YOU CAN’T APPEASE ZIONISM It's time McDonnell & Corbyn
STOPPED started fighting back We Are Witnessing
a Slow Motion Coup
ISRAEL IS AN APARTHEID STATE AND SAYING SO IS NOT
ANTI-SEMITIC
Open Letter to Stephen Pollard, Editor of the Jewish Chronicle
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| It's true - the idiocy and malevolence of the front pages are 'unprecedented' whether they should boast about it is another matter |
The adoption of the big lie technique that Hitler pioneered when he argued in Mein Kampf that the benefit of telling a "colossal" lie was that no one
would believe that someone "could
have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously" is indeed unprecedented. Never before have papers that call themselves Jewish done so
much to stir up anti-Semitism.
If their campaign succeeds in overthrowing Corbyn, which is its purpose, then many people will indeed blame 'the Jews'. Stephen Pollard and his fellow reactionaries are playing with fire.
The purpose of this campaign
is not to fight anti-Semitism but to
remove Corbyn. That is why John McDonnell particularly is behaving in a
cowardly and stupid fashion. Quoting
an unnamed Labour MP, the Jewish Chronicle’s Lee Harpin wrote: “John
McDonnell wants power at any cost. If this means making the Labour antisemitism
row go away for the time being then so be it. Jeremy isn’t quite so malleable —
and neither are those who work alongside him at the top.”
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| Every reactionary Tory paper is concerned about 'antisemitism' |
At any cost means accepting a
definition of ‘anti-Semitism’ which renders support for the Palestinians and
opposition to Zionism racist. It means abandoning any form of international
solidarity. It means turning a blind eye
to Israeli Apartheid for the sake of a temporary peace.
McDonnell’s ‘strategy’ is not only unprincipled but stupid. This latest attack on Corbyn is not
about the IHRA, still less anti-Semitism.
It is the beginning of an attempt to remove the Corbyn leadership
entirely. As the Tories face their Waterloo over Brexit, the Establishment in
this country are panicking at the prospect of a Corbyn government.
If McDonnell loses his nerve now, then we can be sure he will be putty in
the hands of the City of London were he were to become Chancellor. Cowardice today will mean treachery tomorrow.
According to the joint
editorials Labour’s refusal to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance
Alliance definition of anti-Semitism in full means that the use of the phrases “Dirty Jew” and “Zionist bitch” is now acceptable in the Labour Party. This is a lie
worthy of Goebbels himself. It is a measure of the desperation of the Express’s
former editor, Stephen Pollard, that he resorts to such nonsense.
‘Zionist
bitch’ may be sexist and offensive, even when used against Margaret Hodge, but it is
less offensive than calling Jeremy Corbyn a ‘fucking anti-Semite’. And it
is far less offensive than attacking the victims of child abuse, as Hodge did
when Islington Council leader.
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| Now this foul woman is a Jewish Chronicle hero |
For 3 years the Zionist lobby,
including the Labour Right, the Israeli Embassy, Jewish Chronicle and Britain’s
yellow press, have poured cold water on any suggestion that their concerns about Labour ‘anti-Semitism’ were motivated by Israel and Zionism. They
were only concerned with Jew hatred they told us yet even a cursory reading of
their whinging makes it clear that Israel is at the centre of their concerns.
Leaving aside the hysterical nonsense
about an ‘existential threat to Jewish life
in this country that would
be posed by a Corbyn -led government’ what concerns them is the ‘deleting and amending four key examples of
antisemitism relating to Israel.’
Only two
weeks ago Pollard called the Labour Party ‘institutionally
anti-Semitic’. Why? Because ‘instead of adopting the [IHRA] definition...
Labour has excised the parts which relate to Israel and how criticism of Israel
can be antisemitic.’ Precisely and what are these parts?
i.
Calling Israel ‘a
racist endeavour’. Only last
week Israel passed the Jewish Nation State Law, which even liberal
Zionists acknowledge is an Apartheid
Law. It removed Arabic as an official language, supports Jewish –only
settlements and deliberately omitted any reference to equality. Is calling this racist anti-Semitic?
