Norman Finkelstein is no stranger to controversy. The American Jewish scholar is one of the world’s leading experts on the Israel-Palestine conflict and the political legacy of the Nazi holocaust. Apart from his parents, every member of Finkelstein’s family, on both sides, was exterminated in the Nazi holocaust. His 2000 book The Holocaust Industry, which was serialised in the Guardian, became an international best-seller and touched off a firestorm of debate. But Finkelstein’s most recent political intervention came about by accident.
What are your thoughts on the Labour 'antisemitism' scandal? Tell us in the comments below.
Last month, Naz Shah MP became one of the most high-profile cases to date in the ‘antisemitism’ scandal still shaking the Labour leadership. Shah was suspended from the Labour party for, among other things, reposting an image on Facebook that was alleged to be antisemitic. The image depicted a map of the United States with Israel superimposed, and suggested resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict by relocating Israel into the United States. It has been reported that Shah got the image from Finkelstein’s website. I spoke with Finkelstein about why he posted the image, and what he thinks of allegations that the Labour party has a ‘Jewish problem’.
Did you create the controversial image that Naz Shah reposted?
I’m not adept enough with computers to compose any image. But I did post the map on my website in 2014. An email correspondent must have sent it. It was, and still is, funny. Were it not for the current political context, nobody would have noticed Shah’s reposting of it either. Otherwise, you’d have to be humourless. These sorts of jokes are a commonplace in the U.S. So, we have this joke: Why doesn’t Israel become the 51st state? Answer: Because then, it would only have two senators. As crazy as the discourse on Israel is in America, at least we still have a sense of humour. It’s inconceivable that any politician in the U.S. would be crucified for posting such a map.
Shah’s posting of that image has been presented as an endorsement by her of a ‘chilling “transportation” policy’, while John Mann MP has compared her to Eichmann.
Frankly, I find that obscene. It’s doubtful these Holocaust-mongers have a clue what the deportations were, or of the horrors that attended them. I remember my late mother describing her deportation. She was in the Warsaw Ghetto. The survivors of the Ghetto Uprising, about 30,000 Jews, were deported to Maijdanek concentration camp. They were herded into railroad cars. My mother was sitting in the railroad car next to a woman who had her child. And the woman – I know it will shock you – the woman suffocated her infant child to death in front of my mother. She suffocated her child, rather than take her to where they were going. That’s what it meant to be deported. To compare that to someone posting a light-hearted, innocuous cartoon making a little joke about how Israel is in thrall to the U.S., or vice versa…it’s sick. What are they doing? Don’t they have any respect for the dead? All these desiccated Labour apparatchiks, dragging the Nazi holocaust through the mud for the sake of their petty jostling for power and position. Have they no shame?
What about when people use Nazi analogies to criticise the policies of the State of Israel? Isn’t that also a political abuse of the Nazi holocaust?
It’s not a simple question. First, if you’re Jewish, the instinctive analogy to reach for, when it comes to hate or hunger, war or genocide, is the Nazi holocaust, because we see it as the ultimate horror. In my home growing up, whenever an incident involving racial discrimination or bigotry was in the news, my mother would compare it to her experience before or during the Nazi holocaust.
My mother had been enrolled in the Mathematics faculty of Warsaw University, I guess in 1937-38. Jews were forced to stand in a segregated section of the lecture hall, and the antisemites would physically attack them. (You might recall the scene in Julia, when Vanessa Redgrave loses her leg trying to defend Jews under assault in the university.) I remember once asking my mother, ‘How did you do in your studies?’ She replied, ‘What are you talking about? How could you study under those conditions?’.
When she saw the segregation of African-Americans, whether at a lunch counter or in the school system, that was, for her, like the prologue to the Nazi holocaust. Whereas many Jews now say, Never compare (Elie Wiesel’s refrain, ‘It’s bad, but it’s not The Holocaust’), my mother’s credo was, Always compare. She gladly and generously made the imaginative leap to those who were suffering, wrapping and shielding them in the embrace of her own suffering.
For my mother, the Nazi holocaust was a chapter in the long history of the horror of war. It was not itself a war – she was emphatic that it was an extermination, not a war – but it was a unique chapter within the war. So for her, war was the ultimate horror. When she saw Vietnamese being bombed during the Vietnam War, it was the Nazi holocaust. It was the bombing, the death, the horror, the terror, that she herself had passed through. When she saw the distended bellies of starving children in Biafra, it was also the Nazi holocaust, because she remembered her own pangs of hunger in the Warsaw Ghetto.
If you’re Jewish, it’s just normal that the Nazi holocaust is a ubiquitous, instinctual touchstone. Some Jews say this or that horror is not the Nazi holocaust, others say it is. But the reference point of the Nazi holocaust is a constant.
What about when people who aren’t Jewish invoke the analogy?
Once the Nazi holocaust became the cultural referent, then, if you wanted to touch a nerve regarding Palestinian suffering, you had to make the analogy with the Nazis, because that was the only thing that resonated for Jews. If you compared the Palestinians to Native Americans, nobody would give a darn. In 1982, when I and a handful of other Jews took to the streets of New York to protest Israel’s invasion of Lebanon (up to 18,000 Lebanese and Palestinians were killed, overwhelmingly civilians), I held a sign saying, ‘This son of survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Auschwitz, Maijdenek will not be silent: Israeli Nazis – Stop the Holocaust in Lebanon!’. (After my mother died, I found a picture of me holding that sign in a drawer among her keepsakes). I remember, as the cars drove past, one of the guys protesting with me kept saying, ‘hold the sign higher!’ (And I kept replying, ‘easy for you to say!’).
If you invoked that analogy, it shook Jews, it jolted them enough, that at least you got their attention. I don’t think it’s necessary anymore, because Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians now have an integrity of their own. They no longer have to be juxtaposed to, or against, the Nazi holocaust. Today, the Nazi analogy is gratuitous and a distraction.
Is it antisemitic?
No, it’s just a weak historical analogy – but, if coming from a Jew, a generous moral one.
Last week, Ken Livingstone took to the airwaves to defend Naz Shah, but what he said wound up getting him suspended from the Labour party. His most incendiary remark contended that Hitler at one point supported Zionism. This was condemned as antisemitic, and Labour MP John Mann accused Livingstone of being a ‘Nazi apologist’. What do you make of these accusations?
Livingstone maybe wasn’t precise enough, and lacked nuance. But he does know something about that dark chapter in history. It has been speculated that Hitler’s thinking on how to solve the ‘Jewish Question’ (as it was called back then) evolved, as circumstances changed and new possibilities opened up. Hitler wasn’t wholly hostile to the Zionist project at the outset. That’s why so many German Jews managed to survive after Hitler came to power by emigrating to Palestine. But, then, Hitler came to fear that a Jewish state might strengthen the hand of ‘international Jewry’, so he suspended contact with the Zionists. Later, Hitler perhaps contemplated a ‘territorial solution’ for the Jews. The Nazis considered many ‘resettlement’ schemes – the Jews wouldn’t have physically survived most of them in the long run – before they embarked on an outright exterminatory process. Livingstone is more or less accurate about this – or, as accurate as might be expected from a politician speaking off the cuff.
He’s also accurate that a degree of ideological affinity existed between the Nazis and Zionists. On one critical question, which raged in the U.K. during the period when the Balfour Declaration (1917) was being cobbled together, antisemites and Zionists agreed: could a Jew be an Englishman? Ironically, in light of the current hysteria in the UK, the most vociferous and vehement opponents of the Balfour Declaration were not the Arabs, about whom almost nobody gave a darn, but the upper reaches of British Jewry.
Eminent British Jews published open letters to newspapers like the Times opposing British backing for a Jewish home in Palestine. They understood such a declaration – and Zionism – as implying that a Jew belonged to a distinct nation, and that the Jewish nation should have its own separate state, which they feared would effectively disqualify Jews from bona fide membership in the British nation. What distinguished the Zionists from the liberal Jewish aristocracy was their point of departure: as Theodor Herzl put it at the beginning of The Jewish State, ‘the Jewish question is no more a social than a religious one . . . It is a national question’. Whereas the Anglo-Jewish aristocracy insisted Judaism was merely a religion, the Zionists were emphatic that the Jews constituted a nation. And on this – back then, salient – point, the Zionists and Nazis agreed.
John Mann, when he accosted Livingstone in front of the cameras, asked rhetorically whether Livingstone had read Mein Kampf. If you do read Mein Kampf, which I suspect none of the interlocutors in this debate has done (I used to teach it, before the ‘Zionists’ drove me out of academia – joke!), you see that Hitler is emphatic that Jews are not a religion, but a nation. He says that the big Jewish lie is that they claim to be a religion; whereas in fact, he says, they’re a race (at that time, ‘race’ was used interchangeably with ‘nation’). And on page 56 of the standard English edition of Mein Kampf, he says that the only Jews honest enough to acknowledge this reality are the Zionists. Now, to be clear, Hitler didn’t just think that Jews were a distinct race. He also thought that they were a Satanic race, and ultimately, that they were a Satanic race that had to be exterminated. Still, on the first, not trivial, premise, he and the Zionists were in agreement.
As a practical matter, the Zionists and Nazis could therefore find a degree of common ground around the emigration/expulsion of Jews to Palestine. It was a paradox that, against the emphatic protestations of liberal Jews, including sections of the Anglo-Jewish establishment, antisemites and Zionists back then effectively shared the same slogan: Jews to Palestine. It was why, for example, the Nazis forbade German Jews to raise the swastika flag, but expressly permitted them to hoist the Zionist flag. It was as if to say, the Zionists are right: Jews can’t be Germans, they belong in Palestine. Hannah Arendt wrote scathingly about this in Eichmann in Jerusalem, which is one of the reasons she caught hell from the Jewish/Zionist establishment.
Even if there was a factual basis for Livingstone’s remarks, to bring the issue up at that moment – wasn’t he just baiting Jews?
I can understand his motivation, because I’m of roughly his generation. If he was ‘baiting’, it was a reflexive throwback to the factional polemics in the 1970s-80s. Israel marketed Zionists as the only Jews who had resisted the Nazis. The propaganda image projected back then was, the only resistance to the Nazis came from the Zionists, and the natural corollary was, the only force protecting Jews now is Israel. Every other Jew was either a coward, ‘going like sheep to slaughter’, or a collaborator. Those who dissented from Israeli policy back then, in order to undercut this Zionist propaganda, and to strike a nerve with them, would recall this unsavoury chapter in Zionism’s history. Some pamphlets and books appeared – such as Lenni Brenner’s Zionism in the Age of the Dictators (1983) – to document this ‘perfidious Zionist-Nazi collaboration’. Livingstone’s recent comments were born of the same reflex that motivated us back then. These certifiable creeps who went after Naz Shah got under his skin, and so he wanted to get under their skin. That’s how we used to fight this political battle: by dredging up those sordid chapters in Zionist history.
Livingstone based himself on Brenner’s book. Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that perhaps Brenner’s book contains factual errors, it’s more of a party pamphlet than a scholarly tome, and it’s not exactly weighed down with copious documentation. Still, the fact of the matter is, when Brenner’s book was published, it garnered positive reviews in the respectable British press. The Times, which is today leading the charge against Livingstone and the elected Labour leadership, back then published a review praising Brenner’s book as ‘crisp and carefully documented’. The reviewer, the eminent editorialist Edward Mortimer, observed that ‘Brenner is able to cite numerous cases where Zionists collaborated with anti-Semitic regimes, including Hitler’s’. So, it’s a tribute to Ken Livingstone that at age 70 he remembered a book he read more than 30 years ago, that got a good review in the Times when it first appeared. If the Times is upset at Livingstone’s remarks, it has only itself to blame. I myself only read Brenner’s book after the Times review.
Let’s zoom out a bit. You’ve written a great deal about how antisemitism accusations have been used to discredit and distract from criticism of Israel. Should we see the current campaign against Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Left more generally as the latest episode in that history?
These campaigns occur at regular intervals, correlating with Israel’s periodic massacres and consequent political isolation. If you search your nearest library catalogue for ‘new antisemitism’, you’ll come up with titles from the 1970s proclaiming a ‘new antisemitism’, titles from the 1980s proclaiming a ‘new antisemitism’, titles from the 1990s proclaiming a ‘new antisemitism’, and then a huge uptick, including from British writers, during the so-called Second Intifada from 2001. Let’s not forget, just last year there was a hysteria in the UK over antisemitism. A couple of ridiculous polls purported to find that nearly half of Britons held an antisemitic belief and that most British Jews feared for their future in the UK. Although these polls were dismissed by specialists, they triggered the usual media feeding frenzy, as the Telegraph, the Guardian and the Independent hyperventilated about this ‘rampant’ ‘new antisemitism’. It was exposed as complete nonsense when, in April 2015, a reputable poll by Pew found that the level of antisemitism in the UK had remained stable, at an underwhelming seven percent.
This farce happened only last year. One would have imagined that its mongers would be hiding in shame, and that we would enjoy at least a brief respite from the theatrics. But lo and behold, in the blink of an eye, right in the wake of the Pew poll showing that antisemitism in the UK is marginal, the hysteria has started up all over again. The reality is, there is probably more prejudice in the UK against fat people than there is prejudice against Jews.
Ask yourself a simple, but serious, question. You go for a job interview. Which trait is most likely to work against you: if you’re ugly, if you’re fat, if you’re short, or if you’re Jewish? It’s perhaps a sad commentary on our society’s values, but the trait most likely to elicit a rejection letter is if you’re ugly. Then fat; then short. The factor least likely to work against you is, if you’re Jewish. On the contrary, aren’t Jews smart and ambitious? Pew found antisemitism levels at seven percent. Is that grounds for a national hysteria? A May 2015 YouGov poll found that 40 percent of UK adults don’t like Muslims and nearly 60 percent don’t like Roma. Imagine what it’s like to apply for a job if you’re a Roma! So where is your order of moral priorities?
Many of those involved in last year’s ‘antisemitism’ hysterics are also participants in the current campaign against Corbyn.
The question you have to ask yourself is, why? Why has this issue been resurrected with a vengeance, so soon after its previous outing was disposed of as a farce? Is it because of a handful of allegedly antisemitic social media postings from Labour members? Is it because of the tongue-in-cheek map posted by Naz Shah? That’s not believable. The only plausible answer is, it’s political. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the factual situation; instead, a few suspect cases of antisemitism – some real, some contrived – are being exploited for an ulterior political motive. As one senior Labour MP said the other day, it’s transparently a smear campaign.
The ‘antisemitism’ accusations are being driven by the Conservatives ahead of the local and Mayoral elections. But they’re also being exploited by the Labour Right to undermine Corbyn’s leadership, and by pro-Israel groups to discredit the Palestine solidarity movement.
You can see this overlap between the Labour Right and pro-Israel groups personified in individuals like Jonathan Freedland, a Blairite hack who also regularly plays the antisemitism card. He’s combined these two hobbies to attack Corbyn. Incidentally, when my book, The Holocaust Industry, came out in 2000, Freedland wrote that I was 'closer to the people who created the Holocaust than to those who suffered in it'. Although he appears to be, oh, so politically correct now, he didn’t find it inappropriate to suggest that I resembled the Nazis who gassed my family.
We appeared on a television program together. Before the program, he approached me to shake my hand. When I refused, he reacted in stunned silence. Why wouldn’t I shake his hand? He couldn’t comprehend it. It tells you something about these dull-witted creeps. The smears, the slanders – for them, it’s all in a day’s work. Why should anyone get agitated? Later, on the program, it was pointed out that the Guardian, where he worked, had serialised The Holocaust Industry across two issues. He was asked by the presenter, if my book was the equivalent of Mein Kampf, would he resign from the paper? Of course not. Didn’t the presenter get that it’s all a game?
Compare the American scene. Our Corbyn is Bernie Sanders. In all the primaries in the US, Bernie has been sweeping the Arab and Muslim vote. It’s been a wondrous moment: the first Jewish presidential candidate in American history has forged a principled alliance with Arabs and Muslims. Meanwhile, what are the Blairite-Israel lobby creeps up to in the UK? They’re fanning the embers of hate and creating new discord between Jews and Muslims by going after Naz Shah, a Muslim woman who has attained public office. They’re making her pass through these rituals of public self-degradation, as she is forced to apologise once, twice, three times over for a tongue-in-cheek cartoon reposted from my website. And it’s not yet over! Because now they say she’s on a ‘journey’. Of course, what they mean is, ‘she’s on a journey of self-revelation, and epiphany, to understanding the inner antisemite at the core of her being’. But do you know on what journey she’s really on? She’s on a journey to becoming an antisemite. Because of these people; because they fill any sane, normal person with revulsion.
Here is this Muslim woman MP who is trying to integrate Muslims into British political life, and to set by her own person an example both to British society at large and to the Muslim community writ small. She is, by all accounts from her constituents, a respected and honourable person. You can only imagine how proud her parents, her siblings, must be. How proud the Muslim community must be. We’re always told how Muslim women are oppressed, repressed and depressed, and now you have this Muslim woman who has attained office. But now she’s being crucified, her career wrecked, her life ruined, her future in tatters, branded an ‘antisemite’ and a closet Nazi, and inflicted with these rituals of self-abasement. It’s not hard to imagine what her Muslim constituents must think now about Jews. These power hungry creeps are creating new hate by their petty machinations. As Donald Trump likes to say – it’s disgusting.
Labour has now set up an inquiry that is supposed to produce a workable definition of ‘antisemitism’ – which is to say, to achieve the impossible. It’s been tried countless times before, and it’s always proven futile. The only beneficiaries of such a mandate will be academic ‘specialists’ on antisemitism, who will receive hefty consultancy fees (I can already see Richard Evans at the head of the queue), and Israel, which will no longer be in the spotlight. I understand the short-term political rationale. But at some point, you have to say, ‘enough already’. Jews are prospering as never before in the UK. The polls show that the number of, so to speak, hard-core antisemites is miniscule. It’s time to put a stop to this periodic charade, because it ends up besmirching the victims of the Nazi holocaust, diverting from the real suffering of the Palestinian people, and poisoning relations between the Jewish and Muslim communities. You just had an antisemitism hysteria last year, and it was a farce. And now again? Another inquiry? Another investigation? No.
In order to put an end to this, there has to be a decisive repudiation of this political blackmail. Bernie Sanders was brutally pressured to back down on his claim that Israel had used disproportionate force during its 2014 assault on Gaza. He wouldn’t budge, he wouldn’t retreat. He showed real backbone. Corbyn should take heart and inspiration from Bernie’s example. He has to say: no more reports, no more investigations, we’re not going there any more. The game is up. It’s long past time that these antisemitism-mongers crawled back into their sewer – but not before humbly apologising to Naz Shah, and begging her forgiveness.
CLARIFICATION: Readers have expressed shock at the scandalous remarks attributed to Jonathan Freedland. Finkelstein decided to amend the paragraph so as to quote Freedland word-for-word. Readers will now perhaps be even more shocked.
Ashley Cowburn
The Independent March 27, 2017
Livingstone says Labour’s national constitutional committee, before whom he will appear this week, is ‘like North Korea: it’s literally the sort of hearing you’d expect in some dictatorship, not in a modern democracy’: Getty
View photos
Livingstone says Labour’s national constitutional committee, before whom he will appear this week, is ‘like North Korea: it’s literally the sort of hearing you’d expect in some dictatorship, not in a modern democracy’: Getty
Before Ken Livingstone mentions Adolf Hitler – and his Labrador, Coco, stops barking at the presence of an intruder – he asks politely: “Yorkshire or Redbush tea?”
Placing a One Direction mug (he has two teenagers with his partner) down on the kitchen table of his home in Cricklewood, north London, it’s clear something is weighing heavy on Red Ken’s mind. In front of him are two binders of reports, sent by Labour’s national constitutional committee (NCC) regarding his suspension hearing later this week. He’s expecting to be expelled, he admits.
Livingstone’s Labour membership was suspended last summer for “bringing the party into disrepute” after he was accused of anti-Semitism and making offensive comments about Hitler supporting Zionism. He was labelled a “disgusting Nazi apologist” by Labour MP John Mann during an extraordinary confrontation outside the BBC studios and later locked himself into the disabled toilets on the ground floor of the building in an unsuccessful effort to evade inquisitive reporters.
But the 71-year-old maintains that he did not claim the Nazi dictator was a Zionist – despite dozens of reports. “Being accused of anti-Semitism is an absolutely serious accusation – equivalent of being accused of corruption, something like that,” he says.
He describes the NCC as similar to a dictatorship like “North Korea” with its secretive practices – the hearing will be in private and its 11 members’ identities are not publicised to avoid any outside influence. “It’s absolutely outrageous that such a serious smear is made and then the hearing is going to be in private,” he says. “I mean, it’s more like North Korea. It’s literally the sort of hearing you’d expect in some dictatorship – not in a modern democracy.”
And it’s clear the former Mayor of London is not bowing out without a fight. Asked what he will do if he’s ejected from the party at his hearing on Thursday, he replied: “I assume that it is set up to do that because that’s the composition of the report. I do expect that to happen.
“But then you go for judicial review,” he adds, defiantly. “The advice I’ve had legally is that they haven’t got a cat in hell’s chance of winning. They loathe and detest Jeremy [Corbyn]. They didn’t suspend me because I’m anti-Semitic; it was because I was defending Jeremy, which they consider a worse crime.”
Later in the interview, he amplifies: “When I left school I spent eight years as a cancer research technician. You were taught to find the truth. I couldn’t shift my mental framework when I became a politician. It’s my big weakness: I still tend to say what I believe to be the truth.” It’s certainly an understatement for the veteran politician, who often courts controversy. His biography, published in 2011, is also called You Can’t Say That.
Livingstone remains a staunch defender of his old left-wing comrade Corbyn – despite having had little contact with him in recent months. He used to correspond with the Labour leader’s team via his close ally and friend Simon Fletcher, who recently stood down as chief of staff to Corbyn and served in Livingstone’s mayoral team.
He last rubbed shoulders with the Labour leader at a mutual friend’s Christmas party, he adds: “We had a brief chat – I don’t blame Jeremy because he doesn’t control the party machine.”
Despite the party trailing in the opinion polls and the seeming inability of Corbyn’s movement to click with the electorate, Livingstone believes his comrade can win an election.
“Once you hit a general election you have those televised debates and the Mail, the Telegraph and The Sun will be as mad as ever. But the bulk of people will see and hear… having a serious debate between Jeremy and John McDonnell, up against the Chancellor and the Prime Minister, I think will be absolutely crucial.”
