The Rule of the Mob: Labour Conference Banner Banned, Slashed
By Peter Gregson | OffGuardian | September 27, 2019
On Sunday 22nd Sept, I, a Labour Party member since 1986, had my banner taken down from outside Conference. Why? The police agreed it was not anti-Semitic. When Zionists first started complaining about it, the police photographed it and referred it to their superiors. Not a problem, they said. The banner could stay.
But the Zionists, from the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM) and the Sussex Friends of Israel (FoI) were incandescent with rage. Repeatedly they complained and when the police refused to act, they took the law into their own hands.
Cllr Joshua Garfield from Newham Council rushed past me at the banner and slashed it in two. The police apprehended him and removed the large sharp scissors he had used and took his details. (Later Garfield boasted about it on twitter.)
The Secretary from Labour Against the Witch-hunt and I repaired it. Yet again it was attacked, ripped in half again by another Zionist. We repaired it again.
At this point local hoodlum Simon Cobbs (Founder of Sussex Friends of Israel and ex-resident of HMP Exeter) stood spread-eagled before it and refused to move. After an hour of this he moved away, whereupon another extremist rushed the banner and this time ripped it in several places.
On each occasion we repaired the banner, and on each occasion the police caught the assailant and took their details.
The police asked me if I would consider taking down the banner; I said I would not do this- I explained this was a matter of freedom of speech; I was in a public space, the banner was not anti-Semitic.
Eventually, a group of Zionists stood before the banner and created a scene, arguing and shouting with a group of us who defended the banner, supporters of free speech. At a certain point the police made the decision that a possible public order offence had been committed. They removed the banner and took it away.
The police explained that it was now evidence in a potential public order charge…. AGAINST me!
It would appear the police had been bullied into making a decision into taking my banner on the grounds that I had committed a public order offence, rather than those who had been harassing and attacking me, calling me an anti-Semite. Readers can see the slashed banner here.
Later that day, Jeremy Corbyn waded in. He tweeted:
I’m disgusted that this banner was displayed near our #Lab19 conference centre. We asked the police to remove it and I’m glad they did. This kind of antisemitic poison has no place whatsoever in our society.”
This brought forward 1,800 responses, many from people who couldn’t see anything anti-Semitic about the banner at all. Even the artist, Latuff, said so.
On the Monday, I attended a voluntary interview at the John Street police station where I was interviewed under caution with the duty solicitor present. I explained what the banner was about and why I had brought it to Brighton, to promote political discussion on the weaponization of anti-Semitism.
I explained about the Al-Jazeera documentary on which the banner was based, The Lobby , which portrayed how Israel funds the take-down of politicians sympathetic to Palestine, using groups such as the JLM and the FoI.
I noted the banner had particular relevance at this time. An election was coming and that once the date was announced, newspapers would be full of accusations of anti-Semitism aimed at Labour politicians who have dared to criticise Israel, in an effort to undermine their vote. I thought it important to point out the role a foreign country was having in British electoral affairs.
I concluded by telling the police that I was disappointed in them for undermining my freedom of speech.
The police must now decide if they will ask the CPS to prosecute me; it is likely to be months before a decision is made.
In the meantime, I will pursue claims of criminal damage against those who attacked my banner and against the police for taking it down, for the Human Rights Act of 1998 – Article 10 protects my right to hold my own opinions and to express them freely without government interference, including through works of art.
The next day, Rabbi Ahron Cohen of the Neturei Karta spoke to me and gave his view that he could not fathom any way that the banner was anti-Semitic.
Many are dumbfounded at Corbyn’s tweet describing it as such. When the Lobby film was shown in 2017, its fairness and accuracy was supported by OFCOM and Corbyn called for an investigation, so he knew that Israel pumps millions of pounds into Zionist defamation activities in the UK with the sole aim of shutting down any debate on Israel’s racist treatment of Arabs and Christians.
However, according to the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism adopted by most political parties, to say that Israel is a racist endeavour is now seen as prejudice against Jews.
The banner says: “IHRA: tell the NEC how you feel”, because I wanted Labour members to tell the Party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) to abandon the IHRA definition they adopted a year ago, an action Corbyn himself objected to.
Party members are now beholden to a definition whereby any activist criticising Israel as racist becomes an anti-Semite, a plainly ludicrous claim. This enables Zionists to make endless charges of anti-Semitism against anti-apartheid activists.
Most of these accusations come from the JLM, registered as a socialist society affiliated to Labour.
I am chair of Labour Against Zionist Islamophobic Racism (LAZIR), a group of Labour Party activists which sees Zionism as racism and who want to end its influence, seeking to get the JLM disaffiliated. At the Conference, we distributed 1,500 flyers to Party members calling for this, highlighting the JLM’s role in undermining any politician who supports Palestine and criticises Israel.
Corbyn’s pro-Palestine stance has drawn JLM’s ire and they have declared Corbyn “unfit to be prime minister”. They score Labour candidates seeking election according to their level of support for Israel, working with the media to undermine whose whom they don’t like or who support Corbyn.
A tweet from a man at LP Conference showing plans to attack Corbyn and Labour with “big stories” come election time
One doesn’t have to be either Jewish or in the Labour Party to be in the JLM.
Labour’s founding planks are fairness, equality and social justice. LAZIR point out that JLM’s sole focus is on protecting Israel, sharing none of Labour’s values in their disregard for Palestinian rights.
I emailed Corbyn in response to the tweet, pointing out the Rabbi’s views and that he himself had called for an investigation into Israel’s work undermining UK politicians; he had also not supported Labour adopting the full IHRA definition.
I copied in all NEC members and drew this response from Jon Lansman:
I do not wish to receive any more of your messages. Your obsessive hatred of those you call “Zionists” marks you out as an anti-Semite. To be clear, you do not have my permission to retain my contact details so please delete them and never contact me again.”
Lansman is Momentum leader and the man responsible for getting the IHRA definition adopted by Labour in 2018. He is a strong supporter of Israel and spent years on a kibbutz. He is also one of the nine CLP reps on the NEC and as such was elected to represent the views of CLP members, including me. I consider that as my rep, Lansman must accept that part of his role is to receive communications on Labour Party matters from members.
Labour’s deputy leader Tom Watson couldn’t resist wading in as well, saying in the Jewish Chronicle he was furious about this “deliberate intimidation of Jewish Labour members at the conference”.
He said “Regardless of where and why it is outrageous to come to a conference of a democratic party and to intimidate people who are just trying to make the world a better place.” I do not consider Watson’s unbridled support for Israel is in any way making the world a better place.
I am now in discussion with my solicitors; I will seek redress through the courts.
NOTES:
Latuff’s cartoon was first published in September 2018, when it was used to illustrate Gregson’s article Why let Netanyahu write the Labour rulebook?
See the footage of the police removing the banner at LBC here. More on this, including the links to the many publications who carried the story, can be found at lazir.org
People’s Vote: Corbyn Signs His Own Death Warrant
By Kit Knightly | OffGuardian | February 26, 2019
Throughout his leadership of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn has disappointed some of his most ardent admirers by his refusal to hang tough. Yes, he has played many situations with canniness and subtlety, but too often he has been soft, appeased and conciliated where it is either unnecessary, or worse, entirely counter productive.
Too often he vows to “listen” to the problems of dissenting New Labour MPs, instead of asserting his authority. Too many times he has promised to “tackle antisemitism”, instead of bluntly telling everyone – “Labour is NOT antisemitic, this is a smear campaign”.
Corbyn should know by now that he can’t win by playing their game by their rules. You can’t appease people who do not want to be appeased. You can’t clean up a smear campaign, and trying just spreads the smears further.
However, none of his previous mistakes compare to the kamikaze of backing a people’s vote on Brexit, a huge mistake that undermines the Labour movement from multiple angles.
Firstly, there is “The Independent Group” to consider – this is, essentially, a cave to their demands. Corbyn has now shown he will bow to threats of defection and the loss of eight entirely forgettable MPs. More than bowing to the pressure, he has handed them legitimacy. Before today The Independent Group was a joke – their launch fell flat, they are all variously personally compromised, they have no policies, no ideology, no leader and they are even registered as business, NOT a political party.
