Jewish Labour Supporters Attack the Anti-Semitism Witch-Hunters

Oh ho! Mike today posted a very interesting article about two letters written by Jewish supporters of Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour party, which the anti-Semitism witch-hunters will definitely not like.

One was written to the Groaniad by 200 Jewish ladies, who were angered by the formerly left-wing newspaper’s unqualified support of Margaret Hodge. Hodge was disappointed that so few people have been charged with anti-Semitism, as she personally had denounced 200 people. They pointed out that of 111 people she had accused, only 20 were actually members of the Labour party. The other 91 were nothing to do with the party’s disciplinary procedure and her complaints against them were a waste of the party’s time.

They also said that her other claims – that the party should shut down those branches which had expressed loyalty to Chris Williamson, or refused to adopt the I.H.R.A. definition of anti-Semitism should be similarly treated as suspect. They supported Williamson’s statement that the party had been too apologetic in its treatment of the anti-Semitism accusations, and stated that the I.H.R.A. definition of anti-Semitism had been shredded by two QCS and the Jewish human rights specialist, Sir Geoffrey Bindman, and the Jewish retired appealed court judge, Stephen Sedley. Their letter concludes

All signatories to this letter grew up in the shadow of the Holocaust. We know we must maintain eternal vigilance against antisemitic resurgence. But we also celebrate our Jewishness, especially the disputatiousness (pace our aphorism: two Jews three opinions) central to Jewish identity. We are terrified by Margaret Hodge’s attempt to hijack our history and rewrite our identity and by unwillingness to investigate, fact check and challenge her allegations.

The Groaniad refused to print the letter, on the grounds that it didn’t say anything new. So two Jewish Labour ladies, Naomi Wayner and Leah Levane, one of whom was a signatory to the letter, published an article about it and the text  of the letter in the Prole Star.

See: https://www.prole-star.co.uk/single-post/2019/03/15/Jewish-Labour-Women-The-Voices-The-Guardian-Wants-To-Silence

Mike comments that this means that probably more people will see it and read it than if it had been published by the paper.

The Sunday Times, when of the offenders in the media smears of decent people as anti-Semites, also printed a letter by 12 Holocaust survivors. They state that they don’t believe the party is perpetrating any hostility or prejudice towards Jews, and if it is, it is minimal, and no more prevalent than in any other party. And rather than considering Jeremy Corbyn a threat, they say he has been over backwards for Jews.

They also state

Media attention on the Labour Party in general, and on Corbyn in particular, is being generated by anti-Labour and anti-Corbyn mischief makers, who unfortunately are over-represented within the so-called Anglo-Jewish leadership — a leadership whose legitimacy is not recognised by the mainstream Haredi (strictly Orthodox) Jews.

The Jewish Chronicle, a paper with a proud future behind it, has criticised the letter, and in particularly claimed that the authors or somehow connected to Shraga Stern, the Orthodox Jew, who appeared in a photo with Corbyn during his visit to Finsbury Park mosque. The paper also claimed that the rabbis who signed an earlier letter of support for Corbyn didn’t know what they were signing. According to the Skwawkbox, both claims have been thoroughly refuted. See:

https://skwawkbox.org/2019/03/17/jewish-chronicle-pushes-fake-news-to-discredit-pro-corbyn-letter/

Mike also notes that the film Witchhunt, about the persecution of anti-Zionists and Corbyn supporters within the Labour party, has just been released. He hasn’t seen it yet, but encourages everyone to do so. He ends his article

The mainstream – the ‘establishment’ – will try hard to regain the initiative; we have seen one attempt already in the response of the Jewish Chronicle. The best advice you can take is to use your own intelligence and make up your own mind, based on the evidence available and the reliability of those providing it.

https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2019/03/18/at-long-last-the-voices-of-opponents-of-the-anti-semitism-witch-hunt-are-being-heard/#comments

I’m surprised that the Sunset Times published the article by Holocaust survivors, but perhaps they were afraid of the bad press they’d get if they didn’t. As Jewish bloggers like Tony Greenstein, Martin Odoni and David Rosenberg have pointed out, Orthodox Jews are not represented by the Board of Deputies of British Jews, and don’t recognise the Chief Rabbi. And I suspect that Haredi Judaism of some of the signatories may well also be embarrassing to some of the witchhunters. According to a recent article by Shaun Lawson, a liberal Zionist, witchhunter Jonathan Hoffman tried to shut down Jewish supporters of Corbyn with a questionnaire asking them about how Jewish they were in terms of synagogue attendance, activity within the Jewish community, adherence to the Jewish purity laws and Torah, and so on. He had to abandon this approach. From what I gather, the Haredi are a Jewish revival movement, who call Orthodox Jews into a full observance of the Mosaic Law. Which means that there can be absolutely no question about their Jewishness, not that Hoffman’s wretched questionnaire could ever quantify that and the merest suggestion that it could is ridiculous. The Jewish community is divided in its adherence to the Law, from the very strict – the Orthodox and the Haredi, to the less so, like Reform Jews. But all of them view themselves as devout Jews, just as I’ve no doubt the third of the community that is secular also do not deny or are ashamed of their heritage.

