israel Parliamentary Group as MP Demands Funding Probe

Parliament’s standards watchdog is facing calls for an investigation after a Byline Times investigation raised serious questions about who is ultimately funding Parliament’s main pro-Israel group and whether it breaks rules on foreign political interference.

Cedarsoak Ltd is a UK company controlled by two peers: Lord Mendelsohn (Labour) and Lord Polak (Conservative), and it has funded the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Israel since 2015, including a major report on the 7 October attacks.

However, Byline Times discovered that Cedars Oak Israel Ltd (CC), a Tel Aviv public benefit company, reimbursed the UK firm in 2024 for £147,687.

The Israeli company’s only donor that year was a Gibraltar-based trust manager called Line Trust Corporation Limited, owned by Hassans, Gibraltar’s largest law firm.  

Parliamentary rules require APPGs to name any third party that “ultimately funded” a benefit. But Parliament’s registers name only “Cedarsoak Ltd” as a funder.

Now we can reveal that the Gibraltar trust company lists one of the Rock’s most prominent lawyers as its ultimate beneficial owner.

According to Gibraltar company records, the ultimate beneficial owner of Line Trust Corporation Limited is British citizen Haim Judah (James) Michael Levy. Levy is recorded holding 32% of it (there are no other ultimate owners registered).

Levy, a barrister (KC), is Hassans’ senior partner, and was awarded a CBE in the late Queen’s 2013 birthday honours list “for services to the economy and to the community in Gibraltar.”

He is a well-known figure on the Rock and is a trustee of two UK-registered Jewish community charities, including one listed as operating in Israel.

His first cousin is Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, a prominent, hardline former deputy mayor of Jerusalem and Knesset candidate who has served as special envoy for innovation for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (it remains her title on LinkedIn). She is also secretary-general of Kol Israel, a faction in the World Zionist Congress. There is no suggestion she is involved in the APPG’s funding.

As Line Trust manages private wealth for clients, it is possible that Levy is not the ultimate donor, and there is nothing to confirm that he is. Neither Levy, Hassans nor Line Trust has responded to requests for comment. Our findings have triggered a formal parliamentary complaint by an independent MP.

The investigation began after former Brexit negotiator Lord (David) Frost went on a “fact-finding delegation” to Israel and the West Bank last month, shortly before the Israeli elections. The trip was paid for by a little-known company called Cedarsoak Ltd.

On the face of it, Cedarsoak Ltd is a UK company controlled by two peers: Labour peer Lord (Jonathan) Mendelsohn and Conservative peer Lord (Stuart) Polak.

It has funded the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Israel since 2015, including a major report on the 7 October attacks and a subsequent second edition.

But Byline Times found that Cedars Oak Israel Ltd (CC), a Tel Aviv-based public benefit company, owed the UK firm £147,687 in 2024 to reimburse it, using money from a single Gibraltar donor.

That donor – the Israeli company’s only one in 2024 – was Line Trust Corporation Limited, a trust company based in Gibraltar, owned by Hassans, Gibraltar’s largest law firm. Little information was publicly available about Line Trust’s ownership. Gibraltar’s main broadcaster pointed to the investigation in a feature, but the money trail ended abruptly in part due to Gibraltar’s corporate secrecy.

Parliamentary rules require APPGs to name any third party that “ultimately funded” a benefit. But Parliament’s registers name only “Cedarsoak Ltd” as funder.

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‘Shaping the Narrative’

The UK firm’s roles, as rewritten in November 2025, are banal: “administrative and operational support services”.

But the aims and objects of its Israeli counterpart are far more specific. It told the Israeli registrar it took “an active part in shaping the narrative in the British Parliament” and sought to influence British public opinion and policy towards Israel.

The Israeli company states it exists to “serve national objectives”.

Its 2024 report to the charity registrar says its activities include parliamentary delegations, briefings and “strategic public diplomacy”, adding it worked to influence British opinion and policy on issues such as the 7 October Hamas attacks, antisemitism, UNRWA, Iran and BDS.

This outlet revealed that in November 2025, the UK firm added a clause to its articles of association: an “absolute requirement that the Directors must take steps to prevent the company accepting donations or funding of any type from foreign Governments[,] their agents or nominees”.

The wording “take steps” – rather than appearing to ban foreign state funding outright – has raised some eyebrows.

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Formal Complaint

Iqbal Mohamed, the Independent MP for Dewsbury & Batley, has now written to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards calling for a probe into the cross-party group and its funding.

Mohamed has asked the parliamentary standards commissioner to investigate whether the APPG omitted declaring Line Trust Corporation or its clients as the true funding source, and whether the APPG has complied with the requirement to publish mandatory annual reports and a foreign-government due diligence statement.

The letter states: “Serious evidence has come to light via an investigative report by Byline Times and a detailed evidentiary dossier compiled by cross-party consultant on the Israel-Palestine conflict, Gary Spedding, alongside corporate registries in the United Kingdom and Israel, which strongly indicates that the true, ultimate sources of funding for this APPG are being systematically obscured from the Parliamentary Register of APPGs.”

He adds: “By failing to look past Cedarsoak Ltd to declare the Line Trust Corporation or its underlying clients, the APPG appears to be in direct breach of parliamentary transparency requirements regarding ultimate beneficial funding.”

Mohamed believes there are “significant grounds” to investigate whether the APPG has circumvented the rules on declaring ‘ultimate funders’, the strict 16 October 2023 prohibition on foreign government funding for secretariats, and “whether the APPG is complying with its reporting obligations and manipulating the Parliamentary Register via retroactive, chronologically impossible declarations that were not there prior to scrutiny.”

The letter also flags that following formal complaints lodged in early 2025, the APPG on Israel retroactively registered a benefit-in-kind from Cedarsoak Ltd valued at £85,501–£87,000.

Commenting on the letter, the independent researcher on Palestine Gary Spedding said: “I am relieved that this is being raised with Parliamentary standards and that the new information that has come to light should prompt a comprehensive investigation.”

Last week, the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP), a pro-Palestinian legal campaign group, said our revelations “raise serious questions about who is ultimately financing, coordinating and directing activities intended to influence the British Parliament”.

Haim Judah (James) Michael Levy, Hassans and Line Trust were contacted for comment. Lord Polak and Lord Mendelsohn did not respond to our previous request for comment. We will add responses should we receive any.

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