Showing posts with label Free Speech on Israel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Free Speech on Israel. Show all posts
16 July 2018
27 April 2018
Jewish Voice for Labour Surrenders to Wes Streeting’s White Parliamentary Lynch Mob
Abandoning Marc Wadsworth to the Zionist witch-hunt and the lies of Ruth Smeeth is both shameful and counter-productive
When Jewish Voice for Labour was formed
last summer I welcomed it whilst warning of the dangers of not having clear politics,
strategy or direction. I opposed not only its two tiers of membership – Jewish and
non-Jewish – but its refusal to squarely support the Palestinians’ fight for
justice and the Right of Return of Palestinian refugees.
Although most JVL members
are opposed to Zionism there is a belief that some things are best left unsaid. The group is also unclear as to whether its
main purpose is as some kind of Jewish cultural formation or whether it is
primarily a political organisation.
Opposition to the anti-Semitism
witch hunt or the affiliation and privileged status of the Jewish Labour
Movement was not mentioned in its founding statement. Nor does it say anything about about the
racist nature of the Israeli state. I wrote a number of articles warning of the
consequences of not being clear or honest such as Timidity is not a Strategy, and Jewish Voice for Labour & the Politics of
Self-Indulgence - Nothing to say on Palestine or Zionism.
For the past few weeks we have had
a relaunch of the anti-Semitism campaign.
There is no doubt that this is intended both to damage the chances of
Labour in the local elections and also to act as a prelude to the removal of Corbyn
himself.
The campaign began with the affair
of the mural and then an absurd ‘anti-racist’ demonstration on March 26th
outside Parliament by about 500 Zionists. It is probably the first and last ‘anti-racist’
demonstration which the DUP and Norman Tebbit attend! To its credit the JVL organised a
counter-demonstration but as the attacks have mounted JVL have gone quiet.
This week another of
the ‘anti-Semitism’ victims, Marc Wadsworth, was up before Maggi Cosins and the
National Kangaroo Court. To date both Cyril
Chilson and me have been expelled. The allegations by Ruth Smeeth
MP that she was subject to anti-Semitic comments at the Chakrabarti press
conference by Marc are a complete lie as can be seen in the video.
Nothing was said that was remotely anti-Semitic.
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| Chris Williamson MP is one of the few Labour MPs to stand up against the McCarthyism of the Zionist Jewish Labour Movement |
Smeeth is used to lying as a profession. She was a
paid worker for the Israeli propagandist organisation BICOM, before becoming an
MP, see: Former
Israel lobby spin doctor aims for seat in UK parliament
Last week Wes
Streeting, a right-wing anti-Corbyn MP appealed
to MPs to form a posse which would accompany Smeeth to the venue where she would
give her perjured evidence. Streeting stated
that Smeeth was
giving evidence against Mark Wadsworth – the guy who abused
her at the antisemitism inquiry launch – and we expect there to be
a protest outside against her.
Marc, as anyone who
watched the recent BBC programmes The Murder that Changed
a Nation on the Stephen Lawrence murder, would know, played an integral
role in the campaign. Marc has been one
of Britain’s best known Black anti-racists.
It is a scandal that he has been suspended for nearly 2 years because of
allegations by a supporter of the world’s only Apartheid state, Israel.
It is also scandalous
that JVL took a decision not to support the lobby of Marc’s hearing. JVL didn’t
want to be seen to oppose Streeting’s all-white group of right-wing MPs. In essence they took fright. This is sheer
political cowardice. It is also the road
to disaster. JVL seem to believe that if
they are good boys and girls then Jeremy will look kindly on them and rearrange
the now postponed meeting he was going to have with Jewish groups. This is an utter illusion. Despite this a few individual JVL members came along, including Glynn Secker.
The purpose of the
witch-hunt is not to expel Jackie, Marc or myself. It is either to remove or neuter Corbyn. Far from abstaining from support those of us
fighting the witch hunt JVL should be in the forefront of the fight. Whilst the Zionists are on the rampage JVL
decided to do nothing.
Originally Free Speech
on Israel, which consists of many of the same people as JVL, was set up because
of the weaponisation of anti-Semitism.
