Miracles do happen – the New York Times Carries an anti-Zionist Critique!

December 22, 2016, 5:19 pm

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The after-shock of Trump and the Zionist fawning over Bannon takes its toll

Strange things must be going on when the New York Times, the most devoted foot soldier to Zionism and the Israeli state over the years runs an anti-Zionist critique

The Jewish National Fund, a pivotal organisation of Zionist Apartheid asks what Jews have dreamt of, a Jewish or a Democratic state

Professor Boehm calls attention to the‘alliance that’s beginning to form between Zionist leadership and politicians with anti-Semitic tendencies’.  Anti-Zionists like myself have been saying this for years with scant attention from the media.  The fact that anti-Semitic politicians like Herr Strache of Austria’s ex-neo Nazi Freedom Party, visited Israel as the honoured guest of the Likud party passes unnoticed.

But finally it was all too much even for the NYT.  Trump’s campaign has been sponsored by white supremacists of all stripes, including David Duke, the ex-Grand Wizard of the KKK and a noted holocaust denier.  Trump has refused to dissociate himself from any of this at the same time espousing ultra-Zionist positions, leading up to the appointment as the US Ambassador to Israel of David Friedman, who it is said makes Netanyahu appear as some kind of left-winger.

Finally it seems to have got through to people that anti-Semites and Zionists have always got on like a house on fire.  Maybe the invitation to Steve Bannon, Trump’s new anti-Semitic Strategic Advisor and ex-CEO of Breitbart, to the Zionist Organisation of America’s annual gala dinner was all a bit too much.

The analysis of why Israel, as a Jewish state, cannot be a state of its own citizens, 20% of whom are not Jewish and at the same time it is the state of a mythical Jewish nation/race throughout the world is excellent.  Boehm shows how Israel stands in opposition to everything Emancipation stood for.  The nationalism of the French Revolution with its slogan of liberty, equality and fraternity meant that regardless of race or religion, all the citizens of a country were equal.  In the words of Clermont–Tonnerre in the French Constituent Assembly ‘We must refuse everything to the Jews as a nation and accord everything to Jews as individuals.’

Tony Greenstein

The Opinion Pages

Liberal Zionism in the Age of Trump

Omri Boehm

THE STONE DEC. 20, 2016

Sea of Galilee, Israel. Credit Paolo Pellegrin/Magnum Photos

For weeks now, Jewish communities across America have been troubled by an awkward phenomenon. Donald J. Trump, a ruthless politician trafficking in anti-Semitic tropes, has been elected to become the next president, and he has appointed as his chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, a prominent figure of the “alt-right,” a movement that promotes white nationalism, anti-Semitism, racism and misogyny. Though Bannon himself has expressed “zero tolerance” for such views, his past actions suggest otherwise; as the executive chairman of Breitbart News for the past four years, he provided the country’s most powerful media platform for the movement and its ideologies.

Still, neither the United States’ most powerful Jewish organizations nor Israeli leaders have taken a clear stance against the appointment. In fact, they have embraced it.

Immediately after Trump appointed Bannon, the Zionist Organization of America prepared to welcome him at its annual gala dinner, where he was to meet Naftali Bennett, Israel’s minister of education, and Danny Danon, the country’s ambassador to the United Nations. (Bannon didn’t show up.) Ron Dermer, Israel’s ambassador in Washington, publicly announced that he was looking forward to working with the entire Trump administration, including Bannon. And Alan Dershowitz, the outspoken Harvard emeritus professor of law who regularly denounces non-Zionists as anti-Semitic, preferred in this case to turn not against Bannon, but against his critics. 

“It is not legitimate to call somebody an anti-Semite because you might disagree with their politics,” he pointed out.

The alliance that’s beginning to form between Zionist leadership and politicians with anti-Semitic tendencies has the power to transform Jewish-American consciousness for years to come. In the last few decades, many of America’s Jewish communities have grown accustomed to living in a political contradiction. On one hand, a large majority of these communities could rightly take pride in a powerful liberal tradition, stretching back to such models as Louis Brandeis — a defender of social justice and the first Jew to become a Supreme Court justice — or Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who marched in Selma alongside the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. On the other hand, the same communities have often identified themselves with Zionism, a political agenda rooted in the denial of liberal

To appreciate this inherent tension, consider Hillary Clinton’s words from the second presidential debate: “It is important for us as a policy not to say, as Donald has said, we’re going to ban people based on a religion. How do you do that? We are a country founded on religious freedom and liberty.” Here Clinton establishes a minimum standard of liberal decency that few American Jews would be inclined to deny. But she is not the incoming president. Trump’s willingness to reject this standard is now a cause for alarm among Jewish communities, along with those of other American minorities.

Yet insofar as Israel is concerned, every liberal Zionist has not just tolerated the denial of this minimum liberal standard, but avowed this denial as core to their innermost convictions. Whereas liberalism depends on the idea that states must remain neutral on matters of religion and race, Zionism consists in the idea that the State of Israel is not Israeli, but Jewish. As such, the country belongs first and foremost not to its citizens, but to the Jewish people — a group that’s defined by ethnic affiliation or religious conversion.

As long as liberalism was secure back in America and the rejection of liberalism confined to the Israeli scene, this tension could be mitigated. But as it spills out into the open in the rapidly changing landscape of American politics, the double standard is becoming difficult to defend.

That difficulty was apparent earlier this month at an event at Texas A&M University when Richard Spencer, one of the ideological leaders of the alt-right’s white nationalist agenda — which he has called “a sort of white Zionism” — was publicly challenged by the university’s Hillel Rabbi Matt Rosenberg, to study with him the Jewish religion’s “radical inclusion” and love. “Do you really want radical inclusion into the state of Israel?” Spencer replied. “Maybe all of the Middle East can go move into Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. Would you really want that?” Spencer went on to argue that Israel’s ethnic-based politics was the reason Jews had a strong, cohesive identity, and that Spencer himself admired them for it.

The rabbi could not find words to answer, and his silence reverberates still. It made clear that an argument that does not embrace a double standard is difficult to come by.

Right-wing politicians and commentators in the United States have been putting pressure on this double standard for years. In her 2015 book, “Adios, America,” the commentator Ann Coulter wrote:

Palestinians demand a right to return to their pre-1967 homes, but Israel says, quite correctly, that changing Israel’s ethnicity would change the idea of Israel. Well, changing America’s ethnicity changes the idea of America, too. Show me in a straight line why we can’t do what Israel does. Is Israel special? For some of us, America is special, too.

Coulter gets her dates mixed up. Palestinians in fact do not demand a “right of return” to their pre-1967 homes, but to their pre-1948 homes. In other words, the issue isn’t the occupation, which many liberal Zionists agree is a crime, but Zionism itself. Opposition to the Palestinians’ “right of return” is a matter of consensus among left and right Zionists because also liberal Zionists insist that Israel has the right to ensure that Jews constitute the ethnic majority in their country. That’s the reason for which Rabbi Rosenberg could not answer Spencer. But if you reject Zionism because you reject the double standard, organizations such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee or the Jewish Federations of North America would denounce you as anti-Semitic.

It is important to emphasize that in some crucial respects, the comparison between the alt-right’s white-Christian ethnic politics and the Jewish State is not just misleading, but sinister. The history of the Jews — a tiny minority that has faced persecutions, pogroms and the Holocaust — isn’t analogous to that of white Christians. This is an important qualification, and the reason for which, when Richard Spencer speaks of the alt-right as “a sort of white Zionism,” he is promoting a despicable lie. It must be possible to sympathize with Israel and show understanding of Zionism’s historical conditions but to refuse any sympathies to the alt-right. Unfortunately, anti-Zionist critics sometimes fail to be sensitive to this distinction.

But despite sympathy and solidarity with Israel — or better, because of it — any Jew who remains committed to liberalism must insist that nothing in Jewish history can allow the Jews to violate the rights of other ethnic and religious minorities, and that nothing in our history suggests that it would be wise for us to do so.

This is all the more true because by denying liberal principles, Zionism immediately becomes continuous with — rather than contradictory to — the anti-Semitic politics of the sort promoted by the alt-right. The idea that Israel is the Jews’ own ethnic state implies that Jews living outside of it — say, in America or in Europe — enjoy a merely diasporic existence. That is another way of saying that they inhabit a country that is not genuinely their own. Given this logic, it is natural for Zionist and anti-Semitic politicians to find common ideas and interests. Every American who has been on a Birthright Israel tour should know that left-leaning Israelis can agree with America’s alt-right that, ideally, ”Jews should live in their own country.”

Since this continuity is so natural, it has a long and significant history. Last April, Heinz-Christian Strache, leader of Austria’s far-right Freedom Party, was embraced in Israel by top members of Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition. Strache’s party now celebrates mostly anti-Islam and anti-immigration policies, but it was originally founded by former Austrian Nazis. Jörg Haider, a previous leader of the party, was infamous for showing sympathy for some of Hitler’s policies. Another case in point is Geert Wilders, the xenophobic far-right Dutch politician. This month, it was revealed that Wilders’s visits to Israel and his meetings with Israeli personnel have been so frequent that the Dutch intelligence community investigated his “ties to Israel and their possible influence on his loyalty.”

This phenomenon has been somewhat familiar also in the United States given the close ties between fundamentalist evangelical Christians — whose views on the Jews’ part in a larger messianic scheme is flatly anti-Semitic — and the state of Israel. But with Trump, this type of collaboration is introduced to the heart of American politics.

Nothing demonstrates this alliance better than the appointment of David Friedman to be the United States ambassador to Israel. Friedman, an ardent supporter of Israel’s occupation project, has argued that J Street’s liberal Zionist supporters, who are critical of the occupation, are “worse than Kapos” — the Jews who collaborated with their Nazi concentration camp guards. In fact, however, it is Friedman’s own politics — and the politics of the government that he supports — that’s continuous with anti-Semitic principles and collaborates with anti-Semitic politics.

The “original sin” of such alliances may be traced back to 1941, in a letter to high Nazi officials, drafted in 1941 by Avraham Stern, known as Yair, a leading early Zionist fighter and member in the 1930s of the paramilitary group Irgun, and later, the founder of another such group, Lehi. In the letter, Stern proposes to collaborate with “Herr Hitler” on “solving the Jewish question” by achieving a “Jewish free Europe.” The solution can be achieved, Stern continues, only through the “settlement of these masses in the home of the Jewish people, Palestine.” To that end, he suggests collaborate with the German’s “war efforts,” and establish a Jewish state on a “national and totalitarian basis,” which will be “bound by treaty with the German Reich.”

It has been convenient to ignore the existence of this letter, just as it has been convenient to mitigate the conceptual conditions making it possible. But such tendencies must be rejected. They reinforce the same logic by which the letter itself was written: the sanctification of Zionism to the point of tolerating anti-Semitism. That’s the logic that liberal American Jews currently have to fight, but it will prove difficult to uproot. Stern is memorialized in street names in every major Israeli town, and it is not unreasonable to assume that Yair Netanyahu, the prime minister’s son, whose father celebrated Stern as a mythical model of Zionist struggle, is called by Stern’s nom de guerre.

The comparisons between Trump and Hitler — more prevalent in pre-elections articles than today — will hopefully prove entirely exaggerated. But even so, the following years promise to present American Jewry with a decision that they have much preferred to avoid. Hold fast to their liberal tradition, as the only way to secure human, citizen and Jewish rights; or embrace the principles driving Zionism. In the age of Trump, insisting on both is likely to prove too difficult to contain.

Omri Boehmis an assistant professor of philosophy at the New School for Social Research. He is the author of “The Binding of Isaac, a Religious Model of Disobedience” and, most recently, “Kant’s Critique of Spinoza.”

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Israel - the State of Terror - Thomas Suarez

December 23, 2016, 4:30 pm

≫ Next: What kind of democratic state threatens to expel a journalist for asking the ‘wrong’ question of a politician? The Jewish Democratic State of Israel

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Zionism ‘Started with the kind of aims with which Hitler started’ Robert Waley Cohen

The first thorough analysis of relevant British and US archives, 16 Dec. 2016

State of Terror: How terrorism created modern Israel.
Thomas Suárez. Bloxham, UK: Skyscraper Publications.

 By Iain Chalmers

This review is from: State of Terror (Hardcover)

I haven’t read this book but it seems fascinating.  I and others have always known about how the Zionist movement sought to block any avenues of escape, other than Palestine, for Jewish refugees during WW2 .  The aim was to use the refugees in order to batter open the gates of Palestine for Jewish immigration.

We also know, not least from the agents involved,such as Naim Giladi, that Zionist agents were involved in planting bombs in areas Jews frequented in Iraq and Morocco, among other Arab states, with the aim of simulating anti-Semitism and thereby provoking a stampede of Jews to the Israeli state.

However I didn’t know about the targeting of non-Zionist Jews although nothing about Zionism would at all surprise me.

Today, as Zionism seeks to portray itself as the ‘national liberation movement of Jews’ the kind of movement in whose mouth butter wouldn’t melt, it’s good to be reminded of the sordid racist and bloody record of the Zionist movement.

Tony Greenstein 

People interested in knowing how the state of Israel came to be established are indebted to Israeli historians, in particular Tom Segev, Benny Morris, Avi Shlaim and Ilan Pappé. Drawing on archives and other Israeli sources, these researchers have provided us with evidence that standard Zionist narratives about the creation of Israel do not stand up to scrutiny.

It seems surprising that, until now, relevant British Government archives have not received detailed attention. Thomas Suárez has now published a 400-page account of his findings from meticulous research, drawing especially on documents in the British National Archives at Kew, London, and also US Central Intelligence Agency papers. Ilan Pappé describes Suárez’s book - State of Terror - as “the first comprehensive and structured analysis of the violence and terror employed by the Zionist movement and later the state of Israel against the people of Palestine.”

What does State of Terror tell us that we didn’t already know about the violence and terror, within Palestine and beyond, employed by a determined settler-colonialist movement led principally by European, secular Jews?

The book refers to widely known terrorist acts against the British mandate government of Palestine (such as the dynamiting of the King David Hotel), and to terrorist attacks on the indigenous population of Palestine (such as that at Deir Yassin). State of Terror ‘revisits’ these notorious examples of terror directed against targets that stood in the way of establishing an ethno-supremacist settler state intended exclusively for Jews, and self-defined as the state of all Jews, everywhere.

Suárez introduced me to many other examples of Zionist terrorism with which I was not familiar, documented in almost numbing detail, and supported by references to hundreds of archival documents. Anyone who wishes to challenge his analysis has a great deal of work to do.

A feature of the book which has not been covered systematically elsewhere is terrorism and other measures used by the Zionist movement against non-Zionist Jews, within and outside Palestine. Some of these have also previously been well documented, but are less well known than they should be. They reveal the lengths to which the Zionist movement was prepared to go to secure its ambitions to populate Palestine and neighbouring territories with Jews, and ‘cleanse’ these territories of non-Jews.

Zionism - “starting with the kind of aims with which Hitler had started.... seemed to be based on one religion and one race.”, Robert Waley Cohen

In November 1940, under the authority of future prime minister Moshe Sharett, a Hagana bomber blew a hole in the side of the ship Patria to prevent its departure for Displaced Persons to camps in Mauritius. Of the 267 killed, most were Jews fleeing the war in Europe. Cinemas, printing presses, kiosks, radar stations, bridges, trains, roads, and cars were bombed, and the terror did not just target British and Palestinians, but ‘uncooperative’ Jews as well.

Suárez writes: “Both before and after 1948, hundreds of thousands of people in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East became fair game for Zionist violence because they were Jewish, since Zionism depended not just on the transfer of non-Jewish Palestinians out of Palestine, but also on the transfer of Jews into Palestine. Anti-Jewish tactics included manipulating the Displaced Persons (DC) camps, thwarting safe haven opportunities in other countries [than Palestine], kidnapping Jewish orphans, [persuading Jewish children of non-Zionist Jews to betray their parents], and, [after 1948], destroying Jewish communities in North Africa and the Middle East through propaganda and false-flag ‘Arab’ terrorism – all to ship ‘ethnically correct’ people to Palestine in the service of the settler state”.

At a secret meeting in London in 1941 which involved Weizmann and Ben Gurion, a non-Zionist industrialist, Robert Waley Cohen, observed that the Zionists were “starting with the kind of aims with which Hitler had started”, and which “seemed to be based on one religion and one race.” When, a few years later, Roosevelt developed a plan to resettle half a million persons displaced by fascism in Europe, the initiative was derailed by Zionists intent on denying resettlement of European Jews anywhere other than Palestine.

More than any other book I have read, Thomas Suárez’s State of Terror lays bare the ruthlessness of the Zionist movement in its determination – unbroken since its inception at the end of the 19th century and continuing today - to establish a settler state with no defined borders, populated exclusively by Jews. And the book really brought home to me the ways that Zionism has benefitted from (and continues to thrive on) discrimination against Jews - real, alleged, or actively manufactured.

Politicians and others who acquiesce in or actively support the methods used by Zionism should read this book and consider what lessons it holds, not only for the people of Israel and Palestine as Zionism acts out ethno-religious superiority and messianic fundamentalism, but for all of us, given that Israel is one of the world’s few nuclear-armed states.

Iain Chalmers

16 December 2016

Declaration: I learned of Britain’s key role in creating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during my first visit to Palestine in 1963. I subsequently worked for two years as a United Nations medical officer in Khan Younis in a clinic then serving over 40,000 refugees. I have returned to Gaza at intervals since then. I am a member of the steering group of the Lancet-Palestinian Health Alliance to promote research to help improve health and health services for Palestinians. I make financial donations to several Israeli and Palestinian human rights organisations and charities.

‘State of Terror,’ by Thomas Suárez

1946 train bombing, image from Tom Suarez's book State of Terror

A review of State of Terror: How terrorism created modern Israel, by Thomas Suárez. Published today in the UK, available for pre-order in the U.S.

To introduce the theme of this book, I can do no better than to quote its endorsement by Prof. Ilan Pappé:

A tour de force, based on diligent archival research that looks boldly at the impact of Zionism on Palestine and its people in the first part of the 20th century. The book is the first comprehensive and structured analysis of the violence and terror employed by the Zionist movement, and later the state of Israel, against the people of Palestine.

Thanks to Prof. Pappé and other Israeli ‘new’ historians working from Israeli government archives, we now have a good understanding of the extent of the catastrophe which befell the Palestinian people in the 1947-49 period as the Zionist forces fought through Palestine either driving out the non-Jewish population, or, if they fled, taking over their property and destroying empty villages.

The less well-known history of the period before this, from the Balfour Declaration of 1917 through the British Mandate of 1922-1948 has now been thoroughly researched in this new book by Thomas Suárez, working largely from British Government archives. He continues the story until the end of the 1956 war in which Israel, Britain and France attacked Egypt.

The book is a substantial work of historical scholarship of over 400 pages, including 680 endnotes, some of them long paragraphs quoting several sources. There is also a very comprehensive index, and a few contemporary photographs. Some maps of the territory would have helped the reader follow the story.

The story he tells is of a Zionist elite determined from the beginning to turn all of Palestine into a Jewish state in which the local non-Jewish Arab population would be either subjugated or expelled. The Zionists were quite willing to use violence and terrorism to achieve this aim, and the book traces the resulting unhappy history in detail, to the extent that, in places, it reads like a catalog of Zionist terror attacks. The Zionist policy is made clear in this quote from Menachem Begin, later a Prime Minister of Israel, which appears at the head of the book’s Introduction:

“We intend to attack, conquer and keep until we have the whole of Palestine and Transjordan in a Greater Jewish State”.

The author does not deny or condone the existence of Palestinian Arab terrorism, but shows how it was then (and remains today) “a reaction to Zionist ethnic subjugation and expropriation of land, resources and labour, with non-violent resistance having proved futile”. Whereas the Palestinian terrorists were loose bands of guerillas operating in the country districts, the Zionist terrorists were organized militias operating from within urban centers under the protection of those communities.

As Palestinian terrorism died down after the brutal suppression of the Arab protests in 1936, Zionist terror escalated, particularly after the 1939 White Paper which placed restrictions on Jewish immigration, “targeting anyone in the way of its political objectives – Palestinian, British or Jewish”. During the second world war, the official Zionist militia, Hagana, toned down its attacks on the British. Both Arab and Jewish Palestinians volunteered to join the Allied forces, though the Jews insisted on their own regiment.

From 1942 onwards, when it was clear that the Allies were going to win the war, the Zionists restarted their campaign of wholesale terrorism (as the British described it) to establish a Zionist state by force: a campaign which eventually forced Britain’s decision to abandon the Mandate, leading to the UN Partition Plan, civil war, ethnic-cleansing of the Arab population, and the unilateral declaration of the State of Israel in 1948.

Tom Suárez in the West Bank. Photo credit Sainatee Suárez

The book makes the important point that in the early days most of world Jewry were opposed to Zionism. In Britain, the Jewish cabinet minister Lord Montagu, supported by other Jewish leaders, viewed the Zionists as collaborators with the anti-semites who were delighted with the idea of the Jews expelling themselves from their current homelands. Montagu was instrumental in changing the aim of the Balfour Declaration from “Palestine AS THE Jewish national home” to the vaguer “A Jewish national home IN Palestine”. Orthodox Jews, including the indigenous Arab Jews of Palestine, thought that the return of the Jews to the Land of Israel could not take place until the time of the Messiah, and rejected Zionism as an attempt to replace Jewish religion with a secular, nationalistic ideology. Liberal Jews did not believe that Jews constituted a national group who needed a political home, and were loyal to their existing homeland. In the USA a group of (mainly Reform) rabbis established the anti-Zionist American Council for Judaism, still active today.

The book also reveals the Zionist willingness to use violence against their Jewish opponents; their conviction that all Jews had an obligation to leave their homelands to go to Palestine; their willingness to stir up anti-semitism to encourage such migration; and their attempts to prevent displaced Jews going anywhere other than Palestine.

Jerusalem from the north, during the Mandate period, an image from Tom Suarez's book State of Terror

The coverage of historical events in the book is somewhat sketchy, and might confuse the general reader not already familiar with the topic: for example, the 1917 Balfour Declaration is discussed but the text is not provided. It presents the 1947 UN Partition Plan simply as a division of Palestine (excluding Jerusalem) into two states, Jewish and Arab, as if they were to be independent sovereign states. In fact, they were to be joined in a confederation effectively under UN trusteeship, and created by a process in which there was no place for a unilateral declaration of independence. Ben-Gurion’s attempt in Israel’s Declaration of Establishment to justify it through the Partition Plan was a fraud. We are told that the Declaration did not acknowledge any borders for the new state, but not told that the Zionists were forced to make a formal declaration of borders as proposed by the Partition Plan in order to achieve recognition by the USA. This is significant because it makes it clear that Israel was not invaded by 5 Arab armies on 15 May 1948, as Zionists claim: most of the fighting in the subsequent war was outside its borders, and only Syrian and Egyptian troops entered Israeli territory.

This book is true, and it is important. It proves beyond doubt that Israel is not the perpetual victim of Arab violence that it claims to be, but has been the aggressor throughout the history of the conflict.

Thomas Suárez is to be congratulated and thanked for his work. This book is a tremendous achievement by a writer who is also a talented musician and an expert in historic cartography.

Publication Information

UK Edition published by Skyscraper Publications, 13 October 2016, RRP £20.

Format: Hardcover, 417 pages

ISBN: 978-1911072034

Available on amazon.co.uk

US Edition published by Interlink-Olive Branch, November 23, 2016, $20

Format: Paperback, 288 pages

ISBN: 978-1566560689

Available for pre-order on amazon.com.

Electronic edition forthcoming. The book has its own website at state-of-terror.net

What kind of democratic state threatens to expel a journalist for asking the ‘wrong’ question of a politician? The Jewish Democratic State of Israel

December 23, 2016, 6:16 pm

≫ Next: Guardian Cowardice as it abandons Antony Loewenstein to Israel's Ministry of Information

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As Israel Threatens to Withdraw Antony Loewenstein’s Press Credentials why does the Guardian abandon him to the wolves?

Can you imagine it?  Theresa May is asked an awkward question about her £1,000 leather trousers or about what  ‘Brexit means Brexit’ actually means.  Or maybe Boris Johnson is asked to give the name of a foreign leader who he hasn’t offended or insulted?  You get the message. 

Antony Loewenstein - Journalist Threatened by Israel with Expulsion for Asking Zionist Politician Lapid an Awkward Question!

Yair Lapid says Jews can live nowhere else but Israel - Lapid has previously gone on record as saying it would 'bother him greatly' if his son married Rona not Rina.

The next day the Prime Minister’s press spokesman announces that serious consideration is being given to withdrawing the journalist’s press credentials, meaning that will therefore have to leave the country.  This is what happened to BBC correspondents in the democratic state of Zimbabwe, when they started asking awkward questions about Robert Mugabe.  Of course Israel is not Zimbabwe and therefore the BBC will not cover this story.  

Even in the UK or Western Europe, i.e. in most bourgeois democratic countries, journalists don’t get threatened with expulsion for asking awkward questions.  However Israel is a bogus democracy.  Sure it has the trappings of a democracy but pierce beneath the surface and it is a police state in all but name.  Torture, censorship, violent state racism, inbuilt discrimination.  It has the lot.

Lapid is seen here at a press conference with Israeli officers attacking the Israeli human rights organisation Breaking the Silence for publishing the testimony of Israeli soldiers that Israel committed war crimes in Gaza

Yair Lapid, a former Israeli TV journalist, is the leader of the ‘centrist’ Yesh Atid party in Israel’s Knesset.  He was in the coalition government with Netanyahu until 2015 and politically he is on the far-Right.  The fact that he is called a centrist demonstrates the nature of Israeli politics.  Earlier this year when the soldiers’ group, Breaking the Silence, published testimony from soldiers who had served in Operation Protective Edge about the war crimes that had been committed, it was Lapid who went out of his way to take part in demonising BTS.

In The Times of Israel Lapid said he would be ‘bothered’ if his son married a non-Jew.  Speaking on Galei Israel radio, Lapid said, “It bothers me, I admit. I say that if tomorrow my son came to me and said, ‘Dad, I want you to meet Rona, not Rina, and she’s Russian Orthodox or Catholic and we’re getting married and the kids won’t be Jewish’ — would that bother me? It would bother me greatly.'

This is not a matter of religious preference but out and out racism, because in Israel being Jewish is a question of race and national identification and that is the primary objection. 

Loewenstein asked a very reasonable question about Apartheid and Israel.  Understandably Zionists and Israeli politicians are sensitive about being compared to the Apartheid regime.  Having had the best of relations with the Apartheid regime when it was in existence, including supplying it with weapons, including nuclear technology, Israel doesn’t like being compared to Apartheid.  It is understandable.

The fact that Israel rules over 3-4 million Palestinians in the Occupied Territories without according them any civil or political rights, including the vote, and that it has done so for nearly 50 years is not apartheid according to Zionist apologists.  The fact that a Palestinian state is out of the question, because ‘there is no partner for peace’ doesn’t mean that the Palestinians can be allowed to destroy the ‘Jewish’ state through being granted the right to vote, thus making a fetish of democracy.

Israel within the 1948 borders is an ethnocracy, a Jewish state, despite 20% of the population being non-Jewish.  In practice that means that Israel within the 1967 borders is also an apartheid state.  But these are questions reasonable people can debate and discuss.

The real question however is, what kind of state is it that expels a journalist for asking the ‘wrong’ kind of question?

Tony Greenstein

Israel threatens to toss Antony Loewenstein after he asked Lapid question about apartheid

Philip Weiss

Antony Loewenstein

The Jerusalem Post reports that the Israeli government is thinking of ending Antony Loewenstein’s press credentials, forcing him to leave Jerusalem, because he asked a tough question of a government official.

Loewenstein, the Jerusalem-based author most recently of the book Disaster Capitalism, has gotten wide support from journalists in the hours since the story broke, including Max Blumenthal and Mairav Zonszein and others on Loewenstein’s twitter feed.

Here’s the story.

On December 12, Loewenstein attended an appearance of Yair Lapid, the leader of the Yesh Atid (There is a Future) party and a former finance minister, at the Foreign Press Association in Jerusalem’s King David Hotel.

Loewenstein asked him: 

You talked before about the idea that since Oslo, Israel has done little or nothing wrong but the truth is that 2017 is the 50th anniversary of the occupation, there are now 600,00 to 800,000 settlers, all of whom are regarded by international law as illegal. Is there not a deluded idea here that many Israeli politicians, including yourself, continue to believe that one can talk to the world about democracy, freedom and human rights while denying those things to millions of Palestinians and will there not come a time soon where you and other politicians will be treated like South African politicians during Apartheid?

Lapid gave an answer, video of which he posted on his Facebook page.

