Jeremy - you've been accused of false 'anti-Semitism' - why do you keep silent when I am suspended for the same 'crime'?
Is John McDonnell the new Stafford Cripps?
And don't support an attack on the Left
John McDonnell advises socialists to trust the Board of Deputies of British Jews - the same Board that opposed Jewish resistance in the 1930's and which urges uncritical support of Israel now
As people will know, I was suspended for making comments, the nature of which were not divulged to me. The reasons for my suspension were however leaked to that Labour supporting papers, The Daily Telegraph and last Saturday and The Times.
I have therefore written an Open Letter to Corbyn asking him to lift my suspension and instead suspend John Stolliday, the Labour apparatchik who was responsible for the leak to the Telegraph.
Morris Beckman of the '45 Group which physically destroyed the Mosleyites after the war. They were ignored by the Board of Deputies
It is also extremely disappointing that the new 'Iron Chancellor' who is trapped in the same pledge to eliminate Britain's fiscal deficit as George Osborne has now conceded, in an interview with the BBC's Andrew Marr, that the issue of anti-Semitism should be left to the Board of Deputies of British Jews. 'I believe that what we should do is take the advice of the British Board of Deputies and our other Jewish friends as well....'
The real anti-Semites who the Board of Deputies ignore - with an Israeli flag in one hand and Hitler salutes on the other
The Board of Deputies of British Jews is a 100% Zionist body, based on synagogue representation but not elected by British Jews, that has consistently depicted support for the Palestinians and opposition to Zionism as anti-Semitism.
The Jewish Peoples Council helped organise the Battle of Cable Street when Moseley was prevented from marching through the Jewish East End by 100,000 people. The Board of Deputies told Jews to ignore them and stay at home
What is just as bad is that when it comes to genuine anti-Semitism the Board of Deputies has always distinguished itself by its cringing and servile attitude. In 1936 it famously opposed the mobilisation of Jews against Oswald Moseley's British Union of Fascists in the Battle of Cable Street in London' East End. It has always been a bourgeois Jewish institution that put the needs of capitalism above those of Jews. The Jewish Peoples Council that organised the opposition to Moseley, stormed the Board of Deputies office in response to their scabbing.
Board of Deputies advice to Jews in the 1930's - Keep Away from the Fascists - Don't Oppose Them - Leave it to the anti-Semitic London Police Force - thousands of Jews ignored them - McDonnell wants us to agree with them
In the 1970's when the fight against the National Front was at its height, the Board of Deputies attacked the Anti-Nazi League, which destroyed the NF as a credible threat, in preference to the fascists. McDonnell's ignorance is inexcusable. Having resiled from his earlier support for Irish Republicanism, McDonnell is now resiling from support for the Palestinians. Going along with false accusations of 'anti-Semitism' only aids those who are genuinely anti-Semitic. When Zionists cry wolf about anti-Semitism, people then begin to have genuine difficulties discerning the real thing. This is what we found when we tried to remove Gilad Atzmon from the Palestine solidarity movement. Time after time I was told, that accusations of anti-Semitism are what Zionists always say. I was even called a Zionist by those who had become so utterly confused.
Letter in Jewish Chronicle concerning the Board of Deputies
Zionism, having never fought anti-Semitism, doesn't care if they aid the real anti-Semites. After all they have demonstrated alongside anti-Semites outside Ahava. The BNP and EDL are open in their support of Israel. Socialists however should be careful to make the distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. It isn't that difficult. Tony Greenstein
Labour
Party membership number: L1435959
Monday, 04 April 2016
To: Jeremy
Corbyn,
Leader of the Labour Party
Dear Jeremy,
As you may be aware, I have been
suspended from membership of the Labour Party on the basis of comments which it
is alleged I have made. I have not been
informed as to the nature of these comments, the allegations pertaining to them
or the identity of the complainant(s).
Despite writing twice to John
Stolliday of the Constitutional/Compliance Unit and both speaking and writing
to the local Regional Organiser, Harry Gregson, I have been refused access to
any details concerning the reasons for my suspension.