It would appear that they have given up on free speech. Likewise the Jewish Socialists Group, which
worked alongside Black anti-racist activists like Marc, have kept quiet over
the witchhunt and appear to have given up on socialism and Jewish Voice for
Labour seem to have lost their voice altogether.
However Labour Against
the Witch-hunt went ahead with the protest despite Corbyn’s office contacting
Marc and asking him to call off the protest.
Quite rightly Marc refused. The
idea that keeping quiet and saying nothing will aid Jeremy Corbyn is
absurd. The purpose of the witch-hunt
and the false accusations of anti-Semitism is to remove Corbyn. Jackie, Marc and me are simply collateral damage.
Saying nothing will strengthen not weaken the Right.
![]() |
| President JONATHAN ARKUSH, BOD - addressing rally Grosvenor SQ. July '16 where JDL openly wore KAHANE shirts. |
Far from abstaining from protests we should be
redoubling our efforts to reselect creatures like Streeting, Smeeth, Berger and
Ryan. The Right will not give up and appeasing them is likely to
destroy the Corbyn project and the prospect of him becoming Prime
Minister. It is time that people realise and understand that the
goal of Streeting, John Mann and co. is to prevent Corbyn becoming Prime
Minister.
Last June’s General
election was a set back for them which is why we have seen the false anti-Semitism
campaign being stepped up.
When Streeting and his
20 white racists reached Church House, the venue where the Kangaroo Court was
sitting, it was they who felt intimidated and Streeting could be seen bleating
about how terrible it was that people had exercised their right to free speech.
It is excellent that
Chris Williamson MP, despite the pressures on him, not least by people like
Barry Gardiner, refused to be cowed and gave evidence in support of Marc
Wadsworth. Clive Lewis MP has also given
Marc his support. The decision of the JVL
leaves friendly MPs in an even more exposed position. We had 70 people on the demonstration as it
was but with the support of JVL and FSOI we could have had even more.
We have a situation where the representatives
of the Israeli state – Labour Friends of Israel and the JLM, the ‘sister
party’ of the openly racist Israeli
Labour Party, operate openly inside the Labour Party.
![]() |
| The Israeli Labour Party, of which the JLM is the British representatives, is an anti-socialist racist party that supports the deportation of non-Jewish African refugees from Israel |
In May 2012, the ILP’s previous leader Isaac Herzog wrote an
opinion piece arguing that
Eritreans in Israel didn’t deserve protection as refugees. Today it openly
supports Netanyahu’s attempts to deport Israel’s 40,000 Black African
refugees for the crime of being Black and not Jewish.
Last week the new leader of the Israeli Labour Party, Avi Gabbay issued
a letter cutting his links with Jeremy Corbyn because of ‘anti-Semitism’.
The ILP’s previous leader Herzog declared that
his nightmare was waking up to find that Israel had a Palestinian Prime
Minister and 61 Palestinian Members of Israel’s Knesset. Herzog also spoke
about the false impression that the ILP were ‘Arab Lovers’.
Gabbay has gone one better. He declared that he would not join a coalition with members
of the Joint List, the representatives of Palestinian citizens of Israel. An Palestinian
party has never been part of a government in Israel. It is an unwritten Zionist
convention that Arab parties do not take part in the government of a Jewish
state.
In conjunction with Labour’s Right,
supporters of Israel and the Zionist movement have waged an ongoing campaign of
destabilisation. The pretext is ‘Anti-Semitism’. The hollowness of this
campaign is shown by the demands of Jonathans Arkush and Goldstein of the Board
of Deputies of British Jews and Jewish Leadership Council.
![]() |
| The Zionists accuse Livingstone of 'antisemitism' for saying that Hitler supported Zionism - above is an extract from Zionist historian David Cesarani's book which says exactly the same! |
Top of the ‘anti-Semites’ Arkush
and Goldstein want expelled from Labour are Jackie Walker and Ken Livingstone. In the Evening
Standard they wrote that they wanted expelled the ‘serial offenders Ken Livingstone and Jackie
Walker.’
Jackie Walker is a Black-Jewish socialist
and long standing anti-racist. Ken Livingstone
pioneered anti-racism in local government.
