Anti-Semitic Attack on Israeli Rabbi – Corbyn and Abbott First to Offer Sympathies

Oh, how embarrassing for those accusing Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour party of anti-Semitism! Yesterday the Sage of Crewe put up a piece about a report in the Guardian about a vicious, genuine anti-Semitic attack on a rabbi visiting from Israel. The rabbi was in London for a family wedding, when he was attacked on Friday night by two men, who shouted ‘fucking Jew, dirty Jew’ and ‘kill the Jews’, and punched him to the ground, leaving the poor fellow dazed and bleeding. The Groan was told about the attack by Shomrim, a neighbourhood watch group, who were understandably angry about the assault and what they believed was the Met police’s failure to respond appropriately to it. The paper also reported that Corbyn and shadow home secretary, Diane Abbott, both condemned the attack. Corbyn tweeted that he had spoke to Rabbi Gluck, the chairman of Shomrim, to express his concerns. R. Gluck confirmed that Corbyn had indeed phoned inquiring what had happened and to express his shock and sympathy with the Jewish community. The rabbi added We deeply appreciate his concern. He sounded extremely genuine. He was the only party leader who called’”. I think the emphasis may be Zelo Street’s own.

How embarrassing for the anti-Semitism smear merchants!

In fact, it’s so embarrassing that you didn’t read that Corbyn was the only one in the rest of the media. The Mail Online reported that Boris also phoned, along with Corbyn and Abbott. But he only did that after the Labour leader. The Jewish Chronicle didn’t mention Corbyn at all in their report about it. But then Rabbi Gluck stated, according to the Hackney Gazette, that he didn’t think the attacks had anything at all to do with issues in the Labour party or Jeremy Corbyn. He believed that they were part of a pattern that started long before Brexit, but had increased exponentially under the present government. The good rabbi also said that he believed that minorities in Stamford Hill, including Haredi Jews, were being regularly attacked due to police funding cuts. There simply weren’t enough coppers around to protect them. Zelo Street adds that it’s no wonder that the press kept schtum.

Zelo Street concludes

‘Thus we see that selective reporting is alive and well: airbrushing the Labour leader out of this story shows that, when it comes to allegations of anti-Semitism, it is not only what the press chooses to publish, but also what it chooses not to publish.

Jeremy Corbyn alone of party leaders cared enough to call. I’ll just leave that one there.’

See: https://zelo-street.blogspot.com/2019/12/rabbi-assaulted-corbyn-alone-calls.html

But it does seem to have rattled Marie van der Zyl and the Board of Deputies of British Jews. There’s a report in today’s I that Corbyn has finally apologised for anti-Semitism in the Labour party, and offered to meet with Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis. But van der Zyl is still complaining about anti-Semitism in Labour and how Corbyn hasn’t done enough, and stated that she and the Board would not be distracted on this issue by questions about it in other parties.

Which amply demonstrates her and her organisation’s political bias. She’s only concerned about it in the Labour party. Just like, I believe, some of the other celebs, like Tracy Ann Oberman, who have said that they’re not interested in it in the Tories, only in Labour.

Anti-Semitism is and always has been far more prevalent on the right and far-right. This has proved again and again by history and social science research. And racism and anti-Semitism has to be fought everywhere.

But Marie van der Zyl gives the Tories a free pass on it.

This not only shows how selective her own opposition to anti-Semitism is, it also reveals what the true point of the anti-Semitism witch-hunt is:

To get Corbyn out, purely for political reasons.

Van der Zyl’s personal politics, and that of the rest of the Board, appear to be pure, true-blue Tory. They are also staunch ultra-Zionists, are afraid of allowing any criticism of Israel’s monstrous policies towards the Palestinians. That’s the reason they smear Corbyn and Labour of being anti-Semitic.

But the Labour leader’s response to the attack on the rabbi shows not only that he isn’t, but that he isn’t even anti-Israeli. One can want a just peace that respects the Palestinians without wishing to see the Israeli people murdered. But that’s not something that van der Zyl and ultra-Zionists like her understands.

 

Joshua Bonehill Takes British Far Right Back to Nazi Roots

Joshua ‘Moronic Troll’ Bonehill: Fuehrer without a leaderguard

Remember Joshua Bonehill? Tom Pride over at Pride’s Purge blogged about him a year or so ago. He’s the Hitler wannabe, who boasted at he had at least 20,000 + followers on Twitter. He was trying to set up his own Far Right party and was appealing for men to join his ‘Leader Guard’. This was to be the new Praetorian guard to march with and protect him as Fuehrer of the new British extreme Right. Mr Pride was alarmed as one of his Twitter followers was a British army colonel.

I thought that Bonehill and his dreams of Nazi Fuehrertum were so bonkers that it had to be a wind-up. Surely someone, who was so obviously trying to be early 21st Century’s Britain’s own Adolf couldn’t possibly be serious?

I was wrong.

He was.

Last week was Holocaust memorial week, and the country remembered the liberation of the Nazi Death Camps and the almost unbelievable horror that was perpetuated there. The surviving inmates, some well into their nineties, told their stories.

At the same time this was going, Bonehill was planning a Nazi march against the 20,000 strong Jewish community of Stamford Hill in London. He claimed this was a protest against the ‘Jewification’ of Britain, and particularly against the ultra-Orthodox Haredi community in the area. He claimed the shomrim, a neighbourhood-watch type organisation set up in the Stamford Hill to protect Jewish residents, was actually a religious police.

