The Hypocrisy of Jeremy Corbyn’s Accusers
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| 'What have they left to throw?' |
On 7th August the Daily Mail branded Jeremy Corbyn as someone
who was happy to associate with holocaust deniers and one Paul Eisen in
particular. Jeremy was alleged to have
given money to Deir Yassin Remembered, a pro-Palestinian organisation that
morphed under Eisen into an organisation of holocaust deniers, loony tunes and flat
earthists.
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| Whilst his opponents speak in phone booths - Corbyn's meetings overflow with 'infiltrators' |
On 12th August the Jewish Chronicle picked up on the theme
asking Corbyn seven loaded questions as to his relationship with Eisen and
various alleged anti-Semites. The list of anti-Semites included not only
the Eisen, but Carlos Latuff a Palestinian cartoonist, whose cartoons often employ
a Nazi metaphor. The Jewish Chronicle’s
list also included the leader of Israel’s Northern Islamic movement, Raed
Salah.
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| The only Labour candidate capable of winning back Scottish Labour seats |
The Case of Raed
Salah
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| Raed Salah Wins Deportation Case After CST Evidence Shown to be Fixed |
In June 2011 Raed Salah was banned from entering Britain but as no one
was notified he entered the country for a speaking tour before being arrested. The information supplied to Home Secretary
Theresa May by the Community Security Trust [CST] , who sought to deport him, on
the grounds that he had allegedly made a series of
antisemitic statements in sermons and a poem, and that his presence in Britain
was not conducive to the public good, was ‘very weak’ according to
Justice Ockleton, the Vice-President of the Upper Immigration Tribunal. Theresa May was ‘misled’ as to a poem by
Salah and the misleading was perpetrated by the CST, which is notorious for
physically attacking left-wing and anti-Zionist Jews at Jewish meetings. It combines two roles – defending Jewish
premises from attack and attacking Jewish opponents of Zionism.
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| Mark Gardener of CST with fellow bigot - Richard Littlejohn |
David Hearst [Theresa May's haste to ban Raed Salah will be repented at leisure] quotes David Miller, a sociology professor from the University of Strathclyde
in Scotland, who submitted his report on the CST as part of the evidence. It
gives a short history of the CST and its “controversial monitoring of
pro-Palestinian activists,” summarizing that it has a “tendency to treat
denunciation of Israel or Zionism as evidence of anti-Semitism.”
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| Theresa May, thanks to the CST, bungles a political deportation |
As Robert Lambert, a retired head of the Metropolitan police's Muslim
Contact Unit, and David Miller noted, the CST:
"failed to distinguish between antisemitism and criticism of the
actions of the Israeli state and therefore gives an unbalanced
perspective." [Palestinian activist wins appeal against deportation
, Ben Quinn] |
| Raed Salah |
Justice Ockelton said on 8 February that the original
text of a poem by Salah was “completely
different” from how it appeared in a government order banning him from UK
territory. The original banning order had accused Salah of anti-Semitism,
citing an altered version of the poem. Raed Salah deportation case disintegrates in UK court, but verdict still to follow
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| Fighting 'racism' is a lucrative business for Gardener - some £150,000 a year |
According to Ockelton, the decision by Theresa May to ban
Salah had been based not on the original text, but a “Jerusalem Post
inaccurate summary” of the poem,
entitled Civil Liberties. In a June 2009 editorial, the Post had added the words “you Jews” to the poem,
making it appear anti-Semitic. The original Arabic version was printed in a
2002 edition of an Islamic Movement publication.
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| They've moved on from supporting Hitler and Moseley |
A UK Border
Agency document of 21 June 2011 admitted that the agency had not
been able to find the original text “despite extensive research.” See Court victory for Raed Salah deals blow to UK “anti-terror” policy Despite this May went ahead with her decision
to ban Salah on 23 June. The original
text of the poem later emerged, as
revealed by The Electronic Intifada in October.
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| Raed Salah |
The Post
article was cited by people like Henry Jackson Society Research Director, Michael
Weiss, (“PSC
comes to Parliament …,” The
Telegraph politics blog, 29 June 2011) to misleadingly portray Salah
as an anti-Semite. Such is the quality
of Henry Jackson Society researchers. Rosenorn-Lanng,
a caseworker, had earlier admitted that the UK Border Agency had not sought the
original text of the poem, relying instead on Internet sources.