It is clear beyond doubt that their ‘crimes’ aren’t anti-Semitism or
hatred of Jews but support for the Palestinians and opposition to Zionism. Not only is Jackie Walker and Ken Livingstone
under attack but so is Chris Williamson MP. In the Jewish
News of 19th March Arkush says regarding Chris speaking alongside
Jackie that:
Sadly, this is the kind of behaviour we have come to expect from Chris
Williamson. We called for him to be sacked last year from the shadow cabinet
over outrageous comments labelling claims of antisemitism in Labour ‘a dirty
lowdown trick’.
Ivor Caplin, Southern organiser for
the Jewish Labour Movement, a Junior Defence Minister under Blair and a war criminal
in his own right went even further: ‘Mr Williamson has decided to take a leaf out
of Ken Livingstone’s book... If he can’t stop, he needs to go.”
Arkush is a right-wing Tory, who
welcomed Donald Trump to power despite the anti-Semitism of his campaign. According to Dana Milbank in the Washington Post Anti-Semitism is no longer an undertone of Trump’s
campaign. It’s the melody. See Trump Rolls Out Anti-Semitic Closing Ad for an analysis. That however does not disturb Arkush because
these anti-Semites are also pro-Israel.
Of course if you claim that the Zionist
anti-Semitism claims are false or weaponised then that too is anti-Semitic! However in the same breath they tell us that Zionism
is a part of Jewish identity and to oppose the ‘Jewish’ state is anti-Semitic. Or in the words of the Jewish Chronicle’s
Editor Stephen Pollard Jeremy Corbyn made ‘the
odd assertion that anti-Zionism is not antisemitic’.
1 October 2017
Open Letter to the Lying Leader of Brighton and Hove City Council, Warren Morgan
It’s Time to Make Way for an
Honest and Truthful Politician
Cllr.
Warren Morgan,
Leader
Brighton and Hove City Council,
Town Hall
Bartholomew Square
BRIGHTON
BN1 1JA
Bartholomew Square
BRIGHTON
BN1 1JA
To: warren.morgan@brighton-hove.gov.uk @warrenmorgan
Dear Cllr. Morgan,
Sir Henry Wotton is famous for his observation that ‘an ambassador is an honest gentleman sent to
lie abroad for the good of his country.’
Given that you are not a diplomat what is it that makes you feel the
need to lie so often?
You have been widely quoted
as saying that Labour’s conference will not be welcome in the city in the
future because of ‘anti-Semitism’. You
are reported
in Brighton and Hove News as having ‘singled
out a local campaigner Tony Greenstein’.
You are quoted on Facebook
as saying that:
‘We have the prominent activist and suspended Labour Party member Tony Greenstein here, who indeed was present at the fringe meeting where it was suggested that Holocaust denial should be allowed. His expulsion, in my view, is long overdue.’
The only possible interpretation of your remarks is that
I am responsible for what a speaker at the meeting I attended allegedly said. Otherwise
why call for my expulsion? What you are engaged in is the McCarthyist tactic of
guilt-by-association. Unsurprisingly Joe McCarthy was also anti-Semitic.
The speaker, Miko Peled said that ‘‘Israel, Zionism,
even the holocaust - can these subjects not be discussed, yes or no?’
Nothing Mr Peled said disputed the holocaust. He was merely saying
that all subjects, ‘even the Holocaust’
should be open for discussion. That is in fact the current legal position in
the UK. Of course we could bring in legislation
to make Holocaust denial illegal, as in Germany and Austria. However given the electoral success of far-Right, neo-Nazi parties, Alternative for Germany and the Freedom Party in both
countries, this doesn’t seem a particular wise route to go down.
All that Miko Peled was doing was to say discussion
about the Holocaust is legitimate free speech. To twist this into support
for Holocaust denial is a prime example of how anti-Semitism has been
weaponised by supporters of Zionism and the Israeli state. It demonstrates your contempt for those who died
at the hands of Hitler’s regime – Jewish and non-Jewish.
Unlike you I am Jewish.
Unlike you half my father’s family was murdered in the gas chambers of
Treblinka. For you to use the Holocaust, of both Jews and non-Jews, up to 5
million of whom also died in the Nazi concentration camps, as a cheap political
device in order to gain a political advantage over your opponents in the Labour
Party is despicable. If anyone in Brighton
Labour Party is anti-Semitic it is you and your followers.
