Open Letter to Iain McNicol – What gives you the right to expel a Jewish anti-Zionist for ‘anti-Semitism’?

Defend Moshe Machover – the Victim of the Zionists’ Invented Anti-Semitism Campaign

Iain McNicoll, the devious trickster at the heart of Labour's machine

Dear Iain McNicol,

Professor Moshe Machover, an Israeli anti-Zionist, was expelled from the Labour Party this week, the victim of a malicious allegation of anti-Semitism. Such basic concepts as natural justice and the right to a hearing were denied under the police state regime that you preside over.  Although the letter was signed by Sam Matthews, Labour’s Head of Disputes, I prefer to address the organ grinder rather than the monkey.

You have spent the past two years trying to overthrow Jeremy Corbyn. Last year, after trying to keep Jeremy off the ballot paper you were responsible for the suspension of thousands of Labour Party members in a failed attempt to rig the vote. 

The reaction by the German Zionist Federation newspaper, Judische Rundschau, to the Nuremberg Laws was favorable

This year you ensured that socialist candidates in Tory marginals were denied any help or resources.  Without you we may have had a Labour government today.

As solicitor Martin Howe wrote to you last year, ‘Who is it who is instructing you to carry out the actions you intend?  Who has suggested to you that the legal advice that the Labour Party has received is to be kept hidden or ignored.’ 

The Jewish Chronicle revealed that Iain McNicol had been given a warm reception by the Zionists for the way the 'antisemitism' issue had been handled

The answer to that question was provided by the Jewish Chronicle when it reported from the Labour Friends of Israel rally that ‘The warmest welcome at the event was reserved for Iain McNicol, Labour’s general secretary’.  The Zionist lobby have much to be grateful to you for.  In pursuing false allegations of anti-Semitism against Labour Party members, you deliberately handed the Tory tabloids a stick to beat the Labour Party with. 

Despite a non-stop barrage of invective against anti-Semitism, Labour conference was overwhelmingly in favour of the Palestinians

Isn’t it strange that the same Tory press that never ceases to demonise asylum seekers or migrants is up in arms about ‘anti-Semitism’ in the Labour Party?  Just look at the past week’s headlines:

The Daily Express led with Labour's anti-Semitism SHAME: Activists call for expulsion of Jewish groups from party.  Richard Littlejohn, who vies with Katy Hopkins as the most racist journalist, wrote in the Mail, the paper that used to support Hitler Once in the shadows, anti-Semitism is now entrenched at the poisoned heart of the Labour Party and even the Sun, that well known anti-racist paper, informed us that Theresa May slams Jeremy Corbyn for letting ‘anti-Semitism, misogyny and hatred run free’ in Labour . 

If  irony is lost on the Sun it is not alone.  Have you or your minions ever pondered the absurdity of non-Jews expelling Jewish anti-racists for ‘anti-Semitism’?  Matthews stated in the expulsion letter that ‘direct attacks or pejorative language which may cause offence to Jewish people is not acceptable.’  The question is which Jewish people?  Zionist or anti-Zionist?

Free speech means nothing if you don’t have the right to give offence.  Wasn’t that the lesson of Charlie Hebdo or do you find that too difficult for you to comprehend?  If Zionists take offence at anti-racism or anti-Zionism then that is tough.

Expulsion Letter

You are also reinstating the very clauses that were excised from the Jewish Labour Movement rule change.  The JLM wanted the ‘victim’ to decide whether or not a racial incident had occurred.

The JLM also took offence at Moshe quoting Himmler’s Deputy, Reinhardt Heydrich, that he was ‘in agreement with the great spiritual movement within Jewry itself, Zionism.’  Moshe was quoting from a book by Francis Nicosia, Professor of Holocaust Studies at Vermont University, in his book Zionism and Anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany.  They also took offence at the quote from  the German Zionist newspaper Judische Rundschau, which alone amongst German Jews welcomed the Nuremberg Laws.  Since when is telling the truth anti-Semitic?

In expelling Moshe Machover, a renowned intellectual and academic, for questioning the trite and arid clichés of Labour’s Zionist Right, you are no different from the book burners of yesterday. You and your apparatchiks are waging a war on freedom of expression and criticism of Zionism and Israel using McCarthyite tactics of guilt by association. 

