Imagine interviewing a
spokesman for ISIS after the Paris massacres or Oswald Moseley after the
capture of Belsen - BBC Heads Should Roll
It seems that the BBC’s idea of
Balance is to give equal weight to the Right and the Far-Right. How else to
explain the BBC’s decision to interview, on the day of the New Zealand massacre
of 50 Muslim worshippers, a spokesman for the fascist Generation Identity,
Benjamin Jones?
It was akin to asking ISIS for their
views on the Bataclan
massacre in Paris or the Manchester
bombing. There was no possible justification for presenter Richard Watson interrupting
a report on the massacre by White Supremacist Brenton Tarrant to interview Jones.
Jones whole purpose in the interview
was to provide a justification for what happened, to explain the background
from the point of white supremacists whilst distancing himself from the
massacre itself. What was worse was that far from challenging Jones, Watson
allowed him to develop and elaborate his points. Watson opened by explaining
that
Richard Watson - BBC Interviewer Completely Folded when attempting to challenge Benjamin Jones
‘His (Brenton Tarrant) document is titled The Great Replacement, a reference
to European culture being subsumed by immigration. That’s precisely the same
phrase used by European group called Generation Identity which campaigns
against immigration and Islam. Generation Identity uses similar arguments to
those found in the New Zealand document. I spoke to its UK leader, Benjamin
Jones [BJ], today.
Firstly BJ was allowed to make the unsubstantiated assertion that they
are ‘fundamentally opposed’ to the
American alt-Right when in fact there is no substantial difference.Both are ethno nationalist groups.
BJ:Generation Identity is fundamentally opposed to what we call alt-Right
tendencies and the vast majority of what we find in this manifesto we classify
as alt-Right. It’s simple as that.
Benjamin Jones
Then BJ was given the opportunity of
condemning the violence, which of course he did. Watson, in typical
Establishment-speak talked of ‘extreme
and offensive’ views. It is irrelevant whether they are extreme or
offensive, what matters is their content. There is nothing wrong in being ‘extreme’ or indeed offensive. It depends on whom you are being offensive to. The views
espoused were overtly racist, a word
that Watson never once used.
Jones was allowed to get away with
talk of ‘the typical Muslim’. Just
imagine if he had said ‘the typical Jew’.
There would have been uproar because there is no more a typical Muslim than
a typical Jew or a typical Christian but Watson as with the BBC in general, is
completely incapable of challenging racism since the BBC continually gives
racists like UKIP a platform.
The BBC's Reporters are so Useless that they don't mention that Replacement is nothing but Refugees fleeing our Violence
Jones was then allowed, twice, to
explain that this violence was ‘inevitable’
because you could not have different peoples mixing. It as if BBC reporters have
learnt nothing over the past 30 years. This was the argument used repeatedly
against Jewish and indeed any form of immigration. It was a lie then and it is
a lie now. But the pathetic Watson could only ask Jones to elaborate.
Jones spoke about ‘radically different points of view’of
Muslimswithout ever being challenged
to explain this nonsense. Indeed at no point did Watson, even once challenge
any of the arguments or tropes of Jones. One can only presume that the reason
for that is because the BBC operates within the same right-wing consensus of
Generation Identity.That is why Nigel
Farage is such a regular guest on Question Time.True it is just a bit more civilised but
there is no fundamental disagreement. The interview continued:
RW:So you absolutely condemn
his use of violence?
BJ:We condemn the use of violence in all circumstances and contexts.
RW:But Generation Identity
does have very extreme and offensive views especially about Muslims.
BJ:As far as the typical Muslim is concerned their way of life is
completely incompatible with the lifestyle of the average person in this
country lives. I see instances such as this as inevitable if we continue to put
different peoples with different perspectives, radically different points of
view in terms of how we conduct our lives as human beings together and I think that
will come from extremists across the spectrum which is why it is so important
that we continue to advocate the advantages of a homogenous society.
Instead of challenging any
of the above Watson throws a softball question.
RW:You just said that violence
of this kind is inevitable if this kind of immigration continues. That’s a very
serious thing to say.
