All Out for Lobby of Labour’s National Executive Committee – End the Witchhunt

Disband the Compliance Unit, Reinstate Greenstein & Galloway Purge Labour’s Regional Police

On Tuesday 23^rd January, we picketed the Labour's National Executive Committee meeting.  One of our key demand was to Sack McNicol, the Crook who was General Secretary of the Labour Party.  Within a month McNicol was gone!  

At the High Court

Amongst McNicol's many crimes was locking Jeremy Corbyn and his staff out of Southside, Labour’s HQ on the night of the General Election on June 8^th last year. So confident was McNicol and co. that Corbyn was going to lose the election heavily that they in effect decided to stage a coup by cancelling their passes!  

Unfortunately for McNicol and many of the 172 bastards who tried to stage a parliamentary coup in 2016, the electorate decided to ignore the Sun, Mail etc. that these bastards had spent two years leaking stuff to.

Picket of Tony Greenstein's Expulsion Hearing

 Last week we heard that McNicol’s aide de camp one Emilie Oldknow also decided that it was time to go.  Today it was the turn of the hated head of the Compliance Unit, an expensive waste of space going by the name of John Stolliday.

It seems that having failed to capsize the good ship Labour many of the rats have now decided to abandon the ship itself.  Possibly to help Chuku Ummuna in his preparations to set up a new ‘centre party’ if reports in yesterday's Sunday Times have any foundation.

Let's make this happen

Now is the time to end the false anti-Semitism witchhunt, reinstate Tony Greenstein and George Galloway, end the suspensions of Jackie Walker and Ken Livingstone and to set aside whatever verdict the National Kangaroo Committee decides on in the case of Cyril Chilsom, whose case is being heard tomorrow.  

Cyril, a former Captain in the Israeli army, is the child of parents who survived the Nazi concentration camps but to racist scum like McNicol, Matthews and Stolliday he is an ‘anti-Semite’.

At the High Court where an injunction was successfully obtained against McNicol

 We are lobbying tomorrow’s meeting of the Labour Party NEC to demand that the party’s leading body must use its pro-Corbyn majority to bring the ongoing witch-hunt against socialists and Corbyn supporters to a swift end. Can you be there? If so, please bring banners, posters and witches costumes!

After the hearing, at the Royal Courts of Justice, phoning the result to Mark MacDonald QC who'd advised me

Labour Against the Witchhunt Demands:

• The reinstatement of Tony Greenstein, George Galloway and all those summarily expelled or suspended without due process and natural justice in the last 2 years.
• The dropping of all charges against Marc Wadsworth (whose hearing is on Wednesday April 25 in London), Jackie Walker and Ken Livingstone.
• That all cases in front of the National Kangaroo (Constitutional) Committee (which has a right-wing majority) be referred back to the NEC disputes committee

Our last lobby was covered by a number of TV stations and national papers and Jackie Walker was interviewed on the Daily Politics show on the same day. Click here if you haven’t watched her stellar performance. Click here for a report on our protest on our website here and here.

Tuesday March 20, 11am-1pm
LAW lobby of NEC meeting
Venue: London, Southside, 105 Victoria Street SW1E 6QT

Opposing Parliament’s Racist Witch-hunt of Malia Bouattia

Academics, Lawyers and Anti-Racist Activists in Support of NUS President

It is good to see that so many prominent academics and other people have signed a letter to The Independent opposing the attack on Malia Bouattia by racist Zionists and racist Parliamentarians, led by Chuku Ummuna and Keith Vaz.

Two weeks ago I wrote in Manufacturing of Consent - Modern Day Alchemy - Home Affairs Select Committee Transforms Anti-Zionism into Anti-Semitism :

In attacking the President of NUS, Malia Bouattia, a refugee from real oppression in Algeria, for ‘anti-Semitism’ the Committee descended into the gutter.  It relied on McCarthyite guilt by association and did not have the integrity or honesty to invite her to give evidence.  Instead it quoted the Union of Jewish Students, for whom Israel advocacy is an integral part of its constitutional requirements, that the statement the University of Birmingham is “something of a Zionist outpost” is anti-Semitic.  Why this is anti-Semitic is never explained.  Presumably the UJS and the Committee, in conjunction with the BNP and other fascist organisations, agree that to be Zionist is to be Jewish.  There is no other logic.   It is no more racist than describing the University of Sussex as a radical outpost.

On the basis of the above the Committee concludes that ‘The current President of the National Union of Students, Malia Bouattia, does not appear to take sufficiently seriously the issue of antisemitism on campus’  The Jewish students it refers to are representatives or supporters of the pro-Israel UJS.  Anti-Zionist Jewish students are, of course, invisible to the Committee as are anti-Zionist Jews generally.

