This is a video I’ve just uploaded to my YouTube channel attacking the suspension of Chris Williamson and the anti-Semitism smears against Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters in the Labour Party by the Blairites, and the political and media establishment.
Here’s the blurb I’ve put up for it:
In this video I attack the campaign of lies and smears against Chris Williamson, Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters in the Labour party. They are not Trotskyites, Communists or anti-Semites, as alleged, but members and supporters who believe in its traditional policies and values before Blair and his Thatcherite ‘modernisation’. Many are also smeared because they believe in Palestinian rights against the brutality of the Israeli state. So there is a campaign by the Israel lobby of smearing them as anti-Semites. Those accused and suspended have been decent, anti-racist non-Jewish people like Williamson and Marc Wadsworth, and self-respecting Torah-observant and secular Jews, like Jackie Walker.
I state that Williamson was right when he said that Labour was the most anti-racist party, and that they had given too much ground to claims of anti-Semitism. Because in many cases they weren’t real claims, but smears. Labour is now the biggest Socialist party with a membership of 500,000, far larger than the Tories. And that frightens Labour’s opponents. These include the Blairites in the Labour party and the Israel lobby. The Blairites fear Corbyn and his supporters because they, the Blairites, stand for Thatcherism – privatisation, including that of the NHS, and the destruction of the welfare state. This has led to mass poverty, a quarter of a million people using food banks, 3.5 million children in poverty, mass starvation and people stealing food from supermarkets because of problems with Universal Credit. And this is also what the people, who split from Labour, Luciana Berger, Chris Leslie, Ann Coffee, Mike Gapes stand for. The Blairites are not ‘Centrists’ nor Social Democrats.
Corbyn’s supporters, on the other hand, have been smeared as Trotksyites and Communists. They are neither. Corbyn’s policies are actually closer to the Social Democratic politics of the 1970s as set down by Anthony Crossland. These were the nationalisation of the utilities, strong trade unions, progressive taxation and social mobility. He believed these would bring the benefits of nationalisation without having to go beyond the nationalisation of the utilities or bring about industrial democracy. The Labour manifesto demands the nationalisation of the rail and water industries, strong trade unions and workers’ rights. It also wants working people and employees on company boards. Which is more radical than historical Social Democracy, but not that much more extreme, as the Labour left were considering it in the 1970s.
The Israel lobby and the Jewish establishment are also keen to attack Corbyn and his supporters because they support the Palestinians. But this does not mean hatred for Israel or the Jewish people. It’s the Israeli state which makes people believe it does. And Corbyn has the support of many Jews – Jewish voice for Labour, for example, and spent the Passover Seder with the Socialist Jews of Jewdas. But these are the wrong type of Jews – Jewish socialists. The type of Jews, who, at the beginning of the last century, the right of the Tory party and groups like the British Brothers’ League were telling people were a threat, because they were going to bring with them Communism, Socialism, Anarchism, and throw millions out of work. And the newspapers now repeating this today, like the Daily Mail, were responsible for these smears then. Lord Rothermere was a fan of Hitler.
I point out how false these claims are with the example of Jackie Walker and Marc Wadsworth. Walker’s a proud lady of colour, whose mother was a Black American civil rights worker with some Jewish blood, and her father was a Russian Jew. And Russian Jews know about anti-Semitism – Russia is the only country where you can buy the vile Protocols of the Elders of Zion on street kiosks. But she’s been smeared as an anti-Semite. As have so many other secular and Torah-observant Jews, some of who are the children of Holocaust survivors, or lost family in the Holocaust.
Then there’s Marc Wadsworth, who was smeared because he embarrassed Ruth Smeeth. They tried to smear him as an anti-Semite, because that’s how the press told it. But he wasn’t. Wadsworth’s a Black anti-racism campaigner, who worked with the Board of Deputies of British Jews in the 1990s to frame stronger legislation against anti-Semitism when the BNP were beating Jews up around the Isle of Dogs. When the anti-Semitism accusation wouldn’t stick, they changed it to ‘bringing the Labour party into disrepute’. But he hadn’t. It was Smeeth, who had brought the Labour party into disrepute with her false accusations.
As you can see, this is quite an angry, impassioned piece. But this is a glaring injustice that infuriates me. I want this witchhunt, which I compare to that of 17th century Salem or McCarthyism, as Jackie Walker has said, to end.
