David Rosenberg’s Open Letter to Hope Not Hate against the Anti-Semitism Smear

Okay, I’ve just put up a long piece reporting and commenting on Tony Greenstein’s article refuting a piece by Nick Lowles, the head of Hope Not Hate, attacking Labour for ‘anti-Semitism’. Lowles’ article is entitled ‘Labour and Anti-Semitism: The Way Back from this New Low’. In it, Lowles appears to swallow completely the anti-Semitism smears of the Israel lobby and the British establishment, and demands that Labour adopt the I.H.R.A. definition of anti-Semitism. This is the very same definition that is being used to suppress criticism of Israel as ‘anti-Semitic.’

It’s a long and detailed article, at the end of which Greenstein concludes

It is extremely unfortunate that HnH and Nick Lowles have gone back on this promise and followed Searchlight down the road to a reactionary ‘anti-fascism’ which ends up supporting the very system that produces fascism. HnH’s attacks on Jackie Walker have been equally as disgusting.

We can only suggest that Nick Lowles and his followers take to heart the advice of Maurice Ludmer above.

David Rosenberg, of the Jewish Socialist Group, has gone much further than just criticising, and has written an open letter to Hope Not Hate stating that he no longer wishes to receive their emails. He writes

FOR THE ATTENTION OF NICK LOWLES

I have reluctantly decided not to carry on getting emails from Hope Not Hate, an organisation I have been proud to be associated with.
Among various activities I did with HNH I was very pleased in particular to take part in interviews which were part of your Cable Street 80 website work. I was very pleased to have played a part in the brilliant work that HNH did in Barking/Dagenham in 2010 when we put literature through every door in the borough. I have made donations to HNH’s work.

But to see an Anti-Racist and Anti-Fascist organisation writing libellous stuff about one of the most committed opponents of racism and fascism, and one of the most dedicated supporters of human rights I have met in my life, whom I have known personally for more than 30 years, is too much.

I’m not talking about the mural. I could recognise the not very coded antisemitic messages in what, at a very superficial level, looks like an anti-capitalist statement. And Jeremy Corbyn should have too. He has expressed regret that he didn’t look at it more closely before posting a clumsy, throwaway remark about an attack on a piece of free street art. I wonder why this wasn’t raised with him in 2012 when it happened?

What I am talking about is your untrue and incredibly damaging statement, that you know is a lie, that he gave money to a well-known Holocaust denier. You are referring to money that was given to The Deir Yassin campaign many years ago, at a meeting in which the audience were invited to donate, in which several liberal/reform rabbis were also in attendance. I don’t know if any of them gave donations. I do know that the Deir Yassin campaign sometimes held meetings in a liberal synagogue. I am not aware of anyone else who may have given that night being accused of giving money to a Holocaust denier.

The person running that campaign was a pro-Palestinian Jew who, at the time, seemed plausible to many people. If Corbyn is guilty of anything on this occasion it is giving money in good faith to a Pro-Palestinain Jew. Some years later that individual started blogging in his own name – not in the name of the organisation that Corbyn donated to on genuine grounds – statements that crossed a line from perfectly legitimate opposition to Zionism, to totally illegitimate antisemitism. And the more he wrote, the more he entered the quagmire of Holocaust denial.

Jeremy Corbyn would have needed to be clairvoyant to know that the person would take that turn, and would have been extremely surprised to see a Jew take that path.

There were other distortions in the HNH letter – like blaming Jeremy Corbyn for responding a couple of times, when he was specifically tagged, with perfectly legitimate comments on a Facebook site which he was added to, rather than signed up himself. Apparently he did not look at every post on that site which had many thousands of contributors, some of which were antisemitic. That to me is a ridiculous form of guilt by association.

But it is the defamatory and disgraceful accusation trying to link Jeremy Corbyn with Holocaust denial that was my last straw as far as your organisation is concerned.

I have other avenues to pursue my anti-racist and anti-fascist activism – which I will of course do. And I have no doubt that I will continue to see Jeremy Corbyn on some of these activities. He has been part of anti-racist and anti-fascist struggles since his teens. Though I doubt I will see many of the people that have opportunistically gone on a “Get Corbyn” hunt this week, in the course of those activities.

Yours in considerable disappointment

David Rosenberg

See: https://azvsas.blogspot.com/2018/08/nick-lowles-and-hope-not-hate-join.html

I also receive emails from Hope Not Hate, and have been very happy to post material from them attacking Fascism in Britain and abroad. I would very much like to continue to do so. But I am very disappointed with their leaders’ attack on Corbyn and their blithe acceptance of the anti-Semitism smears. I hope they change their attitudes, and see through the smears and libels against Jeremy Corbyn and good people like him, such as Mike, Jackie Walker, Ken Livingstone, Tony Greenstein himself and so very many others.

I respect, however, David Rosenberg’s decision not to receive anything further from them. Perhaps if a few more dedicated anti-Fascists threatened to do as he has done, or wrote similar articles or letters of complaint as himself and Greenstein, Hope Not Hate would changes its attitude for the better.