Cartoon Against Board of Deputies Silencing Reporting of Israeli Atrocities

Here’s another cartoon in which I express my views on Israel and the fake anti-Semitism witch-hunt that’s been launched to protect it from reasonable criticism. Israel has a policy of demolishing Palestinian settlements it decides are illegal in order to clear the land for the construction of new homes for Israeli settlers. This policy has jumped into high gear as new settler towns are being constructed in the occupied territories. The cartoon therefore shows a squad of Israeli soldiers pointing their guns at a Palestinian family as a bulldozer in the background demolishes other houses.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews, unfortunately, chooses to try to silence reporting of atrocities and wrongdoing by the Israeli state. Hence the cartoon shows someone from the Board with the Israeli flag behind him saying ‘If you talk about this, we’ll smear you as an anti-Semite’. Alan Rusbridger has said in a documentary on the Israel lobby presented by Peter Oborne that when he was editor of the Guardian, he would be met by the president of the Board and their pet lawyer if he reported atrocities by the Israelis or the allies. They would complain that the reports would provoke hatred against Jews. When the BBC correctly reported the massacre of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps by the Lebanese Christian Phalange, who were allies of Israel, the Board accused the Beeb of anti-Semitism and biased reporting.

I’ve also added a caption that says

‘This is a public health warning by the Board of Deputies of British Jews on behalf of Israel’s propaganda department’. It follows the revelation in the Board’s statement for last year that they have connections to the Israeli embassy, the IDF and the Office of Strategic Affairs, which is the department of the Israeli state that runs official propaganda. And as so many victims of the anti-Semitism smear campaign are Jewish – four-fifths of accused Labour party members- it seems very much to me that the Board is now a sectarian anti-Semitic organisation.

My Video on the Israel Lobby and the Labour Anti-Semitism Smears

This is the video I’ve just put up this evening discussing the Israel lobby and the anti-Semitism smears. I begin by saying that this follows on from the video I made about Chris Williamson’s suspension from the Labour party and the smears against him. I also make it clear that I have very harsh words to say about the Israel lobby and the Chief Rabbi and Board of Deputies of British Jews. I am not an anti-Semite, and condemn categorically all forms of racism, including anti-Semitism. And I absolutely despise the vile conspiracy theories about the Jews running the world, that resulted in 6 million innocents being murdered in the Holocaust death camps.

But some conspiracies do exist. And this is one of them. Conspiracies are covert, secret political plots, which this is. I explain that the anti-Semitism smears are Israel’s defence against criticisms of its oppression of the Palestinians. Ten years ago the journalist Peter Oborne made a documentary for Channel 4 about this, and the way the Israel lobby exerts influence in parliament with the groups Conservative Friends of Israel and Labour Friends of Israel. It has also tried to silence reporting of Israel’s atrocities by the press and media. One of the speakers in Oborne’s documentary is Alan Rusbridger, the former editor of the Guardian. He says that whenever they reported Israel’s crimes, someone would come along from the Board of Deputies with a lawyer and accused them of anti-Semitism. And the same was done to the BBC. When they reported the massacre of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps by the Christian Phalange, Israel’s allies, the Israel lobby accused them of anti-Semitism. This included reporting by respected journalists like Jeremy Bowen or Orla Guerin, who should be above reproach. The Beeb referred the case to an independent watchdog, who stated that their reporting was objective. Avi Shlaim, a respected Israeli professor of Middle Eastern studies at Oxford University also appears in the documentary to confirm that the reporting was correct.

I say that if the Chief Rabbi and Board of Deputies confined themselves to spiritual matters and defending Jews against genuine anti-Semitism, I would support them. Any decent person would. But they don’t. They are part of this smear campaign. And the former Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, is in my view a horrendous bigot. When he was Chief Rabbi he caused outrage by calling Reform Jews ‘enemies of the faith’. This is the language of persecution. It is the language used by the Roman Catholic Church during the Middle Ages against heretics, Jews and Muslims. And it is the language radical Protestants also used against others. Sacks was also responsible for leading a contingent of British Jews on the March of the Flags in Israel. This is a day when the Israeli equivalent of boot-boys march through the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem, vandalising their homes. It is done to keep them in their place, like the EDL and other Fascists in Britain marching into Muslim areas, the BNP marching into Black and other areas, where the people are ethnic minorities, and Oswald Mosley and the BUF marching into Cable Street to terrorise the Jews there.