This is the video for Jon Pullman’s movie, Witchhunt, about the persecution of former Momentum vice-chair, Jackie Walker, on the completely risible and mendacious charge of anti-Semitism. As I’ve said many times before, Walker is a Jewish lady of colour. Her mother was a Black civil rights activist and her father a Russian Jew. They met on a civil rights demo. She is also a Jew by faith, her partner is also Jewish, and she sends her daughter to a Jewish school. All her life she has campaigned against racism, including anti-Semitism. But she does not agree with the I.H.R.A.’s definition of anti-Semitism or the Jewish Labour Movement’s handling of Holocaust Memorial Day. And so a trumped up charge of anti-Semitism was brought against her on the basis of a sloppily worded statement about Jewish involvement in the transatlantic slave trade, a trade that was initiated and very largely in the hands of Christians. As she has pointed out.
The video begins with the overwhelming election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader. It then moves to Evan Davies and Rabbi Julia Neuberger claiming that there is an anti-Semitism problem in the Labour party. A man, speaking outside the Department of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London stating that the establishment will do anything they can to rubbish Corbyn and anyone close to him. It then goes on to show the various news presenters stating that Walker had been suspended. Then Walker appears to state that what was happening to the Palestinians was unspeakable, and you couldn’t ignore it. Followed by footage the Israelis sending planes to bomb and strafe Gaza, and an injured Arab child being taken out of an ambulance. Walker states that, for her, Gaza was the last straw. Corbyn is shown speaking at a pro-Gaza demonstration. Erdan, an Israeli apparatchik, speaks of economic and political warfare.
The great Israeli mathematician and supporter of Palestinian rights, Moshe Machover, who was also thrown out of the Labour party for anti-Semitism, before being readmitted because of public outcry, appears to describe the appoint of Erdan as the ‘head of this ministry’, which appears to be the Ministry of Strategic Affairs and Public Diplomacy. There’s a headline from the Electronic Intifada talking about the Anti-Semitism smear campaign. Walker quotes her mother, who said, ‘You can make anyone look a devil if you want to.’ There is then a map showing the links between the various anti-Zionist organisation from what appears to be pro-Israeli propaganda. Machover appears again to state that the goal of the Zionists is to make anyone who is non-Zionist or anti-Zionist appear anti-Semitic. This is followed by footage of a baying mob of Zionists all claiming to be demonstrating against anti-Semitism.
Jewish Voice for Labour’s Naomi Winborne-Idrissi appears, stating that this is all taking place during a shift to the right, in this country as well as others, and that Jeremy Corbyn is a threat. A young man says that what we find is an overwhelming emphasis on sources mobilising against Corbyn with a particular agenda. There is a shot of page from the Media Reform Coalition on the anti-Semitism smear against Corbyn, which they state is a disinformation campaign. A Black man says that people want moral slurs. They don’t want balanced stories. They want black and white stories. Walker says that what they are seeing with anti-Semitism, they have seen with McCarthyism. She is followed by Machover again saying that Walker was selected as a test case. Walker herself says that someone in the Compliance Unit said that the case against her was ‘pretty weak’. But this pretty weak case has smashed her reputation. A white-haired man says the pressure and attacks on Walker, with her lifetime of fighting racism, is to send a message ‘we can get you’.
The video ends with the film’s title fading out against a black background.
This is the trailer for a movie, that frightened Luciana Berger so much that she complained to the Labour party about its screening, and had it cancelled. And I don’t doubt that she was also one of the snitches claiming that Chris Williamson, the MP who booked the room for it, is a terrible anti-Semite who should be suspended.
And no wonder. It looks like cinematic dynamite that could well blow more than ‘the bloody doors off’ the whole revolting anti-Semitsm smear charade. It seems very clear from this that Corbyn, his associates and in this instance, Walker herself, are very much the targets of a very coordinated and orchestrated Israeli and establishment smear campaign. And it obviously is going to get both very worried. To use a turn of phrase from the SF movie Aliens, it’s going to make them stop their grinning and drop their linen’.
The film is due to be released March 17th, and will tour various British cities with its director, including Brighton and Derry in NI. I will be delighted if it comes to Bristol or anywhere nearby where I can catch it.
My very best wishes to Jackie, and to all involved in this movie. May you prevail, and the hatemongers, smear-artists and spineless moral cowards, who support them be swept away.
Here’s another glaring injustice in the Labour party. Yesterday Mike put up on his blog a piece about Tony Blair, who appeared in the Independent giving his support to the wretched Independent grouping. The war criminal, whose decision to invade Iraq with George ‘Dubya’ Bush and a coterie of allies, has killed a million people and displaced a further 7 million in the Middle East, said
“Last week several MPs defected to form a new political grouping.
