No socialist should have anything to do with an ‘anti-fascist’
organisation which endorses Zionism, racism and Apartheid
30 years ago I wrote an article Undermining
Anti-Fascists, Defending Zionism concerning the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight.
Searchlight never hesitated to accuse the Palestinians of links with neo-Nazis
whilst failing to mention the far-Right connections of the Israeli state and
its support e.g. for the Lebanese Phalange.
Last year I wrote
about how Hope not Hate had joined
the supporters of the Labour’s fake Anti-Semitism Campaign. HnH came out of a split in September
2011 with Searchlight
which was run by MI5 and Special Branch informant Gerry Gable.
 |
| Tom Watson, Israeli Labour Party leader Haim Herzog and Ruth Smeeth - not an Arab around |
Initially Nick Lowles, HnH’s Director, declared that he took no position
on Palestine but this did not last long.
In 2010 Ruth Smeeth, who is today the Parliamentary Chair of the Zionist
Jewish Labour Movement [JLM] and who made false allegations of anti-Semitism
against Marc Wadsworth, was appointed
Director of HnH.
 |
| This confidential memo tells its readers to Protect its source, Ruth Smeeth |
Smeeth was appointed Director
of Public Affairs with Britain’s main pro-Israel group BICOM in November 2005 and she joined the
Zionist Community Security Trust in 2010, which has close
links to Israel’s Mossad in
2010. Not only was Smeeth connected to
the Israeli state but Wikileaks released a US Government cable showing she was a ‘Protected’ asset. Yet despite her close links to Zionist groups
and her involvement with the Jewish Labour Movement she declared
to The Standard “I don’t talk about Israel or
Palestine. This [abuse] is not about anything I’ve said on Middle-East
politics. I don’t participate.” [See UK Labour MP
Ruth Smeeth was funded by Israel Lobby, Asa Winstanley]
 |
| An asset the US requires protecting |
It
was therefore with some surprise that I came across a video that HnH was
promoting featuring former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown. It is a slick 3
minutes staged in Liverpool Street Station.
 |
| Sir Nicholas Winton |
It
is also a shameless exploitation of the late Sir Nicholas Winton, a
British humanitarian who, in 1938 after the Kristallnacht pogrom in Germany helped
save 669 Jewish children in Prague. To use Winton’s memory in order to whitewash
the JLM, an openly racist Zionist organisation, is despicable.
 |
| Nick Lowles - the racist who heads an anti-fascist organisation - quite a remarkable feat - his main interest is in attracting government grants |
Gordon
Brown made no mention of how the children’s parents were unable to accompany
their children and how they died at the hands of the Nazis because no one would
admit them. Perhaps this was because Brown might have reflected on his and New
Labour’s opposition to admitting asylum seekers to this country demonising them
as ‘economic migrants’ and ‘bogus’. Former Social Services Specialist
Advisor David Plank described how the video featured:
a solemn,
hushed voiced Gordon Brown talking directly to the camera, walking through
Liverpool Street Station on an ever ascending line, after a starting clip of
Nicholas Winton and numbers of the 669 Jewish children saved from the Nazi
Reich voiced over reverentially by Gordon Brown, to the strains of saccharine
sacerdotal music.”
Shame
on you G Brown, shame on Hope not Hate, for dishonouring the memory of what
Nicholas Winton did to falsely accuse the Labour Party of antisemitism through
“demonization of the entire Jewish people”. It is an act of outrageous
Pecksniffery which does deep injustice not only to the Labour Party and all its
members, including me and my wife, but also to the many Jewish communities
(plural not singular) in the United Kingdom
Brown
declared ‘Young lives [are] being saved from Nazi brutality’. This
is the man who was part of New Labour Governments between 1997 and 2010 which locked
up asylum seekers indefinitely, took away their legal aid and prided itself
upon how many it had managed to deport back to death and torture.
