Okay, I’ve been put on probation by the Labour party for posting nasty things that are historically and philosophically true and correct, but which upset the delicate sensibilities of Zionists that are all for silencing any supporters of the Palestinians. Well, here’s something that will annoy them. It’s a longer version of a clip I found on YouTube of the veteran Jewish critic of Israel, Professor Norman Finkelstein, tearing into a young female student for the way she hides behind the Holocaust to defend Israel.
Finkelstein was a speaking at an event at Waterloo University. The girl complains that during his speech Finkelstein had described certain people as Nazis, and through tears says it’s very hurtful to Germans and to people who suffered under the Holocaust. This is too much for Finkelstein, whose parents were also Holocaust survivors. He tells her to shut her crocodile tears and that he doesn’t like using the Holocaust, but his father was in Auschwitz and his late mother in Majdanek. His father’s family were also involved in the Warsaw ghetto and were murdered by the Nazis. And he protests against Israel because of what his parents taught him. And if she had any real feeling, she’d be crying for the Palestinians, for the brutality they suffer, and the house clearances and other atrocities.
The girl really was going to lose when she tried to use the Holocaust to silence Finkelstein. Not only had his parents and relatives also suffered, as so many Jewish people have had parents and relatives suffer in the camps, but he also wrote a book awhile ago on the political uses of the Holocaust and the nasty, exploitative policies pursued by lawyers and firms claiming to be trying to get compensation for its victims, The Holocaust Industry. Quite often this has seen the compensation due to the Holocaust survivors swallowed up in lawyers fees. Israel has invited Holocaust survivors to settle, but really only wants their money through various schemes, and there are instances of the victims of Nazi brutality living in poverty or on the streets. The Zionist movement originally played down the Holocaust because they were afraid it made Jews look weak and unable to manage their own state. It was only after the Six Day War that the Holocaust was played up as a propaganda tool by Israel. It’s a horrible, cynically politically utilitarian attitude to one of the most horrific atrocities in human history and its victims.
The result of this is that the crowd goes nuts. Some cheer, others boo. But Finkelstein simply grins into the camera and says ‘I’ve never been in a crowd like this. They’re insane.’
One of the big international stories over the past few days has been the invasion of a Texas synagogue, Congregation Beth Israel, in Colleyville by an armed British-Pakistani man, Malik Faisal Akram. Akram took the rabbi and the congregation, who were there for morning prayers, hostage demanding the release of a Pakistani neuroscientist, Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, who was jailed for 85 years on terrorism charges in Afghanistan. Fortunately, the rabbi and his flock managed to escape as the FBI shot Akram dead. Akram’s brother blamed mental health issues, and two teens have been arrested, suspected of terrorism, in Manchester. Real anti-Semitic incidents like this are becoming all too regular. If I remember correctly, it was around this time last year that a White Nazi shot up the Tree of Life Synagogue in America. This is what real, vicious anti-Semitism looks like, not Jeremy Corbyn nodding in agreement with a Holocaust survivor who compares the Israeli state’s treatment of the Palestinians to the Nazis’ persecution of his. And as a survivor of the Shoah, I’d say that the gentleman concerned had every right to make that comparison, no matter how it may infuriate the extreme nationalists of the Israel lobby.
We’re used to western, Fascist anti-Semitism and its origins in stupid, poisonous conspiracy theories about an international Jewish plot to enslave Whites, and there is now a considerable amount of anti-Semitism in the Islamic world. A few years ago Egyptian television broadcast an adaptation of the infamous forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. While Islam’s history has not been entirely without Jew-hatred, historians have traditionally considered that it was much less than in Christendom. In fact, the type of poisonous anti-Semitism now inspiring such attacks and atrocities in the Muslim world really only dates from about the Second World War and the formation of the Jewish colonies in mandate Palestine. As conflict broke out between the Jewish settlers and Palestinians, the Nazis decided that they were going to try to appeal to the Muslim world as allies against the Jews and the British. They therefore recruited the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who formed a squad of Muslim Nazi auxiliaries to fight in the Balkans and elsewhere. The Nazis also got busy trying to formulate an Islamic version of their own wretched ideology, which would inspire Muslims to join them. They therefore decided that there were four important, defining similarities between Islam and Nazism. I can’t quite remember what they are – it’s a little while since I read up on it. But I do remember that they were so broad and vague that there was precious little in them that could be seen as unique to Islam, or convince anyone not already an Islamist Nazi fanatic that there was any particular similarity between Islam and Nazism. They also attempted to reformulate Islamic history, creating a gross distortion that presented the Jews as the inveterate enemies of Islam since the days of Mohammed. Mohammed did indeed fight battles against the Jewish tribes in Arabia during his career. But the impression I’ve had was that, after his victories over them, there wasn’t much anti-Semitism in Islam. Pogroms did break out sporadically, and in Morocco Jews were confined to ghettos as they were in Christian Europe. But generally Islam was more tolerant of the Jews than the Christian world.
From what I’ve seen, ,the Islamists responsible for terrorist atrocities across the world are very strongly influence by the Nazi conspiracy theories. They seem to believe, like their White, western counterparts, that there is some global, secret Jewish conspiracy controlling everything behind the scenes. The Jews are somehow responsible for every thing evil in the world, and particularly for any attack on Islam and its people. Combating Islamism means exposing and fighting the perverted view of Islamic history that was introduced by Hitler’s minions. Just as fighting anti-Semitism means standing up to White, non-Muslim Nazi thugs.
If this is done, then hopefully society will become more tolerant and terrorist attacks on synagogues, whether by Whites, Muslims or anybody, will become much rarer.
Okay, I’ve attacked the fanatical Zionists for making false accusations of anti-Semitism against decent people, who make legitimate, reasonable criticisms of the Israeli state’s ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. Now to deal with people, who could be justly accused of genuine anti-Semitism: real Nazis and Holocaust deniers.
I found this excellent video on YouTube yesterday. Myles Power is a Brit, who appears to specialise in exposing real human rights abuses and genuinely terrible people. And a number of these genuinely terrible people are those trying to claim that the Holocaust never happened or was much smaller than real, mainstream historians believe. The target of his video was Fred Leuchter and one of Leuchter’s friends, who were alleging that they’d been terribly libelled by Power. Power’s video was his response, showing not only that he hadn’t libelled them and adding even more, damning evidence against them.
