A Desperate John Mann MP Tries to Undermine 90 year old Jewish Doctor's Letter by Falsely Alleging It was a Forgery

Mann Suggests that 90 Year Old Dr Sam Glatt Wasn’t Capable of Writing the Letter that Condemned his Wrecking Tactics

Dr Sam Glatt at a Newcastle Labour Party dinner last year with Jeremy Corbyn

The Ubiquitous John Mann - or 'rent-a-mouth' as he is known in the trade

Update:      

Following this post, John Mann rang Dr Glatt again today to try and get him to retract!!  He denied saying that supporters of Jackie Walker should be expelled and challenged Sam for the source of his allegation.  Well Sam is 90 and not as quick as he used to be so he referred Mann, whose actions are those of a bully and coward, to Graham Martin.

It is however understandable that Mann couldn't remember what he said, so I will remind him.  In an article in Politics Home, Mann said:

“enough is enough” and argued it was time for Labour to cut ties with her.

“Though she claims impunity for many reasons, Jackie Walker’s behaviour is discriminatory, provocative, offensive and by any standard unacceptable in a modern political party,” ....

“Not only has she caused offence personally, she has inspired waves of anti-Semitic and racist backlash including Holocaust denial.

“Not only must she be expelled from the Labour party immediately but all those abusing others in supporting her must go too.

“Temporary suspensions are not good enough, these people must be given permanent bans and no platform to express their antisemitism anywhere in the Labour party, if we are to be serious about opposing anti-Jewish hatred.”

Mann has now taken the whole Facebook post accusing wicked anti-Zionists of forging Dr Glatt's name on the letter down!  Instead Jonathan Hoffman, the former Zionist Federation co-Vice-Chair who is happy to work with the Jewish and English Defence Leagues, has leapt to his defence with a blog for The Times of Israel.

Two days ago I published an Open Letter from a 90 year old Jewish doctor, Dr Sam Glatt, to John Mann MP.  Even by parliamentary standards, John Mann is widely seen as a boorish, conceited loudmouth.  A rent-a-mouth who is attracted to publicity like a moth to the light.  But not even I imagined that instead of coming to terms with Dr Glatt’s trenchant criticisms and rethinking what Dr Glatt termed his McCarthyite behaviour, Mann would instead decide to rubbish the letter by claiming it was a forgery.

The thrust of Mann’s argument was that a 90 year old man wasn’t capable of writing such an articulate and thoughtful letter.  A letter that attracted (so far) over 33,000 hits on this blog alone.  One would think that someone who is so concerned about ‘anti-Semitism’ would think twice about ageism and bigotry to the old.  But as we all know, John Mann isn’t concerned about opposing anti-Semitism but supporting the Israeli state, an armed superpower in the Middle East, the recipient of the largest amount of US aid of any country and a state that maintains a viciously racist and oppressive regime over the Palestinians.

John Mann conveniently denied that the letter was genuine

Following reports today that the letter which I had published on my blog from Sam Glatt, a member of the Labour Party, had been forged by Graham Martin, a Momentum member, I took steps to ascertain whether or not I had published a forgery.  It would certainly have been embarrassing if I had.  Lots of posts had begun arriving from gleeful Zionists saying exactly that! 

If the letter was a forgery then this was a very stupid, as well as dishonest, act.  Whoever was responsible should have realised that the truth would soon be revealed.  As I was preparing a response accepting I had made a genuine mistake, I was made aware of a tweet from a Dr Alan Maddison, a friend of Dr Glatt, who insisted that the letter was genuine.  At first I was sceptical as John Mann’s explanation seemed convincing. 

After corresponding with Dr Maddison it was clear that there were grounds for questioning whether the the letter was a forgery.   Alan gave me the phone number of Dr Glatt and I spoke to both him and Graham Martin.  It became clear to me very quickly that the original letter was not a forgery and I copy below both the first letter and a second draft letter, which Dr Glatt has written backing up the first.

