I have a kind of love-hate relationship with Private Eye. Mostly I like it, but today I find myself wishing there was another satirical magazine around, one that wasn’t captured by the political-media complex. One that genuinely was subversive, crusading and really brought you the news that the papers and the lamestream media wouldn’t, and didn’t want you to know about. Because Private Eye is establishment. Its founders were all public schoolboys, as is its current editor, Ian Hislop. And yesterday it showed.
It ran an article on the imminent departure from politics of Diane Abbott for her letter to the Absurder stating that Jews don’t experience racism, and when they do, it’s like the prejudice against people with ginger hair. Unlike Blacks, who were enslaved and forced to the back of the bus under segregation. She ignored the Holocaust and the fact that across parts of Europe and America various institutions, like the universities, set limits on the number of Jews they would take in case they became dominated by Jews. I’ve also heard from people of Jewish heritage that California at one time wouldn’t allow Jews to own property. Abbott is completely wrong, as she’s been told by everyone.
I don’t believe, though, that Abbott is an anti-Semite. She just doesn’t believe anyone except people of colour, and that means primarily Blacks, suffer racism. And she doesn’t want racism by non-White ethnic groups discussed, because ‘they’ would use it to ‘divide and rule’. Aside from which, as Tony Greenstein has shown citing the stats, there isn’t a lot of anti-Semitism amongst severely normal Brits. 77 per cent of British people have positive views of the Jews. Five per cent hate them, and the reminder don’t care one way or another. Given those stats, it’s easy to see how she forgot about the real persecution Jews have historically suffered.
But this was not enough for the writer of the article on Abbott’s coming fall. The anonymous author, styling himself ‘Steeplejack’, said that her views were normal for Corbyn and his faction. He then quoted some Communist who said that Corbyn never really sympathised with the Jews because of their wealth. Okay, according to the stats 60 per cent of British Jews are upper-middle class. This section of the Jewish community doesn’t vote Labour. They’re Conservatives, as shown by Ephraim Mirvis, the Chief Rabbi of the British Empire, nipping round to No. 10 to congratulate Tweezer on her elevation to Prime Minister. The liberal parts of the community generally vote Lib Dem, according to the same stats, with only a few voting Labour. And some parts of the Jewish community are very right-wing, like the two per cent who voted for the National Front in the 1970s. ‘Steeplejack’s’ article believed that it was quite right that Abbott was going to be retired and that Corbyn had been effectively purged from the party, and ended with the announcement that they were coming after John McDonnell next.
You’ll note that at no time does the article mention that Corbyn had and continues to have the strong support of that part of the Jewish community that hasn’t become entranced by the Tories. They didn’t quote anyone from Jewish Voice for Labour, Jewdas or the Jewish Socialist Group. Because they are the wrong sort of Jews. They’re all evil self-haters and anti-Semites because they support him and criticise Israel. They didn’t go to Shraga Stern for comment, who welcomed Corbyn into his synagogue. Stern’s a Haredi Jew. Their theology holds that Israel will only be restored with the return of the messiah. Until then, Jews should stay patiently in exile, working for the good of the wider community. The Haredi community has a strong respect for Corbyn as he stood by them when they opposed the commercial development of their historic cemetery. But again, the wrong sort of Jews.
Now we come to the question of the identity of ‘Steeplejack’. The last of the Eye’s correspondents pushing this nonsense was outed as a Blairite Guardian hack. I don’t know who this guy is, but the pseudonym suggests he fancies himself in the mould of Fred Dibnah, the steeplejack and broadcaster. Dibnah was very good at explaining industrial history and Britain heritage of invention, but he had very reactionary views. He didn’t believe that women should go out to work, for example. ‘Steeplejack’s’ monicker suggests he is similarly right-wing, though probably not to that extent. And he’s almost certainly another establishment journalist.
Which is what is wrong with Private Eye. You get the views of the lamestream media. It’s critical, but only up to a certain extent. The magazine thus pushed the line that Starmer was an anti-Semite for all it could, because that was what the establishment was saying, and the magazine and its editor and contributors shared the same fears of a socialist revival. It also won’t tell you that the current Ukrainian president, Volodomyr Zelensky, is a quasi-dictator very much in the same mould as Putin. Because Zelensky’s on our side against Russia, and so the people must not know that the Orange Revolution was stage managed by Obama’s Victoria Nuland at the State Department and the National Endowment for Democracy. Private Eye aren’t anti-establishment, just a slightly critical section of it.
John McDonnell and the Socialist group of MPs are one of the very few things keeping me in the Labour party. And now it’s clear Starmer wants to purge them, with the support of the media and goblins like Private Eye.
This week the Tories once again took away more of the British people’s hard-won freedoms with the Nationality and Borders bill, proposed by Dominic Raab and the noxious Priti ‘Vacant’ Patel. This allows the government to strip a naturalised Brit of their citizenship, without giving notice to the person concerned. It follows the 2002 act that allowed the government to strip someone of British nationality so long as they had another. Then there’s the 2014 Immigration Act, pushed through by Tweezer when she was home secretary, that allows the government to strip someone of their citizenship, even if it left them stateless, so long as they could apply to another country for theirs. The Home Office decided that notifying the person affected could be done simply by putting it in their file if their whereabouts were unknown. The High Court ruled that this was insufficient, and so Patel has including legislation exempting the process from judicial review. Which has been described by Ian Dunt at inews as retrospective legislation denying people their right to appeal. It doesn’t matter how long the naturalised person has been here. They could have been here their entire lives, Patel and Raab can still strip them of their British nationality. This has been excused on the pretext that it would stop foreign criminals using human rights legislation to avoid deportation, particularly under the legislation protecting ‘the right to family life’. This is another Tory lie. Mike has pointed out that no foreign criminal has ever dodged deportation using that clause. The effect of the act is to turn immigrants into second-class citizens. This has chilling implications for the rest of us, because what Tony Benn said was true: the Tories start their attacks on people’s rights with immigrants before moving on to the settled population. But as this appears to target Blacks, Asians and channel migrants, it will inevitably be supported by racists.
