Why It Was not Anti-Semitic for Ilhan Omar to raise the question of Dual Loyalty

Those who accuse Ilhan Omar of 'anti‑semitism' are guilty of dishonesty and bad faith

Middle East Eye recently printed my article on Dual Loyalty, one of the most frequent Zionist tropes. Their arguments are dishonest and self-serving. I have made some slight changes to the printed version.

I’ve always had a problem with the concept of dual loyalty since I don’t owe loyalty to any state! I agree with what Marx and Engels wrote in the Communist Manifesto. The loyalty of the working class is to each other regardless of nationality not to ones ruling class.

Palestinians struggling against the Occupation have more in common with Black Lives Matter than with Mahmoud Abbas and his cronies. As Mohammed Ali put it, ‘No Vietcong ever called me a nigger.’

In the words of Samuel Johnson patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel. Appeals to patriotism never apply to the rich and powerful who invest in the cheapest non-unionised labour regardless of country and then salt away their ill-gotten gains in offshore islands.

Cries of anti-Semitism[1]

When Ilhan Omar, the new Congresswoman from Minnesota responded to Glenn Greenwald’s comment that “It’s stunning how much time US political leaders spend defending a foreign nation even if it means attacking free speech rights of Americans.” by tweeting “It’s all about the Benjamin’s baby.”all hell broke loose.

The Forward’s Batya Ungar-Sargon asked Ilhan who she thought was paying American politicians to support Israel. In response she got a brilliant one word answer ‘AIPAC’. The air was thick with cries of ‘anti-Semitism’

Even Donald Trump, who came to power nakedly using anti-Semitic theme tunes, condemned the Democrats as the 'anti-Jewish party' for not condemning Omar's  'terrible comments'

Trump's 'fine people' at Charlottesville

Even Donald Trump, who came to power nakedly using anti-Semitic theme tunes and for whom the neo-Nazis at Charlotteville were ‘fine people’ condemned the Democrats as the ‘anti-Jewish party’ for not condemning Ilhan’s ‘terrible comments’. This is the man who lit the fire that resulted in the worst anti-Jewish massacre in American history at Pittsburgh. The Donald does not do irony.

A Trump ad that was later pulled - Crooked Hilary complete with a Star of David

Ilhan then repeated much the same remarks at Washington DC's Busboys and Poets Cafe: ‘I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is O.K. for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country.”

According to Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine this statement was “much worse” than her previous statements, when she ascribed support for Israel to financial contributions from the lobby.

‘Accusing Jews of “allegiance to a foreign country” is a historically classic way of delegitimizing their participation in the political system.’ Michelle Goldberg in the New York Times accused her of waging a series of ‘microaggressions.

Talk of dual loyalty

So is it true? Is Ilhan Omar anti-Semitic and even more pertinently is talk of ‘dual loyalty’ in itself anti-Semitic? Well the first problem is that nowhere did Ilhan mention Jews. She talked about a foreign country, Israel.

The IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, which Zionist groups have lobbied for strongly in Britain, a definition which conflates anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, states that ‘Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel... than to the interests of their own nations is an illustration of anti-Semitism.’

For Republicans support for BDS and hostility to Israel is equal to 'antisemitism'

The IHRA also states that ‘Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination’ is anti-Semitic! If Israel is the embodiment of Jewish self-determination, and it calls itself the Jewish state, then why is it anti-Semitic to accuse Jews of being more loyal to Israel? Would it be anti-German to accuse Germans of being loyal to Germany?

Others such as Philip Weiss in Mondoweiss have argued that far from Ilhan being anti-Semitic even many Jewish writers agree that the question of dual loyalty is no myth. Palestinian American Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib made similar comments when she said in January that Senate supporters of anti-boycott legislation “forgot what country they represent.”

If the concept of dual loyalty is anti-Semitic then that is because Zionism rests on the anti-Semitic canard that Jews, wherever they live, are aliens

If the concept of dual loyalty is anti-Semitic then that is because Zionism rests on the anti-Semitic canard that Jews, wherever they live, are aliens

So are accusations of dual loyalty, in respect of Israel, anti-Semitic? The first and most obvious point to make is that it is fundamental to Zionism that Jews form a single nation. If the concept of dual loyalty is anti-Semitic then that is because Zionism rests on the anti-Semitic canard that Jews, wherever they live, are aliens and not part of the nations among whom they live.