At
one point the Blair government considered an opt-out from the European
Convention of Human Rights (the Tories would later take this up) until Lord
Goldsmith, the Attorney General told them that this would be incompatible with
membership of the European Union. Lord Irvine, the Lord Chancellor told
Blair and Blunkett ‘“I don’t know why you
guys don’t just adopt the Zimbabwean constitution and have done with it,” The
Independent wrote:
‘Gordon Brown has strongly criticised Robert Mugabe's
regime in Zimbabwe, but now ministers are seeking to expel 1,000 desperate
people back to Harare on the grounds that there is 'no general risk' to them.’
At
no time and at no point did Gordon Brown challenge New Labour’s immigration policy.
On the contrary it was Brown who repeated the BNP slogan ‘British Jobs for
British Workers’ and as Labour MEP Claud Moraes said, Brown had enabled the BNP’s
success in the 2009 European elections. Rachel Shabi noted:
‘Gordon Brown, appallingly, used the term while Labour prime minister in 2007 but he did not invent it such slogans
could be found in leaflets from the National Front and the British National
party.’
Gordon Brown made
it clear that he had ‘no
regrets over using the phrase "British jobs for British workers".
In
the shameful
video that HnH distributed there is a picture of Nelson Mandela of South
Africa. This is the same South Africa whose best friend was the State of Israel
under Israeli Labour governments. [Brothers in arms - Israel's secret pact
with Pretoria]
This racist opportunist asserted
that:
‘“in the last two years the
Labour Party let the Jewish community and itself down. They should never have
allowed legitimate criticism, which I share, of the Israeli government, to act
as a cover for the demonization of the entire Jewish people.”
His conclusion? To join and recommend
that others join the JLM which calls itself the ‘sister
party’ of the Israeli Labour Party which calls for the separation and
segregation of Israeli Jews and Arabs. It supported
Netanyahu’s attempt to deport all Israel’s 40,000 Black African refugees
because they were not Jewish. Brown continues:
‘Tackling
anti-Semitism and racism is not a distraction from the purpose of our party, it
is the purpose of our party.’
The
hypocrisy is breathtaking coming from a man who was part of a government that
was hostile to Muslims and asylum seekers. Brown went along with Blair’s war
for oil which led to the rise of domestic terrorism and in consequence Islamaphobia.
The
Israeli Labour Party formed the government of Israel for its first 30 years. It
was the ILP which perpetrated the ethnic cleansing of ¾ million Palestinians
and massacred thousands of Palestinians as it sought to engineer a Jewish
majority in a country that had a Palestinian majority. Nor is this a matter of
history.
The
ILP’s current leader Avi Gabbay opposed
any withdrawal from settlements in the West Bank. Former leader, Isaac Herzog
spoke of his nightmare
at the possibility of Israel having a Palestinian Prime Minister and 61
Palestinian Members of Israel’s Knesset (Parliament). Herzog declared that he
wanted to dispel
the false impression that the ILP were ‘Arab Lovers’
This is
the context to the allegations that anti-Semitism is institutional in the Labour
Party. There have been repeated assertions that Luciana Berger MP was subject
to anti-Semitic abuse and even death threats by Labour members. Bob Pitt has examined these in depth in an
article Has
the Labour left subjected Luciana Berger to hatespeak and death threats? The
allegation that Labour is institutionally anti-Semitic is a recent invention.
Pitt writes:
‘Berger
wasn’t alone in undergoing a dramatic conversion to the view that Labour is
afflicted by a plague of antisemitism. Back in 2016 Berger’s fellow Independent
Group founder Chuka Umunna
similarly dismissed suggestions that party was institutionally antisemitic (“I
have not seen one incident of antisemitism in almost 20 years of activism
within my local Labour Party”), as did Jewish Labour Movement vice-chairs Sarah Sackman and Mike Katz (“neither of us has ever
experienced any incidence of anti-Semitism from within the party”), only for
all of them to discover just a couple of years later that the Labour Party was
riddled with antisemitism from top to bottom.