It’s alarmed very many people. The increased restrictions on immigration have been criticised by a number of Jewish organisation, including Reform Judaism. They have stated that Jews who fled to Britain in the 1930s were not protected in 2021. According to Zelo Street, the Board of Deputies has expressed similar concerns. But Zelo Street has also pointed out that Patel’s and Raab’s wretched legislation particularly affects Jews because of Israel’s ‘Right of Return’. According to this, all Jews everywhere have the right to settle in Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu went further, and declared that every Jew around the world automatically had Israeli citizenship. This didn’t impress the growing number of Jews critical of Israel and its persecution of the Palestinians. One Jewish American said on the Net how ridiculous it was that he, who came from Anchorage in Alaska and had never been to Israel, had the right to settle their, while his friend, a Palestinian, was banned from entering his homeland. And the Israeli state certainly seems to share this sentiment when it comes to The Wrong Kind of Jews. There have been a number of instances where Jews, who have voiced criticisms of Israel, have been very quickly rounded up by the Israeli authorities and put on the next flight home when they’ve tried to enter the country. It’s obviously a case of all Jews being citizens of Israel, except for those that aren’t.
But the effect of Netanyahu’s wretched piece of legislation combined with Patel’s and Raab’s is that any Jew, who gained their British citizenship through naturalisation can now be stripped of it, as there is somewhere else they can go. The Street notes that despite all the screams about Corbyn and anti-Semitism, in reality genuine anti-Semitism comes from the far right. And this is the direction in which this government is moving. The Street concludes
‘That may not be the current intention of Ms Patel and her pals. But, with the certainty of night following day, after they come for the Muslims, the far-right come for the Jews.
And the far-right have now been quietly emboldened. Be afraid. Be very afraid.’
Absolutely. But one other thing may be said about this vile piece of legislation and Britain’sJ ewish community:
It would never have been passed by a Corbyn government and Jews would have been protected.
Corbyn was never an anti-Semite. Indeed, he is one of the most anti-racist MPs and has spoken up in the House and elsewhere in support of the Jewish community. He was simply critical of Israel and its persecution of the Palestinians. But the militant Zionists, who denounced him and his supporters as Jew-haters don’t distinguish between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. As a result, Britain has been denied a government, which would have actively defended the rights of Jews alongside other ethnic groups. Instead we have an increasingly extreme right-wing Tory government, which is taking those rights away, alongside those of the mainstream, White, gentile population.
And unfortunately, this is a government that has the support of those who claim to represent Britain’s Jews. When Tweezer got in, she was congratulated by the Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis. Who was one of those pushing the anti-Semitism smears against Labour. Now, partly thanks to this smear campaign, British Jews are left vulnerable to real anti-Semitic persecution. All done perfectly legally by the next racist, who fancies his or her chances as the new Oswald Mosley.
The BUF also had women members, who used to go out goose-stepping to defend Britain from Communism. I wonder if Patel’s wardrobe contains the odd black shirt and jackboots?
I found this video from Middle East Eye on YouTube of the demonstration in London sometime this week against Israel’s attacks on the Palestinians. The protest was held outside Downing Street, and the video features comments from a woman from the Muslim Association of Britain, Jeremy Corbyn and a gent from the Stop the War Coalition. The Muslim woman points to how large the demonstration is and how it shows people are getting increasingly angry. Corbyn says that the US and Britain are close to Israel, and so must urge it to it stop. He adds that there are very many people and organisations in Israel who also believe it is wrong. And the gent from the Stop the War Coalition states that Britain is complicit in Israel’s attacks through our connections with them.
They are not wrong. Earlier this evening I watched a bit of an on-line left Labour party rally by the Socialist Group of MPs. Hosted by Bell Ribeiro-Addy, this Virtual rally included such great MPs as Jeremy Corbyn, Diane Abbott, and Rebecca Long Bailey. Zara Sultana gave a superb speech condemning the Israeli attacks, as did John McDonnell. He also called for the whip to be restored to Jeremy Corbyn and for Corbyn’s supporters to be readmitted to the party. Absolutely! One or the other of those two great MPs also said that one of the reasons the Israeli police fired on the protesters in the al-Aqsa Mosque was to clear the way for a march by Israeli extreme right-wingers. This was the annual ‘March of the Flags’, when Israeli far right bovver boys march through Muslim east Jerusalem vandalising Palestinian property and threatening the local people. Former Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks and the current Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, have both gone on it. Sacks even led a party of British Jews against the request not to from a British liberal Jewish organisation. That’s right, Sacks and Mirvis were rubbing shoulders there with the Israeli equivalent of the BNP. And these were the men, who accused Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters of being anti-Semites when they were and are definitely no such thing.
I don’t support Palestinian terrorism, but the Israeli attacks and massacres of innocent people and the theft of their homes and land must stop. Now.
