Why the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) is neither anti-Zionist nor pro-Palestinian

The SWP Decision to Welcome Zionist Groups to its ‘anti-racist’ march in Glasgow last weekend proves that the SWP's support for the Palestinians is hot air

UPDATE

On 16 February, in response to an email on behalf of Brighton and Hove Trades Council, Scottish SUTR i.e. the SWP, reassured me that:

SUTR Scotland … has no formal relationship with Confederation of Friends of Israel Scotland or any of its local groups. Claims it "works closely" with or "invites" these groups are false. Neither is true that this group has been "welcome" to marches. We have no knowledge of their intention to attend the march in 2023.

Today Glasgow Friends of Israel posted this message on Facebook:

‘a letter of thanks from GFI chair Sammy Stein to Kier McKechnie and Mohammed Asif, organisers of the SUTR march that took place on Saturday, who made sure that GFI and COFIS members were kept safe during the march.

Hi Keir and Mohammad

It was good to see you both at the SUTR march in George Square on Saturday and many thanks for the welcome you gave us.

The Letter of Thanks ends:

‘I will of course post this message on social media so that all the good folk in Scotland will know about your kind and on-going support.’

Many thanks and I look forward to meeting you again in 2024.

Keep safe

Sammy Stein

chair Glasgow Friends of Israel. 

I don’t mind being lied to by the SWP/SUTR. Indeed I expect it. What I do object to is being lied to on behalf of a racist Zionist group by those who dare to call themselves socialists. Especially since they were lying to me in my role as an Executive Member of Brighton &  Hove Trades Council.

GFI is a 100% racist outfit. It had room on its Facebook page for a story about ‘A violent Palestinian mob attack on 2 German tourists’ who were attacked when entering Nablus in a vehicle with Israeli license plates and an Israeli flag. The tourists escaped with light injuries thank to the help of other Palestinians.

There has been no mention on GFI’s Facebook page of the reign of terror by settlers and the Israeli army on the West Bank. No condemnation of the call by Bezalel Smotrich, the West Bank’s head of civil administration, to ‘wipe-out’ the  town of Huwara.  No mention of the pogrom in Huwara in which Israeli soldiers accompanied and defended the settlers whilst attacking their victims, 1 of whom was killed and nearly 100 injured, some seriously. No mention of the Jewish Nazi Ben Gvir who is now Israel’s Police Minister. No mention of the ethnic cleansing of Masafer Yata.

Glasgow Friends of Israel are 100%  racist scum yet the SWP welcome them onto its ‘anti-racist’ demonstration. The SWP have demonstrated that there is no principle that they are not prepared to sacrifice, no promise that they are not prepared to break, no ethic that they won’t undermine for the sake of building their party.

Whenever there is a Palestine solidarity march you can be sure that there will be an SWP stall with posters and placards. The impression given is that the SWP is in the forefront of Palestine solidarity.

The reality is somewhat different. The way the SWP works in practice marks it out as an organisation that combines verbal support for the Palestinians with the most shameful appeasement of Zionism and its British supporters.

Zionists on the march with the SWP's blessing

This contradiction has come to a head again this year on the SWP/Stand Up to Racism march, March 18 in Glasgow. Since 2017 the SWP has welcomed Glasgow Friends of Israel [GFI] and the Confederation of Friends of Israel–Scotland [COFIS] on its marches.

But we are now fighting back against the SWP’s  capitulation to Zionism’s far-right supporters. Dundee Trades Council’s refusal to support the SWP’s march was joined this year by Brighton & Hove Trades Council. At Lewisham Trades Council a similar motion of non-support was narrowly defeated. It is to be hoped that next year more trade union branches and Trades Councils will join in saying no to SWP/SUTR’s collaboration with far-Right Zionists.

Glasgow Friends of Israel Contingent 2023

It is no surprise that the ‘right’ of these Zionist groups to march was vociferously supported by that friend of anti-racism, the Scottish Daily Express! The SWP’s real reason for allowing Zionists to march each year is a fear of being accused of ‘anti-Semitism’, in other words a surrender to the campaign that brought down Corbyn.

In other words GFI will be marching against anti-Zionism i.e. the Palestinians, courtesy of the SWP

On 16 February Scottish SUTR wrote to me saying ‘SUTR has no policy on the Middle East’.  However most anti-racist groups do oppose apartheid, today in Israel yesterday in South Africa. Even the SWP used to oppose apartheid.

If an anti-racist Zionist actually exists then no one objects to them marching as an individual. Hopefully they will come to recognise their own cognitive dissonance. The objection is to organised supporters of Israeli Apartheid marching with flags and placards. To Palestinians the Israeli flag is the equivalent of the Confederate flag for Black people or the Swastika to Jews.

The Lies that Justify Ethnic Cleansing from COFIS

As Mick Napier of Scottish PSC said:

"SUTR pretend to be neutral on the issue of of Israeli ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. Bad enough to try to be neutral but in fact they are very partisan. Their absurd claim that "we cannot build a united anti-racist movement if the politics of the Middle East are imported into the movement" is belied by their insisting on the right of Friends of Israel to march with them, ie precisely to import the Politics of the Middle East onto their demonstrations, thereby making them no-go areas for Palestinians".

When I was a teenager I was a member of the International Socialist group, which pre-dated the SWP. I remember that they took a fierce anti-Zionist position. The first anti-Zionist pamphlet I read was The Class Nature of Israeli Society by Moshe Machover and others.

 Today the SWP is proud of the fact that they have the support of the right-wing TUC and trade union bureaucracy. The same people who are calling off the biggest wave of strikes we have seen in 40 years.  It doesn’t seem to have occurred to them that this ‘support’ is a way that they can parade their anti-racist credentials without them doing anything.

