EXCLUSIVE: THE OTHER SIDE OF GERRY GABLE – Praised by the Tory Press & the Morning Star for his ‘Anti-Fascism’ They Omit His Support for Zionism & Israeli Apartheid

The Death of Searchlight’s Gable Represents the Death of Bourgeois Anti-Fascism

Gerry Gable, the Editor of Searchlight Anti-Fascist Magazine from 1981 onwards, died recently. What is remarkable is that all the obituaries, from the Morning Star to The Telegraph and Times were both completely uncritical and almost identical.

According to Andrew Bell, a former Searchlight Editor in the Guardian Gable

was one of the most formidable and persistent figures in the postwar fight against fascism and the extreme right in the UK.

The genocide supporting, anti-Palestinian Jewish Chronicle said that Gable

remained consistent in his efforts to defend democracy and expose the dangers of far-right extremism.’

According to Steve Silver, former Campaigns Officer for the Israeli funded Union of Jewish Students, in the Communist Morning Star, Gable was ‘the most tenacious post-war anti-fascist Britain ever produced’.

The Telegraph described Gable as having ‘waged a 50-year war on British neo-Nazis’.

It is not often that someone can receive almost identical praise from the papers of the Communist Party and the Tory Party. And still they got it wrong. Not a hint of the criticism Gable received found a space in their eulogies. Although one must not speak ill of the dead it is also important to speak the truth.

Perhaps the reason for their praise is that Gable’s work against Britain’s neo-Nazi right not only posed no challenge to the British state but was often carried out in collaboration with it. These tributes tell one side of the story. There is another, darker and murkier side.

Part of the reason is that Gable was a racist not an anti-racist, a Zionist not an anti-Zionist. The real credit for Searchlight’s work during the 1970s when it played a key role in destroying the National Front as a political force should go to Maurice Ludmer, its Editor between 1975 and 1981, and not Gable. Unfortunately Ludmer died an untimely death in 1981 at the age of only 54 leaving Gable to align Searchlight’s political direction with his own.

Maurice Ludmer, unlike Gable, was an anti-imperialist

Whereas Ludmer resigned from the Communist Party because it was not sufficiently devoted to the fight against racism in the working class Gable resigned in 1962 because ‘it had begun to adopt an anti-Israel line’ [Jewish Chronicle 23.10.87]. Gable explained that:

Israel was a democracy and these (Arab) countries were not. I have always supported Israel on those grounds first and foremost because I have always been a Jewish trade unionist.

Therein lies the difference between Ludmer and Gable. According to David Edgar’s obituary for Ludmer

Maurice believed passionately that fascism could not be effectively fought without attacking racism as well; he believed, too, that black workers must play their full part in the struggle against the most extreme and virulent form of racism, the National Front and its allies.

Gable’s lack of socialist politics led to his collaboration with a British state that was racist to the core. This was also why the Anti-Fascist movement lost its trust in him.

Gable’s relationship with the British state and his trading information on neo-Nazis with Special Branch and MI5 in exchange for information on the Left led to a breakdown in relations.

Gable’s Memorandum to London Weekend Television

In 1977 Labour Home Secretary, Merlyn Rees proposed deporting American journalist Mark Hosenball and ex-CIA agent Phil Agee. Agee and Hosenball were targeted because they were exposing CIA activities and the existence of Britain’s electronic intelligence agency, GCHQ, which was then a secret.

From Left to Right - Campbell, Aubrey and Berry

While researching to defend Agee and Hosenball against deportation, Time Out journalists Crispin Aubrey and Duncan Campbell met with John Berry, a former Signals Intelligence employee, a whistleblower, to discuss the operations of GCHQ.

Hosenball and Campbell, had co-written an article for Time Out magazine titled "The Eavesdroppers" which detailed the work of GCHQ. This, along with Agee's work, led to them being deemed threats to national security.

The ABC trial  arose from the government's attempt to silence investigations into its intelligence activities. Aubrey, Berry and Campbell (ABC) were arrested on February 20, 1977, days after the deportation order was finalised, under the Official Secrets Act for collecting and passing on information regarding signals intelligence.