Whenever any clergyman or religious figure dares to criticise them, the Tories always issue this refrain: that the reverend gentleman has no business doing so, and if he stuck to promoting his religion, the seats in his place of worship would have more worshippers on them. This has been largely directed at the Tories’ critics in the Anglican Church, especially since the Church’s report published under Archbishop Runcie about the increase in poverty in Britain. I also recall that arch-Thatcherite Norman Tebbitt also made some insinuations, based on the sing-song voice and other mannerisms characteristic of a certain type of Christian clergyman at the time, that Runcie somehow was totally wet and weedy. This was in complete ignorance that Runcie had been an army chaplain and so ferocious that he was known as ‘Killer Runcie’.
But an 18th century German rabbi, Jonathan Ben Nathan/ Nata Eybeschuetz/ Eybeschitz, had an answer to such accusation. He felt that religious people had the right to attack the conduct of public figures and that this made them more popular with ordinary people, not less. I found this stated in the article on him in Bowker’s Oxford Dictionary of World Religions. This says that
In his work as a rabbi, he took the view that religion is n ot confined to ‘the religious’, i.e., that teaching and preaching must reach out to affect the conduct of public life. ‘It is regrettable that our preaching is dealing constantly with out duties to God. Let the preacher protest, with a prominent voice, against the malpractices of prominent men, and the people will come to love him and delight in his sermons. (p. 332).
So clearly criticism of the rich and powerful hadn’t driven people away from religion, at least in his experience. I’m aware that explicitly party political statements by people of faith, or statements that may be interpreted as such, can be divisive. There are as many people repelled as attracted when right-wing Christian ministers start attacking gay marriage, for example. But there should be a place for religious criticism of the powerful and their policies, and especially when they harm the poor and defenceless. That’s been a vital element of the Jewish and Christian witness ever since the prophets of the Hebrew Bible, which states very clearly that the Almighty defends the poor, weak and marginalised against the rich and powerful.
Jeremy Corbyn was in no way an anti-Semite, and he had no lack of Jewish supporters because of the depth of his commitment to defending their interests as part of his staunch opposition to every kind of racism. As did Ken Livingstone, who said on an interview with George Galloway on RT’s Sputnik, that Jews greeted him on the street and told him they knew he wasn’t an anti-Semite.
But these Jews were sidelined and deliberately ignored by a political establishment that feared Corbyn as the radical, genuinely socialist leader working Brits of all colours, ethnicities and religious views need. Instead they parroted the smears of him and his supporters as anti-Semites by a true-blue Tory Jewish establishment. Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis had even sent a message congratulating Theresa May when she became Prime Minister. And the Board then went berserk accusing Corbyn of snubbing the Jewish community when he chose to spend a Passover Seder with the left-wing Jews of Jewdas. Well, the Board of Deputies and the Chief Rabbinate really only represent the United Synagogue, which has taken upon itself to try and present itself as the sole true Jewish community, despite that there has never been a monolithic Jewish community. No rabbi has more authority than any other, and there is the old Jewish saying I’ve found ‘Two Jews, three opinions’. Jewdas are a part of Britain’s diverse Jewish community, and they almost certainly invited him, so his attendance at their Passover Seder definitely wasn’t a snub to the Jewish community. Only the rich, pompous Tory section.
The Tories should stop trying to shut their left-wing critics, both Jews and Christians, up. They have a right and religious duty to defend the poor and meek against the rich and powerful.
And it’s high time that the media dropped the partisan anti-Semitic contempt for left-wing Jews, and allowed them to speak. Because the Thatcherite, Tory policies Ephraim Mirvis appears to approve of are harming working, sick, disabled and elderly Jews and well as gentiles.
This is a kind of addendum to the post I put up yesterday, which asked who decided that the United Synagogue represented all of British Jewry. I did this because so many of those accusing Corbyn and his supporters of anti-Semitism were its members or representatives, such as the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the late former Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, and various hack journos writing for the I and other newspapers.
Now it seems that my suspicion is confirmed. I went and looked up ‘United Synagogue’ in The Oxford Dictionary of World Religions, ed. John Bowker (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1997). This says on page 1005
Association of Ashkenazi Jewish congregations in Great Britain. The organisation was established by Act of Parliament in 1870. It supports the British Chief Rabbinate, the London Bet Din and all the synagogues which accept the authority of the Chief Rabbi.
The Ashkenazi are eastern European Jews, who traditionally spoke Yiddish. The other branches of Judaism are the Sephardim, who are descended from Spanish Jews, whose traditional language was Ladino, a form of Old Spanish, and the Mizrahim, Arabicised Jews from the Middle East. Left-wing Jewish supporters of Jeremy Corbyn have also pointed out that the Board of Deputies really only represents the Board of Deputies, and that the Chief Rabbinate conflicts with the traditional Jewish view of rabbinical authority. This states that no rabbi has more authority than any other. This means that while Chief Rabbis like Sacks and his successor, Ephraim Mirvis, can bluster and pontificate about how critics of Israel are terrible anti-Semites, other rabbis and their congregations are under no obligation to believe them.
The Jewish establishment and its institutions, which claim to speak for all Britain’s Jews, really just seem to be the United Synagogue and its inmates trying to present themselves as the sole legitimate representatives of Britain’s Jews. Hence the rage at Jeremy Corbyn for daring to spend a Passover Seder with the left-wing, socialist Jews of Jewdas. Well, they obviously invited him, unlike the true-blue Tories of the Board and Chief Rabbinate, who didn’t and instead sent glowing congratulations to Tories like Tweezer when she slithered into No. 10.
