The Threat to Freedom of Speech from Brighton Council Leader Nancy Platts - all in the name of 'anti-Semitism'

 Like Trump Platts Professes Concern About 'Antisemitism' when the real concern is to prevent criticsm of Israel 

When Trump told four Black Congresswomen, Rashida Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Ayanna S. Pressley to ‘go back home’ (despite 3 of them being born in the USA), he also added for good measure that they 'hate America and hate Israel.'

Trump’s concerns are understandable because the one country in the world where Trump is more popular than unpopular is the apartheid State of Israel. [See Support for Trump higher in Israel than almost any other nation: poll]

Like the Tories and Labour’s Right, Trump cannot distinguish between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. Which is why, at the very time he was condemning 'anti-Semitism' he was also accusing America’s Jews, 80% of whom vote Democrat, of disloyalty to both himself and the State of Israel. Like his former adviser Steve Bann, Trump uses support for Israel as a stick to beat America’s Jews with!

examples of the abuse that Jackie Walker, one of Platt's targets received -  this is the abuse that anti-Zionists regularly receive but which, unlike that of Zionist prima donnas like Ruth Smeeth is never mentioned

According to Trump Israel is the ‘real home’ of America’s Jews. This is a Zionist doctrine, although many Zionists prefer to maintain a state of political schizophrenia. As Peter Beinart, one of the few genuinely thoughtful Zionists around, whose opinion pieces are always worth reading (perhaps because he’s a Professor of Journalism!) remarked ‘in the past, Trump has repeatedly spoken about American Jews as if they were Israelis.’

And this is equally true of Platts and Kyle.  It is now part of Labour Party culture (if such a term is not an oxymoron) to equate criticism of Israel with criticism of Jews i.e. anti-Semitism. Israel has become the collective Jew. 

That was the purpose and function of the IHRA ‘definition’ of anti-Semitism that Brighton and Hove council adopted last October and for which Nancy Platts voted. So when meetings are held which criticise Israel or Zionism, idiots like Platts (who to be fair has a limited comprehension of such matters) equate such criticism with hostility to Jews).  And those of us who are Jewish anti-Zionists are merely the ‘wrong sort of Jew’ or to use the Nazi term beloved of Zionists, ‘self-haters’ (because if you hate your race you hate yourself).

As Beinart noted 

‘In an April speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition, he called Benjamin Netanyahu “your prime minister” and warned that a Democratic victory in 2020 “could leave Israel out there all by yourselves.”

At the White House Hanukkah Party last December, he told the mostly Jewish audience that Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Karen, “love your country. And they love this country.”

When Kyle, Platts and friends conflate anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism what they are doing is saying that the murderous actions of Israel are carried out on behalf of Jews, wherever they live. That is the logic of equating anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. After all Israel is a ‘Jewish state’. 

Trump being a white supremacist says out aloud what Kyle and Platts can only whisper, viz. that Jewish allegiance is to Israel.  In the meantime these ciphers do their best to introduce Israeli ‘democracy’ into Britain by closing down meetings they disagree with.

Merely by talking about 'resistance' Israeli Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour was gaoled whereas people who chant 'Death to the Arabs' are never even prosecuted

After all Israel is the self-declared ‘only democracy in the Middle East’ albeit a democracy which sent to prison an Israel Arab poet, Dareen Tatour, for expressing support for Palestinian resistance. No amount of racist abuse from Jews in Israel has ever resulted in imprisonment, even in the case of the two rabbis who wrote a book in 2011, Torat HaMelech (the King's Torah) explaining how, according to Jewish law, it was legally possible in war to kill Palestinian children and infants. But this is the type of racism that Platts and her claque ignore.

The Israeli prosecutors found there was 'no basis' to indict the authors of a book who explain why its lawful to kill Arab children

None of this should be any surprise.  At the heart of Zionist theology is the belief that Jews are aliens in the countries they reside in. Israel is the Jewish state and it openly proclaims that it is the state of all Jews. That is why every Jew has the ‘right of return’ to Israel, regardless of whether they have ever been there, whereas Palestinians who were born and lived there for generations have no such right. Racism is inseparable from Zionism and the Kyles and the Platts of Labour's Right are its defenders. 

Yet when it comes to the Windrush Scandal, stop and search and other, genuine examples of racism, Kyle and Platts are silent. Only racism against a section of White people concern them.

As the Jewish Democratic Council of America put it, Trump has ‘"weaponise(d) and politicise(d) anti-Semitism" for political gain.’  And that is exactly what Nancy Platts and Peter Kyle, with their allegations of ‘Jew’ hate/baiting also do.

There is virtually no anti-Semitism in Brighton and Hove.  Jews are a privileged, white community. I know of no anti-Semitic attacks in Brighton. The statement by Platts that ‘I am concerned to hear that there may be any events in or around Labour Party Conference where Jewish people would not feel welcome.’ is disingenuous.  As the meeting with Chris Williamson demonstrated when Jewish people came to stand with him, Jewish people have always been welcome at Palestinian and anti-Zionist meetings.

There are no events where Jews are not welcome. Of course racists, whether they are Jewish or non-Jewish are not welcome at anti-racist events. So members of Sussex Friends of Israel, who did their best to intimidate venues into cancelling the talk by Chris Williamson 2 weeks ago are not welcome. They include people like Simon Cobbs who has demonstrated alongside the English Defence League.  But that is because Cobbs is a racist not because he is Jewish.

