Hamas And A Hook Nose Dummy by Les May

AS soon as the first rocket was fired into Israel by Hamas it handed Netanyahu his ‘get out of jail card’. ‘Honest Joe’ could say ‘Israel has a right to defend itself’, talk grandly about a ‘negotiated settlement’ and then when the carnage stops declare the US is back in the Middle East showing how different he is from Trump. Though not different enough to think twice about continuing the ten year long agreement signed in 2016 which sends Israel $3.3 billion in military aid and $500 million for missile defence systems each year.

Meanwhile his Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, can mouth his platitudes, preceded by the obligatory ‘Israel has a right to defend itself’, while Israel calmly announces to the world it is going to bomb two schools and justifies its bombing campaign against civilian targets by claiming the buildings stand above a tunnel system used by Hamas. A claim that no-one can verify and if untrue would mean the bombing is a war crime.

And then some genius in the UK decided what a good idea it would be to hand out yet another ‘get out of jail card’. This time it was to our home grown apologists who respond to every denunciation of Israel’s attacks on Palestinians and the theft of their land, by claiming it is just another example of anti-semitism. Quite why anyone would think that a huge dummy seemingly depicting Israel as a hook nosed Jew, with sinister features and horns, had any place at a demonstration supporting the Palestinians, is beyond me. It comes as no surprise to read an attempt being made to link Jeremy Corbyn with this, though the only placards visible carry the imprint of Socialist Worker. With people like this as ‘friends’ the Palestinians will never have a shortage of enemies.

You can find the image of the ‘demo’ at:

https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/05/16/the-lefts-shameful-silence-on-anti-semitism/

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Rats And Lawyers. by Les May

QUESTION: What’s the difference between a rat dead in the road and a lawyer dead in the road? Answer: There are skid marks in front of the rat. Not a very nice joke, but a reminder that not every member of the legal profession always has the best interests of humanity at heart.

It appears that the largest supplier of textbooks to UK schools, the publisher Pearson, is halting further distribution of two books about the Israel/Palestine conflict published in 2020. The books concerned are not the original versions which were published in 2016 and 2017 and previously available to schools and others. The original text had been amended after a complaint from a group called UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI). The amendments were extensive amounting to more than 650 changes or more than three per page.

A description of the process by which these two books were altered is given in a statement issued by the British Board of Jewish Deputies last September. It reads a follows:

After initial constructive conversations with Pearson, the Board of Deputies worked together with UKLFI [UK Lawyers for Israel] to produce thorough comments on both textbooks, which Pearson have received and acted upon. After detailed and lengthy process over a number of months, the books have now been published for students to use in the 2020-1 academic year. Board of Deputies of British Jews President Marie van der Zyl said: "We applaud Pearson for their openness to constructive feedback and willingness to revise these textbooks. We are pleased with the final material which gives a balanced and accurate portrayal of the Middle East conflict. I would like to pay specific tribute and thanks to UKLFI for their hard work on this project and their collaborative effort with us to get these textbooks to where they needed to be.”

The decision of the publishers to pause further distribution of the altered version came in response to an eight-page report by Middle East specialists Professors John Chalcraft and James Dickins, which found hundreds of changes to the textbooks overwhelmingly favouring an Israeli narrative and removing or replacing passages that support Palestinian narratives.

Below is an extract which forms the last two paragraphs of that report.

The revisions have changed the presentation of the facts in ways which bolster pro-Israeli narratives, and make pro-Palestinian narratives less credible. Explanations of the events recorded have also been treated in a selective manner, with potentially pro- Palestinian interpretations removed, and pro-Israeli interpretations augmented. The revisions exhibit troubling double-standards at a very basic level: potentially unjust Israeli actions are dealt with in the language of perception and controversy, while potentially unjust Palestinian actions are dealt with in the language of fact and objective certainty. The revisions also offer distorted definitions of key terms, such as Jewish ‘settlers’, and mislead students about matters on which there is a wide consensus, such as international law. The revisions direct students towards activities and interpretations that favour and explore a pro-Israeli narrative.

In sum, we have found the process to have been biased and the outcome misleading. The outcome is two textbooks that distort the historical record, failing to offer students a balanced view of the conflict. These books, we conclude, are not fit for purpose. School children should not be supplied with propaganda under the guise of education.