Leuchter was an engineer who designed gas chambers and other execution machines for the American prison service. In 1988 he was hired by Canadian Nazi Ernst Zundl to go and examine the remains of Auschwitz and see if it really was a gas chamber. He did so, came to the conclusion that he could find little trace of Zyklon B, the gas used by the Nazis to murder 6 million Jews, and that therefore Auschwitz wasn’t a gas chamber. It’s nonsense. The evidence showing the reality of the Holocaust is, as an American judge ruled, so plentiful it cannot be sanely denied. And this applies very much to such infamous centres of the murder as Auschwitz.
Channel 4 screened a documentary following Leuchter on his journey and examination of Auschwitz, interviewing him and various others, including Zundl. The documentary also feature a Jewish historian of the Holocaust, who debunked Leuchter with genuine fact. The reason why there were few traces of Zyklon B in the brickwork was because the gas doesn’t permeate very far into it. And after thirty years or so the majority of the gas that did would have been exhaled from it. There is also the problem in that what remains of Auschwitz is only a fragment of the historic death camp. After the War much of it was demolished by the Poles and the bricks used to build a housing estate nearby. Leuchter therefore only examined a tiny part of the original structure. Further proof of the use of the gas probably exists in the bricks used in the neighbouring homes.
Leuchter and his friends also claimed that there is little documentary proof to support the Holocaust. This was debunked by the Jewish critic as well. The Nazis were determined to hide their murder of the Jews, and so used coded language to describe what they were doing. This euphemistically referred to the mass murder as ‘relocation to the east’ or ‘special operations in the east’. In fact, supporting the reality of Auschwitz is not only the testimony of the survivors, but also that of its Commandant, Rudolf Hoess. Hoess was unrepentant and really didn’t see that he had been responsible for one of the most horrific crimes in history. His testimony has been published by mainstream publishers. I found a copy in Waterstones a few years ago. There are also speeches from Heinrich Himmler, the SS chief responsible for the Holocaust, including one at Auschwitz. Despite the euphemistic language used, the evidence to support the Holocaust’s reality is plentiful and absolutely incontrovertible.
But evidence supporting Leuchter’s expertise on the issue is far less impressive. Leuchter claimed to have been employed by six American states to design gas chambers and other methods of execution. Inquiries by a Ms. Shapiro of an organisation representing Holocaust survivors found that he had, in fact, been employed by only one, Missouri. He either hadn’t been involved with the others, or had appeared briefly to make a few comments and offer his services, but hadn’t been taken on. And some of the machines he produced were definitely dodgy. One machine he built to kill the prisoner using drugs would have paralysed the victim, as intended, but he would have been left in terrible agony by the chemical used, which would have produced a terrible burning sensation. After one state terminated his contract, he told them he had deliberately sold them a faulty machine, which would require servicing from time to time. Power goes on to say that he has found evidence that casts doubt on whether Leuchter is actually a qualified engineer as he claims. This will be the subject of a forthcoming video.
And lastly, there’s the obvious point that it doesn’t help Leuchter’s credibility that the man with whom he is talking about the terribly way Power has libelled him is clearly a Nazi standing in front of a gold, Nazi emblem. You know the one – the eagle carrying the swastika. And Power isn’t afraid of any legal action from these bozos, because not only is their case rubbish, people genuinely suing for libel don’t usually tell their victims beforehand.
It’s an excellent video and I wish Power all the best in exposing these goons and their assault on history to whitewash the Nazis.
This has been bugging me for the past week. Wales’ inspirational and triumphant Labour leader, Mark Drakeford, got the Blairites and ultra-Zionists in a tizzy this weekend. He committed the grave crime of speaking at The World Transformed, a fringe, left-Labour event, where he urged the adoption of Universal Basic Income. And plan that threatens to lift the poor in our society out of their starvation and misery is solidly verboten to the Thatcherite true believers. And so came the sneers. One ignorant far-right Labour councillor called the event ‘a Trots jamboree’, despite the fact that no Trotskyite organisations were there. No matter, I doubt the good councillor has any real idea what Trotskyism is anyway. It’s just a term of abuse intended to scare people, full of emotional content – Trots and Commies are everything evil – but I doubt if any of them really know what it is beyond Trotsky himself.
Inevitably the ultra-Zionists raised their heads and made started throwing around accusations of anti-Semitism. This was done by Elured Anderson, whose a member or representative of a Holocaust commemoration organisation. She was incensed that Drakeford was there alongside people who had been thrown out for anti-Semitism, Ken Loach and Jeremy Corbyn. Except neither of these two gents are remotely anti-Semitic. The accusations were contrived because both are long-term critics of Israel and its ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. Corbyn has a proud record of standing up for Britain’s diverse, pluralistic Jewish community, while Loach was warmly welcomed by the very Jewish members of Jewish Voice for Labour.
But I find her attitude towards Zionism and the Holocaust deeply repugnant. The various pro-Israel organisations seem to be trying to spread the message that Israel and Zionism have the exclusive ownership of the Shoah and its commemoration. It’s demonstrated by the Jewish Labour Movement, formerly Paole Zion, running Holocaust commemoration events. As they did when they secretly recorded Jackie Walker in order to leak it and get her thrown out. But ownership of the Holocaust doesn’t belong to Israel, Zionism or any single strand of the Jewish community. In my gentile view, and I apologise if I’m ‘Jewsplaining’, it belongs primarily to the victims and their families, and then to the Jewish community as a whole. And the Jewish community includes individuals and organisations that are critical of Israel.
The militant pro-Israel appropriation of the Holocaust is also hypocritical. In the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust after the War the Zionist organisations played it down. Instead of discussing the specific persecution of the Jews, the Zionists concentrated instead in talking about them as merely one group of a number of political prisoners imprisoned and murdered by the Nazis. This was because they were afraid that talking about the particular genocide of the Jewish people would give the impression that Jews were too weak to have their own country. It’s only since then that pro-Israel groups have embraced the Holocaust and presented themselves as the only worthy organisations capable of its proper commemoration.
And there have been Jewish critics of the way Israel has harnessed the Holocaust to militant Israeli nationalism. One Israeli critic described the way an Israeli jet flew over Auschwitz one year, presumably to show that Israel would protect Jews from any repeat of the horror. The critic stated that Israeli visitors to the murder factory weren’t told anything about the historical reasons for the Holocaust, the rise of anti-Semitism and Nazi persecution. It seemed to them to be just used for Israeli nationalist propaganda. Other Israeli critics of the persecution of the Palestinians have controversially said that it would be better for the Holocaust to be forgotten than for it to be used to justify the Israeli’s states continued attacks on their indigenous Arabs.
Now the Holocaust is being used to smear decent people as anti-Semites in order to get them purged from the Labour party. This includes Jews, who I’m sure have lost people in the Holocaust. Mike put up a meme earlier this week which ran:
Anti-Semitism is a real threat to Jews everywhere. It Is not an excuse to purge left-wingers from the Labour party.
