The Sad Demise of Sussex Friends of Israel

How a Good Man Was Laid So Low

Sussex Friends of Israel''s dead site

It really couldn't have happened to a nice man.  Simon Cobbs, whose sole concern was anti-Semitism, helped lead his fellow crusaders into a battle in defence of Israeli soft drinks firm, Soda Stream.  It was he imagined a re-run of 1933 when the SA Stormtroopers had boycotted or laid siege to Jewish shops.  1933 was around the corner, Hitler was putting the last touches to his toothbrush moustache and Cobbs saw himself as all that stood between civilisation and the Moslem hordes.

Unfortunately for Cobbs, Israeli companies are much like all capitalist companies.  The bottom line is most important and unfortunately their bottom line had reached the bottom.  In short no one was buying their drinks and their loss leading operation in Brighton had proved to be a crown of thorns (pardon the Christian metaphor!).  Led by Simon Cobbs, although every Christian fundamentalist loony and one or two Jewish ones as well had mounted a weekly counter-demonstration, their only success was in persuading potential customers to give them a wide birth.

Cobbs - none too pleased

At one time I had seriously thought of suggesting to the manager that  perhaps they might consider branching out and becoming a wing of Brighton's reading library, since you were unlikely to be disturbed inside the shop.  However it was not to me as Sodastream decided to pull the plug on the fun and Cobbs wasn't even told.  Left without a purpose this Sussex Friends of Israel could only do things like put on as a speaker an Israeli Arabist who suggested that the Israeli Military employ the weapon of rape (well they've tried everything else).  So on December 8th 2014 the Zionist Federation and SFI invited one Prof. Mordechai Kedar of the Bar Ilan Religious University of Bigotry to speak on the finer points of his thesis.   

Cobbs with Christian Fundie friends

Today all that stands between Cobbs and oblivion is his twitter account.  The day when the Jewish Chronicle mistook a group of bedraggled members of the English Defence League for Sussex Friends of Israel was the day any sane member of SFI gave up. Jewish Chronicle 'mistakes' English Defence League for Sussex Friends of Israel

The result is that there is only Cobbs left.

Beginning to get worked up

The anguish is showing

For those who are interested in what our friendly local Zionists are up to, as gleaned from their social media here's a little update. 

The snarling beast we know best

They really seem to have lost all momentum since the  closure of Ecostream.

'I can't take it any more'

Firstly, their website seems to have virtually withered away . There has been only one post since last autumn (that's about the Greek election!). Under "Campaigns" there is only one - Ecostream - there's no mention of it being closed & they're still asking for support on Saturdays! . . . Incidentally for a laugh look at their "Code of Conduct" under "About"
http://www.sussexfriendsofisrael.org/

Deep personal pain

The reason for this is probably that there is only one person actively doing their social media - a certain Mr Simon Cobbs. Admittedly Facebook & Twitter seems to be his preferred vehicle & he is pretty prolific (not surprising as it seems this is how he spends his days) but he has resorted to endless posts about Anti-Semitism, slagging off liberal Jews/the Board of Deputies and how the UN, EU, BBC etc etc are in some giant conspiracy against Israel. This is mainly because the SFOI don't actually do anything to report on, other than pointlessly standing outside the Qatar embassy or trying to "beat the boycotts" by donating to food banks.

It has got to the point where practically all of the tweets by @SussexFriends are Cobbs duplicating his own tweets @Simon Cobbs1 or vice versa. Of course his personal Twitter account is still trying to make up the followers he lost after his previous account was suspended after he threatened to "slaughter" someone from the Jewish community who was a bit too liberal for him. Amusingly, he seemed to spend most of yesterday posting videos of Galloway on Question Time & then felt he had to personally answer the most pressing issue resulting - namely why the studio heating wasn't working! (Tweet attached).

Cobbs concerned about the fault with the Finchley boiler

One gets the impression that if Cobbs wasn't able to spend 8 hours a day at his keyboard SFOI would pretty much disappear from view.  They have created this image that they are one of the foremost "grassroots" pro-Israel groups in the UK, to the point where they were invited to discussions at the Israeli embassy last year. However, unlike their Manchester cousins NorthWest Friends of Israel, they really don't seem able to politically galvanize the local Jewish community (perhaps because it is more resistant to SFOI 's (read Cobb's)  increasingly strident Zionist outpourings).

