PLEASE SIGN THIS
PETITION & GIVE THE SOCIALIST CAMPAIGN GROUP OF MPs A BACKBONE
For over four and a half
years there was a sustained campaign of vilification and defamation alleging
that the Labour Party was overrun by ‘anti-Semitism’. It was a campaign
initiated by that well known opponent of racism, the Daily Mail in an article written
even before Jeremy Corbyn had even been elected, alleging that he had
associated with a holocaust denier.
Of course
there were a handful of anti-Semites in the Labour Party but that was not the
purpose of the campaign. There are in every party. No doubt there are some paedophiles amongst
Labour’s half a million members. Would
anyone say it is ‘overrun’ by them?
The purpose
of the ‘anti-Semitism’ smear campaign was clear from the start. To remove and
destabilise Corbyn. It succeeded in its objective because a large section of
the Labour Left, including the Campaign Group and Jon Lansman’s Momentum bought
into it.
That is why
a key demand of the Zionists and Jewish Labour Movement was to redefine
anti-Semitism. If you asked the average person what anti-Semitism was they
would answer that it was someone who didn’t like Jews. The OED defines
anti-Semitism as ‘hostility to or prejudice against Jews’. The IHRA
definition of anti-Semitism, which
after 3 years of an incessant campaign the NEC adopted, defines anti-Semitism
in terms of hostility to Israel.
Even Kenneth Stern, who drafted the IHRA has written opposing the use of the IHRA to chill free speech. Why is it that
Campaign Group MPs are so frightened of doing the same?
It is therefore no accident that the first victims of the
‘anti-Semitism’ witchhunt were Jewish and Black anti-racists such as Tony
Greenstein, Jackie Walker and Marc Wadsworth. It is also no surprise that Asa
Winstanley, a journalist on Electronic Intifada who wrote extensively on this
campaign for example How Israel lobby manufactured UK Labour
Party’s anti-Semitism crisis was also suspended.
In the past week
Professor David Miller, co-author of Bad News for Labour, has also been suspended. Its book launch during
Labour Party conference was cancelled by Waterstones after the
normal volley of abuse and intimidation from Zionists. Understandably they
feared that a book by 5 academics which carefully examined the evidence for
Labour ‘anti-Semitism’ would be embarrassing. In the end the book launch was
put on by Brighton and Hove Labour Left Alliance and the Rialto Theatre.
Pluto Press described the book as revealing “shocking findings of misinformation spread
by the press, including the supposedly impartial BBC, and the liberal
Guardian.” It is no surprise that the ‘anti-Semitism’ witchhunt has
ensnared Black and Jewish anti-racist activists, journalists and now academics.
This is how McCarthyism spreads its wings.
By buying into the
‘anti-Semitism’ narrative and failing to see where it came from the Socialist
Campaign Group and Momentum aided a campaign whose only purpose was to remove
Corbyn as leader.
Despite doing everything
asked of him, the campaign against Corbyn was relentless. In the words of Len McCluskey the Board of Deputies ‘won’t take yes for an answer’. Of course
they wouldn’t. Their only aim was to
remove Corbyn. The only MP who had the courage to stand up to this campaign was
Chris Williamson and to its shame, the Campaign Group refused to give him its
support when Tom Watson and company were on the attack.
During the leadership election Campaign Group member Rebecca
Long-Bailey pledged her support for the 10
Commandments. Commandment No. 5 stipulates that anyone who
shares a platform with someone who has been expelled/ suspended should be
suspended. This is McCarthyist guilt-by-association.
No Platform has
traditionally been reserved for fascists not socialists. In accepting the BOD
dictates members of the Campaign Group are abandoning free speech and civil
liberties.
When Diane Abbot and Bell Ribeiro-Addy addressed a Zoom
meeting they were targeted by the BOD for having been in the same meeting as
Jackie Walker and Tony Greenstein. Both Jackie and Tony are Jewish. Their only
‘crime’ is to oppose Zionism.
The BOD represents the most reactionary section of British
Jews. It is the same Board which warmly
welcomed Donald Trump to
power in the United States, despite him running an anti-Semitic
election campaign. Trump, the
most pro-Zionist President in US history, has just praised the ‘good
bloodlines’ of Henry Ford, who received the highest civilian award from Nazi
Germany. Yet unsurprisingly the Israeli government is full of praise for Trump.
This disinformation
paradigm was built on the
lie that ‘anti-Semitism’ drove the Jewish community away from Labour. Ever since
the 1960’s the majority of British Jews have voted Tory. In 2015 the JC
reported Huge majority of British Jews will vote Toryand
just 22% would vote Labour, despite it having its first Jewish leader, Ed
Miliband.
In 1939 both Aneurin Bevan and Stafford Cripps were expelled
from Labour. Even the most Neanderthal right-winger didn’t demand that anyone
speaking with them should be expelled.
If the Board demands that people should be suspended for
associating or speaking with those expelled then there is just one reason - to
protect the Israeli state.
Israel is a state which from its inception was based on ethnic
cleansing. Today it rules over 5 million Palestinians who have neither civil or
political rights. This is what the IHRA and you, by your silence, are
defending. This is imperialism not anti-racism.
Historically the Labour Party was as much a party of the
Empire as the Tories, except we dressed it up in the language of trusteeship. Today
Labour has become the party of Zionist settler colonialism, all in the name of
fighting ‘anti-Semitism’.