If the TUC were serious about fighting racism then they would have condemned the statement of Rachel Reeves criticising the Tories for not having deported enough refugees.

It is more than ironic that on an allegedly anti-racist march you have organisations marching whose sole purpose in being there is to support racism.

The leader of GFI, Sammy Stein, was caught fraternising with Max Dunbar, an ex-BNP Treasurer. Stein was pictured on the latest march with an SWP banner! GFI’s main support is from anti-Semitic Christian Fundamentalists.

Stevie Harrison is Sutherland and together with Matthew Berlow (below) they faked an antisemitic attack which was intended to be blamed on Scottish PSC

Although GFI later dissociated themselves from Dunbar, the statement confirming this was from Edward Sutherland, who was reprimanded by the General Teaching Council for sharing an anti-Semitic post online.

In a recent post on Facebook Sammy Stein demonstrates how far to the right he is, even for Zionists, when he cast doubt on the Deir Yassin massacre in April 1948 which he calls ‘disputed’. Zionist militias Irgun and Lehi carried out a savage massacre in the village. Over 100 women, children and elderly died.  David Ben Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister condemned it and the Jewish Agency sent Jordan's King Abdullah an apology. Holocaust deniers dispute the Nazi Holocaust so shall we have doubts about that too? 

Stein also repeated the myth of Palestinian refugees having voluntarily left of their own accord whereas this lie was designed to cover up the ethnic cleansing in 1947-8. Stein even made out that he supported refugees in this country. But not Israel of course where non-Jewish refugees are refused asylum automatically. But since Stein supports the rights of refugees in Britain so much perhaps he will support the Right of Return of the Palestinian refugees to Israel too?  I somehow doubt it because he’s wedded to the Jewish supremacist nature of the Israeli state.

Has the SWP ever asked GFI if they support the Right of Return of Palestinian refugees and if not why not?

That the SWP choose to align themselves with the likes of Sammy Stein demonstrates that they have learnt nothing from the rape scandal that nearly destroyed them in 2012/3. They have also learnt nothing from their association with the anti-Semitic Gilad Atzmon from 2005-2011.

The problem in Scotland is part of a wider problem with the politics of the SWP on Zionism, racism and imperialism. Instead of treating racism as flowing from imperialism and Britain’s role in the world the SWP treats racism and imperialism as separate entities.

On the one hand the SWP will proclaim that Zionism is racist and Israel is an apartheid state, but when it comes to anti-racist work, the issue of Palestine disappears as the SWP allies with these very same racists! The fact that Israel and Zionism is to the fore of Islamaphobia is simply ignored.

On the GFI Facebook page a supporter wrote, after the murder of 50 Muslims in New Zealand that:

‘it’s payback for the attacks that muslims have perpetrated across the globe. perhaps this will curb their appetite for bloodshed.’

It is difficult to think of a more vile racist comment yet the SWP is unconcerned. Imagine that someone had celebrated the murder of 11 Jews at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018 because of the Palestinians murdered by the ‘Jewish’ state. The air would be thick with cries of anti-Semitism, prime amongst them the SWP.

Also on the GFI FB group was a post which talked about Israel ‘euthanasing’ 3 Palestinians. This is language which one would normally expect from neo-Nazis. The SWP supports refugees coming to Britain but it refuses to ask why they come and to integrate this understanding into broader anti-racist struggles.

The SWP confines itself to broad statements of support for Palestine solidarity but rarely discusses the causes of their dispossession and the role of Zionism except once a year at Marxism when anti-Zionism is brought out on display.

At the 2021 Palestine Solidarity Campaign conference, the Executive proposed a new constitution eliminating anti-Zionism. The two SWP members present, Tom Hickey and Rob Ferguson, spoke in support of the Executive’s proposals and against those who wanted PSC to remain an anti-Zionist organisation.

Sammy Stein reveals himself as a far-right Zionist bigot behind all the talk of mutual recognition etc.

The arguments of Hickey and Ferguson were that we should concentrate on activism and not get distracted by Zionism. Except that Zionism, as an ideology and movement, was responsible for the dispossession of the Palestinians. How can you support the Palestinian struggle and have nothing to say about Zionism? This, more than anything, reveals the bankruptcy of SWP politics.

The question of Zionism was a central feature of debates inside the Labour Party. Yet to the SWP what matters is activity for its own sake despite the fact that Israel, unlike South Africa, depends on maintaining political support in the West. Anti-Zionism is not a theoretical luxury but a necessity. We constantly have to win the argument on campuses and in trade unions.

The reluctance of the SWP to argue for anti-Zionist politics is a product of their opportunistic politics. Tony Cliff, their founder did understand Zionism being born in Mandate Palestine but SWP theoreticians today – John Rose and Rob Ferguson – do not have that background.

The SWP and Zionist Relations with the Nazis

In ‘Don’t fall into your opponents’ traps’, John Rose criticised Ken Livingstone for even mentioning the subject:

… the anti-Zionist, pro-Palestinian case must be argued effectively and sensitively. Traps must be avoided which favour our opponents. On Thursday Ken Livingstone created then walked into precisely such a trap. The argument about Zionist collaboration with the Nazis has been around for a long time. It is rightly ignored by solidarity activists with Palestine….

It’s true that when Hitler came to power some Zionist leaders stupidly thought that they could do a deal with him that would enable some German Jews to go to Palestine. But Ken should have known that this disgraceful manoeuvre bitterly divided the Zionist movement.

