On Tuesday Human Rights Watch accused Israel of the Crime of Apartheid – immediately the Board of Deputies, called it a ‘slur’

 By saying it is‘the voice of the UK Jewish community’ the Board is associating all Jews with Israeli Apartheid – isn’t that anti-Semitic?

The IHRA Definition of Anti-Semitism says that ‘Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel’ is anti-Semitic. It is one of the few examples of anti-Semitism in the IHRA on which we can all agree. Yet what does the BOD do? It defends Israeli Apartheid in the name of all British Jews!

The sheer brass-necked hypocrisy of the Board is staggering. They are deliberately associating Jews with Israel’s crimes in the knowledge that this can result in an increase in anti-Semitic attacks. When people learn of Israel’s wanton murder of Palestinians and the torture of children they naturally become angry. What the Board is doing is providing people with an easy target, British Jews.

Even the Mossad front, the Community Security Trust, which monitors and fiddles the statistics of anti-Semitism on behalf of Israel, admitted in respect of the Israeli attack on Gaza in 2014 that

Antisemitic reactions to this summer’s conflict between Israel and Hamas resulted in record levels of antisemitic hate incidents in the UK.

According to their own IHRA definition, the Board must be classified as an anti-Semitic organisation!

When the Labour Party initially refused to adopt the IHRA definition, including its 11 examples, the Board reacted with ‘fury’. It was proof that Labour was overrun with anti-Semitism.

None of this is any surprise. The BOD has support for Israel hardwired into its constitution, clause 3(d) of which states that the

‘Board shall Take such appropriate action as lies within its power to advance Israel's security, welfare and standing. ’ [the constitution is no longer on the Board’s website but can be found in google cache]

In January Israeli human rights group B’Tselem issued a report A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid’. Last week, in a 213 page report ‘A Threshold Crossed’ Human Rights Watch provided detailed evidence of Israel’s apartheid crimes. It argued that Israel was ‘Seeking Maximal Land with Minimal Palestinians’. Under ‘Discriminatory Restrictions on Residency and Nationality’ it showed how 270,000 Palestinians outside the West Bank and Gaza when the territories were captured in 1967 have been denied residence and another ¼ million Palestinians who were abroad ‘too long’ have also had their right of residency revoked. This would not happen if they were Jewish and is prima facie evidence of an apartheid state.

What does the BOD statement say? Does it rebut even one of the numerous examples in the Report? Of course not. The Board had no time to read the Report let alone rebut it. Instead it said that:

The ridiculous ‘apartheid‘ slur in this report is belied by the fact that, as it stands, Israel’s next Government may well rely on the support of Arab parties, voted for by the country’s fully-enfranchised Arab citizens. Israel’s Arab citizens have been appointed as ambassadors, professors, Supreme Court judges, hospital directors, and other key roles throughout Israel’s socio-economic landscape. 

The Board doesn’t refute what HRW said because it knows it is true. Instead it resorts to typical Zionist talking points about a few token Arabs who became ambassadors or professors. 

In fact Arabs are underrepresented in all sectors of Israeli higher education. Despite being 20% of Israel’s population Arabs form 12.1% of undergraduates, 8.2% of MA students and just 4.4% of Ph D students.

Arab students, unlike their Jewish counterparts, don’t receive grants as these are dependent on army service and Arabs don’t serve in the Zionist army. Contrary to the Board's lies about there being equality between Israeli Palestinians and Jews the former are barred from buying or leasing 80% of Israeli land. Even Israel’s Prime Minister, Netanyahu stated that Israel is a land of its Jewish citizens not all of its citizens.

The Board’s statement is dishonest since no Arab party has ever been part of an Israeli government coalition. Although Arabs are allowed to vote in Israel their representatives are demonised as ‘terrorists’ and excluded from the corridors of power. Hence its use of the phrase ‘Israel’s next Government may well rely on the support of Arab parties.’ The last Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, who did rely on Arab support was assassinated.

The Board’s claim to represent all British Jews is hollow. It barely represents 30% of British Jews since the Orthodox have their own organisation, the 30,000 strong Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations. Nor does it represent the secular 50% of Jews.

In defending Israeli Apartheid on behalf of Britain’s Jews the Board is deliberately risking an increase in anti-Semitism in order to defend the Israeli state. That is the measure of their sincerity when accusing Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour left of anti-Semitism.

In an article in Ha'aretz Gideon Levy wrote that

‘There’s no longer any way to challenge the diagnosis of apartheid. Only lying propagandists can claim that Israel is a democracy.