Even John Mann is going to have difficulty alleging that the second letter is a forgery since it is written, in best doctor’s handwriting (!) by Dr Glatt himself.  I just hope that Mr Mann is hungry as he has an awful lot of humble pie to consume. 

John Mann’s allegations of a forgery are classic Zionist tactics.  It's all an anti-Zionist conspiracy!  Attack the messenger and avoid the message.  Instead of coming to terms with what Dr Glatt was saying, that he was falsely accusing people like Jackie Walker and Ken Livingstone of anti-Semitism and also destroying the chances of Labour electorally, Mann did what we have come to expect from him.  He sought to evade the message by attacking the man.  Further comment on Mann’s behaviour would be superfluous. 

Mann was so annoyed he had been rumbled that he repeatedly phoned Graham Martin, a friend of Dr Glatt, who helped him compose the letter.

Below is:

i.                A draft of the second letter which Dr Glatt wrote

ii.              An biographical article by Dr Alan Maddison about his friend, Dr Sam Glatt

iii.            The original letter which John Mann MP believes is a forgery  

A typical Zionist tweet gleefully announcing that it was us wicked anti-Zionists who had invented this calumny against the saintly John Mann MP

Draft Letter From Dr Sam Glatt to John Mann MP

Dear Mr Mann, 

Thank u for your letter.  First let me say that my previous letter was a joint letter with Graham Martin.  If the language appears to be robust in places I can only reply that the incidents you were involved seriously undermined the character of 2 people, Jackie Walker and Ken Livingstone and diminished the chances of victory in the forthcoming general election. 

Graham Martin shared my concerns and was a great help in assembling the facts in such a case.  It is physically difficult for me to visit people but I am in full possession of my mental faculties.  I am not a puppet of Graham’s. 

There is one word in your letter which is a sheer invention.  I’ve  never said that I despise you or hate you as you suggested.  I find your views that people should be expelled from the party for supporting Jackie Walker abhorrent and your propagation of them incomprehensible to me.  This has to stop.

In my opinion this undermining of Corbyn and supporters by weaponising anti-Semitism repeatedly has to stop.  It damages the Labour Party and offends many of its members.  If a forthright letter from me can stop this I will have achieved my objective. 

Yours sincerely,

Dr Sam Glatt

A sample of the many messages I received today from the Zionists.  All of them KNEW that Dr Glatt's letter was a forgery because Israel is beyond criticism and anti-Semitism is ubiquitous in the Labour Party

An 89 year old Jewish friend finds anti-Semitic attacks on Corbyn ludicrous. By Alan Maddison

August 21, 2015 Author by PoliticalSiftPosted in Guest Posts  in Wordpress.com

Alan Maddison · @alanmaddison20

I asked Sam, a retired Jewish GP, for his reflections as he happens to be a Jeremy Corbyn supporter.

He, like many other Corbyn supporters are understandably dismayed at what they see as this ‘smear campaign’ with no convincing basis in fact, against this man of principle and peace. They see their hopes being hi-jacked by these attacks. Some Corbyn supporters have launched a campaign publishing photographs of many other British politicians with characters such as Pinochet (allegedly involved in state torture and murder), members of the Saudi royal family (allegedly involved in creating ISIL and ignoring human rights) with the heading ‘Guilty by Association’ to make their point.

‘Twitter’ exchanges about Corbyn’s meetings with those who encourage terrorism, have not been very helpful. The fact that Corbyn has never encouraged, nor condoned violence, and for decades has been a genuine promoter of peace, cuts no ice with his Jewish critics. Neither has it helped when Corbyn explains that in order to have peace you have to talk to people whose view you do not share, as was necessary for Northern Ireland. Nor does is help that he thinks the Holocaust was the most vile event in history and that he says he is not anti-Semitic.