I feel that the next time someone from the Board or Chief Rabbi turns up to tell us all that Corbyn is a terrible anti-Semite and an existential threat to British Jews, they should be accompanied by an explanatory warning caption at the bottom of the screen. Like those that accompany adverts, or the statements the Beeb makes when it has to mention a specific product. This caption should go
‘The Board/ Chief Rabbinate/other pompous smear merchant is a fully-owned subsidiary of the United Synagogue. Contains parts manufactured in Israel. Other forms of Judaism are available. ‘
As I’ve said in my last article, Mike, Martin Odoni and Tony Greenstein have published pieces explaining that the leaked report into the factionalism and deliberate sabotage by the Blairites still accepts uncritically that anti-Semitism was rife in the Labour Party.
Mike and Martin have already published detailed critiques of this dangerous assumption. Tony’s is forthcoming. Yet studies have actually shown that real anti-Semitism in the Party is minute. True Labour party members and activists like Mike recognise that anti-Semitism is unacceptable, but that it’s actually much lower in Labour than on the parties further to the right. And the vast majority of anti-Semitism comes from the parties and organisations of the Far Right, real Nazis and Fascists, as you’d expect. Jewish party members have actually said that, while they know anti-Semitism must exist in the party, they have never personally encountered it.
This is in stark contrast to the Tories, where, for example, Michael Howard was rejected by a string of constituency parties before he found one that would accept him as their parliamentary candidate. The squalid individuals, whose emails have been uncovered by the blogger Jacobsmates, who ranted about Muslims trying to take over Britain and who fantasied about killing them, also included genuine anti-Semites. These horrors believed in the old Nazi myth of the ‘great replacement’ – that They were deliberately importing Muslims and other coloured immigrants in order to destroy the White race. And the They responsible for this were the Jews.These vicious bigots were members of the Tory party, and specifically supporters of Jacob Rees-Mogg and Boris Johnson. I think they’ve since been suspended, but they’re probably symptomatic of a deeper problem within the Tory party. But as the Tories by and large support Israel, the media and the Israel lobby have said hardly a word about Tory anti-Semitism.
The vast majority of the anti-Semitism accusations were politically motivated smears, intended by the Blairites in the party bureaucracy to topple Corbyn and purge the party of his supporters, by the Tories and their complicit media simply to discredit Labour, and by the British Jewish establishment to defend Israel. Oh, and they also shared the aims of the Tories and Blairites about stopping a genuinely socialist government, because these organisations themselves are Conservative. The present Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, even publicly welcomed Theresa May’s installment at No. 10.
But while the media still refuses to publish anything that runs counter to their assumption that everyone accused of anti-Semitism is automatically guilty, the report itself recognises that some of these accusations, at least, were fabricated. In his analysis of the leaked report’s assumptions of anti-Semitism, Mike quotes the report, which states
“Staff applied the same factional approach to disciplinary processes. One staff member referred to Emilie Oldknow expecting staff to ‘fabricate a case’ against people ‘she doesn’t like/her friends don’t like’ because of their political views.”
This part of the report has been overshadowed by the report’s revelation of the plotters’ deliberate deceit against Corbyn and their campaigns against the party from within. Nevertheless, it is immensely important and deserves to be taken up, promoted and discussed to the point that it becomes an issue that cannot be ignored. Genuine anti-racists, including self-respecting Jews like Martin, Tony and Jackie Walker, have been viciously smeared as anti-Semites and subjected to horrific abuse, purely for political reasons. Mike is attempting to get some justice by taking the Labour party to court for breach of contract in passing on details of his case to the press, who smeared him as an anti-Semite and Holocaust denier. If Mike wins, this will be a significant blow against the witch-hunters and the smear merchants.
I realise that the media establishment does not want to publish anything that shows that the witch-hunt is a politically motivated smear campaign, but that quote from the report shows that it is. And it should be given so much publicity that the media and the Labour party bureaucracy are made to take notice, and people start becoming aware how much they’ve been misled by them.
And now for another of my cartoons, in which I try to express my outrage, anger and disgust at the Conservative party and their murderous, destructive policies. This one takes the form yet again of a CD cover or promotional poster for the totally imaginary band, the Dead Thatchers. I was inspired to invent them by the American punk band, the Dead Kennedys. Their angry songs bitterly attacked the economic and social conditions of Reagan’s America. One of their songs, which I’ve based this cartoon on, was ‘Kill the Poor’.
As you can see, the cartoon shows a firing squad shooting dead a representative selection of poor folks, that the Tories despise and have been killing for years, while all the while claiming to help them. Looking on are David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson, their eyes blood red. The people shot represent the disabled, the unemployed, single mothers, low paid workers and asylum seekers.
And as left-wing bloggers and activists like Mike, Another Angry Voice, Zelo Street, The Poor Side of Life, Diary of a Food Bank Helper and so many, many others have shown for the past decade and more, Tory and Thatcherite policies are killing the poor. The harsh regime of fitness to work tests and benefit sanctions imposed by the DWP, as well as cuts in the amount paid and a waiting time of five weeks from making the claim to first payment for Universal Credit, have resulted in an estimated 120,000 people dying from austerity. Over a quarter of a million people a few years ago were forced to use food banks to keep body and soul together. Millions of children and adults were living in poverty. And thanks to Boris’ incompetent, bungled and penny-pinching handling of the Coronavirus crisis, that’s all got worse. Much worse. Firms have sacked their workers, rather than apply for the government help to pay 80 per cent of their wages. The government has promised to pay 80 per cent of the earnings of the self-employed and small businesses, but this is calculated on whether they pay business rates. Not all businesses do. Some, which share a building, leave it to their landlord. Those firms won’t get anything. And the small businessmen who will qualify won’t get it until June. For many of them, this will be too late.