You can imagine therefore my
surprise when this information surfaced in Saturday’s Daily Telegraph and
Times, with the Telegraph boasting of having been given access to this
information. From my contact with the
Compliance Unit and Gregson, I am already aware that they have little appreciation
or understanding of the meaning of natural justice.
The behaviour of the Compliance
Unit in leaking information concerning my suspension, when I have been refused
access to the same information, is both outrageous and unfair. I have written to Stolliday to say that in my
opinion he should be suspended forthwith for gross misconduct pending an
inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the leaking of this information. I attach a copy of my letter.
The allegations of anti-Semitism which
have been made against me are, to put it bluntly, crap. They are little from the allegations of
anti-Semitism which were made against you over the summer. Having known me for over 30 years and having both
spoken on the same platform on numerous occasions, I am sure you will confirm
that I am an anti-Zionist and supporter of the Palestinians, not an anti-Semite.
Support for the
Palestinians and opposition to Zionism are not the same as anti-Semitism. I would have hoped that both you and John
McDonnell would have made that distinction when similar allegations were made
against Oxford University Labour Club for having supported Israel Apartheid
Week. Anti-Zionism is about opposition
to the political movement that formed the State of Israel, a state which is
Jewish only in so far as Jews have privileges over non-Jews. Anti-Semitism is about hatred of,
discrimination and violence against and conspiracy theories about Jews as Jews.
The reason that your Zionist
detractors will never be satisfied with your assurances that you do not
tolerate anti-Semitism in the Labour Party is because you are speaking a
different language. Their definition of
anti-Semitism is not that which is commonly understood. The Zionist definition of anti-Semitism,
which is sometimes called 'new anti-Semitism' is about opposition to the racist
Israeli state, its policies and practices. That is why no amount of appeasement of
Zionist groups will have the slightest effect.
Indeed it is quite possible to be
both anti-Semitic in the racist sense and pro-Zionist. One of your main accusers, the editor of the
Jewish Chronicle, Stephen Pollard, whilst attacking you as anti-Semitic was more
than happy to describe Michal Kaminiski, the anti-Semitic MEP for Poland’s Law
& Justice Party, as ‘one of the greatest friends to the Jews’ Guardian 9
October 2009 http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/oct/09/michal-kaminski-antisemitism. The BNP and English Defence
League are both pro-Zionist and holocaust deniers.
I am writing to you in order that
action will be taken over this leak of information, which I believe has also happened
in other cases. The Compliance Unit should be immediately disbanded and
Stolliday should be relieved of his position - either for incompetence or
malevolence. The purpose of leaking this information isn’t simply to
prejudice my position but to weak your own position as Leader of the Party
The choice of the Daily Telegraph
as the newspaper to leak to speaks volumes. I trust that all those years
of making speeches condemning witch-hunts and defending the Palestinians won't
disappear into a black hole.
In
recent weeks, Netanyahu has stepped up the war against Boycott Divestment and
Sanctions (BDS). There was already a
piece of legislation that made it a civil offence, which the Israeli Supreme
Court ruled was compatible with free speech.
BDS is a strategic threat
Debate in Brighton's local Argus between Tony Greenstein and the Tory MP for Hove Michael Weatherley
Now
Netanyahu has gone one further and branded BDS a ‘strategic threat’ alongside
Iran’s nuclear weapons, Hamas and no doubt a few of Israel’s other enemies. How genuine is this or is it another example
of Netanyahu’s need for another ‘existentialist’ enemy?
Egyptian boy displays poster
There
is no doubt, as Omar Barghouti says, that on one level it is absurd to equate a
peaceful tactic of protest with the alleged Iran threat. But on the other hand there is some substance
to Zionist fears.
Brighton picket of the Sodastream shop
The
movement for BDS has, in 10 years, come a long way. What began in Britain with a narrow vote by
the Association of University Teachers to boycott 6 Israeli universities over
their complicity with the Occupation has mushroomed. Virtually every trade union in Britain has a
policy in support of BDS.