Livingstone: ‘Anything can happen in politics’ (AFP/Getty)
View photos
Livingstone: ‘Anything can happen in politics’ (AFP/Getty)
So, what happens to the left in British politics if Corbyn loses the 2020 general election? “It depends what happens to the economy with Brexit,” Livingstone replies. “I don’t spend any time thinking about what we should be doing if we lose the next election. All I focus on is winning the bloody thing.”
Besides, Livingstone adds that he has bigger worries, specifically about the environment. “At my age, you don’t worry about what’s going to happen after you’re 75,” he says. “All over the world we’re seeing more violent weather than people anticipated. I’m beginning to think there’s a real prospect of human civilisation being wiped out by the end of the century – and the election of someone like Trump is no progress in America. Even governments that say the right things are pathetic in actually making the changes that we need.”
Pressed further on his doomsday prophecy, Livingstone continues: “By that I mean you end up with a few hundred thousand people surviving probably somewhere at the moment that is fairly cold. Worst scenario would be 90-95 per cent of the large species would be wiped out – we’ve had this before.
“We have a supervolcano eruption every 70,000 years and that’s devastating. And actually it’s 69,000 years since the last one.” He pauses for a second, before asking: “Do you ever find any politician talking about supervolcanoes? This is what is so appalling about politicians who just focus on the next bloody election, when they’ve got bigger things to worry about.”
But back in the minutiae of British politics, Red Ken, who has now provided himself with the new title of “house-husband”, is adamant Corbyn will remain leader as long as he sticks firm to his line of anti-austerity and a major programme of public sector investment. He derides some of media coverage – notably kneeling to the Queen as he was sworn into the Privy Council and the type of poppy he wears.
“You just never see them reporting any of his speeches about economics,” he adds.
Livingstone also appears sceptical of a transfer of power should Corbyn decide to go. “Apart from John McDonnell, who? There isn’t any other is there. Or do you skip a generation and go to the 2015 intake. I haven’t been in the House of Commons since 2001, I know a lot of the oldies who have been there forever but the intakes from 2010 and 2015 I have no contact with at all, so I can’t choose for you my preferred candidate.”
Despite a widely publicised falling out in the Eighties when McDonnell worked under Livingstone, who was then leader of the now-abolished Greater London Council, it appears any rift between the pair has healed. He would make a “very good Chancellor” and even a “very good Prime Minister”, says Livingstone, praising his former chair of finance for producing a balanced budget with no borrowing.
But does Livingstone believe there is any chance of McDonnell entering Downing Street as Prime Minister? He replies: “I think there’s a chance of whoever is leader of the Labour party in 2020 becoming Prime Minister. I wouldn’t have voted for Jeremy if I didn’t think he could win.
“Anything can happen in politics. Two years before I became leader of the GLC no one would have believed it was possible.
“He does want to see Jeremy as Prime Minister and he wants to be Chancellor – the second most important job in British politics. It’s not like it’s disappointing or something.”
He later adds: “I don’t think Jeremy will stand down and I wouldn’t advise him to. If he did, what would we have? We’d have another wave of lies and smears about the new leader, whoever it is. At least by now we’ve got over that – most people have formed an opinion on that.”
Before the interview finishes, however, Livingstone excuses himself for five minutes to attend to the needs of ITV London, who are on his doorstep. They are here to film a short clip on his opinions of George Osborne’s “unbelievable” appointment as Editor of the London Evening Standard – the free daily newspaper that is handed out to hundreds of thousands of people in the capital each week. But Livingstone reappears looking slightly disheveled. He says he tripped on the way back into the house. Luckily the camera crew had stopped recording, he laughs. “You look at the state of our roads,” he adds. “Bloody potholes.
“There’s a story I remember reading that the only perfect roads were in David Cameron’s constituency,” he chortles.
Livingstone (left) with Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams (centre) and Jeremy Corbyn (second from right) walking on Westminster Bridge in the 1980s (Getty)
View photos
Livingstone (left) with Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams (centre) and Jeremy Corbyn (second from right) walking on Westminster Bridge in the 1980s (Getty)
While Livingstone is supportive of Corbyn’s leadership, he doesn’t believe his old left-wing comrade is following the right path when it comes to Brexit. “I think it will gradually unravel,” he says of the Government’s position. “The damning thing about Cameron is that he talked about the referendum without having done any work to see what the outcome would be. It was just a gimmick to get Ukip off his back. Even now we haven’t got the civil servants you need to negotiate it.
“The EU is not going to allow us to stay in the single market unless we accept free movement. If I was an MP I would have voted against anything that doesn’t say we stay in the single market”.
Does that mean he would have defied Corbyn and voted against the three-line whip? “Yep,” he replies. “With Jeremy, he’s clearly focused on the fact the British people voted to leave and he respects that. I do think we need to keep emphasising what they were promised because that’s not what they’re getting now. I got along well with David Davis [the Brexit Secretary] and I like him, but watching his performance at the parliamentary committee – you just think he hasn’t got a bloody clue.
He believes the public should have another say, in a second referendum, once the terms of the deal become clear. “Unless Theresa May comes back with a deal that allows us to stay in the single market, we should have a vote on accepting a deal or not.”
It’s a similar proposal floated by his nemesis the former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair. “I know, I noticed that,” he adds. “He’s not wrong about everything, just most things.”
After Ken Livingstone was today suspended for a further year from the Labour Party as the result of a long delayed quasi judicial process that was not in accord with natural justice, five Jewish Labour Party members, who gave evidence in support of Ken Livingstone at the hearing, issued the following statement:
‘We are appalled by the decision to continue the suspension of Ken Livingstone.
‘The case brought against Ken was not that he was antisemitic. Instead it was claimed that he upset a significant part of the UK’s Jewish population. This upset had been caused by his (accurate) statement that some Zionists and Hitler had wanted to get Jews out of Germany, and that prior to the War they reached a temporary agreement to help bring this about. The Zionist motivation was to increase the numbers of Jews going to Palestine.
‘If a political party adopts the principle that it suspends every member that upsets some part of the population where would it all end? Labour should respect freedom of expression.
‘The decision to continue the suspension Ken is mistaken. It is an attempt to protect Israel from criticism, while simultaneously weakening the position of Jeremy Corbyn, a principled supporter of Palestinian rights.
‘It is the verdict, not Ken Livingstone, that has bought the Labour Party into disrepute.’
Former mayor of London Ken Livingstone on Tuesday had his suspension from the Labour Party extended for “bringing the party into disrepute” last year.
But Israel lobby elements within the party had pushed hard for Livingstone, long a supporter of Palestinian rights, to be expelled outright.
Livingstone vowed in a statement to fight the suspension.
“Today’s Labour Party panel extended my suspension for another year because of my political views, not because I have done anything to harm the Labour Party,” he said.
Livingstone is a left-wing veteran of Labour, and for decades led anti-racism efforts in local government in London.
The new suspension is “an attempt to protect Israel from criticism, while simultaneously weakening the position of the pro-Palestinian left in the party,” a statement by Jewish members of the Labour Party said.
“It is the verdict, not Ken Livingstone, that has brought the Labour Party into disrepute,” they asserted.
In April last year, Livingstone was asked in a BBC radio interview if a Labour lawmaker’s comments about Hitler’s actions being “legal” had been anti-Semitic.
He replied by referring to the 1933 Ha’avara agreement between the Nazi government and the Zionist Federation of Germany as Hitler “supporting Zionism” by transferring Jews to Palestine.
Moving the goalposts
After initially being suspended for “anti-Semitism,” the charges against Livingstone were changed to “bringing the party into disrepute.” Now he is accused of having “revised the history of the Holocaust.”
His suspension was the peak of a witch hunt manufactured by right-wing Labour lawmakers and their allies in the Israel lobby.
The moral panic sought to portray the party under new pro-Palestinian leader Jeremy Corbyn as a hive of anti-Semitism.
But the media obsession with the “anti-Semitism crisis” in Labour was highly exaggerated and, in some cases, outright fabricated.
Livingstone’s historically accurate comment about Zionism was met with a storm of attacks by right-wing Labour lawmakers and anti-Palestinian activists.
At the time, these forces were seeking to undermine the Labour leader in the run-up to May 2016 local elections.
The manufactured crisis led to dozens of suspensions of Labour Party activists, usually for little more than an out-of-context social media posting from years earlier.
Fighting expulsion
One veteran Labour activist in south London was suspended for 10 weeks for merely agreeing that Livingstone’s comment on the radio was “largely accurate.”
Livingstone described the three-day Labour disciplinary hearing this week as like something out of North Korea. The three-person panel of the National Constitutional Committee questioned Livingstone, as well as witnesses against him.
They insisted on keeping the hearing closed to the public, despite Livingstone’s request it be open. He had vowed to fight any expulsion in a legal action.
In an LBC London radio interview on Wednesday, Livingstone said that the only reason he had not been expelled was because the party’s lawyer must have told them they didn’t have a chance if it went to court.
Livingstone was represented in the hearing by Michael Mansfield, the high-profile human rights lawyer known for overturning miscarriages of justice.
Israel lobby fury
Labour Friends of Israel reacted with fury on Tuesday night, saying it was disgraceful that “Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party” had allowed Livingstone to remain a member and had decided his “behavior is acceptable.”
Corbyn himself reacted by criticizing Livingstone’s accurate historical comments as causing “deep offense and hurt to the Jewish community,” and saying Livingstone could face further disciplinary action.
This was not enough for Labour Friends of Israel though, which retorted on Wednesday that Corbyn’s statement had “failed to mention anti-Semitism,” and demanded he call on Labour’s ruling body to “review the inappropriate sentence delivered last night.”
Labour Friends of Israel was shown by an undercover Al Jazeera documentary in January to be working in close financial and logistical coordination with the Israeli embassy.
Its leader, Labour lawmaker Joan Ryan, was also shown fabricating an accusation of anti-Semitism against a party member who challenged her group’s policies with respect to Israeli settlements.
The Jewish Labour Movement, which was also shown in the documentary to be working closely with the Israeli embassy, has led much of the campaign to boot Livingstone out of the party.
Its chair, Jeremy Newmark, has vowed to take the matter to the party’s conference in September.
Newmark has been a leading voice calling for Livingstone to be expelled. He was one of the witnesses at the hearing against Livingstone, reportedly submitting a 170-page dossier.
A veteran Israel lobby activist, Newmark has a history of lying, with a tribunal judge in 2013 calling his evidence in a failed case about supposed “institutional anti-Semitism” in the University and College Union “untrue” and “preposterous.”
Newmark’s campaign against unions that dare express solidarity with Palestine continued. He told an Israeli newspaper in 2012 that he was “liaising closely with the government of Israel” in a similar lawsuit against public sector union Unison.
Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi on 07 April 2017
Like us on Facebook to get all the latest.
We are alarmed that the Labour Party’s National Constitutional Committee has bowed to demands for the suspension of Ken Livingstone, excluding him from the life of the party until April 2018.
Having failed to make a case that he was guilty of antisemitic conduct, his accusers alleged that he was nonetheless guilty of conduct grossly detrimental to the party because, according to them, he had upset the UK’s Jewish population. The grounds put forward for this were Ken Livingstone’s references to a temporary agreement prior to World War II, between some Zionist leaders and Hitler’s Nazi Party, to facilitate the emigration of a number of Jews from Germany. The Zionist motivation was to increase the numbers of Jews going to Palestine.
In our evidence to the NCC we explained that those claiming offence on behalf of all Jews have no justification for doing so. Such a claim deliberately ignores the views of large numbers of Jewish people, both in the Labour Party and in society at large. These are people who, like us, find their identity in a different tradition to the Zionist one; or who, while continuing to believe in the Zionist ideal, are deeply uncomfortable about ongoing inroads into free speech and believe that the history of the Zionist movement must be open to scrutiny.
According to a legal opinion(published on March 27) on the ‘definition’ of antisemitism adopted by the government and the Labour Party, criticising Israel for its ill treatment of Palestinians cannot be taken as evidence of antisemitism. For a political party to adopt the principle that causing offence to some part of the population is a reason for expulsion, would be to deny freedom of expression for what are legitimate political opinions.
The decision to suspend Ken is mistaken. It is an attempt to protect Israel from criticism, while simultaneously weakening the position of the pro-Palestinian Left in the party. It is the verdict, not Ken Livingstone, that has bought the Labour Party into disrepute.
Joined: 14 Dec 2005 Posts: 475 Location: North London
Posted: Mon Jun 26, 2017 8:27 am Post subject: Upsetting Jews
I know someone who was suspended from the Labour Party in May 2016. He sent an email to Party members saying that the anti-semitism allegations were fake and designed by Blairites and Zionists to weaken Jeremy Corbyn's public support. The Party first said he had 'bought the party into disrepute' but dropped that when it was challenged. They now say he supported a rival to the Labour Party but are unable to say what rival. In fact, they haven't set out any allegations.
I suspect that one reason they don't like Livingstone is because of his part support for anti-racism.
I know someone who was suspended from the Labour Party in May 2016. He sent an email to Party members saying that the anti-semitism allegations were fake and designed by Blairites and Zionists to weaken Jeremy Corbyn's public support. The Party first said he had 'bought the party into disrepute' but dropped that when it was challenged. They now say he supported a rival to the Labour Party but are unable to say what rival. In fact, they haven't set out any allegations.
I suspect that one reason they don't like Livingstone is because of his part support for anti-racism.
Michael Foster on the BBC soon after heckling Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in September. (BBC/You Tube)
A millionaire Labour donor is taking the party to court on Tuesday in a bid to remove incumbent leader Jeremy Corbyn from the ballot for this summer’s leadership election.
Michael Foster is a former showbusiness agent whose clients have included actors Sacha Baron Cohen and Hugh Grant and radio host Chris Evans.
Foster is also the man who heckled Corbyn at a Labour Friends of Israel reception last year.
Foster screamed: “Oi! Oi! Say the word ‘Israel!’” in response to Corbyn’s speech at the event, which took place in September soon after Corbyn swept to victory.
A veteran campaigner for Palestinian rights, Corbyn had called for the siege of Gaza to be lifted. This so incensed Foster that he stood up on his chair and tried to shout him down.
Soon after, he explained to the BBC’s Daily Politics show that what had outraged him was Corbyn’s “talk of Palestine” and “talk of the siege of Gaza.”
Foster ran for parliament in 2015 as a Labour candidate in Cornwall, but failed to win the seat from the ruling Conservative Party.
Labour Friends of Israel did not reply to an email asking what Foster’s involvement with the group is, if any. Foster could not be reached for comment.
“I will destroy you”
During his campaign in 2015, Foster reportedly harassed a rival candidate at an election debate.
In a discussion of a proposed tax on mansions, Loveday Jenkin of Cornish party Mebyon Kernow had pointed out that Foster lives in a $2 million house in Cornwall.
Foster reportedly responded by calling her – as The Daily Mail rendered it – ” You c***.”
“If you pick on me again I will destroy you,” Foster added.
Jenkin told the newspaper that Foster “clearly has an anger management problem and no understanding of the problems affecting Cornish people.”
Foster denied the reports, but admitted to being an “aggressive agent” with a “legendary temper” so intense that he once broke his own finger “while tapping on a table to make a point, so forcefully that the bone snapped.”
Famous friends
During his failed 2015 election bid, Foster enlisted celebrity friends, some of whom made videos supporting him.
British TV actor Ross Kemp also recently made a video for “Saving Labour,” a hastily formed group which has been involved in a failed effort to oust Corbyn as leader.
The coup was initially launched in June by right-wing Labour MP Margaret Hodge who tabled a motion of no-confidence in Corbyn.
It peaked with a string of resignations from Corbyn’s shadow cabinet. These lawmakers then piled massive amounts of pressure on Corbyn to step down. Corbyn refused, citing his overwhelming mandate from Labour Party members and supporters.
A leadership challenge was launched, and Corbyn now faces Labour MP Owen Smith as his sole opponent in an election contest which will be decided in September.
Were Corbyn to be removed from the ballot by Foster’s legal action, it would leave Smith – a former lobbyist for the pharmaceutical industry – as the only candidate in the leadership election, making any democratic vote redundant.
Earlier this month Labour’s national executive decided that party rules stipulate the standing leader automatically goes onto the ballot in the event of a challenge. This means Corbyn does not need the support of 51 Labour MPs or members of the European Parliament, unlike challengers.
Foster’s attempt to reverse this decision seems like the last gasp of the failed coup. According to one expert, it is unlikely to succeed.
Millionaire donor
The register of members interests shows that Foster made a $13,000 donation and a further $13,000 interest-free loan to Labour MP Liz Kendall last summer, to support her failed bid in last year’s leadership election.
Widely perceived as the Blairite continuity candidate, Kendall came last, with a humiliating 4.5 percent of the vote.
Foster also donated another $9,000 to Kendall in December.
On May 4, 2017, the free weekly newspaper, Barnet Press, reported on the announcement of the three Labour candidates who are to contest the seats in my area at the forthcoming General Election.
The candidate standing for the Finchley and Golders Green constituency is Jeremy Newmark, who the paper describes as a “former chief executive of the Jewish Leadership Council” and “former spokesman for Jonathan Sacks, who was Chief Rabbi from 1991 to 2013.”
Currently, Newmark chairs the Labour party-affiliated, Jewish Labour Movement (JLM). The JLM is also affiliated to the Israeli Labor Party and the World Zionist Organization. According to the UN, the latter pumps millions into building in the occupied West Bank through its settlement division.
In my view, Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader is the best thing to have happened to the party and, potentially, to the people of the country, in decades. But I’m going to find it extremely hard, on a matter of principle, to vote for my selected Labour constituency candidate whose credentials I regard to be highly questionable.
A great deal has been written and covertly filmed about how the Israel lobby and the JLM are using both journalists and the Blairite fringe of Labour MPs within the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) to undermine Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership with a view to his eventual toppling using the specter of antisemitism as a weapon with which to achieve it.
Journalist Asa Winstanley contends that no mainstream journalists “have disclosed Newmark’s long-standing role in the Israel lobby, or his record of lying about anti-Semitism.”
In an excellent piece published by the Electronic Intifada (April 28, 2016), Winstanley comprehensively analyses the McCarthy-style witch-hunts by the JLM against Israel’s critics and outlines the links between right-wing, anti-Corbyn Labour and the Israel lobby within the party.
Bogus antisemitism crisis
Winstanley meticulously shows how the Israel lobby manufactured an ‘antisemitism crisis’, pinpointing the individuals involved, the tactics and dirty tricks used and the connections to individuals whose ties lead to pro-Israel groups both in London and Israel.
The investigative journalist also shows how media outlets such as the Telegraph, Huffington Post and the Jewish Chronicle have been complicit in the systematic attempt to disorientate Labour party members and supporters by either printing misinformation or reproducing unsubstantiated accusations and antisemitic smears against individuals. This in turn, has contributed to a false media narrative.
Among the individuals who instigated the fake antisemitism row highlighted by Winstanley, are David Klemperer who opposed Corbyn’s run for the labour leadership (but has since been kicked out of the party), and former Israel lobby intern, Alex Chalmers. But it is Newmark who is arguably the most influential.
The intention of the lobby is to create the impression that antisemitism is not only more prevalent within the Labour party compared with other political parties, but that it’s also more widespread compared to other forms of racism in UK society.
Neither claim stands up to scrutiny. In relation to the latter, a 2015 survey by Pew found that seven percent of the UK public held ‘unfavourable’ views of Jews. By contrast, about a fifth held negative views of Muslims and almost two-fifths viewed Roma people unfavourably.
In the aftermath of the massacres in Gaza in 2014, the London Metropolitan police recorded 358 anti-Semitic offences. Two hundred and seventy three of these were online, 36 involved criminal damage and 38 constituted “harassment”. Eleven cases of assault were recorded in which four resulted in personal injury.
One hundred and eighty thousand offences in these categories were recorded within the wider population throughout Metropolitan London. In other words, attacks against Jews in 2014 against a backdrop in which Gaza was being pulverized, made up only one in 500 of the total, while they made up around one in 86 of the population of London as a whole.
Community Security Trust (CST) figures for the first six months of last year show a rise of 15 per cent above those from the previous year. But this is from an extremely low base. The actual number of such incidents recorded for the first half of 2016 was 557. And that figure is still below that for 2014 when the Israeli assault on Gaza occurred. So claims that there has been a ‘surge’ in antisemitic incidences in recent years are false and misleading.
In terms of the former, there is no evidence to suggest that antisemitic views are any more prevalent in the Labour party which historically has been at the forefront of anti-racist and anti-fascist campaigns. On the contrary, racism and fascism is more likely to be symptomatic of far-right politics then left-wing politics.
Take the far-right ideology of Zionism as an example. Far-right political parties court the Zionist vote because Zionism is a far-right and racist political movement which, as Tony Greenstein put it, “sought to establish a Jewish state by accepting the anti-Semitic notion that Jews don’t belong in the countries they were born in.”
As a Labour supporter of Jeremy Corbyn, the decision of whether to put my cross next to the name of a hard-line Zionist and member of the Israel lobby who has lied about antisemitism and, in my view, seeks to undermine the democratic process from within, by prioritizing the interests of a foreign power over and above those of his own constituents, is not a difficult one. Zionists like Newmark have about as much in common with Corbyn as Gandhi has with Pol Pot.
Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA)
The cynical attempts to weaponize antisemitism for right-wing political purposes is also the role of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, a British propaganda organization and registered “charity”. Formed in August 2014 during a major Israeli offensive against Gaza, the aim of the CAA is to paint Palestine solidarity campaigning and opposition to Zionism as antisemitic.
The organisation is chaired by Gideon Falter, who is also a board member of the Jewish National Fund which has a long history of supporting ethnic cleansing in Palestine. The CAAs preferred McCarthyite tactic appears to be to target left-wing political activists, Corbyn supporters and journalists who are critical of Israel by abusing and smearing them with unsubstantiated allegations.
Among those who have been libeled by the group include Rebecca Massey, a prominent Labour Party activist in Brighton and Hove, Labour parliamentary and council candidate, Dinah Mulholland and the campaigning journalist and Labour party activist, Mike Sivier.
In relation to the latter, the CAA submitted an article to the press that contained “lies, doctored quotes and misinterpretations” of Sivier’s work. This resulted in his subsequent suspension from the Labour party without a proper investigation of the facts having taken place.
If the role of the CAA is to expose genuine cases of antisemitism and to promote social harmony, one would expect it to condemn far-right fascist organisations and their supporters. But as Tony Greenstein, who has himself been a victim of CAA smears, highlighted, a search of the campaign’s archive revealed just two articles that mention Britain’s main fascist organizations – the British National Party, the English Defence League and the National Front. Those groups include Holocaust deniers within their ranks.