Moshe’s crime was to speak at the Communist University 2016 and to write for Weekly Worker. If your minion Matthews had done his homework then he would have known that I too am guilty of this crime having spoken with Moshe both last year and this year. Only this week I have written an article in WW opposing your McCarthyist witchhunt. 

Before you upgrade my 18 months suspension to an expulsion you might break the habit of a lifetime, sit down and think about the implications of this.  If writing or speaking for another party is an offence, then you will be able to achieve your ambition by expelling Jeremy Corbyn, since he was a columnist of the Morning Star for 10 years!

It is part of the socialist and labour movement tradition that people speak on all sorts of platforms, debate and write for all manner of papers.  The real crime is when Labour MPs write for the Mail and the Sun, our political enemies. 

The real reason for the expulsion of Machover and your suspension of Jackie Walker and myself is that we are Jewish anti-Zionists. For non-Jews to expel Jews for anti-Semitism is in itself anti-Semitic. It is as if, during the Apartheid era the Labour Party had expelled White anti-Apartheid South Africans because they caused offence to White supporters of Apartheid.  As Archbishop Desmond the Tutu Nobel Peace Prize winner said in the Jerusalem Post:

I have witnessed the systemic humiliation of Palestinian men, women and children by members of the Israeli security forces. Their humiliation is familiar to all black South Africans who were corralled and harassed and insulted and assaulted by the security forces of the apartheid government. Those who turn a blind eye to injustice actually perpetuate injustice.

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.’  Your reception at the LFI fringe meeting demonstrates which side you are on.

Israel is a state where racism is embedded into its DNA.  Israel’s Education Ministry recently banned a book on the high school English syllabus because it was seen as encouraging relationships between Arabs and Jews.  As in Nazi Germany, mixed marriages are illegal in Israel. Novel about Jewish-Palestinian love affair is barred from Israeli curriculum

Your attempt to renew the witch hunt has only one purpose. To undermine Labour at the very time when it is ahead in the opinion polls.  You have outlived your purpose and it is time to seek your reward from your Zionist friends and Britain’s secret state. 

Yours truly,

Tony Greenstein

I also recommend the following articles:

Israeli anti-Zionist expelled from Labour amid anti-Semitism smear

https://www.facebook.com/kevin.ovenden/posts/10159312845615468

Guilt by Association is now Labour Party Practice

As battle rages in UK Labour Party, Moshe Machover expelled after asserting ‘Anti-Zionism does not equal anti-Semitism’ Jonathan Cook

Expelled for saying the unsayable

Israeli anti-Zionist expelled from Labour amid anti-Semitism smear

The Question of Zio - Is ‘Zio’ anti-Semitic or is it anti-Semitic to say ‘Zio’ is anti-Semitic?

Zionists believe that changing the meaning of Zionism will change the ugly reality of Jewish supremacism

Words mean what I want them to mean - the only question is who's master?

When the fake news story of anti-Semitism at Oxford University Labour Club broke last year, one of the main allegations was that Jewish students had been baited with chants of ‘Zio’.  No proof was brought that this was true but as is so often the case, fake Zionist allegations rapidly become accepted as the truth, despite Labour’s Inquiry finding no evidence of this claim.

Under the guise of opposing antiSemitism, the racist Jewish Labour Movement tries to sanitise Zionism as some kind of cultural movement

What this affair was about was sanitising Zionism.  This was why the Jewish Labour Movement, the overseas wing of the Israeli Labour Party, moved an amendment to Labour Party rules which, under the guise of tackling anti-Semitism, defined Zionism as ‘the basic expression of the national identity of the Jewish people.’ 

Israel's Ministry of Education banned a book about a Jewish-Arab romance because it threatened Jewish racial identity

Leaving aside that the concept of a ‘Jewish people’ is itself anti-Semitic, this ‘national identity’ was used to ban a book from Israel’s high school English syllabus because it depicted a relationship between a female Jewish teenager and a male Arab teenager.  Inter-racial relationships are anathema to the Zionist concept of racial purity.

