Just How Many Members of the JLM Are Really Jewish?

As Jeremy Corbyn becomes more popular, so the vile right-wing establishment and media, and particularly the Sunset Times, are determined to smear him and the Labour party as anti-Semites. One of the leaders of this campaign within the Labour Party has been the JLM, or the Jewish Labour Movement. Who I believe should be more accurately called the Zionist Bowel Movement. They claim to represent the Labour Party’s Jewish members and have been active denouncing anyone they can on the Labour left as a Jew-hater.

In reality, what they consider to be anti-Semitism is very narrow: it’s opposition to Israel and Zionism, rather than anti-Semitism in the proper meaning of the word: hatred of Jews as Jews. It honestly isn’t surprising, as the Jewish Labour Movement is the successor to Paole Zion, or ‘Workers of Zion’, a Jewish Zionist organisation that became affiliated to the Labour Party in the 1920s, and which campaigned for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. But Paole Zion was more or less moribund when it was taken over in 2014 or so by embezzler Jeremy Newmark, of the Jewish Leadership Council, who told his friends in a Golders Green coffee shop that he wanted to work for Zionism from inside the Labour party, using the tactics Zionists had already used in the Universities and Colleges Union. The Zionist Bowel Movement has repeatedly claimed that anti-Semitism is rife in the Labour Party, and last week loudly held a meeting to discuss disaffiliation, because the party was allegedly no longer a place where Jews were comfortable.

In fact, this is news to many of the Party’s Jewish members, who acknowledge that there probably is anti-Semitism in Labour, but haven’t met it personally themselves in all their years of membership. Labour also have a number of other Jewish organisations, like the superb Jewish Voice for Labour, which has attacked the anti-Semitism witch-hunt and defended its innocent victims, like Jackie Walker. I’ve also no doubt that the Party has very many other Jewish members, who are not members of specifically Jewish organisations. Many people don’t want to be put in boxes or defined by religion or ethnicity. One of these was Dr. Jonathan Miller, the satirist, broadcaster and opera director. When he was introduced on one programme back in the 1960s as a Jew, he replied by stating that he was ‘Jewish’. ‘I’m a Jewish. I have no interest in being a minority’. Which I dare say is probably the attitude of many assimilated Jews comfortable with their British and Jewish identities.

From their public pronouncements, you could be forgiven for believing that the Zionist Bowel Movement had a mass membership. After all, they claim to speak for the Jewish members of a party, which now has a quarter of a million members. They claimed to have 2000 members, which is trivial compared to that of the Party in general. And it’s probably less than that. From the voting numbers recorded at their general meeting on the issue of disaffiliation, it appears that they may only have 150 members. And not all of those of are Jewish. The Jewish Labour Movement is open to gentiles, and you don’t have to be a member of the Labour Party. Tony Greenstein on his blog stated that as many of 2/3 of the Bowel Movement’s members were actually non-Jews. That’s a hundred out of 150. So you have the spectacle of a Jewish organisation, of which only a third are actually Jewish, trying to tell a party of a quarter of a million that anti-Semitism is rampant in their ranks, in the face of the majority of its members and proper Jewish organisations with an equivalent or higher membership, who assert that it isn’t. And some of these other Jewish organisations have members who are really Jewish.

The JLM is such a pompous organisation, and its claims to represent Labour’s Jews so grotesque, that I was tempted to send them a letter offering to become a member. I’m not Jewish, but have read books on Biblical Hebrew and have the piano music for Hava Nagila, which puts me on the same level as many of their other members. And no, I’m not sneering at Jews or promoting Jewish stereotypes with this comment. I am attacking and satirising a mendacious organisation that has done nothing but spread smears and destroy innocent people’s lives. And they have done this not for any good reason, but simply to defend Israel and its terrorist actions against the Palestinians from criticism. Far from representing the party’s Jewish members, they should be seen as a marginal organisation which grotesquely tries to reduce the rich variety of Jewish opinions on the question of Jewish identity to simply equating it with Zionism and support for Israel.

And in doing so they have smeared decent people, including genuine, Torah-observant and secular Jews. The JLM really only represents Zionism under the pretence of standing for the party’s Jews. And if they departed from the Party tomorrow, absolutely nothing would be lost. Indeed, as Mike and many of the other bloggers have shown from comments posted on Twitter, many people, Jewish and non-Jewish, would be delighted.

Jackie Walker Expelled by Labour Kangaroo Court

There are very many issues I’d like to blog about, but I have to cover this one. It’s an absolute travesty. Jackie Walker, the Black Jews anti-racist historian, activist and educator, has been expelled from the Labour party after she walked out of what was another kangaroo. Walker has suffered years of vilification and foul abuse because she is what the Israel lobby inside and outside the Labour party can’t stand: a Jewish opponent of Israel and its ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. If you watch Jon Pullman’s film, Witchhunt, which is about her persecution and those of other critics of Israel, she tells how she came into anti-Israeli apartheid activism. It was in the 70’s when she was part of the campaign against apartheid in Namibia. And through her activism against apartheid in southern Africa, she moved on to questioning it and campaigning against it in Israel.

It’s glaringly clear that Walker is no anti-Semite nor any kind of racist. But because of her activism and the fact that she was an ally and supporter of Jeremy Corbyn, the Israel lobby and the Conservatives, including the Thatcherite ‘moderates’ moved to smear her. They did so first by delving back into her Facebook posts and finding an old discussion with two colleagues in which she said that her people – the Jews – were the chief financiers of the slave trade.  She should have said ‘among the chief financiers of the slave trade’. Walker is fully able to support the latter statement using established historical fact by conventional scholars, some of whom are Jewish. However, the sloppy wording of her statement allowed her to be presented by the CAA as anti-Semitic. That’s when she was suspended the first time. She was suspended again when she was secretly recorded at a training day on Holocaust Memorial Day run by the Jewish Labour Movement questioning their use of International Holocaust Remembrance Definition of anti-Semitism. This is a perfectly fair question, as the definition has been criticised by one of its authors, Kenneth Stern, for suppressing free criticism of Israel, and the Scots appeal court Judge, Sir Stephen Sidney, who is Jewish, amongst others. When Marc Wadsworth, the Black anti-racist activist, asked for a definition of anti-Semitism when he was hauled up before a similar kangaroo court, the wretched tribunal had to adjourn. When they returned, it was in the company of four lawyers, all arguing. In fact, the proper definition of anti-Semitism is straightforward. Following the definition of Wilhelm Marr, the 19th century German, who coined the term, it’s simply hatred of Jews as Jews. But the I.H.R.A. definition includes references to Israel, including describing it as a racist endeavour. Hence the insistence on its adoption by the Israel lobby, determined to suppress criticism of Israel for its racist oppression of the Palestinians.

In fact, Jackie walked out of her hearing after they refused to allow her to make an opening statement. She published a detailed account of her experience at the Jewish Voice for Labour website. And Mike in his piece about it, put up on Wednesday, describes how close it was to the treatment they gave him. Both Jackie and Mike were suddenly presented with new information against them at the very last minute. The charge against them was not a normal definition of anti-Semitism. In Jackie’s case, the definition used was whether an ordinary person reading or hearing her comment would consider them anti-Semitic. She remarks that it is an extraordinary dilution of the real definition of anti-Semitism as hatred of Jews. Similarly, the charge against Mike was that an anonymous individual, who thus legally didn’t exist, had been offended by what he wrote on his blog. She also states that she was not informed in advance of the identities of the panel, so she could check whether they would give her a fair trial. Neither was Mike, who remarked that if had been able to do this he would have refused to participate unless a new panel was selected.

Jackie has also complained about  prejudicial comments made about her by Labour MPs. Mike has also said that he suffered the attention of Labour MPs, who wanted simply to find anyone accused guilty and that there was a directive in the charge sheet against him by the NEC to do so. Jackie also said that the Party was guilty of breaches of confidentiality in giving out private data, just as Mike is pursuing the Labour party for doing so. And while Mike was allowed to speak in his case, he was constantly interrupted by a panel that simply wasn’t interested in whether he was guilty or not.