I state that not every Jew is a supporter of Israel, and until recently Zionism was a minority position amongst Jews. The Yiddish-speaking masses of the Bund in eastern Europe, the Jews of Poland, Ukraine, Russia and Romania, wanted to remain in the countries in which they were born. The same in America, where American Jews had a comfortable life. There is also a strand of Orthodox Judaism that rejects Zionism. This believes that the restoration of Israel can only come by the hand of the Almighty through the Messiah, when it will be aided by the nations of the world. Its restoration as a secular state or by secular power is a blasphemy.

I also state that Jews, who speak out about Israel and its crimes suffer appalling abuse. They are called ‘self-hating’, accused of anti-Semites. I mention how Tony Greenstein was told by an opponent that they wished his family had died in the Holocaust. In the Labour party, the smears began a few years ago when Ed Miliband – who was Jewish! – was leader of the Labour party. He was accused of being anti-Semitic, or the Labour party was accused of being institutionally anti-Semitic. This was the first time Maureen Lipman resigned from the Labour Party. It has got worse under Jeremy Corbyn, because Corbyn is a supporter of the Palestinians. He is not an anti-Semite and is a fervent anti-racist.

This is all being done by the Israelis through the Ministry of Strategic Affairs by cabinet Minister Gilad Erdan.

Here’s my blurb for the video:

The current anti-Semitism smears in the Labour Party are a response by Israel to criticisms of its oppression of the Palestinians. They have been used to try and silence newspapers and broadcasters like the Guardian and BBC. Nearly a decade ago Peter Oborne made a documentary for Channel 4 describing this and the methods they use to obtain parliamentary support. Britain’s Chief Rabbi and the Board of Deputies of British Jews are part of this smear campaign, although many Jews do not support Israel. And those who also voice criticisms are smeared as ‘self-hating’ and anti-Semitic. The smears started when Ed Miliband was leader of the Labour party, despite the fact that he was himself Jewish, and have increased under Corbyn, who is a supporter of the Palestinians but not a racist or anti-Semite. I am fervently opposed to racism and anti-Semitism, and absolutely condemn the vile conspiracy theories about world Jewish power that led to the murder of six million innocents in the Nazi death camps.

Oborne’s documentary is on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lby-B…

Here’s my video:

RT’s Afshin Rattansi Talking to Gaza Health Minister Dr Basem Naim

This was posted on May 14th, a day before the Israeli’s massacred 60 Gaza Palestinians for trying to break through the fence into Israel, and it adds some very relevant pieces of back ground detail.

It’s from RT’s ‘Going Underground’ show, where Rattansi interviews various guests. This year is the 70th anniversary of the birth of Israel, called by Palestinians the Nakba, or ‘Catastrophe’, because it led to the destruction of their country and its communities. 400 Arab villages were razed by the Israelis in 1948, and countless villagers massacred up and down the country by Israeli troopers, even those bringing them rice as a peace overture, or seeking refuge in mosques.

To mark this, the Palestinians had organised a ‘March for Return’, which has been going on since April 30th. This is clearly part of the demand that the Palestinians should be allowed to move out of their refugee camps, and, presumably, return from their exile abroad to their old homes in what is now Israel. Israel definitely does not want to do this, as it has been pursuing a policy of ethnic cleansing since the first Zionist settlers arrived in the early 20th century. It refuses to let Palestinian exiles return because this would upset the demographic character of Israel as the Jewish state.

He also attacks Trump’s decision to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, pointing out that it is a contested city, and should be the Palestinian capital. He also describes the squalid conditions in Gaza itself, which is deliberately starved of water and electricity by Israel, and indeed the water supplies have been fouled by Israel consumption and water projects. The beach is also heavily polluted – up to 97 per cent if covered with sewage, again from Israel. There economy is also deliberately stifled by Israel. And naturally, he is firmly opposed to the visit to Israel scheduled for later by Prince William.

Rattansi tries to tackle him on Syria, trying to get him to admit that Hamas forces there have been fighting against ISIS and al-Qaeda. Basem refuses to admit this, and just repeats the line that Palestinians are peaceful people dedicated to cooperation.

This adds a bit more information to explain the powerful reaction by the Palestinians to Trump’s movement of the embassy. This was always going to be intensely controversial to a persecuted and exiled people, who look on the Holy City as their own. But the fact that this occurred in what they remember as the anniversary of their country’s destruction and their persecuting, ethnic cleansing and massacre, which they were commemorating with a march demanding their return to their homes, also explains why so many massed at the fence between Gaza and Israel.

