This is Chutzpah– after falsely accusing thousands of members of ‘anti-Semitism’ Labour sends me a 4 page solicitor’s letter - this is how Labour turns Zionists into victims
Imagine my surprise when I recently received a letterfrom solicitors for the Labour Party threatening to sue me for libel. What was my crime? I had posted a blogon 27 June accusing Kim Bolton, the Chair of Hove CLP and Scott Horner, Labour’s South-East Regional Organiser, of being racists and anti-Semites. Which they are!
At this point you may feel unsteady on your feet. After expelling, suspending and putting thousands of members under investigation for the merest mention of Israel or Zionism (‘anti-Semitism’) they have the brass neck to turn round and threaten to sue me for daring to accuse them of anti-Semitism. As Thatcher once said ‘it’s a funny old world.’
So why has Starmer’s Labour to react so aggressively? Is Horner innocent? Am I unfairly traducing a young member of staff?
Condemning and sanctioning Israel for killing infants and children is 'antisemitic' according to Scott Horner
Background
Goldsmid and Hove Park branch of Hove and Portslade CLP passed the following motion at their June meeting. It read:
“Hove and Portslade CLP call upon the leader of the Labour Party and the Shadow Foreign Secretary to strongly urge the government to
(1) Call on the Israeli government for an end to its violation of the human rights of Palestinians and for an end to the illegal occupation of the Gaza strip and the West Bank
(2) Impose legal sanctions on Israel for its repeated violations of international law, and, in particular, place an embargo on arms sales and end trade with illegal settlements”
This motion would, apparently, according to Scott Horner, threaten the safety of Jews and make them feel unwelcome.
If you call for sanctions on Israel to protect Palestinians you are making racist Jews feel 'unsafe' according to Scott Horner
According to the most recent You Gov survey, 61% of Labour members support boycott, divestment and sanctions [BDS] and only 8% are opposed. So it is a pretty mainstream view in the Labour Party yet the Labour Right in Hove scrambled to prevent the motion being discussed. They sought the backing of Labour’s Southern Region Organiser Scott Horner, who naturally agreed. Horner wrote to Bolton stating that:
Minutes of the Executive of Hove Labour Party June 2021
“While we encourage comradely debate, I feel that this discussion would act as a flashpoint for the expression of views that would undermine the Party’s ability to provide a safe and welcoming space for all members, in particular Jewish Members.” (my emphasis)
Hove’s Chair, Kim Bolton then ruled that:
I support that view. The motion from Goldsmid and Hove Park branch requesting Sanctions against Israel risks opening a debate that will stir up internal conflict in our CLP and may lead to further anti-Semitic behaviour. … As CLP chair , on the advise (sic!) of Scott Horner, Labour South East officer, I rule the motion on Sanctions Against Israel out of order.”
What Horner was saying was that a debate on BDS will cause people to express anti-Semitic views. In other words BDS is motivated by anti-Semitism not sympathy for the Palestinians. Horner doesn’t say this openly of course, because like all Labour’s regional mafia, he is politically dishonest.
What Horner and Bolton are doing is casting the Palestinians as the villains and the Zionists as the victims. That is the function of the ‘anti-Semitism’ libel. It reminds me of those John Wayne movies that I used to watch as a kid which showed the cowboys as the victims of the Native Indians who, for unknown reasons, kept attacking those honest, god fearing cowboys such as John Wayne and Clint Eastwood.
By formulating his words in this cunning and deceptive way, Horner is showing how quickly he has grasped how political language must be phrased in such a way as to hide its real objective. The art of politics lies in how best you can hide your real aims. Horner has a promising career ahead of him!
Paddy O'Keefe of Brighton Kemptown CLP was suspended for quoting an article by a child survivor of the holocaust - Ze'ev Sternhell in Ha'aretz - apparently this is anti-Semitic!
When the CIA wanted to torture people they explained it away as ‘enhanced interrogation.’ When the Nazis referred to the holocaust they used euphemisms such as ‘special measures’ and ‘special treatment’.
In 1946 George Orwell wrote an essay"Politics and the English Language" describing this phenomenon.
‘Political language …is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.’
Orwell described how
‘political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible… The great enemy of clear language is insincerity.’ That was why ‘political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.’
In 1949 Orwell wrote 1984about a dystopian future in which terms such as Newspeak and Big Brother entered the English language.
