Contrast the silence of Layla Moran, the Lib Dem’s ‘Palestinian’
Quisling with Rashida Tlaib's brave fight against Trump and AIPAC
In March
this year the Lib Dems suspended their Friends of Palestine group. As the issue
of Palestine and Zionism has become the symbol of the Right’s hatred of Corbyn so the Lib Dems leadership have all but outlawed any criticism of Israel
and Zionism.
As Israel veers
to the extremes of the racist right, with two prominent Rabbis (Cashtiel and Radler) even telling their students at a pre-military Yeshivah that Hitler was right, he just got the wrong victims, the Lib Dems outlaw any criticism of Zionism and the idea of a 'Jewish' racial state.
As Israel's recent election witnessed a
competition between the two major Zionist parties as to who was more hostile to
Israel’s Palestinian minority, the Lib Dems have ensured that
Labour’s traitorous Zionist rejects feel welcome and at home.
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| the late Louis Eaks, pro-Palestinian Chair of the Young Liberals |
It was not always
like this. In 1970 the Young Liberals supported a
democratic, secular state in Palestine and even the abolition of the Israeli
state as a Jewish state. The late Louis Eaks, their Chairman, went on to edit Free
Palestine. Indeed Dave Rich, the CST Deputy Director in his atrocious book ‘The
Left’s Jewish Problem – Jeremy Corbyn, Israel and Anti-Semitism’ attributed
the rebirth of anti-Zionism on the Left to Eaks and the Young Liberals. Rich wrote that Eaks 'did more than anyone else to make Palestine a mainstream issue for the British left.”
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| Rashida Tlaib, US Congresswoman of Palestinian origin has been forthright in support of the Palestinians unlike Moran |
Today the Liberal
Democrats have abandoned any pretence to be a centre left party. Their new
leader Jo Swinson, who was a Minister under David Cameron and personally
responsible for the introduction of massive Employment Tribunal fees, as well
as going along with all the attacks on claimants and refugees, local authority funding cuts and
tuition fee increases, has pledged never to support Corbyn. She and the rest of her yellow Tories have
adopted wholeheartedly the libel that to support the Palestinians and oppose Zionism is antisemitism.
At a time
when ‘anti-Semitism’ is the weapon of choice of the Right in their attack on
Corbyn then it is no surprise that Swinson should embrace it. And
what better way to demonstrate that you oppose ‘anti-Semitism’ than to ban and
prevent the Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine from having the right to
organise in your party? Free Speech means nothing to these 'liberals'.
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| Former leaders Farron and Cable - Farron is an evangelical Christian Zionist |
The Party
of freedom and civil liberties has, when it comes to Israel, adopted a slavish
attitude of support for a state which has just barred 4.5 million Palestinians
from taking part in an election as to who governs them and which keeps them under a Military Law which incarcerates and abuses hundreds of children.
Whereas the
supporters of Zionism and Jewish supremacism in the Lib Dems have no obstacles placed
in their path, supporters of the victims of Israeli racism and occupation are
not allowed to organise. This is the
Lib-Dem version of free speech and the right of association.
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| Tom Watson's mate, Luciana Berger, finds a welcome amongst the Lib Dems |
Twelve
members of the Lib Dem Friends of Palestine [LDFOP] wrote an Open
Letter to their party leadership in June and when that was ignored they wrote an
article on Open
Democracy. What they have written demonstrates that the Lib Dems are a deeply
reactionary and undemocratic party.
The LDFOP were suspended after they posted an article by Electronic Intifada journalist
Asa Winstanley, who wrote that Sir
David Garrard, a ‘multi-millionaire pro-Israel lobbyist’
was funding the Independent Group of MPs. As
they said ‘We see no evidence that Winstanley’s assertion is untrue, or in any
way antisemitic.’ Apparently the truth is now antisemitic!
The
assertion is obviously true, as a cursory search of people like Tom Watson or
Ian Austin’s entry on the parliamentary register of MPs demonstrates. Garrard funds a number of right-wing pro-Israel
politicians.
Their
letter also argued that the Lib Dems should ditch the International Holocaust
Remembrance Alliance ‘definition’ of anti-Semitism and ‘revert to a simple definition, such as that
in the Oxford English dictionary: hostility to or prejudice against Jews. ‘
Despite
asking for a response to their letter none has been forthcoming. They complain in their
Open Democracy article that:
We did not get any response from
the Party leadership, but tried to get the topic discussed on four different
Lib Dem online forums, only to find ourselves shut out of one platform after
another. On one of them, Party activists and officers subjected us and others to
troll-like abuse. We have formally complained about our treatment but, having
seen no action since 16 June, are not holding our breath.
The federal board has now
reinstated LDFP, but under unjustified and humiliating conditions that will
make it much harder for it to speak truth to power and question the IHRA
definition.