What we have here is an organisation of lawyers advocating for a foreign country. We also have the Board of Deputies, which does not represent all the Jewish people in the UK, trying to determine what is taught in our schools. This is just as reprehensible as the actions of those Muslims who are trying to do the same at Batley Grammar School. It also gives further credibility to those who believe that the motivation of those attacking Jeremy Corbyn were motivated not by concerns about anti-semitism, but by a desire to remove someone who was an advocate for the Palestinians.

You can find the full text of the report from which two short extracts are given above at:

http://www.bricup.org.uk/documents/GCSE_textbooks.pdf

There is a more detailed discussion at:

https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/textbooks-altered-line-by-line-at-uk-lawyers-for-israels-behest/

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The Ha’Penny & The Gingerbread by Les May

INFAMY, Infamy, they’ve all got it in for me! is a line by Julius Caesar (Kenneth Williams) from the 1964 comedy film Carry on Cleo. But it sums up the response of recent Israeli governments and their apologists whenever they are confronted with questions about their behaviour in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT).

Apartheid is recognized as a crime against humanity in the 1973 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (“Apartheid Convention”) and the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) which also sets out the crime against humanity of persecution.

Because the state of Palestine is a party to both the Rome Statute and the Apartheid Convention the International Criminal Court (ICC) ruled in February 2021, that it has jurisdiction over serious international crimes committed in the entirety of the OPT, including East Jerusalem, which would include the crimes against humanity of apartheid or persecution committed in that territory. In March 2021, the ICC announced the opening of a formal investigation into the situation in Palestine.

On 27 April the organisation Human Rights Watch (HRW) published a 213 page report which claims that the overarching Israeli government policy to maintain the domination by Jewish Israelis over Palestinians authorities amounts to the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.

Predictably the response of the apologists for the Israeli government has been to both reject the report and to try to muddy the water by claiming that organisations which try to bring pressure on Israel to change its policies are intent on denying its right to exist.

Legal measures such as those we may see from the ICC are necessarily directed against individuals within a state, not against the state itself, so it is difficult to see how this is a credible argument if say the Israeli Prime Minister were tried in his absence. If found guilty it would be for other states to decide what sanctions should be place on the individual concerned. It would also be a massive embarrassment for the state of Israel.

Such a case could only meaningfully be brought so long as Israel remains as the Occupying Power in Palestine and continues its annexation of East Jerusalem, which is itself prohibited by international law. If Israel does not want to be seen as a country whose rulers could face the ignominy of being declared guilty of crimes against humanity it has the option of simply ending its occupation and allowing a functioning state of Palestine to come into being.

But Israel wants both the Ha’Penny and the Gingerbread; it wants to continue its occupation and be given a Persilschein.

The HRW report is called A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution. It is available on WWW.

****************************************************************

Zionism & the State of Israel

  by Martin Gilbert

Israeli citizen humiliating refugees in Tel Aviv

I WAS brought up in a fairly pious Jewish family.  It might be assumed that all Jews are Zionists. Not so.
 

The idea of a State of Israel, known as Zionism arose around the 

1880’s-1890’s. Pre 1914 Palestine had Jewish settlements inspired 

by a range of political ideas. 

There were socialists, communists and anarchists.  The right wing 

Jewish Chronicle tagged those activists as not being proper Jews.  

A stance that paper holds to-day.  Below, some historical detail is offered.

Post 1918, following the end of the Ottoman empire Palestine 

became part of the middle east “carve-up” by French, British and 

other powers. 

Oil interests also grabbed a slice.  We now have two contestants. 

One, totally bent on Israel’s destruction because the Palestinian 

people are controlled by opportunists and fundamentalists.  

They do not represent the constituents they claim. Israel too has its 

share of fundamentalists and opportunists holding power.  

But they have a 21^st century sophistication, quite lacking in the 

Palestinians. 

Both peoples want to get on with life, having a peace that is not imposed by militarism.

After 1945 in Europe, there were many people displaced by the war. Jews were a significant number. 

The Zionist propaganda at that time claimed “a land without people for a people without land”. 

It ignored the Palestinians.  

Following various events they were confined to an increasingly small area.  

It has been known as Gaza or the Jordan Valley.  It’s ground water and other water resources have been much reduced by the best irrigation engineers in the world: the Israelis.  Another reason why the so called “two state solution” is impossible.