They should have been ignored, mocked even, but not taken seriously. This decision hands them power. A dreadful mistake, that breathes life into a New Labour movement that has been husking out its last moments ever since Corbyn was elected leader.
Yes, it’s true this is technically no change from the Labour Conference position – but this announcement has meaning. Whatever the truth of the situation – the media can now present TIG as a small group who stood for their principles, and in doing so bent “Corbyn’s Personality Cult” back to the path of reason. Paying off a blackmailer is never the solution. They always want more.
Secondly, there is the Lexit vote. Brexit is not a purely left-vs-right issue. The media have tried to present Brexit as a battle between lovely cuddly progressives who want to remain and awful mean racists who want to leave. Obviously it was never that simple. There is a very real portion of the left who believe the EU is anti-democratic. It’s important to remember that being anti-EU was always a traditionally socialist position. A second referendum is a betrayal of those people, and weakening of Corbyn’s socialist base. There are marginal seats, especially in the poorer areas of the country, who will swing against Labour if it is perceived they are campaigning to stop Brexit.
Third, a teetering and hilariously incompetent Tory government has been shown a crack of hope here. They can now pitch themselves as “The British Party”, standing up for the nation against the “European” Labour party who want to “sell us out to Brussels”. You can be sure that’s how the Mail, Times and Sun will sell it. May can leverage this into a “khaki election” and win on a landslide of national pride.
Finally, and most importantly, there is the question of undermining democracy itself. It has never, ever, before been suggested we simply re-do a vote because we don’t like the outcome. Brexit has been sold as a vote “built on misinformation”, we have been told that “the realities have changed”, and that new voters have come of age, whilst old voters died. We have even been told Brexit needs to be undone because it is a threat to our “national security”.
A second referendum lends credence to these arguments – it sets the precedent. Demographic changes, dishonesty, national security. These lines of argument are vague and unquantifiable enough that they could then be cited as reason to delegitimize literally ANY vote. Up to, and including, a general election…. that Jeremy Corbyn won.
“Labour lied about privatising water”…. re-do the vote.
“Millions of old lefties have died since the last election”…. re-do the vote.
“Corbyn’s campaign manager is a security threat”…. re-do the vote.
The EU has form when it comes to replaying referenda until they get the result they want, but it is new in the British experience.
The actual form the vote is still undecided. Will it be a choice between two deals? Will there be a “remain option”? But this is largely immaterial. If the option is “this deal or no deal” and “no deal” has been ruled out, then a no vote on the deal is a vote to remain. The threat of no deal has been hammered home to us in a thousand different ways. A vote which “forces” no deal will be seen as a threat to the nation and discarded. Moving the deadline back is already being mooted, they can do this as many times as they want until people forget we were ever meant to leave, or will accept a deal which is just remain renamed.
The problem is not Brexit. The establishment has a million different tools for deconstructing, preventing, obfuscating and totally halting Brexit. The problem, from the establishment POV, is Jeremy Corbyn. They can’t stop Brexit until Corbyn has been removed… and Corbyn has now handed them the power to do this.
It’s important to hold all these issues in their proper perspective – this is about Corbyn, not Brexit. Corbyn is the threat, not Brexit.
In or out of the EU, a Tory or New Labour government would still push austerity for the poor and tax breaks for the rich.
In or out of the EU, a Tory or New Labour government will pour money into the arms industry whilst neglecting public services.
In or out of the EU, a Tory or New Labour government will still support American interventions in Syria, Venezuela and around the globe.
And, in or out of the EU, Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party would have reversed all of those policies.
That’s why MPs from every party have been actively trying to weaken his leadership, remove him from office and destroy public faith in his ideas. More than that, Corbyn is the only party leader who might actually deliver a proper departure from the EU (he would need to do so, in some ways, to enact his manifesto). Corbyn, and his fellow socialists, undermine the idea of Brexit as the cause of the racist rich.
If anyone but Jeremy Corbyn was leader of the Labour party one of two things would have already happened:
- The 2D Blairite elected in Corbyn’s place would have “united for common purpose” with the Tories to deliver Brexit in name only, and we’d have left the EU under a deal that was essentially the exact status quo under a rebranded status quo. Austerity – check. Free movement – check. Preparing to contribute to the EU army. Some small concessions, perhaps. Even less democratic representation.
- Brexit would have been called off entirely and we’d all have been “saved from an act of national self-harm”.
Brexit is NOT the biggest political crisis in Britain’s history. It isn’t even the most important political question facing us this decade, year or month. Austerity is. Growing poverty. Defunded public services. Privatisation of our transport, water and eventually our NHS. These are real crises.
The most important question we need to ask is – what is better for ordinary people, a Conservative government or a Labour government?
Do we want to be a neo-liberal state slowly crushing the poorest and most vulnerable beneath austerity’s boot heel? Or do we want to change, and try take care of each other?
For all the criticism of Jeremy Corbyn from the left, he has been steadfast in trying to secure a socialist government for this country, and undo the evil of the austerity. In backing the “people’s vote”, I fear he has dashed any chance of that happening.
Kit Knightly is co-editor of OffGuardian. The Guardian banned him from commenting. Twice. He used to write for fun, but now he’s forced to out of a near-permanent sense of outrage.
British PM pledges to protect Israel, Jews in dig at Corbyn
Press TV – September 18, 2018
Prime Minister Theresa May has pledged to protect British Jews and what she called “Israel’s right to defend itself” in what appeared to be a veiled attack on Jeremy Corbyn, who has been accused of tolerating anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.
Addressing a dinner held by the United Jewish Israel Appeal, which works to build links between British Jews and Israel, May said she was “sickened” by the idea that some Jews had doubt whether Britain was a safe place to raise their children.
“I have come here tonight as prime minister of our country to say that I stand with you,” she told the crowd Monday night. “I stand with the UJIA. I stand with Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people. And I stand with the entire Jewish community in Britain.”
The Labour Party has been mired in rows over what critics describe as its failure to address anti-Semitism among party supporters and its initial reluctance to fully adopt a broader definition of anti-Semitism.
Corbyn, a veteran campaigner for Palestinian rights, has come under attack for criticizing the Israeli regime’s policies, which some view as being anti-Semitic. The Labour leader argued earlier this year that party members should be allowed to criticize Israel.
In August, Britain’s former chief rabbi Jonathan Sacks labeled Corbyn anti-Semite and said his 2013 comments about Zionists were the most offensive by a senior British politician in half a century.
Corbyn said five years ago, before he was Labour’s leader, that British Zionists “don’t understand English irony” despite “having lived in this country for a very long time.”
“If we are to stand up for the values that we share – then one of the things we need to do is give young Jewish people the confidence to be proud of their identity – as British, Jewish and Zionist too,” May said.
“There is no contradiction between these identities – and we must never let anyone try to suggest that there should be.”
In a barely coded message to Corbyn, the prime minister said, “Let me be clear: you cannot claim to be tackling racism, if you are not tackling anti-Semitism.”
Furthermore, May said she was committed to strong economic ties between London and Tel Aviv.
“You can also count on my commitment to Israel’s security,” she said. “I am clear that we will always support Israel’s right to defend itself.”
Gullible, Gutless and Gagged
Legal advice and common sense jettisoned as UK Labour Party leaders surrender to Zionist diktat
By Stuart Littlewood | Dissident Voice | September 7, 2018
Jeremy Corbyn, knifed by his senior lieutenants and failed by his media team, is on the danger list and now looks isolated.
At the fatal NEC (National Executive Committee) meeting this week to discuss whether the party should adopt the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism in full, with all its examples, he prepared and presented a 500-word statement to water down the definition but this met with an angry reaction from most NEC members and he dropped it.
According to the Guardian the most controversial passage in Corbyn’s draft statement said:
It cannot be considered racist to treat Israel like any other state or assess its conduct against the standards of international law. Nor should it be regarded as antisemitic to describe Israel, its policies or the circumstances around its foundation as racist because of their discriminatory impact, or to support another settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict.