There was a complete and total failure to support a family under attack by racists - no comparable case has ever affected a Jewish family

There is and always has been a problem of anti-Muslim racism in Brighton and about that Kyle and Platts are silent. That was particularly true in the case of the Deghayes family, three of whose sons went to fight for Jihadis in Syria after the Police’s failure to tackle the racism they experienced. As the Guardian noted:

Racist incidents increased in 2007 when the boy’s uncle, Omar Deghayes, was released from Guantánamo Bay after being held for five years after his arrest in Pakistan. His return to Brighton led to an angry backlash locally where far-right groups reportedly whipped up anger. Graffiti reading “Behead all Muslims” was daubed near their home and when it was attacked by a mob, police installed CCTV.

Social workers reported that it became increasingly difficult dealing with the family who felt their complaints were not dealt with adequately.

As the boys’ behaviour deteriorated further, youth and social workers expressed their “helplessness” at having no solutions. They expressed “shock and disbelief” when it was discovered the brothers had gone to Syria. “This possibility had never been identified and there was also no recognition that the siblings were vulnerable to radicalisation, travel or participation in conflict.”

The failure to deal with racist attacks on the family led directly to the alienation (‘radicalisation’) of their three sons. Nancy Platts kept her mouth shut during all of this and other failures, such as the murder of Jay Abatan, which Brighton Police force also failed to deal with. But when it comes to non-existent anti-Semitism she is willing to bare her soul to a Zionist publication which has called Jeremy Corbyn an ‘anti-Semite’.

I therefore wrote Platts a letter last night and sent the letter to every Labour and Green Councillor on Brighton and Hove Council.

We know of course what this is about and it has nothing to do with ‘anti-Semitism’ and everything to do with Chris Williamson, Jackie Walker and Ken Livingstone speaking at the fringe of the Labour Party conference in one month.

We expect that the Zionist movement will object. In Israel the Police would simply ban such meetings. In Brighton the Zionists are expecting their faithful poodles Platts and Kyle to do their dirty work. We have news for them.  Chris Williamson and others will speak in Brighton next month regardless of the grandstanding of New Labour's racists.

Below is a letter I wrote to Nancy Platts.  I suspect I won't be receiving a reply!!

Tony Greenstein

Councillor Nancy Platts

Leader Brighton and Hove City Council,

Brighton Town Hall

BN1 1JW

Email to:          nancy.platts@brighton-hove.gov.uk

Dear Nancy,

I have just read your interview with Jewish News, a paper which only a year ago spoke of ‘the existential threat to Jewish life in this country that would be posed by a Jeremy Corbyn-led government.’

An ‘existential threat’ means a threat to one’s very existence. In other words a Corbyn government would represent a mortal danger to Jews. This is the paper which you chose to confide in.

You used to work in Corbyn’s office. I don’t know whether or not you still support him or if, in your new role as Leader of the Labour Group, you are seeking to follow in the footsteps of your predecessors, Warren Morgan and Daniel Yates, both of whom are members of the Jewish Labour Movement.

The title of your interview ‘‘I want Jewish people to feel welcome in Brighton’ is highly offensive. It is no different in tone to the remarks of Warren Morgan two years ago which led to his resignation. You clearly imply that Jewish people are not welcome in Brighton. What evidence do you have for this? Perhaps you could explain why you have singled out Jews as opposed to Muslims or Black people?

I have lived in Brighton for over 40 years and have rarely encountered anti-Semitism other than from fascist and neo-Nazi groups. I am the author of the only book detailing the history of the fight against fascism in Brighton and the South Coast. A book which was reviewed by the Argus in 2012. I think I know a little more about anti-Semitism than you.

In 2012 Brighton anti-fascists scored a historic victory against a Police force which was intent on forcing an English Defence League march through the city. I must confess that I don’t remember either you or any of the other exponents of  Labour ‘anti-Semitism’ of having played any part in either that or any other anti-fascist activity.

You state in your interview that you are ‘concerned to hear that there may be any events in or around Labour Party Conference where Jewish people would not feel welcome.’ Well we all would be concerned if there was any truth to such a story.  However it is a lie peddled by your Zionist friends to drum up sympathy.

Two weeks ago there was an attempt to prevent a meeting by Chris Williamson MP in Brighton. Peter Kyle MP called him a ‘Jew baiter’ a charge that is nothing less than a form of political terrorism. Kyle’s real objection was that Chris had opposed the witchhunt in the Labour Party and called for open selection of Labour MPs. In other words Jews were being used as a stick to beat the Left with.

Instead of speaking up in support of free speech and the rights of peaceful assembly, rights guaranteed under Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention of Human Rights you have chosen to stand with the McCarthyists and those who would destroy free speech on Israel and Palestine. You have done this at the behest of supporters of Israeli apartheid.

Allegations of anti-Semitism by the Right, and I include you in that, are nothing more than a convenient smokescreen for those who wish to avoid a debate over Israel and Zionism. You can rest assured that just as we ensured that Chris defied the threats of violence from those who tried to prevent him speaking two weeks ago we will do the same again.

We are determined to ensure that Chris Williamson, Ken Livingstone and Jackie Walker are able to speak freely at the Labour Party conference fringe, your McCarthyist friends notwithstanding.

Jackie Walker in particular has suffered vile racist abuse  from your Zionist friends. I am copying some of them here so that you cannot plead ignorance. In Israel Zionists march to chant of ‘death to the Arabs’. In this country they complain of ‘anti-Semitism’.