Why
the change? Because Corbyn’s near success in the 20017 General Election
frightened them into upping the ante. There have always been false allegations
of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. I
was suspended in March 2016 as part of the anti-Semitism witch-hunt. I was expelled in February 2018 but it wasn’t
for anti-Semitism but ‘abusing’ people like Louise Ellman MP.
 |
| Nick Lowles demonstrates that Hope not Hate is a reactionary establishment organisation with no real interest in opposing racism |
None
of this has prevented HnH jumping in with both feet. It has openly backed up
the racist campaign against Jackie Walker. A campaign based on the omission of one
word in a private Facebook post and a distortion of what she said in a
‘training event’ on anti-Semitism, secretly recorded by Adam Langleben of the
JLM.
In
Jackie
Walker, The Left and Antisemitism Joe
Mulhall, a Senior Researcher at HnH repeats
all these lies and half truths.
 |
| Nick Lowles makes it clear that he sides with the Right in the Labour Party endorsing Lansman's attempt to withdraw support from Pete Willsman |
Chris
Williamson MP has recently been suspended by the Labour Party after the
intervention of Tom Watson MP. HnH immediately supported Watson. Huff Post reported
that HnH urged that:
‘Jeremy Corbyn must kick Chris WIlliamson out of the Labour Party... Hope Not Hate called
on the party leader to act after it emerged the Labour MP had booked a room in
parliament on behalf of Jewish Voice For Labour for a screening of a new film
about activist Jackie Walker.’
Exclusive:
Anti-Racism Charity Urges Jeremy Corbyn To Kick Chris Williamson Out Of Labour
Party
Jackie
Walker’s film The Witchhunt is a description of the
fake ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign which has been waged against people like Jackie
Walker in the past 3 years. It features people like Mark Thomas and Alexei
Sayle. It is about the racism that Jackie has experienced. It is shameful that
HnH should call for the expulsion of a Labour MP for wanting to put on an
anti-racist film in the House of Commons. Hope not Hate may call itself anti-fascist
but it is, without doubt, a racist organisation led by racists.
 |
| There have been no expulsions or suspensions for LFI supporting the murder of unarmed Palestinian demonstrators - if this were Jewish people killed there would have been uproar at their comments |
If HnH was serious in opposing racism it is Tom Watson, not
Chris Williamson, whose expulsion or suspension they would be calling for. Tom
Watson makes a great play of opposing ‘anti-Semitism’. What he means if anti-Zionism. Watson is a
strong supporter of Labour Friends of Israel and was Vice President of Trade
Union Friends of Israel. His office is heavily
funded by rich Zionists like Sir Trevor Chinn and Sir David Garrard.
 |
| This is the Islamaphobic leaflet that 'poor old Phil' put out in 2010 - Tom Watson had also played the race card in by-elections but Hope not Hate work with Watson, who was Gordon Brown's political fixer |
Tom Watson wasn’t always opposed to racism. When Phil Woolas, the racist Labour MP and former
Home Office Immigration Minister was removed as an MP for election offences by
the High Court, Watson confessed that ‘I’ve lost sleep thinking about poor old
Phil Woolas and his leaflets.’
Poor Phil had run a campaign which, according to an email
from his election agent, aimed to ‘make the white folk angry’.
[see Open
Letter To Tom Watson - the Unlikely Anti-Racist].
Possibly the sickest
and vilest part of the video that HnH and Nick Lowles distributed was Gordon
Brown declaring that Labour
‘Should never have allowed
legitimate criticism, which I share, of the Israeli government, to act as a
cover for the demonization of the entire Jewish people.”
This is a lie twice over. Critics of Israel are very careful not to
criticise Jewish people for the sins of Israel.
It is the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, which Brown and HnH support
which equates anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. It is Israel and its supporters
who equate Jews and Israel.
Brown lies when he says he is critical of the Israeli government. When Israel
attacked Gaza in 2008-9, in Operation
Cast Lead, Gordon Brown was Prime Minister, 1,400 Palestinians died, 85% of
them civilians and some 300 children.
Gordon Brown’s government issued not a word of criticism of Israel or
the attack on civilians.
It isn’t anti-Semites who disguise their racism through criticism of
Israel. It is supporters of Zionism who
disguise their anti-Semitism through support for Israel. Whether it is Steve Bannon declaring
that he is a Christian Zionist or Donald Trump telling
American Jews that Netanyahu is their Prime Minister or the friendship
between Netanyahu and anti-Semitic European leaders like Hungary’s Orban it is
the anti-Semites who combine love of Israel and hatred of Jews.