That these words caused such a rumpus tells us all we need to know about the mentality of the modern Labour Party. It is surely self-evident that the Israel project was racist from the start and confirmation, if any were needed, is provided by the discriminatory nation state laws, emphasising Jewish supremacy, recently passed by the Knesset. Why deny the glaring truth? And last time I checked there was no ‘settlement’ of the Israel-Palestine conflict and the two-state idea endlessly talked about but never energetically pursued was stone-dead.
At the end of a stormy meeting the NEC accepted the IHRA definition and all its examples but added a statement “which ensures this will not in any way undermine freedom of expression on Israel or the rights of Palestinians.”
But the Israel lobby were still not satisfied and renewed their whinging. The Jewish Leadership Council’s chief executive, Simon Johnson, said Corbyn had “attempted shamefully to undermine the entire IHRA definition”, adding that the free speech caveat “drives a coach and horses” through that definition. “It is clearly more important to the Labour leader to protect the free speech of those who hate Israel than it is to protect the Jewish community from the real threats that it faces.”
A false dichotomy, of course. And if their case cannot withstand free speech it must have been bullsh*t in the first place.
Richard Angell, director of the centre-left Progress group, said:
The Jewish community made it clear and simple to Labour: pass the IHRA definition in full – no caveats, no compromises. Jeremy Corbyn and the Momentum-dominated NEC have just failed the most basic test. A ‘right to be racist’ protection when debating the Middle East is not just wrong, it harms the cause of peace but it will also continue a culture where Jewish people cannot feel at home in Labour.
Today’s decision is an insult. Labour does not know better than Jewish people about antisemitism.
He was backed up by another Progress director, Jennifer Gerber, who is also a director of Friends of Israel. She said:
It is appalling that the Labour party has once again ignored the view clearly and repeatedly stated by the Jewish community: that it should adopt the full IHRA definition without additions, omissions or caveats.
The IHRA definition has been adopted in full by 31 countries, including the UK, as well as over 130 UK local councils, the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and the judiciary. A ‘freedom of expression on Israel’ clause is unnecessary and totally undermines the other examples the party has supposedly just adopted.
The recurring message is that free speech is a threat and doesn’t seem to have a place in their world.
Re-frame anti-Semitism accurately – don’t accept the skewed version by the Israel lobby
So let’s get this straight: DNA research confirms that the great majority of those calling themselves Jews are not of Semitic blood. So does anti-Semitism mean what it says? Shouldn’t it mean that if we outlaw anti-Semitism we outlaw being nasty to the genuine Semites of the Holy Land; i.e. the indigenous people who include Palestinians whether Muslim, Christian or Jewish? And are they not terrorised and persecuted by the Israeli regime which is the chief perpetrator of anti-Semitism and which has oppressed, dispossessed, impoverished and slaughtered those people for 70 years?
Corbyn and his New Look Labour Party were in a position to lead a move to ‘unskew’ the definition of anti-Semitism and re-frame it accurately – with, of course, the help of the various campaign and BDS groups worldwide. But now they’ve effectively muzzled themselves.
And for some strange reason Corbyn and his team, throughout the unpleasant warfare in his party over anti-Semitism, completely ignored the warnings issued by legal experts Hugh Tomlinson QC, Geoffrey Robertson QC, Sir Stephen Sedley and others which explained how:
- the IHRA definition is “too vague to be useful” and conduct contrary to it is not necessarily illegal. Public bodies are under no obligation to adopt or use it and, if they do, they must interpret it in a way that’s consistent with their statutory obligations and with the European Convention on Human Rights, which provides for freedom of expression and freedom of assembly.
- the right of free expression is now part of UK domestic law by virtue of the Human Rights Act;
- Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights bestows on everyone “the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference…”;
- the IHRA definition is open to manipulation. “What is needed now is a principled retreat on the part of Government from a stance which it has naively adopted,”says Sedley;
- calling Israel an apartheid state or advocating BDS against Israel cannot properly be characterized as anti-Semitic. Furthermore, any public authority seeking to apply the IHRA definition to prohibit or punish such activities “would be acting unlawfully”;
- it is “not fit for any purpose that seeks to use it as an adjudicative standard. It is imprecise, confusing and open to misinterpretation and even manipulation”.
Robertson adds:
The Governments ‘adoption’ of the definition has no legal effect and does not oblige public bodies to take notice of it. The definition should not be adopted, and certainly should not be applied, by public bodies unless they are clear about Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights which is binding upon them, namely that they cannot ban speech or writing about Israel unless there is a real likelihood it will lead to violence or disorder or race hatred.
Crucially, freedom of expression applies not only to information or ideas that are favourably received or regarded as inoffensive, but also to those that “offend, shock or disturb the State or any sector of the population” – unless they encourage violence, hatred or intolerance.
What’s more, the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee recommended adoption of the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism subject to the inclusion of these two caveats :
(1) It is not antisemitic to criticise the Government of Israel, without additional evidence to suggest antisemitic intent.
(2) It is not antisemitic to hold the Israeli Government to the same standards as other liberal democracies, or to take a particular interest in the Israeli Government’s policies or actions, without additional evidence to suggest antisemitic intent.
The Government in adopting the IHRA definition dropped these caveats saying they weren’t necessary. But you’d expect that from an administration brazenly stuffed with members of the Zionist Tendency.
These top legal opinions are lethal ammunition. Had Corbyn and his media team deployed them to good effect the baying attack dogs would have been stopped in their tracks.
So the IHRA definition is not something a sane organisation would incorporate into its Code of Conduct – certainly not as it stands. It contravenes human rights and freedom of expression. But when did the admirers of apartheid Israel ever care about other people’s rights?
Corbyn Summoned by MI5 for ‘Facts of Life’ Briefing on Terrorism – Reports
Sputnik – 02.09.2018
The head of the MI5, Andrew Parker, has reportedly invited Corbyn to a “facts of life” briefing on the real terrorist threats facing the country.
But Corbyn has postponed the meeting, which was scheduled for Tuesday, as he is expected to spend all day attending a meeting of Labour’s National Executive Committee as he battles to quell a storm over anti-Semitism that has engulfed his leadership.
“The subjects of the briefing would have included issues relating to the domestic security threat, counterterrorism, counter-espionage, Russia and returning foreign fighters,” The Sunday Times wrote, quoting intelligence sources.
This would have been the first time the Labour leader would have been briefed by the head of Britain’s domestic intelligence service, the newspaper wrote.
Jeremy Corbyn had been told he could bring along his chief advisor Seumas Milne and Labour’s shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott to the briefing.
Another source told the newspaper that Britain’s security services have been “troubled” by some of Jeremy Corbyn’s statements on terrorism.
When speaking after last year’s bombing in Manchester, Corbyn suggested that it was London’s foreign policy, rather than jihadist ideology, that bears the blame for terrorist atrocities.
Corbyn and Milne have also questioned the veracity of the security services’ conclusion about Russia’s alleged involvement in the Skripals’ poisoning in March, with Milne saying that she found it “problematic” to trust the security services after the Blair government lied about the strength of the intelligence about alleged Iraqi weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the US-led invasion of the Arab country in 2003.
Back to the Future
A fictional story
By Gilad Atzmon | September 2, 2018
Neither Britain nor the rest of the world was surprised by last week’s election results. For the last six months Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party have led in the polls and during that time no one doubted that Corbyn would become Britain’s new prime minister, the only question was when. And yet, Corbyn’s increasing popularity wasn’t a smooth shift in British politics, it resulted instead from a gradual increase in British unity in opposition to an obnoxious foreign lobby. The nastier Corbyn’s enemies were, the more Brits sided with him. At a certain stage it became clear that it was the Zionist Lobby, rather than Corbyn himself, that united the Brits behind Corbyn.
The more the Jewish self-appointed ‘leadership’ pushed: the more they equated Corbyn with Enoch Powel and even Hitler, the more the Brits responded by siding with the old anti racist. In the months leading up to the election the picture became clear, a wide spectrum of Brits were expressing fatigue with the manner in which a foreign lobby was crudely intervening in their national politics.
