Why are the Officers and Employees of Civil Liberties Group Liberty Refusing to Implement its Policy of Opposition to the IHRA?

According to Liberty’s Olivia Percival, ‘Liberty is not actively campaigning against the IHRA definition’

Liberty, formerly known as the National Council for Civil Liberties, was founded in 1934. This was a time of heightened anti-fascist activity in which the Jews of the East End of London were under attack from Oswald Moseley’s British Union of Fascists.  In 1989 the organisation changed its name to Liberty.

The organisation has provided a career path for budding Labour politicians such as Patricia Hewitt, who went on to become an MP and in charge of Neil Kinnock’s personal office before being brought down by the cash for influence scandal.  Harriet Harman was a former legal officer and her husband Jack Dromey was Chair of the Executive Committee. Shami Chakrabarti the previous Director is now Shadow Attorney General. What all the ex-employees of Liberty who find their way to the top of the Labour Party have in common is their abandoning and jettisoning of any pretence of support for civil liberties.  Harriet Harman for example went along with all Tony Blair’s anti-terrorism legislation without a squeak. Chakrabarti’s attack on Ken Livingstone suggests that she too considers civil liberties to be a drag on her career.

Martha Spurrier, another in a long line of hopeful Establishment Labour politicians

The current Director, Martha Spurrier is, like her predecessor, a barrister. Liberty/NCCL has never been a particular radical organisation, especially in recent times. In its earlier times it had no difficulty supporting for example the internment of Oswald Moseley in the war, something which led to mass resignations from the organisation.

During the period of Hewitt and Harman the organisation adopted a policy which was in effect pro-paedophile. The Paedophile Information Exchange became affiliated at one point and it was only in 1983 that the organisation rejected paedophilia as just another sexual life style. All that can be said about this period is that paedophile groups were able to take advantage of the sexual revolution of the 1960’s to propagate the idea that sexual freedom should include the right of adults to have sex with children and that this found favour amongst a section of the libertarian left and gay rights campaigners such as Peter Tatchell.

Liberty/NCCL has always seen itself as part of the British Establishment. It is therefore no surprise that when Professor Jonathan Rosenhead of the LSE moved a motion at the May 2018 AGM, seconded by Louise Christian, a well known solicitor, opposing the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism, its officers took fright. The motion itself was passed almost unanimously.

The IHRA is a consensus position of the British political establishment and Liberty is, if nothing else, an establishment group. When I heard that the motion had been passed I wrote to Liberty inquiring about their new policy.  I heard nothing for some months.

I had quite forgotten about my inquiry until an email arrived from Olivia Percival, a former government solicitor who is now Liberty’s Advice & Information Officer. As I read the email I became more and more disconcerted. Ms Percival did not have one good thing to say about Liberty’s policy. What she seemed to be doing was to explain why the organisation was doing nothing about the organisation. 

Percival first began by telling me that ‘I would emphasise that the motion reaffirmed Liberty’s opposition to anti-semitism in all its forms’. The implication being that opposition to the IHRA might be construed as support for anti-Semitism!

It was the next paragraph that left me open mouthed. It would appear that Percival, who is clearly not stupid, deliberately didn’t want to understand the reason for opposition to the IHRA: She wrote that:

‘As an organisation that both fervently supports free speech and fervently opposes anti-semitism, Liberty has an obligation to carefully consider the intersection of these two issues. Whenever we talk about hate speech, we immediately have to think about the boundaries of free speech. Drawing that boundary is not always easy. The position Liberty has taken on the IHRA definition comes from a good faith effort to think through this issue.

The clear implication being that opposition to the IHRA meant support for anti-Semitic hate speech. Why else would she talk about the ‘intersection’ of the two issues of free speech and anti-Semitism?

What Percival was doing was to revisit the policy of Liberty’s American equivalent, the American Civil Liberties Union which infamously supported a march through the Skokie in Chicago, where large numbers of Holocaust survivors lived, by the American Nazi Party. See the NYT, July 1978 THE A.C.L.U. AGAINST ITSELF.

Olivia Percival's email to Tony Greenstein

Thousands of Jews and others left the ACLU over their support for the right of neo-Nazis to propagate their filth and hatred. Indeed this controversy briefly surfaced in the NCCL  when its American Director, Andrew Puddephat I believe, argued for the freedom of speech of fascists in this country. It sparked a heated controversy within the NCCL which led to his departure.

Percival however has completely misunderstood the nature of the opposition to the IHRA, some would say deliberately so. Jonathan Rosenhead is himself Jewish. Neither he nor Jewish Voice for Labour of which he is a member support free speech for anti-Semites. Opposition to the IHRA has nothing to do with support for free speech for racists and fascists. There may indeed be an interesting discussion about ‘the boundaries of free speech’ when it comes to hate speech but it has nothing to do with the IHRA and it is dishonest for Percival to suggest otherwise.

Opposition to the IHRA is about opposition to the attack on the rights of supporters of the Palestinians and anti-Zionists to oppose Israeli Apartheid. It has nothing to do with supporting the rights of anti-Semites. It is disingenuous to suggest this.

