Open Letter to John McDonnell – Don’t Condone the Race Baiters of the Jewish Labour Movement

Sign Petition Calling on John McDonnell and other anti-racists to Withdraw from Jewish Labour Movement Rally on Sunday

The Jewish Labour Movement's liar-in-chief Jeremy Newmark has led the racist witch hunt of Jackie Walker

Jackie Walker has been under non-stop attack from the scum of the JLM and assorted Zionists who twisted what she had said to fit their narrative

one of a non-stop series of abusive and racist tweets - some of these people are LP and JLM members

This is one of a number of racist tweets asserting that Jackie isn't Jewish - and why? - because she's Black of course

Jewish Labour Movement adds fuel to the racist fire then stands back for its Zionist friends to hurl abuse at Jackie Walker

 

Zios don't object to making comparisons with the Nazis and the Holocaust when they do it

Employment Tribunal decision declaring that Newmark was a liar - the wonder is that some fools still believe him

This Zio idiot is firm in the belief that only Jewish racists get to decide what is anti-Semitic

A fake Momentum account associates the fascist Mitford sisters with Momentum - they might ask themselves why Zionist historians like Lucy Dawidowicz explain why the Zionists were the Nazis favourite Jews

Yet another racist and abusive tweet directed at Jackie Walker

Jackie Walker is the Vice-Chair of Momentum.  She has been subjected to an unprecedented series of vicious, vitriolic and racist tweets and abuse by Zionist supporters.  Her offence?  Alleging that the Jews financed the slave trade.  As crude as that.  As the image I’m posting of her discussion show, she was taking part in a private conversation with friends.  It was a complicated discussion about the fact that the Holocaust was not simply the property of Jews (or Zionist hasbara campaigns) but that Black people too suffered a holocaust, known as the slave trade.

The campaign of incitement against Jackie has been instigated by Jeremy Newmark and the so-called Jewish Labour Movement.  It has been a campaign unprecedented in its nastiness.  Her offence in their eyes is that, unlike Naz Shah, she hasn’t shown ‘contrition’ – she hasn’t accepted that she is guilty of the lies levelled against her. 

The whole affair is proof that once a lie gains circulation it is difficult to put it to bed.  Even the liberal Israeli daily Ha’aretz penned a nasty lying article Blame the Jews for the Slave Trade: Labour's Latest anti-Semitic Slander

The original private FB discussion - nowhere does Jackie say that 'the Jews financed the slave trade'

It is a campaign which bases itself on the racist trope that because Jackie is Black, she cannot be Jewish.  This is a common belief in Israel and amongst the Orthodox.  In Israel many people deny that the Falashas, Jews from Ethiopia, are really Jewish. [see Israel detains and deports American Jews because they are Black].  When they first came to Israel in the 1990’s the Chief Rabbinate forced the men to undergo new circumcisions because they were not accepted as Jews.  This never of course happened to white caucasian Jews from Russia, many of whom were Christians, because the Russians were held to be of the right racial stock.

This particular Zionist is quite sure that Jackie Walker isn't Jewish?  How can he be so sure?  Because to most Zionists their favourite word to describe anyone Black is Schvartze (nigger) see No More Jewish N-Word

It is ironic that the main hate figure for the JLM is a woman who just happens to be Black.  Although the JLM dearly wishes to see me expelled, I have not been made into a hate figure in the same way because I am White.  It would not do to attack me in the way Jackie has been pilloried, despite the fact that I have made it clear that I back up and support Ken Livingstone’s thesis that the Zionist movement collaborated with the Nazis during the Holocaust.  I am the child of an Orthodox Jewish Rabbi and being White I am kosher.  I have also restated Jackie’s thesis that there was considerable Jewish involvement in financing the slave trade.  That is a fact.  Jews were not the only people, there were Quakers, Methodists and of course the Church of England which ran its own plantation in Barbados, Codrington.  But that theerw as Jewish involvement there is no doubt.  One of the world experts in the Slave Trade (which I studied for my MA in Colonial History) is Seymour Drescher.  I disagree with his thesis in his book Econocide about why the slave trade was abolished by Britain, but nonetheless he is undoubtedly right when he says that at one particular time, Jews controlled 17% of the Dutch slave trade.  That to me is a pretty important figure. [see the Jewish Journal How culpable were Dutch Jews in the slave trade?]

Jackie Walker speaking in Brighton alongside John McDonnell

Jackie’s misfortune is that she is Black and that is why she has attracted quite phenomenal and unprecedented levels of abuse.

John McDonnell has been called upon by Newmark to explain why he has spoken on the same platform with Jackie.  We say he has no need to explain himself to a bunch of Zionists and racists and he should pull out immediately.  So should Clive Lewis, the Shadow Defence Minister who is himself Black.  We would also call on Shami Chakrabarti to pull out of this festival of race hate, masquerading as a Rally Against Anti-Semitism and Rhea Wolfson, the newly elected left-wing member of the NEC. 