“We live in a post-truth postfacts era… You just gave us a perfect example. These are presumptions, not facts. It’s a declared policy of Israel that we need to go to a two-state solution and the ones who refused it were the Palestinians. The ones who call Jews pigs and monkeys in their school books are the Palestinians. And the problem is that the Palestinians are encouraged by the Guardian and others saying we don’t need to do anything in order to work for our future because the international community will call Israel an apartheid country. Israel is not an apartheid country, Israel is a law-abiding democracy. Unlike by the way the Palestinians, Israel is make sure that human rights are protected in this area. Why don’t you go to the Palestinian Authority or to Gaza and ask them about women rights and gay rights and Christian rights and why is it that you can’t be safe there if you don’t follow the Islamic sharia?

Loewenstein posted an account on his site, “Senior politician doesn’t like question about occupation, spits dummy.”Loewenstein commented: 

It was a depressing and dishonest answer. Furthermore, with a few notable exceptions, the vast majority of journalists in attendance were deferential to Lapid and asked him bland questions. Lapid is a man who proudly talks about building a wall around all Palestinians. Like in so many countries, most reporters rarely challenge establishment power; they’re afraid of losing access…

I’ve been writing about Israel and Palestine since 2003, and visiting since 2005 (I now live in Jerusalem), and all that’s worsened is the extremism and vitriol of Israel supporters.

That day the Jerusalem Post then covered the question and answer. “Lapid: ‘Guardian’ delays Mideast conflict solution.”

Then a pro-Israel site began publicizing the fact that Loewenstein has supported Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel, or BDS, and spoke in favor of it at a rally in Sydney in 2014: “BDS is growing and I’m proud to be part of a global movement that’s led by the Palestinians most directly affected.”

Today the Jerusalem Post has followed up with a story saying that the Israeli government is considering not renewing Loewenstein’s press card, so that he would have to leave the country in the spring.

A journalist who has allegedly engaged in activity supportive of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement may not be able to remain in Israel, the Government Press Office told The Jerusalem Post exclusively on Sunday.

GPO director Nitzan Chen said he was leaning against renewing the press card of Antony Loewenstein, a Jerusalem- based freelance reporter who writes for The Guardian and other publications. If the card is not renewed when it expires in March, the Interior Ministry will not allow him to remain in Israel.

“We are leaning toward recommending that his work permit not be renewed due to suspected BDS activity,” Chen said. “We are checking the incident because unfortunately, the journalist did not give enough information to our staff. We will learn to check better so there won’t be such incidents in the future.”

The Post did say eight paragraphs down:

Loewenstein noticeably directed what was seen as a hostile question toward Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid at an FPA event last Monday.

In his post today, titled Free Speech in the Jewish State, Loewenstein offers some corrections and comments:

• For over a decade, I’ve been an independent journalist and best-selling author who has written for major media outlets from across the world, including the Guardian and New York Times, and I’ve worked and lived as an investigative reporter in some of the toughest places in the world including Afghanistan, South Sudan and Honduras. I’m currently based in Jerusalem as an accredited, freelance journalist – my freelance credentials were accepted by the Israeli Press Office this year as I’m not formally associated with any media group – and have published my work this year in many publications including Newsweek Middle East, the Guardian, The Nation and The National.

• Truly free nations respect and encourage free speech. They welcome it;

• Real democracies value diversity of opinion.

Loewenstein is a dear friend, so we can’t even pretend to be objective, but this is disheartening, and we’ll keep you posted.

Australia's biggest media union opposes expulsion of Loewenstein

Australia’s biggest media union supports free speech in Israel

In the last 24 hours the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) union, Australia’s leading media union representing the country’s best journalists, (I’ve been a member since 2003/2004), has sent the following letter to the Israeli Ambassador in Australia, the Australian Ambassador in Israel, Dave Sharma, and the Israeli Government Press Office:

His Excellency Shmuel Ben‐Shmuel

Embassy of Israel in Australia
6 Turrana Street
Yarralumla ACT 2600

Email: info@canberra.mfa.gov.il

20 December 2016

Your Excellency

Antony Loewenstein is a member of our union and a well known freelance journalist in Australia.

We write to seek your assistance in ensuring he continues to receive appropriate support and accreditation to continue his journalism while in Israel.

We have been concerned by recent reports suggesting the Government Press Office in Israel may be considering either withdrawing or not renewing his accreditation. As an issue of free speech, any assistance you could offer would be greatly appreciated.

Yours sincerely

Paul Murphy
Chief Executive Officer

Israel threatens to expel reporter who asked apartheid question

Israel jails Palestinian journalists and threatens to revoke permits of international journalists, including Australia’s Antony Loewenstein, pictured in 2014, over unfavorable coverage. (Claudio Accheri)

Israel is threatening to expel an Australian journalist in Jerusalem, accusing him of being a supporter of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.

The threat against Antony Loewenstein comes after the freelance journalist asked a question about Israeli apartheid at a press conference given by former government minister Yair Lapid, and after a campaign against him by the anti-Palestinian group HonestReporting.

“We are leaning toward recommending that his work permit not be renewed due to suspected BDS activity,” Nitzan Chen, director of the Government Press Office, told The Jerusalem Post. “We are checking the incident because unfortunately, the journalist did not give enough information to our staff. We will learn to check better so there won’t be such incidents in the future.”

Speaking to The Electronic Intifada, Loewenstein, who has won recognitionfor his reporting from South Sudan and Afghanistan, dismissed any suggestion he had misrepresented himself.

“I am an accredited freelance journalist which is how I presented my work to the Israeli government in March, which they accepted,” Loewenstein said. “I’m not here associated with any organization. I’m here as a freelancer, officially, so there’s been no misrepresentation by me, ever.”

Loewenstein has written about the region for more than a decade, including the bestsellingbook My Israel Question.

Growing crackdown

The effective threat to expel Loewenstein comes a week after the Committee to Protect Journalists revealed that this year Israel remained among the world’s worst jailers of reporters – all of those in its cells are Palestinians.

And earlier this month, Israel detained and expelled Isabel Phiri, associate general secretary of the World Council of Churches, claiming she too supports BDS.

Last week, Israel’s Shin Bet secret police barred entry to two leaders of a British Muslim humanitarian aid group, citing “security reasons.” The two officials from Muslim Hands were invited to the country by the Abraham Fund Initiatives, which the Tel Aviv newspaper Haaretzdescribes as “a nonprofit group that promote coexistence, cooperation and equality between Jews and Muslims.”

In August, Israel’s public security and interior ministries set up a joint task force to deny entry to or expel foreign activists allegedly affiliated with organizations that support BDS.

This is part of a broader crackdown, whose primary targets are Palestinians.

On Friday, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, saidthat it has been receiving a “worryingly high number of complaints” about Israel violating basic rights of Palestinian human rights activists.

It said that human rights defenders living under Israeli occupation “face daily violations of some of the most fundamental protections afforded by international human rights and humanitarian laws.”

The UN said peaceful protest and opposition to the occupation is effectively outlawed.

Anatomy of a smear

Loewenstein became a target after he asked a challenging question at a press conference last week to Yair Lapid, head of the Yesh Atid party that was formerly part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government.

“You talked before about the idea that since Oslo, Israel has done little or nothing wrong, but the truth is that 2017 is the 50th anniversary of the occupation,” Loewenstein began, according to The Jerusalem Post.

Pointing to the large number of Israeli settlers now in the occupied West Bank, Loewenstein continued: “Is there not a deluded idea here that many Israeli politicians, including yourself, continue to believe that one can talk to the world about democracy, freedom and human rights while denying that to millions of Palestinians, and will there not come a time soon, in a year, five years, 10 years, where you and other politicians will be treated like South African politicians during apartheid?”

In response, Lapid attacked The Guardian, claiming that it and other publications are encouraging Palestinians to be intransigent.

From there, HonestReporting, a pro-Israel group whose managing editor once worked in the Israeli army spokesperson’s unit, launched a campaign against Loewenstein.

It calledhim “an anti-Israel activist” and implied he had obtained his official Israeli press card and membership in the Foreign Press Association under false pretenses.

“Loewenstein is clearly incapable of reporting on Israel in a fair and objective manner,” HonestReporting asserted.

“DidLoewenstein gain his official press card by claiming to be a Guardian writer?” the group asked, effectively making an allegation without any basis.

HonestReporting took its campaign to The Guardian directly, complaining to the newspaper that 

“hiring Loewenstein was the equivalent of hiring a corporate lobbyist to be the newspaper’s business correspondent.”

This apparently elicited the desired response: The Guardian threw Loewenstein under the bus – presumably without speaking to him first.

According to The Jerusalem Post, The Guardian’s head of international news, Jamie Wilson, said that Loewenstein was contracted to write comment pieces for Guardian Australia and remains an occasional comment contributor but he “is not a news correspondent for The Guardian in Israel.”

And The Guardian’s correspondent in Jerusalem, Peter Beaumont, emailed HonestReporting that he had never heard of Loewenstein.

“The Guardian’s distancing itself from Loewenstein is a welcome development,” HonestReporting’s managing editor Simon Plosker said, adding that the Foreign Press Association should revoke Loewenstein’s membership and the Israeli Government Press Office should cancel his accreditation.

Loewenstein told The Electronic Intifada that he identifies himself accurately as a freelancer and author of several books, who contributes to many publications, including The Guardian, The New York Times and Newsweek Middle East.

Loewenstein noted that in the tight-knit world of foreign correspondents in Israel, it would be impossible to get away with misrepresentation: “It’s a pretty small place.”

But the smear did its job and now Loewenstein is a target for government expulsion for asking a challenging question of an Israeli leader.

In February, the Committee to Protect Journalists condemnedIsrael’s intimidation of the international media, including threats to revoke the credentials of reporters who published headlines it didn’t like.

“It is virtually impossible to work as a reporter in Israel and the occupied territories without a press card,” the group’s executive director Robert Mahoney said. “The threat of withdrawing accreditation is a heavy handed approach at stifling unwelcome coverage.”

Guardian Cowardice as it abandons Antony Loewenstein to Israel's Ministry of Information

December 23, 2016, 7:48 pm

≫ Next: Racism and Christmas Cheer From the Zionists - Happy Yuletide to our Readers

≪ Previous: What kind of democratic state threatens to expel a journalist for asking the ‘wrong’ question of a politician? The Jewish Democratic State of Israel

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Antony Loewenstein's profile on Guardian website which lists over a 100 articles he has written

The article below by Jonathan Cook, a freelance journalist who used to work for The Guardian is self-explanatory.  A journalist, Antony Loewenstein, who has contributed 90 articles to the Guardian over the past 3 years as a freelance journalist, had the temerity to ask a difficult question of Israel’s uber-racist politician Yair Lapid, the head of Yesh Atid.  Lapid masquerades as a Zionist centrist but he is virtually indistinguishable from Netanyahu. 

Antony Loewenstein - his crime was asking an uncomfortable question of Israeli MK and leader of Yesh Atid, Yair Lapid, a notorious racist opposed to 'mixed-race' i.e. Jewish-Arab liaisons

Loewenstein dared ask whether Israel’s treatment of the millions of Palestinians under military rule merited the accolade of it being an Apartheid state.   Nothing makes the defenders of ‘Israeli democracy’ bristle more than the word ‘Apartheid’ though quite how you describe a situation where 4 million Palestinians are held under military rule for nigh on 50 years at the very same time as Jewish settlers are subject to normal civil law, defies me.  Jimmy Carter, the former US President, was given similar treatment when he made this obvious comparison too.

HonestReporting is one of the many Israeli funded groups which dedicated themselves to combating unsympathetic coverage of Israeli and Zionist repression and racism

Either way a nasty little campaign has arisen, during which it has been falsely claimed that Loewenstein claimed to work for the Guardian as a permanent correspondent.  Loewenstein has been made the target of the so-called HonestReporting group, one of these Israeli funded groups whose main purpose in life is to intimidate journalists who are not singing from Israel’s hymn sheet.  When they contacted the Guardian to ask whether in fact Loewenstein works for them, rather than being told he is a freelance journalist who contributes copy, the Guardian distanced themselves from him. 

A cursory visit to Lowenstein’s profile on the Guardian website shows just how many articles he’s contributed in the past few.  The total is about 105. For the Guardian to now distance himself from the Israeli government and its Zionist chorus who wish to expel inconvenient journalists is despicable.

Tony Greenstein

Guardian newspaper fails to support colleague facing deportation threat from Israeli government

23 December 2016

Mondoweiss – 23 December 2016

Harriet Sherwood, former Guardian Israel correspondent, now their religious affairs correspondent.  Perhaps appropriate since her behaviour towards Loewenstein resembleds that of Judas towards Jesus

Israel is reported to be ready to expel an award-winning Australian journalist and writer, Antony Loewenstein, after he asked a too-probing question of an Israeli politician at a media event last week. Government officials have said they are investigating how they can deny him his work visa when it comes up for renewal in March.

It is unsurprising to learn that Israel has no serious regard for press freedom. But more depressing has been the lack of solidarity shown by journalistic colleagues, most especially the Guardian newspaper, for which he has regularly worked as a freelancer since 2013. Not only has the paper failed to offer him any support, but its management and staff reporters have hurried to distance themselves from him.

Sherwood on Twitter demonstrating that when it comes to solidarity with journalists under attack, the Guardian's journalists retreat by example

A deferential foreign press

Loewenstein has been under fire since he attended the event in Jerusalem, hosted by the Foreign Press Association (FPA), on December 12. According to the Israeli media, he asked former government minister Yair Lapid: “Is there not a deluded idea here that many Israeli politicians, including yourself, continue to believe that one can talk to the world about democracy, freedom and human rights while denying that to millions of Palestinians, and will there not come a time soon, in a year, five years, 10 years, when you and other politicians will be treated like South African politicians during Apartheid?”

Peter Beaumont - Guardian's Jerusalem correspondent in the normal act of solidarity one expects of Guardian journalists denied all knowledge of Loewenstein

Israeli politicians are not used to hearing such difficult questions from members of the FPA, a professional association for journalists working in Israel. The reason for their deference to Israeli officials was explained to me a few years ago by an FPA insider. He revealed that not only are most of these correspondents Jewish – as Loewenstein himself is – but, unlike Loewenstein, they deeply identify with Israel. They live in Israel, not the occupied territories, they speak Hebrew, send their children to Israeli schools and expect them to serve in the Israeli army. Some of the reporters have served in the army themselves.

Perhaps most famously, former New York Times bureau chief Ethan Bronner was embarrassed in 2010 by the disclosure that he and the NYT had not divulged that his son was serving in the Israeli army while Bronner reported from the region. There was nothing exceptional about Bronner’s professional conflict of interest. My confidant told me: “I can think of a dozen foreign bureau chiefs, responsible for covering both Israel and the Palestinians, who have served in the Israeli army, and another dozen who like Bronner have kids in the Israeli army.”

He added: “The degree to which Bronner’s personal life, like that of most lead journalists here, is integrated into Israeli society, makes him an excellent candidate to cover Israeli political life, cultural shifts and intellectual life. The problem is that Bronner is also expected to be his paper’s lead voice on Palestinian political life, cultural shifts and intellectual life, all in a society he has almost no connection to, deep knowledge of or even the ability to directly communicate with.”

Most publications appear to believe that the benefits of employing openly partisan reporters – and all of them partisan towards the same party in the conflict – outweighs any potential damage to claims that they are neutral and impartial. The outlets hope their partisanship will offer them an advantage: gaining unfettered access to the corridors of power, whether in the Israeli government or army.

With this background in mind, it is possible to understand why Loewenstein described the tenor of the FPA event in the following terms: “With a few notable exceptions, the vast majority of journalists in attendance were deferential to Lapid and asked him bland questions.”

No support from the FPA

Loewenstein’s failure to follow the standard FPA rules of politesse when addressing an Israeli politician triggered a campaign against him by Honest Reporting. The group is one of several US-based media lobby organizations whose job is to intimidate foreign media organizations on behalf of the Israeli government. In this way, they have been successful in limiting critical coverage of Israel even further. Staff reporters tend to self-censor, while freelance journalists are pressured to leave the region.

In a transparent maneuver, Honest Reporting sought to paint Loewenstein as politically extreme for his past support for BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions), and as an activist rather than a journalist. That is no easy task. In addition to the Guardian, he has written for many leading publications in Europe, Australia and the US, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, Newsweek, the Nation, Le Monde diplomatique, the Huffington Post, the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age, and many more.

He has also written several books covering a diverse range of topics, including his best-seller My Israel Question, in which he considers his own Jewish identity and relates it to issues of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. (Full disclosure: I contributed a chapter to a 2012 volume, After Zionism, he edited with Ahmed Moor.) He is currently working on a documentary based on his book Disaster Capitalism.

In other words, Loewenstein is not only a journalist; he is the gold-standard for serious independent, critical-thinking journalists. Which, of course, is precisely the reason Israel would want him gone.

Ignoring the deep, but entirely acceptable partisanship of the vast majority of reporters in Jerusalem, Honest Reporting has accused Loewenstein of partiality: “Loewenstein is clearly incapable of reporting on Israel in a fair and objective manner. Yet Honest Reporting has learned that he happens to be a paid up associate member of Israel’s Foreign Press Association.”

It is the traditional and self-defined responsibility of journalists to hold power to account, yet, sadly, the FPA has failed to come to Loewenstein’s defense. In response to Honest Reporting, it said it had accepted him as a non-voting associate member “based on his career as a freelance journalist”. But then added only: “While we do not endorse his views, we also do not screen our members for their opinions.”

So no words of support from the FPA for Loewenstein as he faces being stripped of the right to report from the region (and not just from Israel, as Honest Reporting dishonestly claims, but also from the occupied territories, since Israel controls all access to Palestinian areas). Not a word of condemnation of Israel from the FPA for crushing press freedom. Just a shrug of the shoulders.

Loewenstein should not be surprised. The FPA has barely bothered to raise its voice in solidarity with journalistic colleagues in the region whose rights are being trampled on a systematic basis. 

Palestinian journalists have been regularly killed, wounded, beaten up or jailed, earning Israel a ranking of 101 out of 180 countries this year in the Reporters without Borders index. That places it below Liberia, Bhutan, East Timor and Gabon, and a nudge ahead of Uganda, Kuwait, and Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Honest Reporting saw its chance to set a trap for Loewenstein to get him out of the region. More than a decade ago, Israel’s Government Press Office (GPO) introduced new rules that tightly controlled coverage in its favor. In a non-transparent procedure, independent journalists have to persuade the GPO that they deserve to be issued with a work visa.

In February, the Committee to Protect Journalists’ executive director, Robert Mahoney, criticised Israel for this patronage system. “It is virtually impossible to work as a reporter in Israel and the occupied territories without a press card,” he said. “The threat of withdrawing accreditation is a heavy handed approach at stifling unwelcome coverage.”

The Guardian distances itself

Honest Reporting has created a phony controversy about how Loewenstein received his work visa in a bid to discredit him. In fact, Loewenstein should easily meet the formal requirements for a freelance visa, as he has written far more than seven articles for major publications in the last year. But Honest Reporting is seeking to confect a row to justify the GPO refusing to renew his visa in March.

It did so by questioning the Guardian about his connection to the paper, hoping that it could get the paper to dissociate itself from him. Without a shred of evidence, it suggested that Loewenstein might have lied to the GPO, claiming he was a Guardian accredited journalist, to get his visa.

How did the Guardian respond? According to Honest Reporting, its head of international news, Jamie Wilson, told them that “Loewenstein was contracted to write comment pieces for Guardian Australia and remains an occasional comment contributor but he ‘is not a news correspondent for the Guardian in Israel’. It was also relayed to us that Loewenstein has now been told to in future make sure he does not reference The Guardian at press conferences unless he is working on a direct commission."

Further, their Jerusalem correspondent Peter Beaumont emailed the group to deny any knowledge of Loewenstein. And its former Jerusalem correspondent and now religious affairs reporter Harriet Sherwood entered the fray on Facebook: “Why is this guy claiming to be a Guardian writer when all I can find in our archive is occasional opinion pieces and nothing since August?” For the record, Loewenstein has written more than 90 articles for the Guardian since 2013.

One might wonder how it is that neither Beaumont nor Sherwood appear to have heard of Loewenstein when he has written several books on Israel and Palestine, and writes for their own paper and other leading publications on a range of issues, including Israel and Palestine. But then I suspect they may have a rather narrow range of reference points for their coverage – most of them doubtless FPA regulars.

But what is more significant is that none of the relevant actors at the Guardian has shown an ounce of solidarity with Loewenstein, as the Israeli lobby seeks to get him kicked out of the country for doing proper journalism. They have also inadvertently conspired with Honesty Reporting in misrepresenting him.

Despite Honest Reporting’s accusations, Loewenstein says he stated clearly in his GPO application that he was a freelance journalist. And it is simply inconceivable that he could have professed to be a Guardian reporter to the GPO without being found out. The GPO knows precisely who represents all the big media outlets in Jerusalem.

Further, according to a source at the FPA event, Loewenstein was clear about his status when he addressed Lapid. He said he was freelance journalist who had contributed to various publications including the Guardian.

Predictably, Honest Reporting’s managing editor, Simon Plosker, was delighted by the Guardian’s response: “The Guardian’s distancing itself from Loewenstein is a welcome development.”

So far the Guardian appears to have issued no criticism of Honest Reporting for its deceptions in this matter, or retracted its own misguided comments.

The Guardian — far from the fearless watchdog

Loewenstein may have hoped that the Guardian would stand by him. But my own early experiences in Israel with the paper suggest this is part of a pattern of cowardly behavior when it is under attack from Israeli officials or the Israel lobby.

I had an established relationship with the Guardian when I arrived in Israel as a freelancer early in the second intifada, in September 2001. I had previously worked on staff in its foreign department in London for several years. I used those contacts to begin pitching stories, and a few of the less controversial ones were commissioned by the paper.

It is standard journalistic practice when writing articles to give parties that come in for criticism a chance to respond. Therefore, in a piece on the Israeli army, I called the army spokesperson’s office for a comment. As is also standard practice, I introduced myself and cited where the piece would be published.

Less than an hour after the conversation, I was surprised to receive a furious phone call from the Guardian foreign desk in London. The Israeli army spokesperson had called the paper’s then-correspondent, Suzanne Goldenberg, to ask who I was and why I was writing for the paper. Goldenberg called the desk and threw a tantrum about my referring to the Guardian.

Then I had the most bizarre exchange in my journalistic career – and I have had a few. The foreign desk banned me from mentioning the Guardian in calls to any Israeli officials.

“But if I am commissioned by the Guardian to write a piece, like this one, and an official asks me who I am writing for, what am I supposed to say?” I asked incredulous.

I was told: “We don’t care – just don’t mention the Guardian. Things are difficult for us and Suzanne right now, and we don’t need you making more trouble for us.”

It was a revealing moment. Far from the fearless watchdog of popular imagination, the Guardian showed its true colors. It was petrified of actually doing its self-professed job of monitoring the centers of power. And the Guardian is one of the most critical publications on Israel. Imagine how much more feeble the rest are, if Guardian staff are so fearful of incurring the wrath of Israeli officials.

Time for the Guardian to step up

The Guardian now needs to make amends to Loewenstein, rather than allowing itself to be implicated in Israel’s ugly McCarthyism. It could stand in journalistic solidarity with him. It would not take much, just a simple act of journalistic courage and refusal to allow Israel to control who gets to report on the region.

The Guardian could do it by giving Loewenstein official accreditation. That would remove the GPO’s pretext for expelling him. It would not mean he was the paper’s Jerusalem correspondent. It would simply be a declaration by the paper that it believes in a free press and does not wants to see him silenced. Or is that too much to expect from the Guardian? 

Racism and Christmas Cheer From the Zionists - Happy Yuletide to our Readers

December 24, 2016, 1:39 pm

≫ Next: The Silence of the Jewish Labour Movement & Labour Friends of Israel over UN Resolution on Settlements

≪ Previous: Guardian Cowardice as it abandons Antony Loewenstein to Israel's Ministry of Information

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Israel's Military Occupation Celebrate Xmas by Tear Gassing Demonstration in Bethlehem

I must confess that despite being a confirmed atheist, I enjoy having a Xmas tree in my living room each year.  I particularly enjoy seeing the lights as it provides a kind of warm glow.  It doesn’t make me believe in the Resurrection though!  For most people in Britain, the Xmas tree, like Xmas itself, is a secular symbol of a secular festival.  But in Israel it is entirely different.

Even Santa gets tear gassed Bi'ilin 2011 -  Popular Committee Against the Wall via europalestine.com

In a State where religion defines who belongs to the herren volk and who doesn’t, then of course Rabbi Elad Dokow of Israel’s Technion University is right when he says that “This is not about freedom of worship,,, This is the world’s only Jewish state. And it has a role to be a ‘light unto the nations’ and not to uncritically embrace every idea.”

Of course there are very few religious states in the world and even fewer where nationality is based, not on residence but on religion.   Most religious states either use the religion to oppress adherents of that religion (Saudi Arabia, Iran) or it is a constitutional adornment without any significance (UK).  Only in Israel does belonging to the state religion confer significant advantages.

Therefore the display of a Xmas tree does indeed strike a blow at the heart of Israel’s ‘national identity’ in a way it wouldn’t in say Ireland, which is also nominally a Christian country.

The article mentions Shimon Gapso, the notoriously racist Mayor of Upper Nazareth (built as a Jewish town to contain the Arab Nazareth beneath it but which has seen a steady ‘encroachment’ of Arabs because of the usual restrictions on any expansion of an Arab town.  Christmas Trees Are Still Banned in Nazareth Illit and Forbidden to celebrate: Israel’s war on Christmas continues despite Netanyahu’s claim of tolerance.

see also The Israeli War on Christmas…and Christianity

Ezz Al-Zanoon APA images

Israeli rabbis launch war on the Xmas tree

23 December 2016

In Bethlehem the Israeli Army Tear Gas a Demonstration Calling for Free Movement

Israeli soldiers fired tear gas, pepper spray and stun grenades at Palestinians calling for free movement between Bethlehem and Jerusalem on Friday.

The Christmas-themed protest was held in front of Checkpoint 300, where Israeli soldiers control Palestinian movement between the occupied West Bank cities.

Approximately 100 protesters, some of them dressed in Santa Claus suits, chanted against Israel’s military occupation and for Palestinian freedom.

“Jesus came with a message of peace, his city suffers oppression,” one demonstrator’s sign read.
“Santa Claus stands with the Palestinian people,” stated another.

Half a dozen people were injured, including journalists, during the protest.

Palestinians and their supporters highlight around Christmastime that if Joseph and Mary were to make their journey from Nazareth today, Israel’s military checkpoints and massive concrete wall would prevent them from accessing the Bethlehem manger where tradition holds Jesus Christ was born.

Israel’s wall completely encircles Bethlehem, as do its settlement colonies, turning a once vibrant Palestinian cultural center and international tourist destination into a shuttered ghetto.

Israel’s regime of movement restrictions imposed on Palestinians living under its military rule prevents the free access to places of worship, including the al-Aqsa mosque and Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.


Even the Holy Fire of Easter must pass through an Israeli checkpoint during the ancient ritual observed by Orthodox Christians in Palestine.

Jerusalem hotels receive warning letter noting that Jewish religious law forbids Christmas trees and new year’s parties

Al-Jazeera – 23 December 2016

As tens of thousands of Christian pilgrims converge on the Holy Land this week to celebrate the birth of Jesus, senior Israeli rabbis have announced a war on the Christmas tree.

Christmas Trees Banned in Nazareth Illit

In Jerusalem, the rabbinate has issued a letter warning dozens of hotels in the city that it is “forbidden” by Jewish religious law to erect a tree or stage New Year’s parties.

Many hotel owners have taken the warning to heart, fearful that the rabbis may carry out previous threats to damage their businesses by denying them certificates declaring their premises to be “kosher”.

In the coastal city of Haifa, in northern Israel, the rabbi of Israel’s premier technology university has taken a similarly strict line. Elad Dokow, the Technion’s rabbi, ordered that Jewish students boycott their students’ union, after it installed for the first time a modest Christmas tree.

He called the tree “idolatry”, warningthat it was a “pagan” symbol that violated the kosher status of the building, including its food hall.

About a fifth of the Technion’s students belong to Israel’s large Palestinian minority.

The Technion’s Christmas tree (copyright Firas Espanioly)

While most of Israel’s Palestinian citizens are Muslim, there are some 130,000 Christians, most of them living in Galilee. Other Palestinian Christians live under occupation in East Jerusalem, which Israel has annexed in violation of international law.

“This is not about freedom of worship,” Dokow told the Technion’s students. “This is the world’s only Jewish state. And it has a role to be a ‘light unto the nations’ and not to uncritically embrace every idea.”

Rabea Mahajni, a 24-year-old electrical engineering student, said that placing the tree in the union was backed by Palestinian students but had strongly divided opinion among Jewish students and staff. The majority, he said, were against the decision.