The American ACLU defended the rights of Nazis in Skokie, Chicag- pictured is a Vietnam veteran

If Olivia Percival had bothered to read the resolution which was passed she would know that it begins by reiterating its ‘abhorrence of antisemitism as a repellent undercurrent..’ Even this well-heeled former government solicitor should be aware that some of the most vigorous supporters of Israel, Zionism and the IHRA are also some of the most notorious racist bigots in politics.  Donald Trump combines ardent support for Israel with anti-Semitism. His election campaign was widely condemned by American Jews for its use of anti-semitic stereotypes and subliminal messages. See Anti-Semitism is no longer an undertone of Trump’s campaign. It’s the melody.

The person who masterminded Trump’s campaign, Steve Bannon, is personally anti-Semitic and a supporter of the European far-Right and Tommy Robinson. The founder of the American alt-Right, the neo-Nazi Richard Spencer has even declared that he is a White Zionist

The policy passed by Liberty in opposition to the IHRA has nothing whatsoever to do with support for anti-Semitism or anti-Semitic hate speech. What it does do is support freedom of speech for opponents of Israeli apartheid. It is dishonest of Percival to suggest otherwise.

And to add insult to injury, this establishment lawyer that Liberty has taken under its wing goes on to state that ‘We have been very clear that Liberty is not actively campaigning against the IHRA definition, as it is not an institutional priority.’ That is obvious because there is not one single mention of the IHRA on Liberty’s website.

At a time when right-wing Labour Councils are adopting the IHRA, in consort with Tory councillors, with the specific intention of curtailing the rights of Palestine solidarity supporters, Liberty under its present leadership chooses to ignore its own policy and do nothing.

As if to emphasise her own disagreement with the policy Percival writes that

‘it’s often the case that members (and even sometimes our staff!) disagree with some of the organisation’s positions but remain engaged in an overall common purpose, and even work from within the organisation to change it.

Whilst no one expects staff to agree with every resolution, it is nonetheless their duty to give implement policy passed. The IHRA is being pushed hard by the present Conservative government, a government which is aligned in the European Parliament with far-Right anti-Semitic parties.  The IHRA is being used on campuses to prevent or seriously hinder Palestine solidarity campaigns.

Even the principal author of the IHRA or the Working Definition of Anti-Semitism, the American Jewish Committee’s Kenneth Stern has acknowledged that the IHRA is being used in ways that were never intended, as a means of chilling free speech. In testimony to the House of Representatives in November 2017, he warned that:

The definition was not drafted, and was never intended, as a tool to target or chill speech on a college campus. In fact, at a conference in 2010 about the impact of the definition, I highlighted this misuse, and the damage it could do.

Stern spoke about how the IHRA was ‘was being employed in an attempt to restrict academic freedom and punish political speech’. One could argue that Stern was being hypocritical since the IHRA’s whole purpose was to render anti-Zionist criticism as  antisemitic.

Stern described how Zionist pressure groups in the US ‘argued that even if  the [court] cases lost, they had what seemed to them a positive benefit – they  chilled pro -Palestinian  expression.’ Stern asked a question particularly relevant to the current debate. 

‘Imagine a definition designed for Palestinians. If  “Denying the Jewish people their right to self- determination, and denying Israel the right to exist” is antisemitism, then shouldn’t “Denying  the Palestinian people their right to self- determination,  and denying Palestine the right to exist”  be anti -Palestinianism?’

Stern described how the IHRA had been used to curtail free speech in Britain, listing the “Israel Apartheid Week” event which was cancelled by Central Lancashire University and the case of the Holocaust survivor who was required to change the title of  a campus talk by Manchester university after an Israeli diplomat complained that the title violated the definition.’  Stern described as ‘Perhaps most egregious’ of all the call on a university to conduct an inquiry of  a professor for ‘antisemitism’, based on an article she had written years before. Accurately describing what had happened as ‘chilling and McCarthy -like.’

As Jewish student Joanna Phillips wrote in Jewish News/Times of Israel ‘Jewish students deserve a better definition of anti-Semitism’

Kenneth Stern … went as far as to write to the US House of Representatives urging them not to adopt this definition for American campuses. Jewish students need a tailored definition, written with the realities of modern universities in mind, not one designed for researchers.

Stern was prompted to write his letter after seeing the waves of censorship the definition unleashed within American campuses. The IHRA definition fails to properly distinguish between legitimate criticism of Israel and hatred of Jews disguised as anti-Zionism.

It would seem that Olivia Percival and Martha Spurrier, to whom I have written, also have difficulty distinguishing between anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel and Zionism. If Percival and Spurrier refuse to implement Liberty policy on the IHRA then they have no alternative but to resign.  Freedom of speech on university campuses and on Palestine is not a peripheral issue.

Below is my letter to Ms Percival and the policy that Liberty has adopted.

Tony Greenstein

Letter of Reply to Olivia Percival

Dear Olivia,

Thank you for your email of 2^nd October concerning the decision of the Liberty AGM to oppose the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism. I am surprised that you sent this from a ‘noreply’ email address. That is what my broadband supplier does. It indicates that you don’t wish to enter into dialogue on this subject. I have therefore dug out an email address for your Director and may post this more widely given your reluctance to be more open.