But in spite of the many signs that Britain had had enough, the British Jewish so-called ‘leadership’ didn’t stop pushing. Not a day passed without a rabbi using the BBC to spread the message of Jews’ right to live in ‘peace’ on someone else’s land. Every day we read a Guardian interview with an influential Jew who threatened to make Aliya and take his or her shekels with him. The Brits weren’t impressed, on social media some offered departing Zionists piggy back rides to Heathrow.
Commentators agreed that the escalation in British Jews’ troubled relationship with the rest of the nation was a very dangerous development. Corbyn, for his part, repeatedly stated that Labour would fight all forms of racism including antisemitsm. But the Jewish leaders’ concerns didn’t abate. “We didn’t ask him to fight racism, we want him to fight antisemitism.” Corbyns’ assurances were totally dismissed by the Jewish bodies. His motto, ‘For the Many not the Few,’ that excited so many Brits was interpreted by Zionist Jews as “for the Many not the Jew.” It became clear that no one within the Jewish community knew how to calm things down. On the contrary, the self-appointed Jewish ‘representative’ bodies, seemed to compete amongst themselves to see who could drip more oil into the blaze.
Two weeks before the election, when it was widely accepted that Corbyn was about to become a PM and there was no force that could stop him, not even the Jewish Lobby, violence was employed. In early January, MI5 was tipped off about a possible plot to physically attack the Labour leader. According to Israeli media a few arrests were made in North West London. The British press was restricted from passing that story on to the citizens of the kingdom.
In a desperate move two weeks before the election, AIPAC, CRIF and other overseas Jewish pressure groups joined local Zionist bodies in stating that a Labour win would lead to an immediate international call by Jews for a boycott of Britain. The Guardian was quick to publish an extended commentary by George Soros, its favorite ‘currency analyst,’ who lectured the Brits on what would happen to their pound if they were stupid enough to allow Corbyn into 10 Downing Street.
AIPAC and CRIF delivered. Less than 24 hours after the election, the two influential Jewish lobbies called for immediate and severe financial measures against Britain. Wealthy Jews were urged to withdraw their funds and investments from the City. The US administration was implored to stop trade with Britain immediately. President Trump, hanging on a thread and battling likely impeachment, promised to seriously consider the demands of the Lobby that has dominated American foreign policy for more than three decades.
The situation in Britain did indeed deteriorate immediately as Soros predicted. Within a day, the pound lost 45% of its value against the dollar and this after the dollar lost 20% of its value against the Iranian Rial a week earlier (due to an EU-Chinese-Russian deal with Iran).
Brits weren’t happy at all. In fact, many of them were devastated. Corbyn, now a PM in the process of forming his government, was put in an untenable situation. It was just a question of time before nasty scenes of violence erupted. I guess that we have seen it all before…
Corbyn and the Jewish Question
By Gilad Atzmon | August 31, 2018
It doesn’t take a genius to detect the present volatile state of British Jewish institutions. To the outside observer, some of the actions of Britain’s so-called Jewish ‘leaders’ may seem to be a form of collective insanity. Yet, the Brits do not seem to be at all impressed. They are perplexed by the self-propelled collective hysteria. Naturally, many Brits do not agree with Corbyn on issues; some may not agree with his pacifist politics, others see him as a naïve delusional lefty, a few are upset by his association with controversial characters, but no one except a few Israel firsters sees Corbyn as a crazed ‘anti-Semite,’ let alone as a Hitler type who puts Jewish life under an “existential threat.” While it isn’t clear whether Corbyn can unite the Brits against their horrid government, it is increasingly likely that the Zionist lobby has the capacity to unite the Brits behind Corbyn. A comment on twitter the other day noted that “not supporting Corbyn at this point is an act of treason.”
This week the ex-chief rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, became completely unhinged; comparing Corbyn to Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech. In an interview Rabbi Sacks maintained that Corbyn “undermines the existence of an entire group of British citizens by depicting them as essentially alien.” What had Corbyn said that provoked such an extreme reaction from the celebrity rabbi? Apparently, in 2013 Corbyn criticised British Zionists by suggesting that they have two problems. “One is they don’t want to study history and, secondly, having lived in this country for a very long time, probably all their lives, they don’t understand English irony.”
This raises some obvious questions: 1. What is it in Corbyn’s statement that sparked Rabbi Sacks’ outburst, and 2. How is it possible that when Corbyn speaks about Zionists, Rabbi Sacks hears ‘Jews’?
One possibility is that in Rabbi Sacks’ mind, Jews and Zionists are one and the same. After all, Rabbi Sacks believes that “anti Zionism is the new anti-Semitism.” The rabbi freely associates ‘Zionists,’ ‘Semites’ and ‘Jews.’ Someone should remind the rabbi that the suggestion that ‘Jews’ and Zionists are somehow the same might fall within the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitsm. According to the definition, manifestations of anti-Semitism “might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity.” In his interpretation of Corbyn’s words, Rabbi Sacks seems to expand the term ‘Zionists’ into meaning ‘Jewish collectivity.’ I am afraid that our ex-chief rabbi may have fallen into the IHRA trap, something you might expect from a Talmudic Jewish scholar but not from an Oxford graduate.
The truth of the matter is that Corbyn has managed to touch the most sensitive Jewish collective nerve. In Corbyn’s universalist egalitarian offering there is no room for tribal exceptionalism. In Corbyn’s universe, Jews are just ordinary people and not God’s chosen people. Corbyn’s ‘for the many not the few’ doesn’t conform to chosenism, Jewish or identitarian. But we can see that this universalist perception of the ‘many’ is interpreted by British Jewish leadership as a casus belli – a call for a war.
Corbyn’s reference to Zionists’ ‘lack of British irony’ touched the rawest Jewish nerve. He stumbled upon the Jewish ‘assimilation complex.’
Since the emancipation of European Jewry, a 19th century political transition, Jews have been struggling to define their identity and role in the wider society. Emancipation invited assimilation, it offered Jews the ability to become an indistinguishable part of the ‘many,’ but this transformative shift would have entailed a loss of Jewish identity. This dilemma is known as the ‘Jewish Question.’ Zionism was initially an attempt to resolve the Jewish question and the assimilation dilemma. It offered Jews the ability to be ‘people like all other people’ but in a different place. Zionism promised to take the Jews away while allowing Jews to assimilate, although as a distinct nation amongst nations. Zionism gave Jews a way to resolve the tension between assimilation and preservation. The Jews were saved the danger of integrating into their host nations and allowed to preserve many if not most of their cultural traits, as Israel proves on a daily basis.
The Jewish fear of assimilation is not a secret. Golda Meir who served as Israel’s Prime Minister at the time of October War (1973), believed that Jews who assimilate are essentially partners to the Nazis, since through assimilation they are exterminating the continuation of the Jewish people. For Meir, mixed marriages, and not the Arabs, were the greatest danger to the Jewish people. With Meir’s anti assimilationist view in mind, it is clear why Corbyn’s traditional socialist view of ‘the many’ poses an existential danger to those who insist upon being ‘the few.’ Corbyn’s well meaning invitation to the Jews and everyone else to fully integrate into British society is interpreted by Zionist Jews as a threat of extermination (to use Golda Meir’s loaded terminology).
Rabbi Sacks’ reaction, however, takes us to a new level in our understanding of the Zionist mindset. The rabbi actually accused Corbyn of implying that “Jews are not fully British.” But that was not what Corbyn said or implied. He suggested that “Zionists” are not exactly British, a statement that poses no problem for most Zionists since they openly and voluntarily swear allegiance to another state, one that is nationalist, racist and expansionist and shares few, if any, values with Britain or the West.