Racism against Black people is an integral part of Zionism. In Israel Black Jews are not considered fully Jewish and currently there is an attempt to forcibly deport 40,000 Black African refugees who in the words of Netanyahu ‘threaten Israel’s Jewish identity. The Israeli Labour Party too supports deporting these refugees. The same Israeli Labour Party that the Jewish Labour Movement is affiliated to.

I doubt if there is a single Palestine solidarity activist in this country, including Jewish anti-Zionists, who has not been called an anti-Semite. The fact that people like you have been taken in by this nonsense speaks volumes about your commitment to anti-racism.

It was little more than a year ago that you were on the platform speaking alongside Chris Williamson. It seems that having fulfilled your political ambitions you are travelling a well worn path to the right that people before you have taken.

The weaponisation of anti-Semitism is not confined to Britain or the Labour Party. In the United States Donald Trump has combined vociferous support for Israel with praise for neo-Nazis. When telling 4 Black Congresswomen to ‘go home’ he also attacked  them because they "hate Israel & all Jewish people.’

I’m sorry to see that you have joined with those who use bogus charges of ‘anti-Semitism’ to deflect support for the Palestinians. You should be ashamed of yourself. If Jews in this country experienced even a tenth of the discrimination that Palestinians endure in Israel then they would indeed have cause to complain about anti-Semitism.

Yours sincerely,

Tony Greenstein

Letter I wrote to Nancy Platts

Banning Gilad Atzmon from playing a jazz concert in Islington has nothing to do with opposing anti-Semitism

I oppose the ban on Atzmon not only because it's an attack on artistic freedom but because it's aimed at upholding not opposing racism

Gilad Atzmon has been banned by Islington Council from playing a jazz concert with the Blockheads under the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism. Yet the IHRA policy itself is both racist and anti-semitic.  Ipso facto any ban enacted under it can only be aimed at supporting and entrenching racism and anti-semitism.

I recently wrote about the disparity in sentencing between Israeli Jews  and non-Jews in Israel. An Israeli, Evyatar Damari, who was part of a lynch mob that killed an Eritrean refugee, Haftom Zarhum, in Beer Sheba's bus station received 4 months imprisonment. That was the most severe sentence. Most of the lynch mob either received community service or in the case of members of the prison service were simply not prosecuted.

I contrasted this with 16 year old Ahed Tamimi whose cousin, half an hour before, had been shot in the head by a plastic bullet. Ahed slapped a soldier who invaded the grounds of her house.  She received an 8 months sentence and the Education Minister, Naftali Bennett suggested she should spend the rest of her days in prison. 

Yet if I call this racist then according to the IHRA misdefinition of anti-semitism, which states that calling Israel a 'racist endeavour' is itself anti-semitic, it is me who is anti-Semitic. Not only is the IHRA racist but in suggesting that Jews support Israeli racism it is also anti-Semitic. Yet this is the policy that is being used to ban Gilad Atzmon.  Clearly he isn't being banned on anti-racist grounds.

The Board of Deputies which opposes Atzmon's antisemitism is wholeheartedly in favour of Israeli snipers mowing down unarmed Palestinians - it sees no contradiction

Noone has been a greater critic of Atzmon over the years than me. Nearly 12 years ago I wrote one of the first critiques of Atzmon’s anti-Semitism, The Seamy Side of Solidarity in the Guardian’s Comment is Free, at a time when the Guardian wasn’t afraid of debating issues such as Zionism. I also organised a picket of Jews Against Zionism in June 2005 when Atzmon came to talk on Otto Weininger at the SWP’s Bookmarks.

Salvador Dalli was an admirer of Zionism, which he saw as a kindred spirit

My blog was initially set up in order to combat the pernicious influence of Atzmon in the Palestine solidarity movement. I have written dozens of articles analysing why Atzmon’s writings are both anti-Semitic and unhelpful to the struggle for Palestinian liberation. I produced A Guide to the Sayings of Gilad Atzmon, the anti-Semitic jazzman and in a review of his book The Wandering Who I described it as  Worthless and Devoid of All Originality. Other articles included Gilad Atzmon Comes Out - Now an open anti-Semite .  I penned a number of articles in Weekly Worker such as Time to say goodbye. Atzmon was not reticent in attacking me either, e.g. The Green(stein)-Eyed Monster.

In a debate with Atzmon, which has been widely quoted, I demonstrated how he was undoubtedly anti-Semitic and sympathetic to the arguments of holocaust denier Paul Eisen. During the course of this debate Atzmon described Eisen’s Holocaust Wars, which was paean to Ernst Zundel, an open Hitler worshipper, as ‘a great text’.

Salvador Dalli's Theatre/Museum at Figueres - Perhaps this too is not kosher?

You might therefore think that I would welcome the decision by Islington Council to ban Atzmon from playing a concert. I don’t. My objection was always to Atzmon’s politics.  I have never objected to his music. Although jazz is not my preferred musical form I recognise that Atzmon is a brilliant performer. For example he won the BBC Jazz Record of the Year in 2003 with Exile. Nor is he a fascist like many of his detractors.

It is utterly indefensible as well as being undemocratic to ban Atzmon’s music. It fits in well with the police state methods of the Israeli state which recently gaoled an Israeli Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour for writing a poem.  This is the same Israeli state which does nothing and says nothing when hundreds of Israeli Jews add ‘death to the Arabs’ to their twitter id.