I completely agree, and find it absolutely abhorrent that the Holocaust is being used as part of this smear campaign.
I got this email from the Hope Not Hate anti-racism, anti-religious extremism organisation. They’re concerned that the government’s legislation to protect free speech on campus will include Holocaust denial, and are petitioning the government to stop it. The email runs
‘The government is proposing a new law which they say will protect free speech on University campuses. But there’s a problem. Last night, the Universities Minister confirmed that the law will protect Holocaust deniers. In effect, it will pressure Universities to provide platforms to people who lie about the Holocaust being a historical fact.
It’s wrong and we can’t allow this to go ahead. We’ve launched a petition to pressure the government. Can you add your name?
In her media interview, Universities Minister Michelle Donelan essentially argued we must “protect and promote” the free speech of Holocaust deniers. That shows up the fundamental issue with the Government’s new so-called free-speech bill.
Pressuring universities to platform the views of Holocaust deniers would be completely unacceptable. The Holocaust is a historical fact. Those who deny that are seeking to spread hate.
The point of universities is to expand people’s knowledge. That includes hearing opinions they disagree with. However, whether the Holocaust happened is not up for debate. It is a historical fact. Ensuring people who lie about the Holocaust are given a platform is wrong.
–Liron, Nick, Roxy and the HOPE not hate campaigns team’
Hope Not Hate is, unfortunately, connected to the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, which is one of the organisations that is pushing the anti-Semitism smears against Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters. This is because the CAA isn’t against anti-Semitism so much as anti-Zionism, which it conflates with anti-Semitism in order to protect Israel from criticism for its vile persecution of the Palestinians.
However, you don’t have to be any kind of fan of the CAA to be concerned about the inclusion of Holocaust denial as ‘protected free speech’. It is historical fact, as an American judge ruled in California in the 1970s. The good law man’s decision was on a case brought by a Holocaust survivor against the neo-Nazi rag, National Vanguard. The magazine had run a competition with a substantial cash reward for an essay that would prove the reality of the Holocaust. The survivor wrote about his experiences in the camps and included the Nazi documentation and other details. National Vanguard refused to pay up, he sued and the judge found in his favour, ruling that there was so much evidence supporting the reality of the Holocaust that it couldn’t be credibly denied. The only people who wish to deny it occurred are Nazis, who’d like to repeat it if they could. Holocaust denial is already a crime in several European countries, like Germany and Austria. The petition doesn’t criminalise it, but it would stop it being promoted on campus. Holocaust deniers desperately seek a veneer of academic respectability, which is why they give their noxious journals names like ‘Historical Review’ or some such. Being allowed onto to campus to present their views gives them that respectability, which is why there was so much concern in the 1980s/90s when the historian and Holocaust denier David Irving was allowed to speak at the Oxford Union. I have therefore signed this petition, and am posting it here for anyone else to do so as well.
Double Down News are another left-wing, alternative news site and agency. In this video, Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi of Jewish Voice for Labour, talks about the abuse and attempts to silence her she and the other left-wing, pro-Palestinian Jews have faced. She describes what a breath of fresh air Jeremy Corbyn was and the hope he gave people like herself, that there would be real change at last after 30 years in the Labour party. She talks about the eminent Jewish academics, who have criticised the establishment’s exclusive concentration on support for Israel as the defining factor in Jewish identity, and the powerful role left-wing Jews like herself have played in combating racism and prejudice all over the world, from the battle against Mosley’s BUF to the American Civil Rights movement and apartheid South Africa.
Anti-Semitic Abuse for Being Pro-Palestine
She begins by describing the abuse she personally got when she was 19 and presented a pro-Palestinian talk at Uni. she was called ‘safe-hating’, ‘the wrong kind of Jew’, ‘anti-Semitic’ and a ‘kapo’. This is especially despicable, as they were the Jewish collaborators with the Nazis in the concentration camps. She is bitterly critical of this type of abuse, not just because it’s especially offensive for people who have really suffered under Nazis and other vicious anti-Semites – she equates it with being called a ‘paedophile’ – but because it also delegitimises the struggle against real Fascists. Here the video shows footage from the notorious Charlottesville Nazi gathering, with the storm troopers of the Alt Right marching along chanting ‘The Jews will not replace us.’ Wimborn-Idrissi’s talk and the abuse she received was covered by the Jewish Telegraph, who put it all on the front page. Which shows you what a despicable, right-wing establishment rag it is.
Heijo Meyer and Israel’s Nazi-like Persecution of the Palestinians
She also gives the real truth about Corbyn’s infamous attendance at the speech given by Heijo Meyer, which was used to pillory Corbyn as an anti-Semite. Of course he’s no such thing, and the video shows images of the greatest prime minister Britain rejected demonstrating against racism, including his arrest for protesting against apartheid. Meyer was a Dutch Holocaust survivor – and the video shows this with Meyer rolling up his sleeve to show the tattoo on his forearm which the Nazis used to mark the inmates of the death camps. Meyer’s was speaking at a Holocaust Memorial Day event. He was describing how the techniques used by the Nazis to dehumanize people like him – Jews – in the camps to enable them to murder them are also being used by Israel against the Palestinians. And what Wimborne-Idrissi says is horrifying is that the parallels are there.
This section of the footage is grim, as it show the Palestinian victims of Israeli aggression – homes in rubble, a disabled person tipped over in their wheelchair by Israeli squaddies, a little girl with horrifically blackened, swollen eyes.
The talk was part of a series of events that also showed other communities had suffered oppression, like the Travellers. But they were shouted down by a very obnoxious, very vociferous group of Zionists. She found it deeply disgusting that these people were trying to shout down and intimidate an eighty year old man, and urged Corbyn to call the rozzers to have them removed. And in fact the fuzz were prevailed upon to do their duty. But unfortunately by that time they’d been successful in drowning out the Travellers, so that people hardly heard a word from them.
The Media Silencing of Left-Wing Jews
Naomi points out that the media refuses give Jews like her a voice. Instead they give space to organisations like the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism as if they were long established and authoritative. There the video show a group waving placards, ‘Labour – For the Many Not the Jew’. This is the mendacious slogan dreamed up by novelist Howard Jacobson when he was in New York. Which is a good and sufficient reason for no-one to buy his books or listen to anything he has to say ever again. It also shows the Beeb’s Kirsty Wark and other journos as an example of this media bias. But Jews have opposed Zionism and Israel for a long time. This is accompanied by images of prominent Jewish critics of Zionism like the awesome Norman Finkelstein and various anti-Zionist Jewish conventions. Some of these are in Black and White, and are of packed, mass meetings. One looks like the Bund. This was the mass socialist party of eastern European Jews. Its slogan was ‘Wherever We Are, That’s Our Homeland’, and they were fiercely anti-Zionist.