In order to grasp Rabbi Sacks’ recent outburst we may have to appeal once again to the famous French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan’s astute observation: “unconscious is the discourse of the Other.” The unconscious, according to Lacan, is the fear that the Other, in this case, the gentile, the humanist or shall we say Corbyn and the Brits see you truly. It is the tormenting thought that the Goy may be able to detect the lie. It is the unbearable anxiety that the Brits know that British Zionists aren’t exactly Brits, they are deeply devoted to another state and its foreign interests, they never assimilated and do not plan to assimilate in the near future. The Lacanian unconscious is the fear that a Goy may stand up one day and decide to call a spade a spade or, way more disturbing, refer to a celebrity ex-chief rabbi as a “far right extremist,” as Trade Union activist Eddie Dempsey suggests in the video below:
Crucifying Corbyn: Former Chief Rabbi Joins in The anti-Semitism smear-mongering gets more bizarre each day
(Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks speaks at TED2017. Image credit: Bret Hartman/ TED Conference/ Flickr)
By Stuart Littlewood | American Herald Tribune | August 30, 2018
The nasty slur campaign against Jeremy Corbyn has just plumbed new depths with a hark-back to 1968 and the “Rivers of Blood” speech by Enoch Powell. It seems to have been prompted by a remark Corbyn made in 2013 that British Zionists had two problems: “One is they don’t want to study history and, secondly, having lived in this country for a very long time, probably all their lives, they don’t understand English irony.”
In anti-Semitism terms that’s a flogging offence, even when it might be true. The former Chief Rabbi, Lord Jonathan Sacks, immediately took umbrage saying that Corbyn’s criticism of British Zionists was the most offensive statement made by a senior politician since Enoch Powell’s Rivers of Blood speech. Sacks told the New Statesman : “It was divisive, hateful and, like Powell’s speech, it undermines the existence of an entire group of British citizens by depicting them as essentially alien.”
He said Corbyn had implied “Jews are not fully British” and that he was “using the language of classic pre-war European anti-Semitism”, adding that Corbyn was an anti-Semite who “defiles our politics and demeans the country we love”. He had “given support to racists, terrorists and dealers of hate who want to kill Jews and remove Israel from the map”.
Sacks’ words could equally be taken to mean those who align themselves with Israeli hate and the wish to kill Palestinians and wipe Palestine from the map – which they have already done quite literally. And if Corbyn defiles our politics so does the Israel lobby. But the irony must have escaped him.
Just how righteous is the moralising Lord Sacks? In a House of Lords debate in 2014 on the Middle East in general and the question of formal recognition of Palestine by the UK in particular, the former Chief Rabbi got up and made a speech that was more like a pro-Israel rant. After a long winded spiel about the history of Israel and Jerusalem – from the Jewish angle of course – he went on to demonise Hamas and Hezbollah in the manner recommended by Israel’s ‘hasbara’ handbook and all the more absurd when Israel’s hands are so unclean. Everyone knows that Hamas has agreed to a long-term truce with Israel provided it ends the illegal occupation, gets back behind its 1967 borders and accepts the refugees’ right of return – all as per UN resolutions and subject to a Palestinian referendum. And Hezbollah, as Sacks knows perfectly well, was formed to resist the Israeli occupation of Lebanon after the 1982 war.
Israel, said Sacks, is the place where his people were born almost 4,000 years ago. As an ardent promoter of the Jewish religion, the Jewish state and the idea that God gave Jews exclusive title to Jerusalem, he seemed oblivious to the irony of his speech especially where he said: “When ancient theologies are used for modern political ends, they speak a very dangerous language indeed. So, for example, Hamas and Hezbollah, both self-defined as religious movements, refuse to recognise the legitimacy of the state of Israel within any boundaries whatever and seek only its complete destruction.”
Where does he get his information? Israel won’t define its boundaries, leaving them fluid for endless expansion, and does a first-class job of de-legitimising itself by its defiance of international law and utter contempt for norms of human decency and obligations under UN Charter and other agreements.
Zionists distort the scriptures to claim Jerusalem is theirs by Divine right, it was already 2000 years old and an established, fortified city when King David captured it. The Jews lost Jerusalem to the Babylonians, recaptured it, then lost it again to the Roman Empire in 63BC. When they rebelled Hadrian threw them out in 135. Until the present illegal occupation the Jews had only controlled Jerusalem for some 500 years, small beer compared to the 1,277 years it was subsequently ruled by Muslims and the 2000 years, or thereabouts, it originally belonged to the Canaanites.
Jerusalem was also a Christian city. The 4th century saw the building of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The Persians came and went. Then, after the Islamic conquest in 690, two major shrines were constructed over the ruins of the earlier temples — the Dome of the Rock from which Muhammed is said to have ascended to Heaven, and the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The Crusaders re-took Jerusalem in 1099 and The Temple Mount became the headquarters of the Knights Templar. In 1187 Saladin ended the Crusader Kingdom and restored the city to Islam while allowing Jews and Christians to remain if they wished.
As the saying goes, “None has claim. All have claim!”
Nowhere in his speech did Lord Sacks address the main question of British recognition of Palestinian statehood. Nowhere did he recommend the jackboot of oppression be immediately lifted and the Palestinians granted their human rights and their freedom. That would surely have been the Christian position and, I imagine [?], the true Jewish one.
It is what the Rabbi failed to say on this important occasion that makes me wonder whether he’s an instrument of God or just another preacher of Israeli ‘hasbara’. I read somewhere that Lord Sacks is of Polish/Lithuanian extraction. Most Palestinians can demonstrate ancestral ties to the ancient Holy Land. Can he?
“Jeremy Corbyn moved the rock and the antisemites crawled out”
Corbyn is also in trouble over a remark he made in 2010 at a meeting of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign suggesting that MPs who took part in a parliamentary debate on the Middle East had their comments prepared for them by the Israeli ambassador. I’d say that was fair comment although the scriptwriters were more likely to have been Mark Regev’s propaganda team in Tel Aviv. Regev, a propaganda expert from the dark side, is now Israel’s ambassador in London. Oh, the irony (again).
And a few days ago we heard that Jews are preparing to quit Britain because they fear Jeremy Corbyn taking power, according to the former chairman of the Conservative Party Lord Feldman. So says The Times.
Feldman wrote an open letter to Mr. Corbyn telling him that Jewish people were making contingency plans to emigrate because Labour had become a hotbed of anti-Jewish feeling. “Many Jewish people in the United Kingdom are seriously contemplating their future here in the event of you becoming prime minister. Quietly, discreetly and extremely reluctantly, they are making contingency plans.”
One of these is Mark Lewis, a prominent solicitor and a former director of lawfare firm UK Lawyers for Israel, who is emigrating to Israel with his partner, Mandy Blumenthal. It is believed she is the National Director of Likud-Herut UK, an affiliate of the Zionist Federation and whose website is full of preposterous ideas such as: “We believe that terms like ‘illegal occupation’ should never go unchallenged….” and “Such criticism as we may have [of Israel] should never be expressed publicly….”
Lewis, who describes himself as an ‘unapologetic Zionist’, said: “Jeremy Corbyn moved the rock and the antisemites crawled out from underneath.” And he told the Evening Standard: “I don’t feel welcome in this country anymore.” So he’s off to that hotbed of racism and apartheid, Israel.
Being unwelcome is not a happy feeling. I know this from my trips to Israel, what with their rudeness, threatening behavior, intrusive searches, hostile questioning and unforgivably vile treatment of our Palestinian friends. It’s not as if we want to be in Israel – we are forced to divert there on account of Israel’s illegal military occupation. And when we eventually reach Palestine we have to put up with the presence of arrogant Israeli gunslingers strutting the streets, setting up hundreds of roadblocks, using obstructive tactics with brutish behavior, creating endless queues and interfering with Palestinian life at every level.
And if we try traveling to Palestine direct, like the humanitarian aid boats Al-Awda, and Freedom last month, we get violently and unlawfully assaulted on the high seas, beaten up, thrown in a stinking Israeli jail and have our belongings and money stolen by the Israeli military desperate to maintain their illegal blockade of Gaza.
So, if Messrs Feldman, Lewis and Blumenthal feel more comfortable with those criminals they’d better join them.
In answer to the babble put out by Zio-propagandists, church leaders in the Holy Land issued their 2006 Jerusalem Declaration saying:
“We categorically reject Christian Zionist doctrines as false teaching that corrupts the biblical message of love, justice and reconciliation.
“We further reject the contemporary alliance of Christian Zionist leaders and organizations with elements in the governments of Israel and the United States that are presently imposing their unilateral pre-emptive borders and domination over Palestine… We reject the teachings of Christian Zionism that facilitate and support these policies as they advance racial exclusivity and perpetual war rather than the gospel of universal love, redemption and reconciliation.”
