This is a Bogus Campaign Worthy of Stalin’s Purges
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| Naz Shah's original tweet - there is nothing anti-Semitic about what was a joke message at the time of Israel's genocidal attack on Gaza. |
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| Owen Jones - runs with the foxes and hunts with the hounds - supports Palestinians and supports Zionists - a typical rightward moving Labour left-winger except he's begun moving at an exceptionally young age |
Indeed Naz Shah has confessed to her comments being anti-Semitic. Isn’t that enough proof? No. The defendants in the Stalin purge trials also confessed to being Trotsky’s agents and more. It is perfectly possible to create a psychological atmosphere such that people will confess to all manner of things, even though they are not guilty. Police interrogators have, throughout the years, been quite skilled in obtaining false confessions without the need to beat people up or torture them.
So let me say it here – there is nothing anti-Semitic in what Naz Shah has said. She made what was quite a flippant humorous joke in the midst of something that was anything but funny – the merciless use of American planes, white phosphorous and the most modern missiles and rocket technology against a people who had nothing except pea crackers to fire back with (the ‘rockets’ that Israel used as a pretext for the bombardment and invasion). Let us not forget that 2,200 people were murdered in Gaza including 551 'terrorist' children.
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| Corbyn and McDonnell, by refusing to stand up to bogus allegations of 'anti-Semitism' are paving the way for their own overthrow by Progress and the Right of the party |
The people of Gaza were and are being subject to a merciless blockade by Israel in which the number of calories per person is calculated by Israel before food is allowed in. There is a previous precedent for this. Under the rule of Governor General Hans Frank in the Nazi occupied Polish General-Gouvernment, the number of calories allowed into the Warsaw ghetto was also calculated. Admittedly the Israelis do allow enough calories so people don’t quite starve, though it weakens the sick and elderly so people do die, and a thousand Palestinians have died at the Erez junction because Israel won’t allow them into Israel for hospital treatment. Because 95% of Gaza’s water is unfit to drink and Israel has bombed its water treatment plant, there is widespread illness and death in Gaza. But none of the hypocrites, prime amongst them the despicable Owen Jones, have raised their voices about the real racism in this affair.
Not one of the hypocrites on the Labour Right who have condemned the ‘anti-Semitism’ of Naz Shah condemned Israel’s bombing of Gaza or have campaigned for the lifting of the siege. That is the issue not the bogus issue of anti-Semitism.
Racism isn’t prejudice. It is about the exercise of power. Jews didn’t suffer because of peoples’ opinions in Europe but because of what was done to them. Britain’s Jews are not oppressed, economically or racially. On the contrary British Jews live in a golden age. There is no state racism directed at Jews, as opposed to Muslims and Black people. British Jewry is an extremely prosperous and privileged community. Anti-Semitic? Well if you think that is anti-Semitic then presumably William Rubinstein, former President of the Jewish Historical Society and himself a Zionist is also anti-Semitic!
In ‘The Left, the Right and the Jews’. Rubinstein speaks of ‘‘the rise of Western Jewry to unparalleled affluence and high status’ which‘has led to the near-disappearance of a Jewish proletariat of any size; indeed, the Jews may become the first ethnic group in history without a working-class of any size.’ [W.D. Rubinstein, ‘The Left, the Right and the Jews’, p.51, Croom Helm, London 1982] The idea that Jews today are cowering in a corner fearful of a brick coming through the window or afraid to go down the road because the people in that road are likely to stone you or beat you up is an illusion.
My father, who was at the Battle of Cable Street in October 1936, when the British Union of Fascists under Sir Oswald Moseley were prevented from marching through London’s East End by over a hundred thousand workers, Jewish and non-Jewish. He told me that there were streets like Ridley Road that no Jew went down for fear of his life.