It is noticeable
that you and your political soul mates have nothing to say about racism against
the Roma, yet proportionately just as many Roma died in the camps as Jews. Racism
against the Roma today is far higher than that against Jews today but it isn’t so
politically advantageous.
As you well know I have often been the recipient of this
vile Holocaust denial propaganda, as evidenced by the Argus article of 16th
October 1993 as well as physical attacks by fascist groups such as the National
Front. A cursory search of the Argus archive would turn up numerous articles e.g.
Adam Trimmingham’s review
of my book ‘Fighting Fascism in Brighton’
I confess that in 40 years of opposing fascism and racism in Brighton
and Hove your name has never once come up.
My reasons for
opposing Zionism and the Israeli state are the same as my opposition to fascism
and racism in Britain and Apartheid in South Africa. Your use of the Jewish Holocaust
for transparently cheap political purposes is contemptible.
![]() |
| Mega Momentum rally before last year's Brighton Labour Party AGM |
Last year you
lied about spitting at the local Labour Party AGM, because the candidates you
supported lost a democratic election.
This year your friends had no traction at Labour Party conference and once
again you have resorted to dishonest political gamesmanship, even if it is at
the expense of stirring up and exploiting anti-Semitism.
![]() |
| The sophisticated wit of former Brighton councillor Craig Turton endorsed by Cllr Morgan |
I realise that
you may find this difficult to understand but even the worst political foes try
to maintain a certain level of political decorum. That however seems to elude you. On your Facebook
page there is a comment from former Brighton councillor Craig Turton:
‘Well said Warren Morgan! Greenstein is
a poisonous piece of shit - the sooner he's kicked out of the Party the better!
- Thursday at 10:09
Instead of admonishing Turton you
respond ‘Thanks Craig, appreciate that.
Hope you are well.’
It is clear that you are unfit for any public
office, both because of your display of arrogant ignorance and your inability
to conduct an appropriate public discourse.
You are clearly unfit to be the leader of Brighton and Hove City Council.
Singling out and defaming one Brighton Jewish resident by name is inciting hate
crime. If you have an ounce of decency you will resign of your own accord.
It
would also be interesting to know with what authority you wrote your letter and
on behalf of whom.
Yours truly,
Tony Greenstein
Background
Councillor Warren Morgan is a supporter of Progress. In 2015 he
supported Liz Kendall, the most right-wing candidate for leader of the Labour
Party. Last year he supported Owen Smith.
In the wake of Jeremy Corbyn’s
victory in the leadership elections Warren Morgan, Peter Kyle MP and the Labour
councillors have felt ever more beleaguered.
The 3 Brighton & Hove parties contain a massive 8,000+ members. Last July 2nd 600 people came out
to vote at the AGM of the local District Labour Party. When
Momentum supported candidates won with majorities of 2-1, Warren Morgan
promptly invented an alleged spitting incident, backed up by another councillor
Emma Daniels, which led to the national Labour Party and the Chair of the
Disputes Committee, Anne Black, suspending
the party. Morgan thought nothing of
lying through his teeth if it gave him a political advantage. Last week he did so again.
![]() |
| Morgan was confident that City College would never release CCTV footage but when it did he remained silent |
At last week’s Labour Party Conference
the Left was in a large numerical majority.
It is clear from the reception given to anti-Zionist Jewish speakers at
the Conference, Naomi Wimborne-Iddrissi and Leah Levane, that Conference was
unwilling to put up with more fake allegations of anti-Semitism. Both received standing ovations. The
loudest cheer of Corbyn’s speech was reserved for his references to Palestine. The Labour Friends of Israel and Jewish
Labour Movement were not best pleased.
Both the Free Speech on Israel and
Jewish Voices for Labour meetings were packed to the rafters. So an allegation was invented and I have no
doubt that Zionist activists pored over the footage they took secretly of the
former meeting to find anything that could possibly discredit the speech of
Miko Peled, an American-Israeli and son of an Israeli General
Mattiyahu Peled. When at one point Peled
said that everything, including the Holocaust, should be discussed, this was
transformed by the spin merchants and cynical manipulators of the Apartheid lobby
into a call for Holocaust denial!
