Shahd Abusalama is Another Academic to Have Fallen Foul of Zionism's McCarthyist Lobby

To:       c.husbands@shu.ac.uk

Dear Professor Husbands,

On January 21 Shahd Abusalama, a PhD student, was suspended by Sheffield Hallam University on the eve of teaching her first class. Shahd has been subject for the past 4 years to harassment from the Zionist lobby and its fetid supporters for the fact of being a Palestinian willing to speak out about Israel’s war crimes.

Shahd was told that a complaint had been lodged with the university but was not told who made the complaint or what the substance of the complaint was, although that was not hard to guess. It was of course ‘anti-Semitism’.

Of one thing Zionists are certain. Just because Israel demolishes their homes or evicts them to make way for Jewish settlers as well as arresting and imprisoning their children, if not killing them outright, the Palestinians have no reason to resist the Occupation or the other foul misdeeds that they get up to. No the only reason why Palestinians still resist a 55 year old occupation is because they hate the Jews out of some unique pathological condition that they suffer from.

According to the CAA this is anti-Semitic. In fact it is literally true. The Talmud has been used to justify Israeli atrocities, see e.g. https://reformjudaism.org/blog/torat-hamelech, a book by 2 rabbis which justified the murder of children and infantsTorat Hamelech

It therefore follows that anyone who supports the Palestinians must also do so because of anti-Semitism. Even anti-Zionist Jews who are widely recognised as the ‘wrong sort of Jew’, in so far as they are recognised as Jewish at all, are also susceptible to this ‘anti-Semitism’. After all anti-Semitism is a virus.

Rather than going through all the details to Shahd’s case and what happened there is an excellent article on Electronic Intifada, UK Israel lobby takes aim at Palestinian university lecturer.

Below I copy my letter to Sheffield Hallam’s Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Chris Husbands.

Tony Greenstein 

This is the real agenda of those who targeted Shahd but  Professor Husbands is either too stupid or too malevolent to understand this

Dear Professor Husbands,

I write concerning your (now revoked) suspension of Shahd Abusalama from her role as a lecturer because of an anonymous complaint against her. After over a week Shahd stated that she still hasn’t had sight of the allegations. When you announced the investigation into her you didn’t even inform her of this fact. This is Kafkaesque.

It was on the evening of 21 January, just prior to her first class, that Shahd was informed that she had been suspended. No reason was given. Shahd’s suspension has now been revoked because of ‘issues’ with how you handled her case but no further details have been provided.

Shahd is a refugee from Gaza. She was born and raised in Jabalia refugee camp and witnessed at first hand Israeli bombing raids on the camp and attacks on unarmed civilians in Gaza. What she says makes uncomfortable reading for the Zionist lobby in this country and it is that, not anti-Semitism, that is the reason for her suspension.

According to the 'Israeli war room' opposing the IRHA is itself antisemitic!

As Vice-Chancellor of Sheffield Hallam you have a responsibility to defend academic freedom and freedom of speech. In this you have lamentably failed. Your behaviour is reminiscent of the failure of Martin Heidegger, Rector of Freiburg University to speak out against the dismissal of his mentor Edmund Husserl and other Jewish academics.

When Victor Klemperer was dismissed from his post at Dresden University he recounted in his diaries that the only person to say farewell was the cleaner. It is unfortunate that most academics are afraid to speak up against injustice however you do not have Nazi terror as an excuse for your cowardice.

Shahd has long been under attack by supporters of the Israeli state. Her ‘crime’ according to the so-called Campaign Against Anti-Semitism is having defended another student who used the term ‘Palestinian Holocaust’ whilst saying that she would not use such a term. If you or your protégés had bothered to access her Twitterfeed then you would have seen a nuanced and thoughtful exposition. Something entirely lacking in your own explanations.

The attacks on Shahd have come about because of her insistence on speaking out against Israeli Apartheid, conclusions both B’Tselemand Human Rights Watch have reached. It has nothing to do with comparisons between Israel and the Holocaust. They were merely the pretext. You are directly responsible for this state of affairs because it was you who insisted that Sheffield Hallam bow to the dictates of the Tory government and Gavin Williamson when you adoptedthe IHRA misdefinition of anti-Semitism in February 2021.

The vile Islamaphobic CAA has been to the forefront of the campaign against Shahd, led by racist Gideon Falter, who is Vice-Chair of the ethnic cleaning JNF

Perhaps you might recall the statementwhich you put out at the time? It read:

The definition is a useful tool for understanding what constitutes antisemitism and investigating allegations. Freedom of expression is an integral part of our values, therefore we are committed to promoting and protecting free speech. The ability to rigorously discuss and challenge ideas goes right to the heart of what it means to be a university.

This was a lie, wasn’t it? You adopted the IHRA not to protect freedom of speech but to destroy it. The IHRA has no other purpose. It is certainly not a definition of anti-Semitism. Your adoption of this ‘definition’ was an act of political expediency. You adopted it despite criticism from many distinguished legal and academic scholars.

Former Lord Justice of Appeal, Sir Stephen Sedley, who is himself Jewish, wrote that the IHRA ‘fails the first test of any definition: it is indefinite’. Human rights barrister, Geoffrey Roberson QC saidthe ‘IHRA definition of antisemitism is not fit for purpose’. Another prominent barrister, Hugh Tomlinson QC described the IHRA as having:

a potential chilling effect on public bodies which, in the absence of definitional clarity, may seek to sanction or prohibit any conduct which has been labelled by third parties as nti-Semitic without applying any clear criterion of assessment.

An observation that perfectly describes your actions. Kenneth Stern, who drafted the IHRA definition, in testimony to Congress described the use of the IHRA by the CAAto try and effect the dismissal of Rachel Gould, a Jewish lecturer at Bristol University, as ‘chilling and McCarthy-like’.

A child could have told you that you don’t need to have a definition of anti-Semitism in order to recognise it. The Oxford English Dictionary definition: ‘hostility to or prejudice against Jewish people’. is perfectly adequate. My father who took part in the Battle of Cable Street against Moseley’s fascist thugs didn’t need a definition of anti-Semitism to know what he was fighting. As Justice Potter Stewart remarked‘I know it when I see it.’ The real purpose of the IHRA, with 7 of its 11 illustrations of ‘anti-Semitism’ mentioning Israel, is to conflate anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.

It is of course 'antisemitic' to compare what Israel does with the holocaust. Only Zionists are allowed to do that. Note the assumption that the holocaust is a Jewish only event from which the disabled and Gypsies and others are excluded

The specific allegation which led to Shahd’s suspension was comparisons of Palestinian oppression to that of the Jews under Hitler. There is nothing anti-Semitic about such a comparison. It might be right or wrong but comparing Israel to the Nazis is not anti-Semitic.

There are many Jews, including Holocaust survivors, who make just such a comparison. Perhaps you can explain why it is anti-Semitic to compare mobs in Germany shouting ‘Death to Jews’ with mobs in Israel chanting ‘Death to the Arabs’?

If you are right then Hannah Arendt, herself a refugee from the Nazis, was also anti-Semitic for comparing Israel’s marriage laws to the Nuremberg Laws in Eichmann in Jerusalem.? Just like Nazi Germany, it is forbidden in Israel for a Jew to marry a non-Jew.

Perhaps Deputy Chief of Staff in Israel Yair Golan was wrong to compare Israel with Nazi Germany?  And maybe Professor Ze’ev Sternhall of the Hebrew University, a child survivor of the Przemsyl Ghetto in Nazi occupied Poland, was also anti-Semitic to write of a ‘Growing Fascism and a Racism Akin to Early Nazism’ in Israel?

Yehuda Elkana, a child survivor of Auschwitz and Rector of the Central University of Europe was, by your standards, also anti-Semitic when he wrote that

the deepest political and social factor that motivates much of Israeli society in its relations with the Palestinians is not personal frustration, but rather a profound existential "Angst" fed by a particular interpretation of the lessons of the Holocaust

When the IHRA says that making such comparisons is anti-Semitic what it is doing is providing elites with an excuse to close down discussion on topics that question their own war mongering. The question is a simple one.  Do you or do you not support the censorship of political debate and thought? If you do then you are in the wrong job.

Holocaust education today is used, not to draw universal lessons, such as opening our borders to refugees, but in order to legitimise the racism of the British and Israeli states, not least the oppression of Palestinians. But according to you and those who suspended Shahd it is anti-Semitic for Palestinians to reply in kind.

As Gideon Levy wrote in Ha’aretz:

I have yet to hear a single teenager come back from Auschwitz and say that we mustn’t abuse others the way we were abused. There has yet to be a school whose pupils came back from Birkenau straight to the Gaza border, saw the barbed-wire fence and said, Never again. The message is always the opposite. Gaza is permitted because of Auschwitz.

The lying Jewish Chronicle led the attack against Shahd

The context to all of this is the recent dismissal of Professor David Miller at Bristol University, also after a concerted series of attacks by the pro-Israel lobby. The Jewish Chronicle’s reaction was that ‘Miller’s sacking should be the beginning, not the end’. That is what  Shahd’s suspension was really about – a Zionist witchhunt.

I am aware of who it was who was responsible for making the complaint against Shahd. The person in question is an open supporter of Jewish Supremacy. Your suspension of Shahd was no different to suspending a Black student after a complaint from a member of the British National Party. You should hang your head in shame, assuming you understand the meaning of the word. There are however a number of steps that you can take to make amends.

Firstly you owe Shahd Abusalama an apology and compensation for the hurt she experienced.

Secondly you should immediately ditch the IHRA. If you really need a definition of anti-Semitism then the Jerusalem Declaration on Anti-Semitism is more suitable as it avoids equating anti-Zionism and hostility to Israel’s Apartheid State with anti-Semitism.

Thirdly, given your role in this affair, the honourable thing to do would be to resign as you are clearly unfitted for the role of Vice-Chancellor. I realise that today politicians don’t resign unless they are dragged out of their office but to paraphrase Malcolm in MacBeth, nothing would become your office like the leaving of it.

Yours sincerely,

Tony Greenstein

In this Twitter thread Shahd explains her position on the use of the Holocaust when criticising Israel

Congratulations. Even Boris Couldn’t Match Your Chutzpah 

I have known Sir Keith Stürmer ever since I was at law school. So you can imagine how I felt when he was the first MP to welcome my expulsion 4 years ago with a one word tweet ‘good’. Keith was never one to waste words except when spending one and a half hours telling us about his family in his speech to Labour Party conference.

So you can imagine how I felt when Keith sent me a personal letter asking  for some cash. Naturally I was over the moon that Keith had reached out to me again and I felt that the least I could do was pen him a short letter offering him some advice. Please keep this confidential as I don’t want to be expelled again when I rejoin the party next February!

Tony Greenstein

 Letter to Sir Keith

Dear Keith,

It’s always good to hear from an old friend, even one who welcomed my expulsion. Let it never be said of me that I bear a grudge. I know how difficult it must be to turn around the good ship Labour if it to become acceptable again to the British Establishment.

I know you will appreciate frankness and honesty from an old friend. After all it’s more than you will get from Rachel Reeves and Angela Rayner as they plot to stab you in your back (or in the case of Jess Philips from the front).

I have to confess that I was somewhat hurt, given our longstanding friendship, to read your tweetfour years ago. For a man not known for his way with words, your one word response, ‘good’ to my expulsion was very hurtful. However that is water under the bridge.

It was with some surprise that I received your begging email asking me to part with some of the benefits you intend to cut. Apparently you are in some form of financial crisis. It is very unfortunate that because of all the resignations and expulsions that you have lost all this money, to say nothing of all the legal expenses incurred when they protest.

That is what comes of relying on the advice of the Prince of Darkness(Mandelson). He never did have much of a clue when it came to money, especially when it belonged to someone else. From what I recall he had to resign, not once but twice, over some shady loans from a Labour MP Geoff Robinson whose affairs he was suppose to be investigating.

But I want to congratulate you nonetheless. You have single handedly redefined that old Yiddish word, ‘Chutzpah’. As you may know Chutzpah applies to a boy who, having killed both his parents asks for mercy from the courts because he is now an orphan!

It seems that you are now asking me for money in order that you can expel more people like me. Surely you can wait till my 5 year expulsion is up before I’m readmitted to the Party next February in order that I can be expelled again? Or is the situation so desperate that can’t you wait?

Don’t get me wrong Keith. I fully understand your problem. The more people you expel the less money the Labour Party has to expel people with. The answer is obvious. Why don’t you ask those who are expelled to make a contribution to their own expulsions or set up an expulsion fund and ask our friends in the City if they might consider contributing?

You could for example, when sending an expulsion letter, include a paragraph explaining how expensive it is to expel people and asking if they would mind contributing.

I know that history is not one your stronger points so I thought it might be of some help if I provided you with a precedent in case anyone questions my brilliant idea.

In October 1941 the Nazis began deporting Jews from Germany. However they ran into a problem. The trains they hired cost money, as the Reichsbahncharged per passenger mile. Not only that but they had to pay good money in order to seize them as many Jews refused to come willingly. What were they to do?

In stepped Paul Eppstein of the Reichsvereinigung, the Jewish Council (Judenrat), which the Nazis had appointed. Eppstein, like all Council members was a Zionist. Why not, Eppstein suggested to the Gestapo get the Jews to pay for their own deportation? After all it made sense. Why should they get a free trip to holiday destinations such as Riga, Minsk, Kaunas or Lodz? Sure they were not likely to live very long but that was no reason not to pay their way. You can read the details in Raul Hilberg’s Destruction of the European Jews (p.486). You’re not known as Herr Stürmer for nothing.

Expelling people doesn’t come cheap. It was barely a year ago that you hiredAssaf Kaplan, the Israeli spy, in order to streamline the business of spying on members and make it more efficient. I know his official title was ‘social listening and organising manager’but I think we all know what ‘social listening’ really is – eavesdropping!!

Assaf Kaplan - Israeli spies don't come cheap

I must confess that I am impressed with Kaplan. Only last week that well-known troublemaker, Roger Silverman (another Jew expelled in the fight against anti-Semitism) called a meeting of shadow CLPs. There were just 20 of us discussing how to get rid of you and what would you know? One of the 20, camera turned off of course, was Kaplan’ spy. And within a couple of days a Notice of Investigation was emailed to a woman, let us call her Jane. Apparently it’s her third such Notice, which I have to say is extremely wasteful of resources. Can’t these expulsions be streamlined?

At the risk of being accused of anti-Semitism it seems to me that there are lots of good historical precedents to the political (I nearly said ‘ethnic’) cleansing that is so necessary if we are to form a safe (for capitalism) alternative to the Tories. If the Establishment  aren’t going to object to you forming a government and becoming PM then we have to prove that we can be trusted not to tax their ill-gotten gains, I mean hard-earned income.

And to do that we have to employ lots of extra staff, whilst saying goodbye to staff trying to recruit members. After all members are more trouble than they are worth as Rachel so wisely observed.

If Labour is going to be trusted then it is essential that you keep close tabs on the members, most of whom voted for that Corbyn fellow. Paying people to become informers has a long and noble history. Why Anne Frank would still be around today if the Gestapo had been squeamish about their methods. You can’t afford to be sentimental.

But first a few words of advice from an old friend. I fully understand why you had to pretend to be continuity Corbyn and issue those 10 Pledges. But do you still have to have them on your website? 

We are not going to win over many friends in high places with promises to increase income tax for the top 5% or reverse cuts in Corporation Tax. And ending “the Tories’ cruel sanctions regime”is the kind of thing Corbyn would have said.

As for “No more illegal wars. Introduce a Prevention of Military Intervention Act.” How does that square with talk of waging war against Russia. And as for ‘Support common ownership of rail, mail, energy and water”. We all know you didn’t mean it so why is it still there? And ‘Strengthen(ing) workers’ rights and trade unions’ sounds a bit too much like Corbyn. What are you going to do at the next election when you promise that nothing will change and the Tories then start quoting from your Pledges? Take my advice and be shot of them now. You have to appease Momentum types now!

And then there is anti-Semitism. You promised to root it out but it seems you and David Evans have barely started. To be blunt there are still too many Jews (of the wrong kind of course) in the party. Can’t you proscribe anyone who is Jewish unless they prove they are a Zionist?

Speaking of which another problem has surfaced. It’s all very well expelling people who call Israel an Apartheid State but one of those annoying human rights groups, Amnesty International, has just issued a report saying that Israel was an Apartheid state.

My advice is to make Amnesty International a proscribed organisation. Anyone who is a member or supporter is out on their ears. What would Louise Ellman say if she knew that these bleeding heart liberals were still around?

My advice to you Keith is to be bold and taken no prisoners.  Follow the example of the Jewish State. Shoot first and ask questions later.

With all best wishes,

Tony

SUSSEX POLICE ARE NOT INNOCENT – Jay Abatan is Brighton's Stephen Lawrence 

Last Saturday I attended a demonstration outside Brighton Police Station commemorating the murder of Jay Abatan.

On the 29^thJanuary 1999 Jay Abatan was murdered by a White racist gang after he and his brother Michael had gone to the Ocean Rooms night club in Morley Street, Brighton. Sussex Police literally did nothing. An investigation by Essex Police uncovered 57 major failures - such as failing to secure the murder scene and failing to take witness statements. Essex Police found that earlier in the day a serving police officer was seen drinking with the murder suspects. It was a rerun of what happened with Stephen Lawrence. There too corrupt officers had contacts with the murderers and covered for them.

Jay Abatan

The video above of Aflo the Poet describes what happened. The police didn’t even bother to photograph Michael’s injuries, there was no investigation room, no computers, nothing.

This was not accidental but the result of police racism. And their excuse today that they will investigate if there’s new evidence begs the question. What are the Police there for if they are unable to go out and look for the evidence themselves?

When it comes to policing demonstrations or harassing groups like Extinction Rebellion or Palestine Action there are always police available. But when it comes to finding resources for an investigation into the murder of a Black man there are insufficient resources. The same goes for rape which according to Victims' Commissioner Dame Vera Bairdhas virtually been decriminalised in this country.  Just 1.4% of rape complaints resulted in a charge.

But when I tell the Labour Party Disputes Team to f*** off and die then there are police aplenty for an offence which isn’t even imprisonable. It isn’t lack of resources but a question of priorities and racist attacks are not a priority.

Michael Abatan (centre) and Zita Holborne (speaking)

When there were weekly pickets outside the EDO-MBM arms factory in Moulsecoomb every week the Police had no problem in finding dozens of officers. They also used undercover officers to infiltrate the campaign against EDO. But when it comes to prosecuting racists then the Police plead they don’t have enough person power.

The murder of Jay Abatan took place in the wake of the MacPherson Inquiry into the racist behaviour of the Metropolitan Police regarding Stephen Lawrence’s murder but it hasn’t had the same publicity.

Michael Abatan speaking

It’s not a question of a few bad apples in the police force but that the barrel is rotten. Why? Because the priority of the Police is protection of property, capitalist property, not people.

In LB Southwark v Williams [1971] Lord Denning ruled that hunger was no defence against a charge of theft:

“necessity would open a door which no man could shut…If hunger were once allowed to be an excuse for stealing the plea would be an excuse for all sorts of wrong doing. The courts must take a firm stand.”

Sir Peter Bottomley Tory MP for Worthing West attended the demonstration unlike the 3 Brighton & Hove MPs - Green and Labour

The only MP who was at the demonstration was Sir Peter Bottomley, who represents Worthing West. Despite the fact that this murder happened in Brighton none of the 3 Brighton and Hove MPs were present. I wouldn’t expect Peter Kyle, the Red Tory MP for Hove to attend since the only thing that motivates him is support for Israeli Apartheid. But where was Caroline Lucas, Green MP for Brighton Pavilion or Lloyd Russell-Moyle, Labour MP for Brighton Kemptown? It is clear that to our political representatives racism is not a priority.

Racism, sexism and homophobia in the Police is often blamed on a ‘canteen culture, but this is too glib and answer. Police culture stems from the inherently racist and reactionary practices of the Police which results in most police being right-wing and assimilating to a culture of blaming minorities for capitalism’s problems.

Jay Abatan - Brighton Police refused to conduct an investigation into his murder

Police Culture of Racism, Sexism and Homophobia

In the Hotton Report the following were some of the messages recorded on WhatsApp groups or on mobile phone texts:

ØMessages aboutpoliceofficers attending a festival dressed as known sex offenders and a molested child

Ønumerous messages about rape and ‘raping’ each other in a WhatsApp group containing 19 police officers, and within a Facebook chat group containing fourpolice officers).

TOTAL Victory for Shahd - Now let’s Scrap the IHRA Whose Only Purpose is to Chill Free Speech on Palestine

On Friday the Socialist Labour Network will be holding a zoom meeting in the wake of Shahd Abusalama’s suspensionand reinstatementat Sheffield Hallam University. Speakers will include Shahdherself, Professor David Miller who was recently dismissed from Bristol University and Shahd’s supervisor, Peter Jones.

Sheffield Hallam's racist lecturer Lesley Klaff claims that the Tantura massacre when hundreds of men, women and children were killed in cold blood, never happened - a new Israeli film Tantura demonstrates that this is a lie with interviews with the veterans of the Alexandri Brigade who perpetrated the massacre. Klaff is no different to those who deny the Holocaust

After an outpouring of rage against the suspension of Palestinian academic Shahd on 20^th January, the University was forced to backtrack and reinstateher just one week later on an improved contract.

This is a victory, not just for Shahd but for all those who believe in freedom of speech on Palestine and academic freedom. It is a victory for those who have been targeted by false and malicious accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’ for criticising Israeli Apartheid.

Shahd was subjected to a racist campaign by the so-called Campaign Against Antisemitism which specialises in targeting anti-Zionists

It is especially a victory for Palestinians in a week when a reportfrom Amnesty International proved conclusively that Israel is an apartheid state. Accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’ are the only defence that Israel’s supporters have today.

Shahd’s reinstatement demonstrates that the way to defeat the Zionists is to stand up to them and not appease them. Of course the Zionists are not happy. The Jewish Chronicle, a libel sheet which has lost a record number of libel claims, was its normal vituperative self. Its headline was ‘Student who praised terrorists as ‘heroes’ gets academic role at Sheffield Hallam University’.

Racist Lesley Klaff - responsible for the persecution of Shahd Abusalama

After the dismissal of Professor David Miller at Bristol University, the Zionists began to believe that they could, with the co-operation of tame and compliant university administrations, target any other academic who raised their head above the parapet. There have been a number of other incidents at universities such as Warwick, Leeds and Glasgow. The Jewish Chronicle crowedthat ‘Miller’s sacking should be the beginning, not the end’.

Klaff's UK Lawyers for Israel feel an affinity with those who seek to demolish Palestinian homes to make way for Jewish settlers

The IHRA misdefinition of anti-Semitism has been used to target and harass pro-Palestinian lecturers. And yet its  defenders, such as Dave Rich of the Community Security Trustpour scorn on the idea that the IHRA has a ‘chilling effect’ on free speech on Palestine.

Far-right Sheffield Hallam lecturer Lesley Klaff

At Sheffield Hallam University the local University College Union branch, gave Shahd unequivocal backing. At a local UCU meeting last week 97% of those in attendance voted to support Shahd. Just 2 lecturers supported the suspension of Shahd, one of whom was ‘human rights’ lecturer Lesley Klaff. On Klaff’s page on the university’s website she describes herself as ‘a member of UK Lawyers for Israel, an NGO which provides pro bono legal assistance to victims of antisemitism.’

In fact Lawyers for Israel is a far-right organisation dedicated to supporting the apartheid state and Jewish settlers who have spent over half a century stealing Palestinian land and terrorising the population. In December 2019 it helda public meeting with Naomi Linder Kahn, of the Israeli NGO Regavim.

Even the Zionist Labour Movement, which spearheaded the Campaign Against Corbyn has drawn the line at Regavim - not so Lesley Klaff

Regavim is a racist far-Right Israeli organisation which uses Israeli law, over which Palestinians have no say, to speed up the evictions of Palestinians and the demolition of their homes. It believes that far from Israel being in occupation of the West Bank it is the other way around. It describes Palestinians as ‘squatters’ who are occupying ‘Jewish land’.

Opposition to Zionism, and before the Holocaust 90% of Jews were anti-Zionist, is now 'antisemitic' according to Lesley Klaff

Regavim was founded in 2006 by Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right settler member of the Knesset who describes himself as a ‘proud homophobe’. In 2006 he organisedthe ‘Beast Parade’ in Jerusalem comparing gays to beasts (though he did say that unlike gays, the animals that took part were innocent). More recently he has saidthat Jerusalem’s  Gay Pride demonstration triggered the COVID pandemic in Israel!

Regavim is the organisation that UKLFI and Lesley Klaff, who like Keir Starmer is a ‘human rights lawyer’ was happy to invite to speak to them.

Amongst Smotrich’s contributions to co-existence in Israel/Palestine he advocated the separation of Arab and Jewish women giving birth in hospitals tweetingthat

"It's only natural my wife would not want to lie next to someone who just gave birth to a baby that might murder her baby in another 20 years,"

The Zionist Jewish Chronicle doesn't take kindly to Shahd's reinstatement

Regavim also supports the openly fascist Lehava organisation in Israel which openly supports and organisesphysical attacks on Palestinians who have friendships with Jewish Israelis. Its leader Benzi Gopstein has called for the burning down of churches and mosques. Its campaign against miscegenation (sexual relations between Jews and Arabs) is reminiscent of the Nuremberg Laws which outlawed sexual relations between Jews and ‘Aryans’.

Rubbing shoulders with Lesley Klaff at UKLFI is none other than Daniel Berke, who is an advisor and solicitor for none other than that apostle for racial harmony, Tommy Robinson as well as Jonathan Hoffman, the linkman between far-Right Zionists and fascist groups like the EDL and Britain First,. No doubt Klaff’s work is cut out explaining the significance of human rights to these people!

