Robin Simcox’s Racist and Anti-Semitic Links

Further respect to Zelo Street for adding a few more details about Robin Simcox and his membership of some very nasty right-wing organisations. Simcox is professional smirking slime-bucket Priti Patel’s choice for head of the Commission for Countering Extremism. I put up a piece about him yesterday, based on a piece about him in the latest issue of Private Eye noting that Simcox has some views himself that many might consider extreme. Like he’s a Neocon member of the Heritage Foundation, who backs sending terrorist suspect to countries where they can be tortured and further infringement on the rule of law. But that’s not all. According to Wikipedia, the Heritage Foundation denies the reality of climate change and is funded by the American oil giant, Exxon Mobil. It also promoted the false claims of voter fraud. This was done through Hans von Spakovsky, the head of the Heritage Foundation’s Electoral Law Reform Initiative, who made such fears mainstream in the Republican Party. Von Spakovsky’s work, you won’t be surprised to hear, has been completely discredited according to Wikipedia.

The Heritage Foundation, according to the Byline Times, have on their board Rebekah Mercer and her father, Robert Mercer, who funded Breitbart News, which in turn supported Cambridge Analytica. And it was Cambridge Analytica that introduced Donald Trump to Steve Bannon, who founded Parler. But it was Simcox’s links to the racist extreme right that was more worrying to that authors of the Byline Times’ article. In 2019 Simcox spoke at a meeting of the Centre for Immigration Studies. The CIS has been identified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Centre. The CIS has for ten years circulated anti-Semitic and White nationalist materials, included articles written by supporters of eugenics and Holocaust deniers. According to Wikipedia, the CIS’ reports have been criticised as false or misleading and with poor methodology by experts on immigration. The Byline Times stated that in his work for the Heritage Foundation, Simcox promoted the work of several racist and anti-Muslim conspiracy theorists, including a supporter of the ‘Great Replacement’ theory, which has inspired many of the extreme right-wing terror attacks in recent years. He’s also been criticised for falsely equating British Islamic organisations with the Muslim brotherhood.

Simcox therefore has links to people, whose views could be described as genuinely Nazi. But as the Street notes, the self-appointed opponents of anti-Semitism are curiously silent about all this.

So who’s making their feelings known about this appointment? “Lord” Ian Austin? “Lord” John Mann? Wes Streeting? Stephen Pollard? John Woodcock? Margaret Hodge? Daniel Finkelstein? Crickets. If only Simcox had been pals with Jeremy Corbyn.

Zelo Street: Tory Anti-Semitism Link – No Problem! (zelo-street.blogspot.com)

Quite. But the above weren’t opponents of anti-Semitism per se. They were simply determined to destroy the Labour left and protect Israel and its persecution of the Palestinians. And as Tony Greenstein has shown ad nauseam, Israel has no problem collaborating with real Nazis if it will serve its interests.

Paranoid Trump Blames Black Lives Matter Protests on Secret Conspiracy

Here’s more evidence that Trump has Fascistic tendencies. A piece by Amanda Seitz in yesterday’s I for 3rd September 2020, ‘Trump uses conspiracy theory about race protests’ reported that Trump was blaming the various Black Lives Matter protests and riots on shadowy plotters. The article ran

President Donald Trump is promoting a baseless conspiracy theory to claim that recent race protests have been orchestrated by powerful people in “dark shadows” intent on undermining his re-election prospects.

The claim first took root on Facebook and Twitter earlier this year after racial justice protests swelled across the country following the deaths of Black Americans in police custody. Thousands of social media users shared posts suggesting a covert network was coordinating the protests and rioters were descending on communities across the country.

Mr Trump appeared to amplify those unfounded conspiracy theories in an interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham that aired Monday night, suggesting that protests in Washington during the Republican National Convention were orchestrated by unspecified forces.

“We had somebody get on a plane from a certain city this weekend. And in the plane, it was almost completely loaded with thugs wearing these dark uniforms, black uniforms with gear and this and that,” said Mr Trump, adding that the matter is under investigation.

Given the increase in paranoia and the proliferation of belief in spurious theories about secret conspiracies since the ’90s, it was almost inevitable that somebody would also claim that the mass protests against Trump are due to THEM. When riots have broken out here in Britain, some people have tried to explain them as having been planned and carried out by organised radical groups from outside the area. The groups blamed were either anarchists, some other group from the far left, if not simply described as ‘the far left’, or else just nameless malcontents intent on stirring up trouble.

