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.”
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| 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.”
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| 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
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| 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. "
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| 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 having‘‘unquestionably anti-Semitic views’. The same Arkush, writing on behalf of the Board, welcomed the election of the unquestionably anti-Semitic Donald Trump.
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| 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