“These are new times. We need, despite our moderation, to embrace the spirit of insurgency.
“We need new ideas and thinking on policy. Above all, we need to wake up, gird up, stand up and summon up the strength and intelligence to prevail.”
Now it’s probably no surprise that Blair supports the Independent Grouping. Like him, they’re neoliberals, who stand for privatisation, including that of the NHS, destroying more of the welfare state, and are desperate to avoid a public inquiry into the invasion of Iraq. Oh yes, and they’re pro-EU. There were rumours a little while ago that Blair himself was going to launch a centrist party, and then that his son, Euan, was going to be its leader. And it’s been suggested that if the Independent group persists, then Blair will return to politics, a prospect that gave left-wing vlogger Gordon Dimmack nightmares.
It’s also fascinating seeing Blair try to present the Independents as something new and ‘insurgent’, when they’re the absolute opposite. They’re just the same shop-worn, deadbeat Thatcherism with a new, but very corporate and anti-democratic package. But remember this comes from Blair, who tried to market his style of politics as ‘the radical centre’. Which is a contradiction in terms, except when applied to the Nazis in the 1980s, who infiltrated the German liberal party, the Freie Demokraten.
But apart from attempting to present the Independents’ zombie policies as something living and dynamic, Blair’s speech is remarkable for something else: it breaks Labour party regulations. These explicitly state that no Labour party member may support or promote a rival party. By these terms, Blair should be thrown out. One Tweeter, Socialist Bangers, has already sent a message to the Compliance Unit in the Party suggesting that they should get rid of Blair. Martin Odoni, a great friend of Mike’s blog, was so incensed that he has also put up a specimen letter for others to use demanding Blair’s expulsion. See: https://thegreatcritique.wordpress.com/2019/02/26/suspend-tony-blair-from-the-labour-party-with-immediate-effect-template/
Unfortunately Mike considers it doubtful that they will, because at the moment the Compliance Unit seems determined to preserve the privileges of MPs and the party elite. Which contrasts strongly with its determination to persecute the innocent with fake accusations of anti-Semitism. As Blair seems to. The murderer of millions stated that anti-Semitism in the Labour party was a running sore, but gave no examples. Well, obviously, he couldn’t, because some of the cases are so flimsy that they should be greeted with gales of laughter rather than indulged and prosecuted.
Mike concludes his article
While innocent party members continue to be cast out under false claims of anti-Semitism that will trouble them for the rest of their lives, this elitist will be able to carry on preaching falsehoods to eager ears – because it’s what his fellow elites in the Labour leadership want. They are very much like the Conservatives in that respect. Wait a couple of weeks and then tell me if I’m wrong.
And it’s a scandal that he’s going to be exactly right.
The rabid Eurosceptics of UKIP, the Leave campaign and various other groups frequently claim that the EU is the product of Nazism. James Goddard, the noxious, racist leader of the British ‘Yellow Vest’ movement, was filmed last week screaming ‘Nazi’ at Anna Soubry for her support of the Remain vote and a second referendum. He’s one of those, who believe that the EU really does owe its origin to the Nazis, and screamed this at Soubry as he subjected her to abuse. Well, Soubry is far right, but because of her contemptible attitude to the poor and refusal to hold a bye-election along with the other members of the Independent group. But she’s not a Nazi for supporting the EU, and Goddard and others, who believe that the EU was somehow spawned by Hitler and his thugs are simply wrong.
I was taught at school when we studied the EU that it had its origins in a series of economic arrangements creating free trade zones between France and Germany, and then Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, which were intended to stop the rise of such destructive nationalism and prevent further European wars. And the idea of a European parliament or federation to preserve peace long predates that. The Quaker William Penn in the 17th century wrote a pamphlet recommending a European parliament as a means of securing peace after the horrors of the 16th and 17th century wars of religion, including the Thirty Years’ War, in which 1/5 of the German population starved to death. In the 18th century, the great German philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote his The Peace of Europe, recommending a European federation, again as a means of stopping war. In the 19th century, the Italian revolutionary Mazzini also believed in a European federation as a means of guaranteeing peace.
Germany, with France, is one of the two mainstays of the EU. And while the EU has allowed Germany to dominate Europe economically, to the disadvantage of other nations, like the Greeks, that’s not why the German people support the EU. They support it because they genuinely believe it is needed to prevent the resurgence of militant nationalism, like that of the Nazis.