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| Surprising given the flack thrown at him |
But Salah was clear that the poem was addressed to all
perpetrators of injustice, regardless of religion, race or group. He pointed
out that his poem also addressed Arab oppressors with certain references to the
Quran, and also addresses Pharaoh as an oppressor. Salah had said that Pharaoh
was an Arab. And that he had oppressed the followers of Moses and that “God is
not a racist,”
Aside from the distorted poem, the other main citation of
the government was a speech Salah gave in Jerusalem in 2007, in which he had
talked about Israeli soldiers shedding the blood of Palestinians. The citation
had reportedly included the line: “Whoever
wants a more thorough explanation, let him ask what used to happen to some
children in Europe, whose blood was mixed in with the dough of the holy bread.”
Hostile press coverage in Israel inserted the word
“Jewish” in square brackets before the words “holy bread” (“Islamic
Movement head charged with incitement to racism, violence,” Haaretz, 29 January 2008).
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| Jeremy Corbyn packs them in as Yvette, Andy and Liz speak to empty rooms |
Contrary to the assertions of the British press, Raed Salah was not
convicted of making blood libel allegations against Jews. He was convicted of racist incitement. That might sound like a semantic difference,
but note that according to the Jerusalem
Post, ‘The conviction was a reversal of an acquittal on those charges by
the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court in 2013 when that court convicted him of
incitement to violence, but acquitted him of racist incitement.’ In other words the evidence before what is a
colonial court for Israeli Arabs was not strong enough to convict him of the
charge of racism before the lower court.
It was a political decision by the higher Jerusalem District Court that
found him guilty. Clearly the evidence was
not unambiguous. Islamic Movement leader Salah convicted of racist incitement on appeal
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| An example of Latuff's anti-Semitic cartoons |
When the Home Office’s Neil Sheldon QC accused Salah of
invoking the blood libel, Salah responded that: “this interpretation is out of
bounds, and has no origin in fact.” He then went into some detail, saying that
his purpose had been to liken the Israeli occupation forces to the inquisitions
in Europe that used to shed the blood of children, and which used religion to
perpetuate injustice. UK government conflates criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism in Salah trial
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| Applauding the fair-mindedness of New Labour |
Sheldon admitted that the government had relied on a
“misquotation” of Salah’s poem in The
Jerusalem Post. Salah’s lawyer Raza Husain argued the misquotation
could only have been a “malign” attempt to defame the character of his client,
not an innocent misunderstanding. Ockelton
questioned the value of May’s decision to ban since it was based on incorrect
information.
In the Appeal hearing Dr. Stefan Sperl, an expert in
Arabic poetry from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, gave
an analysis of the original text of a poem by Salah called “A Message to the
Oppressors” saying it was addressed to all “perpetrators of injustice,” whether
Jews or not. He said a Jerusalem
Post article characterizing it as anti-Semitic was deliberately
misleading. A version with the words “you Jews” inserted into the poem seems to
have been used in the UKBA document.
So the allegation, by Cathy Newman of Channel 4 and
others, that Jeremy Corbyn had associated with someone convicted of holocaust
denial is patently false.
[much of the research quoted above was done by Asa
Winstanley, a correspondent for the Electronic Intifada]
The Invention of anti-Semitism – The Lies of Stephen Pollard
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| Stephen Pollard - It's the nearest he gets to what others call deep thought |
The key protagonist in the allegations of anti-Semitism
and associating with holocaust deniers is however Stephen Pollard, editor of
the Jewish Chronicle and member of the cold war Henry Jackson society. Pollard is ex-editor of the Daily Express,
owned by Britain’s largest porn merchant Richmond Desmond.
Pollard is an Israel firster. A dedicated Zionist who has turned the Jewish
Chronicle from a newspaper with strong Zionist allegiances into a Zionist
propaganda rag which brooks no opposition.
It has completely cut out of its pages not only anti-Zionists but non-Zionist
dissidents like Tony Lerman and Dr Brian Klug and indeed anyone who doesn’t toe
the Israel right or wrong line.