When Robert Bowers murdered 11 Jews in Pittsburgh as a result of Trump’s
anti-refugee campaign it was Naftali Bennett, Israel’s Education Minister who
came to America to defend
Trump in front of America’s Jews. He was
sent away with a flea in his ear by Pittsburgh Jews who in their hundreds demonstrated
against Trump’s arrival in their city, accompanied by Israel’s Ambassador.
HnH believe that support for Zionism and Apartheid Israel is compatible
with the fight against fascism. It is not. Fascism derives its support from
racism and imperialism. That is why today’s fascists overwhelmingly support
Israel. If Nick Lowles doesn’t get this maybe he should mug up on why Tommy
Robinson is such a strong
supporter of Israel. Even the strongly pro-Zionist Times of Israel cannot
avoid asking
Why are US
‘pro-Israel’ groups boosting a far-right, anti-Muslim UK extremist?.
HnH has rendered itself irrelevant in the
fight against Tommy Robinson and British fascism. It may run a few moles in
fringe fascist groups but in so far as it supports Israel it supports the
Islamaphobia that is the basis for the growth in support for Robinson.
Below is correspondence between David Plank,
who ended his support for Hope not Hate and one of their workers.
Sent: 08 April
2019 11:25
To: signup
Subject: Re: Our
mole inside a nazi gang
For the attention of Nick Lowles
Dear Nick
Thank you for sending me this. It arrived at the
same time as an acquaintance told me of Hope not Hate's 1st April video
featuring Gordon Brown, which has led me to cancel my monthly payment to Hope
not Hate. This is to explain why.
The note I made having watched the video is
attached for you. You will see that I object strongly to this passage in what
Gordon Brown said and to Hope not Hate's endorsement of it:
“But in the last two years the Labour Party let the Jewish community and
itself down. They should never have allowed legitimate criticism, which I
share, of the Israeli government, to act as a cover for the demonization of the
entire Jewish people.”
This statement is grossly inaccurate and a vile
slur on more than 99 percent of Labour Party members. I do know what I am
talking about, which you will see if you care to follow these links to the
report and articles I have written:
A scathing critique written by a
former specialist adviser to the House of Commons Social Services Committee,
David Plank, has found that the HASC Report on antisemitism ‘is a partisan
party political polemic which should not have been agreed and made public by a
House of Commons select committee.’ He adds that the Report purporting to …
Continue reading "HASC Report on antisemitism is a ‘partisan party
political polemic’"
Most recently, I have had cause to challenge the
outrageous treatment of Chris Williamson MP by my Party, and my own MP for his
signing of the unjust Clive Efford MP joint letter and remarks he made at a
local Party meeting. A copy of my evidenced letter to Daniel Zeichner
concerning the last of these, is also attached for your information.
Like all racist acts, any incident of actual or
potential antisemitic conduct by a member must be pursued with determination
and fairness to all parties by my Party, with proportionate measures, including
sanctions, where proved on the basis of tested evidence. Judged on this firm
basis and our current General Secretary's work to put our system in order,
Gordon Brown's sweeping statements are false. They and Hope not Hate's endorsement
of them in a video you have sponsored, is fundamentally unacceptable to me as a
lifelong anti-racist. Not only are they untrue but they also have the potential
to stir up the very thing you exist to confront, and do so on many occasions -
hate.
I urge you to withdraw Hope not Hate's endorsement
of this video and of the remarks made by Gordon Brown within it.
In solidarity
David
Plank
On 8 Apr
2019, at 15:42, David Plank wrote:
Dear Mathew
Thank you
very much.
You
misunderstand my point, which is about the incidence of antisemitism amongst
Labour Party members, which is small in comparison with the grossly exaggerated
claims of Gordon Brown, Ruth Smeeth, Luciana Berger and others. I do not
minimize its importance, nor do I appreciate being told that is what I am
saying in your reply. Straw men arguments abound in the PLP, the Jewish Labour
Movement, Labour Friends of Israel, the media, the Board of Deputies, the
Jewish Leadership Council and amongst right wingers more generally. I had hoped
for more from Hope not Hate. Please engage with the real issue I have raised.
