Oh, what delightful irony! What goes around, comes around. And it’s come around to hit Gary Spedding. Spedding’s one of the ultra-Zionists who took it upon himself in 2018 to join Kieron Monks and the fake anti-racism outfit, the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism in smearing Mike as a Jew-hater and holocaust-denier.
Mike had critiqued a piece by Monks that appeared in Prospect claiming that there was an anti-Semitism in the Labour party. Prospect is a moderate, left-wing political magazine very much like Encounter was in the ’60s and 70’s. This magazine was later revealed to have benefited from CIA funding, and there are suspicions amongst the watchers of real conspiracies and the covert activities of the intelligence agencies, like Lobster, that Prospect is similarly a conduit for secret state propaganda.
Mike briefly questioned whether Tony Blair had been influenced by a secret Jewish cabal, but the subtleties of his prose escaped, or, more likely, was wilfully misinterpreted by the anti-Semitism smear merchants. They claimed that Mike had claimed that Blair was influenced by such a cabal, and that this constituted a form of the old anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about Jews secretly controlling events and politics. Mike was hauled up before the NEC and then thrown out. The lies against him were leaked by person or persons unknown in that august body to the Sunset Times. And in an argument with Mike on the web, Spedding repeated the smears, libelling Mike as an anti-Semite and holocaust-denier.
As has been abundantly demonstrated over and again, Mike is neither. He couldn’t afford to prosecute Spedding for libel, but he was able to clear his name by IPSO. As for the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, it is in my view nothing but an ultra-Zionist front organisation. It was founded in 2012 by Gideon Falter, who was outraged that severely normal Brits didn’t back Israel during the bombardment of Gaza. It has made so many fake accusations of anti-Semitism that I feel it should really have a new name. Perhaps ‘the Campaign Against Truth?’ Or may be, as so many victims of the anti-Semitism smear campaign are Jews, ‘the Campaign for Anti-Semitism’ or ‘Campaign Against Jews’?
Further confirmation that the Israel lobby and ultra-Zionists in Labour were behind the anti-Semitism smears against Mike and the other victims is shown in one of the other names that crop up in Monks’ tweet: Dave Rich. Rich wrote a book a few years ago claiming that Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour left was deeply anti-Semitic. Rich, however, was the head of a Zionist organisation, which indicates to me that he was pushing the smears to defend Israel against a Labour leader, who had been a very strong opponent of the country’s brutal oppression of the Palestinians.
Now Spedding himself is facing expulsion on the trumped-up charge of having disseminated material from the Green party during the Hartlepool by-election. Now he is complaining about the unfair and brutal treatment of people like him by Starmer. But Starmer gained the leadership precisely because of people like Spedding. And Spedding now wants to ‘join in the solidarity with the other victims’. Mike therefore doubts his motivations considering his past conduct.
Spedding is asking for an apology from Starmer, so Mike asked him if he would care to apologise to him. He was brusquely refused with the curt reply ‘Why would I apologise to you?’
Which shows very clearly that he’s still convinced of his lies and libels. Mike states that he’s toxic and so doesn’t deserve a minute of anyone’s time.
Quite. Until Spedding acknowledges that the accusations against Mike and the other victims of the anti-Semitism witch hunt are false, there can be no real solidarity between them and him.
Tags: anti-racism, anti-semitism, Anti-Semitism Smears, Bombardment of Gaza, Bye-Elections, Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, CIA, Conspiracy Theories, Dave Rich, Encounter, Gary Spedding, Gideon Falter, Green Party, Hartlepool, Holocaust Denial, Intelligence Agencies, IPSO, Jeremy Corbyn, Jews, Keir Starmer, Kieron Monks, Labour Party, Lobster, Mike Sivier, Prospect, Purges, racism, Sunday Times, tony blair, Zionism
Beastrabban\'s Weblog 
September 20, 2021 at 10:10 am |
A definite “like”!
September 20, 2021 at 3:08 pm |
Karma hay but idiots who believe stammer the spammer and his erk need their heads checked for brains yet whot we don’t see black white or any other creed is that they are laughing all the way to the bank or in our case our taxes they get us to fight amongst ourselves while they Rob us blind how quaint yet if people’s don’t realise Tony b took us to war and got well rewarded for it
September 22, 2021 at 12:20 pm |
The idea that Spedding, a prolific and dedicated campaigner for Palestinian rights, is an ‘ultra-zionist’ makes a mockery of your blogging and shows just how conspiratorial you are about people on the left you disagree with in particular Jews who have raised concerns over antisemitism.
September 22, 2021 at 4:25 pm |
Thanks for the comment. I was not aware that Spedding is ‘a prolific and dedicated campaigner for Palestinian rights’. Perhaps you’d care to tell me more about this. Has he attacked the construction of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories? Has he criticised the Israeli apartheid system that segregates Palestinians into what are effectively bantustans and the legal system that makes them very much second class citizens, subject to restrictions and constraints that do not apply to Israelis? Has he protested against the destruction of Palestinian villages by the Israeli authorities in order to clear the land for the construction of Israeli settlements? Has he, in fact, written to refute the propaganda spouted by the Israeli state that the Palestinians were not ethnically cleansed in a series of massacres in 1948? Or the lie repeated by a number of pro-Israel groups and individuals that Palestine was empty before the Jewish settlement and the Arab population are incomers?
Now let’s take your remark that I’m conspiratorial about people on the left I disagree with. This seems to be a common accusation against critics of the Israeli government’s policy of persecuting the Palestinians and its critics. But the Israeli state has a department – the Office of Strategic Affairs – which is responsible for coordinating propaganda – hasbara – against its critics. And in my experience, the people primarily responsible for the anti-Semitism smears were Zionists – the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, the Board of Deputies, Jewish Leadership Council, and Jewish Labour Movement. And, when they were spouting lies about Corbyn posing an existential threat to Jews and Labour plotting some kind of new Holocaust, their accusations of anti-Semitism were based very strongly on criticisms of Zionism or the publication of facts about Israel and Zionism they found unwelcome. An example of that is the way Mike was accused of anti-Semitism simply for writing a document in support of Ken Livingstone, showing that the mad newt-fancier of the GLC was right when he said that Hitler supported Zionism. The Nazi leader did initially, signing the Ha’avara Agreement to encourage German Jewish emigration to Palestine.
As for the accusation that I have a particular problem with Jews, well, tu quoque! I don’t attack people like Speddings because they’re Jewish. I attack them because they are smearing decent people as anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers. Which Spedding did with Mike. I’d do exactly the same if they were gentiles. I have also noted that the majority of people smeared as anti-Semites are also Jewish.: 4/5, according to Jewish Voice for Labour. This includes people, who have suffered real abuse and assault by genuine anti-Semites and Nazis. This strongly suggests to me that the organisations responsible for the anti-Semitism smears are motivated by a very powerful sectarian anti-Semitism directed against those Jewish individuals and groups that do not see Israel as the culmination of Jewish history.
September 23, 2021 at 5:42 pm
Hear! Hear!
Brian