Reinstate Pete Willsman and Free Speech in the Labour Party – It is not anti-Semitic to tell the truth about the Israeli Embassy

James Baldwin – ‘But the state of Israel was not created for the salvation of the Jews; it was created for the salvation of  Western interests’

Pete Willsman’s comments that the Israeli Embassy is behind the fake anti-Semitism campaign in the Labour Party are based on the Al Jazeera undercover programme The Lobby. It is a fact that the Israeli Embassy was heavily involved in creating Young Labour Friends of Israel via their agent Shai Masot.  

It is also undeniable that the Embassy worked hand in glove with the Jewish Labour Movement, which describes itself as the ‘sister party’ of the Israeli Labour Party,  in promoting the ‘anti-Semitism’ crisis.  The JLM’s first Director, Ella Rose, was a free transfer from the Israeli Embassy.

More evidence that the Israeli Embassy has no connection to the fake 'antisemitism' crisis - pictured (l-r) Jeremy Newmark of the JLM, Ella Rose, Director JLM and Mark Regev, Israeli Ambassador and war criminal

There is no justification whatsoever for Pete Willsman’s suspension and Corbyn should personally intervene to have it rescinded forthwith.

In one of his more idiotic comments Alistair Campbell, Blair’s former spin doctor who was expelled for voting for the Lib-Dems protested to Sky News that:

"If you're someone like me who is considered to be not one of Corbyn's people then you get what seems like a pretty summary of justice but if you are someone who is clearly very close to Mr Corbyn, then you get to sit on the National Executive."

It probably did not occur to Campbell that the reason Willsman is on the NEC is because he was elected to that position. Campbell by way of contrast has never been elected to anything.

Extract from The Lobby showing Michael Rubin, Parliamentary Officer of Labour Friends of Israel discussing financial help from the Israeli Embassy

It is a favourite talking point of the Right to compare the ‘injustice’ of Campbell’s expulsion with the suspension of Pete Willsman. We had Tony Blair’s former flatmate, Lord Falconer on BBC News fulminating about how Pete should be expelled within 14 days.

It is another example of Corbyn’s idiocy that he appointed Falconer of all people to oversee the conduct of Labour’s disciplinary processes. Apparently it was at the instigation of John McDonnell.

Falconer’s hypocrisy is sickening. Hundreds if not thousands of people have been expelled for merely saying they support a candidate of another party, let alone voting for one.  Mel Melvin, Woman’s Officer in Brighton Kemptown was expelled for saying she supported George Galloway in a by-election. I didn’t notice the media, the BBC’s Jon Sopel, ITV’s Peston or indeed Falconer demanding Mel’s reinstatement.

James Baldwin

It is true that expelling Campbell for voting for the Lib-Dems is like impeaching Richard Nixon for Watergate.  Given the secret war on Cambodia and the bombing of Vietnam to impeach him for burgling the Democrat’s election offices and covering it up seemed trivial.

Similarly given that Campbell was responsible for the Dodgy Dossier and fixing the intelligence that enabled British participation in the Iraq War, it is churlish to punish him for voting Lib-Dem when he should have been expelled as a war criminal. 

Willsman’s broad allegations, that staff in the Labour Party are working for or in contact with the Israeli Embassy is almost certainly correct. It is also highly likely that some of them supply British Intelligence with information. His allegation that the 68 rabbis who wrote to the press attacking Corbyn were ‘obviously organised by the Israeli embassy - saying antisemitism in the Labour party is widespread and severe." is not far off the mark. 

One thing is certain and that is somebody organised them and that somebody would have been in close contact with the Israeli Embassy. What is also the case that the letter supporting Jeremy Corbyn from 29 Orthodox Rabbis did not get any publicity.  But they were the wrong kind of rabbi!

But even if Pete Willsman was wrong.  Just suppose the Israeli Embassy is innocent and doesn’t get involved in domestic politics, which is pretty unlikely, in what way are his comments anti-Semitic?

Apparently Willsman made the comments in January when he met the American-Israeli author Tuvia Tenenbom, who was in the UK to write a book. So it has taken 5 months for these comments to surface.  They were made off the record and Pete is perfectly entitled to believe them.

If Corbyn and the Left, Momentum and others, don’t respond to this latest suspension then we can wave goodbye to the idea of a radical Labour Government.

From the very beginning Corbyn has failed to get a grip with the fake anti-Semitism campaign. Instead of apologising and retreating he should have been clear from the outset.  These allegations are cynically and politically made not in order to attack anti-Semitism or any other form of racism but because as a handy weapon to attack him.

