The Guardian’s Zionist journalist Jessica Elgot Attacks Jackie Walker using the same soiled and racist lies whilst refusing any Right of Reply

The cowardice of Guardian Letters Editor Rory Foster - Jackie’s expulsion and the fake anti-Semitism affair are ‘too sensitive’ and ‘controversial’ to discuss

The Guardian's previous Letters Editor Nigel Wilmott had no difficulty printing controversial and 'sensitive' letters

PLEASE SIGN THE LETTER WHICH IS NOW IN THE FORM OF A PETITION ON CHANGE.ORG

You might be forgiven for thinking that one of the purposes of the Letters pages of a newspaper is to welcome controversy regardless of how many feathers it ruffles. That is how the previous Letters Editor, Nigel Wilmott and his predecessors in the post saw it.

When Jackie first came under attack in October 2016, from Jon Lansman’s Momentum and the Jewish Labour Movement, I organised a letter to the Guardian from 28 Jewish members of Momentum in Jackie’s defence. The Guardian accepted it without demur.

Jessica Elgot's hatchet job on Jackie Walker who was NOT expelled for antisemitic remarks but misconduct

However the rapidly rightward moving Guardian, which has for the past 3 years run dozens of anti-Corbyn articles as part of its false ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign, has refused to accept any criticism of its coverage of Jackie Walker’s expulsion.  Last week I submitted a letter from nearly 400 people rebutting Elgot’s lies and distortions.

Jessica Elgot, the Guardian’s Chief Political Correspondent and former Jewish Chronicle ‘journalist’ penned a scurrilous article repeating the same lies and half-truths that Jackie has endured in the past two and a half years. A period of unremitting abuse that her film the Witchhunt and her play The Lynching document. Noam Chomsky, Ken Livingstone, Alexei Sayle, Miriam Margolyes, Steve Bell, the Guardian's own cartoonist and Jonathan Cook, a former Guardian journalist plus a host of academics were amongst those signing the letter. Foster dismissed them all with contempt.

The Guardian employing a committed Zionist like Jessica Elgot to write about Jackie Walker’s case is like employing a fox to guard the chicken coop. Or asking members of the KKK what their opinion is of Martin Luther King.

Employing Jessica Elgot to write about Jackie Walker is like asking the KKK for their Opinion on Martin Luther King

After I sent the letter I rang the Guardian and asked to speak to the Letters Editor, Rory Foster. Since he was on leave I spoke to his deputy, Toby Chasseud, to find out when and if our letter was going in. After some stuttering and stammering and an awkward silence Toby said that any decision would have to wait till Rory Foster returned on Tuesday. 

When I pressed him as to why this was the case Toby let slip that it was too ‘sensitive’ and ‘controversial.’ I said surely that was the whole point of a Letters Page. The Guardian had carried a vitriolic article and we were replying to it.  What was the problem? The idea that we can’t speak the truth in case it offends anyone is am Orwellian one. But Toby insisted that any decision was, in his words ‘beyond his pay grade.’ I therefore wrote two letters to Foster about his cowardly underling. [See Letters number 1 and number 2].

In the next five days the number of signatories grew from 200 to nearly 400. I regularly sent updates to the list of signatories to The Guardian to remind them we hadn’t forgotten about the letter. On Tuesday morning I received an email from Foster:

Tony

I have read and considered the letter. I also note that it has already been published on Facebook, and that Labour Against the Witchhunt has indicated there that it intends to publish it on Change.org too. I don't intend to publish it on the Guardian letters page.

Regards

Rory Foster

letters editor, the Guardian

This was entirely dishonest. The letter wasn’t published on Facebook, it was displayed in the LAW group in order that those who were interested could sign it. This is standard practice with group letters. The fact that Labour Against the Witchhunt indicated it would publish it on Change.org is irrelevant. It is quite normal for organisations to publish letters that are printed in other media.

Not that this was the first such letter that the Guardian has refused to print. In March the Guardian refused to print a letter from 200 Jewish women replying to Margaret Hodge's wild assertions that antisemitism was spreading like a cancer inside the Labour Party.  Its excuse then was the matter had 'already been aired before'. Yes by the liars and Zionists that the Guardian gives acres of space to. The letter ended up being printed in the Morning Star.

Clearly these were excuses but being tolerant and open minded I rang him up to have a talk about things like freedom of speech, the right of reply, censorship, the traditions of the Guardian and how his predecessors as Letters Editor had behaved.  You may be surprised to learn that Rory Foster wasn’t inclined to discuss any of these things. Clearly Foster is a machine man, a hack hired to change the previous open doors policy of the Guardian Letters Page which until now had been a welcome refuge from the baleful influence of senior Editor Jonathan Freedland, another Jewish Chronicle contributor, who has managed to eliminate most traces of anti-Zionism and support for the Palestinians from the pages of the Guardian.