The Jewish Chronicle's opposition to the antisemitic Atzmon does not apply to the racism of Zionism

The ban on Atzmon has nothing to do with anti-racism and is part of the Zionist attack on freedom of speech for Palestinians and anti-Zionists in Britain. To support it or say nothing is to give comfort to the racist supporters of the Israeli state.

The Article I wrote on Why Atzmon is Antisemitic

The ban on Atzmon is nothing less than cultural McCarthyism. It is wrong in principle. When you prevent someone performing because you disagree with their politics it is a slippery road to an authoritarian state. Perhaps we should ban T.S. Elliot’s poetry and Wasteland since Elliot was, without doubt, anti-Semitic. Maybe we should also ban the works of Ezra Pound who was far worse and a sympathiser with the Nazis. Undoubtedly we should ban anything connected with Salvador Dalli since he supported Franco and Hitler. [See When The Surrealists Expelled Salvador Dalí for “the Glorification of Hitlerian Fascism” (1934)] I confess here to having recently visited his theatre-museum in Figueres and found it thoroughly enjoyable (and also learnt that he was something of a Zionist – not unusual in fascist circles).

Salvador Dalli's Museum/Theatre at 

For those doubting Thomases and professional searchers after anti-Semitism in the Jewish Labour Movement and other racist circles we should also ban Charles Dickens. Fagin, who ran a school of pick pockets, is perhaps the most notorious of all Jewish characters in English literature. In 1854 the Jewish Chronicle asked of Dickens why "Jews alone should be excluded from the 'sympathizing heart' of the author.

My review of Atzmon's Wandering Who

Dickens was a racist who also supported the infamous Governor Eyre, who declared Martial Law in Jamaica when there was a Black rebellion in 1865. Over 400 were hanged and 600 flogged (including women). This caused a massive controversy with Darwin on one side and Dickens alongside the white colonists and Tennyson.

And if the ban on Gilad Atzmon stands then we should definitely ban Shakespeare from the syllabus because there is no doubt that the Merchant of Venice with his pound of flesh is also anti-Semitic. Some people even believe that we should rewrite the Merchant of Venice and for good measure we should also ban Wagner’s music.

There is no love lost between Atzmon and myself but principles are somewhat more important

This is the cultural philistinism and barbarism that wretches like the Jewish Labour Movement’s Adam Langleben would have us indulge. The JLM, which is calling for the whip to be withdraw from Chris Williamson MP, whom it terms a ‘Jew baiter’ because he initially opposed the ban on Atzmon, is a group that has war criminal Ivor Caplin, a Defence Minister in Blair’s government at the time of the Iraqi invasion, as its Chair. At least Atzmon doesn’t have the blood of thousands of innocent people on his hands but Langleben, Caplin et al would have Atzmon’s music, which has hurt no one, banned.

‘This is the cultural philistinism and barbarism that wretches like the Jewish Labour Movement’s Adam Langleben would have us indulge.’

Whereas the Nazis banned books, the Zionists would ban music. As Heinrich Heine presciently remarked, those who burn books later burn people. The same is true of those who would ban Atzmon. There is a debate over politics and art but it is not one that the Langlebens and Caplins would even begin to understand.

Chris Williamson wasn't aware of Atzmon's antisemitism but nonetheless he is wrong to support a ban

The relationship between the artist and what they produce has always been a difficult and controversial one. Artists can create great music and art despite themselves because of the influence of society in all its forms upon them.  Their art is greater than them. Art and culture does not belong to the individual who created it but the society in which it is created.

Artists often create what they do despite their own politics and preferences. To expect that only politically correct artists or musicians will produce acceptable music or art is a form of cultural barbarism that reminds one of the Stalinist concept of socialist realism and art as a function of politics. The Nazis and Hitler in particular had a similar attitude to what they termed ‘degenerate’ art.

The reality is that people like Bob Dylan produced great music not because of their own intrinsic worthiness but because of the impact of the wider society upon them and their ability to synthesise that music into the moods of the time.  The genius of Dylan’s music is despite his worthlessness as an individual.

The attempt to ban Atzmon should be laughed out of court but given the intellectual poverty of the Labour Party’s Zionist witchunters and its machine politicians with their endorsement of the incoherent fulminations of the IHRA, the decision of Islington Council has not met with any substantive criticism. People have been intimidated. Even Chris Williamson has been forced to row back and apologise for his initial opposition to the ban when apprised of Atzmon’s anti-Semitism.

This campaign is utterly hypocritical. Atzmon’s anti-Semitism is not dangerous to Jews. Atzmon’s nonsense is a danger to Palestinians. That was why Ali Abunimah and other Palestinians issued a statement Granting No Quarter: A Call for the Disavowal of the Racism and Antisemitism of Gilad Atzmon because it tarnishes their struggle. ‘Anti-Semitism’ today is primarily either verbal or on social media.  Noone has died because of a Tweet or Facebook post.

What anti-Semitism exists today is either on social media or a reaction to Israel’s murderous barbarities.  Where anti-Semitism does have strong social roots, as in areas of Eastern Europe – Poland, Hungary – then one finds that these regimes are the best friends of Israel!  Indeed the absurdity is that it is European’s far-Right governments which are the strongest supporters of the IHRA, e.g. the neo-Nazi Freedom Party in Austria’s Government. Indeed Israel has been arming the neo-Nazi Azov Batalion in the Ukraine.

