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The AntiSemitism Wars – how the British media failed their public – Karl Sabbagh, Skyscraper Publications, 2018

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The First Book on the Zionists' Fake Anti-Semitism Witchhunt which followed Corbyn’s Election as Labour Leader

The False Anti-Semitism Wars have been waged ever since Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader in the summer of 2015. Today their target is the wider Palestine solidarity movement.
It’s not easy to review a book in which you are a contributor! What I set out to do was give was a potted history of how ‘anti-Semitism’ was deployed as a propaganda weapon against Corbyn and the Left by oth the Zionist movement, the right-wing of the Labour Party and their accomplices in the prostitute press, not least the Guardian.
The first chapter by Karl Sabbagh, ‘the summer of anti-Semitism’ set the scene with Gordon Brown’s speech urging Labour to adopt the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism. Sabbagh caustically remarks that newspapers used to report the news. Brown’s speech ‘was as newsworthy as a speech by the Pope’ praising Roman Catholicism.’
Just a small sample of the vitriol thrown at the Labour Party by the bourgeois press
Sabbagh takes issue with former Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks comments in which he asks ‘is this country safe to bring up our (Jewish) children’ and contrasts the position today with when Oswald Moseley and the British Union of Fascists organised in the East End of London. My own father, who was at the Battle of Cable Street in 1936, told me how certain streets were too dangerous for Jews to walk down. 
What was the cause of this nonsense? Jeremy Corbyn telling 2 Zionist misfits, Jonathan Hoffman and Richard Millett, that despite having lived in Britain for most if not all of their lives, they lacked an understanding of British irony. Why? Because of ‘their hostile reactions to a rather witty speech by the Palestinian Ambassador to the UK’ who wasn’t native to these shores. Nothing racist about that.
The Guardian's pretentious and pompous Rafael Behr
Sabbagh points to the central contradiction of the ‘anti-Semitism allegations – they are based on the oppression of Palestinians:
‘Much of the attack on Labour has been in the name of racism, with Jews as one target. But many Zionists... seem only concerned with anti-Semitism, while expressing support for bigoted views about other groups, notably the Palestinians.’
The most vicious of the Zionist groups, the misnamed Campaign Against Anti-Semitism [CAA] even claimed that ‘more than half of British Jews felt that anti-Semitism today echoed that of the 1930’s.’ Ha’aretz’s Anshel Pfeffer suggestedthat this
‘showed a disconnect bordering on hysteria... not only are they woefully ignorant of recent Jewish history but have little concept of what real anti-Semitism is.’
Sabbagh also points to the hypocrisy of the so-called intellectual Jonathan Sacks, a man whose trade is in bigotry dressed up as profundity.  What could be more ludicrous than his comparison of Jeremy Corbyn to Enoch Powell.  This is the same Sacks who wrote, in 2017, that arch racist Douglas K Walker had written one of the ‘best books of the year’ in which he had quoted Powell’s infamous 1968 Rivers of Blood speech favourably and who said that the consequence of Muslim immigration would be to destroy White, Christian Europe. This is also the same Sacks who encouragedJews to join the annual pogrom that goes by the name of Jerusalem Day. [Chief Rabbi and Lord Sacks should not back this march], Nina Morris-Evans in the Jewish News (25.5.17.) described how
This march has come to be associated with growing levels of hate speech and racist violence, including shouts of “Death to Arabs” and vandalism to Palestinian property.’
My article takes readers through the history of the anti-Semitism witchhunt beginning with my own suspension in March 2016. I place the anti-Corbyn campaign in the context of what is and was concerted state destabilisation. Corbyn is seen by the British, American and Israeli authorities as a threat. I refer people to the book which Phil Agee, a former CIA agent, wrote, over 40 years ago Inside the Company about CIA destabilisation in South America.
I suggest that the media blitz has not been spontaneous.  It shows every sign of having been co-ordinated with the British state in conjunction with the Guardian and Jonathan Freedland. This has been brilliantly highlighted by fivefilterswho have produced a series of the Guardian’s most abysmal anti-Corbyn headlines. See also The Guardian and Jonathan Freedland's tedious Campaign against Corbyn. My favourite Guardian headline is by the terminally boring Roy Greenslade’s ‘Yes Jeremy Corbyn has suffered a bad press but where’s the harm?’ If Greenslade is incapable of answering that question then he has no business calling himself a journalist. Nick Cohen’s Don’t tell me you weren’t warned about Corbyn which called his readers ‘fucking fools’ runs him a close second along with Freedland’s I’ve felt the Bern. And Jeremy Corbyn, you’re no Senator Sanders. Guardian writers love pretending that they are attacking Corbyn because they are the genuine radicals!
Of course some people will laugh at my suggestion that the Deep State has been influencing the press and people like Freedland who also writes for the Jewish Chronicle. Peoples’ memories are short. It wasn’t so long ago that BBC journalist John Tusa fronted a CIA sponsored News Agency Forum World Features.
The false anti-Semitism campaign began with Corbyn’s alleged association with a holocaust denier, Paul Eisen, progressed to Gerald Kaufmann’s allegations about ‘Jewish money’ and the allegations that the Labour Club at Oxford University was riddled with anti-Semitism and the Royall Inquiry. Then there was Naz Shah and a humourous meme about Israel moving to the United States, Ken Livingstone and Hitler’s support for Zionism, the Chakrabarti Report and Ruth Smeeth’s contrived allegations of anti-Semitism against Mark Wadsworth until the present day when the IHRA definition of ‘anti-Semitism’ was foisted on the Labour Party after Luciana Berger had produced a long forgotten mural out of her hat.  Not forgetting of course my own expulsion and Jackie Walker’s suspension.
I point to the role that the poisonous CAA, a ‘charity’ no less, has played in the anti-Semitism affair with its hysterical denunciations. Also prominent in the campaign was the overseas wing of the racist Israeli Labour Party, the Jewish Labour Movement. When the General Secretary of the Labour Party, Iain McNicol gave them permission to give ‘anti-Semitism training’ I remarked that it was like asking Harold Shipman to give a course on medical ethics.
The attacks on Ken Livingstone for having dared to say that the Zionist Emperor had no clothes and that he had been found in a compromising position with the Nazis, engaging in a profitable trade, marked a new stage in the anti-Semitism witchhunt.
All of this was a precursor to a renewal of the fake anti-Semitism attacks in March this year with a long erased mural of bankers that Luciana Berger suddenly found at the bottom of her handbag. This helped build up the pressure which resulted in Labour’s National Executive Committee adopting the IHRA.
I spent the first few days of my holiday in Catalonia working on this chapter, whilst ignoring my fellow travelling companions Fiona and Bill North as well as my eldest son Daniel. 
My article was the first of four from people on the receiving end. The second article was from Karl Sabbagh and told the story of how, when he was the director of the MSD foundation, he also contributed a monthly column, as a freelance journalist to the magazine World Medicine.  Karl chose to write an article in September 1981 about the massacre at Deir Yassin in April 1948 when the Zionist  terror gangs, Irgun and Lehi, massacred 254 people.  Women, children and old people were brutally murdered with knives and grenades and the surviving men were paraded through Jerusalem prior to being shot. The Deir Yassin massacre led to the flight of the Arabs and the Nakba.
Sabbagh wrote the article as a group of doctors prepared to fly out to Israel for the ‘Medical Olympics’. It was an Open Letter to these doctors warning them that they may be invited to the Government Hospital for Mental Diseases at Kfar Shaul, some of whose patients reside in a group of buildings which were the scene of the massacre.
Suffice to say the heavens opened up and the journal was deluged with protests. It‘set in train a series of events which showed in its most naked form the way in which a pressure group tries to curtail press freedom, when it comes to criticising Israel and Zionism.’  You might think that nothing much has changed in the intervening years.
The Israeli Medical Association went on the offensive asking advertisers to withdraw advertising until the magazine promised never to publish ‘PLO propaganda’. Several pharmaceutical companies wrote to World Medicine threatening reprisals. The IMA also wrote to the Governors of the MSD Foundation suggesting they distance themselves from Sabbagh’s article even though it had been written in his private capacity. Jewish doctors wrote letters to the editor expressing their distress and annoyance that the article had been published. They also wrote to Merck, Sharp and Dohme, the company which funded the foundation, saying they would no longer prescribe that company’s drugs. The IMA wrote to the Governors of the Foundation, asking for reassurance that Sabbagh would not write similar things in the future, although there was no connection between MSF and World Medicine. The Governors of the MSD Foundation passed a motion criticising Sabbagh for a serious error of judgement.
Karl remarked that it was ‘entirely understandable’ that the IMA didn’t want to be reminded of Israel’s dark history but ‘what is odd is that they were able to influence intelligent, sophisticated British doctors’ who ‘failed to see how they were being manipulated.’
A Dr Mann of Bolton was typical when he wrote to express his disgust at the article and then added ‘Incidentally whether or not Mr Sabbagh’s remarks are based on fact, I cannot say.’
In fact even David Ben Gurion, the future Prime Minister of Israel, condemned the Deir Yassin massacre. A hundred anonymous letters, full of venom were sent to the home address of the editor of World Medicine, including to his children.  This was just months before Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. Sabbagh draws the conclusion that ‘for many Jews the facts about Israeli actions are irrelevant. Anyone criticising Israeli action is clearly motivated by anti-Semitism.’ This is unfortunately true but the question is why Zionist Jews and it may not just have been Jewish doctors, had this power of persuasion, which itself comes down to the question of what gives the Zionist lobby its power. Sabbagh never provides an answer and one is left with the idea that it is simply because they are Jewish rather than the fact that they support Israel a hegemon in imperialist politics. Sabbagh concluded that these ‘sad offerings’ were from ‘very angry doctors’ most of whom did not want what he had said to be true.
Sabbagh is right say that it is ‘a function of Zionism to prevent discussion of the past in case people realise that the Palestinians have a case.’ Sabbagh notes that ‘these Princes of the profession’ would say that ‘the Jewish lobby is very powerful.’ and he complains that they never asked why this was so. Unfortunately this is the wrong question. Although members of the Zionist lobby might describe themselves as Jewish the fact is that they were acting as part of the Israel/Zionist lobby. That is where their power derives, not from the fact that they are Jewish.
What happened to Sabbagh over his article in World Medicine has been repeated a thousand fold. The Zionist lobby does its best to suppress freedom of speech but the reasons why it is able to do this is because its power derives from the role that Israel plays in the Middle East. That is why people like Trump and Steve Bannon combine ardent Zionism with anti-Semitism. Sabbagh looks at this only in terms of the self-identification of many of these doctors.
Sabbagh asks ‘why did some uncommitted non-Jewish doctors, some of them quite senior figures, respond so readily to the blatantly organised lobby?’ I suggest that the reason lies in the conservative politics of these doctors.  World Medicine soon closed down under the pressure and one of the main figures in this affair became Sir Donald Irvine before becoming President of the General Medical Council.
In 2008 what happened to Sabbagh repeated itself after the British Medical Journal published an article by Dr Derek Summerfield about the effects of Israel’s actions in Gaza.  Again there was a similar Zionist campaign and a flurry of emails. Many of the barely literate and abusive emails came from the USA. This time the campaign was co-ordinated by a Zionist lobby group HonestReporting’. The emails that were sent were full of spelling mistakes, abuse and the normal assertions that Derek ‘hates the Jews because their have more in their little finge than he has in his whole brain.’  Presumably in their anger and outrage grammar took a hit. Appendix 2 devotes 4 pages to these illiterate, abusive emails. My favourite one is ‘I hope you die of HIV like Yasser Arafat’ who of course did no such thing.
None of this should be any surprise.  Unfortunately Karl has drawn the wrong conclusions. The majority of people involved in this kind of campaign might be Jewish but the question is why many Jews today have allowed themselves to be co-opted by Israel.
The third article is by Cyril Chilson. Cyril was born in Israel to the survivors of the Nazi concentration camps. He was a member of Oxford Labour Party and because he is also an anti-Zionist (& a convert to Catholicism) he is subject to the normal accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’.
Labour First Witchfinder General Maggi Cosin with Blairite Liz Kendall
His mistake was to tweet anti-Israel comments. As with the complaints against me, the identity of one’s accusers was never disclosed. As I had a law degree I offered to be Cyril’s legal representative but it would appear that the Chair of the National Constitutional (Kangaroo) Committee Maggi Cosin nearly choked.  Cyril’s choice of me was held by the Prosecutor Dan Hogan to be proof of his wickedness: ‘Mr Chilson’ announced Hogan in dramatic pathos, ‘wanted to be represented by Tony Greenstein.... One wonders why.’ In any normal court of law comments on the accused’s choice of representative would be contempt of court. A professional offence.
Cyril’s description of the proceedings with Cosin in charge, makes the proceedings a mixture of Alice Through the Looking Glass and Hanging Judge Jeffries. On more than one occasion Cyril was threatened with being thrown out of his own hearing.
Douglas Fairbairn, the misogynist abuser on Labour's NCC who sat in judgement of others for abuse
In any fair system, Douglas Fairbairn would be appearing in front of the NCC not sitting in judgement of others

Cosin, ably aided by a silent Douglas Fairbairn from the right-wing Community Union, repeatedly interrupted Cyril and refused to allow him to challenge Hogan. It is ironic that people accused of ‘abuse’in the Labour Party had their cases heard by a Committee whose membership includef Fairbairn, who is notoriousfor his sexist and misogynist comments on Twitter.  If it was anyone else they would have been suspended for comments such as ‘@britneyspearswhat a bitch’ or ‘Go to bed you silly woman’.
Cyril used to tweet headlines concerning Israeli atrocities and then ask rhetorically ‘Is reporting this anti-Semitic?’Hogan, who prided himself on having become the sorcerer’s apprentice, claimed that such a question ‘denied Jewish people the language to describe their persecution’. One feels like saying, ‘no you idiot, he’s taking the piss out of those who would label support for the Palestinians as anti-Semitic.’ Hogan asked Cyril questions such as ‘Can you understand that your tweets come across as offensive.’ Apparently it is a crime to offend racists.
The wit and wisdom of the NCC's misogynist Fairbairn
Just as in my hearing, Cosin turned round at the end and asked ‘Do you think your hearing was a fair one’. I simply replied ‘No’, which caused her some surprise. Cyril was  more diplomatic: ‘I think the question is unfair. I do have some misgivings about what went on here today but I hope to be proven wrong.’  After 30 minutes all 3 charges were found proven (Cosin has a 100% record for finding those hauled before her guilty). I should also add that Emina Ibrahim, Jon Lansman’s tame Vice-Chair of Momentum was a member of both panels and she went along with the verdicts).
On hearing the verdict Cyril and his wife departed: ‘This was a colossal waste of time. Goodbye’.  ‘Hang on! Don’t go! We haven’t reached a decision yet!’ Cosin shouted ‘in a last attempt to keep a facade of fairness.’ Cyril and his wife kept walking and in the post arrived the sentence – 2 years expulsion. He was lucky, I got 5!
The final story was about Tom Suarez. Suarez wrote a book, a very good book, in October 2016 State of  Terror: how terrorism created modern Israel. Based on original research Tom produced some excellent material about the Zionist terror campaign against the Palestinians pre-1948 when hundreds of Palestinian civilians died at the hands of the Irgun and Lehi.
Suarez’s book tour was subject to concerted attacks by a group of Zionists determined that he would not be able to speak. At SOAS David Collier, a so-called researcher, and Jonathan Hoffman disrupted the event. The same two had been active in stopping American Jewish Professor and UN Rapporteur Richard Falk speaking on campus. In this they were aided by the Daily Mail whose report wasn’t about the threat to free speech, which would be the case if it had been left-wingers disrupting a speaker. It led with ‘Israeli Embassy’s fury after anti-Semitic hate speaker gives talk at a top London university.’ Suarez isn’t anti-Semitic and what business is it of the Israeli Embassy who speaks on campuses? Is it the function of an Embassy to object to speakers they don’t like? Imagine if the German Embassy in the 1930’s had objected to anti-fascist speakers. As Suarez puts it ‘In today’s climate, the charge of anti-Semitism is its own proof. Like the McCarthyism of 1950s United States, being identified as an anti-Semite is akin to having the plague.’
In this article Cohen warns that Labour might get as low as 75 seats - he called Corbyn supporters 'fucking fools' - since I was one of the few to call the result correctly I offered Kath Viner, the Guardian's Editor the chance of hiring me instead of Cohen at half the salary but I'm still waiting for a reply!
As Suarez notes ‘the actual scale of destruction is far greater than the paper trail’ since there is no way to know how many people were intimidated by the Daily Mail from even inviting him. Hoffman and Collier complained to SOAS and ‘simply lodging the complaint enabled them to ‘corroborate’ it with their own headline in the Jewish News.’ When Zionists assert something that is news.  When anti-Zionists say something it is either ignored or derided.
When Suarez was due to speak at a Cambridge PSC meeting at Jesus Lane, Quaker Meeting House it was the Board of Deputies who objected. The Board tried the same with the Quaker Meeting House in Brighton when Jackie Walker spoke but they failed. Jesus Lane, under pressure of time and lacking information, cancelled the meeting. PSC Cambridge found another venue and kept it confidential.
At this meeting some Jesus Lane Friends were in attendance and saw for themselves that nothing anti-Semitic was said. Not only did the Jewish Chronicle refuse to correct misstatements about the Quakers but the original cancellation ‘was seized upon as a self-corroboration prize.’ In the end the Quakers were forced to put out a statement about ‘the continuing misrepresentation by Jonathan Hoffman and others.’ They confirmed that the Friends ‘have no reservations about Tom Suarez or his work.’
The moral of this story is that it is easier to spread a lie than to counteract it. When the Bath Royal Literary & Scientific Institution refused the Board’s demands to cancel Tom’s talk the BOD used a new Jewish Chronicle piece ‘to further embellish the inventions about me and about Jesus Lane that it had already refused to correct the year before.’
The Jewish Chronicle under tabloid editor Stephen Pollard is a Zionist propaganda rag.  The truth of a report is secondary to its political utility.  The BOD simply functions as a Zionist pressure group. 
Finally, after the lies in the JC had been accompanied by a refusal to allow any right of reply Tom contacted press regulator IPSOS. The JC's only defence was that its views were ‘shared by many JC readers.’ Which is not surprising as they only have their misreporting to go by!
In Portsmouth the Council’s Prevent officer, Charlie Pericleous, secured the banning of Tom’s talk from all public venues. When challenged he refused to say what his evidence was. At the University of Massachusetts 3 Zionist professors organised a letter writing campaign however the President of the University stood firm. The American press were little different from the Zionist press in Britain.  However a solitary exception was when an article headlined ‘Hate does have a home at UMass’  appeared in the Amherst Wire. On beingpresented with a tape of the talk the online article was removed. At some universities Suarez spoke without incident. One of the most avid distributors of the original Daily Mail piece was music critic Norman Lebrecht who nearly bust a blood vessel in the Sunday Telegraph when we disrupted the Jerusalem Quartet concert in London a few years ago!  Some disruptions are kosher it would seem.
The third section of the book contains a raft of documents which give substance to our allegations that there has been a concerted campaign of false allegations of anti-Semitism. The introduction cites the Al Jazeera Programmes which have finally been leaked in the United States which cite Eric Gallagher, the development director of The Israel Project who boasted of how they got a Black Lives Matters event cancelled by getting a donor to put in a call to the venue. This is how the Zionist movement lives up to the anti-Semitic caricature of rich Jews using money in order to purchase influence.
Included is an article by the Jewish former Court of Appeal Judge Sir Stephen Sedley Defining Anti-Semitismin the May 2017 London Review of Books. Geoffrey Robertson QC produced an Opinionon the IHRA which found that it was ‘unfit for purpose’.
In Chapter 7, Eve Mykytun has an article ‘Exposed! How Britain’s Anti-Semitism scaremongers operate.’ It contains a lot of useful information about the CAA. It describes how in 2006 the Chair of the CAA, Gideon Falter, fitted up a civil servant Rowan Laxton who he alleged had said ‘fucking Jews’ when hearing about the Israeli massacres in Gaza. At the magistrates court Laxton was found guilty of using threatening behaviour and he was fined and removed from his Foreign Office position. The Hitler loving Daily Mail played its part in ensuring that the case got national attention but surprisingly failed to publicise Laxton’s successful appeal to the Crown Court where he was found not guilty. Not for the first time Faltier had lied. Eight years later Falter formed the CAA, which has developed lying into a fine art. Unfortunately Mykytun herself generalises about Jews:
In contrast to the downtrodden, Jews, as a group have been extraordinarily successful at utilising the media and the courts and obtaining the power to ‘hold the feet of the government to the fire.’
Jews do not act as a group unlike Zionists. Unfortunately Mykytun spoils her argument with a failure to distinguish between Jews and Zionists. It is no surprise that this article was sourced from Redress.
Nonetheless the article is a very serious analysis of the fraudulent use of statistics by the CAA in order to generate headlines in a gullible press. Their 2016 annual audit of anti-Semitism reports a 14.9% increase in crimes ‘targeting Jews’ yet violent anti-Semitic crimes fell by 44.7%.  The CAA admits it can’t find an explanation for this anomaly although the obvious one is that the 14.9% increase is bogus.
Mykytun proves that the CAA is utterly dishonest in the way that it uses statistics. Because many police forces don’t keep records the CAA ask them to conduct a keyword search for the word ‘Jew’ despite being warned that not all such occurrences are in relation to anti-Semitic incidents. Northumbria Police described CAA’s attempts at finding the level of anti-Semitic incidents as a ‘fishing expedition’.
The CAA’s primary concern is in producing headlines that can frighten Jews into believing there is an upsurge in anti-Semitism. In 2017 they concluded that:
·       One third of British Jews were considering emigrating
·       80% of Jews saw anti-Semitism disguised as comments about Israel
·       80% saw Labour as anti-Semitic
·       50% of Jews didn’t trust the Crown Prosecution Service
These conclusions were obtained on the basis of a self-selecting survey on the Internet.  Anyone could fill it in, there was no control mechanism or sampling.
The absurdity of the CAA’s figures were demonstrated by the results in Derbyshire where there was a 1050% increase in non-criminal anti-Semitic incidents (from 2 to 34). In Hertfordshire there was a 400% increase in anti-Semitic crime and a surge of 800% in non-criminal anti-Semitic incidents. In West Yorkshire the CAA were informed that the increase was due to administrative changes in the recording process. This didn’t stop the CAA from including the figures!
In Wiltshire there was a 13,900% increase in anti-Semitic incidents. This was too much, even for the CAA, and they disregarded Wiltshire’s 540 Jews altogether but on what methodological basis did they discard these figures and not others other than the fact that the figures were an obvious nonsense?  The CAA doesn’t say.
Jeremy Bedford-Turner, sentenced to 1 years imprisonment for incitement to racial hatred - believed all Jews should be deported from Britain
Mykytun covers two cases where the CAA forced the CPS to prosecute. One was a Jeremy Bedford Turner who was convicted of incitement to racial hatred and sentenced to a year imprisonment. He expressed the view that Jews should be deported.  I can’t say I feel too much sympathy with him!
The other case, Alison Chabloz, is more disturbing. Ms Chabloz is a holocaust denier. She has produced an extraordinarily offensive video ‘Survivors’mocking the victims of the Hungarian Holocaust. However Holocaust denial is not illegal in Britain.  Nor should it be. It is illegal in Germany and Austria, both of which have neo-Nazis in their Parliament. Indeed in Austria the Freedom Party of Heinz

Christian Strache is part of the governing coalition. Making Holocaust denial does not seem to have had much effect.

Alison Chabloz, who is clearly mentally unwell, sentenced to a suspended sentence for holocaust denial - a dubious conviction
A distinction should be made between incitement, as per Bedford-Turner and holding an opinion, however offensive. In my view Chabloz should not have been convicted. I also take the view of Raul Hilberg the most distinguished of all Holocaust historians that even holocaust deniers make us question our knowledge of the Holocaust.
Gilad Atzmon also makes an appearance in Mykytun’s article. I have crossed swords with Atzmon on many occasions. Atzmon argues that if Israel calls itself a Jewish State then one must look at what Jewishness means.  In other words he explains Israel by looking at the Jews rather than seeing Israel as a colonial settler state.
Atzmon is also careless. In response to the Jeremy Bedford-Turner prosecution Atzmon accused Falter of making his living ‘manufacturing anti-Semitic incidents.’ There is no doubt that Falter manufactures anti-Semitism. The CAA is devoted to nothing else but Atzmon went one step further and accused Falter of making a living out of it.  I am quite prepared to believe he is an altruistic liar!
Mykytun too employs a scattergun to deal with threats to free speech.  Her analytical abilities leave a lot to be desired politically but she makes a valid point when she questions whether ‘the CAA intensifies anti-Semitism by urging Jews to find anti-Semitism everywhere.’ One suspects the CAA would be exceedingly disappointed if they could not find anti-Semitism but given their inventiveness that scenario is unlikely to occur.
Chapter 8 consists of the transcripts of the Al Jazeera programme, The Lobby which exposed Israeli agent Shai Masot and his attempts to take down British politicians. It was a classic series with Joan Ryan MP, Chair of the Labour Friends of Israel shown manufacturing a false anti-Semitism incident against Labour delegate Jean Fitzpatrick.
One of the book’s highlights is Chapter 9 where the Editor of Canary, Kerry Ann-Mendoza, interviewsStephen Oryszczuk, Foreign Editor of Jewish News. On 25th July three Zionist papers, including his own, all carried the same front page describing Jeremy Corbyn as an ‘existentialist threat’ to British Jews. This kind of borderline paranoia is a sad commentary on what passes for the Jewish press in England.  Stephen disagreed. He described phrases like ‘Corbynite contempt for Jews’ as ‘vicious’ and ‘repulsive.’ ‘The rhetoric doesn’t match the reality.’ Clearly it is a case of a good man fallen amongst rogues. Not surprisingly Stephen took leave soon afterwards. Zionism doesn’t do dissent. Today the Zionist movement has united around the IHRA misdefinition of anti-Semitism whereas Oryszczuk is of the opinion, as is most legal and academic opinion that ‘the core definition itself is appalling. To call it woolly and vague is an understatement.’ There are no prizes for the boy who declares that the Emperor isn’t wearing any clothes. I suspect Oryszczuk will be looking for a new career!
Chapter 10 consists of the Report of the Committee for Privileges and Conduct of the House of Lords. A complaint had been made against Baroness Jenny Tonge when she chaired a meeting of the Palestine Return Centre as part of the Balfour Apology Campaign. At the meeting a Rabbi had ascribed the Holocaust to the behaviour of an American Zionist Reform Rabbi Stephen Wise whose support for a Boycott of Nazi Germany had driven Hitler mad. 
It was junk history but it is a fact that many Orthodox Rabbis hold God is responsible for everything, Holocaust included. The idea that the sins of the Jews brought forth the Holocaust is common.  The late Ovadia Yosef, Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel. argued just this. If what was said at the meeting was anti-Semitic then half the world’s Orthodox Rabbis are anti-Semitic.
Suffice to say nearly all the bogus Zionist complaints against Jenny were rejected the allegations despite articles such as The Times‘Jews blamed for Holocaust at ‘shameful House of Lords event.’
6 Lords, Zionists all –Lords Beecham, Deech and Stunell – complained that the meeting was ‘host to appalling anti-Semitic comments and Holocaust denial by audience members.’ They were all send the transcript of the actual meeting and asked to substantiate their allegations. They couldn’t.  All they could complain of was that Jenny Tonge hadn’t shut the Rabbi up!!
Lucy Scott-Moncrieff, the Commissioner for Standards rejected the allegations of Holocaust revisionism made against Jenny. Karl Sabbagh sums up the current state of affairs as this:
‘Zionists and supporters of Israel have reached a stage where not only critical comments about Jews are anti-Semitic, not only criticisms of Israel are anti-Semitic but even discussion of anti-Semitism is anti-Semitic.’
Appendix 1 consists of a number of statements by prominent Zionists which, if used about Jews, would be anti-Semitic.  For example the statementby Rabbi Yaacov Perrin of 27.2.1994 in the NYR that ‘One million Palestinians are not worth a Jewish fingernail’ (there is a misprint which says ‘Arab fingernail’. It is reminiscent of Rabbi Dov Lior, who proclaimedthat‘A thousand non-Jewish lives are not worth a Jew’s fingernail.’
Appendix 3 consists of an extract Labour, Anti-Semitism and the News from the Media Reform Coalition Report.
There is an amazing amount of information packed into this book.  It is an extremely handy reference to the false anti-Semitism campaign and all activists should possess one.
You can also purchase this book for £10 (p&p) which is £2 less than the recommended price. Not only that but £2 of that goes to Labour Against the Witchhunt. Send the money to my PayPal account at tonygreenstein111@gmail.com



The Dissection of a Lie - Harper’s Tale of Deceit and Deception

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The Journey to Golgotha as Tanya Gold Walks ‘Among Britain’s Anti-Semites’

It was an off the cuff remark from Jackie Walker, the Black-Jewish activist who was suspended from the Labour Party for ‘anti-Semitism,’ that first alerted me to Tanya Gold. Gold was working on a story on Britain’s Jewish Anti-Zionists for Harper’s Magazine and she wanted to interview me.
I was vaguely aware of Harper’s. It has a radical tradition. It published Seymour Hersh’s exposure of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. It lambastedthe American invasion of Iraq. It has also publishedsome relatively insightful articles on Palestine and Israel, especially from Bernard Avishai. Perhaps it was this reputation, more than anything else, which caught me off my guard.
On reflection, especially when it comes to Israel and Zionism, I should have been more wary and remembered that most journalists have the same relationship to the truth that Myra Hindley had to child protection. I count myself fortunate in that I got off lightly at Tanya’s hands. She didn’t quote anything I said!  

Gold is a freelance journalist who writes for mostly right-wing media including The Guardian, Mail, Independent, Telegraph, Sunday Times, and Spectator where she is a restaurant critic.
Gold’s descriptionof Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice’s ‘vanity, foolishness and lack of self-awareness’ is a remarkably apt description of her own self. Having interviewed me over the phone, Gold wanted to speak to me in more depth. We agreed to meet at the Golden Dragon restaurant in Soho last April. Since Harper’s was picking up the tab I had no objection (although it wasn't kosher)!
The reason why I have titled this article ‘deceit and deception’ is that for the two hours or so that we talked, Gold gave no indication that she was a died-in-the-wool Zionist with a fixed and determined hostility to anti-Zionists whom she terms ‘anti-Semites’. She came across as someone who was relatively progressive and even open-minded.   Why the subterfuge? Why the dishonesty? Was she afraid of a direct confrontation with her real views? Did she not have confidence in her own beliefs?  Probably not.
Tanya Gold - Deceit and deception are the tools of her trade
Tanya was very good at hiding her views.  She reminds me of the police from the Special Demonstration Squad who infiltrated the environmental activists’ movement and who entered into what were effectively relationships of rape with female activists. When you open yourself up to someone else about things personal to how you developed politically, you expect that person to be open and honest. The problem with Zionists is that, with very few exceptions, they have no morality since everything is subordinated to their nationalist zealotry.  And that applies as much to the 'left' which is what Tanya Gold probably sees herself as, as the Right.
When I finished reading Among Britain’s Anti-Semites I sent Gold an email to which she didn’t respond. What shocked me even more than the deception was her sheer banality. I wrote:
What is remarkable for an article so long in gestation is its sheer superficiality and lack of insightful comment. What is sad is how bland and mundane it is. It is as if you lack even one original thought or idea.’

I copied my email to Jackie Walker who responded: ‘Well done Tony - her deception was deep as was Harper’s.’ Since nothing I said to her during the interview was used I have to assume that she didn’t feel capable of distorting anything I said to ‘prove’ that I too am an ‘anti-Semite’.
The article Among Britain’s Anti-Semites’was a studied exercise in deception and dishonesty. It begins with the photograph of a demonstrator at the Zionist Enough is Enough demonstration on March 26th holding up a poster ‘For the many not the Jew.’ This choice of a graphic is instructive.
This ‘joke’ first coined by Howard Jacobson in an articlefor the New York Times could have been culled from Goebbels. It essentialises ‘the Jew’ as something apart and special. It is a form of exceptionalism.  The Jew does not belong, which in Zionist eyes is true. 

It distorts a slogan which emphasises that the Labour Party stands for the poor and oppressed as opposed to the wealthy minority into an anti-semitic meme. By positing Jews as being counterposed to the poor and needy it is
inherently anti-Semitic. Jews, all of them, are conflated with the tax dodging rich. It has a long pedigree. The North American Congress of Latin America describedhow ‘the U.S. press tends to portray left-leaning Latin American governments as hotbeds of anti-Semitism.’ Discrimination against the rich is held to be discrimination against the Jews.  And then they accuse us of antisemitism!
The Zionists have repeatedly attacked Black Lives Matter because to them Black and Palestinian lives don't and never have mattered
It implies a Jewish exceptionalism that places Jews on a pedestal of their own. It is a reflection of the Nazi idea of the 'Eternal Jew', (Der Ewige Jude) an example of how Zionism mirrors its antisemitic twin.
Jacobson wrote that Zionism ‘is integral to the Jewish mind and imagination. Those who say they are against Zionism but not Jews are speaking in riddles.’ The only riddle is why people take Jacobson seriously when he has so little to say. If Jacobson weren't such a lightweight intellectually and a proud ignoramus he would know that until the Holocaust Zionism was a tiny minority amongst diaspora Jewry.  Zionism was seen as a form of Jewish anti-semitism. The ability to read history backwards through today’s media prism is a common failing.
The Article
Tanya Gold’s opening sentence begins with a lie, ‘this is the story of how the institutions of British Jewry went to war with Jeremy Corbyn.’ Not so. Those who went to war with Corbyn were Zionist organisations representing at best one-third of British Jewry. The Board of Deputies neither represents secular Jews nor the Haredi and Ultra-Orthodox.
One of the features of pundits and political commentators in Britain is how they feed off and reinforce each other’s talking points. It is one reason why they convinced each other that Corbyn was going to be humiliatingly defeated at the General Election, whereas someone like me, because I managed to ignore their  bilious verbiage, got the result about right. An example of this is when Gold mentions Corbyn calling Hezbollah and Hamas speakers ‘friends’ as if that has anything to do with anti-Semitism.
Corbyn’s crime according to Gold was that he ‘invited the Islamist leader Raed Salah, who has accused Jews of killing Christian children to drink their blood, to Parliament.’ If true, then Corbyn’s behaviour would be appalling. However Gold is content to repeat as fact the lies of others. If she had investigated the circumstances surrounding Raed Salah then, she could not have written this nonsense. I covered this in depth three years ago in Stephen Pollard Jewish Chronicle Editor & Apologist for Europe's anti-Semitic politicians. This lie is illustrative of Gold’s method. Unfortunately it always takes longer to refute a lie than to tell it.
In June 2011 Raed Salah was banned from entering Britain. However as no one was notified of this, he entered the country for a speaking tour before being arrested. Theresa May sought to deport him on the grounds that he had made a series of antisemitic statements and that his presence in Britain was not conducive to the public good. 

When it came to court the case was judged ‘very weak’ by Justice Ockleton, Vice-President of the Upper Immigration Tribunal. Theresa May was ‘misled’ as to a poem by Salah and this deception was perpetrated by the Communist Security Trust, a Zionist charity which combines two roles – defending Jewish premises from attack and attacking Jewish opponents of Zionism.
David Hearst'sarticle [Theresa May's haste to ban Raed Salah will be repented at leisure] quotesProfessor David Miller of Strathclyde University who submitted a report to the court referring to the CST’s “controversial monitoring of pro-Palestinian activists” suggestingthat it has a “tendency to treat denunciation of Israel or Zionism as evidence of anti-Semitism.” 
Robert Lambert, a retired head of the Metropolitan police 's Muslim Contact Unit noted that the CST:  
"failed to distinguish between antisemitism and criticism of the actions of the Israeli state and therefore gives an unbalanced perspective." [Palestinian activist wins appeal against deportation]
Justice Ockelton concluded that the original text of a poem by Salah was “completely different” from how it appeared in a government order banning him from UK territory. [Raed Salah deportation case disintegrates in UK court, but verdict still to follow] According to Ockelton, the decision by Theresa May to ban Salah had been based on the “Jerusalem Post’s inaccurate summary” of the poem, Civil Liberties. The JP had addedthe words “you Jews” to the poem, making it appear anti-Semitic. The original text of the poem later emerged. Rosenorn-Lanng, a Home Office caseworker admitted that the UK Border Agency had not sought the original text of the poem, relying instead on Internet sources.
Salah was clear that the poem was addressed to all perpetrators of injustice, regardless of religion, race or group. He pointed out that his poem also addressed Arab oppressors. Salah had said that “God is not a racist,” This was confirmed by Dr. Stefan Sperl an expert in Arabic poetry from the School of Oriental and African Studies who described it as being addressed to all “perpetrators of injustice,” whether Jewish or not.  
Aside from the poem, the other main accusation was a speech Salah gave in Jerusalem in 2007, in which he had talked about Israeli soldiers shedding the blood of Palestinians. The citation had reportedly included the line: “Whoever wants a more thorough explanation, let him ask what used to happen to some children in Europe, whose blood was mixed in with the dough of the holy bread.”
Hostile press coverage in Israel inserted the word “Jewish” in square brackets before the words “holy bread” (“Islamic Movement head charged with incitement to racism, violence,Haaretz, 29 January 2008).
Contrary to Gold’s lie Raed Salah did not accuse Jews of killing Christian children to drink their blood nor was he convicted of making blood libel allegations against Jews. He was convicted of racist incitement by a government that has just made Israel an officially Apartheid state. Even according to the Jerusalem Post, Raed Salah’s ‘conviction was a reversal of an acquittal on those charges by the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court in 2013 when that court convicted him of incitement to violence, but acquitted him of racist incitement.’ In other words the evidence was not strong enough to convict him before the lower court.  He was found guilty on appeal in a nakedly political decision by the Jerusalem District Court. Clearly the evidence was not unambiguous.  Islamic Movement leader Salah convicted of racist incitement on appeal.
When the Home Office’s Neil Sheldon QC accused Salah of invoking the blood libel, Salah denied it explaining that his purpose had been to liken the Israeli occupation forces to the Inquisition which used to shed the blood of children, and which also used religion to perpetuate injustice.  UK government conflates criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism in Salah trial
Tanya Gold’s article took some 6 months to write.  Long enough for her to research assertions such as that about Raed Salah. She could have referred to the suspicion that the Israeli military tried to assassinate him on the Mavi Marmara and murdered someone else in his place or that he led the resistance to the encroachment of Zionism’s messianic fanatics on the Golden Dome and Al Aqsa mosques in Jerusalem. Instead she preferred to mouth Israeli government propaganda and dress this up as a well researched article. The real question is why Harper’s commissioned this hatchet job.
A good example of Gold’s mendaciousness is her observation that Corbyn is a patron of Palestine Solidarity Campaign at whose rallies the chant ‘From the River to the Sea Palestine will be free’ is heard. She complains that ‘there is no rhyme for what will happen to the Jewish population in this paradise.’. Does there need to be? Is there a rhyme for Arabs in Safed who try to rent housing but find it impossible because the Chief Rabbi, a paid state official, issued an edict forbidding Jews from renting to Arabs?

Isn’t a unitary democratic non-racial state, the same as South Africa is today, obvious? Does it need a rhyme? Gold's argument is similar to that of what were called the 'bitter enders' in South Africa.
What is depressing is that Gold never rises above the trite. She is a walking Israeli government press release. She criticises the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign because it ‘delegitimises’ Israel and even worse would ‘end its existence as a Jewish state.’ as if that were a self-evident evil.
Boycotts have long been the weapon of the oppressed and dispossessed. Examples include the bus boycott in Montgomery Alabama, the boycott of slave grown sugar in the West Indies, the boycott of Irish landowners and Captain Boycott, the Jewish Boycott of Nazi Germany and the Boycott of South African Apartheid. All of these boycotts were accused of ‘delegitimising’ the oppressor. Of course the Zionist movement was consistent in that it opposed the Boycott of Nazi Germany, so much so that they entered into Ha'avara, the Transfer Agreement in August 1933.
Not once does Gold ask herself what a Jewish State actually means? In Israel being Jewish is a national/racial category. Hence when the wedding of TV announcer Lucy Aharish and Tsahi Halevy was announced Zionist politicians vented their spleen. The leader of the ‘centrist’ Yesh Atid, Yair Lapid announced“I have a problem with mixed marriage: “We haven’t recovered from the Holocaust yet.” Oren Hazan MK, blamedAharish for the crime of “seducing a Jewish soul with the goal of harming our country.”
But it’s not just the Israeli Right. Isaac Herzog, former leader of the Israeli Labour Party and now Chair of the Jewish Agency declared that mixed-marriages were a ‘plague’. Herzog toldhow We are talking about every (Jewish) family in the US, millions,"  Herzog is not a religious Jew yet he had no doubt that ‘we have to rack our brains and see how we solve this great challenge."
The Orthodox objection to intermarriage was a form of religious chauvinism. But when the State pursues such a policy because it wants to preserve the purity of the ruling group, Jews, that is racist. 
Three years ago Israel’s Education Ministry banned a book, Borderlife, from the high school English syllabus because it depicted a relationship between a Jewish woman and a Palestinian. Senior Education officials explained that
intimate relations between Jews and non Jews, and certainly the option of formalising them through marriage and having a family... is perceived by large segments of society as a threat to a separate identity
Only in a state based on the principle of racial purity can the idea that people who marry for love be condemned as a threat to national identity. But to Gold, any challenge to such a state is inherently anti-Semitic.
Gold was obsessed and puzzled by Jackie Walker, who has twice been suspended by the Labour Party for ‘anti-Semitism’. When Jackie exclaimed that it would be ‘wonderful if Holocaust Day was open to all people who experienced Holocaust.’ Gold’s response was ‘I paused on the word ‘wonderful.’ She gives no further explanation but of one thing she was sure: ‘I had never seen it (anti-Semitism) until Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader of the Labour Party.’
For 42 years she had never experienced anti-Semitism but ‘now I hear it every day.’ One wonders what it is that Tanya Gold hears that is so frightening. Is it the sound of her own conscience?
Gold is particularly troubled by Jackie Walker’s statement that ‘Anti-Semitism is no more special than any other form of racism.’. When a Black woman mentioned ‘police genocide’ Gold’s response is to ask ‘why should that minimise anti-Semitism? Does that mean the Labour Party does not have a problem with anti-Semitism.’ It is as if Gold is oblivious to Britain and America’s actual day to day racism against Black people. For her only ‘anti-Semitism’ has any meaning. What she deems to be antisemitism is, in reality, any threat to her own privilege.
One wants to cry out, where are the Jewish deaths in Police custody or the Jewish Windrush deportations? Where is the Police stop and search of Jewish children and the racial violence against Jews? As Jabotinsky once said, it is a question of appetite vs hunger. Even genuine, as opposed to the mostly fake anti-Semitism, is only a marginal form of racism compared to the state racism that Black, Muslim and Roma experience. Gold has difficulty coping with the fact that Jews in Britain today are a privileged White minority.