“One professor upset [Palestinian] students by taking to Facebook to say that the tree made him uncomfortable, and that those who wanted it should either put one up in their own home or go to Europe,” he told Al Jazeera.

Mahajni added: “This is not really about a Christmas tree. It is about who the tree represents. It is a test of whether Jewish society is willing to accept an Arab minority and our symbols.”

He pointed out that Palestinian students had not objected to the students’ union also marking Hanukkah, referring to the Jewish winter “festival of lights” that this year coincides with Christmas.

Interest in Santa hats

For most of Israel’s history, the festive fir tree was rarely seen outside a handful of communities in Israel with significant Christian populations. But in recent years, the appeal of Christmas celebrations has spread among secular Israeli Jews.

Interest took off two decades ago, after one million Russian-speaking Jews immigrated following the fall of the Soviet Union, said David Bogomolny, a spokesman for Hiddush, which lobbies for religious freedom in Israel.

Many, he told Al Jazeera, had little connection to Jewish religious practice and had adopted local customs in their countries of origin instead.

“The tree [in the former Soviet Union] was very popular but it had nothing to do with Christmas,” he said. “Each home had one as a way to welcome in the new year.”

Nazareth, which claims to host the tallest Christmas tree in the Middle East, has recently become a magnet for many domestic tourists, including Jews, Christians and Muslims. They come to visit the Christmas market, hear carols and buy a Santa hat.

Haifa and Jaffa, two largely Jewish cities with significant Palestinian Christian populations, have recently started competing. Jaffa, next to Tel Aviv, staged its first Christmas market last year.

Meanwhile, hotels are keen to erect a tree in their lobbies as a way to boost tourism revenue from Christian pilgrims, who comprise the bulk of overseas visitors.

‘No danger’ to Judaism

But the growing popularity of Christmas has upset many Orthodox rabbis, who have significant powers over public space. Bogomolny said that some rabbis were driven by a desire to make the state “as Jewish as possible” to avert it losing its identity.

Others may fear that the proliferation of Christmas trees could lure Israeli Jews towards Christianity.

Wadie Abu Nassar, a spokesman for the Latin Patriarch in Jerusalem, said that he had noticed an increasing interest from Israeli Jews in Christian festivals, including in some cases requests to attend Christmas mass.

He told Al Jazeera this was not a threat to Judaism, but healthy curiosity. “If we want to live together in peace, we have to understand each other and learn to trust,” he said.

Tree-free Knesset

The controversial status of Christmas in Israel was underscored four years ago when Yair Netanyahu, the 21-year-old son of Israel’s prime minister, caused a minor scandal by being photographed wearing a Santa hat next to a Christmas tree.

The office of Benjamin Netanyahu hurriedly issued a statement saying that Yair had posed as a joke while attending a party hosted by “Christian Zionists who love Israel, and whose children served in the [Israeli army]”.

Two years earlier, Shimon Gapso, the mayor of Upper Nazareth, originally founded for Jews on Nazareth’s land, banned all signs of Christmas in the city’s public places. He has been a vociferous opponent of an influx of Christians from overcrowded Nazareth.

The Israeli parliament, the Knesset, has also been declared a Christmas tree-free zone.

In 2013, its speaker rejected a request from Hanna Swaid, then a Palestinian Christian legislator, to erect a tree in the building. Yuli Edelstein said it would evoke “painful memories” of Jewish persecution in Europe and chip away at the state’s Jewish character.

Attack on religious freedoms

Swaid pointed to the prominence of Jewish symbols in public spaces in the United States, including an annual Hanukkah party at the White House, during which the president lights menorah candles.

“Israeli leaders expect the US to be religiously inclusive, but then they refuse to practise the same at home,” he told Al Jazeera.

He also noted that the religious freedoms of the Palestinian minority were under ever greater attack, most notably with the recent drafting of a so-called “muezzin bill”, which would crack down on mosques’ use of loudspeakers for the call to prayer.

“Given this hostile political climate, the battle to gain legitimacy for our religious symbols becomes all the more important,” he said. “Otherwise we face a dark future.”

Threat to kosher status

Nonetheless, there has been a backlash, especially from secular Jews, against the rigid control exercised by Orthodox rabbis.

Haifa’s mayor, Yona Yahav, overruled the city’s rabbi in 2012 when he tried to ban Christmas trees and new year’s parties. The Jewish new year occurs several months before the Christian one.

And last year, in the face of a legal challenge from Hiddush, the chief rabbinate backed down on threats to revoke the kosher status of businesses that celebrate Christmas.

But while the ban on Christmas trees has been formally lifted, in practice it is still widely enforced, according to Bogomolny.

“The problem is that the chief rabbinate actually has no authority over city rabbis, who can disregard its rulings, as we have seen with the letter issued by the Jerusalem rabbis,” he said.

Most hotels wanted to ignore the prohibition on Christmas trees because it was bad for business, but feared being punished.

“It is a problem throughout the country,” he said. “The hotels are afraid to take a stand. If they try to fight it through the courts, it will be costly and could take years to get a ruling.”

One hotel manager in West Jerusalem to whom Al Jazeera spoke on condition of anonymity said he feared “retaliation” from the rabbis.

“The letter was clearly intended to intimidate us,” he said. “The Christian tourists are here to celebrate Christmas and we want to help them do it, but not if it costs us our certificate.” 

The Silence of the Jewish Labour Movement & Labour Friends of Israel over UN Resolution on Settlements

December 26, 2016, 8:23 pm

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The Hypocrisy of Labour Zionism which only supports 2 States outside Israel!  In Israel they support Occupation!

Jeremy Corbyn, previously a long-standing supporter of the Palestinians and a patron of Palestine Solidarity Campaign, humiliates himself by lending his support to the Labour Friends of Israel and speaking alongside Mark Regev, the Israeli Ambassador (back right) Netanyahu's former PR man who justified the murder of Palestinian civilians in Gaza during Operation Protective Edge, including 4 children killed on the beach

Despite all the heated rhetoric of Benjamin Netanyahu condemning UN Resolution 2334 on Settlements which passed 14-0 with 1 abstention on 23^rd December and his theatrics – reprimanding the Ambassadors of the Security Council members which voted for it - the resolution is quite mild.

UN Resolution 2334 reaffirms the international law principle of the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force.  It could do no other.  It also reaffirmed its own previous resolutions including Resolution 242, which was passed after the 1967 war, and called for the withdrawal of Israel’s armed forces from the territories it had ‘occupied in the recent conflict’ and Resolution 338 which was passed on 22^nd October 1973 and called for an immediate ceasefire in the Yom Kippur war.

The theatrics of Netanyahu, inviting in Ambassadors for a reprimand and throwing his toys out of the pram belie a purpose - making it clear that 2 states is just a diplomatic fig leaf - not to be taken seriously

Resolution 2334 reaffirms the obligation of Israel to abide by the 4^th Geneva Convention in relation to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.  Something which one would have assumed was uncontentious, except that Israel doesn’t accept the Geneva Convention applies to the Palestinian Territories since it holds to the fiction that it is ‘returning’ after an absence of around 2,500 years! 

The refusal to abide by the 4th Geneva Convention, which was passed in August 1949, is particularly shameful since the Convention was passed as a result of the treatment of the Jewish population in the countries the Nazis or their satellites occupied.  It is in itself proof that Israel, despite calling itself a Jewish state, has learnt nothing from the crimes of the Nazi state.

Labour Friends of Israel's hypocritical 'peace' campaign which justifies war and occupation

The Resolution also reaffirmed the opinion of the International Court of Justice at The Hague, which found Israel’s Separation Wall, which steals large chunks of Palestinian land in the West Bank, to be illegal.

The Resolution also condemns measures which alter the demographic composition of the Palestinian Territories.  Again this is standard international law.  When the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939 they began settling the Warthegau (Reichsgau Wartheland) which they annexed to the Greater German Reich, with German settlers.  The Nazis expelled the indigenous Polish population, including large numbers of Jews.

Israel doesn’t accept this either since it holds that Brooklyn Bible bashers take precedence over Palestinians who have been living there for hundreds of years.  In particular the resolution expresses ‘grave concern that continuing Israeli settlement activities are dangerously imperilling the viability of the two-State solution based on the 1967 lines’.

In order to defeat BDS, Labour Friends of Israel pretends to support a 2 State solution

You  might think that Labour Friends of Israel, which has just launched a ‘For Israel, for Palestine, for peace’ campaign, and the Jewish Labour Movement, would be delighted with UN resolution.  After all both organisations support a 2 State Solution in Israel/Palestine and never lose an opportunity to speak about ‘peace’.  However this is  hypocritical cant. In practice neither organisation is prepared to do anything in practice to oppose Israel’s military occupation of the Palestinian territories and the settlement of the territories.

The LFI and JLM only support 2 States as a means of opposing BDS and the Boycott of Israel.  In practice these organisations support Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land.  Their ‘support’ for a 2 States Solution is a cynical tactic designed to negate practical support for the Palestinians.  When not alleging ‘anti-Semitism’ they oppose all practical measures of support for the Palestinians. 

Support  in Britain for 2 States avoids thorny questions such as whether the Jewish State of Israel can also be a Democratic State of all its citizens, given that 20% of the inhabitants of Israel are Palestinians. 

An endearing photograph, probably of an Israeli Jewish child in a Palestinian keffiyeh since there is no mixing between Jewish settler children and Palestinian children.  In Israel nearly all children go to segregated schools

What LFI and JLM don’t support is any active campaign to remove Israel’s occupation, still less any campaign against the military occupation of the West Bank or the repression, the military courts, the arrest, detention and  torture of children, arbitrary imprisonment or theft and confiscation of land.  You won’t find either organisation, or hypocrites like Tom Watson and Ruth Smeeth MP who sponsor them, opposing the violent arrest of a 7 year old boy, as captured on videoor the arrest of a 6 year old child, as reportedby the Times of Israel, who was held for 8 hours and not allowed to see his parents.

LFI and the misnamed Jewish Labour Movement only support 2 States because it is an alternative to a democratic, secular, unitary state in the whole of Palestine/Israel.  Labour Zionist support for 2 States only exists outside Israel.  Inside Israel the Israeli Labour Party opposes a Palestinian state and supports ‘segregation’ i.e. a Palestinian Bantustan.  Its main fear is that the 4 million Palestinians under occupation will make a Jewish state impossible. 

This is why there is an embarrassing silence by Labour Friends of Israel and the Jewish Labour Movement.  They are caught between a rock and a hard place.  Neither organisation can oppose a UN resolution which calls for the very thing they apparently support, i.e. 2 States and which is supported by virtually the entire world bar that well known anti-racist, Donald Trump.  But neither can they support it. 

Obama and Netanyahu at a time when the US was resupplying Israel's military attack on Gaza

The JLM describes the Israeli Labour Party as its ‘sister party’.  The Washington Post of 24^th December reported thus:  "I strongly oppose this harsh resolution, which is a strategic defeat for Israel,” opposition leader Isaac Herzog said. Speaking on Israeli television Saturday, he laid the blame for the defeat on Netanyahu’s foreign policy.'

The Jewish Forward (26.12.16) describedhow Herzog whilst ‘trying to sound a patriotic note while attacking Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, condemned the resolution but blamed Netanyahu for pursuing policies that left Israel isolated.’  This is strange language coming from someone who, according to the JLM  and LFI supports a 2 state solution.

“This is a difficult night for Israel,” said opposition leader Isaac Herzog (Zionist Union) in wake of the recent UN Security Council resolution condemning all Israeli settlements, which he opined the United States should have vetoed. Herzog said the resolution “seriously harms our capital Jerusalem, the settlement blocs and Israel’s status and diplomatic achievements accumulated over the years.” –

Herzog and the Israeli Labour Party are portrayed in Britain as supporters of a 2 states solution yet here he is saying the resolution should have been vetoed and that it harms ‘our’ capital Jerusalem.  Herzog also talks about harm to the very settlement blocks which are an obstacle to any meaningful 2 states solution. Israel’s political left also condemns the UN’s anti-settlement resolution

Another Israeli ‘supporter’ of 2 States is the leader of the ‘Centrist’ Yesh Atid party leader Yair Lapid who ‘railed against the UN resolution, telling reporters it was “dangerous, unfair and Israel doesn’t accept it.”‘

“The resolution yesterday was an act of hypocrisy,” Lapid saidSaturday. “When a murderous terrorist group like Hamas praises the decision of the Security Council, it’s clear whom it serves.” He even criticized left-wing politicians who celebrated the UN decision, saying “patriots don’t behave thus,” [Times of Israel, 24.12.16.]

As Gideon Levy noted in an Op Ed in Ha’aretz, ‘opposition leader Isaac Herzog can babble that ‘we need to fight the decision with all means,’” but what is this babble really about, what does it mean about the mainstream Zionist ‘left’, and why is Herzog defending the settlements? – UN Resolution Is a Breath of Hope in Sea of Darkness and Despair–

Thus we note the dilemmas of the hypocrites of the Jewish Labour Movement and Labour Friends of Israel.

Tony Greenstein

Text of Egyptian-drafted resolution 2334 on settlements, approved by the UN Security Council, on December 23, 2016.

The Security Council,

Reaffirming its relevant resolutions, including resolutions 242 (1967), 338 (1973), 446 (1979), 452 (1979), 465 (1980), 476 (1980), 478 (1980), 1397 (2002), 1515 (2003), and 1850 (2008),

Guided by the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, and reaffirming, inter alia, the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force,

Reaffirming the obligation of Israel, the occupying Power, to abide scrupulously by its legal obligations and responsibilities under the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 12 August 1949, and recalling the advisory opinion rendered on 9 July 2004 by the International Court of Justice,

Condemning all measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, including, inter alia, the construction and expansion of settlements, transfer of Israeli settlers, confiscation of land, demolition of homes and displacement of Palestinian civilians, in violation of international humanitarian law and relevant resolutions,

Expressing grave concern that continuing Israeli settlement activities are dangerously imperilling the viability of the two-State solution based on the 1967 lines,

Recalling the obligation under the Quartet Roadmap, endorsed by its resolution 1515 (2003), for a freeze by Israel of all settlement activity, including “natural growth”, and the dismantlement of all settlement outposts erected since March 2001,

Recalling also the obligation under the Quartet roadmap for the Palestinian Authority Security Forces to maintain effective operations aimed at confronting all those engaged in terror and dismantling terrorist capabilities, including the confiscation of illegal weapons,

Condemning all acts of violence against civilians, including acts of terror, as well as all acts of provocation, incitement and destruction,

Reiterating its vision of a region where two democratic States, Israel and Palestine, live side by side in peace within secure and recognized borders,

Stressing that the status quo is not sustainable and that significant steps, consistent with the transition contemplated by prior agreements, are urgently needed in order to (i) stabilize the situation and to reverse negative trends on the ground, which are steadily eroding the two-State solution and entrenching a one-State reality, and (ii) to create the conditions for successful final status negotiations and for advancing the two-State solution through those negotiations and on the ground.

The Boy Who Cried Wolf Syndrome – Labour & the False Anti-Semitism Narrative

December 28, 2016, 4:21 pm

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Tony Greenstein’s Talk to the Boycott Israel Network (5.11.2016) on the Zionists' Anti-Semitism Offensive 

In recent days, with the UN Security Council passing a resolution 14-0 condemning the expansion of settlements, the US abstaining, the anti-Semitism scarecrow has taken on new clothes. The President of the Zionist Organisation of America, Mort Klein, which invited Donald Trump's anti-Semitic Strategic Advisor, Steve Bennon, to their annual gala dinner, has even described Barak Obama, the most consistently pro-Israeli President ever, as “a Jew hating, anti-Semite.'

What we have seen in the Labour Party over the last year is an echo of this idiotic equation of support for the Palestinians and opposition to Zionism with anti-Semitism.  

Below is a talk that I gave to the Boycott Israel Network on November 5^th 2016 at the very beautiful Coalbrooke Youth Hostel at Ironbridge in Shropshire.  Just down the road you can see a wonderful example of Victorian engineering in the world’s first arch bridge to be made out of cast iron.

A BIN gathering at Coalbrook 6 years ago

The magnificent iron bridge at Coalbrook, which is now a UNESCO world heritage site

However I did not come to what was the heart of England’s industrial revolution for the purpose of sight-seeing or taking a holiday.  It was where the Boycott Israel Network was holding its bi-annual gathering of Palestine solidarity activists and I had been invited to talk on the false anti-Semitism campaign of the Zionist movement and Labour’s right-wing.

This talk can be found hereas well as copied below

Annie O’Gara introduced the talk and chaired.

Tony: Thank you comrades; it’s my honour to be speaking to so many activists here. When Jenny invited me, she said that I had a reputation for diplomacy. I assured her that when I was at school, thinking about a career, I nearly chose the Diplomatic Service to enter because of those skills! So, I will try to employ them tonight!

Coalbrook Youth Hostel

O.K. We are at war – I think we understand that. We are faced with the world’s only apartheid society, the only active settler-colonial society and we have been facing in the last 12-14 months what is a tsunami of allegations that we are anti-Semitic, that the Labour Party is full of anti-Semites.  

Indeed, as a member of the Labour Party myself, when I get up in the morning and go outside, I have to take a look both ways just in case someone is about to attack me and certainly when I go into a meeting, then, of course, you are fearful for your very life if you are Jewish!  Or at least if the mainstream narrative that we hear from the press is to be believed.

The question is, why that is so. I think there are two things; I have been thinking quite a lot about this.

John Mann - Chair of Parliament's 'anti-Semitism' Committee and one of the leaders of the false anti-Semitism campaign

The first is undoubtedly, with the election of Jeremy Corbyn to the leadership of the Labour Party – remember Jeremy was probably the foremost advocate of Palestinian rights in the Parliamentary Labour Party – in the last 30 years. I knew him 30 years ago and subsequently and he was always outspoken, although since being elected leader he has barely mentioned the word Palestine.

There has been an alliance between Zionists and the right wing of the Labour Party, “Progress”, ‘Labour First’ etc. - a joint effort, if you like, and they’ve used anti-Semitism as the rationale, their main ideological weapon against the Left.  This shouldn’t be any surprise to people. It’s far easier to use anti-Semitism as a weapon to attack your opponents than to go face-to-face and say that you support, for example, benefit cuts, further austerity, more privatisation of the NHS and so on.  It makes sense from the perspective of the right wing of the Labour Party to join forces with Zionists and to use anti-Semitism as your chosen ideological weapon.

Dr Sam Glatt - 90 Year Old doctor whose open letter was termed a forgery - John Mann was forced to back down when Dr Glatt wrote a second, handwritten letter!  see

Liz Kendall, the Blairite candidate who got 4.5% in the leadership elections in 2015 demonstrated that there is a limited appetite for Labour support for cuts to benefits and other Tory policies in the Labour Party!  If you are going to fight the Left then it’s better as part of a supposedly ‘anti-racist’ politics.

Shami Chakrabarti's Report on racism and anti-Semitism fell between 2 stools - the Zionists first welcomed it then panned it - anti-Zionists were divided over it

If you think of British Imperialism historically, when it went into a country it didn’t, for example in India, say we are going in to occupy the country because we want to exploit you.  It always said it was for benevolent reasons, that we are acting in your best interests.  We are acting as trustees until you become civilised, because of course in the day of the Empire, the colonial people were seen as savages by most western people . In India, we went there to combat “suttee”, the Hindu practice of burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands; just as in Iraq, we didn’t go in in order to grab the oil and take it back from the Iraqis; we did it in order to introduce them to democracy.  We all know where thatled so it’s quite understandable that they use anti-Semitism today to justify Israel’s barbarism.  Over 25 years ago I wrote an article REDEFINING ANTI-SEMITISM The False Anti-Racism of the Right in which I wrote [Return Magazine No. 5, December 1990]:

It has long been the practice to accuse supporters of the Palestinians and opponents of Zionism, including Jewish anti-Zionists of 'anti-Semitism'. Now however the term 'Left anti-Semitism' has come into fashion as a more general term of abuse.... Today the New Right claim to be opponents of anti-Semitism. The late, unlamented Federation of Conservative Students, even while harbouring neo-Nazis within their ranks, unanimously condemned anti-Semitism at their Conference.  Reagan's Republican Party... voted at its 1984 Party Convention to condemn anti-Semitism unanimously. Even neo-fascist groups, eg. the French cultural and academic racist group, GRECE, opposes 'anti-Semitism'.’

Anti-Semitism was the new and false anti-Semitism of the Right and one reason for this is because it barely exists.  Anti-Semitism is an extremely useful weapon with which to attack the Left and the Palestine Solidarity Movement and that is what we are experiencing today. 

Coalbrook Youth Hostel

The Zionist’s Anti-Semitism Campaign during the last year began with Jeremy Corbyn himself – he was accused in the Daily Mailand the Jewish Chronicle, among other papers, of associating with Holocaust Deniers, in particular a guy called Paul Eisen, a friend of Gilad Atzmon. 

For those people who are not aware; I was suspended from the Labour Party in March; Jackie Walker has been suspended twice. What she said has been completely distorted.  According to the Zionists she was effectively saying that the Jews organised the Slave Trade and financed it and so on – a gross distortion (of her views)but then that’s what the Zionists and the mainstream press are best at. And it’s now gone further; of course, we had Ken Livingstone who said that Hitler supported Zionism and although he got a few of his facts wrong and was tactically inept, what he said was basically true. Anyone who is acquainted with Holocaust literature and historiography knows that the Zionists did form an alliance, did treat with the Nazis, in particular the Zionist movement outside of Europe, through Haavara, the  trade agreement between the Nazi state and the Jewish Agency, the Zionist government in waiting in Palestine. He, Livingstone, stepped on some toes and he was immediately suspended for that.

There has been a belief in some quarters that this was basically an internal Labour Party thingand it would passover. I have to say that it won’t go away; it’s going to be a continuing theme, and, furthermore, it won’t just be the Labour Party. We’ve seen that: Jenny Tonge was suspended and has now resigned from the Lib Dems as a result of the targeting of her over a meeting that she chaired.  It was quite outrageous.  A Jewish Rabbi said that the Jews had brought the holocaust down on themselves,which is an outrageous statement but it is a common theme among those in  Jewish Orthodoxy – God almighty has a purpose in life and the holocaust has a reason and it was the sinfulness of the Jews themselves. It’s a reactionary theme, but nonetheless, it’s a common theme. The idea that, somehow, this was an anti-Semitic statement which could never have been made in anything other than anti-Zionist circles is simply absurd.  See The Belief that Jews were responsible for the Holocaust is common to Jewish Orthodoxy - ‘Lib Dem Cowardice over Jenny Tonge and Jewish Racism

We had the Home Affairs Select Committee Report, which is extremely dangerous, which reported about two weeks ago, - I don’t know whether anyone has read it. I did three different blog posts on it, which I suggest, if you haven’t read them maybe you should go to, because, it’s extremely dangerous. [False Zionist Allegations of Anti-Semitism and the Boy Cried Wolf Syndrome, Opposing Parliament’s Racist Witch-hunt of Malia Bouattia, “Antisemitism in the United Kingdom”

It’s a report by 10 MP’s, 6 Tories, 3 Labour – (Chair Keith Vaz, Chukka Ummuna and David Winnick) and 1 SNP.  It’s an alliance of the Labour Right and the Tories.  Labour chairs that particular committee because that’s the way that Select Committees work – the opposition chairs half of them -  and thiswas a unanimous report and was designed to confuse anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. Indeed, the whole purpose of it was to ensure that anti-Israel criticism and propaganda was subsumed within what they define as anti-Semitism.

Ironically, the one part of the Jewish community which does experience anti-Semitism, the most visible part, the Hasidic part who live primarily in Stamford Hill in London weren’t even mentioned, because the report is not really about anti-Semitism, just as the allegations which have been made and the campaign which has taken place in the last 15 months or so, really has nothing to do with anti-Semitism as such. That’s the last thing on their mind, but it’s a very convenient weapon to use in order to demonise Palestine solidarity activism and so forth. The other reason, if you like, for this, the other aspect is, I think part of the problem with the Palestine Solidarity movement, is that it isn’t quick-witted enough and it isn’t agile and it isn’t able to respond in the same way as the Zionists. One reason for this is that it doesn’t have the resources; Israel has allocated something like $50 million dollars to what’s called the Ministry of Strategic Affairs precisely to combat BDS and anti-Israeli attacks. It has the money, we don’t have that, but we have to be aware of developments within the ranks of our enemy, frankly.

 Within the last few years as a result of BDS which really took off in 2005 with the decision of what became the University and Colleges Union to boycott Israeli Universities, there were developments within the ranks of the Zionists, a kind of Young Turks’ rebellion against the old fuddy-duddies in the Board of Deputies of British Jews whom they saw as inactive. It was best represented by a character called Jonathan Hoffman who, I’m sure, many of you remember; he was co-vicechair of the Zionist Federation until he began accusing Micky Davis, who was the chair of the Jewish Leadership Council, which then was an association of big Jewish capitalists, basically people like Stanley Kalms of Dixons,of being an anti-Zionist, because he made some mild criticisms of Israel. Micky Davis didn’t take too kindly to the criticisms and he threatened Hoffman with libel.  Hoffman backed down and he was soon ousted from the Zionist Federation. But the seeds which Hoffman had sownbore fruit. You see that within the growth of an organisation which started during Operation Protective Edge, the attack on Gaza in 2014, called the “Campaign Against Anti-Semitism” which has become a charity; that is very active.  It is a vitriolic, libellous, nasty organisation, which people have tended to ignore. I have done one blog on it.  It’s registered as a charity and I think that we should be turning our attentions to that fact. It’s a political organisation masquerading as a charity.

But the Zionists have responded, because BDS to them represents something very different from what’s gone before and the word they use – and it’s a good one – is “delegitimization”. What they say is that you can criticise Israel and its policies but you can’t criticise what they say is “the right to exist”– it’s the very legitimacy of the state itself. And that is the fundamental question for people; there’s no avoiding it really. Palestine is not simply a human rights issue; if it were, it would be fairly low down the list. There are many other human rights issues, in South Sudan, for example or Sri Lanka.  Palestine is a vibrant issue because it has a political dimension unlike any other campaign, because it involves the world’s only apartheid society, the world’s only active settler-colonial society – that is what makes Israel different. Israel is, if you like, the spearhead of the West inside the Middle East and it plays a particular role in destabilising that region and that is why the Palestine issue is of such significance and such importance.  BDS is seen as a threat to the West’s favourite Rottweiler, it’s guard dog or as Alexander Haig, Reagan’s Secretary of State put it, Israel is an unsinkable aircraft carrier for the USA in the Middle East and cheap at the price.

Most people here, I’m sure, are active in the campaign for BDS but the primary importance of BDS is not the economic impact of it, which is marginal, let’s be frank about it, it’s political.  That’s what Israel’s main fear about it is, just like in South Africa, the sports boycott, that’s where I started off politically, didn’t have any economic significance, but it had an immense psychological effect and that’s the importance of BDS.  It questions the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state, and when we talk about a Jewish State, I mean a Jewish supremacist state.  Being Jewish in Israel means you have privileges over and above somebody who is not Jewish.

And what we have seen with the Home Affairs Select Committee is an attempt, in a sense, to redefine anti-Semitism. If I can spend a few minutes on that I will explain. Back in the 1970’s, it was with AbbaEban, a very clever Foreign Minister of Israel, that the concept of new anti-Semitism grew up. New anti-Semitism is different from the old anti-Semitism.  When most people, the man or the woman in the street orthe man on the proverbial Clapham omnibus, think of anti-Semitism, what they think of is hatred of Jews, violence, discrimination etc.  It could be summed up as ‘hostility to Jews as Jews’.  That’s what most people think of as anti-Semitism.  It encompasses stereotypes, the idea of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy and so on, but for Israel that is of no importance.

Indeed Zionism welcomes anti-Semitism because it helps encourage Jewish people to emigrate to Israel and become separate themselves. What they meant by new anti-Semitisminvolved a redefinition of anti-Semitism.  Israel  became in the words of Irwin Cotler, the former Minister of Justice in Canada, the “new Jew” - the Jew amongst the nations.  In other words, criticism of Israel was not because of what it did but because of what it was. Israel was the Jew amongst the nations.  People singled it out because it was a Jewish state as opposed to being a Christian State or an Islamic State or whatever.

Just let me make a quick observation in that respect because this is a common Zionist theme: I think many of you will recall that Israel is a Jewish state but it’s the only Jewish State; there are, however, many Islamic states and Britain is a Christian state.  Why therefore the argument goes can we not have just one Jewish state.  You don’t object to x number of Muslim states, why then one Jewish state?  The reason is simple and it is this.