It also seems to me that some of this attitude goes back to the wartime Kreisau Circle, a movement of socialist and bourgeois intellectuals and anti-Nazi clergy, who met on the estate of the nobleman, Count Helmuth James Moltke in Kreisau in Silesia. They were determined to find a way to end the Nazi dictatorship and create a more just European order which would prevent such tyrannies ever returning. And this included a united, federal Europe. The German historian, Karl Dietrich Bracher, discusses the group’s ideas in his book, The German Dictatorship (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1970). Their ideas of a federal Europe are described on pages 544 -45. He writes
At the centre of the discussions of this multifaceted group were the internal reforms, the basis of the new post-Hitler order. The approach to foreign policy mentioned earlier points up the unique qualities but also the limitations of the Kreisau Circle: the break with nationalism; the movement towards a European internationalism rejecting both the French hegemony of Versailles and the old and new ideas on German hegemony; German-French and German-Polish understanding in the place of disputed territorial demands. These ideas were largely the work of the Socialists (Haubach, Leber and Reichwein); Leber had consistently maintained that the principles of economic cooperation and democratic domestic policy must also govern international relations. But Moltke and his friends, also departing from the historico-political traditional ideas of their class, spoke of the Europeanisation of political thought and of the need for revising the idea of the state as an end in itself. The problem of East German and East European nationality policies gave rise to the idea of a supranational, federalist solution. Moltke quite early had devoted himself to the problem of the minorities. This formed the basis on which cooperation with exponents of Socialist, internationalist concepts could be worked out. In some respects Moltke went even further by raising the seemingly utopian idea of the division of Germany and Europe into small, self-administered bodies. This type of radical federalism, which invoked the sovereignty of a European federation, meant a revolutionary break with nineteenth- and twentieth-century modes of thought, according to which the defence against ‘particularlism’ and support for the national unitary state was the highest law.
The practical proposals of the Kreisau Circle lagged far behind such radical models. But even more ‘realistic’ supporters of a moderate national idea like Trott zu Solz made the preservation of the existing states dependent on a restricted sovereignty in favour of a European federation. While Moltke represented the most consistent moral and legalistic position and was highly critical of appeasement and its disregard of international principles of law in favour of national revisionism. Trott believed that concessions to the traditional national principle were indispensable. But in 1938 he, too, unlike Goerdeler, came out for the 1933 borders and against territorial claims; central to his idea of Europe was German-British cooperation. Beyond that, Trott expressly stressed the role of the working class, in which ‘a strong tradition of international cooperation and rational politics’ still lived on. Apparently he had in mind in particular the example of the United States, and he visualised a unified Europe with a common economic policy and citizenship, a ‘joint highest court’, and possibly also a European army. Leaving aside the question of whether or not some of the visionary details were realistic, the basic idea of a non-nationalist Europe in which neither a strong France nor a strong Germany would tip the scales offered a more constructive vision of the future and also more persuasive alternative to Hitler than the regressive ideas of Goerdeler. (My emphasis.)
This, I think, is where some of the origins of the EU lie. And definitely not in Nazi propaganda about a European union of states under German domination to fight communism. When Goddard, the Kippers and the other anti-EU fanatics spout that the EU was created by the Nazis, they’re flat out wrong. And revealing their own poisonous ultra-nationalism in the process.
I’m a fan of Novara media and its editor in chief, Ash Sarkar. She’s young, bright and with a very incisive grasp of politics and a firm supporter of the left-wing policies we need to put this country back on its feet, empower ordinary people, and fight real racism. I think the company generally supports Corbyn and the Labour party. But I was immensely disappointed earlier this week by a video in which Sarkar talked to James Butler and Kehinde Andrews, a professor of Black Studies at one of the universities in a piece entitled ‘The Blair Rich Project’. The video’s on YouTube, and is 1 hour and 24 minutes long. I tried watching it, but gave up after about 20 minutes when James Butler declared that the belief that Israel was involved in the anti-Semitism accusations was only held by a minority of Labour supporters, who were themselves anti-Semitic.
This is the establishment narrative, although I dare say that Butler thinks he was countering it by stressing that the people, who hold this belief are only a tiny minority. But the people, who believe that the Israeli state is involved in these smears are absolutely right. The anti-Semitism accusations are part of Israeli hasbara, civilian propaganda. The point has been made again and again by activists and journalists like Tony Greenstein, Glenn Greenwald, Asa Winstanley of the Electronic Intifada. Who was earlier this week in a discussion about this with The Real News alternative news network. The Real News is based in Boston, America. Al-Jazeera, the Arab news agency, and it’s subsidiary channel, AJ+, has unsurprisingly exposed Israeli involved in British, and now American domestic politics. Those making these revelations aren’t anti-Semites either. Greenstein’s Jewish, as is, I think, Greenwald, who writes for the Intercept.
