Labour Anti-Semitism: Starmer Once Again Accusing Jews

I had a couple of commenters come over here a few days ago to give me the benefit of their views on my article about Gary Spedding getting suspended. Spedding was all too keen to have decent people suspended and expelled on trumped up anti-Semitism charges, but has now changed his tune somewhat now that he has met the same fate. He’s been accused of passing around Green party material during the Hartlepool election. Thus Spedding now would like to offer his solidarity with others. Except when Mike asked him for an apology for calling him an anti-Semite and holocaust denier, Spedding asked why he would want to apologise to him. He hasn’t learned anything, hasn’t really changed his views. He just wants sympathy and so deserves everything he gets.

One of the commenters on my article about this said that I had a conspiratorial attitude, and a problem with people who had genuine concerns about anti-Semitism, particularly Jews. Another left a snarky comment stating that I believed all the anti-Semitic libels against the people I term ultra-Zionists, ‘who just happen to be Jews’. I deleted that comment because, sarcastic as it was, I didn’t want the anti-Semitic smears to appear on my blog, as well as the fact that I couldn’t be bother to argue against such nonsense.

In fact there is abundant evidence to show that all the anti-Semitism comes from the Labour party witch-hunters. It’s sectarian anti-Semitism directed primarily against the people that threaten the Board of Deputies’ very narrow definition of British Jewry: people like them from the United Synagogue, who wholeheartedly support Israel and demand the suppression of any reporting of its atrocities against the Palestinians. Neoliberals who support Blair and fear the revival of socialism in the Labour party, and so joined the rest of the Conservatives in looking for a way to smear Corbyn and his supporters.

Four-fifths of the people accused of anti-Semitism are Jews. They’re supposed to be self-hating. This is risible, a sick joke. There are, unfortunately, self-hating Jews. I found an academic book about the phenomenon once in the university library. In some extreme cases, they pretend to be Aryans and join neo-Nazi groups. There was a case in the ’90s of one such individual, who was the head of a neo-Nazi unit. He took his own life after being outed to his storm troopers. But none of the peeps Starmer and Evans are suspending for anti-Semitism seem even remotely like this. They look to me like decent, self-respecting, secular and Torah-observant Jews. Many of them have been victims of real anti-Semitic abuse and assault, as I’ve said ad nauseam. They’re being smeared and expelled instead because they’re socialists, supporters of Jeremy Corbyn, who criticise Israel’s barbaric ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. And this week, Starmer’s NEC suspended and smeared 11 more Jewish victims:  Leah Levane, Jenny Manson, Graham Bash, Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, Mike Cushman, Glyn Secker, Jonathan Rosenhead, Stephen Marks, Diana Neslen, Marion Roberts, Tony Booth. Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi is one of the leading figures in Jewish Voice for Labour, which one right-wing Labour MP tweeted should be expelled en masse along with other ‘commies’. Graham Bash is a well-respected Labour member and activist of very long standing. But they’re the ‘wrong kind of Jews’.

The Blairites running these purges make great use of the fact that real Nazis and Fascists identified Jews with capitalism, and so have accused anyone attacking big business or the financial sector of being anti-Semitic. But the Nazis also believed Jews were responsible for Communism and ‘Marxist’ socialism. I’m afraid I haven’t been able to find the exact quote, but in the 1920s/30s Nazi propaganda against the SPD, the mainstream German socialist party roughly like the Labour party, was that it had been taken over by Jews. The Jews had conspired to get elected as delegates to the Reichstag and were busy expelling non-Jews from the party so they could replace them. It’s a nasty, vile piece of propaganda. And now we see something rather like it with the anti-Semitism smears. The smear merchants are claiming that the wrong type of Jews, commies and pinko lefties, are trying to take over the Labour party to oust virtuous believers in capitalism and Maggie Thatcher, and so must be purged.