In reality Atzmon, who sees Zionism as the authentic expression of being Jewish, is a Zionist who doesn’t like what Zionism has become.  Unfortunately he expresses his dislike in anti-Semitic terms thus reinforcing Zionism. That is why he spends most of his time attacking Jewish anti-Zionists like me! I fully agree with the statement of Ali Abunimah and the other Palestinians. That is also why I disagree with this stupid, reactionary and counter-productive ban.

Tony Greenstein

Fiasco In Islington

Richard Hugus

Gilad Atzmon

Jazz saxophonist and writer Gilad Atzmon was recently banned from playing at an assembly hall in Islington, a borough of London, by order of the Islington Town Council. This came about as a result of an e-mail from one person – Martin Rankoff – saying nothing more than that if Atzmon was going to be at the venue on December 21 he would give a ticket that was given to him to someone else.

Rankoff wrote, “Mr Atzmon’s news and beliefs I personally find repulsive and do not wish to be in the same place as him, let alone listen to his music.” Rankoff included links to ADL and Israeli news outlets accusing Atzmon of antisemitism. Incredibly, on the basis of this letter alone, the Islington Council went way out of its way and contacted the show’s promoter to get Atzmon banned—something Rankoff didn’t even ask for.

Imagine the situation in reverse: Gilad Atzmon writes a letter to the Council saying he is uncomfortable with Martin Rankoff appearing in the audience at Islington assembly hall. He refers to Mr. Rankoff’s pro-Israel Twitter page where Rankoff calls Jeremy Corbyn “A F***ing Antisemite and Racist” and where Corbyn is pictured on a bike with a comment suggesting Corbyn should be rammed by a car. Atzmon says that he doesn’t feel safe with Rankoff in the audience. He finds Mr. Rankoff’s support for Israel repulsive because Israel was founded on genocide against the people of Palestine. As proof he provides links to news reports on the slaughter of unarmed protestors in Gaza since March 30, 2018, and a story on the Deir Yassin massacre of 1948.

This imaginary second complaint would have been scorned as an abridgement of Rankoff’s rights. Indeed, since the Islington Council has adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, in which criticism of Israel is deemed antisemitic, the Council would probably feel obliged to forward the letter to the authorities as evidence of hate speech.

The Council provided a statement on the banning in which it says:

“under the Equality Act 2010, the Council must, in the exercise of its functions, have due regard to the need to foster good relations between different races and religions within the borough. The Council took account of the fact that Mr Atzmon’s presence at the Hall, and knowledge of his presence among residents of the borough, might harm such relationships, as well as the Council’s duty to tackle prejudice and promote understanding within the borough.”

This begs the question — in what way would either the “presence” of Gilad Atzmon or “knowledge of his presence among residents” harm the relationship between different races and religions in the borough? Atzmon was to appear at the venue as a saxophone player in a jazz group. It’s hard to imagine a more severe inversion of the concept of discrimination. On the basis of the feelings of one complainant, the right of a musician to work or even be present in Islington is taken away.

What lies behind this is a familiar tactic. Zionists have no argument to counter critics of Israel, so they try to shut them up by attacking their character and robbing them of their livelihood. Now AIPAC and other lobbies are working to make it illegal to criticize Israel, as we see in the recent case of a Texas speech therapist whose yearly contract was denied because she refused to sign a pledge not to support a boycott of Israel. One might ask, what does a teaching position in Pflugerville, Texas have to do with one’s opinions about a country seven thousand miles away? And why does that country have the right to compel anyone in the US to sign a loyalty oath?

If the BDS movement doesn’t do it, zealotry and fanatacism will be the undoing of the Zionist project. People don’t like being told what they are allowed to think and say. When our words and thoughts are policed, it makes us question all the more. What were once decent leftist positions against racism and discrimination have been twisted into a new kind of totalitarianism, one in which it is racist to question the racist, and discriminatory to question discrimination; one in which we are told to think something doesn’t exist when we can see with our own eyes that it does. The self-righteous members of the Islington Town Council have set a very dangerous precedent, and have been used as fools on top of it.

What Kind of Democracy Sentences a Poet to 5 months in Gaol for having written a poem?

When it comes to Facebook ‘incitement,’ only Palestinians are arrested, never Israeli Jews 

Calling for ‘Death to the Arabs’ is not a crime it is Zionist morality – but  calls for ‘resistance’ are ‘incitement’

I have posted a number of articles about the case of Dareen Tatour [What kind of state gaols its poets? The Israeli state (if they're not Jewish)

Last May Dareen was convicted of 'incitement' and supporting a 'terrorist organisation'. On 31^st July Nazareth Magistrates Court sentenced her to 5 months in prison, 3 of which she has already served, in addition to a suspended sentence of 6 months in prison.  Her offence? Writing a poem that talked of 'resistance'. Palestinian Israelis are not supposed to resist their oppressors and thus resistance is a crime. 

This decision has been widely condemned in Israel and world wide.  PEN International stated that ‘Tatour has been targeted for peacefully exercising her right to free expression through poetry and activism.’  PEN International President Jennifer Clement declared that:

"Today PEN International stands with Dareen Tatour, as we have for the past torturous years of jail time, trials and house arrest, and defends freedom of expression and asks for her freedom. We stand with Tatour’s own words: poetry is not a crime".

Dareen posted the poem ‘Resist, My People, Resist Them’ on Facebook in 2015 (see below).  This led straight to gaol and then a severely restricted house arrest (no Internet) for three years.