Over the decades much international opinion has condemned Israeli colonialism in their treatment of the Palestinians.  Ever increasing settlements by Israel continue to complicate the situation and make it worse.  But too often such international opinion has been toothless.  Any criticism of Israel has been attacked by the right as anti semitic.

Recently, Donald Trump said that Israel should take over the Jordan valley.  He is supported by the Christian right. 

They believe that Jews should have the same geopolitical borders 

they had in Biblical times. 

But some Jews in America, the U.K. and Israel have said Trump considerably adds to the problems.  Consistently, the magazine 

Jewish Socialist have given detailed reports, supporting that opinion.

Under South Africa’s apartheid system Black Africans had to have passes to work in white areas.  Also, they were forced to live in specific areas called Bantustans.

The so called “two state solution” is no answer.  At best the 

Palestinian state would only be like a Bantustan: still controlled by 

fundamentalists. 

A distant idea is that all Palestinians should be integrated into Israel and areas that have have been stolen from them.

Recent statements by the Chief Rabbi add to the confusion and miss information.  He gives the impression that “the Jewish

community” is of one, monolithic structure, just one opinion.      

It’s rather like an Arch Bishop claiming to speak for all Christians. Lessons can be drawn from the struggle against apartheid.  

Truth and reconciliation groups have made much progress.  South

Africa still has serious problems but there is no perfect answer.

martin gilbert, November 2019

**********************

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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Sauce For The Goose?

by Les May

TRACY Ann Oberman, the actress, has written to the BBC to complain about the appearance of Ash Sarkar, an editor of Novara Media, in the documentary ‘Rise of the Nazis’. The reason Sarkar is included is to illuminate the context and perspective of Ernst Thälmann who led the German Communist party from 1925 to 1933, and died in a concentration camp in 1944. Oberman’s objection was that Sarkar had defended two people who had sprayed ‘Free Gaza and Palestine’ on one of the remaining walls of the Warsaw Ghetto.

Once again we have a complaint about what someone has said, in this case about a third party’s actions; in other words guilt by association.

Would it be legitimate to claim that by objecting Oberman is guilty by association with the policies of Israel, because it is the Israeli state that the graffiti was directed against?

I am not a particular fan of Sarkar, but I don’t think she should be prevented from speaking in BBC programmes just because I don’t always like what she says.

**************** 

Who Really Speaks for British Jews?

by Les May

 

THE Jewish Chronicle (JC) wants to be seen as the only authentic voice of British Jews. Yesterday (Tuesday 9 July) its website carried a piece headed ‘The Guardian's long standing and shameful tradition of promoting antisemitism denial’ with the sub-heading ‘For decades, Britain's most prominent left-wing paper has promoted those denying antisemitism on the wider left, contributing to today's toxic climate for British Jews’.

https://www.thejc.com/comment/comment/the-guardian-s-latest-letter-continues-their-long-tradition-of-promoting-antisemitism-denial-1.486275

What becomes clear in reading this is that the writer’s concern is that people, including Labour people, are willing to take information about the opinions of Jewish people from sources other than the JC and the people who write for it.  In particular the writer does not like the Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL) which is dismissed as a ‘tiny minority of far-left Jews’.

And what does this ‘tiny minority of far-left Jews’ actually have to say when providing guidance about what constitutes antisemitism?

‘Free speech is legally protected. Within these legal limits political discourse can be robust and may cause offence. There is no right not to be offended. The fact that some people or groups are offended does not in itself mean that a statement is antisemitic or racist. A statement is only antisemitic if it shows prejudice, hostility or hatred against Jews as Jews.’

‘Criticising Zionism or Israel as a state does not constitute criticising Jews as individuals or as a people, and is not evidence of antisemitism.’

‘Drawing such parallels (with Nazi Germany or apartheid South Africa) can undoubtedly cause offence; but potent historical events and experiences are always key reference points in political debate.  Such comparisons are only antisemitic if they show prejudice, hostility or hatred against Jews as Jews.’

If you want to check that I am not just quoting selectively then visit the website below.  You’ll find a robust attitude to antisemitism.

https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/statement/antisemitic-misconduct/

If you actually talk to people about antisemitism in the Labour party they are baffled.   It simply is not part of their experience, they’ve not seen it, they’ve not heard it, they have no idea what all the fuss is about.  Note here that I am not saying that people who are prejudiced against Jews as Jews are not to be found in the Labour party or amongst its supporters. Such people exist in all walks of life and I doubt the Labour party is exempt.

