More Fake Anti-Semitism as MPs stage ‘debate’

Once again no evidence of anti-Semitism is provided as Barry Gardiner makes a humiliating and grovelling apology to the Apartheid State's apologists

In the Commons today there was a debate on Anti-Semitism in Modern Society. All the main culprits spoke. The Tories facilitated the debate because ‘anti-Semitism’ is a useful weapon in their attempts to destroy the Corbyn leadership. Labour MPs, including the new ‘Independent’ Group, queued up to lend their support.  

Barry Gardiner - Racist Supporter of Labour Friends of Israel 

Barry Gardiner made a grovelling and humiliating apology for an anti-Semitism that simply doesn’t exist.  It is a fiction, dreamt up by supporters of Israel. What is interesting is that Gardiner just happens to be a supproter of Labour Friends of Israel. In other words he supports the racist ‘Jewish’ state that allows Arabs to be sacked for not being Jews.  This is the vile racism that bigots like Gardiner are willing to cover for. Imagine if, in Britain, Jews were sacked for being Jewish.  Now that would be anti-Semitic.

When the IHRA was adopted last September, thanks to Jon Lansman and Momentum nationally, it was said that this would put the anti-Semitism smears to bed.  Labour Against the Witchhunt argued that the opposite would happen and once again we have been proved to be correct. 

In the debate there were no specific allegations made about this all-embracing anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. It was merely accepted as a self-evident truth.  That however didn’t stop Joan Ryan, Ruth Smeeth, John Mann et al from waxing lyrical on how emotionally draining this all was.

Councillor Anne Meadows - Labour turned Tory - sacked because she was lazy and useless

Of interest to those in Brighton and Hove is the statement of Lewes MP Maria Caulfield who asked:

Will the Prime Minister join me welcoming Councillor Anne Meadows, who has today left the Labour party in Brighton and Hove City Council, crossing the floor to join the Conservatives, who are now the largest group on the council? Councillor Meadows left the Labour party because of the rise of antisemitism and bullying that she and her colleagues have experienced from Momentum activists—so much so that only seven of the 23 councillors will be standing again in May. Does the Prime Minister agree that antisemitism is rife throughout the whole Labour party?

Ms Meadows was deselected as a Councillor for Moulsecoomb because she was useless and lazy. She has crossed the floor and the Tories may end up running the Council.  That is called democracy.

The fact that Meadows joined the Tories demonstrates how right we were to deselect her

Matthew Offord – racist MP for Hendon

Matthew Offord, an otherwise undistinguished bigot and MP for Hendon let the cat out of the bag when stated that:

The antisemitism of recent years has taken the form of criticism of Zionism and of the actions and policies of the Government of Israel, which has often manifested itself in direct action, such as the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. However, the new line of attack is different from traditional antisemitism, meaning the hatred of Jews, claims that Jews are inferior to others or a belief in a worldwide Jewish conspiracy or the Jewish control of capitalism. The new antisemitism differs in the political voices from which it comes. Previously antisemitism was perceived as coming from the political right, but the new antisemites are primarily on the left and, indeed, the far left.

This is the big lie that the mass media, from the Guardian to the Sun espouses.  Anti-Zionism is the new form of anti-Semitism.  If you criticise the Israeli state, not just the government but the racist state itself, then you are anti-Semitic. Let us examine this with the following story from this week’s news.

In The Times of Israel last Saturday there was a story Settlement fires school’s Israeli Arab cleaning staff after threats from parents. The parents of the children in a school objected to the Israeli Palestinian workers who were the cleaners. These workers are Israeli citizens. The Times of Israel reported that ‘Parents in the settlement of Karnei Shomron appealed last week to the head of the local council, Yigal Lahav, and threatened to shutter the school until all Arab cleaners were removed.’  One parent wrote:

Karnei Shomrin settlement in the West Bank

‘“Yes, we are racists. The lives of our children come first, we are racists and we love the Jewish race.”

Imagine that Jewish workers in Britain were sacked because they were Jewish by those proclaiming they loved the Christian Anglo-Saxon race?  Now that would be anti-Semitic.

This is the situation in Israel. Naked Jewish racial supremacy that MPs Gardiner, Offord, Hodge, Berger and Smeeth defend calling criticism ‘anti-Semitism’. What happened in Karnei Shomron is not unique. 

More Israeli Jews support the deportation of Israel’s Arab citizens than oppose it and 79% believe Jews should be treated preferentially.  That is what a Jewish state really means.