By contrast, Greenstein pointed out there are some 77 articles attacking Jeremy Corbyn and 32 articles in the archive that attack Shami Chakrabarti, a civil liberties campaigner and now a prominent Labour politician serving as shadow attorney general.
It is obvious that the activities of the CAA and other Zionist and pro-Israel lobbying groups such as the CST and Board of Deputies of British Jews are designed to achieve the exact opposite of what they purport to set out to do. Rather than create peace and harmony between people, they actually create tension, discord and antagonism.
This, of course, serves a political and ideological purpose. The promotion of the idea that Jews within the diaspora are under threat of antisemitism, intimidation and violence is intended to encourage their emigration to Israel thereby helping to further reinforce Zionism’s role as Israel’s state ideology.
Groups like the CAA and CST need “antisemitism” to flourish in order to justify their continued government funding and hence their existence. That’s why the latest figures released by the latter suggesting attacks against Jewish people have rocketed to record levels, should be taken with a pinch of salt. In order to establish an accurate picture, we need not only to compare levels of racist attacks more widely, but to break down the 767 antisemitic hate crimes recorded by the CST in the first six months of 2017 into categories.
While all racism is abhorrent, it should be noted that 80 violent antisemitic attacks were recorded during this period. While this is 80 too many, it’s important to look at the wider political and historical context in which these attacks have taken place and compare them with the level of violent racist attacks against other groups. But CST do not provide any context because it does not serve their narrow political and ideological interests.
The Israel lobby, who have a significant financial stake in the Labour party and further afield, clearly see Corbyn as an anathema to the realization of these interests. A Newmark victory in Golders Green and Finchley would almost certainly strengthen the Zionist position within the political establishment and thus help to bring the Zionist dream closer to fruition.
The disproportionate power the Israel lobby is able to exert is a major concern for anybody who values the principles of democracy. While it is wrong to suggest that Zionism and Judaism are synonymous, it is nevertheless apposite to point out that the majority of the Jewish demographic (59 per cent), which in its totality represents just 0.5 per cent of the British population, identify politically as Zionists.
The democratic process is not best served in a situation in which such a tiny section of the population supposedly has a disproportionately powerful lobby at its disposal. Although the majority of the world’s Zionists are non-Jewish, Zionism is at its core unquestionably a Jewish movement – indeed the major Jewish communal movement.
Over-representation
It’s the over-representation of Jews in the capitalist ruling class that gives the Israel- Zionist lobby it’s power. This is a historical phenomenon that actually explains the Zionist project itself and it’s purpose – to create a state expression for this distinctive bourgeois layer. The history of different peoples, of the relation of oppressed and oppressor peoples, is class based and linked to the different evolved class structures of those peoples.
The Jews have a more distinctive historically evolved class structure than many other groups. An understanding of the issues concerning questions of material reality and historical fact, is crucial to evaluating where we are today. The exploitation by racists of the facts, don’t make these facts less valid. As a society we need to talk about them as opposed to having them suppressed within the cloak of ‘antisemitism’.
The suppression of such questions risks their monopolization by the small minority of antisemites who have a racialised hatred of Jewish people. They are thankfully very rare. It’s important to keep talking about Zionism as a political category in order to refute the conflation between Zionism and Judaism that public figures such as Chief Rabbi Mirvis and others have so scandalously made.
Given the attempts to conflate the two, it should not come as any surprise why people would make the innocent mistake of using the term the ‘Jewish lobby’ in discussions or debates. Under such circumstances, it is easy to see how others with nefarious motives are able to exploit this misunderstanding for political and sectarian- racist purposes.
One such individual is the Zionist antisemite, Rupert Murdoch, who has complained that “Jewish-owned” newspapers are too critical of Israel. This illustrates how Zionists who loathe and resent Jews as Jews, unless they support a pro-Zionist political stance, are able to perpetuate the Jewish global conspiracy trope for their own narrow political objectives.
This rationale is used to explain why the JLM are able to prevent non-Zionist Jews from affiliating to their organisation while conversely accepting that non-Jewish Zionists are welcome to join. Significantly, in this sense, the JLM are more accurately described as a Zionist movement as opposed to a movement of Jews.
Arguably, nowhere is this dichotomy best illustrated than by the treatment meted out by the JLM to the Jewish anti-Zionist activist, Jackie Walker. The controversy that surrounds Ms Walker and others, as Mike Sivier posited “is not about antisemtism, but removing a person who does not support Zionism from a position of influence.”
The media attacks on Jeremy Corbyn, Ken Livingston, Jackie Walker and others, are politically motivated and represent a determined effort by the Israel lobby to make Britain’s Labour Party ‘a safe pair of hands’ for Israel and Zionism.
Defining antisemitism
The confusion that surrounds antisemitism could be easily clarified if the widely used definition of the term was simplified. But as a result of their decision to adopt the long and convoluted European Union Monitoring Centre (EUMC) definition of antisemitism, groups like the CAA, CST and the JLM are deliberately muddying the waters.
This deeply flawed 500 word ‘new antisemitism’ or even ‘antisemitic anti-zionism’ definition authored by attorney Kenneth Stern (strangely accepted by Jeremy Corbyn), intended to combat political criticisms of Israel, is so wide in scope that it’s essentially meaningless.
The EUMC definition, amid much opposition, was subsequently dropped by the UK government in December, 2016. Instead, the non-legally binding working definition formulated by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), was formally adopted seven months later. The IHRA definition states:
“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.”
While an improvement on the EUMC definition, the IHRA is also similarly flawed. “Physical manifestations”, for example, might include the targeting of the state of Israel.
Brian Klug, an Oxford academic who specializes in the study of antisemitism, manages it in 21 words: “Antisemitism is a form of hostility to Jews as Jews, where Jews are perceived as something other than what they are”.
This seems to me to be a perfectly adequate definition. But preventing genuine antisemitic instances is not the objective of Zionist organisations like the CAT or the CAA. Their real purpose is to undermine a Corbyn-led Labour Government, which they view as a very real threat to the Eretz (Greater) Yisrael project of a territory stretching from the River Nile to the River Euphrates.
Both the EUMC and IHRA definitions embolden Zionists in their political attacks against Jews and non-Jews alike who are rightly critical of the illegal actions of the state of Israel. I can only assume that there is still a long way to go before the corrupting influence of Zionism is removed from the democratic institutional structure of the Labour party once and for all.
The suspension from the party of the likes of millionaire Zionist donor, Michael Foster, who compared Corbyn supporters to Nazi storm troopers, is insufficient and clearly more needs to be done. Corbyn’s apparent cosying up to Zionists like Newmark and others within the party who are among the first in line to stab him in the back, while leaving long-term comrades like Ken Livingston out to dry, is a situation that ultimately, can only end in tears for the Labour leader. Corbyn’s lack of a principled stand on this matter reflects a serious weakness in his leadership.
On the surface, Jeremy Corbyn’s rally leading up to the Labour Party conference in Brighton was a resounding success. But there is a nagging issue among party activists that needs to be confronted. As much as the leadership would prefer the issue in question to be washed away into the sea at Brighton, it will continue to be a stain on Corbyn’s leadership until he confronts it head on.
The issue in question relates to the Labour leader’s inability to deal with the corrupting influence of the Zionist lobby within his party of which his apparent new-found indifference to the plight of Palestinian’s is symptomatic. The first time Corbyn capitulated to the Zionist lobby occurred when he failed to publicly challenge the staged and contrived attacks on Ken Livingstone by Labour’s principal Zionist henchman, John Mann.
Corbyn again capitulated in Brighton after having for the first time in years failed to speak at the fringe Labour Friends of Palestine rally (he intends, in due course, to speak on behalf of Labour Friends of Ethnic Cleansing sorry, Israel). Corbyn also regularly meets with Israel’s Ambassador, Mark Regev, who fronted the PR campaign to whitewash Israel’s ethnic cleansing in Gaza in 2014 as part of what was euphemistically called Operation Protective Edge.
Fearful
Corbyn’s fear of offending the Zionist lobby gained further prominence during his Brighton rally in light of the attempts by the said lobby to redefine antisemitism as a political weapon with which to attack legitimate criticisms of Israel. The misnamed, Jewish Labour Movement (JLM), is the main driving force behind the rule change agenda. The organisation is affiliated to the Israeli Labor Party and the World Zionist Organization – the latter of which pumps millions into building in the occupied West Bank through its settlement division.
The Chair of the JLM is Jeremy Newmark, the Israeli state agent and propagandist who stood as a Labour candidate during the last General Election in my constituency of Finchley and Golder’s Green (see below). Newmark was accused of perjury in an Employment Tribunal case Fraser v University College Union.
As a result of covert filming, the Al-Jazeera news network exposed how Newmark and the JLM, in addition to Labour Friends of Israel lobbyist and MP, Joan Ryan and others working on behalf of the Israel lobby, are using both journalists and right-wing Labour MPs to undermine Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership with a view to his eventual toppling using the specter of antisemitism as a weapon with which to achieve it.
Zionist Labour Movement?
As I stated in a previous article, in reality the JLM are more accurately described as a Zionist movement whose aim is to proselytize for Israel. The anti-Zionist activist, Jackie Walker, although Jewish, is not permitted to join the organization. However, non-Jewish Zionists are welcomed with open arms.
The attempt by the JLM at the Brighton conference to re-define hate speech is predicated on the flawed non-legally binding International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. With the inclusion of the phrase “physical manifestations”, which might encompasses criticism of Israel and Zionism, the definition is essentially meaningless.
The IHRA definition states:
“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.”
Nevertheless, the JLM unwittingly appear not to have realized that the IHRA definition above is a vast improvement on the long and convoluted 500 word ‘antisemitic anti-zionism’ European Union Monitoring Centre (EUMC) definition authored by attorney Kenneth Stern (also accepted by Jeremy Corbyn), that preceded it.
Brian Klug, an Oxford academic who specializes in the study of antisemitism, manages it in 21 words:
“Antisemitism is a form of hostility to Jews as Jews, where Jews are perceived as something other than what they are”.
This seems to me to be a perfectly adequate definition. But preventing genuine antisemitic instances is not the objective of a Zionist propaganda organisation like the JLM (and others like the CAA and CST). Their real purpose is to undermine and/or subvert a Corbyn-led Labour government, which they view as a very real threat to the Eretz (Greater) Yisrael project of a territory stretching from the River Nile to the River Euphrates.
Moral panic
In response to a moral panic about “antisemitic anti-Zionism” seemingly expanding without limit, a loosely-knit group of Jewish Labour Party supporters called Free Speech on Israel gathered for an inaugural gathering in April, 2016. The fifteen-member group, which included Emeritus Professor of Operational Research at the London School of Economics, Jonathan Rosenhead, concluded that over their lifetimes they could muster only a handful of antisemitic experiences between them. And, crucially, although in aggregate they had hundreds of years of Labour Party membership, not a single one of them had ever experienced an incident of antisemitism in the party.
These experiences would appear to tally with the findings of the Channel 4 Dispatches programme. Despite filming undercover for six months at political meetings in an attempt to discredit Corbyn, the programme-makers could not find a single incidence of antisemitism among party activists. By contrast, during an interview on the BBC Radio 4s Moral Maze programme, former representative of the Zionist Federation and current Director of Communications for the Campaign Against Antisemitism, Jonathan Sacerdoti, claimed that Jews were being driven “in fear of their lives from Britain to Israel.”
Hyperbole
With this kind of highly exaggerated hyperbole, Sacerdoti appears to be confusing Britain’s multicultural, secular and pluralistic liberal democracy with the inherently racist, Zionist entity headed by a Prime Minister who sees himself as the leader of the whole of the Jewish world. Clearly, it hadn’t occurred to either Sacerdoti or Netanyahu that Jews born in Britain are British, just like their Black or Asian counterparts. They are not Israeli. Therefore, Zionists can make no legitimate claim to lead or control the Jewish diaspora. To suggest otherwise is to replicate the false racist and sectarian-based trope that Zionists and Jews are synonymous, and therefore to attack Israel is “antisemitic.”
Of course this serves a dual political purpose. With Israel’s Jewish population decreasing in proportion to their Palestinian counterparts, the fear of antisemitism against the Jewish diaspora increases the potential for Jews to emigrate to Israel, while justifying increasing levels of funding to Jewish “charities” and organisations like the CAA and the JLM, whose interests are best served by playing up the antisemitism “threat.”
The JLMs own website states:
“The Jewish Labour Movement is also affiliated to the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Zionist Federation of the UK, and organise within the World Zionist Organisation… Our objects: To maintain and promote Labour or Socialist Zionism as the movement for self-determination of the Jewish people within the state of Israel.”
Jewish self-determination?
The notion that passport-holding Jews born in countries like France, the US and the UK have any less of a right to self-determination than other groups with citizenship rights born in these countries, perpetuates the myth that Jews can only be safe from the threat of violence in Israel exclusively among other Jews. This, in turn, reinforces another corresponding racist myth, namely, that the concept of multi-ethnic and secular democratic liberalism is antithetical to “Jewish interests” and that coexistence with other groups is problematical.
Netanyahu outwardly expressed this kind of Jewish-Zionist conflated racist exceptionalism and exclusivity for ideological and political reasons after he attempted to shift the blame for the Holocaust from the Hitler fascists on to the Grand Mufti. From the Zionist perspective, this makes sense given that Muslims are considered to be the joint enemy of both the European far-right and their Zionist allies.
This is the context in which Mike Sivier pointed out, correctly, that the proposed Labour Party rule change incorporating the IHRA definition supposedly to combat hate speech and racism is “not about antisemitism; but removing a person from the party who does not support Zionism from a position of influence.”
Banned
This, and the curtailment of free speech, is the reason why many Labour members who are critical of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian’s and its apartheid state have been banned or suspended from the party. The latter was the reasoning that lay behind the decision of Finchley and Golder’s Green CLP last month to reject my application for membership of the said party, ostensibly based on a blog article I wrote in which it is claimed I used “Zionist” as a term of abuse in relation to my criticisms of the Israel-first Labour candidate, Jeremy Newmark, and the organisation that he Chairs, the JLM – the story of which made it on to the pages of The Jewish Chronicle.
Given that Zionism is indeed an exclusivist, supremacist and racist ideology deserving of abuse, I stand “guilty” as charged. The systematic smears and attacks by Zionists against the right to freedom of speech, is the kind of policy Corbyn appears happy to endorse.
The Labour leader’s effective rubber-stamping of the IHRA definition appears to be indicative of the lack of control he has within his own party. Despite all of the sound rhetoric in his Brighton speech last night (September 24, 2017) about the need to put people before profit, railway re-nationalization and abolishing tuition fees, the party remains dominated by right-wing Zionist forces.
There are few signs at present that he intends to do anything in terms of confronting the situation other than appease various hypocritical and back-stabbing leading party figures like Tom Watson, Joan Ryan and Jess Phillips who have either openly said in the past they are opposed to his policies or have abused him. Many people, including millions of Iraqi’s, Libyan’s and Syrian’s would not consider it spiteful of Corbyn to take a firm grip on the party and get rid of the traitors within his midst, but rather, would regard it as a small step towards justice.
Compulsory deselection
Compulsory deselection is the obvious way forward. But to date, Corbyn has suffered from an inability to influence constituency Labour party policy at the local level whose full-time paid staff are institutionalized. They see in Corbyn somebody who is a potential threat to the status quo. The General Secretary, Ian McNicol represents the apex of this kind of tendency towards self-preservation which explains why during the last election campaign Skawkbox was able to allege that:
“Almost no resources were made available for the fight to win Tory-held marginals or even to defend Labour-held ones. Party officials and national executive right-wingers either assumed that Labour could not win seats or deliberately sought a bad result to undermine Corbyn.”
Of the 260+ parliamentary Labour MPs, roughly 60 hold genuine left-wing views, while a similar amount tread the ground between the left and right. The vast majority of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) – roughly 140 – however, are right-wing disciples of the Chicago school who are unprincipled cynical opportunists or, as Tony Benn put it, “weathervanes”. They will only go with the Corbyn programme if it looks good for their money-making prospects.
Battle
This illustrates the battle Corbyn and his supporters are up against. If Corbyn ends up being too accommodating to the right-wing of the party it will only encourage them, resulting in the blunting of his radical message which is the major part of his appeal and the very reason why Labour voters, especially the young, voted for him in such large numbers in the first place.
Keeping young voters on board is particularly important given the fact that the proposed boundary changes that the Tories will be keen to bring in before the next election will benefit them by 18 seats. This will provide the ideal opportunity for Corbyn to force through the compulsory re-submission of candidates to members who are energized by a very different set of priorities to that the right-wing within the party. If Corbyn proves brave enough to seize the moment by taking control of the hierarchy that he currently lacks, all those motivated primarily by money will disappear by stealth into the ether.
The right-winger’s are currently on the defensive and Corbyn should exploit this situation to the maximum. The worse case scenario is one in which the former wrestle back significant control. By keeping a hardcore Zionist like Watson in a position of prominence and influence, will only encourage this eventuality.
The contradictions among the right within the party that the left have exposed, highlight the extent to which the ideological consensus between the New Labour hierarchy and the ruling Tory establishment, is structurally embedded within a dysfunctional system of state power that is no longer fit for purpose. Corbyn’s task in changing this situation around is difficult but not impossible. Now is the time for him to act. _________________ --
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com http://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
Masot (pictured) described supporters of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as "weirdos" and "extremists" (Al-Jazeera)
Alex MacDonald's picture
Alex MacDonald
Simon Hooper
Sunday 8 January 2017 22:35 UTC
Last update: Friday 13 January 2017 15:22 UTC
redditwhatsapp googleplus 8305
Topics: IsraelLobby
Tags: Israeli Embassy, Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, Shai Masot
Show comments
Undercover recordings seen by Middle East Eye have revealed how an Israeli diplomat sought to establish organisations and youth groups to promote Israeli influence inside the opposition Labour party, in an effort to undermine Jeremy Corbyn's leadership.
In secret conversations filmed by an undercover reporter, an employee at the Israeli embassy in London, Shai Masot, described his plans to set up a youth wing of the Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) organisation and revealed that he had set up other such organisations in the past.
Masot described taking delegations of Labour members on trips to Israel and told Joan Ryan, the chair of LFI, that he had been approved £1m ($1.2m) to fund further visits.
READ: Shai Masot, the Israeli Machiavelli caught in the act
He also said he had set up a group called “The City Friends of Israel” in collaboration with AIPAC, an influential pro-Israel lobbying organisation in the US.
Describing Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as “crazy”, Masot said he had set up a youth-wing of the Conservative Friends of Israel in 2015 and wanted to do the same inside the Labour Party, but had been unsuccessful because of the “crisis” surrounding Corbyn's election as leader.
Masot also described Corbyn's supporters as "weirdos" and "extremists".
Corbyn is considered supportive of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which Masot elsewhere in the recordings said he had been tasked with discrediting and undermining.
Asked whether he had set up other groups in the UK, Masot said:' Nothing I can share, but yeah'
Corbyn's tenure in power has seen a parliamentary revolt against his leadership and the party's fortunes slide in the polls. He has also presided over a row within the party over the alleged presence - and toleration - of anti-Semitic views among members.
The conversations were covertly filmed by an undercover Al Jazeera reporter posing as a pro-Israel Labour activist who gained Masot's trust and infiltrated his circle so effectively that he was himself tasked with the job of establishing Young Labour Friends of Israel.
In a subsequent conversation, Masot stressed that the organisation should remain independent, but reiterated that the Israeli embassy could help.
Asked whether he had set up other groups in the UK, he said: “Nothing I can share, but yeah.”
He then said: “Yeah, because there are things that, you know, happen, but it’s good to leave those organisations independent. But we help them, actually.”
Shai Masot was secretly filmed over a number of months (Al Jazeera)
The undercover reporter also caught pro-Israel Labour activists on film describing financial support that they had received from the Israeli embassy.
In one conversation filmed outside a London pub, Michael Rubin, the parliamentary officer for LFI and a former leader of Labour Students, said: “Shai spoke to me and said the Israeli embassy will be able to get a bit of money as well, which is good... he said he’s happy to sort of help fund a couple of events so it makes it easier, so I don’t think money should be a problem really.”
Rubin also said that he and Masot “work really closely together... but a lot of it is behind the scenes”.
READ: UK government pressed to investigate plan to 'take down' minister
The latest revelations come as the UK government on Sunday faced mounting calls for an inquiry into the activities of Masot, a senior political officer based in Israel's embassy in London who was secretly filmed plotting to “take down” government ministers and MPs considered to be causing “problems” for Israel.
They included Alan Duncan, a foreign office minister who has been one of the most vocal critics of Israel's illegal West Bank settlement programme, and Crispin Blunt, the influential chairman of the parliamentary foreign affairs select committee.
The tapes also exposed the extent of Israeli influence within the ruling Conservative Party, with one assistant to Robert Halfon, a junior education minister, boasting about how she had planted parliamentary questions, and describing how “pretty much” every Conservative MP was a member of the Conservative Friends of Israel.
Masot complained that the Labour Party under Corbyn, who in a meeting with activists in 2009 referred to the Palestinian group Hamas and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah as “friends”, had proved harder to influence, despite its historic links with Israel.
“Not a lot of people want to be affiliated,” says Masot in the video recording. “Obviously when they become MPs they won’t be affiliated and then that’s it, the chain is done. Because for years, every MP that joined the parliament, the first thing that he used to do is go to join the LFI.”
REVEALED: Secret tapes expose Israeli influence over UK Conservative Party
In footage filmed at last September's Labour conference in Liverpool, Masot is seen discussing plans with Joan Ryan, the MP for Enfield North in London, for a forthcoming visit by LFI members to Israel.
“What happened with the names that we put into the Embassy, Shai?” Ryan inquired.
“Just now we’ve got the money, it’s more than one million pounds, it’s a lot of money,” Masot replied.
“I know, it must be,” said Ryan.
“And now I’ve got the money so from Israel so… it’s not physical, it’s an approval,” Masot continued to explain.
“I didn’t think you had it in your bag!” joked Ryan.
OBORNE: Is May's government complicit in Israeli interference in UK politics?
The exchange prompted a call from Sir Hugo Swire, a Conservative MP who chairs the Conservative Middle East Council, for the Friends of Israel organisations linked to all of the UK's main parties to disclose their funding arrangements.
“There are serious questions to be asked,” Swire told MEE. “This raises a whole lot of issues on a whole lot of different levels. The Conservative Middle East Council is a properly affiliated organisation within the Conservative Party. Therefore we have to fall within the parameters of corporate donations and individual donations as does the party itself.