Sharon Klaff - with Paul Besser of Britain First and Jonathan Hoffman

Another member of UKLFI is Robert Festenheim, a far-right Zionist who is another ‘advisor’ to Tommy Robinson.

Lesley Klaff has no problem working with Regavim, which was founded by an extreme racist and homophobe

Lesley Klaff is believed to be the sister of Sharon Klaff another far-right Zionist and an open supporter of both Pegida UK and Tommy Robinson. The Klaffs originate from South Africa where the political climate under Apartheid was more hospitable. Even there though they stood out as political oddities. “We dressed in black and khaki and the other Jewish youth movements called us Nazi Jews” boastedAnnette Rosenberg, a contemporary of Klaff.

In the first world war Klaffs’ Grandfatherwas interned by the South African Government on suspicion of being a pro-German agent and a grave threat to national security.

Klaff’s father was the escort for Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the founder of Revisionist Zionism and Herut, which Albert Einstein and Hannah Arendt describedin a letter to the New York Times of 4^th December 1948 as

‘a political party closely akin in its organisation,  methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties’

Beitar the Revisionist Zionist Group Modelled on the Hitler Youth

Its a scandal that an open racist such as Lesley Klaff should have been able to secure the suspension of a vulnerable Palestinian lecturer from Gaza by making baseless and false accusations of anti-Semitism.

The decision of Sheffield Hallam to suspend Shahd on the basis of accusations from racists and fascists is like suspending a Black or Muslim lecturer because a member of the BNP or National Front gas taken exception to them. If Sheffield Hallam is serious about its commitment to anti-racism then it needs to do two things:

i.                    Suspend Lesley Klaff until an inquiry unearths the full facts behind the malicious allegations made against Shahd.

ii.                  To immediately suspend the use of the IHRA misdefinition of anti-Semitism pending  vote by all academic staff. As Geoffrey Robertson QC, Britain’s leading human rights barrister said, it is ‘not fit for  purpose.’

Most universities in Britain have only adopted the IHRA because they were threatenedwith a cut in their funding by Gavin Williamson, the former Education Secretary. Apparently the government was worried about anti-Semitism on campus.

It should be obvious, even to the most stupid university administrator, that a government whose Border and Nationalities Bill is making the lifestyle of Travellers and  Gypsies a criminal offence, which is threatening millions of Black and Muslim Britons with a potential loss of citizenship and which is seeking to push refugees in the Channel back away from the coast, to say nothing of the Windrush Scandal is not interested in opposing racism. 

The Tories concern over ‘anti-Semitism’ has nothing to do with the safety of British Jews. Their sole concern is their strategic and military relationship with the State of Israel. And if vulnerable Palestinians like Shahd pay the price for exercising their right to freedom speech then that is a price that is deemed worth paying.

Tony Greenstein

Freedom of Speech on Palestine and Zionism is Under Attack from the Zionists and ‘Education’ Minister Nadhim Zahawi

Later today there will be a Zoom meeting with Shahd Abusalama, who was suspended on 20 January from teaching at Sheffield Hallam University after complaints from unnamed Zionist groups. After a massive campaign in her support including from her own UCU branch (97% of whom voted in her favour) she was reinstated.

Also speaking will be Professor David Miller who was dismissed by Bristol University after having been targeted by the same Zionists. In addition Pete Jones, Shahd’s PhD supervisor and also myself will be speaking.

In the past week there has been a renewed frenzy by the racist Jewish Chronicle on the subject of ‘anti-Semitism’ at British universities. Especially after the successful picket of the Cambridge Union where Israel’s far-Right Ambassador Tzipi Hotoveli was speaking.

There is a chant at Palestine demonstrations: ‘From the River to the Sea Palestine Shall Be Free’. Apparently this is not only anti-Semitic but it is criminal too! It must be the first time in history that calling for freedom from Apartheid is a criminal offence.

At least it is according to the idiot who is the Education Minister. Nadhim Zahawi, who proclaimed in The Telegraph that those who chant this slogan should be referred to the Police. (Ministers vow action after Hamas chant at Cambridge).

As the media get het up about Starmer being accused of having colluded in letting Jimmy Saville go free, we are marching ever onwards to a police state.

Someone should remind Zahawi and the other Zionist liars that B’Tselem, Israel’s largest human rights organisation, produced a report in January 2021 titled‘A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid’. Presumably B’Tselem are ‘anti-Semitic’ too!

Hotoveli is the same person who invitedthe fascist Lehava Group into the Knesset Committee for the Advancement of Women to give advice on how to stop Jews and Arabs having relationships. Because just as in Nazi Germany, marriage between Jews and non-Jews is verboten (forbidden). That comparison by the way is also ‘anti-Semitic’ under the IHRA.Any form of relationship between Arabs and Jews in Israel is a social taboo.

On the web siteof Lehava is the following piece of racist poison. Jewish women are not merely pure, unlike Arabs, they are daughters of kings! In a piece that could have been written by Julius Streicher, we have the following letter addressed to Jewish girls:

"To my dear Jewish sister, I wanted to ask of you, my sister, not to make my mistake, don't let some minority member bring you down and cause you to be impure. You're a king's daughter! The King of Kings! You have the privilege of being holy and pure, you're a Jewish woman! He wants you and the moment he gets his way you'll see what Hell is." (Letter on the Lehava website).

Hotoveli describedthe Nakba as "a very strong and very popular Arab lie." She clings to the Zionist fable that in 1948 the Palestinians left Israel of their own accord.  

Someone should tell her what her fellow right-winger, Bezalel Smotrich saidrecently to Israeli Palestine members of the Knesset that they "are here by mistake– because Ben-Gurion didn't finish the job and throw you out in 1948,"

The Jewish Chronicle has nothing to say about this racism because it’s target is non-Jews. In fact Smotrich, disgusting racist and ‘proud homophobe’ as he is, was at least being honest.

The Jewish Chronicle worked itself into a frenzy about the picket of Cambridge Union last week. Ministers vow action after Hamas chant at Cambridge their headline screamed.

Masked demonstrators at Cambridge University burned flares and screamed Hamas slogans during the Israeli ambassador’s visit on Tuesday – prompting outraged government ministers to demand action.

The masks were worn because of COVID, but to the JC anything to do with Palestinians is sinister. ‘From the river to the sea’ has become a Hamas slogan, despite being around long before Hamas was formed. This is nothing less than McCarthyist guilt-by-association.

Apparently it is genocidal to want the ‘Jewish’ state to be replaced by a democratic, secular state that doesn’t distinguish between Jew and non-Jew in terms of their civil and political rights.

The Jewish Chronicle’s editor Stephen Pollard is a founder member of the Islamaphobic Henry Jackson Society. Despite all the fulminating against anti-Semitism Pollard has no problem supporting genuine anti-Semites.  His one qualification is that they are also supporters of Zionism.

In 2009 Pollard went out of his way to defend a Polish fascist MEP Michal Kaminski who represent the town of Jedwabne in Poland. In July 1941 there was a pogrom in Jedwabne when Polish fascists herded up to 1500 Jews into a barn which they then set alight.

After a book by Jan Gross Neighboursrevealed what had happened in Jedwabne there was a far-reaching debate in Poland. Most of the population of Jedwabne opposed a national apology but President Kwaśniewski disagreed and a memorial to those who had been murdered was erected in Jedwabne.

Kaminski was instrumental in urging residents to oppose the apology and to boycott the ceremonial event on 10 July 2001. The campaign against an apology had ‘strongly anti-Semitic overtones,’ according to Dr Rafal Pankowski, author of The Populist Radical Right in Poland. The Chief Rabbi of Poland, Michael Schudrich observed that

Mr Kaminski was a member of NOP, a group that is openly far-right and neo-Nazi. Anyone who would want to align himself with the Committee to Defend the Good Name of Jedwabne… needs to understand with what and by whom he is being represented.

Far from denouncing Kaminski and the support he received from Conservative members of the European Parliament (they were members of the same ECR Group, Pollard went out of his way to defend him!

Pollard wrote ‘Poland's Kaminski is not an antisemite: he's a friend to Jews’. When Jonathan Freedland, who is no slouch when it comes to making false accusations of anti-Semitism wrote Once no self-respecting politician would have gone near people such as KaminskiPollard felt impelled to defend him:

“Jonathan Freedland attacked Michal Kaminski, the Polish MEP; Roberts Zile, the Latvian MEP; and me (Once no self-respecting politician would have gone near such people, 7 October). Freedland seems to have decided that Kaminski is an antisemite; but, far from this, Kaminski is – as his record in Brussels shows clearly – one of the greatest friends to the Jews in a town where antisemitism and a visceral loathing of Israel are rife.”

Pollard also wrote, in The Telegraph that Kaminski, "Far from being an anti-Semite is about as pro-Israeli an MEP as exists."

Kaminski, in an interviewwith Nasza Polskain March 2001, had argued that ‘Poles should not apologise for what they did until Jews apologised to them for their actions which included “murdering Poles”.’ The only problem was that over 90% of Polish Jews could not apologise, since they had been sent to Treblinka and Auschwitz.

There is a long history of anti-Semites combining hatred of Jews with love of Zionism. Adolf Eichmann in an interviewafter the war said that if he had been Jewish ‘I would have been a fanatical Zionist. I could not imagine anything else.’

Pollard has been particularly eager to defend genuine anti-Semites. One such was Roberts Zile, a Latvian MEP, who each March marched with the veterans of the Latvian Waffen SS.

Nonetheless Pollard was perturbed about ‘anti-Semitism’ at Sheffield Hallam University where we are told that

‘Jewish students branded the institution a “hostile environment” after it employed Palestinian activist Shahd Abusalama to teach a course on “post-colonial media culture”, despite her praise for terrorists and provocative statements about “Zionists”.

You would have to be brain dead not to understand that it is not anti-Semitism but anti-Zionism that people like Pollard object to. Genuine neo-Nazis like Tommy Robinson, who was given a hero’s welcome at last May’s pro-Israel demonstration (at which Hotoveli spoke) are kosher but Palestinian demonstrators are ‘anti-Semitic’.

Protesters at the Cambridge Union event holding signs saying 'Zionist scum not welcome here' (John Nguyen)

We are told that a

‘100-strong mob gathered outside Cambridge Student Union on Tuesday, chanting “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”.

Yet despite Nadhim Zahawi’s strictures, ‘Cambridge, officers looked on.’  One can only wonder why! Perhaps they don’t realise that we live in a police state yet!

Police at the Cambridge protest (John Nguyen)

Universities Minister Michelle Donelan joined in telling the JC that ‘Universities should have a zero tolerance attitude to anti-Jewish racism on campus.’  Support for the Palestinians and opposition to Zionism has been transformed into the new anti-Semitism. It recalls what George Orwell describedas political speech.

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers.

I should also recall one particular incident that demonstrates just what a loathsome creature Pollard is. I wrote to him in 2010 about an American Jewish student, Emily Honochowicz, who went to demonstrate at the Qalandia checkpoint just outside Jerusalem. The Israeli military began attacking the demonstrators and Emily lost an eye. It was the same day as the Mavi Marmara. A tear gas canister was shot directly at her. I covered the story here. What could be more relevant than a Jewish student, whose only offence was to participate in a demonstration losing an eye (her family was later billed for her medical treatment!). But news like this is no news for a propaganda sheet like the Jewish Chronicle. Pollard wrote back

Dear Mr Greenstein,

Thank you for your email, which will make a fine addition to my 'delete' folder.

Stephen Pollard

From that day on I have had nothing but contempt for this vile lump of lard. 

Tony Greenstein

TOTAL Victory for Shahd - Now let’s Scrap the IHRA Whose Only Purpose is to Chill Free Speech on Palestine

UPDATE: I want to make it clear that although the allegations against Shahd are claimed by the University to have been made externally to the University, there is no doubt that they originate from inside the university and Lesley Klaff in particular.

On Friday the Socialist Labour Network will be holding a zoom meeting in the wake of Shahd Abusalama’s suspensionand reinstatementat Sheffield Hallam University. Speakers will include Shahdherself, Professor David Miller who was recently dismissed from Bristol University and Shahd’s supervisor, Peter Jones.

Sheffield Hallam's racist lecturer Lesley Klaff claims that the Tantura massacre when hundreds of men, women and children were killed in cold blood, never happened - a new Israeli film Tantura demonstrates that this is a lie with interviews with the veterans of the Alexandri Brigade who perpetrated the massacre. Klaff is no different to those who deny the Holocaust

After an outpouring of rage against the suspension of Palestinian academic Shahd on 20^th January, the University was forced to backtrack and reinstateher just one week later on an improved contract.

This is a victory, not just for Shahd but for all those who believe in freedom of speech on Palestine and academic freedom. It is a victory for those who have been targeted by false and malicious accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’ for criticising Israeli Apartheid.

Shahd was subjected to a racist campaign by the so-called Campaign Against Antisemitism which specialises in targeting anti-Zionists

It is especially a victory for Palestinians in a week when a reportfrom Amnesty International proved conclusively that Israel is an apartheid state. Accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’ are the only defence that Israel’s supporters have today.

Shahd’s reinstatement demonstrates that the way to defeat the Zionists is to stand up to them and not appease them. Of course the Zionists are not happy. The Jewish Chronicle, a libel sheet which has lost a record number of libel claims, was its normal vituperative self. Its headline was ‘Student who praised terrorists as ‘heroes’ gets academic role at Sheffield Hallam University’.

Racist Lesley Klaff - responsible for the persecution of Shahd Abusalama

After the dismissal of Professor David Miller at Bristol University, the Zionists began to believe that they could, with the co-operation of tame and compliant university administrations, target any other academic who raised their head above the parapet. There have been a number of other incidents at universities such as Warwick, Leeds and Glasgow. The Jewish Chronicle crowedthat ‘Miller’s sacking should be the beginning, not the end’.

Klaff's UK Lawyers for Israel feel an affinity with those who seek to demolish Palestinian homes to make way for Jewish settlers

The IHRA misdefinition of anti-Semitism has been used to target and harass pro-Palestinian lecturers. And yet its  defenders, such as Dave Rich of the Community Security Trustpour scorn on the idea that the IHRA has a ‘chilling effect’ on free speech on Palestine.

Far-right Sheffield Hallam lecturer Lesley Klaff

At Sheffield Hallam University the local University College Union branch, gave Shahd unequivocal backing. At a local UCU meeting last week 97% of those in attendance voted to support Shahd. Just 1 lecturer supported the suspension of Shahd, ‘human rights’ lecturer Lesley Klaff. On Klaff’s page on the university’s website she describes herself as ‘a member of UK Lawyers for Israel, an NGO which provides pro bono legal assistance to victims of antisemitism.’

In fact Lawyers for Israel is a far-right organisation dedicated to supporting the apartheid state and Jewish settlers who have spent over half a century stealing Palestinian land and terrorising the population. In December 2019 it helda public meeting with Naomi Linder Kahn, of the Israeli NGO Regavim.

Even the Zionist Labour Movement, which spearheaded the Campaign Against Corbyn has drawn the line at Regavim - not so Lesley Klaff

Regavim is a racist far-Right Israeli organisation which uses Israeli law, over which Palestinians have no say, to speed up the evictions of Palestinians and the demolition of their homes. It believes that far from Israel being in occupation of the West Bank it is the other way around. It describes Palestinians as ‘squatters’ who are occupying ‘Jewish land’.

Opposition to Zionism, and before the Holocaust 90% of Jews were anti-Zionist, is now 'antisemitic' according to Lesley Klaff

Regavim was founded in 2006 by Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right settler member of the Knesset who describes himself as a ‘proud homophobe’. In 2006 he organisedthe ‘Beast Parade’ in Jerusalem comparing gays to beasts (though he did say that unlike gays, the animals that took part were innocent). More recently he has saidthat Jerusalem’s  Gay Pride demonstration triggered the COVID pandemic in Israel!

Regavim is the organisation that UKLFI and Lesley Klaff, who like Keir Starmer is a ‘human rights lawyer’ was happy to invite to speak to them.

Amongst Smotrich’s contributions to co-existence in Israel/Palestine he advocated the separation of Arab and Jewish women giving birth in hospitals tweetingthat

"It's only natural my wife would not want to lie next to someone who just gave birth to a baby that might murder her baby in another 20 years,"

The Zionist Jewish Chronicle doesn't take kindly to Shahd's reinstatement

Regavim also supports the openly fascist Lehava organisation in Israel which openly supports and organisesphysical attacks on Palestinians who have friendships with Jewish Israelis. Its leader Benzi Gopstein has called for the burning down of churches and mosques. Its campaign against miscegenation (sexual relations between Jews and Arabs) is reminiscent of the Nuremberg Laws which outlawed sexual relations between Jews and ‘Aryans’.

Rubbing shoulders with Lesley Klaff at UKLFI is none other than Daniel Berke, who is an advisor and solicitor for none other than that apostle for racial harmony, Tommy Robinson as well as Jonathan Hoffman, the linkman between far-Right Zionists and fascist groups like the EDL and Britain First,. No doubt Klaff’s work is cut out explaining the significance of human rights to these people!

Sharon Klaff - with Paul Besser of Britain First and Jonathan Hoffman

Another member of UKLFI is Robert Festenheim, a far-right Zionist who is another ‘advisor’ to Tommy Robinson.

Lesley Klaff has no problem working with Regavim, which was founded by an extreme racist and homophobe

Lesley Klaff is believed to be the sister-in-law of Sharon Klaff another far-right Zionist and an open supporter of both Pegida UK and Tommy Robinson. The Klaffs originate from South Africa where the political climate under Apartheid was more hospitable. Even there though they stood out as political oddities. “We dressed in black and khaki and the other Jewish youth movements called us Nazi Jews” boastedAnnette Rosenberg, a contemporary of Klaff.

In the first world war Klaffs’ Grandfatherwas interned by the South African Government on suspicion of being a pro-German agent and a grave threat to national security.

Klaff’s father was the escort for Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the founder of Revisionist Zionism and Herut, which Albert Einstein and Hannah Arendt describedin a letter to the New York Times of 4^th December 1948 as

‘a political party closely akin in its organisation,  methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties’

Beitar the Revisionist Zionist Group Modelled on the Hitler Youth

Its a scandal that openly racist organisations should have been able to secure the suspension of a vulnerable Palestinian lecturer from Gaza by making baseless and false accusations of anti-Semitism.

The decision of Sheffield Hallam to suspend Shahd on the basis of accusations from racists external to the university is like suspending a Black or Muslim lecturer because a member of the BNP or National Front gas taken exception to them. If Sheffield Hallam is serious about its commitment to anti-racism then it needs to do two things:

i.                    Suspend Lesley Klaff until an inquiry unearths the full facts behind the malicious allegations made against Shahd. Although the university is claiming that the allegations against Shahd were made externally (which in itself raises questions) there is no doubt that their origin was internal to the university itself.

ii.                  To immediately suspend the use of the IHRA misdefinition of anti-Semitism pending  vote by all academic staff. As Geoffrey Robertson QC, Britain’s leading human rights barrister said, it is ‘not fit for  purpose.’

Most universities in Britain have only adopted the IHRA because they were threatenedwith a cut in their funding by Gavin Williamson, the former Education Secretary. Apparently the government was worried about anti-Semitism on campus.

It should be obvious, even to the most stupid university administrator, that a government whose Border and Nationalities Bill is making the lifestyle of Travellers and  Gypsies a criminal offence, which is threatening millions of Black and Muslim Britons with a potential loss of citizenship and which is seeking to push refugees in the Channel back away from the coast, to say nothing of the Windrush Scandal is not interested in opposing racism. 

The Tories concern over ‘anti-Semitism’ has nothing to do with the safety of British Jews. Their sole concern is their strategic and military relationship with the State of Israel. And if vulnerable Palestinians like Shahd pay the price for exercising their right to freedom speech then that is a price that is deemed worth paying.

Tony Greenstein

The Decision to Reject Ken Livingstone Because of ‘Anti-Semitism’ is Out of Keir Starmer’s Playbook

To Register for the Discussion on Grassroots Labour clickhere

https://www.tickettailor.com/events/labourgrassroots/649378

This morning Crispin Flintoft’s popular Not the Andrew Marr Show, which acts as a forum for those who have become disenchanted with the police state that Labour has become under Herr Stürmer, is going to discuss the Green Party and socialists attitude to it. 

In a survey of 1,303 followers of the show, in responseto the questions ‘Are people leaving Labour for the Greens? Is the Green Party the answer for progressives?’ 48% replied ‘Yes’ and 34 said ‘No’ with 18% undecided or ‘Other’ (whatever that means).

It is understandable that those who have become alienated by the suppression of free speech in the Labour Party, the bogus accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’, the rigging of the rules and the defiance of basic democracy, with a leader (if that’s the right term) who is as right-wing as the clown who currently occupies No. 10, should be looking for another party. However the Green Party is not that party.

The Green Party’s rejectionof Ken Livingstone’s application to join the party should be proof positive of that fact.

When his bid to become a member of the GP was reportedin January Ken was quoted as saying that their leadership ‘thought that if they brought me in they’d be accused of being antisemitic”.

Ken was right. The Green Party leadership has gone along with the McCarthyist witchhunt of anti-Zionists in the Labour Party.

At its recent conference the Green Party adopted both the IHRAmisdefinition of anti-Semitism and the Jerusalem Declaration on Anti-Semitismwhich is incompatible with the IHRA.

The IHRA states that ‘Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis’ is an example of anti-Semitism. The JDA however states that:

Political speech does not have to be measured, proportional, tempered, or reasonable to be protected under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights ... Criticism that some may see as excessive or contentious, or as reflecting a “double standard,” is not, in and of itself, antisemitic. In general, the line between antisemitic and non-antisemitic speech is different from the line between unreasonable and reasonable speech

The Green Party conference adopted 2 incompatible definitions of anti-Semitism. But it is clear that they have chosen to implement the IHRA not the JDA which is why Ken’s application has been rejected.

As most people know, Ken Livingstone pioneered support for anti-racist campaigning in local government. Because he also supported the Palestinians he came under persistent attack from the Zionist lobby and the Board of Deputies.

There was nothing anti-Semitic in Livingstone’s reference to Nazi support for the Zionist movement in Germany between 1933 and 1939. That is a conclusion that most academics, including Zionist historians, have reached. David Cesarani in his book ‘The Final Solution’ (p.96) wrote:

‘The efforts of the Gestapo are oriented to promoting Zionism as much as possible and lending support to its efforts to promote emigration.’

Of course it is embarrassing for Zionists to have the sordid history of their relations with the Nazis revealed, but it isn’t anti-Semitic. The Zionist movement at the time actually welcomed the rise of Hitler because they realised that it would help them achieve a Jewish State.  In 1933 the founding of a ‘Jewish state’ was by no means a foregone conclusion, as they comprised no more than 20% of the population.

For example the Zionist national poet, Chaim Nahman Bialik wrote that  ‘Hitlerism has perhaps saved German Jewry, which was being assimilated into annihilation.’You can find that in Etan Bloom’s PhD thesisArthur Ruppin and the Production of the Modern Hebrew Culturefor Tel Aviv University. (p.417, fn. 351).

The world famous biographer and an ardent Zionist Emil Ludwig was even more enthusiastic:

Hitler will be forgotten in a few years, but he will have a beautiful monument in Palestine. You know, the coming of the Nazis was rather a welcome thing. … Thousands who seemed to be completely lost to Judaism were brought back to the fold by Hitler, and for that I am personally very grateful to him. (p.417, Bloom)

Nor were such sentiments confined to the Zionist fringe. Chaim Weizmann, President of the World Zionist Organisation and Israel’s first President, warned his own personal secretary, Louis Namier, that a Preface he was writing to a book by Arthur Ruppin, The Jews in the Modern World should ‘not to be so open in expressing their common tolerationof Nazism’. (p.415 Bloom).

Both Ben Gurion, the Chair of the Jewish Agency and his deputy Berl Katznelson expressed similar sentiments. They foresaw that the turmoil created by Hitler in the world could only benefit them.

Phelim Mac Cafferty abandoned the Palestinians for the Zionist lobby

Dr Noah Lucas, another Zionist historian wrote in The Modern History of Israel (pp. 187-8)

As the European holocaust erupted, Ben-Gurion saw it as a decisive opportunity for Zionism... In conditions of peace,… Zionism could not move the masses of world Jewry. The forces unleashed by Hitler in all their horror must be harnessed to the advantage of Zionism. ... By the end of 1942… the struggle for a Jewish state became the primary concern of the movement.

In November 1935 Ben Gurion said that

‘To the disaster of German Jewry we must offer a Zionist response, namely, we must convert the disaster into a source for the upbuilding of Palestine. (p. 854 of the official biography of Ben Gurion by Shabtai Teveth, ‘The Burning Ground – 1886-1948’.

In rejecting Livingstone’s application the Green Party has demonstrated their contempt for free speech on Palestine/Zionism. Caroline Lucas was an early supporter of the IHRA. She runs a mile from any suggestion that Israel is an apartheid state.

Yet the facts are clear. Israel confines 20% of its population to 2% of the land because they are Palestinian Israelis. It continually seeks to evict Arab citizens from their homes in Jerusalem in order to allow settlers to move in, as it does in the Negev. Lucas followed this up by signing a letter from rabidly racist members of parliament, like Bob Blackman (who has retweeted fascists and who opposed making caste discrimination against the Untouchables illegal) and the fascist Baroness Cox. See my open letter to Lucas.

When Labour and the Tories on Brighton & Hove Council introduced a motion supporting the IHRA, all 12 Green councillors, led by Phelim Mac Cafferty, voted in favour. They issued a statementthat ‘the Green Group does not view Green Party policy on the State of Israel as in conflict with the IHRA.’ If that was the case why do supporters of Israel insist on its adoption? 50 Black organisations in Brighton & Hove including the local Palestine Solidarity Campaign opposed the motion yet the Greens ignored them.