And this is what the debate was about.  It is unfortunate that Jeremy Corbyn and the ‘left-wing’ of the PLP are too politically feeble and spineless to stand up and point out to those who argue that anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are one and the same that they are supporting the parents of Karnei Shomron. Opposition to Zionism is not equivalent to anti-Semitism.  It is Zionism, with its belief in the superiority of the ‘Jewish race’ which owes most to anti-Semitism.

The local council of this settlement, which was reluctant to dispense with the Arab cleaners (no doubt because they are vastly underpaid and overworked) stated that:

‘“The atmosphere in the community led to inappropriate behavior toward the cleaning women, and even harassment and threats to some members of the parents’ committee,” 

This included threats from their Nazi like children to the cleaners, because yes this behaviour is Nazi like. Yet this is the kind of behaviour that the Jewish Nation State Law passed last summer gives a green light to.

And what were the anti-Semitic statements that the Blessed Margaret Hodge highlighted, the only examples given in the whole of the debate?

1.    “He needs to check out the love fest between the Zionists and the Nazis.’ Whether this is right or wrong it isn’t anti-Semitic. As the incident in Karnei Shomron demonstrates there is a close affinity between Nazi and Zionist belief in racial superiority.

2.    ‘People are finding out how much power Jews have. They seem to have a lot of power over the main opposition party. Might they rebel if…the reason they didn’t get a job or a home was because a Jew got it.’

Yes this is anti-Semitic though we don’t know if it was a Labour Party member who said this. However Zionism speaks in the name of Jews and unfortunately some people draw the wrong conclusion that the Zionists speak the truth when they boast of their influence.

3.    ‘You are paid by Israel to destabilise UK Labour.’ Joan Ryan demonstrated this when she was gifted a £1 million slush fund, as captured on the Al Jazeera film The Lobby. There is no doubt that some MPs are in receipt of funding from the Israel lobby.  Did Joan Ryan declare the £1m?

4.    ‘A Zionist plot to oust Jeremy Corbyn.’ How is this anti-Semitic? Zionist organisations have done little else than attack Corbyn for the past 3 years.

5.    ‘A swastika is appropriate as Israel is a fascist state.” It may not be strictly true that Israel is a fascist state but saying that the Swastika is appropriate for a state based on racial supremacy is not anti-Semitic.

So out of 5 statements, just one is anti-Semitic.  Par for the course and let us not forget that the first statement is just that, a form of words that harms no one whereas sacking low paid cleaners because they are Arabs and physically harassing them is far far worse but that is what Offord, Berger, Smeeth and Mann devote their political lives to supporting.

Tony Greenstein

Joan Ryan Resigns from Labour – Xmas Comes Early for Corbyn

Goodbye to a Symbol of Parliamentary Corruption – Say Hello to the New Politics

Yesterday I put Joan Ryan at the top of my list of MPs who I hoped would join their fellow rats. Today she has done more in one day than she has done in the rest of her miserable, soon to be terminated, parliamentary career.

However it would be wrong and churlish of me not to look back at some of the highlights of Ms Ryan’s career.  But before I do, it is well to remember that she is the Chair of Labour Friends of Apartheid I mean Israel. There is no act of savagery or barbarity that Ryan couldn’t be counted on to support.  It is with a great sense of relief that we can look forward to this corrupt and obnoxious woman soon having to seek gainful employment.

Expenses Scandal

Joan Ryan is part of the Progress faction.  She was an MP until 2010 when she was defeated at the General Election.  Unfortunately she came back in 2015 Her entry in Wikipedia is extremely revealing.

The Evening Standard reported that in 2005/6 she made the second highest expense claim of any MP.  In 2006/7 she did even better, achieving first place with a total of £173, 691.

Ryan was by all accounts delighted to have won the coveted ‘Snout in the Trough Award of the Year.’ It was no wonder that her electors rejected her in 2010. Unfortunately her CLP was stupid enough to allow her back in 2015.

In May 2009 Ryan claimed more than £4,500 under the Additional Costs Allowance for work on a house she had designated as her second home.[Telegraph 17.5.09.] In February 2010 Ryan was asked to repay £5,121 mortgage interest which she had corruptly claimed.  [Evening Standard 4.2.10.]