Chuku Ummuna - Black on the outside but his politics are of the White racist Establishment

Earlier this year at the time when the witch hunt of Malia first began I had a letter published in The Guardian in support of Malia.  Her ‘crime’?  Describing Birmingham University as a ‘Zionist output’.  The parliamentary idiots and defamers saw that as anti-Semitic.  Presumably the World Zionist Organisation and the British Zionist Federation are also anti-Semitic by this very same argument?  ‘Zionist’ is not the same as ‘Jew’ – the only people who claim it is are either anti-Semites such as the National Front or BNP or, of course Zionists for whom anti-Zionist Jews are ‘traitors’. 

Zionist is a political term and describing Birmingham University as a Zionist outpost is no different from describing Manchester University as a Tory outpost or Kent University as a feminist outpost etc.

The Zionists, who have been allowed unfortunately by the weakness of Jeremy Corbyn to traduce anti-racists in the Labour Party as ‘anti-Semites’ have now turned their attention to others, including it would seem Baroness Jenny Tonge and Mali Bouttia.  In targeting the first Black woman as President of NUS, Chuku Ummuna demonstrates what a shallow, right-wing little Uncle Tom he is.

Tony Greenstein

In support of Malia Bouattia 

We, the undersigned, unequivocally support Malia Bouattia, the current NUS president and applaud her impeccable record fighting anti-Semitism, racism and her unwavering support for international students.

The Home Affairs Select Committee this week released its report into anti-Semitism. As well as gratuitously levelling attacks against twice elected Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and former director of Liberty Shami Chakrabarti, judgment is also reserved for Ms Bouattia. It claims that she has “failed to take sufficiently seriously the issue of anti-Semitism”.

Ms Bouattia has fought tirelessly against all forms of racism, anti-Semitism, sexism and homophobia. To name but a few of her many achievements and commitments, she previously called for a review into institutional racism (including anti-Semitism) in the NUS, spearheaded solidarity initiatives for migrants and refugees in Calais, campaigned against the deportation of international students, worked on interfaith projects and safe spaces for faith students, co-led the largest opposition to the controversial PREVENT agenda; and all alongside her constant work with student unions across the country to dismantle racism.

The disparity between the report’s representations of Ms Bouattia compared with her actual record should be cause for real concern. The misuse and abuse of anti-Semitism belittle genuine threats against the Jewish community, primarily posed by a newly consolidated far-right in a post-Brexit landscape.