John McDonnell speaking alongside Jackie Walker in Brighton

The Jewish Labour Movement are not in the slightest interested in fighting the type of anti-Semitism that the fascist and far-Right indulge in.  Their only concern with ‘anti-Semitism’ is when Israel is on the agenda.  Hence their proposed Rule Change which traduces the MacPherson principle, which speaks about a racial incident being defined by the person reporting it.  The Jewish Labour Movement, which like all Zionist organisations, has never played a part in anti-racist or anti-fascist work in this country, borrowed from the struggle of Black people over the Stephen Lawrence death and cynically used or misused the findings of the MacPherson Inquiry.

MacPherson doesn’t that there should be no investigation where a racial incident is reported and that an allegation should be taken as fact.  The Jewish Labour Movement would have those subject to allegations of ‘anti-Semitism’ i.e. anti-Semitism automatically condemned as anti-Semites.

As Shami Chakrabarti says in her Inquiry Report:

The principle that an incident should be recorded as "racist" when perceived that way by a victim may indeed have some useful application outside the policing context, and even here in the world of Labour Party discipline. However the purpose of the approach is to ensure that investigators handle a complaint with particular sensitivity towards the victim. It is to suggest the seriousness with which a complaint must be handled, but in no way to determine its outcome. If I complain to the police that I have been the victim of a racist attack on the street, I should expect my complaint to be so recorded. However investigation and due process must of course then follow and it is perfectly possible that an investigator, prosecutor or magistrate will subsequently find either that no attack took place at all, or that its motivation was something other than racism. In the present context, my complaint that I have been subject to racist or other personal abuse by a fellow Party Member should be so recorded, taken seriously and handled sensitively. However it will be for the investigation and any subsequent process to determine whether my complaint was ultimately well-founded.   

The JLM proposes that

 “Where a member is responsible for a hate incident, being defined as something where the victim or anyone else think it was motivated by hostility or prejudice based on disability, race, religion, transgender identity, or sexual orientation, the NEC may have the right to impose the appropriate disciplinary options from the following options:

The idea that if a Zionist accuses a supporter of the Palestinians or an anti-Zionist of ‘anti-Semitism’ that there should be an inquiry is alien to these police state freaks.

The JLM amendment also tries to define anti-Zionism as anti-Semitism.  Its ‘supporting argument and rationale’ states that ‘This rule change would recognise that it is not acceptable to use Zionism as a term of abuse or to substitute the word Zionist for where the word Jew has been commonly used by antisemites, such as alleging Jewish political, financial or media conspiracies and control.’

It is hypocritical because of course it is Zionists who allege that Zionism is an inherent part of being Jewish.  That was the argument that Newmark and friends made in the Fraser v University College Union Employment Tribunal when the Judgment found that he had perjured himself.  As for Zionism being abusive it is like saying that Apartheid should not have been used as a term of abuse!  It is abusive, get over it.

Jeremy Newmark of JLM calls on John McDonnell to explain why he spoke alongside Jackie Walker, a Black anti-racist woman

Below is an appeal to John McDonnell – please sign the petition and say which CLP you are in, if you are in the Labour Party.

To:       mcdonnellj@parliament.uk

Dear John,

Last Monday you spoke at an LRC fringe meeting at TUC Conference in Brighton.  Congratulations  on resisting the pressure not to speak on the same platform as Jackie Walker, who was wrongfully suspended for ‘anti-Semitism’ last May and reinstated shortly after, despite the pressure put upon you.

The charges against Jackie were summed up by the Jewish Chronicle at the time thus:  ‘‘Labour suspends Momentum supporter who claimed Jews caused “an African holocaust”’.  This headline was in the best traditions of Britain’s tabloid press.  Unsurprisingly the JC is edited by a former editor of the Daily Express, Stephen Pollard.

Jackie had in fact been having a private Facebook conversation with two friends, one of whom was an Israeli Zionist.  She was rebutting the assertion that the holocaust of Jews meant that Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel was illegitimate.  In the course of this conversation, which was hacked into by the Israel Advocacy Movement, Jackie stated – in the context of her own African and Jewish ancestry – that Africans too suffered a holocaust, the trafficking of enslaved Africans, and that ‘many Jews (my ancestors too) were the chief financiers of the sugar and slave trade."

Only a particularly warped and dishonest mind could interpret these remarks as saying that the Jews caused an African holocaust.  It does not suggest an exclusive Jewish role in the slave trade, but it is a fact that in certain areas of the world –Surinam, Netherlands and Brazil – Jews played a major part in financing this trade.

In an article How culpable were Dutch Jews in the slave trade? (26.12.13.) in the Jewish Journal, the largest on-line Jewish paper in the USA outside New York, a Dutch Orthodox Rabbi, van de Kamp, stated that “Money was earned by Jewish communities in South America, partly through slavery, and went to Holland, where Jewish bankers handled it.... Non-Jews were also complicit, but so were we. I feel partly complicit.” 

Seymour Drescher, a well-known historian of the slave trade at Pittsburgh University estimated that ‘at one point, Jews controlled about 17 percent of the Caribbean trade in Dutch colonies’.  Jewish involvement in the slave trade has been the subject of considerable academic debate and to pillory someone, who is herself partly Jewish, for discussing this privately is outrageous. 

