EXCLUSIVE: Bristol University Hearing into David Miller’s Right To Freedom of Speech Will Take Place Next Week as the Zionist Campaign to Dismiss Him Intensifies

Part 1: The Union of Jewish Students is not a Cuddly Group of Fragile Jewish Students – it is the Israeli State on Campus – Dedicated to Defaming Opponents of Israeli Apartheid

Part 2 will look at UJS's record of attacking Jewish anti-Zionists and dissident Jews

At approx 4.21 a Zionist student Adam Schapira explains how UJS is funded by Israeli Embassy

I have just learnt from a member of management at Bristol University,  who has to remain anonymous, unhappy about the pressure being exerted on the university to dismiss Professor Miller, that the hearing will be next week.

This is the BOD real agenda

The campaign to dismiss David Miller has been a combined campaign of the British Establishment, led by the Union of Jewish Students. Their supporters include the Board of Deputies, the Community Security Trust, over 100 MPs and peers, the All Parliamentary Group Against Anti-Semitism and of course the lie sheet that goes by the name of the Jewish Chronicle.

David Miller 

Extreme Pressure to Dismiss David Miller

The campaign to have David Miller dismissed for calling for an end to Zionism, a racist political ideology and his criticism of the Union of Jewish Students, has been in full flow ever since February when David spoke at a meeting of the Labour Campaign for Free Speech. Since then there has been a Zionist tsunami washing over Bristol University. It has been led by the Union of Jewish Students which, as Al Jazeera’s The Lobby revealed in January 2017, is funded by the Israeli Embassy.

Demonstration at Bristol University Earlier This Year

At the same time David Miller has been gagged by the university, unable to speak out in his own defence, to rebut the lies and half-truths peddled by his opponents.

What will it take for Bristol to sack this lecturer? wrote Sabrina Miller in the Jewish Chronicle of 4 March. ‘Jewish students do not feel safe from him yet the university refuses to dismiss David Miller.’ The idea that Jewish students are such snowflakes that anti-Zionist ideas make them run to mummy suggests that they belong in a kindergarten not a university.  In not standing up for David Miller, Bristol University has failed in its basic duty of care to David Miller. Vice Chancellor Hugh Brady should be ashamed of himself.

On the same day The Times reported that MPs and peers call on Bristol University to condemn academic in antisemitism row.

This campaign has continued incessantly since February. On August 12 the Jewish News reported ‘Outrage as Professor Miller set to teach ‘offensive’ module despite investigation’ and of course the ‘Union of Jewish Students accuses University of Bristol of ‘legitimising the targeted attacks he made towards Jewish students’.

The Zionist campaign is perfectly understandable because in Israel, if you are a Palestinian, then you are guilty until proven innocent as the appalling case of Mohammed el-Halabi ‘Has a lone Palestinian aid worker been falsely accused of the biggest aid money heist in history?’ demonstrates. Despite being cleared by two audits of stealing money for Hamas, he has been imprisoned by Israel for over 5 years. Israeli prosecutors offered him deals to leave prison if only he pleaded guilty.  This is the Zionist justice that UJS and the Jewish Chronicle want Bristol University adopt.

On 30 June Jewish News told how ‘100 days and counting: Uni ‘dragging feet’ over ‘pawns of Israel’ investigation’. David Miller said that Israel and UJS used Jewish students as pawns not that the students were pawns (although some of them clearly are).

Jewish News reported on 28 July that ‘Bristol Uni ‘refused to discuss’ David Miller probe in meeting with UJS and J-soc’.  How strange that an employer refuses to discuss employment matters with external bodies. Perhaps Jewish News will enlighten us as to what has happened to its former foreign editor Stephen Oryszczuk? See ‘Jewish News foreign editor takes leave after criticising paper's coverage of Labour anti-Semitism row     

    

The corrupt Communities Secretary ‘Robert Jenrick has criticised one of Britain's most prestigious universities, saying that its Jewish students feel "unsafe and unwelcome". How one might ask does he know?  Has he spoken to any? Or is he repeating the lies of the JC?

The Jewish Chronicle of 13 August reported how

‘the All Party Parliamentary Group on Antisemitism wrote to Bristol Vice Chancellor Hugh Brady, attacking the university’s “institutional failure… to tackle anti-Jewish racism”. 