I wonder what Gold's response to the murder of 11 Jews in Pittsburgh was? Perhaps she too thought that American Jews should 'go home' to Israel and do the bidding of American anti-Semites?  That was the advice of the leader of Israel's Labor Party, Avi Gabbay.
Bizarrely Gold considers a call for Ken Livingstone, the former Mayor of London and a man who pioneered anti-racist programmes in local government, to be reinstated in the Labour Party as a call for Nazis to be called Zionists and Zionists Nazis. Without pausing for breath she quips ‘I do not know why calling Jews Nazis is so irresistible.’ 

The habits of writing for the Daily Mail die hard. What Livingstone referred to in his commentsto Vanessa Feltz was the well-known support of the Nazi government for the German Zionist movement in preference to non-Zionist Jews. As the late David Cesarani noted in his book The Final Solution (p.96), quoting the Gestapo, ‘The efforts of the Gestapo are oriented to promoting Zionism as much as possible and lending support to its efforts to further emigration.’ What this has to do with calling Jews Nazis is unclear.
State Racism that Jews simply don't experience
Gold was equally dismissive of the Report of Shami Chakrabarti into Racism and Anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. Because Chakrabarti had had nothing to say about whether ‘calls for an end to the Jewish state, however oblique, were anti-Semitic’ her Report was ‘essentially worthless.’ So Chakrabarti’s call for the adoption of due process and natural justice in Labour’s disciplinary processes, her analysis of the MacPherson Report’s description of a racial incident and the experience of Muslims in the Labour Party were all worthless because Chakrabarti hadn’t defended the existence of a Jewish state. 

What is depressing is that not once does Gold actually tell us what she means by a ‘Jewish state’. Probably it hasn't even occurred to Gold to ask whether or not it is a state with some sense of Jewish values. Things like Leviticus 19:34 where it is written:
You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.
Perhaps Gold could tell us how this compares with the determination of Likud and Israeli Labour to forcibly deport 40,000 Black African refugees for the double sin of being Black and not Jewish? Or is a Jewish state a state where Jews are privileged over non-Jews as in present day Israel? Is it a state where the 20% non-Jewish minority are confined to 3% of the land and scapegoatedfor natural disasters such as wildfires? Gold doesn’t tell us. In fact Gold tells us very little about what her devotion to Israel actually means.
Tanya Gold is nothing if not a junkie for every trite and shopworn phrase. It is the sheer lack of originality or evidence of any deep thought which is the most frustrating thing about her article.  It is as if Gold had assembled every last cliché as she set out to repel her imagined critics. ‘Anti-Semitism’ she tells us ‘is the only racism that must not be defined by those who experience it.’ Racism isn’t ‘defined’ but described by its victims. Definitions are best left to experts in linguistics. Almost in the same breath she attacks Jewish Voice for Labourfor their denial that they are anti-Zionist asking ‘I wonder if this is tactical’ Clearly some self-definitions are preferable to others!
Tanya Gold is dishonest. Not all Jewish self-definitions are to be treated equally because Jewish anti-Zionism is ‘demonic’. One wonders whether Gold would have treated claims of racism by Afrikaners and Ulster Protestants with equal seriousness?
Unlike fake 'antisemitism' Black people face genuine and murderous racism as with Eric Garner, choked to death in New York by the Police
If there is one thing worse than someone who doesn’t listen to their opponents is someone who forgets what they have written. The idea that racism is entirely subjective and dependent upon who shouts the loudest is absurd. Victims of racism do not speak with one voice nor do they share the same experiences. The experience of Chuka Ummuna is not that of a Black teenager at the hands of the Brixton Police. Racism is objective. Its proof lies in Fergussonand the death of Michael Brown or the cry ‘I can’t breathe’of Eric Garner.
Claiming to be a victim of racism doesn’t make you one. When Abe Foxman declares that anti-Semitism equals anti-Zionism we are entitled to interrogate that assertion and ask if that extends to Khan al Ahmar. Is the demolition of Palestinian homes and villages what Jewish self-determination means? If the alt-Right declares that it is the White man who is oppressed should we take that too at face value? Should every assertion of victimhood be accepted?
Gold is particularly exercised by the presence of Ken Loach at the launch of JVL. She reminds us that in 1987 he directed Jim Allen’s play Perdition which was based on Israel’s trial of Rudolf Kasztner, leader of Hungarian Zionism in the war. The play was she informs us ‘a monstrous libel’ for criticising Kasztner’s ‘bargain with the Nazis that saved 1,684 Jews in 1944.’ Gold doesn’t tell us why Eichmann agreed to such a bargain.
Perhaps Dr Rudolph Vrba, who together with Alfred Wexler, escaped from Auschwitz on April 10 1944 in order to warn of the preparations being made to exterminate Hungarian Jewry was also guilty of a monstrous libel when he wrote in the Daily Herald of February 1961:
“I accuse certain Jewish leaders of one of the most ghastly deeds of the war. This small group of quislings knew what was happening to their brethren in Hitler's gas chambers and bought their own lives with the price of silence. Among them was Dr Kasztner.”
When Kasztner was accused of collaboration with the Nazis by survivors of the Hungarian Holocaust he sued them in an Israeli court in 1954. Judge Benjamin Halevi found that the charges of collaboration were proven and that Kasztner had ‘sold his soul to the devil’.
Gold tells us that when researching her article she was told that Zionists had opposed the Kindertransport, which saved 10,000 Jewish children in England. She concludes that ‘a few merely said they would prefer the children to be settled in Palestine.’ It would appear that her research didn’t even extend to reading the speech of David Ben Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister and then Chair of the Jewish Agency, of 9thDecember 1938. It can be found in Shabtai Teveth’s official biography of Ben Gurion (The Burning Ground, p. 855). Most decent libraries stock it but Gold didn't manage to obtain a copy.

If Gold had read the Ben Gurion's biography she would have found the final chapter on the Holocaust, Disaster Means Strength fascinating. Because to the Zionist movement, the disaster of the Holocaust meant a strengthened Zionist movement and a future Jewish state. Ben Gurion wrote at the time, in the wake of Krystallnacht:
‘If I knew that it would be possible to save all the children in Germany by bringing them over to England, and only half of them by transporting them to Eretz Yisrael, then I would opt for the second alternative. For we must weigh not only the life of these children, but also the history of the People of Israel.’
Ben Gurion openly declared that he would sacrifice half of Germany’s Jewish children if they could come to Palestine rather than England. To gloss over this is a form of historical revisionism on the scale of David Irving. The Zionist movement fought against providing a haven for Jewish refugees other than Palestine. The refugee question was used as a battering ram to open the gates of Palestine to Jewish immigration. This undoubtedly led to the death of many thousands of Jews who would otherwise have been saved.
Gold denies the claim of Jackie Walker’s Jewish partner, Graham Bash, that the JVL demonstration on March 9th represented thousands of Jews who were not Zionist. ‘Anti-Zionists are a fringe movement... 93% of British Jews say that Israel forms part of their identity.’ Which is almost word for word the argumentof the Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland. In 2015 Yachad commissioned a survey The Attitudes of British Jews Towards Israel. The percentage of those identifying as Zionists (59%) had dropped 12% since a previous study five years before. 31% said they were not Zionists. Israel forms part of my identity but I'm not a Zionist!
Gold confesses to being fascinated by Jackie and accepts that her play The Lynchingis ‘a shocking story of racism’ and then concludes that ‘the insinuation (is) that the Jews – or a similar evil – destroyed her mother.’ One wonders for the sanity of someone who can draw such a conclusion, literally out of thin air. Perhaps the only true statement in her whole article is when Gold concludes that ‘The door of Walker’s psychology is closed to me, utterly.’ Never a truer word spoken in jest, except this was more a mea culpa.
Whilst accepting that Jackie ‘is terribly abused by some Zionist Jews’ in other words she is the recipient of KKK style racism, she nonetheless ‘wondered whether she is just another narcissistic and intractable Jewish female, like so many I have loved.’ One gets the feeling that Gold is projecting her own inability to empathise onto Jackie whom she accepts is ‘warm and emotional’.
When Jackie complains that ‘anti-Semitism’ is being used to displace concern about anti-Black racism and Islamaphobia, Gold concludes that what Jackie is saying is that there is a limited space for justice and the Jews took it all. One wonders whether Gold is being deliberately obtuse. What Jackie is saying is that ‘anti-Semitism’ is counterposed to other forms of racism and it has become the acceptable anti-racism of the Right. In addition Zionism reinforces racism against Blacks and Muslims.
In perhaps her only poetic moment Gold describes Corbyn at the debate on ‘anti-Semitism’ that the Tories sponsored, as someone through whom ‘the wind seems to blow.’ Perhaps this was because the plaints of Ruth Smeeth and Luciana Berger were hollow.
On the controversy over the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of ‘anti-Semitism’, Gold’s ire was reserved for the fact that Labour had amended some of the IHRA’s examples. She complained that accusing Jews of being more loyal to Israel than their own nations ‘is now “wrong” ‘ rather than anti-Semitic. Perhaps Gold is oblivious to another IHRA example in which ‘Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination’ , e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour.’ is anti-Semitic. Only nations have the right to self-determination and if Jews are a nation and Israel is their nation state then surely it is right to claim Jews are more loyal to Israel than their own nations, not least because they aren’t a member of ‘their own nations’.
Logic however is not Tanya Gold’strongest point! Which is why at the end of her monologue she complains that in 2010 Corbyn hosted a meeting in Parliament entitled ‘The Misuse of the Holocaust for Political Purposes.’ Yes Tanya and what is worse a survivor of Auschwitz, Hajo Meyer spoke at it. No doubt he too was one of the ‘anti-Semites’ that you spent time with.
Tony Greenstein  
This is the email I sent to Tanya Gold on reading her article for the first time (4th October 2018)
Tanya

I sent you a text message a few weeks ago but did not receive a reply concerning your article which you interviewed me for. I wrote then about the rumours I had heard about how abysmal your article was but, as is often the fate of Jews, I lived in hope.  Your failure to respond however confirmed my worst fears. Being disillusioned is also a Jewish condition.

It would have been a small courtesy to send me a copy of your article in advance although, having now read your article online, that omission is perhaps understandable.

I guess I should be grateful that you didn't quote me in it as you would undoubtedly have got everything I told you wrong.  A feat you managed with just about everyone else, especially Jackie Walker.  When we met in that Soho restaurant you did at least manage to hide your inner feelings.  What I told you must have grated with you badly so I guess I should congratulate you on your ability to hide your feelings, which is not something Jews are renowned for.

To say that you comprehensively failed to understand that which you wrote about, namely the 'antisemitism crisis' in the Labour Party would be an understatement. What is remarkable for an article so long in gestation is its sheer superficiality and lack of insightful comment. What is sad is how bland and mundane it is. It is as if you lack even one original thought or idea. To take but one example. You state, apropos the right of the oppressed to define their own oppression

'Yet a definition that rolls over the sensibilities of Jews who are the victims of this racism is somehow OK.'

What is this racism that Jews today are victims of?  Concretely what?  Which Jews?  All Jews? Isn't that anti-semitic? An article which was sold to me as being about the viewpoint of non-Zionist Jews, seems to omit the fact that not all Jews think alike.  Strange that.  Oh and if 93% of Jews say Israel forms part of their identity, as it does with  me, it doesn't mean they are Zionists.

If you had bothered to read up on the 2015 Yachad sponsored Attitudes of British Jews to Israel produced by City University's Sociology Department you would find that 59% of British Jews define themselves as Zionist and 31% don't.  I guess it would have been too much to expect you to do more than quote (unacknowledged) Jonathan Freedland's windy rhetoric.

Instead of trying to understand where this crisis in the Labour Party came from you instead projected your own feelings and frustrations.  You simply turned the commonplace rhetoric of everyday hasbara into a glossy article, fit for the coffee table but little else.

Perhaps it was too much to expect you to do anything else but simply recycle the same hackneyed cliches and phrases, including that racist poster 'for the many not the Jew' (do you really not understand why it is so revolting to suggest that society is compartmentalised into 'the Jew' and all others, that this is a reflection of the Nazi idea of the 'Eternal Jew' - (Der Ewige Jude)?  Yes this is another example of how Zionism unconsciously mirrors its antisemitic twin.

I shall prepare a fuller response to this atrocious hatchet job which you have produced. That you have comprehensively misunderstood the Kasztner Affair is perhaps little comfort given that you have comprehensively misunderstood just about everything else that you touched.  It seems that journalistically you have the midas touch in reverse.

Tony Greenstein

Letters in Reply in the current edition of Harpers




Support the Campaign to Boycott Eurovision 2019

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No 2 Artwashing Apartheid



   
On 30th November 2018, Inminds human rights group carried out a guerilla projection on BBC Broadcasting House, the global headquarters of the BBC, to ask the BBC to boycott next years Eurovision Song Contest which is scheduled to be held in apartheid Israel. The BBC is part of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) which produces the Eurovision Song Contest.
Israel is shamelessly using Eurovision as part of its official 'Brand Israel' strategy, which presents “Israel’s prettier face” to whitewash and distract attention from its war crimes against the Palestinian people. Israel massacred 62 Palestinians in Gaza, including six children just two days after its 2018 Eurovision win. That same evening, Netta Barzilai performed a celebratory concert in Tel Aviv, hosted by the mayor, and said, “We have a reason to be happy.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called Barzilai “the best ambassador of Israel,” underlining his far-right government’s Eurovision art-washing agenda.
Palestinians arts and cultural organisations along with the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate have called on European Broadcasting Union (EBU) members, including the BBC, to boycott Eurovision 2019 if its hosted by Israel. The statement asked the EBU "Would the Eurovision have held the contest in apartheid South Africa?"
Nearly 150 Artists, including Eurovision winners, judges and broadcasters have all supported the Palestinian call to boycott the Eurovision Song Contest 2019 if held in Israel.
Inminds chair Abbas Ali said "Its unacceptable that something as culturally prestigious as the iconic Eurovision Song Contest, which is meant to bring people together through music, is handed over to an apartheid regime to use to whitewash its bloody crimes against the Palestinian people, to drown out the screams of those being slaughtered in Gaza. The BBC as a leading member of the European Broadcasting Union, organising the Eurovision, is directly culpable in this whitewashing. We are here to ask the BBC to serve its licence payers by taking a moral stand against racism, and pull out of next years Eurovision if its held in Israel."
The projection lasted over an hour during which time many passers by and BBC employees came to congratulate us for voicing their own concerns of how inappropriate it would be for the Eurovision to be hosted by Israel, and shameful for the BBC to support it.
#BoycottEurovision2019
#ESC2019

Further Information

BDS Movement - Boycott Eurovision 2019
https://bdsmovement.net/boycott-eurovision-2019
Palestinian artists and broadcast journalists: Boycott Eurovision 2019!
https://bdsmovement.net/news/palestinian-artists-and-broadcast-journalists-boycott-eurovision-2019
Boycott Eurovision Song Contest hosted by Israel - Artists from Europe and beyond support the appeal from Palestinian artists to boycott the contest next year
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/sep/07/boycott-eurovision-song-contest-hosted-by-israel
Quotes from Signatories of Boycott Eurovision 2019 Artists’ Letter
https://bit.ly/2x0Hfmq
Support the Campaign to Boycott Eurovision 2019
WHY?
Inspired by conscientious artists who shunned Sun City in apartheid South Africa in the 1980s, Palestinian artists and cultural organizations have called for nonviolent pressure in the form of boycotts on Israel until it complies with its obligations under international law.
Israel effectively declared itself an apartheid state by adopting the "Jewish Nation-State Law." Palestinian citizens are now constitutionally denied equal rights. Holding Eurovision 2019 in Israel whitewashes apartheid.
Shortly after her win, Barzilai said she looked forward to the world seeing “the Israeli carnival” when Jerusalem hosts the contest next year. People will see “how wonderful we are, what a vibe we have. Best people… the best place in the world.”
Straight out of apartheid South Africa’s propaganda playbook, Israel uses the arts to explicitly deflect growing condemnations of its violations of Palestinian human rights. Israel is using Eurovision to art-wash its egregious crimes against the Palestinian people.
·         BRAND ISRAEL
·         PINKWASHING
·         JERUSALEM
“Brand Israel” is an Israeli government public relations strategy that was initiated in 2005. Brand Israel aims to “improve the country’s image abroad”  by “avoiding any discussion of the conflict with the Palestinians” and representing the country “as relevant and modern rather than only as a place of fighting and religion.”
Israeli Culture and Sports Minister Miri Regev, who in 2012 compared African asylum seekers to cancer and incited mob violence against them, is reportedly seeking government approval of and involvement in the video clips played between songs at next year's contest.

George H.W. Bush - The Death of a War Criminal

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How the Mainstream Media Turn Villains into Saints



It is sickening the way the press eulogise dead war criminals and US Presidents in particular.  I can remember the BBC gushing over Ronald Reagan when he died and making a tribute programme to the man who unleashed the Contras in Nicaragua and supported the death squads in El Salvador. Ronald Reagan was seen as a beacon of hope for democracy even whilst he did his best to impoverish the poorest Americans.  But this is how our opinion makers work.
George Bush was the man who headed the CIA, a criminal organisation which subverted democratically elected governments in Latin America and brought the regimes of Pinochet and Videla to power in Chile, replete with their torture chambers and mass disappearances.  Bush represented all that was most vile in American politics and the fact that the Clintons are gushing all over his memory should teach us that when it comes to US politics there is no essential difference between Republicans and Democrats.

George Bush was the son of Senator Prescott Bush, a businessman and banker who made much of his fortune trading with Nazi Germany even after war was declared.  But as one of America's leading families, almost akin to  royalty, he escaped prosecution for aiding the enemy at a time of war despite financing Fritz Thyssen one of the largest steel and coal barons who organised finance for Hitler.
People won't remember the shooting down of an Iranian civil airliner Flight 655 by the USS Vincennes of the US Navy. 290 people, including 66 children, were murdered. George H W Bush was not the kind quirky, friendly soul that is made out today.  George H.W. Bush in 1988 responded to the mass murder by saying: "I will never apologize for the United States of America. I don't care what the facts are." was his Trumpian response. 
The USS Vincennes
Below is an article by Mehdi Hassan on Bush’s legacy.

Tony Greenstein

December 1 2018, 4:38 p.m.

President George H.W. Bush addresses the nation from the Oval Office on Jan. 16, 1991, after U.S. forces began military action against Iraq, code-named Operation Desert Storm. Photo: Charles Tasnadi/AP
The tributes to former President George H.W. Bush, who died on Friday aged 94, have been pouring in from all sides of the political spectrum. He was a man “of the highest character,” said his eldest son and fellow former president, George W. Bush. “He loved America and served with character, class, and integrity,” tweeted former U.S. Attorney and #Resistance icon Preet Bharara. According to another former president, Barack Obama, Bush’s life was “a testament to the notion that public service is a noble, joyous calling. And he did tremendous good along the journey.” Apple boss Tim Cook said: “We have lost a great American.”

In the age of Donald Trump, it isn’t difficult for hagiographers of the late Bush Sr. to paint a picture of him as a great patriot and pragmatist; a president who governed with “class” and “integrity.” It is true that the former president refused to vote for Trump in 2016, calling him a “blowhard,” and that he eschewed the white nationalist, “alt-right,” conspiratorial politics that has come to define the modern Republican Party. He helped end the Cold War without, as Obama said, “firing a shot.” He spent his life serving his country — from the military to Congress to the United Nations to the CIA to the White House. And, by all accounts, he was also a beloved grandfather and great-grandfather to his 17 grandkids and eight great-grandkids.

Yes I know this was written for his son but it is equally applicable  to the father
Nevertheless, he was a public, not a private, figure — one of only 44 men to have ever served as president of the United States. We cannot, therefore, allow his actual record in office to be beautified in such a brazen way. “When a political leader dies, it is irresponsible in the extreme to demand that only praise be permitted but not criticisms,” as my colleague Glenn Greenwald has argued, because it leads to “false history and a propagandistic whitewashing of bad acts.” The inconvenient truth is that the presidency of George Herbert Walker Bush had far more in common with the recognizably belligerent, corrupt, and right-wing Republican figures who came after him — his son George W. and the current orange-faced incumbent — than much of the political and media classes might have you believe.
Consider:
He ran a racist election campaign. The name of Willie Horton should forever be associated with Bush’s 1988 presidential bid. Horton, who was serving a life sentence for murder in Massachusetts — where Bush’s Democratic opponent, Michael Dukakis, was governor —  had fled a weekend furlough program and raped a Maryland woman. A notorious television ad called “Weekend Passes,released by a political action committee with ties to the Bush campaign, made clear to viewers that Horton was black and his victim was white.
As Bush campaign director Lee Atwater bragged, “By the time we’re finished, they’re going to wonder whether Willie Horton is Dukakis’s running mate.” Bush himself was quick to dismissaccusations of racism as “absolutely ridiculous,” yet it was clear at the time — even to right-wing Republican operatives such as Roger Stone, now a close ally of Trump — that the ad had crossed a line. “You and George Bush will wear that to your grave,” Stone complained to Atwater. “It’s a racist ad. … You’re going to regret it.”
Stone was right about Atwater, who on his deathbed apologizedfor using Horton against Dukakis. But Bush never did.
He made a dishonest case for war. Thirteen years before George W. Bush liedabout weapons of mass destruction to justify his invasion and occupation of Iraq, his father made his own set of false claims to justify the aerial bombardment of that same country. The first Gulf War, as an investigation by journalist Joshua Keating concluded, “was sold on a mountain of war propaganda.”
For a start, Bush told the American public that Iraq had invaded Kuwait without provocation or warning.” What he omitted to mention was that the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, had given an effective green light to Saddam Hussein, telling him in July 1990, a week before his invasion, “[W]e have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait.”
Then there is the fabrication of intelligence. Bush deployed U.S. troops to the Gulf in August 1990 and claimed that he was doing so in order “to assist the Saudi Arabian Government in the defense of its homeland.” As Scott Peterson wrote in the Christian Science Monitor in 2002, “Citing top-secret satellite images, Pentagon officials estimated … that up to 250,000 Iraqi troops and 1,500 tanks stood on the border, threatening the key U.S. oil supplier.”
Yet when reporter Jean Heller of the St. Petersburg Times acquired her own commercial satellite images of the Saudi border, she found no signs of Iraqi forces; only an empty desert. “It was a pretty serious fib,” Heller told Peterson, adding: “That [Iraqi buildup] was the whole justification for Bush sending troops in there, and it just didn’t exist.”

President George H. W. Bush talks with Secretary of State James Baker III and Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney during a meeting of the cabinet in the White House on Jan. 17, 1991 to discuss the Persian Gulf War. Photo: Ron Edmonds/AP

He committed war crimes. Under Bush Sr., the U.S. dropped a whopping 88,500 tons of bombs on Iraq and Iraqi-occupied Kuwait, many of which resulted in horrific civilian casualties. In February 1991, for example, a U.S. airstrike on an air-raid shelter in the Amiriyah neighborhood of Baghdad killed at least 408 Iraqi civilians. According to Human Rights Watch, the Pentagon knew the Amiriyah facility had been used as a civil defense shelter during the Iran-Iraq war and yet had attacked without warning. It was, concluded HRW, “a serious violation of the laws of war.”

U.S. bombs also destroyedessential Iraqi civilian infrastructure — from electricity-generating and water-treatment facilities to food-processing plants and flour mills. This was no accident. As Barton Gellman of the Washington Post reportedin June 1991: “Some targets, especially late in the war, were bombed primarily to create postwar leverage over Iraq, not to influence the course of the conflict itself. Planners now say their intent was to destroy or damage valuable facilities that Baghdad could not repair without foreign assistance. … Because of these goals, damage to civilian structures and interests, invariably described by briefers during the war as ‘collateral’ and unintended, was sometimes neither.”
Got that? The Bush administration deliberately targeted civilian infrastructure for “leverage” over Saddam Hussein. How is this not terrorism? As a Harvard public health team concludedin June 1991, less than four months after the end of the war, the destruction of Iraqi infrastructure had resulted in acute malnutrition and “epidemic” levels of cholera and typhoid.
By January 1992, Beth Osborne Daponte, a demographer with the U.S. Census Bureau, was estimating that Bush’s Gulf War had caused the deaths of 158,000 Iraqis, including 13,000 immediate civilian deaths and 70,000 deaths from the damage done to electricity and sewage treatment plants. Daponte’s numbers contradicted the Bush administration’s, and she was threatened by her superiors with dismissal for releasing “false information. (Sound familiar?)
He refused to cooperate with a special counsel. The Iran-Contra affair, in which the United States traded missiles for Americans hostages in Iran, and used the proceeds of those arms sales to fund Contra rebels in Nicaragua, did much to undermine the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Yet his vice president’s involvement in that controversial affair has garnered far less attention. “The criminal investigation of Bush was regrettably incomplete,”wrote Special Counsel Lawrence Walsh, a former deputy attorney general in the Eisenhower administration, in his final report on the Iran-Contra affair in August 1993.
Why? Because Bush, who was “fully aware of the Iran arms sale,” according to the special counsel, failed to hand over a diary “containing contemporaneous notes relevant to Iran/contra” and refused to be interviewed in the later stages of the investigation. In the final days of his presidency, Bush even issued pardonsto six defendants in the Iran-Contra affair, including former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger — on the eve of Weinberger’s trial for perjury and obstruction of justice. “The Weinberger pardon,” Walsh pointedly noted, “marked the first time a president ever pardoned someone in whose trial he might have been called as a witness, because the president was knowledgeable of factual events underlying the case.” An angry Walsh accused Bush of “misconduct” and helping to complete “the Iran-contra cover-up.”
Sounds like a Trumpian case of obstruction of justice, doesn’t it?

 A U.S. marshal, left, looking for a suspect, shows a mug shot to a man found allegedly using drugs in a crackhouse, according to police, in Washington, D.C., on July 18, 1989. The police raid was part of President George H.W. Bush’s war on drugs. Photo: J. Scott Applewhite/AP
He escalated the racist war on drugs. In September 1989, in a televised address to the nation from the Oval Office, Bush held up a bag of crack cocaine, which he said had been “seized a few days ago in a park across the street from the White House . … It could easily have been heroin or PCP.”

Yet a Washington Post investigation later that month revealed that federal agents had “lured” the drug dealer to Lafayette Park so that they could make an “undercover crack buy in a park better known for its location across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House than for illegal drug activity” (the dealer didn’t know where the White House was and even asked the agents for directions). Bush cynically used this prop — the bag of crack — to call for a $1.5 billion increase in spending on the drug war, declaiming: “We need more prisons, more jails, more courts, more prosecutors.
The result? “Millions of Americans were incarcerated, hundreds of billions of dollars wasted, and hundreds of thousands of human beings allowed to die of AIDS — all in the name of a ‘war on drugs’ that did nothing to reduce drug abuse,” pointed out Ethan Nadelmann, founder of the Drug Policy Alliance, in 2014. Bush, he argued, “put ideology and politics above science and health.” Today, even leading Republicans, such as Chris Christie and Rand Paul, agree that the war on drugs, ramped up by Bush during his four years in the White House, has been a dismal and racist failure.
He groped women. Since the start of the #MeToo movement, in late 2017, at least eight different womenhave come forward with claims that the former president groped them, in most cases while they were posing for photos with him. One of them, Roslyn Corrigan, told Time magazine that Bush had touched her inappropriately in 2003, when she was just 16. “I was a child,” she said. The former president was 79. Bush’s spokesperson offered this defenseof his boss in October 2017: “At age 93, President Bush has been confined to a wheelchair for roughly five years, so his arm falls on the lower waist of people with whom he takes pictures.” Yet, as Time noted, “Bush was standing upright in 2003 when he met Corrigan.”
Facts matter. The 41st president of the United States was not the last Republican moderate or a throwback to an imagined age of conservative decency and civility; he engaged in race baiting, obstruction of justice, and war crimes. He had much more in common with the two Republican presidents who came after him than his current crop of fans would like us to believe.

SHORTS: What does it mean to be Jewish? Comparisons between a Prison called Gaza and the Warsaw Ghetto

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What does it mean to be a Zionist? Supporting the murder of medics in Gaza or banning Arabs from a park in Jewish Afula?

Ethnic Privilege at Affordable Prices - Apartheid Adventures

What Keeps Jews Jewish? 




First off there is an excellent short video showing that the United States’ support for Israel derives, at least in part, because of its own ingrained racist legacy and settler colonialism.  The affinity between Israel and the United States is best evidenced not only by the $38 billion subsidy of Israel over the next decade (itself a fraction of actual US support) but by things like the training of America police forces by their Israeli counterparts. After all if you want to deal with hostile Blacks in the USA where better to train them than in Israel which has so much experience of hostile natives.
Also included is the excellent video from Richard Silverstein’s Tikkun Olam on what being Jewish really means in an America where Zionism is increasingly being challenged within the Jewish community. Israel calls itself a Jewish state but the values it displays owe more to hostile anti-Jewish regimes, Nazi Germany included, than Jewish history or tradition.
Telling Jewish anti-Zionists is not hate speech according to Twitter whereas comparing the siege of Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto is
Nowhere was this more obvious than in the recent murders of 11 Jews at Pittsburgh where far-Right Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennett was sent to ‘reassure’ American Jews. This was a good example of how Zionism is tone deaf. The murderer at Pittsburgh, Robert Bowers gave as his reasons for the murders the fact that the synagogue he attacked, the Tree of Life had supported HIAS (Hebrew Immigration Advisory Service) which supports refugees in America. Bennett has led the campaign in Israel for deporting the 40,000 Black African refugees in Israel and led the fightback against a deal which Netanyahu did with the UN in which half would have stayed in Israel permanently. Israel sent someone whose politics are no different from the murderer of Pittsburgh’s Jews.
Below are a collection of short items illustrating key aspects of Zionism today and its Racist, Apartheid nature
Zionists said that the image of this dead 21 year old medic, gunned down by Israeli snipers was 'antisemitic'
Another Zionist attack on free speech - Zionists Launched Campaign to Remove Billboard “Honoring the First Responders of Gaza”
Nearly 3 weeks into a planned 4-week run, an electronic billboard honoring first responders in the Gaza Strip was pulled on November 13th because the billboard company received threats and abuse calling their staff terrorists, anti-Semites and threatening a boycott. (Yes there are some boycotts Zionists like!).
The Palestine Advocacy Project sponsored the billboard on Interstate 93 near Boston to highlight the desperate situation in the Gaza strip. The billboard included a photo of 21 year old Palestinian medic Razan al-Najjar and read: “Honoring the First Responders of Gaza. Saving Lives. Rescuing Hope.” Razan was murdered earlier this year when tending those who had been injured by Israeli gun fire.
It was estimated to be viewed by over a half million motorists each week and met with positive media coverage.
A Zionist bomb threat derailed the Premiere of Jackie Walker's film 'The Lynching'strangely enough this threat to free speech passed by unremarked in the yellow press
According to Sarah Gold of the Palestine Advocacy Project:
“This campaign is neither engaging us nor our perspective. Instead it is attempting through intimidation to eradicate the avenues of free speech we have endeavored to use; to silence us.”
The billboard is another casualty in an ongoing attack on free speech in the US. Palestine Legal states in their 2017 report
“The Israeli state and its proxy organizations in the U.S. are investing heavily in punitive measures to intimidate and chill the free speech of those who wish to express criticism of Israeli policies.”
The report documents 308 attacks on U.S.-based Palestine-related free speech in 2017 alone.  One complaint accused the billboard of
glorifying those who try to kill and destroy our People and Homeland! Anti Semitism is as old as time itself, Hate of Israel is hate of Jews, completely unacceptable!”
In other words any criticism of Israel is criticism of Jews. Richard Colbath-Hess remarked that the Billboard
does not even mention Israel. Instead it was a celebration of Palestinian heroes. Apparently, there cannot be Palestinian heroes without some advocates of Israel feeling attacked.”
How would the New York Times SUPPORT for the murder of 200 Palestinians have played out 75 years ago when the Nazis laid siege to the Warsaw Ghetto?
This brilliant cartoon transposes what the NYT columnists said about those executed by Israeli sniper fire - they brought it on themselves, even the children - it was a photo op. etc.  the moral blindness of these apologists for murder is thrown into stark relief by the comparison with the Warsaw Ghetto
This is a quite brilliant cartoon depicting how NYT columnists like Thomas Friedman, who justified Israel’s murder of unarmed Palestinian demonstrators in Gaza, would have treated the Nazi murder of the fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto if they had been exercising their talents on behalf of Joseph Goebbels.

This demonstration against the sale of a house to an Arab is not racist - it is merely the assertion of Jewish identity - notice how the Jewish Labour Movement has nothing to say about this but if Jews experienced this in England the air would be thick with 'antisemitism' accusations
The Jewish residents of Afula are good Zionists.  Noone can deny them that. In keeping with the spirit of Zionism they wish to preserve the ‘Jewish character’ of Afula. That was why, in June this year, hundreds of Jewish demonstrators protestedabout the sale of a house in Afula to non-Jews.  You can, of course, understand their concern.  Afula is, or was, a 100% Jewish city like most towns and communities in Israel. After all Israel is a Jewish state
Of course, without a formal declaration of Apartheid this is not possible everywhere and a few places, such as Haifa, are mixed although even there Arabs live in their own areas. That is why the presence of Black Africans is so resented in South Tel Aviv.
The need to preserve Israel’s Jewish Zionist character also explains why Israel is concerned with maintaining its demographic majority, a policy that is common to all Zionist parties. The Israeli Labour Party is as concerned about separating off from Arabs as the right-wing Zionist parties. The following article from Ha’aretz explains why the newly elected Council in Afula has lost no time in barring Arabs from its local park (dressed up as barring only non-residents).
The swearing-in ceremony Thursday in which the Afula City Council vowed to maintain the city’s Jewish character is a nationalist rite with dangerous potential. On Facebook the new mayor, Avi Elkabetz, proudly stated that he had closed the city park the day before to everyone but city residents. Elkabetz is keeping his election promise. After all, he pledged to maintain this northern city’s Jewish character and fight the “conquest of the park.”
This isn’t the first attempt to “maintain the Jewish character” of Afula. A protest once arose in the city after Arab families won the bidding process to have dozens of housing units built. And Afula isn’t alone. A few months ago, Kfar Vradim in the Western Galilee hills tried to halt a bidding process after it emerged that half the winners of the previous tender were Arabs.
Israel has a long history of insularity, exclusion and discrimination – in allocating land and other resources, in distributing the population around the country, and in residential screening committees – not only toward the Arab minority but also toward Mizrahi Jews and other groups.
The ceremony in Afula is another warning sign against dangerous processes underway in the Jewish community under the most right-wing government in the country’s history and a prime minister who, at the ballot box, feeds on incitement against Israel’s Arab citizens.
This swearing-in ceremony is a direct continuation of the nation-state law. This legislation, contrary to what people say on the right, expresses a breakdown of the ideology crafted by the country’s founders. It’s a betrayal of the Declaration of Independence’s values and a renunciation of equality as a fundamental value.
Against the backdrop of the enshrining of Jewish supremacy and Arab inferiority, and the racist incitement that has become typical of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, not only should we not be surprised at shows of nationalist insularity and incitement, we should get used to the terrible idea that these will only spread.
Citizens in a democratic country have the right to live wherever they want. No local authority has the right to prevent any person from living in its jurisdiction, or to close a park to Arabs on the pretext of promoting an “atmosphere of Afulaites.”
Hopefully this racist, inflammatory government will pass away soon. Until then, the only hope to stop the illness’ spread is in the opposition that, against all odds, will spring everywhere Jews and Arabs live side by side in peace, Afula included.
Revisiting Naz Shah
The 'antisemitic' map of Israel inside the USA that Naz Shah tweeted came from a Zionist site, Information Regarding Israel's Security (IRIS) 
One of the mysteries of the affair of Naz Shah MP was where her map showing Israel as part of the United States came from. The Zionists screamed ‘anti-Semitism’ but as Mandy Rice-Davies of Christine Keeler fame once remarked, ‘they would say that wouldn’t they?’.
It has been variously claimed to have originated on Norman Finkelstein’s web site and Mike Sivier has claimedit originated on the anti-Semitic Redresssite.
Just to remind people Naz Shah posted comments at the time of Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza in the summer of 2014 one of which said that since the United States loved Israel so much maybe they could accommodate them.  She even provided a map to demonstrate how the USA could quite easily accommodate Israel.
To most people this was a humorous meme about a warmongering, racist state but to the Zionists it was, yes you’ve guessed it anti-Semitic.  Unfortunately Naz Shah didn’t step up to defend herself and displayed the same mentality as the victims of Stalin’s purges.  She apologised, never a good thing to do when Zionists are on the attack.
I have previously stated that the map appeared on the Jewish Virtual Library site.  In fact it originated on the site of an organisation called Information Regarding Israel's Security (IRIS) although Redress clearly redrew it and passed it off as its own idea.
Israel’s Warrior Foetus– Israel gets them young
The sickness of Israel's militaristic society is captured in this graphic
An article in Newsweek in May told of how an ‘ad for the Lis Maternity Hospital in Tel Aviv featuring a foetus wearing a beret with the caption underneath reading “received the President's Award for Excellence, 2038.” The award is a high military honour handed out on the eve of Israel's Independence Day. 
The article quoted Israeli journalist Mairav Zonszein who wrote on the Tel Aviv-based website +972 Magazine
“Portraying an unborn child as a soldier is disturbing in its own right, regardless of country.
"In Israel, an occupying power whose military has for over five decades been primarily concerned with maintaining control over a civilian population, this ad is even more charged and offensive," she said.
“The notion that a good hospital will produce good soldiers is pathological. That a top hospital believes the best way to get women to choose their maternity ward is by convincing them their baby is destined to be a successful soldier in the Israel Defense Forces is also a genuine indication of just how militaristic Israeli society is,” Zonszein added.
I seem to remember that child soldiers have gone out of fashion.  Except it would seem in Israel where they start even before the baby has left the womb.  No doubt another accomplishment of Israeli technology.
Brighton’s Christian Zionists
James Dyer - one of the madder Christian fundamentalists and a noted bigot, part of Sussex Friends of Israel attempts to disrupt Palestine solidarity stall
Brighton's Zionist Christians - Daniel (in glasses), Dyer and Gill Young, a fruitcake in any language
And here are the mugshots of 3 of Brighton’s Christian Zionists.  They are part of the EDL supporting Sussex Friends of Israel. As good fundamentalist Christians they are devoted to the Book of Revelationsand the idea that the Jews will all ‘return’ to Israel whence the majority of them will perish on the plains of Armagedon and the uber-racist amongst them will Rapture themselves up to heaven alongside the Chosen.
Socialists Against Lizards– Lansman Concentrates on the Eccentric David Icke rather than Tommy Robinson who is a fascist menace
Momentum and Lansman's idiotic video which can only boost Icke
David Icke is a right-wing crackpot not a fascist menace - yet Lansman's Momentum treats him as an equal threat to Black, Jewish and Asian people
First it was the actress Tanya Shew’s videofor Momentum which was panned by everyone.  The Zionists didn’t like it because she said she supported BDS and Palestinian free speech should not be inhibited by false accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’.  We didn’t like it because it concentrated on something that wasn’t a problem in the first place and raised the old bogey about why Jews should dissociate themselves from Israel when Israel claims them as its own.
Lansman's tie up with Progress, the JLM and AWL - the fight against fake antisemitism is on
Now Lansman has got into bed with Progress and the AWL and various hangers on from the Right to form Socialists Against Anti-Semitism. The only problem is that it doesn’t include any socialists and is a pale pink version of the Tory run Labour Against Antisemitism which includes such luminaries as Jonathan Hoffman, a friend of Paul Besser, former Intelligence Officer of Britain First.
Anti-Semitism is a marginal prejudice in today’s Britain. Jews are privileged not economically discriminated against. Jews aren’t the victims of Windrush or subject to stop and search and they aren’t under represented in Parliament or the Establishment. If Anti-Semitism was a problem does anyone seriously think that the Mail and Sun – which employed Katie ‘refugees are cockroaches’ Hopkins would have been so concerned about it?  When people are accused of ‘Anti-Semitism’ today it is akin to accusing them of Communism 60 years ago.  The fight against ‘anti-Semitism’ is the new McCarthyism which is why the right-wing of Labour, which didn’t concern itself with May’s hostile environment policy, is so concerned about anti-Semitism.
Tania Shew's self indulgent video was universally panned - someone should tell Lansman that it's not Jews but Black people who are the subject of the Windrush Scandal - its Mosques not Synagogues which are being attacked
Lansman seems to have taken leave of his senses. His new video on David Icke, who is certifiably mad, with his lizard obsession, is complete madness.  Certainly Icke is anti-Semitic however he doesn’t pose a threat to anyone.  It is Tommy Robinson and his thousands of supporters in the Football Lads Alliance who are the real threat. Lansman’s demonstration, with his Zionist Labour Movement friends outside Icke’s meeting is a complete diversion from the demonstration against Tommy Robinson called for this Sunday. 
It would seem that the Jon Lansman, believes that Jews are equal victims of racism to Muslims and Black people today. That is a simple lie.
Luke Akehurst and his Zionist Shitlords
'Shitlord' is not a word I'd come across.  Apparently it is a meme for bigot or racist.  I prefer to think of Akehurst and friends as Zionist Shits
Tony Greenstein

