VICTORY AGAINST THE IHRA – Paul Jonson Reinstated
We should welcome the reinstatement of Paul Jonson. It is a defeat for the Israeli Government funded
Campaign Against Anti-Semitism. This
McCarthyite organisation is dedicated to closing down debate and discussion on Palestine
and Israel because they know that in any rational discussion, Israel’s racist
behaviour and practices are indefensible.
This is also a massive defeat for the International Holocaust
Remembrance Alliance misdefinition of anti-Semitism which is designed to
destroy free speech on Israel/Palestine. 150+ local authorities have adopted the
IHRA and we have to make sure that it is NOT used to undermine free speech.
The Guardian’s Vendetta Against Julian Assange
This is a very disturbing article on how the Guardian is deliberately
inventing malicious and fake stories
designed to undermine Julian Assange and Wikileaks. Patsies like Nick Cohen are doing the
Intelligence Services dirty work. None of the allegations against Assange, that
he is a sponsored dupe of the Russians stands up.
Birthright Kicks Dissident Jewish Teens off their tours
Birthright or Birthwrong as it is called is a programme sponsored by US
billionaire and Trump supporter Sheldon Adelson. It is designed to acquaint American and other
Jewish youngsters with their so-called birthright. In other words to get them to become the
colonisers of the future.
It is based on the lie that Israel is the ‘real home’ of diaspora Jews.
Fortunately American Jewish groups like Ifnotnow
have been hard at work informing those who go on these trips that these are
propaganda tours and nothing more. The
result of their campaign is that the numbers going on these tours, which are
nothing more than cheap bribes, is down by 50% this year and Birthright have now resorted to throwing
off the trips those youngsters who challenge the right-wing Zionist narrative which
they are fed. Clearly Israel and its
propagandists don’t do debate or discussion.
They want lapdogs who will accept whatever they are told.
Hillel
Garmi (19) of Yodfat has been released from military prison
After 7 consecutive terms of
imprisonment, Israeli teenager Hillel Garmi has finally been released from the obligation
to serve Israel’s occupation army. Although
the experience of these Israeli kids is nothing as compared to Palestinian teenagers,
some as young as 12, who are subject to beatings, sleep deprivation and
outright torture, we should remember that the pressure on them to conform is
massive.
Please support the Refuser
Solidarity Network
Socialist Worker 20
December 2018
A council worker suspended from his job for criticising Israel has been reinstated after a
campaign was launched to defend him.
Paul Jonson, an anti-social behaviour officer at Dudley council, was
suspended from work earlier this year after calling Israel a “racist endeavour” on Facebook. He faced accusations that his post was antisemitic.
But now he has been told he has no case to answer, and that he has the
right to campaign in solidarity with Palestinians. More than 800 people signed
a statement defending Paul and the right to speak out against Israel.
It comes as the right to criticise Israel is coming under attack at
councils across Britain.
Rob Ferguson, who helped to organise Paul’s defence campaign, told
Socialist Worker the victory “is a very
significant blow against the attempt to stifle and intimidate free speech on
Israel and the Palestinian struggle.”
Supporters of Israel complained that Paul’s post breached the
International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism.
An example associated with the definition says it could be considered
antisemitic to describe the existence of Israel as a “racist endeavour”.
This can make it harder to describe Israel’s systematic discrimination
against Arabs as racist, or its attempts to expel Palestinians as ethnic
cleansing.
Yet the state has racism at its core.
Some 850,000 Palestinians were forced out of Palestine when Israel was
created in 1948. Its founders wanted to ensure the state had a Jewish ethnic
majority.
Undermine
Today Israel refuses to allow Palestinians to return because it says
their presence would undermine Israel’s existence as a Jewish state. Earlier
this year the Israeli government passed a law that says only Jewish people have the right to self-determination
there.
Yet supporters of Israel want to clamp down on those who call Israel—or
its founding ideology Zionism, which justified Palestinians’ expulsion—racist.
The Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) demanded that Paul was sacked
after his Facebook post, which also advertised a lobby outside Labour MP Ian
Austin’s surgery in October.
The CAA considers anti-Zionism to be antisemitic, has described the
Palestine Solidarity Campaign as being fuelled by antisemitism, and has
organised protests where Labour was compared to the Nazi Party.
Austin is listed as one of the CAA’s honorary patrons. He had previously
recognised Paul as a council employee and confronted him at a protest in July.