Jackie Walker has been subject to a continuous stream of racist abuse by Zionists, with the full knowledge and complicity of the Jewish Labour Movement.  The JLM have deliberately race baited Jackie and subjected her to the political equivalent of a lynching.  This is totally unacceptable.  The JLM are affiliated, via the World Labour Zionist Movement, to the World Zionist Organisation, a body which funds and sponsors settlements in the West Bank as well as the demolition of Arab villages inside Israel itself.  It is a thoroughly racist organisation which develops Israel for the ‘Jewish people’ only.

Just this week, the JLM’s Chair, Jeremy Newmark, was quoted in the Jewish Chronicle as saying in respect of you speaking at their meeting that ‘"He must explain his defence of Walker which is inconsistent with his call for zero tolerance. This raises serious questions. Our members expect him to explain himself.”  We say you have nothing to explain.

Amongst the vile tweets Jackie has received have been ones which challenge Jackie Walker’s Jewishness.  It is a common belief in Zionist circles that someone who is Black cannot be Jewish.  Other tweets compare someone who has been a dedicated fighter against the National Front and similar groups to Goebbels and Torquemada.  This abuse only occurs because the JLM and similar Zionist groups have waged an unceasing campaign of vilification against Jackie Walker.

If the JLM were serious in their opposition to racism, then they would call out Isaac Herzog, the leader of their sister party in Israel and ask why he recently stated that ‘ I don’t want 61 Palestinian MKs in Israel’s Knesset. I don’t want a Palestinian prime minister in Israel.’  If someone said they didn’t want a Jewish Prime Minister in Britain who could doubt that this was anti-Semitic? [Who needs the Right when we have Isaac Herzog?]   Ha’aretz, Israel’s sole liberal daily, recently reported Herzog’s  warning that the ILP should not be seen as an ‘Arab lovers party’.  Amid 'Arab-lovers' Storm, Opposition Leader Herzog Defends 'Zionist Approach'  To appreciate the full flavour of this remark one need only recall the use by fascists of the term ‘nigger lover’ or ‘Jew lover’.

In the light of the JLM’s racist witch hunt of Jackie Walker, we are asking you and other socialists to withdraw from their fringe meeting next Sunday at Labour Party Conference.  I attach copies of some of the tweets that Jackie has received.

With best wishes

Open Letter to John Mann MP re Chakrabarti

A Simple Question to the Chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Committee on Anti-Semitism

After reading John Mann MP attack Shami Chakrabarti, who produced a Report on Anti-Semitism and Racism in the Labour Party in June, I thought I’d write him an open letter.  John Mann is the thuggish, boorish loudmouth who all but assaulted Ken Livingstone a few months ago, because Ken had told the simple unvarnished truth about Zionist relations with the Nazis over 80 years ago.

What particularly irked me is the dishonesty of the man.  When Chakrabarti’s report came out there was no one more effusive in its support than John Mann.  My own reaction was much more critical [see Chakrabarti – A Missed Opportunity to Develop an Anti-Racist Policy for Labour]

known as Westminster's rent-a-mouth MP

Despite making many concessions to the Zionists, including the ludicrous decision to brand the word ‘Zio’ as anti-Semitic and seeing nothing wrong in the Labour Party’s appalling tradition of supporting Zionist settler colonialism in Palestine, the Report didn’t give them everything they wanted.  In particular the Report was good in two areas:  it knocked back the deliberate distortion of the conclusions of the MacPherson report that a racial incident should be defined by the victim.  It was never meant to apply to false victims, like Zionists, when they are the perpetrators not the victims and it was specific to institutionalised racism in Police, i.e. where Police refused to initially accept that an incident might be racial.

The other positive recommendations of the Chakrabarti Report was that people like myself who are suspended from the Labour Party are entitled to know the charges against us, who made them  and have all the details as soon as possible.  Also that the decision to suspend should be taken out of the hands of the permanent staff of the Labour Party and placed in the hands of people who are elected.  In other words that the principles of natural justice should prevail.

Unsurprisingly the Zionist lobby didn’t like the idea of natural justice.  After all in Israel if you are a Palestinian you can be locked up without trial for years on end.  In Ireland when Britain introduced internment without trial in 1972 there was uproar.  In Israel it is the norm when you deal with Arabs.  Even dissident Jews get ‘administrative detention’.  In Israel the normal method of interrogating a Palestinian is to use torture.  Naturally the Zionists had difficulty understanding concepts such as knowing the evidence against you as soon as possible!

Ruth Smeeth, the obnoxious Zionist MP for Stoke-on-Trent who faked an 'anti-Semitic' incident at the press conference to launch the Chakrabarti Report: being criticised for working with the Telegraph was 'anti-Semitic'

If my complaint was that Chakrabarti hadn’t come out and said that anti-Zionism was not anti-Semitic the Zionists complained that she should have said anti-Zionism was anti-Semitic!  Thus when the Zionist lobby barked, Mann jumped because he doesn’t want to lose all those conferences and freebies that come with the title of Chairman of the All Parliamentary Committee on anti-Semitism.