Rose went on to say that ‘there was no coherent, united Zionist leadership in the 1930’s. It was deeply split.’ This is simply untrue, indeed it is a lie. As I show in Zionism During the Holocaust it is also ahistorical nonsense. There was almost complete agreement about the need to create a Jewish State and ‘transfer’ the Palestinians out of it in the 30s and 40s. The differences amongst the Zionist leadership between Weizmann and Ben Gurion were about which imperialist partner they preferred – Britain or the United States. Even the differences between Labour and Revisionist Zionism were tactical.

Nor was there anything ‘stupid’ about negotiating with Nazis from the Zionist perspective. Ha'avara, the Nazi-Zionist trade agreement was not about saving German Jews. What it sought to do was rescue their wealth.

David Ben Gurion was the most important pre-state Zionist figure. A cursory reading of the final chapter, Disaster Means Strength, of his biography by Shabtai Teveth makes it abundantly clear that the Zionist leadership welcomed the rise of the Nazis and Hitler. The very title of the chapter gives us a clue.

On the eve of Hitler becoming Chancellor, in January 1933, Ben-Gurion explained his thinking to the Central Committee of Mapai (Israeli Labour Party) when he warned that

‘Zionism… is not primarily engaged in saving individuals’ and that if there was ‘a conflict of interest between saving individual Jews and the good of the Zionist enterprise, we shall say the enterprise comes first.’

In November 1935, after the passage of the Nuremberg Laws he said:

To the disaster of German Jewry we must offer a Zionist response, namely, we must convert the disaster into a source for the upbuilding of Palestine.

On 15 October 1942, by which time the Zionist leadership was aware of the holocaust, Ben Gurion remarked to the Zionist Executive:

Disaster is strength if channelled to a productive course. The whole trick of Zionism is that it knows how to channel our disaster, not into despondency or degradation, as is the case in the Diaspora, but into a source of creativity and exploitation.

Berl Katznelson, a founder of Mapai and editor of Davar, saw the rise of Hitler as ‘an opportunity to build and flourish like none we have ever had or ever will have.’ Ben-Gurion predicted that ‘The Nazis’ victory would become “a fertile force for Zionism.”

It is to the critical Zionist historian Noah Lucas, not John Rose, that we must turn if we want to understand Zionism’s approach:

‘As the European holocaust erupted, Ben-Gurion saw it as a decisive opportunity for Zionism... In conditions of peace,… Zionism could not move the masses of world Jewry. The forces unleashed by Hitler in all their horror must be harnessed to the advantage of Zionism. ... By the end of 1942… the struggle for a Jewish state became the primary concern of the movement.’  [A Modern History of Israel, pp. 187/8].

Rose was also wrong when he said that ‘this disgraceful manoeuvre bitterly divided the Zionist movement’ The Labour Zionists were united in support of Ha'avara. The General Zionists and Religious Zionists of Mizrahi supported it too. Only the Revisionists under Jabotinsky opposed Ha'avara.

Ordinary Zionists bitterly opposed Ha'avara and didn’t understand what was happening but the Zionist movement was not a democratic movement and their voices counted for nothing.

On June 21 1933 the German Zionist Federation voluntarily wrote to Hitler expressing their opposition to the Boycott and their agreement with Nazi fundamentals. They wrote:

On the foundation of the new state, which has established the principle of race... fruitful activity for the fatherland is possible…. Precisely because we don’t wish to falsify these fundamentals, because we too are against mixed marriages and are for maintaining the purity of the Jewish group… The realisation of Zionism could only be hurt by resentment of Jews abroad against the German development. Boycott propaganda… is in essence fundamentally unZionist, because Zionism wants not to do battle but to convince and to build.’[Lucy Dawidowicz, A Holocaust Reader, pp. 150-153].

The Zionist leaders were not stupid. If anyone can claim credit for the founding of Israel it is Hitler. Between 1933 and 1939, as a result of the rose of the Nazis, the Jewish population of Palestine more than doubled from around 215,000 to 449,000, giving the settlers a critical mass. 60% of capital investment in Palestine between 1933 and 1939 came from Nazi Germany.

John Rose was dazzled by meeting the last Commander of the Warsaw Ghetto Resistance, Marek Edelman in 1989. The anti-Zionist Bund, of which Edelman was a member and members of left-Zionist groups such as Hashomer Hatzair and Dror, fought together. But the Zionists fought, not because of their Zionism but despite it.

Mordechai Anielewicz, the first Commander, expressed his regret over the ‘wasted time’ undergoing Zionist educational work. I quote in my book the speech of one of these Zionist fighters, Hayka Klinger, to the Histadrut Executive in March 1944. She described the Judenrate, the Jewish Councils who collaborated with the Nazis thus:

after they began assisting the Nazis to collect gold and furniture from Jewish homes, they had no choice but to go on to help them prepare lists of Jews for labor camps... And precisely because those who stood at the head of most of the communities were Zionists, the psychological effects on most of the Jewish masses vis-à-vis the Zionist idea was devastating, and the hatred towards Zionism grew day by day...

Klinger told the Histadrut Executive that ‘we received an order not to organize any more defence.’ To the Zionist leadership the ghetto fighters were more valuable in Palestine. Klinger observed that

Without a people, a people’s avant-garde is of no value. If rescue it is, then the entire people must be rescued. If it is to be annihilation, then the avante-garde too shall be annihilated.

After the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, a Zionist emissary arrived in Bedzin in July 1943 to persuade Frumka Plotnicka to leave. She replied that ‘I have a responsibility for my brethren... I have lived with them and I will die with them.’ The Zionist youth in Europe, such as Zivia Lubetkin and Plotnicka, refused on principle to leave. One can only admire the bravery and commitment of these young Zionist fighters who, given the choice between the fight against the Nazis in the Diaspora and the Arabs in Palestine, committed what in Zionist eyes, was a mortal sin. They chose the Diaspora.