The people who write for the Jewish Chronicle seem to think that the vast majority of voters actually care about the writer’s opinions and so will be swayed in how they vote.  I doubt that the majority of people care one little bit.   This isn’t antisemitic,  it’s just that we do not feel inclined to take these people as seriously as they take themselves. And we are not going to accept at face value the JC’s exaggerated claim of ‘a toxic climate for British Jews’.

************

Does Israel Interfere In UK Politics?

by Les May

HERE’s a little test.  Which of these stories are you prepared to dismiss a priori as untrue a priori?  In other words they must be fabrications because they could not possibly be true.  So here we go.

1. Russia sought to interfere in the 2016 US presidential election.

2. Russia sought to influence the outcome of the 2016 referendum.

3. Israel sought to discredit the then Deputy Foreign Minister Alan Duncan because he has expressed support for the Palestinian civil rights.

There are plausible reasons for believing the first two.  Whilst Trump has been the focus of media attention in reporting the Special Counsel Investigation the Mueller team indicted thirteen Russian citizens and three Russian entities, including the Internet Research Agency and twelve members of the Russian GRU cyber espionage group group known as Fancy Bear .  There are ongoing investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 Brexit referendum being undertaken by the Electoral Commission and Parliament’s Culture Select Committee.  Data released by Twitter in 2018 identified 3,841 accounts of Russian origin affiliated with the Internet Research Agency.

So what about the third story? Unlike the first two where there is no ‘smoking gun’ we have video evidence that the story is true.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jan/07/israeli-diplomat-shai-masot-caught-on-camera-plotting-to-take-down-uk-mps

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pddH2sfNKNY

This is how the Jewish Chronicle reported it

https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/regev-apologises-1.430254

and the comments from Al Jazeera the broadcaster responsible for the film

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/01/israel-lobby-headlines-resignations-calls-probe-170113110120893.html

The ease with which some commentators can turn an attack on an Israeli policy into an attack on British Jews can be seen in this article in the Times of Israel.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/uk-jewish-leaders-slam-mp-for-attacks-on-israel-poisonous-slur-against-british-jews

If you have the patience to view all four of the Al Jazeera films about how Israel is seeking to covertly influence UK politics and the way in which the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians is discussed you will note that one of the concerns expressed is that new Labour MPs do not feel it necessary to join the Friends of Israel group.  What is of interest is that the Labour MPs referred to were the 2015 intake, in other words long before Jeremy Corbyn was even a twinkle in Momentum’s eye.

The suspension of Peter Willsman from the Labour party is following an all too familiar path.  Tom Watson claims his remarks were ‘offensive’; Stella Creasy tweeted:  ‘Anyone who supported Willsman for the NEC after the first outburst needs to hang their head in shame they indulged this hatred’. I’ve searched to find a recording of what Willsman said and cannot find it.  All I have found is commentary. Have either of these two done any better?

One thing Willsman has been reported as saying is ‘… it’s almost certain who is behind all this anti-Semitism against Jeremy, almost certainly it’s the Israeli embassy.’   Offensive?  Hatred?  On the basis of what we know the Israeli embassy has got form on this one.

As for whether the Labour party has been infiltrated by outside bodies intent on changing its policies. It’s happened before, just think Militant and watch the videos.  You too Mr Willsman.

Has Hodge lost the plot over exaggerated claims of Labour anti-Semitism?

Chuka Umuna, Luciana Berger and Tristram Hunt

I wonder what the American playwright Arthur Miller would have made of all this crazy hysteria about anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. It certainly has a touch of the Salem witch trials and McCarthyism about it. Apart from the 'Jewish Chronicle', 'Jewish News' and the 'Jewish Telegraph', does anyone seriously believe that a Corbyn-led Labour government, would pose an 'existential threat' to Jews living in Britain?

Although the Labour MP Ruth Smeeth has claimed that under Jeremy Corbyn, Labour was not a "Safe space for British Jews", a group of fifteen Jewish Labour Party supporters recently wrote to the Guardian about the furore over anti-Semitism. They denied that Jewish people were living in fear of an 'existential threat' as some have claimed and pointed out that Jewish people are not threatened with deportation in this country, death in custody, stop and search, or economic discrimination, that many black and Asian people face on a daily basis.