But it’s not just over Palestine that the Greens have been found wanting. Twice in the past decade the Greens have run Brighton & Hove Council. Their record has been abysmal. With the Tories in support they supported a white elephant costing some £36.2m called ‘i-360’ which they lent to a private consortium.

As I wroteat the time the ‘i360’ was ‘an overpriced elevator and nothing like the ‘heritage centre’ it describes itself as.’ I remarked that ‘the best laid plans of men and mice often go awry. What if demand is less than expected?’ Sure enough revenue has fallen far short. The ‘i-360 was supposed to make the Council £1m a year.  Instead it has turned out to be a flop and council tax payers will have to foot the bill. The GP record on recycling is atrocious.

But it is the Green’s anti-working class politics that mark them out. Twice they have sought a confrontation with the refuse workers, causing them to strike and twice the Council have been defeated.

As Davy Jones, Green Party parliamentary candidate for Brighton Kemptown askedin 2013 concerning the first strike:

How is this possible with a Green-led council that has campaigned harder than any other council in the country against public sector austerity in general and for fairer pay for the low paid in particular?

Current leader Phelim Mac Cafferty became leader with a reputation as a ‘left’ Green. I knew him from the Institute of Employment Rights and Brighton PSC of which he was a member. Yet under this administration the Council provokedanother strike. The Council hiredscab workers in order to try and break the strike. Phelim Mac Cafferty has become the scab leader of a Council party to strike breaking.

Why? Because the Green Party eschews class politics. It has no objection to capitalism, it merely wants to ‘green’ it. The Green Party is a party of middle-class careerists. They want to become part of the Establishment and sit at the table. What they don’t want to do is overturn the table!

Internationally the situation is worse. In 1998 the Greens in Germany formed, a coalition government with the SPD.

You might think that Die Grunen, which had portrayed itself as an anti-war party, would have opposed the deployment of the German military abroad. Not a bit of it. They became part of the first German government since the Nazis to deploy German troops in a foreign war. As the New York Times reported:

Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer won the backing of his Greens party Saturday for sending German troops into the war on terrorism, averting the risk of a government collapse.

A national party conference passed a motion endorsing the troop pledge after an emotional plea for support by Fischer, who demanded solidarity with the United States...’

Die Grunenhad hitched their wagon to US imperialism’s wars and NATO. Not only did German troops take part in the fighting in Afghanistan but they also took part in the bombing of Serbia, whose purpose was to establish NATO’s domination of the Balkans.

In Greens back Nato amid uproar the Guardian noted that

Germany's co-governing Green party last night rallied to the support of its leader, the foreign minister Joschka Fischer, in his backing for Nato's bombing campaign against Serbia after a day of high drama and violence at a watershed congress in the party's 20-year history.

The Greens voted by 444 to 318 to support Mr Fischer and defeat a motion demanding an immediate and unconditional end to the Nato bombing.

The German Greens have, even more than their British cousins, become overt Zionists. Indeed they voted, alongside the neo-Nazi Alternative for Germanyto condemn BDS as ‘anti-Semitic’. The irony of voting with neo-Nazis to condemn anti-Semitism has clearly been lost on Germany’s Greens.

Protest in Germany against attempts to make BDS illegal

Volker Beck, a member of the Bundestag for Die Grüne was particularly outspoken in condemninga festival at the Berlin Weißensee Academy of Art titled “School for Unlearning Zionism”. Its home page was deleted and the organisers had their funding withdrawn. Beck called it a “propagandistic outrage”. What was the anti-Semitism? The Berliner Zeitung reportedthat:

one theme stands out: several contributors portray the state of Israel as a de facto colonial power, whose ideological principles – as the title says – have to be “unlearned”. This postcolonial perspective is also clear through the preamble announcing the lecture series. The titles of these include “Mizrachi’s struggle as part of decolonisation?” or “Zionism as settler-colonialism”

Remarkably, the group behind the “School for Unlearning Zionism” has scarcely been mentioned amidst the criticism of the project. They are a group of Jewish Israelis who have been grappling with their own Zionist historical narrative for just over a year, using varying formats.

So what Die Grunen was condemning, alongside neo-Nazis, was an exhibition by anti-Zionist Jewish Israelis. You couldn’t make it up.

In short the world’s most powerful Green Party is nothing but a poodle for US imperialism and its racist Rottweiler, the Israeli state. Israel is an apartheid state. But even if one disagrees with that analysis (and 25% of Israelis accept that it is an apartheid state, as do25%of American Jews (a figure which shoots up to 38%of American Jews under 40) what has that got to do with anti-Semitism?

In the past year 3 major human rights organisations have class Israel as an Apartheid state and a Jewish supremacist state – B’Tselem, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

In Ireland, at the last General Election, in February 2020, there was a shock result as Sinn Fein came first with 24.5%. The 2 conservative parties, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil who had been in coalition lost their majority. They had no need to worry as the Green Party came to the rescue. As Oliver Eagleton wrote in Ireland’s Green Party Is Ready to Help the Right Stay in Power:

Leo Varadkar’s caretaker government... is now counting on the Greens to keep the center-right parties in power as a recession looms.

The Greens have always been a middle-class grouping, geared exclusively toward electoral politics, whose support is largely confined to affluent parts of south Dublin....

Its environmentalism favors technocratic fixes(“introduce smart grids,” “retrofit buildings”) over political transformation, as demonstrated by its strikingly ineffectual participation in the FF-led coalition government between 2007 and 2011. David Landy and Oisín McGarrity have documentedthe party’s succession of U-turns during this period: allowing the US military to land at Shannon Airport, building new motorways on top of historical landmarks, and supporting Shell’s establishment of ecologically destructive gas refineries...

The Greens also helped Fianna Fáil push throughthe EU-IMF bailout package that ushered in years of fiscal austerity, with Eamon Ryan appearing regularly on broadcast media to defend deep cuts to social welfare and public services. When asked by a BBC journalist whether the bankers who caused the crisis should help to pay for it, Ryan replied that this was “not a realistic solution.”

There you have it. Challenging capitalism is ‘not a realistic solution’.

The Green Party has been in turmoil over the question of trans-rights and gender critical policies. Shahrar Ali, its one Black spokesperson, has been removed from his position. Shahrar, a fervent critic of the IHRA, has been forced to crowdfundin order to begin legal proceedings against the Green Party. Ali was:

subjected to unrelenting abuse, harassment and detriment” for expressing “gender critical views.

My advice for socialists looking for a new political space is that whatever else the Green Party is it is not a left-wing, still less a socialist party. It is a neo-liberal party masquerading as progressive. For those who have been burnt in the ‘anti-Semitism’ witchhunt joining the Green Party is like jumping from the frying pan into the fire.

Tony Greenstein

 There is only one question? Is it true that the Zionist movement betrayed the Jews who died in the Holocaust or is it untrue?

Mike Phipps was a member of the Labour Briefing editorial board, which he left in a huff to set up his own Labour Hub. On it he has written a glowing review of Dave Renton’s Labour’s Anti-Semitism Crisis.

Renton, an ex-member of the Socialist Workers Party and ex-Etonian, wrote a book accusing Jackie Walker, Marc Wadsworth and Chris Williamson of anti-Semitism. Curiously enough he didn’t mention me perhaps because even he found it difficult to accuse a Jewish anti-Zionist of ‘anti-Semitism’.

Mike regularly attends though he has not spoken at the weekly Not the Andrew Marr Showwhich I thoroughly recommend to people. It takes place every Sunday at 10.30 a.m. In the chat though he has put himself across as an opponent of Labour’s ‘anti-Semitism’ witchhunt whilst describing Renton’s book as ‘nuanced’, which is pretty much like saying that the Sun’s coverage of the Hillsborough tragedy was nuanced.

I have therefore written a letter to Mike which I’m happy to share! My own review of Renton’s book is here.

Tony Greenstein

This headline from the so-called Independent was typical of how the yellow press distorted Chris's speech which spoke about the 'scourge' of anti-Semitism

Open Letter to Mike Phipps of Labour Hub

Dear Mike Phipps,

I am sure that you won’t mind me writing to you out of the blue but if there’s one thing I value above all else it is political honesty and integrity, especially in these fraught times when Starmer is putting the finishing touches to the Blair Project. Unfortunately you fail the test at every opportunity. However I live in hope that the sinner will repent and see the light, if not on the road to Damascus then on the road to Tel Aviv.

I welcome the fact that you turn up to the Not The Andrew Marr Show. I only wish more Lansmanites engaged in debate. It is a pity that your contributions have been disingenuous attempts to defend those on the Momentum ‘left’ who ran with the ‘anti-Semitism’ smears. I am blind copying this to a number of your ex-comrades.

Last week Asa Winstanley was a guest on the show. Asa’s exposure of what lay behind the witchhunt is unsurpassed. I recommend How Israel lobby manufactured UK Labour Party's anti semitism crisis.

Your comment in the chat last week ‘Can’t agree with Asa here. If the only takeaway from his research is that it was all the fault of the Corbynites he is really out of touch.’ As Jackie Walker wrote in response this was not what Asa was saying. But of course Jon Lansman and his supporters played the role of the enemy within. They ran with the Right’s smears.

When I challenged you over your favourable reviewof Dave Renton’s Labour’s Anti-Semitism Crisis you responded by saying that ‘Renton’s book is very nuanced. I highly recommend it.’ and then went on to describe Renton’s critics as being engaged in ‘the perennial search for traitors’. I also reviewedRenton’s book but I confess to not sharing your misplaced praise for this shallow and worthless effort.

Poisonous Ruth Smeeth, a CIA asset and former employee for BICOM, Israel's main propaganda arm in this country - a fake victim of Labour 'antisemitism'

Not only is Renton’s book error strewn, for example describing Ruth Smeeth as storming out of the Chakrabarti press conference ‘in tears’, (I suggest you look at the video). In particular:

1.           Renton devoted a whole chapter to the ‘bullying’ of Luciana Berger without once mentioning the fact that she was Director of Labour Friends of Israel. A relevant fact would you not agree? Yet at the same time he failed to ask why one of the few Black Jewish women in the Labour Party, Jackie Walker, should have been targeted by the Jewish Labour Movement and be on the receiving end for vile racist abuse (which he didn’t once mention). Clearly Renton did not consider Jackie a victim

2.           Renton uncritically quotes Smeeth’s attack on Marc Wadsworth for ‘invoking antisemitic stereotypes of Jewish conspiracy’ and then says that he ‘should not have used an event intended to prove Labour’s commitment to fighting antisemitism to attack a Jewish MP.’

Dave Renton - the Old Etonian ex-socialist barrister who refused to debate his abysmal book with me!

Marc invoked no anti-Semitic stereotypes because he didn’t even know Smeeth was Jewish. In her Introduction to the Report Chakrabarti stated that Corbyn ‘asked me to conduct this Inquiry into antisemitism and other forms of racism.’ Note the words I have highlighted. To have failed to appreciate this crucial fact suggests that Renton’s book was written hurriedly with next to no research.

3.           It is over Ken Livingstone and his comment that Hitler supported Zionism that Renton excelled himself. Renton asserted, as did you, that the purpose of Ha’avara, the trade agreement between the Nazis and the Zionists, was to save Germany’s Jews rather than their wealth. That it was devised as a means of getting Germany’s Jews out of Germany. This is a convenient post hoc lie.

Despite all the propaganda over two-thirds of Labour members rejected the allegation of Labour 'antisemitism'

4.           Unlike Renton I have studied Ha'avara in depth. In March 1933 world Jewry launched a spontaneous boycott of Nazi Germany. The Zionist movement, a tiny minority at that time, and sections of the Jewish bourgeoisie, were the only ones to oppose it. The Zionists were vehement in their opposition. As the German Zionist Federation (ZVfD) wrote on 21^stJune 1933 to Hitler,

Boycott propaganda is in essence fundamentally unZionist, because Zionism wants not to do battle but to convince and to build...

You can find the whole memo in Lucy Dawidowicz’s Holocaust Reader.

5.           Far from wanting to evacuate as many German Jews as possible, the Zionists were careful to screen out all but the fittest and ideologically committed Zionists. David Werner Senator of the Jewish Agency Executive warned that if the (ZVfD) ‘did not improve the quality of the “human material” they were sending, the number of immigration certificates to Palestine would be cut. 

6.           Eliahu Dobkin, a fellow member of the Jewish Agency Executive was even more explicit. German Jews who were given immigration certificates ‘merely as refugees’ were ‘undesirable human material’. You can find this in Tom Segev’s ‘The Seventh Million – The Israelis and the Holocaust p.44).You will note the term ‘human material’ because this is how the Zionist movement saw Jews. As fodder for their racial project.

7.           Ha'avara was signed in August 1933, five months later. Why did the Nazis agree to it? Quite simply because it was seen as the only way to destroy a Boycott that was aimed at toppling the Nazi regime in its infancy. Correspondence between Heinrich Wolff, the German consul in Palestine, and the Foreign Ministry showed that destroying the boycott was the main reason for the Nazis’ agreeing to Ha'avara. [Yfaat Weiss, The Transfer Agreement and the Boycott Movement, p.2.]This was the real crime of the Zionist movement that Renton and you defend.

8.           Edwin Black, a Zionist historian, wrote that Ha’avara was ‘a reprieve for the Third Reich, a let-up in the anti-German offensive… (it) could not have come at a more decisive moment.’ For Hitler that is. [The Transfer Agreement, pp. p.213].

9.           German Zionism at the time represented just 2% of German Jews. They were considered the volkish Jews and were termed by some as Hitlerjuden.

10.      Far from rescuing German Jews, Ha’avara condemned them to Auschwitz. As Boris Vladeck, Editor of Forward and the Jewish Labour Committee said, in a debate with Berl Locker of the Zionist Executive,

The whole organized labor movement and the progressive world are waging a fight against Hitler through the boycott. The Transfer Agreement scabs on that fight.’

Vladeck contended that

The main purpose of the Transfer is not to rescue the Jews from Germany but to strengthen various institutions in Palestine.’

He termed Palestine ‘the official scab agent against the boycott in the Near-East’.

Elie Wiesel, an Auschwitz survivor and an ardent Zionist apologist, was nonetheless a forthright critic of the Zionist record during the Holocaust. He wrote:

Surely, Jewish Palestine... needed money to finance its development, but this brazen pragmatism went against the political philosophy of a majority of world Jewry. There developed a growing perception that instead of supporting and strengthening the boycott, Palestine was, in fact, sabotaging it. [ ‘The Land That Broke Its Promise : The Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holocaust,’ LA Times, 23.5.93.  https://tinyurl.com/nx2sd74c ]

11.       According to Renton’s nuanced poisonous book, Wiesel was accusing the Jews of murdering themselves. Yet it was the Zionist Executive itself that declared that Ha’avara was ‘the sole way of bringing into Palestine the maximum amount of German Jewish capital.’[Jewish Chronicle 13.12.35] It was Zionist activists who spoke of ‘saving the wealth’ and ‘rescuing the capital from Nazi Germany.’  [Black pp. 257-8]

12.      Yet when Karl Sabbagh suggested that the Zionists were concerned, not with saving Jewish lives but Jewish wealth, Renton accused him of ‘falling into old ideas of Jewish perfidy.’ This is of course anti-Semitic since it conflates Zionism with all Jews. Zionism was a Quisling Jewish movement. Yet out of ignorance or worse your review doesn’t have a word of criticism for Renton’s book.

13.      Renton writes that ‘‘the pact saved 53,000 lives.’ No it didn’t. Most German Jews came to Palestine with ordinary immigration certificates. About 20,000 came under Ha’avara. To qualify they had to have £1,000 in cash and in practice at least another £1000 in frozen RMs. In other words they were the richest Jews who could have found safety elsewhere. What Ha’avara did was to sacrifice the poor Jews for the rich Jews. It also guaranteed the stability of the Nazi regime at a time when it was weakest. If the Boycott hadn’t been destroyed by Ha’avara it is possible that millions of Jews would not have perished. Anyone who defends Ha’avara really is a racist and a reactionary.

14.      According to Renton, Livingstone was ‘finding excuses to blame the victims.’ He was suggesting that Jews had contributed to the holocaust. This atrocious lie, anti-Semitic in itself, is the defence of Zionist apologists have today for their abysmal record in the 1930s and you, out of ignorance or worse, defend it as ‘nuanced’. Quite unbelievable.

15.      Rabbi Joachim Prinz, a leader of the German Zionist Federation, and later President of the American Jewish Congress admitted that:

It was morally disturbing to seem to be considered as the favoured children of the Nazi Government, particularly when it dissolved the anti-Zionist youth groups, and seemed in other ways to prefer the Zionists. The Nazis asked for a ‘more Zionist behaviour. [Lenni Brenner, 51 Documents, p. 101]

Rabbi Jacob Bernard Agus went even further and asked if

the Zionist programme and philosophy contribute(d) decisively to the enormous catastrophe of the extermination of 6 million Jews by the Nazis by popularizing the notion that the Jews were forever aliens in Europe?['Meaning of Jewish History', New York, 1963 Vol 2 p.447]

Zionist historians Lucy Dawidowicz and Francis Nicosia described how, in May 1935 Schwarze Korps, newspaper of the SS, wrote that

‘the Zionists adhere to a strict racial position and by emigrating to Palestine they are helping to build their own Jewish state.... The assimilation-minded Jews deny their race and insist on their loyalty to Germany or claim to be Christians because they have been baptised in order to subvert National Socialist principles.’[Randolph Braham, The Politics of Genocide – The Holocaust in Hungary, p. 484]

Nicosia, Professor of Holocaust Studies at Vermont University, spoke of the ‘illusory assumption’ that Zionism ‘must have been well served by a Nazi victory’. Hitler’s victory ‘could only bolster Zionist fortunes.’ [Nicosia, The Yishuv and the Holocaust, p. 534]

So positive was its assessment of the situation that, as early as April 1933, the ZVfD announced its determination to take advantage of the crisis to win over the traditionally assimilationist German Jewry.[Nicosia, Zionism & Anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany, p.146.]

And this was true. The Zionist leadership in Palestine was positively enthusiastic. Berl Katznelson, David Ben Gurion’s effective deputy, saw the rise of Hitler as “an opportunity to build and flourish like none we have ever had or ever will have”. [Ibid. p.91] Ben Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel, was even more enthusiastic: ‘The Nazis’ victory would become “a fertile force for Zionism.”’[Segev, The Seventh Million, p.18]

David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first Prime Minister who made it explicitly clear that the Jewish State was more important than the Jews

Ben Gurion’s official biographer, Shabtai Teveth wrote that

If there was a line in Ben-Gurion’s mind between the beneficial disaster and an all-destroying catastrophe, it must have been a very fine one. [Shabtai Teveth, Ben-Gurion – The Burning Ground, p.851]

Etan Bloom in his PhD thesis at Tel Aviv University quoted Emil Ludwig. the world famous biographer, as saying that:

‘Hitler will be forgotten in a few years, but he will have a beautiful monument in Palestine.You know, the coming of the Nazis was rather a welcome thing. … Thousands who seemed to be completely lost to Judaism were brought back to the fold by Hitler, and for that I am personally very grateful to him.’ [Arthur Ruppin and the Production of the  Modern Hebrew Culture, p.417, see alsohttps://tinyurl.com/y4bqt3wf]

The Zionist national poet Chaim Nachman Bialik volunteered that ‘Hitler has perhaps saved German Jewry, which was being assimilated into annihilation.’ [op cit. 415, 417]This was somewhat ironic given what happened.

But it is in discussing Chris Williamson’s suspension that Renton excels himself. He writes:

At its heart were complaints that he had used his social media account to promote the standing of other people who had been accused of antisemitism.

This is just a bare faced lie. Chris was suspended because of the distortion of his speech to Sheffield Momentum which was twisted into its opposite.

What is curious though is that Renton rejoined the SWP despite them promoting the anti-Semite Gilad Atzmon. He has given no reason for this and one suspects that his current enthusiasm for fighting ‘anti-Semitism’ owes more to his shift to the right than any genuine commitment.Renton deals abysmally with the long-erased mural by Mear One that was resurrected in 2018 by Luciana Berger writing that

The most important step in the re-emergence of Labour antisemitism crisis was the re-discovery that, several years before, Corbyn had supported an artist Mear One (Kalen Ockerman) after his mural was effaced for its antisemitic associations.

This mural was not an innocent discovery. It had been held in reserve in order to attack Corbyn at an opportune moment. But Renton, who ruled out the involvement of state forces in the confected ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign, shows his mettle when he writes that the far-right Stephen Pollard, the editor of the Jewish Chronicle, was ‘a journalist who is cited several times in this book for the care he took to expose left-wing antisemitism’. Unbelievable that a founder member of the Henry Jackson Society and a defender of Michal Kaminski, a prominent fascist member of the European parliament, who spent his youth in neo-Nazi groups, could be so described. Leaving aside all the 4 successful libel actions and IPSOS judgments against the JC. If you really think that Renton’s book is ‘nuanced’ then that says more about you than the book.

Renton also attacks Jewish Voice for Labour:

The problem in leaning on JVL to provide an objective view of the crisis was that no matter how bad the allegations were, it always found a way to excuse those who were criticised: each of Walker, Williamson, and Livingstone was defended by JVL.

This is a calumny. JVL has never defended anyone who was actually anti-Semitic. It’s just that Jackie Walker, Ken Livingstone and Marc Wadsworth weren’t anti-Semites. Something you seem to find difficult to get your head around.

Anti-Semitism in the Labour Party has always been on the right. Genuine anti-Semitism has never been criticised by the JLM/Poale Zion. In October 1942, Herbert Morrison, the wartime Home Secretary, received a delegation of public figures asking for visas for 2,000 Jewish children and elderly in Vichy France. Morrison refused. Anti-Semitism ‘was just under the pavement.’ A month later, the Nazis overran Vichy France and these Jews were deported to Auschwitz. Like the Zionists, Morrison was said to doubt that there was a holocaust.

The Board of Deputies never made any criticism of Morrison because it too didn’t want refugees from Nazi Germany coming to these shores.

The attitude of the Zionists to rescuing Jews was laid down by Ben Gurion when the British proposed the Kindertransport scheme which brought 10,000 German Jewish children to safety in this country. The Zionists opposed it. In a speech to Mapai he said:

‘If I knew that it would be possible to save all the children in Germany by bringing them over to England, and only half of them by transporting them to Eretz Yisrael, then I would opt for the second alternative. For we must weigh not only the life of these children, but also the history of the People of Israel.’[Yoav Gelber, ‘Zionist policy and the Fate of European Jewry,’ Yad Vashem Studies (1939-42) p.199

And how did this ‘nuanced’ book deal with the EHRC Report? Well Renton informed us that

‘The EHRC report did little to convey the extent of antisemitism within the Labour Party.’ In other words, the EHRC findings should have been more critical! Renton fails to mention that the Commissioner who produced the EHRC Report, Alasdair Henderson, tweeted in support of Roger Scruton and attacked the use of the term ‘misogyny’. Henderson is clearly of the far-right.

It was an atrocious book and your review was equally atrocious. It is because of politics such as yours that the Corbyn movement was led to defeat as instead of fighting back against the attempts of the Right to pin the label of ‘anti-Semitism’ on anti-racists they ran with the false narrative. This is what identity politics have done and the Zionist movement knew full well that this accusation would cause havoc on the left.

Today with allegations of ‘anti-Semitism’ being directed at the Amnesty report on Israeli Apartheid it should be clear, even to you, that ‘anti-Semitism’ is a weapon deployed against Israel’s critics.

I have not written this in the expectation of a reply because I know that you have nothing to say on the subject.  It is for the enlightenment of others.

Yours etc.

Tony Greenstein

The time has come for this dysfunctional family to be retired and Britain to become a Democratic Republic

It beggars belief that Andrew Windsor is innocent of the allegations made against him by Virginia Giuffre. Allegations which he strenuously denied in his disastrous interview with Emily Maitlis in November 2019. A child could work out that you don’t pay £10m+ to someone you don’t know.

Rape is having sex without consent.  A 17 year old girl who is being trafficked, i.e. not free to go, is not in a position to give meaningful consent. The question is why the Metropolitan Police haven’t interviewed her. It appears that the Met has a policy for the rich and powerful and another for us.

As I wrote at the time, the interview with Emily Maitlis was in the traditions of the BBC’s sycophantic coverage of all things Royal. It was a soft softball interview. Yet despite the reluctance of Maitlis to pursue obvious lines of inquiry, such as why he had spent 4 days with Jeffrey Epstein at his New York mansion and what he had done during that time, or why he didn’t avail himself of the hospitality of the British Embassy, it was a car crash interview.

The only mitigating factor for Andrew Windsor is that he must be incredibly stupid, even by Royal standards. How could he have ever thought that this interview would clear him? His own press spokesman resigned at the time after his advice had been disregarded. And yet the Queen, who had the power to prohibit the interview, did nothing. Clearly stupidity is a Windsor characteristic. Too much inbreeding!

Windsor’s explanations, his inability to sweat or the outing to the Woking Pizza Express, were widely derided at the time. Clearly his decision to settle, despite his bravado that he was looking forward to giving evidence, reflected the fact that these were brazen and pathetic lies. His assertion that he had benefited from being associated with Epstein caused widespread revulsion but we should bear in mind that standards in the Royal Family are not those of most people nor was it the only time that the Windsors have supported Establishment paedophiles.

Charles Windsor consistently supported Peter Ball, the ex-bishop of Lewes and Gloucester, who was found guilty of sexually assaulting two young men. Ball, was sentenced to 32 months in October 2015 for charges relating to 18 teenagers and young men between the 1970s and 1990s. He admitted one count of misconduct in public office and two counts of indecent assault relating to two young men.