A racist Israeli who called a Palestinian demonstrator a 'primitive' and a fundamental Christian were the only supporters of Brighton's Sodastream shop
The academic boycott is feared, rightly, by Israeli universities which have been complicit in the Occupation. Only last week it was described as 'an iceberg' with a small part visible but a much larger hidden boycott which manifests itself in not holding conferences in Israel and other examples of non-co-operation with Israeli academia.
Picket of Brighton's Sodastream shop
The
time when the trade unions were a bastion of support for Zionism are long since
gone. It was about 6 years ago that the
then General Secretary of the TUC, Brendan Barber, went from the Trade Union
Friends of Israel to the Trade Union Friends of Palestine to convey the message
that BDS was wrong. I remember heckling
him and asking what he would put in its place.
I got no answer. It was in 2007
and 2008 that I spoke in support of BDS to the Unison National Conference which
voted by about 4-1 to support our motion.
Although
so far the economic impact of BDS has been limited, Veolia has pulled out of
the Jerusalem Light Railway and Orange, according to recent stories, wants to
do the same and G4S has been forced to agree to stop maintaining detention
centres, Israeli trade has largely been unaffected. Europe has made noises but continued to trade
in settlement produce. In the UK we have
forced the Ahava shop in Covent Garden to close and in Brighton the
Ecostream/Sodastream shop to do likewise, despite a vigorous Zionist picket of
far-right Israel supporters and loony fundamental Christians.
Protest in South Africa's Woolworth's shop
But
the Cultural BDS has been far more successful with acts like Gill Scott-Heron,
Elvis Costello, Stevie Wonder and Roger Waters boycotting Israel. The threat of this being extended to sport
via a suspension by FIFA caused great consternation in Israel. Stephen Hawking, who has spoken on 4
occasions in Israel, pulled out of a speaking engagement.
Although
it hasn’t had a massive economic impact, the campaign amongst students and at
academic institutions has had an immense symbolic effect. The vote by the National Union of Students
Executive to support BDS was unprecedented.
It follows campus victories at places like Sussex University. In the USA although no university has
divested, there have been a number of victories on different campuses in secret
ballots.
It
is arguable that until the very end, the Boycott in South Africa was also more politically
than economically damaging. It
undermined the confidence of Apartheid’s supporters and their own faith in
their system. Israeli and Zionist arrogance
knows no bounds, as is the case with most settler-colonial states. Appeals to reason and their good faith fall
on stony ground. It is only through
coercion that they can be forced to pull back.
The 67 year old Occupation has an Israeli wide consensus. The
2-State solution, which was never a feasible option, since it didn’t deal with
the core racism of Zionism, is now officially acknowledged as dead in the
water. That means that Israel faces the
Apartheid scenario – it can accept that the Palestinians of the Occupied
Territories are entitled to full
democratic rights, in which case a Jewish state is no more, or it can
prioritise a Jewish state above everything else in which case Israel is an
Apartheid state. Although not saying so,
Israel has already made this decision and it has chosen the latter option.
What
worries Israel more than anything else is that losing the argument on campuses,
especially in the US, means losing the argument amongst tomorrow’s opinion
makers. Israel’s alliance with the USA
relies on it being a strategic military ally.
In this it is correct and it will take a lot to shift the US from such a
position. But if there were to be a
revolutionary upsurge in the Middle East, with the Saudi and Egyptian regimes toppled, along with the client
Gulf states, then Israel’s role might be perceived as very different.
Eighteen
months ago Norman Finkelstein foolishly
described BDS as a cult. It is clear
that he regrets these remarks now and has fallen into line. At that time he had, as he made clear in a
talk given to a packed audience at the Institute of Education, illusions that
John Kerry was going to be able to achieve a 2-State solution and he certainly
did his best. However the best efforts
of the Obama administration foundered on the rocky shores of Israeli intransigence. Today no one has such an illusion. BDS is the only game in town.