Trump hasn’t identified who he thinks is behind this conspiracy, but the unvoiced fear here is that he’s talking about the Jews. He’s been accused of anti-Semitism, and although his daughter’s husband is Jewish and she is a convert to Judaism, his aids have included a number with links to the Alt-Right, like Steve Bannon and his supporters have included real anti-Semites, racists and White supremacists. Remember when the Alt-Right’s leader Richard Spencer greeted Trump’s election with ‘Hail Trump! Hail our race!’ One of the conspiracy theories about the Jews is that they are deliberately encouraging non-White immigration and racial mixing to destroy the White race as part of their programme for world domination. I don’t know if Trump believes this poisonous nonsense, but the danger is that a section of the American public does and could act on it. The shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue a few years ago was committed by a gunman, who believed it and chose the synagogue and its congregation because they were active helping immigrants and asylum seekers find refuge in America.

It’ll be very interesting to see what the Anti-Defamation League have to say about this. They’re the chief Jewish organisation in America fighting anti-Semitism. They’ve criticised Trump before for his racism, as when he tried to stop immigration from Muslim countries. But the ADL is also staunchly Zionist, and Trump is a solid supporter of Israel and its aggressive campaign to annex even more Palestinian land. Tony Greenstein has pointed out on his blog that time and again Zionists will betray Jews to real anti-Semites, if they believe it will benefit Israel. One example is a notorious quote from David Ben Gurion that he would rather a small number escape the Nazi Holocaust to settle in Israel and the rest die, rather for all of them escape to Britain. Then there’s the recent example of Stephen Pollard, the gentile editor of the Jewish Chronicle, defending a Polish politico from the Law and Justice Party. This is another extreme right-wing nationalist party, which passed legislation banning blaming the Nazi persecution of the Jews in Poland on Polish collaborators. Pollard declared that the politician couldn’t be anti-Semitic, as he was a good friend of Israel. Liberal Israelis have also criticised the way their country’s leaders have welcomed real Fascist dictators and butchers. These have tried to present a veneer of respectability through visiting the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial.

And Tony’s also pointed out that the Zionist organisations in America dislike Black Lives Matter. BLM are pro-Palestinian, seeing the position of Black Americans as comparable to that of Israel’s indigenous Arab people. He’s also shown that the American Zionist organisations have attempted to win over Black support through offering theirs for Black anti-racism and civil rights campaigns. But BLM won’t compromise on this issue, and so have won the animosity of many Zionist groups and organisations.

It’ll therefore remain to be seen what the Zionist Jewish groups will say, if anything, about Trump’s comments. Will they condemn them, and so criticise someone they regard as an ally? Or will they remain silent because Trump’s America is Israel’s strongest supporter and they too hate Black Lives Matter?

Jewish Chronicle Folds – Real Fighters Against Racism and Anti-Semitism Not At All Bothered

Here’s a rather positive story from yesterday. According to Mike, the Jewish Chronicle and the Jewish News have been forced to close. They’re blaming the lockdown, which has also damaged News Corporation profits so much that Murdoch’s minions wrote pieces in his wretched rags begging the public to buy newspapers. Which is something else that is highly amusing. Critics of the Chronicle and its foul editor, Stephen Pollard, suggested that the real reason might be all the money it’s being forced to pay in damages to all the people it’s libeled. 

The Chronicle was a right-wing, Tory rag. Its editor, Pollard, has written various pieces across the years claiming that the left, trade unions and Muslims are serious threats to western civilisation. It’s a list that once a time included Jews. That’s changed, because British Jews, by and large, are very assimilated and generally, but not uniformly, prosperous. Sixty per cent of the Jewish population is middle and upper middle class. It’s that wealthy, Tory voting section of the British Jewish population that the Jewish Chronicle spoke for.