The Board of Deputies’ concern about anti-Semitism is very
recent. In 1936 they advised
Jews to stay indoors and
allow Moseley’s British Union of Fascists to march unhindered, at the Battle of
Cable Street, through the Jewish areas of East London.
When the Anti-Nazi League was formed in response to the
growth of the National Front in 1977, what was the Board’s response? Total
hostility. Searchlight
Magazine wrote that:
"In the face of
mounting attacks against the Jewish community both ideologically and physically, we
have the amazing sight of the Jewish Board of Deputies launching an attack on
the Anti Nazi League with all the fervour of
Kamikaze pilots... It was as though
they were watching a time capsule rerunof the 1930's, in the form of a flickering old movie, with a grim determination to repeat every mistake of that era. " (Issue
41, November 1978)
The Board’s position is committed to defend Israel, right or
wrong. Clause 3(d) of its Constitution states that the Board shall take ‘Take such appropriate action as lies within its power to advance
Israel's security, welfare and standing.’
In March 2018 the Board blamed unarmed protesters in Gaza for their own deaths when
Israeli snipers fired on them. Today it refuses to criticise the annexation of the
West Bank.
Israel is an apartheid state. Racism is part of the DNA of a
state whose Prime Minister openly
states that Israel is not a
state of all its citizens. For example hundreds of Jewish communities legally refuse
to admit Arabs, who are confined to just 2½% of the land. In South Africa this
was called Apartheid. In Starmer’s Labour it’s called ‘Jewish
self-determination’.
Have you ever wondered why Richard Spencer, the neo-Nazi
founder of the alt-Right declares that he is a ‘White Zionist’? Or why racists
and anti-Semites the world over, from Bolsonaro, Duterte and Hungary’s Orban
are the best friends of Israel?
The Jewish Labour Movement
The
driving force of the ‘anti-Semitism’ smears is the JLM which is not Labour’s Jewish wing. The JLM is
affiliated to the World Zionist Organisation whose Land Theft Division
has pioneered the settlements in the West Bank.
The
JLM calls itself the ‘sister party’
of the Israeli Labor Party. In fact it is the British wing of this racist
party. Today the ILP, the part of government for 30 years, is reduced to just 3
seats. The ILP has just gone into coalition with Netanyahu and it too has made
a Pledge. To support the annexation of the West Bank settlements.
Have
you ever wondered why it is that the veterans of the fight against Apartheid in
South Africa have called Israel another form of apartheid? Archbishop Desmond Tutuhas termed Israel as worse than South African apartheid. Ronnie
Kassrills, the Jewish commander of the ANC’s military wing wrote
‘I fought South African apartheid. I see the same
brutal policies in Israel’. This is what the false allegations of
‘anti-Semitism’ are about.
Keir Starmer has made his position clear in an
interview with the Times of Israel: “I support Zionism without qualification.” Zionism is about establishing a Jewish
ethno-nationalist state that today’s White Supremacists see
Israel as a model and with good reason. When Israel bars asylum seekers and
seeks to deport those that have slipped through it is because they will dilute
the ‘Jewish identity’ of the state.
When Israel’s Education Ministry bans
a book depicting a teenage romance between a Jew and Arab from the High School
syllabus it does it because it undermines students’ understanding of their
‘Jewish identity’. Opposition to sexual relations between the races was
fundamental to South Africa, the Deep South and Nazi Germany.
We are asking
you to:
1. join us in opposing the continuation of
the anti-Semitism witch-hunt. It is
aimed at anti-racists and anti-imperialist supporters of the Palestinians not
anti-Semites.
2.oppose
the Board of Deputies 10 Pledges whose aim is to close down
discussion and debate on Palestine and Zionism.
3.recognise
that Keir Starmer represents the hard-Right in the Labour
Party. His attempt to bury the leaked Labour Report with a Whitewash
by appointing a panel of Progress supporters confirms that. He has made it clear
that he is returning Labour to the austerity-lite politics of Ed Miliband.
4.That
we should do what the Right did for the duration of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.
We should oppose the attempt by Starmer to return us to the era of New Labour.
We
believe that no member of the Campaign Group should serve in the Shadow Cabinet
and provide Starmer with ‘left’ political cover. Starmer is a member of the British
Establishment and the Trilateral Commission
alongside such luminaries as Henry Kissinger. Starmer is the darling of the
Tory press. He has even been endorsed by
George Osborne.
The
history of the Labour Left is one of appeasing Labour’s Red Tories. That is why
the Scottish working class has abandoned the Labour Party. The only way of
winning back the Red Wall is by offering them some red meat.
Corbyn’s acceptance of the Zionists' ‘anti-Semitism’ narrative coupled with his continual apologies made him look weak, leading to Labour’s defeat
Bob Dylan's I Threw It All Away sums up Corbyn's Disastrous Political Strategy
When the history of Jeremy Corbyn’s
leadership of the Labour Party comes to be written the judgement is not going
to be a kind one. It will show that Corbyn, in his attempt to become Prime
Minister , tried to explain away his own history by attributing it to a series
of mistakes or misunderstandings.
On Palestine Corbyn became virtually
silent as the ‘anti-Semitism’ attacks mounted. The Palestinian representative
in Britain, Manuel Hassassian described
Corbyn as ‘an ardent, staunch supporter
of the Palestinians and now we hardly see any statements coming from him in
support of Palestine.’