The Report by B’Tselem was largely ignored by the mass media. This time it was different.  Although the New York Times and other papers sought to discredit HRW’s Report they could hardly ignore it.

Even The Guardian, which led the campaign against Corbyn, despite Jonathan Freedland's desperate attempts to defend Israel, was forced to carry an article Israel is committing the crime of apartheid, rights group says.

In Abusive Israeli Policies Constitute Crimes of Apartheid Persecution HRW levelled 3 main charges that together constitute irrefutable proof of apartheid:

1.    An intent to maintain domination by one racial group over another.

2.    A context of systematic oppression by the dominant group over the marginalized group.

3.    Inhumane acts.

The statement accused the Israeli government of an

overarching policy to maintain the domination by Jewish Israelis over Palestinians and grave abuses committed against Palestinians living in the occupied territory, including East Jerusalem.

The report, “A Threshold Crossed” goes on to say that

the present-day reality (is) of a single authority, the Israeli government, ruling primarily over the area between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea, populated by two groups of roughly equal size, and methodologically privileging Jewish Israelis while repressing Palestinians, most severely in the occupied territory.

This analysis is similar to that of B’Tselem earlier this year:

In the entire area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, the Israeli regime implements laws, practices and state violence designed to cement the supremacy of one group – Jews – over another – Palestinians. A key method in pursuing this goal is engineering space differently for each group.

For years we have been warned that Israel is fast approaching the point of no return. That it will become an apartheid state. For liberal Zionists this time never came. It was always 5 minutes to midnight. The reality is that Israel always been an apartheid state. It’s just that it has taken groups like HRW a long time to accept this. Kenneth Roth, HRW’s Executive Director stated that

“This detailed study shows that Israeli authorities have already turned that corner and today are committing the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.”

HRW say that

The crime against humanity of persecution, as defined under the Rome Statute and customary international law, consists of severe deprivation of fundamental rights of a racial, ethnic, or other group with discriminatory intent.

In particular,

the elements of the crimes come together in the occupied territory, as part of a single Israeli government policy. That policy is to maintain the domination by Jewish Israelis over Palestinians across Israel and the occupied territory. It is coupled in the occupied territory with systematic oppression and inhumane acts against Palestinians living there.

This could not be clearer. What is the response of the Israeli government? HRW’s Report was “preposterous and false”. It accused them of having a “long-standing anti-Israeli agenda” and carrying out an ongoing campaign “with no connection to facts or reality on the ground”.

HRW accused the Israeli state of seeking to

mitigate what they have openly described as a “demographic threat” from Palestinians. In Jerusalem, for example, the government’s plan for the municipality, including both the west and occupied east parts of the city, sets the goal of “maintaining a solid Jewish majority in the city” and even specifies the demographic ratios it hopes to maintain.

How can this be other than racist? If in Britain the government declared that it wanted to dilute the number of Jews in Golders Green, by reserving housing for non-Jews there would be an uproar. Yet what would be anti-Semitic in Britain is accepted without batting an eye lid in Israel. That the BOD seeks to defend this demonstrates that it is a racist organisation. It was the stupidity of Corbyn and McDonnell in not calling their bluff that led to their defeat.

What is quite remarkable about the HRW report, just like that of Btselem before it, is that they don’t hesitate to call out the racism against Israel’s Palestinian citizens which includes:

laws that allow hundreds of small Jewish towns to effectively exclude Palestinians and budgets that allocate only a fraction of resources to Palestinian schools as compared to those that serve Jewish Israeli children.

HRW accuses Israel of committing a range of abuses against Palestinians. These include:

sweeping movement restrictions in the form of the Gaza closure and a permit regime, confiscation of more than a third of the land in the West Bank, harsh conditions in parts of the West Bank that led to the forcible transfer of thousands of Palestinians out of their homes, denial of residency rights to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and their relatives, and the suspension of basic civil rights to millions of Palestinians.

The excuse for all this is ‘security’. Security means that the Israeli army turns Palestinian (never Jewish) land into firing zones and then later it hands it over to Jewish settlers. HRW go on to say that

Even when security forms part of the motivation, it no more justifies apartheid and persecution than it would excessive force or torture

Roth goes on to say that.

“These policies, which grant Jewish Israelis the same rights and privileges wherever they live and discriminate against Palestinians to varying degrees wherever they live, reflect a policy to privilege one people at the expense of another.”

HRW goes on to call for countries to

‘condition arms sales and military and security assistance to Israel on Israeli authorities taking concrete and verifiable steps toward ending their commission of these crimes.’