Horner doesn’t come out and say that opposition to Israel’s war crimes and support for BDS is anti-Semitic. Instead he says that discussion of such a motion would act as a ‘flashpoint’, a suitably incendiary noun, for the expression of views that ‘would undermine the Party’s ability to provide a safe and welcoming space for all members.’ Adding at the end ‘in particular Jewish Members.’ Of course he never says why.
Labour Conference under Corbyn
This is a classic way in which the roles of the oppressed and oppressor are reversed. It is deeply racist. It harkens back to the days when the British Empire was called the ‘White Man’s Burden.’
What Horner is saying is that in order to prevent ‘anti-Semitism’ no support whatsoever must be given to the child languishing in an Israeli prison, having been beaten to a pulp. Palestinians whose homes have been demolished or parents whose children have been torn to shreds by Elbit’s drones must understand that ‘anti-Semitism’, the feelings of well heeld Jewish Labour Party members, must take priority. These are the same people who bitterly denied that the ‘anti-Semitism’ allegations were about Israel!
Horner didn't like my last blog - he'll like this even less!
Neither Horner nor Starmer are genuinely interested in anti-Semitism. What they really want is to dispense with the idea that Labour’s foreign policy should consist of solidarity with oppressed peoples. Anti-imperialism must give way to the interests of western imperialism.
It is part of the unfinished Blair Project that on foreign affairs there should be no differences between Labour and the Tories. Foreign policy should be bipartisan just like in the United States.
What then of Jews? Well in the words of Barnaby Raine, we are the Western Establishment’s ‘favourite pets.’ and ‘heroic colonists.’ As I wrote in my first article Jews are the moral alibi, the political football of Labour’s racist right which is unconcerned with any form of anti-racism which challenges their own political and economic interests.
There is no Israeli war crime that Peter Kyle, MP for Hove, a new LFI Vice-Chair won't support
Let us take Scott Horner at his word and accept that there are some Jews who would be disconcerted or feel unwelcome because of solidarity with the Palestinians. Clearly the racist Jewish Labour Movement and people like Peter Kyle MP and Kim Bolton would feel very uncomfortable.
The answer is so what? Is international solidarity, the essence of socialism, to be sacrificed to the subjective feelings of racists, be they Jewish or non-Jewish? Who cares about such snowflakes when compared to the agonies of families thrown out of their homes in order to satisfy the desire of settlers to see an Arab-free Jerusalem?
Imagine that in 1933 a resolution was proposed to Hove Labour Party calling for support for the Jewish Boycott of Nazi Germany. The only Jews who opposed this at the time were bourgeois Jews and the Zionists, who preferred to reach a trade agreement, Ha’avara, with the Nazis.
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Just suppose that there were German members of the Labour Party who said that they felt uncomfortable with the proposed motion because they said it made them feel unwelcome and that it was anti-German. No doubt Scott Horner’s ghostly ancestors would have ruled the motion out of order.
Of course any socialist worthy of the name would ask why pro-Nazi supporters were even members of the Labour Party. That should be our approach to the idea that some Jews will feel discomfited by criticism of Israel and support for the Palestinians.
If there are Jews within the Labour Party who genuinely feel that resolutions opposing Israeli Apartheid make them feel unwelcome then my response is this. ‘Why the hell are you members of a party that purports to be socialist?’ Should the views of racists be the reason for suppressing free speech and failing to give solidarity with the victims of ethnic cleansing? Yet that is what has happened.
Letter from the Labour Party’s solicitors
The letter I received was headed ‘Not for Publication’ but clearly it is in the public interest to publish it and also my reply. Labour’s solicitors listed 11 complaints regarding what I said about Horner:
(i) That he is a racist;
(ii) That he exceptionalises Jews as especially vulnerable if Israeli war-crimes are debated;
(iii) That he is clearly and obviously anti-Semitic;
(iv) That he assumes all Jews think the same way when it comes to Israel;
(v) That he is also anti-Semitic for assuming Jews are uniquely incapable of rationally debating the Israel question;
(vi) That he follows a right-wing political ideology
(vii) That he uses Jews as a moral alibi in the same way French colonialism used Jews as intermediaries and scapegoats;
(viii) That he stated sanctions on Israel would make Jewish members feel unwelcome;
(ix) That he would be dismissed from his employment if Labour were a democratic party;
(x) The (sic) he suggested Jews were especially fragile as they would be upset by discussions on Israeli human rights abuses; and
(xi) That he engages in racist activity.
