The New McCarthyism - the Zionist Board of Deputies ‘Expects’ Starmer to Suspend 2 Black MPs for having spoken in a meeting with 2 Black and Jewish anti-racists!
You really could not make it up! The Board
of Deputies which has support of Israel hardwired into its constitution,
demanded that Keir Starmer suspend 2 Black female MPs for the crime of having
spoke in a meeting at which 2 Jewish anti-Zionists, Jackie Walker and Tony
Greenstein, spoke.
Both Jackie and I were were expelled
as a result of Israel’s fake anti-Semitism campaign. However neither Jackie nor
myself were expelled for anti-Semitism, contrary to the lies of the Jewish
Chronicle, Daily
Mail and the New
Statesman.
Last Wednesday I tuned into the
meeting of Don’t Leave, Organise.
The meeting started at 7 p.m. and I came in about 20 minutes late as I’d been
out for my daily walk. Little did I realise that I was about to be at the
centre of another manufactured storm about ‘anti-Semitism’.
Think about it. Even if Jackie and I
were confirmed anti-Semites how are Diane Abbot and Bell Reibeiro responsible for
the fact that we spoke from the audience after they had finished speaking? And
what is this to do with anti-Semitism?
But of course we are not anti-Semites.
Both of us, unlike the Board of Deputies, have fought our whole lives against
racism and fascism, anti-Semitism included.
The Board of Deputies, which has
never fought the anti-Semitism of the Fascist Right, told Jews to stay indoors
and not confront Sir Oswald Moseley’s
British Union of Fascists in the 1930’s. These petty bourgeois nobodies feared
for their place in the Establishment pecking order if they could not control
the Jewish working class. But that was a time when there was a strong Jewish working
class.
This is the same Board of Deputies which
gave unstinting
support to Israeli army’s snipers as they picked off children, teenagers,
medics and other unarmed demonstrators who got too near the Gaza fence.
It is also the same Board of Deputies whose
President, Jonathan Arkush, gave a warm
and effusive welcome to Donald Trump when he became President of the United
States. The most anti-Semitic (and pro-Zionist) President there has ever been.
As Audrey Gillan wrote,
‘Mosley planned to send columns of thousands of goose-stepping men
throughout the impoverished East End dressed in uniforms that mimicked those of
Hitler's Nazis. His target was the large Jewish community.
The Jewish Board of Deputies
advised Jews to stay away. The Jewish Chronicle warned: "Jews are urgently
warned to keep away from the route of the Blackshirt march and from their
meetings.
 |
| Blair minus the personality |
The Board of Deputies did the same in
the 1970’s when the fight against the National Front was at its height. Instead
of attacking the NF it attacked the Anti-Nazi League set up to fight the
NF. As the late Maurice Ludmer, Editor
of the Anti-fascist Magazine Searchlight wrote:
"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 rerun of 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 then Secretary of the ANL, Paul
Holborrow wrote: ‘We were constantly under attack from the
Jewish Board of Deputies’.
So of one thing you can be certain.
If indeed Jackie and I were anti-Semites the Board of Deputies wouldn’t be in
the slightest bit interested in us. Indeed if we were racist supporters of the Israeli
state like Katie Hopkins we would be given special
invitation to the Zionist annual dinner and be introduced to the Israeli Ambassador,
war criminal Mark Regev.
The Board’s objection is solely to do
with their undying devotion to Israel, a state whose army is busy demolishing
isolation tents and clinics for Palestinians suffering from COVID-19 in the
West Bank. Bt’selem, described how on
Thursday, 26 March at around 7:30 am,
‘officials from Israel’s Civil Administration in the
West Bank arrived with a military jeep escort, a bulldozer and two flatbed
trucks with cranes at the Palestinian community of Khirbet Ibziq in the northern Jordan Valley.
They confiscated poles and sheeting that were meant
to form eight tents, two for a field clinic, and four for emergency housing for
residents evacuated from their homes, and two as makeshift mosques.
The force also confiscated a tin shack in place for
more than two years, as well as a power generator and sacks of sand and cement.
Four pallets of cinder blocks intended for the tent floors were taken away and
four others demolished.