She talks about Marek Edelman, one of the heroes of the Warsaw Uprising, who said that ‘to be a Jew is always to side with the oppressed, never the oppressor’. And that was why Jews like her aligned with the oppressed and fought against racism, and why it was just so revolting that their opponents wished to associate Jewry with the type of people they’d always fought against. She tells how the Jewish journalist, Anthony Lerman, has published articles attacking the anti-Semitism smears in the Labour party, and also Kenneth Stern’s criticism of the abuse of the I.H.R.A. definition of anti-Semitism. Stern is the Jewish academic, who formulated it. He meant it to be used in compiling statistics about anti-Semitic abuse. But he is concerned about the way it is being used to silence critics of Israel. He testified on this to Congress, and the video has a clip of his speech. He says he’s worried about the way its being used against Jewish non-Zionist college students and the way organisations are compiling dossiers and passing round opponents on critics of Israel. The anti-Zionist college students should also be heard. This is significant, because I think Stern is himself a Zionist. He’s just a decent man and not a racial fanatic like some of the organisations abusing his definition of anti-Semitism. But unfortunately all you hear are the pro-Israel fanatics. You don’t hear or see anything broadcast or printed by Lerman or Stern, except a few learned articles if you look online.
Fleeing Real Anti-Semitism, and Hope for the Future
She also talks about some of her and her families experiences as refugees from the pogroms and persecutions in eastern Europe, of not fitting because you’re weird with a funny accent. But there has to be hope. Jeremy Corbyn brought 300,000 new people into the party. And an increasing number of a new generation of young Jews, especially in America, are turning away and against Israel.
She concludes by praising Double Down News for giving left-wing Jews like herself a voice, and urges people to support it.
Naomi makes excellent points, and people should hear not just her voice, but the many other Jews like her. She is right to point out, early in the video, that the political and media establishment are anti-Semitic in their attempts to create the impression that Jews constitute a single, monolithic block. That’s what their oppressors have always done.
Unfortunately the media has shown that they have absolutely no intention of giving any space to good peeps like Jewish Voice for Labour, Jewdas and the Jewish Socialist Group. The Beeb, a company which increasingly looks like it has a proud future behind it, has been one of the leaders in pushing the anti-Semitism smears. And it wonders why it comes fifth ranked as trustworthy by the British public, lower even than Channel 5.
The Beeb is reviled as left-wing and ‘woke’ by the Tories and their poodle media because of its anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-homophobic stance, and ’cause they see it as anti-Brexit. But in domestic politics and economics, it’s solidly pro-Tory and pro-Israel. Hence its steadfast refusal to let any other voice be heard, Jewish or gentile, to contradict the anti-Semitism.
But left-wing, sincerely anti-racist folks of all religions and ethnicities have and are waking up to the Beeb’s disgusting bias. Which is why they’re joining the right in switching it off.
If we are going to hear the real truth, it has to come from news sites like Double Down News, Sam Seder’s Majority Report and the David Pakman Show in America, Amy Goodson of Democracy Now! and Abby Martin of Tele Sur, Ash Sarkar of Novara Media and Kerry-Ann Mendoza of The Canary. She’s another anti-racist gentile, who’s been accused of anti-Semitism, despite having a Jewish partner. Seder and Pakman are both Jewish. Seder has described himself as the most Jewish guy you know, and has no time whatsoever for Israel screaming anti-Semitism ever time America cuts its aid budget.
When we hear the truth, more often than not it comes from these broadcasters. Because it surely is not coming from the establishment media.
I know this is a provocative question, but it needs to be asked. Yesterday Mike put up an excellent piece about the hypocrisy and moral cowardice of the Labour leadership. Angela Rayner had admitted that Jeremy Corbyn was right when he said that the amount of anti-Semitism in the Labour party was exaggerated. Nevertheless, it was right to suspend him because of the hurt they caused. Mike points out in his article that Rayner has effectively admitted what the victims of the anti-Semitism smear campaign have known for years – that Labour will expel people who tell the truth about it. He also says
“Hurt” and “distress” are irrelevant if they are not based on facts. And how do we know that the people saying they were “hurt” and “distressed” actually were? There are a lot of liars out there.
Quite. As the old saying goes, ‘truth hurts’. And it seems from this that the self-proclaimed ‘Jewish community’ that claims to be so hurt, simply can’t or won’t handle the truth. But then, they don’t represent the Jewish community, and they aren’t really hurt by anti-Semitism.
Organisations behind Anti-Semitism Smears Unrepresentative of Britain’s Jews
How dare I say these terrible things, which I dare say some people could twist to sound anti-Semitic. Easily, because the facts are on my side. The people behind the accusations and smears that Jeremy Corbyn and the party he led were anti-Semitic most certainly don’t represent all of the Jewish community, but Zionist sectarians. Tony Grenstein and other great, self-respecting Jewish anti-racists and critics of Zionism have pointed out again and yet again that these accusations come from Zionist organisation. The Campaign Against Anti-Semitism was founded in 2012 or thereabout specifically to combat the rising hostility to Israel provoked by the bombing of Gaza. Labour Against Anti-Semitism are pretty much the same type of people in the Labour party. The Jewish Labour Movement used to be Paole Zion, Workers of Zion, and is the sister party to the Zionist Israeli Labour Party. In my view, both of these groups are deceptively and deliberately misnamed. The Campaign Against Zionism should be renamed the Campaign For Anti-Semitism, as it exists solely to manufacture accusations of Jew-hatred. As for the Jewish Labour Movement, it’s been shown that you don’t have to be Jewish or a member of the Labour party to join. It’s really a Zionist infiltration group, but obviously ain’t going to describe itself as such. And they will probably accuse you of spreading the anti-Semitic trope of Jewish conspiracies if you do. Nevertheless, it’s the truth. And the truth ain’t racist or anti-Semitic. It just is.