A question that no one has asked is
whether it was inevitable that Corbyn would fail to become Prime Minister? Is
Labour condemned to elect crypto-Tories as leaders? Is a paid up member of the
British Establishment the best we can hope for?
This is certainly the message of Tony
Blair, who argued
that when “a traditional left-wing party
competes with a traditional right-wing party’ the outcome is ‘the traditional result” That was when
Blair was predicting that Ed Miliband would lose because he was too left-wing!
Is the only purpose of the Labour Party
to make capitalism more palatable and to provide palliatives instead of cures?
Is there any place or role for a left inside the Party? Is Labour’s role that
of a second party of capitalism, a British version of America’s Democrats?
Corbyn in the wake of the 2017 Election - unfortunately he refused to fight the Right
There is another way of putting it. Why
is it that in 2017 Labour achieved the highest
swing in a General Election since 1945 whereas in 2019 it achieved the worst
result since 1935?
Len McCluskey put his finger on it - the Zionists wouldn't accept Corbyn's concessions because there was only one thing they were interested in - the removal of Corbyn himself
Defeat was not inevitable
Victory, although difficult in 2019,
was not impossible. However Corbyn’s strategy, if you can call it that, of
appeasing the Right and the ‘anti-Semitism’ mongers made defeat inevitable. By
forever apologising and temporising Corbyn made himself and the Labour Party
seem weak and inarticulate.
Throughout the witchhunt, Owen Jones scabbed on socialists and fawned at the feet of the Zionist JLM
The explanation for why Labour did so
badly in 2019 cannot be understood in terms of Brexit, still less Corbyn’s own personality.
What we witnessed since the election
of Corbyn in September 2015 was a concerted and co-ordinated campaign to
discredit him and all he stood for. It was a propaganda war fronted by the BBC
and The Guardian. The ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ establishment came together in
a concerted attempt to remove Corbyn as leader.
Hajo Meyer, a former inmate of Auschwitz compared Zionism to the Nazis, as he was entitled to do. Many Israelis do. Cowardly Corbyn backed off and said 'sorry'
The ‘Anti-Semitism’ Heresy Hunt
This campaign began even before
Corbyn was elected as leader. On 7th August 2015 the Daily Mail led with an ‘exclusive’ which
revealed
that Corbyn had ‘long-standing links'
with a ‘notorious Holocaust denier and a
group, Deir Yassin Remembered’. After this there was a whole series of
faked ‘anti-Semitic’ incidents and people who were picked off, one after the
other, with Corbyn remaining silent.
What word other than Apartheid describes a situation where some of the inhabitants of a state are not nationals or full citizens? that was what happened to the Jews in Germany under the Nuremburg Laws
It began with Gerald
Kauffman and ‘Jewish money’ and
quickly progressed to Vicky Kirby’s remarks
about ‘Jewish noses’ (she had been
quoting from the play Infidels by
Jewish writer David Baddiel). Then there was the affair
of Oxford University Labour Club. Its Chair Alex Chalmers resigned when the
Club decided to support Israel Apartheid Week. Asa Winstanley later revealed
that Chalmers had been an intern for Israeli propaganda group BICOM.
Labour Against the Witchhunt - first public meeting - Tony Greenstein (standing), Moshe Machover, Jackie Walker, Marc Wadsworth and Ken Loach
The Zionists later gained
revenge for this and other revelations when Asa was suspended from Labour
and refused
press credentials for the last Labour Party conference. Again Corbyn said
nothing.
There were consistent denials that
the ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign was about Israel. Anyone who suggested otherwise
was anti-Semitic! The Zionists proved this when they clamoured to change the definition
of anti-Semitism from someone who hates Jews to someone who hates Israel
and Zionism.
For some strange reason the JLM objected to my comparison between them and the BNP's Nick Griffin!
There was a division of labour
between the Jewish Labour Movement and Labour Friends of Israel. The JLM
concentrated on anti-Semitism whereas LFI defended what Israel did, including the
use of snipers against demonstrators in Gaza. Individual JLM officers such
as Louise Ellman however repeatedly defended
Israel’s abuse and torture of Palestinian children.
The anti-Semitism campaign was not
spontaneous. It was the product of the press and Zionist groups operating in
concert with the British Establishment. It is clear that the campaign was
planned and co-ordinated between the various actors amongst whom were the
Israeli Embassy, the British state and its offspring such as the Integrity
Initiative and of course the US government, as Secretary of State Mike
Pompei admitted.
See for example Al Jazeera’s The Lobby.
The fake 'antisemitism' campaign began with an attack on Gerald Kaufman, the Jewish father of the house, himself a Zionist, who deprecated what Israel had become
This however is not an analysis of
the campaign against Corbyn so much as a look at the reaction of Jeremy Corbyn
to the attacks upon him.
At first Corbyn was not directly
accused of anti-Semitism. That would come later. He was held to be responsible for
Labour’s ‘anti-Semitism’ by his various actions such as meetings with
‘terrorists’. If the Zionists are to be believed the Labour Party had never had
anti-Semites in it before!