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| The joint advert of the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Chronicle before the pivotal defeat of Sir Oswald Moseley's British Union of Fascists in 1936 |
Catholic Irish dockers rallied to the Jews and the anti-fascist cause. The Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Zionists of the time called on British Jews to stay indoors and not come out, to ignore the fascists. Jews in their thousands ignored the Board and the Jewish Peoples Committee, which was involved in organising the anti-fascist mobilisation, invaded the Board's offices. William Fishman, a local Jewish historian, described how, at the Battle of Cable Street in October 1936
“We were all side by side. I was moved to tears to see bearded Jews and Irish Catholic dockers standing up to stop Mosley. I shall never forget that for as long as I live, how working-class people could stand together to oppose the evil of racism.” [East LondonAdvertiser 4.10.06].
The anti-Semitism talked about today is nothing more than an attempt to defend Israel. It has nothing to do with actual anti-Semitism. Zionists (no it’s not a term of abuse it means those who defend the State of Israel – they do after all have a World Zionist Organisation) find it difficult to defend incarceration and torture of children as young as 12 (if they are Palestinian). Jewish children of course can’t be locked up unless they are at least 14 and they have social workers and parents accompanying them unlike Palestinian children who are kept in solitary confinement, beaten and worse. It is difficult defending a system where 93% of Israeli land is reserved wholly for Jewish use. It is much better to cry ‘anti-Semitism’ and attack the messenger rather than the message.
What is happening is that the millions of pounds that the Israeli government has devoted to propaganda is being spent now to destabilise Jeremy Corbyn and the new Labour leadership. They are hunting down every tweet, email etc. in order to create an atmosphere of permanent instability. I know because tweets I have issued have been taken totally out of context to suggest I am anti-Semitic. If someone calls me a ‘self-hater’‘anti-Semite’etc. I will accuse them of being ‘zio scum’ or whatever. Anti-Semitic? Get a life.
I recommend an excellent article that has just been published Jeremy Corbyn hasn’t got an ‘antisemitism problem’.His opponents do. 27 April 2016
Jamie Werner gives as an example Khadim Hussain, a Labour councillor and former Lord Mayor of Bradford who in a Facebook post shared a photo referring to ‘6 million Zionists’, rather than six million Jews, having been killed by Hitler. Is this anti-Semitic? No. Of course he was wrong. We actually don’t know how many Jews died. Raul Hilberg, the most authoritative holocaust scholar, estimated 5.1 million. Most of those who died weren’t Zionist.
The point that Khadim Hussain made was valid. Why is the holocaust of Jews given such prominence in schools' syllabus and in its own holocaust memorial day when the genocide of 10 million Africans in the Belgian Congo isn't even mentioned. There are just 2 books on this appalling catastrophe. Why do you have to go to specialist history books to read that 30+ million Bengalis died of starvation from the 1880's to 1947 because of British free trade policies which meant that food was exported when people were dying. This is not anti-Semitic. It is a valid question and the reason is because the holocaust is a propaganda weapon used by the West to sanitise itself. To paint itself in righteous colours as it commits its own genocide and massacres.
The Zionist movement in Palestine and elsewhere collaborated with the Nazis or covered up their crimes [see Ben Hecht’s Perfidyon the Kasztner trial in Israel or Lenni Brenner’s Zionism in the Age of the Dictators or indeed Shabtai Beit Zvi’s ‘Post-Ugandan Zionism On Trial - A Study of the Factors that Caused the Mistakes Made by the ZionistMovement during the Holocaust’ which is a copious, 2 volume book by a right-wing Israeli Zionist about the actual record of the Jewish Agency – the Zionist government in the making in Palestine during the holocaust and how they and the Zionist press denied that the holocaust was taking place and how they obstructed rescue to any destination that wasn’t Palestine].
