UCL Backs Off Speech Restrictions at the Book Launch for
The Responsibility of Intellectuals
Reflections by Noam Chomsky and other intellectuals
As
you may recall, this book by 5 distinguished academics – Greg Philo, Mike
Berry, Justin Schlosberg, Antony Lerman and David Miller – was due to have its
book launch in Brighton on September 23rd during the Labour Party
conference.
However
a barrage of abuse from the Zionists and the normal accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’, ‘baiting the Jewish
community’ (trans. disagreeing with Zionists) led Waterstones to cancel the book launch at the last minute. Their Head Office took the decision to
overrule the local store. The pretext was a lack of professional organisation.
James Daunt, their CEO, who I spoke to during this affair, insisted that this
was the only reason but it was so obviously not true that he has subsequently
admitted that the cancellation was a mistake. Waterstone’s have promised to
reschedule the book launch which we await with baited breath.
What
this demonstrates, along with the attempt by University College London to
impose restrictions on the October 29th book launch for The
Responsibility of Intellectuals – Reflections by Noam Chomsky and other
intellectuals is that freedom of speech is under attack by the Zionist
lobby and its neo-liberal friends in this country.
Professor
Chris Knight, one of the authors, wrote to me two weeks before to say that the 5
restrictions below were being placed on the launch by UCL authorities. I responded by saying that they must refuse
to comply. If necessary the book launch must take place on the steps of
UCL. The McCarthyites must be forced to
back down.
I’m
pleased to say that Chris and others took my advice and faced with the ensuing
embarrassment the university authorities backed down. You only have to look at the five restrictions
to see how unacceptable they are. Once
again we see how the Labour Party ‘anti-Semitism’ smear campaign has spread
outwards. Here are the 5 restrictions
that UCL were forced to abandon:
1. Suggestions (overt or implied) that Jews as a group or particular
sections of the British Jewish community invent, exaggerate or “weaponise”
incidents of antisemitism for political or other benefit
2. Suggestions (overt or implied) that Jews as a group or particular
sections of the British Jewish community exploit or exaggerate the Holocaust
for political or other benefit
3. Use (overt or implied) of “dual loyalty” tropes relating to Jews as a
group or particular sections of the British Jewish community and the State of
Israel – for example that they are “controlled” by Israel or are working on
behalf of Israel to the detriment of Britain
4. Suggestions (overt or implied) that antisemitism is a less toxic form
of racism than any other and/or that Jews are less vulnerable to discrimination
than other minority groups
5. Repetition (overt or implied) of antisemitic tropes relating to Jews
and money and/or Jewish financial involvement in historical events or
injustices – for example that Jews financed wars, slavery, etc
All 5 are contentious:
1. The idea that Jews (they mean Zionists) don’t weaponise anti-Semitism is laughable. That is all the Board of Deputies and groups like the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism do! If you want proof you only need look as far as the front page story in the Jewish Chronicle this week which states that:
All 5 are contentious:
1. The idea that Jews (they mean Zionists) don’t weaponise anti-Semitism is laughable. That is all the Board of Deputies and groups like the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism do! If you want proof you only need look as far as the front page story in the Jewish Chronicle this week which states that:
“The vast majority of British Jews consider
Jeremy Corbyn to be an antisemite. In the most recent poll, last month, the
figure was 87 per cent.”
 |
| The Jewish Chronicle's hysterical and desperate headline |
 |
| The Jewish Telegraph even took to Twitter to disown their own columnist - Professor Geoffrey Alderman - who has written several books on the Jewish community in Britain |
As the respected
Jewish (& Zionist) academic Professor Geoffrey Alderman wrote in the
Spectator last May, Corbyn had successfully campaigned against the destruction
of a Jewish cemetery in his constituency that his tormentor, the foul-mouthed
Margaret Hodge had tried to destroy when Leader of the Council.
‘If as the Jewish Chronicle claims 87% of British Jews consider Jeremy
Corbyn an anti-Semite then British Jews are amongst the most stupid people on this planet.’
Corbyn has
never said anything even remotely anti-Semitic.
If indeed 87% of British Jews consider Jeremy Corbyn an anti-Semite and
47% will consider emigrating if he is elected as Prime Minister as the Jewish
Chronicle is alleging
this week then British Jews are amongst the most stupid (and reactionary) people
on this planet. However I prefer to
believe that there are lies, damned lies and Jewish Chronicle surveys!
What is true
is that if you repeatedly tell people that the Earth is flat long enough some
will actually believe it. If British Jews do believe this nonsense then that is a tribute to the effectiveness of the British media
or the gullibility of the average British Jew.
ii.
The suggestion that Jews (they mean Zionists) don’t exploit the
Holocaust for political benefit is one of life’s absurdities. As Edith Zertal, a distinguished Israeli Professor of History wrote
in ‘Israel’s Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood’, there hasn’t been a war
involving Israel ‘that has not been
perceived, defined, and conceptualized in terms of the Holocaust.’ Israel
has mobilised the Holocaust ‘in the
service of Israeli politics.’ The Holocaust is used continuously to paint
Arabs as the ‘new Nazis’.
iii.