In fact the APPGA, including scab ‘Labour’ MP Rosie Duffield has written 3 times to Bristol University to pile the pressure on. At the same time the government has taken steps to ensure that holocaust deniers can speak unchallenged at universities.

If you deny the extermination by the Nazis of millions of people, including 6 million Jews, then that is perfectly acceptable to these MPs.  But if you challenge the apartheid movement called Zionism and thereby challenge the basis of British foreign policy in the Middle East then you must be banned, sacked and vilified.

What did David Miller Say That Was So Offensive?

What was David’s crime? Calling for an end to Zionism as a functioning ideology. Can anyone imagine that a tenured professor at a British university would have been in danger of being dismissed for having called for an end to Apartheid 30 years ago? Yet these hypocrites dress it up as protection for Jewish students. It would have just as easy 30 years ago to say that opposition to Apartheid was a threat to racist white students.

This is not the first time a Bristol Academic has come under attack

In 2017 the Zionist ‘charity’ Campaign Against Anti-Semitism called for the dismissal of Jewish lecturer, Rachel Gould for having written an article ‘Beyond Anti-Semitism’ for Counterpunch. Fat lump Eric Pickles, former Tory Friends of Israel Chair termed it the worst example of Holocaust denial he had ever seen. Bristol Post reporter Michael Ribbeck observed that:

to claim, as Sir Eric Pickles has done, that Dr Gould's paper is "one of the worst cases of Holocaust denial" is quite frankly ridiculous and inflammatory.

Perhaps Sir Eric should read up on the discredited historian David Irving before he starts throwing around accusations and trite soundbites.

Kenneth Stern, the drafter of the IHRA misdefinition of anti-Semitism wrote, in testimony to the US Congress about this case that:

Perhaps most egregious, an off-campus group citing the definition called on a university to conduct an inquiry of a professor (who received her PhD from Columbia) for antisemitism, based on an article she had written years before. The university then conducted the inquiry. And while it ultimately found no basis to discipline the professor, the exercise
itself was chilling and McCarthy-like.

Chilling and McCarthy like. That is an excellent description of the campaign to dismiss David Miller.

Is this the 'abusive' message Isaacs claims was sent to him?

David Isaacs – Chair of Bristol J Soc and a Liar

The attack on David began on February 15 in the Jewish Chronicle with an article by Liar Lee Harpin, arrested for having hacked phones at the Daily Mirror. He got away with that and has been defaming people ever since. He has since transferred his affections to the Jewish News which, on 13 August reported that ‘David Miller campaign accuses Jewish students of ‘whitewashing colonialism’.

‘The president of the Jewish Society at the university, Edward Isaacs, has also said that he was personally targeted for abuse in the wake of the academic’s broadside against the J-Soc.’

It went on to state that

‘‘The Union of Jewish Students has repeatedly criticised Bristol University for failing to take action “to protect Jewish students, who have been singled out and targeted.” 

This allegation is a complete lie and an example of the dishonesty of the campaign. Was the ‘abuse’ that Isaacs complains of from me? If so it was in response to an attempt by Isaacs to join Labour Against the Witchhunt Facebook Group. As the moderator I messaged him, asking what his motives were. 

‘You have applied to join Labour Against the Witchhunt. Why? You are Chair of a J Soc, i.e. the UJS which is funded by the world’s only apartheid state.

Why should a Zionist want to join an anti-racist group?’ Isaacs was attempting to join the LAW group as a spy. If this is anti-Semitic abuse then I’m a pear tree!

A second UJS member, AJ Solomon also applied to join the group. Solomon was Deputy Chair of Bristol J Soc and clearly he and Isaacs were acting in concert to try and infiltrate LAW. Unlike Isaacs Solomon responded to my question and we engaged in a conversation.  But then a funny thing happened.

He first started off accusing me of being an anti-Semite, the usual trope but I batted it back and he began to flounder – badly. So what did he do?  He unsent his messages! The conversation is below.  Losing the argument Solomon retreated. Was he harassed? Well if posing difficult questions to a Zionist is harassment then I guess I’m bang to rights!

Another article in the Jewish Chronicle of 13 August, a classic piece piece of McCarthyism complained that

‘Prof Miller is to teach two modules in the coming academic year, one of which has previously been condemned by the Union of Jewish Students for containing “offensive” material, the ‘Support David Miller Campaign’ accused the UJS and Bristol JSoc of existing to “whitewash Zionist colonisation of Palestine” and “manufacturing hysteria”.