And don’t be misled. The Tories do hate the poor. They despise and revile anyone on benefits as a scrounger. They see them as biologically inferior, people who should ideally be discouraged from claiming benefits or even allowed to die, rather than become a burden to the rich. Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings and their brief hireling, Andrew Sabisky, all have this eugenicist view. As does the wretched, loathsome Toby Young, who attended a eugenics conference alongside real anti-Semites, racists and Nazis. And then there are all the Tory and other right-wing hacks, like Brendan O’Neil of Spiked, Trevor Kavanagh of the Scum and others, who complain bitterly about the lockdown, because, like BoJob and Cummings, they believe old people, the disabled and the weak should be left to die rather than the economy be damaged. Thanks to this attitude and the decades-long campaign of vilification in the press, the British public thinks that 27 per cent of all benefit claims are fraudulent, whereas the true figure is something like 0.2 per cent. This hatred also extends to single mothers, of course. Tory minister Peter Lilley had them on his little list of people he despised, who he sang about as a pranced about the stage in a parody of the song from Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado at a Tory party conference back in the ’90s. And nearly two decades before then, in the mid-70s, Thatcher’s mentor Sir Keith Joseph declared they were a threat to our stock, provoking mass outrage at such a Nazi comment.
And of course the victims include asylum seekers because of the very long tradition of Tory racism, a racism that has led to their brutalisation by profiteering and incompetent government outsourcing companies like Serco in the detention centres. Not that the racism is just confined to asylum centres. A large section of the Tories is deeply racist, and particularly towards Muslims. They are also far more genuinely anti-Semitic than Labour. A few days ago David Rosenberg of the Jewish Socialist Group put up a piece detailing some instances of their anti-Semitism. This included an incident remembered by the former speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow. He was told by an unnamed Tory MP that if he had his way, ‘people like you’ would not be allowed in the chamber. Bercow asked him what he meant – lower class people, or Jews. The man replied ‘Both’. But never mind, Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis heartily loves the Tories and warmly welcomed Tweezer entry to 10 Downing Street. Mirvis seems to consider anti-Semitism as synonymous with anti-Zionism or hostility to Israel, so he and the rest of the Jewish establishment have precious little interest in combating real anti-Semitism when it comes from genuine Nazis or the right. Comfy little Tory supporters, they’re only interested in manufacturing spurious claims and smears against the left.
As for the low paid, they hate them because not only do they claim benefits, but, like the unemployed, the believe it’s their fault they’re poor. In their idea of capitalism, a version that has never existed apart from their imaginations, the free market rewards merit. If a worker is low-paid, then it’s their fault. They should either work harder, or actively find a better paid job. Even if, thanks to the low-wage policies they’ve imposed since Thatcher, there are none about. In that case, it’s just tough. The free market is somehow sacrosanct and inviolable.
Here’s the cartoon. I hope you like it, and, as always, please don’t have nightmares.
Okay, we’re in the middle of an unprecedented public health emergency, a global pandemic that is forcing country after country across the world to go into lockdown. The French passed legislation a week or so ago stipulating that citizens had to have documented permission in order to leave the homes. Earlier this week our clown of a Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, appeared on television to tell us that he was ordering us, with certain exception, to stay in our homes. The exceptions are key workers and people caring for the sick. You are allowed to leave home to get food and other necessary visits. But that’s it. Shops, businesses and libraries are closing, and there are to be no public gatherings of more than two people.
The crisis has brought out the very best and worse of people. People are going round to check on and run errands for neighbours in high-risk categories, such as those over 70, and those with pre-existing conditions that make them more vulnerable, like cancer patients. On the other hand, we’ve also seen mobs clearing the shelves of food and toilet paper in supermarkets and stores, hoarding them and so preventing others, like the elderly, sick and healthcare workers, from acquiring them. One of my neighbours was so upset when she personally saw this happening when she went shopping that she burst into tears in her car.
But one person the crisis hasn’t affected is Rachel Riley. She appears to be as squalid, mean-spirited, spiteful and bigoted as ever. She, Oberman and a female hack had tried to get Ken Loach and Michael Rosen dropped from judging a competition organised by the anti-racist organisation, Show Racism the Red Card, because she decided they were anti-Semites. The accusation’s risible. Ken Loach is a left-wing film auteur, who is passionately anti-racist. And that includes fighting anti-Semitism. Of course the Thatcherites inside and outside the Labour party and the Israel lobby tried to smear him as anti-Semite a year or so ago because he has directed a film attacking Israel’s barbarous treatment of the Palestinians. But he enjoys the support of very many anti-racist, self-respecting Jews in the Labour Party. When he appeared at a meeting of Jewish Voice for Labour, he was given a standing ovation.
As for Michael Rosen, not only is the accusation risible, it’s also personally offensive. Rosen’s Jewish, though this doesn’t bother the smear merchants. They seem to especially delight in smearing Jews, who dare to have the temerity to demonstrate that Judaism does not equal Zionism. Indeed, there is, or was, a bit of graffiti on a wall in Jerusalem stating ‘Judaism and Zionism are diametrically opposed’. This is an attitude completely alien to the Jewish establishment. As Tony Greenstein has pointed out time and again, the current Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis grew up in apartheid South Africa and a right-wing settlement on land stolen from the Palestinians, and led a British contingent on the March of the Flags. This is the annual event when Israeli bovver-boys goose step through the Muslim sector of Jerusalem, vandalising property and trying to intimidate the locals. Rosen is an author, poet and broadcaster. He was the Children’s Poet Laureate. I believe he has, like so many other Jewish Brits, lost relatives in the Shoah. He is a Holocaust educator, and appeared before parliament to testify about it. Like Loach, he is very, very definitely no kind of anti-Semite or Nazi. But because he dared to support Jeremy Corbyn, Riley and the other smear merchants attacked him.