Israel is a state that the Labour
Party says it is ‘anti-Semitic’ to call racist, because of the. Israel is
apparently the personification of a Jew and an attack on Israel is an attack on
Jews. By that twisted ‘logic’ Jews must therefore responsible for the actions
of the ‘Jewish’ state.
 |
| What has Diane Abbot and Bell Ribeiro-Addy speaking with Jackie and myself got to do with Karen Pollock's Zionist Holocaust Trust? |
The attack by the Board of Deputies on
Diane Abbot and Bell Ribeiro-Addy is nothing if not an act of pure undiluted racism. In pursuit of their McCarthyist agenda, the Board is going for the few
Black Labour MPs that there are. And
why? To support the world’s only
apartheid state.
 |
| Diane Abbot and Bell Ribeiro-Addy should take a lesson from Paul Robeson and not give way so easily |
We are not however uncritical of
Abbot and Ribeiro-Addy. They had a responsibility to stand up to this attack,
not only on them but on those, Jewish people included, who were expelled for
standing up for the Palestinians and opposing Zionism. The statement that they
issued was disappointing, to put it mildly. Instead of coming out fighting they
chose to surrender:
“The MPs were not aware that any
suspended or expelled former members of the Labour Party might contribute as
audience members.
"They did not and would not
share a platform with them.
"Both MPs are long-standing
anti-racist campaigners and are known for standing up to all forms of bigotry.”
Jackie Walker and myself have issued
an Open
Letter to both MPs. In it we talk of the pressure on Paul Robeson, one of
the great heroes of the Black struggle. A committed Communist when Robeson refused
to testify that he was not a communist, during an application for a passport,
he was hauled before McCarthy’s House of UnAmerican Activities.
During the hearing Robeson refused
to testify. When asked if he was a member of the Communist Party he responded:
‘Would you like to come to the ballot box
when I vote and take out the ballot and see?’
When Angela Davies, another Black American
hero, was given the Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award in February 2019 by the Birmingham
Civil Rights Institute, the Alabama version of the Board of Deputies protested. Because Angela Davies supported the Palestinians
and opposed Zionism she was accused of ‘anti-Semitism’. Even worse she
supported BDS, the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel.
The difference between Angela Davies
and Diane Abbot/ Bell Ribeiro-Addy was that Angela didn’t back down. On the contrary Angela Davies and her
supporters went
on the offensive. Such was the
outrage over the Museum’s decision that its Directors resigned and a new Board reinstated
the award and apologised for their racism.
CNN reported
that:
‘One Jewish outlet, Southern Jewish Life, posted a story about the upcoming
award in December, saying, "For some
in the community, there might be some indigestion at the dinner over this
year's honoree."
"Something not included
in the Institute's publicity for the event is that Davis has also been an
outspoken voice in the boycott Israel movement, and advocates extensively on
college campuses for the isolation of the Jewish state, saying Israel engages
in ethnic cleansing and is connected to police violence against
African-Americans in the United States,"
 |
| Paul Robeson during the HUAC hearings |
In other words their objection was to
the fact that Angela Davies insited on telling the truth. However, because of
the refusal of Angela Davies and her supporters to submit to the Zionist blackmail,
it was the Zionists who had a severe bout of indigestion. They ended up
pleading that they hadn’t really wanted to stop Angela getting an awared. It’s
just that they felt ‘offended’ like our British Zionists at the idea that a
Black anti-Zionist might not pay tribute to their shitty little Jim Crow state.
There is a lesson here. If you are
sincerely committed to anti-racism you can’t give ground to the supporters of Israel
when they cry ‘anti-Semitism’. The reaction of the Labour Party to the Zionist protests
was deeply racist and offensive. Starmer’s
spokesperson said
that:
"The previous comments made
by some of the individuals on this call are completely unacceptable.
"These are not people who
support the values of the Labour Party.
"This is being made clear to
the Labour MPs who attended the call in the strongest possible terms and they
are being reminded of their responsibilities and obligations.”
What this affair has shown is that
the Board of Deputies use of ‘anti-Semitism’ has to be fought and
resisted. The Board has only one concern,
the defence of Israel. If that means
attacking Jewish people like Jackie and myself then it is more than prepared to
do so.
People should be aware that when it
comes to associating with anti-Semites there are some that the Board has no
such scruples. Not only does it contain
outright supporters
of Tommy Robinson amongst its Deputies, like Robert Festenstein, who
appeared in a Rebel Media video with him but its own President and Vice
President, Jonathan Arkush and Marie van der Zyl spoke at a meeting with
members of the Jewish Defence League in the audience sporting JDL shirts.
JDL is a Jewish neo-Nazi organisation
banned as a terrorist group in the United States. Its forerunner Kach, led by
Rabbi Meir Kahane, was even banned in Israel.
But the Board of Deputies is more than happy to associate with Roberta
Moore of the JDL, which was the Jewish section of the English Defence League.
