Smith Did the Israel Lobby’s Dirty Work Targeting a Black Opponent of Israeli Apartheid with a Series of Zionist Lies
It was only in August that I wrote
a blog Focus on the Corrupt GMB with an emphasis
on General Secretary, Gary Smith. Smith is unfortunately in a long line of right-wing
misogynists, racists and general reactionaries to hold the post.
On 16 May 2022 Smith took time out
of his busy schedule selling out his members, to write
a letter to the Regional Secretary of South Wales TUC, calling for Lowkey, the well known Black
anti-racist to
be cancelled at the forthcoming Tolpuddle Festival in July.
This is GENUINE racism unlike the fake 'antisemitism' that the Zionists shout about, usually involving Israel
This is of course understandable. Lowkey
has been one of the foremost advocates for the Palestinians and opponents of Zionism,
whose project in Israel is now led by open fascists.
You might think that the GMB had better
things to do than support the Zionist lobby’s witchhunting of a Black
anti-racist rapper. However you would be wrong. The GMB under Gary Smith takes
a particular pride in being a symbol of racism, sexism and militarism in the trade
union movement. Politically it is bankrupt.
In August 2020 the GMB was found,
by a Report that it was forced to commission, to be institutionally sexist. It found,
paragraph 3 that:
The immediate
trigger for the
investigation was the receipt of an
undated letter addressed to Barbara
Plant, the
President of the GMB. The letter contained allegations
of a “serious sexual assault (rape)”,
drug use and
sexually predatory behaviour, by
a senior man
within the GMB.
The letter also alleged that a number
of named people were aware of the incident (the alleged rape) and
those included senior members of staff.
Gary Smith, a careerist who was originally based in Brighton - he wouldn't know what anti-racism was if it bit him on his nether regions
Karen Monaghan QC, who wrote the
report, hinted very strongly that the union was also institutionally racist. At
paragraph 115, although strictly beyond her terms of reference, Monaghan
observed that:
I was also contacted by a number of
people from Black and minority
ethnic groups. They recognised that this investigation is concerned with
sexual harassment but wanted to draw to my attention the very
real and
serious problems that exist for members and employees from Black
and minority ethnic
groups. Having read written
communications and
spoken to some who contacted me, I am satisfied that the GMB is not a comfortable
place to be for many employees and members from
Black and
minority ethnic groups.
Tim Roache - previous GMB General Secretary resigned under a cloud
The unnamed ‘senior man’ within the GMB is believed to be Tim Roache, the former General Secretary and as vicious a right-winger as Gary Smith. Roache resigned abruptly in April 2020, just 5 months after having been ‘reelected’ and at the same time as Monaghan began her investigation.
Despite these damning findings, Labour List asked, in April
1921, ‘Has anything changed in the
GMB after the report on institutional sexism?’ It went
on to inform readers that
A number of staffers have reached out to LabourList
to tell us they believe things are “worse”, not better.
LabourList can reveal today that a group of women working at the GMB
have lodged a formal dispute with the organisation, as they say the grievances
of female staffers are not being heard fairly.
Who is responsible
for the implementation of the Report if not the General Secretary, Gary Smith.
However I understand that Smith too is currently under investigation for sexual
harassment and he might therefore not be best suited to take this forward.
However this has not stopped Smith,
an ardent Starmerite from launching a McCarthyist attack on Lowkey on behalf of
the Apartheid State’s lobby in this country.
Gary Smith's Lying Letter
Lowkey has been a dedicated fighter
against racism and oppression, in particular Zionism and Israeli apartheid. It
was this last which motivated Smith. The ‘anti-Semitism’ that Lowkey was
accused of is of the kind that got Chris Williamson suspended, in other words a
deliberate distortion of what Lowkey actually said. Indeed it is far worse than
what happened to Chris Williamson
Smith’s letter was full of lies and
innuendo. Smith had ‘severe doubts about the suitability of Mr Dennis (Lowkey)
as a performer at the TUC’s Tolpuddle Festival. Smith gave 3 reasons:
According to Gary Smith, mentioning Israel's supply of weaponry to neo-Nazis is 'antisemitic' - the truth has now become antisemitic
Lie No. 1 Lowkey had ‘promoted conspiracy theories’
that Israel had plotted to promote conflict between Ukraine and Russia.