Indeed the fake anti-Semitism campaign is likely to increase anti-Semitism as people see ‘the Jews’  mobilising against a radical Labour leader.

Every week the Zionist rag aka Jewish Chronicle has a new anti-Corbyn hit piece

Every week there is a new front page story in the Jewish Chronicle, which is a Zionist rag, attacking Corbyn as an anti-Semite.  There is an ongoing campaign of which Tom Watson is the leading proponent. Corbyn’s abject cowardice in failing to get to grips with these attacks and confront them will almost certainly mean that his leadership will ultimately be a failure.

The sharks are circling.  The Independent Group were just the first shot.  Unless there is a fightback then sooner or later we will see a more acceptable candidate emerge such as Emily Thornberry, a sponsor of Labour Friends of Israel emerge. Only this week we have an article in the New Statesman, from an erstwhile ‘friend’ Francis Beckett Jeremy Corbyn Must Resign as Labour Leader Before the Party Loses all Hope.

For some strange reason John Mann's concern about antisemitism doesn't extend to Gypsies even though they were exterminated just like Jews in the Holocaust

That this is not and never has been about anti-Semitism should be obvious.  As I have repeatedly pointed out the concern of Labour’s Right for ‘anti-Semitism’ doesn’t extend to any other groups. 

John Mann showed himself to be anti-Gypsy with his Bassetlaw Anti-Social Behaviour Handbook which advised that ‘the Police have the powers to remove Gypsies or Travellers’

Tom Watson's distress at the ejection of racist Phil Woolas

When Phil Woolas, the racist Labour MP for Oldham North and a former Home Office Immigration Minister was removed as an MP by the High Court for election offences. Tom Watson confessed that ‘I’ve lost sleep thinking about poor old Phil Woolas and his leaflets.’

Poor Phil had run a campaign which, according to an email from his election agent, aimed to ‘make the white folk angry’

Tom Watson was the Campaigns Organiser for Liam Byrne in the 2004 by-election in Birmingham Hodge Hill. In The ghost of Enoch Nick Cohen described the gay bashing, racist campaign that Watson ran when ‘Labour reshuffled the pack and played the race card’ against the Lib Dems.’ One Labour leaflet carried the slogan:"Labour is on your side, the Lib Dems are on the side of failed asylum seekers."

The racist leaflet that led the High Court to removing Phil Woolas as MP for election offences

Liam Byrne MP, the Labour candidate told voters,

'I know that people here are worried about fraudulent asylum claims and illegal immigration. Yet the Lib Dems ignore what people say. They ignore what local people really want. The Lib Dems want to keep giving welfare benefits to failed asylum seekers. They voted for this in Parliament on 1 March 2004. They want your money -and mine - to go to failed asylum seekers.'

As Cohen commented,

‘Labour didn't mention that the disputed measure was a plan to take the children of asylum seekers from their parents and put them into care, which Michael Howard had denounced as 'despicable'.  

It is these very same racists who are now shouting anti-Semitism. Tom Watson, former Vice-President of Trade Union Friends of Israel wouldn’t know what anti-Semitism was if it appeared on his doorstep with a toothbrush moustache holding a swastika.

It is a sign of Corbyn’s feebleness that instead of calling Watson and Hodge out he allows them to walk all over him, promising to be a better doormat next time around.

We need to get out of our heads the idea that there is any correlation between Israel’s behaviour and Jews. Even the IHRA definition says that ‘Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel’ is anti-Semitic.’ That is exactly what the accusers of Pete Willsman have done. They have said that Willsman’s criticisms of the Israeli Embassy are anti-Jewish.

As the great Black American novelist, poet and activist, James Baldwin once said

“But the state of Israel was not created for the salvation of the Jews; it was created for the salvation of the Western interests.

Criticisms of Israel are not criticisms of Jews.  Baldwin elaborated on this theme to an audience at the University of Massachussets:

Whenever Israel is mentioned one is required, it appears sometimes to me, to maintain a kind of pious silence.  Well, why?  It is a state like other states.  It has come into existence in a peculiar way.  But it does not, does not, become a state because people who wrote the Balfour Declaration, or Winston Churchill, or for that matter anyone in Europe, or in the Western world, really cared what happened to the Jews.  I wish I could say differently, but I would be lying if I did—it came into existence as a means of protecting Western interests at the gate of the Middle East.