The CAA apparently complained to Dudley council about Paul after the
lobby of Austin’s surgery in October.
In a local newspaper article that broke the news of Paul’s suspension,
CAA director Stephen Silverman said Paul was “Utterly unfit to hold the office of Anti-Social Behaviour Officer for
Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council.
“We are glad that the council has
suspended him following our complaint.”
And in November a CAA spokesperson demanded to know why Paul “has still not yet been dismissed as a
council employee.”
Campaign
Yet Paul was finally told by council bosses on Wednesday that the
accusation of antisemitism “will not be
recorded against him,” and that he has the right to campaign for Palestine
outside of work.
The campaign to reinstate him won widespread support. Defending the
right to criticise Israel was at the heart of it.
As well as collecting signatures in his defence, Paul spoke at meetings
of the local trades council, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign meetings, the
Stop the War coalition and the Quakers.
The Dudley trades council also released a statement in his support.
The campaign is an example of how to resist attempts to clamp down on
solidarity with Palestine in other workplaces.
Labour-controlled Waltham Forest council adopted the IHRA definition
last week and incorporated it into its code of conduct for employees.
Rob said, “We need to learn from
Paul’s victory and mount opposition to the IHRA definition across the entire
trade union movement.”
Guilty by innuendo: the
Guardian campaign against Julian Assange that breaks all the rules
An analysis
of articles published by the Guardian over several months reveals what
appears to be a campaign to link WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with Russia
and the Kremlin. But the paper has provided little or no evidence to back up
the assertions. And amid recent revelations that Guardian journalists
have associated with the psychological operations experts at the Integrity Initiative, we should
perhaps be more sceptical than ever before.
Beginnings
This
particular campaign by the Guardian appears to have begun with an
article on 18 May 2018 from Luke Harding, Dan Collyns and Stephanie
Kirchgaessner. It stated that “Assange
has a longstanding relationship with RT”, the Russian TV broadcaster; and
the headline was Assange’s guest
list: the RT reporters, hackers and film-makers who visited embassy.
Assange has had hundreds of people visit him at the embassy, but the article
was keen to focus on the “senior staff
members from RT, the Moscow TV network described by US intelligence agencies as
the Kremlin’s ‘principal international propaganda outlet’”.
On the same
day, the Guardian published another article, claiming that Assange had visits from “individuals linked to the Kremlin”, but which offered no evidence
for this.
On 20 June,
Harding and Kirchgaessner wrote a story focusing on “Assange’s alleged ties to Russia”. It claimed that “a
longtime US lobbyist for the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska visited Julian
Assange nine times at the Ecuadorian embassy”. Yet the article’s
sub-heading stated: “It is unclear
whether Adam Waldman’s 2017 visits had connection to Oleg Deripaska”.
Waldman is a lawyer, and visited Assange in that capacity.
By 21
September, Harding, Collyns and Kirchgaessner wrote about “Assange’s
ties to the Kremlin”, without even an “alleged”.
Then, on 26 September, Collyns wrote again of Assange’s “ties
to the Kremlin”, also offering no evidence.
All these
articles followed an opinion piece on 29 March by James Ball, who rhetorically asked if Assange was “working
with people at the top of Putin’s government”.
More recently
In the US,
special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating alleged Russian interference in
the 2016 US election and the release of thousands of files from the US
Democratic Party. The Guardian’s coverage of this has also attempted to
convey that Assange knowingly sourced information from Russian intelligence. On
16 November, Jon Swaine and Stephanie Kirchgaessner wrote that “the
July indictment [by Mueller] said WikiLeaks urged the Russians to give them the
first batch of stolen emails”. This implied that WikiLeaks was
working with “the Russians”. Then, on
27 November, Harding and Collyns wrote that “WikiLeaks
emailed the GRU [Russian military intelligence] via an intermediary seeking the DNC material”. Nick
Cohen similarly wrote on 7 October that “GRU agents passed 50,000 documents from the Clinton campaign to
WikiLeaks, which presented them as the product of its own investigations”. Again,
this all inferred that WikiLeaks was in contact, or actually conniving,
with Russian intelligence.
On 17
October, the Guardian carried a story from Associated Press, mentioning “Assange’s relationship with Russian authorities”. It
offered no evidence for this “relationship”,
other than claiming there was “a growing
body of evidence suggesting he [Assange] received material directly from
Russia’s military intelligence agency”. Precisely what “growing body of evidence” it was
referring to was unclear.