The New Statesman abandoned its lukewarm support for the Palestinians and wholeheartedly backed the Zionist campaign attacking Corbyn
Genuine Anti-Semitism
Of course, in a party, of over half a
million, there will be a few anti-Semites.Just as there will be a few paedophiles. However no one would say Labour
is overrun with them. Indeed in the past the situation was far worse. Sydney
Webb, the founder of the Fabians and the New Statesman, who became Colonial
Secretary in 1929 explained that there were “no Jews in the British Labour party” and that while “French, German, Russian Socialism is
Jew-ridden. We, thank heaven, are free”, the reason being because there was
“no money in it”.
The pro-Zionist Home Secretary during
the war, Herbert Morrison, refused to admit Jewish refugees from the Nazis
during the war and thus condemned thousands to the gas chambers. Strangely
enough there have been no victims of Labour ‘anti-Semitism’.
The IHRA outlaws comparisons between Israel/Zionism and the Nazis - but such comparisons are common in Israel - that is what accusations of antisemitism are in practice
Where it all began
Corbyn’s failures began with an interview
with Krishna Guru-Murphy on 13 July 2015. When pressed as to why he used the
term ‘friends’ in relation to
Hezbollah and HamasCorbyn blustered and got
angry but refused to confront the question which was that neither organisation
was a terrorist organisation. They are both conservative Islamist groups but
they come from the people who they work among and represent. Terrorists are
people who, despairing of mass support, use violence and terror as a
substitute. ISIS is a classic example.
Hamas was created
by Israel as a counter to secular Palestinian nationalism. Hezbollah came out
of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon when over 20,000 Lebanese were murdered by Israel
bombing of population centres. If ever the word ‘terrorist’ had any meaning
then it was as a description of Israel. Corbyn knew this but couldn’t say it
because it contradicts the western narrative about terrorism.
Details of the accusations were leaked to The Times and The Telegraph but I was yet to learn what they were
Corbyn’s said that he was a ‘peacemaker’
which completely evaded the question of whose side he was on in imperialist
wars. Either you are on the side of the oppressed or the oppressor.
Everytime the Zionists made
accusations of anti-Semitism Corbyn denied he was an anti-Semite. The problem
was that the Zionist definition of anti-Semitism was not the ordinary common
one of hatred or dislike of Jews as Jews.
The Oxford English Dictionary has a
very simple definition, hostility
to or prejudice against Jews.’ The Zionist definition is hostility to the
Israeli state. If you question the apartheid and racist nature of the Israeli
state then you are an ‘anti-Semite’.
Tony Greenstein the Royal Courts of Justice after winning an injunction against the Labour Party
Netanyahu’s coalition government,
which includes the JLM’s ‘sister party’ the Israeli Labor Party, has agreed on
the annexation of the illegal settlements on the West Bank. Netanyahu has announced that Palestinians living in the annexed areas won’t become Israeli
citizens, unlike the Jewish settlers. This is the classic definition of
Apartheid. Two sets of people living in the same area but with differential rights. This was what happened in South
Africa but if you call it Apartheid you are now held to be anti-Semitic! What the Zionists are saying is that something
can be anti-Semitic and true! A
remarkable achievement thanks to Corbyn's cowardice.
It is as if, during Apartheid in
South Africa you were allowed to criticise the policies of the Nationalists but
if you attacked Apartheid itself and White Supremacy you were an anti-White
racist.
A column I used to write for the Brighton & Hove Independent
Anti-Semitism
Essential to the creation of the
anti-Semitism ‘disinformation
paradigm’ is the idea that British Jews are an oppressed minority. Any
attack on their ‘identity’ is therefore anti-Semitic. Logically if any group in
Britain identifies with a repressive state then to oppose that state is racist.
We are seeing this today with the assertion
by the Hindu Forum of Britain that support for the self-determination of
Kashmir is ‘Hinduphobia’. Does this sound familiar? If support for the
Palestinians and opposition to Zionism is ‘anti-Semitism’ why shouldn’t
opposition to Hindu racism be ‘Hinduphobic’?
Birds of a feather - Narendra Modi and Netanyahu
India’s far-Right Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as Chief
Minister of Gujarat, presided over anti-Muslim
riots which claimed at least 2,000 lives. Last August Modi unilaterally
revoked Article 370 of the Indian Constitution which gave Kashmir autonomy.
Kashmir has been under military occupation ever since.
The last Labour Conference passed a
resolution unanimously supporting Kashmir’s self-determination. Unilaterally
after a meeting with Labour Friends of India Starmer revoked this and decreed
that the question of Kashmir is a ‘'bilateral
issue for India and Pakistan'.
Unsurprisingly there is a bromance
between Netanyahu and Modi. Hindu nationalists see Israel as their model ethno-nationalist
state. They share a common enemy – Muslims. A state based on religion was the
basis for Europe’s fascist and anti-Semitic states in the 1930’s and 1940’s. Hungary,
Romania and the Nazi puppet states of Croatia and Slovakia all considered they
were ‘Christian’.
John McDonnell came under heavy criticism for speaking alongside Jackie Walker at the TUC Conference in 2016 - it was the last time he gave any support to the victims of the antisemitism purges - he later urged that Margaret Hodge should not be disciplined for attacking Corbyn and pressed for the reinstatement of Alistair Campbell
No one has yet pointed out how
British Jews are oppressed. Jews do not suffer economic discrimination nor are
they victims of state violence or discrimination. The chief victims of
anti-Semitic attacks are mainly Orthodox Hasidic, i.e. those sections of
British Jewry who are least Zionist.
