400 people listen to Norman Finkelstein, Tariq Ali, David Miller, Jackie Walker, Marc Wadsworth, Tony Greenstein and Chris Williamson
For the past 5 years the Board of Deputies, the Jewish Leadership Council and other Zionist groups have intimidated venues and the owners of meeting halls into cancelling meetings on Zionism and Palestine. Only a brave few, like the Rialto Theatre in Brighton, have withstood the threats and abuse that those standing up to these racist freaks bombard them with.
Notoriously last September Waterstones bookshop cancelledthe book launch of Bad News for Labour (whose co-author Prof. David Miller was a speaker tonight) because of the threats and abuse they received – all in the name of fighting ‘anti-Semitism’. The CEO of Waterstones, James Daunt later admittedthat Waterstone’s decision had been wrong and that customers had reacted strongly against the decision.
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| Anthony Silkoff - the Board of Deputies Censorship Officer |
The Board of Deputies even had a full time worker, Anthony Silkoff, doing little else but attempt to close down free speech on Israel and Palestine. It was called ‘interfaith’ work.
Last year in Brighton the MP for Hove, Peter Kyle and a host of Zionist trolls abused and threatened 3 venues – the Brighthelm Centre, the Holiday Inn and the Quaker Friends Centre– into cancelling a meeting with Chris Williamson. In the end we were forced to hold an open air meeting with Chris in Brighton’s Regency Square where over 200 people turned up.
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| The Board of Deputies Tweet Attacking the Rialto - everything they attack is 'hate' - yet these opponents of 'hate' tweeted in support of Israeli snipers killing unarmed demonstrators in Gaza - nothing hateful there! |
So the Zionists must be gnashing their teeth in fury as meetings double and triple the size of our normal meetings on Palestine and Zionism are being held with almost monotonous regularity featuring international speakers like Norman Finkelstein.
All of the Zionist efforts to close down free speech were in aid of the fight against ‘anti-Semitism’ of course. Naturally their targets were on the Left not the Far Right. So eat your heart our Zios!
The COVID-19 crisis has at least had one good side-effect. People have turned to Zoom in the absence of physical venues and meetings and far more people have tuned into listen to our ideas.
I won’t even attempt to summarise last night’s meeting, but everyone who went said that it was excellent. It was ably Chaired by Tina Werkmann of the Labour Left Alliance/ Labour Against the Witchhunt and it featured 7 speakers in all. Ken Livingstone was forced to pull out for medical reasons but we hope to feature him in a future meeting.
Tina has slightly edited the video but we hope that if you didn’t attend last night that you will take the time to watch it. Norman Finkelstein was his normal controversial self and there was a vigorous debate between the panellists. Unlike Zionist meetings we do debate and aren’t afraid of the free exchange of ideas.
We were also not opposed to Zionists attending and maybe learning something but when Luke Stanger, a troll who is currently suspended from the Labour Party for harassment of women and calling Gypsies and Travellers ‘a nasty blight on society’began abusing everyone as ‘anti-Semites’ he was removed.
Petition
We are also sponsoring a petition for Labour Party members to sign saying that they will not abide by the Board of Deputies’s 10 Commandments, the 5th of which is that
‘Thou shalt not speak on the same platform as anyone who has been expelled or suspended as part of the ‘anti-Semitism’ witchhunt. Those disobeying the Zionist gods will be suspended forthwith from the Labour Party.’
All those who believe in freedom of speech on Israel and Palestine and who reject the idea that we should not criticise Israeli Apartheid should sign. Starmer’s supportfor censorship on the question of Palestine, all in the name of combating ‘anti-Semitism’ stands in stark contrast to his refusalto discipline and remove from the Shadow Cabinet Rachel Reeves, a Labour MP who tweeted praising Nancy Astor, an MP who openly supported Hitler’s persecution of the Jews, whom she called ‘killers of christ’. It seems that the only form of anti-Semitism that Keir Starmer has nothing to say about is the kind that consists of hostility to or hatred of Jews. Strange that!
Tony Greenstein
