The Strange Silence of the Jewish Socialists Group

Removed from JSG's Facebook Page for Asking Awkward Questions about Lansman

Ian Saville speaking with Jackie Walker earlier this year - now times have changed

Not so much as a notification or warning - silently removed by those who preach about a new way of doing things and transparency on the Left!

The Jewish Socialists Group has a long and honourable tradition.  Formed around 1974, it was amongst the earliest manifestations of opposition to the existing right-wing Zionist dominated Jewish community.  The JSG originally began as a left-Zionist manifestation in Manchester under Aubrey Lewis but was soon taken over by those of a Bundist persuasion.

 

Jewish Picket of Momentum Steering Committee and Lansman - JSG were conspicuous by their absence

Suffice to say it has grown old and lethargic.  Many of its activists have grown old and weary as newer groups like Jewdas have sprung up.  The last edition of its paper, Jewish Socialist, came out in Spring 2015.  David Rosenberg and Julia Bard are the couple who have been most identified with the JSG for much of its time. 

The JSG felt torn between supporting Jon Lansman, a JSG member and opposing a racist witch hunt - they chose instead to say nothing and to do nothing

 On April 28^th the JSG issued a statement on the anti-Semitism propaganda campaign being waged by the Right in the Labour Party together with the Jewish Labour Movement.  Although I had slight differences with it, it was nonetheless a good statement.

That is why I find the JSG’s reaction to the vicious racist witch-hunt of Jackie Walker, the Black-Jewish woman who was Vice-Chair of Momentum, so surprising.  On 17th September, well before Labour Party conference I wrote an article for my blog, The Jewish Labour Movement and its Political Lynching of Jackie Walker.  It was clear and obvious to me at the time that the Zionists were going gung ho for Jackie.  Jackie had been in receipt of disgusting Zionist tweets that stated that being Black she couldn't be Jewish. Just the type of thing that the JSG would normally be politically hot on.

Julia Bard of the JSG - told JSG member to take her name off letter supporting Jackie Walker

When John McDonnell, to his credit, withstood this Zionist blackmail to speak at an LRC meeting at the TUC Conference in Brighton, he was criticised by the JLM's Jeremy Newmark in the Jewish Chronicle who said that "He must explain his defence of Walker which is inconsistent with his call for zero tolerance. This raises serious questions. Our members expect him to explain himself.

One of the pillars of the JSG through the years

McDonnell had been due to speak at a JLM rally against 'anti-Semitism' at Labour's Conference on Sunday 25th September but after Newmark's criticism, he pulled out.  Jackie Walker has long been the main target of the JLM racists and the Jewish Chronicle article which reported McDonnell's withdrawal from speaking at JLM's rally also described Jackie as 'the activist who was suspended from the party for claiming Jews were behind the slave trade.'

The JLM and their right-wing Zionist allies were once again spreading the lie that Jackie Walker believed that Jews were the principal force behind the slave trade.  This lie was based on a private conversation between Jackie and a Jewish friend, a conversation about her mixed Jewish-Black heritage, in which she mentioned that her Jewish ancestors had helped finance the slave trade that her  Black ancestors suffered from.  The conversation was hacked into by the Israel Advocacy Movement, an Israeli state funded organisation, which promptly fed details of it to the rabidly right-wing Jewish Chronicle.

Jeremy Newmark - CEO of Jewish Labour Movement and Jon Lansman's racist friend

It was therefore no surprise at all when quite innocuous comments made by Jackie Walker at a ‘training event’ held by the JLM at Labour Party Conference, on the focus of Holocaust Memorial Day being on the Jewish holocaust and on there being no accepted definition of anti-Semitism became the centre of a wholly artificial, synthetic outpouring of false anger from those who spend their whole life defending the racist and apartheid State of Israel.

It's been 18 months since the Jewish Socialist appeared

The 'training event' itself was a honey trap of the type that the FBI set up.  Its purpose being to trap the innocent into admitting a crime.  Jackie was subject to hidden filming which was then passed on to the media.  This wasn’t a training event but a set up, designed to lure Jackie into a trap.  People have said that Jackie should have been more careful but any fair interpretation of her remarks could not find them offensive, still less racist in any way.  On the contrary they were measured and fair.  Only those whose business is the art of spin and distortion could find fault with what Jackie said.

Yet to my astonishment, not only had the Jewish Socialists Group remained silent but when one of their number, Ruth Appleton, had appended her name to a letter from Jewish Momentum supporters to the Guardian condemning the removal of Jackie Walker as Momentum’s Vice Chair, she had been told by Julia Bard of the JSG to remove the fact that she was a JSG member.  Why I wondered were the JSG so sensitive about being seen to be identified with Jackie Walker?