Dr Tanzil Chowdhury, University of Manchester
Professor Norman Finkelstein, Sakarya University
Emeritus Professor Moshe Machover, KCL
Deborah Maccoby, Executive, Jews for Justice for Palestinians
Emeritus Professor Colin Green, UCL
Professor Haim Bresheeth, SOAS
Sir Geoffrey Bindman,QC
Michael Mansfield, QC, Mansfield Chambers
Mansfied Chambers, Barrister’s Chambers
Dr Elian Weizman, CBRL Kenyon Institute, East Jerusalem
Professor Mona Baker, University of Manchester
Professor Piers Robinson, University of Sheffield
Dr Paul Keleman, University of Manchester
Professor Richard Seaford, University of Exeter
Professor Bill Bowring, Birkbeck College
Dr Shirin Hirsch, University of Glasgow
Professor Myriam Salama-Carr, University of Manchester
Professor Hakim Adi, University of Chichester
Professor Tim Jacoby, University of Manchester
Dr Virinder Kalra, University of Manchester
Professor Paul Blackledge, Leeds Beckett University
Professor James Dickins, University of Leeds
Professor Robbie Shilliam, QMUL
Professor Salman Sayyid, University of Leeds
Professor Malcolm Povey, University of Leeds
Dr Anandi Ramamurthy, Sheffield Hallam University
Professor Ray Bush, University of Leeds
Professor Laleh Khalili, SOAS
Professor Gargi Bhattacharyya, University of East London
Dr Kasia Narkowicz, University of York
Dr Sarah Marusek, University of Johannesburg
Dr Joanna Gilmore, University of York
Dr Waqas Tufail, Leeds Beckett University
Dr Adam Elliot-Cooper, University of Warwick
Dr Nadine El-Enany, Birkbeck College
Dr Sadia Habib, Goldsmiths
Dr Mark Carrigan, University of Warwick
Dr Judit Druks, UCL
Dr Nathaniel Coleman, Birmingham City University
Dr Una Barr, Manchester Metropolitan University
Dr Les Levidow, Open University
Yael Kahn, Israeli anti-apartheid activist
Michael Kalmanovitz, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network
Haifa Zangana, Author & Journalist
Victoria Brittain, Author & Journalist
Liz Davies, barrister & Honorary Vice-President Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers
Zita Holbourne, National Co-Chair BARAC UK
Lee Jasper, National Co-Chair BARAC UK
Peter Herbert, Society of Black Lawyers
Ronnie Barkan, Boycott from Within
Max Blumenthal, Journalist
Dr Jamie Woodcock, LSE
Dr Naaz Rashid, University of Sussex
Dr Nisha Kapoor, University of York
Dr Abdul B Shaikh, University of Leeds
Dr Katy Sian, University of York
Dr Rizwaan Sabir, Liverpool John Moores University
Dr Naomi Foyle, University of Chichester
Dr Hannah Jones, University of Warwick
Dr Paul Bagguley, University of Leeds
Dr James Eastwood, QMUL
Dr Sarah Keenan, Birkbeck University
Dr Leon Sealey-Huggins, University of Warwick
Dr Kitt Price, QMUL
Dr Lorenza Monaco, University of Johannesburg
Dr Hannah Bargawi, SOAS
Dr Sadhvi Dar, QMUL
Dr Kerem Nisancioglu, SOAS
Dr Owen Miller, SOAS
Dr Paul Waley, University of Leeds
Dr Feyzi Ismail, SOAS
Dr Yasmeen Narayan, Birkbeck University
Dr. Jamil Sherif, Muslim Council of Britain
Dr William Ackah, Birkbeck University
Dr Humaira Saeed, Nottingham Trent University
Deyika Nzeribe, Green Party Manchester Mayoral Candidate
Neema Begum, PhD Candidate, University of Bristol
Mohammed Kasbar, PhD Candidate, QMUL
Ed Yates, PhD Candidate
Cecil Sagoe, PhD Candidate, UCL
Tom Cowan, PhD Candidate, KCL
David Wearing, PhD Candidate, SOAS
Noor Al-Sharif, PhD Candidate, McGill University
Sai Englert, PhD Candidate, SOAS
Altheia Jones-Lecointe, PhD Candidate
Hengameh Ziai, PhD Candidate, Columbia University
Lisa Tilley, PhD Candidate, University of Warwick
Jamie Stern-Weiner, PhD Candidate, University of Oxford
Smina Akhtar, PhD Candidate, University of Bath
Jas Nijjar, PhD Candidate, Brunel University
Nithya Natarajan, PhD Candidate, SOAS
Jack Copley, PhD Candidate, University of Warwick
Carrie Benjamin, PhD Candidate, SOAS
Sita Balani, PhD Candidate, KCL
Gwenan Richards, SOAS
Kevin Blowe, Co-ordinator, Netpol
Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods
Colette Williams, Manchester lead, BARAC
Linda Clair, Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Marlene Ellis, General Secretary of Momentum Black ConneXions
Kingsley Abrams, General Secretary of Momentum Black ConneXions
Dr Ramez Ghazoul, Artizana
Diana Nelsen, Jews for Justice for Palestinians
Arzu Merali, Head of Research, Islamic Human Rights Commission
Patricia Lamour, CEO for Gender Education & Enterprise Development for Africa
Micheline Ravololonarisoa, Gender Education & Enterprise Development for Africa
Tom Hickey, University of Brighton
Dr Brian Robinson, Retired NHS psychiatrist
Mike Cushman, LSE
Terry Gallogly, Free Speech on Israel
Rosamine Hayeem, Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine
Abe Hayeem, Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine
Vivienne Hayes, CEO, Women’s Resource Centre
Tony Dickinson, Leeds Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Ian McDonald, Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Ismail Patel, Chairman, Friends of Al-Aqsa
Connor Woodman, Warwick For Free Education
Stephanie Davis, Lecturer in Psychology, University of Brighton
Sandy Nicoll, SOAS UNISON Branch Secretary
Graham Kirkwood, UCU membership secretary, QMUL
Sara Callaway, Women of Colour Global Women’s Strike
Selma James, Women of Colour Global Women’s Strike
Nina Lopez, Legal Action for Women
Sam Weinstein, Payday Men’s Network
Jenny Hardacre, Freelancer
Chris Gutkind
Margot Brown
Salma Patel, Associate Lecturer, Open University
Shreya Sinha, PhD Candidate, SOAS
Ruba Salih, Reader, SOAS
Mehroosh Tak, PhD Candidate, SOAS
Dr Vanja Hamzić, Senior Lecturer in Legal History and Legal Anthropology, SOAS
Dr Ashok Kumar, Fellow, Queen Mary University of London
Matteo Mandarini, Lecturer in Strategy, Queen Mary University of London
Rahul Rao, Senior Lecturer, SOAS
Dr Sharri Plonski, Postdoc Researcher, SOAS
Dr Alessandra Mezzadri, Lecturer, SOAS
Ahu Tatli, Professor, Queen Mary University of London
Nadje Al-Ali, Professor of Gender Studies, SOAS
Musab Younis, PhD Candidate, Oxford University
Mara Duer, PhD student, Warwick University
Victoria B-G Stadheim, PhD Student / GTA, SOAS
Te-Anne Robles, PhD student, University of Warwick
Rachel Harger, Defend the Right to Protest
Dr Milly Williamson, Brunel University
Penny Green, Professor of Law and Globalisation, Queen Mary University of London
Dr Emma Heywood, Lecturer, Coventry University
Phil Edwards, Senior Lecturer, Manchester Metropolitan University
Dr Anisa Mustafa, Teaching Associate in Public Policy, University of Nottingham
Yusuf Hassan, Vice President Student Affairs, Federation of Student Islamic Societies
Mehmet Kurt, Newton Fellow, Queen Mary University of London
Dr. Narzanin Massoumi, University of Liverpool
Julian Petley, Professor, Brunel University
Sayed Alkadiri, FOSIS
Andreas Bieler, Professor of Political Economy, University of Nottingham
Dr Jamie Melrose, University of Bristol
Jules Carey, Human Rights Solicitor
Nariman Massoumi, Lecturer, Film & TV, University of Bristol
Brian Richardson, Barrister, Mansfield Chambers
Javier Moreno Zacarés, Phd researcher, University of Warwick
Khalid Khedri, PhD Candidate, QMUL
Rhona Friedman, solicitor
Dr Emma L Briant, Lecturer, University of Sheffield
Muhammad Feyyaz, Assistant Professor, University of Management and Technology, Lahore, Pakistan
Deepa Kumar, Associate Professor, Rutgers University
Dr Thomas MacManus, Research Fellow, Queen Mary University of London School of Law
Dr Kirsten Forkert, Senior Lecturer, Birmingham City University
John L. Esposito, Professor, Georgetown University
Matt Foot, Solicitor, Birnberg Peirce
Bouteldja Houria, Activist, PIR
Rana Jawad, Senior Lecturer, University of Bath
Ramón Grosfoguel, Professor, University of California at Berkeley
Sandew Hira, coordinator, Decolonial International Network
Dr Mark Hayes, Senior Lecturer Human Sciences, Solent University
Mark Elf, Jews sans frontieres
Dr Hatem Bazian, Lecturer, NES and Asian American Studies, UC Berkeley
Dr Abida Malik, Tutor in Sociology, University of Nottingham
Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers
Amanj Aziz, Student, Gothenburg University
Tom Mills, Lecturer in Sociology, Aston University

