Lindsey German reassures the Labour Party that Stop the War
Coalition will have nothing to do with expelled members of the Labour Party
(A shorter version of this blog post, Cowardiceand Opportunism can be read in this week’s issue of Weekly Worker)
This is a meeting to defend free speech on Palestine and Zionism and to fight the McCarthyist campaign to no platform anti-Zionists - you can access is via Youtube or Facebook  |
| Conceding to the charge of 'anti-Semitism' against anti-Zionists |
It
is always disconcerting when members of groups claiming to be on the Marxist or
socialist left, jettison their principles and basic solidarity for the sake of unprincipled
alliances with those to their right. It is usually called Opportunism or
Political Cowardice. Unfortunately that is true of the SWP break-away, Counterfire.
During
the course of Labour’s leadership campaign the Board of Deputies of British
Jews, which has support for Israel, right or wrong, hardwired
into its constitution, issued an updated
version of the 10 Commandments.
Their 5th Commandment was a slight change on the version
handed down to Moses on Mount Sinai.
Instead
of ‘honour your father and mother’ there is ‘thou shalt not have anything to do with those expelled or suspended
from the Labour Party.’ The title of these commandments is ‘Provide no platform for bigotry’.
The
Zionists’ false anti-Semitism campaign against the Labour Party has been a
prime example of what Orwell termed ‘doublethink’. Racists accusing
anti-racists of racism and bigots accuse their opponents of bigotry.
This
is the same Board of Deputies which has just agreed to take no position on
Israel’s annexation (theft) of a third of the West Bank. It refuses even to comment on Netanyahu’s declaration
that Palestinians in the territories annexed to Israel will not be granted
Israeli citizenship. That Keir Starmer takes his orders on how to fight
‘anti-Semitism’ from a group that justifies Apartheid in Israel speaks volumes
about Starmer’s statement
of solidarity with Black Lives Matter.
 |
| Rosa Parks in a 'white' seat on a bus |
It
is of course of a piece with his condemnation
of the 10,000 strong demonstration in Bristol which toppled the statue of
Edward Colston and threw it in the River Avon. No doubt, if Starmer had been
around in 1955 when Rosa Parks refused
to accept segregation on a bus he would have told her that although segregation
should have gone long ago the law must be obeyed.
 |
| The Daily Mail too is eager to fight 'anti-Semitism' |
Don’t Leave
Organise Meeting
On
April 29th at a Don’t Leave Organise meeting of 600, Diane Abbot and
Bell Ribeiro-Addy were the main speakers. Jackie Walker and myself spoke from
the audience. The very next day all hell broke loose with the Jewish Chronicle heading
‘Communal outrage over participation of Abbott and Ribeiro-Addy’. Of course British
Jews were completely unconcerned about this contrived affair but the Zionist
leaders of it were certainly ‘outraged’ at people exercising freedom of speech.
The
Board of Deputies demanded that the two MPs should be suspended. Starmer reprimanded
both of them for not having scoured the audience to pick out people expelled or
suspended from the Labour Party.
Speaking
in the same meeting with two Jewish anti-Zionists is now defined as anti-Semitic
under Sir Keir Starmer! An allegation which is about as logical as saying that
the Earth is flat. But if you repeat a lie long enough, as Goebbels observed,
it then becomes received wisdom. Goebbels also stated that the truth is the
biggest enemy of the fascist state.
Given
the numbers being expelled under the ‘fast track’, no hearing procedures that
Corbyn introduced, there’s going to be very great difficulties knowing who is
allowed to speak in the future!
Banned Persons
Under Apartheid
What
one would expect of Sir Keir Starmer QC, being a former Director of Public
Prosecutions, is that he proposes draft legislation to enforce the Board’s
Commandments. If he is looking for a
legal precedent he could do worse than look to South Africa’s Internal
Security Act 1992 which governed the category of banned
persons. Under this Act, a banned person was prohibited from attending meetings
of any kind, speaking in public, or publishing or distributing any written
material. It proscribed broadcasters and the press from broadcasting,
publishing or reporting the banned person's words.
This
would be much fairer on MPs and other Labour Party members because it would
obviate the need to know the background of all those in their audience.
 |
| Original advert for Birmingham StWC Meeting |
Salma Yaqoob
and Stop the War Coalition
On
12th May I was invited to speak to a Birmingham Stop the War
Committee meeting along with Paul Kelemen. Salma Yaqoob was also invited to
speak and the meeting was advertised as such.
 |
| Zionist ex-MP and warmonger Ian Austin attacks Salma Yaqoob |
Almost
immediately the Zionists, in the form of former Labour MP Ian Austin and the
so-called Campaign Against Anti-Semitism
demanded
that Salma be suspended from the Labour Party. Salma herself denied having
agreed to speak but given that the Right is out to get her, a tactical
withdrawal in the circumstances would be totally understandable.
