‘Why is Ukraine’s Resistance to Occupation a Fight for Freedom whereas Palestinian Resistance to Occupation is ‘Terrorism’?
Israeli Soldiers Beat Palestinian
Journalist – to Zahawi this video is more ‘anti-Semitism’
It is remarkable that some of the most virulent racists in the government
are its Black members. The same is true of Starmer’s Shadow Cabinet. David
Lammy, a Christian
Evangelist and Labour
Friends of Israel patron supports
beating children.
The one exception to this in the Tory Party is Baroness Warsi who resigned from the
Cameron government over their support for Israel’s Operation Protective Edge attack
on Gaza in 2014.
Defending Free Speech on Israel/Palestine
Priti Patel is a byword for racism, with her ‘pushback’ scheme for
‘refugees in the Channel. Patel was previously sacked
by Theresa May for lying about her holiday in Israel where she proposed
diverting overseas aid money to fund the Israeli military.
Nadhim Zahawi, the second
richest man in the Commons (2017), like his predecessor, has spared no
effort, to support the Israeli state and its lobby, including the Union of
Jewish Students.
Zionism is an integral part of British foreign policy today and Zahawi is
its Black face. Zahawi recently distinguished himself by suggesting
that anyone chanting Palestine should be free ‘from the river to the sea’ should be arrested! This is rich coming
from a party that proclaims
it supports free speech on campus and which has complained about the
‘cancel’ culture. It seems that the Right only support freedom of speech when
they agree with it!
I therefore thought that in the interests of open government I should write
to Zahawi asking for an explanaton. Not that I expect an answer but in order to
demonstrate the lies behind Tory rhetoric:
Demonstrators Prevent Priti Patel’s Snatch Squads Seizing Asylum Seekers
Dear Nadhim,
Please forgive me for my naivety but until the advent of the current
government I laboured under the impression that one of the qualifications for
being Education Secretary was the possession of a modicum of intellectual, if
not emotional, intelligence.
After the appointment of your predecessor, Gavin Williamson, whose credentials
were that he was once an overpaid fireplace salesman, before being sacked for
allowing his hands to wander in the
direction of a more junior employee, I thought that just about anyone would be
better than the man who was willing to take on the Chinese
singlehandedly whilst wiping his bottom with an image of Putin’s face.
I realise that in a government led by a crook, standards are not high but
you have taken them to a new low. In the Jewish Chronicle (where else?), in an article
‘River to Sea’ chanting is a police matter, says Zahawi you are quoted as saying:
That is the kind
of, in my view, antisemitic, intolerant, murderous attitude of the organisation
that’s proscribed (Hamas)”
Forgive me for my ignorance,
but why is it ‘anti-Semitic’ to say that Palestine should be free? Are you
really saying that opposing a repressive military tyranny is anti-Jewish? Isn’t
that a teeny, weeny bit anti-Semitic?
Apparently your reasoning,
if that is the right word, is that this is a Hamas slogan, Hamas is deemed a
terrorist organisation and therefore the slogan is a form of terrorism. Adopting
your ‘logic’, presumably if Hamas were to say that the Sun goes round the Earth
then that too would be a criminal offence? In which case Galileo was also a
terrorist?!
The decision to proscribe
Hamas’s political wing was a political not an evidenced based decision. There
was a time when Sinn Fein was called the political wing of the IRA, Although
the IRA was proscribed as a terrorist group Sinn Fein was not, despite calls
from Unionists.
Today Sinn Fein is the most
popular party in Ireland. Even the most wooden headed Loyalist no longer calls
for them to be banned.
Hamas, like the IRA, has a
political wing and it was this that was made illegal under anti-terrorism
legislation. A complete abuse of legislation which is supposedly about
terrorism not banning those whose politics you don’t like. It would seem that in
order to defend the world’s only Apartheid state, anything goes.