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| Ex-Editor of Sunday Express - owned by Britain's largest porn merchant Richard Desmond - He's turned the Jewish Chronicle into Political Porn |
Pollard has taken to heart the traditional Zionist line
that anti-Semitism is not a Zionist concern unless it concerns anti-Zionists
such as Jeremy Corbyn. But mindful of
the libel laws and knowing his own case is reliant on guilt-by-association, as
befits a McCarthyist, Pollard denies that he is accusing Corbyn of
anti-Semitism.
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| Robert Zile and the European Conservatives that Cameron formed |
Pollard hasn’t always been so keen to call out an
anti-Semite, especially when the anti-Semite is a far-right politician who is also
a Zionist. One such was Michal Kaminski
MEP of the Polish Law & Justice Party and Chairman of the European
Conservatives and Reform Group. Another such
is Robert Zile of the Latvian Fatherland and Freedom Party [LNNK], who were
both guests at the Conservative Party Conference in 2009 and of the
Conservative Friends of Israel.
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| Kaminski of Poland's Law & Justice Party |
To understand the controversy at the time one has to understand the
background. Kaminski was an MP for an
area of Poland including a village Jedwabne.
On July 10, 1941, more than 300 Jews were burnt alive in a barn by their
Polish neighbours, in a Polish village Jedwabne under the watchful eye of the
SS and Order Police. Although over 60%
of Jedwabne's pre-war population was Jewish, today there are no Jews left of what
was a 300 year old community. [“Burning Alive” by Andrzej Kaczynski, published
May 5, 2000 in the Polish newspaper “Rzeczpospolita”, Introduction by Morlan Ty Rogers, June 27, 2000]
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| A Somewhat Flustered Fascist |
The massacre in Jedwabne was the subject of a book by Polish-Jewish
historian Jan Tomasz Gross.[Neighbours: The Destruction of the Jewish Community
in Jedwabne, Poland, May 2000] It caused
a far-reaching public debate that split public opinion. [The Legacy of Jedwabne] Most of the population of Jedwabne opposed
President Aleksander Kwasniewski’s belief that a national apology should be
made, in Jedwabne itself, to mark the massacre's sixtieth anniversary (10 July
2001). Michal Kaminski, was instrumental
in urging Jedwabne residents to oppose the President's apology and boycott the
ceremonial event in 2001.
The campaign against an apology had ‘strongly anti-Semitic overtones,’
according to Dr Rafal Pankowski, author of The Populist Radical Right in
Poland. The Chief Rabbi of Poland, Michael Schudrich said: “Mr Kaminski was a member of NOP, a group
that is openly far-right and neo-Nazi. Anyone who would want to align himself
with the Committee to Defend the Good Name of Jedwabne… needs to understand
with what and by whom he is being represented.” Yet again, Tories fawn overthe far right, By Alex Hern, October 6, 2011
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| Kaminski - a Skinhead Politician |
In an interview with Martin Bright of the Jewish Chronicle [EXCLUSIVE Michal Kaminski: 'I'm no antisemite'] 9.10.09. Kaminski stated that
‘If you are asking the Polish nation to apologise for the
crime made in Jedwabne, you would require from the whole Jewish nation to
apologise for what some Jewish Communists did in Eastern Poland.’
It was, of course, a false comparison. Poland, where anti-Semitism had been endemic
among the middle class, sections of the peasantry and the military/aristocracy,
had not been an easy place to live for Jews before the war. The welcome given by many Jews to the Soviet invasion
was therefore understandable. But the
fact that some Jews collaborated with the Soviet invaders in 1939 doesn’t mean
that all Jews or the ‘Jewish nation’ should be held collectively guilty. The mass murder of the Jews of Jedwabne,
which was carried out by only a minority of Poles in the village, is something
that the Polish state should apologise for in its own terms. Yet Pollard was quite happy with this
explanation.
In his interview with Bright, Kaminski claimed that he did not remember
giving an interview to the ‘ultra-nationalist’ Nacza Polska, when he is alleged
to have said he would only apologise for Jedwabne when “someone from the Jewish
side will apologise for what the Jews did during the Soviet occupation between
1939 and 1941, for the mass collaboration of the Jewish people with the Soviet
occupier.”