I am extremely disappointed by your response, which is almost apologetic for the fact that the motion was passed. Why else would you emphasise that members ‘and even sometimes our staff! disagree with some of the organisation’s positions’.  This strongly suggests that you intend to do your best to ignore the motion and do nothing about it. It also suggests that you disagree with the policy.

What is the purpose of passing policy at Liberty’s AGM if you and the staff immediately disregard it? The IHRA has already been used in this country to prevent an Israeli Apartheid Week at the University of Central Lancashire, to prevent Professor Richard Falk speaking on campuses and to impose restrictions on other pro-Palestinian events. Even the person who drafted the IHRA, Kenneth Stern, in testimony to the House of Representatives last November warned that:

‘The definition was not drafted, and was never intended, as a tool to target or chill speech on a college campus. In fact, at a conference in 2010 about the impact of the definition, I highlighted this misuse, and the damage it could do.’

I find particularly surprising your point that Liberty ‘both fervently supports free speech and fervently opposes anti-Semitism’ as if opposition to the IHRA means support for anti-Semitism. Viktor Orban, Hungary’s anti-Semitic Prime Minister certainly doesn’t share this position as his government fully supports the IHRA whilst lauding its war-time pro-Nazi ruler Admiral Horthy. You clearly do not understand why many people oppose both the IHRA and oppose racism and anti-Semitism.

Of the 8, yes 8, governments that have fully adopted the definition, (Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Lithuania, Austria) 5 possess far-Right governments and one, Austria has a neo-Nazi party Heinz Christian Strache’s Freedom Party as the junior coalition partner.

You speak about the ‘intersection’ of free speech and opposition to anti-Semitism with talk about the ‘boundaries of free speech.’ You seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that opposition to the IHRA has something to do with free speech for anti-Semites or racists.  Let me disabuse you of this fact.

The IHRA ‘definition’ of anti-Semitism has nothing to do with opposing anti-Semitism and everything to do with conflating opposition to Zionism and support for the Palestinians with anti-Semitism. The IHRA is about defining critics of Israeli Apartheid as anti-Semitic. The demolition of Arab villages to make way for Jewish settlements and towns is inherent in what a Jewish State means.  According to the IHRA to make this point is anti-Semitic and you appear to go along with this nonsense. 

I find it disappointing that you haven’t grasped this elementary fact. Clearly you haven’t acquainted yourself with recent debates around the IHRA. Perhaps I can apprise you of them?

Professor David Feldman, who was Vice-Chair of the Chakrabarti Inquiry and  is Director of the Pears Institute for the Study of Anti-Semitism described the IHRA definition as‘bewilderingly imprecise.’ with its talk of anti-Semitism being a ‘certain perception which might be expressed as anti-Semitism’. 

Sir Stephen Sedley, who was a Judge in the Court of Appeal, besides being Jewish, wrote, in Defining Anti-Semitism that the IHRA‘fails the first test of any definition: it is indefinite.’ In what is the most concise critique of the IHRA yet, Sedley took it apart for its deliberate attempt to prevent any systematic critique of the Israeli state and Zionism.

Hugh Tomlinson QC in an Opinion declared, as did other lawyers, that the IHRA had a ‘potential chilling effect on public bodies which, in the absence of definitional clarity, may seek to sanction or prohibit any conduct which has been labelled by third parties as antisemitic without applying any clear criterion of assessment.’

Geoffrey Robertson QC, who is a renowned human rights lawyer likewise described the IHRA as likely to chill criticism of action by the Government of Israel and advocacy of sanctions as a means to deter human rights abuses in Gaza and elsewhere. Robertson described the IHRA as ‘not fit for purpose’

Interestingly Robertson also finds, along with Sedley, that when it comes to genuine anti-Semitism, the IHRA actually raises the bar because ‘By pivoting upon racial hatred ... it fails to catch those who exhibit hostility and prejudice – or apply discrimination – against Jewish people for no reason other than that they are Jewish.’

There is a very simple definition of anti-Semitism the Oxford English Dictionary definition: ‘Hostility to or prejudice against Jews’ which catches attitudes that fall short of hatred. For example someone who says that he doesn’t hate Jews but he doesn’t want to live next to them or have his daughter marry a Jew is not, by the IHRA definition, anti-Semitic. 

I hope you and Liberty’s officials will revisit your obvious reluctance to embrace the decision of Liberty’s AGM. I realize that the IHRA is the consensus position of the British Establishment and that Liberty has traditionally seen itself as the liberal wing of that Establishment. However the IHRA is also a definition of anti-Semitism that anti-Semites such as the Polish and Hungarian governments feel comfortable with.  I should add that traditionally the British Establishment combined both pro-Zionism and anti-Semitism.

The IHRA is being used and has already been used in this country to close down debate on Palestine.  It has nothing to do with anti-Semitism. If free speech is not a concern of Liberty then what is the purpose of the organisation?

I look forward to your responding a tad quicker than the 6 months it took from my last post to you.

Yours sincerely,

Tony Greenstein 

Letter to Shami Chakrabarti – Anger is not a substitute for ignorance

Helping the Noble Baroness understand the Connection between Labour Friends of Israel’s support for War Crimes in Gaza and its advocacy of Livingstone’s expulsion  

A few days ago I did a post The Mask of Deceit Slips from the Face of Chakrabarti as She Supports Livingstone’s Expulsion. Naturally I sent a copy to the noble Baroness.  Unfortunately it would seem that good manners amongst noble members of the Upper House are not what they were as I haven’t yet received a reply. Or perhaps these life peers simply don't have the breeding of their hereditary colleagues.