Buses, Universities, Airplanes, the Military – Gender Segregation is becoming the norm in Israel

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Zionism and Racial Segregation is Leading Inexorably to Gender Segregation


If you listen to the hasbaristas and Israel's pale propagandists or in the case of the Labour Party, its imperial apologists Emily Thornberry and Angela Rayner, then Israel is a wonderful, western-style democracy. An oasis of liberation and equality in a region full of tyrants.
As we know from their pinkwashing, Israel is the epicentre of gay liberation and Zionist are happy to proclaim their tolerance of gay rights (even though gay marriage will never be allowed in Israel).
Women’s equality is taken as being synonymous with the Jewish state. Israel was one of the first countries to have a woman Prime Minister, Golda Meir, of whom its first Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion once said: “The only thing Golda knows how to do is to hate!”
In Israel the responsibility for personal matters – birth, marriages, divorce and death – were handed over at the beginning of the State to the Orthodox Rabbis. It was necessary to allow the Rabbis to define who is a Jew because if a Jew was defined on a secular basis, that is on the basis of self-identification as is the case with most religions, then Israel would not have been seen as Jewish by the majority of rabbis throughout the world. In short there would have been a division in the House of Israel. Israel would not have been seen as being legitimate in the eyes of those who are the definers of who is Jewish.
The definition of who was a Jew effectively mirrored that of the Nazis’ Nuremburg Laws. The 1950 Law of Return allowed anyone who was Jewish to ‘return’ to Israel whilst at the same time Palestinians who were born there had no rights whatsoever. In short the definition of a Jew for religious purposes was racial, based on the mother being Jewish.  Just as the Nazis racial definition of Jews rested ultimately on religious practice!
Although Orthodox Jewry was politically quiescent during the time of the Israeli Labour Party government, which lasted from 1949 until 1977, that certainly isn’t the case today.  Then the religious Orthodox sector was represented by the National Religious Party and its leader Yosef Burg,which was a centrist Zionist group.  In the wake of the Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza the NRP moved to the Right supporting the Greater Israel Movement (Gush Emunim).  After 2003 it morphed into the National Union and then Jewish Home, two right-wing racist Zionist parties.
It is the crucial role of the Orthodox religious sector in legitimising Zionist colonisation and the fact that as a Jewish state, it is left to the Orthodox Rabbinate to define who is the herrenvolk in Israel that has led to the present situation whereby the traditional hostility of the Jewish Orthodox to women’s equality is now spilling over into Israeli society as a whole.
On public transport there has been a campaign, especially in Jerusalem where the Orthodox predominate, for segregation by sex on the buses.  El Al has long moved women to different seats when Orthodox men objected to sitting by them.
A few years ago sexual segregation starting showing its face on the university campus.  When the Academic Boycott of Israel first manifested itself in the West we were told that the universities were the bastions of liberalism. But today increasing numbers of courses and even libraries and campuses are being subject to gender segregation. The Hebew University in Jerusalem runs men only courses because it is deemed desirable to attract Orthodox Haredi students.
It was perhaps inevitable that a society based on racial and ethnic segregation and oppression would, sooner or later, turn into a society where women too were subject to segregation and overtly chauvinist treatment by the State. 
In an interesting interview with Yofi Torosh by Alan Johnson [Feminism in Israel | ‘Pious men and dangerous women’: sex-segregation as a threat to women’s equality in Israel – an interview with Yofi Tirosh] in the BICOM magazine Fathom, Ms Torosh, a law lecturer at Tel Aviv University and a ‘human rights activist’ expresses her anger at the growing marginalisation of Israeli women. 
Yofi speaks of the time when she served in the Israeli army. 
The military that I served in 20 years ago was completely different; it was all about comradery and affection, not just hugging, but playing with each other’s hair, or patting each other’s back. 
Which is of course very touching.  With the recent increase in Orthodox recruits a woman’s body has become a symbolic threat to religious masculinity and male military prowess. Segregation of the sexes has become the order of the day.
What Yofi forgets is that the Israeli army of 20 years ago is no different to the Israeli army of today in terms of its military and political role in maintaining the occupation of the Palestinians and in supporting the Jewish settlements. When it came to the checkpoints, round ups, kidnapping of children, assassinations and land confiscation, the practices of the Israeli army have not changed. There is no reason to believe that the use of torture or the sexual abuse of Palestinian children of today is a new phenomenon. 
What Yofi is really demanding is equality of the sexes when it comes to the oppression of the Palestinians. Israeli Jewish women should, she is saying, have an equal role in the beatings and shootings. What she doesn't want is a situation where the women make the tea  and the men get on with the killing and beatings up. 
 The situation of the Palestinians doesn’t get a look-in. This is, in essence, one long complaint about the deterioration in the position of Israeli Jewish women in Israel. Nowhere, not once, does Yofi situate what is happening in the context of Zionism and the degradation of Israeli civil society and the growing marginalisation of the left, even left Zionism in Israel. Yofi fails to connect between the open racism in Israel, the 'Death to the Arabs' marches, the attacks on refugees and the decline in the position of Israeli women as a whole.
The deteriorating position of Israeli women is a consequence of the growing racism and chauvinism in Israeli society as a whole. Every abomination and atrocity against the Palestinians is justified in the name of the Jewish religion.  This is the same religion which, when I was an Orthodox worshipper, meant that women went upstairs in the synagogue and the men went downstairs.  Women played no part at all in the service and their presence was not required.  You cannot accept the role of the Jewish religion when it comes to the dispossession of Palestinians and then complain when that very same religion is used to justify your own marginalisation.
In a society where there is no equality between Palestinian and Israeli it is inevitable that the relationships between the different genders in Israel itself will suffer.  It is no accident that this year alone some 25 women have been killed in Israel as a result of male violence.  A violent society begets violence.
Below are a number of articles on the question of sexual segregation in the Middle East’s ‘only democracy’.
Tony Greenstein

Israel’s Creeping Gender Segregation

The Council for Higher Education's allowing of gender separation throughout university campuses is no necessary evil, even if it helps integrate the country's ultra-Orthodox community
Nov 25, 2018 2:09 AM
In the past five years the Council for Higher Education’s approach to separating men and women at ultra-Orthodox academic programs has changed through and through. From a limited solution with limited scope it has become a natural right that has expanded in stages until there are campuses “clean” of all sign of women.
Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennett gestures as he delivers a statement to members of the media, at the Knesset, Israel's parliament, in Jerusalem, on Monday, November 19, 2018.\ AMIR COHEN/ REUTERS
The attempt to normalize gender segregation has been led by Education Minister Naftali Bennett and the chairwoman of the Council for Higher Education’s Planning and Budgeting Committee, Prof. Yaffa Zilbershats. The influence of this process goes beyond academia; it will influence other areas, from the army to the labor market.
In recent years the Council for Higher Education has argued that gender segregation is a necessary evil: It may go against the fundamentals of higher education such as openness and pluralism, but the desire to bring the ultra-Orthodox into higher education is more important – and therefore the harm to women is justified. The council promised that the harm would be minimal: Gender segregation would be limited to classrooms. Not anymore.
In a recent response to a High Court petition by academics against the institutionalization and expansion of gender segregation, the council said that separating men and women is permitted across an entire campus and between campuses of the same institution, and can take the form of separate days or hours for each gender as long as it’s not carried out “by coercion.” The council doesn’t elaborate on the ways to check whether the separation is “voluntary” and simply promises “to significantly address” institutions that force segregation.
It turns out that the council’s handling of institutions that violate its instructions is ingratiating and meaningless. Also, the distinction between segregation “by coercion” and “voluntary” separation is a dangerous profession of innocence: You don’t need a guard to keep women off campus or outside the library during certain hours. A sign announcing hours for each gender and requesting or demanding “consideration” will achieve a similar result. Only a few men, and even fewer women, will dare to act differently.
This month, a study by Hebrew University law lecturer Netta Barak-Corren questioned the council’s argument that separate programs are needed to get the ultra-Orthodox into colleges and universities. But not only are the Council for Higher Education’s chiefs refusing to examine the basis for the segregation policy, they’re expanding it. In the background you can already hear demands from the hardalim – the religious-Zionist ultra-Orthodox community– for “adjustments” to suit them. And that will come too.
The attempt to separate genders in academia is already harming women’s equality at the workplace because they are blocked from teaching ultra-Orthodox men. In the future this distortion could become a precedent for other areas, from the army to the job market.
Bennett’s segregation campaign must be opposed publicly. There is no justification for such significant harm to the basic rights of women – be they ultra-Orthodox or secular, students or faculty members.

Israel Is Normalizing Gender Segregation

Abbey Alpernis a founding member of Tikkun Olam Women’s Foundation located in the Washington, D.C. area.

The Forward, July 31, 2018

It had been 50 years since I last traveled to Israel. Much has changed in the start-up nation, including real toilets, delicious and plentiful food, new archaeological excavations and high-tech innovation. There have also been changes for Israeli women — though not all for the better.
I recently joined a group of 60 Jewish women leaders from the Jewish Women’s Funding Network (JWFN) and the National Council of Jewish Women on a study tour examining the status of women in Israel. We met with inspired leaders and organizations that are undertaking important work to improve the lives of women in the country, Jewish and Arab. Unlike the legendary trope that because Israeli women serve in the army equality is a given, we learned about a different reality.
Many Israeli women activists spoke of the “creeping normalization” of gender segregation, even in communities that aren’t ultra-Orthodox — and the Israeli government and public institutions are willing accomplices.
Ultra-orthodox Israeli men are being encouraged to participate in the labor force as a way to alleviate poverty, but gender segregation often comes as a result of these efforts. According to Eleanor Davidov, the director of the Israel Women’s Network’s women’s exclusion project, “Sex segregation isn’t even accepted by all parts of the Haredi community, yet it is becoming accepted in government offices, city halls, the army and even the private sector, and their efforts to be considerate of the ultra-Orthodox minority have come at women’s expense.”
There is an increase in gender segregation on university campuses as well. In November 2017, an amendment to the Council for Higher Education Law was proposed to normalize gender segregation in academic institutions to encourage access for ultra-Orthodox men. This amendment, which is still pending, would provide funding explicitly for this purpose. Several Israeli organizations fighting gender segregation jointly wrote a letter urging the Members of the Ministerial Committee for Legislative Affairs to oppose this amendment. They explain that permitting some students “not to hear women is by definition an institution that discriminates against women.” They also describe future damage that may be done to women, such as gender-segregated academic conferences, which would create roadblocks for women researchers who already have a difficult path. There is a strong possibility that if normalized gender segregation takes hold in academia, it could lead to gender segregation in the workplace, resulting in a discriminatory job market where opportunities for women become much more limited.
Exclusion of women and gender segregation in the Israel Defense Force is also increasing. Military service for most Jewish Israelis is mandatory, and men and women have historically served together. However, in order to encourage Haredi enlistment, special “women-free” tracks have been established for them, restricting positions for female instructors.
While the integration of ultra-Orthodox men into Israeli society is desirable, it cannot come at the expense of women, who make up half of the population.
Dr. Yofi Tirosh, from Tel Aviv University Faculty of Law, describes the situation in an interview that appears in the February 2018 edition of Fathom magazine. The article includes a photograph showing the sign “Men Only — Entry for Women Is Strictly Forbidden,” reminiscent of the signs that used to be prominent in the American South proclaiming “Whites Only” or “Coloreds Prohibited.”
American Jews played a major role in the struggle for desegregation in the United States. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel walked beside Martin Luther King on March 21, 1965 during the Selma march. Two Jewish college students were murdered in Mississippi in June 1964 for their civil rights activism. Given this history, how can we tolerate this civil rights assault on women in Israel? In the same way we have fought against racial segregation in our own country, American Jews must fight against gender segregation in Israel. We cannot be silent.
Israeli women activists told us that Jews in the Diaspora can have an impact, just as Jewish Americans affected Israel’s “Law of Return.” They pointed out how the efforts of the Orthodox rabbis to limit the definition of a Jew to an Orthodox Jew were throttled by the Diaspora. Gender segregation in Israeli society merits an equal pushback.

What happens when the public hides women, whether on an El Al plane or in Tel Aviv's Rabin Square

NIS 13,000 fine in July 2012. (Yossi Zamir/ Flash90)

Two items made the news this week. The first is a Chabad event in Tel Aviv, the second, a delayed El Al flight.
While they may seem unrelated the reason they are in the news — gender segregated seating — makes them related indeed.
Chabad planned an event to be held in Kikar Rabin, a large public square in the heart of Tel Aviv. The outdoor event will have a divider and gender segregated seating. While the Tel Aviv Municipality initially granted a permit for the event, groups opposing the segregation in the public sphere led to the mayor’s revocation of the permit. The revocation was then overturned by the court, with the event slated to move forward as planned.
Sunday’s El Al flight was delayed for over an hour because a male passenger refused to sit beside a woman. Finally, the plane only took off after two women agreed to move to accommodate the men’s demands. The phenomenon of men asking women to move has been going on for a few years, and was declared illegal last year by the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court.
“Requesting a seat change on an airplane before or after takeoff, based on a passenger’s gender, constitutes a breach of the Prohibition of Discrimination in Products, [Services and Entry into Public Places Law],” ruled Judge Dana Cohen-Lekach stating that El Al cannot force women to change seats at the request of men.
How did seating arrangements become the stuff of court cases? Since when do we need a judge to declare it illegal to ask a person to move on the basis of gender? And why is an event with separate seating controversial if the organizers want it that way?
In Israel, the gender segregation that exists in Orthodox synagogues has been imported to other spaces. More and more, spaces that are not religious have become segregated. This includes certain bus lines where women are told to sit in the back (which has also been determined to be illegal), college campuses, where women cannot teach men or be in the areas where they learn, medical conferences where women — even doctors and researchers whose work is being discussed — are put behind a curtain, and, in some places, are even barred from some areas of public streets (another illegal one).
Some health clinic offices have gender-segregated waiting rooms. In Beit Shemesh, women were required to sit in the back of the room at the opening of a health clinic. In Beit Shemesh, a city of tens of thousands – secular, traditional, Modern Orthodox and Haredi, publications do not include images of women or girls, and women have been told that they cannot advertise with pictures of women on city billboards (yet another illegal requirement).
There are people who see no connection between the increasing segregation and erasure of women and girls. I see an inherently damaging phenomenon that is getting worse.
In places where women have been told where they can sit, stand, walk, and so on, the women have also been verbally and physically assaulted by men — who acknowledged the view that they should not have been where they were. It would seem that with men’s exposure to women-free spaces, they now expect it, and have begun to demand it
Some go along with this, in the interest of cultural sensitivity, others in the interest of money. Banks, health clinics, and other businesses have created women-free publications, websites, and advertisements. The bigger problem is that the practice seeps deeper.
But enforcing gender segregation is not acceptable outside of a religious institution where those who sign up have agreed to it. Enforcing gender segregation is not a matter of cultural sensitivity. It helps extremists breed the expectation that women should be in the back, to the side, and not part of the main discussion. It helps spread the idea that total separation between the sexes is a pious ideal and that those who oppose it are less religious.
It leads to discrimination as every time the sides are not equal, women are given the back, the smaller, the less comfortable. They are less visible and not heard. Time and again.
If those who come to an event want to sit separately, they can do so. No one will — or should — force them to sit mixed. But the idea that an event in public can relegate women to behind a curtain or the back of the room is simply unacceptable.
Those who call it cultural sensitivity, who expect women to move aside and play nice, who go along with it for business reasons, from Mishpacha magazine, to the banks and bakeries to El Al, and those who refuse to consider the magnitude of this problem and its impact on society are aiding and abetting extremists and silencing and censoring women.
In parts of 21st-century Jewish state, ultra-Orthodox rabbis trying to contain encroachment of secular values on their cloistered society through fierce backlash against mixing of sexes in public
Associated Press|Published:  11.15.11 , 15:15
Posters depicting women have become rare in the streets of Israel's capital. In some areas women have been shunted onto separate sidewalks, and buses and health clinics have been gender-segregated. The military has considered reassigning some female combat soldiers because religious men don't want to serve with them.
This is the new reality in parts of 21st-century Israel, where ultra-Orthodox rabbis are trying to contain the encroachment of secular values on their cloistered society through a fierce backlash against the mixing of the sexes in public.
Religious Action Center urges Western Wall rabbi to remove screens separating between men and women before security checks, claims ushers hired to impose segregation on buses leaving holy site
On the surface, Israel's gender equality bona fides seem strong, with the late Golda Meir as a former prime minister, Tzipi Livni as the current opposition leader, and its women soldiers famed around the world.
Reality is not so shiny. The World Economic Forum recently released an unfavorable image of women's earning power in Israel, and in 2009, the last year for which data are available, Israeli women earned two-thirds what men did.
Fighting religious extremism and gender segregation in the public domain

Understanding the Background to the Murder of Jamal Khashoggi

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King Abdel Aziz Ibn Saud with Sir Percy Cox

The barbaric murder of Jamal Khashogii, medieval in its savagery as befits this western imposed regime, has literally set the cat amongst the imperialist pigeons.

For some time Israel has been building, with the full support of the Trump administration, an alliance with Saudi Arabia against Iran. When Obama  reached his agreement on nuclear weapons with Iran and the European states, it was a combined Israeli and Saudi Arabian campaign which led to the decision of Trump to abrogate the agreement.
Jamal Khashogii, murdered Saudi journalist - he was no radical but was on the wrong side of the divide in the Saudi royal family
Mohammed bin Salman has been touted in the West as a ‘reformer’ and ‘moderniser’ whereas he is nothing of the kind.  He is as authoritarian and capricious as any who have proceeded him. His primary goal is to remove any impediment to an open relationship with Israel and that means ‘solving’ the Palestinian Question by forcing a Bantustan-style solution in the area. Even arch-collaborator Mahmoud Abbas has resisted such an open betrayal.
There is nothing ‘modern’ about MBS. The decision to allow women to drive, which is essential if women are to be integrated into the Saudi economy, was also accompanied by the round up of women rights activists. To see in the decision any form of liberation for Saudi women or democratisation in Saudi Arabia is an exercise in self-deception. As the murder of Khashoggi has demonstrated, the iron rule of the Saud dynasty continues unchecked. Modernising the state simply means making it more open to western investment and reducing the dependence on oil revenues.
Consulate staff in Istanbul
The other aspect of his ‘modernisation’ consists of some curbs on the religious police, the "mutawa" and the clerical establishment. This is part of the attempt to move Saudi Arabia away from the Wahhabist and Salafist tradition in the light of the way this political current has morphed into ISIS and Al-Qada. However I wouldn’t advise people to hold their breath, not least because of the strength of the existing religious and clerical caste in Saudi Arabia.
Only those who see Saudi Arabia as a place which will do the West’s bidding and who view the state as a rock of support for imperialism see modernisation and democratisation. MBS himself, despite all the western propaganda about him being a progressive moderniser has been impetuous and erratic, an accident waiting to happen.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo meets MBS 16.10.18
When it comes to repression MBS has been no reformer. Whether it has been the arrest of women’s rights activists or the increased pace of executions, not least of Shi’ites, MBS has shown that when it comes to repression he is every bit as capable as his predecessors. Last year he arrested hundreds of princes and held them in a luxury hotel where, according to some reports, many were tortured to get them to relinquish their ill-gotten gains.
As Daniel Shapiro, the former US Ambassador writes in Ha’aretzthe Khashoggi murder is a disaster for Israel above all. In Israel’s attempt to achieve regional supremacy Saudi Arabia has been Israel’s most important ally in the region. This not a new relationship. It was first established in the civil war in Northern Yemen in the early 1960’s between Royalists and Republicans. Israel then gave covert support.
Turkish journalists protest Erdogan's repression
The grisly murder of Khashoggi, captured by all accounts by a Turkish monitoring device, demonstrates the medieval barbarity of the Saudi regime. Anyone who thinks MBS wasn’t aware of what was happening is indeed naive.
As Shapiro says ‘"It’s worse than a crime. It’s a mistake." One might add, a strategic mistake.’ To capture and then dismember a journalist of the Washington Post and not to realise that there would be a comeback suggests that the regime of MBS lacks any deep decision making or thought processes. From the blockade of Qatar to the kidnapping of Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad Hariri, MBS has demonstrated that he is impetuous and incapable of strategic thinking.
Despite command of the air, the war in Yemen has been a public relations disaster. The only thing in MBS’s favour is there doesn’t appear to be a force in Saudi Arabia capable of overthrowing him, despite obvious discontent amongst the clerical caste and large chunks  of the royal caste to say nothing of the Shi’ite minority and the Saudi population itself.
Trump and MBS on a demonstration outside the White House!
What is remarkable about the murder of Khashoggi is the complete silence of Netanyahu and the Israeli government  It is as if they are transfixed like a rabbit in the headlines knowing that anything they say can only do MBS damage.
As Shapiro points out it is conservative Republican senators Rubio and Lindsey Graham who have been loudest in their opposition to what is happening.  One gets the feeling that the orientation to Saudi Arabia and the proposed confrontation with Iran that Trump and John Bolton favours does not meet with their approval.
As Ron Kampeas and the JTA observed in Why Are Some pro-Israel Voices Speaking Out Against Jamal Khashoggi? the Israel lobby is not at all happy at what is happening.  Khashoggi is being portrayed as an anti-Semitic supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, anti-Israel and a supporter of terrorism.

Trump with chart of US military sales to Saudi Arabia

Patrick Poole described Khashoggi as ‘a democrat reformer journalist holding a RPG with jihadists.” Frontpage magazine under David Horowitz joined in the attack.  Frontpage is a virulently Islamaphobic paper.
On Oct. 17, the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s European office sent out a release titled “Wiesenthal Centre Exposes Jamal Khashoggi Antisemitic Tweets.” Khashoggi’s support for ‘terrorism’ is a major theme of these Zionist attacks.
Ha’aretz has been the leading Zionist paper bemoaning what is happening. Louis Fishman complained that people were falling for Turkey’s conspiracy. In On Khashoggi, U.S. Journalists Are Falling for Turkey's Conspiracist, State-run Media Fishman warns of the machinations by a Turkish state which is itself hardly a friend of journalists.  True but irrelevant and there is a difference between detaining journalists and cutting them up and burying them in the grounds of the Saudi Consul’s villa!
Fishman’s main complaint though is that the wily Erdogan is using the murder of Khashoggi to strike back at his Saudi rival thus further complicating the Middle East jigsaw.
Israel is the great loser in this hence why its lobbyists have been playing up Khashoggi’s ‘terrorist’ credentials. MBS is a strong supporter of the Trump ‘peace agreement’ which is believed to involve the transplantation of much of Gaza’s population into the Sinai desert.
Thus it is that Tzvia Greenfield, who is a supporter of the left-Zionist Meretz, argues in Why We Should Go Easy on the Saudi Crown Prince. She writes that ‘for 50 years we’ve prayed for a key Arab leader who agrees to sign a significant pact with Israel. Such a leader has finally arrived’.
A good roundup of the Israel Lobby’s activity is in Ali Abunimah’s Israel lobby wants Saudis to get away with Khashoggi murder. As Ali points out, everytime there has been a new Saudi ruler, he has been greeted as a ‘reformer’ even though the repression has never let up. This is a Western game to legitimise every new dictator. It is strange that Saudi Arabia is such a repressive state given the number of reformers there have been! 
That is why this article by Nu'man Abd al Wahid is important.  It shows how British imperialism first created Saudi Arabia by plucking Ibn Saud out of the desert in order to weaken and overthrow more nationalistically oriented Arab leaders, in particular Sherif Hussein of Mecca and how it was integrally linked to the British capture of Palestine and the establishment of the Palestine Mandate and its support of the Zionist settler colonial project.  It is an article which bears reading by those interested in the background to the savage Wahhabist rulers of this desert monarchy stuffed with oil.
Tony Greenstein

First published in Mondoweiss


SHAFAQNA – On January 7, 2016, amid rising tensions in the Middle East – which tensions have seen Saudi Arabia hardened its narrative against Iran on account of fabricated, and many have argued non-existent threats, Nu’man Abd al-Wahid decided to looked in the genesis of Saudi Arabia – its political history, and the ideology which has supported its absolutist monarchy.
One of the richest countries in the world per capita, Saudi Arabia has recently pioneered a new foreign policy trend, one which has favored military intervention over diplomacy and political collaboration.
While governments have often disagree, military can only ever be a matter of last resort, a defense mechanism when all else has been exhausted.
Today Riyadh appears to have abandoned reason in favor of violence, threatening to drag the region in its wake.
In the following article Nu’man Abd al-Wahid turns to history to retrace the rise of the kingdom and those alliances which have led to the quagmire we find ourselves in.
The covert alliance between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Zionist entity of Israel should be no surprise to any student of British imperialism. The problem is the study of British imperialism has very few students. Indeed, one can peruse any undergraduate or post-graduate British university prospectus and rarely find a module in a Politics degree on the British Empire let alone a dedicated degree or Masters degree. Of course if the European led imperialist carnage in the four years between 1914 – 1918 tickles your cerebral cells then it’s not too difficult to find an appropriate institution to teach this subject, but if you would like to delve into how and why the British Empire waged war on mankind for almost four hundred years you’re practically on your own in this endeavour. One must admit, that from the British establishment’s perspective, this is a formidable and remarkable achievement.
In late 2014, according to the American journal, Foreign Affairs, the Saudi petroleum Minister, Ali al-Naimi is reported to have said “His Majesty King Abdullah has always been a model for good relations between Saudi Arabia and other states and the Jewish state is no exception.” Recently, Abdullah’s successor, King Salman expressed similar concerns to those of Israel’s to the growing agreement between the United States and Iran over the latter’s nuclear programme. This led some to report that Israel and KSA presented a “united front” in their opposition to the nuclear deal. This was not the first time the Zionists and Saudis have found themselves in the same corner in dealing with a perceived common foe. In North Yemen in the 1960’s, the Saudis were financing a British imperialist led mercenary army campaign against revolutionary republicans who had assumed authority after overthrowing the authoritarian, Imam. Gamal Abdul-Nasser’s Egypt militarily backed the republicans, while the British induced the Saudis to finance and arm the remaining remnants of the Imam’s supporters. Furthermore, the British organised the Israelis to drop arms for the British proxies in North Yemen, 14 times. The British, in effect, militarily but covertly, brought the Zionists and Saudis together in 1960’s North Yemen against their common foe.
However, as this author has previously written, one must return to the 1920’s to fully appreciate the origins of this informal and indirect alliance between Saudi Arabia and the Zionist entity. An illuminating study by Dr. Askar H. al-Enazy, titled, The Creation of Saudi Arabia: Ibn Saud and British Imperial Policy, 1914-1927, has further and uniquely provided any student of British Imperialism primary sourced evidence on the origins of this alliance. This study by Dr. Enazy influences the following piece.  The defeat of the Ottoman Empire by British imperialism in World War One, left three distinct authorities in the Arabian peninsula: Sharif of Hijaz: Hussain bin Ali of Hijaz (in the west), Ibn Rashid of Ha’il (in the north) and Emir Ibn Saud of Najd (in the east) and his religiously fanatical followers, the Wahhabis.
Ibn Saud had entered the war early in January 1915 on the side of the British, but was quickly defeated and his British handler, William Shakespear was killed by the Ottoman Empire’s ally Ibn Rashid. This defeat greatly hampered Ibn Saud’s utility to the Empire and left him militarily hamstrung for a year.[1] The Sharif contributed the most to the Ottoman Empire’s defeat by switching allegiances and leading the so-called ‘Arab Revolt’ in June 1916 which removed the Turkish presence from Arabia. He was convinced to totally alter his position because the British had strongly led him to believe, via correspondence with Henry McMahon, the British High Commissioner in Egypt, that a unified Arab country from Gaza to the Persian Gulf will be established with the defeat of the Turks. The letters exchanged between Sharif Hussain and Henry McMahon are known as the McMahon-Hussain Correspondence.
Understandably, the Sharif as soon as the war ended wanted to hold the British to their war time promises, or what he perceived to be their war time promises, as expressed in the aforementioned correspondence. The British, on the other hand, wanted the Sharif to accept the Empire’s new reality which was a division of the Arab world between them and the French (Sykes-Picot agreement) and the implementation of the Balfour Declaration, which guaranteed ‘a national for the Jewish people’ in Palestine by colonisation with European Jews. This new reality was contained in the British written, Anglo-Hijaz Treaty, which the Sharif was profoundly averse to signing.[2] After all, the revolt of 1916 against the Turks was dubbed the ‘Arab Revolt’ not the ‘Hijazi Revolt’.
Actually, the Sharif let it be known that he will never sell out Palestine to the Empire’s Balfour Declaration; he will never acquiescence to the establishment of Zionism in Palestine or accept the new random borders drawn across Arabia by British and French imperialists. For their part the British began referring to him as an ‘obstructionist’, a ‘nuisance’ and of having a ‘recalcitrant’ attitude.
The British let it be known to the Sharif that they were prepared to take drastic measures to bring about his approval of the new reality regardless of the service that he had rendered them during the War. After the Cairo Conference in March 1921, where the new Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill met with all the British operatives in the Middle East, T.E. Lawrence (i.e. of Arabia) was dispatched to meet the Sharif to bribe and bully him to accept Britain’s Zionist colonial project in Palestine. Initially, Lawrence and the Empire offered 80,000 rupees.[3] The Sharif rejected it outright. Lawrence then offered him an annual payment of £100,000.[4] The Sharif refused to compromise and sell Palestine to British Zionism.
When financial bribery failed to persuade the Sharif, Lawrence threatened him with an Ibn Saud takeover. Lawrence claimed that “politically and militarily, the survival of Hijaz as a viable independent Hashemite kingdom was wholly dependent on the political will of Britain, who had the means to protect and maintain his rule in the region.” [5] In between negotiating with the Sharif, Lawrence made the time to visit other leaders in the Arabian peninsula and informed them that they if they don’t tow the British line and avoid entering into an alliance with the Sharif, the Empire will unleash Ibn Saud and his Wahhabis who after all is at Britain’s ‘beck and call’.[6]
Simultaneously, after the Conference, Churchill travelled to Jerusalem and met with the Sharif’s son, Abdullah, who had been made the ruler, “Emir”, of a new territory called “Transjordan.” Churchill informed Abdullah that he should persuade “his father to accept the Palestine mandate and sign a treaty to such effect,” if not “the British would unleash Ibn Saud against Hijaz.”[7] In the meantime the British were planning to unleash Ibn Saud on the ruler of Ha’il, Ibn Rashid.
Ibn Rashid had rejected all overtures from the British Empire made to him via Ibn Saud, to be another of its puppets.[8] More so, Ibn Rashid expanded his territory north to the new mandated Palestinian border as well as to the borders of Iraq in the summer of 1920. The British became concerned that an alliance maybe brewing between Ibn Rashid who controlled the northern part of the peninsula and the Sharif who controlled the western part. More so, the Empire wanted the land routes between the Palestinian ports on the Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf under the rule of a friendly party. At the Cairo Conference, Churchill agreed with an imperial officer, Sir Percy Cox that “Ibn Saud should be ‘given the opportunity to occupy Hail.’”[9] By the end of 1920, the British were showering Ibn Saud with “a monthly ‘grant’ of £10,000 in gold, on top of his monthly subsidy. He also received abundant arms supplies, totalling more than 10,000 rifles, in addition to the critical siege and four field guns” with British-Indian instructors.[10] Finally, in September 1921, the British unleashed Ibn Saud on Ha’il which officially surrendered in November 1921. It was after this victory the British bestowed a new title on Ibn Saud. He was no longer to be “Emir of Najd and Chief of its Tribes” but “Sultan of Najd and its Dependencies”. Ha’il had dissolved into a dependency of the Empire’s Sultan of Najd.
If the Empire thought that the Sharif, with Ibn Saud now on his border and armed to the teeth by the British, would finally become more amenable to the division of Arabia and the British Zionist colonial project in Palestine they were short lived. A new round of talks between Abdulla’s son, acting on behalf of his father in Transjordan and the Empire resulted in a draft treaty accepting Zionism. When it was delivered to the Sharif with an accompanying letter from his son requesting that he “accept reality”, he didn’t even bother to read the treaty and instead composed a draft treaty himself rejecting the new divisions of Arabia as well as the Balfour Declaration and sent it to London to be ratified![11]
Ever since 1919 the British had gradually decreased Hussain’s subsidy to the extent that by the early 1920’s they had suspended it, while at the same time continued subsidising Ibn Saud right through the early 1920’s.[12] After a further three rounds of negotiations in Amman and London, it dawned on the Empire that Hussain will never relinquish Palestine to Great Britain’s Zionist project or accept the new divisions in Arab lands.[13]In March 1923, the British informed Ibn Saud that it will cease his subsidy but not without awarding him an advance ‘grant’ of £50,000 upfront, which amounted to a year’s subsidy.[14]
In March 1924, a year after the British awarded the ‘grant’ to Ibn Saud, the Empire announced that it had terminated all discussions with Sharif Hussain to reach an agreement.[15] Within weeks the forces of Ibn Saud and his Wahhabi followers began to administer what the British foreign secretary, Lord Curzon called the “final kick” to Sharif Hussain and attacked Hijazi territory.[16] By September 1924, Ibn Saud had overrun the summer capital of Sharif Hussain, Ta’if. The Empire then wrote to Sharif’s sons, who had been awarded kingdoms in Iraq and Transjordan not to provide any assistance to their besieged father or in diplomatic terms they were informed “to give no countenance to interference in the Hedjaz”.[17] In Ta’if, Ibn Saud’s Wahhabis committed their customary massacres, slaughtering women and children as well as going into mosques and killing traditional Islamic scholars.[18] They captured the holiest place in Islam, Mecca, in mid-October 1924. Sharif Hussain was forced to abdicate and went to exile to the Hijazi port of Akaba. He was replaced as monarch by his son Ali who made Jeddah his governmental base. As Ibn Saud moved to lay siege to the rest of Hijaz, the British found the time to begin incorporating the northern Hijazi port of Akaba into Transjordan. Fearing that Sharif Hussain may use Akaba as a base to rally Arabs against the Empire’s Ibn Saud, the Empire let it be known that in no uncertain terms that he must leave Akaba or Ibn Saud will attack the port. For his part, Sharif Hussain responded that he had,
“never acknowledged the mandates on Arab countries and still protest against the British Government which has made Palestine a national home for the Jews.”[19]
Sharif Hussain was forced out of Akaba, a port he had liberated from the Ottoman Empire during the ‘Arab Revolt’, on the 18th June 1925 on HMS Cornflower.
Ibn Saud had begun his siege of Jeddah in January 1925 and the city finally surrendered in December 1925 bringing to an end over 1000 years of rule by the Prophet Muhammad’s descendants. The British officially recognised Ibn Saud as the new King of Hijaz in February 1926 with other European powers following suit within weeks. The new unified Wahhabi state was rebranded by the Empire in 1932 as the “Kingdom of Saudi Arabia” (KSA). A certain George Rendel, an officer working at the Middle East desk at the Foreign Office in London, claimed credit for the new name.
On the propaganda level, the British served the Wahhabi takeover of Hijaz on three fronts. Firstly, they portrayed and argued that Ibn Saud’s invasion of Hijaz was motivated by religious fanaticism rather than by British imperialism’s geo-political considerations.[20] This deception is propounded to this day, most recently in Adam Curtis’s acclaimed BBC “Bitter Lake” documentary, whereby he states that the “fierce intolerant vision of wahhabism” drove the “beduins” to create Saudi Arabia.[21] Secondly, the British portrayed Ibn Saud’s Wahhabi fanatics as a benign and misunderstood force who only wanted to bring Islam back to its purest form.[22] To this day, these Islamist jihadis are portrayed in the most benign manner when their armed insurrections is supported by Britain and the West such as 1980’s Afghanistan or in today’s Syria, where they are referred to in the western media as “moderate rebels.” Thirdly, British historians portray Ibn Saud as an independent force and not as a British instrument used to horn away anyone perceived to be surplus to imperial requirements. For example, Professor Eugene Rogan’s recent study on the history on Arabs claims that “Ibn Saud had no interest in fighting” the Ottoman Empire. This is far from accurate as Ibn Saud joined the war in 1915. He further disingenuously claims that Ibn Saud was only interested in advancing “his own objectives” which fortuitously always dovetailed with those of the British Empire.[23]
In conclusion, one of the most overlooked aspects of the Balfour Declaration is the British Empire’s commitment to “use their best endeavours to facilitate” the creation of “a national home for the Jewish people”. Obviously, many nations in the world today were created by the Empire but what makes Saudi Arabia’s borders distinctive is that its northern and north-eastern borders are the product of the Empire facilitating the creation of Israel. At the very least the dissolution of the two Arab sheikhdoms of Ha’il and Hijaz by Ibn Saud’s Wahhabis is based in their leaders’ rejection to facilitate the British Empire’s Zionist project in Palestine.
Therefore, it is very clear that the British Empire’s drive to impose Zionism in Palestine is embedded in the geographical DNA of contemporary Saudi Arabia. There is further irony in the fact that the two holiest sites in Islam are today governed by the Saudi clan and Wahhabi teachings because the Empire was laying the foundations for Zionism in Palestine in the 1920s. Contemporaneously, it is no surprise that both Israeland Saudi Arabia are keen in militarily intervening on the side of “moderate rebels” i.e. jihadis, in the current war on Syria, a country which covertly and overtly rejects the Zionist colonisation of Palestine.
As the United States, the ‘successor’ to the British Empire in defending western interests in the Middle East, is perceived to be growing more hesitant in engaging militarily in the Middle East, there is an inevitability that the two nations rooted in the Empire’s Balfour Declaration, Israel and Saudi Arabia, would develop a more overt alliance to defend their common interests.
Notes
[1] Gary Troeller, “The Birth of Saudi Arabia” (London: Frank Cass, 1976) pg.91.
[2] Askar H. al-Enazy, “ The Creation of Saudi Arabia: Ibn Saud and British Imperial Policy, 1914-1927” (London: Routledge, 2010), pg. 105-106.
[3] ibid., pg. 109.
[4] ibid., pg.111.
[5] ibid.
[6] ibid.
[7] ibid., pg 107.
[8] ibid., pg. 45-46 and pg.101-102.
[9] ibid., pg.104.
[10] ibid.
[11] ibid., pg. 113.
[12] ibid., pg.110 and Troeller, op. cit., pg.166.
[13] al-Enazy op cit., pg.112-125.
[14] al-Enazy, op. cit., pg.120.
[15] ibid., pg.129.
[16] ibid., pg. 106 and Troeller op. cit., 152.
[17] al-Enazy, op. cit., pg. 136 and Troeller op. cit., pg.219.
[18] David Howarth, “The Desert King: The Life of Ibn Saud” (London: Quartet Books, 1980), pg. 133 and Randall Baker, “King Husain and the Kingdom of Hejaz” (Cambridge: The Oleander Press, 1979), pg.201-202.
[19] Quoted in al-Enazy op. cit., pg. 144.
[20] ibid., pg. 138 and Troeller op. cit., pg. 216.
[21]In the original full length BBC iPlayer version this segment begins towards the end at 2 hrs 12 minutes 24 seconds.
[22] al-Enazy op. cit., pg. 153.
[23] Eugene Rogan, “The Arabs: A History”, (London: Penguin Books, 2009), pg.220.
About Nu'man Abd al-Wahid
Nu’man Abd al-Wahid is a Yemeni-English independent researcher specialising in the political relationship between the British state and the Arab World. His main focus is on how the United Kingdom has historically maintained its political interests in the Arab World. A full collection of essays can be accessed at http://www.churchills-karma.com/. Twitter handle: @churchillskarma.