The first police investigation into Ball, who died in June, was launched in 1992.  Despite there being an abundance of evidence to bring the case to trial, it was decided that Ball would get a "police caution" for gross indecency instead. The report found that one of the detectives working on the case was worried about the case going to trial due to Ball's mental state and the "devastating effect" it could have on the Church of England.

There was also an understanding that Ball would resign from his post, which he did. But just four months later, the then-Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, wrote to Ball about planning his "cautious return to ministry." Less than two years later, he was back to work with "no restrictions"— and was even allowed to be around children and young people unsupervised.

As a result of publicitya second police investigation was launched in 2012, which resulted in Ball pleading guilty three years later to misconduct in public office and indecent assault and abusing a total of 18 teens and young men over a period of 15 years. He was released from prison in February 2017, after serving half of his 32-month sentence.

The scandal involving Charles Windsor arose as a result of his relationship with Ball between the first police investigation and Ball being reinstated in the church.

Windsor was among the many influential people in the UK that Ball formed friendships with, including Margaret Thatcher, senior judges, and headmasters at private schools, according to The Guardian.

He also is said to have often preached at Sandringham, one of the royal family's private estates.

In August 1994, Charles Windsor sent his private secretary to Lambeth Palace to inquire about Ball's status to the Archbishop's top aide. When he learned that Ball had still not been cleared to return to ministry in February 1995, he wrote to Ball saying "I wish I could do more."

"I feel so desperately strongly about the monstrous wrongs that have been done to you and the way you have been treated. It's appalling that the archbishop has gone back on what he told me, before Xmas, that he was hoping to restore you to some kind of ministry in the church. I suspect you are absolutely right — it is due to fear of the media,"

Charles wrote, in one of the many letters exchanged during their two-decade correspondence.

He even bought Ball a house to live in, using the Duchy of Cornwall (our money!) to purchase the property and then renting it out to Ball and his twin brother from 1995 to 2011.

An independent inquiry criticizes the Prince of Wales

After Ball's conviction, an independent inquiry into child abuse was launched into how the case was handled.

When the panel published their report they said "the actions of the Prince of Wales were misguided". In other words a slap on the wrist.

His actions, and those of his staff, could have been interpreted as expressions of support for Peter Ball and, given the Prince of Wales' future role within the Church of England, had the potential to influence the actions of the Church,

while Windsor said he

took no position on Peter Ball's return to ministry, he and his private secretary enquired about Peter Ball within Lambeth Palace. He should have recognized the potential effect that his apparent support for Peter Ball could have had upon decision-making within Lambeth Palace,"

But this should not be any surprise. The Queen herself has maintained close relations with the most abominable of her relations abroad such as King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa of Bahrain. As the Guardian reported in May 2019

The king regularly attends the prestigious five-day Royal Windsor horse show, which is a highlight in the Queen’s year. Pictures on Friday showed him meeting the British monarch and Prince Andrew, with the two heads of state laughing together as they watched the event.

Such is the closeness of the two monarchs that they have gifted each other horses from their respective stables; the king providing two to the Queen in 2013. The British monarch responded in 2017, giving him a horse in return.

The King maintains a veritable dictatorship in Bahrain which Britain has supplied with over £100 million of arms since 2011. Bahrain is a Sunni dictatorship ruling over a majority Shia population. The Arab Spring demonstrations in 2011 were met with murderous repression including Saudi Arabia despatching troops to put it down.

Doctors and nurse tending the wounded were themselves tortured. A report here gives further details on the unsavoury relations of the Queen

Elizabeth Windsor and the Sultan of Brunei

In May 2012 the Queen hosted a gathering of her unsavoury relations such as the Sultan of Brunei who introduced a law that included stoning to death for gays and those who commit adultery. It was only under heavy pressure that he was forced not to implement them (though one can never be sure).

So Andrew is not the Black Sheep of his family. Far from it. He is just the most stupid and brazen of the Windsors, a dysfunctional and parasitic family.

It is not however a question of the personal inadequacies of this inbred family. It is a question of democracy. No one would ever suggest that we should appoint hereditary mathematicians or poets. Why then do we still have hereditary heads of state?

The slavish loyalty of the BBC and unprincipled politicians like Starmer and Johnson to the monarchy has nothing to do with the ‘good’ job that Elizabeth Windsor performs. It has everything to do with the important political role that the monarchy plays in legitimising the British state. They are the symbol of the British state and the armed forces swear their allegiance, not to the people of Britain but the Queen in state.

As such the monarchy is a perpetual threat to democracy. If Corbyn had become Prime Minister, despite the hostility of the British Establishment and the threats of unnamed Generals, then it is quite feasible that a coup would have been launched, as it has in other countries, in the name of the Monarch.

The political function of the Royals is to serve as the icing on a poisonous cake. They represent the heart of an undemocratic state, with its unelected Lords. They are the face of privilege and perform the role of binding together the nation in obeisance to a myth. However rich or poor you are you can always identify with the ‘Royals’. The slavish and gushing coverage in the tabloid press aims at making them appear ‘human’ and one of us.

I prefer the advice of the revolutionary poet Percy Shelley who wrote in his Philosophical View of Reform (1820) that ‘Monarchy is only the string which ties the robber’s bundle.’  It is as true now as it was 200 years ago.

Tony Greenstein

 Jenni Frazer of the Jewish News/Times of Israel Compares Me to Netanyahu no less!

Browsing the Internet I came across a poisonous little article on Jewish News/Times of Israel blog. It was from a Jewish Chronicle ‘journalist’. Two lost Jews with egotistical senses of self and rightness

Frazer was comparing me with Netanyahu no less!  But she made it clear ‘that in criticising Netanyahu I do not question his true and lasting love of Israel. I just question his methodology.’ Phew! That’s alright then. After all I am an ‘an egregious and avid Jewish antisemite’ Frazer then continues:

‘In deepest Brighton, meanwhile, there is moaning from Greenstein, whose Crowdfunder appeal for his book, Zionism during the Holocaust, was abruptly terminated by the web platform after only two days of fundraising, in which £710 was raised towards a potential £6,500. [clearly they must have been monitoring it closely]

I must say that even if Greenstein had not, as an undischarged bankrupt, breached the Crowdfunder guidelines (although this has not been spelled out), the book does honestly just sound dreadful. It is, he boasts, “550 pages and some 190,000 words” long, and in a way I think anyone who is prepared to pay for it to be published ought to be condemned to read it on a weekly basis.

A martyred Greenstein blames “the Zionist bookburners” for the demise of his Crowdfunder appeal, asking: “What is the difference between Joseph Goebbels and the Zionist lobby? Answer: Goebbels burnt books after they were printed. The Zionists try to burn the books before they are printed”. Gosh, how witty. [thank you Jenny – that’s the nearest thing to a compliment!]

But Phoenix Greenstein is determined to rise again, and is now soliciting individual donations “if you want to help defeat the Zionist Censorship Machine”. Anyone who is the least bit tempted ought perhaps to know that disgraced former MP Chris Williamson, who was suspended from Labour over allegations of antisemitism (and then resigned from the party before he was expelled) is an admirer of Greenstein’s and has urged people to donate.’

Ah yes, if Chris Williamson supports my book, then it is undoubtedly anti-Semitic. After all where would a good Zionist be without a dose of McCarthyism.

Meanwhile over on Twitter Stephane Savary, a member of the racist Jewish Labour Movement, in response to a question ‘Did someone complain’ had a one word answer ‘yes’.

Unfortunately or maybe fortunately, for me anyway, the Zionist book burners are nothing if not stupid. When I set up the fundraiser I knew that it would attract Zionist detreitus much like wasps to honey. So when the first contributions came in I immediately contacted all donors telling them that the Crowdfunder was going to be taken down and giving them 3 alternative methods of donating. That way I lost virtually nothing.

In addition when I publicised what had happened lots of people were, quite rightly outraged, at this contempt for free speech and the spinelessness of these commercial organisation who back down immediately. I have just sent a Subject Access Request into Crowdfunder to find out more about the complaints.

I have also sent a letter in response to the article by Jennie Frazer to Jewish News and the Times of Israel. I don’t expect them to publish it because after all Zionists by definition don’t believe in free speech.

However I have quoted from one of the few genuine Zionist heroes of the Holocaust, Hayka Klinger. In my book I tell the story of the desperate attempts of the Zionist movement in Palestine to get the young Zionists to abandon the Polish Jewish masses and get out to Palestine. To their credit they refused to abandon their people.  In other words they fought the Nazis, alongside the anti-Zionist Bund, despite not because of their Zionism.

Meanwhile, if you would like to contribute to the crowdfunder and give a poke in the eye to Frazer and her fellow bookburners the details are below.

I have paid the publishers the initial sum, in addition to paying for the design of a cover (having abandoned the first attempt!) as well as incidentals such as for copyrighted photos etc.

I intend to buy 1,000 paper backs and 100 hardbacks so that if the Zionists do attempt to put pressure on the publisher once they discover their identity it will be to no avail.  I have since had offers from other publishers anyway if the worst comes to the worst although Pluto Press and Verso can hang their heads in shame.

The book is coming along. It has been submitted for typesetting but that may take from 8-12 weeks I am informed and I need to index and go through it one final time, so I ask people to be patient!

Anyway read Frazer’s article.  It really is a treat! 

Tony Greenstein

If you would like to make a donation you can do it by the following means:

1.               You can send me a cheque made out to ‘Brighton and Hove Unemployed Workers Centre at PO Box 173, Brighton BN51 9EZ

2.               You can send a donation to me at Paypal at tonygreenstein111@gmail.com

3.               You can pay by BACS to:

Name of Account:          Brighton and Hove Unemployed Workers Centre (if your bank’s software says it doesn’t recognise the account proceed anyway!)

Account Number:          04094107

Sort Code:                         09-01-50

Reference:                       BOOK (really important!)

editorial@jewishnews.co.uk, info@jewishnews.co.uk

Two lost Jews with egotistical senses of self and rightness

Dear Jewish News and Times of Israel,

I have just had my attention drawn to a blog article Two lost Jews with egotistical senses of self and rightnessby Jenni Frazer. Its reference to me as 'an egregious and avid Jewish antisemite’ is defamatory but malicious.

I spent half my life fighting anti-Semites, be they of the National Front and BNP (when the Board of Deputies was telling Jews to ignore them and they'll go away) or people like Gilad Atzmon.

I realise that you are subject to no press regulator, not even the toothless IPSO, and can therefore print whatever you wish, however untrue, without fearing any adverse judgment from an independent body. However I also hope that you retain at least a residual sense of fairness and ethics and that you will accept that natural justice demands a right of reply.

I also realise that in the eyes of the Zionist movement and its propaganda outlets, of which the Jewish News is one, anyone who is an anti-racist and opponent of Zionism and Israeli Apartheid is an 'anti-Semite' thus rendering the term 'anti-Semite' totally meaningless.

I am proud to stand alongside Roger Waters, Hannah Arendt, Desmond Tutu and Emma Watson. 'Anti-Semite' today is a term of abuse that racists hurl at anti-racists.

In her blog Jenni Frazer says of my forthcoming book Zionism During the Holocaust'that it 'does honestly just sound dreadful.'  Since Ms Frazer has not read my manuscript I can't imagine how she can form such an opinion.

I do though understand her fears.  Any honest appraisal of the Zionist record during the Holocaust cannot help but reach the conclusion that their record was dreadful.

However my views are also shared by most honest Zionist historians themselves. For example the late Professor Robert Wistrich of Tel Aviv University, who was an ardent Zionist historian, when referring to criticism of the play Perdition, condemned ‘as unwise’ the attacks on it as anti-Semitic. Wistrich held that  

the entire Jewish leadership of that generation – including the Zionists – failed the test of the times.

 Wistrich conceded that

the major priority of the Zionist movement at the time was indeed building Palestine’

and that the Holocaust took second place. He accepted that

a reasonable case’ can be made that Zionists did not fight anti-Semitism before 1939 ‘with the appropriate vigour’ and further ‘that some Zionists wanted to develop a ‘special relationship’ with the Nazis…. To deny these points… is not only stupid but unnecessary.’ [Wistrich, 'Between Redemption & Perdition: Modern Antisemitism and Jewish Identity, p. 244. Routledge 1990, https://tinyurl.com/y76gdvda]

Even the late Elie Wiesel, himself an Auschwitz survivor, who I assume even Jenni Frazer wouldn't  dare call an anti-Semite, was scathing in his criticism of the Zionist record during the Holocaust, writing that:

''We know that Zionist leader Itzhak Gruenbaum, a future Minister of the Interior in David ben Gurion’s first cabinet, considered creating new settlements more urgent than saving Jews from being sent to Treblinka and Birkenau.' [Review: ‘The Land That Broke Its Promise : The Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holocaust,’ LA Times, 23.5.93]

I realise that 'anti-Semite' is the standard response to anyone who dares to ask questions about for example  Ben Gurion’s response to the Kindertransport scheme that the British agreed to.

If I knew that it would be possible to save all the children in Germany by bringing them over to England, and only half of them by transporting them to Eretz Yisrael, then I would opt for the second alternative. For we must weigh not only the life of these children, but also the history of the People of Israel. [Yoav Gelber, ‘Zionist policy and the Fate of European Jewry,’ Yad Vashem Studies (1939-42) p.199;

However silencing the truth rarely succeeds. Why is this important? Because Zionism has not changed its spots. Today the best friends of Israel are anti-Semites and anti-Semitic regimes, from Donald Trump and Tommy Robinson to Bolsonaro to Hungary’s Viktor Orban.

Between 1976 and 1983 the Argentinian Junta murdered 3,000 Jews, approximately 10% of those who it ‘disappeared’. What was Israel’s response?  To sell the Junta vast quantities of weapons and providing training to the very people murdering Argentina’s Jews. Israel became Argentina’s main arms supplier.

Israel not only refused to even mention the anti-Semitism of this neo-Nazi Junta but the Knesset refused to discuss the situation until a group of MKs, ranging from Yossi Sarid of the left to Geula Cohen on the right petitioned the Supreme Court.  And that debate took place 6 months before the demise of the regime.

I have no doubt that were a similar situation to occur today neither Israel’s behaviour nor the response of the Board of Deputies would be one whit different.  A regime which murdered and tortured Jews would be a semi-fascist regime that would be in the orbit of US imperialism and thus a friend of Israel.

Even as I speak Israel is supplying the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion in the Ukraine with weapons and training.

However my book is balanced. I have dedicated it to the fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto, anti-Zionist and Zionist. But I also point out that the Zionist partisans were instructed from Jerusalem not to take part and instead flee for the real fight in Palestine.

Hayka Klinger was one such person. When she reached Palestine, having escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto, she was scathing about the Zionist record in Europe where two-thirds of the Judenrat were Zionists. She told Histadrut’s Executive Committee that:

precisely because those who stood at the head of most of the communities were Zionists, the psychological effects on most of the Jewish masses vis-à-vis the Zionist idea was devastating, and the hatred towards Zionism grew day by day... One bright day we will need to try these people. It must be said clearly and publicly that many Zionists betrayed [their people]

Dan Porat wrote that

Members of the Zionist movement, Klinger believed, played a disproportionately large role in the leadership of European Jews under the Nazis. According to one postwar survey, two-thirds of such leaders were members of a Zionist party. As a result of their relatively greater numbers, Zionists also carried a greater burden of responsibility for the betrayal of their people, as many of them she suggested, had collaborated with the Nazis. [Dan Porat, Bitter Reckoning: Israel Tries Holocaust Survivors as Nazi Collaborators. https://tinyurl.com/4phxsxxj]

I am therefore asking for a right of reply, knowing full well that Zionism and free speech go together like oil and water.

Regards,

Tony Greenstein 

A Boy of 17 with autoimmune disease is detained without trial indefinitely – an 80 year old man is beaten, blindfolded and left to freeze to death

If only Amal Nakhleh had been born Jewish then instead of occupying a cold cell he would be in an Israeli hospital receiving treatment for autoimmune disease. As it is he has been classified by the Israeli military and Shin Bet as a threat to Israeli security and that has meant his being held under Administrative Detention, or in plain language imprisonment without trial.

Of course, as even Corbyn accepted, Israel has an independent judiciary.  So independent that they have a policy of never contradicting the army or police when it comes to ‘security’. So that the obvious injustice and absurdity of an ill 17 year old being a threat to the settler state’s ‘security’ is never challenged or questioned.

Internment without trial, as in Ireland, is always the last resort of the occupying colonial power, except in Israel’s case it is the first resort. It is true that the case against him was so thin that he was released by 2 Israeli military judges, in itself highly unusual in a ‘court’ system that convicts 99.7% of those who come before it.  But don’t worry, such was the threat that this sick boy posed to the mighty Israeli state that Israel’s Shin Bet, an internal security police and MI5 rolled into one (very much like the Nazi SD (Sicherheitsdienst) immediately locked him up anyway and literally threw away the key.

Amal Nakhleh. Credit: Photo reproduction: Alex Levac

Of course it’s not racist what has happened and if you say it is then you will be a prime candidate for expulsion from Sir Keith’s Labour Party. Because under the IHRAmisdefinition of anti-Semitism, calling Israel what it is, a racist state (or endeavour to use their quaint language), is ‘anti-Semitic.’ It really doesn’t matter whether or not it is true , the fact is that it is anti-Semitic!

However we won’t dwell any longer on Amal as he has been born into the wrong tribe and there really is nothing that can be done about that. One thing is certain. You cannot change your ‘race’ which is why Israel’s Conversion Authority refuseson principle to allow Palestinians to convert to Judaism.

This is much the same as in Nazi Germany where once a Jew always a Jew even if you converted to Christianity. Hence why that hybrid creature, the Jewish Christian was born.

Then there is Omar Abdalmajeed As'ad who was bound, beaten and tossed to the ground, much as if he was a farm animal. And here I ask you to sympathise, not with Omar, because he’s dead, but the soldiers whose treatment led to his death. 

You would have to have a heart of stone not to understand their plight. Normally when soldiers kill a Palestinian, there is a formal ‘investigation’ (if that’s the right word) and then the army announce that the soldiers were defending themselves.

So it was no surprise when a military report said that none of the troops involved “would be indicted, nor have they been suspended.”

The building in Jiljilya where Omar Abdalmajeed As’ad died. Credit: Alex Levac

It quoted military lawyers representing the soldiers as saying As’ad had been “lawfully detained during the operation in accordance with procedures” and “his death is not related to the conduct of the military force”

But then news got out that Omar also had dual American citizenship and that is when things began to go wrong, well not that wrong. The military had then to conduct a slightly more serious ‘investigation’ which found, under American pressure, that what happened was ‘serious and unfortunate’.

Indeed it was ‘a moral failure and a failure of judgment and severely harms human dignity” Indeed senior officers told Ha’aretzthat the soldiers “didn't see a human being in front of them”. One might ask when did the Israeli military see Palestinians as human beings but I refrain from doing so for fear of being accused of ‘anti-Semitism’.

Strong words indeed. So strong and serious that one commander will be rebuked, and two subordinate company and platoon commanders will be immediately dismissed. Of course there is no question that they will be arrested and charged with murder or at the very least gross negligence manslaughter. After all Omar was, when all is said and done, a Palestinian and therefore a threat to ‘security’.

Omar is dead so there really is no point in crying over spilt milk (or blood). The soldiers concerned were all haredi, i.e. ultra orthodox and according to the Talmud, a non-Jewish life is not worth the same as a Jewish life.

Of course these ancient rules had long ago fallen out of use before the Israeli state came on the scene. And then they were resurrected in order to legitimise Israel’s colonial practices. Because you can’t argue with God can you?

You will, I hope, sympathise with the poor and unfortunate soldiers. How were they to know that a Palestinian they were killing had dual nationality? It was not as if he was carrying his passport. Anyway he didn’t look like an American. He wasn’t even White. Secondly he didn’t at any stage tell them he was an American. How were these soldiers to know that? All in all it is an unfortunate accident.

You can see, I hope the point I am making. In 99.99% of times no one would have said anything. Ayelet Shaked, the Interior Minister would have describedthem as the ‘salt of the earth’. Prime Minister Bennet would have railed anyone who dared criticise the ‘defensive bulwark’ that the IDF provides. This is really a tragedy of immense proportions.

Because of an accident of birth and circumstances, three Israelis face having their futures tarnished. Two have already been dismissed from the army, which is a disgrace in Israel (although they can expect to be readmitted when the fuss dies down). Some people, god forbid, not satisfied with this punishment are asking for their pound of flesh and for them to be brought before a court.

I am sure you will agree that in the circumstances these young men have already been punished enough for a mistake that was in no way their fault. And if anyone suggests otherwise then they too are anti-Semitic, as my good friend, that friend of Israeli child abuse, Louise Ellman will confirm.

Fortunately in Israel we have no problem with this incessant anti-Semitism that is taking over our lives because as Emily Thornberry once proclaimed Israel is a ‘beacon of light and democracy.’

Below are 2 articles describing the events above in more detail.

Tony Greenstein

For Over a Year, Israel Has Jailed a Palestinian Teen With a Rare Disease. There's No Trial in Sight

Ha’aretz 11.2.22.

Two Israeli military judges have ordered Amal Nakhleh's release, but the larger predatory system has insisted on keeping him jailed

Amal Nakhleh and his father Muammar, during better times.

Credit: Photo reproduction: Alex Levac

Gideon Levy, Alex Levac

Feb. 11, 2022

What do the Shin Bet security service and the Israel Defense Forces have against a teenager in high school, whose father says he doesn’t know the difference between ideology and biology, who suffers from a rare autoimmune disease and who in 2020 underwent surgery to remove a tumor from his chest? Why do they imprison him repeatedly, without trial, without an indictment, without any consideration for his age or his health?

No one knows what the suspicions are against Amal Nakhleh, who was in the 11th grade at the time of his first and second arrests, whose father is the director general of a broadcasting company in Ramallah and whose mother is a gynecologist in the Jalazun refugee camp, near that same city. Not does anyone know how long the teenager will remain in prison – apparently for stone throwing. Two Israeli military judges have already ordered his release after examining the security information in his case, but the larger predatory system has insisted on keeping him jailed, and to that end, has issued an administrative detention order – incarceration without trial; arbitrary and unconstitutional – that is renewed every few months. That has happened several times so far, and the end is not necessarily looming on the horizon.

As if his disease and the operation he underwent weren’t enough, last week Nakhleh also fell ill with COVID-19 and was taken to the hospital in Ramle Prison. He can’t be vaccinated, because of his immunosuppressive disorder. He was returned to his cell earlier this week.

Amal will turn 18 next week. His current administrative detention is due to end in mid-May, though it might be extended again. His father, a Ramallah resident, is the head of the Wattan Media Network, which employs about 100 journalists. In the organization’s headquarters, high up in an office tower in the heart of the city, the staff was busy this week preparing a campaign supporting a one-state solution. In the past, the Israel Defense Forces raided the company’s offices and studios several times – most recently in 2012 – carrying off equipment that was never returned.

Muammar Nakhleh, 50, a journalist, lawyer and left-wing activist, has two children. Osama, now almost 19, was arrested for the first time at the age of 13 and spend two years of his life behind bars. Amal has now been incarcerated for a total of 14 months. Their parents are divorced, and the sons divide their time between their mother, Iman, in Jalazun, and their father, in Ramallah.

Amal was first arrested in November 2020, while he was on his way home from shopping in the new Palestinian city of Rawabi, north of Ramallah. He was held in custody for 40 days on suspicion of stone throwing, until military youth court judge Lt. Col. Sharon Keinan ordered his release on bail. The military prosecution appealed the decision, but meanwhile, on December, 10 another military court judge, Lt. Col. Yair Tirosh, dismissed the gravity of the classified evidence presented to him and also ordered Amal’s immediate release. On January 21, 2021, however, Amal was rearrested, with no explanation. A few days later, reserve military court judge Shimon Ashual approved the request – submitted by Col. Naama Rosen Grimberg, an intelligence officer in Central Command – to issue a six-month administrative detention order against Amal.

When Amal was 15, a benign tumor was discovered in his thymus gland, below the breastbone. A few months later, a Ramallah hospital recommended that he undergo surgery in Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem or in the city’s St. Joseph Hospital. His father was unable to obtain an entry permit to Israel for him, but Amal and his father succeeded in getting to the hospital by other means, and he underwent surgery there.

A few days after being released from the hospital Amal was arrested at the Atara checkpoint when leaving Rawabi. A few weeks after he was released, a Palestinian intelligence official called his father and told him to report to them urgently with his son. Muammar Nakhleh said he would produce his son the following day. Two hours later, Palestinian intelligence called again: “Where are you? Get here immediately. The Israelis are going to kidnap Amal.” Amal was then questioned by Palestinian investigators. He was asked about stone throwing at the Beit El settlement and about some of his Facebook posts, and was freed after an hour. That same night, Israeli troops arrested Amal at his mother’s home in Jalazun. Since January 21, 2021, he has been in prison.

Amal told his father that he was incarcerated because of his “biological thoughts.” Muammar says he meant his “ideological thoughts.” This week, in his Ramallah office, Muammar mentioned the confusion on his son’s part several times. “He is too childlike to be arrested for dangerous thoughts.”

Amal suffers from a rare autoimmune disease called myasthenia gravis, which affects the connections between muscles and nerves, and can sometimes affect muscles used for breathing and also the limbs. The disease is connected to the tumor in the thymus gland for which Amal had surgery. It’s a chronic, incurable disease, and he requires medicative treatment and constant monitoring.

Muammar Nakhleh, Amal's father, in his office at the Wattan Media Network in Ramallah. "Amal is too childlike to be arrested for dangerous thoughts,” he says.Credit: Alex Levac

Dr. Bettina Birmans, a neurologist at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, examined Amal on June 14, 2021, in Ofer Prison, at the request of the family and the NGO Physicians for Human Rights. She reported that Amal complained of shortness of breath while walking, apparently due to his illness, and recommended an urgent CT scan, because, she wrote, “a considerable possibility exists that there is a malignant growth and precious time should not be wasted.” The scan was carried out on July 22, at Hadassah, and happily no evidence of tumor recurrence was found, as the radiologist, Prof. Dorit Shaham, wrote. According to Amal’s father, stressful situations are harmful to his son’s condition, and cause him to have trouble eating and breathing. His ocular muscles are also affected.