Which
didn’t stop the New Statesman’s Ailbhe Rea pontificating
that ‘Starmer is facing his first test
over anti-Semitism’. The irony is that the New Statesman was founded by a
genuine anti-Semite, Sidney Webb, who once exclaimed
that ‘French, German, Russian socialism
is Jew-ridden. We, thank heaven, are free.’ His explanation being that ‘There’s no money in it.’ [Paul Kelemen,
The British Left & Zionism – History of a Divorce, p. 20, Manchester
University Press, 2012]
 |
| The vile Zionist group, CAA, are criticised by StWC as 'irresponsible' |
The
reality is that Labour anti-Semitism, the genuine kind that is, has been the
repository of the Right, figures like Herbert Morrison.
But
at least the New Statesman had the good grace, after complaints from Jackie and
myself, to alter Rea’s abysmal piece of writing by accepting that neither of us
were expelled for anti-Semitism. Even the New Statesman, mouthpiece for the
Fabians and the Labour Right accepts that lies need should be corrected.
 |
| Lindsey German |
Would
that the same were true of Lindsey German, Convenor of Stop the War Committee
and one of the founders of Counterfire.
Counterfire likes to present itself as the with-it, up-to-date revolutionary
and avante garde alternative to the
staid and boring Socialist Workers Party from which it originated.
Stop the War Coalition Statement that Counterfire's Lindsey German Endorses
When the furore over
Salma Yaqoob erupted, Stop the War Coalition, of which she is a patron, issued
a statement in defence of
Salma. No one can complain of this, even though the statement was extremely
defensive and goes out of its way to state that it ‘is implacably opposed to anti-Semitism’ thus lending credence to the idea that the attacks on Salma and the two
Black MPs were really about anti-Semitism. It also, in the context of
condemning the vitriol and abuse levelled against the three Black women said
that it is ‘deeply irresponsible of the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism to be adding
fuel to this fire.’
 |
| Counterfire refused to stand up to the Zionist attacks on free speech |
The
CAA is a far-Right, Islamaphobic
organisation, with close ties to the Israeli Embassy and almost certainly
funded by the Israeli state. Calling it
‘irresponsible’ for encouraging this abuse is like asking Tommy Robinson to
condemn Islamaphobia. That is what fascists and racists do.
The
statement strenuously avoids using the terms ‘Zionist’ or ‘Apartheid’ to
describe the Israeli state instead calling for ‘justice’ for the Palestinians,
which is something most Zionists could sign up to. It is a liberal phrase that
avoids the political questions at the heart of the Palestinians’ Question.
The
statement goes on to say that Stop the War Committee ‘refuse(s) to accept that criticism of the Israeli government and its
policies can be construed as anti-Semitic.’ Again this is liberal Zionist
phraseology not anti-Zionism. Even the most right-wing Zionists, including the
CAA accepted that mere criticism of Netanyahu and the Israeli government isn’t
anti-Semitic. The IHRA
misdefinition of anti-Semitism is quite clear about this. It states that:
‘criticism
of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded
as antisemitic.’
It is only when people criticise the Jewish supremacist,
i.e. Zionist nature of the Israeli state itself, or in the words of the IHRA
‘claiming that the existence of a
State of Israel is a racist endeavor’
that
the accusation of anti-Semitism is levelled. Far from owing anything to a
Marxist analysis this is just liberal flatulence, pure sound and fury
signifying an abandonment of any class analysis of the Israeli state. I don’t believe that this is accidental.
 |
| John Rees |
Sir
Stephen Sedley, a former Court of Appeal Judge, who is himself Jewish, is
hardly a revolutionary socialist as John Rees and Lindsey German would claim to
be. Yet Sedley in ‘Defining
Anti-Semitism’ was able to deconstruct the IHRA in a
way that Counterfire and Stop the War Committee seem completely unable to. Sedley wrote that:
‘Endeavours
to conflate the two [Anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism] by characterising
everything other than anodyne criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic are not
new.... ‘
Sedley
went on to state that the seventh IHRA illustration of ‘anti-Semitism’
‘‘Denying the
Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g. by claiming that the
existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavour.’
‘bristles
with contentious assumptions about the racial identity of Jews, assumptions
contested by many diaspora Jews but on which both Zionism and anti-Semitism
fasten, and about Israel as the embodiment of a collective right of Jews to
self-determination.’
It
is a sad day when so-called revolutionaries find themselves to the right of a
former Court of Appeal Judge!