Not surprisingly Ryan found her greed somewhat embarrassing and unhelpful when she was trying to get back into Parliament. The Independent of 9th March 2012 reported that:

"[a]t least 10 attempts have been made from computers in Parliament to remove information about [Ryan's] expenses claims and a further 20 efforts to delete the information, some from her constituency of Enfield North, have also been recorded in Wikipedia's logs."

The Telegraph reported that:

The entire section about expenses on Joan Ryan’s page was deleted. Ms Ryan spent thousands on repairs and decorations at her Enfield home before ‘flipping’ it to another property.

Ryan’s Wikipedia entry reports that to this present day ‘similar edits to hide Ryan's record continue to be made.' [Telegraph 26.5.15]

The efforts were successful and all mention of expenses claims were removed and instead replaced with a paragraph about edits to Wikipedia.

During the 2015 general election, The Daily Telegraph returned to this issue. In Ryan's case, the entire expenses section was deleted, including information on repairs and decorations on her home paid for out of her MP's expenses; the edits were made while Ryan was not an MP, and according to the Telegraph she denied involvement, though it’s difficult to think who, apart from her Zionist friends, would be interested in cleaning up her record.

Joan Ryan is a devoted servant of the Israeli state.

Not Israel whose troops opened fire but those who were killed ('Hamas') 'must accept responsibility'

Last summer Israel began firing on unarmed demonstrators in Gaza, the worlds largest open air prison, who were part of the Great Return march.  The demonstrators were entirely peaceful and were deliberately mowed down.  Over 300 have been murdered and thousands have been injured by explosive bullets designed to cause maximum casualties.

This despicable woman is still Chair of Labour Friends of Israel which put out a tweet supporting Israel’s callous murderers.  And when that was greeted by a storm of protest, they substituted an almost equally offensive tweet.  Why?  Because LFI are just a front group for the Israeli Embassy.

Ryan is, by any measure, one of the most self-seeking and greedy MPs. However this all pales into comparison compared to the £1 million slush fund that the Israeli Embassy agent Shai Masot arranged to be paid for her and which was captured in the Al Jazeera programme

The Lobby.

Ryan was also caught on camera making a false allegation of anti-Semitism against a Labour Party member, Jean Fitzpatrick, at the 2016 Labour Party Conference.

 When put under pressure to explain exactly what Labour Friends of Israel were doing to achieve their supposed objective of a 2 state solution Ryan preferred to concoct an allegation of anti-Semitism.

In August 2016 Richard Burgon MP, the Shadow Justice Minister, described Zionism as an enemy of peace. Ryan leapt into action to defend the world’s only apartheid state. In response I penned an Open Letter.

When Kate Osamor MP, who is both a member of the Shadow Cabinet and a member of Labour’s National Executive Committee tweeted her support for the campaign for Boycott Divestment and Sanctions Ryan once again issued an Open Letter.

We should bring out the champagne and drink a toast at the departure of Joan Ryan and let us hope that Ian Austen and Tom Watson also do the decent thing by the time the night is out.

Tony Greenstein

Chuka Ummuna’s 7 Dwarfs Represent a Cancer That Must be Cut Out

Luciana Berger’s Resignation Proves that Wavertree CLP Was Right – Tom Watson Must Go For His Attack on Ordinary Members

We should welcome the fact that Seven Political Pygmies have resigned from the Labour Party.  They will not be missed and hopefully they will not be the last. Their concern about anti-Semitism was demonstrated to be the hypocritical cant it is by the performance of one particularly obnoxious member of the group – pro-privatisation Angela Smith – who spoke about Black people having a ‘funny tinge’.

No one should be surprised. I have been criticised by a few people for calling Chuka Ummuna an Uncle Tom. Some people have even suggested that it is racist.  The dictionary definition is ‘A black person who is overeager to win the approval of whites (as by obsequious behavior or uncritical acceptance of white values and goals) or ‘a person who is overly subservient to or cooperative with authority.’

It is difficult to think of a more apt description of the lugubrious Chuka. Far from being racist, it is a term used by Black anti-racists for collaborators within their own ranks. Chuka Ummuna’s concern about ‘anti-Semitism’ is in marked contrast to his attitude to racism against Black people.  In the Independent last year he wrote:

We can’t attack the racism that may lie behind the Tories’ mistreatment of the Windrush generation when we don’t get our own house in order on hate (my emphasis)

Windrush and ‘hostile environment’ was the quintessential example of British racism – the deportation of Black British citizens happened because and only because they were Black but to Chuka the Tories may be guilty of racism. Chuka and the rest of the 7 abstained (i.e. supported) Theresa May’s 2014 Immigration Act which led directly to the Windrush scandal. The idea that this gaggle of misfits are anti-racist is for the birds.