The Zionist press assumes that Bristol University administration are as stupid as its few remaining readers.  And they might be right unfortunately. The first ‘Object’ in UJS’s constitution reads:

2.11    Creating meaningful Jewish campus experiences and inspiring Jewish students to make an enduring commitment to their Jewish identity, Israel, and the community.’

Israel occupies the West Bank and allocates full democratic rights to Jewish settlers whilst granting no rights whatsoever to those of another ethnicity, Palestinians. This is a classic example of Apartheid. Two groups living in the same territory with different rights.

B’Tselem, Israel’s most respected human rights group said in a Report  in January that Israel is a ‘regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid.’

And in April Human Rights Watch drew the same conclusions in a 300 page report ‘A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution’. The examples are numerous - from ethnic cleansing in East Jerusalem to destruction of homes, water pipes and solar panels and the theft and confiscation of land.  All of which UJS defends in the name of Zionism.

This is just the West Bank.  In Israel itself the Palestinian minority is treated as a barely tolerated minority.  In May as Israel was attacking Gaza, there were widespread pogroms against Israel’s Arab citizens. This is what the attacks on David Miller by UJS are about. Both Isaacs and Solomon spent their summer vacation in Israel so they are fully aware of the pogroms and the ‘death to the Arabs’ March of the Flags in Jerusalem. They should bear in mind that ‘death to the Jews’ was the most popular slogan in Nazi Germany and Poland.

But what was it that David Miller said that caused such offence? Did he call for pogroms against Jewish students or threaten violence? Did he, like Bar Ilan Professor Mordechai Kedar who advocated the rape of Palestinian women, suggest raping Jewish women? To ask the question is to answer it.

Israel is a Jewish state, i.e. a state not of all its citizens but of its Jewish citizens. That is why it is inherently racist and that is why UJS seek to demonise anti-Zionist academics like Miller.

Below is a précis of what David actually said that the Union of Jewish Students and the Zionist claque found ‘offensive’.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=box7unWvr7E&t=5s

David Miller Addressing February 13 Meeting of LCFS

 ‘The enemy we face here is Zionism and the imperial policies of the Israeli state... an all out onslaught by the Israeli government on the left... it is how we defeat the ideology of Zionism in practice.  How do we ensure that Zionism is ended... how we end the material reality of the jackboot of Zionism on the neck of the Palestinians...

I’ve been attacked and complained about by the head of the Bristol J Soc along with the President of the Union of Jewish Students, both of which organisations are formally members of the Zionist movement. J-Socs are part of the UJS, UJS is a member of the World UJS which is a direct member of the World Zionist Organisation. In its constitution UJS mention being pro-Israel. [David mentions similar attacks on other academics at Warwick and other universities against anyone speaking out about the Palestinians or criticising Zionism]... We have to fight back against that and the way to do that is to organise proper debate.’

So for advocating a ‘fight back’ by organising a ‘proper debate’ David Miller is guilty of threatening the safety of Jewish students! This is Orwellian doublespeak where words take on the opposite of their actual meaning.

The Dishonest Attacks on David Miller

Of one thing we should be clear. UJS’s attack on David Miller has nothing to do with defending Jewish students – it’s about defending apartheid. As David’s campaign was reported saying:

“The UJS and Bristol JSoc have been manufacturing hysteria around Professor Miller’s work for over two years. This is due to his teaching about the role of parts of the Zionist movement in promoting Islamophobia and his expertise on the subject. Both the UJS and Bristol JSoc exist to whitewash Zionist colonisation of Palestine and promote Israeli diplomatic objectives in the UK. No serious observer should take the claims of ‘discomfort’ made by these pro-Israel campaigners at face value, and they should not be allowed to dictate policy to British universities.”