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| If Arabs paraded through the streets of Tel Aviv with this banner the Police would arrest them, beat them up and they would receive at least a couple of years in prison - Jews however have complete immunity |
ii.
Comparing Israel to Nazi Germany is also
anti-Semitic. Why? When mobs demonstrate with banners
proclaiming ‘kill them all’ whilst chanting
‘death to the Arabs’ is that not
reminiscent of a certain European state in the 1930’s? Recently hundreds of Jews demonstrated in Afula protesting against the sale of a house to an Arab. Is that not similar to
signs in German towns saying ‘Jews not
welcome’?
iii.
Another of their concerns is ‘Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination’. But the idea that Jews form a
separate nation with the right to self-determination is an anti-Semitic
idea. It rests on the belief that Jews
don’t belong in the states where they live. It follows therefore that Jews owe
their loyalty to Israel, the self-proclaimed ‘Jewish state’ than to the country
they live in. But the IHRA says this is also anti-Semitic!
The IHRA is so contradictory that by its own definition
it is anti-Semitic! Sir Stephen Sedley, the Jewish former Court of Appeal
Judge criticised it as not a definition. David
Feldman, the Director of the Pears Institute for Studying Anti-Semitism
defined it as ‘bewilderingly imprecise.’
The IHRA
Definition is NOT the Issue
The latest Zionist attack is NOT about the IHRA definition of Anti-Semitism or anti-Semitism. It is about removing the Corbyn leadership, which
is why people like John McDonnell and Rebecca Long-Bailey, who believe that if they retreat on this all will be well,
are digging their own political graves.
Brian Klug is right when he says Labour’s new
Anti-Semitism Code of Conduct has adopted the IHRA in all fundamental
respects. What Klug fails to understand
is that this alleged non-adoption of the IHRA by Labour is just a pretext, a fig leaf.
For the past 3 years I and others have argued that
the anti-Semitism witchhunt is not about anti-Semitism. Jackie
Walker, Marc Wadsworth, Ken Livingstone and Tony Greenstein have just been collateral damage. It is about Jeremy
Corbyn. We were just useful scapegoats. It is to Jeremy and even more so John
McDonnell’s shame that they have betrayed comrades in order to appease racists.
One of the lessons of the fight against fascism is that appeasement simply encourages your enemy. Of course the British ruling class weren’t
really appeasing fascism. Chamberlain
and the Tory Party supported Hitler's destruction of the German working
class organisations. They wanted Hitler to
attack the Soviet Union. It was only
when Hitler attacked British interests in
Europe that they had second thoughts.
However much Corbyn and McDonnell appeased them the
Zionists came back for more. McDonnell in particular doesn’t seem to understand
that their real agenda was never ‘anti-Semitism’. There was no anti-Semitism. It
was always about defending Israel and removing Corbyn, in no particular order.
The time has now come for Corbyn and Momentum, with
or without Lansman, to call a halt to this policy of appeasing Israel's supporters. To use the Zionist slogan of March 26th, Enough is Enough. NO
MORE CONCESSIONS TO ZIONISM AND ITS RACIST AGENDA.
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| A touching photo of the racist Orban and Netanyahu couples |
This was the week that Hungary’s anti-Semitic Prime
Minister paid a visit to Israel and paid homage at Israel’s Holocaust
propaganda museum, Yad Vashem. A group of
Israelis, mainly Holocaust survivors, held a protest at the visit of a man who
has sought to rehabilitate Hungary’s pro-Nazi war time leader, Admiral Horthy.
Horthy presided over the deportation of nearly ½m Hungary Jews to Auschwitz, yet Orban called him
an ‘exceptional
statesman’
Veronika Cohen, one of the demonstrators and a
Hungarian Holocaust survivor explained ‘I don’t think that you have to be a
Holocaust survivor or a Hungarian to be here to say that Orban has no business
coming here,”.