In 2015 after the supermarket killings Netanyahu told French Jews that their ‘real home’ was in Israel. A call repeated by Israeli Labour Party leader Avi Gabbay after the Pittsburgh murders.

Jewish nationality

Israel is unique among states in not having its own nationality. It has hundreds of nationalities but only one, the Jewish nationality, is of any importance. That is why Israel is an apartheid state. This issue was settled in 1972 in the case of Tamarin v State of Israel. George Tamarin wanted to change his nationality from “Jewish” to “Israeli” but the Court refused. Chief Justice Agranat ruled that:

 ‘the desire to create an Israeli nation separate from the Jewish nation is not a legitimate aspiration. A division of the population into Israeli and Jewish nations would … negate the foundation on which the State of Israel was established.’

The court went on to state that

 ‘There is no Israeli nation separate from the Jewish People. The Jewish People is composed not only of those residing in Israel but also of Diaspora Jewry.’

This decision was upheld in 2013 in Uzi Ornan v Ministry of the Interior.  The Jewish Nation State Law passed last summer makes it explicit that Israel is the nation state of the Jews, all Jews, wherever they live. That is why Netanyahu has described himself as the ‘Prime Minister of the Jewish people.’

On 10^th March popular Israeli actress Rotem Sala asserted that “the Arabs are also human beings’, in response to an accusation from Culture Minister Miri Regev that the opposition in the current general election wants to form a government with the support of the Arab parties. In Israel such an accusation is almost like accusing someone of being a child molester. Netanyahu immediately wrote in response that ‘Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish nation – and it alone’.

Strategic interest

Half of the world’s Jews live outside Israel and are nationals of the country they live in yet Israel claims that they are part of the same nation as its own Jewish citizens. It is this claim, not what Ilhan Omar said, which lies behind the belief that Jews have a dual loyalty to both Israel and the country they live in.

Clearly it is not possible to be a member of two nations simultaneously (although legally one can be a dual national).

So when Ilhan Omar accused members of the Senate of spending time defending a foreign nation by attacking its own nationals’ right to free speech she is correct.

There is nothing whatsoever anti-Semitic in such an assertion. The reason isn’t so much ‘the Benjamins’ i.e. money but because support for Israel is seen as in the United States’s strategic interests.

Hence why some of the most vociferous supporters of Israel are not Jewish but fundamentalist Christians and many, such as Trump, are known for their use of anti-Semitic tropes.

Guilty of dishonesty

Ilhan was attacking all those Senators, regardless of religion, who voted for a Bill that prioritised the defence of America’s racist Rottweiler in the Middle East over the democratic rights of Americans.

Those who accuse Ilhan of ‘anti-Semitism’ are guilty of dishonesty. They are arguing in bad faith.

It is inherent to Zionism that the first loyalty of any Jew is to Israel because their stay in the Diaspora is temporary. ‘The negation of the diaspora’ is fundamental to Zionist ideology. The accursed Galut (diaspora) needs to be wound up, although it is convenient having a large community in the United States that can lobby on its behalf.

When you support AIPAC, you support the interests of a foreign state, Israel

The wrong sort of Jews

This is not an academic argument. Like most anti-Zionist Jews I receive my full quota of abuse from Zionists. One of the most frequently used terms of abuse is to call us a ‘traitor’ to which I respond by asking who it is that I am disloyal to?

What lies behind this accusation is the belief that a Jew’s first loyalty is to the State of Israel not the country they live in.

That was why the Israeli Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Absorption distributed in 2013 a survey asking American Jews ‘where their allegiance would lie in the case of a crisis between the two countries.’

Netanyahu had the survey stopped in its tracks but what is interesting is that this survey was ever thought of. It would have been interesting to see the results!

Phillip Weiss cites a number of Jewish writers such as Joe Klein who wrote about the push to go to war in Iraq by the neocons:

The fact that a great many Jewish neoconservatives – people like Joe Lieberman and the crowd over at Commentary – plumped for this war, and now for an even more foolish assault on Iran, raised the question of divided loyalties: using U.S. military power, U.S. lives and money, to make the world safe for Israel.