BJ:It’s something that all sorts of people have been saying for
many decades. This goes all the way back to Enoch Powell.(inaudible) We don’t
want it to happen. But we are fundamentally bringing people from parts of the
world who have a radically different perspective of how to conduct their lives
as human beings to the typical Westerner. That is inevitably going to lead to
conflict.’
Tommy Robinson's supporters outside the Old Bailey last year
The first thing a Labour Government should
do is to remove the Establishment’s control of the BBC. We need an exodus of
the Tory boys and girls – Laura Kuensberg, Andrew Neil and Andrew Marr for starters.
When was the last time the BBC employed a socialist or radical political
commentator?
Although her usual timid and
hesitant self, Chakrabartiat least raised the question on
the Andrew Marr show.Perhaps she should
find the same fire in her belly that she displayed when arguing for Ken
Livingstone’s expulsion. See
Apparently whenever Hoffman leaves his house neo-Nazis and fascists appear out of nowhere, despite his best efforts to be rid of them!
When the photo above was first put on my blog Hoffman stated it had been photoshopped - the professional photographer David Hoffman (no relation!) threatened him with a libel action and once again Hoffie apologised
As
people will know I have tried to defend Jonathan Hoffman, the former Vice-Chair
of the Zionist Federation until he was elbowed
out. Almost a decade ago I wrote to the Jewish Chronicle in his defence.
However Jonathan has always had great difficulties with the truth, or more
precisely telling the difference between fact and fiction.
The days when I had to defend Hoffman in the pages of the Jewish Chronicle!
Shaun has written a comprehensive article
on the weaponisation of anti-Semitism. I copy below the salient parts concerning
Hoffman but it is well worth reading in its entirety for its take down of Stephen
Pollard, the far-right editor of the Jewish Chronicle, David Collier and the
empty headed bucket of venom otherwise known as Rachel Riley.
David Collier (left) Hoffman and Paul Besser (right in cap) - Collier claims that any photos of him with Besser are 'accidental' but here they are demonstrating together at Palestine Expo
The article, parts of which I don’t agree with,
is heavy on content and light on comment. Shaun describes himself as a liberal
Zionist. He is no anti-Zionist although anything to the Left of Netanyahu is
likely to arouse Hoffman’s ire.
Hoffman’s complaint is that Shaun has smeared Gnasher Jew; Pollard;
Riley; Sussex Friends of Israel, Tracy Ann Oberman and even non-Jewish Zionist Emma
Picken. The Hoff is ‘proud to be in such illustrious
company.’
Collier is a far-Right Zionist who poses as an
independent researcher. He took part in a debate with Melanie Phillips and Dr
Brian, Tommy Robinson’s main supporter in Israel. In his speech,
Collier explained that there are no Palestinian refugees. He couldn’t even
bring himself to refer to them as human beings, preferring to use the pronoun
‘it’.
Clearly my numerous articles on Hoffman has
begun to grate. He writes that ‘A common accusation made against me
is that my political views are far right.’ beforereferring
to a 12
year old article when he opposed David Irving speaking at the Oxford Union.‘In
truth my record of fighting far-right racism is pretty good and goes back many
years – see
this link from 2007’. It is true, twelve years ago Hoffman opposed Irving
speaking (although he also supported banning the Jewish Norman Finkelstein.
Besser, Shitrit, Gemma Sheridan, Klaff and Hoffman - racists and Judeo-Nazis all
In 2000 Irving sued
Penguin Books because Professor Deborah Lipstadt had called him a holocaust
denier. Irving lost the case. Given that the Zionist movement today weaponises
the Holocaust in its rationale for the Israeli state it is not surprising that
as a Zionist Hoffman would oppose his visit to Oxford. That however says
nothing about his subsequent anti-fascist commitment
Jonathan Hoffman with Kevin Carroll of the EDL - remember this is a smear!
Twelve years is a long time
in politics. Hoffman complains that ‘The
most frequent smear is that I am associated with the EDL.’ It is indeed a
terrible accusation, to be associated with this organisation. The question is
whether it is true or not?
