Jon Lansman is a Jewish Chauvinist & Apologist for Apartheid who betrayed Jackie Walker & Marc Wadsworth
It was most out of character for Jon Lansman, Momentum’s Dictator, to pay me a compliment. In the Jewish Chronicle last week he was quoted as describing me as ‘“probably the rudest person I know in politics. He says many offensive things, most of the time”.
If I’ve offended Jon Lansman
then clearly I’ve been doing something right.
The occasion for Lansman’s vitriol was an interview conducted during the Limmud Jewish festival in
Birmingham. Lansman was asked how Ken
Livingstone, Jackie Walker and myself could remain members of the Labour
Party. (easy – we pay our subscriptions!)
Instead of defending Ken, who
pioneered anti-racist policies in London local government Lansman cast him to
the wolves in order to ingratiate himself with the Jewish Labour Movement [JLM], an overtly Zionist group. As he told
the Independent just before Jackie
Walker was suspended:
“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,
Jackie Walker was Vice-Chair of
Momentum until October 2016 before Lansman knifed her in the back at the behest
of Newmark, the JLM's Chair. I have written extensively
on how Jackie was deliberately targeted and framed. Even before she was
suspended following Labour’s 2016 Conference I wrote that the JLM was
engaging in a political lynching of Jackie.
According to the Jewish News I was the first writer
to use this metaphor.
 |
| Lansman speaking at Limmud |
When I read Lansman’s recent remarks I wrote asking if his comments were accurately reported. It would appear that for once they were. In
his response Lansman makes his views plain:
I am not going to defend Jackie and Mark because
whilst they may or may not be antisemites, actions or statements they made
certainly could reasonably have been seen as such at the time, and they should
have apologised at the very least. Jackie’s original statement about Jews and
slavery was clearly antisemitic in its content whether or not it was intended
as such and I believe she knows that.
Note the weasel words - Jackie or Marc 'may' be antisemitic. Antisemitism (if you leave out the torturous Zionist IHRA definition, some 450 words) is a quite easy concept. It is hatred of Jews as Jews. I think I know both Jackie and Marc well enough to know that they don't hate anyone because they are Jewish. Ipso facto they are not anti-semitic, unless like Lansman you are a Zionist.
Whatever else can be said about Lansman he is not naive. Despite the fact that he has never been an active anti-fascist or anti-racist , he is fully aware that Jackie and Marc are anti-racists of long standing. Marc’s ‘offence’ was to criticise Ruth Smeeth, a right-wing Zionist MP who
Wikileaks revealed to be a United States asset. Marc called her out at the Chakrabarti press conference because she was trading information with The Telegraph’s reporter. Marc didn’t even know she was Jewish, but criticising someone who happened to be Jewish is considered by Lansman to be ‘anti-Semitism’.
Whatever else can be said about Lansman he is not naive. Despite the fact that he has never been an active anti-fascist or anti-racist , he is fully aware that Jackie and Marc are anti-racists of long standing. Marc’s ‘offence’ was to criticise Ruth Smeeth, a right-wing Zionist MP who
Wikileaks revealed to be a United States asset. Marc called her out at the Chakrabarti press conference because she was trading information with The Telegraph’s reporter. Marc didn’t even know she was Jewish, but criticising someone who happened to be Jewish is considered by Lansman to be ‘anti-Semitism’.
Jackie Walker, in a private conversation
with a friend on Facebook about her African and Jewish roots stated that ‘my ancestors too, were among the chief financiers of the sugar and slave trade…’ Because she omitted the word in bold , in a
private conversation which was broken into by a Zionist lobby group, she has
been pilloried as an anti-Semite. This
is the ‘evidence’ that Lansman refers to.
The JLM, which is behind
the ‘anti-Semitism’ witch-hunt, is
the ‘sister party’ of the Israeli
Labour Party, a viciously racist party that believes in segregating Jews and Arabs. Its current leader Avi Gabbay has criticised Netanyahu for not
being tough enough in forcibly deporting Black African refugees from Israel who are being deported because they
are not Jewish.
As Ha’aretz reported a month
ago: ‘The main opposition list, the Zionist Union, of which the Labor Party
is partner, will support a government bill advocating the expulsion of asylum
seekers.’
The former leader of the ILP
Isaac Herzog described
his nightmare of waking up to 61 Arab members of the Knesset and an Arab Prime
Minister. Imagine if, in Britain, a
Labour leader described the possibility of a Jewish Prime Minister as a nightmare? Herzog also declared
that the ILP was not an ‘Arab lovers’ party. Again imagine if a British politician had declared that their party was not a
‘Jew lovers party.’
A month ago Ha’aretz led with The
World Zionist Organization’s Land Theft Division. The WZO is engaged in the theft of Palestinian land in order to transfer it to
illegal Jewish settlements. The JLM is affiliated
to this racist organisation. Lansman is fully
aware of the racist pedigree of the JLM.
