The Zionist Bookburners Get Hot Under the Collar About My Book and Crowdfunder!

 Jenni Frazer of the Jewish News/Times of Israel Compares Me to Netanyahu no less!

Browsing the Internet I came across a poisonous little article on Jewish News/Times of Israel blog. It was from a Jewish Chronicle ‘journalist’. Two lost Jews with egotistical senses of self and rightness

Frazer was comparing me with Netanyahu no less!  But she made it clear ‘that in criticising Netanyahu I do not question his true and lasting love of Israel. I just question his methodology.’ Phew! That’s alright then. After all I am an ‘an egregious and avid Jewish antisemite’ Frazer then continues:

‘In deepest Brighton, meanwhile, there is moaning from Greenstein, whose Crowdfunder appeal for his book, Zionism during the Holocaust, was abruptly terminated by the web platform after only two days of fundraising, in which £710 was raised towards a potential £6,500. [clearly they must have been monitoring it closely]

I must say that even if Greenstein had not, as an undischarged bankrupt, breached the Crowdfunder guidelines (although this has not been spelled out), the book does honestly just sound dreadful. It is, he boasts, “550 pages and some 190,000 words” long, and in a way I think anyone who is prepared to pay for it to be published ought to be condemned to read it on a weekly basis.

A martyred Greenstein blames “the Zionist bookburners” for the demise of his Crowdfunder appeal, asking: “What is the difference between Joseph Goebbels and the Zionist lobby? Answer: Goebbels burnt books after they were printed. The Zionists try to burn the books before they are printed”. Gosh, how witty. [thank you Jenny – that’s the nearest thing to a compliment!]

But Phoenix Greenstein is determined to rise again, and is now soliciting individual donations “if you want to help defeat the Zionist Censorship Machine”. Anyone who is the least bit tempted ought perhaps to know that disgraced former MP Chris Williamson, who was suspended from Labour over allegations of antisemitism (and then resigned from the party before he was expelled) is an admirer of Greenstein’s and has urged people to donate.’

Ah yes, if Chris Williamson supports my book, then it is undoubtedly anti-Semitic. After all where would a good Zionist be without a dose of McCarthyism.

Meanwhile over on Twitter Stephane Savary, a member of the racist Jewish Labour Movement, in response to a question ‘Did someone complain’ had a one word answer ‘yes’.

Unfortunately or maybe fortunately, for me anyway, the Zionist book burners are nothing if not stupid. When I set up the fundraiser I knew that it would attract Zionist detreitus much like wasps to honey. So when the first contributions came in I immediately contacted all donors telling them that the Crowdfunder was going to be taken down and giving them 3 alternative methods of donating. That way I lost virtually nothing.

In addition when I publicised what had happened lots of people were, quite rightly outraged, at this contempt for free speech and the spinelessness of these commercial organisation who back down immediately. I have just sent a Subject Access Request into Crowdfunder to find out more about the complaints.

I have also sent a letter in response to the article by Jennie Frazer to Jewish News and the Times of Israel. I don’t expect them to publish it because after all Zionists by definition don’t believe in free speech.

However I have quoted from one of the few genuine Zionist heroes of the Holocaust, Hayka Klinger. In my book I tell the story of the desperate attempts of the Zionist movement in Palestine to get the young Zionists to abandon the Polish Jewish masses and get out to Palestine. To their credit they refused to abandon their people.  In other words they fought the Nazis, alongside the anti-Zionist Bund, despite not because of their Zionism.

Meanwhile, if you would like to contribute to the crowdfunder and give a poke in the eye to Frazer and her fellow bookburners the details are below.

I have paid the publishers the initial sum, in addition to paying for the design of a cover (having abandoned the first attempt!) as well as incidentals such as for copyrighted photos etc.

I intend to buy 1,000 paper backs and 100 hardbacks so that if the Zionists do attempt to put pressure on the publisher once they discover their identity it will be to no avail.  I have since had offers from other publishers anyway if the worst comes to the worst although Pluto Press and Verso can hang their heads in shame.

The book is coming along. It has been submitted for typesetting but that may take from 8-12 weeks I am informed and I need to index and go through it one final time, so I ask people to be patient!

Anyway read Frazer’s article.  It really is a treat! 

Tony Greenstein

If you would like to make a donation you can do it by the following means:

1.               You can send me a cheque made out to ‘Brighton and Hove Unemployed Workers Centre at PO Box 173, Brighton BN51 9EZ

2.               You can send a donation to me at Paypal at tonygreenstein111@gmail.com

3.               You can pay by BACS to:

Name of Account:          Brighton and Hove Unemployed Workers Centre (if your bank’s software says it doesn’t recognise the account proceed anyway!)

Account Number:          04094107

Sort Code:                         09-01-50

Reference:                       BOOK (really important!)

editorial@jewishnews.co.uk, info@jewishnews.co.uk

Two lost Jews with egotistical senses of self and rightness

Dear Jewish News and Times of Israel,

I have just had my attention drawn to a blog article Two lost Jews with egotistical senses of self and rightness by Jenni Frazer. Its reference to me as ' an egregious and avid Jewish antisemite’ is defamatory but malicious.

I spent half my life fighting anti-Semites, be they of the National Front and BNP (when the Board of Deputies was telling Jews to ignore them and they'll go away) or people like Gilad Atzmon.