I therefore sent Foster a letter since he didn't seem to be in a talkative mood! I kept it polite as I normally do but I couldn’t resist a quotation from Jewish political scientist Hannah Arendt who talked about the ‘banality of evil’ in the context of Adolf Eichmann during his trial in Jerusalem in 1961. Arendt saw Eichmann above all as a desk bound bureaucrat dutifully carrying out the orders of his superiors. Of course this didn’t mean that Eichmann wasn’t a virulent anti-Semite. Nor does it mean that Rory Foster isn’t a man of limited horizons dutifully doing his duty according to the expectations of his superiors and the corporate media.

I have organised many such letters in the past but it would seem that Foster is determined to ensure that the Letters pages no longer includes the kind of open and controversial debate which was once integral to the Guardian. Today The Guardian has mundane pundits a plenty but very few good journalists like Jonathan Steele, Michael Adams or John Palmer,

Letters such as the one which we sent defending Jackie two years ago are now beyond the pale. Debate at the Guardian is becoming more and more confined to what conforms to Jonathan Freedland's concept of what constitutes anti-Semitism.

The decision of Rory Foster and his underling Toby Chasseaud can only be understood in the light of the change in the Guardian’s coverage of both the Middle East and Zionism, in particular in the wake of Jeremy Corbyn’s election as leader of the Labour Party.

As Israel has moved further and further to the Right the Guardian has move along with it. In order to defend the identification of the organised synagogue going Jewish community around the Board of Deputies (itself a minority of Jews) the Guardian’s coverage of both Israel and indeed Jewish dissent in this country has narrowed.

In all the acres of column inches devoted to the false antisemitism narrative there was no room for the above letter contradicting it

Who would know, reading the Guardian that the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Communities, in response to accusations that Dianne Abbot tolerates anti-Semitism has written a letter to her refuting such allegations? Such stories are confined either to the Zionist press or alternative media such as Skwawkbox. Who would know that last year 29 rabbis from the same ultra-Orthodox Jewish community signed a joint letter defending Jeremy Corbyn?  Certainly not Guardian readers.

The Guardian’s change in policy on Zionism predates Corbyn’s election. The Guardian was moving to the Right from a much earlier stage. For example the Observer came out in support of the Iraq War in 2003 and the Guardian went along with the war.

 However the swing to the Right, which was clear from the Guardian’s support for the Lib Dem-Tory coalition government manifested itself in the campaign which it has unremittingly waged against Corbyn and its tiresome sponsorship of the fake ‘anti-Semitism’ narrative.

The Guardian’s neo-liberal campaign against Corbyn

The admirable Fivefilters has compiled over 100 anti-Corbyn articles from the Guardian attacking Corbyn. They are puerile in their childish venom.  Laughable in an unfunny way. These are people who consider themselves serious journalists yet they reveal themselves as nothing if not shallow, insubstantial and prone to making absurd comparisons completely divorced from reality.

It is not necessary to scapegoat obvious buffoons such as Nick Cohen who, just before the 2017 General Election predicted a wipe-out for Jeremy Corbyn.  In ‘Don’t tell me you weren’t warned about Corbyn.’ he warned, in his most stentorian tones, of the coming electoral disaster:  ‘Will there be 150, 125, 100 Labour MPs by the end of the flaying? My advice is to think of a number then halve it.’ And because he knew we wouldn’t listen to sages such as himself he told us ‘to stop being a fucking fool by changing your fucking mind’. Not every Guardian columnist is quite as sophisticated in her/his argument as Nick Cohen. However Cohen is in good company.

Marina Hyde - not the brightest bulb in the box

Marina Hyde – a lightweight among lightweights, who prides herself on her banality

I’ve covered the Guardian’s campaign against Corbyn in previous posts such as The Guardian and Jonathan Freedland's tedious Campaign against Corbyn and How The Guardian has sold its Soul. The Guardian campaign is both unremitting in its intensity and yet lightweight. Opinions are offered which consist of assertions  untainted by anything in the way of analysis. You expect this from the Daily Hate Mail and Express but not from a paper that prides itself on speaking for the liberal/left intelligentsia.

Marina Hyde who has nothing to say and takes acres of newsprint to say it

There is Marina Hyde about whom one has to ask, what is she for? She is the dimmest light in the Guardian's firmament, a lightweight among lightweights. How can anyone seriously ask if there is any difference between Blair & Corbyn!  Oh yes, I forgot, they are both male and that is it. The fact that one opposed a war that killed 1 million+ people whereas the other supported it is besides the point.

There's nothing Jonathan Freedland likes more than a cliche

Or Jonathan Freedland, the Zionist éminence grise, whose intellectual vanity is matched only by his narcissism. Freeland is so fond of clichés you might imagine he dines out on them at his dinner parties.  According to Freedland anti-Semitism is the ‘canary in the coalmine’. No Jonathan, it is Sherlock Holmes’ dog that didn’t bark in the night.  The fact that many Jews identify with Israel doesn’t mean it is anti-Semitic to oppose Zionism. It simply means that many Jews today are reactionaries and racists. Anti-Semitism has been redefined by dishonest people in order to explain why racist westerners and assorted fascists support Israel and Zionism and anti-racists don't.