A Triumph for the Campaign to end Sodastream

Mishor Adumum hwere Sodastream is based

Zionist collaborators and Christian Fundamentalists hold  hands

Police have difficulty policing the demonsrations despite their obvious pro-Zionist bias

The campaign against Sodastream in Brighton has stirred up both a national and international campaign against this company.  Based in West Bank near Maaleh Adumim it employs Palestinian slave labour Slave labour because unions are not allowed and the company is based on the very land its workers used to live on.

 

A prettified ad for Sodastream

In Brighton the demonstration started from the Clocktower in the Centre of Brighton at 12.30 and we marched via a shop in Ship Street, then Robert Dyas and Argos to Sodastream itself where the Zionists had based themselves.  Despite attempts by the Police demonstrators swarmed across Western Road and I found myself in the midst of a group of Zionists who tried to surreptitiously attack me (‘Peace being their slogan’)!

One of many national pickets of Sodastream

As usual the no. of Zionist supporter were outnumbered by anti-racists

On of those who wanted a share of the action was EDL supporter Simon Cobbs who is their leader.  It seems that these days having an association with anti-Semites is a positive advantage if you’re a Zionist.  Cobbs who is free with his threats and use of violence pushed me – big mistake as I retaliated and he fell back when realising that bullies needed to be stood up to.





The other main group among them were a group of fundamental Christians whose support for Israel is based on the ‘return of the Jews’ to Palestine in order that the second coming of Christ can be hastened via the fires and battles of Armageddon.  Most Jews of course, who reject Jesus, will perish and the Elect, in what they call Rapture, will ascend to heaven.  Mad?  Yes but these are the creatures who butchered over 100,000 ‘heathen’ Mayan Indians in Guatemala and who have encouraged every war of the United States.
  

The Zionists had nothing to say and spent their time trying to drown us out.  After all it is difficult to defend land theft. They reserved their venom for anti-Zionist Jews whom they termed ‘traitors’ – I’ve never understood this as I’ve never owed Zionism any loyalty but of course this was the charge made by Hitler against anti-fascist Germans.  And then one or two whispered Kapos at us, oblivious of the notorious collaboration of the Zionist movement with the Nazi movement both before and after 1933.  After all they and the Zionists agreed on one thing – the Jews didn’t belong in Germany. 

Boycott is a weapon of the oppressed.  Apart from Capt. Boycott its first use in Britain was the Boycott of Slave Grown Sugar in the Caribbean (the Church of England owned the Codrington plantation in Barbados).  In South Africa the Boycott was crucial in the demise of Apartheid.  Again Israel opposed it as White South Africa was its best friend and it supplied nuclear technology and other weaponry to it..  The Christian Fundamentalists were equally opposed.  After all it was in the Bible Belt of the USA that segregation was based and where the Ku Klux Klan was strongest.  And in 1933 there was a massive boycott of Nazi Germany by Jews and the international labour movement.  It was held that it was likely to cause the overthrow of Hitler, such was its effect.
 

Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods attended the picket

Brighton Clocktower where we met

Goering summoned the leadership of the German Jewish community in March 27 1933 to get them to have the boycott called off.  They claimed it was impossible but the Zionists, who had secured an invitation to the meeting after much effort, spoke out.  They would destroy the Boycott?  The condition being that a Transfer Agreement was signed between German and Jewish Palestine.  It was called Ha'avara (see Edwin Black’s book on Ha’avara for the details).  In order to build up Palestine the Zionist leadership deliberately sacrificed the Jews of Europe because people naturally said that if the Jews were trading with Hitler why shouldn’t they?  It was difficult to point out that the Zionists represented only themselves (& to be fair many Zionists opposed Ha'avara, especially the right-wing Revisionists).
 
By 1939 60% of the investment in Jewish Palestine was from Nazi Germany!  They even spied on the German communist party for them.  In other words the real Jewish traitors and ‘kapos’ were the Zionists.  Which is why in Poland, which was the heart of European Jewry, in 1938 they rejected the Zionist parties overwhelmingly.  In Warsaw out of 20 Jewish seats, 17 went to the anti-Zionist Bund.

Christian Fundie climbs lamppost - Palestinian flag annoys racists

I am posting a video that the Zionists took so bear that in mind.  But we distributed 800 leaflets and obtained even more signatories for a petition to close down Ecostream.  Once again the Police displayed their bias when we were removed across the street but the Zionists ensured that once again Sodastream (neighbouring shops had no customers!).