Manufacturing Consent On ‘Anti-Semitism’

Modern Day Alchemy - Home Affairs Select Committee Transforms Anti-Zionism into Anti-Semitism

The House of Commons Home Affairs Committee has just published a Report, Anti-Semitism in the UK.  The first and most immediate question is why, when other forms of racist attacks are at an all-time high, the Committee should spend its time examining the least widespread or violent form of racism?  By their own admission, anti-Semitic hate crimes, however defined, total just 1.4% of all such crimes, yet anti-Semitism has its own Parliamentary Report. 

To many Zionists, anti-Zionist Jews deserve to be victims of anti-Semitism for ignoring the 'attraction' of Zionism

In its section ‘Key Facts’ the Committee informs us that there has been a rise of 11% in anti-Semitic incidents in the first half of 2016 compared with 2015.  Shocking you may think.  The rise is from 500 to 557.  But 24% of the total, 133 incidents in all, were on social media.  Of the increase in anti-Semitic incidents, fully 44 of the 57 were on social media.[1]  Obviously it is not very pleasant to receive anti-Semitic tweets such as those above (which were sent by Zionists!) but it is clearly different from acts of violence.

If one looks closer at the Community Security Trust’s Report quoted from then it turns out that there were just 41 violent incidents.  If one delves a little deeper it turns out that there was actually a 13 per cent fall in violent incidents for the first half of 2015 and none of these were classified by the CST as ‘Extreme Violence’, i.e. they involved potential grievous bodily harm or threat to life.  This is good not bad news.  Why would the Select Committee wish to exaggerate the incidence of anti-Semitism?

Anti-Semitic tweet from a Zionist

Most of the anti-Semitic incidents involved ‘verbal abuse’ and it is difficult to know how many of these were genuinely anti-Semitic and how many were of the kind ‘why do you bomb children in Gaza’.  G given that the Board of Deputies of British Jews does its best to associate Jews with Israel’s war crimes, is it any wonder that some people take them at their word?

Contrast this with anti-Muslim hate crimes.  According to a report from the Muslim Hate Monitoring Group Tell MAMA, British Muslims are experiencing an “explosion” in anti-Islamic.

The annual survey by Tell MAMA found a 326 per cent rise in incidents last year, while the Muslim Council of Britain group of mosques said it had compiled a dossier of 100 hate crimes over the weekend alone.

Unlike anti-Semitism, ‘many attacks are happening in the real world – at schools and colleges, in restaurants and on public transport. The number of offline incidents rose 326 per cent in 2015 from 146 to 437’  The effect has been that many Muslim women – especially those wearing Islamic clothing –were being prevented from conducting normal “day to day activities”.[2]

In its concern to marry anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism the Committee 'forgot' about the only visibly Jewish community in Stamford Hill of Ultra Orthodox Charedi Jews who do experience anti-Semitism

Yet the Committee, which was chaired by Keith Vaz, has shown no interest in anti-Muslim racism.  Why might that be? 