Dual loyalty lies at the heart of Zionism. Zionism is founded on the belief that Jews
owe their first loyalty, not to the countries they live in, but to Israel. Yes this is anti-Semitic but that’s because
Zionism is a form of Jewish anti-Semitism.
Zionism
argues that Jews are not members of the host nations they live amongst but a
separate Jewish nation. That is why the Israeli American Council, in collaboration
with the Israeli Embassy, commissioned
a poll which asked which country American Jews would side with in case of a
serious confrontation between Israel and the United States. In the ensuing
uproar the Israeli government withdrew it but it’s clearly a live issue. See Pro-Israel
organization sought to survey US Jews on dual loyalty, “Dual
Loyalty” Now Embraced, as Israel Interferes in Internal American Politics
and In
Praise Of Dual Loyalty
iv.
Clearly anti-Semitism in Britain today is far less ‘toxic’ than other forms of racism. That
is why ‘anti-Semitism’ is the only form of racism that the establishment is
concerned with. Why? Because anti-Semitism is not a form of state racism whereas
anti-Muslim/Black racism is. The State and its academic mouthpieces like UCL Administration
don’t campaign against themselves hence their concern with ‘anti-Semitism’.
Jews don’t get stopped and searched, deported ala Windrush, economically
discriminated against, beaten up and murdered by the Police or Prison
authorities. Obvious anti-Semitism today
is less toxic than other forms of racism.
v.
Clearly there was Jewish financial involvement in historical
events and injustices. Why pretend there wasn’t? Why is it a subject that can’t
be discussed? Of course if someone was to suggest that the ‘Jews’ financed the
Russian Revolution, the Slave Trade, the Inquisition etc. then that is a
different matter but clearly Jews played a part, sometimes a significant part
in funding for example the slave trade.
What
is staggering is that a university, of all places, should seek to clamp down on
discussion and debate on these issues. This is how far the McCarthyist attack
on freedom of speech has gone.
Of
course when people deny the Holocaust then that isn’t a subject that should be debated
anymore than someone denying that the slave trade occurred. That the Holocaust happened
is self-evident. None of the leading Nazis involved denied it. Indeed Eichmann boasted of his role. Clearly those
who seek to deny the Holocaust want to repeat it. In other words they are not interested in
free speech but in inciting racism.
But to pretend that the
Holocaust is not exploited by the Zionist movement when they have set up a
Holocaust Education Trust in Britain which promotes Labour’s fake anti-Semitism
smear campaign is absurd. Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust Propaganda Museum even
entertains people who are Hitler worshippers such as Duterte of the Philippines
[see Philippine
Leader Duterte, Who Compared Himself to Hitler, Visits Yad Vashem or just
plain vanilla anti-Semites such as Viktor
Orban.
Daniel Blatman, a Holocaust researcher
at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem and the Chief Historian at the new Jewish Museum in Poland described
Yad Vashem as
‘a hard-working laundromat, striving to bleach out the sins of every anti-Semitic, fascist, racist or simply murderously thuggish leader or politician like Hungary’s Viktor Orban, the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte and Italy’s Matteo Salvini.’
Below I critically review the book Bad News for Labour which deals with the
fake anti-Semitism campaign that the Zionists now wish to immunise against all
criticism or analysis.
Tony
Greenstein
Bad News for Labour – A
Review
Pluto Press, 2019, pp. 288
£14.99
This Review has been
printed in substantially the same form by the Weekly Worker as Book they want to ban.
It
says all you need to know about the Zionist lobby’s hatred for free speech,
that the book launch for Bad News for
Labour, about the McCarthyist attack on freedom of speech in the Labour
Party, was itself subject to such a torrent of Zionist abuse that Waterstones’
cancelled it, although CEO James Daunt later admitted that this was a ‘mistake’.
So
afraid are the Zionists of their scurrilous campaign of defamation being
exposed to the light, that a book by 5 distinguished academics, which looks at
the evidence for their allegations of ‘anti-Semitism’, was itself portrayed as
‘Jew-baiting’ ‘offensive to the Jewish Community’ and ‘anti-Semitic’.
Presumably
British Jews are such delicate flowers
that statistical evidence in a dry academic book will cause them to relive the
Holocaust!
Instead
of standing up for the basic right of freedom of speech on Palestine, Israel
and Zionism, Jeremy Corbyn and Jennie Formby have succumbed to their opponents
vitriol. Today in the Labour Party
anyone who doubts the veracity of the ‘anti-Semitism’ moral panic is now
accused of ‘anti-Semitism’. As was the case at Salem, denial of being witch constitutes
irreversible proof of being one.
This
book should be read in conjunction with The
Anti-Semitism Wars (Spokesman Books, 2018) and my chapter ‘The Story so far...’. It is a book in 6
parts, however the book as a whole is less than the sum of its parts. The book suffers from being a dry academic
tome rather than treating the evidence it reveals in the context of the
politics of Labour and Corbynism.
The
book’s major failing is that it fails to locate the source of the anti-Semitism
smear campaign. Greg Philo and Mike Berry in ‘What Could Have Been Done and Why It Wasn’t and Will It End’
observe that ‘the claims about
anti-Semitism had begun after the election of Corbyn in September 2015.’ (p.45) This is incorrect. The claims began as
soon as the media realised that Corbyn was going to win Labour leadership campaign.