Yet, Dame Margaret Hodge (née Oppenheimer) the Labour MP for Barnet, who slanderously called the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, a ‘fucking, racist, anti-Semite’, recently said in an interview that when she received a letter from the Labour Party saying  she faced a disciplinary investigation for her insulting remarks, it made her think - ‘What it felt like to be a Jew in Germany in the 3os.’ Hodge said she felt that - ‘they were coming for me’ and it reminded her of what her dad used to say to her as a child:

‘You've got to keep a packed suitcase at the door Margaret, in case you ever have to leave in a hurry.’

Have you ever heard anything more bleedin' ridiculous, talk about milking the holocaust! The Irish writer Brendan Behan would have perhaps understood Dame Margaret's persecution mania. He once remarked - "Others have a nationality. The Irish and the Jews have a psychosis." 

Despite the Nazi slur, Hodge was told that if she apologised, no action would be taken against her. Though disciplinary action was dropped against Hodge, who was a one-year-old when WWII ended - and still acts like she's a one-year-old - after  some Labour MPs threatened to leave the party, a Labour Party spokesman said: 

‘The comparison of the party's disciplinary process with Nazi Germany is so extreme and disconnected from reality, it diminishes the seriousness of the issue of anti-Semitism.’

Despite repeated claims that the Corbyn-led Labour Party, is mired in antisemitism, there has been a distinct lack of evidence to support any such claim. When Labour N.E.C. member Peter Willsman suggested that Jewish 'Trump fanatics' were making up allegations of antisemitism in the party and accused some Jews of "making up duff information without any evidence at all", Jewish community leaders reacted furiously, accusing Willsman of a disgusting rant against the Jewish community. The Board of Deputies, called for Willsman to be expelled from the Labour Party for his "Slur against the Jewish community." To ask where is the evidence? hardly seems, to most reasonable people, to suggest anti-Semitism or a slur on the Jewish community.

While anti-Semitism can be defined as "hostility to Jews as Jews", the term is being used in the most arbitrary of ways to silence critics and political opponents and free-speech. Jackie Walker who is Jewish and was Vice Chair of Momentum, was suspended twice for anti-Semitism, when she claimed that  many Jews including her own ancestors, were the chief financiers of the sugar and slave trade. Ken Livingstone, was suspended from the Labour Party and denounced by some as an anti-Semite, when he suggested that Hitler supported Zionism with the 'Haavara Agreement', signed in August 1933.


Corbyn has said that he's aghast at the spread of anti-Jewish conspiracy theories and would "not for one moment accept that a Labour government would represent any kind of threat" to Jewish life in Britain.


What seems to unite many of those who claim that Labour is mired in anti-Semitism, is they are, by and large, anti-Corbyn. They are horrified  at the very thought of a Corbyn-led  socialist Labour government and would prefer almost anything, even a Tory government. The Board of Deputies of British Jews have criticised Corbyn's links with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and they believe that to de-legitimise the state of Israel is anti-Semitic.


Chuka Umunna, (pictured above), the grandson of High Court Judge, Sir Helenus Milmo, has accused Labour of 'institutional racism'. But he's been criticised for using the anti-Semitism row, to justify his plans for founding a breakaway political party. His former girl friend, Luciana Berger, the Labour MP for Liverpool Wavertree (also pictured), is a former Director of Labour Friends of Israel (LFI). She once claimed that she had been spat on at a student conference for being Jewish. Ruth Smeeth, the Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent North and Kidsgrove, since 2015, is a former employee for the pro-Israel lobby group, 'Britain Israel Communications Centre' (BICOM).

According to WikiLeaks, Smeeth was identified by a U.S. embassy diplomatic cable as a "strictly protect" U.S. informant. Her husband Michael Smeeth, was a member of the 'British American Project' (BAP). In June 2016, Smeeth resigned her position in Corbyn's shadow cabinet. Her resignation coincided with 60 co-ordinated resignations by plotters aimed at forcing Corbyn to resign.


In 2004, the Guardian reported that BAP (possibly CIA funded), was essential in the formation of Tony Blair's 'New Labour' and described it as a Trojan horse for U.S. foreign policy. Two years ago (July 2016), Robert Stevens writing on the 'World Socialist Website', claimed that right-wing supporters of Tony Blair were spearheading an attempt to remove Jeremy Corbyn and to set up a new right-wing party in "intimate collusion" with the security services in Britain and the U.S. Stevens claimed that the plotters wanted to reverse the referendum result and re-fashion the Labour Party as a tool to carry this out.