British Jews have escaped state
anti-Semitism, which certainly existed in the pre-war period when the police were
sympathetic to Moseley’s fascists. It is not so today.
When the Zionists feared that Corbyn might fall and McDonnell replace him, the Guardian and Jewish Chronicle immediately began digging into his past record, despite his fawning to the Board of Deputies
Throughout the ‘anti-Semitism’ heresy
hunt of the past five years I wrote dozens of articles warning against where
Corbyn’s Appeasement strategy was leading. I have put a guide to these articles and their
contents on Google drive. The Israeli state has become the ‘new Jew’ and this
is the ‘new anti-Semitism’.
The Guardian's cartoonist Steven Bell is the only genuine journalist on the Guardian today - which is why its despicable Editor Kath Viner censors him regularly
‘Whilst
Corbyn is making a virtue out of necessity, in turning the other cheek, he
should remember that even Jesus used whips to drive the money lenders out of
the Temple.Corbyn’s experiment in the
‘new politics’ is simply postponing the inevitable whilst the Prince of
Darkness (Mandelson) plots away.’
It was crystal clear that the Right
could not be appeased. In their view the Labour Party was there to manage
capitalism, not change it. This is a fundamental divide that can never be reconciled.
In practice the Labour left solved the dilemma in the time honoured fashion by
moving to the Right.Those that move the
other way, like Tony Benn, are our heroes but they were few and far between.
Despite being praised as an almost
saint-like character by his adoring supporters Corbyn didn’t hesitate to throw his
friends under the bus.
Corbyn betrayed anti-racist campaigner Marc Wadsworth, someone who had been responsible for introducing Nelson Mandela to the Steve Lawrence campaign - the Board of Deputies, which had never participated in the Lawrence campaign deliberately misinterpreted the MacPherson report in order to pretend that victims are always to be believe (the Zionists believed they were victims)
Not just me but comrades like Ken
Livingstone, Marc Wadsworth and Chris Williamson as well as a host of other
socialists – Jackie Walker, Pete Willsman, Christine Shawcroft – were also
betrayed.
Even if Corbyn did not recognise what
he was up against this cannot have been true of his advisers, Seamus Milne,
scion of the British Establishment and like James Schneider an Oxbridge
graduate.It is inconceivable that Milne
was not aware of what was happening. The other explanations I will leave to
your imagination.
Below is an Open Letter because I
think we all deserve some answers as to why Jeremy Corbyn failed, at any stage,
to fight back against the Right.
Tony Greenstein
Open Letter to Jeremy Corbyn
29 May
2020
Dear Jeremy,
Millions
of people who put their faith in you as Leader of the Labour Party saw their hopes
dashed and their dreams of a fairer and just society destroyed last December.
Instead we face a return to the days of Tony Blair with the election of (Sir)
Keir Starmer.
Part of the original accusations against me including saying that Israel was waiting for holocaust survivors to die so they could save the money - it was a surprise to my investigator when I showed him that I was quoting from an Israeli paper!
One
factor above all was responsible for Labour’s election defeat and that was your
‘strategy’ of appeasing the Right whilst throwing your friends to the wolves.
In particular your failure to stand up to the fake ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign and
call it out for what it was. An attempt to undermine and destroy your
leadership.
The
fake ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign began even before you became leader. On 7th
August 2015 the Daily Mail led with an ‘exclusive’ which revealed
that you had ‘long-standing links'
with a ‘notorious Holocaust denier and a
group, Deir Yassin Remembered’. This story was immediately taken up by the
Jewish Chronicle and the Guardian.
An article I wrote for the Morning Star
Did
it never occur to you or your well-paid advisers, that ‘anti-Semitism’ was
being weaponised? Did it not occur to you that there might be some connection
between the aforesaid campaign and the election as leader of someone opposed to
NATO and United States foreign policy? Given
your past record in supporting the Palestinians surely it must have been
obvious that your enemies would use any stick to beat you with and that
‘anti-Semitism was a particularly useful cudgel?
According to the Board of Deputies Jonathan Arkus, Corbyn was an anti-Semite. According to Corbyn or Rebecca Wrong Daily if you deny you are an anti-Semite then you must be!
Surely
you, above all, must have been aware that the standard response of supporters
of Israel, i.e. Zionists, to criticism of Israel is to allege anti-Semitism?
One of your main accusers, Jonathan Arkush, President of the Board of Deputies
openly called
you an anti-Semite. Why? Because “delegitimising the state of Israel is anti-Semitic.”
Take note, not hate of Jews but hatred of a racist, apartheid state.
The
Editor of the Jewish Chronicle was even
clearer. ‘instead of adopting the [IHRA] definition as agreed by all these bodies,
Labour has excised the parts which relate to Israel and how criticism of Israel
can be anti-Semitic.’Labour was therefore ‘institutionally anti-Semitic’.The Los Angeles based Wiesenthall Centre named
you ‘anti-Semite of the year’ ahead of a Californian synagogue killer!
In
other words, anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism.Which if true, would have meant that the majority of pre-Holocaust Jewry
were anti-Semitic!