Show Racism the Red Card defied the smear campaign of Riley and her fans. The organisation had received statements from people from all walks of life supporting Loach and Rosen. It therefore announced that they were delighted to have them as judges. That should have been it. But it wasn’t. Riley issued another Tweet claiming that Loach is a Holocaust denier. This was because Loach had initially supported another person, whom he believed had been unfairly accused of anti-Semitism. When he found out that the woman really was an anti-Semite and Holocaust denier, he cut off all further communication. Riley deleted this Tweet, but the damage was done. Her fans and others, who had been taken in by her lie bombarded Loach and his family with abuse and threats. He has now been forced to withdraw as a judge.
Mike put up a piece commenting on this vile behaviour. He pointed out that Riley will continue bullying and smearing people until she’s stopped. He’s currently fighting a libel case brought by her, despite Riley not challenging the facts on which Mike based his statement that Riley had bullied a schoolgirl for being anti-Semitic, simply because she supported Corbyn. Mike appealed once again for donations, as justice is expensive. If he wins his case, it just might stop her trying to use the law to smear, bully and silence others. See his article at: https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2020/03/18/sickening-bullying-of-innocents-shows-riley-wont-stop-until-she-is-made-to/
Riley’s tactic of posting and then deleting a Tweet that could be considered libelous and an incitement to intimidation is shared by another noxious character: Tommy Robinson. The arch-islamophobe with convictions for assault and contempt of court has a habit of turning up on the doorsteps of his critics, or their elderly parents, with a couple of mates, demanding a word at all hours of the day and night. He’s also handy at dishing out smears. Mike Stuchbery, one of his most persistent critics, has been forced out of his job as a teacher and live abroad, after Robinson and his crew turned up late one night at his house, banging on the walls and windows and accusing him of being paedophile. It wasn’t remotely true, but then, as Boy George sang so long ago, ‘truth means nothing in some strange quarters’. Robinson also gets his followers to persecute and intimidate his critics, and then also denies he has deliberately provoked them. He denounces and doxes them on the Net, posting details of their home addresses, which he then deletes. No, he wasn’t sending his followers round to threaten them. It was all a mistake, and he took the offending Tweet or post off the Net as soon as possible. It’s all ‘plausible deniability’.
And Riley seems to have adopted the same tactic.
Which shouldn’t surprise anybody, considering how closely linked the Israel lobby is with the EDL. Tony Greenstein, in particularly, has documented and photographed various occasions in which pro-Israel, anti-Palestine protesters have turned up virtually arm in arm with the EDL’s squadristi. I am not accusing Riley of being an islamophobe, but she’s adopting their tactics.
She’s disgusting, and it’s long past time when anyone stopped believing her lies and abuse. I hope Mike will be able to do this when he finally has his day against her in court. Not just for Mike, but for everyone else she’s threatened, bullied and smeared.
Despite Melanie Phillips and Ephraim Mirvis trying to keep the anti-Semitism smears going, there has been some good news. The anti-racism charity, Show Racism the Red Card, politely told smear merchant Rachel Riley where she could stick her complaints about the judges they had selected for a youth competition. The organisation had launched a competition for school children, and chose as judges the left-wing film director, Ken Loach, and Children’s Poet Laureate Michael Rosen. Both are eminently suitable. One of Loach’s most recent film, Dirty Pretty Things, is about the immigrants, who do the dirty, menial work we don’t want to, like cleaning. Michael Rosen is Jewish and an educator on the Holocaust. He has presented evidence about the latter to parliament. But Riley and her matey Tracey-Ann Oberman, and a journalist, Ebner, objected to the decision to appoint the two because they had a ‘problematic’ relationship with British Jews. This was, in my opinion, the insinuation that they were anti-Semitic. Loach has been accused of it before, because he directed a film or a play years ago about the gross maltreatment and dispossession of the Palestinians by the Israelis. Of course, like so many others so smeared, he is nothing of the sort. He was given a very warm welcome a few years ago when he was invited to attend a meeting of Jewish Voice for Labour. They’re a group formed to campaign against the anti-Semitism smears against the party and its leader, Jeremy Corbyn. Unlike the Jewish Labour Movement, they really were all Jewish, although gentiles could become associate members, and they were members of the party. Neither of these stipulations apply to the JLM, whose members don’t have to be Jews or party members, but who somehow claim the right to represent Labour’s Jews. Loach and Rosen were smeared by Riley and her buddies because they had the audacity to support Jeremy Corbyn.
Now Show Racism the Red Card has issued a statement confirming that they are very pleased to have Loach and Rosen as judges. They lament the way the competition has been overshadowed by these accusations. However, they were contacted by prominent figures in education, the arts, sport, law, media, science and politics, who endorsed their decision and refuted the allegations against Loach and Rosen. They also thank the public for the kind messages of support they received from them. Loach has been a member of the charity’s Hall of Fame because of his work with them. The charity says of Loach and Rosen that
As award-winning icons in their respective fields, it is very exciting for us that Ken and Michael have agreed to be judges. But equally important is the compassion we have seen them show to people – of all races and religions – who our charity is here to help.