Netanyahu and the Israeli Labour Party are in agreement - non-Jewish refugees threaten Israel's Jewish racial identity - which is why Israel has admitted none and deported thousands

The concept of ‘Jewish national identity’ was used by Netanyahu as the reason for Israel to refuse accepting even one Syrian refugee.  Their admission would dilute Israel’s Jewish majority.  The quest for racial purity was the guiding principle of states like Nazi Germany.  Under the guise of opposing ‘anti-Semitism’ the Jewish Labour Movement said it was not ‘acceptable to use Zionism as a term of abuse’ even though Zionism as a racist ideology is inherently abusive.  The JLM even had the audacity to protest at the substitution of ‘Zionist’ for ‘Jew’ when it is Zionists above all who conflate anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism.

Sir Mick Davis, a leading Zionist, giving evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee was clear - anti-Zionism was anti-Semitic because Zionism and being Jewish is inseparable

For example when giving evidence to the Parliamentary Home Affairs Select Committee on anti-Semitism Sir Mick Davis, former Chair of the Jewish Leadership Council, said that ‘criticising Zionism is the same as anti-Semitism because... if you attack Zionism you attack the very fundamentals of how Jews thing of themselves.’

What then is Zionism?  It was a movement for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.  Because another people were living there it was, by its own admission, a settler colonial movement.  It sought to displace that people because they were not Jewish.  It was therefore, by definition, a racist movement and in its early years openly campaigned for ‘Jewish Labour, Land and Produce’.

The Question of Zio

So is Zio anti-Semitic?  I have to confess that before this bogus argument broke out I had never used the term ‘Zio’.  It is though handy to use on Twitter for 2 reasons – first because of a 140 character limit and secondly because the racists who call themselves Zionists don’t like to be called ‘Zios’!

It is perfectly acceptable to abuse racists and Zionists.  Racism is by definition abusive and Zionists in particular repeatedly accuse Jewish anti-Zionists of being ‘self-haters’ (a Nazi term) or Kapos (collaborators with the Nazis) which is admittedly ironic since it was Zionism which did the collaborating!

Extract from Chakrabarti's Report on the term 'Zio'  -  no reasons are given as to why an abbreviation of Zionism is anti-Semitic even if it is not complimentary!

In her Report on Racism and Anti-Semitism, Shami Chakrabart demonstrated that she knew nothing about Zionism when describing 'Zio' as a 'racist epithet'.  She gave no reason as to why this was so other than that it began as an abbreviation of 'Zionist' (a term she didn't understand).  She said that noone used it to describe their own political or cultural identity.  She is wrong.  Zionism is used to describe the political identity of some Jews (& non-Jews).  It may well be  used as a term of abuse on occasions.  Usually it is used as a description of someone's political position.  Chakrabati's Report was a mixed bag but on the question of 'Zio' she provided no reasoned argument as to why it was anti-Semitic.  If it is abusive it is because Zionism is very abusive!

Why is it important to defend the use of Zio?  Because it is important never to let one’s enemies control political discourse.  Those who define the language control the narrative.  That is why something seemingly insignificant is actually very important.  Zionism is racist, Zios are therefore racists, except for those few Zionists who genuinely believe that Zionism and anti-racism is compatible.  Today there are very few genuine socialists who are also Zionists.  It is no accident that the Jewish Labour Movement in last year’s Labour Party leadership elections voted by 92% to 4% to support Owen Smith against Jeremy Corbyn.  The Jewish Labour Movement is an appendage of the Right in the Labour Party.  In Brighton and Hove, the Jewish Labour Movement provided 5 delegates, as an affiliated socialist society, in each of the 3 constituencies to the Right (& they still lost!).

Labour Zionists today are at one with New Labour.  For example its Southern Regional Organiser is Ivor Caplin, ex-MP for Hove and former Junior Defence Minister under Blair at the time of the Iraq War.  In other words a paid up war criminal.

As to Zio it is short for Zionist.  Even the Zios agree on that!  Zionism is a political ideology which believed that the Jewish Question as it was called could be solved by the ‘normalisation’ of Jewish people, i.e. they had to form a nation state.  Those who believed the Jews should ‘return’ to Palestine were originally primarily non-Jewish anti-Semites.  People like Arthur James Balfour who in 1917 signed the famous Balfour Declaration promising the land of the Palestinians to the Zionists.  In 1905, as Prime Minister, he introduced the Aliens Act  into the House of Commons whose aim was to keep Jewish refugees from the Czarist pogroms out of this country.  He didn’t like Jews but was all the more happy to send them to Palestine.