Yael
Weiss-Reind, whose family was murdered in Hungary during the Holocaust, said
that Yad Vashem was granting legitimacy to these regimes when it “accepts leaders who carry out policies and
ideologies that are very similar to what we saw decades ago.”
Zionism has never had any compunction in working
with genuine anti-Semites. Zionism is and always has been a Jewish form of anti-Semitism. As the founder of Zionism, Theodor Herzl wrote in his Diaries, in
reaction to the Dreyfus Affair: ‘In Paris...
I achieved a freer attitude toward anti-Semitism, which I now began to
understand historically and to pardon. Above all, I recognized the emptiness
and futility of trying to "combat" anti-Semitism.’
Zionism has created in Israel an ethno -nationalist
state that is a mirror image of similar states that existed in 1930’s
Europe. Zionism shares with
anti-Semitism contempt for Diaspora Jewry. It believes the place of Jews is in Israel not Europe.
It is fundamental to Zionist ideology that Jews don’t belong in the lands of
their birth but in their own racial state.
Zionism believes that Jews form a nation apart from those they live amongst,
which is also what anti-Semites believe. It is also why the Zionist attack on
Corbyn and the Labour Party is hypocritical.
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| There are some antisemites that Stephen Pollard doesn't object to |
There is no
greater hypocrite than Stephen Pollard, the Editor of the
Jewish Chronicle. Pollard
is the man who defended the anti-Semitic Polish MEP Michal Kaminski, who was an
MP for Jedwabne, a village in which, in 1941, fellow Poles herded up to 1600 Jews
into a barn which they then set alight. Kaminski supported the Committee to Maintain
the Good Name of Jedwabne yet Pollard went out of his way to defend Kaminski.
Why? Because Kaminski was also a strong supporter of Israel! Pollard exclaimed that: “Far
from being an antisemite, Mr Kaminski is about as pro-Israeli an MEP as
exists.”
What has really prompted this attack on Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour
Party is the fear that someone known for his opposition to US imperialism and
Israel’s racism might become Prime Minister because of the precarious nature of
May’s administration.
This hysterical attack betrays their weakness not strength. However
much nonsense fills the pages of the newspapers and the TV screens most people
do not accept the nonsense that Labour is overrun with anti-Semitism. That is
why the treachery of Lansman in refusing to mobilise Momentum against these
attacks is politically criminal. Momentum is losing its very reason for
existence.
We need to tell the racists who wrote the joint editorials to get lost
and take their Jewish only roads and towns with them. Israel is a racist endeavour.
These are the same people who, when Trump came to power, fell over
themselves to
welcome him and his Administration to power, including anti-Semites like Steve
Bannon, despite Trump having mounted the most
anti-Semitic election campaign in history.
We need to ask why is it that Corbyn and McDonnell have still
failed to hold a meeting with Jewish Voice for Labour, Free Speech on Israel
and Labour Against the Witchhunt?
Instead of talking to their enemies, Corbyn and McDonnell should start
talking to their Jewish friends.
Above is an Open Letter to Stephen Pollard, the Editor of
the Jewish Chronicle.
Tony Greenstein
Dear Stephen,
You described the joint front pages
of 3 Zionist papers this week as ‘unprecedented’. I agree.
It is difficult to recollect when even the Jewish Chronicle saw deceiving its
readers as its prime purpose. An article that suggests ‘dirty Jew’ and ‘Zionist
bitch’ will now be ‘fair game’ in
the Labour Party does not deserve to be taken seriously.
For the past three years, during
the whole contrived ‘anti-Semitism’ crisis you failed to point to any actual
anti-Semitism. That was why Jews such as Jackie Walker, Cyril Chilsom and
myself were the most prominent targets. The only people who made anti-Semitic
comments, calling Jews ‘self-haters’,
‘traitors’ or ‘kapos’ were Zionists.
It is noticeable that not once have
you or your co-conspirators raised the Conservative Party’s membership of the ECR
Group in the European Parliament, despite it containing two anti-Semitic
parties – Poland’s Law & Justice and the Latvian LNNK.