Many Israeli writers and academics have supported Dareen, including A B Yehoshua, one of Israel’s most famous novelists. However the security state triumphs over all such as these. As Dareen explained:

“I expected prison, and unfortunately there is prison, there is nothing surprising. This is an Israeli court and there is no justice in an Israeli court when the accused is Palestinian.”

Israel is a democracy, to a limited extent, for Jews but when it comes to Arabs Israel is a Jewish police state. 

Israelis who changed their Facebook profile names to include the words “Death to Arabs.” - none of them have been prosecuted

There is one law for Israeli Palestinians and another for Israeli Jews.  No amount of incitement by Israelis is punished.  People who change their Facebook name to ‘Death to the Arabs’ suffer no penalty but an Arab who talks of ‘resistance’ is under immediate threat of arrest and imprisonment.

Those liars and hypocrites in Britain who provide cover for Dareen’s gaolers, like Labour’s Shadow Foreign Secretary, Emily Thornberry and  Margaret Hodge, those who call Israel a ‘democracy’, are worse than the worst Zionist because they provide the legitimacy that Israel’s common and garden racists cannot muster. They provide the veneer of respectability that the purveyors of apartheid can never hope to match.  They lend the stamp of approval to those who cry ‘death to the Arabs’ and who proclaim that their morality is one of racism.  It is the Emily Thornberries of this world who place a seal of approval on Israeli racism. People like Thornberry, Hodge, Kyle and Ryan are worse than any Israeli racist.

Jon Lansman, the Momentum owner-dictator went to Tel Aviv recently in order to persuade people that Labour is tackling its non-existent’ ‘anti-Semitism’.  It is like a White person going, during the heyday of Apartheid, to South Africa in order to assure the Afrikaaners that opponents of Apartheid, who were really anti-White racists were also being disciplined.  That is why someone like Jon Lansman is worse than the worst Israeli racist.

When 2 young girls take a selfie telling you that hatred of Arabs is not racism but morality, then what they are describing is the morality of Zionism.  Lansman tells us that Zionism is a ‘take your pick’ ideology.  It can be anything that the oppressor wants it to be – it can be socialist to the faux socialists of the Jewish Labour Movement and it can be the rationale for the proud racists of Habayit HaYehudi/Jewish Home when they legislate for Jewish only towns. 

What Lansman and his fellow racists in the Labour Party forget is that the decision as to what Zionism represents is not in the gift of the colonialist and his friends in Britain but the Palestinian who is faced with the reality of Zionism.  When Jewish mobs demonstrate in Afula against the selling of a house to an Arab in a Jewish city, that is Zionism.  When the World Zionist Organisation funds the expansion of settlements that is Zionism. When marchers chant ‘death to the Arabs’ that too is Zionism.

Hovav-incitement

The only disagreement I have with Daniella’s article is where she says that being Jewish is just a religion.  In Israel it is also a nationality or ethnicity albeit a nationalism of the oppressor, which is why the fate of Israelis is to merge with the Palestinians and become a Hebrew part thereof.

Tony Greenstein

Resist, My People, Resist Them

Resist, my people, resist them.

In Jerusalem, I dressed my wounds and breathed my sorrows

And carried the soul in my palm

For an Arab Palestine.

I will not succumb to the “peaceful solution,”

Never lower my flags

Until I evict them from my land.

I cast them aside for a coming time.

Resist, my people, resist them.

Resist the settler’s robbery

And follow the caravan of martyrs.

Shred the disgraceful constitution

Which imposed degradation and humiliation

And deterred us from restoring justice.

They burned blameless children;

As for Hadil, they sniped her in public,

Killed her in broad daylight.

Resist, my people, resist them.

Resist the colonialist’s onslaught.

Pay no mind to his agents among us

Who chain us with the peaceful illusion.

Do not fear doubtful tongues;

The truth in your heart is stronger,

As long as you resist in a land

That has lived through raids and victory.

So Ali called from his grave:

Resist, my rebellious people.

Write me as prose on the agarwood;

My remains have you as a response.

Resist, my people, resist them.

Resist, my people, resist them.

 Tatour is also a photographer and directed a short documentary, according to Electronic Intifada.

You can follow Dareen’s case on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/FreeDareenTatour/

Tariq al Haydar’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Normal School, Down & Out, Crab Orchard Review, The Cafe Irreal, The Los Angeles Review and others.

 “A morning with lots of energy to slaughter Arabs!!!!” (Photo: Facebook)

When it comes to Facebook ‘incitement,’ only Palestinians are arrested, not Jewish Israelis

Danielle Alma Ravitzki on May 23, 2018

When I first heard of Dareen Tatour’s story, I had this terrible feeling deep inside. I am a musician myself, I know what it is like to express oneself through art. I imagined myself in her place, being arrested and persecuted for my art. Dareen is a Palestinian poet placed under house arrest since 2015, indicted for incitement to violence against the Israeli regime through a poem she posted on Facebook. Then it dawned on me that this could not actually happen to me, since I am a Jewish citizen of Israel, not a Palestinian. Israel has this tendency to oppress minority groups, and non-Jews specifically, through its homicidal apartheid regime. I reached out to Dareen, and we immediately connected. I met a beautiful young woman, so intelligent, so loving. We became friends immediately.