Labour’s anti-Semitism zealots are engaged in a form of anti-intellectualism designed to destroy all debate or discussion in the Labour Party.  They are petty and vindictive little McCarthyites for whom debate and freedom of speech is the enemy.  Goaded on by the gutter press that they feed, they are making members afraid of saying anything in case they put their foot wrong. 

The time has long gone when people on the Labour Left, including Corbyn and McDonnell, need to call this out.  Pete Willsman and Chris Williamson MP should be reinstated immediately and political enemies like Margaret Hodge should be put to the sword and told to join Chuka Ummuna and his ‘funny tinge’ comrades.

How Long are Momentum Members Going To Accept a Jewish Supremacist and Zionist as Leader?

Jon Lansman Joins the Lynch Mob in his Attack on Jackie Walker, Marc Wadsworth and Pete Willsman

A selection of the choicest tweets that were inspired by the Jewish Labour Movement/Jon Lansman's campaign against Jackie Walker

In May 2016 Jackie Walker, Vice-Chair of Momentum was suspended from the Labour Party for ‘anti-semitism’.  In a private Facebook discussion with a friend about her dual Black-Jewish inheritance, she remarked that ‘my ancestors too, were the chief financiers of the sugar and slave trade.’  If this had been a public discussion  then Jackie would have said that her ancestors were among the chief financiers of the sugar and slave trade.  [see The lynching of Jackie Walker]

However the intention of the Israel Advocacy Movement, which hacked the conversation, was to ‘take out’ Jackie, who was seen as a thorn in the side of the Israel’s supporters in the Labour Party.

McDonnell speaking alongside Jackie Walker at an LRC meeting in Brighton.  McDonnell has subsequently capitulated to the Zionists

Three weeks later Jackie was reinstated but the Jewish Labour Movement, the British representatives of the Israeli Labor Party, refused to accept this decision and they decided to wage a campaign akin to a political lynching, whose purpose was to renew her suspension.  When John McDonnell spoke at a Labour Representative Committee meeting alongside Jackie in early September 2016 in Brighton, he was criticised and had an invitation to speak at a JLM fringe meeting withdrawn.

One of many abusive tweets caused by the actions of Lansman's Zionist friends - for some strange reason they weren't deemed worthy of comment by the yellow press in this country

Since then there has been a vile racist campaign, as the tweets I am publishing here demonstrate, against Jackie.  Neither the Jewish Labour Movement nor Jon Lansman have uttered one word of criticism against this abuse. They have been happy to go along with racist abuse as long as it is not about antisemitism.  Not once have they ever dissociated themselves from the abuse that Jackie has received.  Lansman's only concern is with 'unconscious' or fake antisemitism.

That is why Lansman is a Jewish supremacist and Zionist. He looks at everything from one perspective only - is it good for Jews.  Any other form of racism is secondary too him.  He will surround himself with pliant Black people but the moment they rebel he will cut them off.

Lansman as part of Labour Party delegation meeting people from the Palestinian Authority

Ten days before the 2016 Labour Conference I wrote a blog The Jewish Labour Movement and its Political Lynching of Jackie Walker. It was obvious to me what was going to happen. At the Conference Jackie attended a JLM ‘training event’ which Adam Langleben, the recently defeated racist Labour candidate in Hendon West secretly taped. Jackie said that she hadn’t heard a definition of anti-semitism that she could accept and that Holocaust Memorial Day commemorations should not just be about Jews but about all those who were murdered by the Nazis. This was held to be antisemitic because anything anti-Zionists say about the Holocaust or antisemitism is by definition 'anti-Semitic'.

Jon Lansman - unelected Chair of Momentum, Zionist and Jewish supremacist

Even a survivor of Auschwitz, Hajo Meyer, was accused of 'anti-semitism' for comparing what he went through with what Palestinians experience and Corbyn stupidly apologised. However when the Blessed Margaret Hodge compared being subject of a disciplinary investigation to what Jewish refugees from the Nazis suffered there are no cries of 'antisemitism'.

Free Speech on Israel's picket of the TSSA HQ near Euston in October 2016 when Lansman effected the removal of Jackie Walker as Momentum Vice-Chair

Jackie’s words were distorted to suggest what she was saying was anti-semitic. They clearly weren’t but the person who enabled this campaign of political assassination was Jon Lansman.  Lansman proposed that Jackie be removed as Vice-Chair of Momentum and with the support of the Alliance for Workers Liberty this was agreed to early in October 2016.