Joint List MKs Aida Touma-Sliman and Ofer Cassif tried to obtain Amal release, due to his condition, via Defense Minister Benny Gantz, and also attempted to ensure that he was receiving his medications. On September 22, 2021, Cassif sent a message to Gantz urging Amal’s release “in light of his medical condition and the danger to his health in conditions of incarceration.” To no avail. His parents worried that he’d contract the coronavirus since he is unvaccinated, and are concerned in general that the tumor will recur. When he indeed fell ill with the virus and was hospitalized in the Ramle Prison, MK Touma-Sliman inquired about his condition in the defense minister’s bureau, as Amal’s parents had no way to communicate with him; she was told he was in good condition. Amal, it bears noting, is still a minor, until next week.

There’s no way of knowing whether he will be released when his current, fourth term of administrative detention ends on May 18. Requests for his release by Palestinian and international human rights groups have also been rejected. “We are holding him for security reasons,” was the response they got. Every attempt to find out what security dangers justify such a lengthy, arbitrary detention, why this high-schooler is not being placed on trial if he is so dangerous, and what will become of these dangers when he is released one day – all these questions have gone unanswered. Indeed queries like those never get a response in cases of administrative detention, even when minors are involved.

The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit this week responded to Haaretz’s query on the subject as follows: “Amal Nakhleh was arrested by the security forces on suspicion of involvement in terrorist activity. After information was collected about him which showed involvement in military activities, dealings with weapons and participation in public terror activities, an order for his administrative detention was issued that was extended from time to time in light of his danger to the region’s security. The present detention order is valid until May 2022. All the orders, including the present one, were examined and authorized by the military court.

“In the deliberations relating to the judicial review of administrative detention, the court examines all the pertinent data in the matter, including every medical document presented to it, and weighs medical and other circumstances within the framework of its decision. We cannot comment on the data here, for reasons of personal privacy, and because the deliberations are held in camera.”

 The Ofer Prison, where Anal Nakhleh is jailed. Credit: Meged Gozani

If the suspicions are indeed so grave, one must ask: Why has this young man not been put on trial?

Amal took his high-school matriculation exams in prison. He was supposed to enter university in the fall. At first, he wanted to study communications, but his father persuaded him to major in political science. “If you have something against him – tell us, tell his lawyer,” Muammar tells us. Iyad Hadad, a friend of the family and a field researcher for the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, adds, “Especially given his age and his medical condition.”

Amal – “hope” in Arabic – was so named when he was born preematurely, in the sixth month of pregnancy. The physicians told his parents that he wouldn’t survive but asked his father to give him a name nonetheless, for the death certificate they would issue. Muammar didn’t hesitate for a second, and named him Amal. Muammar, by the way, is named for Muammar Gadhafi, the former president of Libya; his brothers, too, have the names of Arab leaders.

Amal played on the Palestine children’s soccer team, and before his arrest was set to travel to South Korea with the team. His dream was to get to Barcelona; his hero is Lionel Messi. “His model is not his father or his mother, it’s Messi,” his father says.

Muammar admits that he is not optimistic about his son’s release in May, because when deciding on the last extension the authorities did not specify that it would be the last one. Last week the father was supposed to visit his son in prison, but the visit was canceled in the wake of Amal’s hospitalization with the coronavirus. During the year in which the young man has been imprisoned, Muammar has been permitted to visit him only twice.

On Sunday this week, Muammar met another youth from the Jalazun refugee camp who was incarcerated with Amal and was released. The teenager told him that Amal speaks to God and asks why he disappoints him time after time.

We Will All Die. But Why Like That?'

Details still emerge weeks after Israeli troops violently arrested an 80-year-old Palestinian. Omar Abdalmajeed As'ad was bound, beaten and tossed to the ground. An autopsy found that the brutality he suffered resulted in a fatal heart attack, but arrests are yet to be made

Mamduh Abd A-Rachman, one of the other Palestinians brought to the site where Omar As’ad lost his life. “We’ll all die,” As’ad’s brother says. “But why like that?”Credit: Alex Levac

Jan. 28, 2022

It was a few minutes after 3 A.M. Omar Abdalmajeed As’ad was driving from the home of a friend on the western side of his village to his house, on the eastern side. A few hours earlier he had dropped off his wife at home after they’d gone shopping together and had coffee with friends. At around 10 P.M. he went to visit a friend. Since returning from the United States, 11 years ago, As’ad had been spending a lot of time with childhood friends from the village. They sipped coffee, played cards and talked late into the night, each time at someone else’s house. The night of January 12 was no different. At 3 A.M. he drove home.

On the dark, empty road, he suddenly noticed a few Israel Defense Forces soldiers at the street corner where Ali’s Grocery is located, in the center of town. Jiljilya, located in the Ramallah District and one of the most affluent locales in the West Bank, is replete with palaces. Some of its residents immigrated to the United States years ago, where they prospered and then built themselves mansions back home. A drive around affords quite a spectacle: Houses of marble that look like they’re made of marzipan, each more luxurious than the next, most of them empty, awaiting their owners’ family visits in the summer, or waiting for them to retire.

Omar and his wife Mahani also wanted to grow old together in their village, after they left it for America in 1970. For the first 11 years they lived in Chicago, then they moved to Milwaukee, where they owned a few supermarkets. Mahani is 78, Omar was 80, and they were married for 58 years. They built their home in Jiljilya 15 years ago – a relatively modest residence compared to most of the other neighboring villas. They lived there alone: Their five daughters, two sons and their grandchildren remained in America. Everyone in the family, including the grandparents, has U.S. citizenship.

It was very cold, that Wednesday night. The soldiers ordered As’ad to stop. The previous night, too, IDF jeeps had invaded Jiljilya, which is typically one of the quietest locales in the West Bank. Maybe that’s why the fighters from the army’s ultra-Orthodox Netzah Yehuda (“Judah’s Eternity”) Battalion 97 raided it: It’s easy to train, to mete out abuse for no reason, to demonstrate control and power, or just enjoy a break from the routine and the boredom there. This ludicrously named battalion has a rich record of acts of abuse against Palestinians. This time it was the turn of the inhabitants of Jiljilya.

The forces decided to detain without prior warning anyone who dared drive in the street that night. The soldiers claimed afterward, in testimony they gave to the army, that this was the order they had received – from whom it isn’t clear. According to residents, dozens of troops descended on the village that night; five to seven of them manned a makeshift checkpoint they’d erected in town.

An eyewitness, Rada Bakri, 63, who lives above the site where the soldiers positioned themselves, was awake and had read in the social networks that the army had invaded again. He peeked out of the window of his second-floor apartment – according to an account he later gave to Iyad Hadad, the Ramallah District field researcher for the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem – and saw a few soldiers leap into the middle of the road and stop As’ad’s car. Shouts quickly erupted between them and the elderly man who wanted only to get home.

After about five minutes a soldier opened the door of the vehicle and forcibly removed the driver, according to Bakri. The soldiers shackled his hands with black plastic handcuffs, later found at the place where he died, blindfolded him and stuffed pieces of flannelette into his mouth.

About 120 meters separate the spot where As’ad was initially detained and the place where the soldiers force-marched or dragged him. That occurred along the dirt path that leads to the new mansion of Mohammed As’ad, a relative of Omar’s, who also returned, in his case recently, from the United States and is living in Ramallah until his luxurious two-story home will be ready – very soon now. Soldiers had wandered about near the empty structure the night before; on this night they would haul five Palestinians into its marble-floored courtyard.

It was very dark, and eyewitness Bakri still can’t say whether As’ad walked on his own or was dragged by force. As’ad was a heavyset man with a plodding walk, his family related early this week when we visited. They found one of his shoes in his car – meaning that if he was walking, it was with one foot exposed to the wet, cold earth. They added that the soldiers had subjected him to a body search: He was left without a coat, wearing only a shirt and sweater; they stripped off his red keffiyeh, which was found later in a corner of the courtyard.

As’ad would have passed through the stone gate into the courtyard of the imposing new house, with its red-tiled roof and stone pillars in front. There, the soldiers threw him onto the ground, face-down, like one would toss a sack, next to the bags of sand being use in the construction, which are still there. Hadad believes that As’ad died within a short time, perhaps soon after he was hurled to the ground. An 80-year-old man on a frigid night, frightened, humiliated, probably panicked. “Why didn’t they at least allow him to sit, bring him a chair?” mourners asked this week, in the family’s house.

The path down which Omar Abdalmajeed As’ad was dragged or force-marched by Israeli troops.Credit: Alex Levac

In the meantime, a van approached the soldiers’ checkpoint at the bottom of the road, carrying two Palestinian greengrocers who were on their way to the wholesale market in the town of Beita. It was about 3:30 A.M. Mamduh Abd A-Rachman, 52, from the nearby village of Arurah, was in the passenger’s seat. This week he accompanied us to the site where As’ad was taken that night – followed by him and his colleague – in order to reconstruct the elderly man’s last moments.

The soldiers stopped the van and ordered the driver to proceed to the mansion, where the two occupants were told to get out and hand over the keys and their ID cards. They were forced to sit in the courtyard; Abd A-Rachman showed us how he sat on his leg, because the marble was unbearably cold. The two newly snared captives were ordered to sit a few meters apart. They weren’t handcuffed, but a soldier trained his weapon on them. They were told to keep their eyes on the ground. They couldn’t see anything. On the way from the van, Abd A-Rachman said he tried to tell the soldiers that he was ill, but that of course was of no interest to them; they forced his head down and ordered him to shut up.

A large number of soldiers had meanwhile gathered in the courtyard, which had become a temporary detention facility. A few minutes later, two more Palestinians were brought in, also greengrocers on their way to Beita. They too were made to sit on the ground and keep their eyes down. The detainees were seated a few meters apart, apparently to prevent them from mounting an uprising. One of the soldiers now drove As’ad’s car, which had remained at the checkpoint, to the mansion.

And thus they sat, on the cold floor – four living detainees with eyes downcast and one who was most likely dead by that time. They were drowsy and freezing; Abd A-Rachman fell asleep. The four didn’t know that someone had been brought there before them. Abd A-Rachman recalled that at one point he felt that he was touching something, but never imagined it was a dead body, thinking it was one of the bags of sand scattered about. A short time later, two soldiers sat down near Abd A-Rachman. Afterward it would emerge that they had come to remove As’ad’s handcuffs: Apparently they realized he was dead and wanted to get out as fast as possible, while eliminating any evidence.

An autopsy performed this week by three Palestinian physicians, under the auspices of the Palestinian Authority, revealed that As’ad, who had pre-existing health problems, died as a result of a heart attack. The examiners noted that he had received blows to the head and arms and that the blindfold he wore was so tight it caused bleeding. They determined that the reason for death was “a sudden cessation of myocardial activity due to psychological tension brought on by the external violence to which he had been exposed.” Another source added that the initial autopsy findings suggested that As’ad was “severely beaten” and suffered from “rough and violent treatment” – as evidenced by numerous bruises.

The area where Omar Abdalmajeed As’ad's body was found, in Jiljilya.Credit: Alex Levac

The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit issued the usual statement this week: A Military Police investigation is now underway. A spokesperson for Military Defense, which is representing the soldiers, stated: “They [the soldiers] were engaged in operational activity with the aim of preventing terrorism. The Palestinian in question was detained lawfully during the activity in accordance with procedures, in light of his behavior, which endangered the soldiers and the force, and he was released at the conclusion of the activity in sound condition and with no need for medical intervention. The circumstances of his death are not related to the conduct of the military forces.”

While retreating from the courtyard, the soldiers aimed their rifles at the detainees. Abd A-Rachman says he got up to ensure that they were indeed gone, and then noticed something covered up next to him. He was aghast to discover it was a human body. As’ad’s face was covered with some sort of cloth, perhaps the coat he had been stripped of. Abd A-Rachman remembers that he shouted that there was a body, but the others replied that it was probably a sack of cement. “No, it’s a person!” he screamed.

A check of the man’s pulse and breathing revealed that he was lifeless. Within a few minutes the village doctor, who lives several dozen meters from the site, arrived and tried to resuscitate As’ad, but in vain. The group then carried him on a stretcher to the physician’s clinic and administered electric shocks, but to no avail. As’ad was dead. It was 4:09 A.M. The soldiers left the ID cards and car keys they had confiscated on the roof of As’ad’s car, it was later discovered.

In her home in Milwaukee, As’ad’s daughter, Hiba, 32, read on social media that someone from her parents’ village had died. She called the house immediately. Mahani, her mother, awoke in a fright. This week the widow told us tearfully that she was sure her daughter was calling because she had quarreled with her husband. But Hiba asked where her father was. The devastating answer came soon enough. Now Mahani is sitting in her living room in a traditional black dress and weeping. The family has already hired a caregiver for her, as she remains alone in the house.

Two days before As’ad’s death, his younger brother Amer, a 59-year-old gardener with an American accent who lives in Racine, Wisconsin, had arrived in Jiljilya. He hadn’t seen his brother since As’ad left the United States over a decade beforehand and now he had come to visit. Unlike him, As’ad’s children didn’t manage to get to the funeral; since they don’t have Palestinian ID cards, they had to request Israeli visas, which are extremely hard for Palestinians to get.

Since their return, Mahani and Omar had been unable to leave the village: Their old ID cards had been confiscated due to their prolonged absence; even if they had somehow traveled abroad with their U.S. passports, they would not have been allowed to return. Shortly before we arrived this week, the new ID cards they had waited for all these years arrived – but Omar was no longer alive. Amer had only managed to see him briefly before he died.

Mother and brother are sobbing now. “We will all die,” the brother says. “But why like that?”

U.S. Lawmakers Demand Probe Into 80-year-old Palestinian's Death After Israeli Detention

PA officials say Palestinian-American Omar Abdalmajeed As'ad, who previously lived in Wisconsin, had a heart attack after being bound and beaten by Israeli soldiers; the IDF says he had been released much earlier

Men stand next to a poster of Palestinian Omar Abdalmajeed As'ad, 80, in Jiljilya village in the West Bank, on Wednesday. Credit: MOHAMAD TOROKMAN/ REUTERS

Ha’aretz Jan. 15, 2022

U.S. lawmakers are demanding a thorough investigation into the death of an 80-year-old Palestinian-American resident of the West Bank after he was detained by Israeli soldiers.

Palestinian officials say Omar Abdalmajeed As'ad, who previously lived in Milwaukee, was pulled from his car by Israeli forces on his way home in the village of Jiljilya. They allege that the soldiers bound, blindfolded and beat As'ad, who then succumbed to a heart attack in the early morning Wednesday.

As'ad's body was found more than an hour later, according to vegetable seller Mamdouh Elaboud, who said he was himself detained for 20 minutes, then released.

The Israeli military confirmed he had been held by soldiers "after resisting a security inspection," but said he was then released and only later, in the morning, found dead near his village. Israel's military police have launched an investigation into the incident.

Sen. Tammy Baldwin, who represents As'ad's state of Wisconsin, called the incident a "horrible tragedy that demands a thorough investigation." She extended her condolences to his family, "including those in Wisconsin who are mourning this tragic loss and deserve answers." 

Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the lone Palestinian-American serving in Congress, called the circumstances leading to As'ad's death “outrageous” and urged U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to investigate.

Rep. Ilhan Omar shared an Instagram Story regarding the incident, posting "Life taken under the cruelty of occupation. When will these victims get accountability?"

Rep. Betty McCollum, long one of Congress' more outspoken critics of Israel's treatment of Palestinians, called As'ad “another victim of this cruel occupation,” and Rep. Marie Newman, the first-term lawmaker who has quickly fashioned herself into a leading advocate for Palestinians, said she was “deeply disturbed” and echoed the State Department's support of an investigation into the death. 

Rep. Debbie Dingell joined the call for a full and thorough investigation, called the circumstances surrounding his death “gravely concerning.”

The lawmakers' demands come days after State Department spokesperson Ned Price confirmed the United States has been in touch with Israel about As'ad's death.

"We've been in touch with the government of Israel to seek clarification about this incident, [and] the Israeli Defense Forces have indicated there's an ongoing investigation into the matter. And we support a thorough investigation into the circumstances of this incident," Price said.

Only Starmer Could Find Himself to the Right of Boris Johnson with his call to Ban RT

UPDATE

At this point in time it is impossible to know exactly what is happening in Ukraine and the Republics of Lugansk and Donbass. However it appears that Russian troops are confining their presence to the 2 breakaway republics of Donbass and Lugansk with its aircraft taking out Ukraine’s NATO supplied weaponry and air defences. However one thing is crystal clear. The blame for any conflict and armed hostilities lies firmly at the feet of NATO.

For weeks we have speculation about a Russian invasion and false flag operations. A month ago we had a fake story, which the BBC naturally reported on without the slightest query, that Russia was planning to install a pro-Russian regime in Kiev.

It was less than a month ago that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy criticizedthe U.S., saying it was damaging his country’s economy by stoking panic that Russia may be planning an invasion. Biden’s reaction was to increase the war rhetoric. From the very start the United States has wanted a war as part of its global project to impose US hegemony in the world.

The United States economy is geared to war. That is not to excuse Russia’s President Putin who is a right-wing nationalist but it is or should be abundantly clear that Russia’s actions in Ukraine is a response to NATO threats.  It is defensive not offensive.

What is happening now with Russian military intervention in the Donbass and bombing of Ukrainian military positions is a consequence of the determination of the United States and Biden to encircle Russia with NATO bases and NATO aligned countries.

Labour Left Alliance Discussion on the situation in Ukraine

According to the National Security Archive

U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s famous “not one inch eastward” assurance about NATO expansion in his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, was part of a cascade of assurances about Soviet security given by Western leaders to Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification in 1990 and on into 1991, according to declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University (http://nsarchive.gwu.edu).

The idea that Ukraine had some ‘right’ to join NATO, as if joining an anti-Russian military pact is a ‘right’ is absurd. Ukraine has the right to peaceful and secure borders but it has no right to threaten Russia’s security.

Likewise if Ukraine has the right to self-determination then so do the people of the Donbass and Lugansk. After the European Union and United States sponsored coup in Ukraine in 2014, which deposed the elected President Yanukovych, they installed a far-Right regime which immediately attacked the Russian language rights of the Russian speaking people of the Donbass and Lugansk. In 2021 new regulations were introducedmandating the use of Ukrainian. France 24 reported that:

Galyna Lekunova, a veterinarian in the eastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol, was left fuming by a new law in January mandating the use of Ukrainian in the service industry....

"If I work, pay my employees' salaries and my taxes, it's none of your damn business which language I do it in," Lekunova, wearing a floral-patterned apron, told AFP.

Mariupol, which is outside the present breakaway republic of Donbass is a heavily Russian city. It is quite likely, given its situation, that it will be the focus of Russian military action in order to unite it with the Donbass.

As John Pilger wrote in 2015 The rise of fascism is again the issue. He described the absorption of Crimea back into Russia after an overwhelming and free referendum of the people of Odessa.

The Kiev regime turned on the ethnic Russian population in the east with the ferocity of ethnic cleansing. Deploying neo-Nazi militias in the manner of the Waffen-SS, they bombed and laid to siege cities and towns. They used mass starvation as a weapon, cutting off electricity, freezing bank accounts, stopping social security and pensions.

More than a million refugees fled across the border into Russia. In the western media, they became unpeople escaping "the violence" caused by the "Russian invasion". The Nato commander, General Breedlove - whose name and actions might have been inspired by Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove - announced that 40,000 Russian troops were "massing". In the age of forensic satellite evidence, he offered none.

These Russian-speaking and bilingual people of Ukraine - a third of the population - have long sought a federation that reflects the country's ethnic diversity and is both autonomous and independent of Moscow. Most are not "separatists" but citizens who want to live securely in their homeland and oppose the power grab in Kiev. Their revolt and establishment of autonomous "states" are a reaction to Kiev's attacks on them. Little of this has been explained to western audiences.

On May 2, 2014, in Odessa, 41 ethnic Russians were burned alive in the trade union headquarters with police standing by. The Right Sector leader Dmytro Yarosh hailed the massacre as "another bright day in our national history". In the American and British media, this was reported as a "murky tragedy" resulting from "clashes" between "nationalists" (neo-Nazis) and "separatists" (people collecting signatures for a referendum on a federal Ukraine).

The New York Times buried the story, having dismissed as Russian propaganda warnings about the fascist and anti-Semitic policies of Washington's new clients. The Wall Street Journal damned the victims - "Deadly Ukraine Fire Likely Sparked by Rebels, Government Says". Obama congratulated the junta for its "restraint". And as Pilger presciently predicted:

If Putin can be provoked into coming to their aid, his pre-ordained "pariah" role in the West will justify the lie that Russia is invading Ukraine.

It is that which is happening now. There is no invasion of Ukraine as such and there is unlikely to be such an invasion. The people of Donbass and Lugans have long lobbied Russia to incorporate their states into Russia.  When people are oppressed they have the right to secede from the states they are part of.

In 2014 fascists of the Right Sector attackeda trade union building in Odessa burning to death and killing 41 trade unions. Attacks on trade unions are the hallmark of fascists. Dmitry Rogovsky of the Right Sector was clear: "The aim is to completely clear Odessa [of pro-Russians]. They are all paid Russian separatists."

Today we have the neo-Nazi Azov battalion integrated into the Ukrainian national guard and armed and trainedby the United States and British military as well as Israel. See Why is Israel arming Ukraine’s neo-Nazi militias?

You might not believe it but it was less than 2 years ago, when Starmer became leader, that he pledged that there would be

No more illegal wars. Introduce a Prevention of Military Intervention Act and put human rights at the heart of foreign policy. Review all UK arms sales and make us a force for international peace and justice.

Today this liar and his shadow cabinet calls for the closing down on RT, Russia Today, because it is a propaganda station. Even were this true then at least it offers British people an alternative to the BBC, which is the British state’s propaganda arm with its endless series of ‘experts’, all of whom just happen to adopt the US narrative.

Indeed Starmer has managed the feat of being to the right of Boris Johnson who in his response to Sturmer talked about ‘free speech’.  Of course Starmer, having abolished free speech in the Labour Party is intent on abolishing it in the rest of society.

Despite wrapping himself in the Union Jack like the pathetic jingoist that he is, I do not detect much enthusiasm amongst British people for the war in Ukraine. That is why Starmer wants to close down another avenue of information.  Read John Pilger’s articlebelow.

Tony Greenstein

War in Europe and the rise of raw propaganda

By John Pilger| 18 February 2022, 11:00am

Propaganda against Vladimir Putin has given Russia a bad name in the press (Screenshot via YouTube)

Marshall McLuhan’s prophecy that “the successor to politics will be propaganda” has happened.

Raw propaganda is now the rule in Western democracies, especially the U.S. and Britain.

On matters of war and peace, ministerial deceit is reported as news. Inconvenient facts are censored, demons are nurtured. The model is corporate spin, the currency of the age. In 1964, McLuhan famously declared: “The medium is the message”. The lie is the message now.

But is this new? It is more than a century since Edward Bernays, the father of spin, invented “public relations” as a cover for war propaganda. What is new is the virtual elimination of dissent in the mainstream.

The great editor David Bowman, author of The Captive Press, called this “a defenestration of all who refuse to follow a line and to swallow the unpalatable and are brave”. He was referring to independent journalists and whistleblowers, the honest mavericks to whom media organisations once gave space, often with pride. The space has been abolished.

The war hysteria that has rolled in like a tidal wave in recent weeks and months is the most striking example. Known by its jargon, “shaping the narrative”, much, if not most, of it is pure propaganda.

The Russians are coming. Russia is worse than bad. Russian President Vladimir Putin is evil, a Nazi like Hitler, salivated the Labour MP Chris Bryant. Ukraine is about to be invaded by Russia — tonight, this week, next week. The sources include an ex-CIA propagandist who now speaks for the U.S. State Department and offers no evidence of his claims about Russian actions because “it comes from the U.S. Government”.

The no-evidence rule also applies in London. The British Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss, who spent £500,000 (AU$947,767) of public money flying to Australia in a private plane to warn the Canberra Government that both Russia and China were about to pounce,  offered no evidence. Antipodean heads nodded; the “narrative” is unchallenged there. One rare exception, former Prime Minister Paul Keating, called Truss’s warmongering “demented”.

Truss has blithely confused the countries of the Baltic and the Black Sea. In Moscow, she told the Russian Foreign Minister that Britain would never accept Russian sovereignty over Rostov and Voronezh — until it was pointed out to her that these places were not part of Ukraine but in Russia. Read the Russian press about the buffoonery of this pretender to 10 Downing Street and cringe.

This entire farce, recently starring UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson in Moscow playing a clownish version of his hero, Churchill, might be enjoyed as satire were it not for its wilful abuse of facts and historical understanding and the real danger of war.

Vladimir Putin refers to the “genocide” in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine. Following the coup in Ukraine in 2014 – orchestrated by Barack Obama’s “point person” in Kyiv, Victoria Nuland– the coup regime, infested with neo-Nazis, launched a campaign of terror against Russian-speaking Donbas, which accounts for a third of Ukraine’s population.

Overseen by CIA director Moscow, Barack Obama’s Victoria NulandJohn Brennan in Kyiv, “special security units” coordinated savage attacks on the people of Donbas, who opposed the coup. Video and eyewitness reports show bussed fascist thugs burning the trade union headquarters in the city of Odessa, killing 41 people trapped inside. The police are standing by. Obama congratulated the “duly elected” coup regime for its ‘remarkable restraint’.