Heavy criticism of Mann by an Employment Tribunal

I therefore thought that it might be helpful if I were to write to John and ask him if he could help me understand why he had changed his mind!!

Enjoy.

To:       John Mann john.mann.mp@parliament.uk

                                    @johnmannmp

Dear John Mann,

I am confused by your utterances on the Chakrabarti Report and Shami Chakrabarti herself.  Perhaps you would be so kind as to enlighten me?

In the Daily Mail you are quoted as having not only accused Jeremy Corbyn of 'appalling hypocrisy' for having made Ms Chakrabarti a peer, but you told LBC radio that Ms Chakrabarti had 'sold herself cheaply' for a Lords seat.  You thus implied that she had crafted or changed her report, in the sense of ignoring evidence of for example anti-Semitism, in order that she could do Corbyn’s bidding and exonerate the Labour Party of anti-Semitism. 

If what you say is correct, Ms Chakrabarti did all of this in order that she could obtain a peerage.  What you are really saying is that Chakrabarti prostituted herself in return for a peerage.  In other words she corruptly obtained a peerage.  It is, as you will understand, a pretty serious, if not defamatory allegation.

You will, no doubt, understand that I am somewhat perplexed.  On the Labour List site at the beginning of July you wrote an article, John Mann: The anti-Semitism report gives a route out of this mess which was effusive in its praise of the Chakrabarti report.  You said:

‘I met Shami Chakrabarti as chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group Against Antisemitism… to suggest some key issues I believed required address. I am delighted that every single one of the proposals I made is included in her report.’

On the 30^th June in JewishNewsonline, an article ‘From ‘hugely significant’ to ‘vague’: mixed reactions to Labour anti-Semitism report’ says that

‘The report was lauded by John Mann, chair of the APPG against anti-Semitism and a strong critic of Corbyn, as “hugely significant”. …. “This is now the equivalent of the legal handbook and in there is everything any lawyer needs to take action. … It means there’s a system in place that’s far, far more robust than anything else. The party leader has endorsed it so the national executive committee will endorse it.” 

You are further reported as saying that ‘the report included everything he [i.e. you] had recommended and added: “This will not be pleasant reading for Ken Livingstone.’ 

You understand my dilemma.  On the one hand the Chakrabarti Report contains everything you ever wanted and on the other hand Ms Chakrabarti has sold herself cheaply.  To whom has she sold herself?  You?

The only explanations I have for your comments are the following:

i.       You are a self-publicist who will say anything to gain attention or a quote in the newspaper, what Matthew Norman described as a ‘rent-a-mouth MP’

ii.      You are a loudmouth

iii.     You are an attention seeker

iv.     Your principles are flexible and you are, in your own words, willing to sell yourself to the nearest bidder

v.      That because the Israel/Zionist lobby in this country has changed its mind about the Chakrabarti Report, you have also changed your mind.  Because Chakrabarti’s proposals for a disciplinary process incorporates the principles of natural justice and because this inevitably mean that the anti-Semitism allegations will not stand up, you no longer support it.  

vi.        There is of course another explanation, that of the Employment Tribunal in Fraser v University College Union which held that:

Both [you and Dennis McShane MP] gave glib evidence, appearing supremely confident of the rightness of their positions….  Mr Mann… told us that the leaders of the Respondents were at fault for the way in which they conducted debates but did not enlighten us as to what they were doing wrong or what they should be doing differently. … when it came to anti-Semitism in the context of debate about the Middle East, he announced, “It’s clear to me where the line is …” but unfortunately eschewed the opportunity to locate it for us. Both parliamentarians clearly enjoyed making speeches. Neither seemed at ease with the idea of being required to answer a question not to his liking.

Perhaps you could enlighten me as to which explanation(s) best describes the reason for your recent comments regarding Chakrabarti?

Yours sincerely,

Tony Greenstein 

Baroness Zionist Royall’s Flawed Report on ‘anti-Semitism’ at Oxford University Labour Club

Now we know why the Labour Party failed to publish the Royall Report

Labour's Baroness Royal

Front cover of Royall Report

Background to the Royall Report on anti-Semitism at Oxford University Labour Club

Earlier this year, as a result of the artificial media manufactured story about rampant ‘anti-Semitism’ in the Labour Party and at Oxford University Labour Club in particular, the Labour Party set up an inquiry under Baroness Janet Royall into allegations of ‘anti-Semitism’.

the good Baroness is not quite with it

Royall, was a former adviser to Neil Kinnock and someone always sympathetic to Zionism and Israel, (she went on a Labour Friends of Israel trip to Israel in 2007).  When the Executive Summary of her Report appeared back in May she wrote on the web site of the Jewish Labour Movement:

 ‘I know that you will share my disappointment and frustration that the main headline coming out of my inquiry is that there is no institutional Antisemitism in Oxford University Labour Club.’ 