Prior to this meeting a group of Jewish Labour Party members had written to Lansman and Momentum’s Executive urging that they resist the calls for a witchhunt and the removal of Jackie.  We wrote:

‘We are seriously disturbed by the report in the Guardian Momentum likely to oust Jackie Walker over Holocaust remarks and a similar report in the Independent that ‘Senior members of Momentum are "fuming" at her remarks’. It is your duty not to betray comrades.’

Idiot Jess Phillips 'feminist' friend of Jacob Rees-Mogg

This gave Iain McNicol, Labour’s General Secretary, the cue to suspend Jackie.  Lansman was quoted in The Independent as saying

“I spoke to Jeremy Newmark of the Jewish Labour Movement this morning, he’s very upset and I can understand that – I work closely with Jeremy, I’ve been meeting with Jewish organisations to talk… I’ve been outspoken. I was very, very unhappy about… and I did comment on it, about it, what she had previously said.’

These comments were revealing.  Lansman openly admitted to working with the corrupt Chair of the JLM, Jeremy Newmark, who freely admitted to his close links with the Israeli Embassy and Mark Regev, its war criminal Ambassador. Lansman knows full well the relationship of the JLM to the Israeli Labor Party and its membership of the World Zionist Organisation, the main organisation of Israeli apartheid which funds  Jewish only Israeli settlements.  Lansman preferred to stab a Black anti-racist in the back rather than upset the JLM and the Israeli Embassy.

Fast forward to today. Recently Lansman has been to Israel. It would be difficult to go to Israel and not be aware of the virulent racism against Israel’s Palestinian citizens. Things such as the new Jewish Nation State Law which makes explicit the fact that Israel is an apartheid state, the interrogation of people at the airport (does any other democratic country interview people who visit to ensure that they hold the correct political opinions?) the violent anti-Arab demonstrations, the residential and educational segregation Lansman is aware of all of this yet what does he do?

In a private conversation with a member of Brent Momentum, Graham Durham, Lansman attacked Jackie Walker as an anti-semite, says he doesn’t know if Marc Wadsworth is anti-semitic and for good measure attacks Pete Willsman, though conceding he is not anti-semitic (probably because he is White). 

Everything Lansman says and does is from the perspective of a privileged White community in Britain, a community that has overwhelmingly voted Tory for 50 years. Lansman is a Jewish Supremacist and a racist who cannot tolerate Black people who challenge him. That was Jackie’s real crime as Deputy Chair of Momentum. Lansman personally appointed her, there was no election, because of her well known record as an anti-racist and anti-fascist.  However he could not control her and she was an anti-Zionist.  

Lansman’s support for Israel is no different from that of the alt-Right in the USA or  Tommy Robinson here.  He supports Zionism, right or wrong and his justification for the expulsion of Palestinian refugees in 1948, ethnic cleansing and his belief that ‘the Left must stop talking about ‘Zionism’  mark Lansman down as a supporter of western imperialism and the racism that is its handmaiden.  Lansman is a Jewish chauvinist who believes in Jewish exceptionalism. Zionism is the ideology of the Israeli State.  It believes in a pure Jewish racial state with Palestinians confined to the margins - hewers of wood and drawers of water in biblical terms.

Luke Akehurst justifies the murder of some 160 unarmed Palestinians gunned down by the Israeli military in Gaza yet this vile creature remains unsuspended

Contrast Lansman’s obsession with anti-semitism which he even calls it ‘unconscious’ in order to explain why it is that no one can ever find any examples of it in the Labour Party.  Yet not once, has Lansman called for the suspension of Luke Akehurst, an NEC candidate, who openly supported the murder of 160 Palestinians, children included, in the Gaza demonstrations.  If he had any integrity he would call for the suspension of Margaret Hodge for comparing her situation to that of Jews fleeing the Nazis but Lansman is not only a hypocrite but he is also a political coward.

How is it that a word out of place gets supporters of the Palestinians suspended yet Luke Akehurst is allowed to stand for the National Executive Committee?  Yet Lansman is silent as is much of the Left.  Anti-Palestinian racism is acceptable, but a word out of place about Jews leads to instant discipline.

Lansman stated to Graham Durham that ‘Jackie Walker is, I’m afraid, an anti-Semite. She provides leadership for other anti-semites.’

What utter malevolent racist bigotry.  Jackie unlike Lansman has been an active opponent of the National Front. Whilst Jackie was busy fighting the fascists Lansman was accumulating millions as a property developer. Her crime is being an anti-Zionist.  Lansman’s attack is despicable.  He provides no proof for his assertion that Jackie ‘provides leadership’ for other unnamed anti-semites nor could he.  This is a product of Lansman’s racist mindset. Lansman has never played any role or part in the anti-fascist movement. His sole concern has been to support the Israeli state.