It’s time to Rebuild an Anti-fascist Movement in Britain but Stand Up to Racism is not that Movement

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Over-exaggerating our numbers and claiming non-existent victories does not strengthen us, it leads to complacency


The ‘Free Tommy Robinson’ demonstration on June 9th, when up to 15,000 attended a Football Lads Alliance protest caused shock on the left.  This was the biggest fascist demonstration in living memory even if not all those who attended were paid up fascists. 
The Battle of Lewisham in 1977, the first time in mainland Britain that the Police donned riot gear as the NF march was pelted with bricks and other objects and forced to call off its march after going less than a third of the way
Even at its height the National Front never mobilised more than three thousand at Wood Green.  At the Lewisham counter-demonstration to the NF in August 1977 we broke the back of the NF. The fascists could not turn out more than a thousand at the very most. Throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s fascist demonstrations were always heavily outnumbered.
Today we are seeing a very different phenomenon. The problem is that many on the Left believe that they can simply relive those earlier battles.  That includes John McDonnell who recently called for the reformation of the Anti-Nazi League.
The situation is entirely different. Then there were a series of racist murders starting with the hot summer of 1976. Working class activity e.g. the Grunwick strike was far higher and working class involvement in anti-fascist activity was far greater than today.

Today the terrain has changed. The clear and obvious difference is that the NF, which posed as the 3rd party of government portrayed itself, not as a neo-Nazi party but as a patriotic party. One of our tasks was to demonstrate that the NF was a neo-Nazi party and this was done very effectively in conjunction with Searchlight Anti-Fascist magazine under the editorship of Maurice Ludmer, who was also President of Birmingham Trades Council.  They produced an excellent pamphlet A Well Oiled Nazi Machine

Unfortunately with Maurice’s untimely death, Searchlight fell into the hands of Gerry Gable, who traded information with Special Branch on anti-fascists.  It also became overtly pro-Zionist. See Searchlight 'anti-fascist magazine joins forces with Labour’s ‘anti-Semitism’ witchhuntand The Death Agony of Searchlight Anti-Fascist Magazine
 At one time the NF was beating the  Liberal Party into 3rd place in by-elections. In the West Bromwich by-election in 1973 Martin Webster obtained 16% compared to 25% for the Conservatives and in the Stechfordby-election in 1977 Andrew Brons gained 2,900 votes and 8.2% compared to the Liberal Party’s 8%.  Brons later became an MEP for the BNP.

Today we are faced with an entirely different situation. For a start, far-Right parties have grown throughout Europe as Euro-scepticism and nationalism have taken root.  This is particularly though not exclusively the case in Eastern Europe.  In Italy we see Matteo Salvini, a fascist Deputy Prime Minister who talks about cleansing the streets of Roma. In Hungary and Poland there are overtly anti-Semitic regimes, vehemently anti-refugee and anti-Roma. Marine Le Pen’s National Rally is a major contender in France. In Austria the neo-Nazi Freedom Party is in government and the neo-Nazi AFD gained 13% and seats in the German Bundestag. In the Netherlands Geert Wilders Freedom Party is the second largest party.


That isn’t to say that fascism on the model of Nazi Germany is around the corner.  Nazism in Germany was a direct response to a strong and militant German working class. Unfortunately the working class in Europe, like in Britain, is not strong today for structural and political reasons. European fascism feeds off the influx of migrants, itself a consequence of US and British imperialism in the Middle East.  It is not a response to the ‘Bolshevik’ threat.


Ageing Skinheads heckle the march at the Haymarket
The other major feature of the far-Right in Europe is that, almost without exception, it is pro-Zionist and pro-Israel.  The myth that anti-Zionism is a cover for anti-Semitism is simply absurd.  The far-Right and fascists today disguise their anti-Semitism by proclaiming their support for Israel and Zionism.  E.g. the neo-Nazi founder of the alt-Right Richard Spencer declares that he is a White Zionist.

There is no doubt that Donald Trump is anti-Semitic. See for example Anti-Semitism is no longer an undertone of Trump’s campaign. It’s the melody. At the Chanukkah celebration at the White House last week the Chump praised Israel as ‘your country’ to American Jews. As even the Times of Israelacceptedthis ‘insinuated that US Jews owe a dual loyalty to Israel.’ The Jewish Forwardwas even more blunt: ‘Trump Just Accused Jews Of Loving Israel, Not America - And His Fans Cheered Anyway
But of course the anti-Semitic canard of dual loyalty is inherent in Zionism itself. Did not Avi Gabbay, leader of the Israeli Labour Party react to the murder of 11 Jews at Pittsburgh by suggestingthey ‘return’ to Israel ‘because this is their home.’
There were a number of Palestinian flags but no Zionist ones - let us hope that next year when SUTR march in Scotland that the Friends of Israel group is not allowed to take part
The other feature of today’s demonstration, which was nominally for both supporters and opponents of Brexit, was how there was no visible sign of support for Brexit.  On the contrary there were very vocal and large contingents who were explicitly anti-Brexit.  Given that the SWP, Counterfire and the Morning Star among others on the Left refuse to see that Brexit is based on racist fears of immigration, one can only hope that the Left groups begins at last to face reality.
Tommy Robinson is a fascist whose racism is directed almost exclusively at the Moslem population. He may mix with people who look fondly on the Third Reich but like his alt-Right counterparts in the USA, he is overtly pro-Zionist and is in love with Israel, the ideal ethno-nationalist state. Israel is unique in the western world for being a state based not on its own inhabitants or citizens but on a specific ethnic category – Jews. That is exactly what fascists have long demanded – that Britain for example be based on White British people not anyone who happens to live here.
Fascism will never go away as long as capitalism is here.  That is the first lesson that we need to be learnt.  That is why there is very little purchase in seeking an alliance with liberals. I doubt very much that a rerun of the ANL has any chance of taking off today. 
What there does need to be, as there was in the mid-1970’s, is the creation of local anti-fascist Committees. That means that the labour movement itself has to take seriously the growth of the far-Right. Stand Up To Racism is widely seen as an SWP front and the fact that Diana Abbot and other non-members are formally Officers makes no difference. They weren’t elected to those positions but put in place by those who formed SUTR, which is the SWP. 
I attended today’s demonstration and did a rough count.  I would estimate that about 4,000 people attended not the 15,000 which is being claimed by SUTRand Laura Parker of Momentum.  It is simply not true to say that the UKIP/Fascist demonstration was ‘massively outnumbered.’ If the far-Right demonstration garnered between two and three thousand– and our demonstrations were too far apart for me to make any judgement – then there may have been a difference of one to two thousand at best. That is good but it is not ‘massively’different.
It is good that Momentum nationally gave its support to the demonstration.  However Momentum claims to have over 40,000 members.  There were, at best 4-5 Momentum banners in evidence on the demonstration and those, like Camden were from the Left of Momentum, anti-Lansman branches. I doubt if even 1% of Momentum’s membership actually went. The videos which Momentum have produced and which are displayed here on Tommy Robinson are good and should be used by the movement.  However the inability of Momentum to mobilise even a fraction of its own membership demonstrates the problems inherent in an undemocratic, top-down organisation.  Momentum consists of a largely paper membership.

Zionists Against Antisemitism — literally a man, woman and dog
Oh and there were two members, together with a dog, carrying a Socialists Against Anti-Semitism banner.  This seems to be a wholly constructed Lansman organisation following up from his disastrous video on anti-Semitism featuring Tania Shrew.  It is literally a one-man and his dog operation. Perhaps it should more accurately be termed ‘Zionists Against Anti-Semitism’.  What it is not is an anti-racist organisation or even an organisation. True that there must be some left-Zionists who feel that the Jewish Labour Movement are a right-wing anti-Corbyn organisation but I doubt there is room for another Zionist movement in the Labour Party!
Tony Greenstein


A VICTORY FOR FREE SPEECH – Twitter Restores Tony Greenstein’s Suspended Account

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Malicious Zionist Complaint of ‘Anti-Semitism’ by Jack Mendel of Jewish News has been Rejected by Twitter




Twitter's standard response to my initial appeals

On November 17th there was a message on my Twitter account informing me that my account had been suspended for ‘hateful conduct’.  It quickly became apparent that a complaint had been made by a ‘journalist’ Jack Mendel @mendelpol of Jewish News. 
I immediately posted an articleandfollowed it up withanother article a few days later. Mendel openly boasted of his cowardly deed stating
I reported Greenstein for repeatedly sending me messages filled with hate, including using far right ‘Zio’ term, and various comparisons of Jews and Israel to nazism.

 fake journalist Jack Mendel knows no shame
Jack Mendel was and is a liar. Far from me contacting him it was the other way around.  I was responding to him and his friends. Nothing I said had anything to do with hate.  I don’t do hate nor do I hate this ‘so-called journalist’ (his description not mine) who, unable to engage in the cut and thrust of political debate, reached for Twitter's censor. However I have nothing but contempt for a 'journalist' who attempts to close down free speech. All under the guise of opposing ‘hate speech’ no less. What I hate is racism and Zionism.
Twitter's standard response
The facts are quite simple. The Jewish Leadership Council, an unelected Zionist group tweeted three times its support of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, which was supposedly in response to the firing of firecrackers (‘rockets’). To the JLC and its faithful lapdog Mendel, Israel was reacting to Hamas’s firing. In actual fact Hamas was reacting to a botched operation in Gaza by an undercover Israeli military squad that went wrong.  Botched Israeli Operation in Gaza Endangers Human Rights Groups. Israel’s undercover squad posed as aid workers for a charity working in Gaza thus endangering all humanitarian relief workers.  They murdered 7 people for the loss of one of their own as they extricated themselves.
Battling for Israel - Zionism's Fake Journalist Jack Mendel
On November 15th I responded pointing out that there is a long record of aggressors posing as the victim. I pointed out that 80 years ago, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland it pretended that it was the victim. Nazi soldiers dressed up in Polish uniforms staged a mock attack on a German radio station at Gleiwitz, Upper Silesia. The details can be found in the second of Richard Evan’s trilogy ‘The Third Reich in Power’. pp.699/700.
According to @mendelpol these were ‘despicable remarks’.  To most people with a few brain cells this was a historical analogy. That is what history is about, comparisons.  Otherwise how do you make sense of historical events? Being unable to rebut my remarks Mendel sought the assistance of Twitter’s censor.  
Canary article helps launch campaign against Twitter censorship
On the 16thNovember I responded by saying that what was despicable was the shooting down in cold blood of 200 unarmed demonstrators in Gaza and the decade long starvation siege. In Mendel’s morbid mind this became ‘This morning a Jewish activist sent me a tweet filled with anti-Semitic tropes.’ Zionists love the word tropes. It’s a cliché they use as a substitute for thinking, probably because it rhymes with dopes. According to Mendel ‘Being Jewish or having Jewish ancestry isn’t a free pass to saying things which play down antiSemitism/in the second case are anti-Semitic.’  
Being incapable of responding with anything useful Useless Jack Mendel reached for Twitter's Censor
I agree. Being Jewish doesn’t mean you can’t be anti-Semitic. Mendel himself is a good example of a Jewish anti-semite. Zionism was founded by an anti-Semite, Theodor Herzl and it is led today by another anti-Semite, Benjamin Netanyahu, a Holocaust Revisionist who cuddles up to all manner of anti-Semites including the Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orban. [see Rewriting the Holocaust– Jacobin]
It wasn’t me who saidthat Palestine was an ‘institute for the fumigation of Jewish vermin’ but Israel’s first Minister of Justice, Pinhas Rosenbluth. Zionism is a form of Jewish Anti-Semitism. 
Nothing I said was even remotely anti-Semitic. How can condemning Israel’s siege of Gaza or the murder of  unarmed Palestinians, including 21 year old medic Razan al-Najar, as she was dashing to help the wounded, be anti-Semitic?
If Mendel tried for once to engage  what passes for his brain he might realise that if anyone was being anti-Semitic it was he. What he was suggesting is that the murder of children and unarmed demonstrators is the embodiment of Jewish identity. That it is Jewish to kill innocent people. That is akin to saying that Jews are bloodthirsty creatures who enjoy killing children and young people.  It’s a modern version of the medieval blood libel. That is Zionism in the 21st century. 
To this very day Yousaf's account is still active although it hasn't been used for 2 years, which suggests that it was a paid Israeli troll account
Being told it was a pity you didn't die in the Holocaust was not a breach of Twitter rules!




What was particularly outrageous about Twitter’s closing of my account was that repeatedly over the past two years I have complained of abuse from Zionist trolls including being told by a George Yousaf that it was a great shame that my family and I had not died in the Holocaust. To all my complaints Twitter responded that these were not breaches of their rules yet Mendel's false and malicious complaint was upheld. When I appealed against my suspension I received a negative standard response and got the same response repeatedly. Clearly these replies are not generated by human beings but by algorithm.
An example of the comments that Twitter found didn't breach their rules
It was only when a live human being at Twitter, because none of the responses I got was signed by a named person, was contacted personally and told that their refusal to reinstate my account was unacceptable and their practices would be raised if necessary in Parliament that my account was reinstated.

Twitter's standard response to complaints
What happened to me is not unique. Twitter and Facebook have been removing accounts of anti-Zionists and supporters of the Palestinians at the behest of Zionist bigots like @mendelpol. Twitter, Facebook and other social media outlets are giant monopolies akin to the great trusts of the 19thcentury.  The reaction then was to break these trusts up as being inimical to the public interest.  The control of an important area of public debate by private groups is something that sooner or later parliament is going to have to regulate.  It is unacceptable that unaccountable corporations can remove or censor people at will.
Abuse by Zionist supporter of Tommy Robinson, Mark Haringman - I am a thief, fraudster, child abuser and socialist - in no particular order - only in the twisted mind of a Zionist fascist would being a socialist be a crime!
Twitter finds that Haringman (Newsdude) Tweets are in order
Like the privatised utilities, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube etc. should be treated as emanations of the State and thus be subject to public control and susceptible to Judicial Review and other forms of legal restraint. At the moment faceless people or machines make decisions without any independent oversight.






As long as Twitter and Facebook remain privately controlled one can expect malicious Zionists like @mendelpol to use the power of the Israeli state and Zionism's pernicious influence to effect the same censorship that the Israeli state itself imposes on its subjects.
I have a number of people and organisations to thank for helping me reverse Mendel's squalid little attempt at censorship. In no particular order.
Philip Weiss, of Mondoweiss, who carried my article Twitter closes down my account for ‘hateful conduct’ at a time when I was eager to get my story out.
A big thank you to Afroze Zaidi-Jivraj a journalist on the Canary, the Independent Media site whose article Twitter censors pro-Palestinian Jewish activist while allowing antisemitic abuse against him was immensely helpful.  Afroze was also helpful in other ways despite not being well. 
Thanks also to Asa Winstanley, the Electronic Intifada journalist for his article in Middle East Monitor, The relentless censorship of anti-Zionist Jews which started with the line thatTony Greenstein is slowly but surely being disappeared from the internet’. I began to wonder whether my death sentence had been pronounced prematurely!  In the purported words of Mark Twain, the announcement of my death had been greatly exaggerated!
Also to be mentioned in dispatches are Ali Abunimah, the Director of Electronic Intifada and Richard Silverstein of Tikun Olam for their helpful advice at a difficult time
Naturally the right-wing pro-war site Harry’s Place, despite purporting to defend free speech, engaged in a piece of whatabouttery in order to rationalise Twitter’s censorship. HP, despite having as their slogan Orwell’s ‘Liberty, if it means anything, is the right to tell people what they don't want to hear’ refused to defend my right to tell Zionists like @mendelpol what he didn’t want to hear!  But then HP has always been quite selective when it came to deciding whose free speech they defended! Or as the Muslim group Mend suggested, Orwell’s ‘‘Political language…is designed to make lies sound truthful … and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind’ is far more appropriate to hypocrites like HP and Jack Mendel.
It is to be expected that Zionist papers like Jewish News will employ ‘journalists’ who see it as their job to censor those whom they disagree with. That is because the Jewish News and the Jewish Chronicle are not so much newspapers as Zionist propaganda rags. Contrast this with the vigorous Jewish Forward in the United States which doesn’t hesitate to debate out all these issues.
It is a small but vital victory over those who would limit the free speech of Palestinian supporters and anti-Zionists.
Tony Greenstein

The Cowardice and Self-Abasement of Angela Rayner who apologised for having offended Israel’s racist supporters

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Why do accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’ cause Labour MPs’ Spines to Turn to Water?


Before reading in last week’s Zionist press about Angela Rayner’s attack on me, I had barely heard of the woman. She is not exactly a household name. Nor is she known for her wit and charm.  In an interviewjust over a year ago she demonstrated her mettle:
“I see myself as soft left. I’m very pragmatic. I’m interested in how we can change lives for the better; how we can we put socialism into practice. Every time we expend energy on fighting each other, we’re letting down the people that need us the most.”
Jewish only Afula - the racism that Angela Rayner didn't mention
Which is a restatement of Blair’s aphorismthat “what matters is what works”. Pragmatism is the excuse for a thousand excuses as to why socialism should be postponed. Blair’s adage was the basis for private sector vultures to cherry pick the NHS. PFI also workedfor some people. New Labour sycophants such as UNISON’s Dave Prentis were all in favour of mortgaging our future when PFI first appeared. After all it worked and enabled hospitals and schools to be built, albeit at the cost of the future.
This is the kind of pragmatism which the Angela Rayners of New Labour specialised in.  In a further display of the political bankruptcy of this New Labour leftover (she supported Andy Burnham in the first leadership election) Rayner observed that ‘Ideology never put food on my table'. Employing this logic we should forget about socialism altogether and follow the non-ideological route of the United States’s Democrats, the second party of capitalism.
This is the pathetic specimen that is currently Shadow Education Secretary. And Rayner is not alone. There is Emily Thornberry, another Labour luvvie who is equally spineless and waiting for Corbyn to fall or be pushed. These creatures hate ‘ideology’ because ideas about the society we live in might suggest we have a systemic problem in capitalism, based as it is on profit and exploitation rather than human need, that poverty and unemployment is integral to a free market economy.
Angela  Rayner is a prime example of the Fabian spirit which has imbued countless Labour managers of capitalism. In the same Guardian interview this pragmatist assured her interviewer that she wouldn’t get rid of grammar schools because that would mean destroying good schools’. Presumably employing the same logic Rayner would keep Eton and Harrow and no doubt she would also keep private medicine since that also works.
In other words Angela Rayner is a typical example of Labour’s wretched right-wingers who ends up defending the interests of the multi-nationals and imposing austerity in the ‘national interest’.
This is by way of introduction to the invitation extended to Rayner by the Board of Deputies to address its annual gathering at the House of Lords. It was a controversial invitation and the Jewish Chronicle’s Editor, Stephen Pollard called it, in his normally measured hyperbole, an‘idiotic, craven and deeply counter-productive decision”.
However BOD President Ms Van der Zyl undoubtedly realises that with the virtual collapse of May’s ramshackle administration and the prospect of a Labour government under Jeremy Corbyn, it might be a good idea to talk to the future government rather than boycott it. Ms Rayner was therefore in a strong position and she could have told the Board, to put it politely, to fuck off if they gave her any grief. If members of the Shadow Cabinet don’t have the bottle to tell the small minded small businessmen of the Board where to get off then they will be putty in the hands of the currency speculators.
The Zionists discovered that in her radical phase, after having visited Auschwitz, Rayner had quoted from Norman Finkelstein’s seminal book, Holocaust Industry which describes how the Zionist movement has exploited the Holocaust both financially and politically. Rayner tweeted that “As Norman G Finklestein writes in his seminal book The Holocaust Industry it is important to fight for and preserve the integrity of the historical record.”
The problem with asking people like Angela Rayner to have the courage of their convictions is that they never had any convictions
What you might ask is wrong with that? However you should never underestimate the yellow streak running through Labour MPs. Instead of defending her quote from a book praisedby Noam Chomsky and the most eminent of all Holocaust historians, Raul Hilberg, Rayner expressed regret and apologised for quoting from the controversial book, The Holocaust Industry, by anti-Zionist Norman Finkelstein.’
The Jewish Newsobservesthat Finkelstein ‘claims in the book that the US Jewish establishment exploits the memory of the Holocaust for political and financial gain.’ 
This is about as controversial as saying that the sun sets in the west or that gravity calls things to fall. The Zionist movement, of which the American Jewish establishment is an integral part, has shamelessly exploited the Holocaust for the benefit of Israel. Why even the fraudulent ‘definition’ of anti-Semitism that the Zionist movement is trying to impose on us is called the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliancedefinition.  It would be honest at least to call it the Israel government sponsored definition of anti-Semitism. The Holocaust has been exploited mercilessly by the Zionist movement.  Finkelstein’s book documents just a few of these examples. The Holocaust has become an ideological construct, separate from the memory of the Holocaust itself, replete with its own museums and cultural artifacts, the purpose of which is to defend the practices of Zionism and the Israeli state.
What makes this even more shameful is that the actual Holocaust survivors themselves live in poverty, denied all but the most basic sustenance in a  militarized economy run by a handful of oligarchs. See Tens of thousands of Israeli Holocaust survivors are living in abject poverty
Finkelstein gives as an example (p.30) of how little the Zionist movement is concerned about the Holocaust the example of Ronald Reagan’s visit to Germany’s Bitburg military cemetery in 1985. During the course of this visit Reagan declared that German soldiers, including members of the Waffen SS, ‘were victims of the Nazis just as surely as the victims of the concentration camps.’ The Waffen SS were responsible for running the camps.
What was the reaction of the same Zionist lobby groups who ritually accuse all and sundry of anti-Semitism? They defended Reagan who was a good friend of Israel. In 1988 Reagan was given the ‘Humanitarian of the Year’ award by the Simon Wiesenthall Centre and in 1994 the ‘Torch of Liberty’ award by the Anti-Defamation League. When one remembers that Reagan sponsored death squads in El Salvador and the Nicaraguan Contras you realize how deep the Zionist sickness is.
Yet the cowardly Rayner, backed down. Instead of defending her right to quote from Holocaust Industry and telling the Board where to get off she decided to imitate the victims of China’s Red Guard. She could have been quoting from the Report to the March 1949 Seventh Central Committee meeting of the Communist Party of China on the Marxist-Leninist weapon of criticism and self-criticism.’ which explained that ‘We can get rid of a bad style and keep the good.’ Rayner’s self-abnegation knew no limits:
 “I regret the choice of quote I used to illustrate it, and now that I know more about the context I would not make that reference again. I apologise for what was a genuine misunderstanding, in what was always intended to be a message of solidarity with the Jewish community. This underscores the importance of engagement with the Jewish community to improve understanding about this issue.”
Humiliation piled on humiliation. It’s as if these ciphers don’t believe in anyting. If Rayner had been guilty of ‘anti-Semitism’ the Board of Deputies would be the last body to apologise to.  Throughout its miserable 258 years existence this organisation, set up to pay homage to George III on his accession to the throne, has utterly failed to defend the Jewish community against anti-Semitism. The only time it fought against discrimination was in the mid-19th century when it fought for the Emancipation of the Jewish bourgeoisie, in particular its rights to stand for Parliament. After having been elected three times Lionel de Rothschild finally took his seat in 1858 after the passage of the Jewish Relief Act.
The Board completely failed to defend the rights of Jewish refugees from Czarist Russia at the end of the 19th century. On 18th January 1894 500-600 Jewish workers in the East End of London occupied the Grand Synagogue seeking an audience with Chief Rabbi Herman Adler who had described the Russian immigrants as criminals... mentally and physically afflicted. They had to be thrown out by truncheon wielding police. When the Tories, under Zionist hero and Prime Minister Arthur Balfour introduced the Aliens Act 1905 to keep the Jewish refugees out, the Board failed to oppose it. As the editor of the Jewish Chronicle, L Greenberg, noted: ‘The Board asked for the driest of dry bread, it was given the hardest of hard stone.’ [Jewish Chronicle 24.4.1908
The Board of Deputies message to Jews when faced with real antisemitism in October 1936 was to 'keep away from the route of the Blackshirt march'- nothing has changed since
On 2nd October 1936 the BOD advice to Jewish workers and anti-fascists was to ‘Keep Away’ when Moseley’s British Union of Fascists tried to march through the East End. The Board was comprehensively ignored and today the anti-fascist movement commemorates the Battle of Cable Street in 1936 when Moseley’s fascist thugs were stopped in their tracks by the Jewish and non-Jewish working class.
In the 1970’s the neo-Nazi National Front was being talked about as the third party of British politics.  At the West Bromwich by-election in 1973 the NF’s Martin Webster gained 17% of the vote saving his deposit. In the Stechford by-election in 1977 the NF beat the Liberals into 4th place, gaining 8.2%. It was as a result of this that the Anti Nazi League was formed in late 1977. 
What was the reaction of the Board? It was to ignore the NF and attack the ANL because it had been formed by anti-Zionists. Then as now its concern was Israel not Jews. This drove Searchlight Anti-Fascist Magazine, which was edited by Maurice Ludmer before the baleful influence of its current editor, Gerry Gable to issue a strongly worded editorial [Issue 41, November 1978]:
"In the face of mounting attacks against the Jewish community both ideologically and physically, we have the amazing sight of the Jewish Board of Deputies launching an attack on the Anti Nazi League with all the fervour of Kamikaze pilots... It was as though they were watching a time capsule rerun of the 1930's, in the form of a flickering old movie, with a grim determination to repeat every mistake of that era. "
Solicitor and member of the Board of  Deputies Robert Festenstein appears in promotion video with Tommy Robinson
The Board is stuffed with bigots such as Roslyn Pine for whom Muslims are ‘the vilest of animals” and Arabs are simple ‘evil’ or Robert Festenstein, Deputy for Prestwich Hebrew Congregation who starred in a Tommy Robinson video.
The Board of Deputies, which doesn’t represent the secular majority of Jews in Britain or Ultra Orthodox Jews is a reactionary Zionist body. Its past President Jonathan Arkush accused Jeremy Corbyn of havingunquestionably anti-Semitic views’. The same Arkush, writing on behalf of the Board, welcomed the election of the unquestionably anti-Semitic Donald Trump.
When Israeli snipers began murdering unarmed Palestinian demonstrators in Gaza the Board of Deputies rushed to support them in the name of all Jews
The Board has given unquestioning and unstinting support for every act of mass murder and repression by the Israeli state. It has organised demonstrations in support of Israel’s murderous attacks on Gaza and most recently given its support to Israeli snipers firing on unarmed demonstrators in Gaza. In a statement issued by both Jonathan Arkush and Marie van der Zyl the Board stated that
No state could allow its borders to be breached by those who openly wish harm to its civilians.  Israel is defending its people from repeated violent attempts at mass invasion.’
There are no borders between Israel and Gaza. There is a security fence and the demonstrators were shot hundreds of yards from the fence in a scene reminiscent of the Nazi killing fields in Russia.
No doubt Angela Rayner deprecated, like all Labour’s apologists for Zionism, Israel’s mass murder of Palestinians but she fails entirely to connect the murder of Palestinians with the use of ‘anti-Semitism’ as a weapon against Israel’s critics.
Israel is a state that is officially an apartheid state with the passing of the Jewish Nation State Law.  As the late Uri Avnery wrote, in his last ever article, Who the hell are we’
So what is new about the new law which at a first glance looks like a copy of the declaration? It contains two important omissions: the declaration spoke of a “Jewish and Democratic” state, and promised full equality between all its citizens, without regard to religion, ethnicity or sex.
All this has disappeared. No democracy. No equality. A state of the Jews, for the Jews, by the Jews.
Avnery was one of those rare creatures, a Zionist who sincerely wanted to make peace. He wasn’t a man of the Left, on the contrary he came from a Revisionist Zionist background, having fought in the Irgun. But it is plain as a pikestaff that the Israel that the Board defends is racist to the core.
Angela Rayner, instead of taking the Board to task for implicating all British Jews in the atrocities of the Israeli state, which inevitably helps fuel anti-Semitism, decided to attack me instead.  In Angela Rayner: Those likening Hitler to Zionism not welcome in Labour Party Board President Marie van der Zyl was quoted as saying that 'Labour must kick out the racists from the party, no Ifs, no Buts, and it must do so without further delay'. As it happens I agree with her. The first step should be the disaffiliation of the Jewish Labour Movement and the expulsion of its Chair, war criminal Ivor Caplin and its Campaigns Officer Adam Langleben. All those who defend Israeli Apartheid should be shown the door. Instead Rayner she was
glad that the likes of [Jewish anti-Zionist] Tony Greenstein have been expelled and I want to make it clear that those who distort history by likening Hitler to Zionism are no longer welcome.”
Angela Rayner seems to have contracted the IHRA disease, verbal incontinence. Nowhere have I compared Hitler to Zionism for one simple reason.  Hitler was (in theory anyway) a human being. Zionism is a political movement.  Of course if Rayner used ‘Hitler’ as a metonym for Nazism she is right.  There are many comparisons between Zionism and Nazism and Israelis including Israeli historians are prime amongst those who make the comparisons. However comparing two things is not the same as saying they are identical.  Such logic completely escapes this Labour front bench opportunist.

The late Professor Amos Funkenstein, former Head of the Faculty of History at Tel Aviv University, when referring to the controversy over the refusal of soldiers to serve in the Occupied Territories, compared them to soldiers in the German army who refused to serve in concentration or extermination camps. [HOLOCAUST ANALOGIES - Repaying the Mortgage Return 2 March 1990]  To those who asked how it was possible to compare the actions of Nazi soldiers with Israelis, Funkenstein replied

As a historian I know that every comparison is limited. On the other hand, without comparisons, no historiography is possible. Understanding a historical event is a kind of translation into the language of our time. If we would leave every phenomenon in its peculiarity, we could not make this translation. Every translation is an interpretation and every interpretation is also a comparison.
Israelis including Holocaust researcher Professor Daniel Blatman and fellow Hebrew University Professor Ofer Cassif are presumably also racists, according to Idiot Rayner, for comparing Israel today to Nazi Germany. [Hebrew U Professor: Israel Today Similar To Nazi Germany]. Even Israel’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Yair Golan, made just such a comparison. IDF General In Bombshell Speech: Israel Today Shows Signs Of 1930s Germany. Rayner typies the bankrupt anti-intellectualism of Labour politicians who run scared of the Zionist smear of anti-Semitism. Nearly all of them lack the political courage to call Zionism’s racists out for what they are.
Afula has just elected a city mayor who has vowed to keep protect the City’s ‘Jewish character’ starting off with banning Arabs from the city’s park. Would it be anti-Semitic to make a comparison with Nazi Germany which, from 1935-6 onwards also banned Jews from parks?

Or how about the quaint Israeli custom on Jerusalem’s Flag March of Israelis marching to the chant of ‘Death to the Arabs’? Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, who accused Corbyn of anti-Semitism and being the new Enoch Powell, encouraged Jews to attend this march. There was a time in 1930’s Germany and Poland when ‘Death to the Jews’ was quite popular. Perhaps this comparison is also anti-Semitic?
Or maybe the Israeli custom of having Jewish only towns and communities brings to mind the custom in Nazi Germany of having Aryan only communities. The existing ability of communities of 400 Jewish families to reject Arabs and other undesirables, under the Reception Committees Law is being expandedto 700 families.
The fact is that there are many comparisons which can be made between a ‘Jewish’ state based on ethnic cleansing and racial-nationalism and Nazi Germany. In just the same way as people compared Apartheid in South Africa to Nazi Germany.  That doesn’t mean that Nazi Germany and Israel are the same, especially after the Holocaust began however it does mean that they have certain features in common.  Today Israel even has its own Jewish Nazi groups based around people like the popular rapper, The Shadow.
Unfortunately people like Angela Rayner are too cowardly to understand that it is precisely because Israel uses the Holocaust as its touchstone that it is a moral imperative to point out that ethnic cleansing and all Israel’s other barbarities are no different in principle to Germany under fascism. That is one reason why today the Israeli state is best friends with anti-Semitic regimes such as those in Hungary and Poland.
The sheer abject cowardice of Angela Rayner is epitomized by the fact that Marie van der Zyl
was also scathing of Jeremy Corbyn, who, she said, “must apologise for the hurt he has personally caused, whether by calling antisemitic terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah his ‘friends’, defending an antisemitic mural, laying wreaths by the graves of terrorists, or allowing so many racists and their apologists to remain as Labour members.’
Jeremy Corbyn has nothing to apologise for when it comes to fighting racism and if Rayner had a spine then she would have walked out because one thing is for certain – there are next to no votes to be obtained by appeasing Britain’s Zionists.
We even had Tory Lord Eric Pickles complaining that “those who wanted to amend the IHRA definition wanted to be free to compare Israel to the Nazis. That is bigotry.”This is the same Pickles who defended the Tory Party’s links in the European Parliament with anti-Semitic parties such as Poland’s Law and Justice Party.
What Angela Rayner proves is the power of Zionism’s political terrorism in silencing criticism of Zionism. The fact is that Israel today is fundamentally an apartheid state, both in the Occupied Territories, where it is most obvious, but also in Israel itself where Arabs have the status of resident aliens. Those who seek to prevent comparisons with Nazi Germany are in effect giving a green light for Israel to continue down the road of visceral racism and segregation.
Tony Greenstein

How Israel uses the Holocaust to whitewash its role in aiding genocide

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From Guatemala to Rwanda, Burma to the Philippines – there isn’t one murderous regime whose military Israel hasn’t armed and trained

For 70 years Israel has used the Holocaust as its protective charm. The Holocaust has been used to both justify and legitimise Israel’s actions, both internally and externally. It was with this in mind that Israel, after a lengthy internal debate, passed the 1953 Martyrs' and Heroes Remembrance (Yad Vashem) Law which created a Holocaust museum, Yad Vashem. Even the name was carefully chosen to reflect its propagandist role. Yad Vashem wasn’t built to remember the victims of the Holocaust but to use their memory as part of a propagandist myth of heroism and martyrdom. The Holocaust became part of official Zionist ideology.
The Holocaust, the death of 6 million Jews (nothing is said of the millions of other deaths) has become Israel’s main propaganda instrument, enabling it to whitewash the role of a State which was born in massacres and ethnic cleansing and which has continued to trade in the blood of others.
Every State visit to Israel includes a visit to Yad Vashem in order that the guest can pay his respects to the murdered Jewish millions (no other category of the murdered is included in the Holocaust – only the Jews suffered a Holocaust, others suffered persecution). Visiting state dignitaries are reminded that when criticising Israel they should remember that Israel arose on the ashes of the Holocaust.
The Holocaust is consciously used in order to put a kosher seal on Israel’s murderous activities, not only domestically but internationally. Israel’s supporters cry ‘anti-Semitism’whenever any comparisons are made between Zionism, Israel and the Nazi regime but it is Israel itself which constantly makes those comparisons.
In a previous articleI quoted Tom Segev, an Israeli historian and journalist who wrote about how the picture of a Palestinian, the Mufti of Jerusalem, a minor war criminal, was given a whole display wall at Yad Vashem. Its purpose being to ‘‘conclude that there is much in common between the Nazis’ plan to destroy the Jews and the Arabs’ enmity to Israel.’ (The Seventh Million p.425). The entry for the Mufti is the Holocaust Encyclopedia is longer than that of any other Nazi war criminal bar Hitler himself.
Israeli Professor of History, Edith Zertal noted there hasn’t been a war involving Israel ‘that has not been perceived, defined, and conceptualized in terms of the Holocaust.’ Israel has mobilised the Holocaust ‘in the service of Israeli politics.’ [Israel’s Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood]. 
Thus we have the irony of Heinz Christian-Strache, the leader of Austria’s Freedom Party, which is part of the governing coalition of Austria, being welcomed to Yad Vashem to remember those who died at the hands of those his party supported.  The Freedom Party was set up as a neo-Nazi party and to this day contains many neo-Nazis.
In April 1976 the South Africa Prime Minister John Vorster visitedYad Vashem.  Vorster had been interned during the war because of his Nazi sympathies and his membershipof the Ossewabrandwag which supported the Nazis.
When Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who described Admiral Horthy, the pro-Nazi ruler of Hungary during the war, as an exceptional statesman’, visited Yad Vashemhe was met with protestsby Holocaust survivors.Horthy it was who presided over the deportation of nearly half a million Jews to Auschwitz.
Yet instead of closing its doors to Orban Yad Vashem issued a statementthat
The Hungarian prime minister is a guest of the State of Israel. Yad Vashem receives guests of the state in accordance with the visit plan made by the Foreign Affairs Ministry, which is in charge of official visits in the State of Israel."
thus making clear that far from being an independent historical institute dedicated to preserve the memory of the murdered, Yad Vashem was a propaganda arm of the Israeli state.
It is thus no wonder that when Philippines President  Rodrigo Duterte visited Israel in September 2018 he paid the obligatory visit to Yad Vashem. Duterte even wrotein the guestbook that "Never again. May the world learn the lessons of this horrific and benighted period of human history.” This is the same man who, in September 2016, compared his murder of drug dealers and addicts to the Holocaust, saying that he would kill a large number of addicts just as Hitler had killed a large number of Jews.
"Critics compare me to Hitler’s cousin,” he said. “Hitler massacred 3 million Jews... there’s 3 million drug addicts. There are. I’d be happy to slaughter them."
 Why shouldn’t Duterte visit Israel and pay his respects at Yad Vashem?  As Richard Silverstein explains below, the Philippines were one of Israel’s best weapons customers.
When Jeremy Corbyn was being smeared with allegations of anti-Semitism, the leader of Israel’s racist Israeli Labour Party, Isaac Herzog, extended an invitation to Corbyn to visit Yad Vashem. The understanding being that once Corbyn had visited Yad Vashem he would understood that the Holocaust gives Israel a licence to support the murder and massacre of thousands of non-Jews and even Jews.
What is particularly disgusting is that Israel was heavily involved in providing weaponry to the Hutu Interamwhe militias who massacred up to a million Tsutsis. 
In his article below Eitay Mack describes how Israel supported Rwandan dictator, Paul Kgame’s attempt to rewrite the history of the Rwandan Holocaust in order to erase the memory of those Hutus who were also murdered for trying to protect their Tsutsi neighbours.
When Israel earlier this year tried to deport 40,000 Black African asylum seekers, who came mainly from Eritrea and Sudan, it made a deal with Kgame whereby Rwanda would take the refugees in return for a paymentof about $5,000 for each refugee.  This disgusting mixture of racism and corruption was only prevented because mass publicity, including pickets of Rwanda’s Embassy in Tel Aviv ensured that Kgame was so embarrassed that the Rwandan regime was forced to abandon the agreement. Israel suspends plan to resettle African asylum seekers despite deal.
Richard Silverstein’s article is not the only example of Israel lending military support to genocidal regimes. Throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s Israel gave its support to murderous and genocidal regimes in Central and South America. In particular it helped the Guatemalan regime massacre up to 200,000 Mayan Indians under its fundamentalist President Rios Montt as it constructed protected villages, or kibbutzim, in order to isolate and defeat the native rebellion. Israel’s role in the Guatemalan genocide
The fact that the neo-Nazi Junta, which ruled Argentina between 1976 and 1983, tortured and murdered up to 3,000 Jews, was no obstacle to Israel supplying the regime with over a billion dollars worth of military equipment.  They were the ‘wrong sort of Jew’. When even the United States was forced to suspended arms sales to Argentina because of the military’s human rights abuses, Israel had no compunction in stepping into the breach, as it did when the Carter Administration froze arms supplies to Guatemala. During the Falklands/Malvinas war Israel was Argentina’s main arms supplier. See Argentina – Proof that Israel is no Refuge from Anti-Semitism
South African Prime Minister and former Nazi sympathiser lays a wreath at Yad Vashem
Jane Hunter has written extensively on Israel’s role in Central and South America for example Israel in Central America. What western liberals and apologists for Israel like Emily Thorberry and Angela Rayne find difficult to accept is how Israel uses the Holocaust in order to cleanse its reputation. 
The dead of Holocaust are used in order to justify the supply of weaponry to regimes that can quite legitimately be described as neo-Nazi. When Israel accuses its critics of ‘anti-Semitism’ we should bear in mind Israel’s role in the supporting repression and murder in countries like Burma/Myanmar and the depths of cynicism that lie behind Israel’s propagandist use of the Holocaust.
Tony Greenstein
Protest against Duterte
Israel isn’t just maintaining a brutal military occupation. It’s also supplying weapons to genocidal regimes around the world.
A Rohingya Muslim refugee boy is held by his father after arriving by boat to Shah Porir Dwip on October 30, 2017 near Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. Kevin Frayer / Getty

For the past few years, a group of nine Israelis led by human rights lawyer Eitay Mack has sought to peel back the layer of secrecy shrouding Israel’s collusion with some of the worst genocide regimes in the world. They have done so by filing freedom of information requests with their country’s defense ministry, seeking documents concerning Israeli arms deals, consulting contracts, and training of the armed forces in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Serbia, South Sudan, and Rwanda during decades of ethnic conflict in those nations. They’ve sought to learn the extent of the trade, what weapons were supplied and to whom, how the weapons were used, and how long the trade continued.
In every instance, the ministry denied their request, and they were forced to appeal to the Supreme Court. In every appeal, the court has sided with the military and ruled that such information was legitimately sealed from public view in order to protect the security of the nation.
It’s difficult to understand how the knowledge that Israel armed Rwandan murderers in the 1990s would harm national security. Much more likely, this exposure would damage Israel’s reputation and give ammunition to critics who claim it is a rogue state intent on violating international law and norms of conduct.
Protecting the State
In Israel, a national security state in which individual rights and the public’s right to know are subordinated to the interests of the military-intelligence apparatus, these two factors are often conflated. It is much easier to justify secrecy using the concept of protecting the state and its citizens than it is to admit that secrecy is meant to protect the reputation of the very security apparatus charged with protecting them.
Israel has recently censored two major reports claiming that the country was secretly arming nations and groups engaged in genocide or mass violence. The first again concerned Eitay Mack, who had appealed to the Supreme Court to permit exposure of Israeli arms trade to Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese forces. These forces exterminated the Tamil Tiger rebellion during a thirty-year civil war that ended in 2009, with the loss of forty thousand to seventy-five thousand civilians and combatants.