Those who argue for a 2 state solution are contributing to Israel’s apartheid regime by creating the illusion that Israel’s presence is temporary. As HRW accept ‘the oppression of Palestinians has reached a threshold and a permanence that meets the definitions of the crimes of apartheid and persecution,”

A new Opinion Poll by B’tselem shows that 45% of the population of Palestine/Greater Israel, including 25% of Israel’s Jewish population, accept the fact that Israel is now an apartheid society.

What should we do? PSC has been describing Israel for years as an Apartheid State but it has met with minimal impact. Why? Because they deliberately refuse to come out and say that they oppose the existence of Israel as a Jewish supremacist state. 

Today one of the talking points of the Zionists is that Israel is the ‘only Jewish state in the world.’ Our answer should be that that is one too many. We should oppose any religious ethno-nationalist state. Religious states like Pakistan or Ulster tend, almost by definition, to be racist states because they privilege those of their inhabitants who are of a particular religion.

Just as American Jews rightly reject the idea that the United States is a Christian country, valuing the separation of church and state, so Israel too should become a secular, democratic not a Jewish state.  Pro-Palestinian organisations need to be crystal clear about this.

Tony Greenstein

Lansman’s attack on Jewish Anti-Zionists is no different to the attacks on Whites who opposed Apartheid in South Africa

In his support for the Israeli State and the false ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign Lansman & Momentum are aiding Corbyn’s opponents

Just over a week ago dozens of Israelis in the northern Israeli city of Afula demonstrated against the sale of a house to an Arab. Joining them were Mayor Avi Elkabetz, Deputy Mayor Shlomo Malihi and members of the city council.

Israel's northern city of Afula

Mayor Elkabetz was elected promising that Afula would ‘maintain its Jewish character’. MK Ofer Cassif of the Communist Hadash asked

“How would we describe a mayor in Europe who would demonstrate against selling a house to a Jewish family?”

The very phrase ‘Jewish character’ is replete with racism and overtones of racial purity. In Germany too there were signs saying ‘Jews not wanted here.’

Hundreds of Jewish communities in Israel bar Arabs from membership

Nor is Afula an isolated example. The 2011 Reception Committees Law allows hundreds of Jewish communities to bar Arabs from living in their towns through the use of Admission Committees.

In 2010 the Chief Rabbi of Safed, Shmuel Eliyahu, issued an edict forbidding Jews to rent homes or property to Arabs.  He was backed up by dozens of other Israeli rabbis, all of them  paid state officials. To this day Arabs are barred from renting rooms in Safed or similar cities.

This is the Israel and the ‘Jewish’ state that Lansman supports. It is also the Israel that the IHRA definition of ‘anti-Semitism’ which Lansman supported protects by deeming it ‘anti-Semitic’.  It is no surprise that those well known anti-racist newspapers like the Daily Mail also join Lansman in protesting abou 'antisemitism'.

Lansman attacks the one group of Jews in the Labour Party that supports Corbyn - yet Momentum tolerates this man at its head

Lansman has done his best to support the fake antisemitism allegations - the question is who he is working for - certainly not for the election of Jeremy Corbyn

When Lansman says that anti-Zionist Jews are not part of the non-existent ‘Jewish community’ and attacks the JVL he is supporting the most racist and chauvinist Jews in Britain.

Lansman's Jewish community newspaper has run an unremitting campaign against Corbyn

And Lansman is fully aware of this. That is why it is correct to call him a racist. He defines Palestinian opposition to Israel and Zionism as itself racist.

As Jews in the past 70 years have grown more prosperous they have moved out of the East End of London into suburbs such as  Golders Green. They have been replaced by Muslim and Bengali immigrants. According to Dr Geoffrey Alderman, a right-wing Jewish academic and Zionist, in the Jewish Community and British Politics (p.137, Clarendon Press, 1983)

‘‘By 1961, over 40% of Anglo-Jewry was located in the upper 2 social classes, whereas these categories accounted for less than 20% of the general population.’

Phil Piratin addresses crowd

In 1945 the only Communist MP ever to have been elected in England, Phil Piratin, was elected for Mile End in the East End.  Half his votes were estimated to come from Jews. When Alderman surveyed Jewish voters in Hackney for the 1979 general election, some 1.8% of Jews said they were voting for the neo-Nazi National Front but zero percent were voting for the Communist  Party candidate.  In other words not only have Jews become more prosperous but they have moved to the Right politically.

That is what explains the level of around 15% of Jews voting for the Labour Party NOT its stance on Israel.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Britain have dissociated themselves from the Zionists 

There is no single Jewish community.  A minority, the central Orthodox based around the United Synagogue are represented by the fiercely anti-Corbyn Board of Deputies, a group which has never fought anti-Semitism of the fascist variety.