But we should also be clear that this resignation is, if handled correctly, likely to fizzle out. For one thing the 7 individuals are nonentities without exception. Bill Rodgers, one of the remaining members of the SDP Gang of 4 may have come out in support of the 7 political midgets but that is where the resemblance ends. The resignation of the Gang of 4 in 1981 represented a significant section of the Labour Party.  David Owen was a former Foreign Secretary, Roy Jenkins was a former Deputy Leader and Home Secretary, Shirley Williams was a former Education Minister.  The current crop represent nothing.  They entirely lack any gravitas or base.  

Their most prominent member, Chuka Ummuna was caught out in 2013 on an elite social networking club ASmallWorld complaining that

‘Most of the West End haunts seem to be full of trash and C-list wannabes, while other places that should know better opt for the cheesy vibe. The millionaire former lawyer then called for recommendations for "a trash-free, decent night".

This antisemitic cartoon attacking George Soros was created by Yair Netanyahu

Trash is an apt description, not only for Chuka Ummuna but the whole group. They represent the interests of capital within Labour. It can do nothing but good that these vipers have voluntarily quit. However for every snake that left, there are plenty that remain – Joan Ryan, Ian Austin, Wes Streeting, Margaret Hodge, Ruth Smeeth, Peter Kyle, Gareth Snell, John Mann, Keith Starmer, Hilary Benn – the list is almost endless.

We should consider the 7 Dwarfs as merely a down payment. There are plenty more who will do their utmost to sabotage Labour’s chances at the General Election unless they are removed now.

However Corbyn and his advisers, Seamus Milne in particular, bear a lot of the blame. They have allowed the anti-Semitism smear campaign and the nonsense that the Labour Party is an institutionally anti-Semitic party to take hold.

Their continued silence as these attacks mount is demoralising and counter-productive.  The campaign won’t go away.  Those who thought by adopting the IHRA that they had bought peace were, as we said, mistaken. The purpose of the anti-Semitism smears is the removal of Corbyn and it is only his own sullen stupidity that fails to recognise what it is really about.

It isn’t too late, even now, to take this bull by the horns and say loud and clear that the Labour Party is not overrun by anti-Semitism and that the idea that Labour is institutionally anti-Semitic is an utter nonsense, nothing more than a crude attempt by racists to acts as parasites on the recommendations of the MacPherson Inquiry. It is about Israel, opposition to Zionism as the insistence by Zionist groups on the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism proves.

Anti-Semitism in Britain is not institutionalised.  There is no Jewish equivalent to Windrush, young Jews are not languishing in gaols, Jews are not the victims of police violence, stop and search or threats of deportation.  Jews are not economically discriminated against. Anti-Semitism in Britain is a marginal prejudice and the most prejudiced are Tory papers who featured Ed Miliband, the Jewish leader of the Labour Party’s inability to eat a bacon sandwich or who indulge in anti-Semitic attacks on George Soros.

Anti-Semitism has been weaponised internationally.  Those who are observant will have noticed that Trump devoted 17 minutes of his State of the Union address to demonising refugees as criminal and drug dealers and yet, he also condemned anti-Semitism despite being an anti-Semite.  For example Trump’s final campaign ad flashed images of three prominent Jewish financial figures: Lloyd Bankfein, Janet Yellen and George Soros accompanied by allusions to those pulling the levers of financial power.

Why else have the Tories and the Tory press embraced the ‘anti-Semitism’ narrative? If anti-Semitism was really a strong force would the Daily Mail and Sun really oppose it?  Why would papers that employed Katie Hopkins whose views on refugees were that they were vermin suddenly take umbrage about anti-Semitism?

The real disappointment about the resignation of Chuka Ummuna, Luciana Berger et al is that so few have gone. If Corbyn had not been such an idiot and believed that he could appease the majority of the PLP he would have embraced Open Selection at the last Labour Party conference.  As it is flocks of the rats are still in the PLP. Unfortunately Corbyn bottled it and Len McLuskey betrayed his union mandate to oppose Open Selection.