Watch the Defend Miller Rally on Facebook

Also Please Sign the

Petition Defend Professor David Miller - Defend Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom

Transcript of Exchange on Messenger with AJ Solomon – Vice Chair of Bristol J Soc

why do you want to join Labour Against the Witchhunt? To be blunt are you a Zionist? I note you are from the University of Bristol so we can if necessary check if you've been involved in the campaign against David Miller

28 Feb 2021, 02:28You sent

I asked you a question. You have not answered. You are a member of Bristol J-Soc  ie a racist and Zionist you are blocked. Goodbye

28 Feb 2021, 15:19

You sentI suggest instead of pretending that you and the other Zionist Jewish students at Bristol are victims, when you are in fact perpetrators, active supporters of Israel, that you become like the Shministim, the brave Israeli youth who refuse to serve in an occupation army https://www.facebook.com/refusersn/videos/652696338746821

28 Feb 2021, 17:19You sent

Yeah it must be very stressful supporting apartheid and having to face down anti-racists! https://tinyurl.com/yblgczbb

You sentEven more stressful having to deal with arguments you can't answer - it's called fake victimhood

28 Feb 2021, 22:59

AJhttps://www.adl.org/resources/tools-and-strategies/what-is-anti-israel-anti-semitic-anti-zionist

2 Mar 2021, 06:44

Is that the same ADL that spied for South Africa's secret police (BOSS) and trains US Police Forces in how to kill Black people better? Your as much a victim as Germany's 'Aryans' were in 1933! https://www.adl.org/who-we-are/our-organization/signature-programs/partnering-with-law-enforcement

2 Mar 2021, 10:24

AJJust deflecting from the fact that this clearly calls both you and David Miller an anti semite

2 Mar 2021, 19:12

You sent

Then that shows what a rubbish definition it is then. If you redefine anti-Semitism to mean opposition to Zionism then fine. We're all 'antisemitic' But at least I'm not a racist scumbag like you!

AJThe article does not say anti-Semitism is the opposite to Zionism, it says anti-Zionism may be motivated by or a result of anti-Semitism

What is anti-Semitic is saying all Jews such as myself is responsible for Israel’s actions

You sent

that is the position of the ADL. Anti-Zionism is never motivated by anti-Semitism. That's why the friends of Zionism are people like Trump, white supremacists like Tommy Robinson and Richard Spencer and leaders like Viktor Orban. You are wet behind the ears. You know nothing of Jewish or Zionist history. Polish Jews voted overwhelmingly for the anti-Zionist Bund in the last free elections. In Warsaw out of 20 Jewish Council seats the Bund won 17 and the Zionists precisely one

You sent

Yes it is anti-Semitic to say that all Jews are responsible for Israel's crimes but you need to take it up with Israel not me. Israel calls itself a Jewish state and specifically states that it is a state of the whole Jewish people (a nonsense in itself). It is Zionism which plays into the hands of anti-Semites which is why Zionism has historically formed alliances with anti-Semites. I suspect like most Zionists you know nothing about Zionism. Try reading Herzl's Jewish State where he talks about the 'power of the purse' of Jews. Or the social Darwinist writings of Arthur Ruppin, the second most important Palestinian Zionist after Ben Gurion who openly proclaimed he was an anti-Semite. Do you even know of the concept of the Negation of the Diaspora? When Zionism began most Jews accused it of being a Jewish version of anti-Semitism.

Jewish Chronicle Columnist Geoffrey Alderman Nails the Lie that Corbyn is an anti-Semite

The Goebbels/Pollard Technique of Repeating a Falsehood Does Not Make it True

Every week without fail there is another story in the Jewish Chronicle campaign to ‘prove’ that Jeremy Corbyn’s is anti-Semitic. Its editor, Stephen Pollard, is a former editor of the Daily Express and a member of the cold war Henry Jackson Society, a virulently Islamaphobic organisation whose Associate Director is the racist Douglas Murray.

Geoffrey Alderman is a right-wing eccentric and Zionist. He has been a columnist at the Jewish Chronicle since 2002. He is also an academic at the private University of Buckingham. He was rightly condemned when he wrote that ‘Few events... have caused me greater pleasure in recent weeks than news of the death of the Italian so-called "peace activist" Vittorio Arrigoni.’ Vittorio’ was a member of the International Solidarity Movement who was murdered in Gaza.

Geoffrey Alderman

He was once a member of the Board of Deputies but left to the sound of booing and hissing and was called a ‘communal gadfly’ a title that he has somewhat taken to heart since he has compiled an anthology of his writings based on this description.

Alderman’s primary claim to fame is as a Jewish historian. His book The Jewish Community in British Politics was the subject of a concerted effort by the Board of Deputies to persuade him to excise certain parts concerning racism in the Jewish community and in particular that nearly 2% of Hackney Jews had voted for the neo-Nazi National Front.