But for some reason Novara Media are ignoring all this. Butler blithely seemed to accept unquestioningly that the Israeli state wasn’t involved, and that the people, who believed it were ‘conspiracy theorists’. Well, genuine conspiracies exist. And Israeli hasbara and state-directed smears of Corbyn are one of them.
But I do wonder why Butler, and his boss, Sarkar, don’t believe this. it might be that, like so many of the British media, they simply have a blind spot about the secret state. Or else they believe that, as anti-racists, they should reject any accusations about a plot by an ethnic minority, even when that plot is real, and the perpetrators don’t represent all of their ethnic group. The Israeli state and lobby claim that they represent all Jews, but they clearly don’t. Not even close, as Jews like Greenstein and Walker, who have been accused of anti-Semitism and self-hatred would attest. Perhaps it’s simply the mainstream academic disdain for parapolitics and conspiracy theories, which are seen only as the province of the stupid, paranoid and hateful.
Or perhaps Butler and Novara are afraid that if they give credence to the idea that the Israeli state is behind these vile smears, they’ll be accused of anti-Semitism in turn, and that the station’s financiers and advertisers will pull out, causing it to go under. It’s a small station, and so is very vulnerable financially.
It could be either or both of the above. Or any number of other explanations. But I’m disappointed that they haven’t realised what is really going on behind these smears, and who is directing and ultimately responsible for them.
In yesterday’s I, regular columnist Simon Kelner launched another tirade against Jeremy Corbyn, fulminating about the Labour leader still remaining as head of the party despite all the anti-Semitism accusations.
I didn’t read it, because there’s absolutely no need. Kelner has previously gone on the attack, claiming that Corbyn and his supporters are terrible anti-Semites, because they ignore the wishes of the Jewish public. Which means right-wing, establishment, Conservative Jews, who like Tories everywhere despise Corbyn for standing up for the poor, working people and socialism. He hates Corbyn and the Labour left – actually the real moderates, and not the Blairite Neoliberals – because they are daring to challenge four decades of Thatcherism, its monstrous failures and destruction of human lives and the prosperity and welfare of the ordinary people of this country. Which of course includes Jews. He, and the rest of the establishment, also hate Corbyn because he dares to stand up for the Palestinians, against the policies of a genocidal Israeli state. Hence the determination with which members of the Israel lobby deliberately conflate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. Or even moderate Zionism with anti-Semitism. I remember how a group of moderate Zionists were viciously attacked and smeared on social media as anti-Semites because, as observant Jews and humane people, they had tried to comfort Palestinians, who had been gunned down by the IDF, and said the Jewish prayer for the dead, the Kadish, over one of those killed. If I recall correctly, the Kadish is a verse from the Hebrew Bible, the Christian Old Testament:
The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord forever.’
But it was too much that pious, godfearing Jews should pray for Arabs, who in the minds of these racist fanatics are all subhuman terrorists!
And this is the type of fanatic Kelner and the rest of the media are protecting and defending, even if they claim to be for peace in the Middle East. Because they are attacking those, who are genuinely for peace and justice between Jews and Palestinians in Israel, and are prepared to stand up for this, rather than mouth fine-sounding platitudes about the ‘two-state solution’ without taking it seriously. Like Joan Ryan.
But Kelner is also probably exasperated because it shows that a substantial part of the Labour party and by extension, the British public, no longer take the accusations of anti-Semitism seriously. People are still supporting him, no matter what smears and scandals they manufacture. And an increasing number of people are calling it what it is: hasbara. Israeli civilian propaganda. Lamestream hacks and media personalities like Kelner aren’t convincing people that Corbyn and his supporters are anti-Semites. Because the public knows better. And the more the establishment smears Corbyn, the more people become convinced that he isn’t, and that they’re afraid of him for entirely different reasons. Like genuine social justice, anti-racism and the empowerment of working people. The stuff Kelner, who I believe used to write for the Heil, hates. And I’ve blogged before about how even members of the Israel lobby are finding that increasingly people don’t believe their lies about anti-Semitism. And Kelner is obviously one of them.