In November 1978 this trial collapsed with token sentences being handed out. During the trial and the campaign that preceded it, the security services had done their best to poison the media via corrupt and tame journalists. One such was Gerry Gable, a researcher with London Weekend Television.

On 2 May 1977, Gable sent a memo to his superiors at LWT regarding Phil Kelly who was active in the campaign to support the ABC defendants. Kelly later became editor of Tribune and an Islington Labour councillor.

The memo confirmed that Gable was working hand in glove with the British and Israeli secret services to smear the campaign to support Hosenball and Agee.

Gable alleged that Kelly had taken part in a PLO terrorist training camp. There was no truth in this allegation but lies came easily to Gable. According to the New Statesman (15.2.80):

The wording of Mr Gable's memo suggests clearly that he was engaged in a 2-way transaction with his security sources... The nature of the official material received and recorded by him suggests that much of it was coloured by phone-tap info and informer reports.  

As Time Out observed, the memo caused those who Gable mentioned, like Hosenball, who had previously considered Gable as a friend, to feel betrayed. (22.2.80)

It is something that people in anti-fascist politics have also experienced.  There is reason to believe that Campbell was also being monitored by Gable.

Brian Gentleman

Nine years later and Gable was up to his old tricks, this time for Channel 4's 20/20 Vision. Gable befriended, and took advantage of, a lonely low-level civil servant in the DTI, Brian Gentleman.  One day Gentleman found himself accused, live on TV, of being a Czech agent.

However the Police refused to prosecute. Gentleman was considered a Walter Mitty character whom Gable had entrapped. The Broadcasting Complaints Commission delivered a stern rebuke. It was also the subject of a question in the House of Commons from Gerald Howarth MP.

The Role of Searchlight

Searchlight Magazine played a crucial role in exposing the National Front in the 70s as a neo-Nazi organisation. Under Ludmer it was an effective weapon for the anti-fascist  movement. In the words of Unmesh Desai, now a right-wing Labour councillor but at the time an anti-fascist activist, ‘Searchlight was our bible’.

Once Ludmer had died Gable took the magazine in an overtly pro-imperialist direction. For years I helped sell the magazine but I stopped doing so when it became overtly pro-Zionist. One particularly absurd front page was the September 1987 issue ‘The New Axis’ featuring Ghadffi, Khomeini, Patrick Harrington and Louis Farrakhan. It was a precursor of George Bush’s ‘evil axis’.

This was followed up by the January 1989 issue ‘The Year of the Mad Dogs’ featuring Ghadaffi again. This fitted in with Reagan’s rhetoric against the Libyan regime. An equally demented graphic on the State of the British Right in January 1989 included Muslim fundamentalists, Black British activists, Arabs a plenty but curiously no mention of Zionist organisations such as the Jewish Defence League.

Searchlight had became a pro-Zionist rag and a mouthpiece for British Intelligence. It is little wonder that the Telegraph, not normally sympathetic to the fight against fascism or racism, gave such an adulatory obituary to Gable.

Anti-Fascist Action (AFA)

It is in his effect on the anti-fascist movement that Gable and Searchlight were most destructive. AFA was formed in February 1985 to take on a resurgence of violent fascism and groups like Blood & Honour, C18 and the British Movement.

Not only was Searchlight trading information with MI5/Special Branch but it was actively trying to split and destabilise the anti-fascist movement. When Zionist Board of Deputies attacked the newly formed Anti-Nazi League [ANL] Ludmer didn’t hold back in  attacking the BOD:

‘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.’  [Searchlight November 1978]

Guardian journalist David Rose, described by Larry O’Hara as a ‘journalistic mouthpiece’ for the Met Police and Searchlight, smeared Class War as a fascist organisation. Allegations were made by Gable that their leadership, in particular Ian Bone, were supporters of the NF, that racism was endemic in CW, that they were police agent-provocateurs on demonstrations and that the NF & CW jointly planned the Stop the City demonstrations targeting Jewish businesses.