In Britain being a Christian state is a constitutional adornment.  In Israel there’s a Jewish National Fund which I’m sure most of you have heard of and the JNF owns and controls 93% of the land and if you’re not Jewish you don’t have access to that land, precisely because you’re not Jewish.  It is a Jewish National Fund and on its website it has a nice little green box because it’s very eco-friendly and in that box it says that it did a survey of the Jewish population in Israel and something like 80% of them said that, given the choice, they’d prefer that Israel was a Jewish state to being a democratic state and then went on to say that the Jewish people for 2000 years, according to the myth, had longed not for a democratic state but for a Jewish state.

That iswhat is involved in a Jewish state. In Britain, you can imagine that if there was a Christian National Fund and I was told that I can’t rent somewhere or lease somewhere or buy somewhere because I am not a Christian, I think that most people would say that that was anti-Semitic, but in Israel they don’t seem to understand that the same applies in reverse. The question I’ve always asked at meetings where Zionists are present, is whether if Jews in this country were treated the same as Palestinians in Israel would they consider that to be anti-Semitic. They never have an answer to that because there is no answer.

Amongst the Zionists arguments in favour of a ‘Jewish’ state is that Israel represents ‘Jewish national self-determination’.  This has become a favourite issue, a talking point and the simple answer to that is that firstly, only an oppressed people have the right to talk about self-determination.  It’s meaningless to talk about people who are oppressors having a right to self-determination.  They are already “self-determining” another people.  Self-determination simply means the right to be free of national oppression and the Israeli Jews are not oppressed as a nation.  Indeed they are not a nation and incidentally there is no such thing as an Israeli nationality.  The only time you see a reference to an Israeli nationality is on the Israeli passport, but the Hebrew translation in the passport itself is Ezrahut (citizenship) not Le’um (people/nation).  So even Israel’s passport is a lie.  It not only fools people outside Israel, it fools Israelis too! 

Secondly Jewish people are not a nation. Jewish people are found amongst every people on the planet – French, British, Argentinian, you name it; the idea that they form a nation is some kind of metaphysical concept. There’s no rationale behind it.  Jews don’t speak the same language, British Jews speak English, French Jews speak French.  Jews don’t occupy the same territory.  Often their religious rituals are different as well, so it’s a complete absurdity to say that Jews, wherever they live form one nation.

Talk of ‘self-determination’ is an attempt by the Zionists to attach themselves to the radical zeitgeist and pretend that they too are an oppressed people, but if you go back into Zionist literature and history, you will know that Zionism always talked about itself as a colonising mission.  They were colonists and they called themselves colonists.  – When Theodor Herzl, the founder of Political Zionism  wrote to Cecil Rhodes, after whom Rhodesia was named, who was one of the key architects of white supremacy in southern Africa, Herzl asked ‘how then do I happen to turn to you since this is an out of the way matter for you.  How indeed.  Because it is something colonial.’ [Diaries of Theodor Herzl, p.1194. 

The Zionists have fixed upon two definitions of anti-Semitism: one of them many of you will have heard of is the Working Definition on Anti-Semitism [WDoS] propagated by something that used to be called the European Union Monitoring Committee and this said that contemporary examples of anti-Semitism in public life include but are not limited to the following: calling for or aiding, justifying harming Jews in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion. I would ask why calling for the killing of Jews needs to be in the name of a radical ideology or a religion; it would stand on its own.  This is an attempt to harness it to an anti-Islamic theme. Another is accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel.  Well I would accept that accusing people of dual loyalty is anti-Semitic but Zionism itself says that Jews have a loyalty to Israel.  That’s exactly what Benjamin Netanyahu did when he came to Paris in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attack and said that the real home of Jews isn’t in France, it’s in Israel. Another example isdrawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to the Nazis; and this is something that was in the Chakrabarti report, and I think it’s completely retrogressive. The fact is that Israel justifies its existence by reference to the Holocaust and to the Nazis and they make direct comparison between the Nazis and the Palestinians. Therefore, I think that we are free to draw comparisons.   The comparisons should be valid and not used willy-nilly.  For example when the Deputy Minister of Defence Eli Dahancompares Palestinians to animals New deputy defense minister called Palestinians ‘animals’or Benjamin Netanyahu speaks of the Arabs surrounding Israel as “wild beasts” I think it’s quite in order to say that that was the Nazi view of Jews – that they were animals.  We should never retreat from the narrative that the Zionists engage in, because, when you retreat, you continue to retreat. I always think that the best form of defence is attack, and to put them on the defensive, not the other way round.

The WDoSsays that another example of anti-Semitism is holding Jews collectively responsible for the actions of the state of Israel. Again, I agree with that, but who is it that associates Jews in this country with what Israel does if not the Board of Deputies and the Zionist movement? Indeed, the chief Rabbi was in the Telegraph, not so long ago, telling us that you can no more separate Jews from Zionism than Britain from the City of London. Ken Livingstone and the hard Left are spreading the insidious virus of anti-Semitism

Fine! If you say that Jews are responsible for everything that Israel does then you can’t be surprised if some people then make that equation themselves. In other words, there is a contradiction that lies at the heart of the present Zionist offensive and it’s for people to draw the necessary conclusions.  I want to make a number of points.

Firstly, I think that we cannot continue as we are and I think that the response of the Palestine Solidarity movement to the attacks taking place in the last 15 months has been desultory, to say the least. We haven’t responded, to be quite blunt, and we need to respond and the purpose of this workshop is to think of ways that do.

Secondly, this is a workshop of activists – BIN is an activist group – but activism itself is not enough because activism takes place within a political context and I refer to the Home Affairs Select Committee Report Antisemitism in the UK,  The most dangerous thing about that Committee’s recommendations is where it says that ‘For the purposes of criminal or disciplinary investigations, use of the words ‘Zionist’ or ‘Zio’ in an accusatory or abusive context should be considered inflammatory and potentially antisemitic.’

In essence it is saying that criticism of Zionism should be criminalised as a hate crime. That is an extremely dangerous formulation but it’s one that is quite likely to be taken up. We have seen in Scotland that somebody who shouts “Viva Palestina” can be arrested; we know that in France, BDS has been all but outlawed. In this country there are serious moves afoot, by the Zionist movement, to try to make criticism of Zionism a hate crime and we need to be aware of that and that’s why I say activism is not enough.  We also have to be aware of the political surroundings and act accordingly.

I think we should also have some propaganda themes of our own to fight back with. As I say, attack is the best form of defence.  Firstly our main theme is that anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism and I go a bit further and say that anti-Zionism - opposition to Israel and opposition to Zionism, the movement that established Israel -  is neveranti-Semitic. Anti-Zionism is a form of anti-racism; anti-Semitism is a form of racism; racism and anti-racism are not the same by definition, because they are polar opposites. That does not mean that someone who is an anti-Zionist cannot also be an anti-Semite.  Individuals have all sorts of contradictions within them.  For example there are Zionists who are not racists.  They sincerely believe themselves not to be racists. They are wrong. They don’t understand Zionism, but I accept that there are some Zionists who aren’t racist and we should try to win them over. But the movement itself is thoroughly racist, so we should always distinguish between the movement and the individual.

One of the main organisations we should work with and in is the Labour Party.  Let me say this: we shouldn’t be afraid to engage with a political party. We have “Friends of Palestine” groups.  The Tories are a write-off. 80% of their MPs are members of Conservative Friends of Israel.  They are a right-wing party, they are pro-imperialist, you may get one or two individuals like Alan Duncan, but by and large, they are going to be pro-Zionist.  The Lib-Dems are somewhat better, but not much better. In the Labour Party, you do actually have, especially with the new influx of Corbynistas, a ready-made audience there and we have a group called the “Labour Friends of Palestine” basically established in Parliament, many of whose members are also supporters of “Labour Friends of Israel”.  It’s an organisation that’s not fit for purpose. We have to establish, I think, a pro-Palestinian organisation in the Labour Party, which is based in the grassroots, which is activist and doesn’t share anything in common with Labour Friends of Israel.

If I can quote the New Testament, the Gospel according to Matthew, No man can serve two masters.  You cannot serve God and mammon!  You cannot ride two horses at the same time.  You can’t be a supporter of the oppressed and the oppressor at the same time.

The Jewish Labour Movementis an affiliate of the Labour Party but is the British wing of the Israeli Labour Party which it calls its ‘sister party’.  I think we need to hone our propaganda.  We need to make it clear that the Israeli Labour Party is as much a party of Israeli apartheid as is the Likud; indeed in many ways, it is worse. It was the original party of Israeli apartheid. I have done an article recently on why Israel is not a democracy and I think that should be another theme as well. The Home Affairs Select Committee and this new International Holocaust Remembrance Authority definition of anti-Semitism which it has taken up [see The Government's new definition of ‘anti-Semitism’ is an attempt to criminalise support for the Palestinians and opposition to Zionism] says criticism of Israel, which is the same as criticism of any liberal democracy is OK but that any other criticism of Israel which questions its existence is anti-Semitic.  We have to be quite clear that Israel is not a liberal democracy.  It is anything but a liberal democracy.  It is a country where torture is a norm if you’re a Palestinian, where they have internment without trial, administrative detention, and they have for example constant censorship of the media and even state archives.  This is not something you’d find in a liberal democracy. We have to have a criticism of Israel which doesn’t simply focus on the occupied territories.  The West Bank, important though that is, important though the settlements are, are not the whole picture.  We have to focus on the State that gives birth to the settlements and to the Occupation, because that is where the root of the problem lies.

I think we also need to focus, and to give examples, of how Israel itself, not just the West Bank but Israel itself, is the most racist state in the world and there’s plenty of evidence [see Why Israel is not a Liberal Democracy - Israel is the most racist and right-wing state on Earth]

The fact that 50% of Israelis say that they want the Arabs they live amongst to be expelled, for example. You wouldn’t find such an opinion poll in this country in which 50% of White people say this of Black people or Muslims. That shows that Israel is a different society and anything but a liberal democracy.

Other ideas I suggest include these.  One of the areas the Zionists concentrate on is the NUS, the National Union of Students, and we know there’s been a witch-hunt against Malia Bouattia, who is the new NUS President, and a very good President, and they’ve been accusing her of anti-Semitism.  The same Select Committee launched an unwarranted attack on her because she said that Birmingham University is a Zionist outpost, which it probably is. There’s nothing racist or anti-Semitic about that.

Again, we need to concentrate and put resources in to ensure that Palestine Societies are supported and created as an extremely important area of work.

Palestine Solidarity Campaign – let me just say this.  You’ve heard of the Trade Union Congress, I assume.  There was a famous cartoon in the 1930’s by David Lowe in the Daily Mirror; it depicted the TUC as a carthorse, slow-witted, slow to move, took time to get into action. I would suggest that PSC has some of those aspects as well.  It hasn’t been the most agile of creatures and it needs to be. It is the largest organisation. The Zionists have a number of organisations with resources and so on. We need to be able to fight and to fight effectively and PSC should be part of that fight.

We also need to be quite clear that, and this is a political question, the question of two states is dead. All the Zionists groups say they support two states.  That should make people wonder. If the Zionists say they support two states that is because they know there will never be two states.  We should ask ourselves why that is so. We should be quite clear that two states today is a cover for Apartheid.

Regarding the media, I think we need to have a focus, as the Zionists did a few years ago, on the Guardian newspaper, which has been leading the attack on “anti-Semitism” and Corbyn.  I think that’s crucial and I’ve got one or two ideas but I don’t have time to talk about them now.

I also think we need to emulate the Zionists – they have a number of “think-tanks” which look at their strategy, their tactics and devise programmes accordingly. I think we need to do the same.  We should think about establishing something where ideas get thrown around so that we get as quick-footed and agile as they are. We need to learn something from our enemies in order that we can actually beat them.

Thank you very much for listening.

Question 1.

Agreed with much of what had been said. There has been a decision by the Israeli Government to attack BDS as “anti-Semitic” and thereby to silence it. To counter this it was necessary to engage with other groups – War on Want, Amnesty etc – to defend BDS as defending free speech. There needed to be more support on university campuses, both with student groups and at a senior academic level. Basic campaigning might not be enough, but it was essential to continue the normal work as well as countering the new attacks.

Question 2.

If Labour Friends of Palestine was inadequate, how to improve and what work was possible at local level?

Question 3 What was the role of the Israeli embassy and ambassador Regev in all this?

Question 4 Are we doing enough to convey to people what “Zionism” means – i.e. ethnic cleansing, apartheid etc?

Tony: I’m not suggesting that PSC gives up what it’s already doing. However, there are times when you have to draw up priorities and sometimes, shift the emphasis and I think that’s certainly what PSC needs to do now with the resources it has. For example, I think it needs to actively support, and that includes financially, “Free Speech on Israel” because it’s at the heart of a battle and it is a battle, a battle which, if we lose, we are going to be hamstrung without a doubt and we won’t even be able to engage in some of the routine activities that we do.  It’s fine having a routine – the week on the Nakba, the week on Hewlett Packard etc. and they are all worthwhile, but we also need to ensure that we have the space within which to conduct it and that’s why the politics is so important.

For instance, PSC boasted at its last conference that it had made contact with over 1000 Parliamentary candidates but what has it done to utilise those contacts in the current climate?  I can’t think of one single MP with maybe the exception of Richard Burgon, who spoke out about how Zionism is an enemy of peace, who’s spoken out throughout all of this. Ken Livingstone spoke out and his head was chopped off. Naz Shah spoke out two years ago and unfortunately was cowed into silence and even worse and apart from that there’s been nothing.

 Jeremy Corbyn came to the last ten or more PSC conferences, the last one being just before he was elected and yet there hasn’t been an attempt to even hold a meeting, fix a meeting with him, or John McDonnell, to actually startto try and coordinate work with him and those around him.  People in the leadership of PSC have I’m sure access to him but we haven’t utilised our contacts, haven’t put across our message and that’s what I’m saying: we need to. I also think we need to have held a public meeting with prominent members of the Labour Party like Ken Livingstone, for example, like Richard Burgon, like people in Momentum to start the fightback – Jackie Walker and so on. PSC needs to do that because the Labour Party is not an incidental organisation. I mean, someone asked about Mark Regev and the Israeli embassy, I don’t think Mark Regev began it but certainly he’s involved in it. If you look at it from this perspective, when Corbyn was elected or seemed likely to be elected to the Labour leadership, I imagine panic set in, not just in the Israeli embassy but the US embassy. Britain is the closest ally of the United States in Europe, the special relationship; the idea that someone who is anti-Nato, anti-Trident and so on, with his record, I would be amazed if the CIA and the Intelligence Agencies weren’t doing something. I mean that’s what they’re paid to do all over the world; why not in Britain? It would be bonkers if they didn’t; they would be failing in their duties, so, yes, of course they have been behind this campaign.

With regard to the Labour Friends of Palestine, nationally it’s a joke; if there are local groups, fine, but then they have to be radical, activist and getting the message across that there is no anti-Semitism in the Labour Party; they need to fight it. The Labour Friends of Palestine nationally, as far as I am aware, has said nothing, done nothing. If I’m wrong, tell me I’m wrong but that’s my impression, so I think we need to…PSC needs to… for example, get leaflets out nationally about what’s happening and they need to be sharp. They spent maybe £10,000 on an advert in the Guardian that no one even understood – it was regarding the settlements. I think it needs to be far harder, far sharper. I think our direction needs to be that the Jewish Labour Movement which is spearheading this is the prime target.  Without a doubt –their Chair, Jeremy Newmark, is leading the attack on ‘anti-Semitism’. I think we need to call them out and explain, quite succinctly what Labour Zionism is about. I mean the sayings of Isaac Herzog their leader who said, “We are not an Arab-lovers party”, for example, or when he spoke about his nightmareof waking up to find there was an Arab Prime Minister of Israel. We need to bring those things to the fore.

Question 4 expanded what her question had been about.

Tony: I think on anti-Zionism we need to say that …let me read a quote from A B Yehoshua, an Israeli novelist, a Labour Zionist, a novelist whose most famous novel was “Face the Forest”.  He is someone who believes in what’s  called then Negation of the Diaspora, because Zionism was founded on hatred of the Jewish Diaspora.  It held that the Diaspora was responsible for all the problems of the Jews.  It was seen as a sinful creation and responsible for the degeneration of the Jews – they spoke in very much the same terms as the anti-Semites and Yehoshuain a lecture to the Union of Jewish Students,[Jewish Chronicle 22.1.1982] said“Anti-Zionism is not the product of the non-Jews. On the contrary, the gentiles (that is the non-Jews) have always encouraged Zionism hoping that it would help to rid them of the Jews in their midst. Even today, in a perverse way, a real anti-Semite must be a Zionist.”If someone tells me,“Tony, you don’t belong here! Go to Israel - you’ve got your Jewish state”, they’re either a Zionist or an anti-Semite, or both. We need to bring that out.  Zionism rejects the Jewish position in the diaspora and you see that today with the election of Trump and the open anti-Semitism of many of his supporters including the appointment of Steve Bannon, former CEO of Breitbart, the alt-Right site.  These are people who hold to crude anti-Semitic positions.  But they are fanatically pro-Israel.  They love Israel but hate Jews.   So when Trump appointed Bannon as his Strategic Advisor, the second most important person in the White House, the Zionist Organisation of America invited him to speak at its annual gala in New York.  [See the Jewish Forward of America, With Bannon on the Bill, Zionist Gala Becomes Flashpoint].  This caused a major rift in American Jewry.  Ordinary Jews could not understand how pro-Israel groups could welcome to office open anti-Semites and there is no doubt that Bannon is anti-Semitic.  I don’t mean personally.  I’m sure he’s not anti-Semitic on a personal level, just as Enoch Powell was not anti-Semitic personally.  But politically he’s openly employed and used anti-Semites and their tropes throughout the magazine he was responsible for. 

Ha’aretz, the liberal Israeli newspaper in an article Zionist Organization of America Flooded With 'Dozens of Calls' Amid Backlash Over Bannon Support reports American Jews saying that ‘'We did not survive the Holocaust, we did not found the State of Israel, just so that less than two generations later we could cozy up to neo-Nazis.'  Today they are learning what the Jews of Poland understood before the Holocaust.  That Zionism will never fight anti-Semitism of the traditional kind.  Instead it will redefine anti-Zionism as anti-Semitism and hope to fool a few gullible souls.

Today we have the hundredth year of the Balfour Declaration.  As Prime Minister Balfour introduced the Aliens Act which was designed to stop Jews from coming into this country, but he was happy for them to go and settle in Palestine.

We need to point out that Zionism, historically, collaborated and worked with anti-Semites, not just the Nazi era for a long (time); Edouard Drumont, the anti-Dreyfussard.  He wrote a very favourable review of Herzl’s “The Jewish State” which was the founding Pamphlet of the Zionist movement which said that Jews don’t belong in non-Jewish society. The Zionists say that Zionism is being used as a term of abuse. Well, that’s true because it’s an abusive movement, so we need to explain why it’s an abusive movement, because it believes that Jews have the right to sovereignty and only we Jews have the right to sovereignty in Palestine. Therefore, it’s inherently racist because it doesn’t recognise, and never has recognised, the rights of the indigenous population, just like any settler-colonial movement.

Question 5

Agreed that the best form of defence is attack, but noted that Donald Trump, who has never hidden his right-wing politics has been supported by the ADL in the US because of his support for Israel. He himself had no support for equality.

Question 6

One step to take would be to interview Palestinians and ask them “What does Zionism mean to you?” and give their experiences a voice.

Question 7

A major problem was how to communicate outside the movement. Our enemies were shrinking our space to do this – especially in the universities, where meetings are cancelled or monitored aggressively by the authorities. Federica Mogherini’s reiteration of the right to campaign for BDS in the EU was important and welcome. Governments in Ireland, Sweden and Holland had also supported this. We need to develop links with groups like Stop Arming Israel to fight issues of free speech. Trade Unions needed to be encouraged to speak out.

Question 8

Welcomed the idea of a Free Speech Coalition. Didn’t feel that attacking Zionism would prove effective; instead, concentrate on rights. Be aware that there are organisations in Israel which work alongside BDS in support.

Tony: the last questioner made some very interesting and useful points all of which I disagreed with! 

Why talk about Zionism? I’ll tell you why: the Jewish Labour Movement and the Commons Select Committee both focus on our use of the word “Zionism”, which tells me there is a reason behind it. The reason is that they don’t mind us criticising them on the human rights stuff so much because that’s water off a duck’s back. What they don’t want us to do is to focus on Zionism because Zionism explains why they breach human rights, why they do what they do.

Zionism isthe movement which gave birth to the settlements and all the other things that we so dislike about Israel. To fail to deal with Zionism is as if 20 years ago, when we were campaigning around what was happening in South Africa, we concentrated on the “Group Areas Act” and all the other things but didnot mention apartheid because that was somehow sacrosanct. You can’t deal with the symptoms without dealing with the cause and the problem and that’s why I say that Zionism is, indeed, the thing that we should concentrate on and focus upon, because it explains why things happen. Without that we are rudderless and at sea.

Now we are facing a ruling-class, establishment movement, and no doubt, the balance of forces is against us, but most people in this country understand that if you criticise Israel, that doesn’t make you an anti-Semite and most people in this country understand what anti-Semitism is – which is racism towards Jewish people. You know, it’s an easy thing to understand. They don’t understand what this “new Jew” is about, they don’t understand what the working definition is about if they’d ever read it. In other words, that’s why the Zionists get in such a muddle because it’s not coherent, because what they’re really doing is redefining anti-Zionism as anti-Semitism. That’s what their game is, that’s what we should call them out about.  The Zionists are fundamentally dishonest.  That is why the JLM twists the MacPherson conclusions re a victim of racism defining what is a racial incident to suggest that a victim defines if someone is guilty, which was never said nor of course could it be.  Only the courts find someone guilty but the JLM Rule Change to the Labour Party says that where an allegation is made by a Zionist of anti-Semitism, then that allegation must be believed.  We need to call out that basic dishonesty.

One other aspect of their argument is this idea which has been propagated that Jews now identify with Israel; therefore, inherently, part of Jewish identity is support for Zionism and that Zionism and being Jewish is one and the same thing. Now, it’s interesting that the survey they quote is a Yachad survey conducted by City University last year.  The Attitudes of British Jews Towards Israel.  That survey found that 59% of Jews in Britain identified as Zionist, down from 72% five years ago and 31% of Jews say they are not Zionist.

They’ve tried to spin this away by saying that British Jews still support the right of Israel to exist.  That’s true, but they don’t support the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish supremacist state.  In other words, most Jews don’t understand what Israel does. I didn’t when I was a Zionist; I thought, “Why the hell do these Arabs not want to make peace with us? Is there something wrong with them? Why are they so bloody-minded?” That’s the attitude of most Jews because they’ve been fed myths and lies for example the myth that in 1948, these Arabs, they ran away.  Apparently they left under orders from the Arab radio broadcasts in order that the Arab armies could invade.  The Palestinian refugees deserved their fate because they abandoned Israel at a time when they were asked, even begged, based on a myth in Haifa, to stay.

Of course, that’s not true, it was debunked by two scholars Walid Khalidi and Erskine Childers in 1961 and in the work of Benny Morris and IlanPappe in the 1980’s onwards.  We all know it’s not true, but that is what British Jews’ heads are full of. But, more and more Jews, nonetheless, understand that Zionism is no longer a nice word.  It is about chauvinism and particularism and racism, in essence, and that’s why fewer Jews today, 59%, down from 72% in five years, identify as Zionists.The Zionists have tried to cover this up; it’s mentioned in the small print of the Home Affairs Select Committee.

I don’t underestimate our task.  We are small and few in number. We have some advantages but we have many disadvantages as well. I also agree with another questioner regarding the way we work in some ways: we do need to work with Civil Liberties organisations and we do need to make the question of BDS a civil rights issue. I think we should be thinking in terms of the right to BDS as the focus of a campaign in its own right and the focus of a public meeting and leaflets and so on. And we should get MPs, I subscribe to the idea, that the right of BDS is a fundamental right – a right of all oppressed people  -  and to draw out that BDS, boycott, isn’t something new, it stretched from Ireland which is where the word Boycott came from to the Boycott of Slave-Grown Sugar, to the Jewish boycott of Nazi Germany, a mass movement which the Zionist movement broke. They don’t like to talk about that for obvious reasons because the Zionists pulled the Nazis coals out of the fire.

I do think we need to go on the offensive and to put them on the defensive and that is one of the ways that we do that. And, incidentally, on Jewish identity, even if it were true that Jews identified with Israel, just supposing they did, so what? Attacking an identity is not attacking a people.  Some Africans identify with Female Genital Mutilation and see it as part of their religion. Do we, therefore, say it’s racist to attack FGM? Of course not. And if some people identify with a burkha as part of the Islamic religion, do we therefore say it’s racist to attack the burkha or the nikab or what have you?Of course not.

Things are right or wrong in their own terms. If Zionism is wrong, it doesn’t matter if all the Jews support it – they’re wrong. Simple as that!

I’ll leave it at that.  Thank you.

Please Give Generously to Israel’s Refuser Solidarity Network in the New Year

December 31, 2016, 2:45 pm

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Support those young Israeli Jews who Refuse to Serve in Israel's Occupation Forces & be part of the Criminal Majority

Please read this message from Tair Kaminer, who spent 159 days in jail for publicly refusing to enlist.

Tair went to prison about 6 times, for renewable periods of about 28 days, because she refused to serve in the Israeli Occupation Forces.

Imagine how difficult it must have been for her.  Not simply in spending over 5 months in prison, but in the ostracism and abuse she received from fellow Israelis who glory in the abuse and racism directed at Palestinians.

Taminer would have been considered a ‘traitor’ and worse by the chauvinists and bigots in the Israeli Jewish community and in the prison structure itself.  Yet despite this she and now two other Israeli Jewish women, who are also currently serving prison sentences have stuck to their principles.  Another Israeli Jew, Atalia Ben Aba will join them in February.

If you are thinking of a good cause to donate to in the New Year then there is no better cause to give to than supporting young Israeli Jews who refuse to be a part of the criminal  majority in Israel.  Please make a donation, however large or small.

Tony Greenstein

 Greetings,   

I'm writing this letter to say thank you.              DONATE NOW

At nineteen, I decided that I would rather sit in prison than serve in the Israeli army. You may know how the army and its soldiers are portrayed here in Israel. They are called heroes when in reality, their actions help prop up the occupation and oppression of Palestinians.

The public campaign my supporters initiated drew attention from around the world. The support I received from Refuser Solidarity Network in the U.S. meant that the media in Israel and internationally were reporting that a young Israeli woman was refusing to serve in an army that violates international law. The world knows now that Israelis would prefer to defy the government and military by sitting in prison than going along. 

Your support meant so much to me and my family. Will you help us one more time in 2016 so we can continue to resist?

 I sat in jail for close to six months. But then, the army gave in. They discharged me because the campaign on my behalf gave them negative public attention. Pressure works. Thanks to our work, the army and the government know there is resistance to their actions.

To keep the pressure up, we need your support. Will you donate as generously as you can before the end of 2016? 

Now, two other young women are beginning their third term in military prison. Tamar and Tamar have decided that a peaceful future is too important to risk the alternative by staying silent. Atalia Ben Aba will join them in February.

To keep the pressure up for Tamar, Tamar, and Atalya, all the refusers, and all those who resist endless occupation and oppression, we need you.

Please make a generous contribution to Refuser Solidarity Network today.

I can't tell you how important the work of refusers is now, more than ever, in these bleak times.

In solidarity,

Tair Kaminer

 Copyright © 2016 Refuser Solidarity Network,Inc., All rights reserved.

Our mailing address is:

Refuser Solidarity Network, 

PO Box 75392

Washington, DC 20013

Read more about 2 of the Refusers:

Aiden Katri

Tair Kaminer

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7 Year Old Palestinian Terrorist Caught B4 He Could Do Harm

December 31, 2016, 3:28 pm

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Don't you just love the most moral army in the world?   The most benign occupation of the worlds most cherished democracy?

Well hats off to the Israeli Occupation Forces (I mean 'defence' forces) for their unparalleled bravery

Professor David Feldman – Chakrabarti’s Liberal Bares his Teeth

December 31, 2016, 8:19 pm

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Feldman Joins the Zionists Racist Attack on Momentum Black Activist Jackie Walker

Professor David Feldman is the classic Establishment Liberal.  Full of fine principles but none of them so sacrosanct that they cannot be sacrificed when needs must.  Feldman is Director of the Pears Institute for the Study of anti-Semitism at Birkbeck University, which is funded by the Pears Family Trust, a liberal Jewish Trust itself financed by a family web of property companies. 