When you support AIPAC you support the interests of a foreign state, Israel. As the former Israel’s Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren tweeted ‘AIPAC is Israel’s national strategic asset.’ If anyone is questioning American Jewish loyalty it isn’t Ilhan Omar it people like Israeli government minister, Michael Oren.

Tony Greenstein

Why It’s not Anti-Semitic for Ilhan Omar to raise the question of Dual Loyalty

Those who accuse Ilhan Omar of 'anti‑semitism' are guilty of dishonesty 

Middle East Eye today printed my article on Dual Loyalty, one of the most frequent Zionist talking points. As my article suggests, their arguments are dishonest and self-serving. I have made some slight changes to the printed version.

I have always had a problem with the concept of dual loyalty. I agree with what Marx wrote in the Communist Manifesto. The interests of the working class and the oppressed crosses borders. Loyalty is not to the ruling classes of ‘their’ own countries but to their class.

Palestinians struggling against the Occupation have more in common with Black Lives Matter than with Mahmoud Abbas or his cronies. As Muhammed Ali once put it, ‘No Vietcong ever called me a nigger.’ In the words of Samuel Johnson patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel. Appeals to patriotism never apply to the rich and powerful who invest in the cheapest non-unionised labour regardless of country and then salt away their ill-gotten gains in offshore islands.

When Ilhan Omar, the new Congresswoman from Minnesota responded to Glenn Greenwald’s comment that “It’s stunning how much time US political leaders spend defending a foreign nation even if it means attacking free speech rights of Americans.” by tweeting “It’s all about the Benjamin’s baby.”all hell broke loose.

Batya Ungar-Sargon asked Ilhan who she thought was paying American politicians to support Israel. In response she got a brilliant one word answer ‘AIPAC’. The air was thick with cries of ‘anti-Semitism’

Even Donald Trump, who came to power nakedly using anti-Semitic theme tunes and for whom the neo-Nazis at Charlotteville were ‘fine people’ condemned the Democrats as the ‘anti-Jewish party’ for not condemning Ilhan’s ‘terrible comments’. This is the man who lit the fire that resulted in the worst anti-Jewish massacre in American history at Pittsburgh. The Donald does not do irony.

Ilhan then repeated much the same remarks at the Busboys and Poets Cafe: ‘I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is O.K. for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country.”

According to Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine this statement was “much worse” than her previous statements, when she ascribed support for Israel to financial contributions from the lobby. ‘Accusing Jews of “allegiance to a foreign country” is a historically classic way of delegitimizing their participation in the political system.’ Michelle Goldberg in the New York Times accused her of waging a series of ‘microaggressions.

So is it true? Well the first problem is that nowhere did Ilhan mention Jews. She talked about a foreign country, Israel. Is Ilhan Omar anti-Semitic and even more pertinently is talk of ‘dual loyalty’ in itself anti-Semitic?

The IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, which Zionist groups have lobbied for strongly in Britain, a definition which conflates anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, states that ‘Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel... than to the interests of their own nations is an illustration of anti-Semitism.’ The IHRA also states that ‘Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination’ is anti-Semitic! If Israel is the embodiment of Jewish self-determination then why is it anti-Semitic to accuse Jews of being more loyal to Israel? Would it be anti-German to accuse Germans of being loyal to Germany?

Others such as Philip Weiss in Mondoweiss have argued that far from Ilhan being anti-Semitic even many Jewish writers agree that the question of dual loyalty is no myth. Palestinian American Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib made similar comments when she said in January that Senate supporters of anti-boycott legislation “forgot what country they represent.”

So are accusations of dual loyalty, in respect of Israel, anti-Semitic? The first and most obvious point to make is that it is fundamental to Zionism that Jews form a single nation. If the concept of dual loyalty is anti-Semitic then that is because Zionism rests on the anti-Semitic canard that Jews, wherever they live, are aliens and not part of the nations among whom they live. In 2015 after the supermarket killings Netanyahu told French Jews that their ‘real home’ was in Israel. A call repeated by Israeli Labour Party leader Avi Gabbay after the Pittsburgh murders.