Why
do I say that this liberal Zionist hogwash is not just accidental or sloppy
wording but a deliberate attempt to accommodate to Labour’s ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign
and in particular the surrender of the Campaign Group of MPs to that campaign?
‘Local StWC
groups act autonomously in deciding their platforms, but we note that Tony
Greenstein has never been asked to address a national StWC meeting. StWC
rejects both anti-Semitism and abusive language in political debate.’
This
is, as I told Lindsey German, nothing less than political scabbing. Political
and class treachery. It is saying to the Labour Right and Ian Austin that
unfortunately local Stop the War groups are autonomous and the national group
can do nothing about them. However the
National Stop the War Committee is more responsible and has never had and never would have Tony Greenstein on
its platforms.
Why
else advertise the fact that I’ve ‘never
been asked to address a national StWC meeting’? Does StWC regularly publish
lists of people who they are not going to invite to address them?!
The
final sentence makes it even clearer.
The statement had already said that the StWC was ‘implacably opposed to anti-Semitism’. Why repeat it? It is
abundantly clear that it can only refer to me. It also refers to ‘abusive language’. This was precisely the charge or should I say
pretext that was levelled at me during my expulsion.
Permit
me to give a few examples of ‘abuse’ that I was guilty of. The first was when I
used the term ‘crooked McNicol’ about
the Labour Party’s General Secretary, Iain McNicol. My charge
sheet stated that
‘Mr Greenstein uses
the word "crook" or "crooked" to describe Mr lain McNicol
no less than 17 times’ .
It went on to
explain that ‘A crook is a dishonest or
criminal person. Mr Greenstein uses the work to abuse Mr McNicol.’ I agree
with their definition! The reason I called McNicol crook was that thousands of Labour
Party members had been suspended for the sole ‘crime’ of voting for Jeremy
Corbyn. My own vote, as a registered
supporter, was fished out of the electronic ballot box.
Calling McNicol ‘crooked’ was not abuse but an accurate
description. Well after Labour’s leaked report this was precisely the
adjective that Len McCluskey used!
Another example
of the ‘abuse’ I was guilt of was when, according to the same charge sheet,
‘In the same article, Mr Greenstein insults Tom Watson MP by
saying that his behaviour reminds him of the comment that he has "every
quality of a dog except loyalty"
Was this abuse?
After Corbyn was elected leader Watson pledged his undying loyalty. I think we
know how that turned out.
The
CAA, in its attack on Salma Yaqoob noted,
the ‘second charge’ at my expulsion
hearing
‘related
to abuse, including calling the Jewish then-Labour MP Dame Louise Ellman a
“supporter of child abuse”
The CAA is, for once, correct. In January
2016 and again in February
2018, in debates in the House of Commons on Israel’s treatment
of Palestinian children, Ellman defended Israel’s abuse, including sexual
abuse, blindfolding, torture, beatings and isolation of Palestinian children on
‘security’ grounds. Nothing moved her. Is it seriously suggested that my
description of Ellman was abuse?
The Origins of
Counterfire
Counterfire’s
repetition of this charge is truly shameful. And why has it done so? Because it seeks the patronage of Labour MPs
and other worthies. Rather than standing up for its principles it bows to their
prejudices and what is the received wisdom of the ruling class that the Labour
Party is overrun with anti-Semitism.
The
behaviour of Counterfire, which effectively controls StWC, is not
accidental. Counterfire came out of the
SWP. It was a right-wing split. When the SWP’s coalition with George Galloway
in Respect collapsed in 2008, John Rees took the blame. It was he who had led the break-up of the
Socialist Alliance in order to form a cross-class non-socialist party, Respect,
based on communalism. In Respect’s founding conference in 2004 Rees had argued
that
“We … voted against the things
we believed in, because, while the people here are important, they are not as
important as the millions out there. We are reaching to the people locked out
of politics. We voted for what they want.”
The
things the SWP voted against in Respect
included a woman’s right to choose in deference to Galloway’s anti-abortion
views.
There
was also what Socialist Unity called John Rees and the Tory Money. In essence a cheque for $10,000 was sent to
Respect by Khansaheb Civil
Engineering, a Dubai-based subsidiary of Interserve plc private finance experts.
Interserve
managed a number of PFI-backed schools and hospitals in the UK. The boss was
Lord Blackwell, head of the Conservative government’s policy unit from 1995 to
1997. When Galloway insisted the money was sent back, since he could smell a
rat, Rees got the donor to make it out to a now long forgotten SWP front, Organising for Fighting Unions.