Above the Zionist Attack on the Labour Party 

When the Anti-Nazi League, a mass anti-fascist group, was created in 1977 to meet the challenge of a growing National Front, which had attracted over 100,000 votes in the GLC elections and large votes in local elections in cities such as Leicester and Bradford, the Board of Deputies attacked it, with what Maurice Ludmer, editor of Searchlight Anti-fascist Magazine described as

‘"all the fervour of Kamikaze pilots... It was as though they were watching a time capsule rerun of the 1930's, in the form of a flickering old movie, with a grim determination to repeat every mistake of that era.’ [Searchlight 41, November 1978]

Another non-story in the Jewish Chronicle - its enemies always 'rant' - the poor dear above had to be 'consoled' after having been told by John Prescott a few home truths

Alderman was one of the few prominent British Jews who criticised the Board of Deputies for attacking the ANL rather than the fascists.

Another non-story in the Jewish Chronicle - they hate the idea that Corbyn meets Jews aren't part of the Zionist clique

What is remarkable about the current wave of anti-Semitism hysteria is the almost complete unanimity of the Zionists about Labour’s non-existent ‘anti-Semitism’ and in particular Jeremy Corbyn’s ‘anti-Semitism’.

The lynch mob has been led by Stephen Pollard. Writing in 2019 in the Daily Mail he stated that ‘It took me a long time before I felt it appropriate to describe Jeremy Corbyn as an anti-Semite.’ This is such a blatant lie that it is a wonder that Pollard's nose hasn’t already grown to twice its size!

Even before Corbyn was elected as Labour leader the Jewish Chronicle was accusing him of consorting with holocaust deniers, such as Paul Eisen. 

All the major Jewish news papers sing the same song - is it any wonder that many Jews respond that 'antisemitism' is a worry though individually they never experience it?

Last July, in their United We Stand editorials, the 3 major Zionist papers in Britain accused Corbyn of posing an ‘existential threat to Jewish life in this country’.  Who else but an anti-Semite could do this?

The Foreign Editor of the Jewish News, Stephen Oryszczuk heavily criticised the joint editorial in an interview with Canary saying that

‘The question is whether there is an intention to taint him. Some are certainly out to get him, but without revealing sources, all I can say is that it’s sometimes questionable where these things come from.’ Oryszczuk described what happened as a ‘character assassination.’

One of the emails sent out weekly by Pollard

Oryszczuk was immediately put on ‘sick leave’ and has I understand been forced out.

Alderman has never been one to pull his punches. In the Spectator he has written a devastating critique of the idea that Corbyn is anti-Semitic.

Freedland and Finkelstein join hands to demonise Corbyn

Alderman first takes issue with Danny Finkelstein, The Times Associate Editor and Tory Peer, who was a Board Member of the Gatestone Institute. The GI promotes Tommy Robinson, Geert Wilders and a whole host of racists, fascists and Islamaphobes. The Gatestone Institute, which is funded by American billionaire Nina Rosenwald, the “sugar mama of anti-Muslim hate”, described Robinson as ‘a British free-speech activist and Islam critic.’ I hate to think what they might have called Hitler. A Jew critic?

Finkelstein criticised Corbyn for not having condemned the anti-Semitism of John Hobson when Corbyn reviewed his book, ‘Imperialism: A Study’ 8 years ago. Alderman is absolutely right when he writes that ‘There was absolutely no need for Corbyn to have drawn attention to them in his foreward.’ It was as he points out 10 lines in a 400 page book.

Pollard has been waging a non-stop war against Corbyn for over 3 years

Alderman demolishes the Chair of Labour Friends of Israel, Joan Ryan MP’s fatuous assertion that

‘‘Over the past three years… the Labour party under Jeremy Corbyn has become infected with the scourge of anti-Jewish racism. This problem simply did not exist in the party before his election as leader.’  

Alderman points out that ‘leading socialist activists – for instance Sidney and Beatrice Webb’ were ‘unashamed exponents’ of anti-Semitism.  Sydney Webb described the European continental parties as ‘Jew ridden’ but fortunately this wasn’t true in the British Labour Party because ‘there’s no money in it.’ Alderman was clear:

‘The fact of the matter is that Corbyn has an impressive record of supporting Jewish communal initiatives’

and then proceeds to reel off a whole long list of examples of where Corbyn has supported local Jewish initiatives such as saving the cemetery of the West London synagogue from the developers. Writing that

‘I could fill this entire article with a list of philo-Semitic EDMs that Corbyn has signed since he was first elected as Labour MP for Islington North in 1983.’