He also denied wearing the Chrobry sword, the symbol of the National
Radical Camp Falanga, a Catholic fascist group formed in 1935. He issues a
categorical denial: “No, I never wear it. I don’t even know which symbol you
are referring to. In a later statement to the Jewish Chronicle he admited that
he did wear the sword but that it was ‘After 1989 it was used as one of the symbols of the Christian
National Union and many Conservative politicians would wear it, including
politicians now in the Civic Platform. In recent years it has been taken
as a symbol by the Far Right.’
According to Pollard ‘The real
story behind the accusations against Michal Kaminski has nothing to with
antisemitism.’ Rather ‘It is, rather,
a grubby story about the EU and base politics.’ As for joining the NOP, well Kaminski was only
15 and and anyway ‘when he joined the NOP
in 1987 when it was still an underground movement.’
Indeed the Jews had no better friend than Kaminski. In ‘Poland's Kaminski is not an antisemite: he's a friend to Jews’ Pollard argued that Kaminski’s concern was merely that a national apology for
Jedwabne would let the actual killers ‘off
the hook’. It had nothing to do with Poles against Jews, ‘but was a vile crime committed by specific
individuals.’ It is true that not all Poles are guilty. The Polish working-class had an honourable
record of fighting fascism and anti-Semitism, though Pollard as a Zionist is
the last person to make such an argument, but as a national minority Poland’s
Jews suffered hideous anti-Semitism and an apology on behalf of the whole
Polish nation would be at least a token act of amends. But Pollard argued, since President
Kwasniewski ‘was a former communist’ what
was required was an apology for the ‘antisemitic
campaign of 1968’. Pollard’s
anti-communism trumps his alleged concern for anti-Semitism. I’m not aware that in the 1968 ‘anti-Zionist’
campaign 300 Jews were burnt alive.
Replying to an article by the Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland, Pollard
also dismisses the fact that Roberts Zile's Latvian party, the LNNK "have played a leading part in the
annual parade honouring veterans of the Latvian Legion of the Waffen-SS".
Pollard says ‘I know the facts about
Kaminski, but I can think of no source for evidence against Zile other than
those who so disgracefully besmirch Kaminski.’ The information was, of course, widely known
and on March 8 2012 Emma Stock wrote, in the Jewish Chronicle,
an article Calls to ban Baltic neo-Nazi marches in which she referred to the fact that ‘Disturbingly, the Riga march is supported by Latvian officials and MEPs
such as Robert Zile, who sits alongside UK MEPS in the new European
Conservatives and Reformists party in the European Parliament.’ Or Pollard can consult The little European
problem that the Conservatives would prefer to forget’ by his Political Correspondent,
Martin Bright on October 11 2012: ‘Still
more troubling for the Jewish community is the hard-right Latvian MEP Robert
Zile, whose also sits in alliance with the Tories in Europe. Mr Zile is a
long-time supporter of the Latvian “Legionnaires Day” rally which each March
celebrates the Waffen SS.’ For some
strange reason, Pollard hasn’t seen to update his apologia for Zile and the
LNNK. He must be too busy dealing with
his Corbyn problem!
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| Mickey Davis of the Jewish Leadership Council and mining company Xstrara - the big Zionist Capitalists who give the orders to the Board of Deputies were not happy with anything questioning their fascist friends |
Toby Helm argues that "As a local MP, Kaminski played a key role in the campaign
questioning the Polish responsibility for the Jedwabne massacre. The campaign
had strongly antisemitic overtones," quoting Dr Rafal Pankowski, a member
of the Never Again Association and author of The
Populist Radical Right in Poland. Is Michal Kaminski fit to lead the Tories in Europe?
But when Kaminski was contacted he denied all. "I never tried to stop the commemoration, that is not true,"
he said. He had always been in favour, he insisted. But when asked if he had,
as the local MP, attended the event in Jedwabne, he couldn’t remember!
Kaminski also denied having conducted the interview with Nasza Polska or telling
the paper – which is known for carrying far-right material – that the Poles
should not apologise until the Jews apologised to them. "I never said it. It is absolutely not true,"
However the Observer contacted the editor-in-chief Piotr Jakucki, who confirmed
that the interview had been conducted with Kaminski by the paper's Kaja
Bogomilska and that the article had been published on 20 March 2001. He also
sent a hard copy.