On 22 October,
a Guardian opinion piece by Kathleen Hall Jamieson asserted that “it is
now clearer than ever” that “the
Russian cyber-theft” of thousands of Democratic Party emails was “abetted by Assange’s WikiLeaks” – the
suggestion again being that WikiLeaks had been conspiring with Russia.
Not even Mueller has claimed that WikiLeaks was involved in any hack of
the emails.
The Guardian
also tried to link the Mueller investigation to its RT story. On 6
December, Stephanie Kirchgaessner and Jon Swaine wrote:
The special
counsel’s alleged focus on RT is important because the Russian news channel
also has a close relationship with the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange… [RT
journalist Afshin] Rattansi’s August 2016 interview of Assange was alleged to
have been part of Russian propaganda efforts aimed at boosting Trump and
denigrating Clinton”.
And on 20
November, the Guardian published a story stating that “Russian
Twitter trolls… have begun to advocate on behalf of Julian Assange”.
Then there are the accusations of flat-out “fake”
stories
All this is
in addition to two recent Guardian stories that faced accusations of
being fabricated.
On 27
November, the Guardian published a story on its front page – written by
Harding, Collyns and Ecuadorian journalist and former anti-government activist) Fernando Villavicencio – claiming that former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort
had held three secret talks with Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy. (Note: As The
Canary reported,
Villavicencio’s name appeared on the
print version but was not present on the web version.)
But in an exclusive
interview with The Canary, former consul and first secretary at the
Ecuadorian Embassy Fidel Narváez refuted that story. And a variety of media
outlets, including the Washington Post, subsequently ridiculed
it. The article also sought to link Assange to Russia, stating:
A well-placed source has told the
Guardian that Manafort went to see Assange around March 2016. Months later
WikiLeaks released a stash of Democratic emails stolen by Russian intelligence
officers.
An earlier Guardian
story – written by Harding, Kirchgaessner and Collyns and published on 21
September 2018 – was headlined Revealed:
Russia’s secret plan to help Julian Assange escape from UK. The article
claimed that it “raises
new questions about Assange’s ties to the Kremlin”. Narváez also described that piece as a “fake story” in his interview with The Canary. And because
the Guardian named him as the link to Russia in the article, the former
diplomat has accused the Guardian
of causing “irreparable damage to my
reputation” and has demanded an apology.
Not good enough
Simply
referring to ‘unnamed sources’ (as in
the article about the supposed Manafort visits) is just not good enough in the
age of fake news. For this reason, The Canary followed up the Guardian
story on Manafort by suggesting likely sources: namely private intelligence
contractors organised by Ecuadorian intelligence (Senain), reportedly
with some help from Villavicencio. The Guardian, meanwhile, has largely failed to defend
its claims.
On the
matter of sources, it’s important that journalists are careful with whom they associate.
For example, Guardian commentator and BuzzFeed writer James Ball spoke at an event promoted by the controversial Integrity
Initiative, which claims to specialise in ‘counter-disinformation‘. So did Guardian/Observer journalist Nick Cohen. And at least one
other Guardian journalist spoke at that event too. Other mainstream media
journalists, meanwhile, are also listed in Integrity’s ‘UK cluster’ activists
document (seen by The Canary).
The question
that we now need to ask is: if the Guardian story about the Manafort
visits was untrue, then how many more claims against Assange in the articles
quoted above were also untrue? If the paper had given hard evidence in the
first place, we wouldn’t need to ask that question. But it didn’t. So we do.
The Canary contacted
the Guardian for comment. But it hadn’t responded by the time of publication.
Whatever the
Guardian‘s rationale behind its articles on Assange, they will
undoubtedly help to create a hostile climate towards the WikiLeaks founder. And
that in turn may enable Ecuador’s new government, at the behest of the US and
the UK, to push him out of the embassy in London, leaving him to face potential
or likely extradition to the US.
A day after being kicked off a Birthright Israel trip,
three young American Jews went to the exact place Birthright would never take
them: the West Bank.
They are meeting with residents of a Bedouin village
to ask them about living under Israel’s occupation of the territory, Emily
Bloch said. Bloch, 29, along with Shira Tiffany, 29, and Benjamin Doernberg,
29, were dismissed
from their Birthright trip Sunday.