Orthodox Jews are well aware of the opposition of the Zionists to Jewish refugees in the war coming to Britain - above is a letter in the Jewish Chronicle on 5.2.93.

Another large section of Jews are the Ultra Orthodox based around Stamford Hill.  They are not represented on the Board of Deputies. Last September 34 Orthodox Rabbis signed a letter criticising the Zionist BOD for attacking Corbyn.  Of course the letter received no publicity in the mainstream media or BBC.

The level of racism in Israel is higher than in any other state in the world

The Union of Orthodox Congregations left the BOD in 1971 and there have been major differences between them and the Zionists, not least a memory of when the Zionists opposed the rescue of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany unless they went to Palestine. See Skwawkbox here and here and JVL

50% of Jews in Britain aren’t attached to any synagogue and they are secular Jews.  It is these Jews that groups like JVL and Jewdas represent.

Lansman has bent over backwards to support the JLM

What Lansman has done is ally himself with the most right-wing section of British Jews.  Those who are allied with the Apartheid State of Israel.  Lansman fools himself that his friends are amongst the ‘progressive’ Labour Zionists of the Jewish Labour Movement.  In reality the JLM are no more socialist than their Likud counterparts.  They have acted as a Trojan horse inside the Labour Party and are presently  trying to use the Equality and Human Rights Commission investigation in order to try and destroy Jeremy Corbyn.

Union of Orthodox Congregations separated in 1971 from the Zionist Board of Deputies

 At their last conference the JLM passed a motion of no confidence in Corbyn. Their previous parliamentary Chair Luciana Berger joined the ‘funny tinge’ group and now sits in the House of Commons for the Liberal Democrats having falsely presented herself as a victim of Labour ‘anti-Semitism’. Lansman's obsession with 'anti-Semitism' lines him up with the Tory press who, for some strange reason, are also opposed to 'antisemitism' but no other form of racism.

The Israeli Labour Party has supported Netanyahu's racist hostility to African refugees

The JLM is the 'sister party' of the racist Israeli Labor Party

The JLM openly boast that they are the ‘sister party’ of the Israeli Labor Party. This is the racist Zionist party which supported Netanyahu in his attempts to physically expel 40,000 Black African refugees from Israel because they are neither Jewish nor White.

These are the disgusting racists that Lansman calls his kith and kin.  The question is when Momentum members are going to remove this racist from his present position of unelected Caudillo of Momentum.

Tony Greenstein

Momentum founder under fire after claiming left-wing Jews are ‘not part’ of the Jewish community

James Wright 19th June 2019

Momentum founder Jon Lansman is facing criticism after he claimed a group of left-wing Jews are ‘not part of’ the Jewish community.

Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL) is made up of Jewish Labour members, and the organisation is active in around “half of all local constituency [Labour] parties”.

Still, in an email to JVL, Lansman claimed that the organisation is not “part of the Jewish community”, saying:

neither the vast majority of individual members of JVL nor the organisation itself can really be said to be part of the Jewish community

Left-wing Jews “responsible”

In the email, Lansman (who is Jewish) also blamed JVL for some of the impact the so-called ‘crisis’ of antisemitism allegations in Labour has had on the party. And he alleged that “JVL’s existence has been partly responsible” for some Jewish people leaving Labour in the context of these allegations. That’s despite academics at the Media Reform Coalition concluding that corporate media coverage of Labour and antisemitism has been a “disinformation paradigm”.

In a comment The Canary has seen, JVL co-chair Jenny Manson responded by saying:

There is increasing concern among our members and supporters about the very negative remarks you make about Jewish Voice for Labour. Many Jewish Labour Party members, working hard for the election of a Labour government, have felt undermined by your comments.

Instead of criticising the corporate media and right-wing politicians for weaponising antisemitism allegations against the Labour leadership, Lansman appears to be blaming left-wing Jews for calling out false allegations.

‘Grossly exaggerating’ antisemitism allegations

Lansman, who founded Momentum out of Jeremy Corbyn’s 2015 leadership campaign, also said:

The fact that JVL insists on defending those who deny the problem and many of those who have clearly brought the Labour Party into disrepute (whether or not they are themselves antisemitic) means, I am afraid, that I regard JVL as part of the problem and not part of the solution to antisemitism in the Labour Party.