The allegations boiled down to saying that Scott Horner
i. Is racist and anti-Semitic
ii. Exceptionalises Jews.
iii. Assumes all Jews think the same when it comes to Israel.
iv. Believes that Jews are exceptionally fragile (‘the weak Jew’) and cannot rationally debate Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians without upset.
v. Uses Jews as a moral alibi for Israel’s war crimes.
vi. Is right-wing.
vii. Would be dismissed if Labour were a democratic, socialist party.
For all the bluster there is no denial that Horner said that debating BDS would result in the expression of anti-Semitic views and that Jews would feel unwelcome and unsafe.
Horner assumed that all Jews, even anti-Zionist Jews, support Israel’ war crimes. What he is saying that Jews are extremely fragile and as such is making a generalisation about Jewish support for Israel. What is that if not anti-Semitism?
Horner equated opposition to Israeli war crimes with anti-Semitism. That too is anti-Semitic because it conflates Jews and Israel. Horner made no exception for anti-Zionist or socialist Jews.
It is difficult to comprehend why someone who holds anti-Semitic beliefs should profess to be concerned about anti-Semitism unless he is using Jews for another agenda altogether. In other words Jews are being used as a political football or moral alibi.
I fail to see how calling someone right-wing is defamatory. It is a matter of opinion. Likewise saying that a democratic, socialist party would dismiss Horner is a statement of the bleeding obvious!
I don’t expect the Labour Party to sue me. Not only because they have no case but because they are in a deep financial crisis thanks to Sir Starmer’s catastrophic leadership. However if I am wrong then I will be more than prepared to join battle!
The Labour Party’s letter to me was a chutzpah, a Yiddish word that doesn’t translate easily into English. Wikipedia describes it as:
a total denial of personal responsibility, which renders others speechless and incredulous ... one cannot quite believe that another person totally lacks common human traits like remorse, regret, guilt, sympathy and insight. The implication is at least some degree of psychopathy in the subject.
I can’t think of a better description of Horner and the Labour Party’s behavior when it comes to making false allegations of anti-Semitism.
However no-one can accuse solicitor, Gerald Shamash, of lacking a sense of humour. He write of Horner that ‘He acts as a facilitator of their democratic expression, rather than using his position to express his own views.’ And how did he facilitate a democratic debate on sanctions against Israel? By recommending that there be no discussion!
Sanctions
Perhaps if I was taught logic I might ask my students to see if they could reconcile the following 2 statements:
Our client has never suggested, expressly or by implication, that sanctions against Israel would make Jewish members feel unwelcome.
our client exercised the necessary vigilance of that expected of a public serving party member and advised that pursuit of the motion on sanctions would only serve to pour fuel on the fire of current tensions.
Notwithstanding this I was told that ‘Our client does not presume to know the thoughts of all Jews on the subject of Israel.’ As if recognising that he was writing total nonsense, Shamash let slip that Horner’s
true concern was that Jewish members should not be made to feel unwelcome by particular language used not in the written motion but liable to be uttered verbally during the discussion of the motion, and aggressive behaviour and body language liable to be used by members during that discussion. You are no doubt aware that there have been many reported instances of Jewish members feeling unwelcome as a result of such language and behaviour/body language in similar debates, regarding similarly anodyne written motions.
Actually I’m not aware of any Labour Party members feeling unwelcome by discussions on Palestine. Why should they? But if there are a few Jewish racists in the Labour Party so what?
But it wasn’t the motion itself that was the problem but the predicted body language! Horner has amazing foresight. But surely this must apply to all debate in the Labour Party? In other words members must stop debating issues in case someone is offended. And to be fair Starmer and his glove puppet David Evans have done their best to outlaw debate!
Of course assertions about body language are evidence free. The kind of dishonest political language that Orwell warned of.
In case anyone is in doubt as to the seriousness of these matters I was told
‘of the extremely high profile of the recent scandal concerning Anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, and the wider backdrop of rising Anti-Semitic hatred across the UK.’
Just as 4 legs are better than 2, so 2 lies are better than 1.
Tony Greenstein