Emergency Appeal – Jewish Chronicle is Facing A Financial Crisis - Please Dig Deep for the Sake of Genocide Jake’s Salary

 Revisiting the case of Emily Honchowicz, the young American Jew blinded in one eye by Israeli Police Thugs

Emily Honcowich - Democracy Now

It’s not every day that the CEO of the Jewish Chronicle, Jo Bucci, writes to me begging for a handout. Jo informed me that:

In the weeks since the war broke out in Israel, our journalists have been working non-stop to bring you the latest news from the front lines as well as closer to home.

Our coverage, which has been read by millions since October 7, has shone a light on the conflict and given our readers stories that matter to them in these difficult times.

I'm writing to you today to ask if you'd consider being a donor to the Jewish Chronicle.

The Jewish Chronicle is the world’s oldest Jewish newspaper, founded in 1841. It has always been the paper of the Jewish Establishment.

Now you will understand dear reader that I am in a dilemma when it comes to giving to good causes. Should I donate my hard earned cash to those ‘anti-Semites’ at Medical Aid for the Palestinians, who will only spend my cash on things like bandages and medicines for Palestinian children in Gaza or should I hand it over to the Jewish Chronicle in order that it can continue to shamelessly lie in the cause of Jewish Supremacy?

Well of course I would like to give a helping hand to the non-Jewish racist who currently edits the JC, one Jake Wallis-Simons but needs must. It’s not that I don’t understand Jo Bucci’s plight. I really do.

Bernard Joseph, unlike 'liar' Lee Harpin and Marcus Dysch, was able to write a fair and balanced article

According to Wikipedia from a high of 55,000 in 1941, former editor Stephen Pollard managed to reduce this from 30,000 when he was appointed in 2009 to 20,141 in 2018 and over a third of those were free copies.

But in August 2010 things were so different. Pollard, who should be called the gravedigger of the JC, was telling readers

I am thrilled to be able to report that the JC's year-on-year ABC circulation figures (30/6/09-30/6/10) are up 3.67%. In June 2009, circulation was 30,436; this June it reached 31,556 – an increase of 1,120.

In other words the obsessive, dishonest anti-Corbyn campaign of Pollard between 2015 and 2019 turned off one-third of its readers.

But if you thought that things couldn’t get worse you are wrong. According to ABC, the auditor for the media industry, circulation has fallen to 12,420 in May-June 2023 and of those nearly half are given away. In other words just 6,371 people are prepared to fork out to buy a copy of the rag.

When Oswald Moseley's British Union of Fascists tried to march through London's East End the JC, the Board of Deputies and the Zionists urged Jews to keep indoors. Jewish and non-Jewish workers ignored the Jewish Establishment and taught Moseley a lesson he would remember

Clearly the JC is in big trouble and its not difficult to understand why. It’s boring, unreadable and a propaganda rag that is at odds with youth culture and political awareness amongst the young. Zionism is irrelevant to all but a handful of zealots. Most Jewish kids know that things are wrong in Israel but according to the JC it is as if the election of neo-Nazis like Ben Gvir and Smotrich  to Israel’s government never happened.

The JC was an early adherent of the Zionist movement or rather they bought it out but in the early days it could be very critical of Zionism. During the Hitler period when the Zionists were looking to take advantage of the Nazi state in order to build their Jewish state, the JC was very critical of the policies of the Zionist movement, and in particular of Ha'avara, the trading agreement between the Nazis and the Zionist movement. Today it is an anti-Palestinian propaganda rag.

In an editorial of 27 December 1935 the JC railed against Ha'avara. It accused the World Zionist Organisation of

aiding and comforting one of the most savage oppressions even in Jewish history. It dishonours and defiles us. It shame us in our own eyes and un-mans us. It is a blow to our pride and a shock to our morale and self-respect at a time when we are most direly in need of the strengthening of these qualities. It also disheartens us, for it breaks the united Jewish boycott front, a front, let it not be forgotten, with which Gentile sympathisers are also aligned.

… The boycott offered Jews the first real weapon they-have ever had, thanks to the modern development of international trade. The Haavarah dashes that weapon from their hands. The Haavarah has actually exerted itself, if our information be correct, to promote an increase of the purchase of German products in Palestine…

But, at least, let not our critics try to fool us with the argument- that if the Ha'avarah helps Jewish national reconstruction it does not transgress against Jewish national dignity. Building the new Judea on an “unclean " transaction is not our idea of preserving Jewish dignity!’

Today the ‘JC' is a ‘newspaper’ that Goebbels would have given his eye teeth for. Its mission is to keep British Jews in ignorance of the reality of what is happening in Israel and Palestine and line them up in support of genocide. Strangely enough many Jews are not happy with being fodder for a ‘Jewish’ state that seems to be anything but Jewish.

The reality is that the Jewish Chronicle, whilst purporting to be horror stricken at the alleged increase in anti-Semitism does its best to increase anti-Semitism by constantly associating Jews, all Jews, with the war crimes of the Israeli state.

Although one should resolutely oppose attacks on Jews because of what Israel does, at the same time one should recognise that people are justifiably angered by the scenes of carnage and war crimes from Gaza. When the JC goes out of its way to stress Jewish support for Israeli war crimes is it any wonder that some people take them at their word and attack Jews as a result?