He said that certain groups were not officially accredited to their respective parties. "I do think the time has come for these organisations to come out public and reveal how they are funded and where they are funded from.”
I do think the time has come for these organisations to come out public and reveal how they are funded and where they are funded from
- Sir Hugo Swire, Conservative MP
Labour on Sunday called for a full investigation into Masot's activities, after the government on Saturday said it considered the matter closed following an apology to Duncan from Mark Regev, the Israeli ambassador.
Emily Thornberry, Labour's shadow foreign minister, said: “The exposure of an Israeli embassy official discussing how to bring down or discredit a government minister and other MPs because of their views on the Middle East is extremely disturbing.
“Improper interference in our democratic politics by other states is unacceptable whichever country is involved. It is simply not good enough for the Foreign Office to say the matter is closed. This is a national security issue.
“The embassy official involved should be withdrawn, and the government should launch an immediate inquiry into the extent of this improper interference and demand from the Israeli government that it be brought to an end.”
Labour has been backed in its call for an inquiry by the Scottish National Party and several senior Conservative MPs.
Crispin Blunt told MEE: "What we cannot have is Israel acting in the UK with the same impunity it enjoys in Palestine.
"This is clearly interference in another country's politics of the murkiest and most discreditable kind."
'What we cannot have is Israel acting in the UK with the same impunity it enjoys in Palestine'
- Crispin Blunt, Conservative MP
Nicholas Soames, another Conservative MP, told MEE's Peter Oborne: “This ranks as the equivalent of Soviet intelligence in what they are doing to suborn democracy and interfere in due process.”
Writing anonymously in the Mail on Sunday newspaper, a former minister in the previous government led by David Cameron, said that British foreign policy was “in hock to Israeli influence at the heart of our politics.
“For years the CFI and LFI have worked with – even for – the Israeli embassy to promote Israeli policy and thwart UK government policy and the actions of ministers who try to defend Palestinian rights.”
The Israeli embassy has sought to play down Masot's seniority describing him as a “junior embassy employee” whose remarks had been “completely unacceptable”.
It said he would be “ending his term of employment at the embassy very shortly”. _________________ --
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com http://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
(The link seems not to work, so just put the headline in the search engine)
'....Approximately half of those in the audience were Jewish. All the speakers were Jewish. Nobody noticed anything about Holocaust denial because there was nothing. This whole story in the mass media about ‘anti-Semitism’ is a wholly contrived example of false flag news. Complete Black Propaganda.
I spoke at the meeting and my main message was that we should not be defensive over the allegations of anti-Semitism. On the contrary it is the far-Right, Breitbart News, Richard Spencer of the alt-Right and fascist parties led by people such as Marine Le Pen, Geert Wilders, Herr Strache of Austria and of course our very own BNP and EDL who are avidly pro-Israel and pro-Zionist....'
'....There is no truth whatsoever in Warren Morgan's statement that
'We have the prominent activist and suspended Labour Party member Tony Greenstein here, who indeed was present at the [Free Speech on Israel] fringe meeting where it was suggested that Holocaust denial should be allowed. His expulsion, in my view, is long overdue.'
This is a good example of how Labour's false antisemitism allegations have been manufactured over the past two years. No one at the Free Speech on Israel meeting last Monday even mentioned holocaust denial, let alone suggested that it should be discussed. I would be completely opposed to such a discussion. There is no point in debating flat earthers....'
'...People like Warren Morgan and the so-called Jewish Labour Movement want to divert attention from the fact that Israel is the most racist state in the world by distorting what we say. It is a classic example of shooting the messenger rather than dealing with the message.
I have written to Morgan saying that if he doesn’t retract his insinuation that I am a sympathiser with or support Holocaust denial I will sue him for defamation.
Tony Greenstein '
(What Peled Actually said was ‘Israel, Zionism, even the holocaust – can these subjects not be discussed, yes or no?’ smoething entirely different from wht is being alleged by the press). _________________ 'And he (the devil) said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them'. Luke IV 5-7.
The attacks on Jackie Walker and others are political, a determined effort by the Israel lobby to make Britain’s Labour Party safe for Israel and Zionism.
Labour anti-Semitism Inquiry chair Shami Chakrabarti speaks on Labour's anti-Semitism inquiry findings, London, June 2016. Jonathan Brady/Press Association. All rights reserved.
At the end of last week Jackie Walker, who was Vice Chair of Momentum’s Steering Committee, was suspended from the Labour Party. Although no reasons were given there is little doubt that it was as a result of allegations of anti-Semitism made by the Jewish Labour Movement [JLM].
The Jackie Walker affair began in May of this year when a private Facebook discussion between Jackie and a friend of hers was broken into by the Israeli Advocacy Movement. The IAM, which describes its purpose as to ‘counter the increasing hostility Israel suffers at the hands of the British public’, has no visible means of support. It is likely that its operations, including two staff, are funded as part of the campaign against Boycott Divestment and Sanctions run by the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs [MOSA]. MoSA’s remit includes co-ordinating and organising anti-BDS activities globally. It has a $50m budget.
Jackie was suspended in May and after an outcry was quickly reinstated about three weeks later. This was a decision that the Zionist movement and the JLM have never accepted.
What was Jackie Walker’s offence?
In the course of a complex and nuanced Facebook conversation Jackie Walker declared, ‘I will never back anti-Semitism but neither am I a Zionist’. The friends spoke about her combined Jewish-African heritage, the suffering involved in the slavery movement, and ‘the Holocaust’ as a debt owed to the Jews, to which Jackie responded:
I hope you feel the same towards the African holocaust? My ancestors were involved in both – on all sides… millions more Africans were killed in the African holocaust and their oppression continues to this day on a global scale in a way it doesn’t for Jews and many Jews, my ancestors too, were the chief financiers of the sugar and slave trade… so who are the victims and what does it mean . We are victims and perpetrators, to some extent by choice. And having been a victim does not give you a right to be a perpetrator.
In the light of subsequent accusations it seems clear that Jackie wasn’t saying that only Jews were financiers of the slave trade, but acknowledging that her Jewish ancestors were amongst those prominent in financing the African slave trade. One side of her family had been involved in the enslavement of the other side of her family.
The Israel lobby in Britain doesn’t do nuance. Their role, with the aid of the mass media, is to shout down all opposition with megaphone propaganda. The Jewish Chronicle which was handed the transcript of Jackie Walker’s Facebook comments went to town in the best traditions of the tabloid press, leading with the headline ‘Labour suspends Momentum supporter who claimed Jews caused ‘an African holocaust’.
On the basis of this egregious lie, the campaign against Jackie Walker, a dedicated and long standing anti-racist activist, began. Stepping up the hype, the Community Security Trust’s Dave Rich claimed in The Left’s Jewish Problem, that what Jackie Walker wrote was an echo of a book published by Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam, The Secret Relationship - Between Blacks and Jews. In an act of calculated hyperbole, he quotes the American historian of slavery, Eugene D. Genovese, when Genovese says that this book “rivals in… fantasy and gross distortion”, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion – rightly termed a ‘warrant for genocide’.
There is a longstanding academic debate on ‘Jewish involvement in slavery’ and it too has been the focus of ‘anti-Semitic’ allegations. Of Tony Martin’s The Secret Relationship, the late Professor Winthrop, renowned historian of the slave trade, reviewing the book for The Atlantic in 1995, observed:
'Ironically, Martin's assertion that "Jews were very much in the mainstream of European society as far as the trade in African human beings was concerned" was very close to what many Jewish scholars had claimed some thirty years before.’
Criticising the book’s selective approach to evidence, he wrote:
‘If one were to inquire more neutrally into what role Jews played in the Atlantic slave trade, one would find that it was a considerable one during the formative years of the trade, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and a very small one when the trade reached much greater volume, in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
Another more recent contributor to this debate, Dutch Orthodox Rabbi Lody van der Kamp, in an article in The Jewish Journal, the largest Jewish magazine in the USA outside New York, wrote in December 2013,
“Money was earned by Jewish communities in South America, partly through slavery, and went to Holland, where Jewish bankers handled it,” he said. “Non-Jews were also complicit, but so were we.”
By this definition of ‘anti-Semitism’, Jackie Walker and the Rabbi are equally culpable.
Round two
The Jewish Labour Movement, having refused to accept Jackie Walker’s reinstatement in May, the accusations of anti-Semitism against her were ongoing. When John McDonnell was announced as a speaker at a JLM meeting at Labour Party conference, there were calls for him to be disinvited when he spoke on the same platform as Jackie at a TUC Conference fringe meeting. The Jewish Chronicle quoted Jeremy Newmark, Chair of the JLM as saying that McDonnell ‘"must explain his defence of Walker which is inconsistent with his call for zero tolerance. This raises serious questions. Our members expect him to explain himself.’
Despite her being a long-standing anti-racist activist, regardless of her remarks having been made in the context of a private Facebook conversation, Jackie Walker was hounded. She received a torrent of racist tweets, the main thrust of which were questioning her own Jewish status. At no time has the JLM ever condemned the abuse Jackie received.
When Jackie went to a JLM ‘training event’ at Labour Party conference, she walked into a honey trap. The event was secretly recorded and the video footage was passed to the press. On the basis of remarks by Jackie Walker which questioned whether Holocaust Memorial Day was open to other holocausts, such as the millions of Africans who died in the slave trade; and whether the security precautions around Jewish schools were likely to exaggerate the fears of anti-Semitic attacks in the Jewish community, Jackie was further accused of anti-Semitism.
When Jackie challenged the assertion by JLM’s Vice Chair Mike Katz, that the EU Monitoring Committee’s Working Definition on Anti-Semitism was the standard definition of anti-Semitism, she was making an important point. The successor agency to the EUMC, the Fundamental Rights Agency, removed this ‘Working Definition’ from its website in 2013, as even the Times of Israel accepted, on the grounds of its inadequacies. That a training session conducted after the Chakrabarti Inquiry could once again be based on these discredited premises does not augur well for a cessation of hostilities.
The volume of the attacks on Jackie increased: by this point, the aim was clearly to have Jackie Walker suspended from the Labour Party. Momentum which is chaired by Jon Lansman, instead of standing up for the Vice Chair’s right to debate these issues, was described in the Jewish Chronicle as having ‘reached the end of his tether’. In an interview with the Independent, Lansman reported that the chair of JML, Jeremy Newmark, with whom he worked ‘very closely’ had been made ‘very upset’ by Jackie’s remarks. The Independent article concluded that it was ‘widely expected’ that Jackie would be removed as Vice Chair at the next meeting of Momentum’s Steering Committee. Sure enough, on Monday October 3, Jackie Walker was so removed, by a vote of 7-3.
Momentum’s Steering Committee released a statement in which they accepted that nothing Jackie had said was anti-Semitic. Nonetheless the Steering Committee had ‘lost confidence’ in her. Reacting to this obscure decision, Brighton & Hove Momentum’s AGM voted by 56-6 to condemn the removal of Jackie Walker. Camden Momentum voted by a similar majority as have other Momentum groups. At the very least, this raises some questions around the internal democracy of Momentum.
Despite all the talk of ‘anti-Semitism’ in the Labour Party there has been a sparsity of evidence. As Asa Winstanley argues in How Israel lobby manufactured UK Labour Party’s anti-Semitism crisis, many of the alleged instances of ‘anti-Semitism’ have been fabrications. The attacks on Jackie Walker and others represent a determined effort by the Israel lobby to make the Labour Party, in the wake of Jeremy Corbyn’s victory, safe for Israel and Zionism.
This article has been amended since publication to make clear that the comparison of The Secret Relationship and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, was not made by Dave Rich but by Eugene D. Genovese, whom he was quoting.
PA ARCHIVE/PA IMAGES
Labour MPs are warning Jeremy Corbyn they could quit their seats if Ken Livingstone’s suspension from the party is lifted, HuffPost has learned.
A string of backbenchers raised the issue at the weekly meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) on Monday, predicting “departures” of MPs and many members if allegations of anti-semitism were not fully investigated.
It emerged this weekend that no internal inquiry had yet started into remarks by Livingstone suggesting Hitler was a Zionist, despite Corbyn ordering a fresh probe 10 months ago.
With his two-year suspension from the party due to run out in April, party insiders had expressed alarm that his case was not scheduled to be heard by the ruling National Executive Committee (NEC) next month.
Advertisement
Senior party sources were forced to stress on Sunday that in fact the NEC would discuss the matter at its March meeting and that Livingstone was “highly unlikely” to be readmitted until a full investigation had taken place.
But at the PLP meeting, at least four MPs said they want clarity on the issue from Corbyn himself, rather than off the record briefings to the media.
PA WIRE/PA IMAGES
Jeremy Corbyn
The threat of resignations is set to be relayed to the Labour leader when he next convenes the Parliamentary Committee, a meeting of backbenchers that normally follows Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesdays.
Advertisement
PLP chair Jon Cryer, who told MPs that Livingstone’s remarks about Hitler had been “abhorrent”, will pass on the concerns directly if the committee fails to meet.
“If Ken’s let back in, then it would be the final straw for some of us,” one MP told HuffPost.
“There’s a real risk of resignations. The point was made quite strongly, members with a capital M and lower case m, might have no choice but to quit.
“How can we credibly claim to deal with other allegations of anti-semitism if Ken is allowed to get away with it?”
Some party insiders fear that Labour’s chance of taking Barnet council from the Tories in May’s local elections would be derailed if Livingstone’s suspension was lifted. The north London borough has key wards with large Jewish populations.
Advertisement
Another MP said: “It’s outrageous it’s taken this long. This is a massive issue for many Jewish voters in London and for many members elsewhere.”
LAUREN HURLEY - PA IMAGES VIA GETTY IMAGES
Ken Livingstone outside his disciplinary hearing in April 2017
MPs at the PLP meeting told NEC member Kate Osamor that they were unhappy at an Observer report suggesting the planned investigation into Livingstone had not even started.
Some also said that they were dissatisfied with frontbench responses to the story, with both Keir Starmer and Shami Chakrabarti appearing to be “less than robust”.
Livingstone avoided expulsion from the party last April when the National Constitutional Committee (NCC) decided instead to suspend him for bringing the party into disrepute for his remarks about Hitler and Jews.
Advertisement
But he sparked fresh anger with an unrepentant response to the suspension, and a fresh claim that there had been “collaboration” between Jews and Hitler. Corbyn himself announced a new NEC inquiry into the “grossly insensitive” remarks.
PA ARCHIVE/PA IMAGES
Jeremy Corbyn and Shami Chakrabarti at Labour's anti-semitism inquiry findings
However, the NEC has not discussed the matter since, nor referred it to the disciplinary NCC body, despite a dossier of evidence being compiled by party HQ staff.
Livingstone told the Observer last Thursday that the matter was “dead” and he was not going to be expelled because he had done nothing wrong.
Advertisement
A senior party source told HuffPost that it was made clear last April that the former Mayor’s remarks would be investigated. It is expected that the NEC will discuss the complaints next month.
MPs expect that papers for the next NEC meeting, due to be sent out this Thursday, will include plans for a Livingstone inquiry.
Livingstone said this weekend any new hearing would be “more fairly run” than previous ones, because the new chair of the NEC disputes panel is Momentum-backed Christine Shawcroft.
Momentum-supporting members of the NEC voted in January to oust Ann Black, the longstanding chair of the disputes subcommittee, and replace her with Shawcroft.
Jennie Formby, the Unite official considered the favourite to become the next Labour general secretary, said in a statement on Tuesday that she would make the fight against anti-semitism a key feature of her reign. _________________ --
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com http://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
Posted on behalf of my Bristolian friend Henry O'Tani, currently blocked by Facebook ....
Heads Up Comrades !
N.B. This kind of modern DEVIOUS “construct" is designed to inflict the most damaging harm on Labour (when it works)..
Not so long ago (but before "Doping Scandals" and IOC corruption issues) ... Olympic Sport then a mandatory AMATEUR 'game' was riven by widespread accusations of "sham-amateurism" - (Players accused/investigated for receiving improper benefits ..)
Where there is a ruthless desire (of generally professional coaches and agencies) to win at all costs we must be prepared to expect every kind of depravity and "dirty tricks"..
(e.g. Attempts to cripple rivals through physical assault.. Current “spiking” opponents food/drinks with traces of banned substances: the discrediting of the Russian Olympic Team - Are SO EASY to set up....)
In our case “engineering” attacks on our officers “political integrity” must be regarded as "standard right-wing operating procedure"..
Would it be beyond the imagination of Labour's NEC and Conference to simply prohibit (in our Rules) all forms of collaboration and participation in common law breach of public care, unearned income and benefits obtained during the exercise of political office and other smearing “that may bring the party into disrepute” ?
Again: if Palestinians use violence to fight Israeli occupation, then they're terrorists. If they use non-violence (boycotts), then they're anti-Semites. The real point: only full submission to Israel is permitted https://t.co/jJ5gY5j6A1https://t.co/lHoHCbdczn
_________________ --
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com http://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
Evening Standard headline
Recent studies question whether attacks on Corbyn supporters were ever justified
Dr Alan Maddison
28th February 2018
In a recently published study by the Community Security Trust charity (1), it was revealed that for the whole UK, over a 12 month period (from October 2015 to October 2016), there were 2.7 million tweets concerning Jews, of which only 15,575 (0.6%) were considered to be antisemitic. The authors found this low proportion rather reassuring.
This CST study covered the period in which Ruth Smeeth MP claimed that, since the Chakrabarti press conference on 30th June 2016, she herself had received 25,000 abusive messages, mostly on twitter, with 20,000 of these sent over a single 12-hour period.(2) Following this announcement Smeeth was quoted widely in the press as having said this abuse was being done in Corbyn’s name and that the Labour Party under Corbyn was no longer ‘a safe space for British Jews’.
The subsequent wide media coverage gives the clear impression that this abuse was mostly antisemitic, perpetrated by Corbyn supporters and that such behaviour had become ‘normal’ under Corbyn’s leadership.
The problem is that such a large number of antisemitic tweets, allegedly received by Smeeth, were not picked up in the CST survey which ran throughout that period. In fact the maximum peaks the CST team found were around 200 antisemitic tweets a day, and that was for the whole UK. This is a huge difference and needs to be investigated by the Labour Party.
While it is possible that not all of Smeeth’s tweets included the antisemitic key words used in the CST search, it seems unlikely that less than 1% of them did.
This CST survey is not the only prospective study into on-line abuse that raises questions about Smeeth’s previous claim about abuse becoming ‘normalised’ in Labour under Corbyn’s leadership. There are two more.
In one of these prospective surveys, by Liam Mcloughlin and Stephen Ward of Salford University (3), on-line abuse was tracked in 573 MP, for over 10 weeks from 14th November 2016 to 28th January 2017. Their results showed that MPs received a total of 4761 abusive tweets and that of the top 50, Corbyn and his supporting MPs had received more abuse than Labour MPs who had opposed him. In addition, those MPs who did not appear in the list of the top 50, including Smeeth, would have therefore received less than 50 abusive tweets over the whole 10 week period.
In a second prospective study published by Azmina Dhrodia for Amnesty (4), on-line abuse was tracked for 177 female MPs over the 6 month period from 1st January to 1st June 2017. Of the total of 900223 tweets received in total, 25658 (2.85%) were judged abusive.
Below are the top five women MPs receiving the most on-line abuse. Over the 6 months period there were two Corbyn-supporting MP victims in this top 5 group, with Diane Abbott getting around 8 times more abuse than the other four as illustrated below.
Source: Azmina Dhrodia, Amnesty Global Insights, 2017
Once more Ruth Smeeth did not appear in the top group for abuse, which in this study would mean she had received fewer than 5 abusive tweets on average each day over this 6 months period.
Yet again, in this study Corbyn supporters received far more abuse than others, both over the full 6 months period, and in the last 8 weeks run-up to the General Election, when Jess Phillips dropped out of the top 5 to be replaced by another Corbyn supporter Angela Rayner.
Diane Abbott, who had never previously complained to the media much about her abuse and death threats, received 8,121 abusive tweets over this full 6-month period – almost eight times more than any other female MP. Yet this exceptional number was still well below the 20,000 claimed by Smeeth over a period of just 12 hours.
The serious discrepancy between Ruth Smeeth’s allegations, and the findings of these three prospective studies, does raise very important questions for the Labour Party, given the obvious damage caused to its reputation.
With the national media coverage obtained, Smeeth’s repeated criticism of Corbyn, and his supporters, backed up by these on-line abuse allegations, has clearly contributed to tarnishing the image of the Labour Party, its leader and its members. In one survey on voting intentions (5), one in three people questioned said they would hesitate to vote Labour because of its perceived problem with antisemitism. So Labour’s electoral chances also seemed to have been damaged by such allegations of antisemitism coming from Smeeth – and a number of others. This despite the fact that the Home Affairs Select Committee, in their report into antisemitism (October 2016), stated that they could find no convincing evidence that antisemitism was more prevalent in the Labour Party than in other political parties.
Smeeth is reported to have spoken at a Jewish Labour Movement (JLM) meeting at the Labour Party Conference in September 2017 (6), about the need to ‘break and destroy’ the leaders of this alleged Labour Party antisemitism. Rather than improving, the atmosphere generated seems to be even more toxic and divisive than in 2016. Such words as ‘break and destroy’ could be taken as an incitement to violence against fellow Labour members. At the very best it is loose language that should be strongly discouraged. This would not be the first time though. Ella Rose, the Director of the JLM, was filmed threatening to physically attack the anti-racist supporter of Palestinian human rights, Dr Jacqueline Walker (7). These threats from a member of the JLM, an affiliate to the Labour Party, are obviously unacceptable and should not be ignored.
Sadly some abusive behaviour, including that motivated by antisemitism, exists across society and all political parties. It is offensive and intimidating and it needs to be tackled in an intelligent manner. But there is no justification for allegations that abusive behaviour, or antisemitism, being more prevalent amongst Corbyn supporters than other Labour members, or indeed the general population. The allegation that most of Smeeth’s abusive messages were sent by Corbyn supporters is very serious and needs to be investigated.
Implementing wide-ranging anti-racist training sessions, which would include antisemitism, could clearly provide a constructive approach. But equally clearly, the politicised sessions – currently proposed and run by the JLM – are not appropriate.
Such education should not be limited to Labour Party members, as there is no convincing evidence to support Smeeth’s implications that they have a “particular” problem with antisemitism or racism, nor that Corbyn’s Labour is “not a safe space for British Jews”. In fact, Corbyn-supporting MPs received more abuse than MPs opposed to him in both studies, which suggest more abuse is coming from groups other than Corbyn supporters, who indeed, based on these studies, have been unfairly demonised.