'Even today, in a perverse way, a real antisemite must be a Zionist

As A B Yehoshua, one of Israel’s foremost poets said in a talk to the Union of Jewish Students (22.1.82.)

Anti-Zionism is not the product of the non-Jews. On the contrary, the Gentiles have always encouraged Zionism, hoping that it would help to rid them of the Jews in their midst. Even today, in a perverse way, a real antisemite must be a Zionist.

Pastor John Hagee, President of Christians United for Israel, the biggest Zionist organisation in the USA, believes that Hitler was  sent by god to drive Jews to Palestine

Given that many Jews are non-Zionists or anti-Zionists and many non-Jews are Zionists  how can it be anti-Semitic to use the term Zio?  Indeed the biggest Zionist organisation in the United States is the million strong Christians United for Israel, led by the anti-Semitic Pastor John Hagee who believes that Hitler was an agent of god sent to drive the Jews to Palestine. 

Many millions of people – from Blairites to Christian fundamentalism are Zionists.  The first Zionists were Christian not Jewish.  So those who say that Zio is anti-Semitic are really saying that all Jews are Zionists and that all Zionists are Jews.  Which is an anti-Semitic statement because it implies a uniformity of political opinion to all Jews.

So if anyone takes exception to the use of ‘Zio’ you should tell them to stop being anti-Semitic!

Tony Greenstein 

Corbyn Abandons 30 Years of Support for Palestine - But Despite Grovelling He Was Still Booed

The Answers that Corbyn Should Have Given to the Question What He Most Admired about Israel

At the JW3 ‘debate’ earlier this week, Jeremy Corbyn was asked what he most admired in Israel. This was an ideal opportunity to tell the audience and the questioner some home truths about both the Occupied Territories and Israel itself.

The surrender of Jeremy Corbyn is complete on Israel

He could have told them that Israel today is an Apartheid Society.  Of the approximately 6 million Palestinians it rules over, just 1.5 million have a vote and that is increasingly circumscribed with the Arab parties in Israel under increasing attack. Balad arrests won't be the last in Israel's ethnocracy

Unfortunately Jeremy, felt the need to fawn and flatter his audience rather than telling them some home truths.  Some people will say ‘what does it matter’.  I suggest this is why.  In the event Corbyn becomes Prime Minister he would, on this evidence, bow and buckle to the much greater pressure of the City of London and industrialists.  But also because a strategy based on appeasement is destined to failure.  You stand up to your foes you don’t hand them olive branches to hit you in the face with.  This is not just true of the Zionists.  It is equally applicable to his MPs.  Those who refuse to accept the legitimacy of his election should be told to depart or they will be deselected and have the whip withdrawn. 

Jeremy Corbyn now competes with Smith  to see who is the most pro-Zionist

I have therefore taken the liberty of drafting the answers to the question that Corbyn was asked which he should have given!  It is in the hope that next time he will have the courage of his convictions.

Q:        Jeremy & Owen – I wanted to find out from you what aspects of Israel & its achievements do you most admire

Jeremy Corbyn:        Thank you for a most interesting questions. The things I admire most about Israel include: 

i.           Its no nonsense arrest of Palestinian children as young as 12 and their shackling in chains.  In particular Israel’s willingness to assault and even torture them if necessary, as articulated by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel.  It really takes some nerve to do this and claim you are still a democracy.  You can’t help admiring Israel for this.  I have to say I particularly like the Military's practice of getting the children to sign confessions in a language they don't understand (Hebrew).  Serves the blighters right.  It's downright anti-Semitism refusing to learn the language of the occupying power.  It is pleasing to note that the Military Courts under which these brats sorry children are charged have a 99.7% conviction rate.  That might seem rather high but on the other hand it does demonstrate that it is possible to obtain a conviction but  given the genius of the Israeli military it's not surprising that they only get it wrong about once every 300 times.  