Sodastream - an Alliance of Christian anti-Semites and Neo-Nazi Kach supporters Oppose the Demonstrators

Picket of Brighton’s Sodastream Shop

Christian anti-Semites are out to back up neo-Nazi Zionist & 'Christian' demonstrators

Many thanks to Inminds for these excellent photographs of the Palestinian BDS demonstrators and their anti-Semitic Christian/JDL opponents

 

 

One of the most obnoxious and stupid of the Christian demonstrators Jill Young.  Not unsurprisingly she is hiding her face.  Her message about other countries being more repressive than Israel is reminiscent of apologists for Apartheid in South Africa.

 

The public queues up to sign the petition opposing Sodastream and Israel's occupation of the West Bank

Exceptionally the Police escort one particularly abusive Zionist across the street

Zionist Doublethink - a Zionist carries leaflets entitled peace whilst advocating war.  Hitler as also a 'peacemaker' who was attacked by Poland!

Despite repeated threats Mike  on the right continues to come down from London to give support to the Palestinians

The shop is empty as usual, but it pays for a security guard nonetheless.  In the foreground another member of the public shows her support.

Sodastream playing dumb  (or dumber than usual) doesn't know where it's products come from.

Although I was there at the beginning of the pickets of the Israeli shop, Sodastream, I was forced to curtail my attendance last autumn owing to illness.  However I kept in touch with the magnificent work of the local Brighton & Hove PSC group.

In the last couple of months I have attended for the last half hour and I notice that the same anti-Semitic Christians are in attendance as when I first took part in the campaign.  Gill Young, a Daniel and a couple of others, Christian fundamentalists, who in places like Guatemala presided over the genocide of over 100,000 Mayan Indians.

The 'Christian's' consistent message has been that the Palestinians are the occupiers of the lands that they and their ancestors have live on!  Why? Because of the myth that the Jews lived there for 3,000+ years.  Apart from abysmal ignorance (there were no Jews then, merely Canaanite tribes who would have spoken a language far different from biblical Hebrew & who worshipped a variety of gods) for over 2,000 years most Jews lived outside Palestine for economic reasons i.e. the land could not sustain them.  Those who survived gradually became Christians, especially when Constantine, the Roman Emperor in the 3^rd century made Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire.  Even Ben Gurion, Israel's first Prime Minister and Yitzhak ben Zvi recognised this fact.

Jesus was, apart from being a Phariseeic rabbi, a Jewish rebel against the corruption of the the high priests,  the Sadducees.  That was the reason why the ruling class and the Romans decided to execute him.  The descendants of the Jews who remained in the Roman state of Palestine were ironically the poor Jews who converted to Christianity!  The European Jews in so far as they had any specific lineage were descendants of the trading country of the Khazars, situated in between the Black and Caspian Seas.  This is well known to  historians and was the subject of the book, which was a best seller in Israel for 19 weeks, The Invention of the Jewish People, by Shlomo Sand, a professor at Tel Aviv University and Arthur Koestler’s ‘Thirteenth Tribe’.  

The Christians who demonstrate in support of Sodastream support the transfer or  massacre of the Palestinian people of the West Bank.  Why?  Because their primary religious text is Revelations when the return of the Jews to Palestine will herald the second coming of Christ with the evil Jews (most of the Jews are so termed) dying in the battle of Armagheddon and the Christian faithful rising to heaven in The Rapture. In other words they look forward to a new holocaust of the Jews.  

 In the United States in WWII these Protestant Fundamentalists were the main force behind those who campaigned vociferously against the admission of Jews who wished to escape the holocaust.  Indeed one of the primary motivations of Evangelical Christians has always been to get rid of the Jews in their midst.  Examples about - Lord Shaftesbury, George Elliot, Ernest Laharanne, Palmerstone, Disraeli etc.

Perhaps the best example of these anti-Semitic Christians was Arthur James Balfour whose Balfour Declaration in 1917 set the seal on an alliance between the Zionists and the British which was the real beginning of the Israeli state.  Balfour as Home Secretary, introduced the Aliens Act 1905 whose primary purpose was to prevent the immigration of Russian Jews fleeing the pogroms into Britain.  He was a man who also disliked Jews intensely but he was a good Zionist, which is why Zionist HQ in Britain is named Balfour House.  He wrote that:

If [Zionism] succeeds, it will do a great spiritual and material work for the Jews, but not for them alone. For as I read its meaning it is, among other things, a serious endeavour to mitigate the age-long miseries created for western civilisation by the presence in its midst of a Body which it too long regarded as alien and even hostile, but which it was equally unable to expel or absorb. Surely, for this if for no other reason, it should receive our support. [From co-existence to conquest, International Law and the Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict 1891-1949 by Victor Kattan]

Examples abound of Evangelical Christians who are and were anti-Semitic Zionists, not least among the Nazis.  One example was H H Beamish who wrote that ‘‘There is only one cure for this world-evil, and that is for all the Christian white races to combine and to repatriate to Palestine and the neighbouring territories every Jew, male and female, and to take the most drastic steps to see that, once they have founded their Zionist state in their own Promised Land, they permanently remain there.’[The Jews’ Who’s Who: Israelite Finance. Its Sinister Influence, Popular Edition (London: The Judaic Publishing Co., H.H. Beamish, Proprietor, 1921), p. 43.  