If Jonathan or the Guardian stable had any integrity or honesty they would ask themselves and their readers why it is that the far-Right, including neo-Nazis like Richard Spencer, identify with Israel as the ideal ethno-nationalist state. They even call themselves White Zionists. Why is it that Generation Identity and Tommy Robinson support and identify with Israel?  If you read the Guardian this is not something you will ever find an answer to because they don’t even ask the question.

Whereas the Guardian and Freedland equate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism it is left to the liberal Jewish paper The Forward to carry articles such as that by Peter Beinart Debunking the myth that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitic. The Guardian republished the article but it is noteworthy that none of its own lacklustre journalists could write such a piece. In Labour and the left have an antisemitism problem Freeland argued that because 93% of British Jews identify with Israel (itself a flawed statistic) it is therefore anti-Semitic to oppose Zionism and a ‘Jewish’ state. In fact in a City University study The Attitude of British Jews towards Israel 31% of said they didn’t identify as Zionists, but this was one statistic that Freedland elided.

It's difficult to know with what Freedland felt the Bern

Freedland also came out with the ludicrous claim that he had ‘found the Bern’ and Corbyn is no Bernie Sanders.  In fact Bernie Sanders has moved in the direction of the Palestinians boycotting AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) to the accompaniment of cries of ‘anti-Semitism’.  Jonathan pretending to be a radical is simply not amusing.

Are there words enough to describe how pathetic this article is?

Gordon Brown's concern over anti-Semitism is as touching as it is hypocritical

There is the Guardian’s guest columnist and war criminal Tony Blair describing Corbyn’s politics as a fantasy, Alice in Wonderland. Presumably privatisation of the NHS, setting the bankers free to drive us into a financial crash was realism. Advocating rent controls and nationalisation of the rail is by way of contrast a fantasy. This is Freedland's idea of radical realism.

The slogan of the National Front that Gordon Brown adopted

The Guardian allows another New Labour retread, Gordon Brown to give us a lecture on how Corbyn has to change on ‘anti-Semitism’.  This couldn’t be the same Gordon Brown who campaigned on the slogan British jobs for British workers, the old BNP/NF slogan? When asked if he regretted using ‘the controversial phrase, branded illegal and racist by critics’ his spokesman replied "I don't see any reason for regret.’ The Gordon Brown who doesn’t regret echoing fascists is nonetheless considered an authority on anti-Semitism!

The Zionists continually scaremonger about Jews leaving Britain, whilst secretly hoping for just that

One in a long line of scare stories

Ms Elgot protects herself by blocking her critics - as Rees Mogg looks on admiringly

The Guardian’s resident Zionist and Political correspondent, Jessica Elgot is a free transfer from the Jewish Chronicle. For some unknown reason she has blocked me on Twitter. Apparently Corbyn’s views ‘could drive Jewish people from the UK.’ This in a year when emigration of Jews to Israel dropped to an all-time low, the third annual drop in a row.

Israel's racist leader of the opposition Israeli Labor Party condemns Corbyn - so what most people will ask

Elgot had previously written about how Israel’s far-right Israeli Labour Party leader Avi Gabbay had cut ties with Corbyn over ‘anti-Semitism’.  This couldn’t be the same Avi Gabbay who gave full backing to Netanyahu’s attempts to deport Israel’s 40,000 Black African refugees? It comes naturally to Elgot and her ilk to use racists to bolster their accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’. Who else can they cite?

A simple question - when has an anti-Zionist group NOT been accused of 'antisemitism' - Pippa Crerar's dishonesty is transparent - accused by whom?  no answer

Pippa Crerar, another Guardian lightweight and Deputy Political Editor, writes about how John McDonnell, whose acceptance of the false anti-Semitism narrative is embarrassing, once gave his backing to the launch of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network. How terrible.

Watson's concern about 'antisemitism' stands in stark contrast to his indifference to Windrush

The crème de la crème is Labour’s Deputy Leader Tom Watson who writes about how Labour faces ‘eternal shame’ over anti-Semitism.  This isn’t the same Tom Watson who confessed that ‘I’ve lost sleep thinking about poor old Phil Woolas and his leaflets’. Woolas was the racist Labour MP who was convicted by the High Court of electoral offences when he waged a campaign of racist lies against his Lib-Dem opponent in 2010. His strategy, according to an email from his election agent involved making ‘white folks angry’. Now why is it that I don’t take protestations about anti-Semitism seriously from this racist scumbag?

What we are dealing with is serial hypocrisy from a racist newspaper that defends Zionism and Apartheid in the name of ‘anti-Semitism’. And that is the real reason why a letter supporting Jackie Walker was rejected by a journalistic hack named Rory Foster.

Tony Greenstein