Last night I went to see Sam, a wise old (89 years) Jewish friend. Sam is a very intelligent and thoughtful man whom I admire enormously. I was interested in getting his reflections on this disturbing conflict of views regarding their claim that Corbyn is an anti-Semite. Sam is a retired GP and a supporter of Jeremy Corbyn would you believe? 

Sam told me that father was a refugee from Hungary in 1900 and his family lived in the East End of London. They were very poor and not always treated well by the local ‘gentiles’, but Sam said it was a case of a punch in the face rather than a knife attack as can happen to other immigrants (rarely) today. At the time of the Moseley marches in the 1930’s he was only 13 years old, but he remembers that the only support the Jewish community got was from the Communist party, all the other parties turned a blind eye, and some on the right were even supporters of fascism. 

Apparently Jeremy Corbyn’s parents were themselves in movements showing solidarity with the Jewish community at this time – ironic that the child of such rare friends to our Jewish community is now treated in this way by some of our own.

Sam, of course, talked about the horrors of the war. The hopeless fleeing of fascism, the dreadful concentration camps, the millions slaughtered so cruelly by the fascists, including innocent children. He said “ do you know they actually made these poor victims pay a fare before putting them on these cattle-wagon trains to take them to the concentration camps?”

After the war, in which all his family in Europe were lost, Sam said that the fear of the Jewish people was that the holocaust could be repeated. No country had opened their door to the Jews fleeing fascism before the war. This is why they are vigilant for any rebirth of anti-Semitism that could eventually grow so that history is repeated. There is understandably a lot of strong emotion when anti-Semitism is suspected and it makes rational dialogue in the case of these unfair slurs on Corbyn almost impossible. 

This terrible fear of Jews, that history is repeated, is why the birth of Israel was so important and why its protection today is vital for them. Sam adds though that it was so unfair to punish Palestinians for what German fascists had done to European Jews! 

Many Jews also do not now accept the brutality too often used by Israel government against the Palestinian people. Many Jews desire, as most of the World, the protection of the State of Israel alongside a separate viable State of Palestine. 

The only means by which this can be achieved is by the sort of dialogue that Jeremy Corbyn undertakes. He should rather be thanked. It is ludicrous to describe Jeremy Corbyn as anti-Semitic, rather ask how could he fail to be moved by the plight of the people of Gaza?

In trying to help an oppressed minority, as his parents did for the Jews, he is also trying to facilitate a peace that would reduce the anxieties and victims of Israelis under the threat of attack. 

These unjustified attacks on our friend, Jeremy Corbyn, can only create tensions between the Jewish people, here or in Israel, and the peaceful Corbyn supporters whose vision, ironically, is for a fairer, kinder Britain.

By Dr Alan Maddison • @alanmaddison20

Please comment, share, follow this blog and follow me on Twitter @PoliticalSift 

Original Letter to John Mann MP 

Dear Mr Mann, 18/10/2016 

It is with a sense of deep distaste personally, and an even deeper concern for the future of our freedom of speech, generally, that I have viewed your recent antics. In my opinion, your behaviour appears both narcissistic and attention-seeking, in the extreme. Whether it is at a level at which one could view it as pathological, I am not sufficiently qualified to say, but it is my view that ‘the man on the Clapham omnibus’ may, reasonably, harbour suspicions. 

Your ambush of Ken Livingstone, with pre-arranged media presence is a case in point. Any less reasonable man may have told you to ‘clear off’. Instead he tried, in a calm manner, to point out the historical evidence to support what he had said. His words fell on (your) deaf ears, for you, of course, had decided already that he ‘would float if you threw him in the river’ (the test applied, historically, vis a vis witchcraft). Cynical observers too, may, possibly, take the view that you are attempting, on behalf of others, to airbrush history, in the name of anti-Semitism.

