Guardian Prints Letter from 572 members/supporters of the Labour Party Defending Ken Livingstone

Last Friday the racist Zionist Labour Movement had a letter published in The Guardian, which has run with the 'anti-semitism' witch-hunt, signed by 1300 assorted racist and right-wingers in the Labour Party calling for Ken Livingstone to be expelled.

Tomorrow a letter from 572 of us (at the latest count) will be published by way of reply.  Although we haven't (yet) matched the JLM numbers, given the disparity of resources this is not surprising.  However our letter will be open for further signatures and they will be added periodically to both this and the Free Speech on Israel site.

I did a BBC Radio London interview this Sunday at around 7.15 a.m.  I suspect it was too early for most people!  It can be down loaded from hereand here

The theme of the interviewer was that it didn’t matter if what Ken Livingstone said was true, it had ‘given offence’.  Of course the truth does offend the reactionary and racist Zionist leaders of the Jewish community and the Zionist movement.  They don’t want to be reminded of a time in the past when the Zionist movement collaborated with the Nazis to build their ‘Jewish’ state.  A time when the Zionist project was held to be more important than destroying the Hitler regime.

Edwin Black, who is a devoted Zionist, wrote the definitive book on Ha'avara, the trade agreement between the Zionists and the Nazis, The Transfer Agreement.  Ha'avara, destroyed the Anti-Nazi Boycott.  That was why the Nazis agreed to it. ‘The leaders of Germany realized that the anti-Hitler boycott was threatening to kill the Third Reich in its infancy, either through utter bankruptcy or by promoting an imminent invasion of Germany…’ [Black p. 110 see also p.130].

Black wrote that the Zionists promised to ‘halt the worldwide Jewish-led anti-Nazi Boycott that threatened to topple the Hitler regime in its first year. [Black, p. xix]  The actions of the Zionist Organisation allowed Hitler to drive a wedge into the world-wide boycott of German goods. [Francis Nicosia, Zionism in National Socialist Jewish Policy, D1263, The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 50, 1978].

A good example of the nonsense behind the claims that it is the left who are anti-Semitic is what happened at the A&M University in College Station, Texas last December.  In two articles in the Jewish Forward Alt Right’ Leader Ties White Supremacy to Zionism — Leaves Rabbi Speechless and Speechless Rabbi Admits Losing Argument Over Racism and Israel to White Supremacist Richard Spencer Josh Nathan-Kazis and Daniel Solomon tell how during a question-and-answer session, Rabbi Matt Rosenberg stood and invited Richard Spencer, the white nationalist who led a chant of ‘Heil Trump’ to a far-right crowd of neo-Nazis.  Rabbi Rosenberg said:

“My tradition teaches a message of radical inclusion and love,” Rosenberg said. “Will you sit town and learn Torah with me, and learn love?”

The Forward reported that ‘Spencer declined the invitation, but used it as an opportunity to suggest that the objectives of Zionism and Jewish continuity were close to his own goals for white people.’  He asked:

“Do you really want radical inclusion into the State of Israel?”Spencer said. “And by that I mean radical inclusion. Maybe all of the Middle East could go move in to Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. Would you really want that?”

“You’re not answering,” Spencer said.

“I’m not answering,” Rosenberg said.

The reason was, of course, that Israel is anything but a state of radical inclusion.  It is a state of Jewish supremacy and it does its best, even today, to remove Arabs from its midst.  It is for that reason that racists and neo-Nazis in the West admire it.  That is also why we have to call out the Jewish Labour racists who seek to sell Israel in the Labour Party as some kind of oasis of socialism.

When Tom Watson, John Mann and the rest of the right-wing ratbags go on about Israel being a haven of democracy we should point out that it is White Supremacists, the Breitbarts and Steve Bannons of this world who most love Israel.

 We, unlike Tom Watson and the Labour Right, support free speech on Israel and Palestine.  Having held one Star Chamber hearing and failed to get their desired outcome they are calling for another, expedited hearing which will do what was expected of it the first time round and expel Ken Livingstone.  We have to make it abundantly clear, despite Corbyn's usual prevarications, that we will not allow this to happen.  Free Speech in the Labour Party is more important than the defence of an Apartheid State of Israel.

To back up their demands, last Friday the Guardian printed a letter from the Jewish Labour Movement from 1300 people calling for Livingstone to be expelled.  Despite the misleading headline Jewish Labour members say Livingstone must go many of those signing were not Jewish but members of the Progress Party, such as the right-wing leader of Brighton and Hove Council, Warren Morgan and various equally Jewish councillors.  Indeed many of them, like the recently resigned Brighton Labour Councillor Inkpin-Leissner are anti-Labour.

That is why I drafted a letter in response to the Guardian and appealed to people to sign it.  So far 566 people have signed it. 

The letter has also been placed on the Free Speech on Israel site.  Amongst those signing have been Oliver and Rita Gaggs from Cambridge Labour Party.  They have been members of the party for over 60 years but if Livingstone is expelled they will leave too.  The entire Executive of South West Norfolk CLP has endorsed the letter.  So if you haven’t signed it and you are a member or supporter of the Labour Party please sign too!  Just send an email to me at tonygreenstein104@gmail.com

Tony Greenstein