But the anti-Semitism smears and lies are just one part of this general purge by Keef Stalin against the left. If he can’t smear his opponents as anti-Semites, he suspends them anyway, with no reason given. We’ve seen this with the sudden suspension of delegates to the Labour conference which begins tomorrow. It seems to be simply a method to remove delegates, who would vote out general secretary David Evans, the vile individual chiefly responsible for the purges and smear campaign within Labour. The victims haven’t been given reasons, just suspended. This is arbitrary government, the mark of the tyrant. It shows that Starmer and the NEC cannot be trusted and should not be allowed in government.

Because if they break the internal regulations of the Labour party, how much worse would they be if they felt they could break the laws of our great and beautiful country with impunity? And what would they do to real socialists, especially our Jewish brothers and sisters, if they had the power of the state?

See: https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2021/09/21/also-in-the-news-starmers-racist-labour-accuses-jews-of-anti-semitism/

Labour conference: as party leaders fight to destroy democracy, isn’t it time for a ‘no confidence’ vote?

Tony Greenstein on the Leaked Anti-Semitism Report, the Political Motivation behind the Smears, and Corbyn’s Capitulation

Tony Greenstein has just put up the second part of his critique of the leaked report on anti-Semitism in the Labour party. This is the report that has caused so much anger and outrage amongst ordinary, rank and file members, through its revelations that the party bureaucracy were doing everything they could to unseat Corbyn, including purging his supporters and actively campaigning against the Labour party in the 2017 election. The first part of Greenstein’s article examines this aspect of the report. The second part now explains how it shows that Corbyn and his office did not understand the political nature of the anti-Semitism allegations. Led by Jon Lansman, Corbyn and his team absolutely accepted that the accusations were made in good faith. They caved in utterly to the accusers, who were motivated purely by a desire to topple Corbyn and protect Israel from justifiable criticism of its brutal programme of slow-motion genocide against the Palestinians. Thus Corbyn, Lansman, Milne et al threw their supporters to the wolves in a massively mistaken policy of appeasement. The Israel lobby and its accomplices inside and outside the party, including the Conservative Jewish establishment, were not only not appeased, by emboldened by this capitulation. They continued with increasing fervour until Corbyn himself, a passionate lifelong anti-racist and opponent of anti-Semitism, was smeared.

Greenstein’s piece tackles a number of episodes in this sorry tale of retreat and capitulation. This includes how Corbyn should have responded to Andrew Neil’s demand that he apologise to the Jewish community by pointing out how Neil, as head of the board of the Spectator, was responsible for the continuing employment of real anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers by the magazine. Scumbags like David Irving and Taki. He describes how Corbyn’s office itself put on pressure for the expulsion of himself, Jackie Walker, Marc Wadsworth and Ken Livingstone.

His piece discusses real anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, such as the historical cases of the Webbs, Herbert Morrison, and the perversion of the definition of anti-Semitism to mean anti-Zionism. He also argues that some of the hostile rhetoric against the Rothschilds really isn’t anti-Semitic, as many of those using it don’t understand that the Rothschilds were Jewish. It just reflects a poor political understanding of Zionism, when used solely in this context. He makes the point that the British and American elites support Israel for its military and political significance in the Middle East.

He also shows how the far-right ultra-Zionist activist David Collier infiltrated the Labour Party, leading the party’s Governance and Legal Unit to suspend Glyn Secker of Jewish Voice for Labour. He also discusses Jackie Walker’s and other cases, where the claims of anti-Semitic were false or at best, extremely flimsy. He also describes how anti-Semites have supported Zionism ever since the days of Alfred Dreyfus, and shows how the Jewish Labour Movement always supported Netanyahu and never criticised Israel, despite their denials. He refutes the claim that Sir Stephen Sedley and Geoffrey Robertson, one a former appeal court judge, the other a QC, both supported the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism. In fact, they were both ardent critics. The report also boasts of how Jennie Formby increased the suspensions for anti-Semitism due to pressure from the Jewish establishment. He quotes Len McCluskey, who said of the Jewish establishment’s refusal to be satisfied that Labour was effectively tackling anti-Semitism, as them refusing to take ‘yes’ for an answer.

