Owen Jones: Every Quality of a Dog Except Loyalty

Jones Treats Racism as an act of Solidarity & Treachery as Apostasy

Jones a racist hypocrite - currying favour with Zionists by supporting the expulsion of Jackie Walker

As Shakespeare said of Duncan, treason has done his worst, nothing can touch him further.  It is a fitting epitaph for Owen Jones socialist pretensions.  In 2012, when he criticised Israel's bloody attacks on Gaza on Question Time I was the first to laud his performance.

Jones fully backs the false anti-Semitism nonsense - his favourite phrase is 'anti-Semitism is a menace'!

Ever since then Jones has been in retreat.  I first criticised Jones in the summer of 2014 Gaza Reveals the Empty and Vacuous Heart of Owen Jones’s writing when Jones was still the darling of most people on the left.  The first signs that Jones was moving into the Zionist camp were apparent, even whilst he proclaimed his support for the Palestinians.  Jones made his comments in the middle of Operation Protective Edge in 2014.

The photographs make it clear that this was cold-blooded murder of 4 innocent children - yet to the Zios it was a 'tragic mistake'

This was a time when 2,200 Palestinians, including 551 children, were massacred by Israel.  Many people will still remember the murder of 4 young boys playing on the Gaza beach. An Israeli plane fired missiles at them as they ran.  Like American pilots in Iraq, killing these innocent children was nothing more than moving a computer joystick and pressing a button.

It was later described as a ‘tragic accident’ but it was no accident – Israeli planes boast the latest up to date technology and it is inconceivable that they mistook the children for anything other than what they were. Israel exonerates itself over Gaza beach killings of four children last year  The Guardian’s Peter Beaumont explained that neither he nor other journalist witnesses had been contacted by the Israeli military in the course of their ‘investigation’.  Israel failed to interview eyewitnesses to soccer boys’ slaughter

Jones linked in to the narrative of the far-Right Campaign Against Anti-Semitism that anti-Semitism was the problem

However Jones believed that the real problem was not the massacre of the innocents but ‘anti-Semitism’ in Britain.  It was a time when the rabidly right-wing Campaign Against Anti-Semitism was first established.  In response to support for the Palestinians of Gaza, the Zionists responded in their usual manner by accusing Israel’s critics of anti-Semitism.  This was a theme heard, as much from the Right as the Left Zionists – as much from Conservative Friends of Israel as Labour Friends of Israel and Jewish Labour Movement.

In order to deflect opposition to Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism held a demonstration outside the Royal Court of Justice on the theme that opposition to Israel’s attack on Gaza had resulted in an increase in ‘anti-Semitism’. [sign the petition to get this racist ‘charity’ deregistered]

Jones immediately jumped on this bandwagon with all the fervour of a Judas in search of his 30 pieces of silver.  Not once did it occur to Jones to question whether or not this might be the traditional Zionist ploy of besmirching and smearing critics of Israel.  The supporters of Israel’s carnage in Gaza were now pretending to be victims.  According to the Zionist CAA it was they, not the Palestinians who were the real victims.  Jones immediately recognized them as white victims of privilege.

Anti-Semitism is a menace again, unlike Zionism

Israel is a state that receives more military aid from the USA than every other country in the world put together.  It is the United State’s racist rotweiller in the Middle East.  Donald Trump's dumb bitch.  The pretext for Israel’s attack had been the puny firecrackers fired from Gaza in response to Israel’s heavy bombing.  Virtually no Palestinian rockets had even been fired in the previous year. Some 20 Israelis had been killed in a decade by Palestinian rockets but Israel’s advanced weaponry and missile technology had killed thousands.  Just 70+ Israelis had died during Operation Protective Edge all but 6 of them Israeli soldiers, whereas nearly all of Israel's victims were civilians.

Israel targeted homes, clinics, schools, hospitals – it used chemical weapons – white phosphorous, without being accused of having crossed any ‘red lines’  Yet Owen Jones was concerned about anti-Semitism.  He responded to the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism  demonstration with an article Anti-Jewish hatred is rising – we must see it for what it is.  The article began as do all of his articles with ‘Anti-Semitism is a menace’.   The only menace though was Owen Jones.