Jewish nationality

Israel is unique among states in not having its own nationality. It has hundreds of nationalities but only one, the Jewish nationality, is of any importance. That is why Israel is an apartheid state. This issue was settled in 1972 in the case of Tamarin v State of Israel. George Tamarin wanted to change his nationality from “Jewish” to “Israeli” but the Court refused. Chief Justice Agranat ruled that:

‘the desire to create an Israeli nation separate from the Jewish nation is not a legitimate aspiration. A division of the population into Israeli and Jewish nations would … negate the foundation on which the State of Israel was established.’

The court went on to state that

‘There is no Israeli nation separate from the Jewish People. The Jewish People is composed not only of those residing in Israel but also of Diaspora Jewry.’

This decision was upheld in 2013 in Uzi Ornan v Ministry of the Interior.  The Jewish Nation State Law passed last summer makes it explicit that Israel is the nation state of the Jews, all Jews, wherever they live. That is why Netanyahu has described himself as the ‘Prime Minister of the Jewish people.’

Last Sunday popular Israeli actress Rotem Sala asserted that “the Arabs are also human beings’, in response to an accusation from Culture Minister Miri Regev that the opposition in the current general election wants to form a government with the support of the Arab parties. In Israel such an accusation is almost like accusing someone of being a child molester. Netanyahu immediately wrote in response that ‘Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish nation – and it alone’.

Strategic interest

Half of the world’s Jews live outside Israel and are nationals of the country they live in yet Israel claims that they are part of the same nation as its own Jewish citizens. It is this claim, not what Ilhan Omar said, which lies behind the belief that Jews have a dual loyalty to both Israel and the country they live in. Clearly it is not possible to be a member of two nations simultaneously (although legally one can be a dual national).

So when Ilhan Omar accused members of the Senate of spending time defending a foreign nation by attacking its own nationals’ right to free speech she is correct. There is nothing whatsoever anti-Semitic in such an assertion. The reason isn’t so much ‘the Benjamins’ i.e. money but because support for Israel is seen as in the United States’s strategic interests. Hence why some of the most vociferous supporters of Israel are not Jewish but fundamentalist Christians and many, such as Trump, are also anti-Semitic.

Guilty of dishonesty

Ilhan was attacking all those Senators, regardless of religion, who voted for a Bill that prioritised the defence of America’s racist Rottweiler in the Middle East over the democratic rights of Americans.

Those who accuse Ilhan of ‘anti-Semitism’ are guilty of dishonesty. They are arguing in bad faith. It is inherent to Zionism that the first loyalty of any Jew is to Israel because their stay in the Diaspora is temporary. ‘The negation of the diaspora’ is fundamental to Zionist ideology. The accursed Galut (diaspora) needs to be wound up, although it is convenient having a large community in the United States that can lobby on its behalf.

The wrong sort of Jews

This is not an academic argument. Like most anti-Zionist Jews I receive my full quota of abuse from Zionists. One of the most frequently used terms of abuse is to call us a ‘traitor’ to which I respond by asking who it is that I am disloyal to?. What lies behind this accusation is the belief that a Jew’s first loyalty is to the State of Israel not the country they live in.

That was why the Israeli Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Absorption distributed in 2013 a survey asking American Jews ‘where their allegiance would lie in the case of a crisis between the two countries.’ Netanyahu had the survey stopped in its tracks but what is interesting is that this survey was ever thought of. It would have been interesting to see the results!

Phillip Weiss cites a number of Jewish writers such as Joe Klein who wrote about the push to go to war in Iraq by the neocons:

The fact that a great many Jewish neoconservatives – people like Joe Lieberman and the crowd over at Commentary – plumped for this war, and now for an even more foolish assault on Iran, raised the question of divided loyalties: using U.S. military power, U.S. lives and money, to make the world safe for Israel.

When you support AIPAC you support the interests of a foreign state, Israel. As the former Israel’s Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren tweeted ‘AIPAC is Israel’s national strategic asset.’ If anyone is questioning American Jewish loyalty it isn’t Ilhan Omar it people like Israeli government minister, Michael Oren.

Tony Greenstein

A VICTORY FOR FREE SPEECH – Twitter Restores Tony Greenstein’s Suspended Account

Malicious Zionist Complaint of ‘Anti-Semitism’ by Jack Mendel of Jewish News has been Rejected by Twitter

Twitter's standard response to my initial appeals

On November 17^th there was a message on my Twitter account informing me that my account had been suspended for ‘hateful conduct’.  It quickly became apparent that a complaint had been made by a ‘journalist’ Jack Mendel @mendelpol of Jewish News. 