People
may recall the panic that sent in. MPs like
John Mann and Barry Shearman urged Harriet Harman, the interim leader, to call
off the leadership election altogether. General Secretary Iain McNicol was
meanwhile purging the £3 registered voters, including myself, of anyone that
appeared to be a Corbyn supporter.
On
August 7th, a month before the result was declared, the
Daily Mail ran an ‘exclusive’ Jeremy Corbyn's 'long-standing links' with
notorious Holocaust denier and his 'anti-Semitic' organisation revealed[1] a
completely bogus story alleging that Corbyn had close links with a Holocaust
denier, Paul Eisen. This was followed up 5 days later by the Jewish Chronicle’s
The
key questions Jeremy Corbyn must answer.[2] By
the time Corbyn had been elected, on September 5th 2015 the ‘anti-Semitism’
campaign was well underway.
It
is fine to suggest, in hindsight, possible strategies to combat Corbyn’s
disastrous handling of the anti-Semitism claims, but first it is necessary to
actually diagnose where they originated. Never, not once do any of the authors
ask the following questions:
i.
Is it credible
that anti-Semitism spontaneously arose in the Labour Party when Corbyn was
elected leader?
ii.
How did the
allegations of anti-Semitism link in with the allegations that Corbyn was a
‘terrorist’ supporter?
iii.
Is it true, as
Jonathan Arkush and others allege that socialists, anti-imperialists and
anti-Zionists see Jews as inherently rich, powerful and conspiratorial?
During
the leadership contest Corbyn had been interviewed by Krishna Guru Murphy on
Channel 4 as to why he described Hamas and Hezbollah as his ‘friends’. Corbyn handled it disastrously. His only
explanation was that he was simply being polite. Ten years ago however he said that to label
either organisation as terrorist ‘is
really a big, big historical mistake.’ [Guardian 2.6.17] (p. 59) Corbyn now admits that he made a mistake.
However
there was another way he could have handled it. Corbyn could have challenged
the ‘terrorist’ term. He could have asked him why Hamas and
Hezbollah were terrorists and why a suicide bomb was worse than dropping a massive
bomb on a house killing 20 civilians in order to assassinate a Hamas operative?
He could have explained that before the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982,
when over 20,000 people were killed, there had been no Hezbollah. Hezbollah was a creature of Israel. Hamas was
likewise an Israeli creation. Israel’s Shin Bet sponsored it as a bulwark
against secular Palestinian nationalism.
Corbyn
could have compared Hamas and Hezbollah to the French resistance and asked why
one was a terrorist and the other a freedom fighter. He could have pointed to
US support for the Contras and other terrorist groups such as the Central
American death squads It was Corbyn’s
political weakness that prevented him asking these questions because Corbyn too
operates within the ambit of western imperialist assumptions.
The
authors didn’t even mention this accusation, which is repeatedly usesd against
Corbyn. It more than anything has undermined him with the electorate (far more
so than ‘anti-Semitism’). On Ireland he could have explained his support for
Sinn Fein and pointed to a war against the 40% of the north of Ireland that
never accepted Partition. Instead McDonnell apologised profusely for ever
having described the IRA as brave!
It
is little wonder therefore that Philo and Berry resort to superficial remedies
such as ‘a coherent public relations
strategy’ or ‘self study and group
discussion training’ (pp. 46-47). Yhey
suggest the leadership didn’t have a ‘strong
public relations infrastructure.’ (p. 60)
Elsewhere
they advocate that the Labour Party must ‘acknowledge
what has happened is wrong and completely unacceptable for your organisation.’
But this is precisely what has happened. Corbyn has repeatedly apologised and
far from helping matters it has been used as ‘proof’ of Labour’s anti-Semitism
and Corbyn’s responsibility for it. The authors’ remedy is worse than the cure.
This
also assumes that the allegations of anti-Semitism were made in good faith.
That Tom Watson, Luciana Berger and John Mann seriously believed that the
Labour Party had been overrun by anti-Jewish racism.
This
displays incredible naiveté on the part of Philo and Berry. It suggests a
political innocence in a debate where guilt must be assumed. It also
demonstrates the pitfalls of a purely academic approach to what is a political
problem. Statistics alone will not prove that the anti-Semitism ‘crisis’ is less
serious than it is made out to be.
The
authors commissioned an opinion poll which showed that people believed that
‘anti-Semitism’ had affected 34% of all Labour Party members. However it is
easy to demonstrate that the ‘anti-Semitism crisis’ was overblown,
disproportionate etc. whilst still accepting
that there was a problem. Maybe it is not 34% but there still can be a problem.
This
is a fundamentally mistaken approach to take. I would argue that there is no
evidence of Labour anti-Semitism nor has there ever been. If we want to talk
about racism, then what we need to do is talk about actions not thought, deeds not
prejudice.
Tom
Watson has said that he won’t rest easy until every last anti-Semite is kicked
out of the party. Leave aside the problem of how you define an anti-Semite what
we should do is ask what are Watson’s bona
fides. Is he being genuine and sincere. Is it the case that Tom Watson
really does not sleep well thinking about the plight of Jews in the Labour
Party?