One of the Zionist emissaries, Yudke Hellman, described how in October and December 1939 he witnessed the return of Plotnicka and Lubetkin to German-occupied Poland and how he had tried and failed to persuade them to leave for Palestine. Frumka stood up and announced that her decision to return to Warsaw was final.

Never was the ethical and moral distinction between the Jewish diaspora and Palestine’s Zionist leaders clearer. Rose failed to perceive that Zionism was established on the basis that anti-Semitism could not be fought and that its principal task lay in the establishment of a Jewish state. 

It was the Revisionists who put up the strongest resistance in the Warsaw ghetto because they were armed by their fascist friends. They had an abundance of arms unlike the left-wing Jewish Fighting Organisation (ZOB). So yes, Zionists fought. It was not because they were Zionists but because they were organised in groups. The Zionist parties in Warsaw however were opposed to resistance.

Individual Zionists are not the same as the movement. At times of despair the Jewish masses supported the Zionists and when the fight against anti-Semitism grew, they abandoned Zionism. In the last free elections in 1938 in Warsaw out of 20 Jewish Council seats the Zionists obtained precisely one compared to 17 for the anti-Zionist Bund.

As anti-Semitism grew in Poland Poale Zion split into a right and left in 1919. Left Poale Zion had effectively abandoned Zionism. But these contradictions entirely escape the SWP and its theoreticians.

The Israeli state was extremely hostile to Edelman, who had written an open letter to the Palestinians asking them to enter into peace negotiations. The letter caused outrage because Edelman did not mention the word ‘terrorism.’ Israeli leaders were incensed by its title: ‘Letter to Palestinian partisans’.

When Edelman died on 9 October 2009 he was honoured with a state funeral and a fifteen-gun salute. Not even the lowliest clerk at the Israeli Embassy attended. No official representative of any international Jewish organisation attended either.

Edelman received Poland's highest honour but he died unrecognised and forgotten in Israel. The President of Poland spoke at his funeral and two thousand people attended the grave-side ceremony.

John Rose has been the SWP’s main theoretician on Zionism since Cliff. He has never understood the internal dynamics and logic of Zionism. Imperialism has used the tragedy of the Holocaust to legitimise its barbarism and to paint anyone opposed to Zionism as ‘anti-Semitic’. Unfortunately Rose and the SWP instead of standing up to this have bowed to it and the winds of chauvinism. In an article critiquing Norman Finkelstein, Rose wrote that:

Even in its most reactionary form, Zionism before the second world war was one of the voices of oppressed Jews facing the growth of violent anti Semitism as a mass movement everywhere.

This statement represents an abandonment of any class politics. Zionism was the voice of the reactionary Jewish petit-bourgeoisie who, given half the chance, would betray working class Jews as Marcel Liebman demonstrated so vividly when describing his experiences as a child seeking refuge in Nazi-occupied Belgium. He described one leader of the Belgian Judenrat, the Association of Jews of Belgium telling a poor Polish Jewish woman:

Well, well! If you ended up in Eastern Europe what would be wrong with that? You are all from Poland anyway! You’d just be going back where you came from!

Another wealthy Zionist member of the AJB, ‘S.V.’ wrote in his diary on 12 December 1942, after the Germans had released a Jew who was married to a non-Jewish woman:

I find it extraordinary that someone should be recompensed for having been unfaithful to his religion.

Two-thirds of the Judenrat, which were hated by poor and working class Jews, were Zionists but Rose saw them as the voice of the oppressed, writing that ‘Zionism was perfectly capable of inspiring resistance to the Nazis’.

Rose went on to say that ‘Zionism later mis-used its genuinely heroic anti-Nazi resistance fighters for cynical ideological ends in Palestine.’ How surprising! The Zionists also misused the Holocaust to justify ethnic cleansing in Palestine. Why? Because historically the Zionists were indifferent to the Holocaust. To many Zionists those who died in the Holocaust brought it upon themselves. Idith Zertal observed that:

There hasn’t been a war involving Israel ‘that has not been perceived, defined, and conceptualized in terms of the Holocaust.’ Israel has mobilised the Holocaust ‘in the service of Israeli politics.’

This is more than cynicism. It is the exploitation of the Holocaust in the service of imperialism and Israel’s war against the Palestinians.

Rose referred to Hitler’s view of the Jews as a ‘satanic race’.

Hitler didn’t just think that Jews were a distinct race. He also thought that they were a Satanic race, and ultimately, that they were a Satanic race that had to be exterminated.

Rose echoes Zionist holocaust historians such as Yehuda Bauer who attributed anti-Semitism to ‘a political elite that had come to power with pseudo-messianic concepts of saving humanity from the Jews.’

What Bauer was saying was that Nazi anti-Semitism lay outside of history. It was inexplicable. That is also what Rose is saying. That the Holocaust lies outside class politics. This is simply anti-Marxist.

Did the elimination of up to 3 million Polish intelligentsia occur because the Poles were Satanic? Or the Russians or Disabled? The attempt to exterminate the Jews was not unique. Why did Hitler want them gone? Because the Jews were seen as the biological parents of their main enemy, Bolshevism. Hence the term Judeo-Bolshevism.

Rose wrote about the

truly sinister cat and mouse game the Nazis were playing when they appeared to be supporting the Zionist project in Palestine even if did mean some German Jews, by moving to Palestine with Hitler’s agreement, escaped the death camps.