Alderman ‘deliberately omitted from this discussion any consideration of Corbyn’s attitude to Zionism and whether anti-Zionism is inherently anti-Semitic.’ and he concludes that ‘the grounds for labelling him an anti-Semite simply do not exist.’

Which is a pretty damning indictment of the fallacious and dishonest campaign mounted by people like Pollard, who is the Joseph Goebbels of the British Jewish community.  Pollard has turned the JC into a Zionist propaganda rag and its circulation has dropped like a stone to less than 20,000, many of them given away.  Which is why the JC is facing severe financial problems.

Pollard made his reasons for mounting the fake anti-Semitism campaign against Corbyn crystal clear last year.  In an article Labour's new guidelines show it is institutionally antisemitic Pollard attacked the attempt to remove or neutralise some of the examples of the IHRA. The problem was that

‘instead of adopting the definition as agreed by all these bodies, Labour has excised the parts which relate to Israel and how criticism of Israel can be antisemitic.’

As we always said the ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign was about Israel not anti-Semitism. This has always been Pollard and the Board of Deputies’s only concern. If Corbyn had been genuinely anti-Semitic but pro-Zionist then Pollard would have raised no objection to Corbyn.

In just the same way, the execrable Margaret Hodge has become a hero to the Jewish Chronicle. This is the same Hodge of whom Pollard wrote in the Daily Express that ‘it’s difficult to imagine a more blatant, shameful and utterly contemptible piece of two-faced hypocrisy than the behaviour of Margaret Hodge. ” Except that he wasn’t describing her attack on Jeremy Corbyn as a ‘fucking anti-Semite.’

Of course Pollard’s description of Hodge could not be bettered when it comes to his own behaviour and his selective attitude to anti-Semitism.

When in 2009 the Tories left the European Peoples Party in the European Parliament they formed the European Conservative Reform Group. However the parties that were included in this group included the anti-Semitic Polish Law and Justice Party and Latvia’s For Fatherland and Freedom/LNNK. This met with a lot of criticism.

Jonathan Freedland, who was then more vocal about genuine anti-Semitism wrote that ‘there was a time when no self-respecting British politician would have gone anywhere near such people’. He described how Michal Kaminski, the Chairman of the ECR,

began his career in the National Rebirth of Poland movement, inspired by a 1930s fascist ideology that dreamed of a racially pure nation. Even today, the PiS slogan is "Poland for Poles", understood to be a door slammed in the face of non-Catholics. In 2001 he upbraided the president for daring to apologise for a 1941 pogrom in the town of Jedwabne which left hundreds of Jews dead. Kaminski said there was nothing to apologise for – at least not until Jews apologised for what he alleged was the role Jewish partisans and Jewish communists had played alongside the Red Army in Poland.’

Freedland also pointed out that members of the Latvian LNNK party

 ‘have played a leading part in the annual parade honouring veterans of the Latvian Legion of the Waffen-SS. Lest we forget, the SS were the crack troops of Nazi genocide; the Latvian Legion included conscripts, but at least a third were volunteers, among them men with the blood of tens of thousands of Jews on their hands. It is in honour of those killers that Cameron's new buddies march through the streets of Riga.’

When it comes to a genuine anti-Semite Pollard is all over him like a rash

Pollard you might think would have lambasted the Tories, such is his concern about anti-Semitism. Not a bit of it. The same man who damns Corbyn wrote a response defending Kaminski. Kaminski was

‘one of the greatest friends to the Jews in a town where antisemitism and a visceral loathing of Israel are rife.’

Because Kaminski was a strong supporter of Israel he had to be supported.  And this is the dilemma of Zionism. Most anti-Semites love Israel. The neo-Nazi founder of America’s alt Right, Richard Spencer, even describes himself as a White Zionist and Tommy Robinson described himself as a proud Zionist. So did Norway’s mass killer Anders Breivik. There is nothing incompatible about loving Zionism and Israel and hating Jews. Most of today’s far-Right do. Indeed if you are a genuine anti-Semite then you will also be a sincere anti-Semite.

The only ‘anti-Semites’ that Pollard and co. are opposed to are anti-Zionists.  However there are still some, a diminishing number, of Zionists, who see through their own lies.  One of them is Geoffrey Alderman.