CW were never popular on the Left, their paper was often crude politically but no one doubted that they were anti-fascists. They attracted a young, punk periphery. They also appealed to a section of the working class including many miners during the 1984-5 strike. They were the perfect foil for Gable and MI5.  

At its Manchester conference in 1986, AFA narrowly took a decision to suspend CW from membership until an Inquiry looked into Searchlight’s allegations. When the Inquiry asked for evidence 

Searchlight was unable to supply any to support its allegations.

At this, AFA’s second conference I was elected onto AFA’s Executive. When a Commission of Enquiry reported, CW were exonerated but the damage to AFA had been done. The 1986 AGM nearly broke up in turmoil as a result of the allegations.

As the AFA Report into Searchlight Allegations Against Class War concluded:

Despite the leading role of Searchlight magazine in the affair, and despite many approaches to the magazine for evidence, the sum total of material from Searchlight to the enquiry was nil.  We are bemused by Searchlight's role in this affair.

In the course of the inquiry Gable had admitted to monitoring anarchists. For whom he didn't say. He had engaged in the destabilisation of AFA on behalf of the British state and his Special Branch and MI5 friends. None of his obituaries have even mentioned Gabel’s role as an informer for the British state.

See also my article for the Newsletter of Palestine Solidarity Campaign Undermining Anti-Fascists, Defending Zionism. I was heavily involved in the Anti-Fascist movement from the mid-70’s onwards. See my 2012 book on the History of Fighting fascism in Brighton and the South Coast.

Brighton AFA Letter to AFA Groups (24.6.93) and to Gable (16.7.93) and Gable Letter to Greenstein (13.7.93)

On 24 June 1993 I wrote on behalf of Brighton AFA to other AFA groups warning them about Gable and Searchlight. I referred to his targeting of Malcolm Astells, a member of Midlands AFA as a neo-Nazi infiltrator on the basis that:

‘every time he takes charge something goes wrong: either people get arrested or are led away from confronting the nazis on wild-goose chase.’

I referenced similar allegations against Class War and made the point that when false allegations are made against people

the result can only be to sow confusion and suspicion in our ranks. lt is a classic tactic of the secret state, the purpose of which is to destabilise and demoralise its enemies. It also means... that it is that much easier for genuine fascists to infiltrate our ranks.’

My letter stung Gable into sending me a rebuttal on 13 July 1993. Gable disguised his real reason for writing with the pretence that I  owed Searchlight money for copies of Searchlight that he had sent me to distribute. In fact I never heard again of his legal threats.

The rest of his letter was mere bluster, repeating claims that he had supplied evidence to AFA’s CW Inquiry. In the course of his rant, Gable accused me of being a ‘self-hating Jew’. Gable, also resented my comparison to Maurice Ludmer who had always taken the position that the issue of Zionism should not be allowed to divide the anti-fascist movement.

This was a time when some supporter of Israel, such as Miriam Karlin and Professor Geoffrey Alderman, had broken ranks with the Board of Deputies to sponsor the Anti-Nazi League. Today when the Zionists are holding hands with Tommy Robinson and supporting Genocide, such a position is clearly untenable.

In my response three days later I explained that the term ‘self-hater’ has a Nazi lineage. That was what anti-fascist Germans were accused of before going on to make the point that:

I have always found it difficult to oppose racism and fascism in Britain and then turn a blind eye to racism and fascism directed against Palestinians simply because the perpetrators are Jewish. You have no such qualms. Therein lies the reason for your political degeneration.

Black Activists Challenge Searchlight’s Racism

In July 1991, a coalition of black-led anti-racist groups published an OpenLetter in Labour Briefing that publicly criticised Searchlight. Searchlight of course had refused to print the letter.

This letter was driven by a series of long-standing disagreements, culminating in allegations of racist treatment of black anti-racists at an Ilford synagogue meeting. 

At the meeting Black attendees, were banned, searched, and physically intimidated by security guards. Newham Monitoring Group Secretary, Jasbir Singh, reported being subjected to a body search. All this was directed by Gerry Gable.