This was an extremely strange thing for someone who is genuinely concerned about anti-Semitism to say.  Why on earth should anyone be disappointed with the fact that there is no anti-Semitism at OULC unless they were a Zionist who wanted to find anti-Semitism? 

Chalmers made it clear that it wasn't anti-Semitism that was the problem

The Jewish Labour Movement, on whose web site she wrote, is the British wing of the Israeli Labour Party and it is affiliated to the World Zionist Organisation.  The WZO directly funds the establishment of settlements in Palestine and it is one of the main organisations responsible for the apartheid structures of dispossession, discrimination and ethnic cleansing in Israel. As I wrote in May: [Zionist Royalle Finds What She Wanted to Find]

‘the ‘findings’ from Baroness Royall’s ‘investigation’ into anti-Semitism at Oxford University Labour Club were written before she even entered the hallowed portals of Oxford.  It is fitting that they weren’t accompanied by anything as grand as evidence.  Indeed that was the whole purpose of the report.  It is evidence free.’

Chalmer's Linked In profile

Out of her depth

The overriding impression that comes across is that Royall is simply out of her depth.  By her own admission she was ‘daunted’ by the task.  She not only does not understand the differences between Zionism and anti-Semitism or related issues, she also doesn’t seem to understand that one of the purposes of compiling her Report was to investigate whether in fact there was anti-Semitism at OULC.  Instead she proceeds by assertion and takes for granted that which she is supposed to be proving.  

If there is anti-Semitism at OULC then Royall fails to provide the evidence.  Royall retreats into generalities such as ‘there appears to be cultural problem in which behaviour and language that would once have been intolerable is now tolerated.’ Apart from benefiting from a proof reader the Report substitutes vague generalities and sloppy phraseology for concrete actualities and specifics.  

Chalmers was part of the unsuccessful disaffiliation from NUS campaign

The catalyst for the Royall investigation

It should have been a very simple Report to write.  Asa Winstanley investigated the background to the ‘anti-Semitism’ allegations at OULC.  It is clear that they consisted of nothing but reheated versions of the traditional libel that is levelled against opponents of Zionism and Israel's racism.  In his article  How Israel lobby manufactured UK Labour Party’s anti-Semitism crisis, Winstanley revealed that Alex Chalmers, who resigned as co-Chair of Oxford University Labour Club because of ‘anti-Semitism’ had been an intern in the Israel advocacy and propaganda group BICOM.  

In his resignation statement, which Royall makes Appendix 1 to her Report, Chalmers stated that his resignation ‘comes in the light of OULC’s decision at this evening’s general meeting to endorse Israel Apartheid Week.’  What has this to do with anti-Semitism?  Perhaps Royall considers the fact that more Israeli Jews support the expulsion of Arabs than oppose it to be  irrelevant to the question of whether Israel is an Apartheid state.  More likely she is ignorant about this and other matters, but such a belief isn’t anti-Semitic.  Yet Royall is seemingly incapable of making what is quite a simple judgment, viz. that Chalmer’s resignation was a propaganda ploy.

When Royall produced her original findings, Labour’s National Executive Committee agreed that the ‘evidence’ on which it was based would be printed at the same time as the Chakrabarti Report, of which Royall was a Vice-Chair.

When Chakrabarti reported, there was no mention of Royall’s Report or the evidence it apparently contained.  Clearly a decision had been taken that there was so little evidence and so much conjecture, that it would be best forgotten.  However the Jewish Chronicle, like a dog with a bone, decided that it would publish the Report that Royall herself leaked as part of an article Baroness Royall report reveals Oxford Labour students engaged in antisemitism

As I wrote at the time the Executive Summary was published, one of the more ludicrous findings of the Report was that

"Many students reported that should a Jewish student preface a remark 'as a Jew…' they are likely to face ridicule and behaviour that would not be acceptable for someone saying 'as a woman...' or 'as an Afro-Caribbean…' 

Ludicrous because it begs the question, in what role are Jewish students claiming that being Jewish is relevant?  If it is to do with Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians it is a complete irrelevancy.  After all it is agreed by everyone that holding Jews responsible for the actions of Israel is anti-Semitic.  The Zionist authored Working Definition of anti-Semitism defines one of the manifestations of anti-Semitism as ‘Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.’ 

Why then should it be considered relevant if someone claims to be Jewish in the context of a discussion of Israel or Zionism?  Because this is what Royall’s ‘as a Jew’ finding is about?  Unless of course what is really being suggested is that as Israel is a Jewish state, Jews do have a special role, in which case this is another example of Zionists trying to have their racist cake and eat it!

Ironically, at almost exactly the same time as Royall was reporting, David Aaronovitch penned an article ‘Have I got Jews for you!’ in the Jewish Chronicle of 5^th May 2016.  Aaronovitch waxed lyrical about Jews who spoke up as Jews:

‘my online world was invaded by the Asajews…. The "these people" were the Asajews. I heard quite a few of them on Any Answers last week. "As a Jew myself, I want to tell you that…" And there followed something that would say that the contributor believed that Labour had no antisemitism problem and that the real problem was those who kept on going on about antisemitism when what they were truly objecting to was any criticism of the state of Israel…. The Asajews used in this way are just a stage army and their deployment, frankly borders on the disgraceful.’ 