Cartoon in Nazi  comic about a Jewish family who were not wanted

But in response, JVL co-chairs Manson and Leah Levane wrote:

In those parts of the Jewish community which support Jeremy’s values, there is concern about the extraordinary and unfounded allegations made that grossly exaggerate the degree of antisemitism within Labour. It is irresponsible to promote unjustifiable fears, scaring Jewish people that they face an existential threat from a Labour government. These allegations, so often unquestioned, are damaging the party’s standing in our community and also in wider society.

They also wrote:

Antisemitism clearly still exists in Britain and within its political parties, including Labour, but it is demonstrably more prevalent on the right of the spectrum. Wherever antisemitism exists it needs to be combatted. False allegations of antisemitism however do not help Jewish people.

Indeed, it seems that the media storm over Labour and antisemitism is largely a smear campaign when you compare the coverage to the facts. Because while any antisemitism in Labour is most certainly a problem, cases of anti-Jewish prejudice in Labour reportedly relate to 0.1% of the party’s 540,000-strong membership. And since Corbyn became leader, the number of Labour voters agreeing with antisemitic statements has actually fallen significantly.

The Canary contacted both Lansman and Momentum for comment, but had received no response by the time of publication.

Who is really in denial?

Neither JVL nor its supporters are denying that some antisemitism exists in Labour. The people in denial seem to be those like Lansman who refuse to properly acknowledge the weaponisation of antisemitism allegations against Corbyn’s leadership. In fact, this apparent cowardice from some on the Labour left has allowed the political attacks to gain their current traction. So we should commend JVL for standing against dangerous smears that are obscuring the fight against real antisemitism and damaging the only real alternative to Conservative austerity. Suggesting JVL members are the ‘wrong sort of Jews’ for taking a stand, meanwhile, is frankly a disgrace.

Lansman launches attack on Jewish Voice for Labour

Jon Lansman has launched an angry attack on the Jewish Voice For Labour group writing that they are "part of the problem and not part of the solution to antisemitism in the Labour Party."

In leaked correspondence, the Momentum founder also stated it was his "observation... that neither the vast majority of individual members of JVL nor the organisation itself can really be said to be part of the Jewish community."

In a letter written to JVL co-chairs Jenny Manson and Leah Levane, Mr Lansman also said that JVL "ill-serves the cause of Palestinian rights."

Mr Lansman launched his attack on the pro-Jeremy Corbyn group after they wrote to him suggesting he no longer reflected the views of most Momentum members - despite having founded the group himself.

But in a devastating attack, Mr Lansman wrote: "I am afraid, that I regard JVL as part of the problem and not part of the solution to antisemitism in the Labour Party. And as a consequence of that, I’m afraid it ill-serves the cause of Palestinian rights too.

"You no doubt believe that you are expressing the views of progressive socialist Jews, and yes I am aware of many progressive socialist Jews who, after backing Jeremy Corbyn in two leadership elections and in the 2017 general election, are now considering leaving the party or have already done so, and JVL’s existence has been partly responsible.

"JVL behaves as if it speaks for Jewish socialists. It does not. And too many of its members self-define as 'Jews' only to attack other Jews."

Mr Lansman - who is still a close ally of Jeremy Corbyn - also wrote in his May 4th letter that: "Whilst there are of course plenty of dissident Jews in Britain, my observation is that neither the vast majority of individual members of JVL nor the organisation itself can really be said to be part of the Jewish community since the organisation was set up to oppose the conclusion that I’m afraid that every significant Jewish community organisation has arrived at about the Labour Party.

"I do think it is possible to eradicate antisemitism in the Labour Party and to defend the Labour Left’s project but not by denial of the problem within the Labour Party."

Arch right-winger Luke Akehurst, who works for We Believe in Israel, supported the murder by Israeli snipers, of unarmed Palestinians in Gaza last year.  This reprobate is as hostile to JVL as Lansman

JVL Introduction

At Limmud this year in a session on antisemitism and the Labour party, Jon Lansman is reported as being highly critical of JVL: while he “did not support closing down JVL, he was dismissive of it.” Thanks a bundle Jon (always assuming we can trust anything that appears in the JC). David Rosenberg responds.

Luke Akehurst of We Believe in Israel was more forthright saying ‘there was a case for proscribing the organisation Jewish Voice for Labour, which served “no useful purpose” and had been set up to delegitimise the Jewish Labour Movement’.  When asked to comment by Skwawkbox, Akehurst doubled down, with undoubtedly libellous bile, as reported below. (For those who don’t know, Akehurst is one of a number of non-Jews like Euan Phillips and John Mann who have made it their task to deride Jews who do not follow their script.)

Lansman slams left rival CLPD slate for key disciplinary committee