This still stands. And as the Declaration also points out, “discriminative actions [by the Occupation] are turning Palestine into impoverished ghettos surrounded by exclusive Israeli settlements. The establishment of the illegal settlements and the construction of the Separation Wall on confiscated Palestinian land undermines the viability of a Palestinian state as well as peace and security in the entire region”.
That comes from genuine churchmen working in the front line against armed Zio-thugs whose vicious day-to-day persecution of the Christian and Muslim communities in the Holy Land makes a nonsense of accusations of anti-semitism in the UK.
I think we can deduce from all this that Zionism is a menace. Nothing has changed for the better; it has got steadily worse.
‘We want our Jerusalem back, and our state’
In 2010 Fr Manuel Musallam, a gritty Catholic priest with long experience of Israel’s cruel and illegal occupation, told members of the Irish Government: “Christianity in the region has been destroyed not by Muslims but by Israel. Israel destroyed the church of Palestine and the church of Jerusalem beginning in 1948. It, not Muslims, has sent Christians in the region into a diaspora… We have spoken to Israel for more than 18 years and the result has been zero. We have signed agreements here and there at various times and then when there is a change in the Government of Israel we have to start again from the beginning. We ask for our life and to be given back our Jerusalem, to be given our state and for enough water to drink… I have not seen Jerusalem since 1990.”
Archbishop Theodosius Hanna (Greek Orthodox Church) told them: “Palestine is the place from where Christianity comes…. Everything that has happened to the Palestinians between 1948 and today has happened to all Palestinians, including Christian Palestinians.
“What we are after is freedom and dignity just as freedom and dignity have been bestowed on so many nations in the world. We want that too. When we speak about peace, we also speak about justice because it is impossible to have peace without justice. Peace is part of justice. Unfortunately, in the Holy Land there is no such thing as justice.”
Corbyn should remind his tormentors of all this and take no lectures from those who support Zionism and adore the racist state it spawned.
Israel controls UK politicians’ speech: Corbyn
Press TV – August 30, 2018
UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who is battling allegations of anti-Semitism in his party, has come under fire for a 2010 speech where he said speeches British lawmakers make are controlled by the Tel Aviv regime.
The videotaped remarks were made during Corbyn’s meeting with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in London following Israel’s deadly raid on an aid flotilla that attempted to break the years-long blockade on the Gaza Strip, the Daily Mail reported Tuesday.
During the May 2010 attack, 10 Turkish activists onboard the Mavi Marmara were killed after Israeli naval commandos boarded the ship and opened fire.
Criticizing British lawmakers’ pro-Israeli reactions to the attack, Corbyn reportedly said during the meeting that the MPs “all turned up [to the debating chamber] with a pre-prepared script. I’m sure our friend Ron Prosor (the Israeli ambassador) wrote it. Because they all came up with the same key words. It was rather like reading a European document looking for buzz-words.”
“And the buzz-words were, ‘Israel’s need for security.’ And then ‘the extremism of the people on one ship.’ And ‘the existence of Turkish militants on the vessel.’ It came through in every single speech, this stuff came through,” he added.
The Israeli lobby has long complained about what it calls Corbyn’s tolerance for anti-Semitism in his party.
An open critic of Israel’s crimes against the people of Palestine, Corbyn has drawn fire from his opponents by allowing the members of his party to speak their mind about Israel and its occupation of Palestinian lands.
Earlier this week, the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism launched an online campaign to pressure Labour lawmakers into issuing a vote of no-confidence in Corbyn and force him to resign.
The Labour leader most recently came under fire for video footage of a speech from 2013, where he says “Zionists” can’t understand British ways of thinking despite growing up in the country. Corbyn defended his remarks, saying by Zionists did not mean Jews.
Meanwhile, Corbyn’s allies in and outside of the UK have rushed to his support in the face of the Israeli media upsurge that try to portray him as an anti-Semite.
Israeli lawmaker Haneen Zoabi said Wednesday that the attacks against Corbyn were “unjust, offensive and absurd.”
“Corbyn’s criticism is justified. And the state, which deals with theft, murder and racist acts under the law of nationality, is rightly justified by this criticism,” the Israeli Knesset member said.
UK Labour self-destructs under ‘anti-Semitism’ onslaught
Einstein’s famous quote, which most have never heard of. Now you know why.
By Stuart Littlewood | Veterans Today | August 22, 2018
The ‘anti-Semitism’ rumpus engulfing Jeremy Corbyn and tearing the Labour Party apart comes at the very moment when the country needs an alert and dynamic Opposition to May’s shambolic administration. The campaign, so obviously orchestrated by powerful pro-Israel interest groups to bring down Corbyn, threatens to derail all prospect of worthwhile change at the next election, which could be called anytime given the chaos over Brexit. This would be a calamity not just for Labour but the whole country.
The distraction is such a blot on the political landscape and so disruptive that Corbyn must neutralise it without giving ground. The question is how.
Clarity please – who are the Semites?
What is the argument about? It’s the S-word, ‘Semitism’. At least, that’s the cover-story. The real issue, as many realise, is something deeper. But let’s stick with ‘anti-Semitism’, which is the weapon. It is stupid to go to war without asking questions. So who exactly are the Semites? They may not be who they seem, or who we’re told they are. So let us first deal with the cover story, anti-Semitism, by setting up a learned panel to review the research by Shlomo Sand, Arthur Koestler, Johns Hopkins University and others, turn the S-word inside out, shake it all about, and establish (if that’s possible) who is, and who is not Semitic enough to be offended by certain remarks.
For example, DNA research by Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and published by the Oxford University Press in 2012 on behalf of the Society of Molecular Biology and Evolution, found that the Khazarian Hypothesis is scientifically correct, meaning that most Jews are Khazars.
The Khazarians were never in ancient Israel. They converted to Talmudic Judaism in the 8th Century. Even if you believe the myth that God gave the land to the Israelites, He certainly didn’t give it to the Khazarians. Russian and East European Jews like the thug Lieberman, Israel’s defence minister, and countless others who flooded into the Holy Land intending to kick the Palestinians out, have no biblical or ancestral claim to the land.
Probably no more than 2% of Jews in Israel are actually Israelites, according to the findings. So most of those living today who claim to be Jews are not descended from the ancient Israelites at all. Palestinians, who are indigenous to the Holy Land, are the real Semites.
Of course, there’s no rush by Israelis or their admirers to acknowledge this.
Has the Johns Hopkins study been refuted? If they and others who came to the same conclusion have got it right, the whole anti-Semitism thing becomes an upside-down nonsense – a hoax – in which the anti-Semites are actually the racist Israeli regime and its Zionist stooges who stalk the corridors of power and have been oppressing the Palestinians for decades with impunity.
Until the topic is thoroughly aired and we have clarity, all anti-Semitism allegations ought to be withdrawn. And no organisation, let alone the Labour Party, should import any definition of anti-Semitism onto its rulebook without looking into the basics.
In the meantime, yes, Jeremy Corbyn needs to dislodge the anti-Jew morons and racist crackpots, of which there are many in all parties. He should also disband Labour Friends of Israel, an aggressive mouthpiece for a foreign terror regime that has no place in British politics.
Job done – Israel’s stooges now in control and doing the dirty work
Meanwhile the concerted fear-mongering by the Zionist Inquisition and browbeating by Jewish community leaders seems to have worked. As I write, Jeremy Corbyn is touring Scotland talking about important things like his ‘Build it in Britain’ plan to regenerate Scottish industry. But the media are gloating over a story involving a former Scottish Labour MP being suspended by his local constituency party and publicly shamed for alleged anti-Semitic remarks – on the strength of just one complaint apparently.
Furthermore the local party executive, in a statement, have already found him guilty. iNews and other media outlets report Renfrewshire North and West Constituency Labour Party Executive Committee as saying: “We fully condemn the anti-Semitic comments expressed by Jim Sheridan, and it is right that he is subject to a full investigation by the Labour Party…. The views expressed by Jim Sheridan in no way reflect the views of the members of the Labour Party in the Renfrewshire North and West constituency…. [His] comments are in direct conflict with the Labour Party’s values of anti-racism, equality and solidarity.”