In 2010 supporters of the
Palestinians picketed an Israeli shop, Ahava, which was selling Dead Sea beauty
products in Covent Garden. After about a year the shop closed. Palestinian
supporters outnumbered the Zionists and that was why the EDL began turning up,
dressed in para military fatigues. The EDL was notorious for flying the Union
Jack alongside the Israeli flag at their demonstrations, something which Zionist
organisations turned
a blind eye to.
Hoffman claims that we have treated
him most unfairly:
at one of these
demonstrations, a photo was taken of me in the proximity of someone who had
been involved with the EDL. On the basis of this one photo I have been
repeatedly smeared as an EDL supporter/member/sympathiser.... I cannot be held responsible for who is in my proximity
on the street. If I was photographed in the same frame as Dr Harold Shipman
that does not mean I support the murder of the elderly.
And you have to agree. The fact that I may
bump into someone who turns out to be a fascist or someone with a camera
happens to catch me in the same frame as a neo-Nazi doesn’t therefore mean that
I’m a neo-Nazi. Hoffie says just because someone catches him with the late
Harold Shipman doesn’t mean that he wants to kill off the elderly.
As Hoffie so rightly says ‘Most of the people who have smeared
me have... been anonymous. An exception is Tony
Greenstein’ but
Tony Greenstein ‘now generally discredited’ and what is worse expelled from the
Labour Party so that what I have to say can be disregarded!
Not only has the discredited
Tony Greenstein smeared Hoffie but other people have smeared him suggesting ‘that I turn a blind eye to atrocities in
Judea/Samaria’. This isn’t true and Hoffman digs out a single
article condemning settler price tag attacks to prove it. Of course this is
somewhat disingenuous. Hoffman is a committed supporter of the settlements
which are established on confiscated Palestinian land. This particular arson
was condemned by the army, which protects the settlers, and the Defence
Minister Ehud Barak.
We would look in vain for
any condemnation of the demolition of Palestinian villages on the West Bank or
even the demolition of villages in the Negev to make way for Jewish towns. One
would look in vain for Hoffman’s criticism of the endemic racism against
Israeli Palestinians. It would be futile to expect Hoffman to condemn the
murder of unarmed demonstrators in Gaza this past year.
It is no accident that in
order to provide ‘proof’ that he condemns what he calls ‘atrocities’ he has to
go back a decade.
Hoffman finishes his blog by
assuring his readers that ‘This blog is published
not in my own interest – the smears are like water off a duck’s back.’
Naturally
Hoffman wasn’t concerned about the attacks and criticism of him because that is
‘water off a duck’s back’ (strangely
enough the comparison between Hoffie and a duck seems entirely appropriate!).
He is only writing it to protect the reputations of other people who have been
subject to guilt-by-association.
Clearly Shaun’s article caused Hoffman extreme distress, because the
previous week he had also devoted a blog to his criticisms.
Hoffie tries to write off Shaun’s article by stating that it is ‘a cut and paste job
from work by expelled Labour member Greenstein and others’. Would that this were true.Shaun nicely complements the stuff I have written
but there is plenty of fresh meat in what he writes (Hoffie’s graphic is a
picture of a sheep being shorn (if you get the pun!).
Firstly Hoffie accuses Shaun
of lying because he referred to the IHRA misdefinition of anti-Semitism and how
its author Kenneth Stern had backtracked and effectively lobbied Congress to
oppose it on free speech grounds. The suggestion is that Stern had limited his
criticisms to universities.Well that is
a pretty big exception but it’s not true. Nowhere does Stern suggest in his testimony
to Congress that the IHRA should be used as a blanket definition of
anti-Semitism except on university campuses.Stern made it quite clear what the reason was for drafting the IHRA:
The definition was drafted
to make it easier for data collectors to know what to put in their reports and
what to reject. It focused their attention away from the question of whether
the actor hated Jews, and focused them on whether the actor selected Jews to be
victims.
Although
I wouldn’t expect Hoffman to understand the difference between intent and motivation
(i.e. it was enough that Jews were singled out a Jews). Stern made it clear
that
‘Because the definition was
drafted with data collectors utmost in mind, it also gave examples of
information to include regarding Israel.’