The letter represented a major public rift between Searchlight and Black anti-racist groups. It led to the formation of the Anti-Racist Alliance in November of that year.

Black activists questioned the magazine's methods and its collaboration with the state. This highlighted a rift between Searchlight and grassroots Black-led groups, such as NMP.

The Briefing letter alleged that Searchlight had fostered a hostile environment for black activists. Whilst Searchlight worked with the Police Black people were suffering from police racism. Searchlight was seen as the right-wing of the movement.

These tensions were exacerbated by the association with Herut, the political party that founded Israel’s Likud party led by Netanyahu. Although the letter said that their main differences were not over the Middle East it was inevitable that Searchlight’s support for Zionism had an effect on relations with Black activists.

The letter’s authors took issue with Searchlight’s approach to racism which emphasised cultural differences rather than seeing economic and political discrimination as being at the heart of state racism, a term that Searchlight barely recognised.

The signatories also took issue with the equation by Searchlight of anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism given that many Black people oppose Zionism because it is an apartheid ideology. Most prominent Black anti-racist groups in Britain signed this letter.

There followed a heated correspondence in Briefing itself. This clearly angered Searchlight which had always taken care not to print critical letters in the Magazine.

When the Campaign Against Racism & Fascism [CARF], which had produced its own separate section in Searchlight from 1979 until 1990 split over political differences such as the magazine’s pro-Israel stance and its prioritisation of anti-Semitism over state racism and its pro-imperialist politics, they sent in a letter explaining why they were parting. Searchlight refused to print it despite CARF having produced a section of the magazine for 11 years. See Powerbase for a timeline of the split.

Searchlight however could not ignore the letter that was printed in Labour Briefing given the support it had in the Labour Movement and from several MPs like Corbyn and McDonnell. Searchlight acolytes had no option but to defend it but Gable stayed silent.

In the September 1991 issue Ray Hill, a former Searchlight mole in the British Movement, who had become Deputy Leader, penned a letter which avoided virtually all the accusations. He did though insult the Black organisations who had signed the letter as ‘three men and a dog’. Daphne Liddell, of the New Communist Party, contributed a more emollient letter.

In the October issue Larry O’Hara, an independent anti-fascist researcher penned an article which I am told made Gerry Gable spit blood. O’Hara rehearsed all the allegations of Searchlight’s links and work for the secret State. O’Hara, although he didn’t always get things right, had been a thorn in Searchlight’s side for years. Gable had become obsessed with him.

In the February 1992 issue Graeme Atkinson, Searchlight’s European Editor, contributed an article but added little that was new, referring to the ‘hoary old 1977 ‘Gable Memorandum’. That was the best he could do because it was difficult to explain Gable’s admission of working for the security services. Graeme accused Briefing of using ‘knife in the back’ tactics in printing O’Hara’s article. Graeme has since broken with Searchlight.

Finally in March 1992 I had a long letter in Briefing responding to Atkinson and also explaining the political problems that anti-racists and anti-fascists now had with Searchlight. The full correspondence can be found here.

Winter 2015 Searchlight Suggests that the Labour Party expel 'Jew hater' Tony Greenstein

Searchlight Support for the Labour Party ‘Anti-Semitism’ Witchhunt

It was not therefore surprising that Searchlight and Gable would lend their support to the ‘anti-Semitism’ witchhunt of socialists and anti-Zionists in the Labour Party. In its Winter 2015 issue there was an item ‘Anti-Semitism’ which asked

‘How is it that nobody appears to have looked into the background of Tony Greenstein, a Brighton antifascist and pro-Palestinian activist’ before going on to call me a ‘Jewish Hater’.

In fact I was suspended in March 2016 and I was the first Jew to be suspended and then expelled from the Labour Party as part of the ‘anti-Semitism’ witchhunt. The article makes it clear that it thoroughly approved of this right-wing attack on socialists and anti-Zionists in the Labour Party. 

Below are links to a number of documents referred to in this blog.