Zionism and
Anti-Semitism
Ironically
Zionism has never had a problem with genuine anti-Semitism. That is why the list of
anti-Semitic leaders welcomed in Israel’s Holocaust Propaganda Museum Yad
Vashem is endless. It began in 1976 with the visit of Apartheid Prime Minister
John Vorster, who had been interned during the war as a Nazi sympathiser and it
continues today with the visits of open Hitler admirers such as Bolsonaro
and Duterte.
When
it began in the late 19th century Zionism was seen as a form of
Jewish anti-Semitism. This was why the vast majority of Jews opposed it. When
the first Zionist Congress was held in 1897 it was going to be in Munich. It
was because of the opposition
of the local Jewish community that it was transferred to Basel.
Zionism
has never had a problem with genuine anti-Semites because both agree that Jews do
not belong in non-Jewish society. The Zionist idea that Jews formed a nation,
was precisely why Zionism was welcomed by anti-Semites.
Theodor
Herzl, the founder of Political Zionism, wrote in his Diaries [pp. 83/84] that
"the anti-Semites will become our most
dependable friends, the anti-Semitic countries our allies". So it has
proven. The list of anti-Semites, from Drumont to Heydrich, Le Pen to
Orban who have sung Zionism’s praises is endless.
If
the Labour Party was genuinely overrun with anti-Semitism then the Zionist
movement and the Jewish Chronicle wouldn’t be in the least concerned.
Anti-Semitism in the Tory Party has certainly never bothered them. Contrast the
silence with Boris Johnson’s genuinely
anti-Semitic and racist 72 Virgins. After
all the Tories sat
in the European Parliament in the same ECR group as fascists and
anti-Semites such as Roberts Ziles and Michal Kaminsky.
I
first worked with you nearly 40 years ago, in the wake of Israel’s invasion in
1982 of Lebanon, in my role as Chair of the Labour Movement Campaign on
Palestine. I probably chaired up to a dozen meetings at which you spoke. If I
had been anti-Semitic then I’m sure that you would have noticed!
Our letter defending Jackie Walker - today the Letters Page has gone the same way as the rest of the Guardian
In
March 2016 I was suspended as part of the Zionists’ ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign.
Jackie Walker, another Jewish anti-Zionist was suspended, twice in 2016, as were
Marc Wadsworth and Ken Livingstone. Two Black people, two Jewish people and the
former Mayor of London who had pioneered anti-racism in local government. These
were the targets of the so-called anti-Semitism campaign and still you remained
silent.
On
21 August 2015 I wrote
that ‘Being perpetually on the defensive
is not good enough’. I urged you to ‘speak
out now’ against the purge of thousands of your potential voters.’ If you
had followed my advice then events might have turned out very differently.
Instead
you continued to appease and placate those who sought to remove you. In November
2016 in Appeasement
is no way to fight the Labour Right I wrote that your ‘strategy appears to be one of feeding the lions rather than shooting
them.Appeasement is rarely a successful
strategy. At best it buys time.’
Quite
rightly you reacted angrily to accusations
that you were an anti-Semite. Unfortunately you failed to understand that the
anti-Semitism you were accused of had nothing to do with hatred of Jews and
everything to do with hostility to Zionism.
The ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign was
never about anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism
as most people understand it is hostility to or prejudice against Jews. This ‘anti-Semitism’
was hostility to Israel.
The
obvious thing to do was to fight back. It would have been easy to have
mobilised your supporters to fight back against McNicol, the Labour Right and
the Tory supporting Board of Deputies. You had the membership on your side.
The Israeli Labor Party's leader Isaac Herzog gives a fulsome welcome to Trump. The JLM is the British wing of the ILP.
The
same Board of Deputies which was
promiscuous in its accusations of anti-Semitism fell over itself to welcome
Donald Trump to power. The same White Supremacist whose election campaign
consisted of anti-Semitic ads, gestures, dog whistles and allusions to Jewish
financial power As Dana Milbank wrote
in the Washington Post ‘Anti-Semitism is no longer an undertone of Trump’s
campaign. It’s the melody.’
According to Corbyn's idiotic logic if you deny you are an anti-Semite then you are part of the 'problem'
‘‘It is
wrong to deny there is antisemitism in the Labour Party... those who deny that
it does exist are part of the problem’
What
you were effectively saying was that your accusers were right and that you too
were part of the problem.
The
argument that says that to deny that you are anti-Semitic is to confirm your
guilt is the argument of Joe McCarthy and Torquemada. It is what those who
conducted the witch trials in Salem, New England in the 17th Century
said. As Elizabeth Reis wrote:
“During
examinations, accused women were damned if they did and damned if they did not.
If they confessed to witchcraft charges, their admissions would prove the cases
against them; if they denied the charges, their very intractability, construed
as the refusal to admit to sin more generally, might mark them as sinners and
hence allies of the devil.”
The
only women who were hanged at Salem were those who denied their guilt. This is
the ‘logic’ of fascist ‘justice’ yet you accepted it. To protest one’s innocence
is to admit one’s guilt. Only in the Nazi Peoples Court
of Ronald Freisler was this principle in operation. In the leaked Labour Report
it
is called denialism.
If there is one person who bears responsibility for Labour's election defeat and the overthrow of Corbyn it is Momentum's multi-millionaire owner, Jon Lansman
The IHRA
In
December 2016, after Theresa May had adopted the IHRADefinition
of Anti-Semitism you followed
suit?Why?The Oxford English Dictionary definition ‘hostility to or prejudice against Jews’ is
pretty comprehensive. The 38 word definition of the IHRA,
with its talk of a ‘certain perception’
was intentionally vague.