Chief Rabbis Sacks and Mirvis Ultra-Zionists
As for Chief rabbis Jonathan Sacks and Ephraim Mirvis, or ‘Mirv the Perv’ as I think he should be known, both of these gentlemen are, in my opinion, racist ultra-Zionists. Yes, I realise that over here they talk the language of anti-racism and interfaith dialogue. But Mirv spent years learning the Torah in one the hardline Israeli settlements. The settlers, or at least a very large majority of them, believe that all of Eretz Israel should belong to the state of Israel, and the Palestinians expelled and their lands colonised by Jews. Sacks and Mirvis also took contingents of British Jews to the March of the Flags in Jerusalem, despite pleas from British Jewish organisations not to do so. What’s the March of the Flags? It’s the day when the Israeli equivalent of Fascist boot-boys march through the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem waving the Israeli flag and vandalising Palestinian property. Palestinian kids are told not to go out on that day for fear of assault by these thugs. I see no difference between it and the Orange Marches through Roman Catholic areas in Northern Ireland. Or indeed through the attempted marches of Oswald Moseley and the British Union of Fascists through the East End of London and other Jewish areas in the 1930s.
Board of Deputies Zionist and Sectarian
Then there’s the Board of Deputies of British Jews, which sounds like it should represent the whole Jewish community. It don’t. It doesn’t represent secular Jews, who comprise a third of all British Jews. They also don’t represent the Orthodox, who have their own, separate organisation. And they really don’t represent Haredi Jews, who reject Israel because it’s a secular state. For the Haredi and Jews like them, Israel can only be restored by the Almighty through the Messiah. Until that time, the Children of Israel are required to remain in galut – exile – and pray for the health of the city, just as their ancestors did in exile in Babylon. Haredi Jews are viciously persecuted by the Israeli state because they refuse to recognise it. From what I gather, they are due to overtake the United Synagogue as the main Jewish sect in Britain in a few decades. And they have particular respect for Jeremy Corbyn for the efforts he and Diane Abbott have made on behalf of their community.
Tony Greenstein and others have pointed out that the Board of Deputies is, by its constitution, a Zionist organisation. So it obviously doesn’t represent non- or anti-Zionist Jews. These range from religious Jews, like the Haredi, to politically liberal and secular Jews, who object to the Israeli ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. Whether religious or secular, these Jews believe that by doing so, Israel is violating the central tenets of traditional Jewish morality. As someone once said, ‘To be a Jew is always to side with the oppressed, never the oppressors’. In fact, the Board really only represents the United Synagogue. And probably not all of them, as some have sitting representatives where there hasn’t been an election for years. Other synagogues won’t allow women to vote. And the fact that it is the United Synagogue driving these smears is shown very clearly in many of the articles the I has published smearing Labour as anti-Semitic. Alongside the name of the author of so many of these hit pieces was the statement that they were a member of the United Synagogue. The Board is therefore a sectarian organisation, that no more speaks for the whole of the Jewish community than the Archbishop of Canterbury speaks for all British Christians, who are also divided into a number of different sects and denominations.
Corbyn Not Anti-Semitic
As for the hurt these mamzers claim to have felt, it’s a peculiarly selective kind of hurt. The South African Jewish politico, Andrew Feinstein posted a video this weekend showing very clearly that Corbyn wasn’t an anti-Semite. This includes footage of the former Labour leader denouncing it and all other forms of racism in a fiery speech in 2002 and of him meeting and being warmly greeted by members of the Jewish community, including a rabbi. Feinstein showed stats from a 2015 survey showing that Labour had the second-lowest incidence of anti-Semitism in British political parties. Two years later, another survey showed that Labour was the joint lowest.
Feinstein’s arguments should carry particular weight, as he has personal, family experience of real, murderous anti-Semitism. His mother’s family is a holocaust survivor, who lost 39 members of her family in Auschwitz. Feinstein has not only been to Auschwitz, but has also lectured there. I believe he was also subjected to anti-Semitic abuse by a real Fascist, which is where the vast majority of real anti-Semitism lies.
Hypocrites Behind Smears Not Concerned with Greater Anti-Semitism in Tories and Fascism
I believe the same stats showed that there was more anti-Semitism in the Tory party. And certainly the internet fan groups for BoJob and Jacob Rees Mogg the blogger Jacobs Mates dug up includes among their vicious racists and Islamophobes anti-Semites, who believe that non-White immigration is an evil plot by the Jews to exterminate the White race. Labour was placed under immense pressure to adopt the I.H.R.A. definition of anti-Semitism in full, complete with examples. But no such pressure was placed on the Tories, who haven’t. It’s a peculiar kind of hurt, that has no objection to anti-Semitism in the Tories, but like Violet Elizabeth Bott in the Just William books ‘thcweems and thcweems’ until it’s sick at its much lower incidence in Labour.
Anti-Semitism Smears Weapon to Defend Israel against Criticism
Of course the Jewish organisations accusing Labour of anti-Semitism aren’t doing it because of real anti-Semitism. They’re doing it because they want to defend Israel. Israel’s behaviour towards the Palestinians is indefensible on rational, factual grounds, so all they can do is smear critics as anti-Semites. As Norman Finkelstein, another leading Jewish critic of Israel has said, the Israel lobby is a machine for manufacturing anti-Semites.
And Jews like Andrew Feinstein are horrified and sickened by the cynical, political use of such accusations, not least because it cheapens the deaths of the six million, who were murdered by the Nazis.
Jewish Critics of Israel Victims of Anti-Semitic Ultra-Zionist Smears
But this is precisely what the people behind the anti-Semitism smears are doing. And many of the people they smear are self-respecting Jews, who as critics of Israel can, like Shraga Stern, a Heredi supporter of Jeremy Corbyn, justly claim to have been victims of sectarian anti-Semitic abuse and vilification.
Conclusion
The Jewish organisations claiming to have been hurt by Labour anti-Semitism are liars, both about the incidence of anti-Semitism in the Labour party and their motives for denouncing it. They were protected and supported by a lying Labour party bureaucracy, and are now by a lying Labour leadership. And these smears were spread by a lying British political and media establishment terrified of a revived Labour party that would actually do something for working people. Who of course include Jews. Always have done, always will do, ever since it was founded.
‘Hurt’ nonsense! This is a nasty pack of lies that smears decent people, cheapens real victims of anti-Semitism and desensitizes people to the real anti-Semites in the Fascist fringe. How utterly, utterly contemptible!
Yesterday the EHRC’s report into anti-Semitism in the Labour party was published, and was spun for all it was worth as confirmation that Jeremy Corbyn was anti-Semitic and so was the party under him. Except for all those brave, Zionist Blairites that spoke out and denounced him and his followers, of course. Followers that included large, vocal numbers of entirely self-respecting Jews, who were attacked and vilified as self-hating anti-Semites themselves.