As for Palestinians being a peaceful people, the PLO has carried out terrorist atrocities. Israel has regularly denounced Hamas, the governing faction in Gaza, as a terrorist organisation, but I’ve read others claim that Israeli policy has left them no choice. The Israeli state ignores Palestinian moderates, and does not seem to respond except through the threat of violence. When this occurs, they refuse to concede to Palestinian demands because they don’t talk to terrorists. I’ve also come across conspiracy theories, which consider that Hamas is itself a creation of the Israelis.

As for Hamas fighting ISIS and al-Qaeda in Palestine, I’m actually with them on that one. Hamas are also Islamists, but ISIS and al-Qaeda are terrorists. Daesh are responsible for the destruction of antiquities and priceless ancient artifacts and monuments, including mosques and other Islamic buildings, all over the Middle East and North Africa. They have also murdered moderate Muslims, Sufis, Shi’a, and other forms of Islam that don’t conform to their own twisted ideas. And this is quite apart from their persecution of non-Muslims, like Christians and Yezidis, and their re-imposition of sex-slavery for the Yezidi women they have captured. They are an affront to human civilisation, and it is an abomination that the Americans have been backing them as part of the proxy war against Assad in Syria. Daesh should be fought against and the movement wiped from the Earth.

Review: Joe Sacco’s ‘Palestine’

(London: Jonathan Cape 2001)

This is one of the classics of the graphic novel. Joe Sacco is an American journalist. He spent two months with the Palestinians in late 1991 and early 1992 in Gaza and the West Bank during the time of the first Intifada. He wrote and drew Palestine after his return to the US, basing it on his notes, publishing it as a nine-part comic strip. These were later collected into a single volume to form the graphic novel. The book also has a kind of introduction, ‘Homage to Joe Sacco’, from Edward Said, the author of Orientalism, critic of western imperialism and attitudes to the Arabs, and himself a Palestinian.

This is precisely the type of book the Israel lobby does not want people to read. Not BICOM, not the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, which was set up because Gideon Falter, its founder, was worried about British attitudes becoming more hostile to Israel after the blockade of Gaza, not the Jewish Labour Movement, formerly Paole Zion and the companion party to the Israeli Labor Party, not the various ‘Friends of Israel’ societies in the political parties, Tories and Labour, nor the Jewish Leadership Council and definitely not the Board of Deputies of British Jews. All of them shout ‘anti-Semitism’ at anyone who dares to publish anything critical of Israel, or show the barbarity with which it treats the Palestinians.

The book shows Sacco’s experiences as he goes around Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, talking to both Palestinians and Israelis, meeting them, entering their homes, and listening to their stories. He starts the book in Cairo, the beginning of his journey to Israel, and to which he returns at his departure. During his time there, he visits the Vale of Kidron, the Arab quarter of Old Jerusalem, Hebron, Ramallah, Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza strip, as it then was, Balata, another refugee camp on the West Bank, Nablus, the town of Gaza itself, and finally Tel Aviv.

It’s not an easy read. This is an occupied country during deep unrest, and the threat of violence and arbitrary arrest and detention without trial is every where. There are patrols of soldiers, demonstrations, explosions and stone throwing. And he shows, with quotes, the contemptuous, lofty and hostile attitude the early Zionists and Lord Balfour had for the indigenous population. He quotes Balfour as saying

‘Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long tradition, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desire and prejudices of 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit this ancient land. We do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the inhabitants’.

Ben Gurion thought it would be simple to expel the Palestinians, because he felt they had no real attachment to their homeland. He wrote that the Palestinian ‘is equally at ease whether in Jordan, Lebanon or a variety of other places’. With the approach of war, he made it clear their expulsion was going to be through military force: ‘In each attack a decisive blow should be struck, resulting in the destruction of homes and the expulsion of the population.’ When that was done, ‘Palestinian Arabs have only one role – to flee’. He also quotes Golda Meir, who stated that a Palestinian people, defining itself as a Palestinian people, did not exist, and ‘we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They do not exist’. 400 Palestinian villages were razed in the war marking the birth of Israel. Meir’s lie – that the Palestinians don’t exist as a people – is still repeated by Republican and pro-Israel bloggers. Golda Meir was also concerned about the Palestinian population outstripping that of the Israelis, another issue that is still very alive today.

His hosts are polite, welcoming him into their homes, and plying him with tea. But occasionally there is an outburst from one of them, when he’s asked what the point of him being there, of them talking to him, is. Because other journalists have been there too, and they’ve talked to them, and nothing has happened, nothing has changed. They also talk to him about the other factions, and of the peace process. In a separate text at the beginning of the book, he states that, while the peace process set up the Palestinian authority and gave them a government, it changed nothing for ordinary Palestinians, and the occupation and theft of land by the Israelis still goes on.

