6 December 2015

Geoffrey Alderman and Gerald Kaufman –Jewish Chronicle Columnist’s Exercise in Hypocrisy

Alderman Calls Out Kaufman for Committing the Same ‘Crime’ as He has Perpetrated!

A week ago I wrote a post on how Sir Gerald Kaufman MP had been traduced by a number of Zionist activists and MPs such as John Mann MP, the so-called Campaign  Against Anti-Semitism’, the Jewish Chronicle and in particular its columnist Geoffrey Alderman.  They all claimed that a few ill chosen words by Kaufman to the Palestine Return Centre were the worst anti-Semitic crime since the Czarist Secret Police had set about forging the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.
Gerald Kaufman is an even greater threat to British Jews than Jeremy Corbyn - he merits no less than 6 CAS search results.
The CAS in particular has been running a veritable campaign around Gerald Kaufman.  Searching on ‘Kaufman’ on their web site turned up no less than 6 results.  Searching on the English Defence League and British National Party turned up 1 result for each.  Even more mysteriously the search words didn’t actually appear in the latter 2 articles.  So we can only conclude that the major fascist and anti-Semitic threat to Jews today comes not from the BNP or EDL but an elderly Jewish parliamentarian, the Father of the House of Commons!
Jeremy Corbyn according to the 'Campaign Against anti-Semitism' is one of the greatest anti-Semitic threats to British Jews.   He merits no less than 5 searc results.
I sent my original article to Geoffrey Alderman, as I was sure that this voluble man would have something to say about his hypocritical attack on Kaufman, given that he himself had not only excused quite virulent anti-Semitism but had used the term ‘Jewish money’ in his own articles.  Surprise, surprise – Alderman’s response was  - complete silence. 
The English Defence League turns up 1 result on the CAS site, which  actually doesn't mention the EDL.  Presumably actual holocaust deniers are not a threat to British Jews!
As I noted when I first wrote to him, hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue and there is no greater vice than a Zionist hypocrite.
Below is my letter to the good doctor and academic, a regular JC columnist:
Dear Geoffrey Alderman,
If there is one thing you are not renowned for, it is a reticence to answer your critics.  Indeed your one-man instant reaction unit is something which you have, until now, taken pride in.  You add the last vestiges of academic legitimacy to the Editor of the JC, Stephen Pollard's plunge downmarket.
It is therefore with some pained surprise that I note that I have had no response to the email I sent you last week.  This is most unlike you.
Although I am sure you will recall its contents, a number of those who I have blind copied may not be fully aware of what I am talking about.
Kaufman apparently said that '“It’s Jewish money, Jewish donations to the Conservative Party – as in the general election in May – support from the Jewish Chronicle, all of those things, bias the Conservatives.” 
They are not the words I would have chosen to use but nor are they particularly heinous.  As I pointed out in a blog post The Witchhunt of Gerald Kaufman - Crucified for Supporting the Palestinians
there are two uses of the term 'Jewish money'.

http://www.azvsas.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/the-witchhunt-of-gerald-kaufman.html
One which is anti-Semitic is to claim that there is a Jewish conspiracy in which Jews, via their money and wealth, control and influence the world behind the scenes.  It is integral to the world Jewish conspiracy theory.  The other use is simply a short-hand, i.e. money that Jews donate for various purposes, including of course, control and influence over political processes.  Of course the two uses get conflated but it is undoubted that Jews themselves use the term 'Jewish money' regularly themselves, often to boast of their influence.
What is equally clear is that self-interested Zionist groups like the so-called Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, which are not at all interested in opposing anti-Semitism per se, are happy to use the charge of 'anti-Semitism' as a means to defame those who support the Palestinians.  There is no doubt that this is what has happend to Gerald Kaufman.
A search on the Jewish Chronicle site turns up some 590 uses of the term 'Jewish money'
As a little experiment I conducted a search on the Jewish Chronicle archives using the phrase 'Jewish money' and came up trumps 590 times.  Now I know the JC is a reactionary paper but I didn't realise it was that anti-Semitic!
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Alderman uses the term '‘the fact that Jewish money, albeit American-Jewish money...'  and then calls for someone else to be sentenced to banishment for the same offence
Even worse I came across an article A man who deserves banning by one Geoffrey Alderman, who I believe is your good self, the Jewish Chronicle's resident columnist and someone who was once a faint critic of the Jewish establishment.  Indeed I once remember Geoffrey Alderman exiting the Board of Deputies with boos ringing in his ears, described as a 'communal gadfly' by the same JC.  The man Geoffrey wanted to ban was the said Gerald Kaufman on account of what he had said about Jewish money. 