Which proves the opponents of these smears right. The anti-Semitism smear is over-used. It’s just people like Kelner and Robert Peston crying ‘Wolf’. And because of that, they’re also desensitizing people to the genuine anti-Semitism of some of the really horrific regimes in eastern Europe, and Nazi groups over here like the banned National Action.
Kelner and his colleagues are hack propagandists, and the sooner the type of media they represent die, the better. In the meantime, if you want to get real news, go to some of the amazing left-wing news and comment sites on the Net and YouTube.
Dress of accused and condemned witches, From Roger Hart, Witchcraft (Hove: Wayland 1971) p. 84.
The witchhunters have claimed another victim. This time its Chris Williamson, one of Corbyn’s staunchest supporters, who has been forced to apologise and suspended from the party by Jenny Formby. Why? Oh, shock, horror! He had the temerity to make a speech, enthusiastically applauded by his local party, in which he asked how Labour, the most anti-racist party, had now become smeared as institutionally anti-Semitic. It was, he said, because they had given too much ground. They were too apologetic. And no-one had done more to address the scourge of anti-Semitism than they had. Then, after meeting Corbyn, he issued a statement saying that the party could never be too apologetic about anti-Semitism in its ranks.
He also issued a statement that he had been an anti-racist all his life, and had been a member of the anti-Nazi league. He participated in street action againstanti-Semitism, and rejects racism ethically and morally.
But now, like the other accused, he is being investigated for ‘a pattern of behaviour’.
Mike over on his blog makes the point that Willliamson was not making any kind of anti-Semitic statement. He was saying that real anti-Semitism should be investigated and punished, but those making false accusations should also meet with an appropriate response. But this is too much for the witchunters, like the vile Tom Watson and the odious, smirking, entitled Luciana Berger. They want his head for daring to stand up for the innocent.
There may also be another factor in Williamson’s suspension. This notorious racist and bigot had booked a room in the House of Commons for a preview screening of the film Witchhunt, about the persecution of Jackie Walker. Walker is the Jewish lady of colour, with anti-racism in her blood through her mother, a Black civil rights campaigner, and Russian Jewish father. She was suspended from the Labour under another accusation of anti-Semitism because of sloppy remarks about Jewish involvement in the transatlantic slave trade, run by Christian monarchs and states. The screening had been arranged with the awesome Jewish Voice for Labour, and Williamson had no other role in organising the event.
The film is due to go on tour around selected cities in Britain with its director, Jon Pullman. It has been acclaimed by Mike Leigh and Peter Kosminski, who are both Jewish. Leigh will be familiar to cinephiles as a highly respected, veteran film director. I think it was Leigh, who made the critically acclaimed Kes. It is also strongly supported by the Israeli historian, Avi Shlaim, of Oxford University. Shlaim said of it ‘Anyone who speaks or writes in the public domain about antisemitism and the current state of the Labour Party has a duty to see this film and address the issues it raises.’ Professor Shlaim was one of the experts interviewed nine years ago in Peter Oborne’s documentary, ‘The Israel Lobby’ on Channel 4’s Despatches. Shlaim specialises in Middle Eastern history, and told how journalists reporting Israel’s atrocities in the Middle East have been smeared as anti-Semites when they have correctly and objectively reported events. Berger was also outraged that Walker was attending the event when he case hasn’t been heard yet. Mike’s response on his blog is essentially, ‘tough!’ Walker’s innocent until proven guilty, or that’s the basic principle in British law. But like all totalitarian fanatics, the witchhunters don’t believe in basic legal principles or justice. Otherwise you wouldn’t have such stupid and nebulous accusations like ‘a pattern of behaviour’.
Berger’s snivelling hasn’t gone down too well on Twitter, whose peeps duly tore her and her wretched whining apart.
It seems the showing also coincided with a debate by Paole Zion, sorry, the Jewish Labour Movement, about whether they should disaffiliate from the Labour party. Mike says the should, and the sooner the better, because of the mischief they’ve caused.
Tony Greenstein has also blogged about this disgusting episode, suggesting that it may be the end of the Corbyn project. Quite simply, Corbyn’s response to accusations of anti-Semitism is to cave, and throw his supporters to the wolves. But his opponents will not be appeased and will keep on making these accusations until they finally get him.
He is also strongly critical of the supposed left-wing Labour MPs, who have failed to support Williamson, such as Denis Skinner, and Owen Jones. He has also set up a petition on his blog, which I have signed, demanding Williamson’s reinstatement.