In
other words if Jews were attacked because of the actions of Israel then that is
anti-Semitic. I agree.
Stern
went on to give examples of how ‘Congress
has enshrined a definition that can only help to chill, if not suppress, their
political speech’’and he gave some examples in Britain:
An “Israel Apartheid Week” event was cancelled as
violating the definition. A
Holocaust survivor was required to change the title of a campus talk, and the
university mandated it be recorded, after an Israeli diplomat complained that
the title violated the definition. Perhaps most egregious, an off-campus group citing the
definition called on a university to conduct an inquiry of a professor (who
received her PhD from Columbia) for antisemitism, based on an article she had
written years before.The university then conducted the inquiry. And while it ultimately found no
basis to discipline the professor, the exercise itself was chilling and
McCarthy-like.
The
reference to an ‘off campus group’ is
to the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism.
Hoffman’ssecond gripe is that another of Shaun’s
whoppers is the assertion
that a Jewish Policy Research Report in 2017 found more antisemitism on the
right than on the left. I blogged about the flawed
methodology of this study.
As
a matter of logic, if the JPR Report found that there was more anti-Semitism on
the Right than Left, then it stands to reason, that if there is a whopper it is
not Shaun’s, since he is simply reporting what they say, but that of the JPR!
As to whether Hoffman is a better judge of how to conduct a survey than the JPR
I will leave to others.
Hoffie
then complains that ‘The third whopper’
is the assertion that Netanyahu blamed the Holocaust on the Mufti. We are told
that
‘Within
a few days Bibi clarified his earlier
remarks.’ However Netanyahu’s
comments were quite clear, even if he was forced to ‘clarify’ them a few days
later.
What Netanyahu said, to the 2015
World Zionist Congress, was indeed ‘quite
clear.’
Hitler didn’t want to
exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jews. And Haj Amin
al-Husseini went to Hitler and said, “If
you expel them, they’ll all come here.” “So what should I do with them?” he
asked. He said, “Burn them.”
This caused an outrage because it
quite clearly did absolve Hitler and put the blame for the Final Solution on
the Mufti of Jerusalem. Historically it was nonsense as I showed in an article
I wrote.
The ‘fourth whopper is the assertion that Israel’s Nation
State law is ‘openly racist’’. I think that has now been
dispelled by Netanyahu’s statement
last weekend that Israel is a state ‘only
of the Jewish people.’ Or maybe Hoffie doesn’t consider that racist?!
Hoffman
returns to ‘that photo of me in the
street in the proximity of the alleged EDL activist was dismissed as
meaninglessmore than eight years ago,
here.’
Where is here? Why the far-Right, cold war, anti-communist conspiratorial
Harry’s Place! Not convincing proof!
And
the final section of Hoffie’s blog is dedicated to Hajo Meyer, the anti-Zionist
Auschwitz survivor. Apparently Hajo ‘was
a despicable anti-Semite’.Why?Well here you get the full measure of the
bankruptcy of Hoffman’s intellect.
You
might think that Hajo had said it was a pity Hitler hadn’t finished the job. Or
that Jews are naturally money grubbing parasites who are racially inferior. No
there is a series of political comments such as:
Judaism and Zionism are completely different.
Israel causes antisemitism and without antisemitism Zionism is nowhere
Israel looks like Germany in 1933
Zionism is the antipode of Judaism
Political Zionism is xenophobic, nationalist, colonialist and racist
Balfour didn’t want to see the refugees from Kishinev pogroms coming
past his window – one of the great antisemites was Lord Balfour
Judaism has been substituted by the Holocaust Religion
Colonialism is one of the main tenets of Zionism,
they call the Palestinians ‘cockroaches’.
Each
of these could be quite simply proven. For example Balfour didn’t want the
Jewish refugees from the 1903 Kishinev pogrom to come to Britain. That is a
fact. He was an anti-Semite, fact.