Alternatively Shami Chakrabarti may have felt she had nothing to say . This too would not be too surprising since in her vacuous and fake angry interview (after all she had nothing to be angry about) what she did have to say was completely wrong.

Labour's lightweight Shadow Attorney General attacks the very civil liberties she once defended

This new member of Labour's legal establishment travels with very little ideological baggage, still less any commitment to socialism.  It is noticeable that she has not been able to generate any similar emotions when it came to the cold and calculated gunning down of unarmed civilians, including children, medics and journalists in Gaza by Israeli snipers positioned behind earthworks for the task.  

Despite Chakrabarti's previous record on civil liberties it would seem that they don't extend beyond the borders of Britain.  International solidarity is not a concept with which the noble Baroness is familiar.  Clearly the 'antisemitism' of words is more important than live bullets and pulverised bones.

I thought I should share my letter with you my dear reader as Shami Chakrabarti is one more addition to the travelling Right show who use ‘anti-Semitism’ in order to disguise not only their direction of travel politically but their own political shallowness.

Tony Greenstein

Dear Ms Chakrabarti,

You may recall that, as a Jewish member of the Labour Party who was suspended, because of the false anti-semitism campaign, I gave evidence to you as part of your Inquiry into racism and anti-semitism.

I am extremely disappointed that on BBC’s Sunday Politics show you saw fit to make an unwarranted attack on Ken Livingstone.  You described his opinion on Nazi support for the Zionist movement as 'incendiary'.  Perhaps but it was also true. Maybe you found it incendiary because you didn't understand it?

Your assertion that Ken's opinions were an attack on German Jews simply demonstrates your own ignorance. The German Zionist movement represented less than 5% of German Jews.  It was a political movement which openly sought to collaborate with the Nazis and to suggest that people should keep quiet about that now is to advocate political censorship. It is but a short step from that to book burning.

Ken Livingstone’s expulsion has been a high priority for both Labour Friends of Israel and the Jewish Labour Movement, both of whom assert that Ken was being anti-Semitic.  This is the same LFI who, only this week, justified the murder of over 60 unarmed Palestinians in Gaza including an 8 month old baby who exercised the right to demonstrate.

I do not remember you generating any synthetic anger over this on television.  Perhaps, as Aneurin Bevan once said, it's all a question of political priorities.

It is clear that you know nothing about Zionism and its sordid, bloody history.  Could I suggest that when you have nothing to say it is a good idea to say nothing? Verbal flatulence is not attractive.

Zionism is a movement which relegates the non-Jew and Palestinians in particular to the status of the untermenschen or in Zionism's racial hierarchy the lower races.  It finds its expression in the Apartheid structure of today’s Israeli state.

If you care to obtain a copy of Lucy Dawidowicz's Holocaust Reader (pp. 150-153) from Parliament's library (which I understand is very good) you will read a letter to Hitler from the German Zionist Federation of 21 June 1933.  It reads:

… an answer to the Jewish question truly satisfying to the national state can be brought about only with the collaboration of the Jewish movement that aims at a social, cultural and moral renewal of Jewry…On the foundation of the new state, which has established the principle of race... fruitful activity for the fatherland is possible.... Our acknowledgement of Jewish nationality provides for a clear and sincere relationship to the German people and its national and racial realities. Precisely because we don’t wish to falsify these fundamentals, because we too are against mixed marriages and are for maintaining the purity of the Jewish group… The realisation of Zionism could only be hurt by resentment of Jews abroad against the German development. (my emphasis)

The late Lucy Dawidowicz was a Zionist Holocaust historian. The letter above was the basis for collaboration between Zionism and Nazism. 

The suggestion that Ken Livingstone's remarks were an attack on all Jews presupposes that Jews and Zionists are both the same.  If you believe that then you are no different from those anti-semites who also maintain that there is no difference.

There is a history of former Directors and senior officers of Liberty (NCCL) veering to the illiberal right when they have left office. Patricia Hewitt and Harriet Harman are but two examples. In supporting the expulsion of Ken Livingstone for having expressed his opinions about Zionism you would appear to be following in their footsteps.

It is noticeable that you have had nothing to say about the real racism scandal in recent months, that of Windrush.  Unlike you Ken Livingstone has a proud and active record in fighting racism.  Your suggestion that the truth can be anti-Semitic is absurd.

It is your support of Zionism, the ideology of Israeli Apartheid which is, if anything, incompatible with a party that calls itself socialist.  The real question though is whether you even consider yourself a socialist?

Tony Greenstein

The Mask of Deceit Slips from the Face of Chakrabarti as She Supports Livingstone’s Expulsion

Chakrabarti Demonstrates the flaws in her Report as she capitulates to Zionist Apartheid

When the Chakrabarti Inquiry was first set up I was extremely sceptical as to the outcome.  I wrote that Chakrabarti will be a rubber stamp for the Zionist Labour Movement & Progress.  After having given evidence to the Inquiry, as the only Jewish person suspended for ‘anti-Semitism’, I was to some degree reassured. 