          It really is irrelevant that Jewish children in the same territories are entitled to things like a responsible adult attending an interview, social workers, nice warm offices and of course that they can't be tried if they are under 14.  We really must understand that there is no comparison between Palestinian and Israeli Jewish children.  Those who take umbrage at this are, as my friend Jeremy Newmarks says, out and out anti-Semites and Janet Royall has already had harsh words for those who alleged Apartheid at Oxford University Labour Club.

ii.          I particularly admire the annual Jerusalem day demonstration where thousands of settler youth express their tender and loving feelings towards Jerusalem’s Arabs by shouting ‘Death to the Arabs’.  You have to admire Israel’s ability to get away with this and in particular the actions of Israel’s police in arresting any anti-racist protesters out to cause trouble.  I understand that this year, the slogans were more varied and included the quite novel one, 'A Jew is a soul, an Arab is a son of a whore.'  You have to give it to Israel's democracy, it is most inventive.

iii.         I also admire the determination of Israel to ‘cleanse’ the Negev (southern desert area) of Israel of Bedouin villages such as Al Arakabh which get in the way of those nice, Jewish towns.  This process of Judaisation might upset people but we must remember this is a Jewish state.

iv.         Of course I deprecate the repeated vandalism and arson at the Hand to Hand school, one of the few mixed Jewish-Arab schools in Israel.  However Israel is a Jewish state and it is understandable that State schools in Israel are segregated.  It is anti-Semitic to compare this with similar schools in Apartheid South Africa.  Israel is a Jewish state.  South Africa was a White Apartheid state.  Anyway if do gooders insist on setting up private mixed schools which encourage Jewish and Arab children to mix,  thus encouraging the possibility of sinful Jewish-Arab relationships, is it any wonder that religious Jews take offence?

         I personally applaud the efforts of the Israeli government to discourage miscegenation.  Tzipi Hotoveli, Israel's religious nut of a Deputy Foreign Minister was quite correct, when she said that it was "important to examine procedures for preventing mixed marriages, and Lehava members are the right people for that,"   It's true that Lehava is technically a fascist organisation that hates gays, beats up Arabs and sets fire to Churches and Mosques, but it is doing important work to preserve the Jewishness of the Jewish state.  Those who oppose this work are, Mr McNicol informs me, anti-Semitic and will be suspended forthwith from the LP.

Title of Time Out film

v.         I particularly applaud the bold and courageous decision of the Education Ministry to ban that disgraceful book Borderland by Dorit Rabinyan. [Israeli-Palestinian love story omitted from curriculum tops bestseller lists].  This book portrayed as normal relationships between Arab and Jewish teens.  In a Jewish state this is likely to undermine the purity of the ruling race, I mean group and as such is something only terrorists would support.  As Dalia Fenig, an Education Ministry spokesperson explained:

             ‘“Adolescent youth tend to romanticise and don’t have, in many cases, the systematic point of             view that includes considerations about preserving the identity of the nation and the                              significance of assimilation,”

Israeli Jews who were not racists took part in a kissathon with Arabs to demonstrate they reject 'racial purity' demands - Israeli Labour support the demand to discourage 'miscegenation'

        As you will see it was a question of protecting Israel’s national identity, that is Israel's ‘Jewish national identity.’  I think this is a particularly brave decision as otherwise Jewish children would grow up with the idea that an Arab girl or boy friend was a normal choice to make.

We don't support the few anti-racists in Israel's population by bowing to the demands of racist Israeli Labour

vi.        As you may know, the practice of the Jewish National Fund, which controls 93% of Israeli land, was to forbid Arabs to rent or lease Jewish national land.  Unfortunately when Adalah, a trouble making NGO and a Mr Kadan, a trouble-making Arab, went to the High Court the Judges could not find a legal reason to forbid Arabs from renting 'national' land.  Attorney General Mazuz then issued a ruling barring such practices.

This law allows Jewish residents to  veto Arab inhabitants thus maintaining the apartheid settlement inside Israel.  In Afula recently, Jewish residents successfully objected to 'terrorist' Israeli Palestinians living in their city.

          This is of course disgraceful.  The Israeli Labour Party, those good friends of that nice Mr Jeremy Newmark, were outrage and quite rightly so.  Didn't the judges understand that Israel is a Jewish state?  The JNF has been in existence since 1901 buying up land for Jewish use.  To call it racist is in itself a form of anti-Semitism.  Just because Jews can only access the land it doesn't mean that Arabs suffer anything.  As the JNF said, it is Jewish Peoples Land and Arabs should recognise they are in the Jewish state as guests, on sufferance.  Fortunately the Knesset, which as you all know is Israel’s democratic parliament,  stepped in to pass the Acceptance to Communities Law.  This will help keep Arabs out of Jewish towns as they will have to ‘fit in’ and existing (Jewish) residents will have the final say on who is accepted into the community.