In the U.S. media, the Odessa atrocity was played down as "murky" and a "tragedy" in which "nationalists" (neo-Nazis) attacked "separatists" (people collecting signatures for a referendum on a federal Ukraine). Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal damned the victims — ‘Deadly Ukraine fire likely sparked by rebels, Government says’.

Professor Stephen Cohen, acclaimed as America’s leading authority on Russia, wrote:

...the pogrom-like burning to death of ethnic Russians and others in Odessa... reawakened memories of Nazi extermination squads in Ukraine during World War Two. [Today] storm-like assaults on gays, Jews, elderly ethnic Russians, and other “impure” citizens are widespread throughout Kyiv-ruled Ukraine, along with torchlight marches reminiscent of those that eventually inflamed Germany in the late 1920s and 1930s...

...the police and official legal authorities do virtually nothing to prevent these neo-fascist acts or to prosecute them. On the contrary, Kyiv has officially encouraged them by systematically rehabilitating and even memorialising Ukrainian collaborators with Nazi German extermination pogroms, renaming streets in their honour, building monuments to them, rewriting history to glorify them, and more.

Today, neo-Nazi Ukraine is seldom mentioned. That the British are training the Ukrainian National Guard, which includes neo-Nazis, is not news. (See Matt Kennard’s Declassified report in Consortium, 15 February). The return of violent, endorsed fascism to 21st-Century Europe, to quote Harold Pinter, “never happened... even while it was happening”.

The economic crisis of capitalism and the return to the doctrine of great power rivalry has seen Cold War rhetoric return.

On 16 December, the United Nations tabled a resolution that called for ‘combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism’. The only nations to vote against it were the United States and Ukraine.

Almost every Russian knows that it was across the plains of Ukraine’s “borderland” that Hitler’s divisions swept from the west in 1941, bolstered by Ukraine’s Nazi cultists and collaborators. The result was more than 20 million Russians dead.

Setting aside the manoeuvres and cynicism of geopolitics, whomever the players, this historical memory is the driving force behind Russia’s respect-seeking, self-protective security proposals, which were published in Moscow in the week the UN voted 130-2 to outlaw Nazism.

They are:

·                     NATO guarantees that it will not deploy missiles in nations bordering Russia. (They are already in place from Slovenia to Romania, with Poland to follow);

·                     NATO to stop military and naval exercises in nations and seas bordering Russia;

·                     Ukraine will not become a member of NATO;

·                     the West and Russia to sign a binding East-West security pact; and

·                     the landmark treaty between the U.S. and Russia covering intermediate-range nuclear weapons to be restored. (The U.S. abandoned it in 2019.)

These amount to a comprehensive draft of a peace plan for all of post-war Europe and ought to be welcomed in the West. But who understands their significance in Britain? What they are told is that Putin is a pariah and a threat to Christendom.

Russian-speaking Ukrainians, under economic blockade by Kyiv for seven years, are fighting for their survival. The “massing” army we seldom hear about is the 13 Ukrainian army brigades laying siege to Donbas: an estimated 150,000 troops. If they attack, the provocation to Russia will almost certainly mean war.

In 2015, brokered by the Germans and French, the presidents of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France met in Minsk and signed an interim peace deal. Ukraine agreed to offer autonomy to Donbas, now the self-declared republics of Donetsk and Luhansk.

The Minsk agreement has never been given a chance. In Britain, the line, amplified by Boris Johnson, is that Ukraine is being “dictated to” by world leaders. For its part, Britain is arming Ukraine and training its army.

Since the first Cold War, NATO has effectively marched right up to Russia’s most sensitive border having demonstrated its bloody aggression in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and broken solemn promises to pull back. Having dragged European “allies” into American wars that do not concern them, the great unspoken is that NATO itself is the real threat to European security.

In Britain, a state and media xenophobia is triggered at the very mention of “Russia”. Mark the knee-jerk hostility with which the BBC reports Russia. Why? Is it because the restoration of imperial mythology demands, above all, a permanent enemy? Certainly, we deserve better.

John Pilger is a regular contributor to Independent Australia and a distinguished journalist and filmmaker. You can follow John on Twitter @JohnPilger.

Putin's Russia, the facts and the Sydney Morning Herald

James O'Neill critiques the Sydney Morning Herald's recent portrayal of Putin's Russia. 

The Blame for this War However Lies Primarily With NATO and its Attempt to Encircle Russia

In my last blog, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had started, I wrote that

it appears that Russian troops are confining their presence to the 2 breakaway republics of Donbass and Lugansk with its aircraft taking out Ukraine’s NATO supplied weaponry and air defences

I was clearly wrong. If the invasion had been confined to defence of the two breakaway republics it would have been defensible since the heavily working class population of the Donbas and Luhansk don’t wish to be part of Ukraine and voted decisively to be separate. The same arguments used by British imperialism for allowing Northern Ireland to separate from the rest of Ireland don’t apply to the Ukraine! However the attempt to conquer the whole of Ukraine and presumably install a client regime in Kiev is to be condemned unreservedly.

However we should be under no illusions The responsibility for what is happening lies at the feet of Biden and NATO. A simple guarantee by NATO, which is an offensive not defensive alliance with a record of waging wars against Libya, Afghanistan and Serbia, that Ukraine would not become a member would have deprived Putin of any reason to attack Ukraine.

Similarly an assurance by Ukraine that it would be a neutral state that would not be part of any military alliance would also have cut the ground from underneath Putin.

Reports are coming in of an attack on a residential apartment block in Kiev. Russia claims it was an anti-aircraft missile. It is impossible to know what is the truth but there is no reason for Russia to be attacking Kiev at all.

However the hypocrisy of those who condemn attacks on civilians in Ukraine but who, last May, applauded Israel’s attack on the civilian population of Gaza is breathtaking.

As I said in my first blog Putin is a right-wing nationalist and a Greater Russian chauvinist with dreams of resurrecting the Czarist Empire. He understands nothing about the history of Russian relations with Ukraine, not least the Holadamor, Stalin’s forced collectivisation and purges. His assertion that Ukraine does not have a right to an independent existence is absurd.

It was Stalin’s policies, not least the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and Russia’s occupation of Western Ukraine, which drove Ukrainians, at least for a time into Hitler’s hands.

Although the arming and integration of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion into the Ukrainian armed forces is to be condemned the idea that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is motivated by anti-fascism is ludicrous. If Putin was at all serious about this he would turn his attention to neo-Nazis and nationalists in Russia itself.

However there is no doubt that the United States and Israel have been supporting and training Ukraine neo-Nazi militias.

The attacks and arrests of Russian anti-war demonstrators is to be condemned but there is very little difference between Putin’s attack on demonstrators and the proposals of Boris Johnson to make peaceful demonstrations illegal under the Police and Crime Bill or the attacks by the police on Black Lives Matter demonstrations in the United States.

It is also the case, as Professor Richard Sakwa at Kent University said, that there has been a war going on for the last 8 years against the republics. Over 14,000 people have died since 2014. About this NATO and the West have said nothing. Ukrainian forces have continually attacked the republics.

The BBC of course continues to act as a cheerleader for NATO’s war propaganda. If you want to find out what is happening in Ukraine you need to watch RT and stations like Al Jazeera. Which is why that pathetic patriotic scoundrel and flag waver, Keir Starmer, has demandedthe closing down of RT. Having suppressed freedom of speech in the Labour Party it is no surprise that he wishes to extend that principle to the rest of British society.

When 11 Labour MPs signed up to a statementfrom Stop the War Coalition. The statement opened with the sentence

Stop the War opposes any war over Ukraine, and believes the crisis should be settled on a basis which recognises the right of the Ukrainian people to self-determination and addresses Russia’s security concerns.

Clearly any criticism of NATO is unacceptable to Starmer, who threatened them with the loss of the whip. Unsurprisingly all 11 promptly removed their names demonstrating that they don’t have a backbone between them.

Starmer’s attempt to outflank Johnson from the right is not only pathetic in its own terms it is likely to be self-defeating.  Already it is clear that Johnson, who was on the ropes politically barely a month ago is now becoming unassailable. In buying into Western war rhetoric, not least the campaign of sanctions against the Russian people, Starmer demonstrates why he is or should be considered a Labour traitor unfit for any office bar head rat catcher.

Putin has played into the hands of the warmongers - Biden, Johnson and NATO - with his invasion. It is exactly the situation that the war mongers in the West sought. We are now moving into a new era as NATO, with its Aukus Pact against China, seeks to try and assert United States hegemony in the world at the very same time that they have been forced to withdraw from Afghanistan.

There will be some on the left, like Paul Mason (if he can still be considered on the left), who will also be tempted to fall in line with their own ruling class.  It is a temptation that should be resisted. The enemy is at home. It is our own ruling class which is the main enemy and threat to peace.

The Morning Star had a good Editorialtoday and I agree with its main demand that Russia should withdraw from Ukraine. The main demand of socialists and internationalists in Britain should be Britain’s withdrawal from NATO, which is a front for the United States’s imperialist ambitions.

Perhaps the best analysis I’ve seen recently is Jonathan Steele’s Understanding Putin’s narrative about Ukraine is the master key to this crisis. It is worth reading. 

Tony Greenstein  

Haifa University failed a student in order to uphold the Zionist fable that there was no massacre in the Arab village of Tantura in May 1948

On 21 January 2000, Ma’ariv published an article on the massacre in Tantura, a village on the Mediterranean coast south of Haifa, based on an MA thesis by Teddy Katz, a student at Haifa University. The thesis had been awarded the highest possible grade, 97%.

The testimonies, of both Palestinian survivors and members of the AlexandroniBrigade of the Haganah, which perpetrated the massacre, tell a chilling tale of a brutal massacre. On 22–23 May 1948, some 200 unarmed villagers were shot dead after they had surrendered.

The Tantura chapter of the thesis is based on the testimonies of 40 witnesses, 20 Arabs and 20 Jews. A few days after the Ma’ariv article, the veterans of the brigade sued Katz for libel. One would have assumed that Haifa University would stand behind Katz. In fact from the start the university began acting as if he were already guilty. It is clear that their loyalty to the Zionist narrative exceeded any attachment to academic freedom.

Spearheading the crusade against Katz within the university were senior members of the Department of Land of Israel Studies, who have always defended the Zionist narrative that the Palestinians left voluntarily, on the orders of the Arab regimes, rather than being expelled and ethnically cleansed.

It was a Palestinian NGO in Israel, Adalah, that provided assistance on a pro bono basis. Katz’s name was summarily removed from a list of those to be honored for their work. It was literally tippexed out.

Before the trial began, Katz tried to persuade the court not to take the case, arguing that it was a scholarly debate that should be determined not in court but within the university. If the university had supported this effort, he may have succeeded in avoiding a trial, but the university refused to support his application.

The trial began on 13 December 2000, with Katz being called to the witness box. The crux of the prosecution’s case rested on six minor mistakes. For example Katz substituted the word “Germans” for “Nazis.” No discrepancies were found in any of the remaining 224 references concerning Tantura.

That night, weakened by a stroke several weeks earlier and subjected to enormous pressures by his family, friends, and neighbours in the kibbutz where he lived, Katz acquiesced on the advice of one of his lawyers Katz signed an agreement that repudiated his own academic research. The agreement titled “An Apology,” is so sweeping as to bear a resemblance to a police “confession” extracted under physical pressure.

Teddy Katz

Haifa university lawyer Amazia Atzmon, an Israeli Defence Force General, also pressed him to stop. “Tell him to sign [the recantation document] and just continue his studies for his doctorate”. Atzmon had a strong interest in ending the case.

Twelve hours later, Katz formally regretted his retraction and wanted to continue the trial, but the judge, Drora Pilpel, refused to allow Katz to withdraw his concession. She threw it out, as she later admitted, without listening to Katz’s tapes.

Tantura residents flee their village, May 1948. Dozens of others may have been killed. Credit: Benno Rothenberg / Meitar Collection, Pritzker Family National Photography Collection, National Library of Israel

When interviewed for the film “Tantura” a shamefaced Pilpel admitted that

If it’s true, it’s a pity. If he had things like this, he should have gone all the way to the end.

The judge’s ruling made no reference to the merits of the case, but only to the court’s ability to accept Katz’s retraction of his retraction. A number of members of the academy were only too happy to swoop down like vultures on the alleged defects in the work of a historian just starting out on his academic career.

One can speculate that the motivation of Haifa and mainstream Israeli academics was not simply denial of the massacre but a recognition that if Katz had won the case, Israeli academia’s role for more than 50 years in suppressing the truth about the Nakba would itself be in the dock.

Aerial view of Dor beach and its parking lot, built over the mass grave of the Tantura victims.Credit: Tomer Appelbaum

The injustice of what happened is now apparent as a result Alon Schwarz's documentary “Tantura” which had its world premiere at the Sundance Festival.

Schwarz listened to all 140 hours of the taped testimonies and he is convinced that Israeli soldiers killed between 200 and 250 male residents of Tantura. Former combat soldier Moshe Diamant  said:

They silenced it. It mustn’t be told, it could cause a whole scandal. I don’t want to talk about it, but it happened. What can you do? It happened.

According to Diamant, villagers were shot to death by a “savage” using a submachine gun, at the conclusion of the battle. He added that, in connection with the libel suit in 2000, the former soldiers tacitly understood that they would pretend that nothing unusual had occurred after the village’s conquest. “We didn’t know, we didn’t hear. Of course everyone knew. They all knew.”

Another combat soldier, Haim Levin, related that a member of the unit went over to a group of 15 or 20 POWs “and killed them all.” Levin says he was appalled, and he spoke to his buddies to try to find out what was going on. “You have no idea how many [of us] those guys have killed,” he was told.

Another combat soldier describeda different incident that occurred there: “It’s not nice to say this. They put them into a barrel and shot them in the barrel. I remember the blood in the barrel.” One of the soldiers summed up by saying that his comrades simply didn’t behave like human beings in the village – and then resumed his silence.

Amitzur Cohen, talked about his first months as a combat soldier: “I was a murderer. I didn’t take prisoners.” Cohen related that if a squad of Arab soldiers was standing with their hands raised, he would shoot them all. Asked how many Arabs he killed he said: “I didn’t count. I had a machine gun with 250 bullets. I can’t say how many.”

The film presents the conclusion of experts who compared aerial photographs of the village from before and after its conquest. A comparison of the photographs, and the use of three-dimensional imaging done with new tools, makes it possible not only to determine the exact location of the grave but also to estimate its dimensions: 35 meters long, 4 meters wide. “They took care to hide it,” Katz says in the film, “in such a way that the coming generations would walk there without knowing what they were stepping on.”

A note dated June 9, 1948, says: "To the region commander. Yesterday I checked the mass grave in Tantura cemetery. Found everything in order.”Credit: IDF Archives

Yad Vashem historian Yoav Gelber, who played a pivotal role in discrediting Katz’s paper, assertedthat a few dozen Arabs had been killed in the battle itself, but that a massacre had not occurred.

Katz’s and now Schwarz’s claims are backed up in the film with documents obtained from the IDF archive and historical aerial maps analyzed by experts, including some in the IDF who Schwarz said wished to remain unidentified.

Schwarz interviewed Katz and Ilan Pappe as well as the- veterans who admitted to the killings. Also included are interviews with some veterans who continue to deny the killings, as well as academics who doubled down on their dismissal of Katz’s methodology and findings.

One of those who had provided Katz with a four-hour testimony, wherein he repeatedly compared the horrors to the acts of Nazis and suggested the Alexandroni Brigade acted worse in as much as they killed prisoners of war, was a veteran IDF General, Shlomo Ambar. For the court case Ambar had signed an affidavit stating that he did not recall anything he said to Katz.

But in his interview with Katz, Ambar had saidthat

“I associate [what had happened in Tantura] only with this: I went to fight against the Germans who were our worst enemy. But when we fought we obeyed the laws of the war dictated to us by international norms. They [the Germans] did not kill prisoners of war. They killed Slavs, but not British POWs, not even Jewish POWs— all those from the British army who were in German captivity survived.”

Haifa University joins the political battle

The then Minister of Education Limor Livnat personally told Katz that she had ordered the university to strip his research from the shelves and that failure to do so would result in a complete cancellation of state funding.

The university was urged by the plaintiff to strip Katz of his Master’s degree. Rather than waiting to see how the Supreme Court would rule in a few months’ time, the university leadership acted immediately.

The actual stripping of Katz’s title was halted at the last moment due to protests from the Middle East History department. Yet the university proceeded with the work of two committees it had set up: one to check the quotations in the thesis against the tapes, and another to check if there had been fault in the supervision process.

Zalman Amit, a professor emeritus at the Center for Studies in Behavioral Neurobiology in Concordia University, Montreal, noted

the university has never explained by what procedural rules it was able to re-open consideration of the status of a thesis that had already been approved and awarded a rating of 97%.

The committee found some faults and on this basis Katz’s degree was suspended. The school made him an offer to submit a revised thesis. None of this was in accordance with academic procedures. Amit wrote:

the university never explained the legal and procedural justification for this development in accordance with a pre-existing rule-book. This is particularly relevant since it is clear that Katz’s thesis was not “re-inspected” as a result of an internal academic complaint, or on the basis of academically-based information presented formally to the faculty by a qualified and authorized academic body, or as a result of a complaint from any person who launched such a complaint as a result of an academic scrutiny of the thesis. Instead, it appears that evaluation of the thesis was re-opened on the basis of some allegation that arose from an aborted legal case and that the action did not follow established and formal rules of academic procedure.

Remains of mosque in Tantura ruins. Photo by Zalameh Zalameh at Zochrot

The “cleansing” of a village (this is the terminology found in Haganah documents) was to close off a village from three directions, and cause most of the population to flee in the desired direction. If it was a northern town, it would be towards Lebanon or Syria; if eastern, towards Jordan etc. In Tantura the town was closed off from land in all directions, and at sea there was a blockade by a Haganah navy force.

“[Shimshon Mashvitz] agreed [to stop] after he had killed eighty-five people [alone]…He killed them [with a Sten gun]. They stood next to the wall, facing the wall, he came from the back and killed them all, shooting them in the head…Every group twenty or thirty people. Twice or three times he changed magazines.” (Salih ‘Abd al-Rahman (Abu Mashayiff), from Tantura – Teddy Katz, Master’s Thesis).

Katz took the challenge up and interviewed more people and added in more verbatim interview sections, as well as restructuring the work. 1½ years later, Katz submitted the revised thesis, which was considerably larger than the original. The university then proceeded to appoint a five-examiner committee to judge Katz’s revised work.

Two of the examiners gave Katz passing scores, 85 and 83. Another gave a 74, which in this context was a failing mark. But the most interesting thing was the marks from two of the examiners: 40 and 50. As Benny Morris noted in The Jerusalem Report (9th February 2004), the last two graders were Dr. Avraham Sela (Hebrew University) and Dr. Arnon Golan (Haifa University). Morris wrote:

Three years ago, together with Hebrew U. professor Alon Kadish, those two scholars authored “The Conquest of Lydda, July 1948” which argued that the Israeli army had carried out only a “partial expulsion” of the populations of the Arab towns of Lydda and Ramlah and dismissed the charge that the troops had massacred Lydda townspeople, some of them inside a mosque, on July 12 1948.

In fact, according to IDF records from 1948 what was ordered and carried out was a full-scale expulsion; and Yiftah brigade troops killed some 250 townspeople. Oral testimony of Yiftah veterans, deposited in the Yigal Allon archive posits that the troops fired one or more bazooka rounds into the mosque compound, where dozens of Arab POWs were being held. The authors even failed to mention the expulsion order signed by the then Lt. Col. “Yitzhak R”, (Rabin) the operations officer, which ordered the brigade to expel “the inhabitants of Lydda”.

In other words, Haifa University got two examiners who themselves had fabricated the history of the Naqba in the interests of the Zionist narrative, to fail Katz.

Katz was thus stripped of the MA degree which would have allowed him to continue on to his PhD. In an act of “magnanimity” the university nonetheless offered him a “2nd class” Masters, a “non-research Masters”.

Following his first stroke, Katz had 4 subsequent strokes. The fifth stroke, some 8 years ago, which occurred on the 20th annual memorial day of his daughter Amira’s death, left him partially paralyzed. The treatment of Katz cannot but have helped play a part.

Tantura residents flee their village, May 1948. Credit: Benno Rothenberg / Meitar Collection, 

The behaviour of Haifa University is shocking but this incident (along with the forced resignation of Ilan Pappe) demonstrates that political considerations have long since affected its academic decisions. The time is long overdue for Haifa University to make amends for what was an academic lynching. Haifa’s behaviour also confirms the rightfulness of the academic boycott of Israeli academia.

Israeli universities are complicit, at all levels, in the oppression and exploitation of the Palestinians.  Academic freedom simply does not come into it.

Tony Greenstein

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought the racism behind Europe’s refugee crisis to the surface – Ukrainians, apart from the Black variety, are the Right, White kind of refugees

Contrast the welcome for Ukrainian refugees with the reception for Afghan and Middle Eastern refugees

Why, you might ask, has RT been banned throughout Europe? Britain was supposed to have left the European Union with Brexit yet it has willingly succumbed to the temptation to clamp down on any alternative sources of information or narrative. What have they got to hide?

Let's remember how the prostitute press treated the invasion of Iraq, which broke international law and the ICC and UN didn't lift a finger

I listened to RT most of yesterday, before it was taken off air. It was remarkably balanced in its coverage, giving equal time to critics of Russia’s invasion. But that was the problem. The Government does not want any alternative coverage. It wants us to rely on the BBC, which is acting as a cheerleader for NATO. Al Jazeera isn’t much better either.

RT was broadcasting from the two breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, unlike the BBC. As far as the Government was concerned that was the problem.

Racism Rears its Ugly Head

Hungary has welcomed85,000 Ukrainian refugees. Contrast this with the ‘daunting new barrier’ with Serbia

‘capable of delivering electric shocks to unwanted migrants and armed with heat sensors, cameras, and loudspeakers that blare in several languages.

Poland is another country which is noted for its hostile attitude to refugees, erecting barbed wire fences with Belarus. It, together with Latvia and Lithuania, describedrefugees from Afghanistan and Iraq as ‘not refugees but part of a “hybrid warfare” campaign being orchestrated by Belarus’. 

Poland sent 500 troops to fight the ‘invasion’ and there are reports that at least five people died. A Polish soldier who deserted in disgust at the behaviour of the Polish army reported that several refugees had been killed by the army. Contrast this with the welcomegiven to Ukrainian refugees.

However there is one exception. Black, Asian and Arab people in Ukraine are being preventedfrom getting out of the country and then, when they manage to get to the border, are being prevented by Poland from entering.

According to Al Jazeera

Since the war started, more than 870,000 refugees have fled from Ukraine to neighbouring countries, the United Nations said. Half of those are currently in Poland. Queues along the border are now tens of kilometres long with some African students describing to Al Jazeera how they have been waiting for days to cross amid freezing temperatures and with no food, blankets or shelters.

Contrast the coverage of Ukraine with Palestine

On Monday I went to my local store to be greeted with an almost unprecedented unity amongst the press. Every front page had a picture of a Ukrainian child and a variety of emotive headlines. Contrast this with Israel’s murder of Palestinian children.

18-year-old Shadi Najim (left) and 22-year-old Abdullah al-Husari (right) were killed by Israeli forces during a night raid on the Jenin refugee camp on Tuesday March 2, 2022. (Photo: Social Media)

In just one day this week three young Palestinians were killed with shots to the head. In May last year 62 children were killed in Israel’s attack on Gaza. You could have been forgiven if you missed the front page coverage because there wasn’t any. 

White children harmed or hurt make headlines, especially if opposition to the war is in line with American war aims. When it came to the war in Iraq when hundreds of thousands of children were killed, there were no headlines or coverage of victims of American military murder.  

When Julian Assange revealed the truth behind one particularly murderous assault from the air, which included shooting down two Reuters journalists, because it was filmed, it was Assange who was penalised. This is the hypocrisy which lies behind the wall to wall anti-Russian propaganda.

The Racism that runs through the Ukrainian Refugee Crisis – they are White like us

There has been a systematic and persistent racism in the coverage of the Ukrainian refugee problem.

On Radio 4′s Today programme Thought for the Day’ Tim Stanley, historian and Daily Telegraph writer said: “Ukraine has touched the West in a way that Syria or Yemen did not.’ And why was this? Stanley explained that ‘one of the reasons is that being a European country, it looks so familiar.’ In other words they are white.

As Nadine White wrote‘From France to the UK and the US, much of the media coverage of the war in Ukraine has been saturated with racial bias.’

A CBS News senior foreign correspondent Charlie D’Agata claimedthat the attack on Ukraine cannot be compared to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan because the Eastern European country is more “civilised”.

“This isn’t a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan that has seen conflict raging for decades,” he said. “This is a relatively civilised, relatively European – I have to choose those words carefully, too – city where you wouldn’t expect that, or hope that it’s going to happen.”

One shudders to think what D’Agata would have said if he wasn’t being careful.

On Saturday, Ukraine’s former deputy general prosecutor, David Sakvarelidze was interviewed on Radio 4

“It’s very emotional for me because I see European people with blonde hair and blue eyes being killed every day with Putin’s missiles and his helicopters and his rockets,” Sakvarelidze said.

The BBC presenter responded: “I understand and of course respect the emotion.”

Molotov Cocktails and Resistance

 “Amazing mainstream Western media gives glowing coverage of people resisting invasion by making molotov cocktails,” one social media user remarked. “If they were brown people in Yemen or Palestine doing the same they would be labeled terrorists deserving US-Israeli or US-Saudi drone bombing.”

Al Jazeera’s Peter Dobbie was forced to apologise after he said

“What’s compelling is looking at them, the way they are dressed. These are prosperous, middle-class people. These are not obviously refugees trying to get away from the Middle East [...] or North Africa. They look like any European family that you’d live next door to.”