He also reveals that the Israelis appropriate 2/3 of the land in the West Bank for their own us, which includes the establishment of Israeli settlements, which are illegal under international law. And the governments gives Israelis plenty of incentives to move to them. They’re given a government grant if they do, lower interest rates on loan, the housing itself is cheaper than in Israel, and an income tax rate of 7 per cent. The settlers themselves can be extremely aggressive. Sacco’s hosts tell them about incidents where settlers have come into Palestinian villages, smashing windows and demanding that the owners come out. Of people shot by them, and the trivial sentences given to the settlers guilty of this. They’re given jail sentences of a few months. If they’re convicted in the first place. Palestinians who shoot and kill Israelis are jailed for years. Some lavish homes do exist in Palestine, occupied by Arabs, but most live in very bare houses, often with leaking roofs, which are vulnerable to storms.

His cartoons show what his Palestinian hosts tell him it’s like in prison camps like Ansar III, with crowds of prisoners crammed into small, bare rooms with no heat and poor ventilation. There are also few eating utensils, to the various political factions in the camp – Fateh, Hamas, Popular Front, organise meal times so that everyone gets a turn with the cup and plate to eat and drink. Several of the people he talks to were arrested simply on suspicion. Israeli law allowed them to be held without charge while evidence was compiled, with his captors returning to court over and over again to request a few more days more, until the judge finally listens to their lawyer, has the procedure stopped and the prisoner released. He also shows how the prisoners were tortured through beatings, being forced to stand for hours with bags over their heads, a process permitted under Israel law. A judge ruled that torture could not be used, but what methods were to replace them were kept secret. So many Palestinians have been incarcerated, that a green identity card showing a man has been in jail is a matter of pride. And not to have been to prison correspondingly is a mark of shame.

He talks about how the Israelis have a deliberate policy of not allowing the Palestinians to industrialise, so that they compete with the Israel. The State has also put obstacles in place to prevent Palestinian farmers competing with Israelis. They also deliberately uproot the olive trees many Palestinians grow to support themselves. The Israelis also appropriate most of the water, and dig deeper wells, so that the Palestinians have a much poorer water supply and their own wells are becoming increasingly saline. As a result, unemployment in Gaza was at 40 per cent. And Sacco himself was approached several times by Palestinians, hoping he could do something so that they could leave and go abroad to study or find work.

He describes a school, without electricity, as well as a school for the deaf, which is supported through volunteers and whose staff complain of their lack of training for dealing with people with disabilities. He also hears and illustrates the story of one Palestinian woman, whose son was shot by Israeli soldiers, but was prevented from taking him directly to hospital. Instead she was ordered to go hither and thither, where she was told a helicopter was waiting to take her and the boy. When she gets there, there is no helicopter. She eventually takes him to the hospital herself in a car, by which time it’s too late and the lad dies.

The book also shows the mass of roadblocks and the permit system which Palestinians have to go through to go to Israel. At the same time, Israelis are simply allowed to whiz through in their separate lanes.

Sacco also doesn’t shy away from showing the negative side of Palestine – the anti-Semitism, and particularly infamous murders, like the killing of Klinghoffer aboard the Achille Lauro, and the massacre of the Israeli Olympic team by the terrorist group Black September. This can turn into support for the murder of Israeli civilians. There’s also a chapter on the plight of Palestinian women, This is a society where women are still very much treated as inferiors and subordinates, where honour killings are carried out as the punishment for female adultery. It is also a society where collaborators are murdered, and those, who belong to the wrong faction may also be shot and killed.

The book was written 27 years ago, but nothing really seems to have changed since then. The illegal settlements are still there and expanding. Settlers are still seizing Palestinian homes and property, the apartheid separating Israelis from Palestinians is still in place, unemployment is still high, and Palestinians are still being treated as foreigners, refugees and second-class citizens on their own land.

However, some attitudes are changing. The Israeli liberals Sacco talks to only support the Palestinians up to a point. When pressed, some of them will say that Israel should keep the Occupied Territories, because they seized them in war. Or that they need to keep them for security reasons. But an increasing number of young Jews in America and elsewhere are appalled at the continuing maltreatment of the Palestinians and are becoming increasingly critical and hostile to Israel because of this. And there have also grown up major opposition groups like the human rights organisation B’Tselem and Breaking the Silence in Israel.