One of my favourite headlines in the JC

The JC is unrepresentative of British Jews

The JC is also increasingly unrepresentative of the Jewish community. In the last authoritative survey of the British Jewish community in 2015 The Attitudes of British Jews Towards Israel it was found that the number of Jews who identified as Zionists had dropped from 72% in 2010. A quarter of Jews supported sanctions against Israel and to the question do Palestinians have no legitimate claim to the land, as right-wing Zionists argue, just 14% supported this proposition as opposed to 72% who were opposed.

Yet the JC has consistently supported the right and far-right of the Zionist movement. It brooks no criticism of Israel and as I show below actively censors anything tending to put it in a different light. In short the JC has become increasingly unrepresentative of British Jews and more of a shrill Zionist voice lecturing and hectoring. The appointment of another far-right editor, Jake Wallis-Simons, formerly of the Telegraph merely accentuates this trend.

The exclusion of non-Zionist and anti-Zionist voices from the JC has contributed to its irrelevance. Most young Jews today come into contact with Palestinians and Jews who are not Zionists yet this reality has never entered the JC's ecosphere. The pretence that the West Bank is a haven of tranquility punctured only by anti-Semitic Palestinians is simply at odds with what people learn from other sources. They know that Israel is now considered by most people as an apartheid state in which messianic Jews rule the roost.

The growth of non and anti-Zionist Jewish groups has passed the JC by. Na’amod, Jews Against Genocide, Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods, Jewish Voices for Labour, Jewish Network for Palestine, Jews for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, have sprung up yet the JC relates to the shrill loudmouths and far-right Zionists such as Jonathan Hoffman with his coterie of Tommy Robinson supporters.

My own experience of the Jewish Chronicle

I have been in conflict with the JC for most of my political life. I am the only person to have successfully taken the JC to the Press Council, the forerunner of today’s Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO). When PSC organised a Conference on Anti-Arab Racism in 1985, with funding from the then Greater London Council, the JC attacked the conference implying that PSC was anti-Semitic. When I wrote to them on behalf of PSC, the JC refused me a right of reply. The Press Council upheld my complaint that I should have had a right of reply.

One of a number of letters the JC printed from me

Although its editor the late Geoffrey D Paul and I never saw eye to eye, he nonetheless invariably allowed me access to the letters columns of the paper although of course there was usually in reply a deluge of angry Zionists.

My letter to the Guardian challenging Chaim Bermant's Obituary

Geoffrey Paul allowed, by Zionist standards anyway, a wide range of debate in the paper. He repeatedly defended the maverick columnist Chaim Bermant who supported negotiations with the PLO, something that was considered beyond the pale in polite circles at that time.

Bernard Joseph did not set out to distort or twist the truth unlike JC 'journalists' today

This was a time when the JC employed journalists as opposed to Zionist political hacks like David Rose. For example when I spoke at the 2007 UNISON Conference in support of BDS, the only Jewish person to do so, I took apart the usual Zionist accusations that supporters of Palestine were anti-Semitic supporters of Hamas. I got a rousing reception from the delegates and the motion passed overwhelmingly. The first person who came up to congratulate me on my speech was Bernard Josephs, the JC reporter. Bernard was an old school Zionist and certainly not a supporter of BDS but he appreciated the way I had dealt with the accusations of anti-Semitism.

Fast forward 13 years and under Stephen Pollard all was different. Professor Geoffrey Alderman, a Zionist who had written for the JC for nearly 46 years, being a weekly columnist for 14 years, criticised the IHRA because its 11 examples ‘embed numerous internal contradictions’. This was during the anti-Corbyn smear campaign which the JC was leading, with the IHRA as its main weapon. Such criticism was considered by Pollard as nothing less than sabotage.

Alderman then went on to blot his copybook even further when he wrote an article for The Spectator Is Jeremy Corbyn really anti-Semitic? reaching the conclusion that far from being anti-Semitic ‘The fact of the matter is that Corbyn has an impressive record of supporting Jewish communal initiatives.’

Under Geoffrey Paul Alderman would have been defended. Pollard however was incandescent with rage. Zionist ideologues such as Pollard don’t do debate. He was running a campaign of hate and the last thing he wanted was a cool, analytical look at Corbyn’s actual record in relation to Jews. What did Pollard do? He sent a curt email at the end of January 2020 to Alderman saying ‘“as editor I no longer wish to have you in the paper.”

Pollard adamantly refused, in a telephone call, to give his reasons for the decision but they are not hard to discern. Pollard, a hard-right Zionist and founder of the Islamaphobic Henry Jackson Society, would brook no dissent. It was an iron rule as far as he was concerned that Corbyn was anti-Semitic.

Pollard was perhaps one of the most dishonest figures to grace public life in Britain in the last 20 years. He was also a disaster as JC Editor taking the circulation from over 30,000 to under 20,000 and bankrupting the paper in the process. It was only because the JC was seen as too valuable to go under during the anti-Corbyn witchhunt that the JC was rescued, amongst others by John Ware, who produced the serially dishonest Panorama programme Is Labour Anti-Semitic?

But I have another reason for detesting Pollard. So much so that when he announced that he had cancer I thought that there might be divine justice after all.