Polish fascist MEP Michal Kaminski, who accused Polish Jews are being responsible for their own massacre at Jedwabne, lays a wreath at Yad Vashem
Here is Mack’s account of the major role Israeli weapons played in some of the worst massacres of that thirty-year civil war:
In Sri Lanka the State of Israel played a most pivotal role in war crimes and crimes against humanity carried out there: [it] supplied drones which directed planes and warships made in Israel, and these deliberately targeted and bombed civilians and . . . humanitarian sites, and determined the fate of the war at an extremely high human cost. Sri Lankan forces which carried out the crimes had received [Israel Defense Forces] IDF training (especially from the Israeli Air Force and Navy), as well as from the Israeli Police.
One of the famous cases in which Israeli Kfir planes were used took place on August 14, 2006. The Sri Lankan air force used Kfir planes to bomb an orphanage for girls, in which 400 girls . . . resided. Security forces claimed the girls were being trained to be LTTE [Tamil Tiger] combatants. Around 60 girls were killed on the spot, and tens of girls were injured. Earlier, in 1999, another Israeli war plane attacked a school, killing 21 children and teachers.
The Government of Sri Lanka and [its] senior officials . . . have repeatedly [revealed], in official as well as media interviews, during and after the war, details [of] Israeli security exports, their extent and their massive use in the effort to win the war. Repeated statements [acknowledging] watching Israeli drone footage ahead of every attack, have incriminated the Sri Lankan government and proven that civilians and civilian targets had been deliberately hit with full awareness of the government’s security forces.

District Court Judge Shaul Shohat ruled that documents held by the Israeli defense ministry could be protected from public view. But his argument revealed the inner workings of the security apparatus and how it works hand in glove with the judiciary and intelligence services. He revealed that he held closed-door hearing with the state’s representatives, including attorneys, defense ministry officials, and even Israel’s national intelligence agency, the Mossad, from which Mack was excluded.
During this hearing, the state presented secret evidence to the judge meant to persuade him that revealing any of this information would irreparably harm the state. Shohat dutifully agreed with the defense and wrote in this passage of his ruling (one of the passages the defense ministry sought to suppress is in italics):
I . . . learned from a review of these documents that most of the[m] deal with the operational capabilities of the IDF and the security industries involved in various deals, and their ties with military industries in Sri Lanka. The documents contain the details of internal discussions among senior officials in the security establishment regarding the issue as well as discussions and agreements between senior officials in the security establishment and senior officials in the Sri Lankan government, specifically involving the formulation of security policies; working procedures and internal processes in the Ministry of Defense, mutual visits and data as to the deals that were signed and the extent of military exports, including the specification of various types of weapons, etc. It was also noted that there is a secrecy agreement with Sri Lanka, and that its violation by Israel would create a problematic precedent which would reflect on relations with other states, harm existent secret agreements and deter other states from forging new military ties [with Israel]. It was argued in this context that even if Sri Lanka has violated its obligation by the agreement and published specific, ad-hoc information, this does not detract from the State of Israel’s obligation under the agreement.
Israeli journalist John Brown published a report in Haaretz on Shohat’s ruling. Shortly thereafter, he discovered that the defense ministry division responsible for protecting military secrets, MALMAB, had asked the judge to censor a portion of his ruling, which Brown had included in his article. The ministry’s main concern was preventing the revelation of the fact that representatives of the Mossad had urged the judge to restrict media publication about Israeli arms sales to Sri Lanka. MALMAB also sought to suppress media reporting about the secret nature of the weapons dealing. Both parties had agreed to maintain secrecy about them (even though Sri Lankan officials had since revealed them publicly).
Brown appealed via Facebook for others to protect and preserve the article in the event it was censored. It seems that even censors in a national security state face obstacles, as the article remains available, uncensored, on the Haaretz website.
Another reason why the Israeli censor may be extremely sensitive to revealing such information is that the International Criminal Court (ICC) has announced pre-trial proceedings investigating Israel’s conduct during the 2014 Gaza invasion, Operation Protective Edge. During the month-long conflict, 2,300 Palestinians were killed, two-thirds of whom have been declared civilians by independent Palestinian human right groups and the United Nations.
The ICC announced the pre-trial phase amid this year’s Great March of Return, during which Israel has murdered nearly two hundred Gazans protesting Israel’s siege of the enclave. Israeli officials are aware that the publication of any evidence that it has been an accessory to genocide in other conflicts could bolster a case to be made before the international court.
Returning to Sri Lanka, it’s no wonder, given the close relations between Israel’s military and Sri Lanka’s, that the army chief of staff responsible for the genocide, after the conclusion of his Sri Lankan military service, was appointed the nation’s ambassador to Israel.
The World’s Seventh-Largest Arms Exporter
Sri Lanka is only one of Israel’s many weapons buyers. The country is one of the largest arms exporters in the world.
It is the seventh-largest exporter of weapons systems worldwide, while its GDP, $350 billion, ranks only thirty-second in the world. This means that the nation’s arms industry is not just one of the export engines of the economy, but it plays a far more prominent role than in other major arms-exporting nations, which have much larger economies than Israel’s.
The armaments industry is powered by ongoing conflicts between Israel and its frontline neighbors. They develop, test, and deploy some of the world’s most advanced weapons systems, which maximize the death and suffering of its enemies. Then it turns around and exports not just the weapons systems, but the suffering they cause.
In effect, just as Israel destabilizes the Middle East with invasions, assassinations, air assaults, and repeated military operations outside its own borders, it offers its clients the capability to inflict maximum damage on their own rivals and enemies. This makes Israel a major force for destabilization among the nations of the world.
Half of Israel’s overall weapons sales are to India, whose government is also engaged in an illegal occupation of Kashmir. It is the largest supplier of weapons to India as well.
To understand how Israel functions as one of the world’s principal weapons dealers, it’s worth examining some of its other major clients.
When Duterte Came Shopping for Israeli Guns
Last summer, the Philippines’ president and accused war criminal, Rodrigo Duterte, completed a highly successful visit to Israel, during which he signed contracts to purchase some of Israel’s most advanced weapons. Duterte stands accused of the murder of tens of thousands of Filipinos targeted in so-called drug busts.
Among the Israeli shrines the Philippine leader visited was Yad Vashem, the memorial to the Holocaust. Duterte has, in the past, likened himself to Hitler and expressed admiration for the Nazi leader. Duterte sees himself as eradicating the plague of drugs in his country, presumably, as Hitler eradicated the “plague” of Jews.
There appears to be no dictator too brutal, no thug too murderous to be considered treif as far as the Israeli arms industry is concerned.
Duterte praised Israel’s ask-no-questions approach to weapons sales. Unlike even the US, Israel placed no restrictions on their use. It asked no questions and expected no answers from any of its clients.
Arming Serbian and Rwandan War Criminals
In 2016, Brown also revealed that Israel supplied military training and weapons to the Serbian war criminal Radko Mladic, who commanded Serbian forces that massacred thousands of Bosnian civilians at Srebrenica.
Yet another Israeli court refused to release documentary evidence that Israel armed the Rwandan militias, which ultimately murdered eight hundred thousand Tutsis during the 1994 genocide. Again, a court determined that Israel’s facilitation of genocide was news the world should not hear, because it would hurt the country’s reputation.
It certainly would. Israel, which touts itself as the protector of world Jewry in the aftermath of the Holocaust, has been a willing participant in some of the worst instances of genocide since the Holocaust. But Israel’s judiciary, at the urging of its military-intelligence apparatus, deems this information damaging to the nation.
Myanmar’s Ethnic Cleansing of Rohingya Muslims, Aided by Israeli Naval Warships
Last year, during the ethnic cleansing of Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslim minority, the same group of activists led by attorney Eitay Mack brought to the public’s attention Israeli arms sales to the Myanmar military junta. The court refused to intervene to stop the trade and even refused to permit its ruling to be made public.
Luckily, at a public protest, one of the speakers revealed the result of the ruling. I published video of his speech and the court’s ruling, believing that such opacity was completely unwarranted. As late as last month, a judge ruled that the charade of silence should continue.
As the world shrinks in disgust from former Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, Israel embraces her generals, who have wiped out entire villages in Rakine State, expelling five hundred thousand refugees to Bangladesh. Mack’s work on this case led to the Israeli military and its arms dealer partners suspending such sales. But if past behavior is any guide, as soon as the furore dies down, the commerce will resume.
Israel Fuels Genocide in Sudan
Israel has also interceded in the Sudanese civil war, selling weapons to both sides in a conflict that has taken four hundred thousand lives.
In 2017, Mack and a group of Israeli activists petitioned the Supreme Court to end Israeli weapons sales on the grounds that they constituted a war crime. In this case, Israeli-made Galil ACE rifles were used by the South Sudanese government to attack members of a rival tribe in a massacre that commenced the civil war. It also supplied eavesdropping equipment permitting the South Sudanese to monitor the communications of their enemies.
The Court later ruled that the arms sales were legal.
Acknowledging, Then Censoring
The second major story that broke last month is the censoring of a Jerusalem Post article that confirmed to Israelis for the first time that the IDF has supplied weapons and ammunition to the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, al-Nusra. I’ve reported before that the Israeli military has physically coordinated with these Islamist rebels, providing intelligence gathering and communications gear. It also built a camp just inside the Israeli occupation zone in the Golan that housed the families of Syrian militant fighters. The Wall Street Journal and Foreign Policy have also published exposés of this arms trade.
Until now, Israel only touted its humanitarian and medical aid to Syrian rebels, pretending that this somehow served as Israel’s contribution to ameliorating the suffering of Syrians during the civil war. Otherwise, Israel has falsely claimed it is either neutral in the Syrian conflict or restrained in its involvement. It is neither. But that hasn’t stopped credulous journalists from parroting the Israeli line.
Israel has flown hundreds of air sorties attacking Syrian air bases and targeting Hezbollah and Iranian weapons convoys. Further, it has assassinated leading Syrian, Iranian, and Hezbollah military commanders inside Syria.
It’s hard to know why an IDF officer offered this information to a Jerusalem Post reporter, then the army censor countermanded him, declared the story treif, and censored it. It appears the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing.
Israel has made these alliances with Syrian Islamists as its prime minister has toured the world boasting that his country is the last bulwark against Islamist terrorism; that the West should thank Israel for warning of such terror attacks on European soil; and that ISIS and al-Qaeda seek first to destroy Israel and then follow up by invading the West.
It doesn’t seem to bother him at all to make common cause with the self-same al-Qaeda when his country’s interests are aligned with Israel’s. Few world leaders or journalists have noted the ultimate cynicism of this Israeli gambit. In the brave new world of IHRA-era Great Britain, such news might be greeted with charges of antisemitism.
About the Author
Richard Silverstein blogs at Tikun Olam, where he covers the the Israeli national security state. He has contributed to the essay collections, A Time to Speak Out: Independent Jewish Voices on Israel, Zionism and Jewish Identity and Israel and Palestine: Alternate Perspectives on Statehood.


Israel is helping Rwanda rewrite the history of genocide

By +972 Magazine

|Published February 20, 2018

Israel, which has supplied numerous despotic regimes with advanced weaponry, is now helping the Rwandan government rewrite the narrative of the 1994 genocide. So much for the lessons of the Holocaust.
By Eitay Mack

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with President of Rwanda Paul Kagame, at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem on July 10, 2017. (Kobi Gideon/GPO)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with President of Rwanda Paul Kagame, at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem on July 10, 2017. (Kobi Gideon/GPO)

Israel was the only Western state to endorse the Rwandan dictatorship’s scandalous proposal in January to change the factual and legal international consensus about the genocide that took place there in 1994. The Rwandan government seeks to create a new narrative that deletes from memory the murder of moderate Hutus who supported a compromise with the Tutsis. Following the resolution’s adoption, Noa Furman, Israel’s deputy ambassador to the UN, delivered a passionate speech justifying Israel’s support for the proposal with the claim that Israel, after the Holocaust, understands the global responsibility to remember human history’s darkest episodes.
Israel’s support for the Rwandan government’s proposal to rewrite its history has far-reaching implications for Rwanda itself. Israel’s support grants legitimacy to Paul Kagame, the Rwandan dictator, who is intensifying his harsh internal repression. Kagame has managed to remain president for life by holding improper elections and by the constant surveillance, persecution, torture, disappearance, and murder of opposition activists. The regime also restricts freedom of press and freedom of association. Thus, for example, Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, who headed the opposition United Democratic Forces party, was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment after she asked why the museum commemorating the Rwandan genocide does not mention the Hutus who were murdered.

Foot-dragging and a war of attrition

Israel’s support for the Rwandan government’s proposal also has far-reaching implications for the ability to prevent genocide in the future. Proposals like this one restrict our understanding of the phenomenon of genocide as a product of the development of complex processes, which we can nip in the bud once we recognize their telltale signs. In Rwanda and Guatemala, for example, civil wars escalated into genocides. Had the international community acted to stop these civil wars and the flow of arms into these countries, perhaps the genocides could have been prevented. Today, we fear that the civil war in South Sudan could escalate into a genocide, but the UN Security Council is split — unable to agree on a resolution that calls for an arms embargo, significant sanctions on those responsible for the crimes and for the ongoing war, and their indictment.
Deputy Ambassador Furman lied on the podium of the UN General Assembly. I assume she knows this. For decades, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which she represents, has authorized or turned a blind eye to the exporting of arms and training to dictatorships and other violent regimes. Indeed, the Israeli defense industry has reached nearly every corner of the globe where genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and severe violations of human rights have occurred, supplying Uzis to members of the Tonton Macoute militia, which raped and murdered the masses of Haiti during the Duvalier dictatorship; arms and training to the militias of the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines; arms and training to the Guatemalanregime during the genocide there; and guns and munitions to Rwandaduring the genocide in 1994.
Not only has the Ministry of Foreign Affairs allowed the selling of arms and training to despotic and murderous regimes (and continuesto do so today), but the Ministry has also conducted a war of attrition against those attempting to expose these arms deals and bring them to the public’s attention. This January, the Tel Aviv District Court rejected a freedom of information petition, which I filed with genocide scholar Prof. Yair Auron, demanding the publication of documents regarding weapons sales to Rwanda during the genocide. The legal campaign began four years ago. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs objects to the publication of these documents, although it was already revealed in a letter we received from the State Attorney that the ministry had “missed” the beginning of the genocide by six days. During these six days, around 20,000 people were murdered in the capital Kigali alone before the director of the Defense Ministry ordered the freezing of security exports to the country. Furthermore, there is solid evidence that Israeli security exports continuedthroughout the entire span of the genocide.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs employs numerous foot-dragging tactics. Court hearings in cases regarding defense exports have been cancelled more than once at the very last minute because the ministry’s representative had to travel abroad all of a sudden. The freedom of information procedures take years. We have been waiting for two years for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to finish checking whether it can disclose the documents regarding arms sales to the military dictatorship in Argentina, which murdered or disappeared around 2,000 Jews. When we appealed to the Supreme Court, the government demanded that we post tensof thousands of shekels in guarantees just to be able to carry out the procedure to disclose the truth.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara visit the Remembrance site for the victims of the Rwanda Genocide in 1994, at Kigali, Rwanda, on July 6, 2016. (Kobi Gideon/GPO)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara visit the Remembrance site for the victims of the Rwanda Genocide in 1994, at Kigali, Rwanda, on July 6, 2016. (Kobi Gideon/GPO)

Lessons from the Holocaust 
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs opposes revealing documents that detail Israeli sales of arms and training to Pinochet’s junta in Chile, which was responsible for cruel, unprecedented tortures. The same holds true for documents that detail arms sales during the civil war in Sri Lanka, where tens of thousands of civilians were murdered in several months —  by planes and ships made in Israel. The ministry refuses to disclose documents regarding arms and training sales to the apartheid regime in South Africa and to the Serbian and Serbo-Bosnian forces during the war and genocide in Bosnia. The ministry has asked the Israeli Supreme Court for a gag order on the court’s ruling regarding arms and weapons sales to Myanmar, where an EU and U.S. arms embargo is in place. And the ministry has asked the courts for a gag order on the legal proceedings regarding weapons and surveillance systems sold to South Sudan, which, according to the UN Security Council, are being used to commit crimes against humanity there.
When Myanmar’s ambassador to Israel repeatedly claimed in interviews with Israeli media that Israel is still selling arms to Myanmar, and that the deal between the two countries was intended to bypass the EU and U.S. arms embargo, Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs reprimanded him. We have yet to hear the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or the Israeli ambassador to the UN publicly criticize the crimes that Myanmar’s security forces are committing, in particular the ethnic cleansing of the Muslim Rohingya minority.
Similarly, despite the presence of a local Armenian community in Israel and an ongoing public, academic and political campaign, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has prevented an official Israeli recognition of the Armenian Genocide for decades, so as not to harm Israeli arms sales to Turkey and Azerbaijan.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs should atone for Israel’s weapons deals with despots around the world instead of collaborating with the Rwandan government to rewrite history. It is imperative that the ministry increase transparency regarding past and present Israeli defense exports. Israelis who have been complicit in grave crimes across the world — this includes senior former officials in the ministry — must be brought to justice — civil and criminal. The current law for monitoring security exports must be amended, so that the sale of Israeli arms to foreign security forces that commit severe crimes, such as disappearing people or using rape as a weapon of war, can be prevented. MK Tamar Zandberg has been trying to promote such legislation in the Knesset for several years, but has so far been blocked by the Foreign Affairs and Defense Ministries.
Over the years, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its representatives have been complicit in the sale of arms and training used in atrocities across the world, and complicit in concealing documentation of these atrocities from the Israeli public. They have dishonored the memory of the Holocaust, its survivors and their families.
Eitay Mack is a human rights activist and lawyer, campaigning for increased transparency and public scrutiny regarding Israeli security exports. This article was first published in Hebrew on Local Call. Read it here. Translated from the original Hebrew by Ofer Neiman.

See also:

Eitay Mack wants Israel to reveal its secret arms sales

Mack, a gadfly and lawyer, says he believes his country is selling arms to governments that abuse human rights.
Christian Science Monitor, November 19, 2015
By Ben LynfieldCorrespondent
Myanmar is a long way from Eitay Mack’s modest office in West Jerusalem. But on a recent day during the Sukkot or Feast of Tabernacles holiday, while fellow Israelis were vacationing, this self-effacing young lawyer was fretting about the upcoming elections in Myanmar (Burma).
Mr. Mack is dismayed that in September Israel hosted a senior Army delegation from Myanmar, which included a meeting with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and visits to leading weapons technology producer Elbit Systems Ltd. and naval and air force bases. The European Union has imposed an arms embargo, and the United States military sanctions, against the Southeast Asian regime because of its poor human rights record.
Mack is concerned that by hosting the visit, Israel has sent a message of support for Myanmar’s military government precisely when the country’s transition to civilian democracy is facing its biggest test following Nov. 8 elections.
Israel has increased the risk that the transition to democracy will not be successful,” Mack says. If the military maintains a dominant role after the vote, Mack intends to file a lawsuit against the Israeli Defense Ministry demanding that it disclose all of its security ties to Myanmar.
The Defense Ministry declined to comment, saying that it does not respond to queries about weapons sales.
Mack says Myanmar is just the tip of the iceberg. In recent years there have been reports in Israeli and international news media, and from organizations such as Privacy International (based in Britain) and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, of Israel providing weapons to regimes that are egregious human rights abusers without having a prior national discussion.
Now that may be changing, in large part because of Mack’s efforts.
Mack, who wears the kippa, or skullcap, of an observant Jew, is trying to pierce the wall of secrecy around Israeli weapons exports and is pressing for an end to weapons and know-how transfers that he says are helping to fuel conflicts worldwide. He has his sights set on reported Israeli sales of weapons or expertise to South Sudan, Eritrea, Azerbaijan, Burkina Faso, Equatorial Guinea, Angola, Cameroon, Gabon, and Chad, among others.
Yaacov Havakook, Israel’s Defense Ministry spokesman, declined to comment on whether Israel is equipping these countries nor did he respond to criticism that it is abetting human rights violations.
Mack, who believes he is on a lifesaving mission, does the work on a voluntary basis, although it often takes up most of his time.
“I want to do all I can to stop war crimes and crimes against humanity...,” he says. His office is adorned with the iconic photo of a lone protester facing a column of tanks during a protest in China’s Tiananmen Square. “I am a citizen of the world, and I have global responsibility,” he says.
In December the EU imposed an embargo on weapons sales to South Sudan after that country’s civil war resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and the displacement of nearly 2 million people. The US, for its part, has halted all military assistance to the South Sudanese government.
But Israel, according to Mack’s information – which he says is based on press reports, or comes from aid workers he has interviewed and other sources he cannot divulge – is providing Israeli-made rifles and training South Sudanese forces. It is flouting the EU embargo, he says, and in June openly hosted a senior South Sudanese delegation at a weapons fair in Tel Aviv.
At the same time the guests were being welcomed in Israel, South Sudanese forces and their allies were winding up an offensive in which they burned villages and carried out scores of rapes and killings, according to Human Rights Watch. It said the regime was guilty of committing war crimes and possible crimes against humanity during South Sudan’s April-to-June military push.
Israel is prolonging the fighting in South Sudan,” Mack says. (The conflict has continued despite the signing of a peace deal in August.)
Mack has joined forces with a liberal Israeli legislator, Tamar Zandberg, a member of the Meretz party, who demanded that the Defense Ministry cut all Israeli military aid to South Sudan. Mack helped organize several street demonstrations that drew attention to the issue.
The Defense Ministry rebuffed Ms. Zandberg’s request, saying that it couldn’t discuss arms exports to a specific country. “They don’t want a public discussion,” Mack says. “What is most threatening to them is that the public will start to intervene in what they are doing.”
Mack and Yair Oron, an Israeli academic, are also fighting a court battle to obtain the release of all documents related to weapons that may have been provided to Rwanda during its genocide in 1994 and to the Serbs in Bosnia from 1991 to 1995. The Defense Ministry responded by specifying that release of the documents would harm foreign relations and the security of the state.
A lower court has backed the ministry. Mack and Mr. Oron are appealing the decision to Israel’s Supreme Court.
Born near Tel Aviv, Mack acquired his interest in world affairs at an early age. Rather than have a party for his bar mitzvah, the religious rite of passage into manhood at age 13, he persuaded his parents to take him on a trip to China, which he had become curious about from reading National Geographic magazine.
But it wasn’t until he traveled to South America in 2004 that he began to think seriously about Israel’s military role in the world. On that trip he met a traveler from Ireland who was wearing a well-known Israeli brand of sandals. He asked her why she had on Israeli footwear. She explained that she was going into the jungle in Colombia, and that Israelis were training the forces fighting there. She thought that if she wore the sandals she would be protected.
Mack wondered why Israel was involved in Colombia.
“I began to research, and I found that in some cases we are training and arming both the government and the rebels,”he says. “I found out we are supporting many dictatorial regimes and are involved in violent conflicts throughout the world.”
Mack makes a modest living by representing Palestinians who have suffered physical harm or property damage from Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank or from the Israeli army. He does not charge his clients but takes a percentage of the damages if he wins a case.
He refuses to establish a nongovernmental organization to pursue his goals, something that would enable him to seek foreign funding. “I’m independent, and I do what I believe in,” he says.“I’m not subject to donors or agendas. I do what seems right, and what seems right is international law, which I try to apply here in Israel and to the security exports abroad.”
Mr. Havakook, the Defense Ministry spokesman, has also declined to comment on Mack’s activities.
“Eitay Mack is one of the most important human rights activists in Israel today,” says Zandberg, the Israeli legislator. “He is a very rare combination of dedication, commitment to values, and professionalism, with a very strong moral emphasis. Without him, the Israeli public wouldn’t know about these sales and the security establishment wouldn’t be forced to know it has to be accountable. I’m sure his work will lead to operative steps like increased supervision and legislation that we have to work on.”
“What he’s doing is especially hard because it’s a security issue and that’s a holy of holies in Israel,” she adds.
“Many people don’t think civil society and civilians have the right to work on this. They think it should be the domain just of generals and security people. There’s no doubt that what he does is difficult, but that just shows how important it is.”

Israel court gagged, details of ruling on arms sales to Myanmar remain secret

September 27, 2017
Israeli cornershot, a weapon the army sold to Myanmar [Wikipedia]

Israel has issued a gag order against the country’s High Court which will now be forced to keep secret details of its ruling on a petition against arms sales to Myanmar.
Petition lawyer, Eitay Mack, has been plying pressure on the courts to end the country’s lucrative arms sale to the military junta in Myanmar who have been accused by the UN of carrying out “textbook ethnic cleansing” against the Rohingya Muslims.
Politicians and state lawyers have resisted the call and brushed aside concerns of the international community over allegations of genocide and massacre. State lawyer and the defence ministry have maintained that the court has no say on the matter.
Campaigners were expecting the court to make a favourable decision today but the Israeli government has moved quickly to suppress the ruling by imposing a gagging order.
This is not the first time the government has moved to suppress court rulings over controversial arms sales to armies accused of committing genocide.
A similar petition to the High Court of Justice to end arms sales to South Sudan last year also ended with a gagged order. Mack was also the attorney who presented evidence of the sale of surveillance equipment to civil war-hit South Sudan, where nearly 300,000 lives were said to have been lost and two million people displaced.
Mack also came up against a brick wall in getting a court ruling over Israel’s role in arming groups during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Over a million Rwandans are thought to have died in the brutal conflict with weapons that allegedly included Israeli-made bullets, grenades and rifles. However, the official documentation of those sales was sealed behind closed doors.
In addition to these recent cases, Mack was reported by the Time of Israel of having filed a number of Freedom of Information Act requests over his country’s sale of arms to countries in the midst of genocidal war, including Bosnia, Chile, Uganda and Guatemala.

The Janus Faced Fiona Sharpe of Sussex Friends of Israel

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As an Interfaith Representative Fiona Preaches Tolerance but as a Zionist She Defends Jewish Supremacy and the murder of Palestinians


Fiona Sharpe is seen here shouting ‘fascist’in the ear of Yasser, on a protest outside the Israeli Sodastream shop on the Western Road, which Brighton & Hove Palestine Solidarity Campaign picketed between 2012 and 2014. Sodastream was based at Mishor Adumim adjacent to Ma'ale Adumin in the West Bank, from where Palestinians had been evicted. 



Fiona Sharpe suffers from political schizophrenia. On the one hand she preaches tolerance and mutual respect as part of the One Organisation Inter-Faith Group. On the other she is a staunch defender of any racist crime that the Israeli state perpetrates. Nothing Israel does is too despicable for Fiona to defend it.  She is a founder of Sussex Friends of Israel who are known for belonging to the far-Right of the Zionist movement.
Simon Cobbs - founder of Sussex Friends of Israel, supporter of the EDL and JDL - accused of blackmail by fellow Zionists
As Co-Chairof Sussex Friends of Israel Fiona Sharpe supports an organisation whose members, like founder Simon Cobbs, have no hesitation in standing alongside the EDL. SFI represents the most rabidly racist wing of the Zionist movement. Nowhere on its Facebook group is there even an acknowledgement of the daily racism that Palestinians experience, both in pre-1967 Israel and the West Bank.
While the world is condemning the proposed eviction of Khan al Ahmar - SFI acts as the cheerleader for the ethnic cleansers
For example there is universal condemnation of the proposed eviction and demolition of the Palestinian village of Khan al-Ahmar and its famous school, built of tyres, which serves 150 Palestinian children locally. Its is intended to relocate the population next to a garbage dump at Abu Dis because Palestinians are considered no better than human garbage by Israel’s colonial administration. 
What kind of state is it whose Prime Minister reassures his party that a Bedouin village 'will be destroyed'in order to make way for Jewish settlers.

This is not one whit different from the situation in South Africa yet Fiona Sharpe is happy to defend Israel's colonisation of the West Bank with all it entailed. This is also what Brighton and Hove councillors defended when they supported, last October, the IHRA definition of 'antisemitism' which criminalises opposition to Zionism and the Occupation.

It is obvious to most people that the demolition of a Palestinian village to make way for Jewish settlers is racist but not to Fiona.  Imagine that British Jews were told to evacuate where they lived in order to make way for Christians.  How would that not be racist and antisemitic?

Khan al-Ahmar was a Bedouin village illegally evicted in 1952, four years after the establishment of the Israeli state, and forced to move to the West Bank. When Israel conquered the West Bank in 1967 they were described as 'illegal', unlike the Jewish settlements which sprang up around them.  Fiona Sharpe sees nothing wrong in this.
Sussex Friends of Israel make it clear that they support Israel's racist  Prime Minister - a man who took to Facebook on election day to complain that 'droves' of Arabs were voting and that the Jews should get out
At the present time Netanyahu and the Israeli Cabinet have been forced to delayKhan al-Ahmar's demolition. The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Fatou Bensouda warned Israel that the forced relocation of the village was a “war crime.” Yet Sussex Friends of Israel are happy to praise the attempts by Israeli propaganda group BICOM to justify the proposed demolition.  As far as SFI was concerned the campaign in defence of Khan al Ahmar, was simply part of a campaign ‘whose motives are simply to demonise Israel. Crucial that the truth is known!”
SFI and Ms Sharpe argue that the Palestinian village is ‘illegal’ according to the Israeli law but Palestinians in the West Bank have no say in the laws that govern them because they live under military rule. It is for example impossible for Palestinians to get planning permission unlike Jewish settlements.
An example of the racist logic that pervades SFI's Facebook page - A free Palestine, i.e.an end to military dictatorship, racist discrimination etc. really means 'Kill the Jews' - this is the same sick siege mentality that affected the white settlers in southern Africa
SFI’s Facebook Group is a cesspool of hate. It is difficult to know why this Zionist hate group still has charitable status. It seems that the Charity Commission’s anti-Muslim bias which began under its previous Islamaphobic Chair William Shawcross continues.

Sussex Friends of Israel’s Code of Conduct – Hypocrisy Writ Large
On the About Section of their web site Sussex Friends of Israel says it is
'dedicated to developing greater support, awareness and understanding of Israel through education, communication and community partnership.'
Nothing wrong with that you might think. I’ve also tried to do my bit to develop greater understanding and awareness of Israel! SFI
 ‘seeks to honour individual, cultural and role differences, including... those involving age, disability, education, ethnicity, gender, language, national origin, race, religion, sexual orientation, marital or family status and socio-economic status’
SFI debates calling me a 'kapo' ie. a collaborator with the Nazis in the concentration camps - this is the level of abuse that is the norm in SFI - Fiona Sharpe is perfectly happy with this abuse of Jews who don't agree with Zionism
When the current Trump's US Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, called J-Street, a liberal Zionist group, Kapos, he felt obliged to apologise for his disgusting remark as a condition of being ratified by the Senate. Yet this abuse is quite normal for SFI.
SFI also promise to
engage meaningfully with those working towards a peaceful, just, democratic and lasting resolution of the conflict between Israel and its neighbours.’
I leave it to your imagination how ' engaging meaningfully with those working towards a peaceful etc. resolution of the conflict' squares with calling people Kapos
and in a section ‘Respect, Responsibility and Integrity to
‘respect(s) the opinions, knowledge, insight, experience and expertise of all members of the general public.’
Fiona Sharpe's SFI praises the Israeli snipers who opened fire on unarmed demonstrators killing over 200 of them - they are apparently 'brave' - this is Judeo-Nazi territory
According to the twisted logic of SFI, the fact that 'anti-Israel' groups mourn a Jewish MP is proof of 'antisemitism' - the 'logic' is BIZARRE

How then does SFI put its fine and honourable principles into practice? Let us look at a few examples of their touchingtributes to Jewish Labour MP, Gerald Kaufman, the Father of the House of Commons on the occasion of his death.

These are just some of the vile comments on the SFI Facebook page when they heard of the death of Gerald Kaufman MP - whether they square with SFI's Code of Conduct which is 'based on the principles of respect, responsibility and integrity' that 'respects the opinions, knowledge, insight, experience and expertise of all members of the general public.'  I shall leave to others to judge.
Sylvia Landman is brevity itself: ‘Good riddance to bad rubbish
Julian KrugerI'm sorry good riddance. These Jews are the worst of the worst’. 
Alex Ian’s view was that ‘every dog has his day
Michelle Albagli expressed the ‘Hope he is now where he belongs’ which I suspect doesn’t mean what most of us would hope it meant.
Reuven Magnes could only muster a ‘what a repulsive man he was’ and
Leslie Ann Rose agreed ‘Repulsive ..... a great adjective to describe Kaufman!  
Stephen Packter believed he was ‘A Jew who brought legitimacy to being anti Semitic’ whilst
Ros Elliswas positively happy, rejoicing in Kaufman's death: “Some days are better than others.”
Tony Lynaswas angry that ‘The Labour Council will be splashing the cash on the Muslim voter to buy the vote in the by-election just like in Oldham’ whereas
 Rob Levy wondered whether whether ‘we can anybody find a positive reference to Israel made by Kaufman at any stage in his life? 

At least Peta Stocktondecided to keep shtum ‘On the basis that you shouldn't speak ill of the dead, I'll say nothing’

The death of Israeli settlers always receives a tearful mention - the death of Palestinians is either ignored or celebrated since they are all 'terrorists' - indeed those killing them are termed 'brave'
You can read the full list of the hateful comments that Sussex Friends of Israel posted on its Facebook in the post I did on his death: Sussex Friends of Israel – Our Code of Conduct is based on the Principles of Respect,Responsibility and Integrity
We should remember that to his dying days Gerald Kaufman considered himself a Zionist and was proud of his friendship with Israeli Prime Ministers. Yet Kaufman overcame his background as he witnessed Israel’s indefensible treatment of the Palestinians.
Kaufman is probably best remembered for one of the finest speeches that the House of Commons has heard:
My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town in Staszow (Poland). A German soldier shot her dead in her bed. Madam Deputy Speaker, my grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grand mothers in Gaza.’
To Sussex Friends of Israel the chant 'From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free' equals murder of every single Jew.  Zionists simply can't  understand that a state which isn't based on ethnic supremacy - to them that is death
Israel does not hesitate to use the Holocaust in order to demonise its opponents. The Holocaust is shamelessly used to justify Israel’s barbarous attacks as the Palestinians become substitute Nazis. For example Matan Vilnai, Israel’s Deputy Defence Minister threatenedthe Palestinians with a ‘bigger Shoah’.
Israel, as an ethno-nationalist state, uses the Holocaust as the rationale for its existence but when Gerald Kaufman compared what happened to his grandmother to the treatment of Palestinian grandmothers he was met with an outpouring of venom. It was deemed ‘anti-Semitic’.
Jeremy Corbyn and other examples of SFI’s Bigotry
This poster appears at least twice on SFI's Facebook page - no doubt it was part of SFI's pledge 'to refrain from harassment – unwelcome verbal, offensive, abusive or physical behavior – especially when
 such conduct interferes with another person or creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive environment.'
SFI’s Facebook page carries copies of a poster containing a circumcision joke which calls Corbyn a ‘prick’. Usually people who make circumcision jokes are members of fascist and anti-Semitic parties like the NF and BNP. Clearly SFI also enjoy a good ‘Jewish’ joke.
One member calls for Corbyn to be assassinated by Israeli death squads whilst another Sydney Reece tells us that ‘someone should have put him down like an animal he is.’ This is the hateful daily died of abuse that Fiona Sharpe presides over.
It is impossible to avoid the anti-Corbyn venom on the SFI website. Without a trace of irony they carry a front page article from the Daily Mail ‘Proud of Your Party’ in respect of the false story that Luciana Berger needed police protection at the Labour Party conference. The Daily Mail’s anti-racist record, it employed Katie Hopkinsuntil recently, is well known. Its concern for ‘anti-Semitism’ is touching given that it supported Hitler in the 1930's and campaigned against the admission of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany.
Islam is about to take over - the cry of Tommy Robinson and his DFLA
The Other Side of Fiona Sharpe
Fiona Sharpe though has another side. She is a member of One Voice, which is part of the Community Safety Forum, as a representative of Sussex Jewish Representative Council. In that capacity Fiona told us that:
“All the residents of our city must feel included and be valued equally for their diverse contributions to the life of our city.  We will continue to work in partnership with the council, police and other agencies to ensure that racist and religiously motivated incidents and all hate crimes are reported, and all victims and witnesses are supported effectively.
"We will continue to support and stand for human rights and are committed to ensure that all residents in our city are treated with respect and dignity regardless of race, religion, gender, disability or sexual identity.  We will work to protect those rights of all our residents equally.
The human rights that Fiona supports do notextend to Palestinians living under military occupation in the West Bank nor to Palestinians in Israel nor indeed to critics of Israel. Detention without trial, torture, the imprisonment of children as young as 12 does not disturb ‘inter faith’ Fiona. ‘Interfaith’ is something Fiona is passionate about.  As she says:
"We appreciate that there is always more that can be done to help and support each other and in Brighton and Hove we can always do more. Our faiths and diversity are precious to us and we want to build on this for a future which is safer and healthier for all of us.”
These pious platitudes should be read alongside the Islamaphobic comments on SFI's Facebook page and comments such as those above about the 'terrible Muslim way of life' 

In Faith groups unite to combat religiously motivated hate crime Fiona explains that

 “In these times of increasing racial and religious intolerance, I am proud to be part of this initiative, bringing together people of faith to support one another within our City of Sanctuary.  It is particularly important that we are outward facing and I am pleased that a major part of the work we will be undertaking is to go out into schools and colleges to further educate young people about Islam and Judaism.  Religious intolerance is caused, in large part, by fear and lack of knowledge.  We will try to address both of those issues”

One wonders whether Fiona would apply the spirit of the City of Sanctuary to the Israeli state which is, at this very moment, trying to deport 40,000 Black African refugees for the crime of being Black and not Jewish.
As Netanyahu explained, ‘Illegal African immigrants threaten identity of Jewish state.’ In other words the presence of thousands of non-Jews threatens the demographic majority of Jews. In a Jewish state Jews must be the majority. Religion is turned into a race. This kind of racism Fiona Sharpe’s SFI is more than happy to support even whilst she hypocritically talks about a City of Sanctuary in Brighton.
Events such as Faith communities across Brighton & Hove stand together as One Voice do nothing to combat racism and are a means whereby liberals can assuage their consciences. However they can also be harmful. Interfaith gives cover to supporters of Israel who, under the guise of representing British Jews, demand that non-Jewish religious groups, especially Christians, sign up to the Zionist agenda. And that agenda is conflating anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. 

As long as Fiona Sharpe is a member of the One Voice group, other religious representatives should withdraw. Having this bigot on the Committee makes a mockery of the inter-faith group.
The racist Rod Liddle is a hero to the posters on Sussex Friends of Israel site who cannot imagine why the Labour Party has suspended someone who believes suicide bombers should choose Tower Hamlets to blow themselves up in as it is only Muslims they will kill
SFI’s Facebook page is completely free of Fiona’s interfaith verbiage. On hearing the news that Islamophobe Rod Liddle was suspended from the Labour Party, SFI spluttered their outrage on Facebook.  Peta Stockton ventured that it was 'shooting the messenger' to which SFI responded ‘I think that sums it up perfectly’. And what was Liddle’s message? Things like If you handed over Israel to the Palestinians they would turn it into Somalia before you could say Yom Kippur,” and “For many Muslims the antisemitism is visceral, an ingrained part of their unpleasant ideology,” Racist? Of course not because in the eyes of Fiona Sharpe’s SFI, the only racism that exists is anti-Semitism.
Human Rights barrister Adam Wagner calls Rod Liddle 'head spinningly racist' 
Liddle recently suggested in his Sunday Times column that suicide bombers should blow themselves up in Tower Hamlets since, as is well known, Muslims form a majority of the population there. In Liddle's racist eyes Muslims are all terrorists. To SFI Rod Liddle can do no wrong. See Fury after Rod Liddle tells Islamists to blow themselves up in Tower Hamlets
Martin J Cooke was aghast that Liddle was suspended for ‘pointing out the blatantly obvious intrinsic antipathy which vast numbers of Muslims harbour towards Jewish people is suspended on the spot?
Mark David Ivan Haley was also in no doubt.  Liddle was
‘spot on. The Labour Party has become the party of Islam in this country... the Labour Party would be left with very little in the way of troops on the ground if their Jew hating Islamist supremacists were banned. The party is run in places like Luton, Bradford, Birmingham and other high density Moslem enclaves from the Mosque not the social club.’
Despite all her interfaith work for tolerance, for some strange reason Fiona Sharpe has not got round to cleansing the cesspit of hate otherwise known as SFI’s Facebook page. And why should she?  She agrees with it.