Professor Feldman holding forth with the Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

If the Jewish Labour Movement's Jeremy Newmark, who perjured himself at the Fraser v UCU Employment Tribunal, is telling the truth for once, then Feldman made a gratuitous attack on Jackie Walker for the sake of pleasing his listeners, having not bothered to ascertain her actual views

When Feldman was announced as Vice-Chair of the Chakrabarti Inquiry, he was immediately attacked by the Zionists.  David Hirsh, whose Engage led the unsuccessful opposition to a Boycott in the University College Union wrote that Feldman was a signatory to ‘Jewish antisemitism-denying groups, such as Jews for Justice for Palestinians and Independent Jewish Voices’. 

Another line of attack on Feldman was the statement by IJV that the Zionist campaign around ‘anti-Semitism’ in the Labour Party was “baseless and disingenuous” Feldman was leaned upon to disown the statement, which he quickly did.  Two members of Free Speech on Israelmet with Feldman during the course of the Chakrabarti Inquiry and found him sympathetic in contrast to Baroness Janet Royall, the other Vice-Chair of the Chakrabarti Inquiry, who led her own inquiry, into Zionist allegations of anti-Semitism at Oxford University Labour Club.  Bizarrely Royall later let it be known in a blog article for the Jewish Labour Movement, that 

‘Iknow that you will share my disappointment and frustration that the main headline coming out of my inquiry is that there is no institutional Antisemitism in Oxford University Labour Club.’ 

David Feldman heads the liberal Sears Institute at Birkbeck College, London University

Feldman had previously compiled a ‘sub-report’for John Mann’s Parliamentary Committee on Anti-Semitism.  Reading back over this Report, it is clear that the seeds of Feldman’s current position had already been sown, when he implied that giving offence to the Jewish community, however defined, is tantamount to a form of anti-Semitism.  Like many academics he is reluctant to be explicit and say what he actually means.  In Section 3 of the Report, Feldman argued that:

‘we should acknowledge the sense of offence felt by many British Jews last summer and autumn in the face of some or all of the criticism directed at Israel and their perception that this criticism was, in fact, anti-Semitic.’

Feldman, like many Zionist academics, is difficult to pin down.  What concretely does he mean by acknowledging the sense of offence felt by many British Jews?  Is he suggesting that Operation Protective Edge, to which he was referring, when over two thousand Palestinians, including 551 children, were killed, should not have been the subject of protests and demonstrations?  He says that there was a ‘perception’ that this criticism was ‘in fact, anti-Semitic’.  What Feldman doesn’t do is say what his opinion is or indeed why there is this perception and where it has come from.  Instead what he does is to drop heavy hints, signalling the direction which he wants you to travel in, whilst ensuring that he has prepared enough escape clauses.

Feldman mentions in the Report one person who, apparently, had a ‘Hitler was right’placard.  It is of course possible, that such a person existed, although no evidence was provided.  A similar allegation was made by Jonathan Arkush to the Home Affairs Select Committee, again without anything resembling evidence. Arkush alleged (p.40 HASC Report) that during 'one of the Gaza campaigns, there were “huge marches” in London at which people held placards that read “Hitler was right.” Such was the contrived nature of HASC's Report, in reality an excuse for an attack on Corbyn, that it never even occurred to them to ask Arkush to back up his allegation with anything in the way of evidence. To this day no one has ever produced photographs of these Hitler placards.

What Feldman doesn’t mention are the demonstrations outside Ahava and the Israeli Embassy, to name but two, where Zionists stood side by side with Holocaust denying anti-Semites of the English Defence League and other fascist groups.  Far-right support for Zionism is the subject whose name Feldman dares not speak.  The support of the Andrei Breiviks and Geert Wilders for Zionism is something that the good professor Feldman does not to mention.

In America by way of contrast, liberal Zionists such as the Jewish Forward and its columnists have been forced to confront the fact that supporters of Zionism are more than happy to hold hand with open anti-Semites such as Breitbart’s Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s Strategic Advisor.  In his article of December 23^rd in the Guardian, Will Britain’s new definition of antisemitism help Jewish people? I’m sceptical Feldman refers to Trump as a ‘US president whose noisome electoral campaign was sustained by nods and winks to anti-Jewish prejudice’ but he draws no conclusion from these nods and winks.  In fact they were far more than nods and winks, as Bannon’s appointment demonstrated.

The Jewish Forward, a liberal Zionist paper seemed shell-shocked, not only by Trump’s victory and the open anti-Semitism of his supporters, but at the welcome they received from the Israeli government and the Zionist movement.  In what seemed to be a journey of self-discovery How Steve Bannon and Breitbart News Can Be Pro-Israel — and Anti-Semitic at the Same Time, the Forward’s Naomi Zeveloff declared that:

‘though it would seem impossible to hate Jews but love the Jewish state, these two viewpoints are not as contradictory as they appear.

Zeveloff cited Steven Cohen, a sociologist at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion that there is “little correlation” between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, and that “Many people who dislike Jews like Israel and many people who are critical toward Israel are affectionate toward Jews.”

This might seem like bread and butter to some of us, a statement of the obvious, but to those who have been brought up on anti-Zionism=anti-Semitism propaganda, it is indeed like the second coming.  Revelations on stereoids!

Zeveloff was genuinely shocked by the fact that although Trump 'has professed an ultra-right view of Israel... many of Trump’s followers spout anti-Semitism.' Zeveloff cites Yael Sternhell, a Tel Aviv University professor of history and American studies, that "As long as Jews are in Israel fighting the ‘good fight’ with the Arab world as a bastion of American ideals and values in the Middle East, then they are very useful and admirable allies,” but “Once they are home demanding a multi-cultural democracy, demanding that the country accommodate their religion, their belief and their custom that is a different story.”

All this has involved a very steep learning curve.  Zeveloff and those around her at Jewish Forward concluded that Israel is a “model for white nationalism and/or Christianism,” and that 'Some also see Jewish immigration to Israel as helping their cause of a Jew-free white America.' She quotes Todd Gitlin, a Columbia University sociologist and cultural commentator that  the coexistence of anti-Semitism and right-Wing Zionism “in Trump’s world make sense,” and that “Anti-Semitism and right-wing Zionism are varieties of ultra nationalism, or, to put it more pejoratively (as it deserves to be put) tribalism. They both presume that the embattled righteous ones need to bristle at, wall off, and punish the damned outsiders. They hate and fear cosmopolitan mixtures. They make a fetish of purity. They have the same soul. They rhyme.”

In the maelstrom in American politics that Trump's election has caused, where anti-Semitism is no longer confined to private golf clubs but public discourse, liberal Zionists have been forced into an understanding that Zionism is the other side of the coin to racial nationalism and white supremacism. It remains to be seen whether they also see that those young Jews who have been active in the BDS campaign aren't 'self haters' or closet anti-Semites, but anti-racists who drew these lessons at a far earlier stage of their lives.

However these are topics that David Feldman prefers not to avoid.  To the good professor, Britain is an island.  The alliance with the Right of the Tory Party with people like Eric Pickles goes unmentioned, even though Pickles defended the Tories line-up with anti-Semites in the European Conservative & Reform Group in the European Parliament in 2009, a topic I've covered previously. The fact that Zionism is an international movement is disregarded.  Instead in his article, whilst purportedly casting doubt on the International Holocaust Remembrance Authority’s definition of anti-Semitism, he give credibility to the 'demons' which it is attempting to cast out.

The policies Feldman is now arguing for, including his gratuitous attack on Jackie Walker, the Momentum Black activist who Jon Lansman set up for suspension by removing her as Vice Chair of Momentum, are consistent with the political weaknesses of Chakrabarti.  Others, including Free Speech on Israel saw Feldman and by extension Chakrabarti in a more benign light.  The attack on Walker is likely to come as a shock to them since their majority greeted Chakrabarti's Reports as if it was the Sermon on the Mount.  Indeed it was only after a great deal of internal agonising that they agreed to publish my critical Chakrabarti – A Missed Opportunity to Develop an Anti-Racist Policy for Labour

I copy below a letter I have sent to David Feldman outlining why I think his Guardian article is superficial and tendentious, a Zionist rendering of a quite familiar theme tune.

Tony Greenstein

Feldman's article in the Guardian - a particularly stupid headline - Can redefining anti-Zionism be of help to Jewish people? might have been more honest!

Dear Professor Feldman, d.feldman@bbk.ac.uk

I write regarding your article in the Guardian Will Britain’s new definition of antisemitism help Jewish people? I’m sceptical.  It seems that the flak that you have experienced as Vice-Chair of the Chakrabarti Inquiry from the Jewish Chronicle and other Zionist critics, has taken its toll on your ability to discern the differences between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.  Like many academics before you, your judgement has succumbed to the prevailing McCarthyite atmosphere in British politics.

In your talk Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism in Britain to the Conference on “Antisemitism in Europe Today” in November 2013, organized by the Jewish Museum Berlin, you wrote that:

For the fifty years following the Balfour Declaration, Labour party support for Zionism did not stem from an appreciation of the necessity of Zionism for the Jews. Rather, Labour support for Zionism was based on the fact that Zionists were European colonists who, it was believed, brought a higher level of civilization to a part of the world that remained locked in medieval backwardness in its level of economic development, in its political organisation, its religious practices and in its social organisation. The fact that the Zionists appeared to combine technological progress with socialist organisation, both on the kibbutzim and in the trade unions, rendered made them especially attractive allies in Britain’s global mission.

It would be difficult to disagree with this analysis.  Labour’s support for Zionism was part and parcel of its wider support for the British Empire.  Unlike the Conservatives, who defended imperialism as the source of Britain’s wealth and power, Labour’s support was dressed up in the rhetoric of Trusteeship.  This ‘liberal’ imperialism which, during the Attlee government, resulted in the super-exploitation of our African colonies and Malaya reached its dénouement in the Blair doctrine of liberal interventionism in Iraq and Afghanistan.

What you fail to understand in the current crisis is that opposition from the Left to Israel and Zionism still stems from the Zionist colonisation.  Zionism did not stop being a colonisatory movement in 1948.  Organisations such as the JNF, which pioneered the colonisation of Palestine in the Mandate period, have continued their work of ethnic cleansing to this day.  You must surely be aware of the proposed demolition of Umm al-Hiran village and the repeated demolitions of Al-Arakhib in the Negev today as part of the process of Judaisation of the Negev?  What has this to do with anti-Semitism?

It is the settler-colonial nature of Israel which results in nearly half Israel’s Jews supporting the physical expulsion of Israeli Palestinians.  This hideous racism expresses itself in a multiplicity of ways on a daily basis. 

In your reportto the parliamentary committee against antisemitism’ of 1 January 2015 you cited Brian Klug’s definitionof anti-Semitism as ‘a form of hostility  towards Jews as Jews, in which Jews are perceived as something other than what they are’, which Brian refined to read as ‘hostility towards Jews as ‘Jews’ or ‘hostility towards Jews as not Jews.’

Anti-Semitism can incidentally also encompass not just hostility but envy and admiration i.e. philo-semitism.  So when Owen Smith was asked during a debate with Corbyn what he admired most about Jews, he saidthey were “a very entrepreneurial set of people.,” a classic anti-Semitic trope. Ironic since Smith based his campaign on opposition to ‘anti-Semitism! 

Your article begins by saying that ‘Everyone is against antisemitism: we just can’t agree on how to recognise it.’  This is logically absurd.  If people cannot agree how to recognise anti-Semitism, how can they be against it?  What is it that they are against?

You state that anti-Semitism, which historically meant ‘discrimination, violence and genocide’ against Jews now ‘operates in a context created both by the formation of the state of Israel in 1948 and the consequence of its military victory in 1967.’  What you don’t say is who has placed it in that context and why.  Surely that is important?

You also accept that Palestinians are subject to ‘discrimination and occupation, annexation and expropriation’ yet you go on to say, without comment, that critics of the above ‘are now denounced as antisemitic by Israel’s leaders and by their supporters around the world.’

The obvious conclusion to draw would be that defenders of Israel and Zionism are abusing the memory of anti-Semitism , including the memory of the Holocaust, in order to defend Israel’s racist and murderous practices today.  It would not be a difficult conclusion to draw since Holocaust and Nazi abuse is standard in Israel.  For example shortly before Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated, Benjamin Netanyahu was addressing crowds which included effigies of Rabin in SS uniform. 

Instead you say that anti-Semitism ‘does service both as a defence of minority rights, and in the context of support for a discriminatory and illiberal state power.’   How can it be anti-Semitic to oppose racism and discrimination?   Your silence speaks volumes.

The Zionist use of the charge of racism against anti-racists is not exactly unknown.  Defenders of the Apartheid used to dress up their arguments for White supremacy as being about defence of the White population.  British fascist groups like the BNP campaigned around ‘rights for whites’ and accused opponents of being anti-White racists.  The Zionist use of ‘anti-Semitism’ as a defence of anti-Palestinian racism is not exactly unknown.

You acknowledge that Trump’s election campaign ‘was sustained by nods and winks to anti-Jewish prejudice’ yet you avoid drawing any conclusions from the welcome he received, not only from the Zionist Right but Yair Lapid and Isaac Herzog of the Israeli Labour Party.  You seem oblivious to the fact that the Breitbart alt-Right as represented by Steve Bannon combines support for Zionism and anti-Semitism.  I could mention for example the President of the Zionist Organisation of America, Mort Klein who quite happily invitedBannon to the ZOA’s annual gala dinner whilst denouncingObama as a ‘Jew hating anti-Semite’!

The conclusions to be drawn from the above are obvious. Antisemitism has been weaponised by those whose concerns are not hatred of Jews but defence of Israel/Zionism.  Yet you state that ‘antisemitism has been a surrogate for another quarrel: whether the Labour party should be a comfortable place for Zionists.’  Your conclusions are bizarre, a classic example of a non-sequitur. 

In case it has escaped your attention it is not Zionists who have been suspended and expelled in the anti-Semitism witch-hunt of recent months.  It is ironically Jewish opponents of Zionism and the Israeli state like Jackie Walker and myself.  That was why the Chakrabarti Inquiry was set up. 

You say that ‘in parts of the left the terms “Zionism” and “Zio” have become part of the lexicon of invective.’  This is a false narrative.  The controversy over ‘Zio’ first surfaced with the resignation of Alex Chalmers as Chair of Oxford University Labour Club.  As was later revealed, far from being an innocent student he was an ex-intern for BICOM, the Israeli propaganda group.

You stated that ‘Zionism and anti-Zionism encompass a range of positions’.  Perhapsbut it is untrue to then say that ‘Zionists are at the forefront of protest against Israel’s policies’. This is fantasy.  Nor is it true that ‘Many... anti-Zionists accept the state’s right to exist’.  Opposition to a Jewish supremacist state is the sine qua non of anti-Zionism. 

You speak of ‘the well of support that exists for people who reveal prejudice or callous insensitivity towards Jews. The last year has been punctuated by a handful of headline-grabbing incidents of this sort’.  What is this ‘proven incidence of anti-Semitism’ based on?  What is amazing is that despite the repeated references to anti-Semitism in the Labour Party over the past year, there have been virtually no proven incidents of anti-Semitism.

As someone suspended for over 9  months, with no charge drawn up and subject to rumour and innuendo, not least via leaks to the national press, I challenge you to substantiate this or withdraw it.  I also suggest you read the transcriptof my interrogation.

Perhaps you were referring to Jackie Walker who has been traduced by Zionism’s professional racists and propagandists.  It would appear that you have aligned yourself with this campaign.  I refer to the Tweetby Jeremy Newmark of the Jewish Labour Movement: ‘Prof David Feldman, Vice chair of the Chakrabarti Inquiry tells #LimmudJaqui Walker's views are in "tradition of anti-Jewish thinking"‘

Perhaps you would confirm whether the above comment represents your considered viewpoint?  Perhaps you have spoken with Jackie?  It would appear that you are in agreement with the racist campaign against Jackie Walker – the vicious and libellous newspaper articles, the racist tweets and other gratuitously offensive remarks by the Newmarks of this world.  Perhaps you would like to explain why you think that someone who has a long-standing reputation as an anti-racist and anti-fascist campaigner is in the tradition of anti-Jewish thinking?  Is a discussion of the involvement of her Jewish ancestors in the enslavement of the Black side of her family anti-Jewish?  The involvement of Jews in the slave trade has been the subject of extensive academic debate for the past two decades.  I suggest you read The lynching of Jackie Walker before making any further comment.

You suggest that racism isn’t simply about power relations, that it can also be directed at white middle class groups such as Jews.  Possibly but your suggestion that most Jews ‘feel attached to the strongest power in the Middle East’ suggests a hidden agenda.  It is also both wrong and irrelevant.  Wrong because British Jews feel less attached to Israel today than in previous decades.  Just 59% nowcall themselves Zionist compared to 71% five years ago.  31% say they aren’t Zionist.  Challenging group identity or political prejudice dressed up in religious clothes has nothing to do with racism.  Perhaps you have forgotten Salman Rushdie and the Satanic Verses?  Just as challenging FGM or the Burka has nothing to do with racism.

You conclude by saying that the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism is ‘bewilderingly imprecise’ and that the Home Affairs Select Committee’s abysmal report has been ignored regarding guaranteeing the right to freedom of speech on Israel.  Unfortunately you have misread the latter.  It recommended that the ‘accusatory or abusive’ use of the term Zionism be criminalised as an offence of hate speech.

You are right that the IRHA definition of anti-Semitism ‘spurn(s) solidarity with other groups who are the targets of bigotry and hatred.’  What else would you expect of a definition of anti-Semitism whose purpose is to neutralise criticism of a state that allows you and me to ‘return’ to it whilst forbidding the return of the Palestinian refugees?  Racism rarely begets tolerance.

Yours sincerely,

Tony Greenstein 

Fighting Back against Zionism and the Right in 2016

January 2, 2017, 4:09 pm

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Keeping Palestine in the Picture in Brighton 2016

Just a few pictures, letters and miscellaneous things that happened in 2016, a year the Zionists began with their false anti-Semitism witch-hunt via the re-election of Jeremy Corbyn and such minor matters as the Doctors' Strike and a renewal of the strike movement at the end of the year

Tony Greenstein

Brighton & Hove PSC's Xmas Stall at the Clocktower

Brighton & Hove PSC's weekly stall at the Clock Tower

When Brighton's Green MP, Caroline Lucas, introduced her NHS Reinstatement Bill, a demonstration was there to see her off at Brighton railway station.  Hove Labour MP Peter Kyle refused to support the Bill because he supports privatisation of the NHS

2016 was the year when the Zionists tried to confuse anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism whilst cementing an alliance with Donald Trump and his anti-Semitic Breitbart friends!

2016 was when I returned with my family to the Highlands of Scotland, the most beautiful part of the British Isles - above is the Castle of May nr John O'Groats where the Queen Mother sojourned

B&H PSC took a daytrip to Southampton to help protest at the visit of an Israeli Apartheid side from Beer Sheva

My son James watching his footing at the Falls of Shin nr Bonar Bridge in the Highlands

Letter from 82 Jewish members of the Labour Party denying that the Zionists' allegations of anti-Semitism have any basis in fact - at the end of 2016 those like Jeremy Newmark of the Zionist Labour Zionist Movement making the allegations were welcoming that well known anti-racist D Trump to power

Demonstration in support of NHS Reinstatement Bill at Brighton station

Picket in support of striking doctors at Sussex County hospital

Striking teachers at demonstration at the Level

Large NHS meeting in Brighton at St. George's Church, Kemptown

The Falls of Shin in the Highlands where we went on holiday

Southampton picket against Israel's Apartheid Football Team

Football Against Apartheid in Southampton

Carbisdale Castle in Sutherland - victim of cultural and national vandalism

Letter protesting the attack by Jon Lansman and the racist Right in the Labour Party against Jackie Walker

Teachers demonstration at Brighton's level on strike day

Letter from some of those suspended as part of the witch-hunt in the Labour Party

Letters defending Malia Bouathia, the first Black woman President of the National Union of Students from the racist press and the Zionists

Demonstration and picket at Sussex County Hospital in support of the Junior Doctors

PSC's weekly stall at Brighton's clocktower

Another holiday pic from the Highlands

After implying I was suspended for anti-Semitism, The Telegraph was happy to confirm this wasn't the case!

First letter for nearly 40 years in The Telegraph putting the record straight on allegations of Zionism

The Paper of Record's account of why I had been suspended

The Times was also happy to clarify that they weren't implying I was anti-Semitic!

The lovely Dunrobin Castle in the Highlands

Castle Urquhart on the banks of Loch Ness

A Christian zionist and a racist Israeli (Shaki) trying to queer our pitch at the Clocktower

What is the difference between an academic and a prostitute?

January 2, 2017, 7:41 pm

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Why David Feldman Lent His Support to a Racist Witch-hunt

I sent a letter (copied below) to David Feldman, Director of the Sears Institute for the Study of Anti-Semitism yesterday.  I confess some people may think I’ve been ungenerous to him.  After all he’s only a run of the mill academic and social scientists, almost by definition, deal in ideas, which by their nature are transitory and malleable.

Jeremy Newmark, of the racist Jewish Labour Movement, tweets that Feldman has attacked Jackie Walker as anti-Semitic.

Professor David Feldman - academic for hire

Once upon a time, I was elected Vice-President of the Student Union at Brighton Polytechnic.  Indeed I was re-elected.  The Polytechnic authorities couldn’t wait to see the back of me because of the trouble I had caused them!  So eager were they to see the back of me that when I applied to do a PGCE, a teacher training course that enables you to teach, both the Education Faculties at the Polytechnic and Sussex University, which had joint accreditation and worked closely together, refused to accept me. 

Mingling with the good and the great of the Jewish establishment - in this case the Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

That was why I became the only Jewish student at St Mary’s College, a Catholic teacher training college which was then part of London University now Surrey University at Strawberry Hill in Twickenham.  In retrospect it was a good experience.  I met and got to know a towering figure, Father Michael Prior, who founded Living Stones, an religious organisation in support of the Palestinians.  I didn’t find any Christian Zionists at St. Mary’s.  Duncan MacPherson, who was President of the local Trades Council was another priest/academic who was a strong supporter of Palestine and later Nur Masalha, a distinguished Palestinian academic took up residence there.

Professor David Feldman is based at Birkbeck College, which is part of London University.  It was where I did my MA in Imperial History and it was where Eric Hobsbawm, the leading historian of the left, taught and worked for many years.  One suspects that Feldman, instead of spending his time servicing the establishment with trite and self-serving phrases might have done himself good if he had attended some of  Hobsbawm’s lectures!

As it is Feldman is representative of that class of academics who will change their tune depending on the audience and who is paying for their supper.  That is why our universities have been turned into business universities.   There are relatively few academics who are prepared to stand out and decry the intrusion of market economics into Higher Education.  This is one reason for the decline in tenure.

In Nazi Germany, very few academics stood out against the Nazification of German academia.  You only have to think of Martin Heidegger, the world famous philosopher, author of Being and Time, the lover of Hannah Arendt, who had to flee first to France and then to the United States.  Although the most famous of those who accepted the Nazi shilling or Reichsmark he was by no means the worst.  German academics fell over themselves to rationalise the ‘new Germany’ and to adapt their discipline to the ‘national will’.  Social sciences and law were seen as the subordinate instrument of Gleichschaltungwhich was the concept of total domination of all aspects of society by the Nazi state.  This was what totalitarianism meant.

Martin Heidegger in 1933

Heidegger became rector of Freiburg University in 1933, resigning a year later.  On May 1^st 1933, the day that trade unions were abolished, he joined the Nazi party and remained a member throughout the war.  However in his defence it can be said that he prevented the burning of books at the entrance to Freiburg and took steps to protect some of his Jewish colleagues, though he refused to supervise the doctoral theses of Jewish students.  Later evidence has shownthat Heidegger had assimilated anti-Semitic concepts into his thinking and not simply submitted to the pressure of the Nazis.

Yet German professors faced real pressures.  Few were as brave as Karl Reinhardt, law professor at the University of Frankfurt who wrote to the authorities informing them as to why he was not continuing to lecture.  By 1939 45% of university professors had been dismissed from their posts.  Even those who professed loyalty paid the price. What is most reprehensible about David Feldman’s academic cowardice and surrender to political Zionism’s McCarthyism, is that he is under no compulsion or threat.  He has a relatively secure job.  His life is not in danger as was the case with many German academics.

Tony Lerman - forced out of his job for refusing to toe the Zionist line

By way of contrast, Tony Lerman, an academic and founder of the Institute of Jewish Policy Research, foundthat he could not live a lie.  Like Feldman he was associated with Independent Jewish Voices when it was founded in 2007 (although because of his job he couldn’t declare this openly at the time).  Lerman became increasingly dissatisfied with the repetitious message of the Jewish establishment, that anti-Zionism was nothing more than anti-Semitism in disguise.  He openly said that if this was the case, then anti-Semitism as a term was being drained of all meaning because it meant that to be an anti-Semite, you did not have to do any of the things that were associated with anti-Semitism traditionally.  It was not necessary to hate Jews or to believe in the Jewish conspiracy theory, that Jews controlled and created both capitalism and communism, or that Jews possessed certain ‘unhealthy’ social traits that others were clear of.  All you needed to do was oppose Zionism and the Israeli state and/or support the Palestinians.

Tony Lerman was forced out of his job by the funders of the IJPR.  People like Lord Stanley Kalms of Dixons and Gerald Ronson of the Jewish Leadership Council.  It was a pretty disgusting witch hunt.  When Lerman brought out a book, it was savagedin the Jewish Chronicle.  To call the article by Daniel Hochhauser a ‘review’ would be like describing Mein Kampf as a history book.  It was a non-stop character assassination.  I also reviewedLerman’s Making and Unmaking of a Zionist.   

Feldman asks will the old-new definition of anti-Semitism help Jewish people.  Help them with what exactly?  The whole article is suffused with truisms and leaps of logic

Feldman knows the arguments.  He knows of the work and analysis of another non-Zionist academic, Brian Klug, into anti-Semitism.  In his reportto the Parliamentary Committee on Anti-Semitism he cited Klug’s definition of anti-Semitism as ‘‘a form of hostility towards Jews as Jews, in which Jews are perceived as something other than what they are’.  He didn’t express any disagreement. It is a rough and ready definition which serves the purpose because, as Marx remarked in his Theses On Feuerbachphilosophers interpret society when the point is to change it.  You will never get a word perfect definition of anti-Semitism nor is there any need to.  What matters is that those who are uninterested in anything other than defending and supporting Israel have taken up the issue of Israel.

There were 3 points in his Guardian article when Feldman made it clear that he was an intellectual for hire.  When he stated that:

1. 1.       the debate over antisemitism has been a surrogate for another quarrel: whether the Labour party should be a comfortable place for Zionists.

I’m not aware of a single Zionist, bar Michael Foster, who has been suspended for what they think in the Labour Party.  It is anti-Zionists, including Jewish anti-Zionists such as Jackie Walker and myself, who have been suspended.  What is truly outrageous is that Feldman has gratuitously attacked Jackie as coming within the anti-Jewish historical tradition.

1. 2.       it is not only the proven incidence of antisemitism that should concern us but also the well of support that exists for people who reveal prejudice or callous insensitivity towards Jews.

Having been a member of the Chakrabarti Inquiry Feldman knows, because absolutely no evidence was produced by it, that there was no ‘well of support’ for anti-Semites or anti-Semitism inside or indeed outside the Labour Party.  There have been a flood of allegations by those well known anti-racists in the popular media – the Daily Mail, Express, Times, Telegraph etc. but that is all there has been.  Eric Pickles and the Right of the Tory Party are also concerned about anti-Semitism but that doesn’t stop them, to this day, being partners of the ECRin the European Parliament which contains genuine anti-Semites.  The fact that when challenged, both The Times and The Telegraph retracted their suggestion that I was anti-Semitic, demonstrates how thin is the gruel that the merchants of ‘new anti-Semitism’ feed on.

1. 3       the commonplace idea that racism expresses relations of power too often leads to the belief that it expresses only that. But racism can inform acts of resistance and solidarity as well as domination. If we fail to recognise this we will be poorly equipped to identify racism when it is directed against a group that is relatively affluent, coded as “white”, and most of whose members feel attached to the strongest power in the Middle East. It will increase the chances that we are blind to bigotry and myth when it is directed against British Jews.

In plain language, because people like Feldman are good at dressing up stupid ideas in complex language, racism is not about the power held by rich and affluent white people, it is about ‘acts of resistance and solidarity’.  In other words Black people and anti-racist activists who oppose Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians are playing with anti-Semitism because they are challenging those ‘coded as “white”’ ‘most of whose members feel attached to the strongest power in the Middle East’.  We can that Feldman, when he refers to people being ‘coded’ he means Jews but Feldman, being a slippery academic, skirts around the subject.

The irony of Feldman's position is that he acknowledges in the Guardian article that Trump's electoral campaign, was 'sustained by nods and winks to anti-Jewish prejudice' but all he can say is that this 'is changing the dynamic of Jewish politics in Israel and across the world.' Such reticence about calling a spade a spade.  Again Feldman is more than aware of the welcome given to Trump and his coterie of advisors, headed by Steve Bannon, by the very Zionist movement that is apparently  concerned by anti-Semitism.  How does he explain this?  He doesn't.  Like the caravan in the middle of the night he simply moves on.

