The Witchhunt of Gerald Kaufman - Crucified for Supporting the Palestinians

Anti-Semitic?  No – His only crime was supporting Palestinian Human Rights

My only encounter with Gerald Kaufman was when we exchanged sharp words twenty years ago, after I had told the then Labour Friends of Israel organiser, Valerie Cocks, the wife of the Chief Whip, Michael Cocks where to go.

Pilloried for his support of the Palestinians

However I have forgiven Gerald and indeed come to admire and respect him despite the fact that he is still a Zionist, of sorts.  He boasts of his friendship with every Labour Zionist Prime Minister whilst forgetting that it was Labour Zionism which presided over the original expulsion of the Palestinian refugees.  He undoubtedly wouldn’t accept my argument that there is nothing that Likud has done that the Israeli Labour Party hasn’t done before it.

Nonetheless Gerald Kaufman has been a consistent supporter of Palestinian human rights for the past decade and more and a few ill-chosen words, which contained a kernel of truth, have led to him being viciously attacked for ‘anti-Semitism’ in the Zionist press.

Sir Gerald Kaufman is one of the last members of Harold Wilson's kitchen cabinet

I want to say here and now that Gerald Kaufman is no anti-Semites, unlike many of his detractors.  I have no hesitation in defending him.  He is a magnificent defender of human rights, unlike his detractors.

Gerald Kaufman on a trip to Israel as part of a parliamentary delegation

This all began when Kaufman spoke to the Palestine Return Centre.  He apparently said that ‘"There is now a big group of Conservative members of Parliament who are pro-Israel whatever government does and they are not interested in what Israel, in what the Israeli government does."

According to The Independent he went on to claim that 

"They're not interested in the fact that Palestinians are living a repressed life, and are liable to be shot at any time. In the last few days alone the Israelis have murdered 52 Palestinians and nobody pays attention and this government doesn't care."

The so-called Campaign Against anti-Semitism is partially sighted.  Only Palestinians qualify.

The Zionist ‘Campaign Against Anti-Semitism’, whose only concern is to link ‘anti-Semitism’ with support for the Palestinians, claimed that ‘The speech delivered by Sir Gerald Kaufman, as reported by David Collier, is antisemitic and the Labour Party must investigate immediately.’  And as if to impress us with their credentials, we are informed that the ‘Campaign Against Antisemitism is in contact with the Opposition Chief Whip.’

The so-called CAS [a political propaganda group that has just become a 'charity'] sprang up during Operation Protective Edge last year, when over 2,200 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli blitzkrieg on Gaza, including over 550 children.  The CAS’s sole concern was to deflect support for the Palestinians by making claims of ‘anti-Semitism’ against opponents of Israel.  Not once, ever, have they expressed the slightest concern about the Palestinian victims of Israel’s attacks. 

This is not surprising since those involved in CAS are devoted Zionists and supporters of Israel, right or wrong.  People like Simon Cobbs of the far-Right Sussex Friends of Israel which last year invited Mordechai Kedar, an Israeli ‘academic’ and former officer to speak.  Kedar has advocated raping Palestinian women in the fight against ‘terrorism’.  Picket Meeting Of Israeli Professor Kedar Who Advocates Rape As A Deterrent - The Zionist Federation and Sussex Friends of Israel Invite an Advocate of Rape to Speak 

The CAS used what it termed ‘The globally-recognised EUMC definition of antisemitism’  to prove that Kaufman was anti-Semitic.  The only problem is that the EUMC definition of anti-Semitism is globally derecognised.   The European Union Monitoring Committee definition was only ever a ‘working definition’ and it is now no longer even that.  The EUMC’s successor body, the Fundamental Rights Agency has erased it from its website. Blanca Tapia of the FRA was quoted, in The Times of Israel as saying that it ‘had never viewed the document as a valid definition. Agency officials said the document had been pulled offline “together with other non-official documents.” EU drops its ‘working definition’ of anti-Semitism  

The racist Palestinian Media Watch group

This is but one example of the fundamental dishonesty of the so-called ‘Campaign Against Anti-Semitism’  The Zionist hatred of Sir Gerald Kaufman is because of his withering criticism of Israel’s barbarities.  If you want an example of this go to the blog post I did Sir Gerald Kaufman, veteran British Parliamentarian and Zionist compares Israelis in Gaza to the Nazis  when he made one of the finest parliamentary speeches I have heard. 