It was also fanatically pro-Israel, and so was one of the worst in libeling and smearing the country’s critics, pro-Palestinian activists and over the last few years, Jeremy Corbyn, his supporters and the Labour Party as a whole. This included Mike of Vox Political, who the Chronicle and a number of other papers, including the equally repulsive and loathsome Sunset Times, smeared as an anti-Semite and Holocaust denier. Mike isn’t, never was, and never will be. Mike launched a successful appeal with IPSO, the press regulator, against those rags, and they were forced to print retractions. But this didn’t stop them continuing with their campaign of lies and smears against Labour.  Pollard’s spite wasn’t just reserved for those outside his newspaper’s staff. A few weeks ago he sacked long-time Chronicle contributor Prof. Geoffrey Alderman, an expert in British Jewish history. He gave no reason in his letter to Alderman telling him his services were no longer required, but many observers were in no doubt of the real reason. Alderman had committed the terrible crime of penning a piece in the Spectator stating that Corbyn wasn’t an anti-Semite but a friend to Jews. Pollard couldn’t tolerate the spectacle of the truth contradicting his smears. Alderman’s certainly no man of the left, and I think he’s a convinced Zionist. But this didn’t save him from Pollard’s wrath. Pollard himself isn’t Jewish, which led to the Chronicle’s  Jewish critics calling his thunderous exhortations to their community to support Israel ‘goysplaining’. In fact, critics of the smear campaign against critics of Israel, and Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters, like Tony Greenstein have repeatedly pointed out that the Israel lobby is especially venomous towards Jews, who refuse to give their wholehearted and absolute support to a nation to which they do not belong, nor in many cases have ever been to.

Mike in his article reproduced the comments on Twitter from various people and organisations about the Chronicle’s collapse. And they had absolutely no regrets about the rag’s demise whatsoever because of its role in pushing the smears. In fact, they welcomed it. They included  organisations like the Jewish human rights group, Jews Sans Frontieres, Socialist Voice, and the newspaper/ site Dorset Eye. One commenter, John O’Connell, summed up the situation and said ‘What was once a proud and worthy voice for Jewish communities has in recent years become a Tories and Right Wing mouthpiece for Anti #Labour Myths and Rhetoric’.  Two of the people, Neil Clark and Andrew Feinstein, had been personally attacked and vilified by the Chronicle, and so weren’t sorry to see it go at all.

The people the Chronicle and the Jewish News smeared in their campaign of hate against Corbyn, the Labour Party and pro-Palestinian activists were decent, genuinely anti-racist people and opponents of anti-Semitism. The quality of British print journalism has been raised by their closure. Unfortunately, the rest of the scummy Tory press still seems to be going, though hopefully it won’t be too long before the Sunset Times and the Torygraph go the same way. It’s sad that some of the people being laid off will be ordinary, decent peeps, but the rag itself won’t be missed. However, as Nathaniel Gibbons pointed out, Pollard is now reduced to spouting his defamatory, racist bile in the Heil, Torygraph and Scum.

And Britain would only gain if those despicable rags followed the Chronicle into closure and liquidation.

See: https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2020/04/08/jewish-chronicle-to-close-with-staff-redundancies-the-quality-of-uk-media-has-improved/

Private Eye on Audrey White’s Libel Victory over the Jewish Chronicle

A week or so ago, Zelo Street put up a piece reporting that Audrey White, a Labour activist from Liverpool, had successfully sued the Jewish Chronicle for libel. The paper had smeared her as an anti-Semite, and accused her of a number of things, none of which were true, such as undermining the Jewish Labour MP Louise Ellman. Private Eye have also covered the case in their latest issue, for 6th to 19th March 2020. And that’s interesting, not just for what it says about the case itself, but about the Eye’s own attitude to the anti-Semitism witch hunt, in which the Eye has itself been an enthusiastic participant. The item, in the magazine’s ‘Street of Shame’ column, reads

Whatever the true level of anti-Semitism within the Labour party, there has been no shortage of media interest in the subject. Foremost among publications to have taken up the cudgels against labour over the issue has been the Jewish Chronicle (JC).

Curiously, though, the media appear to have ignored the recent settlement of a libel case involving the JC and Audrey White, a Labour party activist in Liverpool. White successfully complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) that the JC had breached the editors’ code of practice in four articles it published in February and March last year.

The JC alleged that White had actively undermined Louise Ellman, the former Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside, who quit the party in October last year. Finding in favour of White, the IPSO ruled the JC articles to be “significantly misleading” and castigated the paper for having resorted to “unacceptable” obstruction during IPSO’s investigation. The JC agreed to apologise to White, and pay her substantial libel damages and costs. 

What is a mystery is why the JC didn’t realise its treatment of White, which could be construed as a witch-hunt, was akin to the very type of behaviour in the Labour Party it would rightly condemn.