It
is noticeable that the softer non/anti-Zionist groups like Jews 4 Justice for Palestinians
and Jewish Voices for Peace in America have also come out in favour of
BDS. As Netanyahu’s reaction has shown,
the only thing that worries these racists is a movement which does indeed
challenge the legitimacy of the Israeli state.
We should not be afraid of saying that the Israeli state is indeed
illegitimate. It is founded on the
dispossession of the Palestinians, it is thoroughly racist to the core, it is
willing to engage in limitless violence and should, like the equivalent
Apartheid state in South Africa disappear into the mists of time. That is not the same thing as saying that Israeli
Jews don’t have the right to live in Palestine – clearly they do. But they don’t have the right to do so as
oppressors.
Despite
the undoubted bombast and hysteria of Netanyahu’s campaign against BDS we should
welcome the fact that we have at last found a tactic that has the potential to
challenge the core racism of the Israeli state.
Netanyahu and Israeli government turn up heat on BDS
over its calls for Israel to be boycotted for its occupation of Palestinian
territories
Members of the Israeli government - including prime
minister Binyamin Netanyahu – have turned on the BDS, using language usually
reserved for Hamas or Iran’s nuclear programme. Photograph: EPA
Israel and key international
supporters have sharply ratcheted up their campaign against the Palestinian-led
Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, with senior Israeli officials
declaring it a strategic threat.
Palestine Solidarity Campaign picket of Sodastream
Using language the Israeli government usually reserves
for the likes of Hamas or Iran’s nuclear programme, senior figures – including
the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and a key
backer in the US, casino magnate Sheldon Adelson – have turned on the movement,
which is prominent on university campuses and among international trade unions.
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin with Heads of Israeli Universities
The moves came as the UK’s National Union of Students (NUS) voted on
Tuesday to formally ally itself with the aims of BDS. Following the
vote, Hebrew media reported that Israeli MPs were due to hold a special session
in the Knesset to discuss the issue.
The non-violent grassroots movement, founded
with the support of dozens of Palestinian organisations, is modelled
on South African anti-apartheid campaigns and calls for an end to the
occupation, equality for Palestinian citizens of Israel, and a resolution for
Palestinian refugees of 1948.
Israeli critics point to the call for a right to return
and the opposition of some leaders of the movement to a two-state solution –
which they describe as a mistake – as evidence that BDS is antisemitic.
After years in which Israeli officials and commentators
have loftily dismissed the impact of BDS – which seeks to persuade businesses,
artists, governments and academic institutions to boycott Israel over its long
occupation of the Palestinian territories – Israel’s new rightwing government has in
recent days singled out the movement for criticism.
Roger Waters of Pink Floyd has been an important advocate of musicians boycotting Israel
The issue appears to have been given added impetus since
Palestinian efforts to have Israel suspended from the scandal-ridden world
football organisation Fifa failed on Friday.
An empty Sodastream shop in Brighton - no one but Zionists wanted to shop in it
Comments by senior Israeli politicians over the last
week have been amplified in the Hebrew media by sympathetic commentary by columnists.
Among those who have allied themselves with the latest efforts are the mass
circulation Israeli paper Yedioth Ahoronoth – which earlier this week allied
itself on its front page with “Fighting the boycott” – and its rightwing
columnist Ben-Dror Yemeni, who has echoed
the comments of officials.
Giving the red card to Israeli football at FIFA
“The success of BDS,” Yemini wrote earlier this week,
“is particularly impressive because it is a movement that uses the language of rights,
but deals in practice with denying Israel’s right to exist. The result is a
major deception.”
The latest rhetoric has coincided with growing evidence
of pro-Israeli activism over BDS, not least in the US. Last week, a new website
emerged whose aim was to identify US college students active in the BDS
movement with the explicit aim of identifying then to
future possible employers. It was not clear who was behind the site.