One of those, who decided to put his oar into all this was Ed Balls, a former New Labour cabinet minister. As Mike has pointed out on his blog, this is very much a case of a man in a glass house throwing stones. Not only did Balls once turn up at a party dressed as a Nazi, he also presented a BBC programme a year ago in which he met real Nazis. Apparently he even said he liked them, and that they were nice. So there’s just a little touch of hypocrisy here.
Now dressing up as a Nazi for a student party is obviously tasteless and offensive, but doesn’t necessarily mean that someone’s a Nazi. But some of the accusations of anti-Semitism used against Corbyn’s supporters were far less substantial than such pranks. For example, there was the lad, who posted an image of a Jobcentre with the slogan ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ on its sign. This was supposed to be anti-Semitic for disrespecting Jewish suffering in the Holocaust. But this ignores the fact that the slogan was used on all concentration camps, including those housing gentile political prisoners. And the slogan accurately describes the Tory mentality towards the disabled and long term sick. Iain Duncan Smith actually said so in an online article, before someone told him that quoting the Nazis approvingly doesn’t look good, and he removed the offending paragraph.
If you want a second example, consider the press feeding frenzy which occurred when Corbyn was seen to nod in agreement when Heijo Meyer, a Holocaust survivor, said that Israel was doing to the Palestinians what the Nazis did to him. Oh, the anti-Semitism! What foul perfidy and Jew-hatred! Except that Nazis don’t usually agree with Holocaust survivors. The Nazi strategy is to try to deny that the Shoah ever happened, or claim that it was somehow smaller than it really was. They don’t usually support Holocaust survivors, who speak about their experiences.
And there’s obviously a profound difference between Israel and Jews. The two definitely aren’t synonymous, and according to the I.H.R.A. definition of anti-Semitism which the Board of Deputies and the Chief Rabbi were so desperate to foist upon the party, it is anti-Semitic to confuse the two. Which is very obviously the case with Corbyn’s accusers. It isn’t anti-Semitic to criticise Israel for its crimes against the Palestinians, any more than attacking Saudi Arabia for its human rights record automatically means that you hate Arabs.
As for meeting Nazis and describing them as nice people, unfortunately, I can well believe that some of them are personally nice people. A German Jewish bloke, who infiltrated a neo-Nazi organisation leading to its exposure in the German media, said the same about some of them when he was interviewed. He said that amongst the Nazis he met were ordinary, otherwise decent Germans, who believed the Holocaust never happened. That’s part of the danger. Murderous, dangerous ideas can be held by otherwise entirely decent people. One of the Islamist scumbags who murdered Lee Rigby all those years ago put up a video telling the world that he was really a nice person, who would help old ladies up the stairs. And I dare say he was right. If all Nazis and jihadis were antisocial, ranting, bullying maniacs, nobody would join them or stay in their organisations for very long. They’d leave because of their noxious personalities. But unfortunately, Nazis and other murderous extremists don’t always behave like their stereotypes, and this does mean that they can appear plausible. That fact that Ed Balls personally liked some of them doesn’t mean that Balls is a Nazi. Just like the fact that because Corbyn appeared alongside Palestinian activists, who had terrible views on killing Israelis, doesn’t mean that Corbyn supported their views. But no such doubts were extended to the Labour leader.
It was almost to be expected that Balls or one of his New Labour colleagues was going to comment about all this. Not only was Balls a former cabinet minister under Blair and Brown, but like Blair and other members of the New Labour clique, he’s also an alumnus of BAP – the British-American Project for the Successor Generation, to give it its full title. This was a Reaganite scheme in which promising British politicos from all parties were sought out and given opportunities to work and study in America in order to cement the Atlantic alliance. After going on one of these BAP jaunts to meet American right-wingers, Blair returned to England convinced of the need to retain our nuclear deterrent, while previously he had believed in getting rid of it.
America supports Israel, and Blair and Brown were ardent supporters of America, and so it follows that they too would support Israel. Apart from the fact that they supported Israel anyway, for which Blair received funding from pro-Israel Jewish businessmen. This was garnered through the efforts of Lord Levi, who Blair met at a gathering at the Israeli embassy. And mentioning that doesn’t make you an anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist either.
But Blair also had personal connections to Fascism. He was mates with Berlusconi, whose Forza Italia party was in coalition with the Alleanza Nazionale. The Allianza Nazionale were former Fascists, after the neo-Fascist party, the Movimiento Sociale Italiano or Italian Social Movement, was dissolved by its leader, Gianfranco Fini, and reformed as a centre-right Conservative party. The best comment I’ve seen on Fini was in the pages of a book I read on Fascism years ago. It showed a photo of Fini when the Fascists were discarding the black shirts and adopting business suits in an attempt to make themselves look respectably middle class. It was called ‘filofascismo’, presumably a portmanteau of the Italian for filofax and Fascism. Fini appeared in a suit and round-rimmed glasses with business jacket slung casually over his shoulder. The photo was captioned ‘Would you buy a used ideology from this man?’ The answer is, ‘No, no, I definitely wouldn’t. Not even dressed up as Conservatism’.
More sinisterly, David Mills, the husband of New Labour minister Tessa Jowell, was a lawyer engaged to defend a genuine Fascist. I got a feeling this guy was one of those responsible for the Bologna railway bombing in the late ’70s. This was a Fascist terrorist atrocity in which the squadristi bombed that Italian town’s railway station, killing and maiming something like 121 people.
This shows up New Labour’s hypocrisy and that of the Tories and their accomplices in the media even more. Corbyn, like other members of the Labour left, was smeared as a supporter of the IRA because of his concern for a just peace in Northern Ireland. He wasn’t, and various Ulster Loyalists have said that he was fair and perfectly civil and friendly towards them. But this was ignored in the scramble to vilify him as a supporter of Irish nationalist terrorism. But obviously, as David Mills’ example shows, it’s perfectly acceptable to the British right for the spouses of New Labour ministers to work for genuine Fascists responsible for killing and mutilation of over a hundred innocents.
And that should also raise genuine questions of anti-Semitism. The Italian Fascists originally hadn’t been anti-Semitic. Mussolini himself had ridiculed Hitler’s biological racism, but as Nazism took over from Italian Fascism as the more influential movement, Mussolini tried to ingratiate himself and his regime by adopting racism. In 1937 the Fascists published their manifesto on race and passed legislation defining the Italian people as Aryans, and banning Jews from certain professions. The Charter of Verona, which set out the ideology of Mussolini’s rump Fascist state in Salo, declared that Jews weren’t part of the Italian nation. And contemporary Italian Fascists, like Fascists everyone, are violently anti-immigrant and racist.