Zionist Royall, as I termed Lady Jan Royall, the author of the Report into the fake anti-Semitism allegations at Oxford University Labour Club, who had clearly written her report before she even set foot in Oxford would not, as one of the wing members of the Chakrabarti Inquiry, have any say in the final Report. She would simply be there to advise. Chakrabarti had emphasized to me that the Report was hers and hers alone.  #

In what was an astounding remark on the Jewish Labour Movement site, Royall stated that

‘I know that you will share my disappointment and frustration that the main headline coming out of my inquiry is that there is no institutional Antisemitism in Oxford University Labour Club.’ 

The Chair of the Labour Club, Alex Chalmers had resigned claiming it was a cesspit of anti-Semitism.  His reason for resigning was that the club had endorsed Israeli Apartheid Week.  Chalmers soon left the Labour Party altogether, having been exposed as a former intern for BICOM, the disgusting Israeli propaganda unit that Luciana Berger headed. Asa Winstanley’s How Israel lobby manufactured UK Labour Party’s anti-Semitism crisis described the origins of Labour’s media manufactured anti-Semitism affair.

On the day when I gave my evidence Chakrabarti had such a stinking cold that I wasn’t sure how much she took in. Naomi Wimborne-Iddrissi from Free Speech on Israel accompanied me. Yet I remembered that she asked me about the publicity and press leaks that had accompanied my suspension and sure enough her condemnation of leaks by the Compliance Unit figured prominently in the Report. 

Nonetheless, almost uniquely on the left, I was not overwhelmed by the Chakrabarti Report.  Like many others I was pleased at her recommendations over the disciplinary process and her emphasis on due process and natural justice.  I was also happy at the way she dealt with the attempt of the Jewish Labour Movement and the Zionists to distort the recommendations of the MacPherson Report into Stephen Lawrence, which had proposed that where someone complained of a racial attack it was the Police’s duty to record the attack as a racial incident. 

The Zionists, who had never once been part of the Stephen Lawrence campaign used this recommendation to say that when someone said they had been the victim of a racial incident they were to be believed without further question or investigation. The subjective viewpoint of the ‘victim’ was all that was necessary. 

So according to this ‘logic’ where a woman complains of rape the man is automatically guilty.  Where someone complains of being the victim of a racial attack they are to be believed automatically.  Court hearings, cross-examination and evidence would become redundant.  Such a system sounds more like Israel’s policy of ‘administrative detention’ or internment without trial.  Suffice to say, any manner of racists, Zionists especially, could claim to be the ‘victim’.  Chakrabarti dispensed with this nonsense quite thoroughly.

Yet I was not happy with the sections on Zionism and racism. My blog post Chakrabarti – A Missed Opportunity to Develop an Anti-Racist Policy for Labour did not prove popular.  I can remember giving a talk on the Chakrabarti Report to the London Communist Forum and Professor Jonathan Rosenhead of the LSE and FSOI came along to critique my contribution. As did others.  In some ways this led to a parting of the ways politically with FSOI. Yes Chakrabarti’s Report had been good in some areas but its belief that Zionism was merely a rich strand of Jewish identity and its belief that comparisons between Zionism and Nazism were ‘incendiary’ and its description of the term ‘zio’ as racist I believed were fundamentally mistaken. Chakrabarti had no concept or understanding of what Zionism meant.

At the Chakrabarti press conference Marc Wadsworth was the subject of a vicious attack by Ruth Smeeth MP who falsely claimed she had been been subject to an antisemitic attack - Chakrabarti  apologised to Smeeth without ever speaking to Marc

I also said that Chakrabarti was no radical.  She has always been a conservative defender of civil liberties. She is a former Director of Liberty (formerly the National Council for Civil Liberties) which has a record of people like Harriet Harman, Patricia Hewitt and others jack knifing to the illiberal right.  Chakrabarti seemed no different.

Her appearance on the BBC’s Sunday Politics show has proven me correct. Chakrabarti launched into a vicious attack on Ken Livingstone. Ken had learnt nothing from his behaviour.  He had been given a very lenient sentence and had then repeated the same ‘offence’.  He had brought the Labour Party into disrepute.  His mentioning of Zionist collaboration with the Nazis was an attack on all those Jews trying to escape Germany and so she went on.

What Chakrabarti revealed is that she is a petty minded, illiberal ignoramus who knows nothing about Zionism, the Jewish supremacist ideology of the Israeli state. Perhaps this gullible fool might take to heart the lessons of the past few days when Israel has murdered 60 Palestinians for the crime of trying to cross the fence that separates the concentration camp of Gaza from the Israeli state.  A fence that divides a land of plenty from a land of hunger, dirty water, poverty and no electricity or medicine.  Over 2,000 people were injured and many of them will die in the next few days and weeks because the health facilities of Gaza are overwhelmed, they don’t have the medicines and the ordinance that the Israeli troops use are explosive bullets deliberately designed to cripple and maim for life.

Despite this no less than 83% of Israelis support this gunning down of unarmed Palestinians.  Every survey of Israeli Jewish opinion shows that a majority of Israelis are deeply racist in not wanting to live next to Arabs, wanting their physical expulsion from Israel and a large majority even wanting to deprive them of the vote.