Given the serious electoral and reputational consequences for the Labour Party, its leader, and indeed the possible impact on millions of Labour voters too, it is important that the Labour Party undertake a full and urgent investigation into the 25000 abusive messages that Ruth Smeeth reported, and her related criticisms of Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters.
References
1. ‘Antisemitic Content on Twitter, 2018 Community Security Trust
2. Ruth Smeeth: I’ve never seen anti-Semitism in Labour like this, its normal now, Evening Standard, 20th September 2016
3. Liam McLoughlin and Stephen Ward, Turds, Traitors and *: The abuse of UK MPs via twitter, European Consortium of Political Research Joint Sessions, University of Nottingham, Nottingham April 25-29 2017
4. Azmina Dhrodia, Unsocial Media: Tracking Twitter Abuse against Women MPs, Amnesty Global Insights. September 4th 2017
5. Benjamin Kentish, Third of voters may not vote Labour because of alleged anti-Semitism, poll suggests, Independent, 30th March 2017
6. Jenni Frazer, Ruth Smeeth at JLM conference: ‘Only anti-Semites are weaponising anti-Semitism’, Jewish Times of Israel, 4th September 2017
7. Ella Rose (Israeli Martial Artist) Wanting to Take Out Jackie Walker #Israel Lobby JLM
March 1st, 2018 | Tags: antisemitism allegations | Category: Antisemitism, Labour Party organisation, social media
21 comments to Searching for the truth about on-line abuse allegations
Neil Cameron
1 March 2018 at 15:08 · Reply
Superb, well researched article! Thank you, Alan Maddison
Alan Maddison
2 March 2018 at 22:03 · Reply
Thanks to you too Neil!
Mike Scott
1 March 2018 at 15:54 · Reply
None of this is at all surprising, but the question is how can it be effectively circulated to the public? It seems unlikely that the LP would want to instigate an investigation into the allegations, as this would inevitably generate further hysterical headlines, so perhaps the best approach might be to make a formal complaint against Osborne’s Evening Standard?
Miriam Yagud
1 March 2018 at 15:58 · Reply
If your research is correct Alan, then there is an urgent need for an investigation. The implication is that Ruth Smeeth has lied about the number and originators of abusive tweets she received and has intentionally damaged the party’s electorion chances and reputation.
John
1 March 2018 at 20:16 · Reply
Frankly, I would not trust any of the claims made by Smeeth.
It is at least certainly arguable that her activities – and those of her JLM friends – may well have cost Labour the June 2017 general election.
She – and they – should all be kicked out of the Labour Party.
It is now clear that she and they succeeded in damaging the electoral prospects of the Labour Party.
How can they be allowed to remain in the party after their behaviour?
Others have been thrown out/expelled for very very much less.
George Wilmers
2 March 2018 at 01:43 · Reply
This is an important analysis which should be widely disseminated.
I would like to add that the CST statistical study also provides some striking evidence in favour of the proposition that nothing is more effective in generating real anti-semitism than false or mendacious allegations of anti-semitism made against popular public figures. On pages 16 and 17 of the CST report there are two graphs showing respectively the number of UK tweets referring to Jews, Nazis, or anti-semitism, and the number of those tweets which were judged by CST to have an anti-semitic content. Both graphs show a very large spike in May 2016 when Ken Livingstone and Naz Shah were being widely demonised in the corporate media for “anti-semitism”.
What is interesting however is what happens to the graphs in the remaining months of 2016. The CST report comments:
“It is of interest to note that the overall frequency of antagonistic content on Twitter is higher in the second half of the data collection window compared to the rest (an average of 1,380 antagonistic tweets per month post-April 2016 compared to 1,042 antagonistic tweets per month pre-April 2016). This matches previous research ndings that, when temporary increases in online hate speech have receded, they can leave behind a new, higher baseline of online hate. This 32 per cent sustained increase in antagonistic content also correlates with an increase in online and of ine antisemitic incidents reported to CST in the same period, with the highest recorded number in May 2016 (CST, 2016a).”
Of course CST refrain from drawing the obvious conclusion that the biggest inciters of real anti-semitism are the Israeli government and their rightwing collaborators in the media and in Israeli front organisations such as the misnamed JLM. When such organisations issue vile attacks against principled socialists and anti-racists, while impertinently affecting to do so in the name of all Jews, it is actually a tribute to the tolerance and political awareness of Labour party members that there so little anti-semitism within the party.
Alan Maddison
2 March 2018 at 22:15 · Reply
Yes your observations are interesting George,thanks.
In the annual CST Incidents Reports they also often refer to the publicity created, often by their supporters, around allegations of antisemitism in Labour as stimulating more antisemitic abuse. It would seem sensible to minimise such publicity if the true aim was to reduce antisemitic incidents, rather than perhaps stop Corbyn becoming PM.
Some may exaggerate the prevalence of antisemitic but it carries a risk, as after the brexit vote, of legitimising such racism for some perpetrators, who are emboldened with the belief that many share their antisemitic views.
Daniel
2 March 2018 at 07:29 · Reply
Of course all of this merely confirms what we already knew, that the allegations were entirely fabricated and that Smeeth was lying through her teeth. Indeed, we also know exactly why. One has only to look at the Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Facebook page to see that a serious number of their crappy articles are dedicated to defacing Corbyn and the left of the Labour party. They are not exactly making a secret of it. In this article I spell it all out and when one actually does the maths, what these fake accusations actually amount to is meddling by Jewish organisations like the CAA and JLM in British politics. It is of an insidious type, since it is to some extent ‘legal’ and its aims are to ensure that Labour’s neoliberal policies, including its generous tolerance of Israeli human rights abuses are maintained after the elections.
The one claim in this article that sounds unreliable is that anyone would not vote Labour for its ‘antisemitism’ because one would have to be extremely thick to believe the allegations. Or to think they are actually a threat to Jews. In my experience of online harassment most of the antisemitic statements are just poorly articulated sentiments concerning the role of Jewish organisations and Israel. Hardly the substance of antisemitism. People believe tropes and use them because they are inarticulate and ignorant. But the political conditions today are entirely different than in the 1930s in Germany and elsewhere. As a Jew, secular, pro-Palestinian, anti-racist, I feel our real concern is with civil rights, human rights, justice and ensuring a transition to a more equitable political system. I am perfectly confident that this can all be accomplished and hopefully people like Smeeth who think they are somehow doing the right thing will be exposed for the fools they really are.
Dave Rich
2 March 2018 at 09:35 · Reply
I’m afraid your analysis is completely wrong. Firstly, the CST report only considered tweets that could be located in the UK, which was 8.5% of the total number of English-language tweets captured by the keyword list. That doesn’t mean they weren’t UK-based or tweeted at someone in the UK from elsewhere – just that they couldn’t be positively geolocated in the UK. Most tweets of all kinds are not geotagged so this percentage is fairly standard. See page 5:
“Over 31 million tweets related to Jews and antisemitism were collected globally from Twitter in the 12-month study window. Approximately 2.7 million of the tweets could be located within the UK, and these formed the dataset for analysis.”
This means that the number of antisemitic tweets used for the analysis in the report is likely to be the same proportion, 8.5%, of the total number of antisemitic tweets that year.
Secondly, the report used a limited keyword list which did not cover the full total of antisemitic tweets in circulation. See page 13:
“This list was not intended to be a comprehensive set of keywords relating to all aspects of antisemitic hate speech. In particular, much antisemitic hate speech comes in the form of conspiracy theories (or allusions to such theories) and images that would not be captured by these keywords. This caveat should be borne in mind when assessing the overall quantity of antagonistic content measured by this research.”
Put these two factors together and you can see that you have completely misread the data in the CST report and therefore the rest of your analysis falls apart. You are simply not comparing like with like. In addition, you have done this – as with your flawed analysis of all CST reports – in order to downplay the quantity and seriousness of antisemitism as experienced by Jews in this country.
Alan Maddison
2 March 2018 at 21:51 · Reply
Thank-you Mr Rich for your comments, but I find your allegation that my analysis “is completely wrong” is not justified by the arguments you provide.
The three prospective studies referenced in my article concerned on-line abuse in the UK.
The CST publication cited also covered on-line abuse originating in the UK, even if possibly under-estimated. The authors reported that 9008 original tweets out of 2.7 million total UK tweets were antagonistic towards Jews. Including retweets this rose to 15 575, and as my article was about antisemitic on-line abuse originating in the UK, this 15 575 was chosen as the relevant figure.
I understand that the CST study may not have captured all the tweets originating from the UK, but any under-estimation could not possibly explain the magnitude of discrepancies described in my article.
Antisemitic abuse from other parts of the globe were of little interest for this article, given that the allegations from Ruth Smeeth, and how they were covered in the UK media, implied the involvement of Labour Party members, and the vast majority of these live in the UK.
I am also aware of the limitations of the key words used to define abuse antagonistic towards Jews in the CST study, and so said in paragraph 5 of my article, “While it is possible that not all of Smeeth’s tweets included the antisemitic key words used in the CST search, it seems unlikely that less than 1% did.”
As I explained,this 1% is based on the 20 000 abusive messages that Smeeth says she received over a single 12 hour period, and the data in Figure 2 of the CST report indicating that total antisemitic daily tweets in the UK never even reached 200 during this period.
I am sure there is some explanation for the discrepancy between Smeeth’s allegations, and the findings of these three prospective studies, but despite your comments, I still consider that a further investigation is warranted.
There is also the issue of attribution of such abuse to Corbyn supporters. Interestingly, your own CST annual incidents reports indicate 60-70% of antisemitic abuse, where a political motivation is apparent, comes from the Far Right.
Dave Rich
3 March 2018 at 08:54 · Reply
Alan, your argument is based on an assumption that the number of antisemitic tweets used for analysis in the CST report represents the total number of antisemitic tweets in existence that year. It doesn’t – nowhere near it, in fact – for the reasons I’ve explained, so the data in the CST report simply doesn’t support your argument. If your purpose is to provide an objective analysis rather than to pursue a political goal, you should admit your mistake and remove references to the CST report from this article.
Dave Rich
3 March 2018 at 08:59 · Reply
One more point: you write that “I understand that the CST study may not have captured all the tweets originating from the UK, but any under-estimation could not possibly explain the magnitude of discrepancies described in my article.”
Actually it easily could, because the report states that its analysis is based on just 8.5% of the tweets captured by the keyword search (and even this search was not comprehensive).
Alan Maddison
3 March 2018 at 12:07 · Reply
Dave, I understand your argument but have already answered your points.
In the CST article it is stated there were 31 million tweets concerning Jews globally. Using various methods described in the study, 2.7 million or 8.5% were attributed to the UK. As you say this is an under-estimate, but even if your study was so flawed that almost all these 31 million tweets were from the UK, that would still not explain the discrepancies exposed in my article. These discrepancies, as I said, relate to a factor of around 100 and not one of up to a very maximum of 12 as you suggest (100/8.5).
I do consider your CST study to be of interest, as are the other two studies, each with their limitations, but none flawed to the extent they can’t provide useful data. I invite people to read all three studies themselves for greater insight.
No publication is perfect. In your own CST incidents publication for 2016, there were only 289 reports of antisemitic on-line abuse for the full year in the UK. WE know that such data is limited by significant under-reporting, yet I think still worthy of publication.
Stephen Bellamy
3 March 2018 at 11:18 · Reply
Hi Dave. All these antisemitic assaults that you have ” reporte”. How many prosecutions have there been?
Alan Maddison
2 March 2018 at 14:02 · Reply
Thanks for all your interesting comments.
The findings of these three studies do raise serious questions about the previous allegations made against Corbyn and his supporters.
I would suggest that an investigation needs to be undertaken by the Labour Party itself, as most of these attacks originate from within the Party.
In the meantime, we need to be careful not to fall into the same trap of making more specific personal accusations without yet having the full facts.
We want Labour to win the next election, so if we can reduce the number of Labour MPs or other Members running to the media with such apparently unjustified attacks, this must surely help?
stephen law
2 March 2018 at 16:50 · Reply
Where does Smeeth say the bulk of the 25k abusive messages were mostly on twitter? It’s not in the linked article.
John Spannyard Indaworks
5 March 2018 at 20:26 · Reply
Great article Alan and an interesting discussion follows with thoughtful informed comment and much additional interesting information. It may be a trite observation but last year CST were handed £13 million and are awash with cash, so I find it very interesting that even CST who have a financial incentive to play up the threat of anti-semitism, their undoubted genuine concern aside, are unable to support Smeeth’s I claims despite Dave Rich’s valiant efforts above. As Steve Bellamy points out above, their do not appear to have been any prosecutions for anti-semitism nor thankfully have any members of the Jewish community been murdered as an anti-zionist semitic/racially motivated crime – however last year two Polish men were murdered in the UK. According to the 2011 census there were 259,927 people identifying themselves as “Jewish” whilst the number of Polish was 579,121 and recent estimates have that figure to be nearer a million.It kind of puts the supposed threat to the Jewish community info perspective, however by some glaring oversight we appear not to have provided the Polish community with their own police force.
Alan Maddison
5 March 2018 at 20:41 · Reply
Thanks for your comments John. I think the sad thing is that there are so many genuine hate crimes (over 80 000 last year} and racism accounts for 78%, compared with a 1.3% share for antisemitism. Racial prejudice is plastic and new victim groups can be targeted anytime, especially if the media incites such hatred, as with Muslims and Immigrants.
To deflect our anti-racist efforts with an apparent manipulation of antisemitism for political motives, seriously undermines out attempts to protect vulnerable communities and educate people towards more inter-racial understanding and inclusiveness. It is a disservice on all good Jewish people in this country and has to stop. _________________ --
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com http://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
The sharks circling around Corbyn scent blood
Jonathan Cook: the Blog from Nazareth - www.jonathan-cook.net https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2018-03-26/the-sharks-circling-arou nd-corbyn-scent-blood/
26 March 2018
After a short reprieve following Jeremy Corbyn’s unexpected success in Britain’s general election last year, when he only narrowly lost the popular vote, most of the Labour parliamentary party are back, determined to bring him down. And once again, they are being joined by the corporate media in full battle cry.
Last week, Corbyn was a Soviet spy. This week we’re in more familiar territory, even if it has a new twist: Corbyn is not only a friend to anti-semites, it seems, but now he has been outed as a closet one himself.
In short, the Blairites in the parliamentary party are stepping up their game. Corbyn’s social justice agenda, his repudiation of neoconservative wars of aggression masquerading as “humanitarianism” – lining the coffers of the west’s military-industrial elites – is a genuine threat to those who run our societies from the shadows.
The knife of choice for the Labour backstabbers this time is a wall mural removed from East London in 2012. At that time, before he became Labour leader, Corbyn expressed support on Facebook for the artist, Kalen Ockerman, known as Mear One. Corbyn observed that a famous anti-capitalist mural by the left-wing Mexican artist Diego Rivera was similarly removed from Manhattan’s Rockefeller Centre in 1934.
Interestingly, the issue of Corbyn’s support for the mural – or at least the artist – originally flared in late 2015, when the Jewish Chronicle unearthed his Facebook post. Two things were noticeably different about the coverage then.
First, on that occasion, no one apart from the Jewish Chronicle appeared to show much interest in the issue. Its “scoop” was not followed up by the rest of the media. What is now supposedly a major scandal, one that raises questions about Corbyn’s fitness to be Labour leader, was a non-issue two years ago, when it first became known.
Second, the Jewish Chronicle, usually so ready to get exercised at the smallest possible sign of anti-semitism, wasn’t entirely convinced back in 2015 that the mural was anti-semitic. In fact, it suggested only that the mural might have “antisemitic undertones” – and attributed even that claim to Corbyn’s critics.
And rather than claiming, as the entire corporate media is now, that the mural depicted a cabal of Jewish bankers, the Chronicle then described the scene as “a group of businessmen and bankers sitting around a Monopoly-style board and counting money”. By contrast, the Guardian abandoned normal reporting conventions yesterday to state in its news – rather than comment – pages unequivocally that the mural was “obviously antisemitic”.
Not that anyone is listening now, but the artist himself, Kalen Ockerman, has said that the group in his mural comprised historical figures closely associated with banking. His mural, he says, was about “class and privilege”, and the figures depicted included both “Jewish and white Anglos”. The fact that he included famous bankers like the Rothschilds (Jewish) and the Rockefellers (not Jewish) does not, on the face of it, seem to confirm anti-semitism. They are simply the most prominent of the banking dynasties most people, myself included, could name. These families are about as closely identified with capitalism as it is possible to be.
There is an argument to be had about the responsibilities of artists – even street artists – to be careful in their visual representations. But Ockerman’s message was not a subtle or nuanced one. He was depicting class war, the war the capitalist class wages every day on the weak and poor. If Ockerman’s message is inflammatory, it is much less so than the reality of how our societies have been built on the backs and the suffering of the majority.
Corbyn has bowed to his critics – a mix of the Blairites within his party and Israel’s cheerleaders – and apologised for offering support to Ockerman, just as he has caved in to pressure each time the anti-semitism card has been played against him.
This may look like wise, or safe, politics to his advisers. But these critics have only two possible outcomes that will satisfy them. Either Corbyn is harried from the party leadership, or he is intimidated into diluting his platform into irrelevance – he becomes just another compromised politician catering to the interests of the 1 per cent.
The sharks circling around him will not ignore the scent of his bloodied wounds; rather, it will send them into a feeding frenzy. As hard as it is to do when the elites so clearly want him destroyed, Corbyn must find his backbone and start to stand his ground.
UPDATE:
This piece in the liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz by their senior columnnist Anshel Pfeffer sums up a lot of the sophistry (intentional or otherwise) underscoring the conflation of leftwing critiques of neoliberalism and globalism with rightwing ultra-nationalism and anti-semitism.
Pfeffer writes:
The conspiracy theories of globalist bankers utilizing mainstream media and corrupt neoliberal politicians to serve their selfish sinister purposes, rather than those of ordinary people, are identical whether from left or right.
And on either side, most of the theorists will never admit to being anti-Semitic. They are just “anti-racist” or “anti-imperialist” if on the left, or “pro-Israel” on the right. And most of them really believe they have nothing against Jews, even while parroting themes straight out of the Protocols [of the Elders of Zion].
Notice the problem here. If you are a radical leftist who believes, as generations of leftists before you have done, that military, political, media, and financial elites operate in the shadows to promote their interests, to wage class war, then not only are you a conspiracy theorist, according to Pfeffer, but you are by definition anti-semitic as well. If you believe that an Establishment or a Deep State exists to advance its interests against the great majority, you must hate Jews.
The logic of Corbyn’s critics has rarely been articulated so forthrightly and so preposterously as it is here by Pfeffer. But make no mistake, this is the logic of his critics.
No one pays me to write these blog posts. If you appreciated it, or any of the others, please consider hitting the donate button to the right.
Israel lobby, Jeremy Corbyn
11.1k
Shares
Back to Top
You can also read my articles HERE. To join discussions about my work, please visit my Facebook or Twitter page.
Write for love, not money? Journalists appalled
Jonathan Cook: the View from Nazareth - www.jonathan-cook.net
ABOUT JONATHAN COOK
Jonathan Cook: the View from Nazareth - www.jonathan-cook.net
Jonathan Cook is a Nazareth- based journalist and winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism [ MORE ]
DISAPPEARING PALESTINE
Jonathan Cook: the View from Nazareth - www.jonathan-cook.net
Take the tour with Jonathan or meet him in person [ MORE ]
EMAIL NOTIFICATIONS
Receive email notifications when new blog posts by Jonathan Cook are added. (Website notifications require a separate registration.)
Supporting Jonathan Cook
JONATHAN’S BOOKS
Jonathan Cook: Disappearing Palestine
Jonathan Cook: Clash of Civilisations
Jonathan Cook: Blood and Religion
MEDIA CRITICISM
Jonathan Cook: Essays of Media Criticism
BLOG TAGS
archeology BBC BDS Britain capitalism colonialism corporations environment ethnic cleansing Europe Gaza George Monbiot Glenn Greenwald Guardian hasbara Israel airport Israel apartheid Israel army Israel corruption Israel courts Israel education Israel lobby Israel police Israel racism Israel war crimes Jeremy Corbyn Jerusalem Julian Assange Left politics liberal Zionism media criticism media on Israel Nazareth occupation Palestinian Authority peace process Russell Brand security state settlements Shin Bet surveillance Syria war on terror whistleblowers Zionism _________________ --
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com http://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
leonrosselson.co.uk oct%206%2C%202017
My local Labour controlled council has just voted, like other councils, as well as universities and the UK government, to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism. This consists of a rather loose basic definition, followed by a rambling discourse around the subject that twice mentions Israel and then 11 examples, 7 of which refer to the state of Israel. Anyone with a functioning brain might suspect that this definition has less to do with protecting Jews from antisemitism than with shielding Israel from criticism.
When the European Parliament were due to vote on whether to adopt this definition, I wrote to my MEPs urging them to reject it. Two replied in identical terms, pointing out that the definition makes it clear that ‘criticism of Israel cannot be regarded as antisemitic’. Except that it doesn’t. They lied. Why would they do that? What it actually says is that ‘criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic’.
The italicised phrase changes everything. Why is it there? Obviously to muddy the waters. Who is to decide whether criticism of Israel goes beyond that levelled against any other country? In any case, Israel is not like any other country. It is a settler colonial state, founded on massacres and ethnic cleansing. It is, by any definition, a criminal state. Transferring Israeli settlers into the occupied territory is illegal, as is transferring Palestinian prisoners into Israeli jails. The Wall, built largely on Palestinian land was judged illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2004. The collective punishment inflicted on the people of Gaza is a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention. Israel itself is a racist state where ‘Arabs’ are viewed as a demographic threat. Unlike other countries (Myanmar is an exception), it is not a state for all its citizens but for all the Jews in the world, who are given the ‘Right of Return’, a right denied to the indigenous people.
settlers burn 400 palestinian olive trees
But according to the IHRA definition we are not allowed to say this. What makes Israel worthy of special protection?
The IHRA definition gives as an example of antisemitism: Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g. by claiming that the existence of Israel is a racist endeavour.