Mike states in his article about Jackie Walker leaving the kangaroo court that

Put it all together and we see that Labour’s failure to follow its own rules, and its determination to smear party members who speak out about injustice, is not only habitual – it appears to be party policy.

He states that those responsible should feel a deep and abiding shame, and that they should resign. If they won’t, then they should be identified and pursued. But that will be difficult as they’re trying to purge everyone who might be a threat to them. Nevertheless, the identification of clear breaches of procedure in these cases should be enough to begin a dialogue.

https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2019/03/27/jackie-walker-was-right-to-withdraw-from-a-prejudiced-disciplinary-procedure-that-makes-a-mockery-of-the-labour-party/#comments

Shortly after the hearing, Jackie was formally told she had been expelled from the party. Not for anti-Semitism, but for ‘prejudicial and grossly detrimental behaviour against the party’. This is a catch-all charge that actually means nothing. Her real crime, as Mike and the very many others he quotes in his article about this foul affair, was that she said something that offended a right-wing, Zionist/ pro-Israeli-government Jew. And by expelling her, the Labour party has shown that it is determined to persecute left-wing Jews, who want a peaceful solution to the Israel/Palestine problem. Walker’s expulsion was the subject of biased articles in the Guardian and Labour List, and rants by the Jewish Labour Movement, which claimed that she was able to carry on making a mockery of the party’s procedures because she had support of members of the party leadership, the NEC and MPs. Thus ignoring awkward facts like she was attacked in a letter signed by 38 Labour MPs and her expulsion was welcomed by poisonous egomaniac Margaret Hodge. The JLM then continued with its lies by saying that despite warm words, little had been done to tackle the scale and impact of anti-Semitism within the Labour party. Which is a bold statement to make after secretly and unethically recording her comments at the Holocaust Memorial training day. The Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Jewish Leadership Council and the Community Security Trust then made a statement that nobody wins in this latest ugly case of disreputable behaviour. To which Mike responds that this statement clearly contradicts the facts, as it doesn’t identify the disreputable behaviour as the secret recording of Jackie’s comments.

Mike’s article on Jackie’s expulsion states that it is mortifying for everyone in the Labour party, who believe the members deserve better from their leaders, and then proceeds down the list of breaches of basic justice they committed against her. The charge against her, of detrimental behaviour against the party, can mean anything and everything, as Martin Odoni has pointed out. It’s as unjust as the way the party threw out the I.H.R.A. definition of anti-Semitism in Jackie’s previous trial, and used instead the definition that something was anti-Semitic if an ordinary person thought it was. Which Mike states is claptrap. And then there’s the breach of the party’s own disciplinary procedures by giving her new evidence days before the trial.

Mike states plainly that

We are left to contemplate – not a disgraced anti-Semite who has finally been made to face justice, but an honourable campaigner,  falsely-accused, falsely-expelled, and wrongly vilified by a disgraced, debased and corrupted political machine.

He goes on to say that if Jeremy Corbyn himself is reading this, it is to be hoped that he burns with shame at this travesty committed by his subordinates in an underhanded campaign to remove him from the leadership. Corbyn has been able to beat the accusations against him so his opponents have turned instead to attacking his allies. And he has let it happen. He can’t stop the persecution on his own. He needs the help of the NEC, but they haven’t lifted a finger to stop it but have cheered on the persecution carried out by the compliance unit and the NCC.

Mike concludes

Labour needs root-and-branch reform of all three organisations. And it needs it yesterday.

Or the party will never be fit to govern.

https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2019/03/28/by-expelling-jackie-walker-labour-has-sealed-its-reputation-as-a-supporter-of-prejudice-and-racism/

Everything Mike’s written about this shabby affair is absolutely right. Tony Greenstein, another principle Jewish campaigner against all forms of Fascism, who was also expelled on trumped up charges of anti-Semitism because of his opposition to Israel, has made the point time and again that Corbyn and his advisors have consistently given in to the witchhunters in the hope of appeasing them. But this hasn’t worked. It has just encouraged and emboldened them, and they will only stop when they have removed him as head of the Labour party.

As for the organisations involved in smearing Walker and the other victims of the witchhunt, despite their pretensions to honesty and virtue they are deeply immoral and deceitful. The Jewish Labour Movement claims to speak for all Jews in the Labour party. It doesn’t. It is, as its founder, embezzler Jeremy Newmark has said, set up to use the same methods to attack Israel’s critics and opponents elsewhere within the Labour party. It’s members don’t have to be Jewish – and it’s been claimed that the majority are gentiles. And they don’t even have to be members of the party. They’re a Zionist entry group, but position themselves as the true voice of Jews within the party to the exclusion of other Jewish groups like Jewdas, Jewish Voice for Labour and so on, who do support Corbyn and whose members are actually Jewish. The Board of Deputies of British Jews is another Zionist organisation that really only represents the United Synagogue. It doesn’t represent the Orthodox, many members of whom have published letters in support of Corbyn. Nor do they represent secular Jews. The Jewish Leadership Council was set up as a rival to the Board by much the same affluent, Tory-voting establishment types that serve on the Board. The Community Security Trust are a private vigilante group, trained by Mossad, who for some reason have been given considerable powers to patrol Jewish communities to protect them from harm. No other ethnic or religious groups have this privilege, despite the fact that Muslims and mosques are more at risk of attack and vandalism than Jews and synagogues. Also, the CST grossly inflates the incidence of anti-Semitism and has a history of unprovoked, vicious assaults on anti-Zionism campaigners. Tony Greenstein described some of this in a post he put up back in January. And it’s a long, ugly list. Those assaulted by the CST thugs include women, Muslims and Jews. One victim was an elderly rabbi, who was punched in the face! This is the deplorable behaviour of Fascists, like the viciously anti-Semitic banned terror group, National Action. But somehow the CST and its thugs have state approval. And the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism is really only interested in attacking left-wing critics of Israel, and has little to say about real, genuine anti-Semites and Fascists.

Walker, Marc Wadsworth, Ken Livingstone, Tony Greenstein, Mike and so many others have been expelled and smeared to satisfy a politically biased, grossly unrepresentative Zionist establishment. An establishment that has shown itself repeatedly to be manifestly unjust and deeply mendacious. It is this establishment and their right-wing allies, both in the Labour party and without, which needs to be held up to examination, and should have their lies and machinations exposed. And those responsible for the witchhunt should be called out and utterly disgraced for their vilification and demonisation of decent, anti-racist women and men.

 

 

Asa Winstanley Suspended from Labour Party Charged with ‘Anti-Semitism’

Asa Winstanley, a journalist with the pro-Palestinian website, The Electronic Intifada, has become yet another casualty in the Labour right’s attempts to silence critics of Israel. He was suspended from the party because of a Tweet he posted, which said

Israeli embassy proxy the JLM confirms it was responsible for the referencing of Labour to the Equality and Human Rights Commission for supposed “institutional antisemitism”.

Shameless sabotage of the party.

This is what Israel terms “lawfare”

https://electronicintifada.net/tags/lawfare

Like other members of the party, who have similarly been suspended and smeared as anti-Semites, Winstanley only knew of this after it was published by the Jewish Chronicle, which also chose to reveal Winstanley’s private details. A hack from the Chronicle, Rosa Donerty, posted

It is understood that Asa Winstanley is suspended from Labour party pending investigation.

to which Winstanley commented that

The fact that a Jewish Chronicle journalist is claiming to be the first to know information, which would, if true, be confidential indicates attempts to politicise and compromise Labour’s disciplinary process.   

And, as you might expect, the abuse started. Someone calling himself ‘Dr. Gonzo’ responded in classy fashion with

F**k off you anti-Semitic piece of s**t. Go play with the traffic you insufferable racist c**t.

Ali Abunimah’s article about this mentions that two years ago in 2017, lawyers from the Jewish Labour Movement, which has close ties with the Israeli embassy, tried to shut him down by threatening legal action.