What Lowkey
has done is to highlight Israeli arms shipments to Ukraine’s neo-Nazi Azov
battalion. Highly embarrassing to the Zionists but anti-Semitic? If this is anti-Semitism
then presumably the article
in Ha’aretz Rights Groups Demand Israel
Stop Arming neo-Nazis in Ukraine is also anti-Semitic.
Ha’aretz noted that:
In the past, Israel has
armed anti-Semitic
regimes, such as the generals’ regime in Argentina, which murdered thousands of
Jews in camps while its soldiers stood in watchtowers guarding the abducted
prisoners with their Uzi submachine guns.
According to a freedom of
information petition to Israel's defense ministry from last January, Israel
also armed Bolivia's military regimes, knowing that Nazi war criminal Klaus
Barbie was part of the regime.… Barbie's death squads used Israeli Uzis….
The Azov militia was
established in Ukraine following the Russian invasion of the Crimean peninsula
in 2014. The militia’s emblems are well-known national socialist ones. Its
members use the Nazi salute and carry swastikas and SS insignias.
Moreover, some of them
openly admit they have neo-Nazi sentiments and that they are Holocaust deniers.
One militia member said in an interview that he was fighting Russia since Putin
was a Jew. An Azov sergeant said that he was a national socialist, although he
was not in favor of genocide, and as long as minorities in Ukraine did not
demand special rights he would have no problem with them.
“Our nation’s historic
mission at this critical juncture is to lead the final march of the white race
towards its survival” Biletsky has
said. “This is a march against sub-humans who are led by the Semite race.”
According to reports by human rights groups militia members are suspected of
war crimes, torture and sexual violence.
This kind of anti-Semitism is of no concern to Israel or its defenders
here. Lowkey highlighted how corrupt Ukrainian
oligarch, Igor Kolomoisky
who funded Zelensky’s Presidential victory in 2019 is a citizen of 3 countries –
Israel, Cyprus and Ukraine – as well as being the main funder of the Azov
Battalion.
Lie No. 2 Lowkey ‘had appeared recently alongside
the disgraced figures of Chris Williamson and David Miller on Iranian state
television.’
What you might ask is anti-Semitic about
that? Many people have appeared on Press TV e.g. Jeremy Corbyn. That should not
be taken as support for the regime. Smith has appeared on the BBC which has a
far bloodier record for condoning western war crimes.
Lie
No. 3 Lowkey’s third ‘crime’ was having
given voice to ‘9/11 conspiracy theories.’
Even if he had supported 9/11
conspiracy theories it would not be anti-Semitic. But Smith lied again.
What Lowkey
did do was to adapt Adrian Mitchell’s poem ‘To
Whom It May Concern (Tell Me Lies About Vietnam) and in it mention Building
7, which was not hit by the planes in 9/11 but nonetheless collapsed. It was
even published in 2009 on Stop the War Committee’s website.
Why this should be construed as anti-Semitic.
But when you’re desperate to defend an apartheid regime which tortures and
sexually molests children, which executes journalists and which openly refuses
to recognise that Palestinians have any rights, then of course ‘anti-Semitism’
is all you have got left.
It is no surprise that Gary Smith
has become the Zionists’ errand boy. The GMB is to the fore in the trade union movement
in demanding an expansion of the War Budget so that even more billions are
taken away from the NHS and social security and ploughed into Trident.
Smith’s letter was pretty thin
gruel compared to the expense-paid dinners that Gary Smith consumes. Any
semi-literate and politically aware TUC bureaucrat would have chucked this in
the bin.
Kevin Rowan - another TUC bureaucrat whose main task is ensuring constitutional stability and stopping workers challenge capitalism
Not however Kevin Rowan, who has spent
most of his working life at the TUC, first as Northern Secretary for 10 years
and since April 2013 as Head of Services. From University to TUC bureaucrat.