Somewhat confusingly for a Report that is supposed to be about anti-Semitism, another of its Key Facts tells us that ‘Research published in 2015 by City University found that 90% of British Jewish people support Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state and 93% say that it forms some part of their identity as Jewish people, but only 59% consider themselves to be Zionists.’  [3]  In reality this Report is not about anti-Semitism but the use of anti-Semitism as a weapon against anti-Zionists.

This Report dips in and out of what it is quoting without any attempt to put anything in perspective.  It probably is true that 90% of British Jews support the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state, but how many of them appreciate that a Jewish settler colonial state is an inherently racist state?   What is interesting is that although the Report admits that only 59% of British Jews consider themselves Zionists, 31% don’t.   Even more interesting, the Report states that ‘in 2010, 72% of the respondents classified themselves as Zionists compared to 59% in the present study.’  As to why that is, the Report offers two different explanations:

i.                    Jews believe that criticism of Israel is incompatible with being a Zionist and

ii.                  the frequent use of the term ‘Zionist’ in general discourse as a pejorative or even abusive label discourages some individuals from describing themselves as a Zionist.

If the latter is correct, then this is clearly a good thing as anti-Zionist criticism of the State of Israel is having some effect and is deterring Jewish people from identifying with a racist ideology.  However the Committee draws the opposite conclusion because it considers Zionism a good thing.  Therein lies the problem.

Amongst other ‘key facts’ was the report of a survey of Labour Party members who joined after the 2015 General Election, 55% of whom agreed that antisemitism is “not a serious problem at all, and is being hyped up to undermine Labour and Jeremy Corbyn, or to stifle legitimate criticism of Israel”.[4]  Clearly, despite the bombardment of the mass media about fake anti-Semitism, most party members are dismissive of this fable.  When Owen Smith debated Jeremy Corbyn in Cardiff and claimed that he hadn’t taken ‘anti-Semitism’ seriously, he was booed.  In reality very few Labour Party members sincerely believe in this hype.

A Report whose primary motivation is to attack Corbyn and the Labour Left

It is curious that a Report on anti-Semitism should start off with a section ‘Anti-Semitism in the Political Parties’ before homing in on just one party, Labour.  Labour is the target throughout this ill-conceived and politically tendentious Report.  It immediately begins with the suspension of Naz Shah and Ken Livingstone and others (who it estimates range from 18-40) for’ anti-Semitism’.  Since no one has been tried or found guilty of ‘anti-Semitism’ one can only assume that the presumption of innocence has been abandoned by lawyer Chuku Ummuna and his Tory friends.  Livingstone expressed an opinion that Hitler supported Zionism.  He may be right or wrong, it may even give offence to those who find the truth unpalatable, but anti-Semitic it is not.  Naz Shah made a joke about how much nicer it would be if Israel was located within the borders of the USA as that would mean less death and destruction all round.  She borrowed a map that originated with the Jewish Virtual Library, hardly the greatest act of anti-Semitism the world has known!

After noting that the vast majority of anti-Semitic attacks come from the far-Right, the Report then speaks about ‘the fact that incidents of antisemitism—particularly online—have made their way into a major political party’ despite not having established any facts to support this.  It is this sleight of hand, asserting that which it is supposed to be proving, which runs throughout this Report.

The Report tried to come up with a definition of anti-Semitism but it did this in a very curious way by aiming to maintain ‘an appropriate balance between condemning antisemitism vehemently, in all its forms, and maintaining freedom of speech—particularly in relation to legitimate criticism of the Government of Israel.’  It is curious in two ways – firstly what has criticism of Israel got to do with a definition of anti-Semitism?  The underlying assumption is that criticism of the State of Israel is somehow anti-Semitic.  Because Israeli racism  is based on its self-definition as a Jewish state, i.e. a state where Jews have privileges, it is assumed that criticism of its racism is therefore anti-Semitic.  This is the ‘logic’ that the Report employes throughout.  Anti-Semitism is hatred of or discrimination against Jews as individuals or violence against them.  A state is not an individual or a victim of racism.  Secondly what is ‘legitimate’ criticism of Israel and in whose eyes?

The Report then dabbles with the MacPherson definition of a ‘racial incident’ suggesting that the definition of a racist incident should be “any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person”.  Again this is fundamentally dishonest because they ignore the context, which was the refusal of the Police to record as racial incidents, incidents perceived as racial by the victims.  MacPherson did not imply, unlike the Committee, that a perception of racism is therefore proof of guilt.