There’s an interesting article up on Bonehill and his antics at the anti-Far Right site, EDL News. The article’s entitled Moronic Troll Joshua Bonehill and why he probably won’t go to Stamford Hill. The epithet ‘moronic troll’ was given to Bonehill by the BBC. The article suggests that Bonehill won’t actually go on the protest he’s called for. It also gives a list of some of the other weird, disgusting and criminal actions he’s done. It also explains why the Beeb gave him the above nickname. Here they are:

◾ Bonehill attempted to organise a demonstration in Cardiff last year under his National British Resistance Political party. The party consisted of two other people, one with learning difficulties who he scammed for £500. He did not show up, neither did his friends.
◾ His Woolwich Strong t-shirt sales scam saw him allegedly net over £1000. According to our sources, none of the money has been given to the Lee Rigby fund. A grand total of £5 went to Help for Heroes and then rest he put down as administrative costs.
◾ Bonehill’s online popularity seems to stem from spending lots of money buying Facebook likes and Twitter followers from countries such as Pakistan, India and Turkey in order to make himself look more popular. Much of that money went down the pan recently when both Twitter and Facebook kicked him off their networks.
◾ According to locals, Bonehill is allegedly banned from a large supermarket chain nationwide for getting drunk and trying to defecate in the aisle of the cosmetics department, before being forcibly removed by security guards. We cannot corroborate this story ourselves but a number of witnesses have confirmed the story.
◾ Bonehill has a conviction for using his Conservative party membership card to break into a police station and steal uniforms. When caught he assaulted a police officer.
◾ He is allegedly banned from the Mermaid pub in Yeovil after one of the bar maids had him up against the wall by his throat and threw him out for reasons we are unable to disclose. Again, a number of local people have confirmed this.
◾ Drink seems to be a major factor in Bonehill’s life according to most people we spoke to which explains the online bravado exhibited.
◾ He is awaiting sentencing on five charges of harassment and two charges of malicious communications arising from undertaking lengthy and concerted campaigns branding as paedophiles, people who disagreed and outwitted him online (no hard task).
◾ After pleading guilty to a hoax which claimed the Globe Pub in Leicester has refused service to a soldier, the BBC described him as a ‘moronic troll’.

Bonehill is a nasty piece of work, and his organisation is particularly revolting at a time the Jewish community here in Britain and Europe generally is particularly under attack. There is a wave of anti-Semitism rising in Europe, which many observers have described as the worst Jews have experienced since the 1930s. The most obvious example of this was the attack on the customers and staff at a French Jewish supermarket by an Islamist gunman following the attack on Charlie Hebdo the week before last. It should be mentioned here that 15 of the shopper and store clerks were hidden by a Muslim security guard, an act of courage and humanity, which should be given all due credit and respect. It clearly shows that, despite the claims of Islamist terrorists, very definitely not all Muslims share their violent and genocidal racism.

The article’s at http://edlnews.co.uk/2015/02/02/moronic-troll-joshua-bonehill-and-why-he-probably-wont-go-to-stamford-hill/

Jack Renshaw and the BNP

Bonehill, however, isn’t alone on the Far Right in turning to anti-Semitism to shore up their dwindling numbers. According to Hope Not Hate, Jack Renshaw, a young nipper in the BNP is another open Jew-hater. In one of his communiques, he ranted about the Jews encouraging racial mixing in order to destroy the White race as part of a plan to enslave gentiles. It’s the classic Nazi conspiracy fantasy. See the article Big trouble for Little Jack at http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/blog/insider/big-trouble-for-little-jack-4170.

Gary Raikes and the New British Union

Not to be outdone, Gary Raikes of the New British Union is also dragging British Fascism firmly back to the 1930s. His organisation actually has a uniform of black shirt and sweatpants. He himself appears to hold his meeting in full quasi-Nazi regalia, complete with military style cap and surrounded by flags, all emblazoned with the same lightning bolt motif Oswald Mosley used for the British Union of Fascists.

Gary Raikes: New Fuehrer of the New British Union

Oswald Mosley: Old Fuehrer of the BUF on the infamous march in Cable Street.

These tactics are likely to backfire massively on Bonehill, Renshaw, Raikes and the other stormtroopers. While there still is anti-Semitism in British society, there isn’t mass support for a blatantly Nazi party. The horrors of the Third Reich and the Second World War effectively destroyed any mass support Mosley’s BUF may have had. And even before the outbreak of the Second World War, they were struggling to retain their membership, partly due to its notoriety for using violence. Richard Thurlow in his book, Fascism in Britain: A History, 1918-1985, makes the case that the Far Right in Britain only survived into the post-War period by making Black and Asian immigrants the targets of their hate, rather than the Jews. Matthew Collins in his account of his years in the BNP, Hate, records private conversations with some of his fellow stormtroopers, who confided they didn’t understand the hatred of the Jews. Even so, members of the National Front were infamous in the 1970s for dressing up in Nazi uniforms.

One book I read recently by an American historian of the Far Right argued that Fascists, by and large, were never successful as mass movements. In Germany, Spain and Italy they owed their accession to government through deals made with other, established right-wing groups and parties, who hoped they could use these movements to bolster their own position. As for the uniforms, I understood that the wearing of paramilitary, political uniforms had been outlawed in the 1930s. Over in France, one of the main Fascist organisations, the Croix de Feu, found their vote actually increased when they gave up wearing them and began instead to look like an ordinary, mainstream political party.

We shouldn’t be complacent. Although the BNP has effectively collapsed into warring splinter groups, the rise of UKIP shows that xenophobia and racism is still an effective political force. Nevertheless, the return of the various Fascist grouplets to anti-Semitism and paramilitary costumes is likely to repel far, far more people than it attracts. This isn’t the image of a brave, new political force threatening to sweep through Britain. It’s the return of an old, collapsing ideology back to its original, murderous and discredited position.

Joshua Bonehill comes from Yeovil, and a few of the good people of that great Somerset town are so ashamed of the disgrace he’s bringing them that they’ve formed their own anti-Bonehill group on Facebook, Yeovil Against Bonehill.