This is Chutzpah– after falsely accusing thousands of members of ‘anti-Semitism’ Labour sends me a 4 page solicitor’s letter - this is how Labour turns Zionists into victims
Imagine
my surprise when I recently received a letter
from solicitors for the Labour Party threatening to sue me for libel. What was
my crime? I had posted a blog
on 27 June accusing Kim Bolton, the Chair of Hove CLP and Scott Horner, Labour’s
South-East Regional Organiser, of being racists and anti-Semites. Which they
are!
At
this point you may feel unsteady on your feet. After expelling, suspending and
putting thousands of members under investigation for the merest mention of Israel
or Zionism (‘anti-Semitism’) they have the brass neck to turn round and
threaten to sue me for daring to accuse them of anti-Semitism. As Thatcher once
said ‘it’s a funny old world.’
So why has Starmer’s Labour to react so
aggressively? Is Horner innocent? Am I unfairly traducing a young member of
staff?
Condemning and sanctioning Israel for killing infants and children is 'antisemitic' according to Scott Horner
Background
Goldsmid
and Hove Park branch of Hove and Portslade CLP passed the following motion
at their June meeting. It read:
“Hove and Portslade
CLP call upon the leader of the Labour Party and the Shadow Foreign Secretary
to strongly urge the government to
(1) Call on the
Israeli government for an end to its violation of the human rights of
Palestinians and for an end to the illegal occupation of the Gaza strip and the
West Bank
(2) Impose legal
sanctions on Israel for its repeated violations of international law, and, in
particular, place an embargo on arms sales and end trade with illegal
settlements”
This
motion would, apparently, according to Scott Horner, threaten the safety of
Jews and make them feel unwelcome.
If you call for sanctions on Israel to protect Palestinians you are making racist Jews feel 'unsafe' according to Scott Horner
According to the most
recent You Gov survey, 61% of Labour members
support boycott, divestment and sanctions [BDS] and only 8% are opposed. So it
is a pretty mainstream view in the Labour Party yet the Labour Right in Hove
scrambled to prevent the motion being discussed. They sought the backing of
Labour’s Southern Region Organiser Scott Horner, who naturally agreed. Horner wrote
to Bolton stating that:
Minutes of the Executive of Hove Labour Party June 2021
“While we encourage
comradely debate, I feel that this discussion would act as a flashpoint for the
expression of views that would undermine the Party’s ability to provide a safe
and welcoming space for all members, in particular Jewish Members.”
(my emphasis)
Hove’s Chair, Kim
Bolton then ruled that:
I support that view.
The motion from Goldsmid and Hove Park branch requesting Sanctions against
Israel risks opening a debate that will stir up internal conflict in our CLP
and may lead to further anti-Semitic behaviour. … As CLP chair , on the
advise (sic!) of Scott Horner, Labour South East officer, I rule the motion on
Sanctions Against Israel out of order.”
What
Horner was saying was that a debate on BDS will cause people to express anti-Semitic
views. In other words BDS is motivated by anti-Semitism not sympathy for the Palestinians.
Horner doesn’t say this openly of course, because like all Labour’s regional
mafia, he is politically dishonest.
What
Horner and Bolton are doing is casting the Palestinians as the villains and the
Zionists as the victims. That is the function of the ‘anti-Semitism’ libel. It reminds
me of those John Wayne movies that I used to watch as a kid which showed the
cowboys as the victims of the Native Indians who, for unknown reasons, kept attacking
those honest, god fearing cowboys such as John Wayne and Clint
Eastwood.
By
formulating his words in this cunning and deceptive way, Horner is showing how
quickly he has grasped how political language must be phrased in such a way as
to hide its real objective. The art of politics lies in how best you can hide
your real aims. Horner has a promising career ahead of him!
Paddy O'Keefe of Brighton Kemptown CLP was suspended for quoting an article by a child survivor of the holocaust - Ze'ev Sternhell in Ha'aretz - apparently this is anti-Semitic!
When
the CIA wanted to torture people they explained it away as ‘enhanced interrogation.’ When the Nazis referred
to the holocaust they used euphemisms such as ‘special measures’ and ‘special
treatment’.
In 1946 George Orwell wrote an essay
"Politics and
the English Language" describing this phenomenon.
‘Political language …is designed to make lies sound
truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure
wind.’
Orwell
described how
‘political speech and writing are largely the
defence of the indefensible… The great enemy of clear language is insincerity.’
That was why ‘political language has to consist largely of euphemism,
question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.’