The question that I keep asking is this.  What is the difference between someone who sells their body for money and someone who sells their intellect for money.  Indeed is there a difference?  Surely the former is more honest?

Tony Greenstein

New Year’s Day Letter to Professor David Feldman d.feldman@bbk.ac.uk

Dear David Feldman,

I copy below the link to my blog post, which has been copied to social media, concerning your unwarranted and unprovoked attack on Jackie Walker.

As you know, as a long standing anti-racist activist Jackie stands in the tradition of Jewish opposition to racism, anti-semitism, included.  You of all people are aware of how charges of anti-Semitism have been weaponised in and around the Labour Party.  To see you running for cover is shameful.  You sought to appease those who stand for racial supremacy and bigotry, be it in Trump's America or Netanyahu's Israel. 

When German academics averted their eyes from their Jewish colleagues in 1933, at least they had good reason to fear for their own livelihoods and worse.  You had no excuse for joining in with the Zionist mob at Limmud.  And even in Germany there were those like Professor Karl Reinhardt, who preferred to resign rather than accept what was happening.  Even Heidegger, despite his Oath of Allegiance to the Nazi state, defended 3 of his Jewish professorial colleagues.

I note thereport in November's Jewish Chronicle that 'When a member of the audience accused Prof Feldman of demonising Israel, he quipped: "I think it does a good job on its own", before apologising for the remark after cries of protest.  I'm surprised that you are so unware of the attack on human rights organisations in Israel, the imprisonment of Palestinian children as young as 12, the demolition of Bedouin villages in the Negev to make way for Jewish towns or indeed the mobs who march to the chant of 'Death to the Arabs' that you felt the need to apologise. 

Perhaps if the chant of 'death to the Jews' were heard in Britain there would be some substance to the fake anti-Semitism allegations that you have given sustenance to.  In the meantime you need to grow a backbone.

Kind Regards

Tony Greenstein

The Silence of the BBC over Turkey's Genocidal War Against the Kurds

January 4, 2017, 8:15 pm

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An Aleppo-like Landscape in a Kurdish Redoubt of Turkey

Amidst the hypocritical condemnation by the West of Russia and Assad’s assault on Aleppo, we should remember the silent war on the Kurds of South Turkey.  We can see in these pictures scenes which would not be out of place either in Aleppo, Mosul or Yemen but only the former receive any publicity.

As the Turkish tyrant Erdogan consolidates his rules by arresting and torturing thousands, the West averts its eyes as Turkey is an essential component of the NATO alliance.  Putin also says nothing since his quarrel with Erdogan has been patched up.  Erdogan has come to accept that in the war against the Kurds, he has to make up and be friends with the Syrian regime of Assad.

Although at the moment the Kurds are supported by the United States we have to prepare for a time when, once again, the Kurds are betrayed by the great powers and abandoned to the genocidal regime of Ataturk's successor, the Islamist Erdogan.

Tony Greenstein

By ROD NORDLANDDEC. 24, 2016

A damaged apartment building after an explosion in November in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir. Credit Ilyas Akengin/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey — It was the end of the day in an underground tavern with no name. Beneath a domed Ottoman ceiling, with the lights down low and the music muted, patrons could just hear a distant rumbling through the basalt block walls, five centuries old.

Military vehicles move a deserted street of Silvan, southerneastern Turkey, during a curfew following clashes between Turkish forces and Kurdish militants on November 10, 2015. © Ilyas Akengin / AFP

“Bulldozers,” explained the waiter, who also had no name. He was clearing the table. The bulldozers were clearing the rubble away from what used to be residential neighborhoods here in the Sur municipality of Diyarbakir city, the informal Kurdish capital and former stronghold of the outlawed Kurdish group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K.

Parts of Diyarbakir, the de facto capital of Turkey's Kurdish regions, have been under a Turkish army imposed curfew for two months now. Tom Stevenson reports from a destroyed city under siege.

On a video monitor a soulful version of Leonard Cohen’s “Dance Me to the End of Love” played, the audio coming from speakers scattered in nooks. The waiter turned up the volume with a remote.

It has been more than a year since the fighting started in Sur, with young supporters of the P.K.K. guerrillas digging trenches and manning barricades, and more than four months since that fighting ended, with at least 120 civilians, P.K.K. and Turkish security forces killed and scores of homes and buildings destroyed.

The Turkish Army and police won, but victory brought an Aleppo-like landscape. Two dozen acres of the old city have been cleared of the rubble so far, leaving a featureless circular gash on aerial maps. The damage is mostly invisible from street level though, because alleyways leading up to the most devastated areas have been walled up where they intersect with streets that have reopened for business. Three of Sur’s neighborhoods still remain under curfew.

The only apparent entry road to the leveled heart of Sur has a huge curtain strung from building to building across it, and a Scorpion armored police vehicle parked in front painted a menacing shade of black instead of the usual white.

Sur was one of the most pro-P.K.K. neighborhoods of the heavily pro-P.K.K. city of Diyarbakir, the biggest Kurdish city in the world and the unofficial capital of Turkey’s eastern Kurdish regions. Kurds make up an estimated sixth of Turkey’s population, and most of them either openly support the outlawed P.K.K., or vote for the legal party, the Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party, or H.D.P., which shares much of the guerrillas’ political platform.

The name “Sur” means “city wall,” and refers to the 16-foot-thick ancient Roman walls, longer than Jerusalem’s and better preserved than Rome’s, which loop around the municipality and embrace the older parts of Diyarbakir. Once a magnet for tourists, Sur is now festooned with numerous little police posts, parked Scorpions everywhere, and plainclothes officers sauntering around with assault rifles and holstered pistols.

About the only foreign visitors to Sur these days are occasional European leftists showing solidarity, and foreign journalists, who seem to get arrested on sight — two on a recent Saturday, just a day before my visit.

“You journalist?” asked the waiter, who preferred to be nameless than be jailed. “Don’t worry, you can trust us.”

He recommended an Assyrian red, a young wine from a combination of local grape varieties, okuzgozu and bogazkere,served slightly chilled in a large goblet. “Homemade, 100 percent organic.” He poured it from a bottle with no label.

This may sound corny, but on the video monitor “We Are the World” started playing (showing Cyndi Lauper recording her segment). Possibly that was the waiter’s idea. He got right to the point without being asked a question. “Every day my friends are going to the mountain, teachers, lawyers, doctors, so many,” he said. “There is no one who believes in talking anymore.”

Police officers stood guard last December in Diyarbakir during a demonstration after a curfew was lifted. Credit Ilyas Akengin/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The fighting in Sur was mirrored in half a dozen other Kurdish towns and districts, the first time the 40-year-old Kurdish conflict in Turkey had erupted on such a scale in urbanized areas. While the fighting mostly ended last spring, arrests of people accused of supporting the P.K.K. have gone on ever since, punctuated by terrorist bombings blamed on the P.K.K.

After a failed coup in July — which had nothing to do with Kurds — the Turkish government declared a state of emergency and used those powers to greatly increase arrests of mainstream politicians, especially here in Diyarbakir.

The Kurdish journalist Sedat Yilmaz pulled up a chair and the waiter also poured him a glass of the Assyrian red. Mr. Yilmaz’s online news agency — like nearly all Kurdish publications — has been shut down under the emergency powers.

“Eman Dilo,” a folk tune by the Kurdish folk singer, Mihemed Sexo, was up on the screen. Like most Kurdish music, it sounds mournful to polyphonic ears. Often, as in “Gulazer” by Bremen Mizikacilari, it also involves an array of instruments hardly anyone knows the names of. (There were things that looked like cymbals, but they were operated by feet.)

Mr. Yilmaz had tears in his eyes, not from the music. “This is my first time back to Sur since it all happened,” he said.

The tavern was half full. Ten other customers were at several tables but the waiter said there was nothing to worry about in talking to any of them. The only pro-government people in Sur, he said, were the police.

And there were no plainclothes officers in the tavern with no name.

Anyway, said Mr. Yilmaz, “Nowadays we don’t even worry about arrest. We worry about death.”

Four Kurdish men in their late 20s, all old friends, were at one table sipping from curved tea glasses, and at first wanted to give their full names, but then thought better of it. They had all recently lost their jobs in the purges of more than 100,000 state employees that followed the failed coup.

Two were teachers who had participated in a one-day protest strike here, and all strikers were fired. One was an auditor for a government office who was forced out of his job because, he said, he subscribed to a now-banned Kurdish newspaper. Mahmut, who gave his first name only, was a manager in a government office, purged just three days earlier without any clear reason. He was told his continued employment would be “inconvenient,” he said.

“They cannot discipline us by taking our bread from our hands,” Mahmut said. “We want our collective rights. They don’t want any democratic space for anyone, they destroyed every peaceful means and our young people, they have no other solution, they’re going to the mountain, there is no other way.”

“Going to the mountain” is what people say here about joining the P.K.K., whose redoubts are in the rugged mountains of northern Iraq. Nearly every family in Kurdistan has someone up there, or knows someone, or has had someone come back down, to be buried.

One of the other men, the Kurdish newspaper reader (who has a master’s degree in Kurdish literature), reminded everyone of the bulldozers. “Just near us, all of Sur is demolished, almost a year and they’re still clearing it up,” he said. “They’re still finding pieces of human bodies in the rubble.”

Everyone lapsed into silence, staring at the dregs in their glasses. Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” played.

• As Turkey Cracks Down, Kurdish Mayors Pack Bags for Jail DEC. 10, 2016

Crackdown in Turkey Threatens a Haven of Gender Equality Built by Kurds DEC. 7, 2016

Turkey’s Post-Coup Crackdown Targets Kurdish Politicians NOV. 4, 2016

Only in Israel’s ‘democracy’ could the Prime Minister urge a pardon for a cold-blooded racist murderer

January 5, 2017, 5:44 pm

≫ Next: Jon Lansman’s Xmas Punch Could Sucker Corbyn

≪ Previous: The Silence of the BBC over Turkey's Genocidal War Against the Kurds

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Elor Azaria, Israel’s killer hero is unlikely to do any gaol time

Imagine, if you will, a Palestinian who had shot in the head, cold bloodedly, a severely wounded Israeli lying prostrate on the ground.  Imagine Benjamin Netanyahu urging clemency.  This is a fantasy scenario.  Palestinians guilty of resistance, who kill Israeli combat soldiers, which they are entitled to do under international law, because a people living under occupation is entitled to resist the occupiers, would receive life sentences of 30 years and more. 

Only in the past month Balad member of the Knesset Basel Ghattas of Balad was arrested on suspicion of passing phones and intelligence information to Walid Daka, one of two prisoners whom Ghattas allegedly met with during a visit to Ketziot prison.  In most civilised countries, prisoners have access to mobile phones.  As to 'intelligence information' the mind boggles.

Walid Daka has not been the recipient of a pardon.  On the contrary he is serving a 37-year sentence for the 1984 abduction and murder of 19-year-old soldier Moshe Tamam.  Daka is not a hero in Israel because, of course, he is not Jewish.  On the contrary he was guilty of killing a soldier in the Jewish state’s army.  He should count himself lucky to be alive. 

Opposition leader Isaac Herzog said in a statement that the verdict must be respected. He added, however, that “it cannot be ignored that Azaria was, to some degree, a victim of the situation, but the ruling strengthens the IDF, since you cannot ignore the circumstances of the incident, which reflect an impossible reality in a field that is complicated, which IDF soldiers deal with daily, hourly.”

Quite how a cold-blooded killer is 'a victim of the situation' defies explanation.  Perhaps the Yorkshire Ripper was also a 'victim of the situation'.  Totally absurd legitimation of Azaria.

Israeli Labour's former leader calls for a pardon for Elor Azaria

However The Times of Israel reported that, 

‘In a surprise development, coalition ministers were joined in their call for a pardon by Zionist Union’s Shelly Yachimovich, former head of the Labour Party.

Yachimovich praised the court for burnishing the ethical standard expected of IDF soldiers, but said the entire trial was a symptom of the deep division within Israeli society, “and Azaria’s shoulders are not broad enough to bear the weight of that rift. Therefore,” she tweeted, “at the conclusion of the trial and after the sentencing, we must carefully consider the possibility of pardoning him.”

Another demonstration of how the Israeli Labour Party is not an opposition but a partner in the crimes committed against the Palestinians.

Can you imagine Herzog or Netanyahu pointing out the circumstances that led a Palestinian to shoot dead an IDF soldier who was harassing his family or raiding a house?  Unimaginable.  Palestinians in such a situation have their ‘blood on their hands’.  The only debate in Israel is whether to execute Palestinians who kill soldiers after a trial or whether to simply dispense with a trial, as Elor Azaria did.  That is why Azaria is a hero.  What he did was nothing exceptional.

It should be pointed out that Azaria is a supporter of the late Jewish Nazi politician and ex-Knesset member Rabbi Meir Kahane.  He is a thorough going racist.

Joint (Arab) List chair MK Ayman Odeh chargedthat 

“Netanyahu chose to stand together with the supporters of the soldier and their joyous calls of death to the Arabs, and so made it clear the he is responsible for the moral decline that these groups are leading in Israeli society,” “Azaria is guilty,” he added, “but it is the government that is responsible, which for 50 years has been sending young men and women to become thugs whose task is to uphold military rule over a population deprived of rights.”

Joint (Arab) List chairman Ayman Odeh addresses a question to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the assembly hall of the parliament, July 18, 2016. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

In a statement, Odeh implied that hundreds of extrajudicial killings were being carried out by the IDF in the West Bank.

“The difference between this incident and hundreds of others is the presence of the B’Tselem camera that recorded the cruel reality of the occupation and revealed the inflammatory pus that the occupation creates in the heart of Israeli society,” he said.

The banner that sums up the campaign to pardon Elor Azaria

Two weeks ago I criticisedan article by Yakov Hirsch Azaria’s conviction will end a totalitarian ideology for wishful thinking and back in April in THIS IS Israel – Call to Kill All Arabs at Tel Aviv Rally in Support for Killer SoldierI described a demonstration called in support of Azaria in Tel Aviv where a banner ‘Kill them all’ (i.e. kill all Arabs) was displayed at a demonstration  called in solidarity with Azaria.

But above all else, what this case shows above anything else is the moral and political degeneration of the Israeli settler state.  Is there another country on this planet where a cold-blooded racist killer could be namedman of the year by the main TV Channel 10 and by Makor Rishon, a publication owned by US billionaire Sheldon Adelson?

Tony Greenstein

Israeli soldier convicted for revenge killing

Charlotte SilverRights and Accountability 4 January 2017

Palestinians hold posters showing Israeli army medic Elor Azarya, at a protest in Hebron on 4 January, the day Azarya was convicted of manslaughter for killing injured Palestinian Abdul Fattah al-Sharif in March 2016. Wisam Hashlamoun APA images

An Israeli military court has convicted Elor Azarya, the 20-year-old army medic who was caught on video executing an injured Palestinian man lying in the street last year, for manslaughter.

During the trial, Azarya’s lawyers argued that the soldier had fired at Abd al-Fattah Yusri al-Sharif in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron because he felt he was in danger.

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But in their ruling on Wednesday, the judges found“beyond all reasonable doubt” that Azarya had acted in revenge.

Within hours, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for Azarya, who is seen as a national hero by many in Israel, to be pardoned.

Al-Sharif was shot dead along with Ramzi Aziz al-Qasrawi, both 21 years old, on 24 March last year. Israel alleges that they stabbed a soldier near the Tel Rumeida settlement in Hebron.

The killing of al-Qasrawi was not caught on video.

The verdict came shortly after Human Rights Watch saidthat senior Israeli officials have been 

“encouraging Israeli soldiers and police to kill Palestinians they suspect of attacking Israelis even when they are no longer a threat.”

“Perversion of justice”

Following the verdict, Azarya’s supporters staged protests, blocking traffic, clashing with police and shouting racist abuse at Palestinian workers.

Some of the protesters carried banners in support of US President-elect Donald Trump:

Lawmakers from Israel’s far-right and centrist political parties are calling for Azarya to be pardoned, a power that lies with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin.

Backing the calls, Netanyahu said, “This is a difficult and painful day for all of us – and first and foremost for Elor and his family, for [Israeli army] soldiers, for many soldiers and for the parents of our soldiers, and me among them.”

In Hebron, the family of al-Sharif expressed dissatisfaction that Azarya was only charged with manslaughter.

Relatives told Palestinians gathered at a vigil in Hebron on Wednesday that they would bring Israel to the International Criminal Court for what they see as cold-blooded murder.

“The fact that the soldier is convicted of manslaughter isn’t such an important development from our standpoint,” Fathi al-Sharif, an uncle of the slain man, told the Tel Aviv newspaper Haaretz. “From the beginning, we stated that he had committed murder and needed to be convicted of murder. The fact that they changed the count of the indictment to manslaughter from our standpoint is a perversion of justice.”

Videotaped killing

Emad Abu Shamsiyya, the Palestinian field researcher with the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem who filmed the killing, has received hundreds of death threats.

He said members of Azarya’s family broke into his home and asked him to change his testimony to the court.

On the day of the shooting, Azarya was calledonto the scene after al-Sharif and al-Qasrawi were shot and incapacitated, to give the moderately injured soldier medical assistance.

Video footage releasedby B’Tselem shows al-Sharif lying on the ground, slightly moving his head, while Israeli soldiers and medics work around him and load the injured soldier onto an ambulance.

The video shows no attempt to provide medical treatment to al-Sharif.

Settlers on the scene are heard shouting, “the terrorist is still alive,” and the “the dog is still alive.”

Azarya then aims his weapon, takes a few steps towards al-Sharif, and shoots him in the head. A stream of blood pours from the man’s head.

After the video was released, some Israeli politicians and military leaders condemned the shooting and the military announced it would charge the shooter with murder. But almost immediately Israeli leaders began to backtrack as they saw the swelling of popular support for Azarya.

Azarya was eventually indicted on the lesser manslaughter charge.

At the trial, Azarya claimed he had shot the incapacitated al-Sharif out of fear for his safety.

But Azarya’s company commander testifiedthat al-Sharif posed no danger.

The judges’ verdictstates that the reason Azarya shot al-Sharif “was not rooted in a sense of danger, but rather in the explanation he provided immediately upon completion of the shooting to the effect that ‘the terrorist deserved to die’ because he had stabbed a friend of his prior to that.”

Two months after the shooting, more video emerged suggesting the army tampered with evidence. The footage shows a person kicking a knife closer to the body of the slain man.

Shoot to kill policy

Azarya’s indictment is exceptional: scores of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces over the last year, many in apparent extrajudicial executions, with impunity for their killers.

Last September, Amnesty Internationaldetailed 20 cases of killings of Palestinians by Israeli forces. In 15 of those cases, Amnesty said, “Palestinians were deliberately shot dead, despite posing no imminent threat to life, in what appear to be extrajudicial executions.”

Also in September, Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq found that “Since 1987, no Israeli soldier or commander has been convicted of willfully causing the death of a Palestinian in the [occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip].”

According to Haaretz, since 2000, in only a handful of cases were soldiers prosecuted for manslaughter for the killing of Palestinians. Of those, only one soldier was convicted. He received an eight-year sentence, though this was later reduced.

Human rights defenders are stressing that the killing of al-Sharif highlights a much broader problem.

“It’s not just about potentially rogue soldiers, but also about senior Israeli officials who publicly tell security forces to unlawfully shoot to kill,” Sari Bashi, Israel advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, said.

Human Rights Watch saysthat since October 2015, when an escalation in confrontations between Palestinians and Israeli occupation forces began, it has documented numerous statements “by senior Israeli politicians, including the police minister and defense minister, calling on police and soldiers to shoot to kill suspected attackers, irrespective of whether lethal force is actually strictly necessary to protect life.”

Indeed, one witness called by Azarya’s defense, a settler security chief, told the court that shooting at the heads of incapacitated alleged Palestinian attackers is a common practice by Israeli occupation forces.

In October, Azarya was namedman of the year by Israel’s Channel 10 and by Makor Rishon, a publication owned by US billionaire Sheldon Adelson.

He is expected to be sentenced in coming weeks.

See also Jonathan Cook's Elor Azaria case: ‘No hope of equality before the law’ 

Jon Lansman’s Xmas Punch Could Sucker Corbyn

January 7, 2017, 8:41 pm

≫ Next: The real question is why Panorama, Channel 4 and the Guardian didn’t Investigate the Israeli Embassy's Political Destabilisation

≪ Previous: Only in Israel’s ‘democracy’ could the Prime Minister urge a pardon for a cold-blooded racist murderer

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Explosive Evidence of Israeli Embassy Involvement in Labour's False 'Anti-Semitism' Allegations

What else would you expect from the world's only democracy?

Jon Lansman - perhaps not quite as hapless as he makes out?  The question is what did Lansman know about Jeremy Newmark of JLM's links with an Israeli destabilisation programme?

It was a nice touch for Jon Lansman and ‘Team Momentum’ to get Jeremy Corbyn to send me and thousands of others a Merry Xmas and New Year message.  Of course there were no ulterior motives for sending a message this Xmas.  It’s just that I don’t seem to recall a similar thank you last year!

Attached to the email was a button inviting me to ‘Take the survey now’.  It is nice to be consulted.  Of course one of the problems with consultations or plebiscites, to give them their proper name, is that it’s someone else who gets to ask the questions, not you.

Jackie Walker - the target of the Israeli Embassy's 'anti-Semitism' campaign and Jeremy Newmark's Jewish Labour Movement -

I have a few questions of my own that I would like to be answered such as ‘Who gives the right for Jon Lansman to be the sole owner of everything to do with Momentum?’ and maybe a follow-up along the lines of ‘when does Lansman intend to make all members of the Steering Committee Directors of his personal Momentum companies.’ Perhaps ‘Team Momentum’ might consider organising a survey with this and a few other questions? 

If I was being very daring I might ask ‘Who gets to decide who asks the questions?’ and ‘Who gets to decide the wording of questions?’  I could also ask Jon Lansman a few of those questions that Tony Benn once suggested, such as ‘who put you there’ ‘from where does your power derive’ and the clincher ‘how do we get rid of you’?

There is a reason that dictators have always loved plebiscites.  That is because they get to choose the questions and to frame them in such a way that they get the ‘right’ answer. Most people won’t remember Hitler’s plebiscites on the Rhine and the Saarland but they haven’t had a very good reputation ever since.

That bogus survey

Of course you may say that things have moved on.  We have social media now.  There was no Internet in the Germany of the 1930’s but the principle is the same.  Surveys, plebiscites, call them what you will, are one way methods of communication.  Theyask the questions of you, not the other way around.  Of course they can go awry as Generals Charles de Gaulle and Pinochet found out when they asked the people their views and the people gave the wrong answer.  However it is not a socialist method of communication.  Participatory democracy means a two way exchange of views, dialogue and disagreement, not the imposition of a particular view through the manipulation of outcomes.

This is why secret ballots were the centre piece of Thatcher’s union reforms.  Having people vote in isolation, susceptible to a hostile press and media was infinitely preferable to them voting together in mass meetings.  When you vote together you feel your strength.  Secret ballots had their effect.  Even when, as with the Doctors, they voted for strike action, they had been atomised and were thus susceptible to demoralisation.  What Lansman and his cronies are advocating is a Tory version of democracy.

Needless to say the questions in Lansman’s bogus survey were fixed.  They gave people a choice between delegates having a vote under a delegate structure and everyone having a vote under OMOV.  This is the kind of thing the Daily Express does.  You fix the questions and then you get the answer you want.

Lansman's bogus petition

Under delegate voting systems everyone has the right to vote.  They vote for delegates who will then vote under a mandate and report back.  With everyone voting via OMOV and the Internet, you get no debate, you don’t get to choose the questions and you don’t have any accountability.  OMOV is a means of disenfranchising people and ensuring that power remains in the hands of Momentum’s sole company director.  It really is as simple as that.

Laura Murray - not quite the political innocent

Nor is there any greater level of participation.  The women’s delegates to the National Committee, Laura Murray and co., were elected with about 10% of those eligible to vote.  In Brighton we have a higher participation by people attending meetings.  Before the Labour Party AGM which the NEC overruled when it suspended the Brighton party, there were something like 800 people present.  Presumably ‘Team Momentum’ would have preferred that those 800 people voted on-line in the isolation of their home without listening to speakers or giving their own views. 

But there is far more that lies behind the campaign to prevent a democratic structure in Momentum.  What matters is the political strategy that lies behind what is a seemingly minor disagreement over voting systems.  What is at stake is the very nature of Momentum.  Should it be a stage army to be called into action if Corbyn is threatened or a movement that can think and act for itself, a social movement as much as anything else.

This concept of what Momentum should be is critical to the survival of Corbyn.  If Lansman succeeds in neutering Momentum and taking the life out of it, then he will also doom Corbyn’s leadership. 

Owen Jones has always been willing to run with the bogus 'anti-Semitism' campaign and do Lansman's dirty work - the question is why

That is why Lansman has pulled out all the stops to prevent the Conference on 18/19 February being organised.  That is why he got his pet poodle, Owen Jones, to bark on demand in The Guardian.  The same Owen Jones who was in two minds whether to support Corbyn last summer.  An undemocratic Momentum will be a weaker Momentum.  It will rely on instructions from the centre rather than the self-activity of local groups. 

Lansman’s Media Campaign

The first broadsidewas placed with Lansman’s ‘go to’ reporter on the Guardian, Jessica Elgot.  It quoted this blog on Lansman’s attempted coup.  It was followed by a nasty little red-baiting articleby Owen Jones Momentum is a beacon of hope. It must be saved from the saboteurs.  The Guardian, which had waged an unremitting campaign against Corbyn, leading on the ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign, was apparently concerned to save Momentum from ‘the sabotuers’!

Owen Jones told lurid tales of Trotskyists conspiring against Lansman and his democrats.  It was posed as younger activists vs older, wizened Trots.  Like his mentor Joe McCarthy, Jones assertions relied on vague, sweeping assertions.  The main Trotskyist group in the Labour Party, the Alliance for Workers Liberty has all of a 100 or so members.  It is detested by most people on the Left for its Zionist/ imperialist politics.  Ironically Lansman ganged up with the AWL’s Jill Mountford and sympathiser Mike Chessum in order to remove Jackie Walker as Vice Chair of Momentum.  But of course Jones didn’t mention Lansman’s wheeling and dealing with the dreaded Trots!  Of course Jackie Walker is genuinely popular amongst Momentum members and that is what Lansman, Jones and the AWL fear.

The nonsense about the battle in Momentum being a generational battle between young internet savvy OMOV supporters and an older generation of Trots was dealt with effectively by Rida Vaquas in the New Statesman, No, the battle in Momentum isn't about young against old  It’s worth reading what Rida said. 

I was nineteen years old then. Unfortunately speaking and voting in favour of a delegates based conference has morphed me into a Trotskyist sectarian from the 1970s, aging me by over thirty years.’  He goes on to explain that a number of other delegates who voted for genuine delegate democracy were also under 30 and lambasted ‘the caricature of an intergenerational war between the old and the new is precisely that: a caricature bearing little relation to a much more nuanced reality.’

Laura Murray, daughter of Stalinist hatchet-man Andrew Murray, led Lansman’s fightback with an overlong article, wittily titled ‘Momentum vs. Inertia’.  No guess who was in favour of inertia!   In it we were told that ‘Dyed-in-the-wool Trotskyists are not the majority in Momentum. But they are a vocal, disruptive and over-bearing minority’. 

What Murray ‘forgot’ to mention was that it was among Momentum groups, at large  meetings of ordinary members of Momentum, that people have voted overwhelmingly against an OMOV system that would keep Lansman and his clique in power perpetually, without any means of removing them.  Laura writes that ‘AWL — a group with such extreme Trotskyist politics that they are almost a caricature of themselves — and their fellow travellers. Subtle support for imperialist wars, uncritical support for Israel and fanatical support for the European Union are amongst their policies.’

Yes AWL are a caricature of the Left.  Yes they are pro-Zionist and pro-Israeli.  I debated with them in Brighton last year.  But so is Lansman who has consistently supported the fake anti-Semitism allegations directed against people like Jackie Walker and myself.  Ben Sellers who was a close associate of Lansman put his finger on what the division in Momentum is really about.  On Facebook  Sellers asked:  

‘Is it the Jon Lansman who only wants a "pluralistic", democratic, grassroots organisation facilitated by a new era of digital democracy?

Or the Jon Lansman who told me to my face just a year ago that Momentum groups should be banned from having social media accounts and encouraged a completely unaccountable 'helper' to take over regional Facebook pages from local Momentum activists?’