What was Khadim Hussain’s mistake? He used the term ‘Zionist’ instead of ‘Jew’. Is that anti-Semitic? Well if it is then most Zionists are anti-Semitic. This is the ritual incantation of Zionism that anti-Semitism equals anti-Zionism e.g. Emanuele Ottolenghi’s Comment article ‘Anti-Zionismis anti-semitism’ in the Guardian
So it is an understandable mistake made by Naz Shah and many other people who are fooled by the Zionists into believing that being Jewish and a Zionist is one and the same thing. After all even people like Jonathan Freedland, who should know better, Labour and the left have an antisemitism problem argued recently, that ‘A recent survey found that 93% of British Jews said Israel formed some part of their identity’ thus implying that anti-Zionism, which obviously challenges this identity, is anti-Semitic.
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| Jonathan Freedland omitted to mention that 31% of British Jews no longer classify themselves as Zionists and 59%, down from 71% five years ago, see themselves as Zionists. |
In fact it was quite dishonest of Freedland to cite this statistic when he failed to cite, from the same survey, The Attitudes of British Jews Towards Israel by the Department of Sociology School of Arts and Social Sciences City University London the finding that ‘The percentage of respondents who call themselves ‘Zionists’ appears to have declined – 59% compared with 72% in the 2010 JPR survey. This apparently rapid change in the use of the term merits further examination.’ Indeed the very same survey found that 31% of Jews don’t consider themselves as Zionists even. Yet these findings are glossed over by Freedland in favour of a fatuous 93% finding that Israel is some part of Jewish identity.
Perhaps if some African Muslims see Female Genital Mutilation as part of their religious identity it will be racist to oppose the practice? It used to be part of Hindu religious practice to burn widows on the pyre of their husbands (suttee). Perhaps its racist to oppose the burning alive of women?
What is though utterly regrettable and even cowardly is that socialists who ought to know better are either going along with this or keeping silent. Their silence is not helping Jeremy Corbyn they are helping the Right in their ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign.
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| Jon Lansman, Chair of Momentum is holding secret talks with the Jewish Labour Movement, British branch of the Israeli Labour Party, and Labour Friends of Israel in the naive hope that they will be supportive of Corbyn |
I had a long conversation and then an increasingly acerbic email exchange with Jon Lansman, who is the Chair of Momentum, the organisation which is supposed to be defending Corbyn and McDonnell’s leadership. So disorganised is Momentum nationally that the Progress Right has a large lead in the number of delegates so far elected to the Labour Party conference. It is making the running whereas Momentum has nothing to say about this ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign.
In our email exchanges (see below) Lansman argues that ‘I’ve never claimed there’s a sudden rise in antisemitism within the Labour Party, it’s always been there at least in a latent form, but it has been exposed by a pro-Tory campaign and we cannot ignore it or deny its existence.’ But has the existence of ‘anti-Semitism’ been exposed by the Tory and Zionist campaign or is it bogus? Has it always been there? Or is it a few remarks by a few unconnected individuals or is there a systemic problem?
Historically anti-Semitism has always been a problem in the Tory Party not the Labour Party. Leon Brittan suffered from this during the Westland Affair which led to his resignation. As Jonathan Aitken wrote: "Soon after a poisonous meeting of Tory backbenchers at the 1922 Committee he fell on his sword. It was a combination of a witch hunt and a search for a scapegoat – tainted by an undercurrent of anti-Semitism.’ There has always been a golf club form of anti-Semitism in the Tory Party. In the early part of the 20thcentury it was Tory MPs like William Evans Gordon who formed the anti-Semitic British Brothers League dedicated to halting the immigration of Jewish refugees from anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe.
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| William Stanley Shaw, President of the anti-Semitic proto-fascist British Brothers' League wrote to the Jewish Chronicle of 8.11.1901. that 'I am a firm believer in the Zionist movement, which the British Brothers' League will do much incidentally to foster.' Shaw was not alone. Numerous anti-Semites did their best to foster the Zionist movement, mainly by kicking Jews out of the countries they were living in. |
This however was a form of anti-Semitism which was entirely acceptable to the Zionists because the Zionists, like the Tory anti-Semites, didn’t want to seen the immigration of poor Jewish refugees from Russia. As Chaim Weizmann, Israel’s first President and the President of the Zionist Organisation for most of the 1920’s and 1930’s wrote:
‘‘our people were rather hard on him. The Aliens Bill in England and the movement which grew around it were natural phenomenon which might have been foreseen... Sir William Evans-Gordon had no particular anti-Jewish prejudices... He acted as he thought, according to his best lights and in the most kindly way, in the interests of his country…. he was sincerely ready to encourage any settlement of Jews almost anywhere in the British Empire, but he failed to see why the ghettos of London or Leeds or Whitechapel should be made into a branch of the ghettos of Warsaw and Pinsk.' [Chaim Weizmann, Trial and Error, pp. 90-91, Schocken, 1966].