Corbyn and his supporters, such as the union leader Len McCluskey, think that by Labour adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism, they can draw a line under the anti-Semitism row. This is highly unlikely and will probably result in even more accusations of anti-Semitism.

Despite denials that the IHRA definition does not conflate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, this is disputed by  Stephen Sedley, a former appeal court judge. In May 2017, (London Review of books), Sedley wrote that the definition failed the first test of any definition because "it is indefinite", and posed a threat to free speech. And to talk about anti-Semitism as solely a matter of perception, is according to Sedley, likely raise more questions than it answers.


In his article Sedley wrote that policy was not law and that "criticism (and equally defence) of Israel or of Zionism is not only generally lawful: it is affirmatively protected by law."

He added:
‘Endeavour to conflate the two by characterising everything other than anodyne criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic are not new. What is new is the adoption by the UK government (and the Labour Party) of a definition of anti-Semitism which endorses the conflation.’

The Corbyn witch-hunt is not likely to end with any adoption of a new definition of anti-Semitism and only a fool would think otherwise.

See also:    www,greenswipe.blogspot.com 

****************

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. 

******** 

The Two Faces of Jonathan Sacks

by Les May

THE first of these passages is taken from the 2015 book ‘Lessons in Leadership’ by Jonathan Sacks.

‘It is not enough to be righteous if that means turning our backs on a society that is guilty of wrongdoing.  We must take a stand.  We must protest.  We must register dissent even if the probability of changing minds is small.  This is because the moral life is the life we share with others.’

In 2016 he wrote:

‘Anti-Semitism is a virus that survives by mutating.  In the Middle Ages, Jews were hated because of their religion.  In the 19th and 20th centuries they were hated because of their race.  Today they are hated because of their nation state, Israel.  Anti-Zionism is the new anti-Semitism.’

http://rabbisacks.org/anti-zionism-is-the-new-anti-semitism-rabbi-sacks-writes-for-newsweek/

Demonstration by British Jews

*******

Lies, Damn Lies and Irony

by Les May

IT seems that nowadays we are all thought to be too stupid to understand a definition and have to be provided with an example.  Not wishing to buck the trend I give you an example.

It appeared on the Facebook page of the Jewish Studies professor Jerry Haber.  After he examined the proper context of what Corbyn had said by going back to the text of the speech by Manuel Hassassian, the Palestinian Authority representative to the UK, which Corbyn was referencing and which led to the ludicrous outburst from Jonathan Sacks.

— Did you hear that Jeremy Corbyn, in a speech in 2013, said that British Jews weren’t really British even if they were born there?

— Really?  He said that?

— Well, he intimated that British Jews couldn’t grasp English irony and didn’t understand history.”

— Really?  He was referring to Jews?

— Well, he didn’t SAY Jews, but he said that about UK Zionists, which is a leftwing code term for British Jews.

— Hang on, he made a reference to UK Zionists as a group?

— Well, not exactly.  Actually, he was referring to some pro-Israel members of the audience who came up and started arguing with the Palestinian ambassador who had presented the history of Palestine and used irony when he said, 'You know I’m reaching the conclusion that the Jews are the children of God, the only children of God and the Promised Land is being paid by God!  I have started to believe this because nobody is stopping Israel building its messianic dream of Eretz Israel to the point I believe that maybe God is on their side. Maybe God is partial on this issue.' which apparently some of the Zionists thought he meant without irony (We do not have a transcript of what they said).  And Corbyn referred to ‘the Zionists in the audience’.

— So, you mean to say he did not refer to British Zionists as a whole, but he was saying that the Palestinian ambassador, who is Armenian Palestinian, had a greater grasp of English irony, than these Brits who had lived in England all their lives?

— Yes, that’s about it.

— So, in effect, he accused pro-Israeli members of the audience, whom he referred to as ‘Zionists’, which they are, and who argued with the Palestinian ambassador, with being humourless and misunderstanding history, compared with the Palestinian ambassador.

— Yep.

— Well, that makes the man clearly an anti-Semite, doesn’t it?

And what does HIS interpretation make Jonathan Sacks?