Tony Greenstein

AFA Report into Searchlight Allegations Against Class War

Black activists challenge Searchlight July 91 and here

Gerry Gable Again – Black Flag – the Brian Gentlemen Affair and here

Spy Trial By Television and here

The Eavesdroppers – Duncan Campbell and Mark Hosenball, Time Out  and here

Powerbase Article on Searchlight

Searchlight 'anti-fascist magazine joins forces with Labour’s ‘anti-Semitism’ witchhunt

The Death Agony of Searchlight Anti-Fascist Magazine

Searchlight & the State – Kate Sharpley

Destabilising the Decent People – Duncan Campbell, Bruce Page, Nick Anning

Searchlight Obituary for Gerry Gable

Jewish News Frazer Article

Morning Star Obituary for Gable

Jewish News  Obituary

Gable Memorandum transcript

Our Searchlight Problem – Lobster Magazine

Letter – Tony Greenstein, Brighton AFA to supporters 24 June 1993

Letter – Gerry Gable to Tony Greenstein 13 July 1993

Letter -Tony Greenstein to Gerry Gable 16 July 1993

Obituary -:Gerry Gable (1937-2026), architect of modern British anti-fascism – Andy Bell

Instead of confronting false accusations of anti-Semitism against its President, the National Union of Students have suspended her, appeasing supporters of Israeli apartheid

For over 40 years the Union of Jewish Students, has labelled critics of Israel ‘anti-Semites’ Last year it was Ken Loach today it is Shaima Dallali

The suspension of Shaima Dallali, by the National Union of Students, is a shameful and cowardly response to the attacks on a Black Muslim student leader by the apartheid supporting, Israeli funded Union of Jewish Students.

Faced with an attack on Shaima by the Conservative Government and the political establishment, for example the letter signed by 21 former NUS presidents, NUS simply caved in as Islamaphobic bigots like former Home Secretaries Jack Straw and Charles Clarke sought to oust Shaima.

After the ex-presidents’ letter, a letter in support of Dallali was circulated which called for there to be a simultaneous NUS investigations into Islamophobia and racism, as well as antisemitism. This was ignored.

Instead of setting up an ‘investigation’ into the bogus allegations, NUS should have gone on the offensive and called out the hypocrisy of a government that has demonised asylum seekers and is currently trying to send Black refugees (not white Ukrainians) to Rwanda whilst being concerned about 'antisemitism'.

Former Conservative Education Minister, the corrupt Nadhim Zahawi, warned about allegations of “systemic antisemitism” within NUS, threatening that the government may sever links with them. According to the Guardian Zahawi’s intervention followed ‘concerns raised by the Union of Jewish Students’.

Even more absurdly, James Wharton, Chair of the Office for Students, England’s higher education regulator, also cut off contact with NUS for ‘anti-Semitism’ in the same week as he addressed a political conference in Hungary that attracted far-right and antisemitic speakers. Wharton publicly endorsed the re-election of the openly anti-Semitic Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian prime minister! But then there is ‘anti-Semitism’ and ‘anti-Semitism’. Hatred of Jews is fine.  Hatred of Israel and Zionism isn’t fine.

The pretext for the attack on Shaima was a tweet she made 10 years ago when 17. The comment read “Khaybar Khaybar O Jews … Muhammad’s army will return Gaza”, referencing an assault on Jews 1400 years ago. It is doubtful whether she even understood what this meant. Nonetheless Shaima has apologised for the tweet, saying she is not the same person she was then. That should be the end of it.

But of course for UJS an apology is merely grist to the Zionist mill because their concern is not anti-Semitism but her opposition to the fake IHRA definition of anti-Semitism and Zionism.

As Shaima observed, the Zionist backlash against her election was part of a pattern, first seen with Malia Bouattia, who in 2016 became the first black Muslim woman to become NUS President. Just as with Shaima UJS began a systematic campaign of denigration against someone who was an anti-Zionist. NUS, with all its ‘liberation strands’, has succumbed to an identity politics that equates the identity of privileged white racist Jewish students with that of a refugee like Malia and a Black Muslim Shaima. Shaima wrote:

“Unfortunately, as a black Muslim woman, it is something that I expected because I’ve seen it happen to other black Muslim women when they take up positions in the student union or the NUS, where they are attacked based on their political beliefs or their pro-Palestinian stance.”