On Sunday, Netanyahu explicitly attempted to link
boycott movements to historic “anti-semitism”, echoing remarks that Netanyahu
made in his keynote address to the US pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC last year,
when he described BDS as being on the “wrong side of the moral divide” while
predicting that the “movement will fail”.
Website targets pro-Palestinian students in
effort to harm job prospects
The latest rhetoric was immediately condemned by
Barghouti, who dismissed the recent moves as a “panic-driven, racist and
patently propagandistic Israeli attack on the movement”.
He told the Guardian: “Placing a non-violent human
rights movement that seeks freedom, justice and equality on par with the
so-called Iranian ‘nuclear capacity’ as a ‘first-rate strategic threat’ – as
Israeli president Reuven Rivlin announced a few days ago or as the new minister
of strategic affairs and public security in the far-right Israeli government
Gilad Erdan tweeted on his first day on the job – reflects Israel’s failure in
hindering the fast growth of BDS.
“It also betrays
Israel’s inherent inability to face such popular, anti-racist, human
rights-based and nonviolent challenges to its regime of oppression.”
Israeli officials told the Guardian that the focus on
BDS was not an acknowledgement of its success but rather the reaffirmation of a
principal of “moral outrage” both over the recent move by the NUS and by
efforts to have Israel suspended from Fifa.
That, however, has led to accusations from critics that
Israel is deliberately conflating the BDS movement with separate Palestinian
efforts to hold Israel accountable for the occupation.
Facing growing warnings of international isolation in
the absence of a peace process with the Palestinians and amid continued
settlement building in the occupied territories, the latest moves appear
designed to conflate BDS with separate initiatives by Palestinian diplomats to
internationalise support for the end to occupation and for the creation of a
Palestinian state in global forums.
One Palestinian official familiar with efforts on the
international stage said he believed the latest effort was aimed not only at
BDS but at the wider Palestinian effort to promote its case in the
international criminal Court, the UN and Fifa.
“They are trying to combine all the efforts to hold
Israel accountable into creating a monster that is not there yet,” the official
said. “If ask the Palestinian leadership, some love BDS as a movement, others
hate it. I think what Netanyahu is trying to do is create an idea that even if
you believe Palestinian moves in international forums are legitimate, they are
undermined because BDS – in the Israelis argument - seeks to ’destroy state of
Israel’.”
The fact that its BDS leaders object to Israel’s very existence doesn’t
negate the direct contribution of Israeli actions to the movement’s recent
surge.
A BDS demonstration in Melbourne, Australia, 2010.Photo by Mohammed
Ouda/Wikimedia Commons
Benjamin Netanyahu with Sheldon Adelson, left Photo by Eyal Warshavsky / BauBau
The international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement has
just scored a tremendous victory.
When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issues a manifest in Jerusalem
against the delegitimization of Israel and calls for a “wide front” to combat
boycott, and then, within 24 hours, Sheldon Adelson convenes an emergency
summit in Las Vegas to fight BDS on university campuses - as Nathan Guttman
revealed in the Forward on Monday - BDSers can smugly tell themselves that
they’ve finally made it. From a nuisance, perhaps even a danger, they have been
elevated the status of existential threat, on a par, almost, with Iran and
Hezbollah.
In Israel, the sudden upsurge of public alarm and media hype is
connected, no doubt, to the near-death experience that Israelis went through on
Friday as FIFA came perilously close to expelling them from international
soccer. In Israeli political parlance, it also represents a certain switching
of roles: Hitherto it was the left who was cast as Cassandra, issuing repeated
warnings of impending condemnations and boycotts in the international arena,
which the right shrugged off as no more than transparent political
scaremongering. In a 2014 Peace Index poll published by the Guttman Center, 71%
of left-leaning Israelis described boycott as a clear and present danger,
compared with only 42% of those on the right. Now – perhaps in preparation for
the post-Iran-nuclear-agreement era - it is the right that looks to turn BDS
into a new rallying cry that proves that the whole world is against us, while
the left will inevitably claim that this is a cynical ploy aimed at diverting
attention from right-wing policies that are the root cause of Israel’s dismal
situation in the first place.