But at least Jones’ article acknowledged that Douglas Murray’s Spectator article which described the 150,000 strong Gaza solidarity march in London as having consisted of ‘Thousands of anti-Semites’was ‘reprehensible’ . Jones at that time said this was ‘an unforgivable libel against peace protestors – Jews among them – who simply object to their government’s complicity in the massacre of children. It makes it much harder to identify genuine antisemitism.’  In other words in 2014 Jones at least recognized that false allegations of anti-Semitism are used against Palestinian supporters .  

Jones article almost exactly a year later, in August 2015, Antisemitism has no place on the left. It is time to confront it, is instructive.  This was during the first Labour leadership contest at a time when Jeremy Corbyn came under fierce attack by the press, the Jewish Chronicle, the Daily Mail and the Guardian in particular, for having associated with a Holocaust denier Paul Eisen. 

Whilst acknowledging that false accusations of anti-Semitism were made, reminiscing that ‘At a recent wedding a former Times journalist I’d never met apprehended me and accused me of antisemitism, threatening to punch me.’ he went on to argue, oblivious to what he had just written that ‘While they [Palestinian supporters] would never dream of denying the existence of racism against, say, black people or Muslims, they treat antisemitism as a political device constructed by militant supporters of Israeli occupation.’

Therein lies the first problem of identity politics.  Anyone can become a victim, be they Jewish, Muslim or Black.  If you claim victimhood then you are to be treated as a victim, regardless.  After all none of us believe in a ‘hierarchy of racism’ so each claim must be treated as equally valid.  So a Jewish lawyer on £200,000 a year is to be treated as equally a victim of racism as a Black youngster who has been beaten up in police custody and charged with assaulting the Police. 

When your politics are entirely subjective and lacking any sense of history, then you won’t appreciate that the Jews of today would probably recoil from their predecessors of 80 years ago.  Jews today are neither economically exploited nor racially oppressed.  The Jewish working class has long disappeared.  Jews don’t live in Whitechapel but the suburbs of Golders Green.  They are predominantly white, middle class professionals not working class trade unionists anymore.  In other words their identity has changed.  Where once, Jews were identified with the left and trade union militancy, today they are overwhelmingly of the Right.  One reason why many Jews now support Israel is because that reflects their class position.  Supporting Israel is the same as supporting British and US foreign policy.

In 1945 the Jews of the East End helped elect Phil Piratin for the constituency of Mile End.  He was the only elected Communist MP in England.  An estimated half of his votes were from Jews.  Today more Jews would vote for a fascist candidate than a communist one. 

No doubt Jones thinks that saying that Britain’s Jewish community is white, middle-class and prosperous is ‘anti-Semitic’.  Perhaps William Rubinstein, former President of the Jewish Historical Society of England is also anti-Semitic?  In ‘The Left, the Right and the Jews’ (1982) he wrote that London Jewry is ‘arguably more bourgeois now than at any time since the mid-nineteenth century, and it is certainly more Conservative…’ [p.51 see also JC 28. 3. 86. 'Two Cheers for the GLC']. 

Rubinstein wrote that ‘The Jewish proletariat virtually disappeared in the post-war period and since the 1950's Western Jewry has, as a whole, risen into the upper-middle class.’  Geoffrey Alderman, in his book, ‘The Jewish Community in British Politics’ 1983, (p.137) wrote that ‘By 1961, over 40% of Anglo-Jewry was to be found in the upper two social classes’ compared to less than 20% of the general population.’ 

On a mundane level one of my favourite restaurants used to be Blooms in Commercial Road in Whitechapel.  When I was a child I can remember long queues to get in there at a lunchtime.  About 15 years ago it closed its doors because of a lack of custom.  Jews no longer lived in the East End or indeed worked there.

