Ex-UJS Officer, David Herman Openly Advocates Murder of Jewish anti-Zionists - on Harry's Place

Even some socialists have been taken in by the ‘free speech’ pretensions of the overtly racist (in particular anti-Muslim racist) and pro-war site Harry’s Place. When one of their victims, Jenna Delich, foolishly and mistakenly posted a link to David Duke’s web site she was libelled by city solicitor David Toube as someone who ‘reads and takes her information on world events from neo Nazis.’

In return she threatened a libel action which resulted in HP being taken off the web by its ISP. Socialist Unity and others mistakenly saw a defence of free speech as being equivalent to supporting HP’s right to indulge in its usual bout of racist hate mongering.

An article by Mikey Ezra, the Barry George of the Zionist movement, purports to be a report of the debate between the AWL and CPGB on Iran/Palestine last week. Underneath there a remarkable post by one David Herman. Herman, was an officer with the Union of Jewish Students nearly 20 years ago. Since then he has become a minor film producer, one of whose productions appeared on Channel 4 some time ago, and is also listed as an Advisory Editor of Engage. . He is generally remembered as an unpleasant, humourless, thuggish but otherwise stupid.

Engage is a site which is devoted to smearing supporters of a Boycott of Israel as ‘anti-semitic.’ Although it portrays itself as a ‘leftist’ site, a cursory reading of its comments quickly shows that it shares much the same right-wing audience as Harry’s Place. It’s a strange form of leftism which includes as its guest posters people like the Zionist friend of Gilad Atzmon, Mad Mikey Ezra. See original.

But what was different from the normal abuse was an open call to violence by Herman, in a comment posted on 16th October 2008 at 2.13 p.m.

‘To cut through the nonsense - both Greenstien and Rance are long term anti-zionists who want to see Israel destroyed/disappear/be no more (take your pick) for some reason they believe the fact that they’re Jewish adds some moral weight to their position.
I believe they’re psychologically flawed fools who collaborate with the enemies of the Jewish people.
They should remember that in the Nazi ghettos of Europe and the townships of South Africa the first people that the resistance targeted were collaborators.
In less forgiving times they would be recei ving a necklace for hanukah!’

The implication is obvious.

Now Herman was never a student of history as he would be aware that Zionism specialised in collaboration with the Nazis and were likewise favoured by them. Most of the Chairmen of the Judenrat, Nazi appointed Jewish Councils were Zionists (Rumkowski, Gens, Czerniakow, Kareski to name but a few).

As even the late Zionist historian, Lucy Dawidowicz admitted:

"The only underground political organisation of significance soon after the German occupation [of Poland] was the Bund, with its centre in Warsaw" (War Against the Jews, pp. 322/3)

Likewise she wrote of Reinhardt Heydrich, described by Gerald Reitlinger in ‘The Final Solution’ as the ‘engineer’ of the Final Solution and his orders to the SS:
‘The activity of the Zionist orientated youth organisations are not to be treated with the strictness that it is necessary to apply to the members of the so-called German Jewish organisations (assimilationists).’

War Against the Jews, p. 118. And on 5 May 1935 Schwarze Korps, official organ of the SS, argued that the Jews had to be separated into 2 categories Zionists and assimilationists:

"The Zionists adhere to a strict racial position and by emigrating to Palestine are helping to build their own Jewish) state." whereas "The assimilation minded Jews deny their race and insist on their loyalty to Germany... in order to subvert National Socialist principles.’

All of this is well known, so when Jewish anti-Zionists are accused of ‘self-hatred’ it is the usual racist nonsense that was levelled by the Nazis at anti-fascist Germans. Literally hating the racial state means hating yourself because in the fascist world, the individual’s purpose is to serve the State.

But what is striking about Herman’s contribution is that it is an open call for murderous violence against anti-Zionist Jews, Roland Rance and Tony Greenstein in particular, but anyone who breaks from Zionism in the Jewish community. Anyone with a memory of the South African liberation struggle will remember that one of the least attractive aspects of the struggle in the townships was the advocacy by Winnie Mandela of placing burning tyres around the necks of victims.

That the nondescript Herman openly open advocates the murder of political opponents, anti-Zionist Jews, is not surprising. His associate Mikey, although friendly to the AWL also works with the openly fascist Prof. Steve Plaut of Haifa University a member of Kach, a Jewish Nazi party in Israel, posting fake e-mails to the Alef (Academic Left) site hosted by Professor Avraham Oz of Haifa.

But what is interesting is the comment of Mark Gardener, underneath that of Herman. Gardener is the Head of Communications of the shadowy Community Security Trust. The CST is behind the idea that anti-Semitism is increasing in Britain as a means of persuading British Jews to emigrate to Israel. He featured prominently in the Richard Littlejohn programme in June 2007 about ‘anti-Semitism’.

The CST is identified with the Herut/Betar Greater Israel wing of Zionism (though to be fair these distinctions are largely irrelevant today as Herman would probably also claim to still retain links with Labour Zionism). It is an extremely well funded organisation (over £5m income both in 2005 and 2006. Its accounts reveal nothing about its sources of funding and are usually delivered at the last minute, the 2007 ones have not been filed after nearly 10 months. It spends £500,000 of its money on fundraising and of its employees two earn between £60-70,000, one receives between £80-90,000 and one receives between £100-110,000. Clearly fighting ‘anti-Semitism’ is profitable for some people. The Jewish Chronicle last year described the CST as the most opaque of all Jewish charities.

Its Trustees are not, quite uniquely, listed on the Charity Commission site, having been given a dispensation. Likewise there is nothing about its activities and quite bizzarely it lists its only area of operation as Liverpool and surrounding areas. One of the few people who are listed in its accounts is one Gerald Ronson, jailed in the Guiness Affair many years ago. Ronson is well known as a Herut/Greater Israel supporter and owner of Britain’s largest private company, Heron. It would seem that the CST, which is well known for attacking Jewish leftists (including on one occasion even a supporter of the Zionist Mapam group) has also moved into the Kach orbit.

This is what Gardener says at 5.49 pm on 16.10.08: Leaving aside a long quote from Jews against Zionism which he has taken from a pro-Hizbollah site (whatever that is) rather than directly from the JAZ site:

‘Now, you can have a Talmudic disputation as to how the "dismantlement of the Zionist structure of the state of Israel" does not equal "smash Zionism" or "destroy Israel" but I’m in David Herman’s (considerable) shadow on this one. We know where Rance and Greenstein stand, we know their previous, and its exactly why pro-Hizbollah websites carry their propaganda. Duh.’

Duh indeed. When Herman advocates ‘necklacing’ of his political opponents, Gardener’s only response is that ‘I’m in David Herman’s (considerable) shadow on this one’. Quite! Of course Herut used to have a long record of physically attacking all pro-Palestinian meetings but, theoretically at least, there was a distinction between them and open fascists in the Kach group. Clearly that is no longer the case and Gardner too is now supportive of fascist violence (as long as it’s not against Zionist Jews). A strange position of course for someone who makes a good living (£110,000?) from ‘fighting anti-Semitism’ and with whom the Police openly work. But what it does do is destroy the notion that the CST is an impartial and unbiased recorder of anti-semitic incidents, as some believe.

Tony Greenstein