Very principled and consistent I thought.  But surely this wasn't the same Geoffrey Alderman who wrote, in an article
Obama’s false  Iran Alternative (14.8.15) of ‘the fact that Jewish money, albeit American-Jewish money – is being used to this end has led the president to adopt an unfortunate and worrying rhetoric.  Israel and its supporters are warmongers and American-Jewish money is being used to drag America into war.’ 
Puzzled at what seems an obvious example of political hypocrisy, I wrote to Geoffrey Alderman asking for elucidation.  To date none has arrived.  

What puzzles me even more is that Geoffrey Alderman, who is so hot on anti-Semitism, wrote defending one David Whelan owner of Wigan Athletic football club against the charge of anti-Semitism. [This football fuss is a bit rich (5.12.14.)]  Whelan was subject to widespread criticism, not least from the Football Association and was in the end forced to relinquish control over Wigan Athletic.
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Mr Whelan had said that he saw nothing wrong in what someone else had allegedly said, viz. that  '‘there is nothing like a Jew who sees money slipping through his fingers’ and when challenged by the Guardian responded that ‘I think they [Jews] are very shrewd people…. I think Jewish people do chase money more than everybody else.  I don’t think that’s offensive at all.’ 

What was Alderman’s take on this?  Surely nothing less than the modern day equivalent of crucifixion?  Maybe a little water boarding?  Good gracious no.  Geoffrey's response was that Whelan had already been crucified at the modern day equivalent of Calvary.   Whelan was the victim of 'a sad and miserable tale of political correctness taken to new depths of absurdity'.  Surely Geoffrey must have taken to heart Jesus's injunction to love one's enemy as oneself.   Such forgiveness would never come from a Rabbi!

It was ‘a sad and miserable tale of political correctness taken to new depths of absurdity.’  Geoffrey wrote.  He went on to declare that 'In my view there is nothing remotely anti-Semitic in what Whelan is alleged by the Guardian to have said about Jews.'  Indeed Geoffrey defended, indeed took pride, in the description of Jews as shrewd.  As for chasing money, well there'd been no academic research into this allegation therefore he couldn't comment.
When it came to Sir Gerald's comments, which are grounded in fact, Geoffrey was all for expelling him from the Jewish community, indeed expelling him by declaring a cherem.  Kaufman had 'crossed a red line' and 'defamed the whole Jewish people.'  Despite decrying the suggestion that this was connected with criticism of Israel, one cannot but suspect that someone who glorified in the murder of an Italian member of the International Solidarity Movement in Gaza is motivated by nothing other than Zionist convictions.  http://azvsas.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/jewish-chronicle-columnist-geoffrey.html

I await some clarification but I fear that none will arrive.  After all, when you write for a publication whose editor, Stephen Pollard, is even more fond http://azvsas.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/jedwabne-polish-village-where-up-to-900.html  of defending anti-Semites http://azvsas.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/stephen-pollard-jewish-chronicle-editor.html than Geoffrey (as long as they are also Zionists such as Members of the European Parliament Michal Kaminski & Robert Zile) what can one expect? 

Yours as ever,

Tony Greenstein

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