In 1949 Orwell wrote 1984 about a dystopian future in which terms such as Newspeak and
Big Brother entered the English language.
Horner
doesn’t come out and say that opposition to Israel’s war crimes and support for
BDS is anti-Semitic. Instead he says that discussion of such a motion would act
as a ‘flashpoint’, a suitably
incendiary noun, for the expression of views that ‘would undermine the Party’s ability to provide a safe and welcoming
space for all members.’ Adding at the end ‘in particular Jewish Members.’
Of course he never says why.
Labour Conference under Corbyn
This
is a classic way in which the roles of the oppressed and oppressor are reversed.
It is deeply racist. It harkens back to the days when the British Empire was
called the ‘White
Man’s Burden.’
What
Horner is saying is that in order to prevent ‘anti-Semitism’ no support
whatsoever must be given to the child languishing in an Israeli prison, having
been beaten to a pulp. Palestinians whose homes have been demolished or parents
whose children have been torn to shreds by Elbit’s drones must understand that
‘anti-Semitism’, the feelings of well heeld Jewish Labour Party members, must
take priority. These are the same people who bitterly denied that the
‘anti-Semitism’ allegations were about Israel!
Horner didn't like my last blog - he'll like this even less!
Neither
Horner nor Starmer are genuinely interested in anti-Semitism. What they really want
is to dispense with the idea that Labour’s foreign policy should consist of
solidarity with oppressed peoples. Anti-imperialism must give way to the
interests of western imperialism.
It
is part of the unfinished Blair Project that on foreign affairs there should be
no differences between Labour and the Tories. Foreign policy should be
bipartisan just like in the United States.
What
then of Jews? Well in the words of Barnaby Raine, we
are the Western Establishment’s ‘favourite pets.’ and ‘heroic
colonists.’ As I wrote in my first article Jews are the moral alibi, the political football of Labour’s
racist right which is unconcerned with any form of anti-racism which challenges
their own political and economic interests.
There is no Israeli war crime that Peter Kyle, MP for Hove, a new LFI Vice-Chair won't support
Let us take Scott
Horner at his word and accept that there are some Jews who would be disconcerted
or feel unwelcome because of solidarity with the Palestinians. Clearly the
racist Jewish Labour Movement and people like Peter Kyle MP and Kim Bolton
would feel very uncomfortable.
The answer is so
what? Is international solidarity, the essence of socialism, to be sacrificed
to the subjective feelings of racists, be they Jewish or non-Jewish? Who cares about
such snowflakes when compared to the agonies of families thrown out of their
homes in order to satisfy the desire of settlers to see an Arab-free Jerusalem?
Imagine that in
1933 a resolution was proposed to Hove Labour Party calling for support for the
Jewish Boycott of Nazi Germany. The only Jews who opposed this at the time were
bourgeois Jews and the Zionists, who preferred to reach a trade agreement, Ha’avara,
with the Nazis.
 |
Just suppose that
there were German members of the Labour Party who said that they felt uncomfortable
with the proposed motion because they said it made them feel unwelcome and that
it was anti-German. No doubt Scott Horner’s ghostly ancestors would have ruled the
motion out of order.
Of course any
socialist worthy of the name would ask why pro-Nazi supporters were even
members of the Labour Party. That should be our approach to the idea that some
Jews will feel discomfited by criticism of Israel and support for the Palestinians.
If there are Jews within the Labour Party who
genuinely feel that resolutions opposing Israeli Apartheid make them feel
unwelcome then my response is this. ‘Why the
hell are you members of a party that purports to be socialist?’ Should the
views of racists be the reason for suppressing free speech and failing to give
solidarity with the victims of ethnic cleansing? Yet that is what has happened.
Letter from the Labour Party’s solicitors
The letter I received was headed ‘Not for Publication’ but clearly it
is in the public interest to publish it and also my reply. Labour’s solicitors listed 11 complaints regarding what I
said about Horner:
(i) That
he is a racist;
(ii) That
he exceptionalises Jews as especially vulnerable if Israeli war-crimes are
debated;
(iii) That
he is clearly and obviously anti-Semitic;
(iv) That
he assumes all Jews think the same way when it comes to Israel;
(v) That
he is also anti-Semitic for assuming Jews are uniquely incapable of rationally
debating the Israel question;
(vi) That
he follows a right-wing political ideology
(vii) That
he uses Jews as a moral alibi in the same way French colonialism used Jews as
intermediaries and scapegoats;
(viii) That
he stated sanctions on Israel would make Jewish members feel unwelcome;
(ix) That
he would be dismissed from his employment if Labour were a democratic party;
(x) The
(sic) he suggested Jews were especially fragile as they would be upset by
discussions on Israeli human rights abuses; and
(xi) That
he engages in racist activity.
