Northern Zionists Score Spectacular Own Goal!

by Chris Draper

WHEN “North-West Friends of Israel” (NWFOI) and other assorted Zionists tried to provoke a city-wide boycott of an “Interfaith Conference for Palestine” they got more than they bargained for when their bigoted and abusive behaviour was exposed and denounced by Chester community leader Roderick Heather MBE.

The free entry, open-to-all conference was due to begin at St Columba’s Church, Chester on 1^st November 2019 but forty-eight hours before it convened a wolfpack spearheaded by NWFOI and led by Anthony Dennison and Raphi Bloom, bombarded Chester’s numerous church halls and community venues with telephone calls, emails and social media messaging all warning them not to host this conclave of “Anti-Semites, Holocaust Deniers and Hate-Speakers”.  Unfortunately for the bigots after they succeeded in bullying the Bishop of Shrewsbury into cancelling the church booking the Conference found an ideal alternative at Hoole Community Centre where the Chairman of the Trustees, Roderick Heather courageously withstood a barrage of intimidatory NWFOI communications.

Unlike the local Labour MP Chris Matheson who ignorantly obliged local reporters with prejudiced and ill-informed comments of the “We don’t want holocaust deniers in our town” type, Roderick Heather actually took the trouble to attend the conference as an observer and judge for himself whether this was indeed an anti-semitic event or rather, a free, open-minded conference which included criticism of Israeli State policy.

After spending a day at the Conference, Mr Heather informed those attending that he was very impressed by the content of speeches, quality of discussion and conduct of the meeting and assured everyone present that they would always be welcome to return to the Hoole Centre.  This contrasted with his conclusions about the behaviour of the NWFOI and to them he addressed the following message;

“Your intervention (and the various other coordinated extreme ones we received today) did nothing to help foster good community relations here in Chester or to improve the understanding and sympathy for the Jewish cause nationally in the UK.  The ill-informed and bigoted telephone and social media campaign that we have witnessed today is a disgrace.  It was unfounded and unnecessary and has done your cause much harm. Be aware that I am ensuring that as many people as possible (locally and nationally) are made aware of the vitriolic, verbal bullying we have been subjected to today.”

Roderick Heather MBE

Chairman Hoole Community Trust

The North’s Zionist lobby is demonstrably determined to intimidate anyone who sticks their head above the parapet and criticises Israel.  The tactic is to conflate criticism of Israel with anti-semitism. Jews who criticise Israel (like those who attended the Chester conference) are branded “self-hating Jews” and dismissed. Archbishop Tutu describes Israel as an apartheid state but merely to agree with him is sufficient grounds for anyone to be expelled from the Labour Party.  Free speech is a precious commodity that’s found a friend in Mr Heather and sinister enemies in NWFOI.  Perhaps Mr Dennison, Mr Bloom,  Mr Matheson or the Bishop of Shrewsbury would care to reply and offer a justification for their appalling behaviour but I rather think not for they evidently fear quiet, honest, open, reasoned debate.

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Not A Clever Idea

by Les May

Just after the 2016 Referendum I met a someone who is a member of the Heywood and Middleton Constituency Labour party. He was not impressed that our MP, Liz McInnes, had resigned from her shadow post as communities and local government minister as a gesture of no confidence in Jeremy Corbyn.

Now Liz is one of the few MPs who have ‘had a proper job’ before becoming an MP so I am happy to vote for her. (I also have it from an impeccable source that a political opponent once said admiringly of her that she was known as ‘The Rottweiler’ for her determination to defend workers’ rights.)

A little lamely I muttered something that she would have come under a lot of pressure to join the herd who were calling for Corbyn to go.

An enthusiastic Corbyn supporter he was having none of it! He argued that Labour MPs should listen to the views of members of the local party and could not expect members to do the leg work for them at election time if they didn’t. And he was quite right of course.

I remembered this conversation last night when I read the response of Joan Ryan, the chair of Labour Friends of Israel, to losing a vote of no confidence at her local constituency party where she was accused of smearing Jeremy Corbyn.

So what was Ms Ryan’s response? She called the people who had voted against her ‘Trots, Stalinists, Communists and assorted hard left’.