In
addition the IHRA came with 11 illustrations of ‘anti-Semitism’, 7 of which
included Israel.Did you learn
absolutely nothing from over 30 years work supporting Palestine solidarity not
to know that supporting Palestinians is never anti-Semitic?Yet to criticise Israel for its racist
treatment of the Palestinians, beginning with their expulsion in 1948, was anti-Semitic
according to the IHRA.
Today
in the Labour Party any criticism of Israel/ Zionism is considered anti-Semitic.
This is the result of the ‘fast track’ expulsions that you supported at the
last Labour Party conference. Conference was promised that they would only be
used in exceptional cases but this was a lie.It is being used in virtually every case.
Luke Akehurst justified the murder by sniper fire of unarmed Palestinian demonstrators because they were allegedly Hamas members - presumably the 70+ children who were killed were also members of Hamas, as if this was any justification. However supporting the murder of Palestinian children was not an offence in Corbyn Labour
No
one however was ever expelled for anti-Palestinian racism under your watch.
When Luke Akehurst, Director of We
believe in Israel, supported
the cold-blooded murder of unarmed demonstrators in Gaza, including children
and medics, he wasn’t disciplined. Why? If someone had supported the murder of Jewish
children they would have been expelled instantly. Or do Palestinian lives count
as less than Jewish lives?
The Board of Deputies blamed Palestinian victims of Israeli snipers for their own deaths - yet Corbyn still fawned and placated them
The New
Witchhunt that You Helped Encourage
I
am informed that at the present time, following Keir Starmer’s meeting with the
Jewish Labour Movement, that ‘investigations’ have begun into 25 Jewish members
of the Labour Party. What kind of anti-Semitism is it when Jews are the main
target?
Perhaps
when the Tories get round to holding an inquiry into Islamaphobia they could
demonstrate their sincerity by expelling a few Muslims?Crazy?That is where your appeasement has ended up.
Blairite advisor McTernan urged the Tories to smash the rail unions and supported tax avoidance - Momentum and Lansman welcomed him into their fold but I was expelled for opposing Zionism and racism
Unfortunately
many Jews today support the Israeli state and Zionism. British Jews today bears
no resemblance to the working class Jews of the East End 80 years ago who were
indifferent or hostile to Zionism. British Jews have moved upwards socio-economically,
outwards geographically and to the right politically.
Solidarity is the basis of socialism yet Momentum and the Socialist Campaign Group offered no solidarity to victims of the witchhunt
Even
under Labour’s first Jewish leader, Ed Miliband, the JC reported
‘Huge
majority of British Jews will vote Tory.’ Contrast this with the election
in 1945 when the England’s first ever elected Communist MP Phil Piratin owed half his votes to the Jewish voters
of Mile End.
25
years ago many Muslims supported the fatwa
against Salman Rushdie for his book, Satanic
Verses.Would it have been
Islamaphobic to have supported Rushie’s free speech?
Supposing
there had been a 100,000 strong Afrikaaner community in Britain which
identified with Apartheid in South Africa. Would it have been racist against Afrikaaners
to oppose Apartheid? This is the absurd proposition that you have bought into.
Momentum helped feed the antisemitism witchhunt and encourage fascists like the individual below
Instead
of Apartheid being held to be wrong we might have been told to be ‘sensitive’
to the feelings of the racists’ sympathisers living in north London’s suburbs.
White
supremacists, from the EDL and Tommy
Robinson to Richard Spencer, the neo-Nazi founder of the alt-Right, love
Zionism. Spencer even declared
that he was a White Zionist. This is the state whose opponents are now being
expelled.
Until I read the Leaked Report I would not have believed that Corbyn personally and his Office (LOTO) had urged the Compliance Unit to speed up the expulsions
Betrayal – the Leaked
Report is Shocking
By
refusing to stand up to the Zionists ‘anti-Semitism’ claims and forever apologising
you gave the impression of weakness and it was this that was fatal to your
election hopes. I had however assumed that it was under pressure that you
abandoned your friends and comrades.
Until
I read Labour’s leaked
Report I assumed that the attempts to expel Jackie, Ken, Marc and myself
were out of your hands.It was all the actions
of the Blairite machine.
Racist witchhunter and head of Compliance Unit John Stolliday - he ran the 'antisemitism' witchhunt despite using terms like 'beaker' a reference to Ed Miliband's nose
Marc Wadsworth and Jacqui Walker - betrayed by Corbyn
I
was therefore stunned to read that Laura Murray, who worked in your office, had
emailed the corrupt racist John Stolliday asking:
could we have
an update on the current status of the cases of Ken Livingstone, Jacqui [sic]
Walker, Tony Greenstein and Marc Wadsworth and a clear timetable of when they
will all be heard by the NCC and when a final decision will be made on them.
The Jewish Labour Movement expressed frustration that these cases have taken
such a long time to be heard, as they feel that it is difficult to begin the
process of rebuilding trust between the Labour Party and the Jewish community
whilst we have still not dealt with these cases. (page 336)
Lloyd-Russell Moyle, who was co-chair of the Campaign Group, refused to support Chris Williamson and when I challenged him about this at a public meeting, lied to me about this - he has now taken Starmer's shilling
The
word treachery isn’t adequate to describe my feelings when I read this. Well we
were all expelled bar Ken who resigned. And then you went on to betray
Christine Shawcroft and Chris Williamson MP.