What Gordon Brown said in your video is plain wrong in terms of fact, and
profoundly divisive.
Not do I
seek to diminish the great work that Hope not Hate does. That work, however,
cannot be allowed to act as a cloak for the disinformation your video
communicates.
Best wishes
David
--------
Original Message --------
Subject: Re:
Our mole inside a nazi gang
From:
Matthew McGregor
Hi David,
Thanks for
your email, which was passed along to myself to Nick Lowles who will also read
it.
I wanted to
reply to thank you for taking the time to write, and for your past support for
HOPE not hate. Your support, along with that from thousands of other people
allowed us to do the work Nick’s email was about: stopping a nazi murder plot
and smashing the National Action group.
I am sorry
that we have to disagree about the problem at antisemitism amongst some members
of the Labour Party. It’s been widely accepted that there is an issue. Jeremy
Corbyn himself told the Evening Standard last year that it was clear to him
that some “members and supporters hold antisemtic views and attitudes.” He
added, “My party and I are sorry for the hurt and distress caused.” John
McDonnell recently told a caller into LBC radio, “It isn’t a smear campaign,
Oliver. It isn’t. I’ve seen the evidence. I’ve seen the threats that have been
made against some of our Jewish members and MPs.” He added, "We’ve got to
root it out.” These are the same sentiments expressed in Gordon Brown’s video.
Again, thank
you for writing in, and thank you for your past support.
Best wishes,
—Matthew
Dear Matthew
Thank you. I
appreciate your engagement with my views.
Please read Gordon
Brown's remarks again.
"...
the Labour Party (i.e. all of the Party) let the Jewish community (i.e. all
British Jewish people) down. They (the Labour Party, all of it) should never
have allowed legitimate criticism ... of the Israeli government, to act as a
cover for the demonization of the entire (entire) Jewish people."
This is
hyperbole of a destructive kind. What do Hope not Hate expect many parts of the
British Jewish communities (plural not singular) such as the Orthodox community
and Jewish Voice for Labour, to think of this?
Some, I know
will be very hurt - others will see this stereotypical picture as - antisemitic
- and certainly as harming the cause of combating antisemitism.
What do Hope
not Hate expect 99 per cent of Labour Party members to think of it? How dare
you, will be the reaction of the many who do not subscribe to the grossly
inacurate mythology promulgated by Gordon Brown, Joan Ryan, Luciana Berger,
Ruth Smeeth, Margaret Hodge and others.
This is why
I have cancelled my contribution.
The overly
apologetic approach of the Party's leadership is rejected by most Party members
who have studied the evidence, as I have. Hope not Hate, as an anti- racist
organization, needs to face up to this, not slide past it.
I will be
happy to continue this correspondence tomorrow after this evening's Chelsea
game against West Ham, which I am on my way to now.
Best wishes
David
--------
Original Message --------
Subject: Re:
Our mole inside a nazi gang
From:
Matthew McGregor
To: David
Plank
CC:
Hi David,
Thanks for
this. I think I must have misunderstood what you were saying.
The line you
quoted from the video says that "the Labour Party has let the Jewish
community down.” I don’t think that says or implies every member of the party
(of which I am one) has been antisemitic, I think it says that the party has
not done enough to act against those members who have been. That’s also what
Jeremy and John McDonnell have said.
I am not
sure what I have missed but am of course very happy to engage if you think I
have.
Matthew
Sent:
09 April 2019 18:46
To:
David Plank
Subject: Re: Our mole inside a nazi gang
Hi David,
Sorry for
the slow reply, I hope you enjoyed the football.
We have a
different interpretation of Gordon’s words. When he says “The Labour Party let
the Jewish community down” I very much took him to mean the institution, the
leadership, not every single member. This is a sentiment that Jeremy, John
McDonnell and others in the leadership have also expressed.