Of course Aaronovitch was complaining about Jews who spoke out as Jews against what Israel was doing in their name.  Royall is complaining about the reaction to Jewish students who use their Jewishness to justify what Israel is doing. 

As Asa Winstanley comprehensively demonstrated in another article, Instigator of anti-Semitism scam kicked out of Labour one of the other instigators of the anti-Semitism allegations at Oxford, former co-Chair David Klemper, was expelled from the Labour Party for having signed the nomination papers of a Lib Dem candidate at the local elections.  Chalmers left the Labour Party soon after his resignation and he too signed the same nomination papers.  On his FB page he demonstrated that he is an extremely reactionary Zionist operative when he displayed a ‘No thanks NUS’ graphic during the ballot as to whether Oxford University Student Union should remain affiliated to  the National Union of Students.  In fact those supporting affiliation to NUS won the ballot by a thousand votes.

A Shoddy Report

By any stretch of the imagination, Royall’s Report is shoddy and insubstantial.  It is no wonder that according to the Jewish Chronicle report, Chalmers was ‘"disappointed" Royall's report had not gone into more detail about the "problem" at the club.’  The problem was there was no details.

Royall begins with a favourite Zionist meme, namely that anti-Semitism was an ‘ancient virus [that]… had infected our Party’ and for good measure she later repeats the comparison as well as quoting Gordon Brown to the effect that ‘Together our renewed efforts can rid the world of this

ancient virus.”  This is an integral part of Zionist ideology.  An early Zionist, Leo Pinsker, the founder of the Lovers of Zion, wrote in his pamphlet ‘Auto Emancipation’ that 

'Judaephobia is then a mental disease, and as a mental disease it is hereditary, and having been inherited for 2, 000 years it is incurable. [L. Pinsker, Autoemanzipation, ein Mahnruf an seine]

Pinsker was a doctor and therefore defined anti-Semitism as Judaephobia.  It is part of the Zionist fable that anti-Semitism applies to all of history and all classes equally.  It is an incurable disease that may mutate and change its form but it bears much the same characteristics.  And of course, if it is incurable, then why fight it.  Traditionally Zionism represented an abandonment of the fight against anti-Semitism.

According to the Zionists, anti-Semitism and racism don’t have any relationship to class or material factors, they aren’t a product of particular types of societies.  Anti-Semitism although a product of non-Jews and their reaction to Jews must ultimately relate to something about Jews themselves.  Traditionally this was indeed the attitude of Zionism.  Herzl wrote in his pamphlet The Jewish State that

When we sink we become a revolutionary proletariat... when we rise there rises also the terrible power of our purse. [The Jewish State, p.26]

Anti-Semitism was the product of the Jewish presence in non-Jewish society.  In his autobiography, Trial and Error, the President of the Zionist Organisation, Chaim Weizmann, who later went on to become Israel’s first President, wrote that:

Whenever the quantity of Jews in any country reaches saturation point, that country reacts against them. In the early years of this century, Whitechapel and the great industrial centres of England were in that sense saturated... The determining factor in this matter is not the solubility of the Jews but the solvent power of the country. England had reached the point when she could or would absorb so many Jews and no more.

Like all diseases anti-Semitism affects everybody though some non-Jews, for example Muslims, might be more susceptible.  Fortunately today we have strong political retrovirals so this disease can be treated but the main thing is that it is a form of pathology unrelated to society or surroundings.  In other words Royall starts off her Report with a racist analysis of racism.

Royall is nothing if not unoriginal.  She just loves to repeat without question commonly held beliefs, no matter how wrong they are.  She states in her introduction that ‘For many years, Jews of all ages have strongly supported Labour’.  In fact Jewish support for the Labour Party has been declining ever since the 1960’s.  A Jewish academic and Jewish Chronicle journalist, Geoffrey Alderman, explained this in some detail in The Jewish Community in British Politics, in a chapter, ‘Return to the Right’:  As early as 1961 ‘over 40% of Anglo-Jewry was located in the upper two social classes whereas these categories accounted for less than 20% of the general population.’  The conclusion Alderman drew was that ‘at the time of the 1964 general election which Labour won, ¾ the top 2 social classes supported the Conservative Party.’ (p.137)  In other words Jews voted like any other of their social class and predominantly for the Tory Party.  The myth that Jews have always voted for the Labour Party is exactly that – a myth.

This however is but one example of the problems with the Royall Report.  Another example is where Royall declares that she would be bound by the ‘London Declaration (2009) of the Inter-parliamentary Coalition for Combating Antisemitism’. 

You can gauge the nature of this Declaration by the section ‘Challenging Antisemitism’, point 1 of which states that ‘Parliamentarians shall expose, challenge, and isolate political actors who engage in hate against Jews and target the State of Israel as a Jewish collectivity.’  Since, according to the Zionists’ Working Definition on anti-Semitism, it is anti-Semitic to hold Jews collectively responsible for the actions of the Israeli state, then the London Declaration, which declares that Israel is part of a ‘Jewish collectivity’ must by definition be anti-Semitic!

