Palestine and Anti-Semitism in Nottingham with Jackie Walker and Tony Greenstein

The Evil Zionist Sheriff fails to stop meeting going ahead

Jackie Walker (L), Yousuf Farooq and Tony Greenstein (R)

On Saturday, despite the best attempts of the Zionists, in the form of Jonathan Hoffman, the ousted co-Chair of the Zionist Federation, a meeting with Jackie Walker and Tony Greenstein went ahead without incident.  Hoffman, who has previous form organising Zionist demonstrations with fascists like the English Defence League, had rung up the Mechanics Institute to threaten them with unnamed consequences if they went ahead with the meeting.  The Police, by all accounts, added to the pressure on the MI, when they advised that they couldn’t guarantee that there wouldn’t be public order incidents.

The meeting was therefore transferred to the International Community Centre in Mansfield Road and over 40 people attended a lively 2 hours of talks and questions.  I spoke first about the ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign of the Zionists in the Labour Party and the fact that Zionism, despite accusing its opponents of anti-Semitism shares a lot in common with the anti-Semites.  Both Zionists and anti-Semites believe that the place of Jews is in Israel, not in the diaspora.  I gave a number of historical examples of such collaboration and quoted Israeli novelist A B Yehoshua who, in a talk to the Union of Jewish students helped demolish a few of the misconceptions of these young Zionists when he said that ‘Even today, in a perverse way, a real anti-Semite must also be a Zionist.’  (Jewish Chronicle 22.1.82.)

Jackie then spoke  on her own experiences of being falsely accused of anti-Semitism focussing in particular on the threats of the Jewish Labour Movement’s new Director, Ella Rose (see) who harassment threatened to use her skills in Krav Maga to physically attack and destroy her.

There followed a lively hour of questions and contributions from the floor.  The meeting was a great success but it shows how, once again, the Zionists are determined to try and destroy free speech in this country by denying opponents of Israel’s barbaric and murderous policies a platform.  At the same time they  complain that they own speakers are given a rough ride.

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