In
2010 Labour MP Phil Woolas was removed by the High Court from his position as
MP for Oldham and Saddleworth. He had run a campaign of lies against his Lib
Dem opponent in the election alleging he supported violent jihadists. During
the course of the proceedings an email from Woolas’s election agent surfaced
which stated that the campaign strategy must be to ‘make the white folk angry.’ What was Watson’s reaction?
He
wrote an article in which he confessed
that ‘I’ve lost sleep thinking about poor
old Phil Woolas and his leaflets.’ [3]
What was the reaction of John Mann and other New Labour MPs? When the High
Court removed Woolas Harriet Harman immediately suspended him and removed the
whip.
John
Pienaar revealed that ‘a mutiny took
place during last night’s weekly meeting of the PLP:... The decision to suspend
and disown expelled MP Phil Woolas, found guilty of lying by a special election
court, has provoked what Labour MPs and former ministers are describing as a
“mutiny” against the Labour leadership at Westminster.’ Jim Pickard reported
that: [4]
‘there
was “real anger” at the event, with a lot of “shouting” from enraged MPs.
According to PoliticsHome nine members spoke out. ... They included George Howarth, Steve McCabe and
Dave Watts, I’m told) Among those to have spoken out in support of Woolas was
John Mann, a close friend of his.’
At
the Hodge Hill byelection, in Birmingham Tom Watson was Labour’s campaign
organiser and issued
a leaflet with the slogan: "Labour
is on your side, the Lib Dems are on the side of failed asylum seekers."
[5]
John
Mann was the publisher of the Bassetlaw
anti-social behaviour handbook. which listed amongst it examples the
presence of Travellers. In the section on Travellers Mann states: [6]
The
police have powers to remove any gypsies or travellers, and have powers to
direct people to leave the land and remove any vehicles or property they have
with them
Mann
was interviewed under caution by the Nottingham Police after Ben Bennett, a 13
year old traveller had complained, first to Jeremy Corbyn who referred the matter to the Chief Whip. As Skwawkbox noted ‘the Whip,
surprisingly, decided no action was appropriate and told the family to refer
the matter to the police.’ [7]
If someone had called the Jewish community an example of
anti-social behaviour does anyone believe that the complainant would have been
told to refer the matter to the Police?
Margaret Hodge, Watson and Mann would have been jumping up and down. The
problem with this book is that no attempt is made at comparative analysis of
how Labour deals with other forms of racism. Without such a comparison we
cannot see whether or not anti-Semitism is being exceptionalised and if so why.
What
we can see is that when it comes to most forms of racism Tom Watson and John
Mann have no hesitation in joining in with the racists.
Philo and Berry mention the case of a Welsh councillor who said
that Hitler had the right idea when it came to Travellers and asked if ‘anyone got any gas canisters.’ (p. 69)
I’m not aware that this individual has been expelled yet the authors do not ask
why.
Given
that the Gypsies were exterminated in the Holocaust in the same proportions as Jews,
what is it about Jews, who are mainly White and privileged, that doesn’t apply
to Gypsies? Could it be Israel?
What
was needed was not PR strategies, educational counter-offensives or other
technocratic solutions but a political counter
offensive. But in order to mount a political counter-attack one needs to understand
where the ‘anti-Semitism’ offensive was coming from in the first place and that is the primary
failing of this book.
When
I was suspended from the Labour Party in 2016 subsequent to the false
allegations circling around Oxford University Labour Club, it was clear to me
that the ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign was not spontaneous but organised by state
actors. As Asa Winstanley revealed, the key actor in the Oxford allegations had
been an intern for BICOM.
The Lobby
by Al-Jazeera confirmed the involvement of the Israeli Embassy but I had no
doubt that US and British Intelligence were
up to their ears in what was happening, This has subsequently been confirmed by
the remarks of Mike Pompeigh and the revelations about the Integrity
Initiative. See also Asa Winstanley’s article for Electronic Intifada about how
the Jewish Labour Movement was refounded in 2015 for the purpose of taking out
Corbyn.
When
I spoke in June 2016 in Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds, I explained this succinctly.
If I was the CIA Director, the idea that an opponent of NATO and the United
States’s wars in the Middle East and a supporter of the Palestinians should be
leader of the second major party in Britain, the US’s closes ally in Europe,
would have caused nightmares. US Intelligence agencies have spent hundreds of
millions of dollars destabilising regimes they don’t like in Latin America and
Asia. They have helped fund and support anti-communist groups in Europe when
the Communists seemed influential (Italy). On what basis would the USA adopt a
‘hands off’ policy towards Britain?
Would
those who brought Pinochet and the Argentinian generals to power, who helped
Suharto murder 1 million Indonesians have qualms of conscience about
interfering in Britain? None of the
authors even raise this question and that is a fatal weakness of this book.
Only once do Berry/Philo suggest that ‘it
is not therefore illegitimate to ask if Israel or its agencies might be
involved in the anti-Semitism issue in Labour. Such a question is not in itself
anti-Semitic.’ (p. 75) and there they leave the matter.
The
question running through this book is ‘what
is anti-Semitism’. For Jonathan Arkush of the Board of Deputies the answer
is clear – ‘delegitimising Israel’.