This is tantamount to saying that antisemitism is the same as anti-Zionism since only Zionists (and antisemites) believe that Jews are ‘a people’ and that their self-determination means a Jewish state. Jews are not, in any ethnic sense, ‘a people’ or ‘a race’. All that Jews share is a religion — and whatever ethical values may be derived from that — and a history of persecution. The mass of Yiddish speaking Jews in Poland, Lithuania and Russia were against the Zionist project. True the socialist Bund wanted Jewish autonomy based on a language and a culture, for which they were labelled ‘Zionists with sea-sickness‘ by someone (probably Lenin), but they were totally opposed to a Jewish state in Palestine. So were the religious authorities of the time since it is written in the Torah and the Talmud that Jews are forbidden to return to the Holy Land until the Messiah comes. Nowadays most, but not all, Jewish religious groupings have accommodated themselves to the reality of the Jewish state even though it would seem to be a sin against God.
settler spraying a palestinian woman with wine in hebron
Many prominent Jews opposed the 1917 Balfour Declaration, notably Edwin Montagu, the only Jewish member of the cabinet. He considered Zionism a form of antisemitism. He was not alone. Members of the mainstream Board of Deputies of British Jews, like Lucien Wolf and Alexander Montefiore, argued fervently against the idea of a Jewish state since inherent in the Zionist project is the belief that Jews do not belong in the countries where they have lived over the centuries, that they are ‘strangers in their native lands’.
Judah Magnes, the first president of the Hebrew University, who lobbied the U.S. President Harry Truman not to recognise the state of Israel, Martin Buber, the biblical scholar, Hannah Arendt, philosopher and political theorist, both refugees from Nazi Germany, and Albert Einstein were all sympathetic to the idea of a Jewish homeland in Palestine but firmly opposed to a Jewish state because they understood that it would necessarily displace the Arab population of Palestine. They favoured a bi-national state with equal rights for all. In Einstein’s evidence to the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, which was examining the Palestine issue in 1946, Einstein argued against the creation of a Jewish state.
The state idea is not according to my heart. I cannot understand why it is needed. It is connected with many difficulties and narrow-mindedness.I believe it is bad…. I am against it.
After Israel’s creation, he wrote: My awareness of the essential nature of Judaism resists the idea of a Jewish state with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power, no matter how modest.
checkpoint
Now, according to the IHRA definition, all these and countless more, including many Israelis such as the academics Shlomo Sand, Ilan Pappe and Moshe Machover, are guilty of antisemitism. Isn’t it absurd? And yet councillors all over the country as well as university authorities have been mindlessly voting to adopt this pernicious definition.
Another example of antisemitism given in the definition is: Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis. In what way is that antisemitic? And if there is evidence for such comparisons, why are we not allowed to say so?
Hannah Arendt, in her book Eichmann in Jerusalem, notes the parallels between the Nazi Nuremberg Laws of 1935, which prohibit intermarriage between Jews and Germans, and Israel’s own marriage laws, where, because rabbinical law rules, ‘no Jew can marry a non-Jew’. So now she’s guilty of antisemitism twice over.
In 2014, with Israel’s onslaught on Gaza at its height, I wrote a song, The Ballad of Rivka and Mohammed (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSCsEOk_DO4&feature=youtu.be ) which drew parallels between the experience of a Jewish girl in the Vilna Ghetto and a Palestinian boy in Gaza. That would undoubtedly have fallen foul of this clause in the definition and got me suspended from the Labour Party, had I been a member.
In March 2017, a Jewish Holocaust survivor, Marika Sherwood, was due to give an open talk at Manchester University, with the title, ‘A Holocaust survivor’s story and the Balfour Declaration: You’re doing to the Palestinians what the Nazis did to me’.
I don’t know what exactly she had in mind when choosing that title. She did say in explanation: “I was just speaking of my experience of what the Nazis were doing to me as a Jewish child. I had to move away from where I was living because Jews couldn’t live there….. I can’t say I’m a Palestinian, but my experiences as a child are not dissimilar to what Palestinian children are experiencing now.”
Perhaps she was thinking of how Israeli soldiers routinely invade Palestinian homes in the middle of the night, drag out young boys, handcuff and blindfold them, beat them, humiliate and abuse them, deny them access to family or a lawyer and then hold them in physically abusive conditions, tied to a chair, for example, until they sign confessions — stone-throwing is a typical accusation — in a language they don’t understand. The maximum sentence for throwing stones is 20 years.
Israel has the dubious distinction of being the only country in the world that systematically prosecutes between 500 and 700 children each year in military courts lacking fundamental fair trial rights. Children within the Israeli military system commonly report physical and verbal abuse from the moment of their arrest, and coercion and threats during interrogations. (Defense for Children International — Palestine)
“Palestinian children arrested by (Israeli) military and police are systematically subject to degrading treatment, and often to acts of torture, are interrogated in Hebrew, a language they did not understand, and sign confessions in Hebrew in order to be released,” UN Committee on the Rights of the Child said in a report.
Of course, there was no antisemitic intent in her choice of title. But after pressure from the Israeli Embassy (Mark Regev, the Israeli Ambassador to the UK was formerly Israel’s Minister of Propaganda — they call it ‘hasbara’ in Hebrew — and was often referred to as Israel’s Goebbels), the University insisted the subtitle be removed, that academics chosen to chair the meeting should be replaced by university appointees and attendance limited to university students and staff.
The embassy argued that ‘comparing Israel to the Nazi regime could reasonably be considered antisemitic, given the context, according to IHRA’s working definition of antisemitism ….’
And this, of course, is what it’s all about. Silencing, censoring, stifling legitimate free speech. Nothing to do with combatting real antisemitism, everything to do with false accusations of antisemitism to protect Israel from criticism. The IHRA definition has been used as an excuse to suspend or expel too many Labour Party members, to close down too many meetings supporting Palestinian rights, to smear with spurious accusations of antisemitism too many speakers and writers speaking out for justice for Palestinians. Professor Moshe Machover is just the latest example, expelled from the Labour Party for writing an article in the Labour Party Marxists’ newsletter which documents the collaboration between the Nazi regime and the Zionist movement.The accuracy of his article has, unsurprisingly, not been challenged since it is all a matter of historical record. But the expulsion letter maintains that his article ‘appears to meet the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism which has been adopted by the Labour Party’. In fact, the Labour Party has wisely not adopted the whole definition, only the basic working definition without the examples, and it is difficult to understand how anything in Machover’s article could be construed as antisemitic on that basis. But any excuse…
The letter also mentions, as an affront to the etiquette of the Labour Party, language that could be perceived as offensive. That is a common charge made by the Zionist Jewish Labour Movement. They are offended if you call Israel a criminal state, they are offended if you label Israel’s policies as racist, they are offended if you mention apartheid when referring to the occupation, they are sensitive souls and are easily offended and since they are offended and they are Jews, you must be antisemitic.
Well, tough. There is not, as far as I know, a human right not to be offended. I am offended by the machinations of the Zionist lobby. I am offended by the Daily Mail, the Sun, the Times and the Telegraph. I am offended by Boris Johnson and the toff with 6 offspring who loves food banks. I am offended by Israel claiming to speak for me. I am offended every time Netanyahu opens his mouth. I am particularly offended by being accused of antisemitism because I believe a Jewish state is a terrible idea. Or because in a previous blog I said that the first loyalty of the Jewish Labour Movement ‘is not to their party but to a foreign country: Israel.’ Which offends against example 6 in the IHRA definition. But owing prime loyalty to the Jewish state is built into Zionist ideology. That is why Jews like Edwin Montagu feared Zionism and opposed the Balfour Declaration.
So, yes, I live in a permanent state of being offended. But I’m not trying to silence anyone.
The QC Hugh Tomlinson examined the IHRA definition and found it ‘unclear and confusing and should be used with caution’. He points out:
Any public authority which does adopt the IHRA Definition must interpret it in a way which is consistent with its own statutory obligations, particularly its obligation not to act in a matter inconsistent with the Article 10 (of the European Convention on Human Rights) right to freedom of expression. Article 10 does not permit the prohibition or sanctioning of speech unless it can be seen as a direct or indirect call for or justification of violence, hatred or intolerance. The fact that speech is offensive to a particular group is not, of itself, a proper ground for prohibition or sanction. The IHRA Definition should not be adopted without careful additional guidance on these issues.
Public authorities are under a positive obligation to protect freedom of speech. In the case of universities and colleges this is an express statutory obligation but Article 10 requires other public authorities to take steps to ensure that everyone is permitted to participate in public debates, even if their opinions and ideas are offensive or irritating to the public or a section of it.
And the former High Court Judge, Sir Stephen Sedley, states that: No policy can be adopted or used in defiance of the law. The Convention right of free expression, now part of our domestic law by virtue of the Human Rights Act, places both negative and positive obligations on the state which may be put at risk if the IHRA definition is unthinkingly followed.
Unfortunately, that didn’t stop my council voting unthinkingly to adopt it. But, here’s a turn-up for the books, along with the right of Jews to self-determination, they passed an amendment which gave Palestinians rights of self-determination. How do they reconcile those two rights since one negates the other? Who knows? I doubt that they gave it a moment’s thought.
I also doubt that Palestinian self-determination would be satisfied with a fragmented mini-state on the 22% of Palestine left after Israel’s expansionary War of Independence. So a reasonable interpretation of the amendment would be that the Brent councillors voted for a Palestinian state in the whole of pre-Israel Palestine and the return of 5 million Palestinian refugees.
Let’s put it another way: a single secular state with equal rights for all regardless of religion or ethnic origin.
Perhaps Einstein would have voted for that. _________________ www.lawyerscommitteefor9-11inquiry.org www.rethink911.org www.patriotsquestion911.com www.actorsandartistsfor911truth.org www.mediafor911truth.org www.pilotsfor911truth.org www.mp911truth.org www.ae911truth.org www.rl911truth.org www.stj911.org www.v911t.org www.thisweek.org.uk www.abolishwar.org.uk www.elementary.org.uk www.radio4all.net/index.php/contributor/2149 http://utangente.free.fr/2003/media2003.pdf
"The maintenance of secrets acts like a psychic poison which alienates the possessor from the community" Carl Jung
https://37.220.108.147/members/www.bilderberg.org/phpBB2/
By Mikey Smith Political ReporterNicola BartlettPolitical CorrespondentDan Bloom
12:25, 27 APR 2018UPDATED15:30, 27 APR 2018
Labour has expelled Marc Wadsworth after being accused of making anti-Semitic comments in 2016.
The hearing, which began on Wednesday, was conducted in secret.
Mr Wadsworth was suspended two years ago after launching a verbal attack on Ms Smeeth at the launch of a party report into anti-Semitism.
Responding to the decision, Ms Smeeth said: "I welcome the outcome of this investigation and am relieved that after nearly two years this matter has finally been resolved.
"I am incredibly grateful for the support I have received throughout this ordeal from my friends and colleagues. I would also like to pay tribute to the hard work and professionalism of Labour Party staff who have had to deal with this case and many others, often in the face of vicious criticism.
"Abuse, bullying and intimidation have no place in our movement, as today’s announcement has proven. I hope that this decision represents the first step towards a return to the values of decency and respect throughout the Labour Party."
A Labour Party Spokesperson said: “The National Constitutional Committee (NCC) of the Labour Party has found that two charges of a breach of the Labour Party's rule 2.1.8 by Marc Wadsworth have been proven.
“The NCC consequently determined that the sanction for this breach of Labour Party rules will be expulsion from membership.”
Clause 2.1.8 of the Labour rule book states that "no member of the Party shall engage in conduct which in the opinion of the NEC is prejudicial, or in any act which in the opinion of the NEC is grossly detrimental to the Party".
The rule makes clear that this includes actions which "might reasonably be seen to demonstrate hostility or prejudice based on age; disability; gender reassignment or identity; marriage and civil partnership; pregnancy and maternity; race; religion or belief; sex; or sexual orientation".
These are stated to include incidents involving "racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia or otherwise racist language, sentiments, stereotypes or actions, sexual harassment, bullying or any form of intimidation towards another person on the basis of a protected characteristic".
Last night, MP Clive Lewis confirmed to the Telegraph he had acted as a witness for Mr Wadsworth.
He said: "I've known him for 20 years. He's an anti-racist campaigner. I watched that video and I don't think that warranted being expelled from Labour".
Challenged by a constituent on Twitter who said she was "heartbroken and disappointed", he said: "You or any other individual in UK Labour doesn’t get to be judge, jury and executioner when it comes to who’s expelled or not. Go read a history book about what happens when an accusation equals evidence. It’s not pleasant."
Eda Cazimoğlu
@EdaCaz
Heartbroken and disappointed in my MP today
A few tips for you @labourlewis
A. If you’re an antisemite you’re not an anti racist. You must oppose all forms of racism to be an antiracist
B. If you’re not jewish you do not get to decide what is and isn’t antisemitism.
End of. https://twitter.com/harryyorke1/status/989207002487427074 …
8:30 PM - Apr 25, 2018
737
525 people are talking about this
Twitter Ads info and privacy
Chris Williamson also provided supportive evidence for Mr Wadsworth, but dozens of other Labour MPs attended the hearing to show solidarity with witness Ruth Smeeth.
The Jewish MP stormed out of a meeting in 2016 after Mr Wadsworth accused her of working “hand-in-hand” with a right-wing newspaper.
The suspension comes after a crucial meeting between Jeremy Corbyn and the Board of Deputies of British Jews and Jewish Leadership Council.
Although Mr Corbyn described it as "positive and constructive"
During the meeting on Wednesday Labour said it hopes to deal with the high-profile cases of Ken Livingstone and Jackie Walker by July.
Ruth Smeeth (l) arriving at the hearing on Wednesday (Image: PA)
(Image: PA)
It is understood the party hopes to wade through the majority of anti-Semitism cases in the coming months, with a team of lawyers drafted in by new General Secretary Jennie Formby.
Mr Corbyn said in a statement following the meeting that he is "absolutely committed to rooting out antisemitism from our party and our society”.
Yet members of Labour Against the Witch Hunt at today’s hearing said there was no anti-Semitism problem.
They chanted “reinstate Marc Wadsworth”, with one dressed as a witch. Left-wing Labour MP Chris Williamson reportedly turned up to support Mr Wadsworth.
Speaking outside his hearing Mr Wadsworth said: ""I’ve been waiting for two years for this. It’s been torture, it’s been agony, I’ve been hung out to dry.
"I’m not an anti-Semite. I’m an anti-racist."
The Mirror spoke to Tony Greenstein, who was expelled from Labour in February this year over anti-Semitism claims he brands “false and malicious”.
Expelled activist Tony Greenstein (Image: Dan Bloom / Daily Mirror)
He backed Peterborough candidate Alan Bull, who was accused of promoting Holocaust denial. Mr Bull's case triggered the resignation of Labour’s disputes chief Christine Shawcroft when she also lent her support.
Mr Greenstein revealed he had “exchanged e-mails” with Ms Shawcroft after she quit - and said she supported him in person at his own expulsion hearing as a “silent witness”.
When asked what was behind the anti-Semitism row, Mr Greenstein said: “The State of Israel, the State of Israel. And also the Americans I imagine.”
He added: “There isn’t a problem of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party . What there is is a problem of false accusations.
“When Corbyn became elected he’s anti-Nato, he’s anti-American intervention, if that didn’t set off alarms in the American Embassy amongst the spooks and the CIA, what else have they got to do? That’s what their job is.”
Asked if the row was about getting rid of Jeremy Corbyn he said: “Yes, yes that’s the aim, yes. Most of it. 99% of it, yes, of course.”
(Image: PA)
He added: “In 30 years’ time, when some enterprising young researcher at universities does a Freedom of Information Act on the US files, they’ll find out how it was organised.
“We know the Israeli government was involved because of the lobby, the programme by Al Jazeera.
Asked to clarify he meant claims of anti-Semitism in Labour he said: “Yes, undoubtedly. It’s been stimulated, it’s been manufactured, it’s artificial. It didn’t come from nowhere.”
He continued: “I’m not privy to the secrets of the Israeli Embassy. All I can say is it isn’t about anti-Semitism. Who is behind it? I suspect Israel and the United States. Why? Because the United States doesn’t like Corbyn, any more than Benjamin Netanyahu does.”
Asked if Israel should exist, he said: “The people who live in Israel should continue to live there. The state itself, which is a racist apartheid state, should not exist.”
Mr Wadsworth was suspended after haranguing Ms Smeeth at the launch of Labour’s anti-Semitism report in summer 2016.
(Image: Dan Bloom / Daily Mirror)
He told her: "I saw that the Telegraph handed a copy of a press release to Ruth Smeeth MP, so you can see who's working hand in hand".
Ms Smeeth branded the comments "vile conspiracy theories about Jewish people”.
But expelled activist Stan Keable, Secretary of Labour Against the Witch Hunt and Labour Party Marxists, said outside today’s hearing: “That’s pure invention. He didn’t know she was Jewish. It’s not anti-Semitic anyway. She was working hand in hand with the right-wing press.”
He added: “The disgraced and crooked Iain McNicol, who was general secretary at the time, was accepting any accusation at all at face value - anyone who was pro-Corbyn that is.
The MPs and peers at today’s protest included Shadow Environment Secretary Sue Hayman and backbenchers Stella Creasy, Luciana Berger and Wes Streeting.
Labour peer Lord Alf Dubs, who fled the Nazis to Britain as a child, said: “We have to take a stand. I think our taking a stand like this will also push the Labour Party into taking more action, which is what we want.”
Speaking outside the hearing, Lord Dubs said he was a “total believer” in due process but “we’ve got to get on with it."
He added: “What is clear is that this strength of feeling has pushed the Labour party, the leadership of the Labour Party in a more positive direction. That’s what we’ve got to do.”
(Image: PA)
(Image: PA)
Labour MP Wes Streeting slammed "people who claim to be Labour supporters and supporters of Jeremy Corbyn who think it’s appropriate to protest against a Jewish MP."
He added: “These are bad people with no moral scruples.
“And Ruth’s friends and colleagues in the House of Commons and the House of Lords weren’t prepared to allow her to walk in on her own through a protest as we saw this morning.
“Zero tolerance has to mean zero tolerance… We can’t claim to be an anti-racist party, we can’t claim to stand against all forms of abuse if we tolerate people who perpetrate it in our party.
To: “hackneysouthclp@gmail.com” <hackneysouthclp@gmail.com>
Dear
Thank you for your email. Your motion will go before the NEC Organisation Committee for noting.
Jeremy Corbyn led the Labour Party’s support of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism.
The IHRA working definition reads: “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.”
Following Jeremy’s formal request that the NEC adopts this working definition of antisemitism without delay, the NEC did so on 12 December 2016.
Best wishes,
Iain
Iain McNicol
General Secretary
The Labour Party
Southside, 105 Victoria Street
London
SW1E 6QT
This is what got Marc Wadsworth into trouble, quote and a video:
"I saw that the Telegraph handed a copy of a press release to Ruth Smeeth MP so you can see who is working hand in hand. If you look around this room, how many African, Caribbean and Asian people are there? We need to get our house in order, don’t we?”
The current National Constitutional Committee is controlled by the right of the Party. Corbyn has said he will employ lawyers to look through the suspensions.
5th May 2018 QuickPress, British stooges, Home
Britain in the grip of the Zionist lobby: Living in an Orwellian dystopia
Gilad Atzmon writes:
It is puzzling to witness the speed and ferocity with which Britain is deteriorating into an Orwellian nightmare.
The Evening Standard reported last month that “a London council worker has been suspended after being caught claiming Zionists ‘collaborated’ with the Nazis”.
Stan Keable was removed from his duties as an environmental enforcement officer for Hammersmith and Fulham Council after saying, “The Nazis were anti-Semitic. The problem I’ve got is the Zionist government at the time collaborated with them. They accepted the ideas that Jews are not acceptable here.”
Keable made the comments, shared in a posting on Twitter, at a pro-Corbyn demonstration outside the Parliament. I guess that in the Britain of 2018 you can lose your job simply for expressing an opinion.
It seems that some British Jews are disturbed by parts of their history. They try to suppress any speech about the Haavara Agreement. Former London Mayor Ken Livingstone was suspended from the Labour Party for mentioning that collaboration between Hitler and Zionism. And, disturbingly, in the Labour Party’s discussion of Livingstone’s case the party general secretary, Iain McNicol, “made it clear in a letter to the former mayor that the case against him was not about the historical facts, but whether his conduct was ‘grossly detrimental’ to the party…”
The Transfer (Haavara) Agreement between the Nazi regime and the Palestine Zionist leadership is an accepted historical fact. In his superb book, Final Solution, the British Jewish historian David Cesarani examines the agreement and quotes German Zionist voices that approved of the Nazi regime and even welcomed the Nuremberg Racial Laws because they pushed for segregation. But evidentiary truth is not a defence in the Britain of 2018. I guess this disregard for truth is just another symptom of our removal from the Athenian ethos.
Conservative MP for Chelsea and Fulham Greg Hands said: “I am shocked someone expressing hateful opinions could have a job meeting vulnerable tenants. The council leader should launch an inquiry into whether there are others of his ilk in the council.”
I can’t see a drop of hatefulness in Keable’s comment. But I would like to advise the Conservative MP and other ignorant Tories that while the Haavara Agreement was signed as an attempt to save German Jews, the Conservative government here in Britain did little for German Jews and other Jewish refugees.
Mike Katz, of the Jewish Labour Movement, said: “To try to twist the history of the Nazis to fit an anti-Zionist narrative is offensive.” It may be offensive but the Haavara Agreement and the collaboration between Zionist organisations and Nazi officials from 1933 till the end of the war are part of Jewish history, and political terrorism will not wipe out that history.
Her own tenure was not without its controversies: within weeks of taking on the job, accusations resurfaced that while she was leader of Islington council, from 1982 to 1992, she had not done enough to follow up allegations that a child abuse ring was operating in her borough. When a victim protested her appointment as minister, she described him as an “extremely disturbed person” and tried to prevent the Today programme from airing his claims; she eventually had to make a formal apology in the high court and pay £10,000 in damages to a charity. “All that happened when we didn’t really understand child abuse in the way that we understand it now. This was the early 90s … It was only beginning to emerge that paedophiles were working with children, in children’s homes and elsewhere, and so I think my great regret there was believing without question the advice that I was given by the social services managers. I can tell you that I sat across the table, like you and I are sitting across the table now, and said, are you telling me the truth? Is that all I need to hear? And in the end, I believed them. I should have challenged that. [That] I really regret. What I didn’t do was hear the voices of those kids who had suffered abuse. I should have.” Full article
It appears that Margaret Hodge is attempting to rewrite history in anticipation of the Islington Children’s Homes scandal resurfacing due to the current Peter Righton investigation. The Peter Righton paedophile network abused children in schools and children’s homes across the UK for decades, and there are already links between the network and Islington.