Rose did not understand the Ha'avara agreement (or the Nazis’ Jewish policies) which led to just 20,000 wealthy German Jews moving to Palestine. They had to have £1,000 (today about £85,000). These Jews would have found refuge in other countries.

If anything Ha'avara undermined the position of other Jews wanting to emigrate. Between 1933 and 1939 the Nazis’ policy was expulsion not extermination. There were no death camps to escape from. The first death camp, Chelmno was established in December 1941.

The problem with the SWP is it shouts slogans about Zionism but has never taken the time nor trouble to understand it.

What Do They Teach in Religion and Morality lessons at Ayr’s Belmont Academy if the Principal Religion Teacher Edward Sutherland is a Virulent Racist and anti-Semite?

Sheffield Hallam Lecturer & Lawyers 4 Israel's Lesley Klaff Declares that ‘Zio’ is not Anti-Semitic as Scottish Zionists Tried to Smear Scottish PSC as Anti-Semitic

I have the greatest sympathy for the crooks and liars who otherwise go under the name of Glasgow Friends of Israel (GFI) and Confederation of Friends of Israel in Scotland (COFIS).

Put yourself in their shoes. You are desperate to defend your favourite apartheid state (Israel). The only way you can do so is by accusing your opponents of ‘anti-Semitism’. So how can you prove it?

The problem they face, as everyone who is honest (no that doesn’t mean you Sir Sturmer!) is that Palestinian supporters and anti-Zionists don’t hate Jews. Nor do they blame Jews for what Israel does. That is what Zionists do. So what can the Zionists do?

Easy. If you are Edward Sutherland, a genuine non-Jewish anti-Semite, you set up a fake profile as a Palestinian supporter and then post a stream of anti-Semitic abuse. Unfortunately for Sutherland no one seemed to be taking the bait.

Therefore Sutherland and his friend, Zionist lawyer Matthew Berlow, hit on the brilliant idea of daubing ‘Free Palestine’ on Berlow’s home and blaming Scottish PSC. What could go wrong? Well everything actually!

Sutherland set up a fake Facebook profile under the name ‘Stevie Harrison’. He then posted what he considered an anti-Semitic post, ‘Fuck Israel’ and he also set up a fake Twitter account in the same name. Fuck Israel is not the most astute political comment I’ve seen but it’s not anti-Semitic.

Another of Sutherland’s charming posts read “I’ve seen it all now. "Zio prick’s asking for donations” in reference to Jewish lawyer Matthew Barlow’s Go Fund Me page. ‘Zio prick’ was his idea of anti-Semitism whereas it is simply abusive.

At the time Sutherland was Convenor of COFIS. But the icing on Sutherland’s cake was a tweet:

A certain Jewish lawyer woke up this morning to find ‘Free Palestine’ spray painted rather prominently! No idea who was responsible.

This was followed five winking emoticons insinuating that he, “Stevie Harrison”, had done the supposed spray painting. Berlow responded:

Idiocy. Typical spsc [Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign] behaviour. Criminal.

Not only does Sutherland teach morals and philosophy at Belmont Academy but he is the Principal Teacher of religious education too! One can only imagine what religion he teaches? Devil worship?

working with anti-Semites and fascists doesn't stop GFI accusing the Labour Party under Corbyn of neo-Nazism

Sammy Stein from GFI admitted that “Mr Sutherland, as well as a few others in our organisation, have false identities on social media.’ Stein explained the fake profiles by saying:

“We do this to expose people who express anti-Semitic sentiments.”

In other words they post anti-Semitic stuff and then claim the people doing it are Palestinian supporters.

We have come across Sammy before. Sammy is nothing if not an expert in anti-Semitism. In fact he seems to spend most of his time keeping company with anti-Semites. In 2019 Stein was caught with Max Dunbar, ex-Treasurer of the BNP and Treasurer of Britannica, a fascist group which was, according to Hate not Hope, merely the BNP under another name. They were both harassing the SPSC stall.

Another friend of Stein was Jimmy Robertson, former security chief of the BNP in the Highlands. Both had been helping run the GFI stall.

Max Dunbar, ex-BNP and neo-Nazi with Sammy Stein of Glasgow Friends of Israel having a friendly chat at the Zionists' stall

Not surprisingly the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) was forced to set up a hearing into whether Sutherland was a fit and proper person to be teaching children. It’s a bit like asking whether it would be proper to appoint Wayne Couzens as the manager of a woman’s refuge. You know the answer before you begin.

The hearing was told that Sutherland ‘had shared antisemitic posts online after setting up a fake profile ‘under the pseudonym Stevie Harrison.’

The panel heard evidence from Matthew Berlow, who claimed Sutherland set up a fake profile to lure antisemites into exposing their views.

Despite admitting posting the messages with a view to defaming others, Sutherland denied breaching the teachers’ code of conduct. His defence being that “We do this to expose people who express antisemitic sentiments.”

Now why you may ask should Sutherland want to trap anti-Semites into posting on his Facebook newsfeed when he is surrounded by anti-Semites? How many anti-Semites does one man want?

Messages from his Stevie Harrison account read: “Back after a 30 day ban, my first thought? F*** Israel.”

Sharing a post from a member of the Glasgow Palestine Human Rights Campaign Facebook page, Sutherland wrote: “Tried to stitch up a good mate of mine. P***k.” For a teacher of religion Sutherland has a penchant for salty language. "Free Palestine ya bastards”.