“We’re just
figuring stuff out,” Bloch said. “We didn’t
have any plans because we weren’t planning to get kicked off.”
Bloch, Doernberg and Tiffany are all members of
IfNotNow, a left-wing group that is opposed to Israel’s occupation of the West
Bank. Members of IfNotNow left their
Birthright trips over the summer to visit locations
in the West Bank. The group has recently passed out packets of information
about Israel and its occupation of the West Bank to Birthright participants in airports ahead of their trips.
IfNotNow provided contact information for Bloch,
Doernberg and Tiffany to the Forward. Doernberg and Tiffany did not respond to
requests for comment from the Forward.
The trio were asked to leave their trip after what
Bloch described as a “pretty heated
discussion” occurred between her and an Israeli tour guide leading the trip
after Bloch asked about the wall that separates Jerusalem from the West Bank.
Bloch said she asked about the wall because she is an immigrants’ rights
activist in Boston.
The trio were then taken to a Birthright office in Tel
Aviv, where they were told they could either go immediately to the airport and
fly home, or stay on their own dime, and forfeit their flight home and $250
security deposit.
“I felt
like I hadn’t gotten what I’d come here for, so I decided to stay and learn
more,” Bloch said.
Bloch said that Birthright staff did not specifically
tell them why they were being kicked off the trip, only saying that they had
broken the program’s “rules and regulations.” Bloch said she took that to mean
that they had infringed recently added language in Birthright’s code of
conduct, which includes a ban on “hijack[ing] discussion.”
“They’re drawing
the line, that if you want to ask questions about the occupation, you’re not
welcome anymore,” Bloch said.
In a statement, Birthright called the trio “activists,” and said that the
organization has a policy of asking participants to leave when they “disrupt the experience of other
participants.”
“Birthright
Israel always welcomes participants’ views and questions, which are essential
to the success of the experience, so long as they are shared in a constructive
and respectful manner,” the statement read. “We will not condone any coordinated plans to ruin the experience for
others in order to promote a specific agenda.”
Birthright did not immediately respond to further
questions asked by the Forward.
After being asked to leave, Bloch said that she,
Doernberg and Tiffany stayed at a friend’s home in Tel Aviv, before going to
the West Bank Monday morning. They are visiting Umm al-Khair, a Bedouin village
near Hebron, which has seen tent homes demolished by the
Israeli government.
Bloch says that the trio are self-funded, and may
start a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for their travel expenses and flights
back to the U.S., as several
Birthright participants who were kicked off their
trips in August did.
Bloch said that tonight they are staying with an
acquaintance in Jerusalem.
“A lot of
people have reached out over social media and offered us places to stay, and
connections,” she said.
Tomorrow they are planning to go see a main checkpoint
between Israel and the West Bank.
“The
checkpoint is the gate of the border wall,” Bloch said. “That’s where I think
you can often see a lot of what it’s like to live separated, on either side of
the wall.”
Bloch said she was disappointed to be kicked off the
trip. She said she had previously tried to go on a Birthright trip, in 2014,
before it was cancelled because of Israel’s war with Gaza that year, and this
is her first time in Israel.
“I wanted
to see Israel with my own eyes,” she said. Birthright “is the opportunity presented to so many
people in our generation as the way to do that.”
But, she said, they’re not helping American Jews have
a “complex and nuanced relationship with
Israel.”
“They want
unwavering support for their political agenda,” she said.
Ari
Feldman is a staff writer at the Forward. Contact him at feldman@forward.com or follow him on
Twitter @aefeldman
 |
| Israeli conscientious objector Hilel Garmi. (Yoav Eshel) |
Conscientious
objector freed after 107 days in military prison
Hillel
Garmi, who was inspired by one of the leaders of Gaza’s ‘Great Return March,’
served seven prison terms for his refusal to join the Israeli army.By +972 Magazine Staff 24th December 2018
The Israeli army discharged conscientious objector
Hillel Garmi on Sunday after imprisoning him for a total of 107 days. Israel
has compulsory military service, and Garmi refused to be drafted due to his
opposition to the occupation.