Margaret Hodge was warned of paedophiles operating in Islington Children’s Homes, yet she did nothing to help the children who were being abused.
For an account of what really happened with Margaret Hodge and Islington Children’s Homes, read this Evening Standard story from 2003:
‘Yes Minister, you were told about child abuse in the care homes, yet you refused to listen’
by David Cohen
IMMEDIATELY after Tony Blair appointed Margaret Hodge as the new Minister for Children in his recent reshuffle, phones started ringing among former social workers who had once worked under her. “It’s like putting the fox in charge of the chickens,” one commented in disgust. “A sick joke,” remarked another.
These social workers couldn’t help recalling the inside story of an appalling child sex abuse scandal many of us have forgotten. In 1990, when Mrs Hodge – then Mr Blair’s neighbour in Richmond Crescent, Islington – was the leader of Islington council, these senior social workers had reported to her that a paedophile ring was operating in the borough and that children were being sexually abused in Islington care homes.
Mrs Hodge’s response was revealing: she chose not to back a thorough investigation. Instead, she dismissed their concerns and accused these social workers of being ” obsessional”.
When the story was exposed in the Evening Standard two-andahalf years later, in October 1992, her re-sponse was equally aggressive. She accused the newspaper of “a sensationalist piece of gutter journalism”. It would be a further two-and-a-half years and five independent reports later before she would half-heartedly admit that she was wrong. Yet she would have known as early as 1991 that paedophiles were preying on children in Islington’s care.
In 1991, Roy Caterer, a sports instructor at a boarding school used by Islington, was arrested and sent to prison for seven-anda-half years for abusing seven boys and two girls, some of them in Islington’s care. Caterer admitted to police that he had abused countless Islington children over many years.
In 1995, an independent report prepared by Ian White, Oxfordshire’s director of social services, utterly vin-dicated the Evening Standard. It lambasted the council and confirmed that the social workers and the Stand-ard, whose reporters went on to win prestigious press awards, were right. It said, in part: “The inquiry has charted an organisation in the late 1980s and early 1990s that was chaotic. Such a chaotic organisation breeds the conditions for dangerous and negligent professional practices in relation to child care.”
Mrs Hodge led Islington council from 1982 to 1992.
What the Standard uncovered – after taping hours of interviews with staff, parents, children and police over a three-month period – was a horrendous dereliction of duty by the council that routinely exposed the most vulnerable children in its care to paedophiles, pimps, prostitutes and pornographers.
What the Standard and the White report found inexcusable was the council’s refusal – led by Margaret Hodge – to listen and act when experienced staff and terrified children tried to articulate what was going on. Their testimonies lifted the lid on horrific events that were taking place in Islington: teenagers selling sex from their council homes, a girl knifed by a sexual abuser inside a children’s unit, a girl and a boy who shared a bed with a known paedophile, a 15-year-old boy fostered with a suspected paedophile – overriding the vociferous protests of social workers – who later sexually abused the boy as predicted. We could go on and on.
The tragedy was that from the moment these children came to live in the seemingly safe children’s homes under the care of Islington council, they became fair game.
Some of the very people who were supposed to protect them were involved in their sexual abuse. On top of all this, the social workers who tried to protect them were pilloried by Margaret Hodge and her social services directors. The damage done to such children is beyond comprehension.
But the story of the Islington child sex abuse scandal would never have seen the light of day had it not been for the brave actions of a single secret whistleblower. Until today, the identity of this whistleblower has remained a secret. Nobody outside a tiny coterie of key players knew who he – or she – was. And so it would have remained. But in the wake of Mrs Hodge’s appointment as Minister for Children, the whistleblower has decided to blow her cover. She doesn’t come to this decision lightly.
But so indignant is she at this ” cynical appointment” that she has decided to tell – for the first time – the full story of what really happened.
She wants us to know the truth about our new Minister for Children. For Mrs Hodge and her management team were never made properly accountable for what happened to the children whom they failed. Instead, the whistleblower and her supporters were marginalised, whereas Mrs Hodge is now a rising star in government.
The whistleblower’s identity, we can reveal, is Liz Davies, 55. She is now a successful senior lecturer in so-cial work at London Metropolitan University.
But back in 1990, Liz Davies was the senior social worker heading up a team of six in the Irene Watson Neighbourhood Office, one of 24 similarly decentralised council offices in Islington. In speaking out, she is joined by another insider who has also hitherto remained silent – her former ally and manager, David Cofie, 63. Other social workers from that time in Islington are prepared to support the position taken by Mrs Davies and Mr Cofie.
“Margaret Hodge definitely knew everything right from the start, and by ‘start’ I mean more than two years before it was exposed in your newspaper,” begins Mrs Davies, talking to the Standard in north London. “She knew as early as April 1990 that we had uncovered serious evidence of sexual abuse among children in our care and yet she chose not to pursue our investigation.”
Her story starts at the beginning of the Nineties. “I noticed that there was a sudden unexpected increase in vulnerable teenagers coming to our office to see social workers,” recalls Mrs Davies. “They’d be crying and depressed and they didn’t want to talk. I didn’t understand it. We spent a lot of time engaging with these children and began to closely investigate their lives.”
Soon Mrs Davies and Mr Cofie began to realise that sexual abuse was part of the picture.
“The children were displaying classic symptoms of sexual abuse and we started to hear disturbing stories of a paedophile ring. At this point, we had no idea as to the scale of the network, or that the children’s homes – under our control – were involved. We began working closely with the Islington Child Protection officers and following local and national child protection procedures to the letter.”
Mr Cofie and Mrs Davies collated the information in a series of reports that were presented to the directors of social services. They responsibly asked for additional funds for two youth workers to be seconded to their team to help with investigations, which were snowballing and threatening to overwhelm them. But their request drew an icy rebuke from their council leader. In a memo to the head of Isington’s social services, John Rea Price (a copy of which is in the possession of the Standard), dated April 1990 – written on “Islington council leader’s office” stationery and from “Margaret Hodge, Leader” – Mrs Hodge wrote the following: “Sexual Abuse in Irene Watson Area: David Cofie raised the issue of sexual abuse among eight- to 16-year-old children at the Neighbourhood Forum. He is clearly concerned about the matter. However, simply requesting more resources is not, in my view, responsible for a manager given the well known concern of members at the state of the Social Services budget. I expect more appropriate responses from people in management positions in Social Services. The obvious option for your management to consider in relation to this emerging problem in the area is to reduce the fieldwork staffing to release resources for a detached youth worker in the area. I await your response.”
“We couldn’t believe it,” recalls Mrs Davies. “We were grappling with this enormous problem and all she was concerned about was balancing her budget. It boggles the mind. It was as if we were talking about park benches, not children.”
Because this critical memo was not made available to Standard reporters at the time of the investiga-tion-only coming to light years later, in May 1995, Mrs Hodge was never made to explain how it was she knew about the allegations of abuse for over two years without fully pursuing them.
David Cofie, in a separate interview, says that the standard procedure would have been for the matter to be referred to the child protection committee for a full investigation, but that this did not happen. Mr Cofie says that Mrs Hodge resisted his requests that the matter be properly investigated on three separate occasions. “The first occasion was when I decided the only responsible thing was to alert the community to the fact that paedophiles were operating in the area,” he recalls. “I wrote a short, subtly-worded report that was to be dis-tributed to the Neighbourhood Forum, which is open to members of the public. Well, Margaret Hodge went apeshit. She started screaming and shouting at me and refused to discuss it. I later heard that she had rub-bished me to colleagues behind my back, saying that I was exaggerating the sexual abuse claims and trying to make a name for myself.
But my colleagues told her, ‘David would never do that. If anything, he’s one of the most overcautious managers we have.’ ” In May 1990, Mr Cofie and Mrs Davies were summoned to a meeting convened by Islington’s assistant director of social services, Lyn Cusack. “By now,” says Mrs Davies, “we knew that the picture was far worse than initially imagined. I had learned that children in our care were being taken to homes in the country on weekends. It was highly suspicious, and I would later discover that they were being used to make child pornography and that people who ran our homes were getting paid in hard cash. But we were criticised as ‘hysterical’ and told in no uncertain terms to stop interviewing children and to cease child protection conferences forthwith.”
Mrs Davies and Mr Cofie continued to investigate regardless. They wrote and submitted 15 detailed reports but maintain their superiors still did not believe them. When the paedophile Roy Caterer, whose name Mrs Davies passed to the police, went to prison, Mr Cofie said to Mrs Davies: “Now they’ve got to believe us.” But Mrs Hodge and Lyn Cusack and their acolytes – inexplicably – still weren’t interested. The crunch for Mrs Davies came when she was ordered to place a “looked-after” seven-year-old boy in a home that was run by someone she had raised concerns about and considered unsafe. Her position had become untenable.
At the same time, she had started having a recurring nightmare. In the dream, Mrs Davies would be drinking a lovely glass of cold white wine that would suddenly turn into jagged pieces of glass that cut her throat to bloody ribbons. A friend told her: “It’s obvious, Liz, it’s all too much for you to swallow.”
In February 1992, Mrs Davies resigned in despair and took her information to Mike Hames, then head of Scotland Yard’s Obscene Publications Unit. He commenced an investigation, subsequently exposed in the Standard by Eileen Fairweather and Stewart Payne. More than 50 reports were published in the paper – which Mrs Hodge scornfully condemned – leading eventually to five independent inquiries.
It was another two-and-a-half years before the damning White report would be published – singling out and naming 22 people who worked for Islington and whose names were never published. Mrs Hodge went on the record to say that she was led astray, that her only fault was in believing her senior officers like Lyn Cu-sack. Those on the inside – like Mrs Davies – have always believed this was a fudge.
The critical April 1990 memo, which we reprint above, shows that Mrs Hodge’s claim is, at the very least, an oversimplification. It shows that when Mrs Hodge was directly presented with details of the sexual abuse allegations uncovered by Mr Cofie and Mrs Davies, she was apparently more concerned with allocating re-sources than addressing the substance of the allegations.
By the time the White report was published, Mrs Hodge had moved on. She would take up a top job in the City, then become MP for Barking, and later Minister for Higher Education. And now she is Minister for Chil-dren. David Cofie, on the other hand, stayed on at Islington until he retired in 1998.
So did Mrs Hodge ever thank Mr Cofie for the role he played in bringing to light this appalling scandal?
” Hodge never thanked me,” Mr Cofie says. “Nor did she apologise. Even though she had wrecked my ca-reer, frozen me out, made me persona non grata.
She was never a big enough person to say to me, ‘I am sorry for how I treated you. I was wrong. Thank you for what you did to save those children.’ ” Mrs Davies is even more scathing.
“It beggars belief to think that Tony Blair has awarded Hodge the highest job in the land for protecting the welfare of our most vulnerable citizens.
Blair was her neighbour at the time. He must remember her appalling record.
What in heaven’s name was he thinking?”
How scandal unfolded
1982: Margaret Hodge becomes leader of Islington council
February 1990: Liz Davies and David Cofie, senior Islington social workers, uncover evidence of sexual abuse of children, and report it to a Neighbourhood Forum which council leader Margaret Hodge attends as ward councillor.
April 1990: Hodge memos Cofie’s boss, John Rea Price, the director of social services: “David Cofie raised the issue of sexual abuse among eight-to 16-year-old children. He is clearly concerned. However, simply requesting more resources is not responsible for a manager given the concern of members at the state of the social services budget. I expect more appropriate responses from people in management positions in social services”.
May 1990: At a key meeting chaired by Lyn Cusack, assistant director of social services, Cofie and Davies are told to cease interviewing children and to stop convening child protection conferences
1991: Roy Caterer, who worked at a school used by Islington council for its children in care, is arrested for sexually abusing seven boys and two girls, and is jailed for seven-and-a-half years. Cofie and Davies ask social services for resources to help the victims, but receive no reply
February 1992: Davies resigns and takes her information to Scotland Yard
6 October 1992: A Standard investigation reveals that a 15-year-old girl worked as a prostitute from a coun-cil home; a 16-year-old was made pregnant at a teenage unit by a man suspected of involvement in a child sex ring; a girl was knifed by a pimp at an Islington home; and a boy was abused for years by a volunteer instructor
14 October 1992: Hodge says of the Standard’s investigation: “The way they chose to report this was gutter journalism … The story misled the public on the quality of childcare services in the borough”
23 October 1992: Hodge steps down as council leader to take up a post as a senior consultant with ac-countancy firm Price Waterhouse
3 March 1993: The Press Complaints Commission rejects all Islington’s complaints against the Standard
11 February 1994: Hodge admits to the Standard: “You were right that there was abuse in the children’s homes,” and blames her initial response on “misleading” information from senior officers and colleagues
23 May 1995: Report by Ian White, Oxfordshire director of social services, backs the Standard and says care-home workers were able to corrupt children in part because Islington’s ideological policies prevented complaints being investigated. Hodge responds: “I have had no involvement with Islington council for three years. It would be inappropriate for me to comment”
26 May 1995: Hodge tells Radio 4: “Of course I accept responsibility. I was leader of the council at the time”
13 June 2003: Hodge becomes Minister for Children
27 June 2003: Hodge tells Women’s Hour on BBC Radio 4: “I don’t think that any of us recognised the danger of child abuse in children’s homes to the extent that we’re aware of it now. I’ve learned from my fail-ure to understand at that time” _________________ www.lawyerscommitteefor9-11inquiry.org www.rethink911.org www.patriotsquestion911.com www.actorsandartistsfor911truth.org www.mediafor911truth.org www.pilotsfor911truth.org www.mp911truth.org www.ae911truth.org www.rl911truth.org www.stj911.org www.v911t.org www.thisweek.org.uk www.abolishwar.org.uk www.elementary.org.uk www.radio4all.net/index.php/contributor/2149 http://utangente.free.fr/2003/media2003.pdf
"The maintenance of secrets acts like a psychic poison which alienates the possessor from the community" Carl Jung
https://37.220.108.147/members/www.bilderberg.org/phpBB2/
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2018 5:22 pm Post subject:
I just discovered that Lizzie Watson, a senior BBC news editor, is Margaret Hodge's daughter. This goes unreported. If she were Corbyn's 2nd cousin twice removed, it would be front page news. Yet another example of why nobody should trust British news media.
The IHRA definition is yet another tool in the arsenal of Israel’s far-right government and the UK Israel lobby to destroy any possibility of developing an independent approach to Israel-Palestine
Richard Silverstein's picture
Thursday 30 August 2018 14:55 UTC
Friday 31 August 2018 11:48 UTC
reddit googleplus 1600
Topics:
Anti-Semitism
Tags: IHRA; Corbyn; UK; Israel; anti-Semitism;Palestine
Show comments
"Anti-Semitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred towards Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitism are directed towards Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, towards Jewish community institutions and religious facilities." - The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism.
Israeli politicians and the Diaspora-based Israel lobby recognise that Israel faces a huge and growing level of criticism and obloquy in the international community.
Israel has used conventional methods to combat this erosion of support including diplomatic efforts, public advocacy, marketing and branding, and legislative lobbying. These are all traditional approaches used by the lobby in promoting Israeli interests.
But nearly two decades ago, it struck upon a new strategy devised by Israeli Holocaust scholars and their partners among Israel lobby groups, such as the American Jewish Committee (AJC). They were already known for their expertise in detecting and combating anti-Semitism.
They had done their work so well that Jew-hatred had become a dirty word in polite society, though of course it continued unabated in far-right and other circles. Similarly, Holocaust denial was exposed and associated with anti-Semitism through events like the libel trial of David Irving.
The new anti-Semitism
At the same time, these scholars - and the Israel lobby factotums - had become alarmed by attacks largely perpetrated by groups claiming to be Islamists targeting European Jewish institutions and individual Jews (there were also attacks by white supremacists against Jews in Europe and the US, but the pro-Israel groups devoted considerably less attention to them).
These scholars perceived that Islamist fundamentalism was fuelled by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a deliberate effort on the part of such radical groups to conflate Israel with Diaspora Jews.
Thus was developed a controversial term, the "New Anti-Semitism". That is, anti-Semitism divorced from the old tropes of Jews with big noses and global conspiracies by Jewish financiers to control world commerce. Instead, they posited an anti-Semitism largely based in the Arab and Muslim worlds, which supposedly saw Israel as a radical conspiracy by Jews to colonise the Middle East and infect it with western values.
In the intersection between classical anti-Semitism and so-called Islamist- Jew hatred, Israeli academics and their allies saw an opportunity to link a modern evil with an ancient one
In this intersection between classical anti-Semitism and so-called Islamist Jew hatred, Israeli academics and their allies saw an opportunity to link a modern evil with an ancient one. Thus, Palestinians and their supporters would be linked not only to terrorism, but to one of the oldest hatreds known to humanity. This clever device permitted those using it to sabotage any legitimate critique of Israel.
If you can label all pro-Palestinian activists and their arguments as anti-Semitic, no one will engage with them seriously. They will be defanged before they're even heard.
Dina Porat, the historian of the Israeli Holocaust museum, Yad Vashem, is a leading promoter of the New Anti-Semitism. In this paper, she places her new coinage in the context of the history of anti-Semitism studies.
In the early years of the 21st century, she struck upon another clever idea: to combat what she perceived as a rising tide of anti-Israel sentiment on US college campuses which she believed was anti-Semitic in nature. To do so, she prevailed upon her colleagues to develop a new definition of anti-Semitism.
The history of the IHRA definition
The new definition would absorb the classic meaning (hatred of the Jew) and go much farther. It would suggest that many of the key criticisms levelled at Israel and its policies toward the Palestinians were themselves anti-Semitic.
Members of the Jewish community hold a protest against Britain's opposition Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn and anti-semitism in the Labour party, outside the British Houses of Parliament in central London on 26 March, 2018 (AFP)
In a paper he delivered at a 2011 academic conference marking the tenth anniversary of the development of the New Anti-Semitism, Kenneth Stern, the then-anti-Semitism "czar" of the American Jewish Committee, recounted the history of what has come to be called the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism.
He credited Porat with the original idea for the concept and acknowledged that he, and Rabbi Andrew Baker, the AJC’s international director of Jewish affairs, had become part of the brain trust behind crafting a new expanded definition of anti-Semitism.
The new definition would absorb the classic meaning (hatred of the Jew) and would suggest that many of the key criticisms levelled at Israel and its policies toward the Palestinians were themselves anti-Semitic
In Stern's paper, it's clear that the animus to create this new definition was a perceived rising tide of attacks by Islamists in Europe and elsewhere on Diaspora Jewish targets. Though the attackers may have viewed such Jewish institutions as "soft targets", while Israeli ones were much harder to penetrate, they viewed an attack on any Jew as an attack on Israel. Though one may call such an attack anti-Semitic, it begs many questions which I'll address later.
The main motive of this new campaign was to persuade the world that not only are such attacks anti-Semitic full-stop, but that the Muslim world is riddled with Jew hatred. Thus, along with the standard "conventional" anti-Semites - white supremacists, neo-Nazis, etc - there was a much larger, more dangerous threat that could potentially encompass the entire Muslim world.
The IHRA project ignored several critical factors complicating the motivation of such terror attacks. While some Islamists did conflate Jews with Israelis, why did they do so? Was this confusion calculated and based on ideological or theological principle? Or was it based on ignorant assumptions?
Zionism, Israel and Jews
In fact, the very notion that Jews and Israel are the same is part and parcel of the Zionist ethos. Classical Zionism posits that the Diaspora will eventually "wither" in the face of insurmountable Jew hatred, and all Jews will be forced to "return" to Zion in order to survive as Jews. A parallel term for this in Zionist parlance is "negation of exile". Thus, Israel becomes the be-all-and-end-all of Jewish existence, a stand-in for Jewry as a whole.
However, most Diaspora Jews reject such thinking. They vote with their feet to remain in the Diaspora, despite the ominous pronouncements of doom by figures like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
It's clear that once you've removed those key tools of naming and shaming Israel for the injustices perpetrated on Palestinians, you've immunised Israel from criticism. That’s the entire goal of this exercise
Nevertheless, this concept underpins the entire Zionist superstructure. Further, Israeli leaders themselves encourage such conflation with their far-fetched claims that enemies like Iran seek to destroy not only Israel, but the entire Jewish people.
In their need to dramatise perceived threats to the outside world, Israel exaggerates the dangers it faces by claiming its enemies seek not just the destruction of "little" Israel, but the entirety of world Jewry. This, in turn, conjures images of the genocide perpetrated by the Nazis.
In truth, neither Iran nor any Arab state has ever stated a goal of destroying all Jews. And the notion is not just exaggerated; it is self-serving and overreaching of the worst sort.
Israel: a Jews-only state
Despite its claims to be a "Jewish democratic state", Israel has increasingly become a state of, by and for the Jews. Non-Jews may be tolerated, but just barely. By privileging Jews in the Nation State law, which I prefer to call the Jews-Only law, Israel is making clear that democracy is at best an afterthought. Instead, a Jewish theocracy fuelled by violent, homicidal racism is what the state has become.
So, while no one wishes to excuse or defend violent attacks against Jews, is it any surprise that those who seek to avenge Israeli attacks on Palestinians follow the lead offered to them by Israel’s leaders themselves?
Pro-Palestine demonstrators hold placards and wave flags during a protest opposite the entrance to Downing Street in central London on 15 May 2018 (AFP)
The new definition casts a wide net over many behaviours, statements and acts which cast a critical eye on Israel. Calling the state racist is anti-Semitic, comparing it with Nazi Germany is anti-Semitic, attacking Israel while refusing to attack other nations which are viewed as equally blameworthy is anti-Semitic, comparing Israeli mistreatment of the Palestinians to the sufferings of Jesus is anti-Semitic, using the term genocide in the context of criticising Israel's wholesale massacres of Palestinians is anti-Semitic.
Though the original definition was coined before the BDS movement was launched, I'm certain the idea of boycotting Israel is also viewed as anti-Semitic, since it targets Israel for its policies.
You can see where this leads. It disqualifies many of the most potent criticisms of Israel from legitimate political discourse. While the sponsors of the definition claim that they are not denying the right to criticise Israel (apparently there are some unspecified, appropriate ways to do so), the ultimate impact is to do just that.
It's clear that once you've removed those key tools of naming and shaming Israel for the injustices perpetrated on Palestinians, you've travelled far beyond categorising anti-Semitism. Instead, you've immunised Israel from criticism. That’s the entire goal of this exercise.
The rise of Jeremy Corbyn
In the 15 years since the IHRA protocol was drafted, its authors have broadened their ambitions. They've seen it adopted by several European Union countries as their national arbiter to define anti-Semitic acts. But over the past year, it has gone far beyond its original confines to be used to sabotage the political career of a national political leader.