It is touching to know that Jewish women don't have to suffer the presence of Arab mothers giving birth to their 'little snakes'

vii.       I particularly respect the practice that has grown up in Israel’s hospitals that a Jewish woman is offered the choice of not having to share a maternity ward with an Arab.  As the American Jewish magazine says, Maternity Ward Segregation (is) Just Tip of the Iceberg in Israel.  When having a Jewish baby it is totally wrong to have an Arab in the next bed.

viii.      As we all know, Jewish students suffer terribly from anti-Semitism these days.  I can only applaud Israel’s Technion University amongst other Israeli Universities, which offer Jewish students a choice of not having to share accommodation with Arabs.  As you know Arabs do not share the same standards as Jews and this is not racism but a question of hygiene and culture.  Also of course they are anti-Semites.  [Arab and Jewish students live in separate housing at the Technion].  I know there are some anti-Semites who will raise objections, but I hope people will understand that Jews are at a higher level of civilisation than Arabs.

ix.        I applaud the crackdown on left-wing Israeli human rights organisations and NGOs.  Organisations such as Breaking the Silence which distributes the testimony of former soldiers about so-called human rights crimes, are doing the work of terrorists.  These allegations are undermining Israel’s reputation as a democracy and the Occupation which we know is the most benign in history.  Israel’s new Transparency Law will therefore require all NGOs to disclose any foreign funding in order that these NGOs can be vilified as the unpatriotic, terrorist supporters that they are.  

         Some of these so-called human rights organisations, such as Btselem, actually provide these Arabs with cameras to catch our brave troops off guard in the West Bank.  Recently one soldier who lost it with an 8 year old Palestinian girl, who was doing her best to be annoying, was caught on camera destroying her bike.  Clearly this was a case of entrapment.  They teach their children young, being anti-Semites, and the poor soldier was pilloried as a result of Btselem's irresponsibility.  Of course right-wing NGOs and politicians like Netanyahu who receive private as opposed to public funding from abroad will be able to preserve their privacy.  That is how it should be.  Private funding of Im Tirzu and similar fascist NGOs should not be inhibited by unwelcome publicity to donors such as the American billionaire Sheldon Adelson.

x.         I have to confess that as a budding Prime Minister I particularly admire Prime Minister Netanyahu's video on Facebook for encouraging Jewish voters to get out and vote by warning that ‘droves’ of Arabs were coming out to vote.  Of course this is not racism it is merely encouraging Jewish voters to turn out at the voting booths.  

xi.        I also warmly appreciate the honesty of Deputy Defence Minister Rabbi Eli Dahan that ‘“even gay Jews have higher souls than all non-Jews, gay or straight“.  Of course the learned Rabbi explained that he didn’t therefore support gays, it was just that Arabs were even lower in the human racial hierarchy than gay Jews.  Indeed he later clarified that Palestinians are “like animals, they aren’t human.”  At a time of political correctness, such honesty is breathtaking.  Of course there are some misguided people who don’t understand that Israel is a democracy, a live one, with verve and spirit.  Why Prime Minister Netanyahu explained that Israel needed a fence around it to protect it from 'wild beasts' [there are non in the Middle East - he meant the local Arabs]

xii.       I guess what particularly pleases me and I’m sure little Owen Smith would agree, is the democracy that Israel embodies.  In a region known for dictatorship, Israel is a beacon of light.  I was particularly interested in the recent Pew Research Centre’s Survey on Israel’s Religious Divided Society.  I know Owen will join me on this.  When a plurality of Israel’s Jewish population (48%-46%) says that Israel’s Palestinian population should be expelled and when Israel’s fascist foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman recently reiterated this as good democrats we should tell Israel’s Arabs that they must go.  As even the leader of Israel’s Labour Party Isaac Herzog said, Labour is not an ‘Arab lovers’ party.  It is good to hear such frank comments from the Jewish Labour Movement’s sister party in Israel.  I'm sure that wonderful man, Jeremy Newmark, was happy to hear that Israeli Labour are no slouch when it comes to Arabs.