The main fear of Israelis is not ‘terrorism’, because these are unarmed civilians but the nightmare that refugees who were expelled from Israel in 1948 are seeking to Return.  This naked and raw racism is an integral part of Zionism.  Zionism isn’t some cuddly form of identity politics it is the belief that Jews have superior rights over non-Jews.  It means a permanent Jewish majority in Israel and state policies aimed at ensuring that as few Palestinians or non-Jews live in the country. It is also Zionism which dictates that the 40,000 Black African refugees in Israel have to leave. They are a threat to the Jewish racial majority. 

What Livingstone said was simply a matter of fact.  It is incontestable that the Nazis supported Zionism in Germany. It has nothing to do with an attack on Germany’s Jews not least because Zionism represented 5% at most of German Jews before the advent of Hitler. Many Zionists welcomed the rise of the Nazis to power because they saw it as a golden opportunity to prosper.  For years the Zionist movement alone in Germany had propagated the belief that Jews were a separate people who did not belong in Germany at all.  They were an alien people.  As Noah Lucas, a Zionist historian wrote:

 ‘As the European Holocaust erupted, Ben Gurion saw it as a decisive opportunity for Zionism... Ben Gurion above all others sensed the tremendous possibilities inherent in the dynamic of the chaos and carnage in Europe... In conditions of peace,… Zionism could not move the masses of world Jewry. The forces unleashed by Hitler in all their horror must be harnessed to the advantage of Zionism. ... By the end of 1942… the struggle for a Jewish state became the primary concern of the movement.’ [Lucas, The Modern History of Israel pp.187/8].

This is not even controversial.  Other Zionist historians – Saul Friedlander, Shabtai Teveth, David Cesarani – also come to the same conclusion. Of course this is embarrassing to Zionism’s merchants of false ‘anti-Semitism’. How can they accuse others of anti-Semitism if they themselves subscribe to a movement which is a Jewish version of anti-Semitism?  Hence the cries and the squawks of Zionism’s apologists.

What Chakrabarti is really saying is that because Livingstone insists on expressing his viewpoint, even though he is right, he has to be expelled.  Like the illiberal tyke that she is, Chakrabarti doesn’t attack Livingstone’s views instead she attacks his right to express them.  Hence why she frames her criticism in terms of ‘bringing the party into disrepute’ the standard McCarthyist charge of those who wish to demonise someone whilst avoiding challenging their argument. Chakrabarti talks about a ‘lenient’ sentence, because Livingstone was not expelled the first time round for speaking his mind thus assuming that there has been any offence committed.

Let us remember that this hypocrite was Director of a group allegedly dedicated to protecting peoples’ civil liberties.  Here she is directly attacking someone’s right to express their views about a matter of history without being penalized. Instead of repeating what he said Ken should have shut up.  This is no academic matter. I am defending Stan Keable who is in danger of losing his job at Hammersmith & Fulham Council because he dared to express his view that the Nazis and the Zionists collaborated.

Instead of defending the right to freedom of speech within the Labour Party Chakrabarti talks about Livingstone’s ‘offence’ as if criticising Zionism’s record during the Holocaust is some kind of thought crime.

This pathetic little echo of dictators past went on to say that it would be ‘very difficult for any rational decision maker’ to allow Ken to stay in the Labour Party. Of course this execrable woman has no problem in allowing the defenders of Israel’s shoot to kill policy in Gaza, the stalwarts of Labour Friends of Israel such as Joan Ryan MP, to remain in the Labour Party. Chakrabarti has no problem with Louise Ellman and her defence of the imprisonment, torture and sexual abuse of Palestinian children to  remain in the party because, like Chuka Ummuna Chakrabarti too has nothing to say about the politics of race.  She too is an accepted part of the White establishment, Black outside White inside.  There have been no expressions of support for either Marc Wadsworth or Jackie Walker.  Support for Israel is a sine qua non of being accepted in the British Establishment.

In her final flourish this establishment muppet talks of ‘incendiary’ remarks.  Presumably anything which upsets the supporters of Apartheid Israel is incendiary i.e. controversial.  As for equating Jews with the Nazis Chakrabarti merely demonstrates her own ignorance of what Zionism is.  Livingstone criticised the Zionist movement not the Jewish victims of Nazism.  The fact that she doesn’t understand this is a good reason why she should shut up and learn something about the period in question.  Instead this police state democrat calls for the expulsion of Livingstone for daring to dissent.

Tony Greenstein

Jewish Labour Movement’s Rule Change is Gutted

Zionist attempt to make support for the Palestinians an expulsion offence fails

The first allegations of 'anti-Semitism' were made against Corbyn himself and the Guardian joined in with the Mail and Express

Ever since Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader of the Labour Party, Netanyahu’s friends in the Jewish Labour Movement and Labour Friends of Israel have waged a false anti-Semitism campaign, whose purpose was to create the impression that anti-Semitism is rife within the Labour Party. 