Perhaps
you can tell me whether in fact our expulsions ever did ‘rebuild trust’ with this mythical ‘Jewish community’? No sooner had
you expelled one person than the Zionists produced another 10 names.
By
expelling us (the actual reason was never anti-Semitism) you proved that the
Labour Party was anti-Semitic. In so doing you dug your own grave.
The Jewish Labour Movement's corrupt Chair Jeremy Newmark defending Ruth Smeeth who lied and dissembled about Marc Wadsworth - Ruth Smeeth was revealed as a CIA asset by Wikileaks
You could have
fought back
Today
25 Jewish members of the Labour Party face expulsion in order to reassure Israel’s
supporters that Labour will always back the racists.
You
had a clear choice when you were elected leader.You could either fight the Right or appease
them.For the first year, when Owen
Smith challenged you for the leadership, you fought the Right.The result was that you deprived Theresa May
of her majority in the 2017 General Election. A performance which I had predicted.
It
was at this point, when you were at the peak of your power, you could have
called for the resignation of Iain McNicoll who had openly sabotaged Labour’s
election chances by refusing to support challenges to Tory incumbents.
A letter in the Jewish Chronicle by the founder of the 43 Group, Morris Beckman savaging the do nothing tactics of the Board of Deputies - the Board has only ever been interested in fighting anti-Zionism
When it came to opposing the anti-Semitic thuggery of the British Union of Fascists in the 1930's and the National Front of the 1970's the Board of Deputies advocated that Jews do nothing except hide
In
June 2017 you could have squashed the ‘anti-Semitism’ nonsense. If you had made
a speech on anti-Semitism you could have buried the issue for all time. You would
have received the overwhelming support of party members and you would have put
your opponents on the defensive. You could have also explained why you were not going to support the
IHRA. After all, your mum and my dad were at the Battle of Cable Street
fighting the Moselyites in 1936. They didn’t need a definition of anti-Semitism
to recognise what anti-Semitism was.
It
would have been a very simple speech. You could have started by condemning
anti-Semitism and making it clear that this means racist hatred of Jews as Jews
and not criticism of Israel or Zionism. Anti-Semitism is about those who don’t
like Jews, of which there are virtually none in the Labour Party.
You
could then have condemned the weaponisation of ‘anti-Semitism’ by the
supporters of Israel as a means of avoiding having to defend things like the
imprisonment and torture of children, Palestinian children that is.
If
you had been bold you could have explained that if Jews in Britain experienced a
fraction of the racism and discrimination of Palestinians then they would
rightly complain of anti-Semitism. You could also have condemned the use of Jews
as an alibi for British foreign policy.
Of
course you did none of these things and just before the local elections in May
2018, Luciana Berger pulled out of a hat the bankers’ mural
that had long been erased in 2012.It
was obvious that this issue had been
kept in reserve by those seeking to do as much damage as possible to Labour’s local
election chances. Berger should have had the whip removed, as should Margaret
Hodge.
Norman Tebbit of the 'cricket test' (Indians supporting the Indian test team were held not to be genuine Britons) attended his first 'anti-racist' demonstration with the Zionists
This
was followed by an ‘anti-racist’
demonstration outside Parliament organised by the Board of Deputies.Attendees included those well know opponents
of racism – Norman Tebbit and Ian Paisley.
When
the JLM, in an attempt to win sympathy, threatened to disaffiliate from the Labour
Party, instead of welcoming such a prospect you pleaded
with them to stay. This however did not stop the JLM from voting to no
confidence you at their AGM.
In
the Labour Party at the present time, to tell the truth about Israel is to be
condemned as ‘anti-Semitic’. The fact that the Prime Minister of Israel,
Benjamin Netanyahu openly declares
that Israel is “not a state of all its citizens” is ignored.Israel has just announced that when it
annexes the Jordan Valley it will not give citizenship to the Arabs who
live there.This used to be called
‘apartheid’.Do you have another word
for it?
The
situation of socialists and anti-imperialists in the Labour Party today is far
worse than if you had never been leader. Today to be an anti-racist in the
Labour Party is to live in danger of expulsion.
When
the ‘anti-Semitism’ accusations started flying, instead of openly reaching out
to those British Jews who are not Zionists, such as the many in the growing
Ultra Orthodox community in Stamford Hill, 35 of whose rabbis defended
you against the attacks from the Board of Deputies, you granted the reactionary
Board sole rights of audience.
It
was not as if you didn’t have enough chances.The one way of intimidating the Labour Right would have been to support
Open Selection of Labour candidates.Yet
at the 2018 Labour Party Conference you persuaded Len McCluskey, Unite’s
General Secretary, to break his mandate and oppose Open Selection. When you
were Secretary of Labour Against the Witchhunt in the 1990’s mandatory
reselection was an article of faith amongst the left.
As his final act of appeasement Corbyn elevated Tom Watson to the House of Lords
Perhaps
the final insult to Labour members and those unfairly expelled was to propose
that Iain McNicol and Tom Watson should be elevated to the House of Lords.
Once I had mountains in the palm of my hand
And rivers that ran through every day
I must have been mad
I never knew what I had
Until I threw it all away