That’s before he’s had a chance to defend himself.
Cllr Sheridan had tweeted: “For almost all my adult life I have had the utmost respect and empathy for the Jewish community and their historic suffering. No longer, due to what they and their Blairite plotters are doing to my party and the long suffering people of Britain who need a radical Labour government.”
Bearing in mind that the Jewish Leadership Council and the Board of Deputies claim to represent the Jewish community in the UK and have been instrumental in the damaging anti-Semitism campaign against Labour and Corbyn, it is difficult to see anything objectionable in Cllr Sheridan’s remark. But it amounts to a flogging offence, it seems, in the minds of some Labour officials.
Cllr Sheridan said he was restricted from making comment at this stage but told me, as a matter of fact: “I haven’t had a hearing yet or a date for that to happen. You may wish to know that I visited Auschwitz along with a group of schoolchildren and fellow MPs and saw at first hand the horrors and felt the pain and anguish the Jewish prisoners must have felt. Also, in all the years as an MP I signed the annual Holocaust remembrance book in the House of Commons.”
Does that sound like an ‘anti-Semite’ speaking?
In Renfrewshire they seem hell-bent on destroying the Labour Party’s credibility without any further help from the Israel lobby. It is a vivid example of self-harm by brainwashed twits from within. If the press story is to be believed, somebody makes an allegation, the accused is immediately suspended, publicly shamed and possibly has his reputation damaged irreparably without being heard and before the allegation is substantiated. The accused is gagged from making public comment while the local party executive committee feel free to pass judgement and prejudice the whole matter by declaring to the world that the accused is guilty and stating that nobody else in the local party shares his views. ‘Due process’ is conspicuously absent from the proceedings and party officials in Renfrewshire seem to think it’s OK to issue a statement condemning the accused when he hasn’t been told when his side of the story will be heard and by whom.
It’s medieval.
And last month another Scottish Labour councillor, Mary Bain Lockhart of West Fife, was suspended voicing suspicion that Israeli spies might be plotting to get rid of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader after three Jewish newspapers published a joint front page warning that a Corbyn-led government would pose an “existential threat to Jewish life in this country”.
She wrote on social media: “If the purpose is to generate opposition to anti-semitism, it has backfired spectacularly. If it is to get rid of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour Leader, it is unlikely to succeed, and is a shameless piece of cynical opportunism. And if it is a Mossad assisted campaign to prevent the election of a Labour Government pledged to recognise Palestine as a State, it is unacceptable interference in the democracy of Britain.”
She added: “Israel is a racist State. And since the Palestinians are also Semites, it is an anti-Semitic State.”
Those paying attention will remember, back in January 2017, revelations that a senior political officer at the Israeli embassy in London, Shai Masot, had been plotting with stooges among British MPs and other maggots in the political woodwork to “take down” senior government figures including Boris Johnson’s deputy at the Foreign Office, Sir Alan Duncan. It should have resulted in the ambassador himself, Mark Regev, a vile propagandist, a master of disinformation and a former personal spokesman for the Zionist regime’s prime minister Netanyahu, also being kicked out. But he was let off the hook. Regev is still here exercising his shifty talents and oiling his links to Mossad.
Masot’s hostile scheming was captured and revealed by an Al Jazeera undercover investigation and not, as one would have wished, by Britain’s own security services and press. “The UK has a strong relationship with Israel and we consider the matter closed,” said the British government. The Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow, who is Jewish, also declined to investigate.
So Cllr Lockhart is entitled to be suspicious. Nevertheless a complaint about her remarks was lodged by former Labour MP Thomas Docherty. It was Docherty who wrote to the Culture Secretary in 2015 urging a debate to ban Hitler’s Mein Kampf, a best seller on Amazon, arguing that it was “too offensive to be made available”.
And Paul Masterton, the Tory MP for East Renfrewshire, complained that, given how “offensive” Cllr Lockhart’s comments were, the Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard had been too slow to act and should have spoken out against her behaviour immediately. “Instead we have continued silence from him and a failure to prove to the Jewish community that he and his party are taking this issue seriously. It’s clear to the vast majority of people that Mary Lockhart is no longer fit to hold office, and Scottish Labour must understand that a suspension doesn’t go far enough.”
What the media didn’t tell us is that Mr Masterton is chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Jews which is funded, supported and administered by The Board of Deputies of British Jews which, along with the Jewish Leadership Council and others is heavily implicated in picking a fight with Corbyn and trying to ram the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, unedited, down Labour’s throat.
The IHRA definition, which has been allowed to consume Labour when the Party has better things to do, seems to be having its intended effect. It is obvious that many members still haven’t read the two caveats proposed by the Home Office Select Committee and the legal criticism by Hugh Tomlinson QC and Sir Stephen Sedley. Had they done so, more would insist on it being drastically modified or rejected altogether.
Being Pro-Palestinian Doesn’t Make Jeremy Corbyn an Anti-Semite
By As’ad AbuKhalil | Consortium News | August 22, 2018
In the last few decades, public opinion in the West has shifted from the early, post- World War II period. Support for Israel has declined while support for the Palestinians has increased. This shift has been particularly pronounced among youth, especially those who are liberals or leftists.
The view was much different when Israel established its occupation of Palestine in 1948. But Israel has committed too many massacres and perpetrated too many invasions to maintain the status quo. Its war crimes have been televised too often for the world not to notice and popular opinion not to change. Mainstream print media no longer can control the narrative and mold the coverage of Israel and its offenses like it once did.
Still, while the base of the Socialist Party in France or the Labour Party in the United Kingdom has shifted in a more pro-Palestinian direction, much of the leadership of those parties continues to uphold Israeli dogmas. These are the same dogmas which all ruling parties of Europe and the U.S. and its establishment media have adhered to since the occupation began.
The U.S. is a prime example. Although the Democratic base has become more sympathetic to the Palestinians (and less supportive of Israel), the leadership of the Democratic Party has not wavered in its support for military and economic aid to Israel and for its unconditional support for Israeli wars and invasions with the mantra that “Israel has a right to defend itself.” This fact remains as true with Bernie Sanders as it is does with Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton.
Defining Anti-Semitism
Corbyn: Accused
British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn is the exception. Unlike Francois Hollande of France, Corbyn represents the progressive, youthful base of the his party on domestic and foreign policies.
His political rise poses a real problem for Israel. Therefore Tel Aviv’s latest target is Corbyn. Israel finds his stance worrisome because if he were to be elected prime minister, a real possibility, his views could influence a major shift in the foreign policies of other European ruling parties.
Various attempts therefore have been made to malign Corbyn and misconstrue his statements as racist. Corbyn obliged by giving a long interview to an Israeli publication in which he declared support for the occupation state.
But the more he gave in, the more the pressure increased. No matter what he had to say, it was not enough, and the accusation of anti-Semitism has been hurled in his face at an increasingly frenzied pace.
Corbyn’s repeated denunciations of anti-Semitism haven’t been sufficient because this is not really about anti-Semitism and its repugnance. The beef that British Zionists (and other Zionists especially in Israel) have with Corbyn is with his views on Palestine. He was asked to accept—without hesitation or equivocation—an Israeli definition of anti-Semitism, which was provided by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA).
Insistence on accepting this definition is an attempt to force Corbyn to tailor his statements and beliefs on the Arab-Israeli question to the Israeli position. The Israeli establishment wants to prevent grass-roots views on Palestine among British progressives from being reflected in the stances of party leaders.
The “working” definition of the IHRA in many ways is quite accurate: “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.” This statement is indisputable and sums up the various forms of hatred of Jewish people.
Exaggerating Jewish power in society and believing in a global Jewish conspiracy (or promoting grotesque fakes, such as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion) are also manifestations of anti-Semitism. These ideas are not included in the IHRA definition (although some examples in the document later cover those forms).