I immediately posted an article and followed it up with another article a few days later. Mendel openly boasted of his cowardly deed stating

‘I reported Greenstein for repeatedly sending me messages filled with hate, including using far right ‘Zio’ term, and various comparisons of Jews and Israel to nazism.’

 fake journalist Jack Mendel knows no shame

Jack Mendel was and is a liar. Far from me contacting him it was the other way around.  I was responding to him and his friends. Nothing I said had anything to do with hate.  I don’t do hate nor do I hate this ‘so-called journalist’ (his description not mine) who, unable to engage in the cut and thrust of political debate, reached for Twitter's censor. However I have nothing but contempt for a 'journalist' who attempts to close down free speech. All under the guise of opposing ‘hate speech’ no less. What I hate is racism and Zionism.

Twitter's standard response

The facts are quite simple. The Jewish Leadership Council, an unelected Zionist group tweeted three times its support of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, which was supposedly in response to the firing of firecrackers (‘rockets’). To the JLC and its faithful lapdog Mendel, Israel was reacting to Hamas’s firing. In actual fact Hamas was reacting to a botched operation in Gaza by an undercover Israeli military squad that went wrong.  Botched Israeli Operation in Gaza Endangers Human Rights Groups. Israel’s undercover squad posed as aid workers for a charity working in Gaza thus endangering all humanitarian relief workers.  They murdered 7 people for the loss of one of their own as they extricated themselves.

Battling for Israel - Zionism's Fake Journalist Jack Mendel

On November 15^th I responded pointing out that there is a long record of aggressors posing as the victim. I pointed out that 80 years ago, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland it pretended that it was the victim. Nazi soldiers dressed up in Polish uniforms staged a mock attack on a German radio station at Gleiwitz, Upper Silesia. The details can be found in the second of Richard Evan’s trilogy ‘The Third Reich in Power’. pp.699/700.

According to @mendelpol these were ‘despicable remarks’.  To most people with a few brain cells this was a historical analogy. That is what history is about, comparisons.  Otherwise how do you make sense of historical events? Being unable to rebut my remarks Mendel sought the assistance of Twitter’s censor.  

Canary article helps launch campaign against Twitter censorship

On the 16^th November I responded by saying that what was despicable was the shooting down in cold blood of 200 unarmed demonstrators in Gaza and the decade long starvation siege. In Mendel’s morbid mind this became ‘This morning a Jewish activist sent me a tweet filled with anti-Semitic tropes.’ Zionists love the word tropes. It’s a cliché they use as a substitute for thinking, probably because it rhymes with dopes. According to Mendel ‘Being Jewish or having Jewish ancestry isn’t a free pass to saying things which play down antiSemitism/in the second case are anti-Semitic.’  

Being incapable of responding with anything useful Useless Jack Mendel reached for Twitter's Censor

I agree. Being Jewish doesn’t mean you can’t be anti-Semitic. Mendel himself is a good example of a Jewish anti-semite. Zionism was founded by an anti-Semite, Theodor Herzl and it is led today by another anti-Semite, Benjamin Netanyahu, a Holocaust Revisionist who cuddles up to all manner of anti-Semites including the Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orban. [see Rewriting the Holocaust – Jacobin]

It wasn’t me who said that Palestine was an ‘institute for the fumigation of Jewish vermin’ but Israel’s first Minister of Justice, Pinhas Rosenbluth. Zionism is a form of Jewish Anti-Semitism. 

Nothing I said was even remotely anti-Semitic. How can condemning Israel’s siege of Gaza or the murder of  unarmed Palestinians, including 21 year old medic Razan al-Najar, as she was dashing to help the wounded, be anti-Semitic?

If Mendel tried for once to engage  what passes for his brain he might realise that if anyone was being anti-Semitic it was he. What he was suggesting is that the murder of children and unarmed demonstrators is the embodiment of Jewish identity. That it is Jewish to kill innocent people. That is akin to saying that Jews are bloodthirsty creatures who enjoy killing children and young people.  It’s a modern version of the medieval blood libel. That is Zionism in the 21^st century. 