What a muddle Royall gets herself into.  The only explanation of Royall’s logic is Humpty Dumpty’s dictum that ‘Words mean what I want them to mean.  The only question is who is master!’.  If Royall’s report is guided by an anti-Semitic Declaration, then it is clearly not worth the paper it is written on.

Royall accepts that there is no ‘institutional anti-Semitism’ within OULC, but she also makes it clear that she is disappointed by her own finding! 

Jewish Labour Movement

Royall makes a series of recommendations, the most controversial of which is the proposal that 

‘Training should be organised by Labour Students together with the Jewish Labour Movement for officers of all Labour Clubs in dealing with antisemitism.’

The Jewish Labour Movement is an openly Zionist organisation.  According to Wikipedia ‘It views Zionism as the national liberation movement of the Jewish people’.  Zionism is the movement which established the State of Israel.  A state which calls itself a Jewish state which was founded on the expulsion of ¾ million Palestinians and which refuses a right of return to those refugees at the very same time as it encourages Jews who have no connection to Israel to ‘return’ to what it terms their ancient homeland.  Apart from the conflation of Jews and Zionism which Royall otherwise purports to deplore, the very idea that Jews belong, not in the countries where they were born but in Palestine, is itself a racist and anti-Semitic idea.  Despite this, Royall considers that the JLM is a fit body to conduct anti-racist training.  It is like asking the Yorkshire Ripper to take over the management of a woman’s refuge project.

Royall, like Chakrabarti, describes how the Jewish Labour Movement is the successor to Poalei Zion, which affiliated to the Labour Party in 1920.  She seems to think that this is a matter of pride rather than shame.  Poalei Zion in 1920 was a tiny organisation with little implantation in the Jewish working-class in Britain.  Jewish trade unionists, tended, almost without exception, to be hostile to Zionism which posited the struggle for socialism in Palestine rather than where they lived.  Socialist Zionism was thus an eternal contradiction.  The affiliation of Poalei Zion was a measure of the pro-imperialist politics of the Labour Party.  It was because the Labour Party under the Fabians and the Webbs, Sydney Webb later became the Colonial Secretary Lord Passfield, believed in the idea of Empire as a form of trusteeship for the uncivilised natives, that they took so warmly to Poalei Zion with its rhetoric of developing the land for the backward Arabs.

Allegations of anti-Semitism

Intriguingly Royall also mentions one serious false allegation of anti-Semitism that was reported to the Police.  Asa Winstanley suggests that this refers to false allegations against Rachel Bradshaw of Stirling University However Royall gives no further details.

Anti-Semitism

Royall makes a dogs dinner of the question, ‘what is anti-Semitism’.  Zionists of course have difficulty with this because their overriding need is to try and persuade people that opposition to a state, the State of Israel, is anti-Semitic.  The problem with this is that Israel, like any other state, is not a human being.  It is difficult to be racist towards a state.  Anti-Semitism is therefore redefined as hostility to the Jewish state.  According to this not very convincing narrative people oppose Israel not for what it does, the mass murders, the entrenched discrimination, the Occupation, torture and imprisonment of children etc. but because the state is Jewish!

This is the ‘new anti-Semitism’.  What it does is enable all those political forces which have historically been most antagonistic to Jews as Jews to pretend that they too are opposed to anti-Semitism.  It reaches its ludicrous apogee in groups like the BNP or English Defence League which combine traditional anti-Semitism with avid support for Israel and Zionism.

Thus Royall cites the Zionist Community Security Trust’s definition of anti-Semitism as being ‘hostility, phobia or bias against Judaism or individual Jews as a group.’  This is a nonsensical definition.  Hostility to Judaism, a religion, might indeed be a cover for hostility to Jews in much the same way  as opposition to Israel might be a disguise for anti-Semitism.  However it is not very usual and why define individual Jews as a group? 

Defining anti-Semitism isn’t rocket science.  It is hatred or hostility, discrimination or violence towards Jews as Jews.  The more sophisticated anti-Semites hold to a conspiracy theory in which Jews are the ones who control and manipulate world events and countries.  Therefore a belief in a world Jewish conspiracy is normally seen as anti-Semitic.

Reading through this section what I find most startling is how superficial is Royall’s grasp of what racism or oppression is, still less where it comes from.  Royall makes the trite observation that ‘oppression of any sort… (is) the strong oppressing the weak,  the rich oppressing the poor.’  She doesn’t ascribe agency to anyone or anything.  Royall doesn’t see oppression or racism in any context.  It just happens, it exists, it has no social origin or political context. 

Royall also makes the equally trite comment that to some people Jews cannot be the victims or discriminated against, without ever saying who these people are.  Having given us this profound insight she then jumps to observing that there is a ‘view that criticism of the government of Israel is not anti-Semitic (it is not)’ and therefore ‘being anti-Zionist cannot be anti-Semitic.  Yes it can.’  Apart from anything else this is as good an example of a non-sequitur as one is likely to find.  The premise, Royall’s observations on racism and anti-Semitism do not lead to the concluson she draws.  It is an example of the shoddy methodology of her Report.