In March 2016, in the middle of the false anti-Semitism campaign, I had been suspended from the Labour Party, Jones wrote yet another article about anti-Semitism.  Antisemitism is a poison – the left must take leadership against it  Once again Jones repeated that anti-Semitism ‘is a menace’ having given no examples whatsoever of anti-Semitism or anything like it in his article.

You might be forgiven for thinking that there was no other form of racism.  No Stop and Search, no deaths in custody of Black people, no murders of Muslims or attacks on mosques, no deportations or media campaigns against asylum seekers.  Britain was an oasis of racial tolerance.  The only racism that Jones was aware of was anti-Semitism – a form of racism that barely exists other than as a marginal form of prejudice against a minority section of the white population.

Of course anti-Semitism hasn’t disappeared entirely.  Ironically the one group of Jews who do suffer from attacks are the hasidic Jews of Stamford Hill in Hackney who wear distinctive clothing and are much poorer than most Jews.  Yet they were totally omitted in the 2016 Home Affairs Select Committee Report on Anti-Semitism that first introduced the IHRA definition of ‘anti-Semitism’ that conflates anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism.  Anyone who claims anti-Semitism is a mainstream form of racism is either a charlatan or a liar.  I suspect Jones is probably a bit of both.

Jones article begins once more with the imaginative intro ‘Antisemitism is a menace’.  It seems that like many Guardian writers, Jones writes for the sake of writing, with nothing new to say.

Jones said he was unhappy because whenever anti-Semitism is mentioned, people think about Israel.  Presumably he must have forgotten when he was nearly punched by a former Times correspondent. He is obsessed with ‘victim blaming’ even if the victims are frauds.

Jones gives as an example of Labour’s anti-Semitism Vicki Kirby who tweeted that Jews had “big noses. Alongside Jones article is a link to an article Antisemitism is racism. We need to acknowledge that by David Baddiel.  It is ironic because Baddiel is the author of a satirical play about Jews and Muslims called Infidels and Kirby’s comments were a direct quote from Baddiel’s play!  In other words her quotes were stripped of context and on his basis she was adjudged to have been anti-Semitic!  [see Asa Winstanley’s How Israel lobby manufactured UK Labour Party’s anti-Semitism crisis]

Jones therefore recommended that the Labour Party indulge in a full scale anti-Semitism witch-hunt.  Jones wanted Labour to play the Tory tabloid game and engage in internal navel gazing.  Racism is a problem, but it isn’t a problem of the Labour Party but British capitalism.  Labour should be at the forefront of fighting against racist immigration controls, attacks on the free movement of labour and attempts to blame migrant labour for low wages and unemployment and above all against state racism that sees far too many deaths of Black people.  Islamaphobia and attacks on Muslims has increased exponentially since New Labour under Tony Blair supported and helped invade Iraq in 2003. 

It is people like the Jewish Labour Movement's Ivor Caplin, Junior Defence Minister & War Criminal under Blair who are responsible for most racism today

Ivor Caplin - former junior Defence Minister at the time of the Iraq War and war criminal 

It is people like Ivor Caplin, former Hove MP and Junior Defence Minister under Blair, who are largely responsible for this racism yet Caplin is the Southern Regional Organiser for the Jewish Labour Movement, the main organisation alleging false anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.  Jones sees no connection between the actions of people like Caplin and increased levels of false accusations of anti-Semitism.  For Jones every victim must be treated as equally oppressed especially if they are Jewish and supporters of Israel.  After all, to use a favourite phrase of Jones, anti-Semitism is a menace.  Unfortunately he doesn’t seem to consider any other form of racism, other than anti-Semitism, as menacing.

It would be nice to think that Jones had taken a break from his obsession with false anti-Semitism since writing this article a year ago (yes another one is due any day now!) but unfortunately this is not the case.  Jones has now moved firmly into the Zionist camp.  When the Jewish Labour Movement, which has waged a veritable witchhunt against Ken Livingstone and Jackie Walker, the Black-Jewish woman who was Momentum Vice-Chair, asked Jones to speak at a memorial meeting he immediately agreed. 