Tony’s not the only person predicting that this means the death of the Corbyn project. The left-wing vlogger Gordon Dimmack, who despises the witchhunt and the witchhunters, has also done so. He’s made an hour long video, which I haven’t seen, about this affair.
I regret that Greenstein is right about Corbyn in that he does not stand by his supporters. The witchhunters will never be appeased, and they will not stop until they destroy him. But he seems to believe that if he sacrifices enough people, they will.
This is profoundly mistaken. The establishment, including all the papers are determined to destroy him. The proper course would be for him to grow some backbone and start fighting back, end the false accusations, state firmly and clearly that Labour is committed to tackling racism and has done more than any other party about this. And then start throw the ball back in the establishment court. Attack the racism and rampant islamophobia in the Tory party, and the partisan bias of an establishment media determined to use this to bring him down, along with their Tory paymasters.
Along with Jews, political and religious dissidents, gypsies, prostitutes, neurotics and recidivist criminals, the Nazis also incarcerated in the concentration camps the habitual unemployed. These were people the Nazis dubbed workshy, who had refused offers of work ‘without good reason. According to the Wikipedia pages on concentration camp badges, they had to wear a black triangle, which was also the badge worn by Gypsies, the mentally ill and mentally disabled, prostitutes, alcoholics, drug addicts, beggars and vagrants, as well as pacifists and those who refused conscription.
According to the article, those sent to the camps for ‘labour education’ wore a white letter ‘A’ on the black triangle.
I’ve mentioned before how closely the current Conservative policy towards the long term unemployed resembles that of the Nazis, with the exception that in Thatcherite Britain, the unemployed aren’t sent to concentration camps. The DWP simply lets the same starve to death, either because of delays in implementing Universal Credit, which leaves claimants waiting a month before they are paid, or through the infamous sanctions system. They are then thrown off the benefits they desperately need for the flimsiest of excuses. And this is all done to reduce the unemployment figures while at the same time creating a cowed and frightened workforce that will accept any job, no matter how poor the pay or condition.
I decided to make my own version of the Nazi concentration camp badge for the ‘workshy’ in order to make my own gesture against the DWP and the way it is leading people into misery and starvation. I created a black triangle with a white letter ‘A’ in the centre using Paint. I printed it off, and then pasted it on to an ordinary piece of cardboard cut into the shape of a triangle. I then sellotaped a safety pin on the back.
Here’s what it looks like from the front.
And this is the rear.
I admit, it’s only a very tiny gesture of protest, but I felt that it had to be made, using Nazi symbolism to attack the callousness and ruthless destruction of human life of the Tory system. I also wondered if others might also like to make the badge as a mark of their disgust with the Tories’ Nazi-like hatred of the ‘asocial’ and unemployed. Who knows, if enough people make them it might even become a mass protest symbol.
A little while ago I wrote a piece about how the Raelians’ original design for their embassy in Jerusalem was becoming increasingly accurate as a symbol of the increasingly fascistic nature of the Israeli state and its persecution of the Palestinians. The Raelians are a new religious movement, a sect that believes its leader and founder, Rael, real name Claude Vorilhon, was contacted and given a message for humanity by space aliens. These extraterrestrials, according to Rael, are the Elohim, one of the names for the Lord in the book of Genesis in the Bible. According to Rael, these aliens are due to return to Earth, where they will bring about a new age of peace and prosperity. Under their guidance, only certified geniuses will be allowed to rule, and all the menial work will be done by a specially genetically engineered slave race. The Holy City was chosen as the site of their embassy because that’s where Rael and his followers expect the Elohim to land and establish their centre of power on Earth.The society’s belief in ‘geniocracy’ – rule by the intelligent – has left it open to accusations of fascism. An accusation that probably wasn’t helped when they chose this as the design for their embassy in Jerusalem.
Yes, you’re seeing this correctly: it is a swastika in a Magen Dawid, a Star of David. And no, I don’t know why they chose this design. I suspect it’s because Rael, like a number of other new religious movements and occult sects since the 19th century, may have been impressed and drawn on eastern spirituality. In Hinduism and Buddhism, the swastika is a symbol of good. It also used to be like that over here before the rise of the Nazis. I think there’s even a town of Swastika in Canada, or there was.
Obviously, this didn’t go down at all well with the Israelis, who were justifiably and understandably outraged. The Raelians were forced to change their design, which is now a nice swirly galaxy in the Star of David instead.
