Guardian Comment is 'Free' and Newspeak

One of the distinguishing features of 1984 was Newsspeak. Black is White, Lies are Truth. Under Bike Fanatic Matt Seaton [how can anyone write 3 books on the machines?] the Guardian's CIF has moved decisively in the direction of the Israel Lobby.

And who has he hired but David Toube, the slick city solicitor who runs Harry's Place - a racist and anti-Islamic blog that also believes in 'free' speech. Toube as therefore given free reign to post a boring piece attacking an article on CIF by Tony Lerman, someone who the Israel Lobby witchhunted when he was Director of the Institute of Jewish Policy Research.

What got Toube's goat was Lerman's quite gentle criticisims of the Zionists' goon squad in Britain, the Community Security Trust. Based on research I had done in a previous article on the CST I posted an article (below) on CIF. Sure enough it was deleted. Why? Because according to one Adam Censor it breached 'community standards'. And what might be the specific offence? No answer How? No answer? What community? How does the community make decisions? Of course there is no community but the Grauniad likes these nice New Labour buzzwords that are meaningless.

So let us have a look at what possible offences could have merited the wrath of the censors:

i. Pointing out that the Lee Barnes of the BNP that Toube cites in his article is an avid Zionist whose only disappointment with Israel's Lebanese War in 2006 was that more Muslims weren't killed.

ii. Maybe it was quoting an article in the Guardian that cited the BNP's site as the most pro-Zionist of any major political party.

iii. Maybe pointing out that the Board of Deputies of British Jews, which set up the CST, has always had a long history, going back to the Battle of Cable Street of 1936, in opposing any fascist mobilisations. At the time it told Jews to stay indoors and avoid trouble!

iv. Or maybe demonstrating that the true role of the CST is to 'protect' the Jewish community from Jewish anti-Zionists?

v. Or maybe revealing details of the CST's murky finances. The fact that it has £11m in reserves, makes over a million quid a year profit, pays 3 of its staff £100,000+ salaries for 'fighting fascism' and leaches of Jewish charities by raising the bogey of 'anti-semitism' at the very same time that the most basic social care of the elderly and disabled in the Jewish community is under threat.

vi. Or maybe it was my criticism of Toube's attack on the 'genocidal racist' of Hamas and the continuation of the racist Harry's Place theme that Muslims are to blame for anti-Semitism.

vii. Or was it pointing out that the only country the Nazis occupied which didn't deport any of its Jews was Morocco and that superficial and glib attacks on Arabs for 'anti-semitism' ignores that there are no social roots to anti-semitism in the Middle East. Now that certainly seems to be dangerous knowledge to throw around but then again the censors are hardly likely to understand what I was saying anyway.

So I shall leave it to you dear readers to decide which is the most likely. Or maybe it was the taking apart of an ignorant Zionist solicitor was the real reason.

Tony Greenstein

15 Apr 09, 7:19pm

David Toube’s article is disingenuous.

The Community Security Trust doesn’t just provide advice on protecting Jewish buildings and events from attack. If that was its only remit then no one could complain. The problem is that the CST is a Zionist organisation. Its openly conflates anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. One of its undeclared roles is to insulate the Jewish community from Jewish anti-Zionists. Is that fighting anti-Semitism? See:

If Lee Barnes of the BNP is going to be quoted then it should also be pointed out that he is an ardent supporter of the Israeli state. During Israel’s war against Lebanon he wrote:

As a Nationalist I can say that I support Israel 100% in their dispute with Hizbullah. In fact, I hope they wipe Hizbullah off the Lebanese map and bomb them until they leave large greasy craters in the cities where their Islamic extremist cantons of terror once stood.

David Toube is reticent about the BNP’s support for Zionism. E.g. the Guardian of Thursday 10.4.08. carried a story ‘BNP seeks to bury antisemitism and gain Jewish votes in Islamophobic campaign’.· Ruth Smeed of the Board of Deputies of British Jews stated that ‘The BNP website is now one of the most Zionist on the web - it goes further than any of the mainstream parties in its support of Israel’.

The reason why is quite simple. The BNP first and foremost hate Muslims. Zionism, as Toube demonstrates, also target Muslims. Hence the basis for the BNP’s support of Zionism – which of course is quite compatible with anti-Semitism.

I agree with Tony Lerman. Indeed I would go further. If there was a real threat of anti-Semitism in Britain, as with the National Front in the 1970’s, then the CST and the Board of Deputies would be telling Jews it is exaggerated. The CST works hand in glove with the Police. Anyone with any experience of anti-fascist mobilisations and organisations knows that the Jewish establishment were always OPPOSED to anything that smacked of conflict with fascism.

The CST have never organised a single anti-fascist mobilisation. They take their stance from the Board of Deputies which in October 1936 at Cable Street told Jews to stay indoors and ignore the British Union of Fascists when they attempted to march through the East End. Jewish and non-Jewish workers ignored them and drove the fascists from the streets.

Those who think the CST would do any differently now live in cloud cuckoo land.

What the CST is about is making Jews scared of something that doesn’t exist and pretending that anti-Zionism and support for the Palestinians is anti-Semitic. And in the process they hoover up lots of cash. With about £11 millions in reserves and an income of about £5m a year and 64 employees, including 3 with salaries over £100,000 (anti-fascism has never been so profitable!) the CST has a different agenda altogether.

When researching a list of Jewish charities something struck me. How nearly all of them had made donations to the CST. This at a time when Jewish Care and other organisations are running out of funds to care for the Jewish elderly and sick in this country. The CST is an establishment parasite on the Jewish community, raising fears to feather its own nest at the expense of the most vulnerable in the Jewish community.

Toube writes that Britain is not a country in which antisemitism is widespread among ordinary people. That’s right, because anti-racist and anti-fascist campaigns have seen to it that that is the case. So why then the need for the CST? Because raising fears about anti-Semitism at the end of the day means more immigrants for Israel.

The major form of racism in Britain today is anti-Islamic racism. And what does Toube have to say about that? Supporters of Islam are anti-Semitic!! Hamas is blamed. Hamas is not anti-Semitic, which is not to say that it isn’t politically backward. Jewish people who have gone IN SOLIDARITY with the Palestinians to Gaza have not been subject to anti-Semitism, as veteran peace campaigner Uri Avneri will testify. But when Israeli soldiers say that they are destroying peoples’ homes and killing their children in the name of ‘the Jews’ it’s not surprising that some people believe them.

But anti-Semitism HAS NO SOCIAL ROOTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST. The only country (Denmark apart) where a Nazi occupation didn’t lead to deportations was Morocco. Why? Because Arabs were opposed to the deportation of their fellow Jewish citizens. To now come, and say that Arabs are the real anti-Semites speaks volumes about David Toube’s real agenda.

If anyone makes the ‘provision of alibis for genocidal racists’ then it is Mr Toube and his friends.