The Israeli state and its lobby and supporters in this country and others are increasingly scared. It’s why they’re trying to pass laws to criminalise the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement in America, and to outlaw criticism of Israel in this country through tortuous definitions of anti-Semitism that are stretched to include it. It’s why they’re smearing, with the connivance of the right-wing media, the Blairites in the Labour party, and the Conservatives, decent people, who have fought racism and anti-Semitism, as anti-Semites.

Very long, detailed books have been written about Israel’s brutal treatment, dispossession and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. Sacco’s Palestine presenting this as graphic novel, is an example of how comics can also be serious literature, tackling a difficult subject with both narrative and artistic skill and style. I’ve mentioned on this blog before the alternative comics that were also published from the ’60s to the 1980s/1990s on political topics, including the Israeli maltreatment of Palestinians in Pat Mills’ Crisis. Palestine is very much in that tradition, and in 1996 won the American Book Award.

Channel 4 ‘Dispatches’ Documentary from 2009: Inside Britain’s Israel Lobby – Part One

Presented by the Conservative journo Peter Oborne, this is a very hard-hitting and extensive investigation into the malign influence and tactics of the Israel lobby. It covers not just the soft corruption of political lobbying – the various donations in money and paid trips to Israel given to Tory and Labour politicos, but also the co-ordinated smear campaign against anyone who dares to speak out in favour of the Israeli state’s victims. It’s a smear campaign that has seen very respected members of the Jewish community, including senior rabbis, and BBC journos like the late Orla Guerin, Jeremy Bowen and even Jonathan Dimbleby accused of anti-Semitism. The result has been that the Beeb was pressured not to put out an appeal for the victims of Israel’s invasion of Gaza, and there was complaints about its coverage of those murdered by Israel’s allies in the Christian Fascists of the Lebanese Phalange in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. And there has been constant pressure by these same bullying thugs on the Groaniad under its former editor, Alan Rusbridger. Who really does look like Harry Potter. Much of this pressure and screaming abuse seems to have come from America. The organisations are carefully structured, so that they keep the total number of donations secret, and their donors hide behind anonymity. When investigated they repeat the same, smooth words about just trying to keep the argument open by presenting Israel’s case, or mutter platitudes about supporting a two-state solution. All the while doing their level best to make sure that their voice is the only the British public hear, and rabidly pursuing business deals on stolen Palestinian land.

I’m afraid I may have misheard some of the names in the programme, and so misspelled them, but they should be roughly accurate.

The documentary begins with the Israeli invasion of Gaza and the Conservative Friends of Israel. Despite the horrendous carnage and destruction wrought, David Cameron in a speech made no mention of this, but instead praised the Israelis and his pledged his lasting support to them if he became Prime Minister. It was this that prompted Oborne to launch his own investigation into the Israel lobby. He makes the point that they have influence on both sides of Parliament, as shown by an exchange between a Conservative MP, who was a member of Conservative Friends of Israel, who asked a question about Israel’s continuing safety. This was answered by a Labour MP, who was a member of the Labour Friends of Israel. Oborne then interviews Michael Ancram, former Tory Shadow Foreign Secretary from 2003-5, about the Israel Lobby’s influence. as well as Sir Richard Dalton, the former British ambassador to Iran from 2003-6. Dalton states clearly that the Israel Lobby does exist, and is important in defining the debate about Israel and the Palestinians. The Conservative Friends of Israel is highly influential, and boasts that it includes 80 per cent of all Tory MPs. Its chair, Richard Huntingdon, received £20,000 last year (2008) in donations, and gave £34,000 to the Conservatives. And the director of the No. 10 club, that exclusive Tory fundraising outfit in which, for a mere £50,000, you can meet David Cameron or have lunch with William Hague, is also included. The Tory Friends of Israel also arrange paid trips to Israel for MPs. So far there have been more of these than equivalent trips to America and Europe combined. Oborne states that in fairness, he has to say that he went on one of these, and there was no pressure to report favourably about Israel. But two MPs, who went on one of these trips, then received afterwards £25,000 in donations. This prompts Oborne to ask Ancram if this explains the soft line taken by the Tories about Israeli influence, and why the Tories don’t like to talk about it.