In the United States, at least, the boycott movement has yet to register
even one major achievement, outside of co-ops or supermarkets here and there,
where the short-lived boycotts were mainly symbolic anyway. Student bodies in
29 universities have voted on divestment from Israel, with some measure of
success for BDS, especially in California: not one academic institution,
however, has decided or is even weighing to adhere to these decisions. Some
states, such as Indiana, Illinois and Tennessee, have already adopted
anti-boycott legislation, with several others expected to follow suit.
What is troubling for many Jewish Americans, especially parents to
students, is the increasingly virulent debate on camps, which, in some cases,
has deteriorated from criticism to loathing, from anti-Israeli sentiments in
particular to anti-Semitism sentiments in general. Jewish students have also
expressed apprehension about the hostility of lecturers, whose academic unions
are increasingly preoccupied with arguments for and against boycotts. But
contrary to the functionaries for whom this battle is also a livelihood, most
parents don’t care so much about Israel winning or Palestine losing: they just
want their kids to be left in peace so they can finish their degree.
There is no denying that the BDS movement is picking up steam. And
Netanyahu is right in saying that those running BDS don’t object to Israel’s
deeds but to its very existence. But his claim that Israeli actions and
policies don’t nourish the boycotters, don’t facilitate its enlistment of new
recruits and don’t make the defense of Israel that much harder is both
disingenuous and childish. Regardless of background and cause, it’s hard to
claim with a straight face that the cessation of the peace process, the death
and destruction in Gaza, the campaign against African migrant workers, the Tel
Aviv riots of Ethiopians, Netanyahu’s speech in Congress, and, perhaps, most
injurious of all, his miserable appeal against Israeli Arabs on Election Day –
that all these haven’t provided highly combustible gasoline to BDS propaganda
in the past year alone.
And this, before we have mentioned the occupation, which will soon mark
its 50th anniversary. Israelis and Americans have learned to conveniently
repress awareness of the ongoing denial of political rights from the
Palestinians or to view it as a force majeure. They can no longer fathom its
malignant influence on young and impressionable hearts and minds that are
looking at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from afar.
That does not negate the right or the duty of the government and its
supporters abroad to fight BDS before it becomes a real danger – the question
is what is the best way to go about it. The emergence of a controversial
figure such as Adelson on the front lines, for example, cannot but paint the
summit he is convening as a right-wing, conservative even Republican effort,
even if other partisan figures, such as the pro-Democrat Haim Saban, are
involved. According to report last week by Rosie Gray in Buzzfeed, Adelson and
his wife Miriam are looking to appoint their favorite Rabbi Shmuley Boteach to
lead legions of boycott-fighting students tentatively known as “Campus
Maccabees”.
Adelson’s generous funding could ensure that such a group would be able
to organize impressively massive events – like the one put on by the
Adelson-funded Israeli American Council (IAC) in honor of Israeli Independence
Day in New York on Sunday – but it would equally also deter moderate students
from joining the cause. In several campuses, BDS campaigns have been beaten
back only with the help of students identified with J Street U, whose parent
group is ostracized and shunned by most of those identified with, or dependent
on, Adelson.
In a May 29 article in JTA, Anti-Defamation League National Director Abe
Foxman warned against quick fix solutions. “This fantasy of a magic wand will
sap the energy from what is truly needed: a comprehensive approach”. Foxman
says the American Jewish community should “reward universities and institutions
who stand up to the boycott” and work to deepen the trade, cultural and
scientific ties between Israel and academic and other institutions. Foxman
makes no mention of the fact that the Israeli government could take steps that
could dramatically impact the fortunes of BDS, either because he doesn’t think
this is the case, because he doesn’t think it is his role to say so, or because
he is biding his time until the end of his 28-year stewardship of the ADL in
July.