The Case of Emily Honochowicz

On 3 July 2010 I wrote to Pollard about the case of an American Jewish art student, Emily Honochowicz. Emily had gone to study in Jerusalem for one year as part of her art degree. There she had met anti-occupation activists from the International Solidarity Movement and she had been particularly moved by the terrible things that the Palestinians were experiencing in the West Bank.

On hearing of Israel’s murder of 9 activists on the Mavi Marmara and Gaza Freedom Flotilla she and others had gone to stage a protest at the main gateway from Jerusalem to the West Bank, the Qalandiya checkpoint.  This was being policed by the Border Guard, a notoriously violent Israeli police unit. All of a sudden one of them shot, in breach of all regulations, a tear gas cannister directly at Emily with the result that she was blinded in one eye.

Emily was rushed, first to a hospital in Ramallah and then to Jerusalem’s Hadassah hospital where doctors were unable to save her eye. I was particularly moved by how a young Jewish girl had taken part in the kind of protest which is normal in any country calling itself a democracy and she had lost an eye as a result. How could this be in a state that calls itself Jewish?  Where were its Jewish values?

I wrote an article The Day an American Jewish Art Student Emily Henochowicz Lost an Eye and it occurred to me that perhaps the JC would consider this newsworthy. I knew that the evils perpetrated against Palestinians never made the JC columns, especially under Pollard, because it was an iron rule that British Jews should be kept in ignorance of what was happening in the occupied territories.

Much fun was had when we were stewarding the TUC Conference in Brighton - after everyone had gone home we dumped the Zionist propaganda in the nearest bin!

But Emily wasn’t a Palestinian. She was a Jewish girl. Surely this story merited a place in the JC? I had read an article in Ha’aretz Israel Refuses to Pay Medical Bills for American-Jewish Protester Who Lost Eye and found it outrageous. The Pig who had blinded Emily in one eye had broken all regulations and yet the Israeli government, which can spend thousands of pounds on takeaway meals for Prime Minister Netanyahu and his corrupt wife, didn’t have the decency to at least pay for the medical bills caused by its thuggish police force.

I wrote that

Emily, the daughter of an Israeli born father and granddaughter of holocaust survivors has learnt the hard way that Israel is an oppressive and racist regime.

The final insult of course is that Israel refuses to pay the medical bills for her treatment in hospital. Literally they want their pound of flesh.

The latter being a reference to Shylock and the Merchant of Venice.

I sent an email to Pollard suggesting that he might want to run this story, noting that

Instead of being an echo chamber to Jonathan Hoffman isn't it about time you actually started reporting the more uncomfortable facts? When people look back this period of the Jewish Chronicle it will come to be seen as one of its darkest and least glorious chapters.

Pollard immediately responded

‘Thank you for your email, which will make a fine addition to my 'delete' folder.’

In other words nothing that could upset the myth of Israel as the Middle East’s Only Democracy would be allowed to grace the pages of the Jewish Chronicle, even if it was someone who was Jewish who had experienced violence or discrimination.

I wrote a blog Jewish Chronicle Editor, Stephen Pollard says the blinding in one eye, by Israeli Border Guards of Emily Honchowicz, "will make a fine addition to my 'delete' folder." and to this day I consider Pollard, who learnt his trade under the pornographer and one-time owner of the Daily Express, Richard Desmond, as the human equivalent of dog waste. A man without a single redeeming feature.

Emily, in a fascinating interview with Democracy Now, described how she was cared for and looked after by Palestinians, despite their many worries, exploding the myth that Palestinians are gripped by a fatalistic and obsessive anti-Semitism. (see above)

In the pre-Pollard era the letters columns were relatively open

Emily came across in the interview as a wonderful and likeable girl who was trying to put her experiences behind her whilst displaying empathy and understanding for the Palestinians of Nabi Saleh

Pollard, who looks every bit as detestable as he is, proved that when it comes to the Zionist press in this country, lies and deceit always trump honesty and truth. The tragedy is that too many Jews are too blind to see that they being conned by a narrow Jewish nationalism that at the current time is  perpetrating genocide in Gaza.

Instead many Jews whine about a non-existent ‘anti-Semitism’, whilst keeping company with vile racists like Suella Braverman and then wonder why it is that some people assume that Jews and Genocide go together.

So no, I shall not be contributing to the Jewish Chronicle anytime soon. The sooner it dies the better for everyone but especially Britain’s Jews.

As for Stephen Pollard, I am reminded of the last stanza of Bob Dylan’s masterpiece, Masters of War:

And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand over your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead

Tony Greenstein

Jewish Socialist Group Cowardice Over the Zionists' Racist Attacks on Jackie Walker

Bundists behaving like Stalinists – JSG Leaders Remove Critics of Lansman from Jews 4 Jeremy FB Group

Jackie Walker - subject to a racist witchhunt by the Zionist Jewish Labour Movement aided by Jon Lansman.  The JSG is like the 3 monkeys - it neither sees, hears nor says anything

The JSG's censor-in-chief Julia Bard

The Jewish Socialists Group, which was originally founded in the early 1970’s as a left-Zionist group before moving towards Bundism and non-Zionism, has never been an activist group.  It is largely composed of what might be called the leftist Jewish intelligentsia. However it has always been at the forefront of the anti-racist and anti-fascist struggle.  At least until today when it has been rendered dumbstruck by Zionist attacks on Jackie Walker.  Attacks which have been condoned and indeed supported by one of its own members, Jon Lansman.