Mike rightly describes Riley and her fellows as bigots. They are, in the sense that they are utterly intolerant of the opinions of others. They have consistently tried to silence and deplatform supporters of Jeremy Corbyn by smearing them as anti-Semites, even self-respecting Jews like Michael Rosen. However, Riley isn’t concerned about real anti-Semitism from outside the Labour party. She is silent when people send her examples of such to her Twitter feed. Mike gives two such cases. One is a Tweet from the Prole Star asking her what she has to say about a video contained in the Tweet. This shows the islamophobe Tommy Robinson greeting his followers with ‘Shalom’ – the traditional Jewish greeting – and asking them to send money so he can continue his work of destroying the White race. Robinson is a gentile, and this is a reference to the notorious anti-Semitic conspiracy theory about Jews. Robinson’s probably joking, but this isn’t funny, just grossly offensive.
Derek Lucas sent Riley and the noxious editor of the Jewish Chronicle, Stephen Pollard, a Tweet from the Auschwitz Memorial. The Museum was appealing to Amazon to take down from the book store real anti-Semitic books. These included one by Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi governor of Czechoslovakia and one of the chief organisers of the Holocaust, and three by the Nazi ideologue, Alfred Rosenberg. One of these was an explicitly anti-Semitic piece with the title, The Jew and His Trace through History. And another was The Sins of High Finance, which you can guess is about the Jewish control of capitalism. There’s no question that these books should not be for sale. But Riley has said that she’s not interested in anti-Semitism outside the Labour Party. And so she’s silent about these real works of anti-Jewish hatred, by men who were active in the Jews’ mass murder.
Mike is currently fighting a libel action against him brought by Riley, who wishes to silence him and a number of others for the horrendous crime of blogging about her alleged bullying and smearing of a vulnerable schoolgirl as an anti-Semite. Because, surprise! Surprise! – the girl also dared to support Corbyn on line. Mike states that it is important that he win, so he can very publicly defeat her and her wretched bigotry. He therefore ends his article by appealing for donations and giving details how people may give them, if they choose to do so.
It’s excellent that Show Racism the Red Card has stood up to the real bullies in this, and backed Loach and Rosen. I have no doubt that they’ll be excellent judges.
And Riley’s silence on real Nazism and anti-Semitism would seem to indicate that she’s the real bigot in all this.
Unfortunately, Melanie Phillips wasn’t the only person this week violating the provisions of the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism in Israel’s favour. So was Ephraim Mirvis, the world’s worst Chief Rabbi. Mirv appeared in the page of the wretched right-wing libel sheet, the Jewish Chronicle, talking about his speech to AIPAC explaining why he told the British Jewish public not to vote for Labour because of Jeremy Corbyn. AIPAC is one of the very largest pro-Israel lobbying organisation in America. The largest is Ted Hagee’s equally vile Christians United for Israel, but AIPAC is extremely influential. Leading American politicos, including presidential candidates like Hillary Clinton, have appeared before it, pledging their undying support for Israel and seeking the organisation’s endorsement. And its leaders include such charmless nerks as Sheldon Adelson. Adelson’s a casino billionaire, who has apparently made it public that his first loyalty is to Israel. The IHRA definition of anti-Semitism says it is anti-Semitic to accuse Jews of being more loyal to a foreign country. For the vast majority of Jews, this is undoubtedly the case – they’re loyal citizens and accusing them of such disloyalty would be anti-Semitic. But in Adelson’s case, apparently, it’s true.
Mirv’s Violation of IHRA Anti-Semitism Definition
Mirv declared that Prime Ministers of Israel and key Jewish leaders have been graciously and warmly welcomed at No. 10 under the Conservatives. As Mike points out in his article, they’ve also been welcomed by Labour leaders. One of these was Tony Blair, who received considerable backing from the Israel lobby, which is probably one of the reasons why the Blairites were able to make such an alliance with the Israel lobby in the Labour Party to attack Corbyn. He then went on to ask rhetorically “What would happen if the next incumbent was Jeremy Corbyn? What would the consequences be for Jews and Judaism and the State of Israel?” As Mike also points out, that also violates another stipulation of the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism – that Jews should not be identified with Israel.
Unfortunately, Zionists do it all the time. Netanyahu passed a law nearly a decade ago making all Jews everywhere automatically citizens of Israel. Many Jews weren’t impressed. There are very many Israel critical and anti-Zionist Jews. These include ultra-Orthodox Haredi Jews, who believe it is their God-given duty to remain in exile and work for the good of the countries in which they live, until the Messiah comes to restore Israel. This cannot be the work of a secular state, which is an abomination. They’re a growing section of the British Israeli population. In a few years they will account for a third of it, and will have overtaken the United Synagogue as the largest section of British Jewry. Other Jews are critical of Israel from a belief in traditional liberal Jewish values, and despise the country for its barbarous ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. And these are also a growing part of the American Jewish population. An increasing number of American Jewish young people have no interest in Israel, or actively oppose it because of its treatment of the Palestinians. Enrollment in the heritage tours, which the Israeli state gives American school leavers so that they can visit Israel, is falling. One Jewish American, commenting on Netanyahu’s wretched citizenship law, said it was ludicrous that he, who had been born in Anchorage in Alaska, was a member of country he’d never been to, while his friend, a Palestinian, had no right to return to the country of his birth. And this opposition to Israel is shared by Jews, who have experienced genuine anti-Semitism.