Jonathan Freedland, the Guardian’s house Zionist, led the way with articles such as Labour and the left have an antisemitism problem. Despite the BBC, Daily Mail and Guardian singing from the same hymn sheet, no evidence of anti-Semitism has ever been produced. What was remarkable about this furore about 'anti-Semitism' in the Labour Party was a complete lack of concern about State Racism, Islamaphobia and racism against Black people.  Racism against a privileged white minority was seen as more important than Black deaths in custody, hostility to asylum seekers and violent attacks against Muslims and mosques.  

Jean Fitzpatrick was fitted up by anti-Corbyn MP, Joan Ryan, as an anti-Semite.  The allegation was later shown to be without merit

This more than anything demonstrated the contrived nature of this campaign.  It was about Israel not Jews.  In the third of the Al Jazeera undercover programmes ‘The Lobby’, the Chair of Labour Friends of Israel, Joan Ryan MP was filmed manufacturing a false allegation of anti-Semitism against Jean Fitzpatrick, a Labour Party conference delegate.

Joan Ryan campaigned in the General Election as an anti-Corbyn candidate who stated that 'people have more confidence in Theresa May than Jeremy Corbyn'

Ms Fitzpatrick had gone to the LFI stall and asked a question about their apparent support for a 2 States Solution.  What about the Occupation and the Settlements she asked?  She soon found out that ‘2 States’ was a slogan designed to cover up continuing colonisation.  LFI and JLM have never opposed the Occupation or the Settlements.  

The JLM’s real aim has been to criminalise support for the Palestinians and opposition to Zionism, an ideology of racial supremacy.  It is hard to defend jailing and torture of children as young as 12 and , the administrative detention of Palestinians without charge or trial for 6 months at a time, the demolition of EU funded schools and clinics, homes and facilities.  It is much easier to attack Israel’s critics as 'anti-Semitic' than to defend the practices of the Israeli state.

Jeremy Newmark is seen in between Israel agent Shai Masot, who was forced to leave Britain earlier this year, and Israeli Ambassador Mark Regev, second from right.

Prominent in this campaign has been the Chair of the JLM, Jeremy Newmark, an Israeli state agent and propagandist.  Newmark was accused of perjury in an Employment Tribunal case Fraser v University College Union. A Zionist academic Ronald Fraser had argued that the UCU, by supporting the academic boycott of Israel, was anti-Semitic.  He reasoned that support for Israel was an integral part of Jewish identity and therefore opposition to Israel was an attack on Jews i.e. anti-Semitic.

By the same ‘logic’ criticism of Apartheid in South Africa was anti-White racism.  By this criteria, criticism of Burma could be considered anti-Burmese racism. The threat to free speech is obvious but Zionism has consistently sought to close down free speech for anti-Zionists and in Israel even Palestinian poets are imprisoned.  

Jeremy Newmark - The JLM's perjurer in chief

The Employment Tribunal ‘rejected as untrue the evidence of Ms Ashworth and Mr Newmark’.  It described his evidence of the harassment of Jewish speakers as ‘false’ and described his claim that he was treated as a ‘pushy Jew’ as ‘preposterous’.

In ‘The Lobby’, which broadcast last January Newmark was filmed working hand in glove with Israeli Ambassador Mark Regev, a man whose previous role had been, as Netanyahu’s PR representative, to justify the murder of 2,200 Palestinians in Gaza in 2014, including over 500 children. [The real question is why Panorama, Channel 4 and the Guardian didn’t Investigate the Israeli Embassy's Political Destabilisation]

The JLM proposed a rule change last year which would outlaw ‘anti-Semitism’.  Its purpose was made blindingly clear by the ‘Supporting argument and rationale’ which stated that ‘This rule change would recognise that it is not acceptable to use Zionism as a term of abuse or to substitute the word Zionist for where the word Jew has been commonly used...’

The Genesis of a False Allegation of Anti-Semitism Courtesy of Joan Ryan MP

The JLM decries the very thing it is proposing! What has Zionism to do with anti-Semitism? Nothing unless one considers Jews and Zionists are the same. The reality is that those who confuse Jews and Zionists are the same people who regularly state that anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism is one and the same thing.  The Israeli state calls itself a ‘Jewish’ state.  As for not using Zionism as a term of abuse, well Zionism is very abusive. 

Extract from Shami Chakrabarti's Report on Racism

The heart of the JLM’s proposed Rule Change was its attempt to use the Report of the MacPherson Inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence in order to make anti-Zionism an expulsion offence.  The JLM defined a ‘hate incident’ as ‘something where the victim or anyone else think it was motivated by hostility or prejudice’.  If the JLM had had their way then anyone who claimed that criticism of Israel or Zionism was anti-Semitic could say they were a victim of anti-Semitism. Racists would be turned into ‘victims’. What MacPherson actually proposed was that where someone alleged that they had been the victims of a racial attack the Police must record it as such. What was not proposed was an allegation of racism was to be proof of guilt.

Darren Williams Report of last week's NEC

It is clear from reports of Labour’s National Executive meeting last week that the JLM’s attempt to make anti-Zionism an expulsion offence has been rejected.  What has taken place since is a battle of spin.  According to NEC member Darren Williams, a rule change was approved ‘that avoided the more draconian approach favoured by the Jewish Labour Movement’.  Williams, like most NEC members, has a limited grasp of what the JLM were trying to do.  It had nothing to do with being draconian and everything to do with an attempt to outlaw criticism of Israel and Zionism.