Considering Blair’s and co.’s connections to real Fascism, Balls has got absolutely no business accusing Corbyn and his supporters of anti-Semitism whatsoever.
Here’s another revolting development, as it would be described by Marvel Comics’ ever-lovin’, blue-eyed Thing, the idol o’ millions and butt of the Yancey Street gangs’ pranks. On Tuesday Mike reported that the Equalities and Human Rights Commission had decided not to go ahead with an investigation into islamophobia in the Tory party. It considered that this would not be ‘proportionate’ after seeing the Tories’ own plans and terms of reference for its own investigation, which included specific reference to islamophobia.
The Muslim Council of Britain declared that these terms were a ‘facade’ and that the investigation was too narrow compared to Labour’s Chakrabarti investigation into anti-Semitism. They went on to say that the investigation would hide the hundreds of incidents of bigotry in the Tory party, which they had uncovered.
Mike in his article makes the very valid point that it doesn’t matter what the EHRC says about ant-Semitism in the Labour party. It has shown it cannot treat the two parties equally. Indeed, BoJob’s own behaviour provides a prima facie case for investigation. Mike concludes
If the EHRC can’t see that, then no decision it makes about the Labour Party can have any weight at all.
I recommend that it be disbanded and replaced by an organisation staffed by people who can do the job properly.
Of course, Mike’s right. There’s Johnson’s wretched book 72 Virgins, a wish-fulfillment fantasy if ever there was one, about a bike-riding Prime Minister foiling an evil Islamist plot to bomb parliament. This also included racist comments about other ethnic groups as well, including a Black character, who is described as a stupid coon, and a shady Jewish businessman who makes his money by exploiting migrant workers. This nasty anti-Semitic stereotype was accompanied by the anti-Semitic conspiracy theory about the Jews controlling the media. And then, of course, there’s Johnson’s vile newspaper column in which he compared women in burqas to bin bags and letter boxes. Despite all the bluster about how he was merely being un-PC and it was an act of free speech, nothing more, Johnson’s rhetoric did lead to a spike in islamophobic assaults, especially against women clad in that way.
Zelo Street and other left-wing bloggers have also put up articles about the numerous supporters of BoJob and Rees-Mogg revealed by the internet activist Jacobsmates, who posted viciously islamophobic and anti-Semitic comments on Twitter. Like the various Conservative politicos Mike and Zelo Street also reported were suspended by the Tories for their islamophobic conduct. In their posts they had declared that Sadiq Khan and other Muslim and ethnic minority politicos, like Diane Abbott, should be killed, ranted about how Muslims were plotting to destroy the country and were responsible for rape and terrorism and supported the old anti-Semitic conspiracy libel that Muslims and non-White immigrants were being imported into Europe and the West by the Jews with the intention of destroying the White race.
And the Equalities and Human Rights Commission is grossly disproportionate itself in the importance it gives to the allegations of anti-Semitism in Labour on the one hand and islamophobia in the Tories in another.
The reality is that there was far less anti-Semitism in Labour under Jeremy Corbyn than in wider British society, and that the vast majority of it comes from the right, and especially the far right. What those screaming about Labour anti-Semitism really objected to was anti-Zionism and support for the Palestinians. This is why Corbyn was viciously denounced as an anti-Semite for attending a speech by a Holocaust survivor, who compared Israel’s persecution of the Palestinians to the Nazis’ persecution of himself and other Jews, while the same witch-hunters had nothing to say about Tweezer and Rachel Reeve singing the praises of Nancy Astor, a real anti-Semite and supporter of Hitler. Part of the motivation for the anti-Semitism smears against Labour was pure partisanship. It was a convenient stick for the Tory establishment, including the Thatcherites within the Labour party, to beat Corbyn and try to oust him or prevent the party from ever coming to power. It didn’t matter whether they were true or not. And western geopolitical interests were involved. Israel is one of the pillars of British Middle Eastern policy, along with Saudi Arabia. Tony Greenstein among other bloggers and activists has put up a number of quotes from British officials showing that it always was regarded as a centre of western influence in the region from the days of the British Mandate in Palestine, comparable to Ulster in Ireland.
The anti-Semitism smears had nothing to do with real anti-Jewish hatred. It was purely about defending Israel and preventing a genuine the formation of a socialist, genuinely Labour government.
The EHRC’s decision not to investigate Tory islamophobia may also be connected to the anti-Muslim prejudices of its leader, Trevor Philips. He is, or was, a member of the Labour party, but was suspended a little while ago by General Secretary Jennie Formby for islamophobia. He had accused Muslims of forming a ‘nation within a nation’ and stated that the members of the Asian grooming gangs, who abused White girls, committed their horrendous crimes because ‘Muslims see the world differently’. He seems to regard Muslims as fundamentally different and Other to the rest of British society, stating that they ‘are not like us’. He also chaired a Tory conference on ‘Challenging Islamophobia’, in which he and several of the others attending even blamed Muslims themselves for the terrorist attacks on the mosques in New Zealand and Finsbury Park. They were, Phillips and the others declared, a natural response to Muslim terrorism. In 2006 Ken Livingstone, then mayor of the London Assembly, accused Phillips, who was chair of the Commission for Racial Equality, as the EHRC then was, of pandering to the right and turning it into a huge press department while at the same time winding down its legal work. Six of the EHRC’s commissioners also resigned in protest at Phillips’ leadership. Phillips has also presented programmes for Channel 4 which accused Blacks of being far more inclined towards criminality than Whites, and that a significant number of British Muslims had terrorist sympathies among other accusations. Both of these were misleading. In fact, the number of British Muslims, who had terrorist sympathies was s1-3 per cent, rather than the nearly quarter that has been claimed.
Tony Greenstein has put up a long piece including several other articles, which extensively discusses Phillips’ islamophobia and shabby career and critiques and demolishes the two programmes he presented. Greenstein states that when he was active in student politics in the 1970s, he came across Phillips politically. It struck him then that Phillips really had nothing to say about racism, and was only using the fact of his colour for political advancement.
And its very noticeable that, as Greenstein describes in the above article, Phillips has received glowing support from a series of notorious racists and islamophobes like Tommy Robinson. Phillips is also another Labour rightist, who has weaponised the anti-Semitism smears for his own benefit. When he was suspended for islamophobia, he claimed that it was really because he had spoken out about Labour anti-Semitism. Which is purest twaddle.
With someone creditably accused of islamophobia himself in charge of the EHRC, it’s not surprising that it has decided not to pursue anti-Muslim prejudice in the Tories.