In 1905 he introduced as Prime Minister the Aliens Act which was aimed at
preventing Jewish immigration from Czarist Russia. Only in Hoffie’s fetid mind
can that not be anti-Semitic.
The
statement that Judaism and Zionism are different is a position held by most of
the Orthodox, in particular the Haredi.Even
were that statement wrong it isn’t anti-Semitic.
Jonathan Hoffman protesting against Palestine Expo 2017 with Paul Besser of Britain First (with Gemma Sheridan of the JDL in between). Wherever Hoffie goes fascists seem to want to be seen in his company!
However
I wanted to take up Hoffman’s central defence. He was caught by accident next
to fascists. This simply does not hold water.
i.Hoffie was dancing
down the street with Roberta Moore of the Jewish Defence League. In the
background can quite clearly be seen the EDL in paramilitary fatigues.
Roberta Moore with her (non-Jewish) thug of a boyfriend Robert de Jonge
ii.Hoffman has repeatedly
been photographed in the company of Paul Besser of Britain First and other
supporters of Tommy Robinson.
iii.He was photographed consulting with Kevin Carroll of
the EDL.
iv.He is in the same Facebook group as Besser and
regularly works with him as he does with other Zionist supporters of Tommy
Robinson.
Hoffman’s argument re the
Ahava demonstrations is that the Police refused to create a separate pen for
the Zionists and the EDL. He states that
‘Nine years ago, anti-Israel
campaigners repeatedly picketed an Israeli-owned shop in London. I led the
counter-demonstrations, and requested that the police separate us from any EDL
supporters as I did not wish to be associated with them (see
here).’
The link that Hoffie directs
us to is an article
on Harry’s Place. In it there is an email from Inspector Martin Edwards to Hoffie
explaining that he could not have a separate pen from the EDL. The only problem
is that this email is dated 25th October 2010 whereas the photo of
Hoffman in the company of fascists, which he originally described as ‘photoshopped’ is dated 14th
August 2010. In other words over 2 months before. For over 2 months Hoffman had
no qualms about demonstrating with the EDL and it was only because we pointed out
his relationship with the fascists that eventually Hoffie was forced to
approach the Police.
But in any case this is
completely irrelevant. Anti-Zionists have never
demonstrated alongside fascists and anti-Semites. We simply would not have
tolerated them and on the few occasions when, in the 1980’s members of the
National Front attempted to join Palestinian demonstrations we physically
stopped them.
If the EDL had attempted to
join our picket there would have been blood on the pavement. The Police would
have had to separate us yet Hoffman was perfectly happy to demonstrate
alongside fascists and anti-Semites because to him the most important thing is
supporting Israel. We would never have demonstrated with fascists. The thought
never occurred to the Zionists and Hoffman.
Even Dan Sheldon of the
Union of Jewish Students, in a debate
with Hoffman echoed this, to Hoffman’s chagrin: He said of Hoffman that
‘this is a man who’s happy to demonstrate side
by side with members of the EDL Jewish Division. He lied about that one. He
said that a picture of him with the EDL was photoshopped but after a legal intervention
he was forced to admit the photo was completely genuine. Now anti-Zionists
rejoice when Jonathan goes on a demo.They know he’ll scream and shout...
One final point. Hoffman is,
like many Zionists, prepared to go that extra mile to exonerate genuine anti-Semites
as long as they are pro-Israel. For example Pollard did this when he wrote in 2009 about
the leader of Poland’s Law & Justice Party, Michal Kaminski that Poland's
Kaminski is not an antisemite: he's a friend to Jews. He stated that ‘Kaminski is – as his record in Brussels shows clearly – one of the
greatest friends to the Jews in a town where antisemitism and a visceral
loathing of Israel are rife.’ Support for Israel negated the fact that Kaminski
had been a neo-Nazi and had whitewashed the 1941 murder of up to 1600 Jews in
Jedwabne by their fellow Polish citizens.
As Jonathan Freedland wrote:
‘Once
no self-respecting politician would have gone near people such as Kaminski’.