But it wasn’t just Sutherland who was in on the conspiracy to frame other people for his own anti-Semitism. According to The Times of Israel Zionist lawyer,

Matthew Berlow found to have commented on social media post about attack he knew never happened with accusation that Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign was the culprit

Screen capture from video of a Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign rally. (YouTube)

The ToI reported in February 2020 that:

A Scottish Jewish lawyer has been found to have attempted to discredit a pro-Palestinian group in accusing it of vandalism that he was aware never happened.

Matthew Berlow, a criminal solicitor based in Glasgow, faces a £500 fine following a probe by the Law Society of Scotland, the local Daily Record newspaper reported Monday.

A preliminary ruling said Berlow did not maintain the standards of behavior expected of a lawyer.

The reporter for the LSS found that Ed Sutherland, a teacher at Belmont Academy in Ayr, had created a Facebook account with the alias “Steve Harrison” which, under the guise of being a pro-Palestinian activist, he then used to associate himself with the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC).

Sutherland is an associate of Berlow and both men have ties to a UK-based Israel advocacy group, the Record reported.

Berlow admitted he knew the graffiti attack was fake telling the Law Society of Scotland that he played along because the Harrison persona was being used “to monitor various ­disruptive activities of the SPSC.”

Not surprisingly the LSS found that Berlow’s behaviour fell below the standards expected of a solicitor and that he had faked a graffiti attack at his own home. Berlow had in the past been fined by the LSS for calling SPSC ‘scummy racists.’

Berlow’s response to Sutherland’s tweet was “Idiocy. Typical SPSC behaviour criminal.” In other words he was trying to frame SPSC for criminal damage. In the circumstances the £500 fine amounted to an endorsement of criminal behaviour. Sutherland’s ‘explanation’ was

 “Unfortunately I made it too real and named an organization I shouldn’t have. It wasn’t my intention to blame the SPSC for a fictitious event.”

As Mick said, the LSS should have reconsidered their fine

“because the damage to our reputation, in accusing us of such criminal acts, is impossible to deny.”

In 2018 Berlow was ordered to undergo “diversity training” and pay a fine after abusing Palestinian campaigners. He was given a fine of £1,750 as well as an additional £100 to University of Aberdeen lecturer and pro-Palestinian campaigner Dr. Karolin Hijazi, for calling her a “snowflake” and a “wannabe justice warrior.”

Scottish pro-Palestinian activist Dr. Karolin Hijazi of the University of Aberdeen in 2014. (Screen capture: YouTube)

One of Sutherland’s worst comments was about Berlow, saying:

‘Looks like a certain Zio’s big nose is out of joint. Don’t worry Mr. Berlow, You’re going to get what’s coming to you.’

When the fake account began to raise suspicion, Sutherland lashed out:

Someone complained to Facebook about me not using my real name. I don’t know what… they are up to but there it is on my profile.

Stevie Harrison. If you want my birth certificate, just say.

If I lose my job because some zionist doesn’t like me supporting the people of Palestine, don’t worry about it. I’ll still have my dignity.

The see you next Tuesday who complained won’t have. Rant over.

According to Mick Napier, the Law Society of Scotland got involved, which led Berlow to admit that he was behind the Stevie Harrison posts — in other words faking his own antisemitic harassment, which of course for Zionists is nothing new.

At this point the rats fell out among themselves. Berlow defended himself by exposing Sutherland’s role: it was Sutherland, not he, who was behind the fake postings. As Tom Suarez observed

‘if Berlow knew of the deceit when it took place, then he knowingly accused SPSC on no basis, and so in early 2019 SPSC filed a complaint against Berlow with the Law Society’

which found against him but imposed the derisory fine.

Berlow went further telling Electronic Intifada that Sutherland’s “posts were not anti Semitic” under the IHRA definition that has been used to tar Palestinian supporters as antisemitic.

My charge sheet included using the term 'Zio' - now the Zios have said it's not anti-Semitic I'm hoping Sir Keith will readmit me with an apology!

Actually I agree with Berlow but that’s because the IHRA is not about anti-Semitism but anti-Zionism. It is a confidence trick that too many University administrators and academics have gone along with.

Bear in mind that in April 2018 the Herald reported that SPSC was being criticised for using a “vile and derogatory word” to describe Zionists and supporters of Israel. And what was this word? ‘Zio’. As Mick explained:

I use ‘zio’ because I am hostile to the political ideology of Zionism adding that ‘Zio is not to be confused remotely with a racist epithet.”

You may remember the fake ‘anti-Semitism’ allegations in the Labour Party which have now mysteriously disappeared as Sir Sturmer busies himself with expelling Jewish members.

Labour's Shami Chakrabarti defined 'Zio' as anti-Semitic and Corbyn being a fool went along with it

In 2016 Shami Chakrabarti issued a report which described ‘zio’ as ‘a new modern-day racist epithet’. Utter nonsense but Chakrabarti understood nothing about Zionism or anti-Semitism.

Sammy Stein, told the Daily Record that Sutherland had been using the alias “for years”, but that “Ed is no anti-Semite. In fact, he’s a friend of Israel.”

Of course as anyone knows, there is nothing incompatible with being a Zionist and an anti-Semite.  On the contrary the list of anti-Semites who love Zionism and the State of Israel is as long as your arm:

Tommy Robinson, Viktor Orban, neo-Nazi Richard Spencer (a ‘White Zionist’), Donald Trump etc. etc. If you are an anti-Semite what is there not to love about Zionism and Israel? Anti-Semites want to get rid of Jews and where better to send them than Israel?

Some of the most important Zionists in history have also held vile anti-Jewish attitudes. And some of the world’s worst contemporary anti-Semites are militantly pro-Israel.