British Brothers League - opposed the entry of Jewish refugees but they were ardently in favour of Zionists

 Another example is the first proto-fascist organisation in Britain, the British Brothers League headed by William Evans-Gordon MP, who gets a remarkably sympathetic write up in Chaim Weizzman's auto-biography Trial and Error.  Its President, William Stanley Shaw, in a letter to the Jewish Chronicle of 6th November  1901, who declared that 'I am a firm believer in the Zionist movement which the British Brothers League will incidentally do much to foster.  The return of the Jews to Palestine is one of the most striking signs of our times.' before going on to quote some obscure passage from the Bible.

British PM David Lloyd George, an ardent Christian Evangelist, standing shoulder to shoulder with his hero

 But  perhaps the best example of a combination of anti-Semitism was that of Lloyd George, the ‘Welsh Wizard’ and British Prime Minister from 1916-21.  He was the strongest supporter of the Balfour Declaration after Balfour himself.  He was also an admirer of Hitler and after a visit to Hitler in 1936, wrote that Hitler was "the greatest living German".  [Jones, J Graham. entry in Dictionary of Liberal Thought Brack & Randall (eds.) Politico's Methuen, 2007]  

In a Jewish Telegraph Agency report of 20 September 1936 it reported that ,David Lloyd George, who had just returned from a visit to Germany, had expressed enthusiastic approval of Chancellor Hitler, whom he visited twice, and he explained persecution of Jews as due to the Nazi leader’s belief that the Russian Jews were responsible for Soviet press attacks on the Reich.’   A lie of course as anyone who is at all familiar with Mein Kampf will confirm.  But Lloyd George was a fervent Zionist so he is forgiven..   

In case anyone should be under the impression that this was all in the past, the Baptist and Evangelical leader of American Christians and Pastor John Hagee of the San Antonio, Texas-based Cornerstone Church, Pastor, who heads Christians United for Israel, which has 1.1 million members, wrote in his book Jerusalem Countdown that Hitler was born from ‘accursed, genocidally murderous half-breed Jews.' Bruce Wilson, The Huffington Post, August 1, 2009.   

John Hagee during his speech describing Hitler as god's messenger demonstrates what a hunter does

 Hagee is best know for his statement that Hitler was a messenger from god sent to drive the Jews to Israel!

"Theodor Herzl is the father of Zionism. He was a Jew who at the turn of the 19th century said, this land is our land, God wants us to live there. So he went to the Jews of Europe and said 'I want you to come and join me in the land of Israel.' So few went that Herzl went into depression. Those who came founded Israel; those who did not went through the hell of the holocaust.

"Then god sent a hunter. A hunter is someone with a gun and he forces you. Hitler was a hunter. And the Bible says -- Jeremiah writing -- 'They shall hunt them from every mountain and from every hill and from the holes of the rocks,' meaning there's no place to hide. And that might be offensive to some people but don't let your heart be offended. I didn't write it, Jeremiah wrote it. It was the truth and it is the truth. How did it happen? Because God allowed it to happen. Why did it happen? Because God said my top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come back to the land of Israel." see video clip of the speech.

John Hagee addressing the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, the main pro-Zionist organisation in the United States, explaining why Hitler was much misunderstood

When Senator John McCain was running for President he sought and obtained the endorsement of Hagee.  Such was the outcry that he was forced to distance himself from the brute when  this was revealed.   

The Anti-Defamation League - opposed to 'anti-Semitism' when its anti-Zionism but supporting Christian anti-Semitism of John Hagee

None of this stopped the Abe Foxman, of the appropriately named Anti-Defamation League (it has its own history of Jewish uncle tommery) writing to defend Hagee: 

‘“We are grateful that you have devoted your life to combating anti-Semitism and supporting the State of Israel,” [The New York Jewish Week, 18.6.08] 

Glenn Beck, who believes the Jews killed Christ, after addressing the Knesset.  Seen here talking to Baruch Mazel
a settler and  supporter of Kach, the Zionist Nazi  organisation

  

 But Hagee isn’t the only anti-Semite who loves Israel.  Glenn Beck, who Murdoch was forced to fire from Fox TV for his explicit anti-Semitism, was responsible for the gems below, calumnies worthy of the gutter anti-Semite, Julius Streicher, who was hanged at Nuremburg.  He hosted one guest on his Fox show

‘“…who describes as “accurate” the anti-Semitic tract “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”; likening Reform rabbis to “radicalized Islam”; calling Holocaust survivor George Soros a “puppet master,” a bloodsucker and a Nazi collaborator; touting the work of a Nazi sympathizer who referred to Eisenhower as “Ike the Kike”; and claiming the Jews killed Jesus.'