See: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/labour-party-investigates-electronic-intifada-journalist

Mike states in his piece about this latest vile attack on a critic of Israel that it resembles his own experience. He only heard that he had been suspended when someone phoned him up about it from the Welsh paper The Western Mail. Mike also agrees with Winstanley that the disclosure of the information to a third party may be a breach of the Data Protection Act. Mike’s currently taking the Party to court, and this is very definitely going to be a part of his case. And yes, Mike has also suffered vile abuse following the Labour party’s actions. Mike also makes the point that although the party describes its investigations procedure as quasi-judicial, it has no legal validity. This means that the party can be sued by members or former members, who have suffered harm to their reputations after their treatment by the party.

The Electronic Intifada’s article states that the complaints procedure was expected to become fairer with the appointment of Jenny Formby. It hasn’t. Mike concludes

But then, it seems the attitude of Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee and complaint-handling “compliance unit” really hasn’t changed in the nearly two years since my case began.

They still treat the people who pay their wages with nothing but contempt.

See: https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2019/03/12/labour-investigation-of-asa-winstanley-shows-it-is-still-abusing-rank-and-file-members/

I’m not surprised that the Labour party has accused Winstanley of anti-Semitism. As the Electronic Intifada’s article on him says, he’s been with them since 2015, and has appeared frequently on the various alternative news media discussing and commenting on Israel’s persecution of the Palestinians, and the Israel lobby’s attempts to silence opposition and dissent, with other journalists and activists. In a way, I’m just surprised that it took this long to get round to him.

I suspect the tweet about the Jewish Labour Movement being a front for the Israeli embassy got him into trouble because, as last Friday’s piece in the I by the United Synagogue’s Richard Verber shows, the Israel lobby is claiming that accusations that Jewish or other organisations are funded by Israel is an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory. In some cases, it may well be. But the Jewish Labour Movement was founded in 2015, as its leader, Jeremy Newmark admitted in 2016, in order to fight opposition to Israel. It has strong ties to the Israeli embassy, as does Labour Friends of Israel, whose chair, Joan Ryan, hobnobbed nearly every day with disgraced conspirator Shai Masot. And six of the original eight founders of The Independent Group were members of the LFI, and they included that organisation’s chair. Which means that Ruth George was quite right when she tweeted that she wouldn’t blame anyone for suspecting that they were funded by the Israelis.

The accusation also shows how fake and contrived these accusations of anti-Semitism are. I’ve read many articles by Winstanley and the other journos at the Electronic Intifada, and absolutely none of them have been genuinely anti-Semitic in the real, legal sense of of expressing or trying to provoke hatred of Jews as Jews. Indeed, I believe from the tenor of the articles that the opposite is true. The articles have always been very well informed and precisely worded, so that the object of criticism has been the Israeli state and right-wing politicians, activists and Israeli racism in general. But never Jews or the Israelis as a people.

Which is why I’ve no doubt that the JLM is trying to silence him now. He’s too well-informed, accurate and reliable, and definitely not an anti-Semite. I wish Mr Winstanley every success in dealing with this vile calumny and give him my full and staunch support, as I do with everyone like him – Mike, Jackie Walker, Martin Odoni, Marc Wadsworth and Ken Livingstone. May they get re-instated soon, their names cleared, and those who besmirch them exposed and thrown out instead.

The Electronic Intifada: JLM Was Founded to Fight Corbyn

When exactly was the Jewish Labour Movement founded? The group claims that it’s merely Paole Zion, ‘Workers’ of Zion’, a Jewish socialist organisation that has been part of the Labour party for over a century, simply revamped and with a different monicker. It’s why they’re hoping that the stories about them debating whether or not to disaffiliate from Labour will be so harmful to the party. Imagine the headlines: ‘Labour now so anti-Semitic that historic Jewish group has now been forced out’. Except that, according to an article posted three days ago on the 7th March 2019 by the Electronic Intifada, the group may have been founded much more recently. Like 2004. Or later still, 2015.

The JLM used to have a page on their website, now deleted, in which they told the world that it had been set up in 2004 by its then chair, Louise Ellman, as Paole Zion’s successor.

And there’s also a very embarrassing transcript of a section of the al-Jazeera documentary, The Lobby, which was never used, in which embezzler and Labour councillor Jeremy Newmark states that it was founded in 2015 to fight Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders. No-Morals told a meeting of the organisation’s youth wing in 2016 that actually it’s origins were the year before, when ‘a bunch of us’ sat in a coffee shop in Golders Green, and decided to refound the JLM. This was supposed to be about tackling anti-Semitism in the Labour party, but it’s really all about Israel. No-Morals is a pro-Israel activist and has close connections to the Israeli government and its London embassy.  He claimed that Corbyn had been forced to back down from a boycott of Israel because of pressure from the group, and said that they need to replicate that on broader issues. He stated that the key to his movement was behind the scenes lobbying, legal leg-work and Engage, a left-wing campaign against anti-Semitism. The article quotes him as saying

“We built a robust political discourse, rooted in the politics of the left and deployed it in their own backyard,” he wrote.

If people walked away from the party, Newmark argued, “Israel’s case will be lost by default.”

See: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/jewish-labour-movement-was-refounded-fight-corbyn

This little snippet adds more information to a growing pile confirming that the anti-Semitism row in the Labour party isn’t remotely about real anti-Semitism. It’s about the Israel lobby and the Blairites smearing opponents of Israel in the party. In the case of the Blairites, this is partly a simply strategy to hold to power in a political landscape that has changed, and where Blairite neo-liberalism is hated and reviled. And both the Blairites, as fervent Zionists, and the Israel lobby are desperately trying to smear Israel’s critics as increasing numbers of decent people are becoming aware of the country’s racism, it’s vicious persecution of the Palestinians and its constant meddling in the internal affairs of other countries through lobbying groups. It’s especially venomous in its treatment of Jewish critics of Israel, who are reviled in anti-Semitic terms that recall the vilification of Jews under Julius Streicher and his wretched propaganda, Der Sturmer, for the Nazis. They are also accused of being anti-Semitic, self-hated, and disloyal to a country in which they were not born or have any desire to visit, let alone move to. To the Israel lobby, they are ‘the wrong kind of Jews’, another anti-Semitic trope.

As the JLM clandestinely seems to admit, it’s less than 20 years, if that, its departure from the Labour Party will be no great loss. Indeed, some of us are looking forward to it.

Mass Disappointment as Jewish Labour Movement Refuses to Disaffiliate from Labour Party

Okay, so I was wrong. Yesterday I wrote a piece commenting on a story in Private Eye that Trevor Chinn, a Zionist businessman, looked like he was going to take his funding away from Tom Watson and his attempt to stage a backbench revolt against Corbyn, and give it instead to the Lib Dems. This section of the story is, as far as I know, true. However, I connected it to the debate the Jewish Labour Movement, real name Paole Zion, was going to stage about whether they should disaffiliate from Labour. I speculated that Chinn, as a Zionist, was taking his money out of Labour because his attempts to boost the Israel lobby weren’t working, and that this may also apply to the JLM.

Unfortunately, I was wrong. The Jewish Labour Movement, which only represents Zionist Jews in the Labour Party, despite the rulings and rantings of Labour’s Compliance Unit and the NEC, voted by majority of its members in Manchester and London to stay on. If they can be believed, of course. It has also been said that no vote was held at all.

Whether this was true or not, what is true is that it was all a stunt. Asa Winstanley of the Electronic Intifada posted a series of Tweets which showed that he wasn’t at all surprised,. Indeed, he even predicted it. He had expected a group of right-wing Labour MPs to split away, followed by the JLM, as the Movements Fuhrer, Jeremy Newmark, had done the exact same thing to disrupt the University and College Union several years ago. It’s done to pretend that Jews are leaving en masse in protest at the anti-Semitism they experience whenever an official body starts criticising their favourite apartheid state. In fact, the tactics had worked and put a chill on any discussion of Israel for a time. But it also put the JLM in court, and the beak was not impressed. He attacked them for using litigation to try and shut down free speech. The judge was particularly critical of the leader of this fiasco, one Jeremy Newmark. Winstanley stated

Newmark was singled out by the judge for giving particularly “preposterous,” “arrogant” and “disturbing” evidence which showed contempt for freedom of speech. He was basically called a liar by the judge — giving “untrue” evidence.