When
the SWP Central Committee found out it insisted that Rees return the cheque
again! It is clear that Rees was quite prepared to make a bonfire of his
principles in order for Respect and now Counterfire to succeed. In essence there are no principles that he
isn’t prepared to sacrifice.
Solidarity or a
lack thereof
Perhaps
the most fundamental of all socialist principles is solidarity against the common
enemy. Whatever our differences as
socialists when we see fellow socialists under attack from the capitalist state
or their lackeys in the Labour Party socialists express solidarity and give
support. This is really the ABC of
socialism.
The
SWP were therefore quite right to remove John Rees from their Central Committee
although they were clearly to blame for ever having agreed to the Respect Party
in the first place. Lindsey German accompanied and supported Rees throughout,
resigning from the Labour Party with him.
When
I first read the statement on Salma Yaqoob I assumed that the references to me
were penned by an office novice. Perhaps naively I assumed that wiser heads
would delete the sentences in question. I
therefore wrote on 23 May and when there was no reply I wrote again a week
later asking that the statement be amended. On 4 June Lindsey German responded
in her role as Convenor of StWC: It was short, sweet and to the point:
‘In response to your
communications: We are not changing the statement issued, which made no
allegations against you. We will not engage in any further correspondence
on this issue.’
It
was, as they say economical with the truth! It is true there was no direct
allegations against me but, as libel lawyers will argue, there was an innuendo
meaning which made it quite clear that allegations were being made. The sole
reason being to placate and reassure Labour MPs and trade union bureaucrats that
StWC would not be taking up the cudgels against the false anti-Semitism
campaign that led to Jeremy Corbyn’s removal.
What
is truly pitiful is that Counterfire’s Lindsey German, and presumably
Counterfire itself, sees no connection between preventing imperialist wars and
the Zionist use of ‘anti-Semitism’ as a weapon of political war. Indeed it
seems to see no connection between Zionism and imperialism, not least because
it doesn’t seem to acknowledge there is such a thing as Zionism.
The Irony of John Rees, Lindsey German
and Gilad Atzmon
The
irony is that if anyone was guilty of tolerating and condoning anti-Semitism it
is Rees and German. Between 2005 and 2010 the SWP had a close working
relationship with Gilad
Atzmon, an open anti-Semite who has doubted the veracity of the Holocaust.
In
June 2005 Jews Against Zionism held a picket of an SWP meeting with Atzmon as
the speaker at Bookmarks. You can read the statement we issued after the picket
on Labournet. It is headed The
Socialist Workers Party - Apologists for Racism?
Atzmon has written so much anti-Semitic material it is difficult to know where
to start.
In Guide
to the Sayings of Gilad Atzmon, the anti-Semitic jazzman
I noted that Atzmon subscribed to the world Jewish conspiracy theory, the
kernel of Nazi anti-Semitism, when he wrote
‘we must
begin to take the accusation that the Jewish people are trying to control the
world very seriously.’
Even more disgustingly Atzmon wrote
that
‘‘If the Nazis ran a death factory in Auschwitz-Birkenau, why would
the Jewish prisoners join them at the end of the war?... Why were the Jews
hated? Why did European people stand up against their next-door neighbours? Why
are the Jews hated in the Middle East.’
For over 5 years the SWP worked with Atzmon,
defending him throughout as an Israeli anti-Zionist. Rees and German said
nothing.
Throughout this time I wrote more than a dozen
articles for Weekly Worker attacking the SWP’s links with Atzmon and calling on
them to cut them. For example in February 2008 I wrote Time to say
goodbye, the subtitle of which was ‘Why does the SWP not break its links with
holocaust-denier Gilad Atzmon?’
As
Asa Winstanley, the Associate Editor of Electronic Intifada tweeted,
I was Atzmon's nemesis.
I made it my mission to purge the Palestine Solidarity Campaign of all
traces of his influence. Not because Jews would suffer as a consequence of Atzmon’s
anti-Semitism but because the Palestine solidarity movement would.
Yet
despite this I do not accuse either Rees or German of anti-Semitism. What they
are is political opportunists, who use revolutionary rhetoric to cover up their
reformism and complete lack of socialist principles. Even to the extent of
working with a well-known anti-Semite. What I cannot accept is their innuendo
allegation that I have ever tolerated anti-Semitism.
It
is this opportunism, the desire to have the name of an MP adorn their notepaper
that leads to them being willing to concede to the Zionist anti-Semitism
campaign, to the point where they echo the witchhunters’ accusations. Likewise
their decision to frame their own criticism of Israel not in terms of an
anti-Zionist, settler colonial analysis and anti-apartheid perspective but in
terms which even liberal Zionists could accept.
Tony
Greenstein
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