He also shows how the accusations that Labour was in denial about the extent of anti-Semitism in the party was simply a convenient slur to mask their real targets – Corbyn’s support for improved conditions for working people and proper funding of the NHS. He states that Corbyn was unable to formulate a competing worldview to counter that of the Tories, which is why he ultimately lost. He simply wanted an improvement in conditions, whereas the whole structure of society needs to be changed. And he states that this accusation shows absolute contempt for the 70 per cent of Labour members, who don’t believe anti-Semitism is a problem and understand that the vast majority of accusations are politically motivated.

He then moves on demolish other cases of bogus accusations of anti-Semitism against Margaret Tyson, Asa Winstanley, Chris Williamson, Brian Lovett-White – smeared because he said that Zionism was anti-Semitism, which was actually historically the attitude of most Jews; and Alan Bull, suspended for connecting Israel to ISIS, when there is evidence to support this as factually correct. He also describes cases where the witch-hunters dragged their feet or failed to act against genuine cases of anti-Semitism, such as Nasreen Khan, Christopher Crookes, and Fleur Dunbar. He contrasts their case with that Anne Mitchell of Hove, who was expelled simply for talking about the Israel lobby, despite the fact that Israel does have lobbying groups like AIPAC campaigning on its behalf.

His piece concludes

The expulsion of socialists who have dedicated their life to the labour movement and the Labour Party is having a serious detrimental effect on their health. Pauline Hammerton died of a brain haemorrhage a week after receiving her expulsion letter. Clearly the Labour Party’s treatment of her contributed to her death. However such matters are of no concern to the author(s) of this Report. Their only concern is factional, rebutting the suggestion that they were not equally as active in expelling socialists and anti-racists as McNicol and Matthews.

See: http://azvsas.blogspot.com/2020/04/pt-2-labours-leaked-report-sad-sorry.html

This is a thorough demolition of the witch-hunt, showing just how spurious and hypocritical the allegations and those behind them were. But it also shows that their false assumption were shared by the compilers of the report. Both Mike at Vox Political and Martin Odoni have also written extensively attacking the report’s blithe acceptance of these smears.

Unfortunately, while there is immense pressure to bring the political intriguers to justice, there is absolutely no commitment to refute assumptions by Starmer and the current leadership. This is probably because they, like Corbyn, uncritically accept them.

And so decent people remain grotesquely smeared, and the potential for fresh witch-hunt, whenever the Israel lobby find it convenient, remains.

 

 

 

 

Secretary of Jewish Voices for Labour Libelled as Anti-Semite

Another day, another smear by the Israel lobby and their collaborators in the Labour party against another decent, anti-racist individual. This time the victim is Glyn Secker, the secretary of Jewish Voices for Labour. He’s been suspended from the Labour party because of allegations that he posted anti-Semitic comments on social media.

Mike posted up a piece about it, including the condemnation of Mr. Secker’s suspension by his colleagues in Jewish Voices for Labour on Wednesday. He pointed out that, whoever Secker’s accusers are, they waited a long time before accusing him because he hasn’t posted on Twitter since mid-2016. Mike believes it has more to do with alleged anti-Semitic comments Secker made at demonstrations and gatherings at which he spoke. One of these was at Grosvenor Square, London, on the 6th January of this year. Euan Philips in the Huffington Post, claimed that his speech was full of ‘anti-Semitic slurs’. But a recording of the speech, cited by Mike, shows instead just criticism of Israel.

Which is probably what this is all about. Mr. Secker is the Director and a member of the Executive Committee of the organisation, Jews for Justice for Palestinians, and captained the Jewish boat to Gaza in 2009. So this looks very much like another smear by the Israel lobby and the Blairites against someone, who is very definitely not an anti-Semite, and whose only crime is supporting the Palestinians.

His fellows in Jewish Voices for Labour point out the unfair nature of the accusation. There is no accuser, the charges are vague, but nevertheless the head of Disputes, Glyn Matthews, is taking it so seriously that Secker has been suspended. Jewish Voices for Labour rightly state that these false allegations are bringing Labour into disrepute.