Likewise Lansman’s attack on Marc Wadsworth.  He concedes that ‘he may not be anti-semitic’ which is the only form of racism that counts for Lansman, but he asserts that Marc came to the Chakrabarti press conference to cause trouble. How does Lansman know this? Because he spoke from the floor, the only contribution from a Black person in a press conference supposedly about  racism and not just anti-semitism. 

Because Marc was determined to include racism against Black people in the agenda of the meeting, he was guilty of disrupting it and therefore bringing the Labour Party into ‘disrepute’. Even worse he called out the dealing between right-wing Labour MP Ruth Smeeth and the Daily Telegraph.

Lansman also attacked, for good measure, Peter Willsman.  The only form of racism that matters to Lansman is anti-semitism, which barely exists. Racism against Black or Asian people is not his concern. 

The question is how we are going to remove Lansman who made his name over 30 years ago as a supporter of Tony Benn.  It would do well for us to remember the famous 5 questions of Benn:

“The House will forgive me for quoting five democratic questions that I have developed during my life. If one meets a powerful person--Rupert Murdoch, perhaps, or Joe Stalin or Hitler--one can ask five questions: what power do you have; where did you get it; in whose interests do you exercise it; to whom are you accountable; and, how can we get rid of you? Anyone who cannot answer the last of those questions does not live in a democratic system.”

Today Tony Benn would be accused of 'antisemitism' and suspended for comparing Rupert Murdoch to Hitler!

If Momentum members are serious about supporting Jeremy Corbyn then it is essential to remove Lansman.  Lansman’s treachery is such that it is only a matter of time before this racist property millionaire stabs Corbyn in the back too.  You have been warned!

Tony Greenstein

Lansman’s Conversation with Graham Durham:

From: Graham Durham
To: "brent-momentum@googlegroups.com" brent-momentum@googlegroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, 14 August 2018, 10:36
Subject: [BRENT MOMENTUM] Exchange with Jon Lansman

GD:     Ok Jon your view accords with mine on an anti-racist Britain.But whilst understanding the support amongst Jews here for Israel we must not allow this to restrict our criticism or our understanding of how Irgun and other murder gangs created the state and the racist policies since.On anti-semitism I entirely agree with you and would never agree it should be unchallenged but the Hodge and Smeeth etc attacks abuse the desire to see anti-semitism challenged as they are simply a code for anti-Corbyn attacks.Sadly Jon your attacks on Jackie Walker,Pete Willsman and Marc Wadsworth place you in the wrong camp

JL     Jackie Walker is, I’m afraid, an anti-Semite. She provides leadership for other anti-semites. Marc Wadsworth went to the Chakrabarti report launch to disrupt it. He may not be anti Semitic but his actions were deliberate and brought the Party into disrepute. Pete Willsman is not in the same category at all but his consistent bad behaviour is not acceptable

Here is an image of Lansman and others from our Labour Party members visit to Palestine   sharing views with a PLA governor of a West Bank territory in June this year.Following this visit the group members have been following and debating events there and in the ongoing debate in the Labour Party.Last night Jon and I exchanged views and I was surprised at his response ( I’ll leave you to read it and ,for context,my comments he was responding to)

More Fake Anti-Semitism – The Latest Victim is Labour’s Pete Willsman

Meanwhile Barnett’s Fascist Councillor Brian Gordon Proposes Banning Organisations Supporting a Boycott of Israel – Naturally!

UPDATE

I understand that Momentum's Caudillo and Owner, Jon Lansman, has removed Pete Willsman from Momentum's JC9 slate. It is claimed that this was done by Momentum's undemocratic ruling body, the National Coordination Group, but it is unlikely that this group has met.

This is an act of treachery of the first order as it is therefore allowing Luke Akehurst or a member of the anti-Corbyn Right to gain a place on the NEC.  One can only hope that enough people have already voted and enough people will ignore Momentum's dictator that Pete will retain his seat.  Either way it is an act of scabbing by Lansman.

Hardly a day goes by without another sacrificial lamb being offered up to the Zionist lobby in the Labour Party. Today it was Pete Willsman, a veteran socialist. Peter had made an angry speech at Labour’s National Executive Committee asking members where was this anti-Semitism that everyone speaks about, a reasonable question, and this was enough for that Israel’s main operative in the Labour Party, Luciana Berger, Chair of the racist Jewish Labour Movement to demand his expulsion.