To this very day Yousaf's account is still active although it hasn't been used for 2 years, which suggests that it was a paid Israeli troll account

Being told it was a pity you didn't die in the Holocaust was not a breach of Twitter rules!

What was particularly outrageous about Twitter’s closing of my account was that repeatedly over the past two years I have complained of abuse from Zionist trolls including being told by a George Yousaf that it was a great shame that my family and I had not died in the Holocaust. To all my complaints Twitter responded that these were not breaches of their rules yet Mendel's false and malicious complaint was upheld. When I appealed against my suspension I received a negative standard response and got the same response repeatedly. Clearly these replies are not generated by human beings but by algorithm.

An example of the comments that Twitter found didn't breach their rules

It was only when a live human being at Twitter, because none of the responses I got was signed by a named person, was contacted personally and told that their refusal to reinstate my account was unacceptable and their practices would be raised if necessary in Parliament that my account was reinstated.

Twitter's standard response to complaints

What happened to me is not unique. Twitter and Facebook have been removing accounts of anti-Zionists and supporters of the Palestinians at the behest of Zionist bigots like @mendelpol. Twitter, Facebook and other social media outlets are giant monopolies akin to the great trusts of the 19^th century.  The reaction then was to break these trusts up as being inimical to the public interest.  The control of an important area of public debate by private groups is something that sooner or later parliament is going to have to regulate.  It is unacceptable that unaccountable corporations can remove or censor people at will.

Abuse by Zionist supporter of Tommy Robinson, Mark Haringman - I am a thief, fraudster, child abuser and socialist - in no particular order - only in the twisted mind of a Zionist fascist would being a socialist be a crime!

Twitter finds that Haringman (Newsdude) Tweets are in order

Like the privatised utilities, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube etc. should be treated as emanations of the State and thus be subject to public control and susceptible to Judicial Review and other forms of legal restraint. At the moment faceless people or machines make decisions without any independent oversight.

As long as Twitter and Facebook remain privately controlled one can expect malicious Zionists like @mendelpol to use the power of the Israeli state and Zionism's pernicious influence to effect the same censorship that the Israeli state itself imposes on its subjects.

I have a number of people and organisations to thank for helping me reverse Mendel's squalid little attempt at censorship. In no particular order.

Philip Weiss, of Mondoweiss, who carried my article Twitter closes down my account for ‘hateful conduct’ at a time when I was eager to get my story out.

A big thank you to Afroze Zaidi-Jivraj a journalist on the Canary, the Independent Media site whose article Twitter censors pro-Palestinian Jewish activist while allowing antisemitic abuse against him was immensely helpful.  Afroze was also helpful in other ways despite not being well. 

Thanks also to Asa Winstanley, the Electronic Intifada journalist for his article in Middle East Monitor, The relentless censorship of anti-Zionist Jews which started with the line that ‘Tony Greenstein is slowly but surely being disappeared from the internet’. I began to wonder whether my death sentence had been pronounced prematurely!  In the purported words of Mark Twain, the announcement of my death had been greatly exaggerated!

Also to be mentioned in dispatches are Ali Abunimah, the Director of Electronic Intifada and Richard Silverstein of Tikun Olam for their helpful advice at a difficult time

Naturally the right-wing pro-war site Harry’s Place, despite purporting to defend free speech, engaged in a piece of whatabouttery in order to rationalise Twitter’s censorship. HP, despite having as their slogan Orwell’s ‘Liberty, if it means anything, is the right to tell people what they don't want to hear’ refused to defend my right to tell Zionists like @mendelpol what he didn’t want to hear!  But then HP has always been quite selective when it came to deciding whose free speech they defended! Or as the Muslim group Mend suggested, Orwell’s ‘‘Political language…is designed to make lies sound truthful … and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind’ is far more appropriate to hypocrites like HP and Jack Mendel.

It is to be expected that Zionist papers like Jewish News will employ ‘journalists’ who see it as their job to censor those whom they disagree with. That is because the Jewish News and the Jewish Chronicle are not so much newspapers as Zionist propaganda rags. Contrast this with the vigorous Jewish Forward in the United States which doesn’t hesitate to debate out all these issues.

It is a small but vital victory over those who would limit the free speech of Palestinian supporters and anti-Zionists.

Tony Greenstein