Nowhere was Sharpe’s hypocrisy more in evidence than in herspeechto the Council on the IHRA ‘definition of anti-Semitism’. It is no surprise that she supports the IHRA, which conflates anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism. What is of surprise is that the Council, including even its nominally left-wing members, agreed with her. It’s worth examining Fiona Sharpe’s claims.

First of all she claimed to speak on behalf of the ‘vast majority’ of Brighton and Hove’s 3,000 strong Jewish community. There is no evidence to support this assertion. It is doubtful whether more than 1-2% of them have even read the definition. Her claim that the adoption of the definition gives the Jewish community protection against anti-Semitism is risible. Definitions of racism don't stop racist attacks. 

Today the level of genuine anti-Semitism is at an all time low, compared to Islamaphobia and anti-Gypsy/Roma racism.  Where Fiona Sharpe's dishonesty showed was her claim that
‘like all minority communities and those with protected characteristics are fully entitled to define hate against us. We do not intend to tell other minorities what is or isn’t an attack against them. We see no reason why others should feel better equipped to tell us what is or is not anti-Semitism.... The IHRA in no way limits an individual’s freedom of speech and it is equally clear that robust legitimate criticism against the government of Israel is perfectly permissible but as MP Gareth Snell clearly stated last weekend  “if you are not able to criticise Israel without breaching IHRA it isn’t IHRA that is stopping you it is probably that you are an anti-Semite' ... this in no way affects other minority communities... or any causes they wish to support and champion.’
There are a number of lies  in this passage which B&H Councillors, like a group of sheep, swallowed whole. It is worth examining them.
Firstly although Jews in Brighton and Hove are a minority, they are not an oppressed minority. Can anyone seriously claim that Jewish people in Britain today, a mainly White community, are economically oppressed or suffer from state racism (Police violence, Windrush style deportations, Stop and Search?). Billionaires are also a minority should they also be allowed to self-define their ‘oppression’? Racism is not subjective. The whole concept of 'self definition' is bogus. It assumes that Jewish people all see themselves the same.  A thoroughly racist trope.
At the time of the controversy over the Satanic Verses 30 years ago, the novel by Salman Rushdie was held by some Muslims to be blasphemous and anti-Islamic. It was seen as a form of racism. Others of us said that the real issue was free speech including the right to criticise all religions. It was Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa which was the issue. The primary question was freedom from religious coercion. ‘Self-definition’ means you must not critically examine claims which are made by politico-religious groups.  Under ‘self definition’ everything is equally valid and you have to take on trust claims made by charlatans like Fiona Sharpe.
The IHRA was sourced in and written at the behest of the Israeli state. Its purpose from the first was to protect Israel and Zionism. Its author, Kenneth Stern admitted this. In The Working Definition –A ReappraisalStern described how some Jewish organizations were using it ‘in an inappropriate way, which bastardizes what it was intended’. He accepted that the definition was acting to chill free speech. He also admitted that Dina Porat of Tel Aviv University, a died-in-the-wool Zionist was the inspiration behind the definition.
The IHRA has nothing to do with the self-definition of Jews. Jews in Britain don’t constitute one single community. Probably the majority of Jews are secular and don’t belong to synagogues and are thus not represented by the Zionist communal organisations like the Board of Deputies of British Jews. Others, the large Ultra Orthodox community, do not recognise the Chief Rabbi or the Board of Deputies of British Jews.
The second lie was the claim that ‘We do not intend to tell other minorities what is or isn’t an attack against them’. It is a complete lie. The IHRA definition of anti-Semitism contains this example:
Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor’
Clearly words do not possess the same meaning for Zionists as they do for most people. What else is this if not telling Palestinians that to describe their ethnic cleansing and continuing discrimination as racist is itself antisemitic..
It doesn’t matter whether it is true or not that Palestinians are racially oppressed, it is anti-Semitic! So the 2014 Acceptance Committees Law that enables Jewish communities to reject Israeli Arabs because they do not ‘fit in’ is deemed not to be racist. Hundreds of communities in Israel are Arab free as a result. But to say this is racist is 'antisemitic'. The expulsion of the original Palestinians in 1948, in order to create a Jewish majority state is thus not racist according to this absurd definition.
We have to forgive the deliberately obfuscatory language. One of the 11 examples of 'antisemitism' is "claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor." How can the existence of anything be an endeavour? Perhaps the demolition of Palestinian and Arab villages to make way for Jewish settlements is also not racist? Perhaps giving grants to Jewish students whilst denying them to Arab students is also not racist? 
This debate in the Jewish Chronicle as to whether or not it is racist only to sell or lease land to Jews not all Israelis demonstrates the depth of Zionist racism which the IHRA seeks to ban

Perhaps Brighton and Hove Council leader Daniel Yates could why a situation in which the Israeli Land Authority and Jewish National Fund lease and rent homes to Jews only whilst denying them to Arabs is not racist?
The third lie of Fiona Sharpe was her statement that ‘The IHRA in no way limits an individual’s freedom of speech’. Like Humpty Dumpty Fiona has a strange attitude to the meaning of words. Black equals White. The IHRA states, in another example that ‘Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis’is anti-Semitic. What is that if not a limitation on an individual’s freedom of speech? If I compare HaTorah Hamelech, an Orthodox Jewish book which explainshow Jews can legally murder non-Jews, children and infants included, to Der Sturmer, the paper owned and edited by Julius Streicher, that is anti-Semitic? Or if I describe the statementof Rabbi Dov Lior, Head of the Yesha (settler) Council of Rabbis that ‘one Jewish fingernail is worth more than 1,000 non-Jewish lives’ as Nazi-like that too is anti-Semitic.
If words retain any meaning then the above must include a limitation on freedom of speech. Not only do words mean nothing to Fiona Sharpe but it would appear that 46 of Brighton and Hove’s councillors also share Fiona's learning disability.
The fourth lie is that ‘robust legitimate criticism against the government of Israel is perfectly permissible’. Here the lie is cleverer. The IHRA states that criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic’ The only problem is that Israel is not like any other country. It is different in that it is a state of its Jewish citizens not all its inhabitants.
 If you question the fact that Israel is a Jewish state rather than a democratic state then the IHRA brands you as an anti-Semite. Instead of admitting this Fiona Sharpe quotesGareth Snell MP that ‘if you are not able to criticise Israel without breaching IHRA it isn’t IHRA that is stopping you it is probably that you are an anti-Semite.It may be a good soundbite but it is also a wholly circular argument. Snell’s argument rests on the idea that the IHRA is concerned with anti-Semitism and not anti-Zionism.
Only SFI could quote Theresa 'Windrush' May in a discussion of racism
If you can’t criticise Israel without breaching the IHRA it’s not because you are anti-Semitic but because the definition, which is not even a definition, was devised in order to prevent any systematic criticism of the world’s only Apartheid state.
The fifth and final lie of Fiona Sharpe is the statement that ‘this in no way affects other minority communities... or any causes they wish to support and champion’. It prevents Arabs and Palestinians in Britain, to say nothing of Jewish anti-Zionists, criticising Israel’s racist and apartheid laws because it brands them ‘anti-Semitic’.
What is surprising is that all but one of the 47 councillors in the Council chamber (7 were admittedly absent) bought into these lies.  But maybe that too is not surprising.  Fiona Sharpe is a clever and astute operator.  She has inserted herself into the Safeguarding Communities anti-hate agenda whilst at the same time she is co-chair of the most bigoted and hateful of all organisations of all, Sussex Friends of Israel. Its Facebook pages are proof of the fact that they cannot even stop themselves spewing hate against a dead Jewish MP.
Whereas other Jewish groups and synagogues cancelled Kedar's speech when they heard about his reputation SFI insisted he go ahead and speak
Some measure of just how racist and misogynist SFI is was demonstrated by the speaking invitation they extended, in December 2014, to Mordechai Kedar. Kedar is an Israeli reserve officer and professor at Bar Ilan University who advocated the rape of Palestinian women in war.
In her devotion to supporting the Israeli state there is no lie and no action that is too much for Fiona Sharpe. That is why, when a member of Brighton and Hove PSC, Yasser, was charged with public order offences, Sharpe was happy to be swear on oath that Yasser had been aggressive and threatening.  Fortunately there was video evidence of the incidents she had been describing. Yasser was acquitted and Fiona Sharpe was show to be a cheap liar and perjurer. That she should have been accepted as a bona fide representative of the Jewish community demonstrates how useless these interfaith partnerships are and also how unrepresentative the Sussex Jewish Representative Council is.
There is of course a very simple definition of anti-Semitism that Brighton and Hove Council could have adopted.  It is to be found in the Oxford English Dictionary.  Anti-Semitism is defined as ‘hostility to or prejudice against Jews.’
One thing is for certain and that is if British Jews experienced even a fraction of the racism that Palestinians experience then they would indeed have something to complain about.
Tony Greenstein


Below is a report of the trial of Yasser on the blog of ‘book burner’. It describes in detail how Fiona Sharpe lied on oath in order to frame a member of Brighton PSC.

Sussex Friends of Israel - SIMON AND FIONA

Simon (Cobbs) is not the only criminal mind in  the tiny ragbag that make up SFI. Meet Fiona Sharpe.
When it was realised by the Hasbarafia ” high ups ” that it was better to have the likes of SFI inside the tent rather than outside it, and that, carefully managed, they could be quite handy as  useful idiots , they also realised that, in Simon, they had a huge presentational problem. His energy was indispensible but he was, and remains, a public relations disaster.
Hitherto, Simon, as SFI  founder, had been the one that was quoted. As well as being commander in the field, he was the spokesperson, and one much favoured by the Jewish Chronicle. Indeed Simon and Sandy Rashty were very much an item, and were an entertaining double act  that we are sorry to see go, now that Sandy is going up in the world. The way that they lined up the pins for each other on twitter was hilarious.
The suits knew better, and when Simon had his twitter account pulled for threatening Hannah Weisfeld,[a liberal Zionist] something had to be, and was, done. Unfortunately, SFI being a very small and meagre gaggle, the options were few. Fiona was the best in the way of an ” acceptable face” they could come up with. Fiona is easier on the eye than Simon but not easier on the ear, as those that stood outside Ecostream can testify. As can the judge that threw out the charges in the  recent court case, on the grounds of Fiona’s false testimony, and that heard her calling the alleged aggressor a “ fascist cunt”.
However, she is being carefully minded and is certainly an improvement in print and typescript. Unfortunately, when it comes to principle and veracity, she is scarcely any improvement at all.
Rather Fiona is an habitual liar, as a perusal of her comments re Southampton University conclusively demonstrates. She is very fortunate not to have been prosecuted for perjury in respect of her false testimony before a Brighton judge, referred to above.
The whole business originated in a demo and counter demo outside Ecostream in Brighton. Following the demo Fiona and Sandra Gross  went to Sussex Police, and made complaints of racially aggravated harassment against one of the anti Ecostream demonstrators. Sandra Gross is disabled and confined to a wheelchair. This is presumably why she was selected for the role, the sympathy card and all that. Racially aggravated harassment  is likely to be seen as so much more despicable when directed against a disabled person.
Be clear, the scam, as the SFI FB  page makes clear, was a conspiracy on the part of the whole of the, admittedly small, SFI  collective.
As a result of this complaint, it was decided, by the Directer of Public Prosecutions, no less ( !!!!), that there should be a prosecution. This despite there being no evidence except the shaky word of these two women. (or so it was thought at the time.)
The two women made written statements to  the police alleging that……
The defendent had called  them ‘nazis’, in a personally threatening and abusive way that caused them deep alarm and distress ‘as jewish women’. They alleged that he had come over to where they were positioned, called them both ‘fucking nazis’ and shook his finger at them in a menacing way.
They repeated these statements to their lawyers and to the court, both verbally and in writing.
Unfortunately, unknown to the simpletons of the  SFI gaggle, the whole ” incident” had been captured by video cameras both inside and outside the store. The defence lawyers were in possession of the video material and chose not to make its existence known to the prosecution. A choice they were perfectly entitled to make .
When the defence informed the judge that there was video evidence, Sandra Gross burst into tears. She perfectly well knew what it was going to show.
What it showed was ……..
That, throughout the period of time in question, the defendant  was standing several yards from the ‘victims’. At no point did he stand anywhere near them. On the video he was heard to say ‘You’re all nazis – all the zionists are nazis’.
The prosecution accepted that this video evidence captured the entirety of the incident.  With the witness statements directly contradicted by video evidence, the prosecution case collapsed.
The judge therefore ruled that the defendants behaviour had not been threatening, that his words were not personally directed at the witnesses, that his words alone in this context had not caused alarm or distress, and that the video footage showed that no one else at the demo had taken any notice of what he said – let alone been distressed. Therefore: ‘No case to answer.”
The interest here is that this scam was part of a general strategy of attempting to frame pro Palestinian demontrators, a strategy that North West Friends of Israel have adopted with particular enthusiasm
For example, they noisily demanded that an anti Kadem demonstrator be arrested for making a Nazi salute when he was perfectly clearly waving at the camera. Even the ultra compliant Greater Manchester Police were too embarrassed to run with that one..

The Struggle - My End of Year Video - The Highlights

In Israel – torture is a standard interrogation technique for use on Palestinians

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When Emily Thornberry claims that Israel is a democratic state then she is deliberately turning a blind eye to its routine use of torture






Not only does Israel routinely use torture against Palestinian prisoners but it even uses it against children, Palestinian children of course. 60% of Palestinian children who are detained are torturedby Israeli forces.
Yet in what Asa Winstanley called‘a groveling address in front of the Israeli ambassador at the Labour Friends of Israel annual dinner’ in November 2017, Emily Thornberry declared that
‘even today... modern Israel stands out as a beacon of freedom, equality and democracy, particularly in respect of women and LGBT communities.’
Thornberry is seen by many in the Labour Party as a ‘left’ replacement for Jeremy Corbyn if the Right can remove him.  She has, for example been endorsed by Unite’s fake-left General Secretary  Len McLuskey.
So a simple question.  Is a state which routinely uses torture against children and a section of its own inhabitants, Palestinians, who are residents in a Greater Israel – albeit without any rights –fit to be called a ‘democratic’ state?
Is the use of torture as state policy compatible with Thornberry’s description of Israel as a ‘beacon of freedom, equality and democracy.’?  If she thinks it is compatible then this alone should disqualify her from being an MP let alone a future Labour Foreign Secretary.
Israel is the only state in the world where torture is legal. There is a long history of Israel’s Supreme Court endorsing torture. It originally ruled that ‘moderate physical pressure’ could be used.  It then modified this by ruling that only in a ‘ticking time bomb’ case could ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ i.e. torture be used. This is the idea that if a bomb is about to explode then it is permissible to torture someone into revealing its whereabouts.  However there is no example of this ever happening.  It is a pretext for the routine use of torture against suspects. 
A year ago the High Court ruledin favour of the use of torture. This ruling was upheldby Israel’s High Court two weeks ago.
As Israel’s Landau Commission stated in 1987, when endorsing ‘moderate physical pressure’
 ‘The methods of interrogation which are employed in any given regime are a faithful mirror of the character of the entire regime.’
The Landau Commission’s 1987 recommendations were overturnedby the High Court in 1999 but the ‘ticking timebomb’ exception replaced it. Two weeks ago the High Court approved (see below) the use of torture against a Palestinian prisoner who knew where a weapons cache was being kept. This was not the ‘ticking timebomb’ exception but an exercise in discovering where rifles used to attack the occupying army were kept.  This is exactly what the Americans did in Iraq and Abu Ghraib and of course what the Nazis did in Occupied Europe.
Perhaps Emily Thornberry can explain whether she agrees with the Landau Commission’s observations that ‘'The methods of interrogation which are employed in any given regime are a faithful mirror of the character of the entire regime." If so how is this compatible with calling Israel a ‘beacon of freedom, equality and democracy’.
As Julian Borger noted in the Guardian (11.2.2000) Israeli government report admits systematic torture of Palestinians
The Israeli internal security service, Shin Bet, used systematic torture against Palestinians and regularly lied about it, according to an Israeli government report which has been released five years after it was written.
Robin Cook at least tried, during his tenure as Foreign Secretary to promote what he called an ‘ethical foreign policy.’ That was why Blair removed him.  Thornberry makes so such claims. What is astounding is that so many Labour Party members see Thornberry, a paid-up member of Labour Friends of Israel, as being of the Left.
Tony Greenstein

Israeli High Court Ruling May Make It Easier for Interrogators to Use Violence

A Palestinian West Bank resident says his Shin Bet interrogators tortured him, but the judges say the methods were acceptable. The ruling could have far-reaching implications for the way interrogations are conducted
Yotam Berger Nov 30, 2018 Ha’aretz


Fares Tbeish, who says the Shin Bet security service tortured him. Olivier Fitoussi

In a ruling that could make it easier for investigators to use harsh interrogation tactics against Palestinians, the High Court of Justice said this week the severe tactics used against one Palestinian were legitimate because he was suspected of knowing the location of a weapons cache.
The court therefore rejected Fares Tbeish’s petition against the closure of an investigation into Shin Betsecurity service interrogators whom he accused of torturing him.
Tbeish, a 40-year-old resident of the West Bank, was arrested in 2011 on suspicion of membership in Hamas and arms dealing. He was kept in administrative detention, or arrest without trial, for a year. Investigators believed he knew the location of an arms cache containing at least 10 weapons, including rifles.
After harsh tactics were used in his interrogation, he disclosed the cache’s location. This information also led to the arrest of other Hamas operatives, including one who confessed to having planned to kidnap an Israeli.
Tbeish and the state ultimately reached a plea bargain in which he admitted to being a member of Hamas’ military wing, hiding weapons for the organization and transferring seven weapons to other Hamas members. He was sentenced to three years in prison.
After his conviction, Tbeish filed a complaint with the Shin Bet ombudsman, aided by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel. He said his interrogators had threatened to harm him, his family and his home. They also deprived him of sleep, hit him, kept him in the “banana position” – with his back bent over a chair and his hands and feet cuffed together – shook him so hard he lost consciousness, and kept him on a chair with his hands cuffed painfully behind the chair back.
Simulated torture of a Jewish youth by right-wing  demonstrators - when the Shin Bet uniquely used methods of torture against Zionist terrorists - its use against Palestinians has never disturbed these settlers
The ombudsman, Col. (res.) Jana Mudzgurishvilly, investigated the complaint, but in 2016 she closed the case. Tbeish then petitioned the High Court with the help of the Public Committee Against Torture.
But justices Yosef Elron, Isaac Amit and David Mintz rejected the petition, in a ruling that could have far-reaching implications for the way Shin Bet interrogations are conducted.
Elron, writing for the court, said that even though harsh tactics were used against Tbeish, he had failed to prove that they constituted torture. The petition presented medical evidence that Tbeish suffered from toothache, swelling, constricted movement in his knee, vision problems and leg pains. But Elron said these were not enough to prove that he had been tortured.
'Special methods'
The Shin Bet acknowledged using “special methods” to interrogate him, but it detailed these tactics in an ex parte hearing, without Tbeish or his lawyer present.
“These methods didn’t include using violence against the petitioner in the manner he described in the complaint and the petition,” Elron said. “Under the circumstances, and after examining the classified material submitted to us, I was convinced that the use of these special methods in the petitioner’s interrogation is covered by the necessity exception.”
That was a reference to the High Court’s famous 1999 ruling barring the Shin Bet from using torture, which included one exception – an investigator who used violent tactics would not be criminally liable if these tactics were necessary to save a life.
The metaphor the court used in that ruling was a ticking bomb. If the Shin Bet captured a suspect who knew where a bomb was but refused to tell, investigators would not be guilty of a crime if they used violence to get him to reveal its location before it exploded.
Fares Tbeish, who says the Shin Bet security service tortured him. Olivier Fitoussi
The 1999 ruling stressed that harsh tactics were permissible only if it was important to obtain answers quickly. But Elron said necessity should be interpreted “in light of Israel’s complex security situation.”
“The petitioner is active in a terrorist organization that had committed and continued to commit serious terror attacks,” he wrote. “In this context, the petitioner was party to a plot to amass many dangerous weapons with the intent to use them to perpetrate terrorist activity. The planned attack, had it been carried out, could have claimed lives.”
Elron added: “This fear of a tangible risk of serious harm to human lives ... created, in his interrogators’ view, a need to use special interrogation tactics to thwart the danger immediately.”
In Amit's concurring opinion, he acknowledged that this case “isn’t the classic case of a ticking bomb that could explode within minutes,” but he agreed with Elron that the need to find the cache before it was used justified the harsh tactics.
'Letting the Knesset avoid responsibility'
Prof. Barak Medina, rector of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and one of the country’s leading experts on constitutional law and human rights, told Haaretz that the ruling was liable to expand the security services’ ability to use violence when interrogating suspected terrorists.
“It wasn’t a formal permit, but in practice, yes. In any case where special methods are used, it’s necessary to ensure that they don’t amount to torture,” Medina said.
“But there’s no open discussion about the severity of these methods. The use of special methods is permitted only when there’s prior knowledge – for instance, because the interrogee confessed – that he has relevant information that he’s concealing.”
But Medina said the new ruling could be interpreted as allowing these methods against anyone connected to a terrorist organization who is suspected of possessing arms.
“There’s a significant expansion here of the circumstances in which it’s permissible to use special methods, because there’s no demand for high probability that these methods will indeed be necessary to obtain this information,” he said.
Harsh tactics “aren’t a punishment but a means to obtain information, so the issue of the interrogee’s direct involvement in the expected attack isn’t necessary per se as a justification for using these methods,” Medina added. “This shows the very problematic nature of this whole doctrine because it means the severity of the act attributed to the interrogee isn’t important in justifying [tactics that] cause him great harm.”
Moreover, Medina said, the court is essentially letting the Knesset avoid responsibility for regulating this issue in legislation. The 1999 ruling said the use of harsh tactics in interrogations was an issue on which the Knesset should decide – “not the attorney general, not the Shin Bet director and not the interrogators. But this ruling allows the Knesset to continue remaining silent and the Shin Bet to use investigative powers that it doesn’t have officially.”
The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel is also deeply concerned about a remark by Mintz in his concurring opinion in which he referred to “the rule stating that torture is forbidden except in extremely exceptional cases.” This phrase might suggest that even harsher tactics than those used today could be legitimate in “extremely exceptional cases,” the committee warned.
The court’s decision, said attorney Efrat Bergman-Sapir of the committee, “is liable to be interpreted as a significant retreat from the moral, ethical and legal stance laid down in the foundational ruling on torture from 1999, which held that the ban on torture is absolute, with no exceptions.”
No less worrying, she added, was the court’s expansion of the term “ticking bomb” to include cases in which interrogators know “that there is no ticking bomb in the sense of certainty and immediacy.”
Tbeish himself was upset that the court rejected his account of the harshness of the tactics against him.
“I thought there was justice in your court,” he said. “But in the end, what can I say? I raise my hands to heaven. Justice, it seems to me, doesn’t exist in this life, only in heaven.”
Referring to the military judge to whom he showed the marks on his legs and other parts of his body after his interrogation, he added, “Why didn’t the judge say back then that I was lying? They hurt me.”
Finally, he denied the accusation – to which he confessed in the plea deal – that he stored weapons for Hamas. He admitted that he has ties to the organization but said the weapons were meant for his personal defense in violent conflicts in his village.

+972 Magazine
Published December 2, 2018

Nearly 20 years after it banned torture, Israel’s High Court is finding new ways to justify using physical force in the interrogation of security suspects.

Israeli activists participate in an action protesting the use of torture, 2011. (photo: Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)


Israel’s High Court of Justice last week ruled that Israeli authorities’ torture of a Hamas suspect was not illegal and that the Shin Bet interrogators do not need to be prosecuted. The ruling also broadened and effectively removed the strict limitations imposed by a landmark decision by the same court nearly two decades ago, which carved out a “ticking bomb” exception to the prohibition on torture.

 “The ruling shows that in the eyes of the High Court, physical abuse is a legitimate and perhaps even the preferable way of carrying out an interrogation in cases of national security,” said Itamar Mann, a law lecturer at Haifa University.
Shin Bet agents have for decades used torture, including moderate and severe physical and psychological abuse, to extract information from Palestinian suspects. The methods have ranged from violent shaking, beatings, sleep deprivation, long exposure to loud music, exposure to the elements, restraining suspects in painful positions for long periods, and covering suspects’ heads in foul-smelling sacks.
Israel ratified the UN Convention Against Torture in 1986, but never took the next step of actually outlawing the practice in Israeli law.
In September 1999, however, the High Court unanimously banned the use of physically abusive interrogation tactics. The ruling was widely viewed as a bold prohibition on torture and has been lauded and taught around the world. But in their historic decision, the justices also created a significant loop-hole to the prohibition: in the case of a “ticking bomb,” interrogators could avoid prosecution by invoking a necessity defense.
Twenty years later, it is clear just how much the Shin Bet has stretched that loophole. “The ruling could be seen an attempt to hide what the Shin Bet is actually doing,” added Mann.
Since 2001, when the Justice Ministry appointed a special investigator of torture allegations against the Shin Bet, PCATI and other organizations submitted over 1,100 complaints of torture. Of those, only one resulted in a criminal investigation, and it was not directly related to an interrogation.
The ruling also expanded the situations and circumstances in which the Shin Bet can use torture.
“The decision allows for the forced interrogation of any person who is tied to an armed wing of a terrorist organization, who has information about an attack that could take place at any given time, and is not willing to give up that information,” Mann said. “This is different from a ticking bomb scenario, thus casting a wide net that covers nearly every person who Israel deems an enemy combatant.”
The plaintiff in last week’s case, Fares Tbeish, a Hamas member, had hoped the court would order the Justice Ministry to reverse its decision not to open a criminal investigation into his interrogators, who he says tortured him.
Tbeish, who is being represented by PCATI and was first arrested and put in administrative detention in 2011, says the tactics Shin Bet interrogators used against him included beatings, violent shaking, humiliation, tying him to a chair in painful positions, and repeatedly moving him from one interrogation facility to another. He was later tried in court and sentenced to three years in prison.
Tbeish allegedly admitted that he had received weapons from a high-ranking Hamas member, which he then transferred over to a secret cache, but it was never established whether Tbeish knew if those weapons would be used in an imminent attack.
As a result of the interrogations, Tbeish said he had suffered bruising to his leg and eye, as well as a broken tooth. Efrat Bergman-Sapir, who heads the legal department at the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel and argued the case, says that the use of torture was enough to merit opening a criminal investigation against the defendant’s interrogators, and that the lack of a ticking bomb scenario meant they should not be able to invoke a necessity defense.
In addition to asking the court to prosecute the offending Shin Bet interrogator, Tbeish and PCATI also wanted the court to close the loophole that allows for the use of torture in the first place. The very existence of internal Shin Bet guidelines — regarding the proper ways to extract information from suspects as well as how and when to invoke a necessity defense — actually lay the groundwork for using torture.
The convention on torture defines the practice as “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person.” In their ruling last week, the justices concluded that the tactics employed against Tbeish did not meet that definition, but were “proportionate and reasonable in relation to the danger that arose from the intelligence.”
“The court’s decision may be interpreted as a significant withdrawal from the moral and legal position established in the landmark decision on torture in 1999,” Bergman-Sapir said in a written statement. “Equally troubling is the impossible threshold set by the court against the complainant to prove that he was tortured in the interrogation room and experienced severe pain and suffering.”
The High Court had the opportunity to restate that torture, or any violation of international law, is unlawful, said attorney Bana Shoughry, who headed PCATI’s legal department between 2008 and 2015 and was involved in Tbeish’s case early on. Instead, it expanded the possible exemptions for Shin Bet interrogators who break the law, not just from prosecution, but even from an investigation. “The decision puts an end to the idea that Shin Bet interrogators will be held accountable for their actions.”
The Shin Bet has primarily used torture against Palestinians suspected of involvement in armed resistance or terrorism. “These kinds of rulings make it easier for the Shin Bet to use these practices against additional groups,” Mann concluded. “They have already been used against radical settlers, and will likely continue to permeate other parts of the legal system, beyond what we can imagine.”

Why BDS and Boycotts of Israel Are NOT Anti-Semitic

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From Sugar to Nazi Germany to South Africa and Israel - the Boycott is always a Weapon of the Oppressed



This is a good video from Intercept and Mehdi Hassan puts the case persuasively.  It really is worth watching.
Just a couple of minor points – it could have covered the history of the Boycott more comprehensively – from the boycott of Capt. Boycott himself, the English land agent in Ireland, by Irish tenant farmers to the Boycott of Slave Grown Sugar in the Caribbean to the Boycott of Nazi Germany.
The Zionists always refer to the Nazi/SA boycott of Jewish shops on April 1st.  This was NOT a boycott and Mehdi Hassan is wrong to describe this as such.  This was not so much a boycott as a Nazi imposed SIEGE of Jewish shops.  The SA placed pickets on the shops and people had to literally force their way through often at great peril to themselves.
Gideon Levy of Ha'aretz on Why Israelis Should Support BDS
The best comparison with the Nazi siege of Jewish shops in Nazi Germany is with the Israeli siege of Gaza today.  That is the real comparison.  It is ironic that the reason the Boycott lasted only 1 day (although the SA continually harried Jewish shops in Germany) was because of the Jewish and International Labour Movement Boycott of Nazi Germany.  The bourgeois representatives in Hitler's Cabinet, Foreign Secretary Konstantin von Neurath in particular, threatened to resign, because they were so worried about the  repercussions of the Nazi Boycott. That was why it was called off after less than a day for fear of the Boycott of Nazi Germany, which the Zionists of course vehemently opposed.  
The Zionists are consistent - they opposed the Boycott of Nazi Germany just as they oppose the Boycott of Israel today
As Ha’aretz noted:
While the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses was one of the many preludes to the destruction of the Jews, the boycott directed against Nazi Germany fizzled for a number of reasons – including the obstacles placed in the way by the Zionist establishment due to controversial transfer agreements that the Jewish Agency signed in May 1933 with the Nazi government.
In recent times the most famous of all Boycotts was that against South Africa.  As Mehdi states, at the time we were accused of ‘double standards’ just as we are now accused of double standards for boycotting Israel.  'Why single out Israel' the Zionists cry.  At the time of the Boycott of South Africa the apologists for Apartheid said the same. Why weren’t we boycotting the African states surrounding South Africa which had worse human rights record?
The Nazi SIEGE of Jewish Shops

Our reasons for targeting South Africa only was firstly that the inhabitants of the African states did not ask us to boycott them.  We weren’t boycotting South Africa merely because of its appalling human rights record.  We are not advocating boycotting Israel simply because of its lousy human rights record. South Africa was singled out because it was unique in that it singled out people by virtue of an unalterable characteristic, colour, for discrimination.  The same is true of Israel.  If you are not Jewish then you are perpetually consigned to discriminatory and inferior treatment.  Apartheid, the establishment of a system of state discrimination on the grounds of race is particularly abhorrent.
But apart from these minor criticisms this video is an invaluable weapon in our arsenal.
Tony Greenstein

The Coming of Age of Jewish Voice for Peace

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The Growing Divorce Between American Jewry and the State of Israel




As Dan Shapiro, the former US Ambassador to Israel warned at a conference sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League: Divorcing the Diaspora: How Netanyahu Is Finally Writing Off U.S. Jews

“There is an idea that has some currency in certain circles around the Israeli government that says, ‘You know what, we can write off that segment of American Jewry because in a couple of generations their children or grandchildren will assimilate. So let’s focus on the Orthodox who are an important constituency but smaller. Let’s focus on Evangelicals, and we can sustain our support from the American public by focusing on those populations and writing off and being dismissive of Jewish progressives.’”


The growing atmosphere of antagonism between American Jewry, which detests Donald Trump and Israeli Jewry, which loves him, prompted the Jerusalem Post to ask, Has Netanyahu written off liberal US Jews?
One of the Jewish organisations which symbolises this divorce is the ever expanding Jewish Voice for Peace, which has over 70 chapters now in the USA.
The film above captures some of the highlights of this organisation



If there were any doubts that Zionism is a Racist Enterprise then the Knesset has just buried them

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By 71 votes to 38the Knesset rejects Equal Rights Bill – Jewish MKs vote by 71-25 to reject equality between Jews and non-Jews

According to the idiots’ guide to ‘anti-Semitism’ otherwise known as the IHRA definitionDenying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour’ is anti-Semitic. Leaving aside the fact that the two parts of this sentence are a non-sequitur, since you can support a Jewish right to self-determination and still claim that Israel is a racist state (and vice versa) the existence of something can’t be an endeavour. The language is deliberately obscure and clumsy but it is a fact that Israel and Zionism is racist.  If it is anti-Semitic to tell the truth then that can only mean that anti-Semitism is justified!
The proof however is in the pudding. Last Wednesday Israel’ Knesset voted by 71-38 to reject a bill which was based on Israel’s Declaration of Independence.  The Bill was based upon The Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israelwhich stated that the State of Israel ‘will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex’.  This was preceded by the statement that ‘The State of Israel will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel’ which of course contained the same contradiction that is embodied in the description of Israel as a ‘Jewish and Democratic state.’
The Knesset
A state based on racial domination cannot be democratic. Likewise if you say that the State will only be open for Jewish immigration, i.e. colonisation, then you cannot have equality. Nonetheless if this sentence had been incorporated in Israeli law then it would have given Israel’s non-Jewish citizens a right to equality.
Not only did all the government members vote for the Bill but the 11 MKs from the ‘centrist’ Yesh Atid. 6 members of Yisrael Beteinu, the far-Right party of ex-Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman abstained, as did 4 members of the Israeli Labour Party.
The Declaration of Independence, which is often quoted by Zionists when arguing that Israel is a democratic, non-racist state was never incorporated into Israeli law. Instead we have the recently passed Jewish Nation State Law which says the the right to national self-determination is "unique to the Jewish people". .
It is because a Jewish State means a state which gives privileges to one section of inhabitants (Jews) and denies them to another section (non-Jews/Palestinian Israelis) that a Jewish state is inherently racist.  The belief amongst the 80% of Israelis that it is ‘their’ state is what lies behind the visceral and open racism of the majority of Jews.
The Israeli flag flies with the Western Wall in the background
This is manifested in popular opinion as measured in a poll by Israel’s Channel 10.
Over three-quarters of Israeli Jews said they would object to their child forming friendships with Palestinian youth of the opposite sex, and more than half said they would be disturbed if their child formed friendships with Palestinian youth of the same sex.
43% of respondents said that they were disturbed or very disturbed to hear people conversing in Arabic in a public space, and 42% said they believe that Jews should be hired for work over Arabs.
Exactly 50 % of respondents said it would bother them to have a Palestinian neighbour; half of respondents also said they would not rent an apartment to a Palestinian citizen of Israel.
37% of respondents reported discomfort over a high number of Palestinian pharmacists, and 40% reported discomfort over the prominence of Palestinian doctors and nurses.
Let us contrast this with a similar poll in YNet, the internet version of Israel’s largest paper, Yediot Aharanot in an article ‘Marriage to an Arab is national treason on the 27th March 2007, quoting a survey by the Geocartography Institute, over half of Israeli Jews said they believed the marriage of a Jewish woman to an Arab man was ‘national treason’. Note that they didn’t oppose such liaisons on religious but racial and national grounds. 
Over 75% of participants did not approve of apartment buildings being shared between Arabs and Jews. 60% of participants said they would not allow an Arab to visit their home. About 40% of participants agreed that “Arabs should have their right to vote for Knesset revoked”. Over half of the participants agreed that Israel should encourage its Arab citizens to immigrate from the country and a similar percentage said they would not want to work under the direct management of an Arab. 55% said “Arabs and Jews should be separated at entertainment sites”. 31% said they felt hatred, while 50% said they felt fear.
Protest against Israel's Nation State Bill
Over 56% of participants said they believed that Israel’s Arab citizens posed both a security and a demographic threat to the country, in other words that the Arab presence in a Jewish state caused them to fear that one day there might be more Arabs than Jews.
When asked what they thought of Arab culture, over 37%replied, “The Arab culture is inferior.”
In an article on YNet in September 2006 Poll: 62% want Arab emigration, which was based on the the Israel Democracy Institute’s democracy index s total of 62% of Israelis wantrf the government to encourage local Arabs to leave the country.
Only 14% of respondents said ties between Arabs and Jews are good, while 29% said a Jewish majority is required for decisions of crucial national significance.
Yair Lapid of the 'centrist' Yesh Atid (left) and Netanyahu

Israeli Knesset rejects bill to ‘maintain equal rights amongst all its citizens’

Mondoweizz, Yossi Gurvitz on
The Knesset voted down today, by a margin of 71-38, the Basic Law: Equality bill, tabled by MK Mossi Raz (Meretz). The text of the bill was clear and concise: “The State of Israel shall maintain equal political rights amongst all its citizens, without any difference between religions, race and sex.” This is a direct quote from Israel’s Declaration of Independence.
Following the resignation of Defense Minister Lieberman a few weeks back, the governing coalition has a razor-thin margin of one vote: it controls 61 votes out of 120. However, the coalition enjoyed the support of Yesh Atid, led by Israel’s Trump wannabe, Yair Lapid. Its eleven votes are unlikely to have delivered victory to the opposition, however, as many members of the Zionist Camp fled the hall before the vote.
Despite one the greatest political cons in history – “Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East”– Israeli law never recognized equality between citizens. An attempt to enter an equality clause to the Human Dignity and Freedom Basic Law, back in 1992, failed – mostly due to the opposition of the religious parties. The Israeli Supreme Court, doubling as the country’s High Court of Justice, found – or, rather, invented – emanations of equality in Israel’s Basic Laws; doing so often required the court to fall back on the equality clause of the Declaration of Independence, claiming it was the expressed will of the Founders.
Doing so after today’s vote will require extraordinary powers of judicial juggling. And the court, which was never that great shining light its supporters portray it (see, for damning example after another, Michael Sfard’s superb “The Wall and the Gate”) is becoming less emboldened to face the government.
Formally there is equality between Arab and Jew in Israel
Following the tumult of the Nation State Law, when the Druze filled the streets in protest – claiming, correctly, the law made them second class citizens – Netanyahu promised them he’d grant them an exemption somehow. Perhaps he’d declare them honorary Jews. Today, Netanyahu closed the gate of equality before them.
He did so with the votes not only of his ultra-nationalist coalition, but also with those of Lapid, whose party claims to be a center party while serving as a gateway drug to the extreme right. And by the absent votes of the frightened members of Labour. Those 71 votes represent the hard core of practical Zionism – Zionism as it is, not as it may be – who decided Israel would be a Jewish country and not a democratic one.
The Knesset told 20% of the country’s citizens that it would demand their loyalty, but would not grant them equality. They would have second class citizenship, dependent on the whim of the Jewish majority. Next time the government of Israel tells you it “shares values” with the US, remember what that value is: 3/5 of personhood.
So it goes.