Nomark is the former head of the Jewish Leadership Council, where he showed his complete absence of morals there. They quietly let go of him when he was caught embezzling. No-Morals has been described as ‘bent as a nine-bob note’ and ‘a one-man crimewave’ by one Jewish blogger. After leaving the JLC, he then took over the moribund Paole Zion in the Labour Party, pumped money into it, and reinvented it as the Jewish Labour Movement, and himself as a Labour activist.

But how mighty is this gang of zealots? Er, not very. It has a membership of only 2,000. And you don’t even have to be a member of the Labour Party to join. Which is how David Collier, one of the people behind the Gnasherjew online persona, got in. And which also turns around Collier’s rage at the Beeb inviting Jewish Voice for Labour on to Newsnight. Predictably he accused the Corporation of anti-Semitism and claimed that they were only a fringe movement. Which is what could also be said about the JLM, with their paltry membership and abuse they mete out to Israel-critical Jews like Tony Greenstein, Jackie Walker and others.

Collier and the Jewish Labour Movement is what Norman Stanley Fletcher, the sage of Slade Prison, used to call ‘charmless nerks’. The organisation tweeted about its decision with its members’ usual surly lack of grace. Zionists like Collier and the JLM threaten their opponents online as well as in person, and this post was no exception. They told Labour politicos and councillors that if they stood with JLM, the JLM would stand with them. But if they were against them, they wouldn’t. Which is basically coded language meaning that if they didn’t support the JLM and their war against Corbyn, they’d attack them.

If they were expecting the legions of ordinary people in the party, to be cowed and chastened by the news, they were to be severely disappointed. Marxy spoke for many when he said

Dear JLM

We don’t respond to threats.

Do as you wish.

Labour Party Membership.

This was all just a stunt. While it might take in the public, 29 per cent of whom supposedly now believe the lies about Labour Party anti-Semitism retailed by the media, it didn’t impress Labour’s real supporters. Rather than being aghast at the JLM disaffiliating, like the 200 Labour Party right-wingers such as Ruth Smeeth and Margaret Hodge, most of the real Labour supporters were ready to clap and cheer.

This group of Zionist entryists and surly, domineering racial supremacists have been indulged for too long. It’s about time they were thrown out for racism and bullying.

For more information, see: https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2019/03/07/unwelcome-guests-jewish-labour-movement-keeps-affiliation-with-labour-and-threatens-party-members/

Moshe Machover, Israeli Anti-Zionist, Speaking at Labour Against the Witchhunt Meeting

This is another excellent video from the public meeting of Labour Against the Witchhunt on the 29th January last year, 2019. LAW was founded to stand up for people, who had been unfairly targeted by the right in the Labour party for expulsion, chiefly, but not exclusively, on bogus charges of anti-Semitism. Although one young woman was suspended or expelled because – gasp! Shock! Horror! – She was a fan of the Foo Fighters! LAW’s chair is Jackie Walker, a Black, Jewish anti-racist activist, who was falsely accused of anti-Semitism. Here she introduces Professor Moshe Machover, a very well respected Israeli mathematician and a staunch critic of Zionism. Here he tells the story of how he was also smeared, expelled and re-admitted for ‘supporting another party/not supporting another party’.

Walker states that many people were uplifted when the NEC were forced to go back on their knee-jerk response and reinstate him. This happened because they were at the Labour party conference and the offending article that many have spoken about that Moshe wrote, which touched on some of the issues that Ken [Loach?] spoke about, was in a paper on the side. And Jeremy Newmark, the chair of the Jewish Labour Movement, came out, took a photo of them, smiled, and said something like ‘Well, we’ll have you now.’ Within hours Machover had been fingered. What is extraordinary is that in two years, 18 months, more people have been suspended and still do not know what the allegations against them are. It is extraordinary that at times, given that, Labour’s disciplinary unit can respond so quickly. She then hands over the Mike to Prof Machover.

Machover’s rather elderly, so he apologises for speaking from a sitting position. He states he wants to make a few technical points. It is not only about false allegations of anti-Semitism. There are two things that are combined, and in his case they were combined. The allegations of anti-Semitism are the most despicable, they are a form of character assassination. But they can only suspend you for it. They did not use that allegation to expel him. There is a more draconian rule that was used him against him and many other people, which has zilch to do with allegations of anti-Semitism. It is the infamous Rule 2.14.4b in the Labour party rule book. This allows the bureaucrats not to suspend, but to expel automatically. The procedure shares with the allegation of anti-Semitism the absence of natural justice. There is no due process. This is about who the accuser, the prosecution and the judge are. They are the same people: the committee that is expelling you or adjudicating in your suspension. They are the judges and the prosecution. You cannot cross-examine the witnesses. You cannot know who is accusing you. This applies to both cases. The draconian rule that allows automatic expulsion, or prevent you joining the party. Some of this would be just, if it was accompanied by due procedure, natural justice. For example, if you demand people vote for a rival candidate to a Labour candidate in an election. That would be a just case for expulsion. If someone is caught with a bloody knife over a corpse, they still have a trial. They’re not sent to prison automatically. Unlike this rule.

And some of the ground for automatic expulsion are absolutely absurd, a bureaucrat’s dream. This is membership or support for a political organisation not affiliated to the Labour party. But they do not define what a political organisation is. It could be Refuge. It could be Momentum [which was not at the time affiliated to the Labour party]. it could be anything. And what does ‘support’ mean? In Machover’s case, it was comical. Membership is a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ thing. But what does ‘support’ mean? They accused him of supporting a rival organisation. Why did they pick on this organisation? They did not call for voting against Labour. On the contrary, they encouraged people to vote for Labour candidates. What does support me? It’s not a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ issue. He supports some things, but not others. He says he did not respond to that part of the question when the bureaucrats wrote to him about it, because he didn’t really give him any definition of what support meant. When he was expelled, the evidence against him was the article he had published in the weekly journal of the CPGB [Communist Party of Great Britain]. This is something a lot of people do. Jeremy Corbyn has published many articles in the Morning Star, a lot of Labour leaders have published articles in journals inimical to the Labour Party. When they grudgingly reinstated him they said that they construed his reply as evidence that he did not support this organisation. He did not admit or deny support, but they arbitrarily decided that first he did, then he didn’t. That shows the arbitrariness of the whole procedure.

Coming to the accusations of anti-Semitism, it is true, as Walker said, that the accusations started when Corbyn became a candidate. That was a shift of gear in a campaign that started a few years previously, which had little to do with the Labour party, Britain, or specifically Jeremy Corbyn. It is a campaign orchestrated by the Israeli government, specifically by the Ministry of Strategic Affairs led by the cabinet minister Gilad Erdan. This was a response to Israeli’s declining reputation and falling support internationally,  among the left but also among liberal opinion, and particularly among the young, including young Jewish people. And so they decided to fight against it by accusing people who were against Israel and its crimes, and against the Zionist project of colonisation, branding them as anti-Semites. And the bastards fight dirty. You don’t need to go further than look at the al-Jazeera expose. He recommends that if you haven’t watched the four part series, you should, as he found it personally entertaining in a macabre way, but also import to see how the whole thing works.  He then goes to make the following points:

The campaign against Corbyn by the right, including the Labour right, which still holds very important bureaucratic positions, latched onto it and used it as a cudgel against Corbyn. This was a confluence of those who believed in Israel almost like a religion, who were prepared to eat alive anyone who dared to make even the most justified criticism of Israel. This coincided with the people on the right, both inside and outside the Labour party, who care zilch about Israel, Palestinians and anti-Semitism. They just want to use anti-Semitism as a weapon against Jeremy Corbyn personally. This is combined with a characteristic of the elite, not just in this country, but generally in the international community, in what used to be called ‘the free world’. This is led by the United States, which is led by, you know who. And Israel is playing a very important role for the US, not only as their regional watchdog, but as their supplier globally of the hardware and software of mass repression, such as the drones used not just for reconaissance but also assassination. Israel is the United State’s rottweiler, which is at the head of the international community. And so if that rottweiler pisses on your shoe, you don’t kick it, but say ‘Good dog! Good dog!’