What this is really about is a contempt for local Momentum groups and activists.  The question is why?  That relates to the politics that lie behind Lansman’s machinations.

How Lansman’s Opposition to Democracy in Momentum chimes with Jeremy Corbyn’s Strategy

The strategy of Corbyn and his office is quite simple.  Having won the leadership election for a second time, they believe that their opponents in the PLP, or  most of them, have now accepted his leadership and that they can work with most of the Right.  The last thing Corbyn’s Office want is a Momentum which is not controlled from the Centre, by Lansman and cronies.  They don’t want right-wing MPs being upset by calls for reselection.

This is profoundly mistaken.  The Right has not given up.  Some of them may have accepted posts in the Shadow Cabinet but there is a sullen majority in the PLP who are waiting for the chance to plunge the knife after their disastrous miscalculation with Owen Smith.  The first sign of a rebellion was the mass abstention by the Labour Right over a weak motion calling for a cessation of arms shipments to the Saudi regime.  We have now had a report from the Fabian society, which is on the Right of the Labour Party, making the case that Labour cannot win an election and has to go into alliance with other parties.  These are merely shots across the bows.

The Labour Right is biding its time, waiting for the opportunity to stick the knife into Corbyn and like Brutus it wants to be sure that this time that it gets its man.

Corbyn’s position could have been virtually impregnable when he won the leadership election last September with an increased majority.  He could have dealt a mortal  blow to the ambitions of the Labour Right.

People will remember that ‘crooked’ Iain McNicol, Labour’s General Secretary went into overdrive to suspend anyone suspected of intending to vote for Corbyn.  Thousands, they won’t reveal the number, were suspended.  Normally investigations are conducted when a complaint is made about someone.  Instead McNicol went on a fishing expedition, pro-actively trawling through the social media accounts of thousands of Labour Party members in the hope that they might find something, anything, that would give them an excuse to suspend the member.  Use of a four letter word, ‘I like the fucking foo fighters’ was enough to get one member suspended. 

The Labour Right is awaiting for the right moment to pounce.  It may be after the local elections in May or after a by-election defeat.  It is impossible to predict, but what is certain is that they will move at some point.

What was crucial to Corbyn’s survival over the summer was not only the support of the membership but the fact that the trade union leaders supported Corbyn.  There is no guarantee that this will always happen.  UNISON does not have a left-wing leader in Dave Prentis.  He said it was a ‘no brainer’ to support Corbyn.  The Right in UNISON are not famed for their brain power.  UNISON have already put a Blairite on Labour’s NEC.  Hopefully Len McCluskey will win the Unite General Secretary elections, but it is impossible to be certain.  What is quite possible is that UNISON’s leadership will at some stage join the GMB union in opposing Corbyn.

People have been lulled into a false sense of security but if there was a combination of circumstances such as bad election results and the defection of UNISON, then Corbyn’s position could very quickly become untenable.  That is precisely why Momentum’s local groups need to be taking the fight to the Right now, not waiting to be attacked.

What Corbyn Could Have Done After His Victory

If Corbyn is deposed by the Right, then he will have been the author of his own misfortune.  Corbyn was always an unlikely leader of the Party.  He happened to be the right person at the right place at the right time.  There was a fortuitous combination of circumstances, not least the nomination of Corbyn by a number of those on the Right such as the self-confessed ‘moron’ Margaret Beckett.

When Corbyn spoke to acknowledge his victory last September he could have dealt the Right a decisive blow.  He could have thanked his supporters for giving him a larger victory second time around and then noted that but for the suspension of thousands of Labour Party members on the flimsiest of pretexts then his victory margin would have been even greater.

Corbyn could have gone on to say that the behaviour of Labour Party officials in suspending thousands on the basis of an odd tweet was an unacceptable interference in the conduct of the elections.  He should have said that he had spoken to the General Secretary, Iain McNicol and told him that because of his behaviour, his attempt to keep him off the ballot paper when the rules were clear and other matters outlined in a solicitor’s letter from Jim Kennedy of Unite to McNicol, meant that he had lost all confidence in him.  He could stressed that it is essential that the officials of the Labour Party must work in harmony with the leader.  There can be no doubt that McNicol’s position would have been untenable.

Corbyn could also have said that he wanted to ensure that he had an NEC that would work with him.  That Tom Watson’s proposals to gerrymander the composition of the NEC by adding two representatives from Scotland and Wales, neither of whom were elected by members in these regions, was unacceptable.   Corbyn did none of these things.  Instead he told McNicol at the NEC that he had never challenged him despite McNicol trying to keep adverse legal advice on Corbyn’s right to stand away from the NEC.

Corbyn could also have made reference to the MPs vote of no confidence.  He could have made the simple argument that no Labour member had the right to a seat for life.  That no one is stopping them standing as independents but that if they wish to retain the Labour nomination then they have to accept a democratic election.  Further that members of CLPs have the right to decide on who should represent them.  This was the demand of the Bennite campaign for democracy.

There were also a series of policy options that could have been announced.  Be it proposals to increase tax on the wealthy and companies or tacklinig the housing crisis with an emergency programme to build council housing coupled with rent controls and security of tenure in the private sector.  A pledge to immediately nationalise the railways and to take the utility companies into public hands, thus erasing fuel poverty.  But above all welding all the above into a common theme, to reverse the Tory redistribution of wealth from the poor to the rich.  Instead Corbyn’s office chose to appease the Right.  Yes the right-wing press would have screamed as Mandy Rice Davies once said, they would wouldn’t they?  Clear radicalism would have chimed with a large section of the electorate.  There are also two other areas where Corbyn has fallen down.

Anti-Semitism/Israel/Palestine

Shai Masot - Israeli Embassy's Political Officer was engaged in 'taking down' politicians hostile to Israel

Let’s be blunt.  Beginning with Corbyn himself in the summer of 2015, there have been constant accusations of anti-Semitism.  We have been told that the Labour Party is plagued by anti-Semitism yet no one has ever found any evidence.  The few paltry allegations that had been made were comprehensively debunked by Electronic Intifada journalist, Asa Winstanley.

People like Jackie Walker have been traduced by Zionist activists and agents.  I use the term agents deliberately.  I have no doubt that Jeremy Newmark, the Chair of the so-called Jewish Labour Movement has worked hand in hand with the Israeli Embassy.  The JLM even took its new Director, Ella Rose, directly from the Embassy.  When challenged over their links by Asa Winstanley in September, Newmark said it would be ‘rather odd’ it would be if the JLM didn’t have links.

Despite their denials, Duncan was the target of the Israeli Embassies political work

The forthcoming Al Jazeera documentary, parts of which have already been revealed, are likely to be explosive.  We already know that the Israeli Embassy’s political officer, Shai Masot, was discussing ‘taking down’ Deputy Foreign Secretary, Alan Duncan, who has long been a supporter of the Palestinians.  There is, I understand, much more to come including the £1m made available for trips to Israel by Labour MPs.  I have been saying for a year now, in speeches up and down the country, that it is inconceivable that both the Israeli and American embassies were not involved in the ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign.   In a speech I gave at the Boycott Israel Network conference on November 5^thI said this, in answer to a question:

I mean, someone asked about Mark Regev and the Israeli embassy, I don’t think Mark Regev began it but certainly he’s involved in it. If you look at it from this perspective, when Corbyn was elected or seemed likely to be elected to the Labour leadership, I imagine panic set in, not just in the Israeli embassy but the US embassy. Britain is the closest ally of the United States in Europe, the special relationship; the idea that someone who is anti-Nato, anti-Trident and so on, with his record, I would be amazed if the CIA and the Intelligence Agencies weren’t doing something. I mean that’s what they’re paid to do all over the world; why not in Britain? It would be bonkers if they didn’t; they would be failing in their duties, so, yes, of course they have been behind this campaign.

Corbyn has cultivated a Jesus like persona of never engaging in personal attacks and turning the other cheek, but he forgets that even Jesus drove the sinners out of the temple with whips.  There comes a time when being nice to your opponents is a sign of weakness not strength. 

When the fake anti-Semitism allegations first surfaced it was Corbyn himself who was the target of these allegations.  He was accusedof associating with a holocaust denier, Paul Eisen.  There then followed a series of bogus accusations – Gerald Kaufmann, then Oxford University Labour Club, Ken Livingstone, Jackie Walker and other individuals including myself and finally the Chakrabarti inquiry was set up which found no evidence of anti-Semitism.  But far from laying the matter to rest, the Right persisted and only two weeks ago Corbyn accepteda definition of anti-Semitism which conflates anti-Semitism with opposition to Israel and Zionism.  Given Corbyn’s 30 year record of support for the Palestinians, his failure to stand up against these bogus allegations of ‘anti-Semitism’ is inexplicable.

Corbyn could have made a simple response that would have taken the poison out of this fake, Israeli Embassy driven campaign.  He should have said that yes, he condemned unreservedly anti-Semitism and indeed all forms of racism.  But he should have also made it clear that he condemned false allegations of anti-Semitism against anti-racists and anti-Zionists.  He should have said that it was monstrous to abuse the memory of those who died in the Holocaust in order to defend Israeli racism.  Despite having been accused of anti-Semitism himself, Corbyn failed to rise to the challenge.  In failing to stand up to the bogus allegations of anti-Semitism and simply repeating that he wasn’t an anti-Semite, he encouraged his detractors.  It didn’t occurr to him that the ‘anti-Semitism’ that his critics talked about is criticism of Zionism and their Jewish supremacist state, Israel.  It has nothing to do with hatred of Jews as Jews.

Momentum has not only failed to campaign against the suspensions but by removing Jackie Walker as Vice-Chair, Lansman actively helped the Jewish Labour Movement and Israeli Embassy's witch hunt.  Lansman has consistently defended the JLM and argued that there was substance to the allegations, even though this has been shown to be untrue.  When Jackie was secretly recorded at a 'training' session of the JLM at Labour conference saying she hadn't yet heard of a definition of anti-Semitism she could work with and then accused of anti-Semitism, instead of defending her Lansman went out of his way to defend Newmark.  In the Guardian he was quoted as saying:  'spoke to Jeremy Newmark of the Jewish Labour Movement this morning, he’s very upset and I can understand that.' The idea that a seasoned operator like Newmark, who was all but accused of perjury by an employment tribunal, was 'upset' by the remarks Jackie made, which were spun by the JLM to suggest anti-Semitism, is absurd.  Newmark who had engaged in race baiting Jackie for months, because she was Black-Jewish and anti-Zionist would have been delighted.

Lansman is known to believe himself to be very clever and a smart political operator. If that is the case then one can only assume that he was aware of the links between the JLM and the Israeli Embassy and that he acted accordingly.  Either he was stupid or consciously acting to further the agenda of foreign embassies.  Either way he should depart.

Brexit

Brexit could have offered Labour unimagined opportunities.  Instead it appears determined to be caught on the wrong foot.  I make no apology for being a strong supporter of Remain.  The idea that an independent British capitalism is preferable to European capitalism is not one that I find particularly attractive.  In the wake of the Brexit vote, there has been a massive increase in racist attacks.  Those who believed it was ushering in an age of enlightenment are sadly misinformed.

Many of those who voted for Brexit did so because they saw immigration as the cause of their problems.  Communities which Thatcherism laid to waste, the former mining communities of the North-East in particular, saw in Brexit a means of reversing the effect of Thatcherism.  It is our job not to pander to these sentiments but to make it clear that leaving the European Union, could well have a devastating effect on Britain’s economy.  The fact that it was bought with the lie that the NHS would benefit by about £300m a week, merely adds salt to the wound.

The Labour Rights is split over Brexit tactics with some like Tom Watson happy to exit the single market and others wanting a second referendum.  A clear message from Corbyn and McDonnell that Brexit and possibly the break-up of Europe is in no-one’s interests, that freedom of movement has helped not hurt Britain’s economy and that having now had a foretaste of what Brexit will be like, with the devaluation of the pound, that people are indeed entitled to a rethink once the outline of negotiating terms are agreed.  Access to the single market should be the touchstone of Labour’s strategy.

If this analysis is pessimistic it is because I am pessimistic as to Corbyn’s future.  It seems like the clock is ticking.  The Right is still in power, if not in office.  The failure to control Labour’s civil service is a devastating mistake.  That is why a minor struggle over voting methods is symbolic of much greater struggles ahead.

Tony Greenstein 

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The real question is why Panorama, Channel 4 and the Guardian didn’t Investigate the Israeli Embassy's Political Destabilisation

January 8, 2017, 7:39 pm

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Why was it left to the Qatar TV Station Al Jazeera to Expose the Israeli Embassies Undermining of British Democracy?

Alan Duncan - on the hit list of the Israeli  Embassy

Corbyn humiliating himself at the Labour Friends of Israel fringe meeting 2016 - they hate him but invite him anyway - LFI is an extension of the Israeli state and hopefully Corbyn will learn his lesson

Back in September 2015 Channel 4's Dispatches programme The Battle For The Labour Party’ andBBC Panorama’s Labour: Is the Party Over? 'exposed' Momentum. The Dispatchesprogramme was so bad that even Tory MP Zac Goldsmith panned it, despite having had an undercover mole in Jeremy 4 Labour for 6 months.  Zac Goldsmith says Dispatches''weak' investigation of Momentum will only help Jeremy Corbyn.  Instead of investigating who was behind all the lurid accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’ and who was behind BICOM, the Jewish Labour Movement, LFI and the Israeli Advocacy Movement and other Zionist organisations, they chose to investigate the Left. 

The idea of doing a genuine investigation into who was behind the anti-Semitism allegations probably never occurred to the Establishment BBC

Instead it was left to Al Jazeera who in its six months investigation Israel’s parliamentary plot against UK politicians have done what the BBC, Channel 4, The Guardian or Independent should have done.  They should have conducted the investigation instead of leaving it to a Quatari based TV station. 

Channel 4's pathetic Dispatches programme proved there was a link between Momentum and Jeremy for PM!

It is a telling indictment of the Establishment-based politics of all these news organisations, including the ‘liberal’ Guardian, that none of them even thought to ask whether or not the ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign that erupted even before Jeremy Corbyn was elected, might be a co-ordinated and systematic campaign, orchestrated by the Israeli and possibly American embassies in conjunction with MPs who were in essence strategic assets of both countries.

It is not as if they didn’t have any clues.  In a talk to Manchester PSC last June, which I haven’t yet full transcribed, I made it clear what the origins of the ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign were :

Shai Masot - a Mossad operative (MI6 equivalent) engaged in 'taking down' British politicians through dirty tricks

Jeremy Corbyn’s election last  September, although many people greeted it effusively, if you think about it, I’m not a conspiracy theorist by any means, ... But if you believe, in Washington or Tel Aviv for that matter, the election of someone who was so identified with the Palestine movement for 30 years, someone who is anti-Trident, who is anti-NATO and anti-capitalist is going to be regarded with equanimity, and the US intelligence agencies, the movers and shakers and the powers that be, said to themselves it’s a fair cop, the Labour Party has gone to the left, we just have to accept it.  I have to say if you believe that you are a born innocent. 

The CIA are past masters at overthrowing and destabilising regimes, not simply in Latin America or Central America or Iran or elsewhere in the Middle East or Asia, but in Europe ... They had stay-at-home armies in virtually every European country. 

So the idea that the anti-Semitism scandal in the Labour Party was a product of genuine anti-Semitism that suddenly sprang up out of nowhere is a total nonsense.  We had the first manifestations of it, Corbyn was accused of associating with holocaust deniers, in particular someone called Paul Eisen.’

Ruth Smeeth, who made a false allegation of anti-Semitism at the Chakrabarti press conference against Black activist also collared a few thousand pounds from Labour Friends of Israel

At the Boycott Israel Conference on November 5^th I responded to a question thus:  

‘someone asked about Mark Regev and the Israeli embassy, I don’t think Mark Regev began it but certainly he’s involved in it. If you look at it from this perspective, when Corbyn was elected or seemed likely to be elected to the Labour leadership, I imagine panic set in, not just in the Israeli embassy but the US embassy. Britain is the closest ally of the United States in Europe, the special relationship; the idea that someone who is anti-NATO, anti-Trident and so on, with his record, I would be amazed if the CIA and the Intelligence Agencies weren’t doing something. I mean that’s what they’re paid to do all over the world; why not in Britain? It would be bonkers if they didn’t; they would be failing in their duties, so, yes, of course they have been behind this campaign.

It was quite easy to predict what was happening but the Guardian was at that time, via Jonathan Freedland and Owen Jones, both of whom are reputed to have close links to British Intelligence organisations, a key part in the false anti-Semitism campaign.  The Guardian ran a whole series of articles for example Freedland’s Labour and the left have an antisemitism problemand Owen Jones’ Antisemitism is a poison – the left must take leadership against it within two days of each other.

The BBC of course has run so many slanted and biased programmes on the ‘anti-Semitism’ crisis that one is spoilt for choice.  I made a long complaint against one, particularly egregious example.  Andrew Neils’ Sunday Politics programme last April. 

Jeremy Newmark of the Jewish Labour Movement, Mark Regev of the Israeli Embassy and Shai Masot, the Intelligence Operative who is leaving quickly plus Labour MPs

The only reason therefore why it would not have been possible for a British news organisation to have run with this story was because all of them, without exception, were compromised.  All news organisations assumed that the anti-Semitism campaign manufactured and patented in the Israeli Embassy and disseminated via the Jewish Labour Movement was genuine.  Not one establishment journalist asked why would anti-Semitism just spring up under the Labour Party’s new anti-racist leader, Jeremy Corbyn? 

Of course Corbyn’s pitifully weak response, despite having initially been accused by the Daily Mail and Jewish Chronicle of anti-Semitism himself didn’t help matters.  Instead of saying that he condemned anti-Semitism but that he also condemned the false use of anti-Semitism accusations against anti-Zionists, not least because it undermined the fight against genuine anti-Semitism, he retreated.  He kept saying that he wasn’t an anti-Semite, which no one doubted but was irrelevant. 

Whether it was stupidity or political cowardice or both is for others to decide but Corbyn made a rod for his own back because his accusers weren’t talking about the same ‘anti-Semitism’.  When they spoke about anti-Semitism they meant ‘new anti-Semitism’ i.e. anti-Zionism and the Home Affairs Select Committee Reporthas just redefined anti-Semitism.  Instead of Brian Klug’s simple definition of anti-Semitism as ‘hostility to Jews as Jews’ they have come up with a 400+ word definition that conflates anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism. 

Tory MP and Minister of State for Education whose aide was undermining a fellow Minister

Even worse when Theresa May recently endorsed this definition, Jeremy Corbyn even more stupidly backed her.  Despite his 30 years involvement in the Palestine Solidarity Campaign Corbyn seems to have learnt nothing.  See The Government's new definition of ‘anti-Semitism’ is an attempt to criminalise support for the Palestinians and opposition to Zionism - Jeremy Corbyn’s acceptance of this Tory definition of ‘anti-Semitism’ is shameful and must be reversed

Corbyn’s reaction to the anti-Semitism campaign strengthened the Zionist attack.  It is good that Emily Thornberry has now called for an inquiry into the Israeli Embassy’s interference in Britain’s political parties.  However it does not go far enough.  On the basis of what is already known and the liaison between Israel’s Mossad Agent and Political Secretary at the Israeli Embassy, Shai Masot, the Labour Friends of Israel should be proscribed.  My understanding is that the Jewish Labour Movement will also be shown in the documentaries to come to have been working hand –in-hand with the Israeli Embassy, as we have long suspected.  If so, it should be disaffiliated as the overseas wing of the Israeli Labour Party and in effect an intelligence organisation operating inside the British Labour Party.  Now is the time to call out the Zionists and their secret state within the Labour Party.

We should have no doubt that Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs, which had a $50m budget with which to fight BDS employed much of it subverting politics in this country.  Not only did they seek to ‘take down’ British politicians such as Alan Duncan, but they instigated and ran with bogus ‘anti-Semitism’ allegations whose purpose was to destabilise the Corbyn leadership of the Labour Party.

Joan Ryan MP, the corrupt right-wing Chair of LFI spokeat their fringe meeting of welcoming “avery strong commitment to a two-state solution. We don’t want to be living in fear that we’re going to have to fight some battle in the party for a commitment to that two state solution.’  Strangely enough, when the UN Security Council passed a resolution condemning the settlements that are the main barrier to a 2 State Solution these hypocrites were silent!  They support 2 states but also support the settlements.

Extract from Joan Ryan's entry in the Members' Register of Interests - Joan Ryan MP, Chair of Labour Friends of Israel, has the record for the largest amount of expenses claimed in a year - she trousered over £6,000 from LFI in expenses paid trips.

Luke Akehurst, leader of the Right in the Labour Party and Director of We Believe in Israel said: “It’s a shame he didn’t make this speech this time last year. ... given where he came from it was a carefully drafted speech that had appropriate wording in terms of the way it addressed core issues in the Middle East and the way it addressed antisemitism. My initial sense was there was not much one could find to criticise in what was said.”

Praise from these people is condemnation enough but we should also condemn people like Jon Lansman who consistently backed up Jeremy Newmark of the Jewish Labour Movement.  When Jackie Walker was secretly recorded at a JLM training session and her remarks distorted, instead of leaping to her defence Lansman said: 

‘“I spoke to Jeremy Newmark of the Jewish Labour Movement this morning, he’s very upset and I can understand that...’  For knifing Jackie in the back and supporting an open racist, Lansman should be dispatched by the forthcoming Momentum conference.

We should also be dispatching MPs like the execrable Joan Ryan who received cool £6,627.02 for trips to Israel last year.  No doubt others MPs who sponsor Labour Friends of Israel are in receipt of friendly support, official and unofficial.

Below is an article by Jonathan Cook, based in Nazareth and an ex-Guardian journalist.

Tony Greenstein

How many British MPs are working for Israel?

8 January 2017

Al Jazeera are to be congratulated on an undercover investigation exposing something most of us could probably have guessed: that some Israeli embassy staff in the UK – let’s not pussy around, Mossad agents – are working with senior political activists and politicians in the Conservative and Labour parties to subvert their own parties from within, and skew British foreign policy so that it benefits Israeli, rather than British, interests.

One cannot really blame Israel for doing this. Most states promote their interests as best they can. But one can and should expose and shame the British politicians who are collaborating with Israel in further harming Britain’s representative democracy.

It is not as though these people cannot be easily identified. They even advertise what they are up to. They are members of the Conservative and Labour Friends of Israel. They dominate both parliamentary parties, but especially the Conservatives. According to the CFI’s figures, fully 80 per cent of Tory MPs belong to the party’s Friends of Israel group.

Once, no one would have hesitated to call British politicians acting in the interests of a foreign power, and very possibly taking financial benefits for doing so, “traitors”. And yet, as Al Jazeera’s secretly filmed footage shows, Israeli spies like Shai Masot can readily meet and conspire with a Tory MP’s much-trusted aide to discuss how best to “take down” the deputy foreign minister, Alan Duncan, over his criticisms of Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied territories. Maria Strizzolo, MP Robert Halfon’s assistant, suggests engineering a “little scandal” to damage Duncan.

Masot and Israel’s intelligence services cannot influence British foreign policy through the opposition Labour party, but that doesn’t prevent them from also taking a keen interest in Labour MPs. Masot is filmed talking to Labour Friends of Israel’s chair, Joan Ryan, about “lots of money” – more than £1 million – he has received from the Israeli government to send yet another batch of Labour MPs on an all-expenses-paid trip to Israel, where they will be wined and dined, and primed by top officials to adopt even more extreme pro-Israel positions. LFI is known for sending the largest proportion of MPs to Israel on these kinds of trips.

Does that have an effect on British domestic politics. You bet it does! Israel isn’t a charity.

A large number of those who have been making Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s life a misery belong to Labour Friends of Israel. They are the same MPs who have been talking up an “anti-semitism crisis” in the Labour party – based on zero tangible evidence – since Corbyn became party leader. Were they following the dictates of their conscience? Did they really fear an anti-semitism plague had suddenly beset their party? Or were they playing deeply cynical politics to oust a leader who supports justice for the Palestinian people and is considered by Israel’s rightwing government, which has no interest in making peace with the Palestinians, to be bad news for Israel?

Al Jazeera’s investigation has not been shown yet, so we can only rely on the snippets released so far, either by Al Jazeera itself or additional leaks of the investigation provided by the Mail on Sunday.

It is worth listening to a Tory minister in the government of recently departed David Cameron, who writes anonymously in the Mail on Sunday. S/he warns of a double whammy to British politics caused by Israel and its British partisans – one that is starting to approach the damage done to the US political system by Israel.

The British government skews its foreign policy to avoid upsetting Jewish donors, s/he says. MPs, meanwhile, act like agents of a foreign power – s/he generously assumes unwittingly – rather than representatives of the British people. Forget international law, these politicians are not even promoting British interests.

Here is what the minister writes:

British foreign policy is in hock to Israeli influence at the heart of our politics, and those in authority have ignored what is going on.

For years the CFI and Labour Friends of Israel (LFI), have worked with – even for – the Israeli government and their London embassy to promote Israeli policy and thwart UK Government policy and the actions of Ministers who try to defend Palestinian rights.

Lots of countries try to force their views on others, but what is scandalous in the UK is that instead of resisting it, successive Governments have submitted to it, taken donors’ money, and allowed Israeli influence-peddling to shape policy and even determine the fate of Ministers.

Even now, if I were to reveal who I am, I would be subjected to a relentless barrage of abuse and character assassination. …

It now seems clear people in the Conservative and Labour Parties have been working with the Israeli embassy, which has used them to demonise and trash MPs who criticise Israel; an army of Israel’s useful idiots in Parliament.

This is politically corrupt, and diplomatically indefensible. The conduct of certain MPs needs to be exposed as the poisonous and deceitful infiltration of our politics by the unwitting agents of another country …

We need a full inquiry into the Israeli Embassy, the links, access and funding of the CFI and LFI.

It is rare that I agree with a Tory government minister, but such an inquiry cannot come too soon.

Note too that it is an indictment of the UK media that Al-Jazeera, rather than the British fourth estate, has exposed Israel’s moves to subvert the British political system. It is not as though reporters from the BBC, Guardian, Times and the Mail haven’t had have ministers like the one above complaining to them for years about interference from Israel. So why did they not long ago send in undercover teams to expose this collaboration between Israel and British MPs?

We have had weeks of stories about the supposed efforts of Russia and Putin to subvert the US election, without a hint yet of any evidence, and based on a central allegation against the Russians that they damaged the election by releasing truthful information about wrongdoing in the Democratic party. Russian diplomats have been expelled based on these evidence-free claims, and President Obama has vowed to take other, covert action against Russia.

Here we have documented evidence of the Israeli government secretly plotting with “friendly” British MPs to oust a British government minister. If that isn’t interference in the British political system I don’t know what is. Will we similarly have weeks of coverage of this story in the UK media, or will it be quickly filed away and forgotten?

And will any action beyond the removal of Masot be demanded by the British government. It seems unlikely. The Foreign Office has already issued a statement saying that, following Masot’s dismissal, it considers the matter closed.

UK MPs urge probe into Israeli plot against politicians

Al Jazeera reveals discussions between Israeli diplomat and UK civil servant to "take down" anti-settlement politicians.

Al Jazeera Investigative Unit•08 Jan 2017 15:44 GMT

Senior members of parliament have slammed comments made by an Israeli diplomat on plans to "take down" the UK's deputy foreign secretary over his criticism of Israel's settlement policy in the occupied West Bank.

Emily Thornberry, the Labour Party's shadow foreign secretary, called the statements by Shai Masot - a  senior political offficer at the Israeli embassy in London - "extremely disturbing" and demanded a probe into the potential extent of political "interference" in the United Kingdom.

Masot's comments were secretly  captured on film during a six-month undercover operation by Al Jazeera's Investigative Unit, which  reveals plots by the Israeli diplomat and a British civil servant to destroy the careers of senior politicians .

"It is simply not good enough for the Foreign Office to say the matter is closed. This is a national security issue," Thornberry said in a statement.

"The embassy official involved should be withdrawn, and the government should launch an immediate inquiry into the extent of this improper interference and demand from the Israeli government that it be brought to an end," she said.

In the recorded conversation with Maria Strizzolo, who was then chief of staff to MP Robert Halfon, the deputy chairman of the ruling Conservative Party, Masot asked if he could give her some names of parliamentarians he would suggest she "take down".

Masot named Deputy Foreign Minister Sir Robert [? Alan —MM] Duncan, who in 2014 said while he fully supports Israel's right to exist, he believes settlements on occupied Palestinian land represent an "ever-deepening stain on the face of the globe".

He also likened the situation in Hebron in the occupied West Bank to apartheid.

Strizzolo later hinted that "a little scandal" might see Duncan dismissed.