Hamas is the most popular
party amongst the Palestinians because, unlike Fateh, which is now a footstool
for the Israeli state, Hamas resists Israel’s military occupation. What you and
your party are doing, supported by your echo chamber Starmer, is banning democracy
amongst the Palestinians.
Since Hamas has never conducted
military operations outside Palestine/Israel it is no more a ‘terrorist’
organisation than the Ukrainian resistance fighters who you are arming.
I don’t know whether or not
your doctorate is one of those degrees that you can buy off the shelf from an
on-line university but it is difficult to believe that you earned it. Perhaps
you emulated Saif Gadaffi, who bought
his Ph D for a mere £1.5 million from the LSE.
However I will give you the
benefit of the doubt and assume that it was malevolence rather than stupidity
that caused you to describe the Palestinian chant ‘From the River to the Sea’ as a police matter.
As you are well aware, Palestine is anything but free. Palestinians, who
now constitute the majority population, live for the most part under permanent military
occupation without any civil or political rights. Even those who are Israeli
citizens possess fewer rights than Jews.
I will let you into a secret. I help raise
funds for the Al Tafawk Children’s Centre in Jenin. Last May the ‘most
moral army in the world’ wrecked it on the pretext of searching for arms.
Two weeks ago Mohammed a 15 year old boy was shot with a rubber bullet
fired by an Israeli soldier. Today I received this message:
I am so sorry to share this
terrible news ! Another child from the center has been shot at while he was
going to take his treatment in Jerusalem today. Ali is 6 years old has
cancer. He goes to Jerusalem every month. Please share his story he is a poor
kid without father .. We rely on you to save our children.
He was going in the early morning
to Jerusalem to have his treatment as he is sick with cancer and the
Israel military shot at the car he was inside... his condition is ok now ! But
he is so scared..
These actions are increasing these days.. I wish
the news could share this as they share what is going on in the other side !
It takes a particularly sick and twisted mind to describe opposition to
war crimes such as these as anti-Semitic. That is what ‘From the River to the Sea, Palestine Must Be Free’ means. Palestine
is anything but free.
Your concern about anti-Semitism might be slightly more convincing if the
British government weren’t supplying
neo-Nazi militias in Ukraine, such as the Azov Battalion, with advanced
weaponry. I can only assume that you
subscribe to the belief that there are ‘good’ as well as ‘bad’ neo-Nazis.
We were chanting ‘From the River to
the Sea’ back in 1982 when Israel invaded Lebanon, i.e. at least 6 years
before Israel helped create Hamas. Clearly your ability to engage in even the
simplest research is not one of your strengths. Which is why I can only assume
that you bought or bribed your way into obtaining a PhD.
In your talk to vice-chancellors you told them that
the adoption of the IHRA
misdefinition of antisemitism was “essential
not optional”. Why is it that you are so concerned about ‘anti-Semitism’
when you have nothing to say about the deportation of Black British citizens to
the West Indies in the Windrush Scandal or
the attempt to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda?
The
reason why people oppose the IHRA is not because it has anything to do with
anti-Semitism but because it conflates opposition to Israel’s war crimes with
‘anti-Semitism’.
Why do
you need a definition of anti-Semitism? My dad took part in the Battle
of Cable Street in 1936. He didn’t need a definition of anti-Semitism to
know who and what he was fighting. The Tory Home Secretary of the day, Sir John
Simon, had agreed to Oswald Moseley’s fascist thugs marching through London’s
Jewish East End. At that time Tory MPs were still engaged in a love-in with
Hitler.
The
Jewish Chronicle asked
you whether Boycott Divestment and Sanctions had a place on campus and your
response was “Absolutely not.” Four
human rights groups – B’Tselem,
Human
Rights Watch, Amnesty
International and now the Harvard
Law Clinic, have declared that Israel is an apartheid state. How else can
you describe a state which bars its Arab citizens from 93% of the land?
Perhaps
you can explain why sanctions against Russia are fine, the more the merrier, but
sanctions against Israel’s are anti-Semitic?