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| Support for the fascists was widespread in the British press - this article appeared in the pro-fascist Daily Mirror (a side of the Mirror which has been kept very quiet) |
Arthur J Balfour when Prime Minister introduced the Aliens Act in 1905 aimed at preventing Jewish immigration. He was quite blunt about it, he didn’t like Jews very much. In 1917 the same Balfour lent his name to the Balfour Declaration which promised Palestine to the Zionists. He was an ardent Zionist and an anti-Semite. That is as true today as it was a century ago. That is why this campaign about ‘anti-Semitism’ is so hypocritical. It has absolutely nothing to do with actual anti-Semitism.
In the 1970's and 1980's there were very close links between Tory right-wingers and the Monday Club - people like Harvey Proctor and Alan Clarke. Clarke had cocktail sticks made with a swastika on them at a party.
Nor is this Tory anti-Semitism a matter of past history. There was and is the hitch-up in the European parliament between the Tories and the European Conservatives and Reform group, which contained anti-Semites such as Michal Kaminski as its Chairman. Kaminski opposed a national Polish apology for the Jedwabne massacre in 1941 when Polish anti-Semites burnt up to 900 Jews alive in a barn. Yet not only did people like Eric Pickles, the Chairman of Conservatives Friends of Israel defend Kaminski but so did Stephen Pollard, editor of the Jewish Chronicle. [see Jewish Community Defies Zionists to Support Malia Bouattia- Anti-racist Jews for Justice Speak Out in Support ofMalia]
Even David Miliband, the New Labour former Foreign Secretary condemned the anti-Semitism of the Tories in terms that Corbyn and McDonnell are too frightened or ignorant to raise today. Truly the performance of Corbyn and McDonnell in bowing down to the witch hunters is a disgrace. The whip should be withdrawn, not from Naz Shah but from John Mann MP and Wes Streeting for bringing the Labour Party into disrepute by making wild and general accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’.In 2009, when the Tories broke from their previous partners in the European parliament and aligned with a bunch of rabid rightwingers, fascists and in the case of Michal Kaminski, an ex-Nazi, the Telegraph reported that the Tories
‘demanded that the Foreign Secretary withdraw an “indecent” accusation that Eric Pickles, the Conservative Party Chairman, had defended members of the Nazi SS.’
‘In his speech, Mr Miliband rounded on the Tories for aligning with the European Conservatives and Reformists grouping, saying that one ally, from Latvia, took part in annual services to commemorate the SS.’
‘He went on to accuse Mr Pickles of defending the Latvian SS on the grounds that they were “only following orders” – the excuse used by many Nazis to excuse their actions following the Second World War.’
‘The Foreign Secretary also claimed that Michael Kaminski, a Polish MEP who is a member of the group, had been labeled an anti-Semite by a senior rabbi.’
The Telegraph described how Miliband
‘his voice shaking with emotion’ told delegates to Labour’s conference how “Eric Pickles, the Chairman of the Conservative Party, explained without a hint of shame that we should not condemn one of their new allies, the ‘For Fatherland and Freedom’ party, who every year celebrate the Latvian Waffen SS with a march past of SS veterans, because they were only following orders. It makes me sick. And you know what makes me sicker? No one in the Tory party batted an eyelid.”
David Miliband speech triggersanti-Semitism row - The Conservatives have accused David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, of “disgraceful smears” after his speech to Labour Party conferenceresulted in an anti-Semitism row.