Hoffman does the same. When Sunday Times journalist Kevin Myers was
excoriated for an anti-Semitic article
he wrote about equal pay (he opposed it!) and wrote concerning two female Jewish
broadcasters, Vanessa Feltz and Claudia Winkleman:
‘“Good for them. Jews are not
generally noted for their insistence on selling their talent for the lowest
possible price, which is the most useful measure there is of inveterate,
lost-with-all-hands stupidity.”
there was a consensus view that
what Myers wrote was anti-Semitic. Even the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism condemned
him. Indeed Myers had also flirted
with Holocaust denial claiming that the Holocaust had become a ‘dogma’. There was just one person who
exonerated him of anti-Semitism – Jonathan Hoffman in his blog Is Kevin
Myers really an anti-Semite? Why? Because
Myers is avidly pro-Zionist as well as being a racist (one of his sayings was
that the only thing Africa had given to the world was Aids). For an excellent
deconstruction of Hoffman’s nonsense see Sharajsha’s A Response
to Jonathan Hoffman’s Defence of Kevin Myers
Below
are articles I have published on my blog about Hoffman’s fondness for working
with fascists
Probably Collier’s most notorious friend is one Jonathan Hoffman,
ultra-Zionist extraordinaire. Hoffman’s speciality is intimidating
pro-Palestinian activists; even Holocaust survivors.
You will, I’m sure, recall the furore surrounding both Corbyn’s
co-hosting of a meeting in Parliament on Holocaust Memorial Day 2010, entitled
‘Never Again — For Anyone’; and his referral to certain Zionists as “not understand[ing] English irony”. There is a direct link
between the two. At the former, the late Holocaust survivor, Hajo Meyer,
appeared to liken the Israeli government’s treatment of the Palestinians to the
Nazis’ treatment of the Jews. Not, please note, in the death camps — which
would be absurd and grotesquely offensive — but during the 1930s.
Controversial, certainly; hurtful to many, I’ve no doubt. But while it’s
not something I agree with, it’s also not an analogy entirely without merit,
given the open air prison camp, some of the worst conditions on the planet, in
which the Palestinian people are held stateless, helpless, voiceless; killed,
maimed, tortured and brutalised, while the rest of the world does nothing.
Hoffman was among a tiny group of ultra-Zionist hecklers who turned the
event into a fiasco. Whenever any other genocide victim tried to speak
of their experiences, the hecklers bellowed “Boring!” One heckler made a Nazi salute and shouted “Sieg Heil!” at Meyer, a Holocaust survivor. Hoffman
continued to disparage Meyer as “the amazing dancing bear” until his death in 2014. After all, what’s
one heroic survivor’s immense suffering and unimaginable experiences when set
against another man’s bigotry and hate?
Predictably enough, none of this background was mentioned when the media
went to town on Corbyn back in the summer. Yet it is precisely these thugs to
whom Corbyn was referring in his ‘English irony’ comment. He’s a long-suffering
veteran of how they behave. ‘Zionists’ meant only these few individuals.
So when the media went ballistic and demanded answers from Corbyn, they
took the side, unwittingly or otherwise, of fascists and hooligans against a
deceased Holocaust survivor. That is how far through the looking glass we now
are; and all those who did so, including a vast array of journalists who hail
themselves as voices of reason, should be ashamed.
Both Collier and Hoffman hold a veritable smorgasbord of ridiculous,
offensive, racist opinions. At a discussion where he sat alongside Melanie Phillips in 2016,
Collier declared that “the Palestinian refugee was forged as a weapon. It was
created as an artificial entity”. Note here how in Collier’s language,
Palestinian refugees are dehumanised as ‘it’. His views would certainly be news to
the more than five million displaced Palestinians worldwide.
He also routinely conflates antisemitism with anti-Zionism, seeking to
render them indistinguishable:
Hoffman does precisely the
same. He doesn’t even accept the Palestinian people, as we understand the
term now, existed before Israel’s creation; but whereas Collier does at least
engage in calm, cordial discussion, Hoffman is simply unhinged.