xiii.      I was also interested that in the same survey, 79% of Jewish respondents said that Jewish citizens of Israel should have preferential treatment.  Is there anyone who seriously doubts this should happen in a Jewish state?  I hope not.

xiv.     Israel’s vibrant democracy is an example to all.  I only learnt recently of the new law that will enable the majority of Israel’s Knesset (parliament) to expel troublemakers from its ranks.  Israel's Knesset passes law that allows expulsion of lawmakers Although neutrally worded, everyone knows that it is aimed at a few Israeli Palestinian trouble makers from the Balad party.  Unfortunately, despite our best efforts to stop them standing, they have been allowed to do so by our High Court and these misguided Arabs keep voting for them.  I understand that Ayelet Shaked Israel’s Justice Minister is determined to reform the Court.  I know that some people pillory Ayelet and even accuse her of supporting genocide.   This is most unfair, she was only saying that Palestinian mothers give birth to little Palestinian snakes whose sole desire in life is to blow Jews up.

         In future when someone like Haneen Zoabi, a particular reprehensible anti-Semite who called Israel’s soldiers murderers, for having executed (I mean killed) 10 people on board the Marva Marmara, which was breaching Israel’s unlawful blockade of Gaza, behaves in this way, then we will be able to expel them from the Knesset.  It is unfortunately a loophole in Israel’s democracy that people who don’t support a Jewish state (like Arabs) are able to take advantage of our democracy in order to subvert it.  This is only to be admired.  There are a few MPs like  Hilary Benn  I would like expel from our Parliament so I believe that this should be welcomed.

xv.        Can I just add a word of praise for Israel’s healthy and democratic foreign policy.  When all around were boycotting it, Israel was Apartheid South Africa’s best friend.  Brothers in arms - Israel's secret pact with Pretoria.  This takes real courage comrades.  In particular, when the United States cowardly cut off arms supplies and weapons supplies to regimes such as Pinochet and the Argentinian generals, Israel was always prepared to step into the breach.  I think we should be deeply appreciative of Israel’s support for democracy in Central and South America.  Mothers of the disappeared in Latin America feel Gaza’s pain

Comrades and friends, Israel is a vibrant and thriving racial democracy.  It ill  behoves us to criticise it for what we perceive as its failings when it is one of the world’s strongest states and our ally against enemies of the West.’

A Sad Reflection of Corbyn's Political Drift
The above is, of course, not the answer Corbyn gave but it is the answer he should have given.  I knew Jeremy Corbyn over 30 years ago, even before he became an MP.  There was no stronger supporter of the Palestinians.  He has been to Palestine at least 6 times and every year without fail, Jeremy Corbyn turned up at Palestine Solidarity Conference.  Today he seems to have forgotten what Israel's behaviour is like.  He has been so tranfixed by the 'anti-Semitism' allegations that he no longer knows what to believe in.

No one is more aware than Corbyn of the horrors of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.  Yet at the JW3 ‘debate’ earlier this week he grovelled and flattered the supporters of Israel.  When asked what he admired about Israel (see transcript below) he said ‘Its verve and spirit’.  That is, of course, one way of putting it.

The madness of this type of behaviour is illustrated by the fact that the Zionist Jewish Labour Movement voted by 92% to 4% to support Owen Smith.  Corbyn will not gain the support of the Zionists and racists of the Israel lobby.  If he had been better advised he would have left Owen Smith to speak alone to JW3 whilst he spoke to his supporters.

Yet this is not just the failure of one man. It is testimony to the unremitting ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign, with its wall to wall media coverage, that has created the appearance of an all pervasive anti-Semitism and the accompanying headlines out of absolutely nothing.  Ask someone to name any specific anti-Semitic incident or comment and they would be hard pressed to do so.  To this day no one has refuted Asa Winstanley’s exposure of the bogus and crooked allegations that led up to the Oxford University Labour Club accusations. [How Israel lobby manufactured UK Labour Party’s anti-Semitism crisis]

Ruth Smeeth, the false victim of ‘anti-Semitism’ at the Chakrabarti press conference talks of 25,000 ‘abusive’ tweets.  I suspect that there were thousands of messages, not least from me, attacking her for being a Drama Queen, a fake and a phony but I doubt there were many anti-Semitic posts.  If there were any genuinely anti-Semitic posts they would have come from fascists not from people in the Labour Party.