Nadine White observed how ‘

Visibly fighting back tears during a broadcast from Poland, Lucy Watson of ITV News said: “Now the unthinkable has happened to them, and this is not a developing, third world nation, this is Europe”.

Yes it must be a shock that Europe is tasting a fraction of what it has visited on other countries.

We also saw the hypocrisy of the United Nations on full display today. The General Assembly voted to ‘deplore’ Russia’s invasion. So do I. But compare this with America and Britain’s invasion of Iraq which caused approximately one million deaths as well as destabilisation and slaughter across the Middle East. It was the Iraqi invasion which led to the creation of ISIS.  Yet what was the UN response? Absolutely nothing. There was no criticism of the USA.

I won’t bother detailing every instance of media racism because, as they say, every picture tells a story. It is a story of ingrained media racism.

Ukrainian Opposition to Becoming the United States’ Pawn and Plaything

And there’s something else that the mainstream media has not shown. That not all Ukrainians are happy that the United States, which has been enforcing austerity on Ukraine via the IMF and World Bank, is now using them as a pawn in its battle with Russia as it seeks to achieve hegemony in Europe and the world.

What coverage have there been of these demonstrations in Kyiv against US imperialism?  Again it doesn’t fit with the BBC narrative and now that RT is off the air, we can be sure that they won’t be shown either.

Tony Greenstein

"It's so odd (that) war is no longer being waged exclusively against Black, brown and poor people. Shock. Horror"

https://tinyurl.com/2p97hudx

‘We’re not talking here about Syrians fleeing the bombing of the Syrian regime”

https://tinyurl.com/2p8fscf4

American Ignorance– ‘the lady on CNN just now said that the damage in Kyiv is something a capitol city in Europe hasn’t seen in almost a century… the siege on Sarajevo began on April 5, 1992 and didn’t end until February 29, 1996’

Molotovs – ‘If this was done by Palestinians, Afghanistan or other nations resisting occupation, it would be terrorism.’

https://tinyurl.com/29kpsw44

Al Jazeera racism– ‘The Supremacy around the media coverage of this isn't even subtle.’

BBC Racism – ‘But people with 'blue eyes and blonde hair' dropping bombs over the Middle East and Africa is OK. And 'Blue eyes and blonde hair' is Hitler's words from the Mein Kampf about the superior Aryan race.’

This isn’t Iraq 

This isn’t Iraq 2

The uncivilised

Bulgarian Prime Minister

Bosnian Genocide

Lebanon

Palestinian men

Non-whites who resist occupation are of course terrorists

Raising funds for Ukrainian military

Raising funds for Ukrainian military 2

sanctions 1

sanctions 2

And then there is the Jewish Chronicle’s fascist sympathising editor, Stephen Pollard. According to Pollard Boycott Divestment and Sanctions against Israel is ‘anti-Semitic’. But when applied to Russia it is perfectly kosher.

boycott 1

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has backed the boycott of Russia from sports, but criticised the boycott of last month’s Sydney Cultural Festival over receiving sponsorship from the Israeli embassy.

Claudia Webbe, a British member of parliament, tweeted that the people who genuinely care about Ukrainians are the ones who will welcome all refugees with open arms.

“The rest?” she posted, “Well, they’re pretending.”

See They are ‘civilised’ and ‘look like us’: the racist coverage of Ukraine

From Allowing Israeli Ambassador Mark Regev to Censor a Public Meeting by a Holocaust Survivor to the Victimisation of Alistair Hudson, Rothwell has Shown Herself as an Enemy of Freedom of Speech

Dear Dame Rothwell,

In your statement on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine you saidthat it challenged:

The fundamental principles of freedom, democracy and self-determination which provide the basis for academic freedom and cooperation.

Yet when it comes to Palestine you are prepared to allow the Israeli Embassy and far-Right groups like UK Lawyers for Israelto interfere with the expression of views they don’t like on Manchester’s campus. Palestinian freedom, democracy and self-determination doesn’t seem to concern you.

Demonstration in 2017 against Rothwell's Attempt to Censor a Speech by a Jewish holocaust survivor Marika Sherwood

You are either ignorant of or unconcerned by 3 reports in the last year by B’Tselem, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International– which explain in detail why Israel is an Apartheid State.

Ambassadors are, as Henry Wotton noted, sent abroad to lie on behalf of their country. You are not a diplomat yet you act as one, despite your job being to protect the independence of the university.

Your double standards, when it comes to Ukraine and Palestine, are only explicable by your racist agenda. There are only two conclusions that can be drawn. Either you are suffering from cognitive dissonance or you are a liar and hypocrite (or possibly both).

In 2017 Manchester University bowed to the demands of the Israeli Embassy when it censored the title of a speech “You’re doing to the Palestinians what the Nazis did to me” by Marika Sherwood, a Jewish holocaust survivor,

It might be thought that the experiences of a historian, who was a child survivor of the last Jewish community to be destroyed by the Nazis in Europe, might be more interesting than the opinions of Mark Regev who is infamous for justifying Israel’s war crimes in Gaza, which in 2014 killed 2,200 people, including 551 children.

Marika compared life in the Budapest Ghetto to those of the Palestinians. There are many Jews, Holocaust survivors included, who make such a comparison. Who the hell are you to say that such a comparison cannot be made? Without comparisons there is no historiography or translation of the past into the present.

After a visit by Mark Regev your officials bannedorganisers from using the “unduly provocative” title. Perhaps it was provocative but so what? Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses was also provocative. Should it have been banned? If ‘provoking’ or giving offence is not allowed, then free speech is meaningless, a mere cliché. Of course the exhibition in the Whitworth offended Zionists. As Orwell wrote:

“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people things they do not want to hear.”

Przemsyl Nazi Ghetto

When Professor Ze’ev Sternhell of Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, a child survivor of the Nazi Ghetto of Przemsyl, wrote‘In Israel, Growing Fascism and a Racism Akin to Early Nazism’ it was because there are clear comparisons that can be made between the State of Israel’s treatment of non-Jews, Palestinians in particular, and the Nazi treatment of Jews between 1933 and 1939.

According to the IHRA, this article, by holocaust survivor Prof. Ze'ev Sternhell was anti-Semitic

Hannah Arendt, herself a refugee from Nazi Germany, pointed out in Eichmann in Jerusalem, that the 1935 Nuremberg Laws which prevented marriage between Jews and ‘Aryans’, are similar to the laws in Israel which prevent marriage between Jews and non-Jews.

In Israel the favourite chant of the Zionist right is ‘Death to the Arabs’. In 1930s Europe anti-Semites chanted ‘Death to the Jews’. These are clear and obvious comparisons. Why is it forbidden to speak the truth on Manchester’s campus?

Adie Mormech of Manchester PSC/Palestine Action

In 2017 your glove puppets spokeof your ‘commitment to principles of freedom of speech and expression’ but they didn’t mention the meeting with Regev. Why not? Why did it take a freedom of information request, which you resisted, to reveal the truth?

Even the Jewish Chronicle, got it right when its headline read‘University censors Holocaust survivor's speech’. That you were a party to a foreign embassy seeking to censor a talk on campus should have led to your dismissal. It is clear that you have neither learnt nor forgotten anything.

This is the background to your proposed dismissal of Alistair Hudson. What was Hudson’s offence? Putting on an exhibition by Forensic Architecture that included Israel’s starvation siege of Gaza, which has lasted 16 years. A blockade that has merited no comment from you, unlike the occupation of Ukraine.

It was Forensic Architecture that provided the evidence proving that when Israeli Police demolished the Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiran in January 2017, to make way for a Jewish only town, they also murdered an Arab teacher Yacoub Abu Al-Qia'an. Even Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu acceptedthat there had been a police cover up.

The idea that UKLFI discovered flaws and errors in the exhibition meriting Hudson’s dismissal is absurd. UKLFI are exponents of lawfare. They are not fit to comment on a horse race.

You have been Vice-Chancellor/President of Manchester University since 2010. In that time you have consistently done your best to undermine freedom of speech. Far from defending academic freedom you have acted as the emissary for successive Tory governments as they attempted to destroy free speech.

Instead of telling UKLFI to mind their own business you have actively encouraged them. Jonathan Turner, their CEO, saidthey had

pointed out to the university that the director of the Whitworth Art Gallery had falsely assured the vice-chancellor that they had established the accuracy and legalities of the work presented in the Forensic Architecture exhibition.

Turner statedthat “We suggested that the university should take appropriate disciplinary action”. And that is exactly what you did.

When Hudson was appointed Prof James Thompson, Vice-President for Social Responsibility, praised Hudson’s dedication “to the idea of cultural institutions as a force for promoting social change”, which, he said, “fits precisely with the mission of the Whitworth”. Except that it did not fit with your racist outlook. 

You have deferred to the representatives of a state that at the present time refuses admission to Ukrainian refugees who are not Jewish. That is what a ‘Jewish’ state means. Perhaps you could tell us how you would describe a state that refused to accept refugees because they were Jewish? Even you should not find that too difficult.

But I have another question? Instead of it being dragged out of you, as it was last time by a FOI request, will you voluntarily disclose all of your dealings and correspondence with UKLFI?

In response to protests against the dismissal of Hudson your spokespersons statedthat

We absolutely uphold academic freedom. Staffing matters are strictly internal to the university and we never comment on questions of this nature.

But this isn’t an ‘internal staffing matter’. You may not wish to comment but as UKLFI confirms, you acted on their request.

Had you bothered inquiring into who UKLFI are then you would have found, even by Zionist standards, that they are on the far-right.  Or perhaps you didn't care?

UKLFIprovided a platform for Regavim, an NGO which refuses to even acknowledge that there are Palestinians.

The Jewish Chronicle describedthem as a ‘group (which) campaigns against the construction of Arab and Bedouin villages in the West Bank.’ Regavim works round the clock to secure the evictions of Palestinians and the demolition of their homes, not just on the West Bank but in Israel itself. It believes in ‘purifying’ Jewish cities (of Arabs). It describes Palestinians as ‘squatters’ who are occupying ‘Jewish land’.

In September 2019, because of protests from other Zionist organisations, UKLFI postponeda meeting that they were due to hold with Regavim. Vivian Wineman, a former Board of Deputies President criticised UKLFI asking:

“UKLFI is an Israel advocacy organisation. What are they doing bringing over the worst racist representatives of Israel politics?

UKLFI were determined to give a platform to Regavim and in December 2019 it held its meeting with Naomi Kahn of Regavim.

The demonstrators above are from left-Zionist group Na'amod - Rothwell prefers to support the Zionist far-Right

Regavim was founded in 2006 by Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right settler member of the Knesset who describes himself as a ‘proud homophobe’. In 2006 he organised a ‘Beast Parade’ in Jerusalem comparing gays to beasts (he said that unlike gays, the animals that took part were innocent). More recently he has said that Jerusalem’s Gay Pride demonstration triggered the COVID pandemic in Israel!

Amongst Smotrich’s contributions to racial harmony was advocating the separation of Arab and Jewish women giving birth tweeting that

"It's only natural my wife would not want to lie next to someone who just gave birth to a baby that might murder her baby in another 20 years,"

Regavim also supportsthe openly fascist Lehava organisation in Israel which organises physical attacks on Israeli Palestinians who have friendships with Israeli Jews. Its leader Benzi Gopstein has called for the burning down of churches and mosques. Its campaign against miscegenation (sexual relations between Jews and Arabs) is reminiscent of the Nazis’ Nuremberg Laws.

One of UKLFI’s most prominent members and Director is Daniel Berke, an advisor and solicitor for that apostle of racial harmony, Tommy Robinson as well as Jonathan Hoffman, the linkman between far-Right Zionists and fascist groups like the EDL and Britain First.

Another member of UKLFI is Robert Festenheim, a far-right Zionist who is another ‘advisor’ to Tommy Robinson.

The time has come for an end to your platitudes and dissembling. What is your relationship to UKLFI and why do they seem to have a direct line to your office? These are not internal staffing matters but matters of public concern.

If you did not know who or what UKLFI is then that is reason enough for you to go. If you did know then that is also a reason for your departure. You have brought shame on Manchester University.

Your attempt to dismiss Alisdair Hudson at the behest of UKLFI is no different from seeking the dismissal of a Black member of your staff because of a complaint from the British National Party.

UKLFI took exception to the statementdisplayed with the Forensic Architecture exhibition 

What possible objection could anyone but a White Supremacist have to this statement? Violence by Israeli settlers to Palestinians is well documented. As Eyal Weizman toldThe Guardian.

His (Alistair Hudson’s) sacking is the last in series of bullying actions by the University of Manchester, which initially aimed at silencing our solidarity with Palestinians, then at stifling open debate and taming political art more generally. This move will shrink the space for art and artists.

The suggestion by UKLFI that putting on the exhibition could have a ‘potential impact on Jewish people in Manchester’ presupposes that Jewish people in this country are responsible for or have an interest in the oppression of the Palestinians. To most people, but obviously not you, that in itself is anti-Semitic.

Your response to those who have written to you has been that

artistic freedom, freedom of speech and expression and academic freedom ‘must be considered alongside other rights and obligations, including those under equality laws.’

You make a false distinction between freedom of speech and freedom from discrimination. It is clear that you understand neither. It is not freedom of speech that threatens ethnic minorities in this country but its absence.

Your willingness to dance to the tune of the Israel lobby has gone on far too long. To quote Oliver Cromwell in his address to the Rump parliament in April 1653:

‘You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately… Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go’.

Or to paraphraseMalcolm, nothing would become your position as your leaving of it. It is time that Manchester University had an anti-racist Vice Chancellor.

Tony Greenstein

Please Bombard the Following at Manchester University:

1.    University Chancellor: Lemn Sissay MBE  Tel: +44 (0) 161 306 6010

Email:        chancellor@manchester.ac.uk

2.  University President and Vice Chancellor:

Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell

president@manchester.ac.uk

3.  Deputy President and Vice-Chancellor: Professor Luke Georghiou

luke.georghiou@manchester.ac.uk

4.  Registrar, Secretary and Chief Operating Officer: Patrick Hackett

Tel: +44 (0) 161 275 2066
Email:        patrick.hackett-REGISTRAR@manchester.ac.uk

5.  nancy.rothwell@manchester.ac.uk

6.  Nalin Thakkar, Vice President for Social Responsibility n.thakker@manchester.ac.uk

7.  Patrick Hackett, Registrar, Secretary and Chief Operating Officer patrick.hackett-7.  REGISTRAR@manchester.ac.uk

8.  Marianne Communications

correspondence@manchester.ac.uk

Below - Pictures of Demonstration Against Rothwell's Sacking of Alistair Hudson

 Why has the Holocaust Denying Azov Battalion been funded by the United States, armed by Israel and trained by the British army?

Jimmy Dore Show – He’s a NATO Puppet – Fox Business Guest Tells Truth About Ukraine President

We are living in the most dangerous times that I have ever known. Even more dangerous than the Cuban missile crisis  60 years ago when the Soviet Union stationed nuclear missiles in Cuba.

It is possible that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could become transformed into a war between Russia and NATO with incalculable consequences. This is especially true if Poland’s lunatic scheme to invite Ukrainian pilots into the country to fly their Soviet-era planes into the conflict had gone ahead. This would have led the Russians to retaliate, thus invoking of Article 5 of the NATO charter, which treats an attack on one as an attack on all.

Let me make my own position is clear.  I am opposed to Putin’s invasion.  I believe he fell into America’s trap. Certainly the attempt to take over the whole of Ukraine as opposed to defending the two breakaway republics is crazy.  However I also understand why this has taken place.

The propaganda media in the West, which puts the old Soviet media to shame, are refusing to analyse the causes of what has happened. Instead they portray this all as the actions of a madman, the ‘new Hitler’ Vladimir Putin.

East cauldron snaps together. Odessa cauldron forming. Sanctions disaster. Ukraine Update

On one thing we should be clear.  If anyone is the madman it is the senile Joe Biden, who can hardly stutter a coherent sentence without a teleprompt and the pathetic Boris Johnson, who imagines that he is playing the role of Winston Churchill even to the point of imitating his ‘we will fight them on the beaches’speech.

In the video below, Putin answers questions from his own citizens and provides an extremely coherent and persuasive account of the factors that led the Russian state, not Putin, to invade Ukraine. Would that our own rulers were equally candid and coherent.

In the Jimmy Dore Show above, there is an interview with retired US Army Colonel Douglas MacGregor  who describes Zelensky, Ukraine’s President Zelensky as a ‘puppet’who is endangering his own people.

All that was necessary, MacGregor explained, to prevent the Russian invasion was an agreement by Ukraine that it would not join NATO, which is an offensive not defensive alliance. Instead it could have agreed to become a neutral state, like Switzerland and Austria. What possible objection could there be to this?

Those  who talk about the ‘right’ of Ukraine to join whatever alliance it wants are really talking about the right of Ukraine to station nuclear missiles on its soil pointed at Russia.  There is no right to threaten your neighbours. Where in international law is such a ‘right’ written down?

The hypocrisy of our media is staggering. Where was the equivalent hysteria over the United States invasion of Iraq which killed up to one million Iraqis? Or the protests at the use of uranium tipped missiles in Iraq, the effect of which is to cause cancer?

Where were the protests at Israel’s bombing of high rise flats in Gaza last May? Ludicrously we had videos of such attacks going viral on social media attributing these attacks to Russia today! We even had video games war scenarios being attributed to Russia! Of course Biden and Johnson said nothing when it was only Palestinians who were being bombed. Because they are not like us.

A section of the left, such as the pro-imperialist AWL and Paul Mason, have given full support to the war mongers. Others, such as the SWP, have retreated behind the comforting fiction that it is an inter-imperialist war and that both sides are as bad as each other.

So let us be clear. Russia is not waging a war of imperialist plunder. It has not gone into Ukraine in order to pillage it (though of course that could happen). It has gone into Ukraine in order to prevent it joining NATO. Unlike Iraq this is actually a defensive war.

But the question of NATO and Ukraine is the elephant in the room. No one on the BBC or even Al Jazeera dares to mention it.  It as if NATO were an international version of the Women’s Institute. A club for geriatric leaders, to get together for a chat over a cup of tea rather than a military alliance which bombed Serbia and Libya, invaded Afghanistan and today threatens to encircle Russia.

The one station that could have challenged this narrative is RT which has been shut down. Sir Keith Stürmer demanded this even before Johnson conceded it.  The Labour Party under Stürmer is not so much an opposition as an Establishment Lapdog. The  social media giants – Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, have been doing their best to suppress dissent even as Western leaders attack Putin for his authoritarian ways.

Belowis an interesting interview with the former Democratic Senator for Hawai and former US Colonel, Tulsi Gabbard, with Fox News Tucker Carlson. Carlson is a maverick right-winger much like Peter Hitchens in this country. Because his show is so popular he has remained the one dissenting voice in the mainstream media in America.  In this country, under the BBC, there are no such voices.

Tulsi Gabbard and Tucker Carlson

Meanwhile Julian Assange remains incarcerated in Belmarsh for daring to have revealed US war crimes in Iraq. This is the breathtaking hypocrisy of our leaders. They don’t prosecute war criminals, they prosecute those who expose them.

What should we be demanding? An end to the invasion and the withdrawal of Russian troops to the breakaway republics and Crimea. Coupled with an end to NATO. A firm guarantee in the meantime that Ukraine, whether it likes it or not, will never be part of NATO.

If you want to understand the background to the present crisis you cannot do better than watch this lecture, by Professor John Mearsheimer of Chicago University. He is of the realist (for which read honest) school of Political Science. Mearsheimer is not of the left, but he rails at the insanity of the political system we live in without ever understanding that war is just an extension of competition under capitalism. This is why what he says is so compelling when compared with the endless talking heads on the BBC with their war porn.

Another lecturefrom Mearsheimer is Why is Ukraine the West's Fault? Given in 2014, shortly after the West’s coup which removed Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine’s democratically elected President, is well worth watching.  Both are eye opening. That is why he won’t be one of the ‘experts’ that the BBC interview.

I am copying below an article by Alexander Rubinsteinand Max Blumenthal on the truth behind Russian allegations that they are taking out Ukraine’s neo-Nazis. These allegations have been dismissed by pointing to Zelensky, an ardent Zionist and Israeli citizen, being Jewish.

In fact Zelensky’s Jewishness has until recently barely been mentioned. In a 2019 interview with Bernard-Henri Levy, a French-Jewish philosopher, Zelensky declined to explore his Jewish identity at any length, responding to a question about it by saying:  “The fact that I am Jewish barely makes 20 in my long list of faults.”

The decision to use Zelensky’s Jewishness is what Philadelphia’s Jewish Exponentcalled‘a strategic decision at a perilous time for Ukraine.’ What could be better than a Jew who provides a cover for Ukraine’s neo-Nazi militia?

Zelensky has used his Jewishness to whitewash the role of the Azov Battalion and the other Ukrainian neo-Nazis. Prior to the present crisis they had threatened to assassinate him if he continued to talk to the Russians and talk of peace. It is no exaggeration to say that Zelensky is a puppet of forces far stronger than him. Today he is a mouthpiece for Ukrainian neo-Nazis and nationalist forces. That is where his fervent Zionism has led him.

Tony Greenstein

How Ukraine’s Jewish president Zelensky made peace with neo-Nazi paramilitaries on front lines of war with Russia

Alexander Rubinstein and Max Blumenthal·March 4, 2022

While Western media deploys Volodymyr Zelensky’s Jewish heritage to refute accusations of Nazi influence in Ukraine, the president has ceded to neo-Nazi forces and now depends on them as front line fighters.

Back in October 2019, as the war in eastern Ukraine dragged on, Zelensky traveled to Zolote, a town situated firmly in the “gray zone” of Donbas, where over 14,000 had been killed, mostly on the pro-Russian side. There, the president encountered the hardened veterans of extreme right paramilitary units keeping up the fight against separatists just a few miles away.

Elected on a platform of de-escalation of hostilities with Russia, Zelensky was determined to enforce the so-called Steinmeier Formula conceived by then-German Foreign Minister Walter Steinmeier which called for elections in the Russian-speaking regions of Donetsk and Lugansk.

In a face-to-face confrontation with militants from the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion who had launched a campaign to sabotage the peace initiative called “No to Capitulation,” Zelensky encountered a wall of obstinacy. 

With appeals for disengagement from the frontlines firmly rejected, Zelensky melted down on camera. “I’m the president of this country. I’m 41 years old. I’m not a loser. I came to you and told you: remove the weapons,” Zelensky implored the fighters.

Zelensky’s Humiliation When Visiting the Azov Battalion in Zolote

Once video of the stormy confrontation spread across Ukrainian social media channels, Zelensky became the target of an angry backlash.

Andriy Biletsky, the proudly fascist Azov Battalion leader who once pledgedto “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade…against Semite-led Untermenschen”, vowed to bring thousands of fighters to Zolote if Zelensky pressed any further. Meanwhile, a parliamentarian from the party of former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko openly fantasized about Zelensky being blown to bits by a militant’s grenade.

Though Zelensky achieved a minor disengagement, the neo-Nazi paramilitaries escalated their “No Capitulation” campaign. And within months, fighting began to heat upagain in Zolote, sparking a new cycle of violations of the Minsk Agreement.

By this point, Azov had been formally incorporated into the Ukrainian military and its street vigilante wing, known as the National Corps, was deployed across the country under the watch of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, and alongside the National Police. In December 2021, Zelensky would be seen delivering a “Hero of Ukraine” award to a leader of the fascistic Right Sector in a ceremony in Ukraine’s parliament.

A full-scale conflict with Russia was approaching, and the distance between Zelensky and the extremist paramilitaries was closing fast.

This February 24, when Russian President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukrainian territory on a stated mission to “demilitarize and denazify” the country, US media embarked on a mission of its own: to deny the power of neo-Nazi paramilitaries over the country’s military and political sphere. As the US government-funded National Public Radio insisted, “Putin’s language [about denazification] is offensive and factually wrong.”

In its bid to deflect from the influence of Nazism in contemporary Ukraine, US media has found its most effective PR tool in the figure of Zelensky, a former TV star and comedian from a Jewish background. It is a role the actor-turned-politician has eagerly assumed.

But as we will see, Zelensky has not only ceded ground to the neo-Nazis in his midst, he has entrusted them with a front line role in his country’s war against pro-Russian and Russian forces.

The president’s Jewishness as Western media PR device 

Hours before President Putin’s February 24 speech declaring denazification as the goal of Russian operations, Zelensky “asked how a people who lost eight million of its citizens fighting Nazis could support Nazism,” according to the BBC.

Raised in a non-religious Jewish family in the Soviet Union during the 1980’s, Zelensky has downplayed his heritage in the past. “The fact that I am Jewish barely makes 20 in my long list of faults,” he joked during a 2019 interview in which he declined to go into further detail about his religious background.

Today, as Russian troops bear down on cities like Mariupol, which is effectively under the control of the Azov Battalion, Zelensky is no longer ashamed to broadcast his Jewishness. “How could I be a Nazi?”he wondered aloud during a public address. For a US media engaged in an all-out information war against Russia, the president’s Jewish background has become an essential public relations tool. 

A few examples of the US media’s deployment of Zelensky as a shield against allegations of rampant Nazism in Ukraine are below (see mash-up above for video): 

·         PBS News Hour noted Putin’s comments on denazification with a qualifier: “even though President Volodymyr Zelensky is Jewish and his great uncles died in the Holocaust.”

·         On Fox & Friends, former CIA officer Dan Hoffman declared that “it’s the height of hypocrisy to call the Ukrainian nation to denazify — their president is Jewish after all.”

·         On MSNBC, Virginia Democratic Senator Mark Warner said Putin’s “terminology, outrageous and obnoxious as it is — ‘denazify’ where you’ve got frankly a Jewish president in Mr. Zelensky. This guy [Putin] is on his own kind of personal jihad to restore greater Russia.”