The Report quotes a government statement that ‘it is for the victim to determine whether a crime against them was motivated by a particular characteristic (the Macpherson definition)’.  An absurd statement which is not the MacPherson definition, since that applied to Police perceptions not the judicial process of inquiry.  A victim’s testimony may be good evidence but that is all it is.  It is not determinative.

The purpose of the Committee’s Report is a transparent as it is shallow.  It quotes the ‘International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism which in relation to criticism of Israel:

‘Applying double standards by requiring of it a behaviour not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.’

The Committee demonstrates its ignoranxw since Israel is not a nation, nor does it claim to be so.  It is a state of the Jewish people, regardless of whether they live in or outside Israel.  Nor is Israel a democratic state since it rules over 4.5 million people who have neither civil nor political rights.  It is an ethnocracy, in which settlers rule over a people who are considered guests at best.[5]

Apparently ‘Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.’ Is anti-Semitic.  Leaving aside the small fact that Zionists, including Israeli government politicians repeatedly use the Nazi period and the Holocaust to justify their actions, does this principle hold good for other states?  Were the demonstrators in France in May 68 anti-Semitic for chanting ‘CRS-SS’ at the riot police?

‘Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.’ is also apparently anti-Semitic.  I have great sympathy with this but the Committee’s attention should be directed primarily at Zionists who go to great lengths to associate British Jews with Israel’s war crimes!  Indeed the Report notes that ‘Sir Mick Davis, Chairman of the JLC, told us that criticising Zionism is the same as antisemitism’  because, in the words of the Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis ‘Zionism has been an integral part of Judaism from the dawn of our faith”.  The conclusion cannot be other than that British Jews are collectively responsible for Israel’s crimes.  What a tangled web the Committee weaves.

The most blatant attempt to equate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism is the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism which the Committee accepts:  ‘Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour.’

Firstly there is no Jewish people.  There are French, British, Argentinian and other Jews, who are members of their respective nations.  Only anti-Semites claim that regardless of where they live, Jews form one seamless nation.  It was a proposition that Hitler adhered to.  Apparently it also finds favour with Chuka Ummuna’s Committee too.

As for the Committee’s claim that the existence of the Israeli State is a racist endeavour, that is a matter of opinion or fact.  It has nothing to do with racism.

Without even bothering to examine the question, the Report says that Israel is ‘generally regarded as a liberal democracy’.  The question of what constitutes a liberal democracy is an interesting one but Israel is anything but a democracy by any normal definition.

i.                    Although Israeli Arabs have the vote their representatives are vilified and demonised and Haneen Zoabi of the nationalist Balad Party has had to be protected by security guards from other Knesset members.  Arab parties also have no influence and have never been part of an Israeli government.

ii.                  In a Jewish state policies and laws are draw up with the intention of benefiting one sector only - the Jewish community.  In every area of public life there is entrenched state sponsored discrimination -  be it education funding, local authority grants, land access or police coercion and repression.  The Centre for the Rights of the Arab Minority Adalah has compiled a list of 50 discriminatory laws.[6]

iii.                Israel is in a permanent state of emergency, even though it faces no military threat.  It is a state where torture is legally allowed, where administrative detention is used to imprison (mainly Palestinian) dissidents for repeated bouts of 6 months.

iv.                Israel is a state where all publications have to submit to the military censor whose remit has extended to cover government archives.  The Military Censors can prevent the unsealing of archives and even worse, prevent physical access to archives which were once available.  This is because of digitalisation.[7]

v.                  Four and a half million Palestinians are subject to permanent military rule without any political or civil rights.

To call Israel a ‘liberal democracy’ is to render the term meaningless.  By this definition Apartheid South Africa could also have been considered democratic.

The Use of the Term Zionist

Despite allegedly being a Report on Anti-Semitism this is really about Zionism which, it concedes is ‘a valid topic for academic and political debate’.  Of course anti-Semites substitute the term ‘Zionist’ for ‘Jew’’ but that is precisely why it is incumbent upon us to make a clear distinction between Zionism and being Jewish.  Yet both Sir Mick Davies and the Chief Rabbi gave evidence to the Committee that Zionism and Judaism are one and the same.  It is a testimony to the Committee that it never saw the contradiction.

Where the Committee’s Report becomes a threat to freedom of speech and basic civil liberties is in its recommendation (Para. 32) that:

‘For the purposes of criminal or disciplinary investigations, use of the words ‘Zionist’ or ‘Zio’ in an accusatory or abusive context should be considered inflammatory and potentially antisemitic.’ Anti-Zionism it is proposed should be made, in certain circumstances into a hate crime.  This is the criminalisation of speech.  ‘Zionist’ or its abbreviation is a political not an ethnic or racial category.  That although 59% of Jews consider themselves Zionists, 31% do not.  There are millions of non-Jews who are also Zionists, especially fundamentalist Christians.  Is it anti-Semitic to accuse them of being Zionists?!