Jon Lansman has himself lived on
a Jewish only kibbutz, established on stolen Palestinian land. It is little wonder that he supports the JLM’s
witchhunt of anti-racists.
On Left Futures Lansman
argued that the Left must stop talking about ‘Zionism’. Why? Because Zionism is the ideology that underpins
Israeli Apartheid. It is Zionism which says
that in order to preserve Israel's ‘Jewish identity’, non-Jewish refugees must
be expelled. Lansman has also justified
the ethnic cleansing of ¾ million Palestinians using the Holocaust as the
justification.
No More Excuses – Israel is an Apartheid Society
What Lansman is consciously doing is
supporting Labour’s apologists for Israeli
Apartheid in their attempts to demonise critics of Israel as ‘anti-Semitic’. It is no accident that they have chosen to
single out Black and Jewish critics. In South
Africa it was White critics of Apartheid who were also demonised as ‘traitors’
or indeed racists (to White people).
If there is any doubt about whether Israel is
an apartheid state we only need to listen to the activists of the ANC, who overthrew
Apartheid in South Africa
A month ago Mandla Mandela, the grandson of
Nelson Mandela, after visiting the West Bank was reported
as saying that “Israel is the worst
apartheid regime... Palestinians are being subjected to the worst version of
apartheid.”
 |
| Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu |
Archbishop of
Johannesburg, Desmond Tutu stated
‘I have witnessed the systemic humiliation of
Palestinian men, women and children by members of the Israeli security forces. Their humiliation is familiar to all black
South Africans who were corralled and harassed and insulted and assaulted by
the security forces of the apartheid government."
 |
| Ronnie Kassrills, the Jewish former ANC Minister |
Ronnie Kassrils, a veteran of the liberation struggle recalled that ‘as far back as 1963 the assertion
that Israel is an Apartheid State ‘were
not the words of Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Tutu or Joe Slovo, but were uttered
by none other than the architect of apartheid itself, racist Prime Minister,
Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd.’ Verwoerd was irked by criticism of South Africa Apartheid
in contrast to the West’s unconditional support for Zionist Israel.
When
Lansman supports the false anti-Semitism allegations against Jackie Walker,
Marc Wadsworth or Ken Livingstone he is consciously aiding Israeli Apartheid.
Labour’s Witchhunt of Socialists and Anti-Racists is Anything But Fair
Perhaps the most unbelievable of all the claims by
Lansman in his interview was that ‘“The party has a process
and it’s right to have a fair process.”
Even by Lansman’s abysmal standards this was a new low. Thousands of people were suspended during the
elections for Party leader on the basis of searching through social media posts for anything which might provide the flimsiest of
justifications for suspending them and preventing them voting. If this had been done in a local authority or
parliamentary election, Iain McNicol would be doing gaol time for corrupt
electoral practices.
Shami Chakrabarti in her report, which has been
secretly removed from the Labour Party’s web site but which can be downloaded from here,
recommended that ‘The Labour Party should seek to uphold the strongest
principles of natural justice, however difficult the circumstances, and to
resist subjecting members to a trial by media.’
These recommendations have been observed in the breach by Iain McNicol and Labour's civil service who are determined to ensure that
the disciplinary process is loaded against those hauled before the National
Constitutional Committee.
In my own case the first
time I knew what I had been suspended for was when I read about the allegations
in the Telegraph and Times. Jackie
Walker and Marc Wadsworth have both been leaked against. After being suspended for 20 months I first knew I had a disciplinary hearing soon from a leak
to the Jewish Chronicle.
Not only has Lansman’s Momentum said nothing and
done nothing about the witch hunt but he has failed even to call for the
implementation of the Chakrabarti Report’s proposals on a fair procedure. The reason?
Because the Zionists have attacked it for not equating anti-Zionism with
anti-Semitism. The last things the Zionists
want is a fair process and it would seem that Lansman too would prefer to keep the present system whereby you are guilty until (or if) you are found innocent. Not for nothing have I labelled the NCC the National Kangaroo Committee (with apologies to kangaroos!).
Who & what is behind the False Anti-Semitism Campaign
Lansman is deliberately lying when he says that there is an ‘anti-Semitism’ problem in the Labour Party. He is fully aware
that this campaign began with Jeremy Corbyn himself a target. During the first
leadership election the Daily Mail printed an article
EXCLUSIVE: Jeremy Corbyn's 'long-standing
links' with notorious Holocaust denier and the Jewish Chronicle followed
this up. From here it was but a
short step to the false anti-Semitism campaign.
If anyone wants a history of
this campaign they should read Asa Winstanley’s excellent article How
Israel lobby manufactured UK Labour Party’s anti-Semitism crisis
Lansman is neither a fool nor an
idiot. He is fully aware that this
‘anti-Semitism’ campaign is state manufactured.
The Al Jazeera programme The Lobby detailed
the role of the Israeli Embassy and its agent Shai Masot in destabilising the
Labour Party.