Sutherland was both Convener and site administrator of COFIS, a registered charity. Sutherland took over the position of Convener in 2018 from another disgraced official, Nigel Goodrich, when Goodrich‘s involvement with an overtly racist Facebook group was exposed. Nigel Goodrich left the UK after an earlier case involving Facebook deception when his membership of an extreme right-wing Facebook page Jewish Defence Forces was revealed.

The JDF included members jailed for violent assault and people like Israeli academic Mordechai Kedar who advocated the rape of Palestinian women to deter Palestinian resistance. Its posted “Rule One” which was: “This group is about ‘Palestine and Palestinians’ which doesnt [sic] exist.’ Sutherland defended Goodrich at the time, claiming he left COFIS “due to relocating outside of the UK”.

Starting on April 5, the General Teaching Council for Scotland held a hearing to review Sutherland’s fitness to teach in a classroom.

What Sutherland and Berlow did is nothing new. As Asa Winstanley wrote Mossad-linked Israeli law firm Shurat HaDin admitted posting a series of violently anti-Semitic comments to Facebook in order to frame Palestinians and solidarity activists. In 2019, Electronic Intifada exposed a network of fake Twitter trolls systematically posting violent anti-Semitism in order to frame Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party and the Muslim community. See:

Edward Sutherland campaigning for Israel in Glasgow.

COFIS has “an extensive record of publishing racist materials” Mick Napier wrote that

The Scottish body charged with overseeing charities should revoke COFIS’ charitable status immediately.

The GTC stated that the "material posted by the teacher was of an anti-Semitic nature", and Mr Sutherland could lose his job pending the outcome of the upcoming hearing.

It is alleged that his fitness to teach is impaired as a result of breaching several parts of the GTC Scotland code of professionalism and conduct.

It was Sutherland’s defence however that provoked astonishment. In 2018 one of the charges against me by the Labour Party was that:

"On numerous occasions since May 2016, Mr Greenstein has uploaded deeply offensive and derisory antisemitic posts to social media and comments boards including but not limited to : repeatedly using "zio" as a term of derision,

According to the Jewish Journal, ‘zio’ is an ‘anti-Semitic slur coined by the KKK’. Yet what was the defence put forward by Sheffield Hallam lecturer Lesley Klaff of UK Lawyers for Israel on behalf of Sutherland?

According to Mick Napier Klaff defended Sutherland by insisting that anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism should not be confused; ‘Zio’ was merely “an abbreviation” and not racist! Which is rich coming from an organisation that dedicates its life to proving that anti-Zionism = anti-Semitism. Klaff argued that:

“A reasonable person would realize that this is a reference to somebody who supports Israel…Zionism is a political ideology and there's a range of views held by Jews on Israel and there's a range of views held by non-Jews on Israel. There are plenty of non-Jews who are Zionist and there are quite a few Jews who aren't…Zionism is not legally recognized as an aspect of Jewish identity. It's recognized legally as a political movement or ideology to which some Jews subscribed. Many non-Jews do as well, so it's not unequivocally anti-Semitic.

Sutherland agreed with Klaff about “Zio” and “Zionist”:

“It’s frequently used as a derogatory term for people who support the State of Israel, whether they're Jewish or not. It is only ever in my experience used as a political insult.”

Klaff is the same person who was responsible for a complaint of ‘anti-Semitism’ being made against Palestinian academic Shahd Abusalama at Sheffield Hallam University. Klaff is sister-in-law of the open racist and fascist, Sharon KKKlaff.

Klaff’s defence of Sutherland demonstrates the dishonesty of the Zionist lobby. Klaff argued that even when “Zio” was used with a hostile expletive this was not anti-Semitic. Posting repeatedly about a “Zio prick” or a “fucking Zio” was not anti-Semitic but entirely political, claimed Sutherland:

In my experience it is an abbreviation for Zionist, in an entirely political sense. It’s entirely political and makes no reference to Jewish tradition culture or religion. "Zio prick" is vulgar but not anti-Semitic.

Oddly enough this was my defence at my expulsion hearing from the Labour Party in February 2018. My argument was simple. ‘Zio’ is short for Zionist and if you believe a Zionist and a Jew are one and the same then it is you who is anti-Semitic. Jeremy Corbyn, being an utter fool went along with it describing ‘zio’ as a ‘vile epithet.’

Sutherland told the tribunal that several other current members of COFIS had also set up Facebook profiles with false identities.

Sutherland and Berlow were co-conspirators who went on to invent a graffiti attack on the lawyer’s home, which they then attributed to Scottish PSC. According to Sutherland’s testimony theirs was a close collaboration. Asked if he shared his posts with Berlow before or after he posted them, Sutherland replied that it was “a combination of the two. It was a daily discussion. I shared all of them with Mr. Berlow”.

Having been caught in flagrante, and facing disciplinary action by their respective professional associations, Sutherland and Berlow put forward an unprecedented defence. It turned on its head the traditional accusation of Zionists that anti-Semitism equals anti-Semitism.

The smearing of political opponents as ‘anti-Semitic’ has been promoted by the Israeli regime since its foundation. Foreign Minister, Abba Eban, explained that Israel works “to prove that the distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is not a distinction at all”.

Boris Johnson’s racist ‘anti-Semitism’ Czar, Lord Mann demanded that UK Labour Party leader, Keir Starmer, outlaw the critical use of the term “Zionist”. That party has ruled that “Zio” was on a par with racist slurs, and “should have no place in Labour party discourse”.

Conflating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism was a constant of pro-Israel advocacy – until the recent GTCS hearing.