She said she had received a lot of Islamaphobic, racist online abuse.

“I’ve had private messages of people calling me a raghead, people telling me to go and kill myself, calling me a Jew hater and an antisemite. That has been difficult to read.

“And so many threats as well – if I continue to do this then things will happen to me. I just try to delete, to block, I try not to let it get to my head. It’s something I receive every day and I’m continuing to receive. It’s affected me mentally and physically. Sometimes I don’t feel safe.”

As a result of the attacks by UJS and others Malia Bouattia also began getting the normal Zionist abuse, including death threats. This is the effect of UJS’s lying allegations. UJS is a threat to the safety of Black and Muslim students not them to Jewish students.

UJS are well aware of the effect that their scurrilous racist campaigns have and yet they never condemn it. Indeed it almost normal for Zionist campaigns like this to engender vile racist attacks. Only tonight in the second episode of Al Jazeera’s The Labour Files, we heard the voice of a Zionist in a phone message for Jenny Manson, Jewish Voice for Labour’s Chair, telling her he wishes that she die in a gas oven. I’ve had the same.  Prick a Zionist and you will find an anti-Semite lurking below.

Malia Bouattia's Response to UJS accusations of 'antisemitism'

During the Zionist campaign against Malia, more than 50 heads of Jewish societies across the country wrote an open letter to her because of her anti-Zionism asking her to clarify her position on antisemitism, including comments in an article where she described the University of Birmingham – with its large Jewish society – as being “something of a Zionist outpost in British higher education”. This is only anti-Semitic if you conflate Zionism and being Jewish. Malia made it clear that:

I celebrate the ability of people and students of all backgrounds to get together and express their backgrounds and faith openly and positively, and will continue to do so

Despite its verbal opposition to ‘anti-Semitism’ UJS has never taken part in anti-fascist campaigns directed against genuine anti-Semites on the far-Right. When I was on the Executive of Anti-Fascist Action, UJS attacked AFA because it was seen as anti-Zionist. In the 70s with the Anti-Nazi League they did exactly the same.

The Board of Deputies was even worse. When the ANL was formed in 1977 the Board launched vehement attacks on it, not the National Front, because of the presence of anti-Zionists in it. Even Searchlight anti-fascist magazine, which under the late Maurice Ludmer was scrupulous in avoiding the question of Zionism, wrote in an editorial

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. [Searchlight 41, November 1978].

Zionism begins where the fight against anti-Semitism ends. Zionism accepts the anti-Semitic argument that Jews don’t belong living among non-Jews.  In 1895, during the Dreyfus Affair, the founder of Political Zionism, Theodor Herzl wrote in his Diaries that

In Paris... I achieved a freer attitude towards anti-Semitism, which I now began to understand historically and to pardon. Above all, I recognise the emptiness and futility of trying to 'combat' anti-Semitism.

The Zionist belief that Jews should ‘return’ to Palestine chimed in with what the anti-Semites demanded. In a speech by Israeli Ambassador Yehuda Avner to Conservative Friends of Israel at the 1983 Tory Party Conference, Zionism was described as a movement of ‘self-repatriation’. [JC 21.10.83] 

Herzl understood this well when he wrote in his Diaries on June 12 1895:

The anti-Semites will become our most dependable friends, the anti-Semitic countries our allies. 

Today it is anti-Semites, from Christian Zionists to Viktor Orban, Tommy Robinson and Steve Bannon who are the most ardent Zionists. As Israeli historian, Yigal Elam wrote:

Zionism did not consider anti-Semitism an abnormal, absurd, perverse or marginal phenomenon. Zionism considered anti-Semitism a fact of nature, a standard constant, the norm in the relationship of the non-Jews to the presence of Jews in their midst… a normal, almost rational reaction of the gentiles to the abnormal, absurd and perverse situation of the Jewish people in the Diaspora. [Zionism and its Scarecrows, Khamsin 6]

UJS has a long history of attacking anti-Zionists as ‘anti-Semitic’. UJS is not a Jewish but a Zionist organisation. It is not open to anti-Zionist Jews nor would they want to be members. Section 2.1.1. of UJS’s constitution commits the organisation to:

Creating meaningful Jewish campus experiences and inspiring Jewish students to make an enduring commitment to their Jewish identity, Israel, and the community. 