On 17 September 2022, in response
to a query from a member of Brighton and Hove Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Kevin
Rowan of the TUC wrote:
Following the invitation to Lowkey to perform at
Tolpuddle, comments he made regarding the religious heritage of President
Zelensky were brough to our attention [he doesn’t say who by!]. Those statements
are not congruent with the TUC’s opposition to anti-Semitism.
Well of course, if Lowkey had
attacked or criticised Zelensky because he was Jewish then that would be anti-Semitic.
But it was just another lie. It’s almost as if today’s Zionists get special
training in a school for liars, but then again why bother when there are so
many gullible fools like Rowan and Smith around?
There is
no foundation to this allegation. Rowan is the TUC’s Head of Learning and one
might have hoped that before opening his big mouth he might have taken the
trouble to find out the facts.
In fact, when Russia invaded Ukraine last February, using the excuse that it was ‘de-Nazifying’ Ukraine media pundit after media pundit rushed to assure us that there were no Nazis in Ukraine. Their refrain was ‘Zelensky himself is Jewish.’
Media pundits
like the BBC’s Ros Atkins repeatedly
emphasised Zelensky’s Jewishness. Above is a series of clips from different
media pundits, each emphasising Zelensky’s Jewishness in order that they could kosher
the rag tag neo-Nazi militias that had been integrated both into Ukraine’s army
and its state structures.
What was Lowkey’s
‘anti-Semitic’ response? Did he blame the conflict between NATO/Ukraine and
Russia on Zelensky being Jewish? Not at all. He merely stated that Zelensky’s Jewishness
was irrelevant to whether neo-Nazis were operating, with western support, in Ukraine.
How is this in any way anti-Semitic?
The Union
of Jewish Students however was determined to run with these lies. Responding to
a tweet
by LBC’s far-right Political Editor, Theo Usherwood, they claimed that poor little
fragile Jewish students would be put under intolerable stress if they had to
listen to a Black man perform songs that might upset their racist souls.
‘How are Jewish students
supposed to feel included in the wider student movement when NUS chooses this
figure to perform?’
Unfortunately,
as with UJS’s targeting of NUS’s Black President Shaima Dallai, who was sacked,
NUS caved in again.
Instead of having the courage to tell
UJS to fuck off back to their Apartheid Laager, NUS cancelled
Lowkey. In other words White students claiming to be oppressed take precedence
over Black students who are oppressed.
The Union of Jewish Students is one
of the last bastions of ‘left’ Zionism in Britain. Except that there is nothing
left about it. The only role that ‘left’ Zionists have today is in koshering
their neo-Nazi counterparts in Israel because the Labour Zionists are almost
completely eliminated from the Knesset.
UJS has embedded
in its constitution support for Zionism and the Israeli state. It is affiliated
to the settlement funding, land thieving World Zionist Organisation. Clause
2.1.1. of its Constitution states that one of its Objects is
inspiring
Jewish students to make an enduring commitment to their Jewish identity,
Israel, and the community.’
UJS is funded by the Israeli state. If anything NUS should
register it as a foreign agent and treat it accordingly.
On 18 September I sent
an email, as Secretary of my Unite Branch, to Nigel Costley who is Regional
Secretary for South-West TUC,
which includes Tolpuddle. I concluded my letter by saying:
Lowkey is a well-known Black
anti-racist performer. To no platform a Black person at the behest of the
supporters of apartheid, could be construed by some as an act of racism in itself.
I should add that I have met Lowkey on
a number of occasions and I have never experienced anything in the way of
anti-Semitism. I am myself Jewish and probably a better judge of what is
anti-Semitic than Gary Smith or indeed you, so I would welcome clarification of
what Lowkey is alleged to have said and not just hearsay or rumours.
Referring to Rowan’s
letter I asked, given the allegations of anti-Semitism, ‘I would like to
know exactly what these comments were.’
Of course Costley is another TUC bureaucrat. The idea of answering to ordinary
union members or justifying their actions is something alien. Given his inability
to provide any answers he responded:
If you were
at this year’s festival you will have heard music supporting Palestine, stalls,
a discussion session for solidarity with Palestine and supporting comments from
the main stage.