Warren Morgan, to whom lying
comes as easily as his expenses claims, agreed to write a letter to Iain
McNicol threatening the Labour Party with not being allowed to hold a
conference in Brighton. In other words
for the sake of his Zionist and Progress friends he was willing to sacrifice
millions of pounds in tourism money in Brighton.
Once again the fake anti-Semitism
allegations have been used as the last throw of a desperate and discredited
group of cynical and dishonest politicians. And because I happened to be in the same room
as 150-200 other people and even worse I spoke at the meeting, I am therefore
guilty of Holocaust denial too and should be expelled immediately if not
sooner. I have no doubt that people will
clearly see what has happened as the actions of desperate right-wingers trying to use the issue of anti-Semitism in order to halt the advance of the Left.
I have therefore penned an Open
Letter to Warren Morgan calling on him to do the only decent thing in his life
so far and that is to resign as Leader of the Labour Group and better still as
a councillor altogether. To paraphrase
Shakespeare’s Macbeth, nothing in his life would become him like the leaving of
his office.
Tony Greenstein
27 September 2017
The false 'anti-Semitism' allegations at Labour Conference have one purpose only - to destabilise Corbyn's leadership
One Lie Too Many - Warren Morgan, Brighton's Council leader should be expelled for falsely alleging that supporters of the Palestinians & FSOI are holocaust deniers
![]() |
| When it comes to lying, Cllr. Warren Morgan has form |
The Zionists must be getting desperate when they have to resort to blatant lies about holocaust denial at a fringe Labour Party meeting held by Free Speech on Israel.
The fake news
allegations, from Wes Streeting MP, Warren Morgan and the Zionist Jewish Labour
Movement that Free Speech on Israel or myself believe that Holocaust denial is a topic worthy of discussion is a blatant lie. At no time has anyone ever suggested this.
Last Monday there was a packed fringe meeting of Free Speech on Israel at the Friends Meeting House in Brighton. The room was so packed that people were
listening in the garden. All the
speakers at the top table including the Chair Jenny Manson were Jewish.
Approximately half of those in the audience were Jewish. All the speakers were Jewish. Nobody noticed
anything about Holocaust denial because there was nothing. This
whole story in the mass media about ‘anti-Semitism’ is a wholly contrived
example of false flag news. Complete
Black Propaganda.
I spoke at the meeting and my main message was that
we should not be defensive over the allegations of anti-Semitism. On the contrary it is the far-Right, Breitbart
News, Richard Spencer of the alt-Right and fascist parties led by people such as
Marine Le Pen, Geert Wilders, Herr Strache of Austria and of course our very
own BNP and EDL who are avidly pro-Israel and pro-Zionist.
![]() |
| Steve Bannon - Trumps anti-Semitic former advisor is ardently pro-Israel |
The next guest at the Gala Dinner of the Zionist Organisation
of America in November, is , Steve Bannon, Trump’s former strategic advisor and a known anti-Semite.
![]() |
| Add caption |
As Richard Spencer, founder of the alt-Right and a fully paid up neo-Nazi declared,
he is a White
Zionist. Anti-Semites the world over
admire Israel and only wish they could emulate it. Israel is viciously anti-Muslim, overtly
racist and at the moment it is trying to remove citizenship from its own Palestinian citizens. What is there not to like about Israel from
the point of view of fascists and anti-Semites?
That is why the new far-Right party in the German
Bundestag, Alternative for Germany, AfD is pro-Zionist. They love Israel but hate Jews! They want to rehabilitate the German army in
the war, they want to 'revise' German history concerning the second world war but they are above all
an anti-Muslim party. That is why Zionism fits the bill.
When Benjamin Netanyahu’s own son, Yair, posted an anti-Semitic
cartoon directed at George Soros, his biggest fans were David Duke, a holocaust
denier and former KKK Grand Wizard and Andrew Anglin, editor of the Neo-Nazi Daily Stormer, named after the paper of Julius Strecher, Der Sturmer. Streicher was executed in 1946 for crimes
against humanity at Nuremburg.
There is no truth whatsoever in Warren Morgan's statement that
'We have the prominent activist and suspended
Labour Party member Tony Greenstein here, who indeed was present at the [Free Speech
on Israel] fringe meeting where it was suggested that Holocaust denial
should be allowed. His expulsion, in my view, is long overdue.'