Below are just some of the vile racist tweets attacking Jackie Walker which the JSG leadership have condoned by their silence and support for Lansman and the Momentum leadership.

This is what passes for Zio humour - calling a Black anti-racist 'Nazi scum' is a good example of how Zios trivialise anti-Semitism 

Naturally anyone who is an anti-Zionist is a 'Jew hater' unlike the Zionists who worked hand in hand with anti-Semites from Herzl onwards

Burning Black people was an integral part of KKK lynching in the United States

notice how this racist Zio emphasises the word 'black'

'hanging' Black people was also something that the KKK specialised in and Zionists salivate about 

A good combination of sexism and a neo-Nazi style denial of Jackie as Jewish

No need for an explanation to this piece of vile race hatred

I've had a number of tweets too from racist neo-Nazi style Zios who despite being concerned about 'anti-Semitism' express a desire to send you to the gas chambers - graffiti such as 'Arabs to the gas chambers' is quite common in Hebron and amongst the Judeo-Nazi setters there

Once again the Zionist desire to emulate their KKK brothers and burn someone who is Black

Given the predominance of right-wing Zionist and conservative politics in the once radical Jewish community the JSG once stood out for its dissent with establishment Jewish politics.  To a large extent it has been overtaken with the formation of groups like Jews 4 Justice for Palestinians, Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods, Jewdas etc . 

JSG came to the fore with its support for the anti-fascist movement in the 1970’s.  When the Board of Deputies and the Union of Jewish Students opposed, in the late 1970’s, the Anti Nazi League, which at that time was a mass movement not an SWP front, the JSG was prominent in fighting a bourgeois Jewish leadership who saw the fight against anti-Zionism as more important than the fight against the National Front.  At that time the National Front, which was overtly anti-Semitic, was a credible political force, forcing the Liberals into 4^th place in by-elections in Birmingham Ladywood and Stechford in 1977 and gaining 119,000 votes in the 1977 GLC elections.

Debate with Julia Bard in 1993 on the Oslo Accords which she supported

The JSG’s position on Israel has always been one of 2 states whilst avoiding the question of Zionism and the nature of the Jewish state.  At the time of the 1993 Oslo Accords in a debate with Julia Bard in Labour Briefing, she supported the Accords. 

Ian Saville speaking on behalf of Jackie Walker in May 2016

Dave Rosenberg says in his statement below that the JSG encompasses a wide variety of left-wing opinion.  However this did not prevent the JSG, despite its recent inactivity (Jewish Socialist, which used to come out quarterly now appears less than once a year) being involved in the setting up of the Jews for Jeremy group in the Summer of 2015.  When the false anti-Semitism campaign was at its height, the JSG supported Jackie Walker, before her removal as Vice Chair of Momentum, when she was suspended in May 2016.  Ian Saville appeared as a JSG speaker on an LRC/Momentum platform in Brighton alongside Jackie at a meeting specifically called to oppose the anti-Semitism witchhunt.

Free Speech on Israel picket of Momentum Steering Committee which removed Jackie Walker

Jackie was re-suspended in September last year after the Labour Party Conference.  There had been a sustained and vitriolic campaign by the Jewish Labour Movement.  Two weeks before the LP Conference I had posted The Jewish Labour Movement and its Political Lynching of Jackie Walker in which I wrote that:

‘Jackie was reinstated after an investigation but the Zionists have refused to accept her acquittal and have waged a campaign of vilification against her ever since.... The Jewish Labour Movement ... has run a disgraceful, race baiting campaign against Jackie.  It has been part and parcel of a Zionist attack on her which has questioned her Jewish ancestry on the basis that she is Black.  A large section of the Zionist movement refuses to accept that Black people, for example the Black Hebrews, can also be Jewish.’

Jeremy Newmark - racist liar-in-chief of the JLM

The JLM’s Chair, Jeremy Newmark criticised John McDonnell for speaking on an LRC platform with Jackie at the TUC Conference in September. He was quoted as saying of McDonnell that:

"He must explain his defence of Walker which is inconsistent with his call for zero tolerance. This raises serious questions. Our members expect him to explain himself."

The discussion on the slave trade by Jackie Walker that prompted the racist attacks on her

The JLM campaign was based on the lie perpetrated by Marcus Dysch in the Jewish Chronicle that Jackie ‘claimed Jews caused ‘an African holocaust’.  In fact what she said, in a private and complex Facebook discussion with an Israeli Zionist friend, was that

‘“Many Jews (my ancestors too) were the chief financiers of the sugar and slave trade which is of course why there were so many early synagogues in the Caribbean. So who are victims and what does it mean? We are victims and perpetrators to some extent through choice.”

Clearly what she was saying was that many Jews were among the chief financiers of the slave trade, which is a statement of historical fact.  On the basis of the omission of one word, which was clearly implied by the context, Jackie has been vilified and demonised. 