Garmi, 19, from Yodfat in northern Israel, is one of
the initiators and signatories of the “Shministim letter,” published earlier
this year by dozens of Israeli high school seniors who declared their refusal
to serve in the Israeli army. He served seven successive prison terms since
July.
 |
| Israel's real heroes - Tamar Alon and Ze'evi who both served repeated terms of imprisonment rather than serve in Israel's army |
Upon leaving military prison on Monday, Garmi said:
“The
five months I spent in prison were dedicated to the struggle against the
occupation and the siege, for the sake of the five million Palestinians who
actually live under the rule of the Israeli government, but do not enjoy the
right to elect it.”
“In
all the days and nights I spent in prison, I tried to keep in mind the
Palestinians suffering from the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip,
which includes a shortage of drinking water, food, and medicine, or
Palestinians under occupation in the West Bank, which includes land grabs,
arrests and random searches,” Garmi said.
“There
were people who told me that I was shirking my responsibility [to ensure] the
security of the citizens of Israel, but I think that it is precisely with this
act that I take responsibility for the safety of all the people affected by
what I do — both Israelis and Palestinians.”
In his declaration
of refusal, Garmi explained that he was inspired by Ahmed Abu Artema, one
of the lead organizers of the ‘Great Return March’ protests on the Gaza border.
“I was impressed to find people who
prefer to deal with the situation between the Jordan River and the sea without
resorting to violence,” wrote Garmi. “I,
too, believe in civil disobedience – in applying nonviolent pressure to highlight
a government’s lack of morality.”
Abu Artema responded
to Garmi in a letter published on +972, in which he praised the
conscientious objector’s decision for helping to
“end this dark period
inflicted on Palestinians, and at the same time mitigate the fears of younger
Israeli generations who were born into a complicated situation and a turbulent
geographical area deprived of security and peace.”
Earlier this month, an IDF disciplinary body sentenced
Israeli conscientious objector Adam Rafaelov to an
additional 10 days in military prison for his refusal to be conscripted.
Rafaelov, 18, from Kiryat Motzkin in northern Israel, has been sent to prison
seven times since July when he was first sentenced. He has served a total of 87
days behind bars. Like Garmi, Rafaelov is being accompanied by “Mesarvot,” a
political Israeli network that provides supports for conscientious objectors.
Press Release, 25.12.2018 -
Following 107 days of
incarceration, Hillel Garmi (18) of Yodfat has been released from military
prison
On
Xmas Eve, the IDF’s Conscience Committee decided to exempt conscientious
objector Hillel Garmi, of Yodfat in northern Israel from military service.
Garmi, one of the initiators of the High School Students’ Letter, was released
following seven sentences since his first appearance at the Induction Center
this July, when he first declared his refusal to serve.
 |
| Haggai Matar - (right) refused to serve in army |
Upon
his release Garmi said,
“The five
months I have spent in prison have been dedicated to the struggle against
occupation and siege, to the five million Palestinians who effectively live
under the rule of the Israeli government but do not have the chance to elect it.”
Garmi
added:
“Throughout the nights and days I
spent in prison, I tried to imagine the suffering of the Palestinians
undergoing the ongoing siege of the Gaza Strip, including the lack of drinking
water, food and medicine, or that of the Palestinians under occupation in the
West Bank, who suffer the theft of their lands, road blockages, arbitrary
search and arrest. Some people have told me that my refusal amounts to evading
responsibility for the security of the citizens of Israel, but I believe rather
that this act is one of taking responsibility for all those affected by my
deeds, Israelis and Palestinians, by not joining in the cycle of violence and
not hurting any of them, and by convincing others to act likewise.”
Upon
entering prison Garmi said that his decision to refuse was inspired by the
actions of Ahmed Abu-Ratima, the Gazan organizer of the Great Return March, and
that Abu-Ratima had written him in support of his act.
Conscientious
object Adam Rafaelov (18) of Kiryat Motzkin is currently in prison,
having already served 97 days for refusing to join the army.
Garmi
and Rafaelov are accompanied by Mesarvot – A political refusing network
that writes letters and initiates refusing groups from the last few years to
joint action. The network supports conscientious objectors that choose to not
enlist in the occupation army, while knowingly acknowledging the gender aspects
that the compulsory enlistment brings to Israeli society. The network works in
cooperation and assistant from Yesh Gvul Movement.
Dror
Mizrahi
Media
| Strategy | PR
Cell:
+972-50-7248688
Email:
dr...@dror-mizrahi.org
TEL AVIV-JAFFA,
ISRAEL
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