I therefore sent emails (see below) to Julia Bard, David Rosenberg and Ian Saville of the Jewish Socialists Group. I asked what was their position regarding Jackie Walker and the racist witch hunt which had been begun by the JLM and was being perpetuated by Jon Lansman of Momentum.

I asked this because the JSG had previously supported Jackie when she was suspended from the Labour Party in May this year. At that time Ian Saville came down to Brighton to speakat a Momentum meeting on behalf of Jackie.

On Monday several of us from Jewish groups picketed the Momentum Steering Committee meeting which removed Jackie as Vice-Chair. The Jewish Socialists Group was not amongst those groups.

The JSG had a problem in so far as Jon Lansman, who was moving the motion to be rid of Jackie Walker is himself a member of the JSG. Lansman has openly worked with Jeremy Newmark, the racist liar who heads the JLM, which is the British branch of the Israeli Labour Party and is affiliated to the World Zionist Organisation.  The WZO helps fund settlement expansion on the West Bank and is the prime mover in the ethnic cleansing of Israel’s own Palestinian citizens.

In an interview with the Independent Lansman described how 'upset' his racist friend Newmark was on hearing Jackie Walker's remarks. The adjective 'delighted' is probably a more accurate description of his mood because Newmark was personally responsible for ensuring that the ‘training event’ was a honey trap.  Lansman described how:

“I spoke to Jeremy Newmark of the Jewish Labour Movement this morning, he’s very upset and I can understand that – I work closely with Jeremy, I’ve been meeting with Jewish organisations to talk… I’ve been outspoken. I was very, very unhappy about… and I did comment on it, about it, what she had previously said.

Having received no answer from either Bard or Rosenberg I followed up my email with a post on the letter we had in the Guardian supporting Jackie Walker which contained a photograph of the time that Ian Saville came to Brighton to support Jackie Walker.

Although the JSG has still not said anything about what its position is concerning Jackie Walker, a racist attack on a Black Jewish member of Momentum in which one of their own members is complicit, they have removed me from the Jewish Socialists Group facebook page in what can only be called an act of petty spite.  I guess there is some logic in that if you can't deal with the message, then attack the messenger!

Despite this childish and dishonest reaction by Rosenberg, Bard and Saville, who not only control the JSG Facebook group but also the dead Jews for Jeremy FB page, people will be pleased to hear that at its AGM tonight Brighton and Hove Momentum voted by 56-6, with 6 abstensions to support Jackie!

Tony Greenstein

Email sent a day ago to JSG members Julia Bard and David Rosenberg

Julia,

Two days ago, a JSG member Ruth Appleton asked for her signature to be appended to a letter to the Guardian condemning the proposed removal of Jackie Walker as Vice Chair of Momentum. Ruth also asked that she be identified with the JSG. You emailed her shortly after and wrote:

‘The JSG is not commenting at the moment and, because the situation is so complex and volatile. Under the circumstances, I think it would be better if you just signed in your own name, without mentioning the JSG, for now. I will see if the other NC people are around to ask their view. Can you wait for 30 mins or so for an answer?'

The JSG still has not issued any comment. Earlier in the year Ian Saville came down to Brighton to speak, as a member of the JSG, alongside Jackie at a meeting organised by Momentum to protest at Jackie’s first suspension. What has changed, other than the fact that since that meeting Jackie has been subject to a vile and vitriolic racist campaign by the Zionist movement. I don’t know whether you are even aware of the vicious racist abuse she has experienced on-line, along the lines of a Black person cannot be Jewish but not being a right-wing MP she has little redress.

Jackie was the victim of what would normally be called a ‘sting’ if carried out by the FBI. In this case it was carried out by the Jewish Labour Movement which is little more than an emanation of the Israeli state. She and others were secretly filmed in a so-called training event and the film was promptly leaked to the media.

I am writing to you because the 30 minutes you mentioned above has long since passed. Socialism is about supporting comrades when they are under attack. It is not about hoping that the storm will soon blow over so everyone will forget.

I do understand your difficulty in so far as Jon Lansman is also a member of the JSG but I hope that this will not prevent you from speaking out and declaring your support for Jackie, as this will clearly be of help to her campaign against this outrageous victimisation.

I am, for the time being, only copying this to members of Free Speech on Israel. I look forward to your speedy response.