Since September when Jackie was suspended for a second time from the Labour Party, the JSG has maintained an embarrassed silence.  It has not only failed to criticise Jackie’s suspension, but it has also failed to criticise or even comment on the complicity in this racist attack by one of their own members, Jon Lansman.  Indeed it has gone out of its way to support him.

I spoke on Thursday night at a public meeting in Brighton with Jackie Walker.  The meeting was called to discuss the attack on free speech and the suppression of the Palestinian voice by the Zionist movement and their Israeli Embassy paymasters.  The IHRA definition of anti-Semitism which was adopted by Theresa May and which Corbyn decided to follow, has become the Zionists’ principal weapon.   

The whole purpose of the IHRA definition is to conflate genuine anti-Semitism, i.e. hostility to Jews as Jews, with criticism of Israel, which is anti-Semitic in itself, since it implies an association between Jews and Israel.  This week it has been used to prevent the holding of Israel Apartheid week at the University of Central Lancashire and yesterday all students and academics at Sussex University were sent an email by the Vice Chancellor attacking Israel Apartheid Week on campus. 

More racist tweets by Zionists

At UCL banning Israel Apartheid Week was justified by the Prevent counter-terrorism duty.  Support for the Palestinians and opposition to Zionism is being conflated with ‘terrorism’ as we always said it would.  Of course the definition of ‘terrorism’ excludes Israeli state terrorism.  Once again Prevent is being used to clamp down on free speech.  

One of many racist tweets that Jackie Walker has received

Jackie, told of how she had been the recipient of dozens of vitriolic racist tweets, of which those above are but a sample, as a result of the Zionist campaign  against her.  She is rightly fearful for her own physical safety.  One of the reasons this has occurred is that she is Black and Jewish.  Many of the tweets are concerned with her Jewishness since for many in the Zionist movement being Jewish is a European affair.  Arab Jews are bad enough compared to White Russians but Black Jews are beyond the pale.  It is for this reason that Ethiopian Jews in Israel suffer from extreme racist hostility.

Normally if someone says they are Jewish I take them at their word.  But to Zionist racists, it is very important to investigate someone's lineage because in Israel being Jewish determines your entitlement to privileges.  When investigating whether someone is entitled to come to Israel under the Law of Return, recourse has even been had to Nazi records to determine whether or not someone is Jewish.  Similarly the Zionists have employed someone to investigate Jackie’s family lineage and draw up a family tree to prove she isn’t Jewish.  80 years ago in Germany the same people would have found employment proving that people were Jewish.

The Silence of the JSG

Critics of Lansman’s coup in Momentum or those questioning why the JSG are suppressing criticism of him have been removed from the Jews for Jeremy and JSG Facebook groups.  A similar fate has befallen those criticising why the JSG has remained silent over the removal of Jackie Walker as Vice-Chair of Momentum and her suspension from the Labour Party. 

David Rosenberg

Why has the JSG’s leadership, in particular David Rosenberg and Julia Bard, moved to what is effectively a Stalinist position of suppressing political discussion?  For a group that traces its political lineage from the Bund, it is ironic that it is behaving more like the Bund’s historic political enemy. 

David Rosenberg, in a statement to the Free Speech on Israel group (see below) throws what is the political equivalent of a tantrum but fails to answer any questions about Jackie beyond saying that the JSG moderators of the J4J FB page have blocked ‘anti-Corbyn material’.  Most people would assume that means criticism from the Right and Progress, i.e. from those hostile to Corbyn.  This is dishonest because the critics who have been debarred are not hostile to Corbyn but fearful as to how long he will last given his present political trajectory.

What David really meant is any critique as to whether for example Corbyn is right to appease the Right, disavow reselection of Labour MPs and say that support for free movement of workers should be sacrificed on the altar of Brexit.  In categorising any criticism of Corbyn and McDonnell as ‘anti-Corbyn’ what David is doing is indulging in a personality cult, which was also the hallmark of Stalinism.  Lack of debate weakens not strengthens Corbyn.  We should be under no illusions that Corbyn’s position at present is not a strong one.

In the JSG statement David Rosenberg’s position was that ‘Our group is anti-Zionist but does not go in for gratuitous and childish demonisation of those who identify as Zionists.’

I am not aware that the JSG has ever identified itself as anti-Zionist in any published material. Presumably what Rosenberg means is recognising and understanding the role of Zionist groups such as the JLM in the attack, not only on Corbyn and the Left but in the witch-hunt more widely. Zionist groups are our political enemies, not cuddly multi-culturalists.  The Bund historically considered Zionism as its main enemy in the Jewish community not something it could cosy up to.

As the Al Jazeera programmes ‘The Lobby’ revealed, there is a well organised Zionist lobby in Britain, serviced and funded by the Israeli embassy, whose role is to destabilise and undermine the Corbyn leadership of the Labour Party and those like Malia Bouathia in NUS, who oppose the Israeli state or who support the Boycott of Israel.

One of the principal signatories to the letter purportedly criticising Arkush is Ella Rose, who directly transferred from working at the Israeli  Embassy to becoming Director of the JLM.  She was also recorded as threatening to ‘take out’ Jackie Walker.

Julia Bard telling Ruth Appleton of the JSG not to mention she is in the JSG in a Guardian letter - 'The JSG is not commenting at the moment' owing to the 'complexity and volatility' of the situation.  She was asked to wait for 30 minutes - we are still waiting!