(p. 32). Because Israel is a ‘Jewish’ state any attempt to deny the right of
Israel to exist is automatically anti-Semitic because it denies Jewish people’s
right to self-determination. (pp.40-43). The problem which Philo and Berry don’t
mention is that Jews are not a nation. They are members of every nation. It is
the anti-Semites who assert that Jews form a separate nation. And even if they
were a nation the authors don’t question why opposition to self-determination
is racist. Most nations e.g. the Kurds and Catalans not do not have the right
of self-determination.
Berry
and Philo cite the reaction of Alan Johnson, editor of Fathom,
journal of the Israel PR group BICOM to
the fact that 77% of Labour members believe the figures of anti-Semitism to
have been exaggerated.[8] The
authors agree that to deny the existence of cases of anti-Semitism would be
wrong. But would it?
It
appears that the first example of a genuine Holocaust denier, Chris Crookes, has
been found in the International Section of the Labour Party after 4 years.[9] If
so he should be expelled but did it take 4 years of ‘anti-Semitism’ allegations
to find one example?
Philo
and Berry alight on the destructive and nefarious role played by Jon Lansman. Why
he decided to act as an outrider for the JLM, confirming at every turn their
venomous and destructive allegations will best be left to others. However I have no doubt that Lansman was
aware from the very start that the real goal of the JLM was the removal of
Corbyn and that it was with this in mind that he said that anti-Semitism was ‘more widespread’ than originally
thought. (p. 61) The following year Lansman was again quoted as saying that ‘we have a much larger number of people with
hardcore anti-Semitic opinions...’ Again no evidence but as Philo/Berry
conclude ‘because it is from such an
unexpected source, it carries greater legitimacy.’ (p.62) However I would
question how unexpected the source was. He seems to have behaved pretty
consistently, as with Jackie Walker’s removal as Momentum Vice Chair!
When
Margaret Hodge called Jeremy Corbyn ‘a
fucking anti-Semite’ no disciplinary action was taken. Why? Because ‘the leadership had decided to avoid a split
in the Party at virtually any cost.’ The problem was that ‘it became impossible to have a coherent or
united message.’ This points to the key weakness of Corbyn’s strategy.
Appeasing the Right at any price rendered you incoherent and inarticulate,
forever fire fighting.
Philo/Berry
focus on the fact that Jennie Formby admitted that just 12 people have been
expelled for anti-Semitism. They assume that even these 12 were guilty of
anti-Semitism. There is a danger when pointing to the minute fraction of those
disciplined in assuming guilt. All the evidence is that those suspended, like
Jo Bird, the Jewish councillor in the Wirral, were innocent.
I
was suspended as part of the fake anti-Semitism witchhunt. This is what Sam
Matthews leaked to the Telegraph and Times. But when it came to the charges,
the allegations of ‘anti-Semitism’ had disappeared, apart from the use of the
term ‘zio’.
The
book shows how it is only racist abuse directed at Jewish Zionist members of
parliament, Luciana Berger and Ruth Smeeth, that merits attention in the press
whereas Diane Abbot’s experiences of far larger amounts of abuse merits no
attention. Likewise the studied bigotry of Tory party members, including the
Prime Minister, 43% of whom would prefer that Britain didn’t have a Muslim
Prime Minister goes unremarked. (pp. 69-70) What the authors don’t ask is why?
Justin
Schlosberg frames the anti-Semitism controversy as a prime example of a
‘disinformation’ campaign, which he defines as ‘systematic reporting failures that privilege a particular ideological
or political agenda.’ The media
narrative rested on two assumptions: firstly that anti-Semitism under Corbyn
had become endemic to the Labour Party and secondly that there was a wholesale
failure by the leadership to deal with the problem.
Schlosberg
argues that the anti-Semitism controversy ‘by
its very nature inhibits the development of a counter-narrative’. Why? Because ‘much of the discursive framing serves to pre-emptively de-legitimise
any defensive response as ‘part of the problem’.
This
goes to the heart of what has happened. Why has the response been so pathetic
and weak? Why has JVL lamentably failed to provide an alternative Jewish voice?
In these few sentences Schlosberg puts his finger on the unique and problematic
nature of the whole anti-Semitism attack.
The
problem lies in the subjective nature of the ‘anti-Semitism’ offensive. When
Smeeth complained of 25,000 anti-Semitic tweets (which was a lie) or Berger of
a deluge of anti-Semitic hate mail (also highly unlikely) it is difficult to
rebut. This can only be done by locating both Jews and anti-Semitism in a wider
context of racism and imperialism. In other words you can only meet the
subjective with the objective. You
cannot simply assert that Smeeth and Berger were lying.
Jews
in Britain, as Geoffrey Alderman and William Rubinstein have pointed out [see Let’s
be honest about Britain’s obsession with “anti-Semitism”] are not
economically discriminated against.[10]
Rubinstein wrote
that ‘the rise of Western Jewry to
unparalleled affluence and high status... has led to the near-disappearance of
a Jewish proletariat of any size; indeed, the Jews may become the first ethnic
group in history without a working class of any size.’
Jews
in Britain are not the victims of state racism. Police and fascist violence,
judicial bias, stop and search, deportation etc. do not affect them. Jews are
White and privileged. Zionist cliques can define their identity in whatever way
they choose, however this does not change reality. The IHRA defines ‘anti-Semitism’
by denying the Palestinian experience of oppression and that is why it is
illegitimate. No one has the right to define themselves in such a way as to
legitimise the oppression of another group.