To this very day the Tory Party is in alliance with these people yet neither Corbyn nor McDonnell nor Lansman even utters one single word in response. These aren’t individuals who are confused by the Zionists into using ‘Jew’ for ‘Zionist’ but cold, calculating politicians who in Miliband’s phrase, don’t bat an eyelid at linking up with anti-Semites and fascists.
And it’s not just Lansman who is frit. When Malia Bouattia was attacked for anti-Semitism by the same Zionists and their echo chambers I sent a letter to the Guardian condemning these attacks on NUS’s first Black woman President and anti-Zionist. I sent it in the name of the group that had been originally set up to defend Jeremy Corbyn in the summer of 2015 against accusations of anti-Semitism before he became leader of the Labour Party, Jews4Jeremy.
Those who currently control the Facebook page of J4J disagree with doing anything at the moment to fight back against the Zionists current anti-Semitism witchhunt. Despite my efforts, the only thing they did was to gather names of 52 Jewish members of the Labour Party to send to the NEC opposing my suspension. Apart from that I have been unable to persuade them to pursue either the question of my suspension or take up broader questions.
Because they are not elected by anyone I decided that I had as much right as anyone to send a letter to the Guardian, in the name of J4J, opposing the attack on Malia Bouattia. The moderators objected and secured a minor retraction by the Guardian. This matters not a jot but the fact that over 300 Jewish members of the Labour Party or registered supporters have put their names to a group which is now doing nothing is a cause for some concern. In their letter to me David Rosenburg, Julia Bard and Ian Saville stated that:
‘Your action is damaging both to us, as Jews for Jeremy, and potentially to Jeremy himself, and to the Labour Party.
We can't have a situation where individuals are posting without the admins knowing about it and authorising it, let alone writing negative comments about the Labour Party in the name of JfJ.
Quite how a letter which didn’t even mention the Labour Party, yet alone attack it, is ‘potentially damaging to Jeremy himself’ defies logic. It was a defence of the new NUS President against anti-Semitism, but so scared are they of their own shadow, that even a hint of criticism, even implied, of the Labour Party, causes them to lose sleep. Meanwhile whilst they cower in the corner the Zionists and their propagandists in the mass media are on the rampage
However a group of Jews and also non-Jews have got together to form a group, to counter the Zionist campaign over ‘anti-Semitism’. The joint letter to The Independent was the first sign of our efforts.
There is however much more to do. Progress is proposing an 8 point plan to combat ‘anti-Semitism’ i.e. support for the Palestinians and anti-Zionism. 8 steps Labour needs to take to tackle antisemitism in its ranks
The Jewish Labour Movement, formerly Poalei Zion, which is the overseas branch of the racist Israeli Labour Party, whose leader Isaac Hertzog recently proclaimed that their problem was that they were seen as an ‘Arab lover’ party [Herzog: Labor Party Must Stop Giving Israelis the Feeling It Always LovesArabs, is pushing an amendment to the Rules of the Labour Party which would make ‘anti-Semitism’ an expellable offence but in the process redefine what ‘anti-Semitism’ was. Using Zionism as a term of ‘abuse’ would be anti-Semitic. Zionism is defined as part of ‘Jewish national identity’ by JLM so it is clear. Anti-Semitism is anti-Zionism and this will now be an expellable offence if JLM have its way.
Tony Greenstein
Letter to and from moderators of Jews4Jeremy to Tony Greenstein 26.4.16.
Dear David,
Dear comrades I entirely disagree with what you say and believe your advocacy of doing nothing is playing into the hands of the right.
Your silence whilst Malia is being attacked is shameful. Malia is the first Black woman President nus and u r staying silent while the racist Zionists and tabloids savage her. all to protect Jon landsman negotiations with Labour Friends of Israel and the Jewish Labour Movement.
What is taking place with my suspension is not a neutral process but a witch hunt where I don't even get to see the evidence against me
Fraternally
Tony Greenstein
Further to my previous response to your letter.