If you had any doubts about what Pete Willsman said then this should dispel them

And sure enough, Jon Lansman and his friends in Momentum, always speaking anonymously of course, immediately dissociated themselves from Pete and threatened to take him off the left slate (though that may be too late unless they want to let a right-winger get elected). The Guardian reported that ‘Momentum activists also suggested Willsman should be removed from their leftwing slate’, which would effectively destroy his chances of being voted back on to the NEC.

A spineless and shallow entity

Naturally Owen Jones, who has every quality of a dog except loyalty, was first off the starting block:

‘“I’ll proudly vote for the other eight excellent Labour left candidates. I won’t vote for someone who undermines the struggle against the disgusting disease of anti-Semitism.”

The idea that anti-Semitism is a ‘disease’ is itself a racist concept. It implies that anti-Jewish racism isn’t caused by the society we live in but is a racial pathology.  It is on a par with the rest of this vacuum head’s outpourings.

Owen Jones defence is that other nonentities like himself support the removal of Willsman

Having listened to what Pete said there is nothing in it that is remotely anti-Semitic. He said ‘some of these people in the Jewish community support Trump.’  What is anti-Semitic about that?  What he should have said is that the arch-witchhunters in the right-wing Board of Deputies, including its former President Jonathan Arkush welcomed the election of Trump.  Marie van der Zyle, the current President, who is to the right of Arkush, was amongst those defending Arkush.

The Jewish Chronicle reported that on the Board of Deputies website Arkush said that “I would like to congratulate Donald Trump on his victory.” I can’t remember the detestable Luciana, or the Blessed Margaret Hodge or Liar Smeeth protesting. After all they were chasing ‘anti-Semitism’ in the Labour Party. Arkush continued:

“After a divisive campaign, I hope that Mr Trump will move to build bridges and ensure that America’s standing as a beacon of progress, tolerance and free-thinking remains strong.”  

Trump came to power after the most anti-Semitic Presidential election campaign in history where anti-semitic messages and dog whistles became the norm.  But none of this upset our Zionists for whom the only anti-Semitism that counts is opposition to Zionism.

Zionists support Trump because his white supremacism chimes with Zionism - hence why is 100% pro Zionist

And of course not only the President of the Board of Deputies but the Leader of the Israeli Labour Party, which is the sister party of the Jewish Labour Movement also welcomed the election of Trump.  Isaac Herzog issued a statement “Warm congratulations to the president of the most powerful nation in the world: Donald J Trump!” Israeli Labour Party leader Isaac Herzog, wrote on his Facebook.’ Herzog to Trump: Your win shows elites are thing of past.

So Pete Willsman was absolutely correct. Berger and the rest of Labour’s racist Zionist MPs have nothing to say about Apartheid Israel because their whole purpose is a defence of the US’s racist Rottweiler in the Middle East.

Lest anyone forget the real target of the false antisemitism campaign is Corbyn himself - those who promote it like Owen Jones are helping the campaign to get rid of Corbyn

Willsman also said that ‘we should ask the 70 rabbis where is your evidence of severe and widespread anti-Semitism’ in the Labour Party.  Of course they have none but and here’s the trick.  In asking for evidence, indeed even referring to the fact that there is none, Pete Willsman is guilty of, wait for it, ‘anti-Semitism’.  Because anti-Semitism is anything that displeases Berger, Smeeth and Hodge who are all ‘victims’ by their own reckoning. These privileged daughters of Zionism, who spend their waking time defending Israel, don’t hesitate to accuse anyone who doubts the existence of anti-Semitism of being anti-Semitic. Willsman compounded his offence by asking ‘How many people in this room have seen anti-Semitism?’  Apparently two did!  But surely Pete must know that saying that the Emperor has no clothes is in itself an act of Lèse majesté?

The phrase 'dustbin of the world' suggests immigrants are rubbish - Gordon is a member of the Zionist Herut group

Meanwhile a genuine 24 carat racist, Councillor Brian Gordon of Barnet Council has also got into the act.  He is proposing a motion to the Council which would ban premises to any organisation that supporters a Boycott of Israel.  As we have been saying all along, the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism is a threat to free speech and the right to dissent.

At least Brian Gordon is consistent.  A member of Herut he was a member of the far-Right Tory Monday Club which proposed the repatriation of British Blacks. When he lost a seat to Labour many years ago he bemoaned the fact that the racist vote was split between the Conservatives and the National Front and suggested that in the future the nationalist parties should combine.