Knesset members give a rapturous reception to a prominent anti-Semite

Yet none of this prevented Beck being invited to give an address to Israel’s parliament, the Knesset.

Ami Kauffman of the radical Israeli 972 Magazine describes how ‘Outside the Negev hall, the atmosphere was like before a rock concert, complete with the pushing and shoving. Most attendees were religious, all the way from knitted kippas to haredim. After we sat down, it was only a few minutes wait till the star came in. Almost immediately the whole room stood up, including the Members of Knesset, and gave the man a standing ovation.’ 30.8.13.  

Whereas John Hagee is widely seen as a clown, Beck is an altogether different figure.  He is a convinced anti-Semite and a member of the US Establishment.  Beck is so anti-Semitic that he holds that the Jews killed Jesus.  Before being fired from Fox, he explained how "Jesus conquered death. He wasn't victimized. He chose to give his life. He did have a choice. If he was a victim, and this theology was true, then Jesus would have come back from the dead and made the the Jews pay for what they did."

Even the ADL, which is tolerant of anti-Semitism when it comes from Christian Zionist supporters drew a line at this.  After all the ADL identifies the claim that "the Jews" killed Jesus as one of the top four most destructive of anti-Semitic lies.  It was the watchword of Christian anti-Semites throughout the ages.

 But none of this matters to the Zionists and their Christian supporters outside Sodastream.   

The Christians are part of a tiny but virulently anti-Semitic sect within the wider Christian church and the Zionists come from the far-Right of the Jewish community.  At least two Zionist demonstrators, including the leader of the counter-demonstrators, the thuggish Simon Cobbs is, as has been pointed out elsewhere on this blog, a supporter of the Jewish-Nazi group Kach (this description is not mine  but that of fellow Zionists for whom imprisoning Arabs who have sexual relations with Jewish women is reminiscent of the racial ‘hygiene’ laws of Nazi Germany under which many Jews were executed.  Like Nazi Germany Kach/Jewish Defence League does not seek to criminalise Arab (Jewish) women who have/had sex with Jewish/German men.

Hitler greets Bishop Muller, head of the Reich Church and Abbot Schachleitner

 The behaviour of a tiny minority, and they are a tiny minority of anti-Semitic Christian counter-demonstrators is not surprising.  In Hitler’s Germany the Protestant Churches were more sympathetic to the Nazis than those of the Roman Catholics (though the anti-Nazi Protestants like Dietrich Bonhoffer, who was hanged shortly before the liberation of Mauthausen) were dedicated anti-Nazis.  The Confessing Church of the Protestants, which grew throughout the 1930’s held that the doctrine of race was incompatible with the Christian message that all those who accept Jesus message of salvation will be saved.  In particular the Protestants set up, under Bishop Muller, the Reich Church, which was wholly  supportive of Hitler.   

  It is no surprise that both the Christian anti-Semites and Jewish neo-Nazis who make up the bulk of the counter demonstration have nothing positive to say or any message to impart.  They direct a volume of abuse at Palestinian supporters, including passers by, thus alienating the public even more.  Jewish demonstrators are particularly subject to villification as ‘traitors’ (when have we ever been loyal to a Nazi/Zionist creed?) and attempts at physical intimidation.  One particularly obnoxious specimen goes by the name of Chelsea.  She is a transexual who clearly does hate herself, as the  Christians despise transgender people and gays in particular.

It is no surprise of course that the Police have given consistent support to the Zionists, as has the business correspondent of the Argus John Keegan.  They have arrested people giving the Zionists a Hitler salute when they are simply recognising them for what they are.  But of course when anti-Semitism was at its height in Britain in the 1930’s with Sir Oswald Moseley, the Police were his best friends.  Just as today when we stopped the English Defence League marching in Brighton, the Police spent hundreds of thousands of pounds enabling them to pollute Brighton’s sea air (& still failed to force them through!) in April 2012.

Tony Greenstein