He even has a history of attacking his fellow Jews for… well, who knows
what? On his JC blog, Hoffman made the following hilariously stupid demand:
“To the
Jewish Israel bashers:
Please
confirm the following:
1.Examples
of active participation in synagogue services over the last six months
2. The number of mezuzot in your home
3. Fluency in reading/speaking Hebrew
4. Participation in rabbinical shiurim in the past six months
5. Positions held within the Jewish community
6. Extent of kashrut observance
7. Examples of active support for Israel in past six months
8. Frequency of synagogue attendance”.
That Hoffman had, it was helpfully pointed out, been posting on his blog on Shabbat (!) was,
presumably, why he took this gibberish down.
Both Collier and Hoffman are, in different ways, utterly ridiculous
figures who, in any sane universe, would be ignored. As British politics are
about as far removed from sane as it’s possible to conceive of, they’re not;
especially not in Collier (or is it Gnasher?)’s case.
Both individuals are part of something I’ve noted with growing alarm in
recent years. Paralleling what’s happened to the Israeli left over the past
couple of decades, there is an ongoing effort to silence liberal Jews like
myself and countless others. To make us seem like ‘self-hating Jews’; or worse,
apologists for antisemitism, despite having fought it all our lives.
In that sense, a rather brilliant trap has been laid for the Labour
Party. The media smears Corbyn and his supporters as ‘anti-Semites’. It doesn’t
matter if it doesn’t provide proper evidence; only the smear counts. Because it
means that if anyone challenges it — if anyone calls out the idea of ‘endemic
antisemitism on the left’ as the offensive nonsense, disproved by research, it undoubtedly is — they will be denounced as
either enabling antisemitism or an anti-Semite themselves.
Sadly, using antisemitism as a trap is nothing new. As the late former
Israeli Education Minister, Shulamit Aloni, who would undoubtedly be condemned
as an anti-Semite under the IHRA examples, courageously acknowledged in 2002.
When Holocaust survivors like Meyer are smeared; when the media ignores
antisemitism on the right, sensationalises any it might find or, more often,
allege on the left (instead of reporting both soberly and with equal
importance), and when racists such as Collier or GnasherJew become ‘respected
voices’, we can say with confidence that something none too dissimilar is going
on in the UK now. And when the most prominent newspaper of the British Jewish
community, the JC, should be doing its utmost to bring people together, it fans
the flames instead.
....
Between them, Collier, Hoffman, Pollard and others are all playing the
same cynical beyond belief game. And so, for that matter, is someone else.
...
Is the problem antisemitism? Or anti-Zionism?
There is, though, one thing I want to re-emphasise. When I state, with
categorical conviction (and, I would argue, proof) that the question of
antisemitism on the left has been blown up out of all proportion, I am
certainly not saying it doesn’t exist. When I state, with equal conviction,
that many of those cited as proof of the extent of the problem were either
bots, or internet troublemakers and trolls with precisely nothing to do with
either Corbyn or the Labour Party, I am not saying that antisemitism in Labour
doesn’t exist. There have been a few hundred cases in a membership of about
550,000: less than 0.1%. Those cases must be dealt with through speed and
urgency.
A personal view is there’s been a tendency to overlook antisemitism from
all sections of society at times because, for want of a better phrase, most of
us Jews ‘blend in’. The problem is how so many of us, unconsciously or
otherwise, feel we have to. The difference in how members of the public
might respond to liberal Jews like me going about our daily business, compared
with orthodox Jews who identify themselves as Jewish through their clothing,
must surely be significant. If so, that is awful, and something for everyone to
reflect on.
And while there isn’t, contrary to popular belief, a serious problem
with antisemitism on the left, it is certainly the case that anti-Zionism is
infinitely more prevalent than on the right. Which is precisely why Labour
focus on it in their Code of Conduct; but also, unhappily, why the likes of
Collier, Hoffman or Bennun seek to conflate it with antisemitism. Without
question, the language used against Israel is frequently far too strong; and
the entire Israeli people being held responsible for the actions of their
wretched government also occurs too often, and is quite outrageous. When Jews,
whether in Israel, Britain or anywhere else, are too… well, that is
antisemitism, plain and simple.