The false 'anti-Semitism' narrative is a ruling class narrative and the reactionary Jo Swinson
is not going to allow any opposition in the party to surface to Israeli Apartheid and its supporters. Swinson has gone
out of her way to endorse the attacks on the Labour Party as
‘anti-Semitic’. Those who dissent from
this are being silenced. The Lib Dem
leadership don’t do debate.
When you think that the Israeli state is currently arming
and equipping the Burmese regime in its genocide of the Rohinga, just as it
armed the
Hutu regime in Rwanda at the time of the genocide there, to say nothing of the
neo-Nazi Azov battalion in Ukraine and it supports any number of
reactionary regimes such as Saudi Arabia and Narendra Modi then you have to be particularly dumb
to think that this is about anti-Semitism.
The Lib Dem’s posture is solely about UK support for a foreign policy in
the Middle East that is indistinguishable from that of Donald Trump. Support for Israel is the bedrock of western foreign policy in the Middle East.
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| Jo Swinson attacks BDS and the Palestinians |
Swinson has gone out of her way to attack BDS. The Jewish Chronicle writes that Swinson condemned BDS whilst supporting the two state solution. 2
States is an apartheid solution. It provides Israel with a justification for depriving Palestinians, who have
lived for over half a century under military occupation, of any civil or political rights. You would have to
be deaf, dumb and blind not to notice that Israel is not, under any
circumstance, going to grant Palestinians a state.
In this week’s election, the ‘left’ Zionists of the Democratic Party (formerly Meretz)
and the Israeli Labour Party gained 11 out of 120 seats in the Knesset. In Israel's first election in 1949 the two labour Zionist parties obtained 65 seats. Today Israel is ruled by a group of
open racists and fascists yet Swinson is happy to condemn the only means of
pressurising Israel into changing its behaviour.
Perhaps it was more Black and White when sanctions and disinvestment were the main weapons employed by activists against Apartheid South Africa. In 1933 world Jewry (the Zionists excepted) mounted a Boycott against Nazi
Germany. No doubt if Swinson had been around then she would have joined Thatcher in her opposition to sanctions on South Africa and the Zionists when they decided to trade with rather than boycott Nazi Germany. They called it Ha'avara.
This is wishful thinking.
The idea that these New Labour leftovers represent anything or anyone is a
political fantasy. However what is true is that it has become almost impossible
to be a supporter of the Palestinians still less an anti-Zionist in the Lib
Dems.
David Ward, who was the Lib Dem MP
for Bradford from 2010-2015 was suspended for questioning Zionism in 2013 and
the fact that the suffering of Jews in the Holocaust hasn’t led to Israel
changing its behaviour. He said that
‘"Having visited Auschwitz
twice - once with my family and once with local schools - I am saddened that
the Jews, who suffered unbelievable levels of persecution during the Holocaust,
could within a few years of liberation from the death camps be inflicting
atrocities on Palestinians in the new State of Israel and continue to do so on
a daily basis in the West Bank and Gaza."
Karen Pollock, the Zionist CEO of the Holocaust Educational Trust, said
she was "deeply saddened"
that the MP had "deliberately abused
the memory of the Holocaust".
Given the way the Holocaust is repeatedly used to justify and defend Israel’s
treatment of the Palestinians, Pollock’s comments can only be described as a
chutzpah. The Holocaust is Israel’s main ideological weapon of defence.
The other victim of the Lib Dem leadership’s Zionism is
Baroness Jenny Tonge who was forced to resign from the party for daring to
challenge the existing consensus. Like David Ward, she was penalised for
dissenting from the leadership’s pro-Zionism.
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| Layla Moran - the Lib Dem's Palestinian Zionist |
Layla Moran – Palestinian by
origin, Zionist by politics
You might though have expected that Layla Moran, the first British
parliamentarian of Palestinian origin, to have stood up for and defended the
right of the Lib Dem’s Friends of Palestine group to organise. Not a bit of
it. Moran is a Palestinian Judas. Not a word of protest has come from this
collaborator.
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| Contrast Layla Moran with the four Black Congresswomen and their support for Palestine |
On the contrary she has used her Palestinian origins to lend her support
to the idea that supporters of Palestine are anti-Semitic. Without attempting
to provide a scintilla of evidence, because throughout the fake ‘anti-Semitism’
campaign evidence has been conspicuous by its absence, she uses the Guardian to
bolster her establishment credentials. She wrote:
So, to all the vile antisemites out there: clear off
from the Palestinian quest for freedom and justice. Take your odious Jew-hatred
elsewhere and do not think for one second that your views help champion
Palestinian rights.
Moran thus buys into the
idea that the Palestine Solidarity movement, which she has never been a part
of, is riddled with anti-Semitism. In fact the exact opposite is the case but
Moran, who trades on her origins and little else, knows nothing about what actually happens.