Chief Rabbinate and Board of Deputies Not Representative of British Jewry
And then there’s the claim of the Zionist Jewish establishment to represent all of Britain’s Jews. Er, no, they really don’t. The Jews have never been a monolithic community. That’s a fantasy of anti-Semites. They’re as disparate and varied in their attitudes, opinions and values as every other ethnic or religious group. As Jewish bloggers like Tony Greenstein and David Rosenberg have pointed out, the Board of Deputies really only represents the United Synagogue. And its questionable how many of them it represents. Some synagogues don’t allow women to vote, others have sitting deputies whom they haven’t changed for years. And the Board’s constitution explicitly defines itself as a Zionist organisation, so non-Zionists need not apply. And needless to say, as they’re based on the synagogues, they don’t represent that third of British Jewry that is secular. But never mind. Once upon a time ’twas said that the Anglican Church was the Tory party at prayer. That was true at one time, as the Tory party stood for the monarchy, the established church and the landed aristocracy. But since Thatcher the Anglican Church has also criticised Tory policy on poverty, leading to disputes between the Tories and the Archbishop of Canterbury. It now seems that the Anglican Church is no longer such a staunch upholder of Conservatism. That role now seems to have been taken over by the United Synagogue, who can always be relied on to produce another anti-Semitism smear against Labour when the Tories are in trouble.
As for the Chief Rabbinate, as Mike has said on his blog, traditional Jewish theology and law stipulates that no rabbi’s opinion is any better than any other rabbi’s. And so when Mirvis speaks, it could be said that he speaks for himself alone, or rather, just himself and those who choose to share his opinions. The old retort Winston Churchill once gave a member of the House Lords therefore seems to apply to him: ‘The honourable member represents only himself, and I don’t like his constituency’.
Mirvis himself is a true-blue Tory, and welcomed the ascension of Tweezer as Prime Minister. He is also very much a Zionist thug. He and his predecessor, the noxious ‘Reform Jews are enemies of the faith’ Jonathan Sacks, both led British contingents to the annual March of the Flags in Jerusalem. That’s the unedifying occasion when ultra-patriotic Israeli boot-boys go marching through the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem, waving the Israeli flag around, vandalising Palestinian property and terrorising the locals. Sacks was requested by a liberal Jewish organisation not to go. He ignored them.
Jews Safe and Respected Under Corbyn
Not every Tory was happy about Mirvis’ decision to attack Corbyn. Simon Kelner wrote a piece in the I attacking it, stating that if Corbyn did win the election, nothing would happen to Britain’s Jews. There would be no riots, no pogroms. Now Kelner promoted the anti-Semitism smears as enthusiastically as all the other Fleet Street hacks. And in writing his piece he may well have been afraid that Corbyn would get in, and Mirv’s predictions of rampant Jew-hatred would have been exposed as the fearmongering it was. And as a consequence, the reputation of Chief Rabbinate would have been very badly damaged.
But Kelner would have been right. Nothing would have happened to Britain’s Jews under a Corbyn administration, because neither Corbyn nor his supporters are anti-Semites. Quite the opposite – Corbyn has always worked for the Jewish community. And he would have continued to do so. What would have happened is that Israel would have come under pressure to obey UN resolutions regarding the treatment of the Palestinians. And the ability of the Israel lobby to smear critics of Israel as anti-Semites would be severely damaged.
Jews Historically Indifferent or Opposed to Israel and Zionism
As for the relationship between British Jews and Israel, my guess is that the situation would have gone back to that pre-1969 and the launch of the Neo-Con project. William Kristol announced it in an American Jewish magazine as a method for encouraging Americans, and that included American Jews, to support Israel. Norman Finkelstein, that redoubtable Jewish American critic of Zionism, has pointed out that Kristol launched Neo-Conservatism because American Jews weren’t interested in Israel. They had no interest going to an unknown country, when they could make comfortable lives for themselves in America. David Rosenberg has said that until World War II, Zionism was a tiny minority in European Jewish opinion. Most Jews wished to remain in the nations of their birth, as equal citizens. The slogan of the Jewish socialist party, the Bund, was ‘Wherever we live, that’s our homeland!’. My guess is that British Jews have the same attitude. The Balfour Declaration was opposed by the British Jewish establishment, as they wanted Jews to be, and to be seen as, patriotic fellow Brits. They did not want to be accused of being foreign or having divided loyalties, and felt very strongly that the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine would lead to such anti-Semitic accusations. If British Jews migrated, my guess is that most of them would have gone to the same destinations as their gentile counterparts – America, or one of the White majority Commonwealth countries – Canada, Australia or New Zealand. Jews have been dinkum Ozzies since the 19th century. In the 1870s Rabbi Davis of the Sydney Synagogue took part in a rally against the enslavement of the indigenous Polynesians along with his Christian compatriots in the Anglican, Methodist and Presbyterian churches. According to Patridge’s Dictionary of Historical Slang, the Australian term ‘Cobber’ comes from the Hebrew ‘Cobar’, which means ‘comrade’. If Corbyn had got in, it’s possible that all that would have resulted is that more Jews would have become indifferent to Israel. An attitude that’s probably growing anyway.
Conclusion
Mike in his piece on Mirv’s wretched speech asks if the Chief Rabbi is more concerned about representing Israeli racism than Britain’s Jews. I don’t think Mirvis is able to distinguish between Judaism and Israel, so taken is he with the Zionist lie that the two are one and the same. And at present, the absolute, uncritical support he and the Board demand for Israel does mean supporting racism, apartheid and ethnic cleansing.
An increasing number of British Jews, including those who consider themselves Zionist, oppose this. But it seems that Mirvis really doesn’t represent them.
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