Posting The Strange Silence of the Jewish Socialists Group over Jackie’s suspension got me removed from the JSG’s Facebook page some months ago.  There was no warning or message.  Prior to that Julia Bard had removed a link I had posted to a blog post critical of Lansman.  When we organised a letter to the Guardian supporting Jackie Walker, JSG member Ruth Appleton was told in an email by Julia Bard to remove all reference to the JSG even though she wasn’t writing on behalf of the group.   Clearly the JSG is embarrassed by any association with the campaign to support Jackie.

Debbie Fink made the cardinal error of posting an article of mine to the J4J FB page - worse still it attacked Jon Lansman's putsch

Asking why Lansman, a member of the JSG, had not been called to account for his removal of Jackie Walker as Momentum Vice-Chair, an act which even Cecile Wright, Lansman’s supporter on the Momentum Steering Committee has described as a ‘political lynching’, merited the following message on the Free Speech on Israel list in reply to Debbie Fink.  According to Rosenberg, her question was:

‘‘based on ignorance and vituperation, they were not worth responding to. The JSG is solely accountable to its members, not to you, nor to FSOI, nor to any other groups we may or may not be connected with or work with.’ 

Julia Bard in full censorship mode

Which was more of a political tantrum than an answer.  When Debbie committed the cardinal sin of posting an article on Lansman's Kitchen Coup on the J4J FaceBook group asking why the silence over Jackie Walker, she was summarily removed, as others have been since then.  All removals have been conducted by Julia Bard, the JSG’s Political Commissar.

I was removed from the J4J group last year when I sent a letter to the Guardian on behalf of J4J supporting the new Black President of the National Union of Students against the racist attacks of the Zionist Union of Jewish Students.  Attacks which we now know from Al Jazeera’s ‘The Lobby’ were co-ordinated with the Israeli state and its Embassy in London.

I made a conscious decision, given the lack of any democratic mechanisms within J4J, to send a letter defending Malia to the Guardian.  In my naivety I didn’t realise that the JSG’s commitment to anti-racism stops short of defending Black anti-racists when they are accused of ‘anti-Semitism’ by Zionists.

Original letter to the Guardian from Jewish supporters of Jeremy Corbyn - not a member of JSG in sight

The 3 moderators of the J4J group are all members of the JSG and include the David Rosenberg and Julia Bard partnership, as well as Ian Saville.  The reason Dave gives in his statement below for this situation is that the JSG set up J4J.  But this not true.  The genesis of J4J began over the summer 2015 when a group of us sent a letter to the Guardian, which was printed on August 20^th 2015 during the leadership elections, supporting Jeremy Corbyn.  Debbie Fink and myself from J-Big were responsible for organising the letter and I personally sent it off from Normandy where I was on holiday!

Letter in Jewish Chronicle from Jews for Jeremy - it was organised by J-Big members not the JSG

This letter was the genesis of the idea that Corbyn needed Jewish members of the Labour Party to rebut the fake allegations of anti-Semitism.  Allegations that originated in the Daily Mail and Jewish Chronicle that Corbyn had worked with a holocaust denier Paul Eisen.  On the 2^nd October 2015 I organised another Jewish letter, signed by about 80 people, which was printed by the Jewish Chronicle, rebutting theirs and Jonathan Freedland’s accusations that Corbyn was anti-Semitic.  This letter was printed in the name of Jews 4 Jeremy.  The suggestion in David Rosenberg’s bad-tempered response that J4J was a JSG initiative is a falsehood.  It was a coming together of a whole number of Jews from J-Big, JfJP, the JSG and independents.  The seizing of control of the Facebook group by the JSG was an act of sectarianism at which the SWP usually excel.  We are now seeing its effects in Bard’s purge of dissenters.

The J4J group has done nothing in the past year.  Despite the defamatory anti-Semitism campaign by the Zionists it has remained silent.  J4J’s inactivity is the result of the JSG’s organisational stranglehold.  It is Momentum writ small.  What should happen is that the group, which could have played a much larger part in the fight against the witch-hunt and against Zionist attacks on Jeremy, should be relaunched with some form of democratic control.

On 12^th January Debbie Fink posted my article on Lansman's coup in Momentum to the J4J blog and she posted the statement below, on Monday 16^th January to the Free Speech on Israel list.  

Lansman's clones spreading the word about Jackie Walker

'As the subject of Lansman has come up again, here's an article that might be of interest. This is the one the Jews for Jeremy moderators removed without explanation, throwing me off the list when I challenged it, again without explanation. To date, I have received no explanation for this nor answers to questions that I'm sure, we all want: why the JSG are covering for Lansman and not speaking out against the treatment of Jackie; why they are guilty of the same censorship as the Israel lobby and why they are loyal to Lansman, a Zionist who's colluding with the JLM rather than Jackie, a Socialist. 

The JSG won't talk to me but maybe they will at least have the decency to speak to someone else here.'

David Rosenberg was sufficiently stung to post a reply to FSOI. 

Statement of Clarification re Debbie Fink’s questions re JSG, Jews for Jeremy, and John Lansman. This is for information. We won’t be making further comment on this matter as we have more important work to do.