Jones ignores the fact that the Jewish Labour Movement describes itself as the ‘sister party’ of Israel’s Labour Party, a party that is racist to the core, a supporter of segregation and responsible for the ethnic cleansing of ¾ million Palestinians in 1948.  As I explained in Owen Jones – the Final Betrayal - Supporting Zionist Apartheid & the Jewish Labour Movement, Jones has decided to support the very Apartheid state that he used to lambast.

In an interview with the Jewish Chronicle Owen Jones: Why I'm defending Jews on the left he explained that ‘“Without sounding like a cliché, a lot my friends are grandchildren of Holocaust survivors and Stef’s family were killed in their dozens in the Holocaust.’  Like all  Zionists he Jones reaches back to the Holocaust like a drunk leans on a lamppost, not for illumination but support.  What has the Holocaust, which included the death of millions of people, to do with Israel’s ferocious attacks and racist treatment of the Palestinians?  A state where 93% of Israeli land is reserved for Jews only?  Where ‘death to the Arabs’ is heard on the streets?  Where the leader of the Israeli Labour Party talks of his nightmare of waking up to a Palestinian Prime Minister and fears his party being described as ‘Arab lovers’ (think Jew lover or Nigger lover by way of comparison). 

Jones shift on Palestine is not unconnected with his general move to the right.  He openly calls for Corbyn to stand down.  Jones told the Jewish Chronicle that ‘the left has to battle to rid itself of anything that is fatal to what it exists to do — and that is to build an inclusive society for all.”  Presumably his inclusive society includes white racist supporters of Israel?  Since the EDL and BNP are also keen supporters of Israel will he include those too?  It is not for nothing that White Supremacists such as Richard Spencer of 'Heil Trump' fame and the alt-Right in the USA now describe themselves as White Zionists. Alt Right’ Leader Ties White Supremacy to Zionism — Leaves Rabbi Speechless

In a sign of how far and how quickly Jones has gone to the right, he demonstrates the depths of his betrayal.  Instead of praising those Jews who oppose Zionism and stand up for the rights of the Palestinians to live in a society free of racism, he asks:

“What do people want? For me not to stand with any Jews in Britain? Or have a dialogue, unless they are part of the one per cent of the Jewish community who don’t describe themselves as Zionists?

Leave aside the fact that anti-Zionist Jews, who are on the receiving end of constant racist abuse from Zionists, as he himself has previously described.  Anti-Zionist Jews are the equivalent of those Whites in South Africa who opposed Apartheid.  The fact is that Jones, in his journey to the racist right of the Labour Party is also wrong.  City University’s Attitudes of British Jews Towards Israel found that 31%, i.e. nearly a third of British Jews say they are not Zionists.  59%, down from 71% five years ago, say they are Zionists.  So not only has Jones made a bonfire of his principles and signed up to defending the world’s most racist states but he has done it on the basis of complete ignorance.

Owen Jones is a good advert for what passes for a left-wing Guardian writer these days.  Another reason to boycott the paper. 

In his talk to the JLM he was reported to have called for the expulsion of both Ken Livingstone and Jackie Walker.  Jones invoked the sympathy of his audience: ‘Mr Jones had received criticism for addressing the JLM from far-left extremists.’  Why he had even quit Twitter because he had been accused of being "a stooge of the Israeli state."  Naturally he told the JLM that ‘"The menace of anti-Semitism needs to be driven out."!!

On Jackie Walker he described his apostasy thus:

I have called for Jackie Walker's expulsion but her partner Graham Bash was someone who was something of a mentor to me. I was close to him - but now that has changed."

Jones also praised Jon Lansman.  One wonders whether Lansman, who got Jones to write a nasty little witch-hunting article last December, Momentum is a beacon of hope. It must be saved from the saboteurs now approves of his latest stance.  After all the ‘beacon of hope’ is there to support Jeremy Corbyn but with friends like Owen Jones….