Given that just over half of the people who attended the meeting voted against her, 94 out of 186, this may not have been the cleverest idea.  Why would any of these people who she has attacked in this unpleasant way want to go round the streets at the next election trying to persuade people to vote for her?

Joan Ryan is not a woman who is meticulous in checking her facts as you will see in this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3dn-VV3czc

The video is about 26 minutes long.  The incident involving Joan Ryan starts at about 7 minutes and 40 seconds.

Chuka Ummuna’s recent comments are thought to have been prompted by the votes of no confidence in Joan Ryan and Chris Leslie.  It may just be a coincidence that both these MPs are members of the ‘Friends of Israel’ group. It may also be just a coincidence that Chuka Ummuna (and Angela Eagle) are seen in the video at the Friends of Israel stall asking to be updated. 

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Onward Christian-Zionists Marching as to War!

by Chris Draper

A FEW  weeks ago I attended a local Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) and got more than I bargained for. Advertised as an opportunity to hear a Holocaust survivor talk about his Auschwitz experience it turned out to be an artfully organised attempt to rally political support for the State of Israel.

We were directed to stand and sing Hatikvah, rallying cry of the Zionist movement sung at the first World Congress in 1897 and recently adopted as the National Anthem of Israel. We were also treated to an oratorical adulation of Israel delivered by a Member of the Welsh Assembly (AM) who had just returned from a free holiday in the Promised Land. Half-way through his political paean to Israel I walked out, shouting, “What about the Palestinians?!”

Determined to discover how this cynical perversion of an humanitarian event had been orchestrated I did a bit of digging and soon discovered;

1) The organiser was a Mr Roy Thurley, North Wales representative and past UK Director of an International Zionist organisation known as Christian Friends of Israel (CFI) with its HQ in Jerusalem.

2) This event was advertised by CFI as an “Official Civic” event attended by the local MP, two local AM’s, the Mayor, Chair of the County Council and various other bigwigs.

3) The MP, Guto Bebb is a member of Friends of Israel who has enjoyed thousands of pounds worth of free Israeli hospitality whilst Darren Millar AM recently hosted the launch of Wales Friends of Israel at the Senedd in Cardiff with the support of the Israeli Embassy.

4) Llandudno Town Council granted CFI £860 to organise this event.

So the upshot is that CFI misused Council Tax to elicit support for Israel, which Archbishop Desmond Tutu describes as “An Apartheid State” to be boycotted by Christians and all other right-thinking people. It seems fair to assume that Tutu knows a bit about both Apartheid and Christianity but Mr Thurley and CFI think not. Neither do they think much of fellow Christians for a couple of years ago CFI pulled out of Llandudno CYTUN (“Churches Together”) that includes all the other main Christian congregations (Methodist, Anglican, Baptist, Coptic etc) as Mr Thurley insists only his CFI sect correctly interprets the Bible.

Mr Thurley reveals the apartheid creed of Christian Friends of Israel in a booklet available online called “Chosen Race, Chosen Place” but the title is enough to get the drift. God chose the Jews and gave them Israel, not just in some mysterious way but in the ever-lasting here-and-now and anyone who criticises the expansionist State-building of Israel is an agent of the devil!

After discovering all this I thought I’d ask the Council whether it considered Mr Thurley’s HMD constituted a proper use of Council Tax. I also talked to local Christians, Conwy Peace Group and many others about their opinions and to cut a long story short, Rev Mike Harrison, Chair of CYTUN offered to organise a less divisive, more inclusive HMD next year. On 3rd March 2017 Llandudno Councillors accepted my analysis of CFI’s abuse of Llandudno HMD and endorsed CYTUN as organiser of our 2018 HMD. To top it off, with utter consistency Councillors decided that as CFI hadn’t fulfilled their side of the bargain the Council wouldn’t hand over the £860 grant!

No-one imagines Israel is now quaking in its boots but the political advance of Christian-Zionism across the UK has been slowed. Mr Thurley is something of a “Mr Big” and through CFI’s glossy magazines, books, DVD’s, Christian television and radio, conferences and trips to Israel his initiatives are widely anticipated and copied. This sort of Christian fundamentalist politicking is big in the States but still in its infancy here. In the light of my recent experience I would urge all fair-minded folk to get involved in your local HMD as I’ve identified several more already targeted by Christian Zionists.

Shalom, Christopher Draper