What we have seen is a state
inspired campaign to destabilise Labour under Corbyn. Anti-Semitism has become the
chosen weapon. If anyone doubts this all then they have to explain why it is that the Tory press – the Sun, Express,
Mail etc. are so worked up by ‘anti-Semitism’ in the Labour Party when they are
happy to print any amount of lies about refugees from people like Katie
Hopkins? ‘Anti-Semitism’ i.e. anti-Zionism
is the Right’s anti-racism. It is a new
form of anti-communism.
Its not hard to work out who is
behind this campaign. When the US Embassy first learnt that the leader of the
second biggest party in their closest European ally, the United Kingdom, was
anti-NATO and anti-Trident one can imagine their reaction. The false
anti-Semitism campaign was cooked up in conjunction with MI5 and the Israeli
Embassy. No doubt their friends such as
Tom Watson and Iain McNicol were briefed and before long any utterance, however
innocent or foolish was seized upon as ‘proof’ of anti-Semitism.
The little anti-Semitism that
does exist occurs because Israel claims to be a Jewish state and when it commits
its war crimes it does so in the name of all Jews. It is a ‘Jewish state.’ This is not anti-Semitism as it has been
understood historically. If we wish to root out anti-Semitism then we must also
root out Zionism. The JLM’s special
status as a Labour Party affiliate must end.
It is outrageous that the representatives of the world’s only apartheid
state have special privileges in the Labour Party.
Lansman’s other idiocy was to
claim There's
as much antisemitism in Tory Party as in Labour . No there’s not. The Tory Party is institutionally anti-Semitic. It is linked in the European parliament, via the European
Conservative and Reform group to the anti-Semitic Polish Law and Justice Party
and the Latvian LNNK. Only this week
Theresa May went to Poland to assure their racist government that the Tories
supported them in their battles with the EU.
The Chair of the ECR group,
Michal Kaminski, was an open apologist for the Committee to Defend the Good
Name of Jedwabne, in which village up to 1600 Jews were burnt alive in 1941 by
fellow Poles. Kaminski campaigned vociferously against
the apology offered
by President Aleksander Kwasniewski on the 60th
anniversary of the pogrom. Ironically in this case the Zionist Jewish Chronicle
leapt
to Kaminski’s defence, because he
was also a Zionist!
Theresa May and the Tories also
have close links with Hungarian leader Viktor Orban who is openly anti-Semitic
and who is trying to rehabilitate
Hungary’s war-time leader Admiral Horthy, who presided over the deportation of
nearly ½ million Jews to Auschwitz. If Lansman or the JLM want to know about anti-Semitism they should ask Israel's Prime Minister who paid a visit to Orban in July, shortly after an anti-semitic campaign against George Soros had ended, a campaign supported by Netanyahu.
Lansman has the audacity to state
that ‘All of you have continued to act in a manner which
has made things more difficult for Jeremy and the Labour Party whether or not
your actions have been antisemitic.’ It is not
Jackie, Marc or myself who have made things difficult for Corbyn. It is Lansman, who by giving support to Jeremy
Newmark and the JLM, has continued to give credence to the false anti-Semitism
campaign. If this campaign had been opposed
from the beginning, if Corbyn had been advised both to condemn anti-Semitism and the making of false accusations of
anti-Semitism then he would not have made what is a continuing rod for his own
back.
I will make
a prediction. If Jackie Walker, Tony
Greenstein and Marc Wadsworth are expelled from the Labour Party, this campaign
will not disappear. On the
contrary having fed the Zionist crocodile they will have merely whetted its
appetite. It will look for more victims
and the story of ‘Labour Anti-Semitism’
will, with Lansman’s backing, continue to damage Corbyn. The only way to fight this political extortion is by standing up to them and not appeasing them.
The JLM, which presents itself as the ‘progressive
voice’ of Zionism has never, not once, criticised Israel’s military occupation
or called for an end to what is a permanent martial law in the West Bank. It has never opposed the visceral racism of
the Israeli state and its marginalisation even of Israeli Arabs. You would look in vain on their web site for any criticism of Netanyahu still less of the ILP.
Lansman destroyed democracy in Momentum at the
beginning of the year in the name of One Member One Vote. This was also a lie. When it came to drawing up a slate of 3 for
the NEC elections, there was no OMOV.
Lansman couldn’t risk it. Instead
Momentum’s undemocratically constituted National Co-ordinating Group imposed a
slate of 3 including Lansman. This is on
a par with the continuing scandal whereby Lansman personally owns Momentum via
a private limited company rather than making the directors accountable and
directly elected.
The false anti-Semitism campaign will not go away
because it is not in the interests of either the Israeli, British or American
states to do so. It is for Labour
members themselves to take control of their destiny and to oppose this witch
hunt. That is why we have formed Labour
Against the Witchhunt.
Below is correspondence between John Lansman and myself
Tony Greenstein
Below is correspondence between John Lansman and myself
Tony Greenstein
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