As for Shraga Stern, who the Jewish Chronicle seems to believe was somehow involved in persuading the Holocaust survivors to write their letter, he has also received a threatening message because of his appearance with Corbyn, just like Mrs Manson. Is the Jewish Chronicle trying to stir up more hatred against him through its article?

I’m sure Mike’s right that further attacks will come, especially as Survation has put Labour five points ahead of the Tories. But with claims like anti-Semitism, you do have to exercise proper scepticism and critical thinking. You have to ask what the issues really are behind the article, who is writing it, and what they are not telling you. 

 

Abusive Message Sent to Jenny Manson, Head of Jewish Voice for Labour

Mike today has put up a piece about the vile, abusive message sent to Jenny Manson, the chair of Jewish Voice for Labour. Unlike the Zionist hate group, the Jewish Labour Movement, this is a group that represents all Jews and members have to be members of the Labour party. Unlike the JLM, where they don’t have to be either. The JVL supports Jeremy Corbyn, and like Jewdas and other Jewish groups, it points out what the lamestream media and the establishment really don’t want people hearing: that Corbyn isn’t an anti-Semite and has always been supportive of Jews. Indeed, 21 rabbis wrote and signed a letter about this last year.

Manson was on Newsnight last week defending Jeremy Corbyn, and I gather that she has also been on two other programmes as well doing the same. This was too much for one member of the public, who stalked her and left an abusive message on her phone. The anonymous caller calls her  ‘Nazi scum’ and says that he wishes she burns ‘in the gas oven’ and ‘burns in hell in acid’. She has also said that she is regularly stopped in the street by aggressive individuals, angered at her support for Labour.

Mike in his article states that it seems to him that this is exactly what the witchhunters want. He mentions that this week Jeremy Corbyn was punched in the head by someone angry about his stance on Brexit, and wonders how long it will be before someone is physically attacked or worse by the supporters of the anti-Semitism witchhunt.

He speculates about what they would say if caught, and who they would claim had incited them to it. Mike states that it’s time the people stirring up this hatred were held to account. He concludes

Next time they make unfounded accusations, perhaps we should lodge complaints against them under the Public Order Act – fear or provocation of violence.

See: https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2019/03/15/listen-to-the-vile-hypocrisy-of-the-anti-semitism-witch-hunters/

If you want to hear the message, go to the Skwawkbox at: https://skwawkbox.org/2019/03/15/listen-horrific-antisemitic-voice-message-sent-to-left-wing-jewish-labour-activist/

The Skwawkbox also has another story about an Orthodox Jewish man, Shraga Stern, who was abused because he appeared with Jeremy Corbyn in a photograph taken at Finsbury Park Mosque commemorating the terrorist attack there last year. The message wasn’t as vitriolic as that directed at Manson. It just said ‘You appeared with Corbyn. Shame on you. Be careful’.

https://skwawkbox.org/2019/03/15/orthodox-jewish-man-threatened-over-appearance-with-corbyn/

I don’t know if the people leaving these obscene messages are Jewish. Quite honestly, given some of the weird characters in organisations like Sussex Friends of Israel and North West Friends of Israel, they could well be gentiles. One Jewish anti-Zionist described some of the bizarre, twisted members of one of these group. One of them was a bloke, who claims to be an Orthodox Jew, despite the fact that he is very obviously not. But unfortunately, this kind of abuse is no aberration, whether it is hurled by Jews or gentiles. Tony Greenstein has described on his blog how he has received messages from Zionist Jews telling him that they wished he and his family had died in the Shoah, the Holocaust. He was also physically assaulted in Brighton by a Jewish American. To add insult to injury, Greenstein was himself arrested following this attack, though released without charge. And one of the videos for Jackie Walker’s one-woman performance about her unjust suspension from the Labour party on a fake charge of anti-Semitism included her reading out some of the vile hate messages she got. And they were absolutely horrific. She was called a ‘court Jew’ – the Jewish equivalent of the Black slur ‘house n***er’. She was also told, amongst other threats, that she should be lynched. As the video of her performance shows, this is especially horrific because her mother was an American civil rights activist, at a time when Blacks were really being lynched.

From the descriptions of their behaviour on a number of Jewish blogs, not just Greenstein’s, it’s very clear that the Zionist groups who turn up to protest events criticising Israel are very aggressive. They scream, shout, sneer and giggle at description of the IDF killing Palestinian children. They will also try to block the entrances into the venue where the event is being held. If flyers and leaflets are being handed out, they will try to snatch them from the grasp of the ordinary members of the public who ask for them. They also hobnob with members of the islamophobic mainstream Fascist right, like Britain First. The Israel lobby will also demonstrate with members of the Jewish Defence League and idiots wearing T-shirts supporting Kach, a far-right Israeli terror group. Given this, it seems to me that it may only be a matter of time before someone from these Fascist organisations takes out their rage physically on an innocent person, whose only crime is to be a Jewish supporter of Jeremy Corbyn.