In the Jewish Chronicle’s Orwellian World a Peaceful Demonstration is ‘Anti-Semitic Mob Rule’!
Stephen Pollard, Editor of the Jewish Chronicle learnt his trade at the feet of the most unscrupulous and malevolent of all newspaper proprietors, Richard Desmond, when he was Editor of the Daily Expressgave Pollard his first journalistic break. Pollard is an unabashed free marketer and holds the view that, in the "battle to save western civilisation", the "Left, in any recognisable form, is now the enemy".
Editor of the Jewish Chronicle - Pollard sees the Left as the main enemy and is a neo-con member of the Henry Jackson society
As Tim Walker of the Daily Telegraph of 15.10.11 noted ‘The tycoon, who once goose-stepped around a boardroom and accused all Germans of being Nazis during a meeting with executives of The Daily Telegraph, was criticised at the Leveson inquiry.’ Desmond owned ‘adult’ TV channels Television X, Red Hot TV and others and a host of porn magazines such as Asian Babes and Big Ones. None of which stopped him funding New Labour under Blair!
Mob rule in Brighton (1)
Mob rule in Brighton (2)
Mob rule in Brighton (3)
Mob rule in Brighton (4)
Mob rule in Brighton (5)
Sodastream Brighton Is Already Damaged Goods – No one Wants to Buy Stolen Goods
I tried a small experiment today. I went back to Sodastream shop and took some pictures, about an hour after the last demonstrator had left. According to Simon Cobbs, the EDL supporting Zionist who organises the counter-demonstration, ‘Dr Lucas rejected claims that if the protests did not move from directly outside EcoStream, the store would close.’
Not a shopper in sight
Of course to Cobb and the Zionists the fact that a demonstration is successful in persuading people not to shop somewhere is evidence that they are being intimidated and the protest should be banned. Protests, after all, should only be allowed when they have no hope of persuading anyone of anything!
Simon Cobbs - the overweight Zionist who likes to assault people from behind - a thorough reactionary who when not shouting 'Jews Out' is complaining about people on benefits. On the Zionists' EDL wing.
I was, therefore, curious to see what trade was like when we were not there. Perhaps Cobb was right. After all, even a stopped clock, and Cobb is somewhat repetitious, is right twice a day. I went expecting to see a few customers. Surely curiosity, if nothing more, would lead to people go in to see what the fuss is about. Maybe some people are nervous and shy and steer clear of demonstrations altogether. But that can't be true when we aren't even there. I certainly expected that the shop would be busier than during the demonstrations, when the only custom seems to be from the demonstrators opposite.
Richard Desmond - Britain's largest porn merchant - gave Pollard his big break
I was therefore staggered that during the time that I was outside, filming and observing, for at least 10 minutes, not one person went into the shop. Indeed, if you want peace and quiet in Brighton, probably the best place to go is not the library, which is a hive of activity these days but Sodastream! You can be sure that other readers/visitors won’t interrupt you. Perhaps Sodastream should think of putting big cushions on the floor, getting rid of the counters that no one buys from anyway and instead offer courses on yoga and transcendental meditation. Not only would the demonstrations stop but trade is likely to increase significantly!
Lights a flashing but nobody's a comin' or callin'
The Jewish Chronicle however is playing an entirely different and thoroughly disingenuous game. It is trying to change reality through the use of deliberately false and hyped reporting. The editorial in this week’s Jewish Chronicle is entitled ‘Mob-rule by the sea’. Of course the JC hasn’t bothered to send a reporter, still less interview one of the counter-demonstrators. Today it is no longer, as it once was, a paper of record. Truth is an expedient. The screeching of the JC betrays the mentality of Lord Haw-Haw – mix in a nugget of truth [there is a demonstration, it can’t be denied] together with a bucket load of lies. It is no wonder that circulation has dropped from around 40,000 in 2,000 to around 25,000 today under Pollard's stewardship.
Harvey Garfield goes round photographing people - he dreams of being a secret spy!