He then ends his talk with a remark about Momentum. Many branches of Momentum mobilised to pass resolutions in his defence and in the defence of other victims. But where are Momentum’s national leaders? John Lansman, Momentum’s leader, is on record as saying ‘You mustn’t mention Zionism.’ But you can’t open an Israeli paper without Zionism being discussed – ‘Is it consonant with Zionism, is it not consonant with Zionism?’ Zionism is the ideology of Israel. It is not possible to mention Israel without mentioning Zionism, like Communism was the ideology of the old Soviet Union. What stops the central leadership of Momentum from saying a word about this. He thinks they should raise this question.

‘The Lobby’: Labour Friends of Israel’s Lies and Smears at Labour Conference

This is the third part of the Al-Jazeera documentary, ‘The Lobby’, on the Israel lobby in the UK. In this section, the Arab news agency’s undercover reporter went with Shai Masot and Mark Regev of the Israeli embassy to the Labour conference in Liverpool. There they met and advised Joan Ryan, the Chair of Labour Friends of Israel, and her parliamentary assistant, Alex Richardson, and Michael Rubin, the Parliamentary Assistant for Labour Friends of Israel, on how to deal with supporters of the Palestinians. They also recorded Ryan smearing Jean Fitzpatrick as an anti-Semite, accusing her of saying something which she definitely did not. Ryan did so because Fitzpatrick had the temerity to ask her a question she could not answer about what the LFI was doing to advance a two-state solution to the conflict between the Palestinians and Israelis.

Israel’s Attack on the BDS Movement

The segment includes a clip of one of the Labour party’s Israel lobby saying that she could ‘take’ Jackie Walker. It then moves on to the challenge to Israel posed by the BDS movement, and Israel’s response to it. Netanyahu is shown saying to the camera that Israelis have to fight the BDS movement because it is morally wrong. Israel’s attack on the BDS movement is run by the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, which recruits mainly former Israeli secret agents. London is a major battleground in the conflict over the BDS movement. There’s a shot of Ilan Pappe, the Israeli historian and critic of Israel, stating that in many ways the BDS movement started in Britain. There’s another clip of someone from the Labour Friends of Israeli ominously declaring that they work closely with the Israeli embassy, ‘doing a lot behind the scenes’. The documentary’s director, Clayton Swisher, states that one of the main targets is the Labour party, as for the first time they have a leader, who is a champion of Palestinian rights. There is also a shot of Peter Oborne, the Telegraph journo, who himself made a Channel 4 documentary investigating and criticizing the Israel lobby, saying that Israel interference is an outrage, an affront to democracy and shouldn’t be allowed.

Mark Regev on What to Tell Supporters of the Palestinians

The video shows the Israeli ambassador, Mark Regev, telling a group of sympathetic Labour activists that people on the left today are likely to be pro-Palestinian and hostile to Israel, if not anti-Semitic. He tells them that to combat Progressives, they are to ask them why they are supporting reactionaries like Hamas and Hezbollah, and to say in the language of Social Democracy that they are misogynist, homophobic, racist anti-Semitic and reactionary. The chair of the Labour Friends of Israel, Jeremy Newmark, then talks to the crowd about how he used the argument to win over Clive Lewis, one of Corbyn’s close allies.

Jackie Walker: The Anti-Semitism Crisis Is Constructed to Unseat Corbyn

There is another clip of Jackie Walker stating that the anti-Semitism crisis is constructed and manipulated by parts of the Labour party, other parties and the media to discredit Corbyn and a number of his supporters. She makes it clear that she wants an argument between Zionism and anti-Zionism, instead of the fake conflict there is now. She also states that at a debate she had with Newmark, he turned his back on the audience and whispered to her that she was a ‘court Jew’, the Jewish equivalent of calling a Black person a ‘house n*gger’. A note at the end of the programme states that when they contacted Newmark, he denied he said any such thing and feels that it is not a fair description of Walker. When asked if she had told anyone, she replies that it’s hard to use the compliance system, because it’s so discredited.

Masot is also filmed boasting that the Israeli embassy had attended 50 events that year at universities, and that more than 100 events were organized by the Israel societies on campuses, eight receptions for young people at the embassy, and three receptions for more than 300 people from Parliament.

Jean Fitpatrick and Joan Ryan of Labour Friends of Israel

The video also interviews Jean Fitzpatrick about her encounter with Ryan and the Labour Friends of Israel. Fitzpatrick says that is was her first Labour conference, and that she wanted to use the opportunity to have a genuine dialogue with a group she felt had a lot of influence. She is shown asking Ryan and the others what they were doing about the Israeli settlements in Palestine. Ryan replies that they aren’t friends of Israel and enemies of Palestine, and that they believe in a two-state solution. Fitzpatrick asks how this will come about. Ryan simply comes out with more flannel about coexistence and self-determination for both peoples. Fitzpatrick states that she had no idea, who was on the stall, and what she wanted was straight answers not slogans. Fitzpatrick asked Ryan what they were doing about Israeli occupation. In reply Ryan restates that they’re in favour of a two-state solution, and Israeli security.

Swisher then follows, explaining that a two-state solution is impossible due to the way Israeli colonization has atomized the existing Palestinian villages and towns, separating them from each other. Fitzpatrick also states that she wanted reassurance that a two-state solution was still possible. Back to the video of Fitzpatrick and Ryan talking, where Ryan states that they have to be careful not to let their feelings morph into anti-Semitism. Fitzpatrick in reply says she’s not anti-Zionist.

Ben White, a journalist with the Middle East Monitor, appears on camera to state that it is clear that, whatever party is in power in Israel, the country has no desire to relinquish the territories seized after 1967. This throws up questions no-one wants to ask. Or don’t want to answer.

Ilan Pappe states that there are only two solutions to the problem. Either you support Israel, which is an ethnic apartheid state, or you support a change of regime in Israel, which means that the country would go through a process of genuine democratization like apartheid South Africa. There is no third option.

Back to the conversation between Fitzpatrick and Ryan, Ryan tries to end the conversation. Pappe observes that Fitzpatrick didn’t ask anything about Judaism or the existence of Israel. She just asked about the settlements, and how anyone who supported Israel justified them.

Ryan Calls Fitzpatrick Anti-Semitic

Fitzpatrick states she was interested to know how they would use whatever funds and influence they had to bring about a two-state solution. Fitzpatrick is shown saying to Ryan that they have a lot of money and prestige in the world. Ryan asks her where she got that from. Fitzpatrick replies that that is what she has heard. the Labour Friends of Israel is a stepping-stone to good jobs, and that the son of a friend of hers got a good job at Oxford university on the basis of working for the Labour Friends of Israel. Ryan then responds that this is anti-Semitic, which Fitzpatrick denies, stating that it’s a fact. Ryan then goes on about how it’s an ‘anti-Semitic trope’ and talks about ‘conspiracy theories’. Ryan then declares she’s ending the conversation, because she doesn’t want to talk further about getting jobs in university or the City through this, which is anti-Semitic.

Swisher then explains that Ryan falsely claimed that Fitzpatrick had spoken about getting jobs in the City, London’s financial centre. Pappe comments that Fitzpatrick wasn’t anti-Semitic, and Ryan and her friends knew it. She was simply an ordinary pro-Palestinian person concerned about Israel’s violation of their civil rights. Ryan continued talking about how Fitzpatrick had spoken about banking as she left the conference hall, even though Fitzpatrick had never mentioned it.

That evening, at a rally for the Labour Friends of Israel, Joan Ryan described her day, claiming that there were three anti-Semitic incidents that day at the stand to the people staffing it. Which she believed showed the reality of anti-Semitism in the party.

Ryan, Angela Eagle, Jennifer Gerber and Chuka Umunna

Swisher states that by the following day the news had got out about the exchange on the stall. The video shows internet messages from LBC and the Labour Friends of Israel. Various MPs came by to express their views on the subject, including Angela Eagle, who is told by Ryan’s assistant, Michael Rubin, the Parliamentary Officer for Labour Friends of Israel, that they had someone talk to them, who said the anti-Semitism accusations were made up to attack Jeremy Corbyn. Chuka Umunna also turns up to hug Jennifer Gerber, the director of the LFI, and asks for an update on the anti-Semitic incidents. They tell him that a ‘nutter’ turned up to tell him that the coup was run by Jews, Jewish MPs and Jewish millionaires. They also say that Angela Eagle’s husband was Jewish to show how unpleasant this comment was. Ryan also tells Umunna that she reported ‘that woman’ and that Fitzpatrick had videoed her not answering the question. This has clearly upset Ryan. Ryan then goes on to say that she didn’t film her telling Fitzpatrick that she’s anti-Semitic, and that she’s made a formal complaint.