The documentary then moves on to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, during which 1,000 Lebanese civilians were killed, and $3.6 billion’s worth of damage inflicted. Michael Howard gave William Hague £25,000 in donations. Hague then made the mistake of making a speech criticising the Israeli response to Lebanese attacks as disproportionate. As a result, Lord Kalms, a CFI donor and head of the Dixons electronics chain, was outraged, and threatened to withhold further funding. Which he did, and Hague never received a penny more. The Israel lobby attacks even the mildest criticism of Israel. The director of the CFI, Stuart Pollak, had a meeting with David Cameron after the speech. Then, at his lunch with the CFI, Cameron didn’t mention the Lebanese invasion at all.

The programme then moves on to the organisation’s income, as revealed by the Parliamentary Accounts Register. For comparison, the pro-Arab lobby revealed that they had been given £43,000 in donations. How many had the CFI been given? No-one knows. They didn’t register any. They’re structured as a group of individuals, and are not incorporated, so they don’t have declare any under the rules. In 2008 the CFI gave the Tories £2 million, but this is not the whole story. One Tory MP said that after a chance meeting with Stuart Pollak, he received two donations from businessmen he had never met, and who did not live in his constituency. The CFI gave £30,000 to Cameron’s team. And in 2005 Cameron met Plocha Zabludowicz, who gave the future Tory PM £15,000 and a further £35,000 to Tory Central Office. The total figure for the donations given by the CFI is £10 million, more than the other lobbies.

Then there’s the incident of the UN vote over a motion censuring both Hamas and Israel for the carnage in Gaza. The CFI rang Hague up to condemn the resolution and demand that he criticise it. Which he duly did.

But the Israel Lobby only became really powerful in Britain under Maggie’s favourite Labour pet, Tony Blair. Jon Mandelsohn, a prominent pro-Israel lobbyist, stated that ‘Zionism is pervasive in New Labour’ and ‘It is axiomatic that Blair will come to Labour Friends of Israel meetings’. There are more Labour MPs in Labour Friends of Israel than their opponents across the benches in the Tory Friends of Israel. The documentary describes how Blair met the rock entrepreneur, Lord Levy, at the Israeli embassy, who then raised £15 million for the Labour party before the row over ‘cash for questions’. When Blair became PM in 1997, he gave Levy a life peerage. Levy, however, was unpaid and never a formal servant of the British state, so that the deals he made as Blair’s special envoy to the Middle East between Israel and the Arab nations could be kept secret. The programme interviews Prof. Avi Shlaim of Oxford University’s Middle East department, who states that he considers Levy has damaged Britain’s reputation in the Middle East.

The documentary then moves back to CFI lobbyists at the Tory party conference. Their purpose there is to make sure Cameron’s policies are in line with Israel’s This means that Michael Kaminski, the Polish leader, who heads a small, far right nationalist party, is lionised by the Tories, despite his record of making anti-Semitic remarks and his refusal to apologise for the suffering of Jewish Poles during the Second World War. Stuart Pollak was most keen not to have Cameron’s speech to the CFI at the Tory conference covered. He is shown waving the camera crew away. The CFI totally support Kaminski. They also plead that they’re totally transparent through the distinction between their donations as a group, and those of individual businesspeople.

Continued in Part Two.

Channel 4 ‘Dispatches’ Documentary from 2009: Inside Britain’s Israel Lobby – Part Three

Honest Reporting claims to have 175,000 subscribers, and organises letter writing campaigns against the Beeb. The BBC Trust censured Jeremy Bowen for comments he made about the history of the conflict. His piece was withdrawn. But Bowen had published an article the week before in the Jewish Chronicle, using the same phrases that Honest Reporting found so objectionable, and which was still up at that rag’s website. CAMERA and the other parts of the Israel lobby complained, forcing the Beeb to investigate Bowen. This had a chilling effect on the other staff in the newsroom, who felt that they too were under attack. Jonathan Dimbleby thought the BBC had caved in under pressure from them. Which meant that he too came under investigation for anti-Semitism for making the above comments. The BBC Trust went to Oxford to interview Avi Shlaim about Bowen. Shlaim said that he couldn’t fault Bowen’s comments, concludes that some people in the Jewish community are too quick to criticise reporting. As for Honest Reporting, their office is not in Britain but Jerusalem. Their managing Director Simon Flosker is British, but worked for BICOM and the Israeli Army Press Office. Flosker declined to be interviewed, but issued a statement claiming that the BBC and the Guardian were biased against Israel, more so than other countries such as America.