This April, after an extended legal saga of over two-and-a-half years, I joined Dareen at her final court hearing in Nazareth. Driving for hours on my way there, I had an ominous premonition. Her story is nothing but Kafkaesque, and her condemnation will most probably give rise to a wave of schadenfreude on the part of Israelis, quick to rejoice at the misfortune (and injustice) of weaker populations. When I walked into the courtroom, the judge was whispering and reciting her verdict very fast: “Dareen is convicted of incitement and support of terrorism.” She said it in such a low voice, she was asked to repeat her words louder a couple of times. Her stance was that after Dareen published her poem, there were many terrorist attacks against Israeli Jews. Yet, was the judge not deliberately ignoring the numerous attacks made towards Palestinians at that same time exactly? The verdict had a strong air of discrimination, it is unjust, and it is down- right detrimental to the freedom of speech and expression. This verdict not only silences art, it criminalizes it.

Dareen’s case attests to the blind-eye Israeli society is turning towards the Palestinian plight. For Israeli society, there is no acceptable means for Palestinian resistance that can be considered legitimate. Violence is of course illegal, boycott too is unacceptable as a form of resistance, and now, as Dareen’s case has shown the world, simple artistic expression such as writing a poem (which in itself is a non-violent way to resist oppression) can also be construed as a means of supporting terrorism. By taking away the freedom of words from Palestinians, and forbidding critical artistic expression, the Israeli regime has put Palestinians at a “dead end.” What they absorb from the Israeli belligerent apartheid regime will continue, including the occupation and daily acts of oppression, without the Palestinians having any option of uttering a single word or resisting in any way possible, violent or nonviolent, political or artistic.

Israel’s regime is apartheidistic, separating (by law) two populations in the same country. Dareen’s case is an excellent example of the discrimination between Israel’s Jewish population and its non-Jewish Arab population. Although she holds an Israeli passport, her identity is that of the indigenous people of the land, the Palestinians. But the Israeli media tags her as Arab-Israeli, disregarding her personal choice over that of the civil legal definition. It is crucial to understand that Israel’s belligerent apartheid regime is not limited to the occupied Palestinian territory. It is thriving deep within the State of Israel itself, and not only towards Palestinians, but systematic discrimination is also applied on other ethnic groups outside the white Jewish elite, such as Ethiopian Jewry, and desperate African asylum seekers tagged as infiltrators to be expelled under draconian laws. Dareen’s story cannot be discussed without delving into the very source of the problem, and that is Zionism.

Zionism originated and is still driven by the ideal of a white Jewish supremacy, upheld by a very militant, violent, masculine regime that is foremost colonialist. While it has flexed somewhat to also embrace Arab Jews (Mizrahi, or descendants of Jews from Arab countries), Zionism remains grounded on the foundations of a white supremacy (Ashkenazi, or descendants of European Jewry) who continue to shape mainstream Israeli society and culture. As for the occupation of Palestine, it began in 1881 with the first Zionist immigration to Palestine, which was not an immigration of Jews who ran away from massacres, but an immigration with a clear purpose – to Judaize Palestine, in a settler- colonialist process that aims to change the indigenous identity, culture, and population of the land with that of the colonialist’s. Dareen’s story is just an offshoot of the way Zionism comes about and realizes itself here in Israel. A quick trip down literary lane will show that canonical Hebrew Israeli poets have written much worse verses against Arabs.

In my search for an answer to this madness, for an act I could do to support my friend Dareen and express my profound opposition to what had transpired, I decided to launch a mini-campaign on Facebook showing how Zionism works. I want to expose its apartheid nature by sharing with the world the wretched comments written by Israeli Jews (in Hebrew) against Palestinians. Through this campaign, I will reveal that, unlike Dareen, Israelis who explicitly call for the slaughter and murder of Arabs and Palestinians are never arrested, let alone tried. Who is the real victim here? And was Dareen’s poem not written by the hand of one that has been victimized?

My campaign shows that Israelis openly call for “Death to Arabs,” even adding this malicious racist phrase to their Facebook profile name. These Israeli Jews will not be placed under house arrest for three years, or convicted of incitement.

Or this person, Yossi Hemed, who wrote “A morning with lots of energy to slaughter Arabs!!!!” This Israeli Jew will not be placed under house arrest for three years, or convicted of incitement.

 Or this ex-IDF soldier, Eden Levi, who posted the following on Facebook in 2015, where on her hand and on a note it says: “It is not racism to hate Arabs, it is values!” This Israeli Jew will not be placed under house arrest for three years, or convicted of incitement.

Moreover, if we look closely at how things evolve, and try to validate the connection between social media and terrorist acts as the Judge in Dareen’s case had done, we can see that 24 hours before the 2014 murder in Jerusalem of 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khdeir, the Israeli Minister of Justice Ayelet Shaked posted a very inciting post on her Facebook page, encouraging people to perpetrate violence and terror against others (as is also apparent by the comments made by Jewish Israelis to her post).

Ayelet Shaked posts to Facebook 24 hours before the murder of Mohammed Abu Khdier.

Jewish MK Bezalel Smotrich incited against Palestinian teenager Ahed Tamimi this year. This Israeli Jew will not be placed under house arrest for three years, or convicted of incitement.

Bezalel Smotrich posts to Facebook.

These Israeli Jews also incited against Palestinians. They will not be placed under house arrest for three years, or convicted of incitement.

“We need to burn them alive,” posts made by Israelis calling for violence against Palestinians on social media.

Israeli posts violent threats to Facebook. “I am in the extreme right and proud of it !!!!” Nor will these Israeli Jews be placed under house arrest for three years, or convicted of incitement.