However there is one villain who is still trying to make capital out of what has happened.  Tom Watson it was who wanted Wavertree Labour Party to be suspended because Luciana Berger was the subject of a no-confidence motion. Those who had no confidence in her have been utterly vindicated.  Tom Watson, who has every quality of a dog except loyalty, should be given the boot.  There is a pressing need for Corbyn to have a loyal Deputy and for someone from the Left, like Clive Lewis, Richard Burgon or the excellent Chris Williamson from standing for Deputy Leader at the next Labour Party conference.  Watson pledged loyalty to Corbyn when he was elected. He has demonstrated that he has all the grace of a viper.

Events are proving that Corbyn’s strategy of appeasing the Right is disintegrating.  The Blairite Right were never appeasable because they are loyal to capitalism and the British state’s alliance with the United States. That is what the opposition to ‘anti-Semitism’ means.  It is about Israel and British support for the United States’s rabid guard dog in the Middle East.  It is about support for the world’s only apartheid state and NATO. 

At this very moment Israel is holding a general election.  Over 5 million Palestinians, who have lived under occupation for over half a century will have no vote.  They live under a police state, subject to a different legal regime, military law, from Jewish settlers who occupy the same area.  How can anyone pretend that such a situation is not apartheid? And the situation in Israel pre-1948 is little better for the Palestinians, many of whom have been deprived of the vote.

The idea that this crisis is about ‘anti-Semitism’ is demonstrable nonsense. The Tory Party is in alliance with genuinely anti-Semitic parties, the Swedish Democrats, Poland’s Law and Justice Party and Latvia’s Fatherland and Freedom Party in the European Parliament. Yet we hear not a bleat about this and it is testimony to the uselessness of Seamus Milne and Corbyn’s advisers that they say absolutely nothing about this just as they never sought to challenge the false anti-Semitism campaign.  Instead they allow this nonsense to wash over them and flattered the Zionist leaders of Britain’s Jewish community rather than calling them out for the reactionaries they are.

It also has to be said that Corbyn has not exactly triumphed over Brexit.  It should be clear that Brexit is welcomed, above all, by the far-Right in Europe and the United States.  It is a project of neo-fascists, nationalists and chauvinists including of course Trump and the alt-Right.  Rather than ‘respect’ the referendum Labour should be committed to overturning it with a new referendum.  This would have the added advantage of removing one prop of Chuka and friends. No one voted to make themselves poorer but that will be and already is the result of Brexit.  Instead of Diane Abbott mouthing nonsense about respecting the referendum vote Labour should be talking about reversing the decision to leave the EU.

All in all unless Corbyn rises to the challenge and gives a firm indication that he is capable, in Lord Salisbury’s words, of the ‘smack of firm government’ his time as leader is limited. There is no message coming out from the Leader of the Labour Party. Corbyn needs to go on the offensive and bury the false ‘anti-Semitism’ narrative and put forward now a bold programme on housing, nationalisation and Europe. Otherwise Theresa May will succeed if only because of Corbyn’s lethargy and inactivity.  Above all he should stop apologising for what he hasn’t done.

Meanwhile we should encourage more right-wingers to resign and thus ensure that we get deselection by default.  One good piece of news is that the poisonous Campaigns Officer of the Jewish Labour Movement Adam Langleben has resigned. Clearly every cloud has a silver lining.

Tony Greenstein

Why is Stand Up To Racism and the SWP Welcoming Racist Zionist Groups onto an anti-racist march?

A simple message to the SWP/SUTR You cannot Oppose Racism & Allow Racists on an anti-Racist march

Update - Scottish Muslim Council for Britain has decided to Boycott the SUTR March

You couldn't make it up. The Socialist Workers Party and their SUTR front group are holding a march against racism and they are allowing overtly racist groups, Glasgow Friends of Israel and Confederation of Friends of Israel Scotland to participate.

40 years ago when the neo-Nazi National Front was kicking its way into the headlines and threatening to become Britain’s fourth major party, the Anti-Nazi League and the anti-fascist movement invited Jewish organisations which were also Zionists, to work with them. They refused and the Board of Deputies of British Jews and their allies launched a vicious attack on the ANL alleging it that it was more dangerous than the fascists.

I described what happened in Return No. 5, December 1990, in REDEFINING ANTI-SEMITISM - The False Anti-Racism of the Right,

          ‘the anti-Zionism of the SWP and Peter Hain, who formed part of the leadership of the Anti-Nazi League was treated as more important than the growth of a fascist party. Zionists who did participate, like Miriam Karlin, faced extreme hostility: "I'm branded a leftist extremist for being on the steering committee of the ANL, which seems to be the only group standing up against racism.. It really hurts when people I thought knew better accuse me of disloyalty. '  [Jewish Chronicle 14.8.81.] 