Despite the fact that Britain has experienced anti-Semitism for centuries (Jews were expelled not once, but twice from the British Isles), and such hate has generally originated in the ruling classes, the UK Israel lobby, with the covert assistance of the Israeli government, has targeted the nation's Labour Party as a major malefactor.
The reasons are clear: the Tories have embraced Israel with a vengeance. They are more Catholic than the Pope when it comes to supporting it. There is no Israeli act that can trouble the conscience of the Tories.
The rise of Jeremy Corbyn has offered a different sort of Labour leader: one who embraces the historic grassroots and hearkens back to the working-class origins of the party
The Labour Party, however, is troublesome. It has often seen itself as a bastion of anti-colonialism and anti-war sentiment. Its voters and many of its leaders strongly opposed militarism and supported the cause of human rights and self-determination of oppressed peoples like the Palestinians.
That does not mean that Labour is anti-Israel. In fact, one can argue that it has been as pro-Israel as the Conservatives. But the rise of Jeremy Corbyn has offered a different sort of Labour leader: one who embraces the historic grassroots and hearkens back to the working-class origins of the party.
Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn and Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu (AFP)
Corbyn has often been compared to that American upstart populist, Bernie Sanders. While the comparison isn’t always apt, it is in this regard: both are willing to question conventional wisdom and old consensus around issues like Israel-Palestine. As such, they are dangerous both to Israel and its Diaspora lobby.
So, the lobby's strategists determined to do all in their power to sabotage Corbyn and persuade the British people that he is a dangerous, anti-Semitic ideologue.
That’s why we hear the cascade of lurid charges that Corbyn consorted with Hamas activists, laid wreaths on the graves of Palestinians terrorists, and insulted British Zionists by supposedly claiming they didn’t understand British customs and norms. It's why we hear story after story in the media bemoaning the purported hate spewed against Jews within the party: Jewish MPs are revolting; they’re going to form a new party; British Jews fear for their lives and plan on emigrating to Israel for their own safety, etc.
A toxic mix
Into this toxic mix, the lobby introduces the IHRA definition and pressures the Labour Party to adopt it wholesale. Any attempt to modify it is an attempt to mollify the anti-Semites in the party. The strategy appears to be to use all these attacks as an encircling device that will eventually squeeze Corbyn and his supporters like a vice until they have no further room to wriggle free.
At that point, the hope seems to be that Corbyn will be so discredited that the rank and file will finally revolt and return to the comfort of the Blairites, who will resume control of the party and return to full-throated, unconditional support of Israel.
READ MORE ►
Fascist tactics: How Jeremy Corbyn's detractors are plotting to remove him
Thus, the IHRA definition is yet another tool in the arsenal of Israel’s far-right government and the UK Israel lobby to destroy any possibility of developing an independent government approach to Israel-Palestine. It also becomes yet another method of projecting the power of these entities into the domestic politics of Great Britain.
Frankly, I’m shocked that Britons haven’t reacted with more outrage at Israel’s bald-faced intervention into the nation’s politics. In fact, such intervention used to be the hallmark of colonial powers like Britain, the US and others. Both countries did precisely this when facing Iranian prime minister Mossadegh’s nationalisation of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.
To overturn the seizure of the company, they orchestrated a coup.
So, in some fashion, Israel has learned at the feet of its masters, some of the great colonial powers. You’ll recall the 1956 Suez War in which Britain, France and Israel jointly attacked Egypt. The Europeans did so in order to ensure continued European control of the Suez Canal. And the Israelis did so to give the anti-Israel nationalist firebrand, Gamal Abdel Nasser, a bloody nose.
Now, it uses these lessons against its own teachers. Today’s firebrand isn’t an Arab nationalist, but a British populist, Jeremy Corbyn.
IHRA critics
The Israel lobby's effort to foist the IHRA definition on the world is not without its critics. Of course, there are the "usual suspects" on the left who understand the danger it poses to their activism, and the destructive impact it would have on the campaign for Palestinian rights and Israeli democracy.
But even mainstream British jurists and academics have weighed in against it. Historian and anti-Semitism scholar, David Feldman, stated in 2016:
"Does the IHRA definition that Britain has adopted provide the answer? I am sceptical. Here is the definition's key passage: 'Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred towards Jews'.
READ MORE ►
What exactly about the state of Israel do you support, Margaret Hodge?
"This is bewilderingly imprecise. The text also carries dangers... Some of the points [within the definition] are sensible, some are not. Crucially, there is a danger that the overall effect will place the onus on Israel’s critics to demonstrate they are not antisemitic. The [parliamentary] home affairs committee advised that the definition required qualification 'to ensure that freedom of speech is maintained in the context of discourse on Israel and Palestine.' It was ignored."
British appellate court judge, Stephen Sedley, also weighed in on the IHRA’s deficiencies: "[It] fails the first test of any definition: it is indefinite.
"…It permits perceptions of Jews which fall short of expressions of racial hostility to be stigmatised as anti-Semitic.
"[It] …plac[es] the historical, political, military and humanitarian uniqueness of Israel’s occupation and colonisation of Palestine beyond permissible criticism…[It] bristles with contentious assumptions about the racial identity of Jews - assumptions contested by many diaspora Jews but on which both Zionism and anti-Semitism fasten - and about Israel as the embodiment of a collective right of Jews to self-determination."
It is critical for Labour and its progressive supporters to have a laser-like focus on the UK Israel lobby and the Israeli government’s effort to intervene in the nation’s domestic politics. The smears and false charges of anti-Semitism and support for Palestinian "terrorism" must be seen for the sham they are.
They must be called-out, exposed and denounced in no uncertain terms. Otherwise, Britain risks becoming Israel's poodle, a pliant tool of Israeli racism, settlerism, and blatant injustice.
Former London mayor Ken Livingstone has been wandering in the political wilderness since he pointed out a few months ago the early sympathies between Zionists and Nazis. Although this has been well documented, discussion of it has been taboo for decades. Now Boehm has addressed it in the NYT:
The “original sin” of such alliances may be traced back to 1941, in a letter to high Nazi officials, drafted in 1941 by Avraham Stern, known as Yair, a leading early Zionist fighter and member in the 1930s of the paramilitary group Irgun, and later, the founder of another such group, Lehi. In the letter, Stern proposes to collaborate with “Herr Hitler” on “solving the Jewish question” by achieving a “Jewish free Europe.” The solution can be achieved, Stern continues, only through the “settlement of these masses in the home of the Jewish people, Palestine.” To that end, he suggests collaborate with the German’s “war efforts,” and establish a Jewish state on a “national and totalitarian basis,” which will be “bound by treaty with the German Reich.”
It has been convenient to ignore the existence of this letter, just as it has been convenient to mitigate the conceptual conditions making it possible.
Is this the start of a tentative trend? Might we see heavyweight enforcers of liberal Zionist orthodoxy in the British media like the Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland reconsider their positions – or at least let a few more rational voices, even if only Israeli Jewish ones like Boehm, enter the fray? Don’t hold your breath quite yet.
Mondoweiss is right to underscore the significance of a new opinion piece in the New York Times. They suggest “Hell just froze over”.
There is nothing new in what Omri Boehm says. The philosophy professor at the New School in New York articulates a view that many of us on the left have subscribed to for many years. But it is simply astonishing to see it published in the most establishment paper in the country and in a city where hawkishly pro-Israel Jewish organisations expect to dominate the discourse on Israel.
As Mondoweiss suggests, this is part of the backlash against Donald Trump, whose election victory has exposed the ideological and emotional affinities between Israel and the anti-Semitic far-right.
Boehm turns his fire on liberal Zionists, who have always refused to see these problematic sympathies:
by denying liberal principles, Zionism immediately becomes continuous with — rather than contradictory to — the anti-Semitic politics of the sort promoted by the alt-right…
insofar as Israel is concerned, every liberal Zionist has not just tolerated the denial of this minimum liberal standard, but avowed this denial as core to their innermost convictions. Whereas liberalism depends on the idea that states must remain neutral on matters of religion and race, Zionism consists in the idea that the State of Israel is not Israeli, but Jewish. As such, the country belongs first and foremost not to its citizens, but to the Jewish people — a group that’s defined by ethnic affiliation or religious conversion…
The inherent tensions between Zionism and liberalism were similarly highlighted by a recent meeting between white nationalist leader Richard Spencer and a Texas rabbi, Matt Rosenberg. When the rabbi asked Spencer to pray with him for “love and inclusion”, Spencer replied:
Do you really want radical inclusion into the State of Israel? And by that I mean radical inclusion. Maybe all of the Middle East could go move in to Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. Would you really want that?
The rabbi could not answer. His bogus liberal credentials had been stripped from him. Boehm points out:
Opposition to the Palestinians’ “right of return” is a matter of consensus among left and right Zionists because also liberal Zionists insist that Israel has the right to ensure that Jews constitute the ethnic majority in their country. That’s the reason for which Rabbi Rosenberg could not answer Spencer.
Boehm exposes the sham nature of the current legislation being drafted in both the US and UK that treats criticism of Israel as anti-semitism. He also implicitly debunks the confected campaign against the British Labour party for supposed anti-semitism under its leader Jeremy Corbyn, who supports Palestinian rights.
Former London mayor Ken Livingstone has been wandering in the political wilderness since he pointed out a few months ago the early sympathies between Zionists and Nazis. Although this has been well documented, discussion of it has been taboo for decades. Now Boehm has addressed it in the NYT:
The “original sin” of such alliances may be traced back to 1941, in a letter to high Nazi officials, drafted in 1941 by Avraham Stern, known as Yair, a leading early Zionist fighter and member in the 1930s of the paramilitary group Irgun, and later, the founder of another such group, Lehi. In the letter, Stern proposes to collaborate with “Herr Hitler” on “solving the Jewish question” by achieving a “Jewish free Europe.” The solution can be achieved, Stern continues, only through the “settlement of these masses in the home of the Jewish people, Palestine.” To that end, he suggests collaborate with the German’s “war efforts,” and establish a Jewish state on a “national and totalitarian basis,” which will be “bound by treaty with the German Reich.”
It has been convenient to ignore the existence of this letter, just as it has been convenient to mitigate the conceptual conditions making it possible.
Is this the start of a tentative trend? Might we see heavyweight enforcers of liberal Zionist orthodoxy in the British media like the Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland reconsider their positions – or at least let a few more rational voices, even if only Israeli Jewish ones like Boehm, enter the fray? Don’t hold your breath quite yet.
No one pays me to write these blog posts. If you appreciated it, or any of the others, please consider hitting the donate button:
December 9, 2020
Sometimes people are too quick to criticize, but other times they aren’t quick enough. A case in point is “Freedom for Humanity,” a mural that caused a fair-sized stir when an artist known as Mear One painted it on a London wall in 2012.
The problem? The work showed a group of capitalists sitting around an oversized Monopoly board resting on the bent backs of four naked men of various hues. With their mustaches, jowls, and protuberant noses, the half-dozen white men looked, well, a bit Semitic, and, indeed, Mear One revealed in an interview that two of the portraits were indeed of Jews, i.e. Lord Rothschild and Paul Warburg. (The others were John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, and, for some reason, the writer and mystic Aleister Crowley.)
Charges flew that the painting was anti-Semitic because it equated Jews and exploitation, and the usual angry chorus arose. But then the fuss died down, and everyone moved on. And why not? People are busy, they’ve got other things on their mind, and, besides, who wants to get into a battle over something as explosive as anti-Semitism? As George Orwell once observed, “It is almost impossible to mention Jews in print, either favorably or unfavorably, without getting into trouble.” So people kept their heads low, and “Freedom for Humanity” was soon forgotten.
But now the incident seems like one of the seminal events of the early twenty-first century. The reason is that it turned out to enjoy a curious after-life. A half-dozen years later, a right-wing Labor Party member – yes, such things do exist – named Luciana Berger went gunning for the embattled leftists Jeremy Corbyn and discovered that he had been among those rising to Mear One’s defense. “You are in good company,” Corbyn tweeted the artist – in reality, an American named Kalen Ockerman – at the time. “Rockefeller destroyed Diego Viera’s mural because it includes a picture of Lenin.”
Actually, it was Diego Rivera, the Mexican muralist best known today as the husband of Frida Kahlo. But bungling an artist’s name is not what got Corbyn into trouble. Rather, it was failing to show requisite sensitivity to an aggrieved minority group. Berger and her supporters went into action, charging that Corbyn’s blasé approach was typical of a Labor Party riddled with anti-Semitism. Corbyn was suspended, and members were purged for the crime of “denialism,” i.e. arguing that the problem was not as extensive as Berger & Co. said it was. With party leaders warning that “thousands and thousands” would get the ax if they didn’t stop engaging in similar thought crimes, the mood was less London in the year 2020 than Moscow back in 1937 when the entire Old Bolshevik leadership found itself on the chopping block due to equally vague and paranoid charges.
From a scratch to the danger of gangrene, as Trotsky once said. But lost amid the sturm und drang was an all-important question. Was “Freedom for Humanity” really as bad as everyone said? Was it indeed the second coming of Mein Kampf or merely an honest and well-intended statement about human suffering in an age of runaway exploitation?
The answer is the latter, which is why the controversy deserves a second look.
Mear One’s painting is not a subtle work. But, then, neither was Diego Rivera’s Rockefeller Center mural, which he was able to recreate in Mexico City under the title, “Man, Controller of the Universe,” and which “Freedom for Humanity” vaguely resembles. But while both feature workers, decadent bourgeois, and industrial machinery, the tone is different. Where Rivera, good Marxist that he was, was fundamentally optimistic in his depiction of workers and peasants building a new society, Mear One is less concerned with the world to come than the world as it currently exists. Hence his images are glummer and more downbeat.
This may indicate a certain decline in political imagination from Rivera’s day. But that’s not the issue, of course. Rather, it’s whether the half-dozen portraits at its center are anti-Semitic. The answer is yes – if, that is, you assume that every jowly old white man with a protuberant nose is Jewish. But if that’s the case, then what about Jimmy Durante, a.k.a the Schnozz, born of Italian Catholic immigrants on New York’s Lower East Side? Or W.C. Fields, the offspring of impeccable Anglo-Saxon Protestant stock from small-town Pennsylvania, whose proboscis is equally as prominent?
Or the actor Robert Morley for that matter? Or Rembrandt? Since none are Jewish, the answer is therefore no. As for Warburg and Lord Rothschild, yes, they’re Jewish, but what of it? Are Mear One’s critics saying that no Jews are to be found in the ranks of the bourgeoisie? Are they calling for a strict quota system in which they can only be depicted in strict proportion to their membership? Or are they saying that artists must not depict reality at all, but must airbrush it so as to remove any and all images that someone, somewhere, might find offensive?
All of which is nonsense. “Freedom for Humanity” is not racist, and the entire episode was not about anti-Semitism, but about stirring up hysteria in order to whip people into line. After all, criticizing Israel is verboten as far as Anglo-American ruling elites are concerned. Since a way had to be found to silence dissidents, what hotter button could there be to push than that of anti-Semitism? The world has moved on since the days of Dachau and the Gulag, and methods of control are no longer as brutal. But they’re still effective nonetheless.
So if people had been quicker on the draw back in 2012, if they’d argued that anti-Semitism is too important to be tossed around in such a light-hearted way, then maybe demagogues wouldn’t have wound up with such a free hand. It’s vital to nip such tendencies in the bud before they turn into a full-scale witch hunt, which is precisely the case today.
The views of individual contributors do not necessarily represent those of the Strategic Culture Foundation.
Tags:
Capitalism
Freedom
Ideology
Society
Whitehall_Bin_Men wrote:
The sharks circling around Corbyn scent blood
Jonathan Cook: the Blog from Nazareth - www.jonathan-cook.net https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2018-03-26/the-sharks-circling-arou nd-corbyn-scent-blood/
26 March 2018
After a short reprieve following Jeremy Corbyn’s unexpected success in Britain’s general election last year, when he only narrowly lost the popular vote, most of the Labour parliamentary party are back, determined to bring him down. And once again, they are being joined by the corporate media in full battle cry.
Last week, Corbyn was a Soviet spy. This week we’re in more familiar territory, even if it has a new twist: Corbyn is not only a friend to anti-semites, it seems, but now he has been outed as a closet one himself.
In short, the Blairites in the parliamentary party are stepping up their game. Corbyn’s social justice agenda, his repudiation of neoconservative wars of aggression masquerading as “humanitarianism” – lining the coffers of the west’s military-industrial elites – is a genuine threat to those who run our societies from the shadows.
The knife of choice for the Labour backstabbers this time is a wall mural removed from East London in 2012. At that time, before he became Labour leader, Corbyn expressed support on Facebook for the artist, Kalen Ockerman, known as Mear One. Corbyn observed that a famous anti-capitalist mural by the left-wing Mexican artist Diego Rivera was similarly removed from Manhattan’s Rockefeller Centre in 1934.
Interestingly, the issue of Corbyn’s support for the mural – or at least the artist – originally flared in late 2015, when the Jewish Chronicle unearthed his Facebook post. Two things were noticeably different about the coverage then.
First, on that occasion, no one apart from the Jewish Chronicle appeared to show much interest in the issue. Its “scoop” was not followed up by the rest of the media. What is now supposedly a major scandal, one that raises questions about Corbyn’s fitness to be Labour leader, was a non-issue two years ago, when it first became known.
Second, the Jewish Chronicle, usually so ready to get exercised at the smallest possible sign of anti-semitism, wasn’t entirely convinced back in 2015 that the mural was anti-semitic. In fact, it suggested only that the mural might have “antisemitic undertones” – and attributed even that claim to Corbyn’s critics.
And rather than claiming, as the entire corporate media is now, that the mural depicted a cabal of Jewish bankers, the Chronicle then described the scene as “a group of businessmen and bankers sitting around a Monopoly-style board and counting money”. By contrast, the Guardian abandoned normal reporting conventions yesterday to state in its news – rather than comment – pages unequivocally that the mural was “obviously antisemitic”.
Not that anyone is listening now, but the artist himself, Kalen Ockerman, has said that the group in his mural comprised historical figures closely associated with banking. His mural, he says, was about “class and privilege”, and the figures depicted included both “Jewish and white Anglos”. The fact that he included famous bankers like the Rothschilds (Jewish) and the Rockefellers (not Jewish) does not, on the face of it, seem to confirm anti-semitism. They are simply the most prominent of the banking dynasties most people, myself included, could name. These families are about as closely identified with capitalism as it is possible to be.
There is an argument to be had about the responsibilities of artists – even street artists – to be careful in their visual representations. But Ockerman’s message was not a subtle or nuanced one. He was depicting class war, the war the capitalist class wages every day on the weak and poor. If Ockerman’s message is inflammatory, it is much less so than the reality of how our societies have been built on the backs and the suffering of the majority.
Corbyn has bowed to his critics – a mix of the Blairites within his party and Israel’s cheerleaders – and apologised for offering support to Ockerman, just as he has caved in to pressure each time the anti-semitism card has been played against him.
This may look like wise, or safe, politics to his advisers. But these critics have only two possible outcomes that will satisfy them. Either Corbyn is harried from the party leadership, or he is intimidated into diluting his platform into irrelevance – he becomes just another compromised politician catering to the interests of the 1 per cent.
The sharks circling around him will not ignore the scent of his bloodied wounds; rather, it will send them into a feeding frenzy. As hard as it is to do when the elites so clearly want him destroyed, Corbyn must find his backbone and start to stand his ground.
UPDATE:
This piece in the liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz by their senior columnnist Anshel Pfeffer sums up a lot of the sophistry (intentional or otherwise) underscoring the conflation of leftwing critiques of neoliberalism and globalism with rightwing ultra-nationalism and anti-semitism.
Pfeffer writes:
The conspiracy theories of globalist bankers utilizing mainstream media and corrupt neoliberal politicians to serve their selfish sinister purposes, rather than those of ordinary people, are identical whether from left or right.
And on either side, most of the theorists will never admit to being anti-Semitic. They are just “anti-racist” or “anti-imperialist” if on the left, or “pro-Israel” on the right. And most of them really believe they have nothing against Jews, even while parroting themes straight out of the Protocols [of the Elders of Zion].
Notice the problem here. If you are a radical leftist who believes, as generations of leftists before you have done, that military, political, media, and financial elites operate in the shadows to promote their interests, to wage class war, then not only are you a conspiracy theorist, according to Pfeffer, but you are by definition anti-semitic as well. If you believe that an Establishment or a Deep State exists to advance its interests against the great majority, you must hate Jews.
The logic of Corbyn’s critics has rarely been articulated so forthrightly and so preposterously as it is here by Pfeffer. But make no mistake, this is the logic of his critics.
No one pays me to write these blog posts. If you appreciated it, or any of the others, please consider hitting the donate button to the right.
Israel lobby, Jeremy Corbyn
11.1k
Shares
Back to Top
You can also read my articles HERE. To join discussions about my work, please visit my Facebook or Twitter page.
Write for love, not money? Journalists appalled
Jonathan Cook: the View from Nazareth - www.jonathan-cook.net
ABOUT JONATHAN COOK
Jonathan Cook: the View from Nazareth - www.jonathan-cook.net
Jonathan Cook is a Nazareth- based journalist and winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism [ MORE ]
DISAPPEARING PALESTINE
Jonathan Cook: the View from Nazareth - www.jonathan-cook.net
Take the tour with Jonathan or meet him in person [ MORE ]
EMAIL NOTIFICATIONS
Receive email notifications when new blog posts by Jonathan Cook are added. (Website notifications require a separate registration.)
Supporting Jonathan Cook
JONATHAN’S BOOKS
Jonathan Cook: Disappearing Palestine
Jonathan Cook: Clash of Civilisations
Jonathan Cook: Blood and Religion
MEDIA CRITICISM
Jonathan Cook: Essays of Media Criticism
BLOG TAGS
archeology BBC BDS Britain capitalism colonialism corporations environment ethnic cleansing Europe Gaza George Monbiot Glenn Greenwald Guardian hasbara Israel airport Israel apartheid Israel army Israel corruption Israel courts Israel education Israel lobby Israel police Israel racism Israel war crimes Jeremy Corbyn Jerusalem Julian Assange Left politics liberal Zionism media criticism media on Israel Nazareth occupation Palestinian Authority peace process Russell Brand security state settlements Shin Bet surveillance Syria war on terror whistleblowers Zionism
_________________ --
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com http://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum You cannot attach files in this forum You can download files in this forum
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Chat
Usergroups
Calendar
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