Fitzpatrick states that she’s angry about how Ryan misquoted her, and anxious about how she totally misinterpreted her words. Fitzpatrick says she has no idea how Ryan got from what she really said to getting good jobs in banking. ‘Maybe she believes her own trope’.

The video goes back to Gerber stating that she met someone who said that the anti-Semitism isn’t real, they haven’t seen it, their Jewish friends haven’t seen it and it’s really being used to crush Corbyn.

Pappe then says that it’s pathetic and worrying that such evidence is used every day to attack Corbyn, and get him to deny that he is anti-Semitic.

Alex Richardson: I Don’t Know If It’s Anti-Semitic Or Not, But It Made Me Uncomfortable, So It Is

And then were back Gerber telling the LFI that it’s upsetting to her as a Jew to hear about how anti-Semitism is being used to undermine Corbyn. But Gerber then goes on about how this person worries her more than the blatant anti-Semites, who talk about how Jews have big noses and control the world, because she doesn’t know whether she’s an anti-Semite. The conversation then moves on to a debate over which of these incidents was worse, with Rubin claiming it was Fitzpatrick’s conversation with Ryan. And Rubin himself is shown saying that he doesn’t know where the line is about anti-Semitism anymore. Alex Richardson, Ryan’s parliamentary assistant, then gives his opinion, that it’s anything that makes you uncomfortable. And so he reported Fitzpatrick’s comments as anti-Semitic, even though nothing anti-Semitic was said – but he’s sure there were undertones – simply because it made him feel uncomfortable.

Fitzpatrick observes that she tried to talk to them because she thought they were willing to talk about Palestine. Now it appears they are not, and if you try to talk about it, they will bring a charge of anti-Semitism against you.

Pappe observes that the LFI is really scraping the bottom of the barrel to find 2 1/2 cases of anti-Semitism, and that even they aren’t sure if 2 of their 3 cases are actually anti-Semitic.

Fitzpatrick Investigated

Fitzpatrick was unaware that a complaint of anti-Semitism had been lodged, and that the story had made the news. This part of the video shows the headline in Jewish News. Shortly afterwards, Ryan’s parliamentary assistant emailed Rubin asking him to be a witness to the supposed anti-Semitic incident. But Richardson says that Fitzpatrick’s comment was ‘on the line’, but he felt it was anti-Semitic, even though she didn’t mention Jews, but Israel instead, and was all about Jews controlling money and power. Richardson then speculates about how ‘that woman’ might be banned because she said something anti-Semitic.

Shortly after she left the conference, Fitzpatrick was contacted by someone from the Labour party, who only told her it was about ‘a serious incident’. She was left racking her brains wondering if she had seen a fire or an assault of some kind. She was then told that it was her conduct, that was being investigated, ‘which was a real bombshell’.

At the end of the programme, it is states that they contacted everyone involved for their opinion. Ryan stated that she believes that it is duty of all party members to report language that is racist or anti-Semitic, and that she believes that her actions were entirely appropriate.

She added that comments like those about certain groups having lots of money and prestige and helped to advance people’s careers appeared to evoke classic anti-Semitic tropes.

The documentary also states that neither Shai Masot nor the Israeli embassy responded to their findings.

Conclusion

This shows just how nasty and desperate the Israel lobby is, and I admit, it has changed my opinion about the Israel lobby. I’d previously assumed that the accusations were a cynical ruse to smear Corbyn and his supporters. But it seems from this that the people who make them, Labour Friends of Israel, the Jewish Labour Movement and others are so fanatical and blinkered, that they really do think that any who questions their views and Israel’s barbarous treatment of the Palestinians is an anti-Semite.

Of course, they can’t clearly tell you what is anti-Semitic about particular comments. As Ryan showed with her own faulty recollection of what she was asked by Fitzpatrick, if it’s not explicitly anti-Semitic, they won’t remember it properly and make it fit their existing prejudices. Anti-Semites think Jews are behind the banking system, so when Fitzpatrick talked about the prestige surrounding the LFI that got her friend’s son a job, Ryan altered it in her recollection of the event to be about banks. Even though banks weren’t mentioned.

Nor did Fitzpatrick say anything about Jews. And it may very well be that the board interviewing the young man for the job at Oxford University were impressed that he had worked for Labour Friends of Israel. But just because Fitzpatrick believed, or her friend’s son believed, that he had got the job because of this doesn’t make it anti-Semitic. Fitzpatrick did not say that Jews controlled education, only that working for the LFI got him a job. People are impressed by different things, and it is not remotely impossible that someone at the university, who was personally impressed by the LFI, would offer a job to someone, who had worked for them.

As for Regev telling the Labour Friends of Israel to ask supporters of the Palestinians why they are supporting reactionaries, it’s true that Hamas and Hizbollah are unpleasant organisations. But there are deeply reactionary, racist and misogynist organisations in Israel. Not every Palestinian supports Hamas, and the nature of that political organization does not justify Israel’s dispossession and persecution of the Palestinians, which started long before it arose.

It’s clear from this segment that the Israel lobby can’t justify it’s treatment of the Palestinians. Ryan couldn’t in her conversation with Fitzpatrick, and this embarrassed and angered her. Hence the smear. And with no arguments, Rubin and Richardson act like precious snowflakes demanding ‘safe spaces’ from being made uncomfortable.

And the use of anti-Semitic tropes to accuse decent people of anti-Semitism is contrived and deliberately constructed so that those making the accusation do not need to take any account of the reality of what they are being told. It’s a particularly nasty way of sticking their fingers in their ears, and saying ‘la-la-la, I’m not listening to you, and you’re an anti-Semite anyway for telling me things I don’t want to hear, can’t answer, and don’t want you to know.’

Arkush and Goldstein Go Pemberton Billing

This morning, Mike put up a piece taking a part the letter written by Jonathans Arkush and Goldstein attacking Jeremy Corbyn for being too soft on the supposed rampant anti-Semitism in the Labour party. The story’s also covered in the I newspaper, which doesn’t name the two. It just describes the letter as written by ‘Jewish community leaders’. In fact, one of them is from the Jewish Leadership Council and the other is from the Board of Deputies of British Jews. They accuse Corbyn of ignoring the issues that are important to mainstream British Jews. Their real concern, however, is revealed in their comments about how Cobyn and the Labour party under him are motivated by the Far Left’s hatred of Zionism, Israel, and the Israel lobby. As Mike has shown, Corbyn is not far left. He’s centre-left. He only appears far left compared to the Blairites and the Tories, who want everything privatised, including the NHS, following the ideological dictates of Margaret Thatcher. But then, factual accuracy is not these guys’ concern. Smearing the left and the opponents of Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians is.

Mike’s put up a couple of videos showing that Corbyn has always been an opponent of racism and anti-Semitism, so Arkush and Goldstein’s smear of him and his followers as anti-Semites is the purest nonsense. Nor is he an opponent of the state Israel. I was told this by a commenter on one of my posts about Israel and the Israel lobby, who objected to my using the term ‘Zionism’. He felt it played into the hands of those smearing the Labour leader. I am happy to be corrected. But what Corbyn does oppose is Israeli apartheid, its oppression of the indigenous Palestinians, and its seven decades long campaign to purge them from Israel. It is this, which Arkush and Goldstein are defending when the smear the Labour leader, and the other critics of Israel. They cannot defend Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, as it’s indefensible. So indefensible that they object to anyone even mentioning it or describing Israel as an apartheid state, or comparing it to Nazi Germany, even though the comparison is apt in so far as Nazi policy went as far as 1942 and the launch of the Final Solution. And unable to describe the brutal maltreatment of the Palestinians by the Israelis, all the Israel lobby can do is try to silence its critics by accusing them of anti-Semitism. Any mention of Israeli atrocities in the press will get the journalists responsible for the article smeared as anti-Semites. I put up a documentary from Channel 4’s Despatches, broadcast in 2009 and present by Peter Oborne, which described just how nasty, bullying and mendacious the Israel lobby is. Among those they threatened and accused of anti-Semitism were Alan Rusbridger, the editor of the Guardian, and respected BBC journos Jeremy Bowen. When one of the Dimblebores attacked them for their smears, they also had the BBC investigate him for anti-Semitism.