      When the ANL was formed, almost immediately a right-wing Zionist Labour MP, Maurice Orbach withdrew as a sponsor. Orbach "felt that the appointment of Mr Peter Hain as Press Officer of the League was questionable in view of Mr Hain's known support for the Palestinians and anti-Zionist causes. " [JC 18.11.77.] And in reply to a letter from Hain, the SWP's Paul Holborow and Neil Kinnock MP (!) argued for the overriding importance of anti-fascist unity, [JC 25.11.77.]  Orbach wrote that "/ still believe that the blackest day since Hitler was the appearance at the UN of Yassir Arafat. " [JC 2.12.77.]  Searchlight anti-fascist magazine, observed that "In the face of mounting attacks against the Jewish community both ideologically and physically, we have the amazing sight of the Jewish Board of Deputies launching an attack on the Anti Nazi League with all the fervour of Kamikaze pilots... It was as though they were watching a time capsule rerun of the 1930's, in the form of a flickering old movie, with a grim determination to repeat every mistake of that era. " Searchlight 41, November 1978.

The racists of GFoI, fresh from working with open holocaust deniers and fascists are 'looking forward' to working with SUTR - you couldn't make it up

The disgrace of SUTR and SWP that open racists boast that it 'was nice to chat'

     Searchlight, then edited by Maurice Ludmer and the widely accepted journal of the anti-fascist movement, attacked the Board of Deputies in no uncertain terms.  Unfortunately Ludmer died prematurely and it was taken over by Gerry Gable, an overt Zionist.

in the film above NW Friends of Israel openly works with the fascist English Defence League when Palestinian supporters picketed the Israeli Kedem shop

Today however the situation is entirely different. The Zionist movement is unashamedly on the far-Right. Zionist organisations, especially those who call themselves ‘Friends of Israel Groups’ work with fascist groups and individuals, e.g. Manchester Friends of Israel has worked openly with the EDL. Sussex Friends of Israel demonstrate with far-Right Christian Zionists and work with the Jewish Defence League (it was the EDL's Jewish wing). 

People like Jonathan Hoffman, former Deputy Chair of the Zionist Federation openly work with fascists to the extent that we saw him standing side by side, outside Palestine Expo 2017 with the former Intelligence Officer of Britain First, Paul Besser.

Paul Besser (with flat cap) with Jonathan Hoffman to this left and Gemma Sheridan of the neo-Nazi JDL stuck in between

The Politics of Genocide on GFOI FB page

Todays Zionists do not bother to hide their far-Right affiliations and open racism. On the front of their Facebook Page SFOI have a photo starkly saying ‘There is no such thing as the Palestinians.’ This is the politics of genocide. First you deny that there is a people then if you wipe them out they never existed in the first place.

Zionism today represents the most visceral and atavistic racism. Yet the SWP, for whom nothing changes and which claims, at least on paper, to be anti-Zionist, are totally unable to make the connection between the racism of Zionism in Israel and the racism of Zionism in Britain. Anti-racism at home and abroad just never meet up.  The racist of Empire doesn't seem to have any connection with racism in Britain. It was said of the late President Ford of the United States that he couldn't chew gum and walk at the same time.  The SWP also find it difficult integrating more than one campaign into their overall analysis.

An uncomfortable conversation between Matisyahu Berlow of Glasgow FOI and Hope not Hate about the fascists and antisemites that they attract to their stall 

One of the reasons for this is that the SWP believe that that all but a handful of British Jews are Zionists and therefore to connect with British Jews one must work with Zionist organisations. Instead of working with those Jews who are anti-Zionist the SWP believes that something is to be gained by working with bourgeois Zionist groups. The actions of the SWP, because that is what Stand up to Racism really is, is thus to reinforce the claim of Zionism to speak on behalf of all Jews and that anti-Zionism is therefore a form of anti-Semitism.

Donald Trump has cut off aid to UNWRA which helped feed the Palestinian refugees - GFOI openly applaud this and call it 'terrorism' and the refugees 'fake' - this is what the SWP's support for Palestine amounts to. In essence the SWP are capitulating to social chauvinism and imperialism

40 years ago was a time when many people were not clued up about Zionism and when the Zionists themselves were often on the Left (for example MPs  Tony Benn, Eric Heffer, Ian Mikado and Jo Richardson were members of Labour Friends of Israel). Those days have gone.  Today the Zionists are openly racist, open supporters of the Israeli Right and far-Right and in the Labour Party they are almost exclusively to be found in opposition to Corbyn.