The festival
has a proud record of such support.
We are not, however, going to debate which
musicians did or did not appear on the programme.
It
was of course no answer. It is irrelevant which other musicians appeared. The
whole point of solidarity with the oppressed is to defy the demands of racists
not to accede to them. When it comes to standing up to Zionist racism the TUC
is a wet blanket.
Background
The
background to this is that Gary Smith and the GMB are as thick
as thieves with the Jewish Labour Movement, which works closely with UJS. The
JLM proudly declares that it is
the ‘sister party’ of the ethnic cleansing Israeli Labor Party. 2022 has
been the
most deadly for Palestinians since 2005 yet it is the one year in the last
20 that the Israeli Labor Party has been in a governing coalition.
It is the year when
Shireen Abu-Akleh, the Al Jazeera Journalist was executed by the Israeli
military, as all independent investigations (CNN,
Forensic
Architecture, B’Tselem,
NYT)
have shown. It has been a year when all Palestinian human rights organisations
were banned.
It has been the year of unbridled violence by Israeli settlers in the West Bank,
the burning of crops, the demolition of homes and the murder of over 60
Palestinian children. Yet throughout all this the JLM has been silent and complicit.
Yet these are the racists that Gary Smith embraces.
Gary Smith and the GMB purport to
support the Palestinians yet when the Zionists cry ‘anti-Semitism’ Smith has jumps
to his fee and does their bidding. If Smith had any shame then an apology would
be due to Lowkey for defaming him.
Unfortunately most trade union leaders
are a parasitic caste living a good life at the expense of their members. Not
for them the average wage of a worker.
Last year UJS and the Board of
Deputies tried
to cancel Ken Loach, the world famous film producer who 25
years ago produced a play Perdition telling the truth about the Kasztner
Affair in Israel. For 4 long years (1954-8) the Israeli state was convulsed
by the Kasztner trial which led to the downfall of Israel’s second government.
Kasztner was the leader of Hungarian
Zionism and he made a deal with Adolf Eichmann – ‘allow me to save 600 leading Zionists
on a train out of Hungary and we will help you round up the remainder of Hungary’s
half a million Jews.’ That was it in a nutshell and it therefore meant
suppressing the Auschwitz Protocols which 2 escapees from Auschwitz had
brought to Slovakia and had written down their experiences of Auschwitz.
Not surprisingly UJS termed referring
to historical facts about Zionist Collaboration with the Nazis as ‘anti-Semitic’.
The JLM made similar accusations about Ken Livingstone who referred
to the Nazis supporting Zionism.
Zionism today doesn’t like to be
reminded of its crimes during the holocaust such as when they actively opposed
the rescue of Jews to destinations other than Palestine, as my recent book Zionism
During the Holocaust explains.
Palestine
Solidarity Campaign
Lowkey is a Patron of Palestine
Solidarity Campaign but you would hardly know it. Apart from having signed a
petition in his support PSC seems to have done absolutely nothing to fightback
against the continued witch-hunting of people like Lowkey and Shahd Abusalama.
It is about time that Ben Jamal, PSC’s Director who is reputedly on £50,000 a
year, started defending activists in this country rather than trying to appease
the trade union right.
The GMB is affiliated to PSC. It
has policy in support of Boycott Divestment and Sanctions. It has also done
absolutely nothing to implement this policy. It is dead in the water. But for the price of an affiliation PSC has
refused to criticise Gary Smith or the GMB.
One wonders when the docile sheep who
make up PSC’s membership might find their bark and demand action from an
organisation that seems to be concerned more with building its own organisation
than building solidarity with the Palestinians.
Meanwhile back in Brighton and Hove
Unite SE/6246 branch has passed a motion condemning the TUC’s cowardice in the
face of the Zionist accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’ and Brighton and Hove District Trades Union Council has passed policy on
condemning their banning of Lowkey and instructed the Secretary to write to the
TUC demanding no further recurrence.
It would obviously be good if other
trade union branches and trades councils could do likewise.
Tony
Greenstein