At the same dinner table conversation, Masot described British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, Duncan's boss, as an "idiot … without any kind of responsibilities", while Strizzolo said he was "solid on Israel".

Since the announcement by Al Jazeera's Investigative Unit of its findings - and the international media coverage that followed - the Israeli embassy  tweeted  a response saying that Masot would be "ending his term shortly", adding that Mark Regev, ambassador of Israel to the UK, had apologised to Duncan "and made clear that the embassy considered the remarks to be completely unacceptable".

Al Jazeera learned on Sunday that Strizzolo had resigned from her post. 

Scottish National Party MP Alex Salmond reiterated the call on Sunday for Masot's deportation.

"Boris Johnson must right now revoke Mr Masot's diplomatic status and remove him from the country as would most certainly have happened had the circumstances been reversed. Perhaps then the Israeli government representatives will regard the foreign secretary as less of a fool." 

Salmond also backed an official probe into the matter "so that we can be confident our elected officials are free to carry out their jobs to the best of their ability and without fear of having their reputation smeared by embassy officials who do not agree with their views".

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RELATED: Israel's parliamentary plot against UK politicians

 Ben White, a researcher and journalist who has written about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, told Al Jazeera it is not surprising that Israel would seek to influence British politicians, but he added this case was unique because it involved a secret video that has been publicised.

"We know that the Israeli foreign ministry - and also interestingly the Israeli ministry of strategic affairs, which it actually seemed that this individual [Masot] is an employee of - are very focused on fighting what they see as dangerous, powerful solidarity activism with particular focus on trying to thwart and undermine  the Boycott Divest and Sanctions  campaign," said White.

Al Jazeera reveals discussions of Israel diplomat and British civil servant to 'take down' anti-settlement politicians. Shai Masot, senior political officer at the Israeli embassy [Al Jazeera]

The incident is just one among the Investigative Unit's many findings, which will be revealed in a four-part series "The Lobby" that will broadcast daily on Al Jazeera from January 15 at 22:30 GMT.

The undercover investigation shows how the Israeli government is involved in a brazen, covert influence campaign in Britain.

For half a year, Robin (an alias), an undercover reporter working with Al Jazeera's Investigative Unit, met with members of Britain's lobby network that enjoys strong support from the Israeli government by way of the Israeli embassy in London.

Robin posed as a graduate activist with strong sympathies towards Israel who was keen to help combat the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement prominent in Britain.

Shaping foreign policy agenda

Strizzolo, while advising Robin, revealed she had a strategy of manipulation to ensure Israel remains at the top of the UK's foreign policy agenda.

"If at least you can get a small group of MPs that you know you can always rely on, when there is something coming to parliament and you know you brief them, you say: 'you don't have to do anything, we are going to give you the speech, we are going to give you all the information, we are going to do everything for you'," she said.

She also advised trying to infiltrate Prime Minster's Questions, a weekly session in which the leader of the country answers questions from MPs. The debate is televised live.

"If they already have the question to table for PMQs [Prime Minister's Questions], it's harder to say: 'No, no, no, I won't do it'," she said.

Strizzolo then boasted how her own efforts once made an immediate impact on the national debate.

While in Israel with the Conservative Friends of Israel parliamentary group in 2014, she persuaded MP Halfon to question the prime minster in public over three missing teenagers believed to have been kidnapped and murdered "to get a response from the government", Strizzolo said.

Halfon took the request and called on former prime minister David Cameron to support the Israeli government, which he said should do "everything possible to take out Hamas terrorist networks".  In response, Cameron promised that Britain would "stand by Israel".

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Al Jazeera Investigative Unit's series "The Lobby" can be viewed on Al Jazeera at the following times: 

Episode One - Sunday, January 15: 22:30 GMT 

Episode Two - Monday, January 16, 22:30 GMT

Episode Three - Tuesday, January 17, 22:30 GMT

Episode Four - Wednesday, January 18, 22:30 GMT

The series will also be available online . 

Source: Al Jazeera News 

EXCLUSIVE - Board of Deputies and Zionist Federation Hold Joint Demonstration with Fascists

January 9, 2017, 6:42 pm

≫ Next: Israeli Embassy Operative Shai Masot Belonged to Psy-Ops Unit at new anti-BDS Unit

≪ Previous: The real question is why Panorama, Channel 4 and the Guardian didn’t Investigate the Israeli Embassy's Political Destabilisation

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Jonathan Arkush of Board of Deputies and Zionist Federation Hold Demonstration with Jewish Defence League and EDL

Jonathan Arkush, President of Board greets Col. Richard Kemp, lunatic Christian Zionist

Jonathan Arkush speaks to JDL fascists (in tee shirts with yellow stars) at front - Roberta Young and Robert de Jonge - Zionism''s Orwellian placards 'Peace not Hate' defend military occupation and Jewish settlements -  this is at 3 July 2016 demonstration

An old photograph of the Ahava Zionists - note the same EDL member in the background and Roberta Moore in the foreground (plus Jonathan Hoffman of Zionist Federation)

The Zionist demonstration - approximately 60 strong

'The demonstration is this big'

Paul Charney, Chairman and Arieh Miller, Executive Director of Zionist Federation in conversation with EDL member

It must have been a great disappointment to the Board of Deputies of British Jews, which claims to represent all Jews in Britain and the far-Right Zionist Federation.  Their joint demonstration last Sunday which was attended by a variety of fascists and members of the neo-Nazi Jewish Defence League, which is categorised as a terrorist organisation in the USA, mustered barely 60 souls outside the Houses of Parliament.

The same EDL fascist gets around a lot

The Zionists' Tiny Demonstration Against Peace and For Settlements

A none too happy Paul Charney, Chairman of Zionist Federation

Same EDL member on left with friend at Ahava

As you can see from the pictures, Zionist Federation stalwarts Paul Charney & Aryeh Miller

and mad Christian Zionist, Colonel Kemp, happily engaged in conversation with a well known figure from the EDL in combat fatigues.  He last saw active service on the Ahava picket line, the Israeli shop which was selling stolen Palestinian goods in Covent Garden.  On that occasion we made the shop so unpopular that fellow traders banded together to get them evicted!

Member of Holocaust denying EDL is a good Zionist! Two other figures we can see here are Roberta Moore from the JDL and her non-Jewish boyfriend Robert De Jonge.  It is very strange that Moore has a non-Jewish  boyfriend as in Israel the JDL/Lehava demands a 5 year prison sentence for any Arab male who has sexual relations with a Jewish woman.  Like their Nazi forebears and following the Nuremburg Laws, they aren’t concerned if a Jewish man has sex with a non-Jewish woman.

Aryeh Miller, Exec. Director of ZF talking to EDL member

EDL stalwart in fatigue

The target of the demonstrators ire was the pitifully weak UN Resolution 2334 which condemned Israel’s settlements as an obstacles to peace and a 2 State solution.  The strange thing is that both the ZF and the BOD claim to support 2 states yet they opposed the UN Resolution.  The reason is, of course, that they only support 2 States in Britain as a sop to persuade people they support ‘peace’.  However they also support Israel’s military occupation.  In practice they oppose any form of Palestinian statehood.  Indeed most of them deny there is any such thing as the Palestinians!  Hence their support for the Jewish settlements in the West Bank.  They hold to the fiction that a Palestinian state is possible alongside the settlements which are based on stolen Palestinian land.

Tony Greenstein 

Israeli Embassy Operative Shai Masot Belonged to Psy-Ops Unit at new anti-BDS Unit

January 10, 2017, 8:28 am

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Israel using “black ops” against BDS, says veteran analyst

Ali AbunimahActivism and BDS Beat5 September 2016

A veteran Israeli intelligence analyst is linking recent attacks and harassment campaigns against Palestinian activists and human rights organizations to so-called “black ops” by Israel’s intelligence agencies.

Writing in the Maariv newspaper on Sunday, Yossi Melman, who has covered Israel’s spy agencies for decades, reveals telling details about Israel’s ramped up fight against the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.

The fight is being led by Gilad Erdan, Israel’s minister of strategic affairs. According to Melman, Erdan’s ministry is gearing up to face BDS as if it were a military challenge.

“We want most of the ministry’s work to be classified,” its director general Sima Vaknin-Gil recently told the transparency committee of Israel’s parliament, the Knesset.

“There are many sensitivities, and I can’t even explain in an open forum why there are such sensitivities,” Vaknin-Gil said. “A major part of what we do stays under the radar.”

Vaknin-Gil added that the ministry aims to “build a community of warriors.”

According to Melman, the ministry has recently hired 25 workers whose names are classified. It has an intelligence section run by a former security services operative and receives assistance from “a special unit” within Israeli military intelligence and from the Shin Bet secret police.

This report from Israel’s state broadcaster, subtitled in English by activist Ronnie Barkan, shows Vaknin-Gil vowing to defeat the BDS movement in her testimony to the Knesset committee. It also shows the committee’s chair, Stav Shaffir, complaining that the government is revealing almost nothing about how it is spending the huge sums allocated to the anti-BDS effort.

Black ops

In Maariv, Melman sounds a somewhat skeptical note, pointing out that the fight against BDS may be more of an excuse for the ministry to maintain its budget after its original purpose, facing the “threat” from Iran, became irrelevant following last year’s nuclear agreement.

But that does not mean it is not capable of damaging actions.

Among the ministry’s activities are what Melman terms “special operations” or “black ops” which may include “defamation campaigns, harassment and threats to the lives of activists” as well as “infringing on and violating their privacy.”

In this context Melman points to recent attacks on the websites of the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) and other organizations supporting Palestinian rights.

He also notes the death threats received by Nada Kiswanson, an attorney with the Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq, which is collecting evidence of Israeli war crimes in Gaza to submit to the International Criminal Court.

These threats are being investigated by Dutch authorities, where the ICC is based.

The well-connected Melman does not confirm long-standing suspicions of Israeli involvement, but hints strongly at an Israeli role.

“Of course, no one has assumed responsibility for the incident against the Palestinian lawyer, and no one has addressed the BDS campaign’s claims that the Israeli intelligence is running a cyber war against it,” Melman states. “But it is no secret that at the ministry of strategic affairs, as well as Israeli intelligence agencies which are assisting in the struggle against the BDS and delegitimization movement, diverse means which may be applied are being discussed.”

“It cannot be ruled out that these actions, if indeed taken by Israel, were a ‘shot across the bow,’” he adds.

Melman also suggests that the efforts may have been curtailed by concerns at Israel’s justice ministry that “the passion for secret actions and operations in the strategic affairs ministry may eventually end up in mishaps which would harm Israel’s foreign relations.”

As examples of such “mishaps,” Melman recalls “an elimination action, entry into buildings or the use of a false passport” – operations in which Israel “did not hesitate to violate the laws and sovereignty of foreign states, including its best friends.”

In recent years, countries including Canada and New Zealand have protested over Israel’s use of their passports to provide cover for agents from the Mossad spying and assassination agency.

In its 2010 slaying in a Dubai hotel room of Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, Mossad reportedly used forged or stolen passports from the United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland, France and Germany.

Melman is not the only person to liken Israel’s anti-BDS operations to assassinations. He says that strategic affairs ministry officials are likening the effort to crush the movement to the “struggle against terror.”

In April, for instance, Israel refused to renew the travel permit of Omar Barghouti, the Palestinian human rights defender and co-founder of the BDS movement.

The effective travel ban followed threats against Barghouti and other Palestinian human rights defenders by top Israeli government ministers including Erdan and intelligence minister Yisrael Katz who called for “targeted civil eliminations” of BDS leaders with the help of Israeli intelligence.
The Hebrew term Katz used was similar to the Israeli term for “targeted assassinations.”

At the time, Amnesty International strongly condemned these threats, warning that “an escalation of acts of intimidation by the government and attacks and threats by settlers and other non-state actors have created an increasingly dangerous environment” for human rights defenders in Israel and the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

And last month, Israel announced efforts to root out and expel foreign nationals suspected of being involved in the nonviolent movement for Palestinian rights.

Recruiting Palestinians as spies

It also appears that Israel is hoping to recruit Palestinian citizens of Israel to the effort.

Last week, the Nazareth-based Arabic newspaper al-Sonara published an advertisement from the Civil Administration, the name Israel gives to the military bureaucracy that rules over millions of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Images of the ad were posted on a Facebook page whose administrators identify themselves as Palestinian citizens of Israel who support BDS.

The ad seeks Arabic speakers as consultants to “collect information from various primary and secondary sources,” including newspapers and websites, “but with an emphasis on social networks.” The information would relate to “incitement to violence and hatred and the development of BDS initiatives.”

Journalists and activists should remain vigilant about their use of social networks and should practice good digital security. The Electronic Intifada recently published a guide to online security for activists.

Using foreign organizations

Melman also confirms that Israel has strongly supported the push for legislation stigmatizing or curtailing the BDS movement in various Western countries.

It also uses proxies to achieve its aims.

“The ministry also initiates pressure or leveraging actions to convince international companies not to boycott Israel,” he writes. “This involves the use of AIPAC and Hillel in the US, or similar groups in other countries.”

AIPAC is the most powerful pro-Israel lobby group working in the US Congress, while Hillel is a network of campus centers for Jewish students across North America.

“This type of activity also has a certain sensitivity because it involves a foreign government (Israel) trying to act and influence organizations and individuals in other countries,” Melman notes.

Another form of influence he outlines – albeit one already well known – is Israel’s effort to use public relations, or hasbara, to influence international opinion.

In this regard, he reveals that the strategic affairs ministry is spending large sums to fund visits for what it calls “opinion leaders” – journalists, bloggers, actors and trade union leaders – to Israel.
The only thing the ministry has not apparently considered is ending Israel’s regime of occupation, apartheid and settler-colonialism and restoring Palestinian rights.

That would be the swiftest way to bring an end to BDS.

Translation provided by Ofer Neiman.

Lansman’s Kitchen Coup Against Momentum’s Membership

January 11, 2017, 10:55 am

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A Flawed & Undemocratic Constitution is Imposed by Dictat

we have a constitution Tom Watson could agree with - No one will be happier at Lansman's destruction of Momentum than Watson

 Three days ago I wrote about how a survey sent to Momentum’s membership before Xmas  contained rigged questions designed to elicit the desired (for Jon Lansman) answers.  Jon Lansman’s Xmas Punch Could Sucker Corbyn.  In short the questions were rigged in order to produce the ‘right’ answers. 

Lansman's bogus questionnaire

Question 4 asked How should key national decisions be taken?  The options give were by all members via OMOV or by delegates elected by attendees at meetings.  Posed in that way, of course, people elected for everyone to vote.  But what wasn’t said was that all members have the right to attend local meetings.

Lansman's Bogus Questions

Question 5 similarly asked How should Momentum members elect representatives? And again the alternatives given were either delegates from local groups should elect representatives or every member should do so.  Again those not aware of this debate would therefore assume that delegates acted of their own accord whereas the true situation is that all members have the right to attend meetings that elect those delegates.

Apparently 40% of members and 32% agreeing with Lansman is 'huge'

We are told that ‘A huge 40.3% of members responded to the survey.’  40% of an electorate voting is anything but huge.  In general elections it is about 60-70%.  80% of those answering these skewed questions i.e. 32% of the membership voted in favour of them.  That is hardly a ‘huge’ democratic mandate.  What is clear is that when large meetings of Momentum meetings have been held in localities, such as Brighton the overwhelming number of people at those meetings decided to vote againstOMOV. 

Momentum email sent to all members yesterday

Constitution

 ‘Team Momentum’ also informed us that a Constitutionhad been agreed by the Steering Committee at its last meeting.  I have just spoken to a member of the Steering Committee and that is a lie.  There was no meeting because Sam Tarry, the TSSA representative on the Committee informed members  there were ‘no rooms available’ at TSSA HQ where Momentum is currently based.  A Constitution was therefore sent by Lansman’s acronies aka ‘Team Momentum’ to each individual Steering Committee member for a ‘yes’ or ‘no’.  This is the democracy that Lansman, Tarry and co. are introducing.  No debate, no discussion, either assent or dissent and if the latter then it is punished accordingly.

Matt Wrack of the Firefighters Union is one of those opposed to Lansman's Gerrymandering

The rigged poll that was sent to people before Xmas and the apparent concern that all members should vote, was a spurious and cynical attempt to concentrate all power in the hands of Lansman and his cronies  If Jon Lansman, Christine Shawcroft, Sam  Tarry and Marsha Thompson were at all serious in involving  members, then they would have sent out a draftconstitution to all members via their OMOV system.  Why were people never invited to give their opinion on the Constitution?  What has happened to the principle of all membershaving a say in matters?  It seems that OMOV is only used when it is of convenience to Lansman and cronies.  Otherwise it is discarded.

And if you disagree with the constitution?  Well if you don’t like it then the email says that:

‘If you consent to Momentum’s constitution, you do not have to do anything. Simply continue paying your membership fees. However, if you wish to opt out, you can email  membership@peoplesmomentum.comto cancel your membership.

Having done his best to get Jackie Walker suspended, Lansman is now ensuring that she cannot remain a member of Momentum if the Labour Party expels her or Livingstone or me

In other words if you don’t agree with Lansman’s treating Momentum as his personal property then you can simply leave Momentum by cancelling your membership.  This is a democratic outrage.  All carried out under the guise of getting more members involved! 

When I said in my previous article that OMOV was a Tory version of democracy I was not engaging in making rhetorical points.  This is exactly how OMOV works.  You are consulted, you are asked to consent, but real power of decision making is not in your power because that can be effected only within a delegate based structure.

Of course it would have been impossible to draw up a constitution with 20,000 members on the basis of OMOV.  That is why you it is essential to have a delegate based structure. 

The alternatives are not between everyone voting and only delegates voting but between Lansman deciding and everyone voting via their delegates.

Owen Jones - one of Lansman's cronies and someone who in the summer was undecided as to whether to support Corbyn

The Constitutionis as bad and undemocratic as it can be.  Of the 26 members of the new National Co-ordinating Group that will run momentum, just 12 will be elected by the 20,000 members.  The rest will be Lansman appointees in essence or fixed between him and a number of power brokers.  4 will be MPs, Police Commissioners (!) or other elected Labour office holders.  There is no guarantee they will even be on the Left.  6 will be trade union affiliates and another 4 will be ‘affiliated organisations’. 

Who will the ‘affilated organisations’ be?  The World Transformed, Campaign for Labour Party, Democracy, Labour Representation Committee, Compass, Labour Assembly Against Austerity, Labour CND, Labour Briefing Coop, Left Futures, Red Labour.

Most of these groups represent no-one.  They are not democratic.  The World  Transformed is not a membership constituted organisation.  It does good work but in practice Lansman will use it and other similar organisations to obtain crony representation.  Red Labour represents nothing but a blog.  Left Futures is another name for Jon Lansman’s blog.  CLPD is a small organisation, which Lansman will manipulate as is the Labour Briefing Coop.  As for Compass, they aren’t even on the left and work with other parties, including the Lib Dems.  Labour CND is a shadow of what it once was and is no longer on the left.

An undemocratic constitution which leave members in a minority

In other words a sham group, effectively controlled by one person, will run Momentum and OMOV will the means by which Lansman maintains his power.  Plebiscitary ‘democracy’ was how Hitler and Mussolini maintained control.  It is the antithesis of democracy because it means that rulers consult the people, or in Lansman’s case, the members only when the need arises.  What it doesn’t allow is for the members to depose their rulers.

The Constitution mentions the word 'socialist' just twice under 

3. Aims 'To broaden support for a transformative, socialist programme' and under

15.  Code of Ethics  when it talks of ''socialist values'.  

At no stage does the Constitution even hint at what socialist values might be.  This is a Constitution that politically Progress would be happy with.  There is no mention of public ownership or nationalisation.  Instead it speaks in terms that are essentially meaningless soundbites.  

Making 'politics more accessible to more people' 

'To ensure a wide and diverse membership of Labour who are in and heard atevery level of the party

To demonstrate how collective action and Labour values can transform oursociety for the better and improve the lives of ordinary people; and

To achieve a society that is more democratic, fair and equal.

What the hell does that mean?  There is no mention of effecting even a redistribution of wealth from poor to rich, or workers' control of the economy or challenging the main citadels of wealth and power.

This is a Constitution that challenges no vested interest and no centre of wealth and power in this society.  Indeed not only Progress but the Liberal Democrats could live with a Constitution that doesn't even mention international solidarity or nuclear weapons.  It is an utter disgrace.

The National Conference – Why It Must Go Ahead

It is crucial that the national conference, as agreed by the December National Committee goes ahead.  If we lost Momentum (!) now we will lose it forever.  Lansman can only be stopped by a determination to ignore his undemocratic gerrymandering and dictatorial practices.  Lansman controls nothing but the office and a few sycophants.  The vast majority of Momentum groups support a democratic Momentum and we should continue to hold the conference.  It may be that a new national office will need to be set up and we will need to start afresh given that Lansman has a stranglehold over the existing databases and personally owns the Momentum companies.

At the last National Committee a 7 person Conference Arrangements Committee was elected to organise a national conference which will be on the 25^th February.  It is intended to be a policy making and organising conference.  Lansman, without any authority at all, via a Steering Committee that isn’t even meeting anymore, is effectively proposing to organise a conference on the same date, presumably in another place, that will decide  nothing and will be nothing more than window dressing, a talk shop whilst the decisions are made elsewhere.  It is crucial that the original conference, organised by the CAC goes ahead.  If Lansman wants to organise his own conference, that is up to him.  However it won’t be a Momentum Conference.

Expelled Members of the Labour Party will be Expelled from Momentum

One of the key elements of the new ‘Constitution’ is that only members of the Labour Party will be eligible to be members of Momentum.  At the moment those who are not members of parties standing against Labour are eligible to become members of Momentum.  This is right.  Not all convinced socialists are members of the Labour Party and we wish to attract the broadest number of community activists as long as they are not members of another party.  However this decision will mean that expelled members of the Labour Party will be unable to join the Labour Party or will be expelled from it if they have already joined.  Not only will this exclude the Alliance for Workers Liberty but it will mean that if Jackie Walker, Ken Livingstone or myself are expelled, we will be ineligible for membership of Momentum.  Apparently this has been introduced in order that Unite Union will affiliate to Momentum.  If that is the case then it should be argued out with them because many affiliated socialist societies to the Labour Party have members who are not Labour Party members – e.g. SERA, Socialist Health and Socialist Education Associations.

We are facing an attempted coup by a small clique that does not have the support of the majority of Momentum members or groups.  It is essential that they are faced down and told that they have to abide by democratic norms.  Lansman can take his constitution and use it to wipe a place that doesn't see the sun.

Tony Greenstein 

An Open Letter to the Jewish Socialists Group

January 12, 2017, 10:20 pm

≫ Next: Ella Rose - from Union of Jewish Students Chair to Israeli Embassy operative and Director of the Jewish Labour Movement

≪ Previous: Lansman’s Kitchen Coup Against Momentum’s Membership

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Jackie Walker

David Rosenberg of the Jewish Socialists Group

Why the JSG's Silence over the Jewish Labour Movement’s Racist Attacks on Jackie Walker is Consent

To:  David Rosenberg, National Secretary, Jewish Socialists Group

Dear David,

Over 3 months ago, I posted links to my post The Strange Silence of the Jewish Socialists Group on the JSG’s Facebook group.  The post concerned Jackie Walker, the Black-Jewish activist who was suspended by the Labour Party and the actions of Jon Lansman, who is a member of the JSG.  As a result I was removed from the JSG’s FB group.  

Jackie was a victim of the Jewish Labour Movement’s anti-Semitism smear campaign.  Other anti-Zionists and anti-racists, including myself and Ken Livingstone, have also fallen victim to this Israeli-state driven campaign which labels support for the Palestinians and anti-Zionism as anti-Semitic.   Al Jazeera is now showing a series of programmes documenting some of the leading actors in this campaign and their links to the Israeli Embassy. 

Julia Bard, journalist, JSG member whose main role is to remove dissenters from JSG associated FB groups

Jackie was suspended from the Labour Party as a direct consequence of Lansman’s attack on her in the media.   Lansman informed the Independentthat “I spoke to Jeremy Newmark of the Jewish Labour Movement this morning, he’s very upset and I can understand that – I work closely with Jeremy...’  Jackie was removed as Vice-Chair of Momentum at the instigation of Lansman, Momentum’s Chair and latter-day Caudillo. 

The admission by Lansman that he works closely with Newmark, something he has also told me, is shocking enough.  The JLM are the British wing of the Israeli Labour Party and affiliated to the World Zionist Organisation.  Their role is to prettify Israel’ racism and repression.  The ILP were the original party of the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. 

Jeremy Newmark, Chair of the Jewish Labour Movement who has played a major role in weaponising anti-Semitism - friend of Jon Lansman

Newmark is one of the principal authors of the false anti-Semitism campaign in the Labour Party and by his own admission he works very closely with the Israeli Embassy.  He was criticised as a liar by the Employment Tribunal in Fraser v UCU when he attacked the University College Union for supporting the Academic Boycott of Israel.

The JSG has a long and honourable record of fighting fascism and racism.  Although we often disagreed I counted the late Steve Cohen, a member of JSG and a tireless campaigner in support of refugees and asylum seekers, as a good friend. 

Only today Debbie Fink, a long-time Jewish activist in the BDS movement and JfJP wrote to you asking ‘why the JSG has not challenged Lansman, let alone expelled him, and why of all groups, the JSG has remained silent on the fate of Jackie Walker.’  She referred to the series of programmes that Al Jazeera are currently showing and asked ‘what side-of history does JSG want to be on?’

In response you stated that Debbie’s comments were ‘based on ignorance and vituperation, they were not worth responding to. The JSG is solely accountable to its members, not to you, nor to FSOI, nor to any other groups we may or may not be connected with or work with.’  Of course it is true that you are only accountable to your members but any group that claims  to be socialist and anti-racist surely owes an explanation to more than just its members for its behaviour?  It is shameful that you are remaining silent about a member who has actively colluded in racist attacks on a fellow Jewish socialist. 

On September 17^th, over a week before the Labour Party Conference and the ‘training session’ that led to her suspension, I wrote a post The Jewish Labour Movement and its Political Lynching of Jackie Walker.  It was clear to me, that the JLM, as part the campaign that was organised by the Israeli Embassy, was engaged in what I called a political lynching, a campaign of race baiting, against a Black-Jewish comrade.  It was incumbent upon you as socialists to support her, not to remain silent. 

If you are not aware of the details of the framing of Jackie Walker you can consult my The lynching of Jackie Walkerand ProfessorJonathan Rosenhead’sJackie Walker: a suspense mystery, both of which are on Open Democracy.

Guardian letter from Jewish LP Members that Ruth Appleton was instructed to remove her name from

email from Julia Bard instructing Ruth Appleton to remove the JSG from her name to a letter to the Guardian

On 5^thOctober last year, the Guardian printed a letter from Jewish members of Momentum  defending Jackie Walker.  When one of your members, Ruth Appleton, sought to add ‘member of JSG’ after her name she was instructed by Julia Bard to remove any reference to the JSG.  Julia wrote that ‘The JSG is not commenting at the moment and, because the situation is so complex and volatile. Under the circumstances, I think it would be better if you just signed in your own name, without mentioning the JSG, for now.’

Today I understand that Debbie Fink has been removed from the Jews for Jeremy Facebook group, which is not a JSG group, although you, Julia and Ian Saville are the sole moderators, because she posted a link to my post criticising Lansman’s attempt to dissolve all Momentum’s elected bodies.  I assume that either yourself or Julia Bard removed Debbie. 

Malia Bouatthia - NUS's Black President who JSG have refused to defend

Last year I was also removed from the J4J FB group by you and Ms Bard for defending Malia Bouatthia, NUS’s Black President, in a letter to the Guardian.  Malia has also been the subject of a racist witch hunt by the Zionist UJS, which Al Jazeera has documented. 

Letter defending Malia Bouathia that JSG members objected to

At the end of April last year, the JSG issued a Statement on “Labour’s problem with antisemitism” in which you stated that

Accusations of antisemitism are currently being weaponised ... with claims that Labour has a “problem” of antisemitism.... The Jewish Socialists’ Group sees the current fearmongering about antisemitism in the Labour Party for what it is – a conscious and concerted effort by right-wing political forces to undermine the growing support among Jews and non-Jews alike for the Labour Party leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, and a measure of the desperation of his opponents.

Ian Saville of the JSG speaking to a Brighton meeting in support of Jackie Walker in May 2016

This was a fine statement of principles.  In May of last year Ian Saville, a member of the JSG, spoke at a Momentum meeting in Brighton alongside Jackie after she had been suspended for the first time.  Nothing has changed since that time other than the fact that the Zionists refused to accept her reinstatement into the Labour Party and conducted a race-baiting witch-hunt against her.  It is a pity that you have resiled from the position you once held.  I hope you reconsider.

In Solidarity,

Tony Greenstein