This racist clown blacking up in traditional style

However no can deny that this far-Right loon has a sense of humour.  When Purim came around he dressed up as Nelson Mandela, to the extent of blacking himself up in the tradition of the Black and White Minstrel show that many of us grew up with.  A good article Gordon Bennet, he's your councillor? by the late Charley Pottins describes this racist clown.

I also seem to remember that after this election defeat, which must have been in the 1970’s, Gordon was caught at election night in a huddle with the NF candidate.

So it is really no surprise that Brian Gordon is proposing a motion effectively outlawing organisations that support Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel. The motion cites the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism as a justification. The IHRA as people will know is a definition of ‘anti-Semitism’ that conflates anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism.

This is of course  entirely understandable. Gordon, who was a supporter of Apartheid in South Africa and an opponent of a Boycott of that country when White Supremacy ruled is hardly likely to support a Boycott of Israel given that it is a state of Jewish supremacy.   See What’s the matter with Barnet?

Magnificent Victory – Moshe Machover’s Expulsion Rescinded

Ken Livingstone must now have his suspension removed

Moshe Machover and Tony Greenstein speaking at the fateful Communist University 2016 - now it appears kosher to appear on CPGB platforms

It’s hard not to feel sorry for Jeremy Newmark, Chairperson of the Jewish Labour Movement’s though I’m going to have a good try!  

The JLM and Labour Friends of Israel had a torrid time at Labour Party conference  Jewish anti-Zionists who denied that there was anti-Semitism in the party got standing ovations for calling out the false anti-Semitism witch hunt, Jeremy Corbyn got rapturous applause for mentioning the Palestinians, the Jewish Voice for Labour and Free Speech on Israel meetings were packed out and to cap it all Corbyn decided that a Daily Mirror booze up was preferable to going to the LFI fringe meeting. 

The article that caused all the fuss!

This is leaving aside the fact that condemnation of the settlements, the Gaza siege and the occupation were also reinstated as Labour policy.  And this week Corbyn has made it clear that he’s not going to celebrate the Balfour Declaration which led to ethnic cleansing and mass murder of Palestinians.

What made it even worse was that a fringe group that no one had ever heard of before the conference, Labour Party Marxists, had distributed a free sheet entitled Anti-Zionism is not Anti-Semitism.  In it was an article by Professor Moshe Machover the founder of the Israeli anti-Zionist group Matzpen.  Moshe’s name may be unknown to Labour Party apparatchik Sam Matthews and Labour’s éminence grise Iain McNicol but he is certainly known to Newmark and the Zionists. 

Matzpen was always the Zionists worst nightmare – it was a joint Jewish-Arab group that was founded in 1962.  It was the first group to oppose the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.  It was the only group to support Jewish-Arab equality as opposed to segregation and Jewish privilege that Zionist groups stand for.  It stood for equality between Jew and Arab whereas Zionism stands for Jewish Supremacy, which is why Richard Spencer, the founder of America’s Alt Right calls himself a White Zionist.

The Zionist press looks forward to the expulsions of 3 more people - Jackie Walker, Marc Wadsworth and Tony Greenstein - two of them are Black and two of them are Jewish - this is the Zionist idea of an anti-racist campaign

Telling the truth about Nazi-Zionist collaboration is no longer a disciplinary offence

Machover was a co-founder of the group until he was driven from his academic post at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem in 1968 and forced to come to England where he lives with his family.  He is exactly the type of anti-racist anti-Zionist Jewish activist that Labour should welcome but to the racists and misanthropes who inhabit Southside and groups like Progress, Machover was someone to be feared and removed.

Of course McNicol’s minions and Sam Matthews in particular would have known nothing of Moshe Machover’s distinguished academic record or his political activities.  He was one more troublesome lefty whom they were anxious to be rid of.  Hence their surprise at the reaction to Machover’s expulsion, an ‘auto exclusion’ meaning there was no right to a fair hearing and the transparency we were promised in the Chakrabarti Report.

Matthews first letter of 3 October made it clear that  Machover’s expulsion related to an ‘apparently anti-Semitic article’ published by LPM which ‘appears to meet the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism’.  Matthews informed Machover that ‘anti-Semitism of any form... which may cause offence to Jewish people.... will not be tolerated in the Labour Party.’

Now if you weren’t living in McNicol’s version of Alice in Wonderland you might indeed wonder whether it is anti-Semitic for someone who is not Jewish, like Matthews, to explain to someone who is Jewish what anti-Semitism means.  Some people may call that anti-Semitic!