As for the anti-Semitic abuse hurled by Zionists at non-Zionist or Israel-critical Jews, this goes back a long way. A week or so ago I posted up a piece about how the language Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism, used about diaspora Jews in his Das Judenstaat mirrored and prefigured Nazi and Fascist rhetoric. Herzl described contemporary diaspora Jews as ‘Yids’, who were small, dark, cringing and ugly, in contrast to the strong, proud, beautiful Hebrews who would arise with the new Jewish state. Alfred Kepel, in his book on the rise of Christian, Jewish and Islamic fundamentalism, The Revenge of God, also talks about the bitter feelings Zionists have towards non-Zionist Jews. Many Zionist partly blamed the non-Zionist Jewish organisations in eastern Europe for the Holocaust, arguing that more Jews could have been saved if they’d encouraged them to emigrate to Israel. It’s a highly questionable assertion. Rudolf Kasztner, the leader of the Hungarian Zionists during the Second World War, struck a deal with the Nazis, in which tens of thousands of ordinary Jews were sent to the death camps in return for a minority being sent to Israel. It’s also been argued that what stopped Israel suffering the same fate as European Jewry was Montgomery’s victory at El Alamein. If the Nazi forces had broken through, then they would have occupied Palestine and murdered its Jewish inhabitants. Amongst the rhetoric Zionists use against their non-Zionist fellows, according to Kepel, is casting them as ‘Yids’, capering for the entertainment of their gentile, aristocratic lords. I think this is a literary trope, but it is obviously part of the accusation that non- or anti-Zionist Jews like Jackie Walker are ‘court Jews’.

It seems to me very strongly that the ugly abuse Jenny Manson and Shraga Stern have suffered is part of the racist, anti-Semitic rhetoric of Zionist fanatics.

And Mike is absolutely correct. It may well only be a matter of time before one of these fanatics takes it further, and physically attacks or kills a decent, self-respecting Jew, because as a Corbyn supporter they have to be ‘Nazi scum’ or a ‘court Jew’. Quite apart from the non-Jewish opponents of anti-Semitism and racism, who have suffered the same abuse.

It’s time to halt the racism by calling it what it is: hate speech, incitement to racial hatred and incitement to violence.

Ofcom Now Investigating BBC for Bias

Yesterday Mike posted up a piece reporting that the broadcasting regulator, Ofcom, was investigating the Beeb for bias, and it wasn’t looking good for Auntie.

Mike began his article with his tweets criticising Jo Coburn of Politics Live for continuing describing the attack on Corbyn as an egging, when in reality the Labour leader had been punched in the head. He also noted the contradictions in its reporting of the anti-Semitism witchhunt in the Labour party. On the one hand he was being berated for his lack of leadership and doing too little, while on the other he was supposed to be personally interfering. These two assertions together violate one of the fundamental laws of logic discovered by Aristotle, the Law of Non-Contradiction. But logic and reason don’t matter a jot to the right-wing media.

The broadcasting regulator has said that its investigating the Beeb because people are worried about fake news on the internet. The Beeb has a central role in providing trusted news, but people feel that the beeb’s television and radio news is less impartial than its other news output. And so Ofcom is examining in detail the Corporation’s delivery of its first Public Purpose, the first point of which is

“to provide impartial news and information to help people understand and engage with the world around them. The BBC will provide accurate and impartial news, current affairs and factual programming of the highest editorial standards so that all audiences can engage fully with issues across the UK and the world.”

https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2019/03/07/ofcom-is-investigating-the-bbc-for-bias-and-its-looking-bad-for-auntie/

The BBC has a very long history of right-wing bias. During the miners’ strike in the 1980s they reversed footage of the police attack on the picket line at Orgreave to make it appear to show the miners’ attacking the police. The Kushners in their book Who Needs the Cuts show how the Corporation marginalises those politicians, trade unions and activists, who reject austerity in favour of its promoters. When dissenting voices do appear, they will be talked over or shouted down by the presenter. Studies by Scots academics have also shown that the Corporation prefers to interview Conservative politicians, bankers and industrialists about the economy than Labour politicians and trade unionists. And the Corporation’s coverage of the Labour party and Jeremy Corbyn has been massively one-sided.

None of this is remotely surprising, considering how the Beeb’s newsroom is stuffed with Tories, like the Macclesfield Goebbels Nick Robinson, who was head of the Tory association at Manchester University.

The Beeb should face some tough questioning over its bias, and it’ll be very interesting what Ofcom concludes.