I note your
point that you feel the leadership have been too apologetic about the
situation. I don’t agree - HOPE not hate doesn’t agree - with that, so while I understand the point you
are making I think we will have to agree to disagree. I regret that you have
decided to cancel your donation but it does sound like, given our clear
disagreement, that you were right to do so.
With best
wishes
Matthew
Sent:
09 April 2019 20:36
To:
Matthew McGregor
Subject: Re: Our mole inside a nazi gang
Dear Matthew
Thank you, again. We did indeed enjoy
the football.
A key message of Hope not Hate is to
take care with the words we use - to think about them from the point of view of
those to whom they are addressed - including those who see themselves as being
addressed. In my experience few Party members make the distinction you make,
not least because it is the members who stand accused of antisemitic conduct -
and in this instance of "... letting the Jewish community down ... (and
of) ... demonization of the entire Jewish people." Much greater care needs
to be taken with such hurtful and unjustified words - words which in this
instance should never have been communicated in a Hope not Hate video.
Hope not hate also needs to be more
open to the very different view of this vexing matter that hundreds of
thousands of labour members like me have. It is no accident that the grossly
exaggerated, mostly unevidenced claims of antisemitism arose when there was a
real prospect of a Labour Party with a truly radical programme replacing the
right wing version embodied in, for example, Gordon Brown, with his
government's development of hostile environment migration type policies. And
were focused by the "dispossessed" in the Party and right wing
interests outside the Party on a lifelong, outstanding anti-racist, Jeremy
Corbyn. Many Party members, including me, were deeply frustrated not only by
the attempted coup, but also by the unscrupulously unjust use made by the hard
right Party apparatus, led by the previous General Secretary, to get rid of
left wing members on various grounds including antisemitism. At the very time
when we see this being put right through the, regrettably, incomplete as yet
implementation of the Chakrabarti reforms, we also see the Party being accused
of being institutionally antisemitic - on unevidenced grounds. No wonder
thousands upon thousands of members deeply resent this and take great exception
to careless and ill-considered words being promulgated by Hope not Hate and
some in the PLP.
At the very same time there has been
and is ongoing a concerted attempt to muddy the essential distinction between
antisemitism and criticism of Israel's creation of an apartheid state (I quote
the United Nations Human Rights Special Rapporteur), which daily punishes the
Palestinian people. This is very well evidenced, yet receives little credence.
Whereas the unevidenced sweeping claims against the Labour Party do. Hope not
Hate should be active in helping to put right this grievous wrong, in a way
which I do not see it as doing.
By the way, you may
wish to note the distinction I make between the "apparatus" of the
Party, or the "institution" of the Party in your words, and the Party
itself. In my experience, members tend now to see the Party as all the members,
including affiliated members, and not in the old way as the "top" of
the Party in the PLP, NEC, union bosses and the "apparatus". This is
a key reason why I and many other members do not see Gordon Brown's words in
the way Hope not Hate does.
It is in this context that Hope not
Hate acts - and acts without due care in this instance. As a Labour Party
member yourself, you will know that one of the greatest allies in the struggle
against antisemitism here, in the USA and elsewhere, comes from the left, from
people like me. Yet these allies are cast as the villains in this video. Hope
not Hate may not have meant it, but absence of intention does not equal lack of
effect. This is why I am banging on about this - because Hope not Hate will
lose a deal of its natural support for the strong anti-racism contribution it
makes, if you do not seriously consider what is being said to you. As a
lifelong ant-racist myself, I do not wish to see this happen, as division
between anti-racist allies serves the interests of the Stephen Yaxley-Lennon's,
Donald Trump's and Benjamin Netanyahu's of this world. Hope not Hate needs to
stand outside the stereotyped terms of the current debate and face up to what
is actually going on with regard to antisemitism - to better know who its
allies and enemies are. And not to cast
aside, the strongly held views of hundreds of thousands of Party members,
including old fossils like me. Which is how I see your conclusion to date.
I agree with you that my decision to
cancel my subscription was right. Nevertheless, I do it with deep regret at
seeing division between natural allies - and the apparent willingness on Hope
not Hate's part to draw the line under this debate with me, with the cliche of
let's agree to disagree.
Best wishes for the future
David
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please submit your comments below