Corbyn’s experiences over the past year are a sombre warning to all those who believe it is possible to support the Palestinians on the basis of Israel’s human rights violations without understanding that the latter are a result of the Jewish nature of the Israeli state.  It is Zionist settler colonialism, its search for an ethnically pure state, its constant desire to effect ethnic cleansing at the same time as it colonises and consolidates its occupation, which leads to the human rights violations.

It is a lesson that  Palestine Solidarity Campaign has yet to learn.  You cannot support the Palestinians unless you reject Zionism.  Two statism, support for a Jewish  state, is incompatible with self-determination and justice for the Palestinians.

Corbyn as the Black Knight in Monty Python's sketch

When I think of Corbyn’s behaviour in feeding the hand that keeps smacking him in the face I recall one of David Cameron’s better jokes.  Towards the end of his premiership Cameron told Corbyn that he admired the Labour leader’s “tenacity” in clinging on to power despite attempts by MPs to oust him. “He has reminded me of the Black Knight in Monty Python’s ‘Holy Grail’. He has been kicked so many times but he says, ‘keep going, it’s only a flesh wound’.”

In the fictional sketch, the Black Knight loses all his limbs but still fights on regardless

It is a joke but it contains a kernel of reality.  Instead of constantly trying to appease the unappeasable Corbyn should have said at the outset to the Jewish Labour Movement and their friends that yes he condemns anti-Semitism but he also condemns attempts to use anti-Semitism as a weapon against supporters of Palestine.

The reality in the last year is that Corbyn has denied, until he is blue in the face, that he is an anti-Semite.  This has had no effect on his critics because what they mean by anti-Semitism is not the traditional Jew hatred, which is non-existent in the Labour Party but the so called ‘New anti-Semitism’ which defines opposition to Israel as a Jewish state as anti-Semitism.  It is new because it is opposition to a state rather than Jews as individuals or a group.

The level of debate amongst both politicians and the mass media is abysmal.  It appeals to the lowest common denominator.  It deliberately obfuscates and confuses categories.  You don’t have to be particularly intelligent to understand that racism can only be directed at people.  You can’t be racist against a state.  A state is an inanimate structure or in Marx’s words, a body of armed men.  Leaving aside the absurdity of the Zionist claim that people campaign against Israel because it is Jewish.

I have provided an alternative transcript.  It is the one that Jeremy Corbyn could, if he had had the backbone and verve, to use his word, to use.  It is the one he would have used 3 years ago.

TRANSCRIPT

Debate Between Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Smith at the JW3 September 18^th

Q:        Jeremy Corbyn Will you support that – the Jewish Labour Movement rule change?

Yes it will be going to Conference & it follows on from the general anti-racist statement that I’ve proposed to the National Executive some months ago which was actually unanimously agreed by the NEC as a prelude to putting forward a rule change at this years Conference.  There something really sad that we are the only political party that has ever had a general statement of anti-racism in its… so thank you very much for your Question and good luck on the NCC.

[the Jewish Labour Movement Rule Change will make anti-Semitic ‘beliefs’ not just their expression an offence.  The     explanatory wording states that Zionism should not be a term of ‘abuse’ even though this racist ideology and movement is by definition abusive – the Rule Change also says that the ‘victim’ of an anti-Semitic should be taken at their word and that there should be an overwhelming presumption of guilt against someone accused.  So if a Zionist accuses a supporter of Palestine of being anti-Semitic then that accusation must be accepted.  To his shame Corbyn has accepted this lock, stock and barrel.]

Q:        Jeremy & Owen – I wanted to find out from you what aspects of Israel & its achievements do you most admire

Compere:  Mr Corbyn what do you most admire about Israel and its achievements?

Jeremy Corbyn – I admire the verve and spirit of the towns and cities in Israel – the life and the way people conduct themselves, I admire the separation of legal and political powers and the system of democratic government that is there and I admire many of the technical and industrial achievements that Israel has made and its very advanced technology in so many way that it has developed in medical and telecommunications technology. 

Owen Smith – I admire the incredible strength….