Another important thing to note, on which Dareen’s story can also shed light, is the use of the word Arab in conjunction with the word Jew. This is both wrong and misleading, as these two words are not similar forms of identity to be compared. Judaism is a religion, while Arab is an ethnical identity. There are Arab Jews, as well as Arab Christians. In fact, I am half Arabic myself. One of my parents is originally from Iraq. Yet, Zionism cynically uses these two unrelated terms in close connection so often, it has blurred our common sense while propelling forward a general (however misled) notion of a legitimate Jewish identity that infringes on that of the Arab’s, just to justify its imperialistic and supremacist ideology. And the media collaborates, blurring this distinction in its hidden support of the Zionist ideology, to the point now that a religious identity seems to be the same as an ethnic one. This grounds the basic idea that drives Zionism, which calls Jews to create and lead a state that is both Jewish and democratic at the same time. But Israel cannot be democratic by definition, not as long as it is Zionist, or Jewish, because no religious country can be democratic. Israel is not a democratic country and never has been.

I believe Dareen’s story should be a lesson for us all – Can we imagine ourselves being jailed for speaking our mind? Can we imagine ourselves being detained for art? What a dangerous, foul place we live in, if people, especially marginalized populations, are oppressed for resisting with words. Dareen described her poetry as being her key to freedom, living under an apartheid regime that trials two populations differently, with roads meant for Jews only. Dareen’s story speaks volumes about giving a voice to those who need it most, and it will be a milestone towards ending apartheid and injustice in Israel/Palestine.

'Sad Day for Democracy': Israeli Writers Outraged at Conviction of Palestinian Poet Dareen Tatour

'What’s more surprising is that there are still people in Israel who expect a fair trial for Palestinians ... as if Israel were still a democracy'

May 06, 2018 9:15 PM

Poet Dareen Tatour at the Nazareth Magistrate's Court on May 3, 2018 Gil Eliahu

Israeli literary figures lambasted Thursday’s conviction of Arab poet Dareen Tatour on charges of incitement to violence and support for a terrorist organization.

The Nazareth Magistrate’s Court convicted Tatour, 36, on account of three posts published on social media, including a poem titled, “Resist, my people, resist them.” According to a translation of the Arabic-language poem that appeared in the indictment, it included the lines, “I won’t agree to a peaceful solution / I’ll never lower my flag / until I remove them from my homeland.”

Tatour, an Israeli Arab who lives in Reineh, near Nazareth in the country’s north, said after the verdict that she didn’t regret anything and planned to appeal the ruling.

“I wasn’t surprised by the verdict, given everything that’s been happening here,” said Ilana Hammerman, an editor, translator and writer. “The Israeli justice system has been taking this attitude for many years already. What’s more surprising is that there are still people in Israel who expect a fair trial for Palestinians and opponents of Israeli policy ... as if Israel were still a democracy. Anyone who’s surprised is someone who’s sitting with his eyes closed. This is the general direction in which Israel is heading.”

 “It’s impossible to know whether this government attributes such importance to poetic imagery that it pounces like this on a Palestinian poet, or whether its compete lack of understanding of poetry causes it to treat every word like a drawn knife,” said author A.B. Yehoshua, an Israel Prize laureate. “The time has come for judges to read more Hebrew poetry throughout the generations and see the imagery and language it contains.”

Nissim Calderon, a Hebrew literature professor at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev who served as a witness in the trial, said,

“The verdict is a blow to one of the deepest traditions of Hebrew poetry – the poet’s freedom from being put on trial over his words. This was upheld under British rule toward Hebrew poets who called for the use of violence, and it’s of value to Israelis themselves even before being an obligation toward the occupied Palestinians. What begins by undermining the freedom of a Palestinian poet will surely continue by undermining the freedom of Israeli poets.”

Navit Barel, a poet and editor, said, “This isn’t an issue related to literary taste or editorial choice. It’s an issue of freedom and justice. This is a sad and frightening day for Israeli democracy. The court was asked to rule on the interpretation of a poem in a language the judge doesn’t read, and it decided this poem was dangerous.”

Barel noted that she has heard demonstrators at a protest shouting, “Rabin is looking for a friend” – a reference to assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin – at the army’s chief of staff. “Which of them was sentenced as an inciter?” she asked, adding, “I’ve heard a Hebrew refrain on the radio in which a singer sang that leftists are killing their brothers, handing them over to foreigners. The law clearly laid down rules on the question of what constitutes incitement. Would an Israeli Jew who said or wrote much worse things than the poem in question be brought to trial?”

Tatour was arrested in October 2015, when Palestinians were carrying out stabbing attacks against Jews almost daily. The indictment accused her of publishing posts on Facebook and YouTube “which contained calls to commit acts of violence or terror and for praising and identifying with acts of violence or terrorism.”

One video clip she posted showed masked men throwing stones and firebombs at Israeli security forces with a voiceover of her reading her poem. By the time the indictment was filed, the prosecution said, the clip had been watched more than 200 times and received several favorable responses.

“The content, its exposure and the circumstances of its publication created a real possibility that acts of violence or terrorism will be committed,” the indictment said.

Aside from the “Resist” poem, Tatour was charged over two other posts. In one, she wrote, “Allah Akbar and praise God, Islamic Jihad has decreed a continuation of the intifada throughout the West Bank and its expansion to all of Palestine. We must begin within the Green Line,” meaning inside Israel. That post received 35 likes.

The second post contained a picture of Asra’a Abed, a Nazareth resident who was shot and wounded after pulling out a knife in Afula’s central bus station, along with the caption “I’m the next martyr.”