Israeli press review: New poll shows rampant racism in Israel

Middle East Eye, 10 December 2018
Meanwhile, bill calls for increasing size of villages that can implement 'admission committees' to keep out non-Jewish residents


A man in the Bedouin village of Abu Nuwar in the occupied West Bank with the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim in the background (AFP/File photo)
Tuesday 11 December 2018


New poll shows racism rife amongst Israelis

A new poll by Israeli Channel 10 TV revealed that deep prejudice against Palestinians, including Palestinian citizens of Israel, is still the norm amongst Israeli Jews.
Over three-quarters of respondents said they would object to their child forming friendships with Palestinian youth of the opposite sex, and more than half of Israeli Jews in the study said they would be disturbed if their child formed friendships with Palestinian youth of the same sex.
Forty-three percent of respondents said that they were disturbed or very disturbed to hear people conversing in Arabic in a public space, and 42 percent said they believe that Jews should be hired for work over Arabs.
Exactly 50 percent of respondents said it would bother them to have a Palestinian neighbour; half of respondents also said they would not rent an apartment to a Palestinian citizen of Israel.
Some of Channel 10’s questions were designed to replicate those asked in a CNN poll and published in November in an attempt to measure levels of anti-Jewish racism amongst non-Jewish Europeans in Austria, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
To mirror the CNN question of whether European respondents were fearful of Jewish prominence in certain professions, the Channel 10 poll asked Israelis how they felt about Palestinian prominence in the country’s health care industry.
Thirty-seven percent of respondents reported discomfort over a high number of Palestinian pharmacists, and 40 percent reported discomfort over the prominence of Palestinian doctors and nurses. By contrast, the CNN poll found that 28 percent of European respondents expressed discomfort over the prominence of Jews in global finance.
The Israeli government voted on Sunday to support a bill that would increase the size of villages that may legally implement “admission committees” to weed out Palestinian citizens of Israel and other individuals deemed undesirable, Israel’s Channel 13 Reshet reported.
According to a current Israeli law passed in 2013, municipalities with up to 400 families may form boards that may bar others from moving in. Without any requirement to be transparent about the criteria used, these committees can deny an applicant admittance by claiming that his or her lifestyle is incompatible with life in the village.
Under the new bill - proposed by far-right lawmaker Bezalel Smotrich and approved on Sunday by the Ministerial Committee on Legislation - villages with up to 700 families would be permitted to form such boards to keep out potential residents. The proposed number may drop to 500 or 600 before the bill is passed into law.
The legislation came under harsh criticism from Tamar Zandberg, leader of the liberal-Zionist Meretz party, who argued that the bill would result in more municipalities refusing to admit not only non-Jewish applicants, but also Jews of Arab ethnicity, disabled citizens and members of the LGBT community.
“Not only should acceptance committees not be expanded, but they must be abolished,” Zandberg told the ministerial committee.
Smotrich’s bill follows another recent effort to expand the scope of Jewish-only settlements inside Israel’s internationally recognised borders. The controversial Nation-State law, passed in July, originally contained language mandating the construction of Jewish-only communities, but the provision was dropped before the bill was voted into law.
The original admission committees law was passed in order to circumvent a decision by the Israeli High Court, which ruled in 2000 that the rights of a family of Palestinian citizens of Israel had been violated when an Israeli village refused to let them live there because they were Palestinian.
An senior Israeli minister and member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet says he is confident that once the Israeli army has a pretext for a war with its neighbour to the north, it “will return Lebanon to the Stone Age”, Channel 10 Newsreported.
Responding to a panelist who questioned whether the recent alleged discovery of tunnels on the Israeli side of the border with Lebanon might mean that Israeli deterrence power has decreased, Construction Minister Yoav Galant threatened to destroy Lebanon itself – not only Hezbollah.
“I presume that when we have the reasons, then we will know what to do,” said Galant, a former top general in the Israeli army. “I propose that we trust in the IDF and in its power; we know what to do. That doesn’t mean that we want a battle or a war everyday. But if, regretfully, we get to war, we will return Lebanon to the Stone Age – no less than that.”
Asked if he meant Lebanon, the country, or Hezbollah, Galant said: "Both of them. It is unacceptable [that] Israeli citizens, Israeli children, Israeli women are threatened in our cities, and in Lebanon, it’s business as usual. When I say to return the Stone Age, I mean what I say."
When the show’s host pivoted to Galant’s political patronage, the minister affirmed he was still number two on the list of the Kulanu faction of the government, but hinted that he might switch to Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party, since he shares its hawkish views on security.
"I never hid that my opinions on politics and security are identical to those of the Likud. And by the way, I’m the not the only one in the Kulanu party who holds those views," Galant said.
Israeli Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz similarly threatened to send Lebanon back to "the Stone Age" in 2014 and to "the age of cavemen" in April of this year, according to Israeli reports.
Five-thousand Bedouin citizens of Israel may be forced off their land so that an arms factory can be built on it, the financial journal Calcalist reported.
In the government’s zeal to remove the residents, it announced the plan to the press as a fait accompli, although it has yet to be officially approved.
Instead of waiting to consider complaints against the plan, including from residents who would displaced, the Israeli Authority for Resolving Bedouin Settlement in the Negev issued a statement to the press claiming that the objections had already been overruled.
The citizens who may be displaced currently live in unrecognised Bedouin villages, as well as in Abu Qureinat, Wadi al-Mashash, Wadi al-Na’am, Abu Talul and Sowaween.
Representatives of the 1,000 Bedouin families who currently live in the northern Negev desert area say the state-owned arms maker, Ta’as, known in English as IMI Systems, never presented its construction plans to them, or made any effort to find an alternate solution.
When the families pointed out that their grievances had not been heard, the government authority said “an error in transmitting information resulted in presenting the present stage as if the decision which is very likely to be accepted, was accepted".

Profile of the most travelled MP in Parliament - John ‘rent-a-mouth’ Mann

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John Mann MP – the Bigot with a Big Mouth for Bassetlaw – a reactionary for all seasons


I am indebted for this profile of John Mann MP, one of the key figures behind the  fake ‘anti-Semitism’ smears of the past 3 years, to Koser Saeed. See Spotlight
I have covered John Mann before notably when he lied about and harasseda 90 year old Jewish Dr Glatt and Graham Martin, his adviser.  
Mann is Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group Against Antisemitism. It is a Committee whose primary concern is to use ‘anti-Semitism’ as a protective shield to Zionism and the actions of the Israeli state. The Committee has played an important part in the lead up to the current anti-Semitism smears.
The APPGAA is stuffed with members of the Conservative and Labour Friends of Israel such as Luciana Berger, Mike Freer, Ruth Smeeth, Wes Streeting, Matthew Offord and Bob Blackman. None of them has any record of criticism of Israel’s nakedly racist treatment of its own Palestinian citizens, to say nothing of the Occupation.

Many like Bob Blackman are racists in their own right. See Tory MP accused of Islamophobia after posting anti-Muslim article on Facebook.
Mann has done very well out of his concern for ‘anti-Semitism’ and is the most travelled  of any MP in the Commons.
The Committee, chaired once by right-wing Labour MP Dennis McShane, who was gaoled for his part in the expenses scandal, produced a Report into Anti-Semitism in September 2006.
The most ludicrous of all the observations of this Committee was in paragraph 79 where it stated that:
The Israeli government itself may, at times, have mistakenly perceived criticism of its policies and actions to be motivated by antisemitism, but we received no evidence of the accusation of antisemitism being misused by mainstream British Jewish community organisations  and leaders. 
Ten years later the President of the Board of Deputies, Jonathan Arkush, attackedCorbyn as an anti-Semite and stated that a Jewish group, Jewdas were ‘the source of virulent anti-Semitism’. One wonders if this qualifies as misuse of the accusation of anti-Semitism.
John Mann - Rent-a-mouth MP
The Report stated that ‘anti-Zionist discourse can be polluted with antisemitic themes’ which can happen, but far more widespread is the incidence of anti-Semites hiding their anti-semitism behind support for Israel and Zionism. E.g. Richard Spencer the neo-Nazi founder of the alt-Right in the USA, the organiser of the neo-Nazi demonstration in Charlottesville, has declared himself a White  Zionist. Spencer was effusive in his support of Israel’s Apartheid Jewish Nation State Law. As Ha’aretz noted:
In a series of tweets, Spencer writes of his admiration for the law, which confers the right to national self-determination in Israel to the Jewish people alone, and says Jews are 'showing a path forward for Europeans'
Israel provides a model for White supremacists internationally.  The JNSL, which excludes 20% of its population from any claim to the land they live in, is a blueprint for White Supremacists. Yet Mann and his acolytes have never, not once, ever mentioned that the incidence of Palestinian supporters using anti-Semitic rhetoric is far outweighed by ardently Zionist anti-Semites in Christian fundamentalist and White Supremacist groups.  People like Steve Bannon who combines anti-Semitism with Zionism e.g. his description of Jewish children, whom he didn’t want his own children to go to school with, as whiny brats.’

There is, of course, no acceptance that criticism of Israel is motivated by its own racism.  Only last week Israel's Knesset rejected by 71-38 votes a Bill which would have enshrined equality between Jews and non-Jews in its Constitution.

Mann is an all-purpose bigot.  He’s not only a supporter of Zionist racism, he is a prominent Brexit supporter because it will stop immigration into the UK. He is also the author of a virulently racist ‘Bassetlaw anti-social behaviour handbook’  where advice is given to his constituents on how to deal with ‘loitering by youths’, ‘graffiti’, ‘neighbours from hell’, ‘alcohol’ – and ‘travellers’. In other words Travellers, Gypsies and Roma are one more social nuisance to be dealt with by way of an ASBO.’ See John Mann MP’s opposition to ‘anti-Semitism’ doesn’t extend to Gypsies and Travellers
John Mann was been one of the main witchunters in the Labour Party.  He staged a famous confrontation with Ken Livingstone because the latter accurately described the Nazis as supporting Zionism.  He called for my expulsion saying my membership of the Labour Party was ‘wholly inappropriate’ (presumably only racists like himself should be members). He has led the false accusations of anti-Semitism and the attacks on Jeremy Corbyn.
Despite his pretensions to be an anti-racist Mann was an outspoken supporter of former New Labour Minister Phil Woollas MP.  Woollas was removed as an MP by an Election Court because of outrageous and racist lies he told about his Lib Dem opponent. Rejoice - Phil Woolas - New Labour Racist Ejected from Parliament
When Harriet Harman cast Woolas adrift John Mann told her that 'a period of silence would be very welcome.' A paraphrase of a quote from Attlee. Clearly Mann did not understand the irony of him telling anyone to be quiet.
Tony Greenstein
John Mann profile
• Member of Parliament for Bassetlaw CLP since 2001
• Formerly a councillor in the London Borough of Lambeth.
• Mann’s employs his wife, Joanna White (herself a Labour councillor and deputy leader of Bassetlaw District Council), as a part-time office manager and covers her salary through parliamentary expenses.
• Used to work for the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union as Head of Research and Education
• Used to be the National Training Officer at the TUC National Education Centre in North London
• Mann was the national trade union officer during the 1997 general election
• Mann served on the Treasury Select Committee in 2003–2005 and again 2009–2015
• Mann is a Hard Brexiteer. He focused his referendum campaign on immigration and continues to bring the focus back onto immigration even after the referendum campaign.
• Mann has been interviewed by the police over a complaint about a brochure that he issued on anti-social behaviour, which singled out one ethnic community (travellers).
• Mann has opposed Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership from the start.
• Mann was behind a North Nottinghamshire enquiry that called for heroin addicts to be offered the option of treatment or prison. With new reforms and more local GPs trained to help heroin addicts, the number of addicts in treatment in Bassetlaw rose from 2 to 400, and crimes involving shoplifting, burglary, theft and robbery fell by 75%
• Mann was the first Labour MP to call for Gordon Brown to resign after the 2010 general election and had previously attacked him when he was prime minster
• Mann was very vocal during the expenses scandal and highly critical of certain mps
• In 2014, Mann compiled a dossier of historic allegations of child abuse involving 12 former ministers
• Mann has accused Corbyn of being lax when it came to acting over allegations of child abuse in his constituency. However, as far as I’m aware, Mann hasn’t held any other MPs up to the same level of scrutiny that he has reserved for Corbyn on these matters.
• Mann campaigned to leave during the EU referendum, convinced that the Labour membership supported the Leave campaign and not Labour's (or Corbyn’s) official stance of supporting the Remain campaign. In reality 65% of Labour voters backed remain, although Mann’s own constituency voted 68% to Leave.
• Mann chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group against Antisemitism, who commissioned the "All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Antisemitism" in 2005. The report was printed in 2006 and recommended, amongst other things, a crackdown on ‘anti-Jewish activity’ on university campuses.
• In May 2009, Mann received the American Jewish Committee's Jan Karski Award in recognition of his commitment to fighting antisemitism.
• Mann is also the chair of the Inter-parliamentary Coalition for Combating Antisemitism
• Mann expects Corbyn to give special attention for fighting anti-Semitism above all other forms of racism impacting all other minority groups. In June 2017, he criticised Jeremy Corbyn because he was "not prepared to make a speech exclusively, explicitly, just on antisemitism"
• April 2016, Mann publicly attacked Ken Livingstone (a longstanding critic of Israeli policy regarding the Palestinians and who had previously had run-ins with Board of Deputies of British Jews) for saying that Adolf Hitler "was supporting Zionism before he went mad and ended up killing six million Jews". Livingstone was in fact referencing the writings of Lenni Brenner, an American Trotskyist writer, born to an Orthodox Jewish family but later turned atheist. Brenner was in fact a prominent civil rights activist in the 60’s and an opponent of the Vietnam War. The historical accuracy of this claim continues to be widely debated but Mann took the statement as an opportunity to publicly attack Livingstone and accuse him of being a "Nazi apologist"
• In January this year, Mann wrote an article for the Jewish News (Times of Israel), in which he attacked Jackie Walker and suggest her claims of a Witch Hunt were nothing more than conspiracy theories. He accused Jackie, a Jewish woman, of promoting AntiSemitic tropes and peddling lies. However, Jackie responded by saying that it was obvious that she was targeted for being a Corbyn supporter and that she had been fighting fascists and Anti-Semites on the streets for years and was never once accused of promoting AntiSemitic tropes before Corbyn came along.
• On 17th July 2018, John Mann was one of 5 Labour MPs (Frank Field, Kate Hoey, Kelvin Hopkins and Graham Stringer being the other 4) who voted with the Tories to REJECT a clause that “would make it a negotiating objective of the UK to establish a free trade area for goods between the UK and the EU and if that cannot be agreed then it should be the objective of the UK to secure an agreement to enable the UK’s participation in a customs union with the EU. With a final vote of 307 : 301, it is widely believed that these 5 rebel Labour MP’s were largely responsible for saving Theresa May’s bacon and staving off a potential snap election and therefore the likely ascension of a Corbyn led government.
• On 20th June 2018, John Mann was one of 4 Labour MPs (Frank Field, Kate Hoey and Graham Stringer being the other 3), who voted with the Tories to “NOT to require the Government's future plans in relation to the UK's withdrawal from the European Union to be put to MPs for approval following the eventualities of: MPs rejecting a withdrawal agreement; no withdrawal agreement being reached by 21 January 2019; or the Prime Minister stating no withdrawal agreement can be reached.”
• On 12th June 2018, John Mann was one of 7 Labour MPs (Frank Field, Kate Hoey, Graham Stringer, Ronnie Campbell, Kelvin Hopkins and Dennis Skinner being the other 6), who voted with the Tories to “NOT to ensure Parliamentary approval is required before regulations setting the date of the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union are made”
• On 12th June 2018, John Mann was one of 5 Labour MPs (Frank Field, Kate Hoey, Graham Stringer and Ronnie Campbell being the other 4), who voted with the Tories to REJECT allowing a minister to alter the date for the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union.
• On 17th January 2018, John Mann was one of 5 Labour MPs (Frank Field, Kate Hoey, Kelvin Hopkins and Graham Stringer being the other 4), who voted with the Tories for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union
• On 20th December 2017, John Mann was one of 2 Labour MPs (Caroline Flint being the other), who voted with the Tories to REJECT “holding a referendum to choose between either accepting the terms of an agreement for the United Kingdom's Withdrawal from the European Union or remaining a member of the European Union.”
• On 11th September 2017, John Mann was one of 7 Labour MPs (Frank Field, Kate Hoey, Graham Stringer, Ronnie Campbell, Kelvin Hopkins and Dennis Skinner being the other 6), who voted with the Tories to “end the supremacy of European Union law in United Kingdom law and convert EU law into domestic law on the UK's exit from the European Union.”
• On 8th February 2017, John Mann was one of 6 Labour MPs (Frank Field, Kate Hoey, Graham Stringer, Kelvin Hopkins and Gisela Stuart being the other 5), who voted with the Tories “against making a report on a referendum for ratifying the United Kingdom's new relationship with the European Union a prerequisite for the Prime Minister giving notification of the United Kingdom's intent to withdraw from the European Union.”
• On 14th Sept 2016, John Mann was one of 5 Labour MPs (Kate Hoey, Graham Stringer, Dennis Skinner and Gisela Stuart being the other 4), who voted with the Tories in favour of withdrawing UK membership of the EU.
• On 20th July 2016, John Mann was one of 8 Labour MPs (Nick Brown, Ronnie Campbell, John Cryer, Rob Marris, Dennis Skinner, John Spellar and Graham Stringer being the other 7), who voted with the Tories “against proportional representation for electing MPs and against reducing the voting age to 16.”
• On 30th Jan 2014, John Mann was one of 10 Labour MPs (Hazel Blears, Jim Dowd, Natascha Engel, Kate Hoey, Siobhain McDonagh, Graham Stringer, Gisela Stuart, Derek Twigg and Keith Vaz being the other 9), who voted with the Tories to only allow “human rights grounds to be used to prevent a foreign criminal being deported in cases where there would be a breach of the right to life, or right not to be tortured” and also for “adding a new exemption to deportation for cases where harm to the criminal's children outweighs the public interest in removal.”
• On 27th June 2012, John Mann was one of 3 Labour MPs (Alex Cunningham and Alan Whitehead being the other 2), who voted NOT to approve a motion to “strengthen the notification requirements which apply to sex offenders under Part 2 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, requiring notification to the police of all foreign travel and of information in relation to residence, banking arrangements and passports and other forms of identification. Further requirements include notification of information on residence on a weekly basis where there is no sole or main residence and to notify where the offender stays for at least 12 hours in a household with a child”.
• On 14th March 2006, John Mann was one of 71 Labour MPs who voted with the Tories to reject an amendment that would have made it illegal for the docking of dogs' (the surgical removal of dogs tails) for anything other than the purpose of medical treatment.
• In 2012, John Mann’s wife was sent a dead bird by a disgruntled local (Roger Dyas-Elliott), over what is believed to have been a council matter. However, Mann later reported this as an incident of Anti-Semitism and attributed it to Momentum activists. However, Momentum wasn’t set up until 2015 (3yrs after the incident) and, in fact, it was established by Jewish members of the Labour Party.
• Mann also claimed that he and his son have received Islamist death threats, linked to Anti-Semitism, as well as death threats from pro-hunting campaigners and from the extreme right and even from a drug dealer. However, what’s odd is that he’s only very recently claimed that they were linked to Anti-Semitism on the left.
• In August this year, John Mann called for special privileges for Jewish Labour MPs, calling for them to be “automatically reselected at elections”.
• In June 2017, shortly after the general election, Mann admitted in an article in the Independent that “he was wrong about Jeremy Corbyn's electability” and that he did not expect “the strength of support that was galvanised in many parts of the country”.
• However, in October this year, the BBC reported that Members of Parliament had benefitted from more than £2m worth of free overseas trips over the last two years and that Mann had registered more trips than any other MP, with eight overseas visits on the Register of Interests over the last year. Mann claimed the trips were "part of the job". Most were in fact related to his role as the UK chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Committee Against Antisemitism. One assumes therefore that the dawning realisation of Corbyn’s apparent electability had raised a few concern with the Inter-Parliamentary Committee Against Antisemitism and, perhaps, with interested parties in Israel as well?
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The Rabbis’ Intifada – An Unbroken Chain of Jewish anti-Zionism and Solidarity

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Neturei Karta - the Orthodox Jews who refuse to accept Zionism

Neturei Karta take part in a march across the Brooklyn Bridge, titled March for Gaza, August 20, 2014. Photo by Heather Tenzer.
Neturei Karta, the Orthodox Jewish Anti-Zionist group are both a historical anachronism as well as an enduring phenomenon. At a time when much of Jewish Orthodoxy has morphed into the vilest Jewish neo-Nazism, with its doctrine of racial hatred, genocidal paradigms and blood worship, Neturei Karta has stood out as the jewel amongst the Jewish Orthodox dross.
There was a time when 90% of the Jewish Orthodoxy were opposed to Zionism.  Zionism was held to be a blasphemy, an attempt to force God’s hand.  Exile had been decreed by God and it was not for man to defy this condition. Agudat Yisrael, which was founded in 1912 to oppose Zionism, ended up in coalition governments in Israel. See Early Opposition to Zionism
The founder of political Zionism, Theodor Herzl, was unable to win over any significant support from the Hasidic or Orthodox Jews of Europe.  His own Chief Rabbi Morris Gudeman of Vienna opposed him and it was the Orthodox Jews of Munich who led the opposition in 1897 to holding the First Zionist Congress there (it had to be transferred to Basel in Switzerland).
However as time has gone on much of the Orthodox opposition to Zionism has dissipated.  Not so with Neturei Karta. There are now efforts to document the history and contribution of Neturei Karta.
Certainly NK represent the right-wing of the Palestine solidarity movement. They are not progressive on questions such as women or gays. However they are also no different from their Zionist religious counterparts in that respect. Where they differ from the latter is that they don’t use the Jewish religion and the Bible in order to rationalise a form of Nazi style racism against the Palestinians.
Whereas the most adored part of the Zionist bible is the story of Joshua, the mythical Jewish leader who wiped out the City of Jericho and all its inhabitants, yeah unto every suckling babe, NK disavow such racism.
Grand Rabbi Chaim Elazar Spira - fiercely opposed to Zionism
Religious Zionism is the most racist and bigoted of any wing of Zionism. It has morphed into the most atavistic settler ideology. Leaders such as Rabbi Dov Lior of Kiryat Arba, famous for saying that a Jewish fingernail is worth more than a thousand Palestinian lives and that ‘during warfare, killing non-Jewish civilians is permitted if it saves Jewish lives’.
There is Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, Chief Rabbi of Safed whoissued an edict barring Jews from renting property to Arabs. In 2007, Eliyahu advocated mass slaughter of Palestinians in order to deter rocket fire from Gaza, while defending a ruling by his late father that Israel was permitted to indiscriminately kill civilians. “If they don’t stop after we kill 100, then we must kill a thousand,”Shmuel Eliyahu advised, adding, “And if they do not stop after 1,000 then we must kill 10,000. If they still don’t stop we must kill 100,000, even a million. Whatever it takes to make them stop.”  Some people will say it is ‘anti-Semitic’ to call such a monster a Jewish Nazi but I can’t think of another more accurate description.
There was the Chief Military Rabbi and settler Brig.-Gen. Avichai Ronski, who distributed material to soldiers invading Gaza such as
“it is forbidden under the [Jewish] Law to concede one millimetre of the Land of Israel to the Gentiles. We will not leave it in the hands of another people, not even a finger of it, not even a fingernail”.
Ronski told the soldiers that
“there is no innocent population ... the morality of the Torah says ‘woe unto the wicked’ [Isaiah 3:11] and woe unto his neighbour. We appeal for the disregard of foreign doctrines and orders of all kinds that distort the logical process of combat - the destruction of the enemy.”
In other words the civilian population, including women, children and old people was part of the enemy that must be destroyed.
Rabbi Eyal Karim
Or there is Rabbi Eyal Karim the Israeli Army’s Chief Rabbi. Karim implied that it was permissible to rape ‘attractive’ non-Jewish women during wartime in order to keep the morale of soldiers up.  Further that it is permitted to kill wounded suicide bombers and gay people should be treated as people “sick or disabled.”
Sephardic Chief Rabbi Ovadia  Yosef
Not forgetting of course Sephardic Chief Rabbi, Ovadia Yosef who believed that gentiles (non-Jews) should be treated thus:
“Goyim were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world – only to serve the People of Israel.”

“In Israel, death has no dominion over them… With gentiles, it will be like any person – they need to die, but [God] will give them longevity. Why? Imagine that one’s donkey would die, they’d lose their money.

“This is his servant… That’s why he gets a long life, to work well for this Jew.”

“Why are gentiles needed? They will work, they will plow, they will reap. We will sit like an effendi and eat… That is why gentiles were created.”

There can be no doubt that compared to these savages Neturei Karta are a model example of anti-racism. They have for example gone to Gaza and been welcomed by the population and Hamas thus demonstrating another Zionist lie that Hamas and Palestinians are inherently anti-Semitic.
Those who are involved in Palestine solidarity will be aware that NK regularly appear at Palestine solidarity demonstrations and are thus living proof that to be Jewish is not to be anti-Semitic. In recent times, of course, more and more secular Jews have moved into opposition to Zionism so there is, in a sense a competition between the different forms of Jewish opposition to Zionism, not in itself a bad thing when some idiots in the Labour Party still believe that anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are one and the same thing.
Tony Greenstein
Emmaia Gelman on December 3, 2018


Heather Tenzer is a filmmaker straddling three worlds: she grew up in a modern Orthodox Jewish community that was Zionist, she left it for non-religious life in New York, and she’s an activist for Palestinian freedom. Her upcoming film, The Rabbis’ Intifada (http://therabbisintifada.com), uniquely stitches together these three vantage points. Tenzer follows the strictly-Orthodox rabbis of Neturei Karta – long-time supporters of Palestinian rights, and opponents of Israeli colonialism – from the US to Jerusalem and Gaza. 

In this interview, Tenzer talks about navigating tensions in the Palestine solidarity movement between religious and progressive frameworks for liberation – and about her own challenges as a female documentary filmmaker making boundary-pushing work.

Emmaia Gelman: Why is Neturei Karta important in the Palestine solidarity movement?
Heather Tenzer: Neturei Karta has a long history of standing in solidarity with Palestine. Over the years, they’ve built a reputation among Palestinians and their supporters as a Jewish voice with a consistent presence at Palestine solidarity demonstrations. They unequivocally express support for Palestinian rights. They speak out against Israeli occupation, violence, and colonization. Because of that, they are appreciated by many many Palestinians – but especially religious Palestinians.
Documentarian Heather Tenzer, at Israel Day Parade – May 2018. Photo by Alex Laser.
Palestinians are diverse. The Palestine solidarity movement is perhaps even more diverse. And I think that Neturei Karta has a unique role to play in that movement. Because NK are deeply religious Jews with socially conservative values, they are able to identify with and relate to the sector of the Palestinian community which is also deeply religious and also socially conservative. Muslims in Gaza who are suffering under Israeli occupation were so touched by NK’s visit and by their expressions of support.  I saw it with my own eyes – not just in Gaza, but also in Egypt, Turkey, Jordan… Religious Middle Eastern communities appreciate their support, perhaps even more deeply than expressions of support from Leftist or secular communities.
Neturei Karta often meet people who don’t necessarily know that Judaism and Zionism are different. For example, when I was with the rabbis in Gaza, the children there were initially afraid of them because they look religious Jewish. For a lot of people around the world, Jewish means Zionist or even Israeli. It means an occupier and an attacker and a purveyor of violence. Israel is pretty effective at creating that illusion. Neturei Karta disrupt that.
I was one of the people Neturei Karta reached! My first experience with Neturei Karta was when I was a kid, marching in the Israel Day parade. I grew up in an Orthodox community. Neturei Karta appeared to be very religious, much more religious than my community. I was shocked to find out that religious Jews opposed Israel.
Neturei Karta protest Israel Day Parade – May 2018. Photo by Alex Laser.
EG: There are many critiques about Neturei Karta. A big one is that they’re not actually interested in Palestinian human rights, but instead – what?
HT: The critique – and the myth, actually – is that they’re just interested in following the Torah text, and everything that they do is about allegiance to their Rebbe, and they can’t think for themselves, and they’re backwards, and they don’t care about Palestinians, they just care about being anti-Zionist. The only reason for supporting Palestine is because they oppose Zionism, and the only reason they oppose Zionism is because in the Torah is says that you must wait till the Messiah comes in order to have a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
EG: That critique would put them in the company of the Christian right: trying to hustle the messiah into place.
HT: Neturei Karta – like all religious Jews – are waiting for the coming of Messiah. I don’t think there is a universally accepted idea among religious Jews of what will happen when Messiah comes. However, there is an idea that Jews would be returned to the Holy Land by God. That idea of return, as I understand it, is completely the opposite of Zionism. It is not a violent forceful man-made return to the land of Palestine, in which Palestinians are massacred or dispossessed. It is a peaceful return of Jewish people to the Holy Land carried out by God. That does not require violence against Palestinians. It does not require a nation state at all, and we may well be living without nation states at all during this imagined anarchic future.
EG: Neturei Karta are controversial on the Left because their gender politics don’t sit well with progressives. But their anti-Zionism puts them to the Left of major Jewish groups in the Palestine solidarity movement on that issue. They also break pretty sharply with other forms of Jewish Orthodoxy. Do you think of Neturei Karta as radicals?
HT: Like other anti-Zionist Orthodox Jews, Neturei Karta oppose a Jewish state for theological reasons. But, Neturei Karta are unique in that they also support the rights of Palestinians to live in peace in their homeland, to be free of Israeli occupation and violence. Neturei Karta are unique in their efforts to speak out around the world in support of Palestinian rights and liberation. That’s a step further than most other Haredim.
I think it’s a mistake to talk about them in terms of Right and Left, because it’s not how they define themselves. Their actions emanate from religious and moral convictions. But if you look at Neturei Karta as a whole, often their language and beliefs are more radical than other parts of the Palestine solidarity movement. I can compare a Neturei Karta demonstration in Jerusalem with a Leftist demonstration I saw on the streets of Tel Aviv. The Neturei Karta demonstration was much more radical and clearly anti-Zionist. They held signs calling Israeli actions in Gaza a “massacre.” At the Tel Aviv protest, some progressives carried Israeli flags. They were critical of Israeli policy, but still supported a Jewish state
So, yes, I think Neturei Karta’s approach is sometimes more radical than that of those on the Left, whether that’s in Israel or here in the United States. Interestingly, in the Israeli Left, now there are people slowly making coalitions with Neturei Karta. They’re breaking with decades of animosity and hostility.
EG: How did Palestinians in Gaza respond to Neturei Karta?
HT: Religious Palestinians were incredibly appreciative of Neturei Karta’s words and actions. When Neturei Karta would visit Muslim families impacted by Israeli violence, I saw how deeply their presence there was appreciated. Some people who identified more as Leftist or communists or whatever were a little bit more on the fence, and not really sure about how they felt about Neturei Karta.
I think the social conservatism of Neturei Karta is very similar to what you find in a lot of different religious communities in the Middle East. And that’s why, when they go there, one of the reasons they’re so welcome is because of this cultural similarity and similarity in world view.
Neturei Karta take part in a march across the Brooklyn Bridge, titled March for Gaza, August 20, 2014. Photo by Heather Tenzer.

EG: In the course of your work, what kind of conversations did you have with women or queers inside Neturei Karta?
I have gotten to know several Neturei Karta women and many did not feel comfortable being interviewed. I met one woman on the street in Williamsburg. She talked about her support for Palestinians. I wanted to interview her, but she felt uncomfortable with that. This is for cultural reasons, as women in their religious culture generally feel a sense of modesty that prohibits their participation in such things. Off camera, however, they were always very kind, interested and supportive of my project in ways that pleasantly surprised me. They’ve talked to me about milking their goats, about their children, and sometimes even feminism. In one case, there’s a woman who speaks much more fluent English than her husband. Because of that, she often serves as the translator between us.
One time I was with a woman and her 12-year-old daughter in their backyard. The daughter was jumping up and down so her skirt was bouncing. The mother shouted at her daughter that she wasn’t being modest enough. It’s a very rigid society where the laws of the Torah are in their every day, moment-to-moment lives. To me, that level of modesty feels oppressive, but if it is working for them, then who am I to say that my worldview is better?
One time, two Neturei Karta women were speaking with each other. One woman says to the other something like “the men make the decisions, but the women turn the man’s will.” It was a Yiddish expression that doesn’t translate that well in English, but the idea was that women have the power to control their husbands – in a sense, talking about women’s power. I’m hoping to do more to include Neturei Karta women in the film.
I didn’t meet anyone who said that they were unhappy and wanted to leave the community. But based upon what I have read and what some Haredim have told me, it’s very hard to leave. You’re losing your entire family and community, there’s not a middle ground. And yeah, it’s deeply difficult for those who choose to leave.
EG: LGBTQ rights are a major part of human rights conversations right now. How do you reconcile Neturei Karta’s concern for human rights with their apparent lack of support for LGBTQ rights?
HT: Neturei Karta and many other Haredim don’t use the language of human rights, because they don’t have access to secular education. Some are not familiar with Martin Luther King, Jr. for example. Secular thinking is not a part of their world. They define everything that they do, whether it’s going to sleep at night or joining a Palestine demonstration, in religious terms. To explain their concern for Palestinians’ rights, they’ll quote the Torah text on the most basic things. For example, Rabbi Meir Hirsch of Neturei Karta, who is featured in the film, quotes the Torah – saying in Hebrew: ‘Love thy brother as thyself!’” He cites this text as a reason why Jews are obligated to show solidarity with the Palestinians, and “feel their pain,” as he says.
These are common Torah passages that have nothing to do with anything esoteric, but are passages related to the ethical or moral obligations of Jews about caring for fellow human beings.
As far as LGBTQ rights, as far as I know, nearly all strictly Orthodox Jews don’t support homosexuality. I have a queer friend who was not in Neturei Karta but was in another Haredi community. His Rebbe was, as he explained it, sympathetic toward him in some ways, like: this is your struggle. But in the end my friend who was married to a woman still felt like his identity as a gay man was not reconcilable with living in that community. So, he left.
Interestingly, Jacob Israel de Haan is a figure whom Neturei Karta consider as their martyr. He was assassinated in the 1920s by the Haganah. He was an anti-Zionist Jew from Amsterdam living in Palestine. He was openly gay and wrote homoerotic poetry that was published in Amsterdam. When he came to Palestine, he went from being Zionist to anti-Zionist, and from secular to religious. His was the first Jewish on Jewish political assassination in modern history.
 EG: Are de Haan’s writings part of Neturei Karta life?
HT: His homoerotic poetry is certainly not! He was a journalist/poet/novelist before he came to Palestine, so those writings are not part of the Neturei Karta canon. But he became friendly with Rabbi Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld, the chief rabbi of the anti-Zionist Haredim of Jerusalem. De Haan became the community ambassador. De Haan and Sonnenfeld went to Transjordan to meet with the prince there, to say, “Look, we represent the Haredi community of Jerusalem, and we oppose what the Zionists are doing.” That was the purpose of their visit, to visit the prince and say, “We want to live in coexistence with the indigenous people here.”
Then de Haan wrote to the British to say, “We, the Jewish community of Jerusalem, do not want there to be a Jewish state here.” That was very threatening to the Zionists.
EG: Are there any other surprising characters in Neturei Karta?
HT: There’s Ruth Blau, who was a Christian in the French resistance during WWII. She converted to Judaism, moved to Israel and married Rabbi Amram Blau who was the head of Neturei Karta at that time. It was a very controversial marriage because she was a convert, and much younger than he. Rabbi Amram Blau was a religious guy, and he’s been described to me as fearless. The Israeli police were very violent toward all the anti-Zionist Haredim of Jerusalem since the beginning of the state. Like, very violent. There’s news footage of these attacks. But Rabbi Moshe Beck, one of the subjects in my film who knew Rabbi Blau, recalls how Rabbi Blau would lead the demonstrations – despite the police violence, and be totally fearless, and have all of the followers stand there and urged them not lift a finger against the Zionists.
EG: What was it like to reach out to them, when you’d decided to make this film?
HT: I reached out to Neturei Karta, and to my pleasant surprise, they agreed to meet with me. I first met Rabbi Meir Hirsch in Jerusalem. He’s the leader of Neturei Karta there. I was surprised that the rabbi was so at ease with me and with my friend Sammy who was translating; surprised that he was willing to speak with me as a woman conducting the interview and at his willingness to speak frankly, to trust in our capacity to represent him fairly. But most of all I was very shocked by his forthcoming and radical language around what Israel was doing to Palestinians. Rabbi Hirsch called Israeli actions ‘crimes against humanity.’
EG: Following your first impressions, did your opinions about Neturei Karta change as you worked on the project?


HT: I didn’t go into it having a lot of negative stereotypes about religious people, in part because I grew up in a religious community. Still, there were things they’d say that I strongly disagreed with and others that would pleasantly surprise me. Our values are oftentimes deeply at odds and oftentimes overlap. That’s the way things are with most of humanity.

The first time I heard them speaking in a way that I found intolerant of LGBTQ communities, that was hard.
EG: What have been the biggest hurdles in making this film?
HT: When I started the film, almost immediately I got a little backlash. I started shooting in Jerusalem years ago. Some Israeli Leftists were very supportive. But others were like, why are you covering Neturei Karta? They’re horrible people, they’re homophobic, they’re sexist… why? I was surprised by this reaction. It seemed to me mostly immaterial what Neturei Karta’s religious beliefs are… I mean, their religious ideology is followed by hundreds of thousands of Orthodox Jews around the world. And the fact that they were supporting Palestinians and that Palestinians were appreciating it, that makes it valuable. Whether or not they have values that we would get on board with as Leftists, that felt very secondary.
There are many legitimate critiques that can be made about Orthodox communities at large. But I see secular men pointing the finger at religious communities and being like, “Hey! Those women are really oppressed. Thoseplaces are repressive for women and sexist.” While some of that is true, those same critics tend to ignore these ways that women are oppressed in secular society, when right now in the US secular women are fighting serious battles against sexism (the #MeToo movement immediately comes to mind!), which is pervasive in many secular workplaces, including in the documentary film industry, and is often perpetrated by secular men.
I see a Zionist force at play in the effort to discredit Neturei Karta. I think Zionists highlight Neturei Karta’s social conservatism as a way to undercut the power of what Neturei Karta are doing by saying here’s how they don’t measure up to liberal Western standards. Zionists have done the same thing to Palestinians, criticizing them as “not liberal enough” as a way of trying to push the Western Left away from supporting them.
EG:What work are you hoping your film will do in the world?
HT: I hope first and foremost that the film will humanize Palestinians and expand the conversation around Palestine and Israel. A lot of folks in this country and abroad still think that all Jews – especially religious Jews – support Israel and its policies. Neturei Karta help to challenge that myth. Many folks tend to think that what is happening in Palestine/Israel is a religious war between Islam and Judaism. And I think Neturei Karta help to challenge that by talking both about the history of Muslim/Jewish coexistence and about religious texts that prohibit Jews from killing and occupying Palestinians—or any other people for that matter. Neturei Karta come and say that that violence perpetrated against Palestinians is perpetrated by a state which claims to be acting in the name of Judaism but is actually only acting in the name of nationalism. I hope the film will challenge stereotypes about Neturei Karta, Muslims, Palestinians, and Arabs, and about religious Orthodoxy and what it means to be an activist. I also hope that film will challenge American Jews – and Americas more broadly – to learn about the history of persecution of Palestinians at the hands of Israel. And I hope that by showing a community of religious Jews who are critical of Israel, more Americans will feel licensed and safe to also critique it – without fear of being called an anti-Semite.

The Holocaust in the Service of Zionism - the Apostles of Fascism Intrude upon the Ghosts of Auschwitz

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Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust Museum, betrays the memory of those who died in Auschwitz & Treblinka

In April 1976 Israel's Labor Government under Yithzak Rabin, invitedJohn Vorster, Prime Minister of South Africa to pay a state visit to Israel. 