You say 'We had made it clear to you that, having written to the Labour Party about your case and obtained dozens of signatures, JfJ was not making further public comment on the issue until the Party had had time to consider our letter along with all the other evidence and submissions they had received. That remains our position.'
Who is the 'we'? Where and when was this decision made? Was it democratically decided by those who are members of the J4J FB page? And for that matter when were the administrators elected because I don't remember an election? That is the context in which a press release was issued.
The fact is that there is no democratic decision making. When I posted stuff on Malia on J4J there was a good reception from those who commented. Obviously I don't have access now so I can't be specific but it is a fact that the group has not responded to or taken any initiative bar sending the 52 signatures to the NEC, the names of whom I have not been sent despite previous promises.
No decision was ever made not to make further public comment until the Party, you mean the Compliance Unit which is at the centre of the witchhunt in the Party, has had time to consider. If this had ever been put to me or on the list then I would have kicked up a fuss. This do nothing strategy means in essence that the Left, or part of the Left, is sitting back whilst the Right is busy organising.
All the indications are that the Progress right is doing much better than the Left in the LP and that the left slate for the NEC is in real difficulty. Momentum having taken over as the main organisation of the Left has developed no strategy or consistent work in terms of overcoming a very determined campaign by the Right.
This campaign as you know has been spearheaded by Zionist groups, inside and outside the LP. The form this has taken has been bogus accusations of anti-Semitism. Unfortunately Jon Lansman, who as Julia pointed out, is a member of the JSG is also Chair of Momentum. Not only is he holding talks with LFI/JLM but he is on record as saying there is an anti-Semitism problem in the LP thus giving credence to the campaign being mounted by the Right. Further he believes it is a problem to call Zionists Zionists because it is somehow abusive.
This strategy, if one can call it that, is problematic to say the least. It means the Momentum Left has virtually conceded everything to the Right. Quite why Jon is negotiating at all with LFI/JLM is a mystery. What can he possibly hope to get out of it? A chicken would have more chance of negotiating a non-aggression pact with a fox than Jon has with what are agents of the Israeli state.
This is the context in which I put J4J name on my letter to the Guardian. It was quite deliberate because yes I do want J4J to take up the issue rather than duck it as it has all others since Jeremy was elected. I would be more impressed if either you, Julia or Ian had any substantive differences with the letter I submitted. If so I have yet to hear them.
The 'strategy' that is outlined below will lead to the inevitable removal of Corbyn before the next election or his evisceration.
Fraternally,
Tony Greenstein
Dear Tony,
We have reluctantly had to block you from the Jews for Jeremy page after you put out a press release in the name of “Jews 4 Jeremy” regarding your exclusion from the Labour Party.
We had made it clear to you that, having written to the Labour Party about your case and obtained dozens of signatures, JfJ was not making further public comment on the issue until the Party had had time to consider our letter along with all the other evidence and submissions they had received. That remains our position.
Your action is damaging both to us, as Jews for Jeremy, and potentially to Jeremy himself, and to the Labour Party.
We can't have a situation where individuals are posting without the admins knowing about it and authorising it, let alone writing negative comments about the Labour Party in the name of JfJ.
This was compounded by your signing your letter this morning in the Guardian as “Tony Greenstein, Jews for Jeremy” without reference to the admins, or to the agreed remit of the group as expressed in its basic statement.
In the future please write letters and make statements in your own name and don’t make false claims to be a representative of Jews for Jeremy.
David Rosenberg, Julia Bard, Ian Saville (admins of Jews for Jeremy)
Correspondence between Tony Greenstein & Jon Lansman
Tony Greenstein
Jon
I will respond to your various points together. For those I am copying this to, the paras in black, red, purple and now green!
Your talks with Labour Friends of Israel and Jewish Labour Movement are an exercise in utter futility and political humiliation. I doubt they will persuade a single solitary Jewish voter to vote Labour. JLM and Labour Friends of Israel are not separate from the attacks on the Labour Party as 'anti-Semitic' they are the representation of that campaign, together with figures like MPs Wes Streeting and John Mann inside the party.