Jews for Jeremy (J4J) was set up mainly by JSG members in the summer of 2015 to defend Jeremy Corbyn from attack by those seeking to undermine him (Conservatives, Blairites, Zionists), and especially those using false accusations of antisemitism to attack Corbyn and his supporters.

The J4J page is NOT a place for those who wish to attack, disparage, abuse or insult Corbyn and the political stance he represents. It is NOT a place to fight proxy sectarian wars or settle political scores on other matters.

Very soon after the page was set up it had to block a number of people who joined up for nefarious purposes. They fell mainly into two categories:

 • Holocaust-denying antisemites

 • Trouble-making Zionists

On a very few occasions since then we have, reluctantly, had to block people for misusing our page by posting anti-Corbyn material, abusive sectarian political material, or re-posting material by those who they know have been blocked from the page. It is for these reasons that J4J collectively decided to block Debbie Fink. Having stated that she was not going to attack the JSG publicly, her continued abuse about the group and Corbyn in her emails and Facebook posts since she was blocked, her conspiracy theories and fantasies involving the JSG, Jon Lansman and Jeremy Corbyn, and her continued re-posting of material by a person who was blocked, leads us to believe that if we unblocked her now, we would be opening the page to more of the same.

Any organisation that sets up a Facebook Page has the right to ensure that its page and participants are not abused. That is what we have done. She can post her views freely elsewhere but not on this page.

The JSG membership spans people from the middle of the Labour Party to the far left within and beyond the Party, to Greens and anarchists. We organise together on the basis of shared values, principles and democratically agreed policies.

Our group is anti-Zionist but does not go in for gratuitous and childish demonisation of those who identify as Zionists. We know from long experience that many of the most effective Jewish anti-Zionist campaigners today once identified as Zionists. We are simultaneously in the business of opposing Zionism and trying to persuade those beginning to have doubts. You don’t do that by insulting them as “zios”. On an earlier occasion we had to ask Debbie to take down ranting posts that about why we should call people “zios”. On this specific issue the JSG completely agrees with the view expressed by Shami Chakrabarti in her report.

Re Jon Lansman: JSG members are also active individually in a range of groups, organisations, and campaigns. We do not police what they say and do in such groups. They are only accountable to the JSG for what they say or do in the name of the JSG.

Jon Lansman has been a member of the JSG for many years but has never been an active member. We know him as a longstanding and consistent supporter of Palestinian rights.

The JSG is not affiliated to Momentum and does not hold or express a JSG view about Momentum’s internal affairs. We are aware that those currently opposing, and in some cases demonising him, include both pro-Zionist AWL supporters as well as anti-Zionists. We personally know Jewish Momentum members on all sides of this debate, but that is an issue for Momentum members. It is not an issue for the JSG as the JSG.

Some JSG members are members of the Labour Party (LP) too, but the JSG is not affiliated to the LP. We have expressed a strong view on accusations of antisemitism directed against Labour Party members which we have issued as public statements and in talks and articles by JSG members, eg:

 http://www.jewishsocialist.org.uk/news/item/statement-on-labours-problem-with-antisemitism-from-the-jewish-socialists-g

 http://www.jewishsocialist.org.uk/news/item/what-jewish-socialists-are-saying-to-the-labour-partys-chakrabarti-inquiry

 http://www.jewishsocialist.org.uk/news/item/statement-on-parliamentary-report-on-antisemitism

The key elements of this are:

 • We recognise that “ordinary Jewish people are rightly concerned and fearful about instances of antisemitism. We share their concerns… But we will not support those making false accusations for cynical political motives”

 • We believe that: “Accusations of antisemitism are currently being weaponised to attack the Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour Party with claims that Labour has a “problem” of antisemitism.”

 • We reject “any attempt, from whichever quarter, to place legitimate criticism of Israeli policy out of bounds…We stand for free speech and open debate on Israel, Palestine and Zionism.”

 • We urge the LP “to develop clear and transparent compliance procedures for dealing with allegations of antisemitism and racism. If a member is being investigated for a charge of antisemitism/racism they must be told what they are being accused of and given an opportunity to retract or explain what they meant. If disciplinary procedures are being applied, bans must be a last resort… The aim should be as far as possible to deal with such problems through education.”

The JSG continues to uphold these principles. We do not give blanket support to all individuals caught up in what we recognise generally as a deliberately manufactured campaign to undermine Corbyn and his supporters because we know that, amongst them, a few genuine cases of antisemitism have been unearthed. These include LP members who have been sharing antisemitic Jewish conspiracy material from far right sites, thinly veiled as pro-Palestinian material; cases of members professing their innocence who have been sharing material about “Rothschild bankers”; and those who think there is something called “Jewish capitalism”. While we support those who have been unfairly accused, this does not imply unconditional support for every utterance of every individual who has been excluded. All who have been targeted by the Compliance Unit but who express sincere views that are not antisemitic have our continued support.

As stated at the beginning, this statement is for information only. We do not intend to engage in debate and will not be making further comment on it. Our priority is practical, assertive campaigning that supports the Palestinians in their fight for justice and not to be diverted by sectarian infighting.