It’s little wonder that Alexi Sayle in an interview on Sky last week [Alexei Sayle’s shocking denial of Labour antisemitism, Jewish Chronicle 27 October 2017 notes that one of the remarkable things about Labour’s anti-Semitism witch-hunt is that most of those being expelled or suspended are Jewish!

Germany's Zionist paper welcomed the Nuremburg Laws of 1935 whilst world and Germany Jewry were horrified

However the reason given by Matthews for Moshe’s expulsion was writing for and speaking on the platforms of the Communist Party of Great Britain and LPM.  Classic Uncle Joe stuff.  Moshe was told in the latest letter from Matthews of 30 October that he had written no less than 44 articles for Weekly Worker!  Well I haven’t counted how many I’ve written but I suspect it’s not many fewer. Indeed I suspect it may be even more.  And although Moshe’s appearance at the Communist University formed part of the ‘evidence’ of Moshe’s belonging to the CPGB then I should also have been expelled on that basis since I spoke alongside Moshe at both the 2016 and 2017 Communist Universities, although Sam Matthews seems unaware of the latest one!

The reaction to Machover’s expulsion took Labour’s bureaucrats by surprise.  It wasn’t one or two but dozens of Labour branches and CLPs which flooded Labour HQ with motions.  After conference the membership wasn’t having any more of the witch hunt.

It is noticeable during Machover’s expulsion that no one from Momentum, not Jon Lansman not the National Coordinating Group and not one of the left-wing members of the National Executive Committee spoke out against the expulsion of Machover.  Pete Willsman, Darren Williams, Rhea Wolfson, Christine Shawcroft – all of them remained silent.  It was ordinary members up and down the country who made their voice heard.

In his second  subsequent letters Sam Matthews was at pains to stress that it wasn’t what Machover wrote that was the reason for his expulsion.  In his second letter of 6 October, just 3 days after the first, Matthews wrote that ‘for the avoidance of any doubt’ the expulsion wasn’t on account of what he had written.  Which of course begs the question why it was mentioned in his first letter at all.

Equally novel, in the letter of 6 October Matthews invited Moshe to submit an appeal, just in case he’d got it wrong! This too isn’t normal practice.

In his third letter poor Matthews was even more contrite!  ‘I would like to make absolutely clear that the Party has come to no decision about the contents of the article.’  He even apologises if the letter of 3 October ‘was unclear to you.’  But it wasn’t in the slightest unclear.  Under the bogus IHRA definition which deliberately seeks to conflate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism any reference to the dealings of the Zionist movement with the Nazis is de facto anti-Semitic.  The Zionists don’t like to be reminded of the time when they were the darlings of the Nazi state and if you insist on speaking the truth you are anti-Semitic!  It is extremely embarrassing that a monster like Reinhardt Heydrich, a man who the historian Gerald Reitlinger described as the ‘engineer’ of the Final Solution wrote in such glowing terms about the Zionists, stating that the Nazi movement

'is in agreement with the great spiritul movement within Jewry itself, Zionism, whose position is based on the recognistion of the unity of Jewry throughout the world, and the rejection of all ideas of mixing in.

Not a happy man Iain McNicol as everything seems to come apart in his hand these days

What is clear is that IHRA definition of anti-Semitism is actually unusable because it is so clearly intended as a weapon against Zionism’s critics.  It does nothing to help in the fight against anti-Semitism, which is an extremely simple thing to understand.  The IHRA definition is some 450 words.  The definition by Professor Brian Klug, who isn’t a Zionist is 21 words, viz:

antisemitism is a form of hostility to Jews as Jews, where Jews are perceived as

something other than what they are.

If you want to conflate hostility to Israel with hostility to Jews then of course you need lots of words and examples!  What Matthews letter also clouds is that Jeremy Corbyn accepted only the short introduction to the IHRA definition not the 11 examples, 7 of which relate to Israel.  Matthews has clearly decided that the whole 450 word definition plus examples are what should be used.

However now that it is accepted that what Moshe wrote about Nazi support and admiration even for Zionism is not anti-Semitic, then there is no case to answer for Ken Livingstone whose comment that Hitler supported Zionism is exactly along the same lines.

We should savour this victory, but we shouldn’t rest on our laurels.  As the Jewish Chronicle today states:

‘Three forthcoming NCC meetings will involve Jackie Walker, Marc Wadsworth and Tony Greenstein – all of whom face charges of anti-Semitism.’

We have won a battle but not the war!

Matthews is so taken aback by the reaction to Moshe's expulsion that he sends another letter 3 days later

Matthews letter of 26 October