And then there is the noxious incident, where these scum stopped the BBC raising an appeal for the victims of the Gaza invasion. The BBC has a long history of raising appeals for the victims of disasters. During Israel’s invasion 1,000 civilians in Gaza were killed. There was a move for the BBC to broadcast an appeal, but this was turned down by the Beeb’s Director-General, Mark Thompson. Ben Bradshaw, the Labour Minister for Media, was outraged. He stated that the Israel lobby was showing all the qualities of a bully. A BBC spokeswoman then explains to Oborne that the issue was too much trouble, and that it would cause people to lose confidence in the Corporation’s impartiality. She claims that the corporation took the advice of an independent committee. But Niam Alam, who was a member of the Committee, resigned over it. He said that the Committee never met to discuss the issue, and was never consulted. The appeal was eventually broadcast on Channel 4, where there were absolutely no complaints about its impartiality. Oborne’s documentary includes the appeal to show that it is, indeed, apolitical and impartial. The other members of the Committee refused to speak in public. When he tried to get them, and other charities and aid agencies, to talk about general humanitarian issues, they too declined. They included Oxfam, Christian Aid, Catholic Aid, and Cathod.

The Beeb’s decision not to broadcast the appeal is unusual, and breaks with the Corporation’s long tradition of making such broadcasts. In 1982 the Corporation broadcast an appeal for the victims of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, during which Palestinian men were butchered in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps by the Christian Phalange, who were Israel’s allies during the invasion. Oborne states that the BBC is in danger of losing its reputation for impartiality around the world. The Israel Lobby has good access to politicos, and their loyalty is not to Britain, but to a mixture of interests, which may include Britain, but also the interests of another country. Oborne states that in making the documentary they have found nothing like a conspiracy, but a lack of transparency and the influence of the Israel lobby continues to be felt.

Of course, Oborne was accused of anti-Semitism for this piece, which he was successfully able to defend himself against. Looking at his denial of finding a conspiracy, you can see how he is attempting to fend off one of the accusations that has been levelled at Mike. He was accused of promoting Nazi-style conspiracy theories because he called the meeting between Shai Masot and the Tory Israel Lobby about arranging, who they wanted in the cabinet a conspiracy. This is what it is. It had nothing to do with stupid theories about international bankers financing communism to destroy the White race. it was a real conspiracy, just as there have always been real conspiracies of secretive groups meeting to pursue distinct political goals. Like the various CIA and British Secret Service intelligence operations run against Communism during the Cold War, and the various other lobbying groups now infesting parliament.

The picture that emerges of the Israel lobby is that it is a collection of very wealthy, very well-funded groups determined to suppress even mild criticism of Israel through ruthless bullying and intimidation. And it seems clear to me that Mike, and the others libelled as anti-Semites by the Sunday Times, the Mail, Express, Scum and Jerusalem Post, were the subjects of an organised campaign by the Tory Friends of Israel, possibly with the collusion of the Israeli embassy.

It also raises profound questions about Mike’s suspension from the Labour party. He was given no formal charges, and the identity of his accuser was never disclosed. How convenient. So who were they? Jonathan Mendelsohn, perhaps? One of the other high-ranking Blairites, scared that Mike was giving their former beloved leader a dam’ good, and very well deserved bashing? And behind them is their another pro-Israel donor, someone like Lord Levy, who will get into a ‘fearful bate’, as Molesworth would sa, and take his money elsewhere if the Labour party didn’t dance to his tune.

These groups are vicious, nasty, bullies, who libel and smear with impunity. It’s high time they were stopped in their tracks. Too many decent people, including self-respecting Jews, have been smeared as anti-Semites by these scoundrels. But from the comments of one of the Israel lobby’s leaders, Schanzer, it appears that they may be overreaching themselves. The claims of anti-Semitism have been overused. They’re not having the same effect. Well, soon I hope these accusations in this context will have no effect at all. And the time can’t come soon enough when that will happen, and when those who make those smears will have to face justice for their lies.

Here’s the video:

There’s a full transcript of it at Open Democracy Net.

Counterpunch on America’s Long Racist Hatred of Haiti

I blogged earlier this week about how Haiti was the first Black republic, where its enslaved people threw off their chains under the Black revolutionary, Toussaint Louverture, and threw out their French colonial overlords at the time of the French Revolution. The country became an inspiration to slaves struggling for their freedom in America and the Caribbean, and created panic among the European masters. They feared that their slaves were in contact with the Haitian revolutionaries, and that the next Black revolt would succeed where the others had been suppressed. And from the late 18th through the early 19th century, there were a series of revolts in the Caribbean by slaves, impatient for their freedom.