Jonathan Cook, the award winning former Guardian journalist, has written a particular perceptive article on Jones journey of apostasy, a not unfamiliar journey.  Jones deplores the occupation of the West Bank but has nothing to say about the source of that occupation, the Israeli Labour Party.  In an article My offer to Owen Jones: A tour of Nazareth Cook notes that Jones, who has never visited Israel, is going to make his first trip soon.   Cook wrote:

'That will mean doing more than just visiting the occupied territories – and then hearing his liberal Zionist friends decry what goes on there as the fault of the Israeli right wing. They will assure him that, when (sic) the Israeli Labour party returns to power, all the horrors he has seen will come to an end. They will tell him, not that he has witnessed just a few symptoms of problems inherent in Zionism, but that the occupation is the extent of the problem and it should be blamed on Benjamin Netanyahu and the settlers.

That is a deception – one liberal Zionists have been using to keep British Labour activists like Jones docile for decades. He has a duty to dig much deeper. That will upset his friends, but he must ignore their protests if he really cares about justice for the Palestinians and about getting to the truth.

Of course Cook knows that Jones has no intention of taking him up on his offer.  Jones is full aware of the depth of racism in Israel today but rather than take a principled stance he prefers the easy option.  To go along with the racist frauds that he addressed in the JLM.  Cook continued:

It was Labour Zionism, which today is represented in the UK by the Jewish Labour Movement (to which he gave a memorial lecture) – who set up the original settlements in the occupied territories after 1967 and established the blueprint for creeping annexation and ethnic cleansing there. The model of permanent occupation was created not by Netanyahu, but by Generals Moshe Dayan and Yigal Allon of the Israeli Labour party, the same party that continues to maintain its close ties to Britain’s Labour party.

Cook invites Jones to take a tour of not only the West Bank but Nazareth, the largest Arab town in Israel.  Cook posed a number of questions that Jones might care to ask himself:

What does citizenship mean for 1.7 million Palestinians when the state defines itself as Jewish? Can a state be Jewish and democratic, any more than it can be Islamic and democratic or white and democratic? Why do hundreds of communities in Israel specifically bar Palestinian citizens from living in them? How comfortable would he feel if hundreds of British communities banned black Britons from residing in them? Why is the state education system in Israel strictly segregated using ethnic criteria, whatever the views of parents? Why has the state de-recognised dozens of Palestinian communities that pre-date Israel’s creation, making their inhabitants criminals in the eyes of the state?

It will be interesting to see whether Owen Jones responds to or ignores Jonathan Cook’s offer.  I can’t see him accepting because that will mean eating a lot of humble pie and admitting he has been keeping the company of a bunch of Jewish supremacists for the past months.  Instead he will fallback on support for a 2 State Solution that he knows will never happen.  Thereby he can ignore and pretend the ingrained racism of the Israeli state doesn't exist.  In Israel Palestinians aren’t even 2^nd class citizens. 

Palestinians in Israel are possessed of a meaningless citizenship, the scapegoat for Israeli society’s ills.  For example the fires which consumed Israel a few months ago were falsely blamed on ‘arson terrorism’ by Israel’s Palestinians.  In the end not one Palestinian was charged with arson. 

As the Jerusalem Post reported:  ‘In Haifa, during the fires, Netanyahu said, “We are facing the terrorism of arsonists.” At the same time, Education Minister Naftali Bennett tweeted, “Only he to whom the land doesn’t belong is capable of burning it.” Meanwhile, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan claimed that almost 50% of the fires were caused by arson.’  The comment of Naftalli Bennett, the Education Minister was particularly revealing.  ‘Only he to whom the land does not belong’ in other words Israel does not belong to the Palestinians who live there.  Another article in the Jerusalem Post described how ‘As the blazes raged’  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other government ministers pledged to work to revoke the residency of those found guilty — a threat typically reserved for Arab Israelis.’  This is the racism of the Jewish state.  Jews never have their residency or citizenship revoked. 

Tony Greenstein

See also Owen Jones – the Nick Cohen of Tomorrow