Are you not aware of the potential of historical resonance here? Let’s, for the sake of argument, turn history on its head and assume that the Nazis had won WW2. You can imagine, can you not, that they would want to stamp out any reference to the ‘Final Solution’? After all, political opponents in actual historical fact had already gone to the extermination camps, along with the mentally ill, those with learning difficulty, Roma and the Jewish community. So, one might imagine that the Nazis might encourage the denunciation of those who would wish to speak the truth, as ‘Jew lovers’ and make them targets for ‘neutralisation’. Do you take my point? Thankfully, such a situation never came about, thanks to the sacrifice of over 400,000 people, including my own brother, (and many more from other nations) who gave their lives to preserve our freedom of speech.

Let me now refer to matters In connection with Jackie Walker, the former vice-chair of Momentum and with whom we share membership of the Labour Party. I do not wish to refer to the specifics of the matter as her appeal against suspension from the Party is pending, (although the issue of the circumstances of her ‘entrapment’ and ‘denunciation’, are deeply worrying to me). However, your comments that all Labour members who supported her “should be expelled from the Party,” which were reported in the media, absolutely appalled me. The implied ‘guilt by association’ is akin to the ‘fellow traveller’ accusations made during the McCarthyite era in the USA. Shame on you. 

There seems to be a desire, on your part, to conflate (i.e. run together as if they represent the same meaning), the words and concepts of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. Or perhaps you are just confused? I never have been. To me anti-Zionism represents political opposition to a style of social and political expression stemming from a particular religious interpretation of Judaism. Anti-Semitism, on the other hand, refers to a dislike of Jews, which is rooted in the same xenophobic soil as other forms of racism. When this is openly displayed, we, in Britain have anti-discrimination laws, including those relating to hate speech. Now...the application of and efficacy of our legislation is a matter open for debate and is something you can, potentially, influence as an MP. Why then, at this present time, are you focusing your attention on the Labour Party? 

That brings me to the issue of the political motivation for your actions. It has been suggested that your prime motivation, given your position on the right-wing of the Labour Party, is to attempt to undermine the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn and all that he stands for. I was a committed and experienced member of the Socialist Medical/Health Association (affiliated) since 1946 and have been a member of the Labour Party since 1972, or thereabouts. As such, I find it difficult not to agree with such a conclusion, in the current circumstances. No doubt your fairly regular visits to Israel (as a consequence of your documented links with organisations and individuals there) must be enjoyable for you on a personal level, but would not, surely, be sufficient incentive, in of themselves? 

No.... my view is that, to use military terms, you represent a sniper with a long range rifle, ‘softening up’ the enemy, causing confusion in the opposing ranks, picking off individuals and making people afraid of putting their head above the barricades. You are, however, in my view, waiting for your ‘General’ a.k.a. Tony Blair to come and rally the troops for a counter-offensive. I admire your loyalty to him, but would point out that he doesn’t have an awfully good record militarily. That poor record had quite a lot to do with the allies he chose, or was coerced by (in that regard it was interesting to see Mr Blairs’ presence, almost as if he were still a head of state, at the recent funeral of Shimon Peres, in Israel). 

So there we have it....I have concern about the nature of your personal behaviour: I am a Corbyn supporter, and have great sympathy with the situation of Ken Livingstone and Jackie Walker, to whom I offer my solidarity: I am also not afraid to look to history for lessons and I view your actions as being ‘McCarthyite’ in nature: I refuse to conflate Anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism and I see through your cloak of justification and heap scorn upon your underlying political motivation...... 

So, please feel free to denounce me, though, I suspect, that you lack the moral and political courage to do so. 

Throughout my 90 years, I have always held to a belief in the essential goodness of people. That belief has been severely tested in recent times, as I have witnessed your machinations and those of the Labour PLP. 

Today, the mere demands of day to day living tax me greatly, but with all the energy I can muster, at the age of 90 years, I offer you, Sir, unfortunately, not fraternal wishes, but my heartfelt derision. 

Dr Sam Glatt MCRS LRCP MB ChB

British, Socialist Jew.

John Mann MP,

House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA

Cc Jeremy Corbyn MP, Leader of the Labour Party, leader@labour.org.uk

Ken Livingstone, Jackie Walker