I was also surprised that your
article was so fulsome in its praise of Margaret Hodge. Is this the same Hodge
of whom you once said that her ‘foul hypocrisy just beggars belief’. That was just the
headline! You also wrote: ‘It’s difficult to imagine a more blatant, shameful and
utterly contemptible piece of two-faced hypocrisy than the behaviour of
Margaret Hodge.’’ I couldn’t have put it better myself. You also wrote:
‘Her behaviour drags the entire
political system into disrepute, and she would now be well advised to withdraw
from public life....
Last April,
she apologised for what she called her “shameful
naivety” when, as leader of Islington Council, she dismissively brushed
aside the victims of paedophiles who preyed on children in council care. One
victim, Demetrious Panton, who was abused by the former head of an Islington
children’s home in the late 1970s, was dismissed by Mrs Hodge in a letter to
the BBC as “extremely disturbed”.
It was
almost beyond parody when she was then appointed Children’s Minister by Tony
Blair. ... the sheer grubbiness of her brand of hypocrisy leaves a stench that
makes others look almost admirable.’
Matthew
Norman wrote: ‘With a
past like hers, Margaret Hodge might show a bit more humility.’ It
would appear that a dose of Zionism is the best political disinfectant for
getting rid of the ‘stench that makes
others look almost admirable.’
The blessed
Margaret was not the only one who was giving off a stench. Your concern about
‘anti-Semitism’ was not in evidence when Polish MEP Michal Kaminski was invited
to speak to Conservative Friends of Israel. Kaminski was MP for Jedwabne, a
village in which, in 1941, up to 1600 Jews had been herded by fellow Poles into
a barn which was then set alight. When the truth of what occurred was revealed
by two Polish Jewish historians Poland’s President Aleksander
Kwasniewski agreed to make an apology, for which he was criticised by Kaminski.
Your response was to write an
article Poland's Kaminski is not
an antisemite: he's a friend to Jews in which you described him as ‘one of the
greatest friends to the Jews in a town where antisemitism and a visceral
loathing of Israel are rife.’ After all ‘ Mr
Kaminski is about as pro-Israel an MEP as exists.’ Not only did Kaminski oppose an apology
but he argued that those few who survived the Holocaust, should apologise to
the Poles! It seems that there are some anti-Semites that you have no
objections to.
Jeremy Corbyn’s crime is not that
he hates Jews but he doesn’t support the Israeli state. You wrote ‘instead of adopting the (IHRA) definition ... Labour
has excised the parts which relate to Israel and how criticism of Israel can be
antisemitic.’
It is clear that your agenda is not
anti-Semitism but Israel. If the Labour Party was anti-Semitic you would have
no objection as long as it was pro-Zionist. Genuine anti-Semites in the Trump
Administration, such as Steve Bannon, who objected to his children going to
school with ‘whiny Jewish brats’ have never merited an ‘unprecedented’
joint front page article despite an election campaign which Dana Millbank described
thus: Anti-Semitism is no
longer an undertone of Trump’s campaign. It’s the melody. This did not prevent
your fellow ‘anti-Semitism’ campaigner Jonathan Arkush from giving Trump a warm welcome.
Trump of course is pro-Israel whereas Corbyn
is not, which is why Trump’s praise for the ‘fine people’ i.e. neo-Nazis in
Charlottesville, who chanted ‘the Jews
will not replace us’ seems to have made him the most popular President ever
in Israel.
When you talked about the threat to Jewish
life in this country what really concerned you was support for the world’s only
Apartheid state. A state where hundreds of Jews can demonstrate in Afula against the
sale of a house to an Arab.
If Jews in this country experienced what Palestinians in Israel undergo
then your complaints of anti-Semitism would have some merit. Your gripes about
non-existent anti-Semitism should be treated with contempt.
The time has come when Corbyn needs to get a backbone and tell you and your
fellow creative writers where to go. The truth is, Stephen Pollard, you would
not recognise anti-Semitism if it bit you on your ample backside.
Best wishes,
Tony Greenstein