They state further

This is an absurd, politically-motivated attack on our Secretary and our organisation. We call on our supporters to move motions of censure in their branches and CLPs. To use allegations of antisemitism in this way is an abuse of power, and a degrading of the seriousness of actual antisemitism and other forms of racism. While antisemitism is monstrous – and, like all forms of racism, should be vigorously dealt with – false accusations of antisemitism are monstrous too. We call for the immediate lifting of these charges.

Mike in his article also wonders if the attack is motivated by the problems now facing the Jewish Labour Movement, who have finally called in the cops to investigate their head honcho, Jonathan Newmark. No Morals Newmark has been credibly accused of embezzling money from Jewish charities when he was head of the Jewish Leadership Council, although the Council didn’t call the rozzers in because of a desire to avoid a scandal. No Morals denies the charges, of course, claiming that he left the organisation due to health reasons.

This looks like an attempt by the Israel lobby to close down a rival organisation in the Labour party, and allow the Jewish Labour Movement to monopolise its position, casting itself as the only organisation speaking for Jews in the Labour party. Which means Jews joining such an organisation automatically have to support its policy of supporting Israel, and covering up the Israeli state’s 7 decades long campaign of massacre, ethnic cleansing and apartheid against the Palestinians.

Glyn Secker and Jewish Voices for Labour clearly present a threat to their attempts to establish this monopoly, by providing an alternative political outlet and view of Jewish identity regarding the treatment of the Palestinians. The Israel lobby can’t allow that, and so we have the fake allegations of anti-Semitism and the Kafka-esque perversion of justice. Just like Mike’s case, there’s no accuser, and the charges are vague. It’s another kangaroo court.

Mike’s article is at: https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2018/03/08/jewish-man-suspended-from-membership-of-labour-party-for-anti-semitism/
Please read it.

I am heartily, heartily sick and tired of these smears and libels. To accuse decent people of anti-Semitism, and, in Mike’s case, Holocaust Denial, is to cast them as monsters of the same type as real Nazis like the banned terrorist group, National Action, and their grotesque conspiracy theories about Jews and vociferous demands for their persecution and extermination. And if it’s bad enough for gentiles to be labelled as such, I can only think how much worse it must be for those of Jewish heritage, because of the long history of their people’s persecution.

And I despise the skulking anonymity which protects the accusers’ identities. I dare say that if you challenged these organisations on it, they’d give you some glib twaddle about how it was needed to protect them, considering the work they do infiltrating and exposing anti-Semitism. This just looks like nonsense to me, as they seem not remotely interested in anti-Semitism per se, but just trying to silence criticism of Israel. And dictatorial regimes have always used anonymous spies and accusers to stifle dissent, ever since the Roman Empire.

Now’s the time to end this charade, beginning with the anonymity. If the people making these accusations aren’t prepared to do so openly, revealing their identity, then the accusation should be automatically thrown out as vexatious and mischievous. Also, definite charges should be made. Vague accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’ should not be allowed to pass unquestioned. If they cannot produce substantial charges, then the accusation should be thrown out as an another smear.

I also believe this attack on Mr Secker was connected to another accusation of anti-Semitism, this time by the misnamed Campaign Against Anti-Semitism. They claimed that Labour MPs were posting on a pro-Palestinian website that was making anti-Semitic accusations about the Jews, and in particular about the Rothschild’s banking family. I think there was also some accusation that the site also denied the Holocaust. It looks like the Israel lobby was going in for a coordinated attack on pro-Palestinian groups, and that the smears against Mr. Secker were part of this.

I’ve had enough of the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism. They’ve done nothing but smear decent people for the benefit of the Israeli state and its friends in the British media. They’re a corrupt, sham organisation, who should have their charitable status rescinded.

It’s time to close down this witch-hunt. Anyone making further smears should be booted out of the party as a mischief-maker seeking to undermine party democracy, and a libeller.