Clearly there are some people who are anti-Semitic who disguise or hide this as anti-Zionism.  I have some experience of such people for example Gilad Atzmon, the anti-Semitic jazzman.  However they are enormously aided by the false accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’ that are made by Zionists.  As I wrote in The Seamy Side of Solidarity ‘Guardian 19.2.07. ‘Like the boy who cried wolf, the charge of "anti-semitism" has been made so often against critics of Zionism and the Israeli state that people now have difficulty recognising the genuine article.’

The irony is that it is Royall herself who is providing the alibi and rationale for the making of false accusations of anti-Semitism.  What Royall is doing is giving cover to those who are anti-Semitic. If someone is an anti-Semite then they aren’t an anti-Zionist.  The two are mutually exclusive.  If anti-Zionism is a disguise then clearly it cannot be the same as the thing it is disguising.  Otherwise it isn’t a disguise!  It’s a matter of logic but one which seems to entirely escape the good Baroness.

When Royall say that ‘not all anti-Zionists are anti-Semites and anti-Zionism is not necessarily anti-Semitic’ what she is really saying is that normally anti-Zionists are anti-Semites and that normally anti-Zionism is anti-Semitic.  The  proof for this assertion is a lengthy quotation from John Mann MP’s All Parliamentary Inquiry into Anti-Semitism which manages to find that Zionism was is ‘a movement of national liberation.’  It is a strange national liberation movement which formed an alliance in 1917 with British imperialism in the form of the Balfour Declaration!  A movement that was sponsored by the British occupying power in Palestine.  The Fraser v UCU Employment Tribunal observed of John Mann that

when it came to anti-Semitism in the context of debate about the Middle East, he [John Mann MP] announced, “It’s clear to me where the line is…” but unfortunately eschewed the opportunity to locate it for us. Both parliamentarians clearly enjoyed making speeches. Neither seemed at ease with the idea of being required to answer a question not to his liking.[1]

MacPherson

Like many people, Royall fails to understand the MacPherson principle (which Chakrabarti to her credit did get right).  A racial incident is not, contrary to Royall’s assertion, ‘an incident that is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person.’  MacPherson said that for the purpose of an investigation by the Police, in the specific circumstances of the institutional racism of the Metropolitan Police in the Stephen Lawrence affair, where someone claims to be the victim of a racial incident the Police must record it as such and treat it as such.  That doesn’t mean that it is a racial incident.  Only the courts can make that decision.  The extension of the MacPherson principle to ‘any other person’ demonstrates just how much Royall is at sea.

Oxford University Labour Club

When it comes to OULC and anti-Semitism Royall has virtually nothing to say.  It is no wonder that the NEC didn’t publish her Report.  She found that ‘some Jewish members do not feel comfortable attending meetings.’  Perhaps that is because they are also Zionists who don’t like having to defend Israel.  What has that got to do with anti-Semitism?  Royall accepts that when it comes to a debate on Israel and Palestine ‘the debate is politically chared and robust.’  She alleges, again without any examples, that ‘at least on one occasion the boundaries of acceptability were breached.’  And that is it, no evidence or examples are given. 

Royall says that she regrets that ‘incidences of anti-Semitism’ (Royall doesn’t insert the word ‘alleged’) ‘were not reported to any authority’ and concludes that ‘this makes it very difficult to verify’.  In which case how does she know there were such incidences?  It is such leaps of logic which render this Report so enticing, if only as an example of how not to argue a case.

When it comes to the meat of the Report, specific allegations of anti-Semitism against individual members of OULC there is an even thinner gruel.  She concludes that ‘it is clear to me from the weight of witnessed allegations received  that there have been some incidents of anti-Semitic behaviour and that it is appropriate for the disciplinary procedures of our Party to be invoked.’  At no stage are we given any examples of these allegations still less any detail.  However Royall then goes on to say that ‘it is not clear to me to what extent this behaviour constituted intentional or deliberate acts of anti-Semitism.  This is particularly true of historical hearsay evidence  .’  Which at the very least casts doubt as to whether what is alleged is anti-Semitism at all.  In any event she provides no examples of what she means before concluding that she sees no value in pursuing the very disciplinary cases that she said it would be appropriate to pursue!  Really you couldn’t make it up.

And that is the sum total of the allegations of anti-Semitism in Oxford University Labour Club.  The  clear and obvious conclusion is that the affair was contrived by a manipulator who was co-Chair of OULC, Alex Chalmers, who made allegations of anti-Semitism in the context of support for the Palestinians.  For him ‘Jews’ means supporters of Israel.  It is not surprising that he has refused to answer Asa Winstanley’s questions and has gone to some considerable lengths to cover his tracks, for example deleting his profile on Linked In.  Of Royall’s report it is fair to say that the least said the soonest mended!

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[1]           http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/Resources/JCO/Documents/Judgments/eemployment-trib-fraser-v-uni-college-union-judgment.