Read the full story at:

  https://freespeechonisrael.org.uk/sacks-vs-corbyn/

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/writingfromtheedge/2018/07/the-jewish-war-against-corbyn-risks-bringing-real-antisemitism-to-britain/

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Calling Out Jonathan Sacks

by Les May

IT seems that once again Jonathan Sacks has chosen to attack JeremyCorbyn who he accused of contributing to Jews questioning whether Britain was still a safe place to raise children.  Which raises the question ‘If they do leave Britain where will they go which is a safer place?’
An 85 page report from the Institute for Jewish Policy Research with the title ‘Antisemitism in contemporary Great Britain: A study of attitudes towards Jews and Israel’ by L. Daniel Staetsky says on page 5:

‘… it is worth stressing a fact that runs the risk of being understated in a problem-centred report: levels of antisemitism in Great Britain are among the lowest in the world.’

and on page 64-65:

‘Looking at the political spectrum of British society, the most antisemitic group consists of those who identify as very right-wing. In this group about 14% hold hard-core antisemitic attitudes and 52% hold at least one attitude, compared again to 3.6% and 30% in the general population.  The very left-wing, and, in fact, all political groups located on the left, are no more antisemitic than the general population. This finding may come as a surprise to those who maintain that in today’s political reality, the left is the more serious, or at least, an equally serious source of antisemitism, than the right. Indeed, Jewish victims of antisemitic violence or harassment identify Muslims and the far-left as the chief perpetrators. This perception is not limited to victims of antisemitism. Three academic studies on the topic of left-wing antisemitism have been published over the past two years, 35 clearly indicating that the perception that the left has an issue with antisemitism is quite prevalent in the minds of Jews and scholars of political sociology and history. Is this view misguided or rooted in error? Not quite. It is simply insufficiently precise.

The left tends to see itself, and is commonly regarded, as an anti-racist and egalitarian political group, both in terms of its political goals and its modus operandi. This image tends to impact on people’s expectations of the left or, at the very least, draws attention to how well (or otherwise) it performs in relation to its own proclaimed values. We found that the left (including the far-left) is no less antisemitic than the general population. This is not a trivial finding, as it runs counter to the left’s self-proclaimed ethos. When the expectation is to find less antisemitism than elsewhere, the finding of ‘just the same’ level of antisemitism as elsewhere is likely to be noticed by politically attuned individuals. Simultaneously embarrassing the left and being used as a weapon by it critics, this dissonance becomes the centre of attention and gets accentuated.’ (my emphasis)

So what do you have to do to be classed as having an antisemitic attitude? Not very much it seems. Here is an example of what it takes on pages 63 and 64:

‘However, what Jews are exposed to far more frequently are people who hold, and from time to time may express, views that make Jews feel uncomfortable or offended. A person expressing such a view (e.g. ‘Jews think that they are better than other people’) may hold this view in isolation and may indeed hold a weak version of it, but when it is casually voiced in front of a Jewish individual, it can cause considerable upset and concern.’ (my emphasis)

Taken at its face value this means that one section of the population is demanding the right never to be offended and the right to tell us what we should think about them. This is a demand for exceptionalism.

At the risk of boring the reader by repetition ‘freedom of speech is having the right to tell people what they do not want to hear’. And that means having the right to say things which other people choose to find offensive or feel uncomfortable about. This right is protected by Article 10 of the European Convention. I’m not going to let the likes of Jonathan Sacks take it from me and I hope that Labour party members and supporters think likewise.

Labour needs to stop feeling embarrassed by having the epithet ‘antisemitic’ thrown at it and let people know that what Sacks and his ilk are trying to do is tell us what we should think.

You can find the report from which the above extracts are drawn at:

https://cst.org.uk/public/data/file/7/4/JPR.2017.Antisemitism%20in%20contemporary%20Great%20Britain.pdf

It is hardly surprising that our media are full of stories about antisemitism. In 2015 and 2016 alone, at least six surveys of attitudes towards Jews were carried out by polling firms in the UK (including YouGov, Populus, and ICM Unlimited) working on behalf of different academic and advocacy organisations and news outlets. With commendable honesty the report says ‘the polling of antisemitic attitudes is a burgeoning enterprise’.

What makes this report different is that it is difficult to fault the methodology or the presentation of the results. I urge you to download and read it.

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