But the symbol nevertheless suits the Israeli state, as it becomes more racist and Fascistic. And that Fascism has become blatant with Netanyahu’s new choice of coalition partners. A few days ago, the dedicated Jewish anti-Fascist and anti-Zionist, Tony Greenstein, blogged about how Netanyahu had made the Otzma Yehudit merge with another far right party, Jewish Home, which represents the settlers, so that they could join his wretched Likud in a governing coalition. Otzma Yehudit’s name means ‘Jewish Power’ in Hebrew, and they are Jewish Nazi party. It’s led by Michael Ben Ari, who takes his ideology from Meir Kahane’s wretched Kach, which was outlawed as a terrorist group. Kahane and his followers demanded the following
– Revocation of non-Jewish citizenship.
– Expulsion of non-Jews from Jerusalem and eventually Israel.
– The eventual imposition of slavery on Arabs and other non-Jews.
– Prohibition of contact between Jews and Arabs, including sexual relations.
– Segregated beaches.
– Prohibition of non-Jews living in Jewish neighborhoods.
– Forced dissolution of all intermarriages.
In 1988 Kach was banned by the Israeli Supreme Court when it looked like gaining four to eight seats in the Knesset.
Greenstein notes that not only did this come straight out of the Nazis’ vile Nuremberg Laws, but it also did little more than codify existing Israeli legislation.
Since 1948 successive Israeli governments have tried to forbid intermarriage between Arabs and Israelis. Mixed marriages are not recognised by Orthodox Judaism, the religion of the Israeli state. Which is one of the factors contributing to the outrage a little while ago when a couple of Israeli celebrities, who were respectively Jewish and Palestinian, got married, with the Jewish partner converting to Islam. Greenstein has also revealed on his blog that a number of municipalities in Israel are so keen to stop relationships between Jews and Arabs, that they are running courses in conjunction with the local police and religious organisations to discourage Jewish women from going out with Palestinian men.
The Nazis were also concerned to prevent intermarriage between Germans and those of what they considered to be inferior races, such as Poles and other Slavs. They were most fervently against gentile and Jewish Germans intermarrying. And the Jews also weren’t alone in being forced to wear identifying marks, in their case the Star of David. The Nazis developed a system of badges for the prisoners in the concentration camp, which identified the offence for which they were incarcerated. Gay men notoriously wore a pink triangle. The Gypsies, I think, were forced to wear a brown one. Red triangles were worn by socialists, Communists, Anarchists, other political dissidents and Freemasons.
There were also identification badges for ‘Jewish race defilers’. Men had to wear this
While women were identified by this badge
Clearly this represents the Nazis’ criminalisation of racial intermixing and the shaming of those, whose only crime was that they were Jewish married or in a relationship with a non-Jewish German. I also wonder if it was also foisted on non-Germans, who were incarcerated because of their marriage to a Jew.
But the Israelis are also attempting to discourage intermarriage between Jewish and non-Jewish citizens, and if Otzma Yehudit get their way, such liaisons will be criminalised. In which case I wonder if those convicted of such crimes will also have to wear similar vile symbols.
I found this short video by Mark Braithwaite on his channel over on YouTube. It’s just under two minutes long, and is of Ann Soubry being told by her constituents exactly what they think of her for leaving the Tories and not holding a bye-election. They ask her why, if she believes in democracy so much, she doesn’t hold a bye-election. One tells her that he thinks she only left because she wasn’t in the cabinet. Another tells her that while she thinks she’s a rebel, she isn’t. She is also told that she is showing disrespect to her constituents for not holding a bye-election, because they didn’t vote for her as an Independent, they voted for her as a Tory. And she’s also disrespecting the 17.5 million people, who voted to Leave by demanding a second referendum on Brexit.
It’s all rather amusing. And I can quite believe that her motivation for leaving the Tories is frustrated ambition. A Labour MP yesterday said he believed that Chuka Umunna hadn’t left Labour for any better or nobler reason than that. He departed because he knew he would never be the party’s leader.
But Soubry doesn’t seem to have left the Tories at all. Not in her heart. According to a recent post by the Angry Yorkshireman over at Another Angry Voice, she’s said that she still intends to campaign for the Tories. And she and Umunna also believe she should be allowed to go back to the Tory party when she wishes, and that it’s terrible that the Tories won’t have her. Which shows how utterly inept Umunna would have been as a Labour leader, if he believes it’s acceptable for a member of his political grouping to campaign for a rival party. See https://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.com/2019/02/chuka-umunna-thinks-ex-tory-members-of.html
The Independents are quickly showing themselves to be an absolute farce. And I don’t doubt that they’ll be gone at the next election. And good riddance!
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