Jeremy Newmark claims a victory despite the JLM Rule Change having been gutted

The Zionists have since been trying to dress up their defeat as a victory.  Ella Rose, the JLM’s Director, a free transfer from the Israeli Embassy, posted a press release: ‘We are heartened that the NEC has adopted our rule change.’  The Jewish Chronicle Report Labour executive gives backing to new measures on antisemitism talked up the JLM’s ‘victory’.    Newmark claimed that “These constitutional amendments, if passed, will simply bring Labour’s rules to the place that should have been expected from a political party rooted in values of equality and anti-racism.’

Jessica Elgot of the Guardian (& former JC journalist) was part of the Zionist spin operation

The Guardian’s Jessica Elgot (who didn’t reveal that she was formerly a senior journalist on the Jewish Chronicle) was part of the same operation.  She wrote an article which was little more than a JLM press release. Jeremy Corbyn will back change to allow tough line on antisemitism.

There is something sickening in the JLM, an affiliate of the World Zionist Organisation, which believes that world Jewry owes allegiance to the State of Israel, talking about combating racism.  It is an organisation which funds Jewish settlements and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.

The Israeli state defines itself as the State of all Jews, including those who live outside Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu has often stated that he is the Prime Minister of all Jewish people, not merely those living in Israel. The Director-General of  the Prime Minister’s Office, Eli Groner described Netanyahu as “by design, the leader of the Jewish world.”  Is it any wonder that some people associate Jews with the actions of the Israeli state?

The JLM speaks of the openly racist Israeli Labour Party, a party of ethnic cleansing, as ‘our sister party’.  For the Jewish Labour Movement to talk about racism is akin to the Yorkshire Ripper lecturing people about violence against women.  It says something of the retreat that Corbyn has made since he was elected that the JLM was even given the time of day.  There is little excuse for Corbyn’s behaviour.  In his 30+ years working with the Palestine solidarity movement he was repeatedly criticised as anti-Semitic and when he first stood as Labour leader he was attacked as being an associate of Paul Eisen, a holocaust denier. See e.g. Jeremy Corbyn's 10-year association with group which denies the Holocaust

For all the huffing and puffing, the JLM have suffered a severe reverse.  There is no sympathy in Labour’s ranks for their preposterous false ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign.  No one in the Labour Party seriously believes that there is an anti-Semitism problem.  It is a hyped up campaign perpetrated by the Tory media and the BBC.  With the excellent result of Labour in the General Election, the JLM's false anti-Semitism campaign has been sidelined.  It has been demonstrated to have no effect on Labour's voters.

Skwawkbox version of proposals before NEC - the proposal on the right was carried

According to Ann Black, a right-wing member of Labour’s NEC the following proposal was agreed:

No member of the Party shall engage in conduct which in the opinion of the NEC is prejudicial, or in any act which in the opinion of the NEC is grossly detrimental to the Party. The NEC shall take account of any codes of conduct currently in force and shall regard any incident which in their view was motivated by hostility or prejudice based on age; disability; gender reassignment; marriage and civil partnership; pregnancy and maternity; race; religion or belief; sex; or sexual orientation as conduct prejudicial to the Party. ... The NCC shall not have regard to the mere holding or expression of beliefs and opinions.

According to Skwawkbox, Black is wrong.  The phrase ‘was motivated by’ was removed.  It has been replaced by ‘which in their view might be reasonably seen to demonstrate hostility or prejudice based on age...’.  It is unfortunate because the key thing about racism is indeed the intent or motivation of the accused.  It makes it easier to bring disciplinary charges.  The previous rule, which allowed for ‘the mere holding or expression of beliefs and opinions’ has had added to it, the words ‘except in any instance inconsistent with the Party’s aim and values, agreed codes of conduct or involving any prejudice towards any protected characteristic.’  It has the fingerprints of Shami Chakrabarti all over it as it uses the objective test of reasonableness.  However this is a far cry from the attempt to frame people for racism when they are clearly not.

Despite their bluster and spin, it is clear that the JLM has suffered a serious defeat. Their attempt to close down debate in the Labour Party about Palestine, using ‘anti-Semitism’ as the excuse, has been rebuffed.  Articles in The Canary and Skwawkbox plus the willingness of people like Chris Williamson MP to speak out turned the tide against the JLM.  What they are engaged in is face saving.  What they wanted was the automatic expulsion of anti-Zionists on the say so of Zionists who posed as ‘victims’.  

Jewish Labour Movement Original Proposed Rule Change

Add an additional sentence after the first sentence:

‘A member of the Party who uses antisemitic, Islamophobic, racist language, sentiments, stereotypes or actions in public, private, online or offline, as determined by the NEC, shall be deemed to have engaged in conduct prejudicial to the Party.’

Add at the end of the final sentence after “opinions”:

…” except in instances involving antisemitism, Islamophobia or racism”

Insert new paragraph E:

“Where a member is responsible for a hate incident, being defined as something where the victim or anyone else think it was motivated by hostility or prejudice based on disability, race, religion, transgender identity, or sexual orientation, the NEC may have the right to impose the appropriate disciplinary options from the following options: [same as D]”

see Did the Jewish Labour Movement get its way over Labour Party rule changes?