And not only the Board of Deputies. Keir Starmer is reported
by Canary to have started to cosy up to the Hindu Nationalist government of
India led by Narendra Modi of the far-Right BJP. Starmer has backed
off supporting an independent Kashmir which was Labour policy. Modi is an admirer
of Israel and wants to make India into a second Israel. He wants to abandon a
secular India for an Hindu India. There have been pogroms against Muslims in
Delhi recently as a result of nakedly racist legislation that excludes Muslims from
applying for refugee status in India. Modi, as Chief Minister of Gujarat presided
over the death of over 2,000 people in anti-Muslim pogroms.
These are Starmer’s new friends. Diane
Abbot and Bell Ribeiro-Addy should withdraw their apology and stand up to the
New McCarthyism that is taking hold in Britain today.
Instead of accusing people of being Communists
as the McCarthyite used to do, the accusation now is of ‘Anti-Semitism’. It is
time for anti-racists, socialists and those who consider themselves democrats to
stand up confront this wave of hysteria.
Tony Greenstein
Open Letter to Diane Abbot MP and Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP
We Must Stand Up to the New
McCarthyism
Dear Diane and Bell,
First we send solidarity to you. We are black and Jewish. Like you we are anti-racist and anti-fascist activists of long standing
and have first-hand experience of the effect and purpose of attempts to
publicly shame. We know this campaign
of monitoring your words and deeds will not cease.
We were among the audience of over 600 at the ‘Don’t
Leave, Organise’ meeting held last Wednesday at which both of you spoke
from the panel. As people who had been mentioned, and smeared, by the leaked Labour report, we both made short contributions,
as was our right and our responsibility as Left anti-racist activists who have
been unfairly expelled.
As a result the Board of Deputies of British Jews, a small
pressure group representing the most right-wing 30% of British Jewry, which has
support for the Israeli state enshrined in its constitution,
called on Keir Starmer to suspend you both.
The recently leaked Labour Party report makes clear, the Corbyn Project
was in part destroyed by false and malicious accusations of anti-Semitism made
against socialists in the Labour Party. If it were not for the Orwellian
atmosphere surrounding the question of ‘anti-Semitism’ in the Labour Party and
the wholesale attack on freedom of speech, then the fact that the Board had
objected to two Jews speaking at a meeting on grounds of anti-Semitism would
have been held up to justifiable ridicule.
The Board’s current demands are a continuation of their campaign to
politically castrate the Left. Their aim as ever is not to promote anti-racism
but to prevent criticism of Israel and Zionism. It has nothing whatsoever to do
with opposing anti-Semitism.
The response by the Labour leadership does have a precedent. In 1939
Aneurin Bevan and Stafford Cripps were expelled from the Labour Party. Their
crime? To support the Popular Front against fascism alongside the Communist Party and to have spoken on
the same platform as communists. The Labour Party at that time opposed all
anti-fascist activity for example, the Battle of Cable Street in 1936.
Let us be blunt. Today’s
‘anti-Semitism’ is the new Communism, and protecting Zionism is the premise for
the new McCarthyism. That is the context in which the Board’s actions should be
judged.
There are many lessons from history for activists too. When Black
communist Paul Robeson was summoned, in June 1956,
by the House Committee on Un-American
Activities he refused, despite enormous pressure and intimidation, to testify.
His passport was confiscated, he was sentenced to one year’s imprisonment and
his career all but destroyed. Nonetheless he stood firm on his principles. His
struggles against injustice fed the movement which he saw himself as part of.
We understand the pressures that
you are under but we also know that with the privileges of power and leadership
comes responsibility to those you seek to represent. That is why we are disappointed that you did not feel able
to withstand those who called upon you to dissociate yourself from those who were
erroneously expelled for being anti-racists and Internationalists, opposing discrimination and
injustice, in particular for us as Jews, the racism of
the Israeli state. The way to oppose racists is, as we all know, never appeasement,
whatever the short term benefits.
The lessons of history go on. The
new Israeli government of Netanyahu, of which the Israeli Labor Party is a
member, is committed to the annexation of large parts of the West Bank. The Palestinians who live in the West
Bank, despite being ruled by the Israeli state, have no democratic rights.
After all, to give the Palestinians a vote would imperil Israel’s Jewish
demographic majority. This was the same argument used in South Africa to
deny Black people a vote. The reason that veterans of the fight against
Apartheid in South Africa, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Ronnie Kassrils and Mandla Mandela condemn Israel as an apartheid
state is because of its similarities
with the regime that used operate in Pretoria.
We hope that in future you will feel able to speak truth to power. We
hope the time will come when the swell of support from the grassroots, from
oppressed minorities and from those who stand in solidarity with them will
empower you to speak with the clarity, truth and passion we know is yours. We
need your voice so we can raise ours to a pitch that cannot be ignored. This is
the time to speak out because, as Rabbi Hillel said ‘if not now when?’
Kind regards and solidarity
Tony Greenstein
Jackie Walker
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