David Rosenberg

www.eastendwalks.com

David Rosenberg’s statement is disingenuous on a number of levels:

·         It ignores the key issue which is that Lansman, a JSG member, was instrumental in the removal of Jackie Walker as Vice Chair of Momentum at the behest of the JLM.  This move precipitated her suspension from the Labour Party.  Does JSG really have nothing to say about racism involving one of its own members?  The JSG has also kept remarkably quiet about the Zionist attacks on Marc Wadsworth and Malia Bouattia.

·         Lansman has admitted that he works closely with the JLM’s Chairperson, Jeremy Newmark.  Newmark is an Israeli state operative and the JLM works with its 'sister' party, the racist Israeli Labour Party.

·    On the one hand David says that ‘On a very few occasions since then we have, reluctantly, had to block people for misusing our page by posting anti-Corbyn material’ and on the other ‘The JSG is not affiliated to Momentum and does not hold or express a JSG view about Momentum’s internal affairs.’  Presumably if JSG has no particular view on the Labour Party or Momentum why are they blocking criticism of Corbyn on the J4J list, which they describe as ‘our page’? 

·         David’s defence of Lansman’s complicity in the attack on Jackie Walker is interesting.  He doesn’t mention it!  Instead David talks about the ‘demonisation’ of Lansman, whereas the only demonisation that has occurred to date is that of Jackie Walker, as the tweets above demonstrate.  It is Jackie Walker, not Lansman, who has been the recipient of the vilest race hatred. It is a curious way to deal with racism to say that it is the perpetrators who have been demonised.

·       David says that ‘J4J collectively decided to block Debbie Fink’.  When was the vote? Was Debbie informed?  What David means is he consulted his partner Julia Bard and perhaps Ian Saville.  And why is it an offence to post the material of someone who is blocked?  That seems like guilt-by association.  It’s one thing to take exception to a particular article but to censor anything by a particular person smacks of McCarthyism.

·         David says of Jon Lansman that ‘We know him as a longstanding and consistent supporter of Palestinian rights.’  This again is disingenuous.  Lansman has never been involved in the Palestine solidarity movement.  Instead during the present anti-Semitism witch-hunt, Lansman penned an article excusing the Nakba, the expulsion of ¾ million Palestinians in 1948, by relativising it.  Labour and the Jews: from ethnic cleansing to truth and reconciliation.  And he also posted another article, reflecting the JLM’s concern that we shouldn’t mention Zionism, the ideology and movement that established apartheid in Israel.  Why the Left must stop talking about ‘Zionism’ 

·         David Rosenberg refers us to 3 statements by the JSG on recent anti-Semitism controversies and in particular the statement on fake anti-Semitism.  Statement on “Labour’s problem with antisemitism”.  They are mostly unobjectionable but you judge someone not by what they say but what they do and the JSG’s refusal to defend Jackie Walker and its defence of Lansman, demonstrates that these words are pious utterances. 

·         David says that ‘a few genuine cases of antisemitism have been unearthed’ and these include LP members who have been sharing antisemitic Jewish conspiracy material from far right sites and material about “Rothschild bankers”.  If there are a few such cases then the present witch-hunt is the worst way to deal with them.  It is noticeable that there has been no trawl for Islamophobic material. 

If some people’s reactions to Zionism and Israel’s behaviour has taken an anti-Semitic form, then the answer is political education not administrative and bureaucratic methods, including expulsion.  It is an unfortunate fact that Zionist claims about Jewish responsibility for what happens in Israel/Palestine will inevitably produce an anti-Semitic reaction in some people.

·         What should be of concern is that the JLM, which describes itself as the Israeli Labour Party’s ‘sister party’ is put in charge of ‘anti-racist’ training in the Labour Party.  Defence of an apartheid state and its regime is far more serious than a few nuts who believe that the Rothschilds sponsored the Russian Revolution.

The leader of the JLM’s ‘sister party’ Isaac Herzog is an out and out racist who recently 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 declared that he wanted to dispel the false impression that the ILP were ‘Arab Lovers’.  Just imagine if someone had said that their nightmare was to wake up and find Britain had a Jewish Prime Minister or that the Labour Party was not a ‘Jew lovers’ party.  Such terms used to be part of the language of the National Front and BNP. 

·         Although only a minor matter, David’s attitude to the use of the term ‘zios’ is also significant.  He said that ‘You don’t do that by insulting them as “zios”.... On this specific issue the JSG completely agrees with the view expressed by Shami Chakrabarti in her report.’

It is interesting that an ‘anti-Zionist’ group should agree so wholeheartedly with Chakrabarti.  Chakrabarti referred in her report to peoples’ ‘rich range of self-descriptions of both Jewishness or Zionism’   Chakrabarti also advised people ‘to use the term "Zionist" advisedly, carefully and never euphemistically or as part of personal abuse.’  Chakrabarti clearly understands nothing about Zionism, a rapacious and racist settler colonial movement.  To her it is part of our multi-cultural tapestry.  ‘Zio’ is of course short for ‘Zionist’ – and both Jews and non-Jews are Zionists.  It cannot therefore be a racist term.  The whole question of ‘Zios’ is a deliberate Zionist talking point, part of the invention of a synthetic ‘anti-Semitism’. 

It is a great pity that the JSG, by its attitude to the anti-Semitism witch-hunt in the Labour Party and its association with Jon Lansman wishes to sully its past record.

Tony Greenstein