JLM formerly Poalei Zion represent nothing today in the Jewish community. There was a time, in the 1950's when they had 1700 members and 16 branches. Those days have gone. There was a time when most of the left of the Labour Party - Ian Mikado, Jo Richardson even Tony Benn and Eric Heffer were in LFI. The latter 2 left LFI after the Lebanese invasion in 1982 and never returned. These are wholly far-right Labour organisations. To believe that Jeremy Newmark, who gave false evidence in the Fraser v UCU tribunal, is at odds with the Jewish Chronicle and the Board of Deputies is an exercise in wishful thinking. There is nothing I've heard or read which bears out that assumption. Their differences are, at best, tactical.
Yes British Jews are substantially more progressive on matters to do with Israel than the various Zionist claques. But that doesn't mean they will vote Labour because their class identity is with the Tories and other bourgeois parties. That is a fact. As I clearly failed to get you to understand, the shift in Jewish political allegiances happened in the 1960's and 1970's. Today the Jewish community votes overwhelmingly for right-wing parties because that is in their perceived economic interest.
A layer of secular Jewry - academics and professionals - will vote Labour but they will often be those most immune to the blandishments of the Zionists and the Board anyway. That is why your talks will have and can have no positive outcome.
What you seem unable to grasp is that JLM is the overseas branch of the racist Israeli Labour Party. A party whose leader protests that his party are 'Arab lovers' when everyone knows that it was the party of the Nakba.
The current 'Labour is riddled by anti-Semitism' campaign did not begin with Ed Miliband. It began with the leadership campaign of Jeremy Corbyn when allegations of associating with holocaust deniers took shape. It took a detour via Gerald Kaufman's comments and has now become part of the media's received wisdom. At no time have JLM or LFI dissociated themselves from this campaign. Quite the contrary, their friends like John Mann have been in the forefront of the campaign.
As Rebecca Simon Vice-Chair of LFI said of Corbyn: ‘no one wants to vote for a leader they think is rubbish. And he is rubbish – never mind about the Israel stuff, he is just not a credible opposition.’ Jewish Chronicle 30.12.15. What part of that do you not understand?
You say it is an 'insult' to say that you are willing to sacrifice the Palestinians on the altar of Zionism. I'm happy to accept your remonstrance but in that case perhaps you can tell me what is the purpose of your talks with JLM/LFI? There is only one thing that they want and that is a Labour Party that does not support Boycott or a campaign against Israeli apartheid. Your only achievement could be a sacrifice of principles.
I do not believe that LFI/JLM are genuinely concerned with anti-Semitism. If they were concerned they wouldn't be doing their best to conflate Zionism with being Jewish. How else can one explain the supporting wording for their amendment
'it is not acceptable to use Zionism as a term of abuse' Why insert this if their concern is solely anti-Semitism?
'it is not acceptable to use Zionism as a term of abuse' Why insert this if their concern is solely anti-Semitism?
I would expect Momentum's Chair not to be holding secret talks with LFI/JLM but articulating a strategy for rebutting the narrative of the Right. Appeasement is not a strategy designed for success.
I particular object to your statement that anti-Semitism in the Labour Party 'has been exposed by a pro-Tory campaign and we cannot ignore it or deny its existence.' The Labour Party and the socialist left is remarkably free of the anti-Semitism that attaches to the left. What you fail to understand is that those who are loudest in their criticism of 'Labour Party anti-Semitism' are silent when it comes to the very real anti-Semitism of the Tories allies in Europe and indeed inside the Tory Party itself.
As we can see from the campaign against the new NUS President Malia, the real problem is racism against Muslims. Unfortunately in the forefront of this campaign is the Israeli state and its supporters in this country, JLM and LFI included.
As regards the name Jews4Jeremy, I am not responsible for the assumptions of others.