I also took the time out to video a representative sample of just how peaceful the demonstration is – people talking, asking questions, quietly waving their flags, running a stall and on the opposite side waving the Israeli flag and butcher's apron. Despite provocations from Jonathan Hoffman’s uglier twin, taxi driver Harvey Garfield, who stuck his camera in peoples’ faces (the Zionists tried that trick at Ahava – fat lot of good it did them) and the Christian woman in blue who is so fascinated with Bondage, Submission & Domination (she thinks that that’s what BDS is about! she comes along every week in hope), usually with a distorted picture of me to attract the punters.
And to enliven proceedings this week a group of about 8 kids – about 12-14 in age – came along to demonstrate and shout in support of the Palestinians. This riled the Zionists even more as they accused us of 'brain washing'!!
I have removed the photograph of a group of children demonstrating in our support as the Zionists have begun trying to target them. No one, however young is it seems safe from the prurient attentions, abuse and false allegations of Simon Cobbs and his freakish 'Christian' friend Jill Young, people who spend most their lives justifying ethnic cleansing and the theft of land.
Sprin
But the JC is determined not to let truth get in the way of its campaign to have the demonstration banned. So the headline this week was ‘Protests turn nasty outside Ecostream’ with a picture showing 2 sets of demonstrators intermingling.In fact, at the shop’s request, the Israeli demonstrators went to the other side of the road as the shouting between the 2 sets of demonstrators was deterring shoppers. Fat lot of good it’s done them as no one wants to be seen buying stolen goods anyway.
Bedraggled Zionist Demonstration
But the real purpose behind the distorted and untrue coverage of the Jewish Chronicle is to provide a basis for an application to the High Court to issue an injunction against the demonstration, on the grounds of fear, intimidation etc. etc. The only problem is that the evidence is against them. Despite accusations of having been spit on and been subject to anti-Semitic abuse, the opposite is true. 3 members of the PSC demonstration have been assaulted, including myself. Simon Cobb grabbed one demonstrator from behind and gripped his neck. Another woman had a megaphone pushed in her face and I was attacked by a mentally ill transvestite who goes by the name ‘Chelsea’.
The only anti-Semitic abuse that there has been has been by the same Simon Cobb who thought it funny to shout ‘Jews Out’. Not that he’s the first or the last Zionist to do so. Since the Palestinian demonstration usually has a number of Jewish people on it the idea that we would demonstrate against Zionist racism whilst indulging in anti-Semitism is wishful thinking. As for spitting, it is strange that there have been no reports of this or abuse. 'Twould seem that the Zionists are once again in the game of invention.
Police Tweet - mentions we're peaceful as usual but nothing about 'mob rule'
If you read Sussex Police's twitter feed than the Police Liason Officer says 'Looking forward to peaceful protest and good communication (as usual)!' Hardly sounds like mob-rule.
The mad Christian Zionist woman in blue protests we are 'brainwashing' kids who turn up to support us!
What there has been is one conviction under the Public Order Act, where a passer-by (not an ‘anti-Israeli activist as the Jewish Chronicle has twice stated) was convicted of making a Nazi salute in the direction of the Zionist demonstration. Apparently someone else was also arrested for this today. It is to be hoped that s/he pleads not guilty because what was almost certainly intended was a form of satire, in other words irony. People see Jewish demonstrators in favour of ethnic cleansing [the Christian fundamentalists on the Zionist demonstration call the Palestinians who are being evicted and having their land stolen ‘occupiers’ - the Jews were there 3,500 years ago!] and people give a Nazi salute as if to say, you of all people should remember the evils of racism.
Bored security guard
Indeed I can remember the 3rd demonstration I attended in my life. It was at Twickenham back in 1970 against the touring South African Springboks. A crowd of thousands outside the ground chanted ‘sieg heil’ the Nazi chant at those attending. Did it mean we were therefore Nazis? Of course not. We were indulging in a form of political irony. Those who demonstrate in favour of racism and ethnic cleansing cannot expect a free pass.
