400 people listen to Norman Finkelstein, Tariq Ali, David Miller,
Jackie Walker, Marc Wadsworth, Tony Greenstein and Chris Williamson
For the
past 5 years the Board of Deputies, the Jewish Leadership Council and other Zionist
groups have intimidated venues and the owners of meeting halls into cancelling
meetings on Zionism and Palestine. Only a brave few, like the Rialto
Theatre in Brighton, have withstood the threats and abuse that those
standing up to these racist freaks bombard them with.
Notoriously
last September Waterstones bookshop cancelled
the book launch of Bad
News for Labour (whose co-author Prof. David Miller was a speaker
tonight) because of the threats and abuse they received – all in the name of
fighting ‘anti-Semitism’. The CEO of Waterstones, James Daunt later admitted
that Waterstone’s decision had been wrong and that customers had reacted
strongly against the decision.
 |
| Anthony Silkoff - the Board of Deputies Censorship Officer |
The Board
of Deputies even had a full time worker, Anthony Silkoff,
doing little else but attempt to close down free speech on Israel and
Palestine. It was called ‘interfaith’ work.
Last year
in Brighton the MP for Hove, Peter Kyle and a host of Zionist trolls abused
and threatened 3 venues – the Brighthelm
Centre, the Holiday
Inn and the Quaker
Friends Centre – into cancelling a meeting with Chris Williamson. In the
end we were forced to hold an open air meeting with Chris in Brighton’s Regency
Square where over 200 people turned up.
 |
| The Board of Deputies Tweet Attacking the Rialto - everything they attack is 'hate' - yet these opponents of 'hate' tweeted in support of Israeli snipers killing unarmed demonstrators in Gaza - nothing hateful there! |
So the
Zionists must be gnashing their teeth in fury as meetings double and triple the
size of our normal meetings on Palestine and Zionism are being held with almost
monotonous regularity featuring international speakers like Norman
Finkelstein.
All of the
Zionist efforts to close down free speech were in aid of the fight against
‘anti-Semitism’ of course. Naturally
their targets were on the Left not the Far Right. So eat your heart our Zios!
The
COVID-19 crisis has at least had one good side-effect. People have turned to Zoom in the absence of
physical venues and meetings and far more people have tuned into listen to our
ideas.
I won’t
even attempt to summarise last night’s meeting, but everyone who went said that
it was excellent. It was ably Chaired by
Tina Werkmann of the Labour Left Alliance/ Labour Against the Witchhunt and it
featured 7 speakers in all. Ken
Livingstone was forced to pull out for medical reasons but we hope to feature
him in a future meeting.
Tina has
slightly edited the video but we hope that if you didn’t attend last night that
you will take the time to watch it. Norman Finkelstein was his normal
controversial self and there was a vigorous debate between the panellists.
Unlike Zionist meetings we do debate and aren’t afraid of the free exchange of
ideas.
We were
also not opposed to Zionists attending and maybe learning something but when
Luke Stanger, a troll who is currently
suspended from the Labour Party for harassment of women and calling Gypsies
and Travellers ‘a nasty blight on society’
began abusing everyone as ‘anti-Semites’ he was removed.
Petition
We are also
sponsoring a petition for Labour Party members to sign saying
that they will not abide by the Board
of Deputies’s 10 Commandments, the 5th of which is that
‘Thou shalt not speak on the
same platform as anyone who has been expelled or suspended as part of the
‘anti-Semitism’ witchhunt. Those
disobeying the Zionist gods will be suspended forthwith from the Labour Party.’
All those
who believe in freedom of speech on Israel and Palestine and who reject the
idea that we should not criticise Israeli Apartheid should sign. Starmer’s support
for censorship on the question of Palestine, all in the name of combating ‘anti-Semitism’
stands in stark contrast to his refusal
to discipline and remove from the Shadow Cabinet Rachel Reeves, a Labour MP who
tweeted praising Nancy Astor, an MP who openly supported Hitler’s persecution
of the Jews, whom she called ‘killers
of christ’. It seems that the
only form of anti-Semitism that Keir Starmer has nothing to say about is the kind
that consists of hostility to or hatred of Jews. Strange that!
Tony
Greenstein
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please submit your comments below