When Shaima was elected as NUS President UJS got to work attacking her. In what was a repeat of the playbook tested out during the Corbyn era, UJS spoke of attacks on the Jewish community. And what were these attacks?  Not supporting Israel.

Shaima is just one more victim of UJS’s witchhunting. Victims have included George Johannes of the ANC, Ken Loach, Professor David Miller, Shahd Abusalama of Sheffield Hallam University and Jewish opponents of Zionism, myself included, though most of their recent victims are Black and Palestinian students.

In my blog I described how in 1986 UJS attempted to stop me speaking at the London School of Economics by making false accusations of, yes you’ve guessed it, anti-Semitism! When LSE’s Labour Club investigated the allegations they were found wanting. The Labour Club were then accused of ‘anti-Semitism’ and ‘fascism’!

UJS is affiliated to the World Zionist Organisation. The WZO is a funder and co-ordinator of the settlements in the West Bank. It even has a ‘land theft division’. Of this UJS says nothing. Indeed at no time has UJS ever criticised or condemned Israel for its flagrant breach of Palestinian human rights. Nothing perturbs it, be it torture of children, demolition of Palestine homes, imprisonment without trial. Its only concern is ‘anti-Semitism’, which it defines as opposition to Zionism.

If Jewish students in Britain were subject to a fraction of what Palestinian students face under occupation, including invasions of campuses, beatings, checkpoints and torture, then they would have just cause to complain of anti-Semitism.  As it is we should treat members of UJS for what they are - spoilt White Jewish racists.

Al Jazeera’s documentary ‘The Lobby’ showed Adam Schapira, a candidate for UJS President, openly admitting that UJS was funded by the Israeli Embassy.

From Vetting in Practice

The Experiences of Emma Clyne

Emma become Chair of the Jewish society at SOAS in 2006-7 despite not being a Zionist. Emma described the ‘intense pressure’ from UJS:

Before she became the chair of the SOAS Jewish Society, she had found it was like an Israel Society…. She took over the chair on condition that there was to be a clear distinction between the Jewish Society and the Israel Society. This led to a furious reaction from UJS which told her: “That’s not what the Jewish Society does. You can’t separate Israeli politics from Jewish identity. It is all the same.”

The antagonism reached a peak after she went to the launch of Independent Jewish Voices in 2007 and found the speakers “honest articulate and inspirational.” When she invited some of the speakers [like Sir Geoffrey Bindman QC] to a meeting at SOAS to discuss “the impact of nationalism on Jewish identity” the pressure on her increased, and she was told that UJS and the Israeli Embassy were very concerned about the meeting.

In an article for the Guardian’s Comment is Free [before anti-Zionists were banned] I described what happened next:

According to... Emma Clyne, posters for a meeting the society put on were repeatedly torn down. Ms Clyne told a meeting of Independent Jewish Voices on May 15 that she had to put new ones up every day.

A clue as to the reason for its silence might lie in an article in the Jewish Chronicle of April 27 ("Students in censorship row over IJV debate").

From Vetting in Practice

The then Chair of UJS, Mitch Simmons, stated

‘"It is the view of the UJS that certain views are not acceptable under free speech."

Netanyahu's comments are clearly racist and they describe Israel as it is.   Yet to call it racist is 'antisemitic' according to the IHRA even though it is true!

Imagine if a White South African student group had described certain views opposing Apartheid as ‘not acceptable’. Yet NUS Executive has granted UJS their wishes.  All of course under the guise of  defending poor Jewish students who are too fragile to withstand criticism of their favourite racist state.