The Campaign Against anti-Semitism uses the racist anti-Palestinian group Palestinian Media Watch for its evidence 

Sir Gerald went on to say 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.”  

In essence this is true.  The people who are giving the money to the CFI are Jewish and they don’t care one little bit about the evil that results from their donation.  These donors of murder money are the people who should be condemned, not someone who criticises them using language which identifies them by religion rather than their politics. 

The term ‘Jewish money’ is a short-hand.  Of course it would be better to say ‘Zionist money’ or ‘Zionist donors’ but to say, in the context of donations to the CFI that the money is ‘Jewish money’ is not anti-Semitic.  Zionist propaganda organisations and Israeli government hasbara spend all their waking time claiming that to be Jewish is to be a Zionist (except for a few Jewish 'traitors' or to use the Nazi term, ‘self-haters’).

The Independent also says that Kaufman also claimed that "more than half" of the stabbings that have recently happened in the West Bank, Jerusalem and the rest of Israel were fabricated, in comments that were recorded by blogger David Collier.  No doubt this too was proof positive of his ‘anti-Semitism’.

Unfortunately under pressure, Jeremy Corbyn criticised Sir Gerald Kaufman, for making “completely unacceptable” remarks about the Jewish community.’  

What Corbyn should have done is to make it clear that though the words could have been chosen more wisely the sentiments were sound enough.  Those rich Jewish scoundrels who donate thousands to CFI in order to support the oppression of the Palestinian people are no less guilty of war crimes than those who pull the trigger.  Gerald Kaufman's ‘racism’ pales into insignifiance against the crimes of these powerful supporters of genocide.  It is nothing less than utter hypocrisy.  

No less than 590 search items revealed in a search of the Jewish Chronicle archives

  

Hypocrisy – The Term ‘Jewish money’ is used by the Jewish Chronicle 590 times!

But my dear reader.  This campaign, which was launched by the Jewish Chronicle is utter and total tripe even on its own terms.  Here is the strange thing.  I had a brainwave.  How many times has the term ‘Jewish money’ appeared in the Jewish Chronicle, the self-declared Zionist mouthpiece of the Jewish community?  Well I did a quick search on its archive and came up with the result.  No less than 590 mentions!  Now some of these are articles on the anti-Semitic use of the term ‘Jewish money’ but many of them are nothing of the kind.  ‘Jewish money’ is simply an accepted term when used by 'JC' correspondents but it becomes anti-Semitic when used by someone who is a supporter of human rights.

Jewish Chronicle Uses of the Term ‘Jewish Money’

Another example of Alderman's anti-Semitism!

In a column by Jewish Chronicle columnist Geoffrey Alderman, Obama’s false  Iran Alternative (14.8.15) Alderman speaks 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.’  In other words ‘Jewish money’ is being used to campaign against the US-Iran agreement.’

Alderman - a Zionist hypocrite calls for Gerald Kaufman's banning for doing the same as he does!

And despite the fact that Alderman used the phrase ‘Jewish money’ twice within the same article he had the effrontery to use his column of 20^th November A man who deserves banning to call for Gerald Kaufmann’s excommunication from the Jewish community.  

Alderman:  opposing anti-Semitism is 'political correctness'

This is even more surprising since Alderman had previously excused very explicit anti-Semitic remarks, such as the comments of David Whelan, former owner of Wigan Athletic football club who stated 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?  Presumably he called for the expulsion of Wigan Athletic from the football league or Whelan being stripped of all association with it?  Possibly he called for his prosecution?  I'm afraid not.  Alderman, in another example of Zionist hypocrisy, called talk of anti-Semitism 'political correctness' no less - PC being the last refuge of the bigot.

It was ‘a sad and miserable tale of political correctness taken to new depths of absurdity.’  This football fuss is a bit rich 5.12.14.  Despite ‘shrewd’ being used in the sense of canny or mean, i.e. a stereotypical comment about Jews and money, Alderman’s comment was ‘who reading this column could take umbrage at that?’  And as for Jews chasing money, Alderman was most circumspect:  ‘as far as I’m aware no serious research has been done on this subject.  But it’s certainly true that the Jewish view of money differs considerably from that of Christianity.’  