Schlosberg
mentions Labour’s ‘anti-Semitism guidelines’ which were overturned after a
concerted Zionist campaign on 4 September 2018 in favour of the wholesale
adoption of the IHRA. He quotes Ivor Caplin, then JLM Chair, as saying that
‘There have been extensive discussions about how we deal with
anti-Semitism and get it right... I think we are starting to see the progress
that I wanted to see.’
Only
the Sun, on 5.7.18. ran a story about how JLM representatives had met with
Jennie Formby to discuss this. ‘Remarkably,
no other reference to this consultation was found within the sample of coverage
analysed.’ (p. 89) Barely a month later Pete Mason, Secretary of the JLM
claimed on Sky News that ‘there have been
no formal conversations with the Jewish community, there have been no
invitations offered.’ (p.91) This was a bare faced lie. What really
happened was that there had been a furious reaction within the JLM to Caplin’s
comments. Caplin had clearly not understood that it was imperative never to accept any concession that the leadership offered apart from Corbyn’s
resignation. That was the goal.
The
New Statesman was quite happy to go along with this cover up. From the start it
had run with the anti-Semitism smears and on July 5th 2018 it ran a
propaganda piece masquerading as an article by Mason and Adam Langleben arguing
that the JLM had never accepted Labour’s Anti-Semitism Guidelines and there
were no differences within the JLM.[11]
Their argument was the non-sequitur that ‘If
we had approved them, we would have deserved to resign for betraying our
members’
The
Guardian demonstrated that when it came to the fake anti-Semitism campaign
there wasn’t a piece of paper between it and the Tory tabloids. Critics of
Labour’s Anti-Semitism Code were 3 times as likely to be quoted as those
supporting it. Even the Sun’s coverage was more balanced (pp. 92-93). Television
news programmes were four times as likely to quote those attacking as opposed
to those supporting the Code. (p.95)
Schlosberg
notes that ‘the degree of consensus
surrounding the IHRA definition formed the crux of the controversy and evidence
of widespread dissensus was
overwhelming.’ Jonathan Freedland, who has singlehandedly been responsible
for the Guardian’s poisonous output and its stifling of debate, referred to the
‘near universally accepted’ IHRA
(p.101) [12]
In
fact there was confusion over whether or not the 31 member countries of the
IHRA had adopted the definition. In March 2018 the IHRA published a fact sheet
showing that just 8 countries had adopted it and when the BBC published a
correction of its misstatements they were tucked away out of sight. Persistent
efforts to engage with editorial staff at the Guardian over this‘did not bear fruit’ and ‘a protracted formal complaints process
resulted in a blanket dismissal of the research by the Guardian’s ‘Reader’s
Editor.’ (p. 106)
The
Guardian makes great play of what it calls its ‘internal ombudsman.‘ boasting
that ‘the Guardian was the first UK
newspaper to adopt a readers’ editor in 1997.’ Clearly when it comes to
systemic editorial sponsored bias, their Readers Editor is useless.[13]
The
fifth chapter by Antony Lerman is based on 3 articles written for Open
Democracy. Lerman begins with the allegation made against the Labour Party of ‘institutional anti-Semitism’ by the
Zionist ‘charity’ the Campaign Against Antisemitism and the JLM. (p.111) This
concept arose with the MacPherson Report into the death of Stephen Lawrence and
it represented an ‘appropriation’ of
the anti-racist struggle in Britain by supporters of Israel. The Zionists
hadn’t contributed anything to the Lawrence campaign or indeed any anti-racist
campaign but they acted as parasites on the anti-racist struggles of Black
people.
Some have suggested that there is
institutional anti-Semitism across the whole of the Labour Party this is not a
view I share, not least because I have not seen one incident of anti-Semitism
in almost 20 years of activism within my local Labour Party in Lambeth.[14]
I’ve
been very clear, the Labour Party’s institutionally anti-Semitic and you either
put your head in the sand and you ignore it or you actually do something about
it.
Chuka
displays all the consistency you would expect of someone who described
his own constituents as ‘trash’.[16]
So
what is this ‘institutional anti-Semitism’? Lerman goes back to the MacPherson
Report where the term first originated when describing the Metropolitan
Police’s behaviour towards Black people.
He isolates three elements. (p. 143)
i.
The ‘collective
failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their
protected characteristics.
ii.
The resulting discrimination
iii.
The resulting disadvantage which they suffer as a
result.