In Vetting in Practice I described UJS as

“an organisation whose primary purpose is defence of Israel, right or wrong. It has consistently sought to portray opponents, especially Jewish anti-Zionists, as anti-semites. That is why it receives, according to the Jewish Chronicle (May 11) hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Silencing opponents of Zionism and supporters of the Palestinians is its stock-in-trade. I have personally spoken on most major university campuses in Britain and I cannot remember an occasion when the UJS didn't try to prevent the meeting going ahead.

Ken Loach

Another target of UJS was the veteran left-wing film-maker, Ken Loach. He was invited by his alma mater, St. Peter’s College, Oxford to speak. All hell broke out and UJS was at the centre of this McCarthyist witchhunt.  Loach was accused of ‘anti-Semitism’ although no one seemed able to produce a single statement of his that was anti-Semitic.

UJS does its best to have Ken Loach banned - they failed

Oxford J-Soc tweeted:

“Oxford University Jewish Society is deeply disappointed by the decision of Professor Judith Buchanan, Master of St Peter’s College, to host an event with filmmaker Ken Loach. On numerous occasions, Loach has made remarks that are antisemitic under the IHRA definition,

Calling Israel a racist state, or saying you don’t believe in a Jewish state or comparing Zionism to Nazism is ‘anti-Semitic’ under the IHRA. That’s why the Zionists fought so hard to have it adopted.  The IHRA conflates anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism. Its sole concern is with anti-Zionism not the genuine anti-Semitism of the far-Right.

UJS issued a statement along similar lines:

St Peter’s College, University of Oxford, should not be platforming a person who has repeatedly been accused of and has been an apologist for antisemitism.

Strangely enough neither group quoted what Loach had actually said. For UJS it’s enough to be accused of anti-Semitism to be guilty.  And what does an ‘apologist for anti-Semitism’ mean? Again no quotes.

The President of the Board of Deputies Marie van der Zyl issued a statement telling Professor Judith Buchanan, Master of St Peter’s College that

‘the decision to invite him [Loach] to speak at the college [was] ‘entirely unacceptable’ and calling for the event to be cancelled. That an Oxford college would not conduct its due diligence and allow Ken Loach to address students is entirely unacceptable. Higher education institutions have a duty of care to their students

Let us dissect that.  By inviting Ken Loach, an 85 year old man, to address a group of students these poor Jewish snowflakes might suffer irreparable harm!  It’s as if words don’t mean anything to these died-in-the-wool racists.

What was Ken Loach’s real offence? That he produced the play Perdition 35 years ago. The play was a fictional account of the Kasztner trial in Israel which the Zionists never refer to today.

Kasztner was the leader of Hungarian Zionism. The Jerusalem District Court upheld the allegations of collaboration against him. In the words of Judge Benjamin Halevi, Kasztner ‘sold his soul to Satan.’ Although the conviction was overturned  4-1 by the Supreme Court this was patently political and used dubious legal technicalities.

In fact on one charge of collaboration, giving testimony at Nuremberg in support of a Nazi war criminal, Kurt Becher, the allegation of collaboration was upheld by the Supreme Court. The Court didn’t know that Kasztner had also given testimony in support of Eichmann’s deputy, Hermann Krumey and another mass murderer Dieter Wisliceny. Krumey lived out his life in Germany, until Rudolf Vrba gave evidence against him.  Wisliceny was executed by the Czechs. See “Anti-Semitism” accusations used in attempt to prevent Ken Loach speaking at Oxford University

The Kasztner trial is covered in my forthcoming book  Zionism During the Holocaust.  Kasztner made an agreement with Eichmann for 600, increased to 1,684, of the Zionist and Jewish elite escaping deportation in a train out of Hungary. In return  Kasztner suppressed the Auschwitz Protocols, which 2 escapees from Auschwitz, Vrba and Wetzler had written exposing Auschwitz as an extermination camp.

The result was that Hungarian Jewry were kept in the dark as to where they were being ‘resettled’ and were told by Kasztner’s Zionist friends, that they were merely being taken to a safer place in Hungary.

It is to be hoped that after the investigation concludes that NUS will defend its President Shaima Dallali against any further attacks by racists, UJS included.