Other examples the IHRA cites—such as “calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist religion”—cannot be debated. These vile sentiments are anti-Semitic and indeed represent a repugnant form of hatred. Of course anti-Semitism includes “accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group.” (This same blanket denouncement of a group of people applies to Islamophobia today, incidentally.)
Prejudice vs. Propaganda
The IHRA’s definition of anti-Semitism falters in its “guiding” examples and “illustrations” of anti-Semitism. In this regard, political considerations have been inserted into the definition. Combatting anti-Semitism always is—or should be—a humanitarian concern that goes beyond any political consideration. However, the IHRA reveals a political agenda: “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.”
This is where we enter into the realm of Israeli propaganda. If one is to declare support for the rights of all religious groups to self-determination except the Jewish people, that would be anti-Semitism. But not every denial of religious rights of self-determination is anti-Semitic. What if one is opposed to the rights of self-determination for all religious groups without exception because one believes that the right of self-determination should be a political, and not religious, right?
Self-determination is tied to nationalist attachment to a piece of land. One has to ensure that a right of self-determination of one people does not impede or obstruct the right of self-determination of another people on the same piece of land. Maxime Rodinson, the French historian and sociologist, once observed, sarcastically, that there is no reason for one to oppose the establishment of a Jewish state, say, on the moon.
To support the right of Jews to self-determination when this self-determination has become bound up with Palestine—and only Palestine, when it wasn’t before the First Zionist Congress in 1897—is to deprive the native population of Palestine from their own right to self-determination.
Opposing the right of self-determination to Jews is not anti-Semitic if one is a) concerned about the right of the native population who were the original inhabitants of the lands or b) opposed to religious rights of self-determination as a matter of secular principle. If I am opposed to Muslim right of self-determination in California, can that be considered Islamophobic, if we follow the same Israeli logic?
As far as declaring Israel a racist state, that is hardly anti-Semitic. Remember, a majority of nations (75 to 35) in the world voted in the General Assembly of the United Nations in November 1975 (long before the U.S. imposed its will on the U.N. after the demise of the Soviet bloc) for the “Zionism-is-racism” resolution (which then was repealed in 1991). That is not in itself anti-Semitic.
Similarly, to accuse the Iranian regime or the Saudi regime of sexism or of repression is not Islamophobic. To criticize a state, or even to work for the dismantlement of its political institution, is not an act of hostility against the people of the state, even if that state—be it Israel, Saudi Arabia or Iran—may speak on behalf of the entire members of a particular religion in the world. (Just last week, the Saudi regime adopted the Israeli playbook and declared that any criticism of the regime is an insult to Islam and to Muslims).
Laws and practices in Israel are racist. Labeling them as such does not malign all Jewish people because all Jewish people should not be held responsible for the actions and crimes of the state of Israel. just as criticizing the misogyny of the Saudi regime is not Islamophobic. (There are, of course, critics of Israel who are anti-Semitic just as there are critics of Saudi Arabia or Iran who are Islamophobic, but the criticism in itself is not necessarily a form of prejudice).
On the contrary, to blame all Jews around the world collectively for the crimes and racism of Israel is anti-Semitism. And the Alliance concedes this last point, although it does not fit with the last example provided above.
Weaponizing the Holocaust
In recent years, Israel has resorted to classic manipulation tactics, perfected over decades, that conflate legitimate criticism about Israel with anti-Semitism. From early on in the history of Israeli immigration to Palestine, Israel attributed Palestinian opposition to its virtual invasion of Palestine to anti-Semitism—as if Palestinians would have been less opposed if Christians, Buddhist, or even other Muslims, were the ones taking over their homeland.
That Israel’s establishment took place in the wake of the horrors of the Holocaust made it easier for the Israeli occupation state to present the takeover of Palestine as a tribute to Holocaust victims. Palestine was not the only place where a haven for Jewish refugees could be found. The takeover treated the native inhabitants of Palestine as though they didn’t exist.
Successive Palestinian and Arab leaders resisting this takeover have been compared to Adolf Hitler. Amos Oz and Elie Wiesel never hesitated to equate the Palestinian national movement with Nazism. Benjamin Netanyahu recently decided to absolve Hitler of responsibility for the Holocaust and to instead blame Haj Amin Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem from 1921-1948, for the designs and execution of Nazi war crimes. The more Israel finds itself in an untenable position, given the changes in world public opinion in favor of Palestinians and their rights, the more Israel and Israelis worldwide invoke the memory of the Holocaust and anti-Semitism to silence critics.
The question of comparing Israeli policies and actions with those of the Nazis is not a simple one. There is indeed a uniqueness to the horrors of the Holocaust that require special respect for its victims. To throw around the word “rape” in situations where there is no rape, is offensive to victims of rape. Similarly, one should not use the word “holocaust” casually because it connotes one of the worst crimes of the last century.
Husseini: Worst than Hitler, says Netanyahu
But Israelis can’t have it both ways. If the reason for their rejection of a comparison between Israel and the Nazi regime is out of respect for the victims of the Holocaust, then why did most—if not all—Israeli organizations (in the U.S. and elsewhere) popularize the comparison between the Syrian regime and the Nazi regime over the last few years of the Syrian war? Why do Israelis compare the Palestinian national movement to Nazism?
The Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. took a leading role in the propaganda production about Syria. Shouldn’t that be considered anti-Semitic, if a comparison between Israel and the Nazi regime is anti-Semitic? Either we reject any analogy between the Nazi regime and any other regime regardless of how criminal it is, or we accept it as part of the propaganda of war. Israelis can’t ban others from what they themselves permit themselves to do.
True Lies and False Virtue
Propaganda is how Israel still manages to find new and different ways to silence debate and ostracize dissent. Israel has campaigned to deny tenure to professors who are critical of its abuses (see Norman Finkelstein, Joseph Massad, Steven Salaita and others). Israelis say the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement should be legally banned and have lobbied state governments in the United States to ban boycotting Israel, which the ACLU among others see as a violation of the First Amendment. Israel has also launched an app that directs users to make negative social media comments. In general, Israel wants to impose a rigid uniformity of discourse and terms about the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Israelis fight—and kill—Arabs all over the world (Israel has not been shy about murdering Arab scientists, and U.S. media casually report on those assassinations without comments or repudiation). Arabs and non-Arabs cannot speak and write uncensored thoughts about the Arab-Israeli conflict without risking severe repression from the Israeli occupation state, including censorship on social media.
The war on Corbyn is a prominent part of Israel’s war on free speech in the U.K. and elsewhere.
Corbyn and other politicians should be expected to never resort to anti-Semitic expressions. But so far only evidence of his pro-Palestinian statements have been found and that should never be confused with the scourge of genuine anti-Semitism.
As’ad AbuKhalil is a Lebanese-American professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus. He is the author of the Historical Dictionary of Lebanon (1998), Bin Laden, Islam and America’s New “War on Terrorism” (2002), and The Battle for Saudi Arabia (2004). He also runs the popular blog The Angry Arab News Service.
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Why vaccines for children are Big Pharma’s holy grail – Part 1
By Serena Wylde | TCW Defending Freedom | October 18, 2023
James A Shannon, director of the US National Institutes of Health 1955-68, said: ‘No vaccination can be proven safe before it is given to children.’
When he made that statement, it was still possible in the US to sue vaccine manufacturers under tort law for vaccine-induced deaths and injuries, which is no longer the case.
Today the US has the world’s most aggressive vaccine schedule and ranks as the sickest country, with the highest infant mortality, in the developed world. The UK does not lag far behind.
Vaccines carry three separate areas of potential risk. Firstly, they artificially stimulate the immune system to produce antibodies, which temporarily inhibits another part of the body’s defence mechanism. In an infant, whose immune system is just developing, this high demand of energy can in some cases overwhelm its metabolic reserves, and cause brain inflammation. The brain is the highest energy-consuming tissue in the body, followed by the gastro-intestinal tract and the immune system.
Secondly, vaccines contain chemicals, metals and drugs. Thirdly, according to the former pharmaceutical R&D executive Sasha Latypova, traditional vaccines are consistently contaminated with plant and animal proteins which hyper-sensitise the body, especially in children, giving rise to allergies.
In the US in the 1970s there were three inoculations recommended for children… continue
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