Tony Greenstein Announces Launch of New Group against Anti-Semitism Smears and Witch-Hunt

Last Saturday, 21st October 2017, there was a meeting in London for the victims of the campaign of smearing and suspensions by the Blairites and the Zionist lobby in the Labour party. These two factions have tried to hold on to their flimsy power base in the Labour party and defend Israel and it’s continued persecution and ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Palestinians by falsely accusing decent, anti-racist people, both gentiles and Jews, of anti-Semitism when they have rightly criticised Israel for this. The victims of this witch-hunt include, and some would go so far as to say, specifically target, Torah-observant and self-regarding secular Jews. Many of these Jews condemn Israel and its brutal maltreatment of the Palestinians because of their liberal Jewish beliefs, which they feel command them always to side with the oppressed, never with the oppressor. They object to the massacres, home seizures and ethnic cleansing of Israel’s indigenous Arabs precisely because it is how Jews have been historically persecuted.

Thousands have had their names besmirched, and been suspended and excluded from the Labour party. They include Ken Livingstone, Jackie Walker and Tony Greenstein himself.

Now the victims are fighting back, and demanding an end to the witch-hunt. Mr Greenstein has put up an article about the meeting today on his website. He describes recent events which saw the Jewish groups at the Labour party demand the expulsion of the Jewish Labour Movement, the Zionist group in the Labour party that has been responsible for many of these smears. Greenstein has also pointed out that while the organisation claims to be Jewish, the majority, or at least a sizable minority of its members are actually gentiles. He also discusses personal embarrassments to the Blairites’ and Zionists’ leaders. The two factions have overreached themselves in the expulsion of the very respected Israeli academic and socialist, Moshe Machover. Machover is a distinguished academic and mathematician, and his Matzpen organisation in Israel includes both Jews and Arabs. The Blairites summarily expelled him, and now have found themselves inundated by calls by his supporters to have him reinstated.

Greenstein lays out the new organisations few, simple policies in the first paragraphs. They are

The time has come to fight back. The Left simply cannot allow the Right to continue with expelling those they don’t like. The Momentum leadership under Lansman, which should have taken on the fight against the witch hunt has, instead, got into bed with the witch hunters. It was Lansman and his friends who laid the basis for Jackie Walker’s suspension from the Labour Party by removing Jackie from her position as Vice Chair of Momentum. If people really want to see a radical and socialist government under Jeremy Corbyn we have to stop the witch hunt in its tracks. Indeed we need to be rooting out the Blairite bureaucracy.

•1. No auto exclusions Everyone has the right to a hearing. The Chakrabarti Report found that Labour’s disciplinary and complaints procedures “… lacked sufficient transparency, uniformity and expertise” and failed to observe “the vital legal principles of due process (or natural justice) and proportionality”.

•2. It is unacceptable that there are differing definitions of anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism isn’t a difficult thing to define. It is hostility or hatred of Jews. You don’t need a 450 word definition unless your purpose is to conflate opposition to Zionism, the ideology that led to the foundation of the Israeli state and genuine anti-Semitism.

Corbyn has adopted the short, two sentence International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition

“Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

This definition is itself too imprecise, open ended and uncertain. What makes it unacceptable is that it introduces and lays the basis for 11 ‘examples’ of anti-Semitism, 7 of which relate to Israel. In other words the whole purpose of the definition is to conflate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. Whilst Corbyn has not adopted these 11 examples the Labour bureaucracy has. We have therefore adopted the definition first espoused by Professor Brian Klug of Oxford University in his lecture ‘Echoes of Shattering Glass’ delivered in his 2014 lecture in Berlin’s Jewish Museum on the anniversary of Kristallnacht.

‘antisemitism is a form of hostility to Jews as Jews, where Jews are perceived as something other than what they are.’

3. Thirdly our demand is that the Compliance Unit is abolished. It is completely undemocratic and unaccountable. Instead all disciplinary action is to be taken by elected bodies in future.

It is important that LAW builds itself quickly in the coming months and engages in a series of activities, such as a picket of the NEC to demand the reinstatement of Moshe Machover to holding meetings and a conference.

He also states that a four-person Executive Committee was elected, consisting of himself and Jackie Walker, Stan Keable, and Pete Firmin.

The groups is actively looking for new members.

See: http://azvsas.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/labour-against-witchhunt-forms-in.html

Greenstein is exactly correct in his definition of anti-Semitism. This goes back to the League of Anti-Semites in Wilhelmine Germany and its founder, Wilhelm Marr. Marr defined it as a hatred of Jews as a race or ethnic group, without regard to Judaism as a religion or any other beliefs or ideologies. They had a revolting little rhyme about how the ‘swinishness’ was ‘in the blood’.

He, and other critics of Israel and Zionism, have shown time and again that historically Zionism was peripheral to Judaism; that many Jews opposed it as a blasphemous secularisation of their religion; and that, horrifically, Zionists have had contempt for diaspora Jews, and have been willing to collaborate with genuine anti-Semites, including the Nazis for a brief period, in order to further their goals of creating a Jewish state in Palestine.

And they have used the accusation of anti-Semitism to smear and silence their opponents. Despite the danger that they are crying ‘Wolf’, and that one day, because of their abuse of the term, nobody will be bothered by the emergence of the real wolves.

Mr. Greenstein, Jackie Walker, Stan Keable and Peter Firmin have my very best wishes for their organisation and its aims. I hope that at long last, justice will prevail and decent people may at last be able to speak about Israel and its barbarous treatment of the Palestinians without fear of being expelled or slandered.

Tags: 'Kristallnacht', 'Momentum', anti-racism, anti-semitism, Anti-Semitism Smears, Berlin, Brian Klug, Ethnic Cleansing, International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, Israel Lobby, Jackie Walker, Jewish Labour Movement, Jewish Museum, Jews, Ken Livingstone, Lansman, League of Anti-Semites, London, Matzpen, Moshe Machover, Palestinians, Peter Firmin, racism, Shami Chakrabarti, Stan Keable, tony blair, Tony Greenstein, Wilhelm Marr, Zionism