I realise that you are subject to no press regulator, not even the toothless IPSO, and can therefore print whatever you wish, however untrue, without fearing any adverse judgment from an independent body. However I also hope that you retain at least a residual sense of fairness and ethics and that you will accept that natural justice demands a right of reply.

I also realise that in the eyes of the Zionist movement and its propaganda outlets, of which the Jewish News is one, anyone who is an anti-racist and opponent of Zionism and Israeli Apartheid is an 'anti-Semite' thus rendering the term 'anti-Semite' totally meaningless.

I am proud to stand alongside Roger Waters, Hannah Arendt, Desmond Tutu and Emma Watson. 'Anti-Semite' today is a term of abuse that racists hurl at anti-racists.

In her blog Jenni Frazer says of my forthcoming book Zionism During the Holocaust' that it 'does honestly just sound dreadful.'  Since Ms Frazer has not read my manuscript I can't imagine how she can form such an opinion.

I do though understand her fears.  Any honest appraisal of the Zionist record during the Holocaust cannot help but reach the conclusion that their record was dreadful.

However my views are also shared by most honest Zionist historians themselves. For example the late Professor Robert Wistrich of Tel Aviv University, who was an ardent Zionist historian, when referring to criticism of the play Perdition, condemned ‘as unwise’ the attacks on it as anti-Semitic. Wistrich held that  

the entire Jewish leadership of that generation – including the Zionists – failed the test of the times.

 Wistrich conceded that

the major priority of the Zionist movement at the time was indeed building Palestine’

and that the Holocaust took second place. He accepted that

a reasonable case’ can be made that Zionists did not fight anti-Semitism before 1939 ‘with the appropriate vigour’ and further ‘that some Zionists wanted to develop a ‘special relationship’ with the Nazis…. To deny these points… is not only stupid but unnecessary.’ [Wistrich, 'Between Redemption & Perdition: Modern Antisemitism and Jewish Identity, p. 244. Routledge 1990, https://tinyurl.com/y76gdvda]

Even the late Elie Wiesel, himself an Auschwitz survivor, who I assume even Jenni Frazer wouldn't  dare call an anti-Semite, was scathing in his criticism of the Zionist record during the Holocaust, writing that:

''We know that Zionist leader Itzhak Gruenbaum, a future Minister of the Interior in David ben Gurion’s first cabinet, considered creating new settlements more urgent than saving Jews from being sent to Treblinka and Birkenau.' [Review: ‘The Land That Broke Its Promise : The Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holocaust,’ LA Times, 23.5.93]

I realise that 'anti-Semite' is the standard response to anyone who dares to ask questions about for example  Ben Gurion’s response to the Kindertransport scheme that the British agreed to.

If I knew that it would be possible to save all the children in Germany by bringing them over to England, and only half of them by transporting them to Eretz Yisrael, then I would opt for the second alternative. For we must weigh not only the life of these children, but also the history of the People of Israel. [Yoav Gelber, ‘Zionist policy and the Fate of European Jewry,’ Yad Vashem Studies (1939-42) p.199;

However silencing the truth rarely succeeds. Why is this important? Because Zionism has not changed its spots. Today the best friends of Israel are anti-Semites and anti-Semitic regimes, from Donald Trump and Tommy Robinson to Bolsonaro to Hungary’s Viktor Orban.

Between 1976 and 1983 the Argentinian Junta murdered 3,000 Jews, approximately 10% of those who it ‘disappeared’. What was Israel’s response?  To sell the Junta vast quantities of weapons and providing training to the very people murdering Argentina’s Jews. Israel became Argentina’s main arms supplier.

Israel not only refused to even mention the anti-Semitism of this neo-Nazi Junta but the Knesset refused to discuss the situation until a group of MKs, ranging from Yossi Sarid of the left to Geula Cohen on the right petitioned the Supreme Court.  And that debate took place 6 months before the demise of the regime.

I have no doubt that were a similar situation to occur today neither Israel’s behaviour nor the response of the Board of Deputies would be one whit different.  A regime which murdered and tortured Jews would be a semi-fascist regime that would be in the orbit of US imperialism and thus a friend of Israel.

Even as I speak Israel is supplying the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion in the Ukraine with weapons and training.

However my book is balanced. I have dedicated it to the fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto, anti-Zionist and Zionist. But I also point out that the Zionist partisans were instructed from Jerusalem not to take part and instead flee for the real fight in Palestine.

Hayka Klinger was one such person. When she reached Palestine, having escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto, she was scathing about the Zionist record in Europe where two-thirds of the Judenrat were Zionists. She told Histadrut’s Executive Committee that:

precisely because those who stood at the head of most of the communities were Zionists, the psychological effects on most of the Jewish masses vis-à-vis the Zionist idea was devastating, and the hatred towards Zionism grew day by day... One bright day we will need to try these people. It must be said clearly and publicly that many Zionists betrayed [their people]

Dan Porat wrote that

Members of the Zionist movement, Klinger believed, played a disproportionately large role in the leadership of European Jews under the Nazis. According to one postwar survey, two-thirds of such leaders were members of a Zionist party. As a result of their relatively greater numbers, Zionists also carried a greater burden of responsibility for the betrayal of their people, as many of them she suggested, had collaborated with the Nazis. [Dan Porat, Bitter Reckoning: Israel Tries Holocaust Survivors as Nazi Collaborators. https://tinyurl.com/4phxsxxj]

I am therefore asking for a right of reply, knowing full well that Zionism and free speech go together like oil and water.

Regards,

Tony Greenstein