MPs given ‘lone wolf’ self-defence training used by Mossad spies
AN UNARMED combat technique used by agents from Israel’s feared secret intelligence agency Mossad is being taught to MPs to protect them against attack following the murder of Jo Cox.
Called Krav Maga – Hebrew for ‘contact combat’ – it combines elements of judo, jiu-jitsu, boxing and street fighting and can be used on assailants with knives or guns.
MPs in Westminster are being offered free lessons in Krav Maga so that they can protect themselves against terrorists and political extremists. It comes after the killing of Labour MP Mrs Cox outside her West Yorkshire surgery in June.
The training, available to MPs since last week, is being provided by Parli-Training, a company which normally provides advice on lobbying and speech writing.
It concentrates on how to defend against the ten most common attacks, which include a ‘swinging punch to the head’; ‘a bottle, glass or ashtray to the head’; and a ‘slash with knife, most commonly a 3-4in lock blade or kitchen utility knife’.
Two MPs as well as 18 assistants attended the first Krav Maga training session at Parli-Training’s office in Whitehall on Thursday, according to the company’s founder Mendora Ogbogbo. She said that she had decided to provide the course to MPs after Mrs Cox’s death.
Ms Ogbogbo said that the particular type of Krav Maga MPs are being taught is to ‘disarm and run’ but not ‘confront’. She said: ‘We are teaching them techniques where if someone comes at them with a knife or a gun, they can disarm the weapons and then run. They are not being taught how to fight.
‘Another technique we are teaching them is called the “rhino”, where they know how to cover the vulnera- ble parts of their heads when someone is punching them. This will give them a vital three or four minutes before someone intervenes.
‘We also teach a method where if someone is lying on top of them in a fight, they can wriggle from under them and run,’ she added.
Another free all-day session will be held for MPs on November 10, and an email has been sent to all parliamentarians inviting them.
A number of MPs’ constituency case workers told Parli-Training that they regularly face threats of violence from angry constituents.
Krav Maga was developed by Jewish martial expert Imi Lichten- feld, who used it as a means of defending Jews in Bratislava, in the then Czechoslovakia, in the 1930s. Lichtenfeld later migrated to Israel and began providing lessons to the Israeli Defence Force, which, along with Mossad, still incorporates it in its training drills.