Lerman shows that if anything there is a
de facto discrimination in favour of Zionist Jews in the Labour
Party. This is because the JLM, an affiliated socialist society, is only open
to Zionist Jews. Non-Zionist Jews, the
majority in the Labour Party, are ineligible: ‘no other affiliated society makes membership dependent on the
individual expressing support for the official, nationalist ideology of another
state.’ (p.148) Normally the EHRC would have their work cut out proving
Labour is ‘institutionally anti-Semitic’. However given that their CEO Rebecca
Hilsenrath has already stated that ‘the
Labour Party needs to do more to establish that it is not a racist party’ there
can be no such assumptions. Lerman also notes that two years ago the EHRC ‘was subjected to withering criticism for
itself targeting disabled and ethnic
minority employees and denying them work opportunities in other
agencies.’ (p.155)
Lerman examines whether Labour’s
Anti-Semitism Code did reject the IHRA, as the Zionists asserted, and he convincingly
demonstrates that it didn’t. This proves that JVL was wrong to have embraced the
Code. They put their faith in Labour’s bastard child and their disappointment
was all the greater when it was still-born. (p.115)
Lerman is correct when he describes the IHRA
as constituting 38 words. Something which the IHRA’s permanent office confirmed
on 12 September 2017. (p. 129)
“Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed
as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism
are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property,
toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”
It is followed by 3 introductory paragraphs
which provide a context for the 11 examples of ‘anti-Semitism’, 7 of which
relate to Israel. They are permissive and conditional. The examples ‘might’ and ‘could include depending on the context’ anti-Semitism. This is
clearly not a definition as it is, as Stephen Sedley observed, indefinite.
Lerman slaps down the CST’s[17] Mark Gardener who ‘is simply wrong when he claims that ‘the definition is a single
document but Labour treats it as having two parts.’ It has two parts. Period.’
(p.116)
Lerman shows how the Zionist lobby has
systematically lied about the MacPherson ‘principle’. Indeed there is no such
principle merely a definition of a ‘racist
incident’ which is ‘any incident
which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person.’ However there was nothing in MacPherson Report
that suggests moving from a ‘rule about
recording the victim’s perception... to a general rule that only the victim can
define the racism they experience.’
This dishonest elision was fronted by Britain’s
most dishonest journalist, Jonathan Freedland who tweeted (5.7.19.) that ‘Labour’s decision means a break from the
MacPherson standard, which held that a minority was best placed to define
prejudice against it.’ Since when has ‘defining’ oppression been the sole
preserve of a minority? Are all Jews oppressed and of the one mind? Are all
minorities oppressed? Billionaires? Capitalists? War mongers?
Identity politics exclude class and race.
Jews in Britain are not oppressed and have no right to define the Palestinian
experience by telling them that calling Israel racist is anti-Semitic. Under
identity politics there is a conflict of rights – the right of the oppressed vs
the right of the oppressor. Since identity politics excludes context and power
relations it automatically privileges the powerful, which in this case are
Zionist Jews.
Even the Zionist CST in their 2009 Anti-Semitic Discourse Report rejected a
victim perception in favour of an objective approach. (p.119) David Feldman, of
the Pears Institute for the Study of Anti-Semitism noted that if the definition
of racism rested on individual or minority perception then
‘we open the way to conceptual and political chaos.... Without an
anti-racist principle which can be applied, generally we are left in a chaotic
situation in which one subjective point
of view faces another.’ (p.120)
Neveh Gordon, a politics professor at Israel’s
Ben-Gurion University observed that ‘The
Israeli government needs the “new anti-Semitism” to justify its actions and to
protect it from international and domestic condemnation.’ (p. 125) Lerman
concludes that one of the consequences of this is that if ‘almost everything is anti-Semitic then nothing is. The word is rendered
useless.’ or ‘when anti-Semitism is
everywhere it is nowhere. And when every anti-Zionist is an anti-Semite, we no
longer know how to recognise the real thing – the concept of anti-Semitism
loses its significance.’ (Brian Klug, p. 126)
Never can such a poorly worded piece of
prose been so closely examined as the IHRA. Anti-Semitism is defined as ‘a certain perception’ which leaves out
discrimination and hostility but, as Lerman remarks, we are not told what this
‘certain perception’ is. David Feldman called it ‘bewilderingly imprecise’. I prefer to think of it as deliberately
obfuscatory. (p.130)
Kenneth Stern, who drafted it, warned
against making the IHRA legally binding. A situation which may be fast
approaching. Geoffrey Robertson QC concluded that the IHRA was ‘not fit for purpose ... as an adjudicative standard.’ (pp.
132-133)
Rebecca Gould, an academic at Bristol
University, was subject to a demand by the Campaign
Against Antisemitism that she be sacked
for having written an article
Beyond Anti-Semitism for Counterpunch
in November 2011. The article linked the use of the Holocaust to the deflection
of criticism of Palestinian suffering. That was enough for the CAA. Kenneth
Stern called this out as ‘chilling and
McCarthy-like’ in his testimony
to the US Congress.[18] (p.
134)
By making the term ‘anti-Semitism’
meaningless the IHRA actually makes Jews more, not less, vulnerable to
anti-Semitism. (p. 136)
Lerman observes that ‘it is a terrible misjudgement when
so-called friends of the Jews exceptionaise Jewish suffering today.’ (p.
154) Tony Lerman is a non-Zionist and not, as far as I’m aware a socialist. He finds
all this very baffling. What people find hard to accept is that Zionism has never fought anti-Semitism and has
never been concerned about anti-Semitism. As the founder of Political Zionism, Theodor
Herzl wrote
‘The anti-semites will become our most
dependable friends, the anti-semitic countries our allies.’ [19]
Zionism begins at the point at which the fight against anti-Semitism ends. Zionism
needs anti-Semitism to survive. Therein lies the answer to Lerman’s dilemmas.