The instances of open collaboration between the Zionist movement in Britain, the fascist Right and supporters of Tommy Robinson are legion, as this blog has repeatedly documented.

That is why Palestine solidarity supporters everywhere condemned the SWP and Scottish SUTR when last year they refused to bar the Confederation of Friends of Israel in Scotland (COFIS) from taking part in their annual anti-racism march virtually welcoming them. Unfortunately for the SWP/SUTR Scottish anti-racists refused to accept the dictat of the SWP’s Central Committee and they ensured that COFIS were unable to march.   

The SWP were widely condemned for their behaviour by the Left in the labour movement, for example by the Morning Star.

Max Dunbar ex-BNP (left) and Sammy Stein Chair of Glasgow Friends of Israel harass Scottish PSC stall

Sammy Stein, Chair of Glasgow Friends of Israel, made an appearance at the Scottish PSC stall in Glasgow in January together with Max Dunbar, ex-Treasurer of the British National Party in Glasgow and now Treasurer of Brittanica.

It is only when Scottish PSC pointed out who their fascist friends were that GFOI dissociated themselves from the fascists - the real question is why the Zionists and GFOI are so attractive to fascists and anti-semites in the first place

Sammy Stein, who defends every Israeli massacre and Israeli Army abuse of Palestinian children, came to an SPSC stall on Buchanan Street to lounge with his camera pointed at the stall. Dunbar had earlier sidled up to the SPSC stall to request a leaflet, then walked away saying "I am pro-Israel". As Mick Napier said

it is ‘time for SUTR to repudiate the repeated declarations by the degenerate Glasgow Friends of Israel of their alliance with SUTR. Silence in the face of a public claim will be widely understood to be acceptance of that claim.

According to Hope not Hate Dunbar was Treasurer of Glasgow BNP and is now Treasurer of Britannica, a tiny new far-right party, first registered in August 2011. They comprise ex-members of Glasgow BNP. The party is essentially the core of the BNP Glasgow branch under a new name. According to their Leader, Charlie Baillie, “the recent decade of mass immigration…..damaged the identity and integrity of the British”. He objected to “persons who come from Africa” and claimed that “..the term racist is a meaningless word”. Dunbar has stood as a BNP candidate on many occasions over the years within the Glasgow area also attending English Defence League demonstrations. Hope not Hate on Dunbar and Glasgow Friends of Israel

This was reported by the Ferret as ‘Pro-Israel group ‘disassociates’ itself from former BNP member Jan 24 2019.’  The National reported that ‘Former BNP member infiltrates Glasgow Friends of Israel group’. Dunbar is also a regular at events organised by A Force For Good, run by Alistair McConnachie, a former Ukip candidate who believes there is no evidence the Nazis used gas chambers to murder Jewish people.’

Scottish PSC sent an Open Letter to SUTR about what had been happening but all the indications are that the SWP, just as over the rape crisis affair in their organisation four years ago, are once again intent on ignoring the views of everyone but themselves.

Racist filth Friends of Israel are Importing into SUTR

Dear SUTR

Last year Glasgow Friends of Israel (GFI) and Confederation of Friends of Israel Scotland (COFIS) joined the Stand Up To Racism organised march in Glasgow. This demonstrates incredible audacity considering their sole purpose is to support and promote an apartheid state (Israel) that has more than 40 racist discriminatory laws on its statute. Many individuals and organisations made their opposition to GFI/COFIS participation known to you. You state that it was not your policy to invite or authorise the participation of specific unaffiliated groups and you stated that you were not in dialogue with these groups. This year (2019) according to GFI they are in dialogue directly with you. GFI have stated “we would like to thank members of the SUTR committee for once again confirming our participation”.

Maybe you are unaware of the nature of the material that this organisation publishes and how they demonise certain ethnicities and belittle the plight of refugees. Sometimes they claim to be a secular organisation and at other times they imply that they are being targeted because they are a Jewish organisation. How strange then that they should publish a vile anti-Semitic tweet about the ex Labour leader Ed Miliband.