Mike states that this letter has been written to stop Labour winning the coming council elections. He’s undoubtedly right. This would terrify the Blairites and the Israel lobby, quite apart from the Tories. But the right of both of these organisations to speak on behalf of the wider Jewish community is questionable. The Jewish Leadership Council is very closely connected to explicitly Zionist groups. But it’s under something of a cloud, as its former chief, Jeremy ‘No Morals’ Newmark was embezzling money from Jewish charities. They sacked him, but decided not to call in the rozzers in order to avoid a scandal. As for the Board of Deputies of British Jews, its members are nominated by their synagogues, so it doesn’t speak for secular Jews. Nor are they democratically elected. They are also true-blue Tory establishment. They are determined to maintain themselves as the top Jewish organisation in the UK by exerting a monopoly of control over all other Jewish organisations. One of the reasons the Board hated Ken Livingstone was because Leninspart gave a small grant when he was head of the GLC to a Jewish Socialist group that wasn’t affiliated to them, and which was beyond their control. Temper tantrums and accusations of anti-Semitism followed.

Their letter is also rather desperate. An increasing number of Jewish Americans are turning against Israel because of its maltreatment of the Palestinians. This includes many, who have suffered anti-Semitic abuse and assault themselves. Over here there are Jewish, pro-Palestinian organisations, that very definitely do not accept anti-Semites. But you won’t hear about them from liars and smearers like Arkush and Goldstein. Very many of the people in the Labour party, who have been smeared as anti-Semites, are decent, self-respecting Jews. And many of them have suffered real anti-Semitic abuse and attack by Fascists and racists. But because they have criticised Israel, the Israel lobby has smeared them as anti-Semitic and ‘self-hating’. A grotesque, monstrous libel. As for speaking for the wider Jewish community on the issue of Israel, at the moment something like 77 per cent of British Jews say that Israel is very important to their sense of identity. But how long this will last, if Jewish young people over here follow the lead of Jewish Americans, is a very good point. It looks like the Israel lobby is well aware of this possibility, and are starting to panic.

This is simply another instance of the arch-Tory Jewish establishment smearing anyone, who stands up for the Palestinians, as an anti-Semite. Especially those on the Left. As others have shown, the Tories have a very long history of anti-Semitism and connections to real Fascist organisations. But there’s hardly a mention of this from the Israel lobby and the likes of Goldstein and Arkush.

The Israel lobby’s promiscuous use of accusations of anti-Semitism reminds me of Pemberton Billing and his ‘little black book’. Pemberton Billing was an extreme right-wing Tory MP around the time of the First World War with a particular paranoid hatred of gays. He maintained he had a book with the names of 50,000 ‘devotees of Sodom and Lesbia’, who were aiding the Germans. Of course, British society back then was very homophobic. Homosexuality was illegal, and homosexuals generally bitterly hated. But Billing went far beyond the usual levels of hate and prejudice. He went off and smeared a number of people as supposed gays. And when one sued for libel, the case collapsed because Billing then accused the judge of being one of those in his book.

I am not accusing Arkush and Goldstein of being homophobic. I am accusing them of trying to start another witch hunt against the Labour party using fake accusations of anti-Semitism in the same way that Pemberton Billing libelled many good people with his accusations of homosexuality and treason.

This latest letter is a grotesque, politically motivated attempt to smear Jeremy Corbyn and prevent the Labour party getting into power. It shames the people the two, who wrote it, and the mendacious, biased press, who uncritically repeat its lies.

Israel Lobbyists Smear Mike Again, Run Away When Refuted

Mike on Monday put up another piece, describing how he was smeared once again as an anti-Semite in an article, ‘Labour’s Anti-Semitism Problem’, by a couple of hacks called Kieron Monks and Gary Spedding. This was over what Mike had written about the belief that Blair had been unduly influenced by a group of Jewish advisers. Mike went on the attack to defend his reputation, and pointed out that he had not written what Monks’ claimed he had, and that he had in any case taken his words out of context. Monks tried arguing back, but when the force of Mike’s argument proved too much for him, retreated and went silent. He ran away, leaving his mate Spedding to try and defend his libel. Spedding didn’t fare any better either, and this resulted in Spedding not only abandoning the argument, but blocking Mike on Twitter.

You can read about the incident at: https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2018/03/05/another-article-alleges-anti-semitism-about-me-author-refuses-to-acknowledge-his-mistake/

Mike makes several very good points in his article about it, not least that all the relevant information about these claims and accusations is up on his blog, if the writers of such articles would actually care to read what he has to say.

But they don’t, because they’ve already decided that Mike’s an anti-Semite. And it’s not because of any genuine concern for anti-Semitism. Monks’ real motivation in writing the article is clearly shown in the title, and in one of the people he hashtags at the bottom of his tweet about it, Dave Rich.

The title of Monks’ piece is the same as a book written by Dave Rich, and published last year by Biteback. This claimed that there was a rising tide of anti-Semitism on the Left, ever since the Liberal party had got involved in an anti-Israeli politics in the 1970s. I can’t remember where I found it, but I read a review somewhere that pointed out that Rich was another prominent member of the Israel lobby, and that what really concerned him was that the Left were taking the side of the Palestinians against Israel. In short, he’s another Zionist upset that people are criticising and protesting about the Israeli state’s ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, and trying to shut them down by libelling them as anti-Semites. Ditto for Monks and Spedding, who obviously share his views.

As for the accusation that Blair was unduly influenced by a group of Jewish advisers, it is true that Blair received much funding during the run-up to the Iraq invasion from businessmen connected to the Israel lobby, though a campaign run by Lord levy and Peter Mandelson. John Booth describes this in his ‘Labour, Corbyn and Anti-Semitism’ in Lobster 74. He writes

In contrast, this is Jon (now Lord) Mendelsohn speaking to Jewsweek.com on 8 September 2002: ‘[Tony] Blair has attacked the anti-Israelism that had existed in the Labour Party . . .Labour was cowboys-and-Indians politics, picking underdogs. The milieu has changed. Zionism is pervasive in New Labour. It is automatic that Blair will come to Friends of Israel meetings.’ Mendelsohn was speaking during the build-up to the Iraq war. At the time Corbyn was indulging in what the New Labour fundraiser would probably style ‘cowboy-and Indian politics’ by helping create the Stop the War Coalition. 7 Mendelsohn was a close associate of Michael (now Lord) Levy in drawing down funds from Israel supporters, a programme also well described in Robert Peston’s Who Runs Britain?. The ITN political editor in his informative 8 chapter ‘Democracy for Sale’ makes clear that a good deal of that funding was not from Labour supporters, but from those, including previous Conservative backers, who identified with Blair and his support for Israel and the Iraq war.

He also goes on to discuss the connections between the Israeli embassy and the various Friends of Israel organisations, which have been making the accusations of anti-Semitism against Corbyn and his supporters.

Mendelsohn is a former chairman of Labour Friends of Israel (LFI), membership of which, as he says, attracted many of the New Labour intake in 1997 and which resembled a passport to promotion for many of them. Not all have stayed in party politics since Labour’s 2010 defeat. Former Cabinet minister and chairman of LFI James Purnell is now a senior BBC executive and is talked of as a possible future director-general. LFI supporter Lorna 9 Fitzsimons, formerly Parliamentary Private Secretary to Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, became chief executive of the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM) after losing her parliamentary seat in 2005. Most of the LFI supporters still in Parliament or subsequently elected to it were opposed to Corbyn’s 2015 election as leader and tried to unseat him the following year. From their ranks – some of them here supporting LFI chair Joan Ryan – have come many of the well-publicised claims of anti-semitic 10 abuse that has attended Corbyn’s rise. 11 As the Al Jazeera documentary series, The Lobby, exposed earlier this year, there is a very close working relationship between the Israel embassy in London and the Friends of Israel groups in Parliament, including the one chaired by Enfield North MP Ryan. 12 There is also a strong link between the embassy and the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM) that has led criticism of Corbyn and was very active on the ‘anti-semitism’ issue at the Brighton conference. Two JLM officials, Jeremy 13 Newmark and Mike Katz, were backed by Yvette Cooper, a Corbyn rival for the leadership in 2015, when they unsuccessfully stood as Labour candidates in the general election.