Mark Schuller, the Associate Professor of Anthropology and NGO Leadership and Development at Northern Illinois University, and affiliate at the Faculte d’Anthroplogie, l’Universitat d’Etat d’Haiti, wrote a piece discussing Haiti and America’s obsessive hatred of the country. Put simply, it’s because the American plantation masters were terrified of the example the Black republic gave to their slaves, and so they did everything they could to limit discussion of it and ultimately to conquer and dominate it. And not just America, but also France, and the exploitation and class rule imposed by the Americans under neoliberalism after the overthrow of the last Haitian president. He writes

What is behind Trump – and white America’s – obsession with Haiti?

Haiti has been targeted for its decisive role in challenging what Southern planters – including eight U.S. Presidents – called a “peculiar institution.” The Haitian Revolution was the first time slaves were able to permanently end slavery and forge an independent nation. It also was a tipping point in U.S. history, leading to the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, paving the way for U.S. “Manifest Destiny” stretching from sea to shining sea and eventual dominance. Chicago, the country’s third largest city, was founded by a Haitian, Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, who Haitian historian Marc Rosier called an “agent” of the Haitian government to pursue a pro-freedom international policy.

Haiti’s contribution to U.S. “greatness” has long been unacknowledged. The pivotal Haitian Revolution was literally “unthinkable,” as Haitian anthropologist Michel-Rolph Trouillot argued. The demonization of Haiti was so strong, its inspiration to slaves so dangerous, that Congress imposed a gag order in 1824, preventing the word Haiti from being uttered in Congress, a year after the imperialist Monroe Doctrine.

White supremacy was not defeated in the Appatomox Court House in 1865, nor the 13th Amendment that allowed for a back-door legalization of slavery, nor in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling, nor in the 1965 Voting Rights Act following “Bloody Sunday” in Selma, nor in the 2008 election of the first African American President.

Through it all, as Haitian anthropologist Gina Athena Ulysse analyzed, Haiti has served as the “bête noir” in a deliberate smear campaign against the descendants of the people who said no to white supremacy.

These narratives of Haiti continued throughout the initial response to the 2010 earthquake, from the likes of televangelist Pat Robertson and the New York Times’ David Brooks. As New Yorker contributing writer Doreen St. Felix pointed out, this obsession with Haiti has to do with white society’s rejection of black self-determination.

These discourses have definite and powerful material consequences.

France, which in 2001 declared slavery a “crime against humanity,” extorted 150 million francs from Haiti as a condition of recognition of Haitian independence, plunging Haiti into a 120-year debt that consumed up to 80% of Haiti’s tax base. Socialist president Jacques Chirac scoffed at Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s demand for reparations before being the first to call for his resignation in 2004.

Calling Haiti “ungovernable” provided justification for U.S. intervention: The United States invaded Haiti twenty-six times from 1849 to 1915, when U.S. Marines landed and occupied the country for nineteen years. During the U.S. Occupation, the Marines set up the modern army, opened up land for foreign ownership, solidified class and racial inequality, laying the groundwork for the 1957-1971 Duvalier dictatorship.

Incorrectly blaming Haiti for its role in the AIDS epidemic killed the tourist industry, which, along with the deliberate destruction of Haiti’s pig population, sent the economy in a nosedive. Neoliberal capitalist interests seized the opportunity to take advantage of the massive rural exodus to build sweatshops, exploiting people’s misery by offering the lowest wages in the world. With poverty wages, and a crippling foreign debt that according to the IMF’s own recordkeeping went to the paramilitary tonton makout, Port-au-Prince’s shantytowns had no services and no government oversight. These foreign interventions were the main killer in the 2010 earthquake.

He also makes the point that the accusation that indigenous Haitians were ‘looters’, along with other racist claims, meant that the efforts of the Haitian people themselves in combating the disasters that beset their country were ignored. The Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission was chaired by Bill Clinton, and the humanitarian aid coordinated by the UN. Native Haitians were excluded from these meetings either by foreign soldiers, or by the simple fact that they were in English, while Haiti itself is a bilingual country, speaking French and a French-based creole. The NGOs themselves had a top down, hierarchical structure, excluding people in the refugee camps from their decisions. The result was the break-up of Haitian families, and increasing violence against women.

His article ends:

Calling the world’s beacon of freedom a “shithole” sullies not only Haiti’s ten million residents on the island and three million in the U.S., but is an affront to human freedom and equality.

As award-winning Haitian author Edwidge Danticat argued, “today we mourn. Tomorrow we fight.”

See: https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/01/16/what-is-a-shithole-country-and-why-is-trump-so-obsessed-with-haiti/