Katie  Hopkins, was a guest at the last Zionist Federation dinner. The Zionists seem all over her like a rash

Your organisation has enjoyed long standing support from the labour leadership especially the current leader Jeremy Corbyn. Maybe you are unaware of the relentless and libellous abusive campaigning that GFI have carried out online against Jeremy Corbyn. Here are a few examples of their online abuse:

Are you really welcoming an organisation which promotes Katie Hopkins?

[The term 'Pally' for Palestinian is the equivalent of 'Paki' and Nigger.  It is a vile racist term and the fact that the SWP/SUTR work with these virulent racists is or should be a source of shame - TG].

In June 2018 a tragedy unfolded in Gaza when a young 21 year old nurse called Razan al-Najjar was shot dead by Israeli soldiers as she attended to the wounded on the Great March of Return in support of Gaza refugees right of return.

SUTR and its supporters are well known for their humanity and compassion for the rights of refugees. Below we see how the organisation you are now linked with dismissed the death of this young woman as somehow fake news.

Glasgow Friends of Israel’s next tactic on this proved to be much more vile and sordid. They pinned a tweet suggesting that the young girl Razan was raped and coerced into being at the Great March of Return for refugees.

If you think this coverage of the death of civilians is morally corrupt, GFI decided to plumb the depths even further by injecting humour into their coverage of the deaths of Palestinians. ‘Pallywood’ is the concept invented by Israel supporters to suggest that the journalistic coverage of human rights abuses carried out by Israel on Palestinians is all fake.

Social media was ‘set alight’ when the young Palestinian girl Ahed Tamimi was arrested for slapping an Israeli soldier who was on her family property. She was sentenced to jail by the world’s only military court for children (non-Jewish children) in the occupied West Bank. Again the GFI went to work in order to de-humanise this young girl by portraying her as a terrorist. Here they make a slap into a terrorist offence, juxtaposed to their jokey off-hand dismissal of the killing of civilian Palestinians.

When a group of young Jewish people were threatened by a thug and abused for holding a religious ceremony outside the House of Commons for people killed in Gaza, the GFI thought the assault was hilarious.

GFI have an ongoing smear campaign against ordinary folk who campaign for the plight of the Palestinian people. Dismissing them as benefit scroungers, mental health patients, racists and Jew haters.

Here we see an example of what they think of campaigners against the arms trade.

As for the plight of refugees GFI are campaigning in support of Donald Trump’s racist policies to end UN support for Palestinian refugees.

In light of these examples from GFI and COFIS does SUTR really think that they are suitable organisations to be working with on an anti-racist march. Organisations that exhibit anti-Semitism, trash the image of a young Muslim nurse killed by soldiers, dismiss refugees as fake and who think that the killing of Palestinians is “funny” will surely de-legitimise the anti-racist movement in Scotland and the UK.

Gerry Coutts

Glasgow

5th February 2019

It might be understandable that a Jewish organisation which whose main concern is for example Holocaust remembrance but is nonetheless a liberal Zionist group might be welcome on an anti-racist demonstration. For example we would not object to the Jews who said Kaddish, the prayer for the dead for the victims of Israel’s murder of Palestinian demonstrators in Gaza and who were roundly abused for so doing. They are politically misguided but they aren’t fascists or open racists.

COFIS/Glasgow Friends of Israel however have absolutely nothing to do with anti-racism.  Their sole reason for existence is to support Israeli and Zionist racism of the most vile concern.

COFIS/GFOI are thoroughly reactionary organisations which make the most vile accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’ against Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party.  What twisted form of 'Marxist' politics are the SWP engaging in that they think that an alliance with these racist vultures has anything to do with fighting racism in Britain?

If SUTR again give the green light to COFIS/GFI to march this year, people from England and Wales should join our comrades in Glasgow to ensure that once again the Zionists are kept away from the march.  NO PASARAN

I also urge members of SUTR and anti-racists in England to make it plain that the decision of Scottish SUTR, backed as it is by the SWP nationally, is condemned as being unacceptable.

See also Who are Friends of Israel by Richard Haley of Scotland Against Criminalising Communities

Tony Greenstein

UPDATE

The SWP are obviously finding the criticism hard to take because Scottish SWP have put up on their Facebook page a long and pathetic justification entitled '**Building the anti-racist movement in Scotland**

I therefore submitted a reply in the normal comradely traditions of debate, the SWP immediately took it down.  I have therefore got a friend to repost it - no doubt the SWP will take it down again because they are unable to respond to the points I make so what other course of action is open to them but censorship?