And this sorry episode also illustrates another point Quentin Letts has made about race relations in this country. In his book, Bog-Standard Britain, the Tory journo argued that there was a racial hierarchy of power and influence amongst ethnic and other minorities. Jews were at, or near the top. Blacks and Muslims were much lower down. I think Muslims may well have been at the bottom.
There’s much truth in this, as Sayeeda Warsi herself has complained that people are able to say things about Muslims with impunity, for which they would be immediately attacked if they said them about Jews.
Tony’s article also reports that Richard Littlejohn, another scummy right-wing hack, has even claimed that Phillips only agreed to chair the EHRC in order to close it down.
Perhaps this would now be the right action to take. Mike’s right in that at present it seems utterly unfit for purpose.
Well, the election’s over and Boris in power with a massive majority. John McDonnell has resigned and Jeremy Corbyn is hanging on to oversee things until the party elects a new leader. But the Beeb still knows where its priorities lie: pushing the anti-Semitism smears against Corbyn and his party as hard as they can. And once again the vehicle for it was former satirical news quiz, Have I Got News For You.
This time the mugs making the smears were the guest host, Charlie Brooker, and comedian Phil Wang. Reading off an autocue, Brooker made a joke about Labour denying the Holocaust. He quoted someone saying the party was ‘in denial’ before quipping, ‘Well, at least it wasn’t about the Holocaust!’ Laugh? I thought I’d never start. Later on Wang made a joke about Jeremy Corbyn defending Nazis. Which isn’t funny either. The Beeb can’t claim the jokes are satirical, because they don’t parody reality. Corbyn isn’t an anti-Semite and has never defended Nazis. Quite the opposite. Nazis don’t get themselves arrested protesting against apartheid in South Africa. They supported White rule there. They also don’t protest against the lack of content for Jews on television, or the redevelopment of Jewish cemeteries. Nor do they attend meetings addressed by Holocaust survivors. This last point was lost when the Conservative press and Jewish establishment collectively lost their minds at Corbyn nodding in agreement when a Holocaust survivor said that the Israelis were treating the Palestinians like the Nazis had treated him. How dare he! Anti-Semite! But Nazis don’t give any attention to Holocaust survivors, because they try to pretend it either didn’t happen or was far smaller than claimed.
Novara Media’s Aaron Bastani tweeted footage of Brooker’s joke, commenting
As minorities face rising abuse and violence every day the BBC producing this stuff is deeply disturbing. Perhaps the licence fee isn’t worth it after all.
Very true. Boris’ victory has emboldened racists, and the media seems to be joining in with ITV misrepresenting Stormzy’s remark about racism in Britain.
Simon Maginn commented
Imagine being Charlie Brooker. Successful, feted, admired as a fierce and uncompromising critic of lies and bullshit. Then he goes on some crappy BBC ‘comedy’ show and delivers a Labour Holocaust-denial ‘gag’ and BOOM! he’s just another dumbo cog in the dumbo BBC smear machine.
Brooker is popular and has received massive critical acclaim. This is for his harsh, scathing attack on poor television in books like Dawn of the Dumb, and for Screenwipe. This last was his TV series in which he made vicious comments about various programmes while screaming at the screen and miming masturbation. He then moved to creating thought-provoking Science Fiction television with his series, Black Mirror. This was a series of tales showing the chilling possibilities in computer technology and our media saturated culture. It was greeted with critical acclaim. But Brooker seems to have thrown that away by making a stupid joke about Corbyn and anti-Semitism. But as Mike says, perhaps that’s a contractual obligation of people fronting the show by the Beeb.
Tom London also criticised it, making the point that he was Jewish and that these jokes are damaging Britain’s Jews
I am Jewish There is NO proper evidence that Corbyn is an antisemite because he is not one The people who pushed the incessant, relentless propaganda that he is have Undermined democracy Done huge damage to relations between minorities Harmed Jewish community.
Ah, but that doesn’t matter to the Beeb. They’re the establishment, and all they care about is protecting the existing neoliberal order from attack from people like Corbyn’s Labour party. Left-wing Jews like Tom don’t count. Because they’re the wrong kind of Jews.
Mike also makes the point that while some may like the right-wing propaganda HIGNFY is spewing forth, others don’t, and it may not be long before the programme’s axed. Artdecolady tweeted
HIGNFY is really unfunny now, and I think it might be because I always thought they were on my side, but it’s now clear they’re not. Charlie Brooker made a really pathetic joke about the Holocaust and the Labour Party. To think I used to like him.
Sometimes it’s funny, but I’ve also gone off it. It used to be hilarious when it started back in the 1990s. Perhaps it’s simply because the novelty’s worn off. But there’s something more to it. I gave up watching it completely a few years ago because of the constant propaganda. The attacks on Corbyn are just part of this, but it was also pushing the lie that the Maidan Revolution that ushered in pro-Western government in Ukraine was a popular uprising, rather than a coup backed by America and the country’s own domestic Nazis. It was organised by Victoria Nuland of the US state department and the National Endowment for Democracy, which is the independent organisation to which the American state has outsourced this kind of operations after the CIA caused too many scandals with their activities. But ordinary peeps in the West can’t know this, and you’re an evil conspiracy theorist if you do.
The Scots comedian Frankie Boyle was very critical of Have I Got News For You. He saw it very much as part of the political establishment akin to similar shows in some of corrupt Balkan states. In an interview with Richard Osman at the Edinburgh television festival the other year, Boyle recalled how he had been in Romania watching a show like HIGNFY on TV. Politics there, at least at the time, was very corrupt and the media and television programmes rigged to present a pro-government line. The supposedly satirical show was no different. A government minister was in the front row as the comedian went along, and there was a piece of banter between the two. Everything was very chummy, and showed that the show wasn’t in the least opposed to the government. Rather the opposite, in fact. When Boyle remarked on this, he guide and translator said, ‘But it’s like programmes in your country!’
‘No, it isn’t!’ replied Boyle. Which was answered by
‘Yes, it is! Have I Got News For You!’
The show’s been running for nearly 30 years. Perhaps it’s had its day and should be cancelled before it outstays its welcome.
But Mike concludes that if it is, then this will only provide Boris with a pretext to privatise and abolish the Beeb.
Worst of all is the probability that Boris Johnson will use this as part of his excuse to axe the BBC’s status as the UK’s public service broadcaster and remove the requirement to pay the licence fee.
Still, the BBC did its best to ensure the Tories won the general election, knowing that this would be on the cards.
The Corporation’s bosses really are like turkeys voting for Christmas.
They did, but my guess is that they won’t care, because the top managers and the people in the news department responsible for this are no doubt counting on getting new jobs with the private broadcasters that will replace it.
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