It is difficult to find a
parallel to her treacherous behaviour. At a time when Palestinians under
Occupation face increasing house demolitions and land thefts as well as violence from settlers and Israeli abuse of their children, where the
king maker Avigdor Lieberman after Israel’s elections has long campaigned for
the transfer of Israel’s Palestinian citizens, Layla Moran deems it appropriate
to slander and libel a movement she has never contributed anything to.
You can get
some measure of just how much of a worm Moran is by the description of her by the Jewish Chronicle’s poisonous
Political Correspondent Marcus Dysch as “rare, and pretty classy”. Rare she certainly is, since being a Quisling is not a normal occupation.
The Jewish
Chronicle which has consistently defamed the Palestinians, which has led the campaign against Corbyn and which has never
allowed a glimpse of the reality of Israel’s occupation or its apartheid structure to reach its
readership, in stark contrast to America’s Jewish Forward, nonetheless sees fit to praise
Layla Moran. Dysch's praise says everything you need to know about this opportunist.
Moran's treachery recalls Jack London’s ‘Ode
to a Scab’. London wrote that:
After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad,
and the vampire, He had some awful substance left with which He made a scab. A
scab is a two-legged animal with a corkscrew soul, a waterlogged brain, and a combination
backbone made of jelly and glue. Where others have hearts, he carries a tumor
of rotten principles.
I couldn't have put it
better myself!! Contrary to Moran’s assertion anti-Semites have
always been the best supporters of Zionism. Zionism accepted and still accepts
that Jews’ real home is in Israel not where they live.
That is why it is the
anti-Semites who are among the biggest supporters of the State of Israel, led
by Trump himself. When Trump told 4 Black Congresswomen to ‘go back home’ he also added for good effect the admonition that they ‘they are endorsing Socialism, hate of Israel and the
USA!’
Not only
Trump, who regularly tells Jews that Israel is their country,
but Steve Bannon, Tommy Robinson, ‘white
Zionist’ and neo-Nazi Richard Spencer all love Israel. And why not? Israel is a model state if you
are a racist and ethno nationalist. It is a place to send unwanted Jews.
Layla Moran
understands none of these things because she is an opportunist who trades on
her ancestry for political advantage, in the process stabbing in the back those
she purports to be part of.
Contrast
Layla Moran with Rashida Tlaib, the first US Congresswoman who is a
Palestinian. Tlaib has been to the forefront in supporting the
Palestinians and BDS and in the process she has been banned from
visiting Palestine by Netanyahu. Tlaib and Ilhan Omar are respected throughout
the Palestinian territories whereas Layla Moran is just another in the list of Palestinian
traitors through the ages.
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| In Israel's 'democratic' elections, there was a concerted attempt to suppress Palestinian voting - of course only about 20% of Palestinians can vote anyway |
Moran is one of those rare Arab creatures who is welcomed by the Israeli state. You can get
some idea of the Uncle Tommery and scab like behaviour of Moran by the fact
that when posters went up on London bus stops condemning Israel as a racist
endeavour Moran condemned them as ‘blatantly anti-Semitic’.
The
ruling this week from the Chair of Israel’s Elections Committee, Judge Melcer,
forbidding an Israeli NGO from transporting Bedouin women voters from ‘unrecognised’
villages in the Negev to polling stations is an example of how deep racism in Israel
is. Only to vile creatures like Moran is calling Israel a racist state 'antisemitic'.
‘Unrecognised’
Arab villages, which constitute half of the Arab villages in Israel, have no
public transport, running water or other facilities. The mere fact that these villages
are ‘unrecognised’ i.e. liable to be demolished at any time and without any of the facilities that Israeli Jews take for granted is proof in itself of the inherent and systemic racism
of the Zionist state. But Moran doesn’t
like the term ‘Zionist’ either.
You can
read the article on how the Zionist state actively discourages Arab voters from
voting in the Middle East’s ‘only democracy’ in Ha’aretz. It is but
one, small example. Hundreds of Jewish communities are legally permitted to ban
Arabs from living in them under the Admissions Committee Law. But to
this foul creature to call Israel racist is itself ‘anti-Semitic’. It is as if Israel were a Jew. But perhaps I'm reading too much into this opportunist who has probably never given a moment's thought to these issues.
Although I
have great admiration for Jonathan Coulter, who I know, and the other
signatories to the letter and article I have to say that they are wasting their
time. The only principle that the Lib Dems adhere to is having no principles.
It is one of the tragedies of the Jeremy Corbyn leadership of the Labour Party
that he has allowed the Lib Dems to stake out a position against Brexit and
thus allow the Lib Dems come back from their near death experience of gaining
just 8 seats in 2015. Nonetheless we should support that small minority in the
Lib Dems which isn’t willing to go along with the Trump-Johnson-Swinson consensus and
support for the most racist state in the world.
Tony
Greenstein