A REAL RACIST SLUR DEFENDED

Sutherland’s “Stevie Harrison” jeered about Matthew Berlow, that the “Zio’s big nose is out of joint”. Klaff insisted that such a post was not anti-Semitic, “given that many Zionists are not Jews and given that many non-Jews have big noses and many Jews don't”.

This is disingenuous but clearly the GTC was out of its depth. Nazi propaganda about Jews regularly caricatured Jews with oversized noses. Sutherland claimed the post was “not made generically about any group of people. It refers specifically to Mr Berlow personally having a big nose”. Pull the other one.

Scottish Zionists have a long history of making false accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’ against Scottish PSC. In January 2018 Berlow denounced “people from the spsc shouting about big noses” at his comrades in Glasgow city centre. That earlier fabrication stands in stark contrast to the evidence he gave under oath that they believed that jibes about “Zio big noses” do not constitute anti-Semitism..

Berlow was asked if he thought someone genuinely posting any of those comments would be anti-Semitic: “I would say that this is a person who has a problem with supporters of Israel, with Zionists”.

ZIOS SUPPOSEDLY DEFENDING FREE SPEECH
Klaff who is nothing if not dishonest, which admittedly is a common characteristic amongst lawyers, defended the right to belligerent anti-Zionist discourse as being protected by the IHRA definition:

The IHRA definition was never intended as a tool to be used to sanction people or take away their livelihood or indeed to take away people’s free speech rights…or to discipline them because it’s got to be used in the context of other laws like employment, protection legislation, the right to free speech under Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights and so on

This comes from someone who used the IHRA to try and get a young Palestinian academic at her own university sacked!  The dishonesty of these Zios beggars belief. The person who drafted the IHRA, Kenneth Stern, said it was being used to ‘chill’ free speech.

Klaff issued a veiled threat of possible legal action against the GTCS if it found against Sutherland by relying on a dictionary definition of anti-Semitism:

If Mr.Sutherland was sanctioned for these comments on the basis of a definition other than the IHRA definition, if he was to pursue the case under the European Convention of Human Rights, courts would take a dim view of that. Given that the government has adopted it, I think we all need to be singing from the same hymn sheet.

THERE WERE SEVERAL WEAKNESSES in the proceedings of the GTC panel, each attributable to the fact that the only witnesses called were pro-Israel campaigners

·         Although her testimony was recognised by the GTC ‘prosecutor’ to be ‘confusing’, ‘conflicting’, and ‘distinctly odd’, the supposedly ‘expert’ testimony of a member of UK Lawyers for Israel was not scrutinised by anyone with expertise in the field.

·         The potentially criminal act of fabricating a crime to falsely incriminate SPSC was not included in the hearing on Sutherland’s fitness to teach, although the deception was jointly promoted by Sutherland and Berlow, and has been admitted under pressure by Berlow, who defended their joint endeavor as a “a moment of madness”. Sutherland’s lawyer insisted there was no question of criminality in his client’s behavior and this went unchallenged.

·         A lack of knowledge from members of the panel meant that the GFoI fantasy narrative of frightening aggression from ‘hate groups’ hostile to Israel was never questioned. Stein and Berlow were accepted unchallenged as “credible witnesses” and their record of working with a right-wing extremist and Holocaust denier to harass pro-Palestine campaigners remained undisclosed.

·         Sutherland pleaded to the panel that “nothing I have done was motivated by intolerance or prejudice”. This too went unchallenged, whereas the extreme anti-Palestinian racism of the group he led was expressed in numerous racist posts, including a post from the admin welcoming the “euthanizing” of three [Palestinian] rioters in Jerusalem”. Another praised the massacre of Muslims in a New Zealand mosque as “payback for what Muslims have done”

During the four-day GTCS hearing the Israeli lobby demonstrated their true colours. They are not interested in fighting racism but defending Israel and attacking those who stand with Palestine.

See Shock Zionist U-turn at GTC Sutherland hearing, Mick Napier, 15 April 2022, Mick Napier
None of this stopped Jonathan Hoffman, the former Vice-Chair of the Zionist Federation and a good supporter of Tommy Robinson and friend of fascists and anti-Semites alike, from defending Sutherland and Berlow. Hoffman’s only qualification for defending anti-Semites is that they support Zionism and the Israeli state. Which practically includes all anti-Semites today!

Naturally being a concerned member of the public I emailed Belmont Academy to find out whether Sutherland was still teaching at the school. The correspondence is below:

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am writing an article on Edward Sutherland, the teacher from Belmont Academy, who set up a fake anti-Semitic Facebook group under a pseudonym. Please can you confirm whether he is still a teacher of Religion and Morals and Philosophy at your school or not?
Kenny.Ross@south-ayrshire.gov.uk

Sent on 26/04/2022 14:15:00 by Kenny Ross

Hi Tony, please see our response below. If you send any future enquiries to communications@south-ayrshire.gov.uk we will get you a response.

A spokesperson for South Ayrshire Council said: "A hearing conducted by the General Teaching Council for Scotland is currently underway, and it would be inappropriate for us to comment at this stage."

I therefore responded:

18:19 (5 hours ago)

Dear Mr Ross,

I find it strange that you and the local authority seem unable to say whether you are still employing an open racist and anti-Semite, to say nothing of someone who adopts fake persona on social media in order to blame others for a purported act of vandalism. What I find even more absurd is that this man is a teacher of religion, morals and philosophy! I just hope God has a sense of humour.

This seems out of a Life of Brian sketch.

Yours sincerely,

tony greenstein

Scottish Friends of Israel’s fake Facebook page posted anti-semitic material (SPSC)
Scottish “friend of Israel” faked anti-Semitism for years (Asa Winstanley, E.I.)