And no, before anyone asks, Booth’s article is not remotely anti-Semitic. It begins by describing the warm welcome given to Jewish speakers at Labour’s Brighton Conference last year, including Naomi Klein, Naomi Wimbourne-Idrissi, who declared that the party did not have a problem with Jews, and, of course, Ed Miliband. Wimbourne-Idrissi later that day went on to launch Jewish Voice for Labour, along with a number of other, very prominent Jewish activists, including a former member of the Israeli Defence Force.

The article also discusses the close relationship between the Blairites and the Israel lobby, and how the rise of Corbyn and the leftward turn of the party threaten the Thatcherite entryists, and their backers in the media, such as the Groaniad. It challenges their views on the neoliberal consensus, as well as their political careers. Hence they have resorted to smearing their opponents as anti-Semites. And before Booth talks about Mandelson, he writes about how Marek Edelman, a hero of the Warsaw Ghetto, was persona non grata in Israel because he supported the Palestinians. He stated that to be a Jew means that you always side with the oppressed.

Edelman’s a true hero, and Rich, Monks and Spedding are definitely siding with the oppressors. Hence their participation in the smearing of Labour members and supporters, who criticise Israel’s maltreatment of the Palestinians, or who, like Mike, simply defend those, who do, on grounds of historical accuracy.

Lobster 74 is at https://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/issue74.php

Go and read the whole article to find out what these mendacious accusations are really about, and the noxious politics behind them.

Lies, Libels, Criminal and Political Manipulation Catch Up with the Israel Lobby

Oh dear, the various crimes and misdeeds of prominent members of the Israel lobby are starting to come to home to roost. Mike yesterday put up a series of article discussing the various shady figures in the Jewish Labour movement, their criminal activities, and the connections of the organisation’s leading members to the Israeli embassy at the time when Shai Masot, an official at that embassy, was taking it upon himself to decide what Conservative politicians should be in our cabinet.

First of all, Jonathan ‘No Morals’ Newmark, as I have decided to dub him, the former chair of the JLM, is now being investigated by the fuzz at the request of the organisation he once headed. No Morals has been credibly accused of stealing funds from Jewish charities when he was one of the head honchos of the Jewish Leadership Council. They released him, but decided not to start a police investigation in order to avoid a scandal. No Morals denied this, of course, and claims that he resigned instead due to health reasons. Well, we shall see.

The JLM is the morally corrupt organisation, which the Labour party wanted Mike to go to for a ‘training day’. They’re the outfit that smeared Jackie Walker as an anti-Semite for questioning the exclusive concentration on the Jewish Holocaust during the Second World War at their workshop on Holocaust Remembrance Day. She wanted other groups, who had also suffered genocide, like Blacks, to be included. It was meant to be a ‘safe space’ where anyone could speak freely without repercussions, but they taped her comments and then released them. She also committed the unforgivable sin in their eyes of rejecting their tortured attempts to expand the definition of anti-Semitism to include criticism of Israel. As Israel is a racist apartheid state, she was right to do so. The anti-Semites themselves defined anti-Semitism, a word coined by their leader and founder, Wilhelm Marr, as hatred of Jews based on their biology and race. But this is forgotten by the Israel lobby, who are more concerned with defending Israel than really battling genuine anti-Semitism. Mike refused to attend their wretched training day, because he believes that this would be an admission of guilt on his part. And he’s absolutely right.

https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2018/03/03/newmark-to-be-focus-of-jewish-labour-movement-police-investigation-the-jewish-chronicle/

Then Mike posted up this 2016 article from the Electronic Intifada, pointing out that the JLM’s new director, Ella Rose, was an official at the Israeli Embassy during Shai Masot’s interference with our politics at the highest level. She did not declare this connection on her CV, stating only that she was head of the Union of Jewish Students. No Morals Newmark has declared her appointment a good career move, which seems to Mike to be highly suspicious.

https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2018/03/03/jewish-labour-movement-director-was-israeli-embassy-officer-the-electronic-intifada/

And he’s also put up a piece showing that Labour Against Anti-Semitism have also been libelling Jennie Formby, the new left-wing candidate for the post of General Secretary of the Labour Party. They claim that in 2016 she was forced to leave her post as Political Director of Unite the Union, because she questioned the impartiality of Baroness Royall to head an investigation into allegations of anti-Semitism amongst Labour students at Oxford University. This is supposedly because Baroness Royall had made several trips to Israel. Mike makes clear that this is based on the tortured definition of anti-Semitism adopted by the Zionist organisations, which states

“it is antisemitic to accuse ‘Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations’.”

This isn’t actually part of the definition, but just a guide to deciding what is or isn’t anti-Semitic.

There’s only problem with the LAA’s accusation against Ms. Formby. T’ain’t true. The union has issued a statement refuting the LAA’s accusation, pointing out that her departure had nothing to do with such allegations, and that she was a valued and respected part of their team. They state that rather than opposing Royall’s appointment, she actually supported her and wanted her investigation to be properly resourced. And also, nobody actually knows if Royall herself is anti-Semitic or not. And if she isn’t, this alone blows their accusation away. You cannot be anti-Semitic against someone who isn’t Jewish.

Mike’s article ends with this statement

LAAS is fronted by Euan Philipps, chair of Tonbridge and Malling Constituency Labour Party. He wrote a libellous blog article about This Writer on the Huffington Post website, so it is clear that he enjoys a questionable relationship with factual accuracy. The HuffPost‘s lawyers reckon his comments were “honest opinion” but that has to be based on accurate facts, so they are both in a highly actionable situation.

And a promise that he’ll let his readers know how this strand will develop.

https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2018/03/03/another-organisation-that-claims-to-fight-anti-semitism-is-accused-of-lies/

Mike states that he is actually fully in agreement with the IHRC’s guideline that it is anti-Semitic to accuse Jews of being more loyal to the Israel, or the interest of Jews worldwide, than to the nations of their birth. As a generally principle, so do I. But I make an exception to certain members of the Israel lobby, who clearly do make it clear that their priorities are elsewhere.

Like Sheldon Adelson, the casino magnate, who is one of the most vocal supporters of Israel in America and a lavish political donor. Adelson states very clearly that he is ‘Israel first’. So by his own admission, he is more loyal to Israel than to the America in which he lives and made his money.

As for Ella Rose and her connections to the Israeli embassy while Shai Masot was trying to manipulate the Tories’ selection of cabinet ministers, if she was involved in this, then she too has dangerously divided loyalties. People who genuinely love their country don’t conspire with officials of a foreign power to manipulate their nation’s politics. They may try to alter the policies or appointment of personnel through negotiation at official levels, which is natural. But they do not do so at private, secret meetings, carefully hidden from scrutiny.

I am not saying that the Israelis are unique in this. America has plenty of form in manipulating the politics of other nations, either trying to stop the election of parties they don’t like, or then overthrowing them when they do get in. And it’s a long list of countries, about 54 or more. The latest was the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine, overseen by Obama’s woman Victoria Nuland, and Hillary ‘Queen of Chaos’ Clinton. And Killary herself has gone on recorded saying that she regretted not interfering in the Palestinian elections.

But just because the Americans are doing it, doesn’t make it any better for the Israeli lobby over here to do so too.

There are series questions to be asked of all the pro-Israel organisations in the Labour party because of their smears, libels and political manipulation. And this isn’t anti-Semitic, because amongst the decent people they’ve vilified are decent, self-respecting, anti-racist Jews, many of whom have suffered anti-Semitic abuse and violence.

It’s time to end the charade that the JLM and similar bodies care anything about anti-Semitism. They’re just right-wingers terrified of the Left, and afraid that Israel’s Fascist character is being increasingly exposed.