A JEWISH solidarity group including Rabbis is set to visit Dale Farm on Sunday to offer support to families facing eviction.

Rabbi Janet Burden, said, “People may not be aware that the Travellers, along with the Gypsies and a limited number of other groups with similar lifestyle patterns, are officially recognised as ethnic minorities, just like our own Jewish community. As such, they deserve protection under European human rights law.”

It is the second visit by the group in the last six weeks.

Rabbi Burden added: “I believe that the obligation to protect this ethnic minority’s way of life is a human rights issue that, in this particular and unusual case, may need to ‘trump’ the planning law designed to protect the ‘Green Belt’.”

Jewish Dale Farm supporter Dan Glass said, “Despite the councils argument that this is a planning issue this is ethic cleansing. It is well known that the success rate of planning applications is around 95 per cent, yet for travellers the rate is only 25 per cent. Clearly travellers face huge discrimination.”

He continued, “Traveling people face shocking prejudice. It's become very hard to live as a traveller, so councils encouraged travellers to buy land. So they did. But, of course they rarely get planning permission because a vocal minority, plus some in power, like the Tory's in Basildon Council, wants to get rid of them. Just like in periods of my own history.”

Council leader Tony Ball has repeatedly condemned any comparisons of the eviction to ethnic cleansing and says it is an insult to anyone who suffered during the Holocaust.