When the row over Kaminski and Zile first blew up, the Conservatives achieved
what they ‘believed to be a decisive counter-strike’. They obtained the support of Stephen Pollard,
editor of the Jewish
Chronicle, who leaped to Kaminski's defence, saying there was
nothing to suggest the Polish MEP was an anti-Semite. Pollard claimed there was not "a shred
of evidence" that Kaminski had demanded a Jewish apology for crimes
against Poles as a condition for Polish contrition.
As Denis MacShane wrote in ‘The curious case of Michal Kaminski’ Kaminski made a Polish apology condition on ‘someone from the Jewish side’ apologising ‘for what the Jews did during the
Soviet occupation between 1939 and 1941. As if Jews were not also Polish. It seems that the visit to Yad Vashem
had had no effect too on his consciousness (and maybe, being a propaganda
showpiece it didn’t). However half the
Jews, 3 million, who died in the holocaust were Polish.
And further evidence of Kaminski’s anti-Semitism is provided by Craig
Murray, who became the British Ambassador in Uzbekistan and who was then First
Secretary at the British Embassy in Poland.
When Alexander Kasniewski defeated Lech Walesa to become President of
Poland in 1995, Kaminski was involved in lobbying the media to publish stories
stating that Kwasniewski’s grandmother was Jewish. That accusation became the
focal point of the entire election campaign. ‘Michal
Kaminski, The Tories and Polish Anti-Semitism
Antony Lerman observed that Kaminski’s Law & Justice party, was hardly a home for
anti-racists. Citing the Stephen Roth
Institute for the Study of Racism and Antisemitism, it contained radical
nationalists and former members of antisemitic organisations and maintained a
strategic alliance with Radio Maryja, "the mass-audience nationalist
Catholic radio station and a key force on the far right", which gives
airtime to antisemitic demagogues. None
of this stopped Kaminski speaking to to the Global Counter-Terrorism Conference
in Herzliya, Israel in September 2009. ‘But is Kaminski good for the Jews?’
In ‘Kaminski apologists play with fire’ Peter
Beaumont notes how the defenders of Kaminski so easily resorted to anti-Semitism. David Miliband, when he criticised the Tories
for their alliance with the Kaminski and Zile, (opportunistically no doubt) the
comments of Tory supporters either defended members of Zile's party who marched
with the Latvian SS, because they fought the Bolsheviks, or ‘more scandalously,
suggested that Miliband had no "right to comment on Nazism", as he
was a Jew with "Bolshevik grandparents".
However, to be fair to Pollard, he
wasn’t alone in having a problem with criticism of the Tories far right and
neo-Nazi allies in the European Parliament. [Leaders split over David Cameron's Euro allies]
When Vivien Wineman of the Board of Deputies wrote to David Cameron concerning
the Tories’ allies in the European Parliament it caused a rift with the Jewish
Leadership Council [read big Zionist capitalists] One JLC member described colleagues as
“livid” at the timing of the letter. Another said he was “incandescent”.
A senior Jewish Conservative said: “The Board… has been manipulated by
left-wing interests into a completely inappropriate position. The irony is that
the new Tory European group will be the most pro-Israel lobby group.” And this is true, anti-Semites are often the Zionist
best friend. A point made by Pollard in
his original defence of Kaminski ‘David Miliband's insult to Michal Kaminski is contemptible’ ‘Far from being an antisemite, Mr Kaminski is about as pro-Israel an MEP
as exists.’
Dean Godson, of the Policy Exchange think tank, accused Wineman and
others who had criticised the Tories' links with Robert Zile of Latvia's
Fatherland and Freedom party [LNNK], of “a certain form of left McCarthyism’.
It would seem that
those who are so keen to examine the finest details of those Jeremy Corbyn has
encountered over the years are nonetheless
happy to give a carte blanche to bona fide 24 carat anti-Semites. Hypocrisy doesn’t somehow seem a strong
enough word to describe the behaviour of the Stephen Pollard’s of this word.
Perhaps given the credentials of his friend and ex-employer Desmond, we can
call it Political Pornography.