No doubt when someone next claims that Jewish noses are distinctive and longer than non-Jewish noses, or make some other anti-Semitic comment, Alderman will pipe up that no one has yet measured or quantified the length of the noses!

Alderman considers himself a virtuous man and so we should rest with the old adage that hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue.  But Alderman is not alone in his hypocrisy:

In an article (JC 9.11.12.) by Simon Rocker ‘BBC’s Washington reporter rapped over ‘Jewish lobby’ remark’ we learn that Katy Kay commented on the Presidential contenders that ‘no one running for President wants to alienate the power and money of the Jewish lobby.’  Quite.  And the BBC was quite happy defending Ms Kay.

Aaronovitch is quite happy with the phrase 'Jewish money'

In an article by the ultra-sanctimonious David Aaronovitch, ‘The Rumours and the Rampage’ Aaro was quite happy to talk of a ‘Mr Bacile, the Zionist Israeli who had made a $5 million film with Jewish money had gradually turned into Mr Nakoula, the indicted fraudster…’ 

And in an article ‘How I Avoided Becoming a Madoff Victim’ by Paul Berger (11.12.09) we learn that ‘The Metropolitan Museum and the Museum of Modern Art used to refuse Jewish money.  Now if you walk into the Met every second gallery or pavilion has a Jewish name on it.’

And in yet another article on the appropriately named Bernie Madoff, Too good to be true?  6.3.09. we learn that ‘A large amount of  “Jewish” money has simply disappeared.’

In a short article on a Hamodia reader, 29.8.08.  we learn that in a letter to the paper, a TY of London expresses his or her dismay at ‘Jewish money being used for this purpose’ [hunting down elderly Nazi war criminals] and in yet another article ‘I know I am, I’m sure I am, I’m Turkey till I die’ Simon Round explains that ‘The Swiss nicked a lot of Jewish money, whereas the Turks didn’t do anything particularly bad in the war…’  13.6.08.

If that was not enough we also learn in an article ‘Diamond dealers shine as property slumps for this year’s Rich Listers’ that ‘Nonetheless, Rich List compiler Philip Beresford saw it as ‘a very good year for Jewish money, both new and old.’  No doubt it was.  After all diamonds are more than just a girl’s best friend.

I won’t bore you with any more examples, you can search the Jewish Chronicle archives yourself if you are a subscriber (no they don’t’ do public interest.  It costs £5 to download each pdf file!,  But I’ve screen printed them for free for your benefit! 

As everyone who is Jewish knows, the term ‘Jewish money’ is as common as muck.  It is used continually within the Jewish community and to pretend that its use is anti-Semitic is just plain, vanilla hypocrisy that only Zionists are capable of.  Operating in a high visibility arena Gerald Kaufman’s only crime was to lay himself open to the criticism and vitriol of the professional ‘anti-Semite’  merchants.  Never was Jesus’ comment about discerning the mote in one’s brother’s eye before the beam in one’s own eye more relevant.  Yet it is the Zionist movement that is truly and disgustingly anti-Semitic. 

If Gerald Kaufmann had talked of ‘fumigating Jewish  vermin’ then there is no doubt that this would be deeply anti-Semitic.  Yet Israel’s first Justice Minister Pinhas Rosenbluth described Palestine as ‘an institute for the fumigation of Jewish vermin’. [Joachim Doron, p.169 Classic Zionism and modern anti-Semitism: parallels and influences’ (1883-1914), Studies in Zionism 8, Autumn 1983]. 

Chaim Weizmann, Israel’s first President and President of the Zionist Organisation, went one better, describing German Jewish refugees as ‘the germ-carriers of a new outbreak of anti-Semitism.’ [Edwin Black, Ha’avara – The Transfer Agreement, p.259, citing Palestine Post 5.7.33].  