This is a good example of how Labour's false
antisemitism allegations have been manufactured over the past two years.
No one at the Free Speech on Israel meeting last Monday even mentioned holocaust
denial, let alone suggested that it should be discussed. I would be
completely opposed to such a discussion. There is no point in debating flat earthers.
I don't believe holocaust denial should be criminalised, as in Germany and Austria, because not only does that drive it underground but it gives the appearance of people wanting to suppress uncomfortable truths. However, in Europe and America, there is no doubt that holocaust denial is nearly always a product of neo-Nazi historical revision.
There are some people who do believe that holocaust denial is protected speech. They are not anti-Semites. They include not only Noam Chomsky but the most
renowned historian of the Holocaust Raul Hilberg, editor of The Destruction of the
European Jews. Hilberg believed that Holocaust
historians could actually learn something from these people because they
pointed out flaws in our own reasoning.
However no one at the FSOI meeting advocated talking
with holocaust deniers. In my 40+ years
involvement in the Palestine solidarity movement I have known of no such discussion
in PSC.
In 2012 one person, Frances Clarke Lowes expressed
Holocaust denial views in Palestine Solidarity Campaign. I immediately proposed his expulsion both from
the local group and nationally. What Miko Peled said was: '‘It’s about freedom to discuss and criticise every issue
whether it’s the Holocaust yes or no whether its Palestine...’ He obviously was not
disputing the holocaust. What he was doing was advocating that we should have freedom of speech on every issue, including the Holocaust. A very different thing.
Last year Warren Morgan alleged that there was
spitting at the Labour Party AGM in Brighton. It was totally untrue but
it achieved its purpose, the suspension of Brighton & Hove Labour Party and
the annulment of the elections. Warren Morgan is someone who has no compunction in lying if it benefits Progress and his wing of the Labour Party. The man is completely unfit to be
Labour leader in Brighton and Hove. He has no regard for the truth. He is prepared to lie for political
advantage no matter who he hurts or damages. He has no moral scruples
worthy of the name. Warren Morgan has to go as Brighton & Hove's Council leader.
Even if someone had mentioned Holocaust denial at
the meeting in question, why does that make me guilty? This is an
excellent example of the McCarthyist technique of guilt-by-association.
Socialists and democrats fought hard against the techniques of Joe McCarthy,
who was himself a Southern white supremacist and anti-Semite.
I have been an active anti-racist and anti-fascist
throughout my life. I have been arrested and beaten up for opposing the
fascists. I co-founded Brighton & Hove Anti-fascist Committee and was
Secretary of the Brighton and Hove Anti-Nazi League.
As the article I reproduce here from the Argus of October 16 1983
demonstrates I have myself been at the receiving end of this vile literature.
This is not about Holocaust denial but defending
the Israeli State. How else do you defend barbaric practices such as
gaoling, shackling and torturing Palestinian children as young as 12 or the demolition of
Palestinian villages such as al Hiran, in Israel's Negev, in order to build Jewish towns and settlements, other than
by accusing Zionism’s opponents of anti-Semitism?
Israel today is a
racist and repressive state, which is attacking even Israeli human rights
organisations such as Btselem and Breaking the Silence. It is defunding critical and left wing theatre. It is no accident that the reason why Netanyahu joined in with Hungary's racist Prime Minister Viktor Orban in attacking George Soros was because Soros has funded liberal Israeli NGOs.
Israel is a state where right-wing mobs indulge in
pogroms chanting ‘Mavet LaAravim’ (Death to the Arabs). In Europe 80 years ago similar mobs chanted ‘Death
to the Jews.’
People like Warren Morgan and the so-called Jewish
Labour Movement want to divert attention from the fact that Israel is the most
racist state in the world by distorting what we say. It is a classic example of shooting the
messenger rather than dealing with the message.
I have written to Morgan saying that if he doesn’t
retract his insinuation that I am a sympathiser with or support Holocaust
denial I will sue him for defamation.
Tony Greenstein
Please note this blog was corrected on 18th October to amend what Miko Peled said. However my interpretation of what he said is exactly the same.
Please note this blog was corrected on 18th October to amend what Miko Peled said. However my interpretation of what he said is exactly the same.
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