·         Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn said on Fox Business she’s “been impressed with President Zelensky and how he has stood up. And for Putin to go out there and say ‘we’re going to denazify’ and Zelensky is Jewish.”

·         In an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Gen. John Allen denounced Putin’s use of the term, “de-Nazify” while the newsman and former Israel lobbyist shook his head in disgust. In a separate interview with Blitzer, the so-called “Ukraine whistleblower” and Ukraine-born Alexander Vindman grumbled that the claim is “patently absurd, there’s really no merit… you pointed out that Volodymyr Zelensky is Jewish… the Jewish community [is] embraced. It’s central to the country and there is nothing to this Nazi narrative, this fascist narrative. It’s fabricated as a pretext.”

Behind the corporate media spin lies the complex and increasingly close relationship Zelensky’s administration has enjoyed with the neo-Nazi forces invested with key military and political posts by the Ukrainian state, and the power these open fascists have enjoyed since Washington installed a Western-aligned regime through a coup in 2014. 

NATO pilot climbs into his plane

In fact, Zelensky’s top financial backer, the Ukrainian Jewish oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, has been a key benefactor of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion and other extremists militias.

Backed by Zelensky’s top financier, neo-Nazi militants unleash a wave of intimidation

Incorporated into the Ukrainian National Guard, the Azov Battalion is considered the most ideologically zealous and militarily motivated unit fighting pro-Russian separatists in the eastern Donbass region. 

With Nazi-inspired Wolfsangel insignia on the uniforms of its fighters, who have been photographed with Nazi SS symbols on their helmets, Azov

“is known for its association with neo-Nazi ideology…[and] is believed to have participated in training and radicalizing US-based white supremacy organizations,”

according to an FBI indictment of several US white nationalists that traveled to Kiev to train with Azov. 

Igor Kolomoisky has also bankrolledprivate militias like the Dnipro and Aidar Battalions, and has deployedthem as a personal thug squad to protect his financial interests.

In 2019, Kolomoisky emerged as the top backer of Zelensky’s presidential bid. Though Zelensky made anti-corruption the signature issue of his campaign, the Pandora Papers exposedhim and members of his inner circle stashing large payments from Kolomoisky in a shadowy web of offshore accounts.

President Zelensky (C) meets with billionaire oligarch and business associate Ihor Kolomoisky on September 10, 2019

When Zelensky took office in May 2019, the Azov Battalion maintained de facto control of the strategic southeastern port city of Mariupol and its surrounding villages. As Open Democracy noted,

Azov has certainly established political control of the streets in Mariupol. To maintain this control, they have to react violently, even if not officially, to any public event which diverges sufficiently from their political agenda.

Attacks by Azov in Mariupol have included assaults on “feminists and liberals” marching on International Women’s Day among other incidents.

In March 2019, members of the Azov Battalion’s National Corps attacked the homeof Viktor Medvedchuk, the leading opposition figure in Ukraine, accusing him of treason for his friendly relations with Vladimir Putin, the godfather of Medvedchuk’s daughter.

Zelensky’s administration escalated the attack on Medvedchuk, shutteringseveral media outlets he controlled in February 2021 with the open approval of the US State Department, and jailing the opposition leader for treason three months later. Zelensky justified his actions on the grounds that he needed to “fight against the danger of Russian aggression in the information arena.”

Next, in August 2020, Azov’s National Corps opened fire on a bus containing members of Medvedchuk’s party, Patriots for Life, wounding several with rubber-coated steel bullets.

Zelensky having failed to rein in neo-Nazis, wound up collaborating with them

Following his failed attempt to demobilize neo-Nazi militants in the town of Zolote in October 2019, Zelensky called the fighters to the table, tellingreporters “I met with veterans yesterday. Everyone was there – the National Corps, Azov, and everyone else.”

A few seats away from the Jewish president was Yehven Karas, the leader of the neo-Nazi C14 gang.

Zelensky meets with “veterans” including Yehven Karas (far right) and Dmytro Shatrovsky, an Azov Battalion leader (bottom left).

During the Maidan “Revolution of Dignity” that ousted Ukraine’s elected president in 2014, C14 activists took over Kiev’s city hall and plastered its walls with neo-Nazi insignia before taking shelter in the Canadian embassy.

As the former youth wing of the ultra-nationalist Svoboda Party, C14 appears to draw its name from the infamous 14 words of US neo-Nazi leader David Lane: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”

By offering to carry out acts of spectacular violence on behalf of anyone willing to pay, the hooligans have fostered a cozy relationship with various governing bodies and powerful elites across Ukraine.

C14 neo-Nazi gang offers to carry out violence-for-hire: “C14 works for you. Help us keep afloat, and we will help you. For regular donors, we are opening a box for wishes. Which of your enemies would you like to make life difficult for? We’ll try to do that.”

A March 2018 reportby Reuters stated that “C14 and Kiev’s city government recently signed an agreement allowing C14 to establish a ‘municipal guard’ to patrol the streets,” effectively giving them the sanction of the state to carry out pogroms.

As The Grayzone reported, C14 led raid to “purge” Romani from Kiev’s railway station in collaboration with the Kiev police.

Not only was this activity sanctioned by the Kiev city government, the US government itself saw little problem with it, hosting Bondar at an official US government institution in Kiev where he bragged about the pogroms. C14 continued to receivestate funding throughout 2018 for “national-patriotic education.”

Karas has claimedthat the Ukrainian Security Serves would “pass on” information regarding pro-separatist rallies “not only [to] us, but also Azov, the Right Sector and so on.”

“In general, deputies of all factions, the National Guard, the Security Service of Ukraine and the Ministry of Internal Affairs work for us. You can joke like that,” Karas said.

Throughout 2019, Zelensky and his administration deepened their ties with ultra-nationalist elements across Ukraine.

Then-Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk onstage at the neo-Nazi “Veterans Strong” concert

After Prime Minister attends neo-Nazi concert, Zelensky honors Right Sector leader

Just days after Zelensky’s meeting with Karas and other neo-Nazi leaders in November 2019, Oleksiy Honcharuk – then the Prime Minister and deputy head of Zelensky’s presidential office – appeared on stage at a neo-Nazi concert organized by C14 figure and accused murderer Andriy Medvedko.

Zelensky’s Minister for Veterans Affairs not only attended the concert, which featured several antisemitic metal bands, she promoted the concert on Facebook.

Also in 2019, Zelensky defended Ukrainian footballer Roman Zolzulya against Spanish fans taunting him as a “Nazi.” Zolzulya had posed beside photos of the World War II-era Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera and openly supported the Azov Battalion. Zelensky responded to the controversy by proclaiming that all of Ukraine backed Zolzulya, describing him as “not only a cool football player but a true patriot.”

In November 2021, one of Ukraine’s most prominent ultra-nationalist militiamen, Dmytro Yarosh, announcedthat he had been appointed as an advisor to the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Yarosh is an avowed follower of the Nazi collaborator Bandera who led Right Sector from 2013 to 2015, vowingto lead the “de-Russification” of Ukraine.

Dmytro Yarosh poses with Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces

A month later, as war with Russia drew closer, Zelensky awardedRight Sector commander Dmytro Kotsyubaylo the “Hero of Ukraine” commendation. Known as “Da Vinci,” Kosyubaylo keeps a pet wolf in his frontline base, and likes to joketo visiting reporters that his fighters “feed it the bones of Russian-speaking children.”

Zelensky awards Right Sector commander Dmytro Kotsyubaylo the “Hero of Ukraine” award

Ukrainian state-backed neo-Nazi leader flaunts influence on the eve of war with Russia 

On February 5, 2022, only days before full-scale war with Russia erupted, Yevhen Karas of the neo-Nazi C14 delivered a stem-winding public address in Kiev intended to highlight the influence his organization and others like it enjoyed over Ukrainian politics.

LGBT and foreign embassies say ‘there were not many Nazis at Maidan, maybe about 10 percent of real ideological ones,’  Karas remarked. “If not for those eight percent [of neo-Nazis] the effectiveness [of the Maidan coup] would have dropped by 90 percent.’

The 2014 Maidan “Revolution of Dignity” would have been a “gay parade” if not for the instrumental role of neo-Nazis, he proclaimed.

Karas went on to opine that the West armed Ukrainian ultra-nationalists because “we have fun killing.” He also fantasized about the balkanization of Russia, declaring that it should be broken up into “five different” countries.

Yevhen Karas delivering the Nazi salute.

“If we get killed…we died fighting a holy war”

When Russian forces entered Ukraine this February 24, encircling the Ukrainian military in the east and driving towards Kiev, Zelensky announced a national mobilization that included the release of criminals from prison, among them accused murderers wanted in Russia. He also blessed the distribution of arms to average citizens, and their training by battle-hardened paramilitaries like the Azov Battalion.

With fighting underway, Azov’s National Corps gathered hundreds of ordinary civilians, including grandmothers and children, to train in public squares and warehouses from Kharkiv to Kiev to Lviv.

On February 27, the official Twitter account of the National Guard of Ukraine postedvideo of “Azov Fighters” greasing their bullets with pig fat to humiliate Russian Muslim fighters from Chechnya.

A day later, the Azov Battalion’s National Corps announcedthat the Azov Battalion’s Kharkiv Regional Police would begin using the city’s Regional State Administration building as a defense headquarters. Footage posted to Telegram the following day shows the Azov-occupied building being hit by a Russian airstrike.

Besides authorizing the release of hardcore criminals to join the battle against Russia, Zelensky has ordered all males of fighting age to remain in the country. Azov militants have proceeded to enforce the policy by brutalizing civilians attempting to flee from the fighting around Mariupol.  

According to one Greek resident in Mariupol recently interviewedby a Greek news station, “When you try to leave you run the risk of running into a patrol of the Ukrainian fascists, the Azov Battalion,” he said, adding “they would kill me and are responsible for everything.”

Footage posted online appears to showuniformed members of a fascist Ukrainian militia in Mariupol violently pulling fleeing residents out of their vehicles at gunpoint.

Other video filmed at checkpoints around Mariupol showed Azov fighters shooting and killing civilians attempting to flee.

On March 1, Zelensky replacedthe regional administrator of Odessa with Maksym Marchenko, a former commander of the extreme right Aidar Battalion, which has been accusedof an array of war crimes in the Donbass region.

Meanwhile, as a massive convoy of Russian armored vehicles bore down on Kiev, Yehven Karas of the neo-Nazi C14 posted a videoon YouTube from inside a vehicle presumably transporting fighters.

“If we get killed, it’s fucking great because it means we died fighting a holy war,” Karas exclaimed. ”If we survive, it’s going to be even fucking better! That’s why I don’t see a downside to this, only upside!”

Alexander Rubinstein

Alex Rubinstein is an independent reporter on Substack. You can subscribe to get free articles from him delivered to your inbox here.If you want to support his journalism, which is never put behind a paywall, you can give a one-time donation to him through PayPal here or sustain his reporting through Patreon here.

Max Blumenthal

The editor-in-chief of The Grayzone, Max Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and the author of several books, including best-selling Republican Gomorrah, Goliath, The Fifty One Day War, and The Management of Savagery. He has produced print articles for an array of publications, many video reports, and several documentaries, including Killing Gaza. Blumenthal founded The Grayzone in 2015 to shine a journalistic light on America's state of perpetual war and its dangerous domestic repercussions.

Extremely important statements by Putin (MUST SEE!)

Putin explains the military situation and why Ukraine might lose its future

Translated and subtitled by Eugenia

My question concerns the current situation in Ukraine. We all support your actions and the special operation that is underway there. Naturally, the most important question, which, one way or another, all of us have asked ourselves, is why this special operation has started. Could it not have been avoided? Rationally, we do understand and support your actions, but as women we cannot help but worry: for our family, relatives, for those who are in Ukraine. We know that the civilians are not impacted. But nevertheless, tell us, reassure us: what are we to expect at the end of this road? What will be the end result of the military operation in Ukraine?

I will be brief but still will have to start, as they say, from “the center of the field”. I said about this at the start of the operation and also spoke about this before this decision has been made, a hard decision, without a doubt.

What is this about? The fact of the matter is that after the anti-constitutional coup in Ukraine, which, unfortunately, was strongly supported by the Western countries – let us face it. They do not even hide the fact that they have spent $5 billion on it, not to mention cookies given away on Maidan, and so on. And after that, instead of bringing the situation back on track, even if it had spiraled out of control, even if it had been the act of the overzealous locals – there is such legal term, i.e. planned one thing, but the result turned out to be something else – they still could have, and should have, returned the situation back onto the political track.

Furthermore, shortly before the coup, the foreign ministers of the three countries came to Kiev in 2014 and signed an agreement with the Ukrainian government acting as guarantors of this agreement to ensure that the situation would be developing in the political sphere. But nothing like that occurred. They organized a coup d’état and supported the perpetrators. What followed were the well-known events related to the Crimea and the southeast of Ukraine, Donbass, where people refused to support the coup. As we know, the Crimea made a decision; people came to vote in a referendum to return to the Russian Federation. Naturally, yes, naturally, we cannot but support that decision, al the more so, since they felt they were in danger from the nationalists and neo-Nazis. There is strong evidence that they were absolutely right in that.

Later, or, rather, in parallel, the events in Donbass were taking place. What have these events led to? People resisting the results of the coup were persecuted. Eventually, the new Kiev authorities initiated a military operation on that territory. They have conducted two large-scale punitive operations using of heavy weapons and combat aviation. They directly attacked Donetsk destroying the city squares with aviation, using tanks and artillery. Both these military campaigns failed. The Ukrainian army suffered defeat. After that, so-called Minsk agreements, or the Package of Measures, to use the official term, have been concluded. The agreements offered a path for a peaceful settlement of the conflict.

We did everything we could to direct the events along this path, to restore the territorial integrity of Ukraine as well as to protects the interests of the people living in these territories. What did these people demand? Nothing but the basic things: the right to speak their mother tongue, i.e. the Russian, and maintain their traditions and culture. These were by no means extraordinary demands. But no. These territories were put under economic blockade; disconnected from the banking system; the supplies of food were stopped; the payments of the pensions and social assistance were suspended. Sometimes, some handouts were given, but in order to get those pensions and benefits a person had to cross the separation line.

Now listen. I will now say something that may sound rough but the situation compels me to say it. You know that occasionally in some regions packs of stray dogs attack people, injure or even kill them (this is a separate problem, and it is for the local authorities to deal with). But then these animals are poisoned or shot dead. But people of Donbass are not stray dogs. Approximately 13,000-14,000 people have been killed during these years. Over 500 children have been killed or injured. But what is particularly intolerable is that the so-called “civilized” West has preferred all these years to look the other way. All these years – 8 years! Eight years!

Moreover, lately the Kiev authorities started to say openly and publicly that they are not going to fulfill the Minsk agreements. They are saying this from the TV screens and online. They are saying this everywhere on the record: We don’t like them; we will not do it. And all this time, Russia has been accused of not fulfilling the agreements. This is simply nonsense; the theater of the absurd; white is called black and black is called white. Lately, things got even worse. Actually, the talk has started long ago, but intensified of late. More and more often we hear that Ukraine would be admitted into NATO. Do you understand what this could lead to? Or can lead to still?

If Ukraine is a NATO member, then according to the North Atlantic Treaty, all other members must support the country in case of a military conflict. No one besides us has recognized Crimea as a Russian territory. The yare conducting military operations in Donbas but also could move onto Crimea, and in such case we would have to fight with the whole of NATO. What is that? Do you understand the consequences? I think everyone understands.

Now they (Ukraine) are talking about acquiring the nuclear status, i.e. developing nuclear weapons. We cannot possibly ignore such things, particularly considering that we know how the so-called West behaves with regard to Russia. First, Ukraine has some nuclear competence left from the Soviet time. As far as enrichment and nuclear material are concerned, they would be able to organize that work. They have missile abilities: suffice is to mention Yuzhmush. This company used to build intercontinental ballistic missile equipment for the Soviet Union. They could recover that ability and do it. And those from across the ocean would even help them do it. And after that would say: “Well, we do not recognize the nuclear status; they have done everything themselves”. And then they would put these complexes under control, and from that moment on, from that very second, the fate of Russia will be completely different. Because in that case, our strategic adversaries would not even need intercontinental ballistic missiles. They would keep us right here at the nuclear gunpoint, that is all. How could we disregard such a thing? These are absolutely real threats, not some far-fetched silly fantasy.

Our boys who are now fighting and risking their lives, they are fighting and giving their lives for our future, for the future of our children. This is something perfectly obvious. And the people who do not want to understand that, particularly those among today’s leaders (of Ukraine), have to understand that if they keep doing what the have been doing – I have spoken about this before – they put at risk the very future of the Ukrainian statehood. If this happens, that will be entirely their fault.

What is going on now? I have already mentioned our objectives in this operation. First, of course, is to protect the people living in Donbass. How? By demilitarizing and denazifying Ukraine as well as establishing its neutral status. Why? Because the neutral status means Ukraine will not be joining NATO. They have it written in the Constitution that the country will be joining NATO. You understand – they have included that into the Constitution!

Denazification – what does this mean? I have spoken with my Western colleagues about this. They say:” What is the problem? You also have the radical nationalists”. Yes, we do. But we do not have them in the government, but everybody agrees that they (the Ukrainians) do. Perhaps, we have some idiots running around with swastika, but do we support that at the government level? Do thousands of people march with torches and swastikas on the streets of our capital or other cities in Russia, like it happened in 1930s in Nazi Germany? Is something like that happening in Russia? But it happens in Ukraine, and it is supported. Do we support those who killed the Russians, Jews, or the Poles during the war? Do we hail them as heroes? But in Ukraine, they do.

The current events are also very important. Look, the foreign citizens have been taken hostages in Sumy and Kharkov – over 6,000 young people, students. They have been driven together into a railway station and kept there for 3 days. Listen, they have been held there for the third day. We have told everybody about this and informed the current Ukrainian authorities. They said: “Yes, yes, of course, we will deal this this right now”. We have informed the leaders of the major European countries, I personally talked to them. “Yes, yes, we will put pressure on Ukraine right now”. We informed the UN Secretary-General: “Yes, yes, we will solve the problem right away”. Nobody is doing anything.

People who are considered the citizens of Ukraine are treated even worse. They are simply used as a human shield. Right now, in this very moment, this is happening in Mariupol. The Kiev government called our military: ”Provide humanitarian corridors so people could leave”. Naturally, our people instantly responded, even suspended the military activities, and were observing what was happening. But no one was allowed to leave. You understand, no one was allowed out. They do not anybody leave but instead use the people as a human shield. Who are they? The neo-Nazis, of course.

We already observe the presence of the militants from the Middle East and some European countries. We know about them; we can hear them speak on the radio. They are using so-called jihad-mobiles, i.e. cars stuffed with explosives, which they drive towards the Russian troops. But they do not achieve anything, and they will fail in the end. Who are they, then, if not neo-Nazis? By such actions, they are destroying their own country and their own statehood.

That is why one of our key demands is demilitarization. In other words, we are helping people of Donbass by working towards the neutral status of Ukraine and the demilitarization of the country. We have to know with certainty what weapons are there, where they are deployed, and who controls them. A number of options are on the table. We are discussing them now, including with the Kiev government representatives in our talks in Belarus. We are grateful to the President Lukashenko for organizing the meetings and helping us to conduct these negotiations. Our proposals are on the table for the groups of the negotiators from Kiev to study. We hope that Kiev will respond positively to our proposals. This is pretty much all I wanted to say.

Please, let us continue.

Schvidko, Yulia, the second pilot of the Aeroflot airline. Vladimir Vladimirovich, good afternoon. My question is about the current situation. Many rumors are circulating about possible introduction of the marshal law, drafting of volunteers and reservists, and that the draftees will be sent to Ukraine. Could you clarify whether the marshal law will be declared and whether the drafted soldiers will be deployed to Ukraine.

Many of what we now see and what is happening is undoubtedly a technique to fight against Russia. By the way, the sanctions imposed today are close to a declaration of a war. But fortunately, we are not there yet. I believe that our so-called “partners” still retain some understanding of what a war would mean and what danger it presents for everybody. That is despite that irresponsible statements, such as made by the British Foreign Minister, when she blurted that NATO could involve itself in the conflict. At that point, we had to immediately make a decision to put our strategic forces on high alert. They reacted by saying that they did not mean anything of the sort. However, nobody put the Minister in her place, and nobody disavowed her statement. No one said anything to us about that statement, like it was her personal opinion, do not pay attention, or something like that. Nothing. What are we supposed to think about that? That is why we reacted the way we did.

Now about your question. The marshal law is introduced by the order of the President supported by the Federation Council in the case of the external aggression, specifically in the regions where the military activity takes place. We are not in that situation now, and I hope will not be. This is first. The second point – there is also, in addition to the marshal law, a special status. This status is also declared by the Federation Council in case of a significant internal threat. The third regime is the state of emergency, which is usually declared in particular regions, although could also be adopted in the entire territory of the country. This regime is for technological and natural disasters. Thanks God, this is also not happening. We are not planning to declare any of these regimes on the territory of the Russian Federation. There is no need for that today.

We can see that attempts are being made to stir up trouble in our society, which is again a conformation of my words that we are dealing with not just the radicals but with the neo-Nazis. Here people are expressing their opinion about what they like or dislike in our action in Ukraine. But there, in Ukraine, people that express the opinions similar to those expressed by the so-called ‘liberal” part of our society, are being detained on the streets and shot – we do have confirmation of that. Our special services are now collecting this information and we will be presenting it soon. Our liberal intellectuals are protesting, whereas in Ukraine people that say anything in favor of Russia are been executed without trial.

I repeat, that the marshal law is declared in case of the external aggression, which I hope will not happen despite irresponsible statements of some officials. We hear that a no fly zone should be established over the Ukrainian territory. This is impossible to do in the territory of Ukraine itself; this is only possible to organize from the territories of the neighboring countries. However, we will consider any movement in this direction as active participation in the military conflict by a country, the territory of which is used to create danger for our servicemen. We will in a second consider them as a party to the military conflict. I hope this is also understood, and it will not come to that.

Only professional military personnel are taking part in this operation, officers and contract servicemen. Not a single drafted soldier is participating, and we are not planning to send them to Ukraine, and we will not. I repeat only men who have made a voluntary responsible decision in their lives – to defend their country – are in Ukraine, and they are doing their duty with honor. Why this is the case, why we have the right to say these words, I have just explained to you. This also applied to reserve personnel undergoing periodic military training – we are not planning to deploy them to Ukraine. They are summoned to the military training on the regular basis – this happens now and will be happening in the future – but we will not enlist these people for the active military service, and they will not participate in this conflict. We have sufficient resources to achieve our objectives employing only our professional army.

I would like to comment on the military operation itself. I know many rumors and stories are being circulating. I do not have much time to learn about this, but I have been informed that people talk a lot about what is happening and how the operation is proceeding. All analysts know what is going on, so I am not going to reveal any secrets here. We could have acted in many different ways. We could have helped the Donbass republics directly on the separation line, i.e. on the front, using our Russian army to support them. But in such case, considering the unconditional support by the West of the radical nationalists, the Ukrainian side would have received constant support by weapons, material, ammunition, and all.

That is why our General Staff and the Ministry of Defense decided on a different strategy. First that was done is the elimination of the military infrastructure. Not entirely, but largely. The weapon depots, ammunition depots, aviation, air defense systems. The destruction of the air defense systems requires certain time. You are civilians but you do work in aviation. You understand that these systems need to be uncovered and then destroyed; by now this work is largely done. That is what brings about the demands for a no fly zone. However, an attempt to put this into effect would lead to enormous and catastrophic consequences not only for Europe, but also for the entire world. I do believe that the people on the other side do understand that. That is why we have chosen this path, correctly, as it turned out. Our military is working responsibly doing everything possible to protect the civilians. Unfortunately, those neo-Nazi bandits do not have any consideration for the people. They even shoot their own servicemen who do not want to continue fighting – we do have evidence of that. Yes, those nationalists, neo-Nazis shoot their own servicemen. The nationalists are embedded in practically every Ukrainian military unit, several dozens of them in each, and they act in such a cruel way.

I repeat one more time: we will not deploy draftees or reservists to Ukraine to participate in this military operation. I am convinced that our army will achieve all our objectives. I do not doubt that for a second. This is evident from the way the operation is proceeding, which is strictly according to the plan, to the schedule; all is happening the way it had been planned by the General Staff. Oh, regarding volunteers, the young people who come to the recruiting stations – we are grateful to them for their patriotic sentiments, the desire to support their country and its army in this time. The very fact that they come is significant. However, their help is not required at this time. And I am convinced will not be needed. Now I am turning towards the camera. They will see me and hear what I am saying – thank you.

Noam Chomsky: A No-Fly Zone Over Ukraine Could Unleash Untold Violence

UKRAINE: US drove Russia to invade.

How Zelensky Made Peace With Neo-Nazis

 If the West is opposed to bombing schools, clinics and peoples’ homes why is it that Palestine Action activists are on bail for trying to stop Elbit Systems making killer drones for use in Gaza and Yemen?

John Mersheimer and Ray McGovern

Last year I was one of 6 Palestine Action activists who were detained by Police on the way to Elbit’s Shenstone Factory which produces drones, missiles and cluster ammunition (although they deny it). The Jewish Chronicle gleefully reportedthat ‘Greenstein charged with 'possessing an article with the intent to destroy property'.

Elbit funded a book which claims that Bulgaria’s army saved the country’s Jews from deportation. In fact Bulgaria’s army deported 11,000 Jews from  Thrace & Macedonia to Auschwitz. It was the strength of the Left and the Church which prevented the deportation of Bulgaria's 50,000 Jews. But Elbit is more concerned about arms contracts with Bulgaria. Who cares if it falsifies the history of the Holocaust.