Tony Greenstein

Is Jeremy Corbyn really anti-Semitic?

Geoffrey Alderman

Jeremy Corbyn

8 May 2019

Is Jeremy Corbyn an anti-Semite? I began researching the answer to this question well before Danny Finkelstein’s recent revelation in the Times that eight years ago Corbyn had written a glowing foreward to a new edition of Imperialism: A Study, written by the radical economist John Atkinson Hobson, first published in 1902.

Context is paramount. That’s why I feel obliged to censure Finkelstein’s exposé. We all know what Hobson thought of Jews and capitalism. But to conclude – as Finkelstein does – that in writing the foreward Corbyn had praised a ‘deeply anti-Semitic book’ is to give a totally false impression of what this influential study is actually about. In a text running to almost 400 pages there are merely a dozen or so lines which we would call anti-Semitic. There was absolutely no need for Corbyn to have drawn attention to them in his foreward.

It’s quite true that the Labour Party that Corbyn leads has been dogged in recent years with incidents in which a significant number of its members, after being publicly pilloried as anti-Semites, have been expelled from the party. Worse than that, earlier this year a group of MPs resigned from the party, citing rampant anti-Semitism and a failure to deal with it as one of the reasons for their departure.

The group included the Jewish MP Luciana Berger, and also the non-Jewish MP Joan Ryan, formerly chair of Labour Friends of Israel. In her resignation speech, Ryan suggested that the ‘huge shame’ of anti-Semitism did not exist until Corbyn became party leader. Criticising Corbyn for ‘presiding over a culture of anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel,’ Ryan insisted that ‘Over the past three years… the Labour party under Jeremy Corbyn has become infected with the scourge of anti-Jewish racism. This problem simply did not exist in the party before his election as leader.’

Really? After all, hasn’t anti-Jewish racism existed in the party since its creation, over a century ago? In the late 19^th century, wasn’t the trade-union movement (out of ‘the bowels’ of which the party emerged, as Ernie Bevin once graphically observed) positively riddled with such prejudice? Weren’t leading socialist activists – for instance Sidney and Beatrice Webb  – unashamed exponents of it? To point to these irrefutable facts is neither to excuse such racism nor to imply that it wasn’t present in other political parties. Indeed it was and still is.

But my present concern is with Jeremy Corbyn, by which I mean Corbyn the person. For whilst it’s one thing to accuse him of being ‘soft’ on anti-Semitism, tolerating it and even befriending some of its exponents, it’s quite another to level the charge against him personally. What truth – if any – could there possibly be in such an accusation?

The fact of the matter is that Corbyn has an impressive record of supporting Jewish communal initiatives. For instance he was recently supportive of Jewish efforts to facilitate the speedy issue of death certificates by the north London coroner. In 2015 he took part in a ceremony in his Islington constituency to commemorate the founding of the North London Synagogue. In 2010 he put his name to an Early Day Motion (tabled by Diane Abbott) calling on the UK government to facilitate the settlement of Yemeni Jews in Britain. Indeed I could fill this entire article with a list of philo-Semitic EDMs that Corbyn has signed since he was first elected as Labour MP for Islington North in 1983.

In 1987 the West London Synagogue approached Islington Council with a startling proposal: to sell its original cemetery to property developers, destroying the gravestones and digging-up and reburying the bodies lying under them. This cemetery (dating from 1843) was not merely of great historic and architectural interest – in the view of orthodox Jews, the deliberate destruction of a cemetery is sacrilegious. So when Islington Council granted the planning application, a Jewish-led and ultimately successful campaign was launched to have the decision reversed. I was part of that campaign. So was Jeremy Corbyn. Meanwhile, the then-leader of Islington Council (1982-92), whose decision to permit the destruction of the cemetery was eventually overturned, was none other than Margaret Hodge (though it is unclear whether she personally was in favour of the proposal).

I have deliberately omitted from this discussion any consideration of Corbyn’s attitude to Zionism and whether anti-Zionism is inherently anti-Semitic. All I will say here – as a proud Zionist – is that in my view context is, again, paramount.

I will agree that from time to time, as backbench MP and party leader, Corbyn has acted unwisely. But the grounds for labelling him an anti-Semite simply do not exist.

Geoffrey Alderman is Professor of Politics, University of Buckingham.