South Africa became Israel's sole substantive supporter on the continent and one of the few governments anywhere not calling for her withdrawal from occupied Arab territory.’
John Vorster with Israeli Labour Govt. Ministers Yitzhak Rabin (right) and Moshe Dayan (with eyepatch) and Menachem Begin future Likud PM (left)
South Africa and Israel already had a strong commercial and military (including nuclear) relationship. Israel and South Africa were ideological and political twins. As the architect of Apartheid, Prime Minister Dr Hendrik Verwoerd observedin 1961
The Jews took Israel from the Arabs after the Arabs had lived there for a thousand years. Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state.’
By 1976, at a time when most Western states were reducing their military relationship with South Africa, Israel was strengthening theirs. In 1977 the voluntary UN arms embargo on South Africa was made compulsory. This merely proved an incentive for Israel to intensify its military relationship with South Africa and break the arms embargo. This was done under an Israeli Labor Government. Brothers in arms - Israel's secret pact with Pretoria
During the war Vorster had been a Generalin the para-military wing of the  Ossewabrandwag, which conducted sabotage operations against the British war effort. In 1942 Vorster was interned for his pro-Nazi sympathies.None of this prevented Vorster from paying the obligatory visit to Yad Vashem, [YV] Israel’s Holocaust memorial museum and laying a wreath in memory of the victims of those whom he had supported.
The late Professor Israel Shahak of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, who was a child survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto and Belsen-Bergen concentration camp, wrote:
‘Of the Yad Vashem… theatre, I do not wish to speak, at all. It, and its vile exploiting, such as honouring South Africa collaborators with the Nazis are truly beneath contempt. [Kol Hair, 19 May 1998, Jerusalem].
YV is situated adjacent to the site of Deir Yassin, a village where in April 1948 the Zionist terror groups Irgun and Lehi carried out a horrific massacre killing up to 254 men, women and children. In 2009 YV fired a guide, Itamar Shapira, who had dared to mention to visitors the proximity of YV to Deir Yassin.
Any independent or reputable academic institute or museum connected with the Holocaust, both of which YV purports to be, would have welcomed someone who drew parallels between what happened to the Jews under the Nazis and other victims of racism and fascism. If YV retained an ounce of independence or autonomy it would have refused to welcome those who still cling to the ideas neo-Nazism and racial supremacy.
However YV cannot do that because it was set up as a specifically Zionist institute. It depends for 40% of its income from a government which officially believes in the segregation of Arabs and Jews and which has, within the past month, increased the number of Jewish communities entitled to reject Arabs as members. It is verboten therefore to draw any parallels between the treatment of Jews under anti-Semitic regimes and that of non-Jews, especially the Palestinians, under Israel’s racist regime.
YV’s absurd position is that ‘the Holocaust cannot be politicized or equated with any other event.’ as if the Holocaust wasn’t itself a product of the political situation in Europe in the last century. If the Holocaust is unique then there are no universal lessons that can be drawn from it other than that Jews will always be the victims of anti-Semitism whilst they live among non-Jews. Thwe uniqueness of the Holocaust is very convenient because it means that growing Israeli fascism and Zionist racism is immune from any historical study or comparison. It is a 'get out of gaol free' card for Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. Itamar Shapira said of YV that
"It is being hypocritical. I only tried to expose the visitors to the facts, not to political conclusions. If Yad Vashem chooses to ignore the facts, for example the massacre at Dir Yassin, or the Nakba ["The Catastrophe," the Palestinians' term for what happened to them after 1948], it means that it's afraid of something and that its historic approach is flawed."
YV was established by the Martyrs' and Heroes Remembrance (Yad Vashem) Law 5713-1953.  In Israel the Holocaust is highly politicized. It is not a neutral academic subject but a propaganda weapon in the hands of the State. It is the justification for Israel’s very existence and also for every Israeli war crime. According to the myth of Israel’s victimhood, every crisis it faces is an existentialist one, comparable to the Holocaust. Israel’s enemies are always comparedto Hitlerand the Nazis. Israel’s conflicts with the Palestinians are not those of a settler colonial state stealing the land of the natives but a rerun of the Nazi destruction of the Jews. As Israeli Professor Edit Zertal observed [Israel’s Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood, p.100, CUP, 2011]:
‘The transference of the Holocaust situation on to the Middle East reality… not only created a false sense of the imminent danger of mass destruction. It also immensely distorted the image of the Holocaust, dwarfed the magnitude of the atrocities committed by the Nazis, trivializing the unique agony of the victims and the survivors, and utterly demonizing the Arabs and their leaders.’
Zertal wrote that there hasn’t been a war involving Israel ‘that has not been perceived, defined, and conceptualized in terms of the Holocaust.’ Israel has mobilised the Holocaust ‘in the service of Israeli politics.’ [pp. 4, 91]
Yet this is not about the Holocaust but about the Zionist exploitation of the Holocaust. That is why Israel’s concern for the sanctity and uniqueness of the Holocaust contrasts with its shameful treatment of the Holocaust survivors who live in Israel. When Holocaust survivors began arriving in Palestine after 1945 they were treated with contempt and called 'sapon'(soap) after the myth that the bodies of those the Nazis murdered had been turned into soap. [Tom Segev, The Seventh Million, p.183]. Hanzi Brand wrote of how, when she settled on Kibbutz Gvata Haim, the other members ‘talked about their war to avoid hearing about hers. They were ashamed of the Holocaust. [Segev p. 471]
Today, when the word 'anti-Semitism' is on the lips of every Zionist propagandist, it is forgotten that when anti-Semitism was a dominant form of racism, Zionism was not interested in opposing it. That is what distinguished Zionism from every other Jewish political movement. Zionism began from the perspective that anti-Semitism was impossible to fight. Antisemitism was held to be ingrained in non-Jews. In the words of Zionism's founder, Theodor Herzl, it was 'futile'to oppose anti-Semitism.
Although the Holocaust is mercilessly exploited by Zionist propaganda today, when the Holocaust was happening the Zionist leaders were indifferent to what was happening. Indeed they denied there was a Holocaust. As Israeli historian, Yigal Elam wrote:
When the demonstrations and protest actions against the Nazi regime of terror reached their climax, the voice of Zionism was not to be heard.[Introduction to Zionist History, Tel Aviv, 1972, pp. 113, 122]
Tom Segev, a journalist and one of the new Israeli historians wrote in The Seventh Million that the Zionist leadership of the Jewish Agency and Mapai, the Israeli Labour Party

'instead of thinking of the Holocaust in terms that would require effective and immediate action, exiled it from real time into history. Thus the first press report of the murder of Jews in mobile gas chambers was worded as though it were a story that happened long ago:... With the Holocaust still raging, the leaders of the yishuv and opinion makers indicted themselves for apathy and for their failure to rescue the Jews.' (p.103)
Despite his role as an apologist for all manner of Zionist atrocities, Ellie Wiesel, who survived Auschwitz and the Hungarian Holocaust, praised Segev's book in a review in the Los Angeles Times (The Land that Broke its Promise, LA Times 23rd May 1993)
In October 2016 there was one of these artificial Zionist furors when a Rabbi stated, at a meeting chaired by Baroness Jenny Tonge, that the Holocaust was a punishment from God. This was the purest hypocrisy. [Party suspends UK baroness after meeting where Jews were blamed for Holocaust] On 27th November 1942 the Histadrut paper Davar published an article 'describing the extermination of the Jews as "punishment from heaven" for not having come to Palestine.' (Segev p.98). Which is almost a mirror image of the sermon by Pastor John Hagee of Christians United for Israel that Hitler was an agent of God sent to drive the Jews to Palestine.
Untold millions of shekels which Germany paid in reparations to Israel and the Zionist movement for the benefit of the Holocaust survivors has been stolen by the Israeli state and Zionist organisations such as the Jewish Claims Conference, which has been the centre of repeated scandals. See Fraud at the Jewish Claims Conference Spiegel online, 15.11.10. and Holocaust Claims Conference Fraud Likely ‘Much Higher’ Than $57 Million Yardena Schwartz describesin The Tablet how a report by Israel’s Welfare Minister Haim Katz in April 2016 revealed that 20,000 Holocaust survivors had been defrauded by the State of more than $30 million, yet it was:
a testament to how invisible survivors are in Israeli society, and how apathetic the public is to their plight, Katz’s report made absolutely no waves in the Israeli media. It should be news that Holocaust survivors are being left to die in poverty, all while their legacy is used as a justification for the existence of the nation that has so badly neglected them.
Since the end of WWII, Germany has paidmore than $78.4 billion in reparations and compensation for survivors of Nazi persecution. 40% of those funds, or about $31 billion, were allocated to Holocaust victims in Israel. Yet rather than going solely to individual Holocaust survivors, these funds have been primarily funneled through the Israeli government and the Jewish Claims Conference, an agency founded in 1951. According to the Holocaust Survivors Rights Authority, the Israeli governmental agency entrusted with the issue of Holocaust survivors, there are about 200,000 Holocaust survivors living in Israel, nearly a third of whom live below the poverty line.
This should be no surprise. The Holocaust is not about what happened to the Jews of Europe and the destruction of the Jewish communities of Europe, the actual victims, but about the creation of a myth of the Holocaust and Jewish peoplehood. The Holocaust has been used ideologically by Israeli and the West to justify racism against the outsider - Muslims and others.
Italy's Matteo Salvini and his ideological 
How else can one explain the fact that the Roma, who were also victims of the Holocaust, in proportions similar to those of the Jews, are never mentioned? Matteo Salvini, the Deputy Prime Minister of Italy and member of the far-Right Northern Leagues, promised to expel thousands of non-Italian Roma from Italy. This is the same Matteo Salvini whom Netanyahu described as a great friend of Israel.” at their meeting this week. [Times of Israel, 12.12.18.]
The Zionist attitude to the Holocaust was summed up by Gerhard Riegner, World Jewish Congress representative who was based in Switzerland during the War. It was Riegner's telegram, which was sent to London and Washington in August 1942, which confirmed that the the deliberate extermination of European Jewry had begun in earnest. The telegram was sat on by Rabbi Stephen Wise, leader of American Zionism, at the request of the State Department until November 1942. In that 3 months probably 1 million Jews were murdered. Riegner was of the opinion that '
Auschwitz was not only a national memory belonging to the Jewish people that should not be taken by anyone else; it was also an important political asset. Among other things it served the diplomatic efforts of both the World Jewish Congress and Israel.'[Interview with Riegner, Segev, p 474]
Below is an articleby Daniel Blatman, Professor in Holocaust Studies at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. Blatman has repeatedly warned that Israel is heading down the same road that Germany and other European states took in the 1930’s. He wrote of Bezalel Smotrich, a Knesset member for Habayit HaYehudi (Jewish Home), that:
Smotrich’s admiration for the biblical genocidaire Joshua bin Nun leads him to adopt values that resemble those of the German SS.
Blatman has himself transgressed, a number of times the stipulations in the intellectually bankrupt IHRA definition of anti-Semitism by comparing Israeli politics to those of Nazi Germany, for example The Rights and Wrongs of Comparing Israel to Nazi Germany
Blatman has been appointed as the Chief Historian to the proposed Holocaust museum in Warsaw. The Israeli Holocaust Establishment centred around YV are up in arms. Professor Hava Dreifuss has raised the question of political interference from the Polish government. Blatman retorted that people in glass houses  should not throw stones.  Blatman describes YV, for whom Dreifuss works as a 
hard-working laundromat, striving to bleach out the sins of every anti-Semitic, fascist, racist or simply murderously thuggish leader or politician like Hungary’s Viktor Orban, the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte and Italy’s Matteo Salvini.
YV has committed all the sins that Dreifuss attributes to the putative Warsaw Ghetto museum. It has hosted a whole swathe of far-Right leaders, some of whom like Viktor Orban have dabbled in pro-Nazi politics. Orban, who paid a state visit to Israel in July also visited YV. He was greeted by a demonstrationwhich included survivors of the Holocaust. Orban has gone on record as describing Admiral Horthy, the war-time pro-Nazi ruler of Hungary, who oversaw the deportation of 437,000 Jews to Auschwitz, as an exceptional statesman.'
There is a political irony here because when Poland's far-Right Law and Justice Party passed a Holocaust law at the end of January making it a criminal offence to say that Poles took part in the Holocaust, Netanyahu rushed to reach an agreement with the Polish Government. In exchange for dropping the penalty of imprisonment, the Israeli state accepted the law despite vigorous condemnation even by Yehuda Bauer, the Dean of Israel's holocaust historians. Bauer, who is an appalling apologist for the role of Zionism during the Holocaust called the Israeli State's agreement with the far-Right holocaust revisionists of the Polish Government a 'betrayal':
Bauer said that by signing the declaration, Israel had betrayed Polish historians who had been persecuted by the Polish government because they “tell the truth.” He was referring to scholars such as Prof. Jan Tomasz Gross and Jan Grabowsky, who have researched Polish involvement in the murder of Jews during the Holocaust.
Yet who was it who signed up to Netanyahu’s agreement? Dina Porat, YV's Chief historian. This agreement was savaged by YV's other historians thus demonstrating the disarray in YV today at Netanyahu's courting of Europe's far-Right.
Daniel Blatman
Blatman cites an article in the New York Times by Matti Friedman describing the atmosphere among workers at YV. [What Happens When a Holocaust Memorial Plays Host to Autocrats] They are afraid that the Israeli government, in the form of far-Right Education Minister Naftali Bennett, is about to impose a new Director at YV in the place of the current 80 year old Avner Shalev .
Friedman described a mood of frustration, fear and demoralization among the employees because the current nationalist government has turned YV into a political tool reminiscent of history museums in totalitarian countries.
In what is a devastating critique of how YV has acted as a propaganda organisation, fine tuning the Holocaust to Israel’s current political needs, Blatman writes that:
Yad Vashem is now paying the price of the many years in which it nurtured a one-dimensional, simplistic message that there’s only one way to explain the Holocaust. Today, the institution is apparently willing to place its reputation for Holocaust research, which it has built over many years, at the service of a government that has recruited it to accuse anyone who criticizes Israel of anti-Semitism. So it’s no wonder that its researchers have become partisan explainers of the Holocaust.
YV historians, from Yehuda Bauer down were always politically partisan putting forward a view of the Holocaust that chimed with Zionism’s political needs. For example they defended the Judenrat (Jewish Councils) in the Nazi ghettos, two-thirds of whom were Zionists and criticised Raul Hilberg, the most eminent of all Holocaust historians, for his assertion that the Judenrate were an essential cog in the Nazi destruction process.
Likewise YV has all but written out of its historical accounts the anti-Zionist and non-Zionist contributions to resistance to Nazism, for example that of the Bund, who led the Warsaw ghetto resistance. For years YV, under Yehuda Bauer, even erased the very names of the two Jewish escapees from Auschwitz in April 1944, Rudolph Vrba and Alfred Wexler. [See Ruth Linn, Escaping Auschwitz - A Culture of Forgetting, 2004] The reason was that the leader of Hungarian Zionism, Rudolf Kasztner, who was the subject of a 4 year trial in Israel (1954-58) for collaboration, had suppressed the Auschwitz Protocols that Vrba and Wexler wrote which told of the preparations the Nazis were making to exterminate Europe's last major Jewish community. Vrba and Wexler were not Zionists. See Hungary, Auschwitz and Rewriting the Holocaust
Not once have YV's historians, from Bauer to Porat to Dreifuss  protested about visitors like Viktor Orban or Austrian Chancellor Kurz, who is in a coalition government with the neo-Nazi Freedom Party. Or indeed Philippines dictator Rodrigo Duterte who has openly compared himself to Hitler. A Hitler Admirer at Yad Vashem
YV is, in essence, complaining that Israel’s monopoly on the Holocaust is being broken. The Holocaust has become part of the new Western political identity.
First a Holocaust Museum was initiated by Jimmy Carter in Washington DC. Israel could hardly object because the USA is Israel’s main benefactor. But now Hungary’s Orban and Poland’s Law & Justice Government are establishing their own Holocaust museums. Even worse they are not prepared to allow Israel to define their message as they too wish to harness the Holocaust to their own nationalist narrative. The Holocaust does not simply belong to Zionism and Israel but to all sorts of reactionary regimes, all of whom Israel has close relationships with.
It remains to be seen how a Holocaust revisionist like Viktor Orban handles the Holocaust with his new Museum, the House of Fates. The dilemma is such that the Museum has had its brand new building lying empty for three years whilst this dilemma is resolved.
What is clear is that Poland is not willing to be dictated to by Israel. Although the Polish government professes otherwise, the Holocaust is clearly being summoned in aid of a Polish nationalist narrative, albeit one in which the Poles also suffered grievously under the Nazis (up to 3 million Poles were murdered). Poland's government has hired a dissident Israeli historian, Daniel Blatman, to be the chief historian of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews.  This has produced a furious reaction by YV's historians and their Polish apologists. Why Is This Israeli Jewish Scholar a Willing Poster Boy for Poland's Brutal Distortion of the Holocaust?
The problem that faces the Museum is that Poland before WW2 was a byword for anti-Semitism. In the universities there were ghetto benches for Jewish students. Pogroms led by the Endeks (National  Democratic Party) and the National Radical Camp were a regular occurrence. E.g. Poland Does Nothing to Check Anti-semitic Drive of the Endeks, Jewish Telegraph Agency, JTA 7.8.1934.
It was in this situation that Zionism, which had a mass base in the 1920's declined as the Bund, an anti-Zionist Jewish party came to the fore. It was the Bund who led the Warsaw Ghetto Resistance despite the best efforts of Israel and YV to erase the Bund from history. In the last free elections in Poland in 1938, the Bund won17 out of the 20 Jewish council seats in Warsaw compared to just one for the Zionists.
The last Commander of the Jewish Resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto, Marek Edelman died a non-person in Israel. He received a 15 gun state funeral in Poland but not one Israeli government representative, not even the lowliest clerk at the Israeli Embassy attended. Zionism Boycotts the Funeral of Marek Edelman This year was the 75th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Resistance. You would be forgiven for having missed Israel's commemoration of the event, but then the last desperate fight of the Jewish diaspora against the Nazi beast doesn't accord with the Zionist view that the Diaspora is doomed anyway. The 75th Anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Passed Unnoticed – It is not on the Zionist Calendar
Poland, unlike Hungary, was not an ally of Nazi Germany. It was either occupied or annexed outright. There was no Polish Quisling. Up to 3 million Polish citizens died under the Nazis. The Catholic Church in particular saw hundreds of its priests murdered. Although the Polish middle classes were horrifically anti-Semitic the working class and its party, the socialist PPS allied with the Jewish Bund.
Whereas Hungary was an ally of Nazi Germany Poland was a victim. Israel's foremost poet Yitzhak Laorput his finger on the problem when he asked
Why now. Why the contemporary concern with the Jewish genocide… compared to its treatment in the period immediately after the Second World War?’ [Yitzhak Laor, The Myths of Liberal Zionism, Verso, London, 2009, p. 19].
His answer was that this was about ‘consolidating a new ideology of exclusion. Now it is the Jews who are the insiders… the genocide and the Jews served in the construction of a European identity…’ [Laor, pp. 19,24, 35-6] Today it is the Muslims, the Arabs and the Roma who are the outsiders in Europe.
The Holocaust has become an integral part of the ideology of the identity of exclusion in Europe. It no longer simply belongs to the Zionists. The Holocaust has been stripped of its universal lessons, first by the Zionists and now by the Polish and Hungarian rulers. Ideas such as that refugees should be welcomed and not turned away, have been turned on its head by an ethnically exclusive Israeli state with the silence if not support of YV. It is no wonder that this has been absorbed by the anti-Semitic regimes of Europe. Daniel Blatman, who is a sincere anti-racist will have his work cut out if he is to retain his independence.
Yad Vashem is now paying the price of the many years in which it nurtured a one-dimensional, simplistic message that there’s only one way to explain the Holocaust
Dec 18, 2018 11:44 AM
File photo: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, center, and his wife Aniko Levai visit the Hall of Names at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, July 19, 2018. AP Photo/Oded Balilty

The Warsaw Ghetto Museum, which the Polish government decided to establish eight months ago, is now at the center of a debate.
This debate has political elements, but it’s mainly a clash between two views of what should be stressed when researching and remembering the Holocaust, and above all of what educational messages should be sent – what Israelis like to call “the lessons of the Holocaust.”
Haaretz’s Ofer Aderet, in his article about the Warsaw museum, mainly discussed the political perspective, giving considerable space to the criticisms by Prof. Hava Dreifuss, a YV historian. Dreifuss assailed the Warsaw museum and those who decided, despite all the problems, to take on a project whose importance is hard to overstate. This criticism deserves a response.
First, the political context. There’s no more appropriate response to Dreifuss’ criticism than the old saying that people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
Dreifuss works for an institution that in recent years has functioned as a hard-working laundromat, striving to bleach out the sins of every anti-Semitic, fascist, racist or simply murderously thuggish leader or politician like Hungary’s Viktor Orban, the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte and Italy’s Matteo Salvini.
My heart breaks when I see my colleagues, honest and faithful researchers of the Holocaust, giving tours of this historic museum, apparently under compulsion, to the evildoers the Israeli government sends to YV to receive absolution in the name of Holocaust victims in exchange for adding a pro-Israel vote at international institutions. For some reason, Dreifuss has no criticism about this.
But for the Polish government (every Polish government, both the current one headed by the nationalist Law and Justice party and the previous one headed by a liberal centrist coalition), which is spending tens of millions of zlotys every year to preserve historical Jewish sites, Jewish graveyards and countless memorials, she has scathing criticism.
Fear and demoralization
A week and a half ago, Matti Friedman published an opinion piece in The New York Times about what’s happening at Yad Vashem, and it made for difficult reading. When you read his conclusions, your hair stands on end. He doesn’t quote a single Yad Vashem employee by name, because no one wanted to be identified. After all, they have to earn a living.
Friedman described a mood of frustration, fear and demoralization among the employees because the current extremist, nationalist government has turned Yad Vashem into a political tool reminiscent of history museums in totalitarian countries.
But the most astonishing thing Friedman reported is that the institution’s chairman, Avner Shalev – who turned the museum into an international remembrance empire, and who for years has viciously fought every attempt to present a different conceptual or research approach than that of Yad Vashem – is reluctant to retire, despite having reached the age of 80.
The reason for his reluctance is that many people at the institute fear that when he leaves, his place will be taken by someone nominated by the relevant minister, Education Minister Naftali Bennett, who will turn Yad Vashem into a remembrance institute in the spirit of Bennett’s Habayit Hayehudi party. It would be interesting to know what Dreifuss thinks about that.
Yad Vashem is now paying the price of the many years in which it nurtured a one-dimensional, simplistic message that there’s only one way to explain the Holocaust. Today, the institution is apparently willing to place its reputation for Holocaust research, which it has built over many years, at the service of a government that has recruited it to accuse anyone who criticizes Israel of anti-Semitism. So it’s no wonder that its researchers have become partisan explainers of the Holocaust.
It’s one thing when, at dubious conferences with political leaders whose governments include former neo-Nazis, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tries to pass resolutions calling criticism of Israel the new anti-Semitism. It’s another when a research and remembrance institute doesn’t stand courageously against all such attempts.
Thus Yad Vashem would do better not to look for evidence that other governments are attempting to distort history and dictate nationalist content – not to mention engaging in Holocaust denial, as Dreifuss charges.
The Polish angle
Does any of the above justify the current Polish government’s position on the Holocaust? Obviously not. The Polish government has a problematic agenda in explaining the past, which we aren’t obligated to accept and in fact should even criticize.
But Poland’s government hasn’t interfered with the work of the museum’s employees, who have now started working, and certainly not with the development of the museum’s narrative. Had Dreifuss and her colleagues gotten involved in this effort, as they were invited to do, they would have been welcomed. Had Yad Vashem offered its help and support instead of giving the project the cold shoulder, nobody would have been happier than we at the museum.
And now we come to the historical issue. To take part in the effort to establish the Warsaw Ghetto Museum, one has to agree that the Holocaust can be presented and explained from perspectives other than an ethnocentric Jewish, Zionist and nationalist one.
One has to accept that the Holocaust can be studied in a way that sees Jewish history during this period as an integral part of Poland’s history under the Nazi occupation. One has to agree that the horrific Jewish tragedy that occurred during World War II can and should be understood in part by simultaneously examining – while noting both the differences and the common elements – what befell Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war and others who were murdered alongside Jews in the vast genocidal expanse that occupied Poland became.
To set up a museum with a humanist, universal and inclusive message about the Holocaust, one has to accept an approach that sees the Warsaw Ghetto – a horrific terror zone that caused the deaths and physical and spiritual collapse of hundreds of thousands of Jews – as one element of a much bigger terror zone in which hundreds of thousands of other people suffered and fought for their existence: the Poles who lived on the other side of the wall.
The obvious differences between the fates of these two peoples don’t absolve the research historian, or a museum depicting the history of this period, from presenting this complex message and demanding that visitors to the museum grapple with its lessons.
Therefore, the new Warsaw Ghetto Museum won’t be Yad Vashem. It will be a Holocaust museum in the heart of the Polish capital that remembers the fate of the 450,000 Jews, Warsaw residents and refugees brought to the ghetto.
After all, the vast majority of them were Jewish citizens of Poland. That’s how they lived, that’s how they suffered, and that’s how they should be remembered after being murdered by the Nazis.

What Happens When a Holocaust Memorial Plays Host to Autocrats

Yad Vashem is both a memorial of a genocide, and a tool of Israeli realpolitik.
By Matti Friedman
New York Times, Dec. 8, 2018

Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary in the Hall of Names at the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem. An Israeli politician called his visit to the memorial a “disgrace.”CreditGali Tibbon/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images


JERUSALEM — The quiet campus of Yad Vashem, Israel’s official Holocaust memorial and museum, sits atop a wooded hill on the outskirts of Jerusalem, removed from the rush of the city. It can feel like a secluded shrine, a place not quite of this time. But the famous institution now finds itself at the center of a very 21st-century storm, a barometer of a political climate changing in the world outside its walls.
Yad Vashem, and the state that houses it, were founded by Jews forced from their homes by chauvinistic nationalism and survivors of the European genocide that was the logical conclusion of those ideas. The museum and Israel flourished in years when those ideas were assumed to have been conclusively discredited.
Today, however, some of those beliefs are rising once again across Europe and in the United States, and Israel finds itself courted by some of their practitioners: right-wing politicians who might stoke animosity to Jews and other minorities at home but who also admire the state of Israel.
The Israel they see is not a liberal or cosmopolitan enclave created by socialists, but the nation-state of a coherent ethnic group suspicious of super-national fantasies, a tough military power and a bulwark against the Islamic world. And these leaders have sought and found good ties with the right-wing coalition currently in power here.
For a sense of this political shift, one need only look at the guest book at Yad Vashem. The memorial is an important stop on the tour for visiting dignitaries, and in the past half-year they have included the nationalist Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban, one of the most prominent faces of the new political wave, which Mr. Orban calls “illiberal democracy.” Another was President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, who once compared himself to Hitler and meant it as a compliment to Hitler and to himself. Brazil’s new populist president, Jair Bolsonaro, has said one of his first foreign trips will be to Israel, which means that Yad Vashem can expect him soon. Matteo Salvini, the nationalist deputy prime minister of Italy, is expected in Jerusalem this month.
Employees at Yad Vashem aren’t allowed to speak to the media without permission, and permission to discuss these sensitive matters hasn’t been forthcoming. One senior researcher cut off our conversation as soon as I explained what interested me. The institution’s chairman was not made available for an interview and a spokeswoman simply emailed: “Yad Vashem is not party to the formulation or implementation of Israeli’s foreign policy.”
But inside the offices and archives at Yad Vashem, the argument is getting louder.
“There is distress here, and even anger,” a staff member told me, “because many of us see a collision between what we believe are the lessons of the Holocaust and what we see as our job, and between the way Yad Vashem is being abused for political purposes.”
Staffers at Yad Vashem, which receives 40 percent of its budget from the government, are asking themselves and each other questions like: What role should they be playing in the realpolitik practiced by their state? At what point does that role damage their other roles in commemorating and teaching the Holocaust? And how should a memorial to the devastation wrought in part by ethnic supremacism, a cult of personality and a disregard for law handle governments flirting with the same ideas?
The tension inside Yad Vashem broke into public view in June, in the part of the memorial known as the Valley of the Communities, where stone walls commemorate towns whose Jews were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators. The Austrian chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, was passing the names of Austria’s lost communities when his guide mentioned that some of these very places had recently seen anti-Jewish incidents involving members of the Austrian Freedom Party. That party, whose first two leaders were former S.S. officers, is a coalition partner in Mr. Kurz’s own government.
Mr. Kurz’s Yad Vashem guide, Deborah Hartmann, herself Austrian-born, said to the chancellor that some of his allies were people who “need to be informed what the Holocaust was.” After he left the site, the Austrian embassy reportedly made a rare official complaint, saying Ms. Hartmann had strayed inappropriately into politics. The incident was resolved with an apology from the museum administration.
That episode had barely subsided a month later, when a motorcade arrived carrying Mr. Orban. The Hungarian’s visit drew vocal criticism not just from the Israeli left but also from centrist politicians like Yair Lapid, who recalled Mr. Orban’s praise last year for Miklos Horthy, the World War II leader who allied Hungary with Nazi Germany and collaborated in the murder of the country’s Jews. Mr. Lapid, the son of a Hungarian survivor and the grandson of a victim, said the visit was a “disgrace.”
Before Mr. Orban’s arrival, the administration of Yad Vashem saw fit to issue an unusual reminder that it was the Foreign Ministry that decided the itinerary for visiting officials. In other words: the memorial has no say over who comes. The message suggested an awareness of the rebellious mood brewing in parts of the institution. Mr. Orban’s visit to the memorial went off without incident, though upon departure he was delayed by a group of protesters outside the gates.
President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, who once likened himself to Hitler, and his daughter Sara at Yad Vashem in September.CreditAbir Sultan/EPA, via Shutterstock
Nearly seven weeks later, on Sept. 3, came Mr. Duterte, who cultivates a thuggish persona and, like other members of the current crop of populist leaders, employs a style of outrageous rhetoric and verbal attacks on the press. Like Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, he sees President Trump as a “good friend.” As this shift in global politics continues to play out, the challenge to Yad Vashem will only grow.
There’s something going on in the world, and it seems very important,” a second staff member told me. “Trump is part of it, and these leaders are part of it.” The directives to steer clear of present-day politics, this staffer said, were not just unrealistic but also dangerous, ignoring the ways Yad Vashem is used by Mr. Netanyahu, in pursuit of his foreign policy, and by canny politicians from the outside who grasp the value of a photo-op here.
Israel’s first Holocaust researchers were people for whom the subject wasn’t academic, such as Dr. Sarah Friedlander of Budapest, who’d just come out of the concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen when she and a few others began Yad Vashem in a three-room apartment in the center of Jerusalem right after the war.
In 1953, when Israel was five years old, Parliament enshrined Yad Vashem’s status and funding in law. After a quarter-century under the stewardship of Avner Shalev, a widely admired former paratroop officer, the sprawling campus now includes numerous memorial sites, an immense archive and a heartbreaking museum designed by the Israeli-Canadian architect Moshe Safdie, which draws about one million visitors every year.
The tension among Yad Vashem’s various roles is as old as the institution itself. “We Jews cannot afford the luxury of mere research work — the awful danger has not passed yet, as we have witnessed in recent years,” the scholar Aryeh Tartakower told the first conference on Holocaust study in Jerusalem in 1947. “It is quite possible — if only I were wrong — that these things could return, and we have to know what to do in order to prepare for the terrible days that are likely to come back.”
For Israelis, Holocaust study has always meant reading the genocide as a warning — and as a compass to direct our actions now.
The problem with lessons from the Holocaust is that many can be drawn and they often clash. An American liberal, for example, might say the lesson is universal humanist values — the kind of values that many of us assumed, mistakenly, were permanently ascendant in the world after the war. The Zionist approach has traditionally been that while those values are desirable, they won’t protect Jews after the Holocaust any more than they did when it was going on, and there must be a state with enough power to protect Jews in a brutal world.
That means alliances with other countries that have common interests, whatever their attitude toward liberal values and even toward Jews. Israel signed a peace agreement with the Egyptian leader Anwar el-Sadat, for example, even though Sadat was an authoritarian who’d once been a supporter of Nazi Germany.
The threat to Israel’s Jews in 2018 doesn’t come from rightists in the West but from the Islamic world, and chiefly from the theocratic regime in Iran, which has “Death to Israel” as one of its slogans and whose soldiers and proxies now sit on three of Israel’s borders. Israelis might prefer liberal allies, but liberal leaders in the West have generally been willing to do business with the Iranians and to join dictatorships in isolating Israel at the United Nations. Israel needs all the allies it can get, and leaders like Mr. Orban and Mr. Trump, who share a suspicion of Israel’s enemies, are logical options.
The political calculus is legitimate and one legitimate interpretation of what the Holocaust teaches. The question is where this leaves Yad Vashem.
The conundrum was best illustrated earlier this year in the imbroglio surrounding a law advanced by Poland’s nationalist government to restrict accusations of Polish complicity in the killing of Jews under Nazi occupation. Those most affected are Polish historians, many of whom are colleagues and friends of the historians at Yad Vashem. The same Polish government, however, has become an important ally of Israel.
After an uproar, the Poles watered down the law, and the Israeli and Polish governments issued a joint statement on Poland’s Holocaust history — a strange document of utilitarian historical revisionism aimed at preserving an important alliance in the present.
Yad Vashem’s chief historian, Dina Porat, said she could “live with” the draft with some reservations. For this, she incurred the fury of the institution’s other historians, who publicly excoriated the Israeli-Polish document for inflating Polish efforts to save Jews, for suggesting a parallel between anti-Semitism and “anti-Polonism” and for other instances of “highly problematic wording that contradicts existing and accepted historical knowledge” — or, in less diplomatic language, lies.
In a similar episode, a new Hungarian Holocaust museum called the “House of Fates” under construction by the Orban government has drawn sharp criticism from Yad Vashem because it appears to play down the role of Hungarians in the genocide. Robert Rozett, one of Yad Vashem’s historians said the project involves “a grave falsification of history.” Dr. Rozett had been given the job of guiding Mr. Orban on his visit earlier in the year.
Then, just this week, Israel’s Channel 10 reported that senior Hungarian and Israeli officials were meeting to come to a “consensus regarding the museum’s narrative,” drawing accusations that the Netanyahu government was again using Holocaust history, and Israel’s perceived role as an arbiter of that history, as currency in the marketplace of international politics.
One of the scholars behind Yad Vashem’s response to such matters is Yehuda Bauer, the dean of Israeli Holocaust scholars. Mr. Bauer escaped Czechoslovakia as a child with his family in 1939, and his sharp intelligence is undimmed at 92.
Yad Vashem, he told me, has long done an admirable job of walking a tenuous political line, remaining faithful to history while navigating the politics of this country. While Mr. Bauer agreed that Yad Vashem is being used both by the Israeli government and by visitors like Mr. Orban and Mr. Duterte, he said the memorial had no choice: The Foreign Ministry sets the guest list, and the memorial’s policy as an educational institution has always been that anyone who wants to come can come. “It’s important to us to show them these things, even if it’s people we wouldn’t invite to dinner,” he told me. When in the 1990s the possibility arose that Yasir Arafat of the Palestine Liberation Organization might visit, he recalled, the memorial was in favor: “We said, if he wants a guide, no problem, we have enough Arabic speakers.” (Mr. Arafat never came.)
While the welcoming of controversial leaders might draw criticism from the public or unhappy staff members, refusing them or confronting them could draw the ire of the Israeli government, which is a far greater concern for a practical reason not necessarily apparent to outsiders. Yad Vashem’s chairman, Mr. Shalev, will be 80 next year. The job is a political appointment. Mr. Shalev, put in place under a Labor government in 1993, is understood to be a man of Israel’s old moderate establishment. His replacement could bring the institution more closely in line with Mr. Netanyahu’s political program. Insiders at Yad Vashem understand that this is both a reason that Mr. Shalev isn’t retiring and a reason for extreme caution in handling these current controversies and those sure to come.
The idea of bringing dignitaries to pay respects at Yad Vashem is related to the tradition in other countries of laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns — an uncontroversial recognition of a piece of history important to the host country. Yad Vashem might want to be a memorial of that kind, but it can’t be, for the same reason its historians are constantly engaged in wars in the present: because this history still isn’t in the past.
Matti Friedman, a contributing opinion writer, is the author of the memoir “Pumpkinflowers: A Soldier’s Story of a Forgotten War” and the forthcoming “Spies of No Country,” about four Israeli agents in the 1948 war.

Warsaw's Controversial New Holocaust Museum to Present 'Polish Narrative'

Critics say the appointment of an Israeli, Daniel Blatman, as chief historian of the planned Warsaw Ghetto Museum provides a fig leaf for an attempt to distort history
Ofer Aderet Dec 14, 2018 6:29 Prime Minister

In ordinary times, the appointment of an Israeli historian to a top position abroad would be a source of pride in Israeli academia. But in recent weeks, Prof. Daniel Blatman of Hebrew University has had to deflect criticism for becoming the chief historian at the Warsaw Ghetto Museum, which is being built in the Polish capital.
Some of the critics are my colleagues who once were my friends and maybe no longer are,” Blatman, a member of Hebrew University’s Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry Department, said this week.
The Warsaw Ghetto Museum is due to open in 2023, 80 years after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. It will be housed in a building that served as a Jewish children’s hospital and operated inside the ghetto.
Children in the Warsaw Ghetto
“It sounds very strange, but it will be the first Polish museum dealing with the Holocaust, even though Poland has an endless number of Polish commemoration sites,”Blatman notes.
Privately, Blatman’s critics are hurling accusations at him. In Polish, English and Hebrew they talk about his appointment as serving as a fig leaf, or, using another metaphor, they say he has sold his soul. The more moderate critics suffice with the view that he’s simply naive and being used by the Polish government.
In recent years, critics have viewed with concern the right-wing government’s efforts to shape Poland’s national memory, an effort centered around a new narrative that draws parallels between Polish and Jewish suffering in World War II. It also exalts the role of Poles in saving Jews and minimizes their responsibility in the persecution of Jews.
Prof. Daniel Blatman, a history professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Warsaw Ghetto Museum
Those critics, who were shocked this year by Poland’s new “Holocaust law”– which condemns the claim that the Polish nation was involved in the Nazis’ crimes – are now worried that this government line will also be reflected in Poland’s first Holocaust museum.
Tel Aviv University’s Hava Dreifuss, the history professor who heads Yad Vashem’s Center for Research on the Holocaust in Poland, rebuffed the Polish museum’s efforts to court her last summer.
They requested my help as an expert on the history of the Warsaw Ghetto,” she says. “I didn’t want my name to serve an enterprise led by officials distorting the Holocaust and attacking historians, and I didn’t want to help a museum being established to further goals that aren’t necessarily related to history.”
Dreifuss, whose Hebrew-language book on life in the ghetto, “Warsaw Ghetto – the End,” was published this year, fears that the new museum will obscure events from the past that the Poles would prefer to forget.
The Polish government is trying to advance research and commemoration of the Holocaust as long as it involves Jews who were killed by the Germans,” she says. “But during the period of the Holocaust there were also many Jews who were lost as a result of direct or indirect Polish involvement. And an exploration of these matters is something the regime is trying to limit, despite the existence of a great deal of documentation and research.”
Jews at one of the walls of the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II.
‘Mutual love’
Blatman says he has been granted full academic freedom in his new post. “I haven’t encountered the slightest hint of political involvement,” he says. “I wouldn’t have agreed to work as a historian in a place where I’d be required to bend my professional approach to political considerations.”
Polish Culture Minister Piotr Glinski articulated the “spirit of the museum” at the beginning of this year. “I would like this institution to speak of the mutual love between the two nations that spent 800 years here, on Polish land. Of the solidarity, fraternity, historical truth too, in all its aspects,” he told reporters.
Dreifuss doesn’t like this.
From statements by the current Polish government, one can infer that the new museum has aims beyond the presentation of life in the ghetto and the treatment of the Holocaust of Polish Jewry,” she says.
“The statement about strengthening 800 years of Jewish-Polish fraternity and closeness is fundamentally ahistorical. The ghetto wasn’t in existence for 800 years, there wasn’t any Jewish-Polish fraternity there, and there's a suspicion that the new museum will be subordinated to just such a narrative.”
As she puts it,
“It must be remembered that the current administration in Poland is promoting what is called a ‘historical policy,’ and in that context it’s trying to shape a narrative different from what’s emerging in the current research.”
Her qualms join those of other historians, who note, for example, commemorations of Poles who saved Jews while endangering or sacrificing their own lives. The most important of these is a museum established in 2016 in the southeastern town of Markowa dedicated to the Ulma family – Polish farmers who were killed by the Germans after they hid Jews.
Children in the Warsaw Ghetto

“The museum at Markowa is devoted to an important topic, Righteous Gentiles,” Dreifuss says. “But actually it blurs the issue because it attributes to Polish society as a whole the help that was given by these noble Poles, who acted in a way that was counter to the social norms.”
The establishment of the World War II Museum in Gdansk, which opened in 2017, also stirred controversy. At its height, the director was fired and a new one was appointed “to give greater emphasis to the Polish narrative.”
Blatman isn’t the first Israeli to take part in a Polish commemoration project in the heart of Warsaw. He was preceded by Israel Prize laureate Dani Karavan, who is currently at work on a monument honoring the Polish Righteous Gentiles being built next to the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews. That museum was dedicated in 2013, marking the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
There has been criticism of the site chosen for the monument – the neighborhood where the ghetto stood. Critics say the monument to Poles who rescued Jews shouldn’t be in a place where so many Jews were killed.
Warsaw under the Nazis
When asked about the vision for the new museum, Blatman presents a view that some historians find controversial. “The Holocaust of Polish Jewry should be located in the Polish historical space, not in an exclusively Jewish space,” he says.
The building in Warsaw that will house the Warsaw Ghetto Museum.Adrian Grycuk
In other words, Blatman wants to tell the story of the Warsaw Ghetto in the local context, including “the city of Warsaw and the Polish population, which were under the same Nazi occupation and were also subjected to the terror.”
He’s aware of the inflammatory potential of the comparison between the sufferings of the two peoples during World War II. “I’m not saying that their fate was similar or identical, but they lived under the same occupation and not on some other planet,” Blatman says.
“We tend to forget a bit that the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto continued to see themselves as Polish citizens who belonged to the place where they lived. Very often they were disappointed with Poland or were hurt by the attitude of Polish society toward them, but they still were Polish. Only after the war did we turn them solely into Jews.”
Albert Stankowski, a Polish Jew who previously worked at the POLIN Museum in Warsaw, has been appointed director of the new museum. “As I took the position of the Warsaw Ghetto Museum director, I was granted complete autonomy in the recruitment of the museum team,” he says. “We are open to cooperation with everyone who can assist us in ensuring an objective presentation of the facts.”
When he began his new job, he tried to recruit Polish historians to work at the new museum, but they declined. As Dreifuss puts it:
 Precisely in light of the Polish researchers’ refusal, it seems to me that the approach to foreign historians isn’t a technical matter. As I see it, this was a way of trying to acquire international approval, and perhaps even more importantly, Jewish and Israeli approval for the museum and its narrative, at the expense of the Polish researchers.”
Prof. Daniel Blatman, left, and Prof. Albert Stankowski at the building that will house the Warsaw Ghetto Museum, 2018. Warsaw Ghetto Museum
Some of Blatman’s articles for Haaretz show that he presents a complex picture of the Polish government. He believes that in recent decades historical research has focused on Polish aggressiveness toward Jews while ignoring the suffering of the Poles.
“The historical picture is not complete if one tells about the killing of Jews by their Polish neighbors without also mentioning, for example, the labor camps that were in operation in those same areas, and in which many Poles found their deaths,” he wrote in 2016. “The new museum,” he says now,
“will try to grapple with issues that have been neglected in various exhibitions, both at Yad Vashem and in other countries. We’re definitely thinking about incorporating a reminder about other victims of the Nazi genocide.”
That said, Blatman’s articles also reveal that he hasn’t gone easy on criticism of the Polish government in recent years; he has often linked it to his harsh criticism of the Israeli government.
As he wrote in April, what he calls National Zionism
“is a branch of European neo-fascism, which contains elements of xenophobia and ultranationalism, subordinating democracy to other values and restricting individual rights and the freedom and independence of the law.”
This week, he disagreed that there was something improper about taking a top position at a museum being established by a Polish government that he has criticized so severely.
“Following that line, I also mustn’t cooperate with Yad Vashem because it’s under the aegis of a minister whose policy I’m very critical of,” he said, referring to Education Minister Naftali Bennett.

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