Jacob Klatzkin, the editor of the Zionist Organisation paper Die Welt,  held that Jews were:

'a people disfigured in both body and soul - in a word, of a horror… some sort of outlandish creature… in any case, not a pure national type.... some sort of oddity among the peoples going by the name of Jew.'  [Arthur Herzberg, The Zionist Idea, p. 322/323, Temple, Atheneum, New York 1981].

It would be churlish to continue.  Zionism held that Diaspora Jews had developed unhealthy asocial characteristics and only ‘normalisation’ on Jewish national soil would remedy this.  They held that the anti-Semites were in fact correct.  As the founder of Political Zionism, Theodor Herzl wrote :

In Paris..., I achieved a freer attitude towards anti-Semitism, which I now began to understand historically and to pardon. Above all, recognise the emptiness and futility of trying to 'combat' anti-Semitism. Diaries (p.8)

Zionism held that there was something rotten and horrible about Jews outside Palestine/Israel.  In Klatzkin’s words the Jews were ‘a people disfigured in both body and soul’ because they were not ‘a pure national type’.  Only a 'return' to Palestine could remedy this.  This attitude persists today but groups like the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism [CAS] deliberately ignore Zionist anti-Semitism and pretend that they are horrified by the ‘anti-Semitism’ of fighters for Palestinian human rights like Gerald Kaufman.  It is noticeable that they have little or nothing to say about the anti-Semitism of the English Defence League and the British National Party, because these groups are also supporters of Zionism.

When I did a search on the site for BNP nothing came up at all.  When I searched for British National Party there was one result - Jeremy Corbyn and anti-Semites.  Nothing about the BNP though.

When I searched for English Defence League again there were no results.  When I searched for EDL there were about 12 results, nearly all of them concerned with Jeremy Corbyn, none of them to do with the fascist group!  There were a few posts about Hezbollah flags but nothing about British anti-Semites.  This is the real test of CAS's sincerity.

Kaufman’s words were nothing out of the ordinary and more to the point he was pursuing a human rights agenda, unlike those who criticise him in order to justify and whitewash the most atrocious war crimes.

So an end to this hypocrisy.  I for one have no hesitation in defending Sir Gerald Kaufman.  He is a splendid example of the Jewish tradition of anti-racism.

And it should also be noted that the Jewish Chronicle under the editorship of cold-war warrior and Henry Jackson Society member, Stephen Pollard, launched the campaign against Sir Gerald Kaufman.  Pollard it was who defended arch-anti-Semite, Michal Kaminski, Euro-MP for Poland’s Law & Justice Party and Chairman of the European Conservatives & Reform Group which the Tories belong to.  

Kaminski, who is a vehement Zionist (like many anti-Semites) fought tooth and nail against an apology being given in Poland and a memorial being erected in Jedwabne in memory of the Jews (estimates range from 300 to 900) who were herded into a barn and burnt alive in 1941 by anti-Semitic Poles.  Pollard’s description of Kaminski was that ‘ "Far from being an anti-Semite, Mr Kaminski is about as pro-Israeli an MEP as exists."  Which is half true.  Kaminski is as pro-Israeli as it gets.  But he is also anti-Semitic.  Just as the BNP and EDL are both anti-Semitic and pro-Zionist. 

In a Guardian Comment Is Free piece (9.10.09.) Pollard went even further:  ‘Poland's Kaminski is not an antisemite: he's a friend to Jews’.    Indeed Kaminski is ‘one of the greatest friends to the Jews in a town [Brussels] where antisemitism and a visceral loathing of Israel are rife. 

Pollard isn’t stupid and he knows very well that anti-Semitism and support for Zionism go hand in hand.  If he isn’t aware of this then he could do worse than consult back copies of his own paper!  One of Israel’s finest novelists A B Yehoshua, in a lecture to the Union of Jewish Students observed that

"Anti-Zionism is not the product of the non-Jews. On the contrary, the Gentiles have always encouraged Zionism, hoping that it would help to rid them of the Jews in their midst. Even today, in a perverse way, a real anti-Semite must be a Zionist" [Jewish Chronicle 22.1.82.] 

See Jedwabne – The Polish Village Where Up to 900 Jews Were Burnt Alive by Fellow Poles – Michal Kaminski the Polish Zionist & anti-Semite that Jewish Chronicle Editor Stephen Pollard Just Loves

Tony Greenstein