The Committee quotes the Institute for Jewish Policy Research that between 4% and 5% of British adults could be termed ‘clearly anti-Semitic’.  In other words 95-96% are not anti-Semitic.  Would that the same could be said of Islamaphobia.  Aabsurdly the Committee concludes that ‘it is alarming that recent surveys show that as many as one in 20 adults in the UK could be characterised as “clearly antisemitic”.’  One wonders what the Committee will say when an opinion poll gets around to measuring anti-Muslim racism!

Contrast this with Israel where no less than 48% of Israeli Jews, a plurality, want to physically expel Arabs from Israel and 79% believe Jews are entitled to preferential treatment in Israel.  It is clear that British  people are remarkably free of anti-Semitic sentiments.[8]

Politically tendentious

When it comes to the affair of Oxford University Labour Club the Committee makes its intentions clear.  It complains that the Baroness Royall Report wasn’t published by Labour’s National Executive Committee in full.  That might be because it contained no evidence of anti-Semitism at the Labour Club.  When Royall first reported, she wrote on the web site of the Zionist Jewish Labour Movement that:

 ‘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.’ 

What kind of political clown is disappointed that she couldn’t find any institutional anti-Semitism?  In fact Royall found no individual anti-Semitism either.  By her own admission she was ‘honoured but daunted when asked by the NEC to undertake this inquiry.’ [9]  It was clearly all too much for her.  What she found was a remarkably thin gruel.  She reported that she was aware of ‘one case of serious false allegations of antisemitism which was reported to the police.’   

All she had to say was that ‘I received a number of complaints of incidents of alleged antisemitic behaviour by individual members of OULC. I have also received evidence that members of the Club, including past office holders of  the Club, have not witnessed antisemitic behaviour by other members. ...It is clear to me from the weight of witnessed allegations received that there have been some incidents of antisemitic behaviour ... However, it is not clear to me to what extent this behaviour constituted intentional or deliberate acts of antisemitism. This is particularly true of historic hearsay evidence.’  We get no inkling as to what this behaviour consists of.  In the end she sees ‘no value in pursuing disciplinary cases against students who may be better advised as to their conduct’ which suggests that whatever she was told was clearly not serious.  It is little wonder that the Report was not published. 

Even the Parliamentary Report observes that these allegations arose when the non-Jewish Zionist Chair of Oxford University Labour Club, Alex Chalmers, a former intern for the Zionist propaganda organisation BICOM, objected to the Club supporting Oxford University’s Israel Apartheid Week.  The Committee fails to explain what this has to do with anti-Semitism.

Malia Bouattia – President of the National Union of Students

In attacking the President of NUS, Malia Bouattia, a refugee from real oppression in Algeria, for ‘anti-Semitism’ the Committee descended into the gutter.  It relied on McCarthyite guilt by association and did not have the integrity or honesty to invite her to give evidence.  Instead it quoted the Union of Jewish Students, for whom Israel advocacy is an integral part of its constitutional requirements, that the statement the University of Birmingham is “something of a Zionist outpost” is anti-Semitic.  Why this is anti-Semitic is never explained.  Presumably the UJS and the Committee, in conjunction with the BNP and other fascist organisations, agree that to be Zionist is to be Jewish.  There is no other logic.   It is no more racist than describing the University of Sussex as a radical outpost.

On the basis of the above the Committee concludes that ‘The current President of the National Union of Students, Malia Bouattia, does not appear to take sufficiently seriously the issue of antisemitism on campus’  The Jewish students it refers to are representatives or supporters of the pro-Israel UJS.  Anti-Zionist Jewish students are, of course, invisible to the Committee as are anti-Zionist Jews generally.

Ill Intent

In the section entitled ‘Political Discourse and Leadership’ the Report says:

‘A number of hard-left organisations, such as Unite Against Fascism, Stop the War Coalition and Palestine Solidarity Campaign, have clearly taken a pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli Government stance. These organisations hold or participate in marches, some of which have been attended by leading politicians such as Mr Corbyn.’  This is called killing two birds with one stone!  How anyone can describe Palestine Solidarity Campaign as ‘hard left’ is beyond comprehension.  The attendance of Jeremy Corbyn though is clearly an added bonus for the Chuku Ummunas of this world. 

The Committee also regurgitates the false allegations of Board of Deputies President Jonathan Arkush that on some demonstrations ‘there were “huge marches” in London at which people held placards that read “Hitler was right.” (para 99).  This is an outright lie.  Not an iota of proof has been provided to substantiate this assertion.  For a report heavy on pictoral descriptions one might expect a photograph to back this up.  It is an evidence free assertion that typifies the whole report.