Tony Greenstein
Jon Lansman
Tony:
I understand your press release was issued under the heading Jews4Jeremy. I’m disappointed. I do not have the time to answer any further correspondence from you so please don’t bother to contact me further. You isolate yourself and are your own worst enemy, I’m afraid, which really is no help to the Palestinian cause.
Jon Lansman
It’s not about the use of the name “Jews for Jeremy”, it’s about the association with Jeremy which you imply, wrongly, in an uncomradely manner and without permission.
Tony Greenstein
I have not suggested an association with Jeremy nor could anyone reasonably assume that from what I wrote
JL
Whether you think you have or not, others will make the association, that should be obvious to you, you are not stupid, and therefore you are responsible for that
JL
I’ve never claimed there’s a sudden rise in antisemitism within the Labour Party, it’s always been there at least in a latent form, but it has been exposed by a pro-Tory campaign and we cannot ignore it or deny its existence.
TG
If there's been no sudden rise in anti-Semitism in the LP why the campaign now? I don't accept it's always been there. What's been there is a confusion between Israel/Zionism and being Jewish. What's been 'exposed' is a solitary tween by Vicky Kirby about 'big noses' a lunatic Trotskyist with theories of a Jewish Question and.... oh a former Bradford mayor who, surprise, surprise, confuses Zionists with Jews. I wonder where he got that one?
JL
The campaign has not just started now. It started under Ed Miliband who sadly made almost no improvement in the party’s policy towards the Palestinians. I do not understand why you think the Labour Party should be immune from genuine antisemitism which exists in British civil society - albeit at a lower level than in most of the last century and than in other European countries.
JL
I agree that we need to expose the Tories’ antisemitic links but not whilst simultaneously alienating Jewish support for doing so including from some self-described Zionists which you appear incapable of detecting, perhaps because I talk to them and you do not.
TG
This paragraph makes no sense. The election of someone who has previously been associated with Palestine solidarity is bound to alienate Zionist sympathy. In Geoffrey Alderman's Jewish Community in British Politics, he describes how in the 2nd election of 1974 the no. of Jewish voters in Hendon North who supported the Tory MP John Gorst rose from 59 to 68% whilst the national swing was against the Tories. Nothing you say or do, even if you were to declare full support for Netanyahu's settlement programme would have the slightest difference. You flatter yourself if you think you will make any difference. The Jewish community long ago moved to the Right. It did so at the time of Thatcher if not before. Israel makes no difference.
On the contrary secular Jewry which is not hung up about Israel is more likely to be alienated by your association with the Israeli Labour Party, because that is who JLM is.
JL
The Labour Party (including the JLM actually) are actively opposed by the current leadership of the BoD and the Editor of the Jewish Chronicle because they are seen as insufficiently uncritical in their support of Israeli government action. Actually most British Jews are critical of Israeli government policy including on settlements and the rights of Palestinians/“Arab Israelis” and are clearly very significantly to the Left of Israeli Jews, as a Jewish “Zionists” compared with Israeli “Zionists”.
I know perfectly well that I won’t have any impact on the perpetrators of this campaign. I do believe that we can, without sacrificing any of the principles that I hold (which are essentially the same as Jeremy who, like me, supports two states and targeting economic pressure on the occupation rather than Israel within pre-1967 borders), win back the support of a large section of British Jews including many who regard themselves a Zionists.
TG
What you are saying is that you are willing to sacrifice the Palestinians on the altar of Zionism.
JL
This is just an insult, as you must surely know
TG
When people raised the question of Tory support for fascists like Michal Kaminiski and Robert Zile in 2009, Vivian Wineman of the Board of Deputies wrote to David Cameron. Wineman’s timid and innocuous letter to Cameron caused a rift with the Jewish Leadership Council, an organisation of the Zionist bourgeoisie in Britain. One JLC member described colleagues as “livid” at the timing of the letter. Another was “incandescent." [Leaders split over David Cameron's Euro allies’ 8.10.09.,