The
allegations boiled down to saying that Scott Horner
i.
Is racist and
anti-Semitic
ii.
Exceptionalises
Jews.
iii.
Assumes all
Jews think the same when it comes to Israel.
iv.
Believes that Jews
are exceptionally fragile (‘the weak Jew’) and cannot rationally debate
Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians without upset.
v.
Uses Jews as a
moral alibi for Israel’s war crimes.
vi.
Is right-wing.
vii. Would
be dismissed if Labour were a democratic, socialist party.
For
all the bluster there is no denial that Horner said that debating BDS would result
in the expression of anti-Semitic views and that Jews would feel unwelcome and
unsafe.
Horner
assumed that all Jews, even anti-Zionist Jews, support Israel’ war crimes. What
he is saying that Jews are extremely fragile and as such is making a generalisation
about Jewish support for Israel. What is that if not anti-Semitism?
Horner
equated opposition to Israeli war crimes with anti-Semitism. That too is
anti-Semitic because it conflates Jews and Israel. Horner made no exception for
anti-Zionist or socialist Jews.
It
is difficult to comprehend why someone who holds anti-Semitic beliefs should profess
to be concerned about anti-Semitism unless he is using Jews for another agenda
altogether. In other words Jews are being used as a political football or moral
alibi.
I
fail to see how calling someone right-wing is defamatory. It is a matter of
opinion. Likewise saying that a democratic, socialist party would dismiss Horner
is a statement of the bleeding obvious!
I
don’t expect the Labour Party to sue me. Not only because they have no case but
because they are in a deep financial crisis thanks to Sir Starmer’s
catastrophic leadership. However if I am wrong then I will be more than
prepared to join battle!
The
Labour Party’s letter to me was a chutzpah,
a Yiddish word that doesn’t translate easily into English. Wikipedia describes
it as:
a
total denial of personal responsibility, which renders others speechless and incredulous ... one
cannot quite believe that another person totally lacks common human traits like
remorse, regret, guilt, sympathy and insight. The implication is at least some
degree of psychopathy in the subject.
I can’t think of a
better description of Horner and the Labour Party’s behavior when it comes to
making false allegations of anti-Semitism.
However no-one can accuse solicitor,
Gerald Shamash, of lacking a sense of humour. He write of Horner that ‘He acts as a
facilitator of their democratic expression, rather than using his position to
express his own views.’ And how did he
facilitate a democratic debate on sanctions against Israel? By recommending
that there be no discussion!
Sanctions
Perhaps if I was taught
logic I might ask my students to see if they could reconcile the following 2
statements:
Our client has never suggested,
expressly or by implication, that sanctions against Israel would make Jewish
members feel unwelcome.
our client exercised the
necessary vigilance of that expected of a public serving party member and
advised that pursuit of the motion on sanctions would only serve to pour fuel
on the fire of current tensions.
Notwithstanding this I
was told that ‘Our client does not
presume to know the thoughts of all Jews on the subject of Israel.’ As
if recognising that he was writing total nonsense, Shamash let slip that
Horner’s
true concern was that Jewish
members should not be made to feel unwelcome by particular language used not in
the written motion but liable to be uttered verbally during the discussion of
the motion, and aggressive behaviour and body language liable to be used by
members during that discussion. You are no doubt aware that there have been
many reported instances of Jewish members feeling unwelcome as a result of such
language and behaviour/body language in similar debates, regarding similarly
anodyne written motions.
Actually
I’m not aware of any Labour Party members feeling unwelcome by discussions on Palestine.
Why should they? But if there are a few Jewish racists in the Labour Party so
what?
But
it wasn’t the motion itself that was the problem but the predicted body
language! Horner has amazing foresight. But surely this must apply to all
debate in the Labour Party? In other words members must stop debating issues in
case someone is offended. And to be fair Starmer and his glove puppet David Evans
have done their best to outlaw debate!
Of
course assertions about body language are evidence free. The kind of dishonest
political language that Orwell warned of.
In
case anyone is in doubt as to the seriousness of these matters I was told
‘of the extremely high profile of
the recent scandal concerning Anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, and the wider
backdrop of rising Anti-Semitic hatred across the UK.’
Just
as 4 legs are better than 2, so 2 lies are better than 1.
Tony
Greenstein