Lerman suggests that ‘one of the particularly distinctive
features’ of the anti-Semitism attacks is that it is largely out of
Labour’s hands to control. I disagree. It could have dealt with it and its
right-wing critics very easily early one. When John McDonnell, in an interview
with Lerman says that ‘I’d have erred
more on the side of being firmer on some cases’ it is proof that McDonnell
doesn’t get it even now.
That isn’t to say that some people in
the Labour Party don’t have anti-Semitic ideas in their heads or engage in
conspiracy theories with Jews at the centre. In a party of 600,000 that is perfectly
possible. One may even find 1 or 2 Holocaust deniers among them. Since it is
estimated that 5% of people in Britain, some 3 million, deny
the Holocaust, this is not surprising.[20] I
suspect though that one would find far more Holocaust deniers in the Tory party!
The point though is that racism is not
what is in someone’s head but what they do. There is no evidence at all that
anti-Semites are actively campaigning or pushing their views inside the Labour
Party. At worst a few will resort to social media but not to put too fine a
point on it, no one has ever died from a tweet. However the involvement of
Labour Party members in racism against Black people and Gypsies is not confined
to ideas.
An example is ex-Labour Home Office
Minister Tony McNulty who tweeted that Chris Williamson was an anti-Semite.
This is the man who took pride in deporting refugees and Black people. A worse
case of racist hypocrisy is hard to find.
If Black people only experienced racism
via social media they could consider themselves lucky. We have seen hundreds of
Black people deported in the Windrush Scandal, left to die alone and penniless.
The prisons are stuffed with Black kids. Racism is endemic in the Police. Jews
suffer none of this. When the Labour Party concentrates on anti-Semitism and
ignores the record of Tom Watson and John Mann we should conclude that yes, it
is institutionally racist but it isn’t institutionally anti-Semitic. (pp.
156-157)
One of the results of the false
anti-Semitism allegations is that people lose any understanding of what
anti-Semitism actually is. In a 2015 survey 45% weren’t confident they could
explain what anti-Semitism is and in a poll in March 2019 some 40% of people
didn’t know what anti-Semitism is, rising to more than half amongst under-25’s.
(pp. 158-159) Yet, as Lerman observes, the UK must be one of the safest places
on Earth for Jews to live! (p.160)
Lerman describes what has happened as a
‘moral panic’, which is when ‘a condition, episode, person or group of persons
emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests.’ Which
sums up what has happened. It is a
definition which could have been applied to the Salem witch hunt over 200 years
ago!
Where Lerman goes wrong is to suggest
that what has happened is a ‘Jew on Jew
war’. Behind the JLM stands non-Jews
such as Tom Watson and Joan Ryan. Jews have been the alibi, not the . This is a
fundamental misreading of the situation. Unfortunately JVL also fell for the
idea that simply creating a non-Zionist Jewish group could remedy this. It was
never about Jews.
Hence why Lerman states that the ‘intra-Jewish war and the poisonous
atmosphere around Israel’ must be brought to an end. ‘It is a festering sore. It’s a boil that needs to be lanced.’ He
goes on to recommend a ‘managed but open
debate’ on Israel and Palestine minus all discussion of ‘state based paradigms.’ Again this is
wrong. This was never primarily about Israel or the Middle East. It was about
Corbyn who was seen as the figurehead of anti-imperialism. The archetypal
anti-capitalist. The Middle East and
Palestine was secondary not primary. (p. 164)
David Miller suggests that there is a
difference between ‘a State of Israel’ and ‘the State of Israel’. I disagree.
The intention of the IHRA is quite clear.
It is simply that it’s wording is deliberately sloppy and inexact as a
means of bringing all within its remit. Miller also suggests that since the
advent of Jennie Formby there is now an ‘evidenced
based approach’ to disciplinary cases.
I disagree. Miller himself may
have been acquitted but my experience is that the situation today is worse than
under Iain McNicol.
In the Conclusion the emphasis is on
stamping out all forms of racism, whoever it is against. It makes no
distinction between actions and words. Miriam Margolyes commented that
anti-Semitism has been weaponised as a means of attacking Corbyn. The CAA
responded that ‘accusing Jews of making
accusations of anti-Semitism in bad faith... is a well-established anti-Semitic
slur.’ One wonders whether CAA’s accusations against other Jews of
‘anti-Semitism’ are also anti-Semitic? If so my libel action is likely to
succeed!
Would this be true of any other group,
Whites included? Jews are as capable of
being Machiavellian as the next group and Zionists almost by definition are
dishonest! (p. 176)
The section finishes with a quote[21] from Alexader Gauland, the co-leader of Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) that the Holocaust was ‘a small bird dropping in over 1,000 years of succesful German
history.’ A comment which recalls Le Pen’s description[22] of the Holocaust as only a ‘detail’ of French
history. In May the German Bundestag voted to condemn BDS as ‘anti-Semitic’ and
it was the AfD which wished it to go further and make BDS a criminal offence.[23] It
is an irony that is lost on the stupid leadership of the Labour Party and
Corbyn above all. Anti-Semites may hate Jews but they love Israel!
Tony Greenstein
[12] Guardian,
27.7.18. Yes Jews are angry’. Freedland
has turned the Guardian’s Comment pages from a discursive to a propagandist
broadsheet. https://www.theuardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/27/jewish-anger-labour-listen-antisemitism-opinion
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