40 years
ago Thatcher was hostile
to Sanctions against Apartheid because she supported a system of White racial
supremacy. Support for Jewish supremacy
is the reason for your opposition to BDS.
You have threatened the National Union of Students with
derecognition, not for anything it has done but because it has elected a Black
President, Shaima Dallali, who ten years ago tweeted
‘Khaybar Khaybar O Jews … Muhammad’s army
will return Gaza,”. Hardly the gravest crime given your support of
neo-Nazis in Ukraine.
On the basis of one tweet you
have accused NUS of ‘systemic antisemitism’. If one teenage tweet means NUS is
anti-Semitic then how would you describe a party that elected a leader who said
that Africans have ‘water melon smiles’ and
described people like you as ‘picanninies’?
If Shaima is guilty of
anti-Semitism how would you describe someone who spoke
of a ‘Jewish cabal who run the American
media complex’ and Russian Jewish oligarchs who fix
elections? To say nothing of a ‘a middle aged (Jewish) man with a proud
nose and curly hair’. If you don’t know who I mean you might care to read Boris
Johnson’s 72 Virgins!
But you already know this.
If hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue, then dishonesty is the
price you are willing to pay for staying in a Cabinet dominated by an
all-purpose racist.
Your outburst followed ‘concerns raised by the Union of Jewish Students.’ Even by your standards this is pathetically thin gruel. The
UJS was revealed
by Al Jazeera’s The Lobby to be
funded by the Israeli Embassy.
UJS has a constitution (which has disappeared off the Internet) which commits it to ‘inspiring Jewish students to make an enduring commitment’ to Israel. In other words UJS has support for Israeli
apartheid at its heart.
UJS has a history
of trying to suppress views it disagrees with.
Last year it did its best to ban Ken Loach, the world famous filmmaker from St Peters College because he
once directed a play Perdition based
on a real life Israeli trial which involved Zionist-Nazi collaboration. Apparently
an 84 year old man was a ‘threat’ to the ‘safety’ of these Zionist snowflakes.
See Outrage as Oxford college holds event
with controversial filmmaker Ken Loach
As someone whose party is opposed
to the ‘cancel’ culture it would seem that you are only opposed to the
cancellation of racists.
It is perfectly understandable Nadhim that you should have
found a home in Boris Johnson’s government. In 1994 Geoffrey Archer, later
jailed for perjury, helped you campaign for a seat on Wandsworth council. And by way of thanks you were put in charge of Archer's corrupt
campaign for Mayor
of London in 1998.
In January 2016 Labour proposed an amendment that would have
required private landlords to make their homes "fit for human
habitation". According to the Parliamentary register of interests, you
were 1 of 72 Tory MPs who voted against the amendment. You just happen to be a
large private landlord.
In November The
Sunday Mirror caught you out after you had claimed £5,822 expenses from
the public purse for electricity for your riding school stables and a yard
manager's mobile home. It’s an easy
enough mistake to make. I do it all the time. If you had
been claiming social security you would have had the book thrown at you but
dishonest MPs are granted immunity by the Met.
I am even more surprised that your concern over
‘anti-Semitism’ does not extend to sexism against women. In January 2018 you
attended a men-only Presidents Club dinner at the Dorchester Hotel in London. You will probably recall media
reports of female hostesses being subjected to sexual harassment, groping
and sexist abuse. The mere fact that you went to a men-only event such as this
speaks volumes.
It is no surprise, given that a Prime Minister who doesn’t
even know how many children he has and who has been accused
of serial sexual harassment by Sunday Times journalist Charlotte Edwards, that
you should have found yourself so at ease in his Cabinet.
Boris Johnson Lies About Groping Women
I have just one thing to ask of you. Do you think you could put a stop to this fake concern over
‘anti-Semitism’? You are no more concerned about Jews than Johnson or Starmer
are concerned about the truth.
Yours,
Tony Greenstein