The Report is critical, in a nit picky way, of the Chakrabarti Report quoting the Board’s observation that it does not deal with ‘anti-Semitism’ and ‘anti-Zionism’ on the left.  Maybe that’s because there is none!  The Report does however mention (paras. 103/104) the false allegations of anti-Semitism at the Chakrabarti Press Conference by Ruth Smeeth MP, who Wikileaks outed as a protected agent for the US Embassy.[10]  What was the anti-Semitic statement that caused this fake victim to walk out?  ‘“Ruth Smeeth is working hand-in-hand with the right-wing media to attack Jeremy”.   I defy anyone to show how this is anti-Semitic since Marc Wadsworth, the Black activist who said it, didn’t even know she was Jewish.

The Committee concludes that the Chakrabarti Report ‘is ultimately compromised by its failure to deliver a comprehensive set of recommendations or to provide a definition of antisemitism.  Given that the definition of anti-Semitism has eluded far wiser people than Chakrabarti, perhaps because the very concept of anti-Semitism is now so politically loaded, the failure to provide an all-encompassing definition is neither here nor there.  The Committee after all also failed to provide one.  The best it could do was to say that it ‘broadly accept(s) the IHRA definition’ with 2 caveats regarding criticism of the Israeli government.

Chakrabarti’s problem was that there is next to no anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.  There is certainly criticism of Zionism and the Israeli state, but despite much muddying of the waters, most people still refuse to accept that criticism of the West’s armed watchdog in the Middle East is anti-Semitic.

What the Committee does do is to try and discredit Shami Chakrabarti through hint and innuendo.  Her acceptance of a peerage somehow discredits her Report.  This is an institution where the giving of money to a party in exchange for a peerage doesn’t even raise an eyebrow.     

 It is a measure of the political desperation of the Report that it picks up on the Jackie Walker debate on which I have previously reported.[11]  It did this without asking her to give evidence.  Its comments are inaccurate and frankly malicious.  It states that:

‘Jackie Walker, who was temporarily suspended from Labour earlier in the year for stating that Jewish people were the “chief financiers” of the slave trade, reportedly criticised Holocaust Memorial Day and said that she had not heard a definition of antisemitism that she could “work with”.’  Since Jackie did not say that ‘Jewish People’ were the chief financiers of the slave trade this is nothing short of malicious.  Secondly, how is saying that one hasn’t heard a definition of anti-Semitism that one can work with, anti-Semitic? 

It is therefore not surprising that, after much malicious and tendentious commentary, under the title ‘Other Political Activity’ the Committee concludes that ‘there exists no reliable, empirical evidence to support the notion that there is a higher prevalence of antisemitic attitudes within the Labour Party than any other political party.’  This throws into stark relief the Report’s vacuity.  It demonstrates that this is above all a Report of the Labour and Tory Right.

The Report depends almost exclusively  on evidence from  pro-Israel, anti-Corbyn sources.  This alone demonstrates that this Report is a one-sided propaganda exercise.

But the most remarkable omission of all is the fact that the one Jewish community which is visible in its distinctive appearance and which does suffer anti-Semitic attacks, the ultra-Orthodox haredi community of Stamford Hill, London isn’t even mentioned!  As the President of the Stamford Hill Shomrim (Guards) Rabbi Herschel Gluck states: 

‘While this report focuses primarily on the difference between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.... it’s important to note that the parliamentary committee did not request any evidence from the most visible section of the Jewish community,  the Charedi Community, where the majority of the attacks are in person rather than online... and are usually clearly and unequivocally anti-Semitic.  I repeat my call to the Home Office to understand the real life anti-Semitism that members of the Charedi Jewish Community experience...’

It is not surprising that the only Jewish community to experience anti-Semitism was ignored, because this Report was not about anti-Semitism but about redefining anti-Zionism as anti-Semitism.  Truly this Report is risible. 

Tony Greenstein

---

[1]           CST Antisemitic Incidents Report January - June 2016

[2]           UK entering 'unchartered territory' of Islamophobiaafter Brexit vote 

[3]           The Attitudes of British Jews Towards Israel, 

[4]           Professor Tim Bale, Dr Monica Poletti and Professor Paul Webb, Submission to the Chakrabarti Inquiry on behalf of the ESRC Party Members Project, 3 June 2016.

[5]           Twice, in 2013 in Uzzi Ornan v the State of Israel and again in 1972 in Tamarin v State of Israel the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that there was no such thing as an Israeli nationality.  In Tamarin Justice Agranat ruled that ‘the desire to create an Israeli nation separate from the Jewish nation is not a legitimate aspiration.’  It would ‘negate the foundation on which the State of Israel was established.’

[6]           https://www.adalah.org/en/law/index

[7]           Israel's state archivist opens up about censorship, digitization

[8]           Israel’s Religiously Divided Society

[9]           Baroness Jan Royall, Allegations of anti-Semitism, Oxford University Labour Club, 

[10]             In a cable the US Embassy placed ‘strictly protect’ after Smeeth’s name.  

[11]          See Caving in to the witch-hunt and More than just cowardice