Firstly, while it’s great the Eye is reporting this when the rest of the media isn’t, it isn’t innocent of pushing the anti-Semitism smears itself. Like the rest of the press and broadcasting, it accepted uncritically the claims of the Zionist Jewish establishment and the Blairites in the Labour party that Labour was a seething cauldron of Jew hatred. In fact, while anti-Semitism unfortunately does exist, it’s at a much lower level than in the parties further to the right. And as left-wing bloggers and Israel-critical Jewish bloggers and activists have pointed out, the vast majority of anti-Semitism comes from the far right. People have written letters to the Eye trying to point this out, but the smears continued. And the Eye’s response to one such letter was to cite Jon Lansman, the founder of Momentum, who certainly believed the allegations. The article begins with a note of doubt about the true extent of anti-Semitism in Labour – you’ll note the phrase ‘Whatever the true level of anti-Semitism within the Labour Party’ – but at the time the magazine made it clear that it had no doubt that the claims were true. This seems more than a bit contradictory, even hypocritical. But then, the election has come and gone, and Boris is in with a huge majority, Corbyn is stepping down as leader and all the candidates for the leadership have signed the Board of Deputies wretched pledges. So the smears aren’t needed any more. But don’t worry, I’m sure that they’ll be revived the moment the Tory establishment gets frightened and the Israel lobby finds it expedient.

And Audrey White isn’t the only person by any means the Jewish Chronicle and others have libeled as anti-Semites. It did it to Mike, along with the Sunset Times, the Depress and the Scum, if I remember correctly, when these rags told the world Mike was an anti-Semite and a Holocaust denier. Mike complained to IPSO, and the rags were forced to issue retractions. It was settled before Mike could begin libel proceedings, and so these, ahem, alleged newspapers, were spared the humiliation of a court judgement.

I’ve blogged several times complaining that, while the Eye and the rest of the press must know that the majority of anti-Semitism accusations are false – one Labour insider recently told the Canary or Novara Media that a third of them all came from the same person – the press, including the Eye, has resolutely refused to interview or profile any of the victims. It’s been a true witch hunt in that, like Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, the mere accusation is taken as proof, an assumption that the Board of Deputies has malignly incorporated into their wretched pledges. No-one in the establishment media has interviewed or defended victims like Ken Livingstone, Jackie Walker, Marc Wadsworth, Tony Greenstein, Cyril Chilson, Martin Odoni, Mike, Asa Winstanley or any of the others. That would be going too far, as it would effectively disprove the anti-Semitism smears. And as the left-wing critics of Israel like Greenstein, Odoni, Walker and Winstanley are well able to show that is the Israeli state that is profoundly and aggressively racist, any interview or defence of them would also not only undermine the position of the Israel lobby and the Zionist Jewish establishment, it could also embarrass Britain’s own foreign policy in the Middle East. Greenstein and historians like Ilan Pappe and John Newsinger have shown just how deeply entwined Zionism and Israel have been with British colonial goals since the British Mandate.

As for the Eye’s statement at the end that the Jewish Chronicle would otherwise be against any form of witch hunt, this is the complete opposite of the truth. The Jewish Chronicle has been one of the main instigators of the witch hunt in and against the Labour Party. Possibly the Eye means that it would be against any anti-Semitic witch-hunt, but even this is highly doubtful. Many of the victims – Tony, Jackie, Cyril, Martin and others – are self-respecting, decent Jews. But they’re vilified and smeared as anti-Semitic and self-hating simply because they’re anti-Zionist, or have otherwise criticised Israel. And the abuse they have consequently suffered would be unequivocally condemned as anti-Semitic if it came from gentiles.

And the Jewish Chronicle gives every sign or wishing to continue its persecution. A week or so ago, Tony Greenstein on his blog reported that the Chronicle’s gentile editor, goysplainer Stephen Pollard, had sent one of its contributors, Geoffrey Alderman, a letter giving him the heave-ho. Alderman’s a very respected historian of the British Jewish community, and a true-blue Tory. The letter didn’t explain why Pollard was letting him go, but the reason seems obvious: Alderman committed the unforgivable sin of writing a piece in the Spectator declaring that Corbyn wasn’t an anti-Semite. And this show of integrity against lies and smears couldn’t be tolerated.

It’s very welcome that the Eye has finally decided to report White’s victory against the lies and smears of the Israel lobby. But this is just one incident a long line which the magazine, like the rest of the media, has very conveniently chose to ignore.

But this may well change. Mike is taking the Labour Party to court for breach of contract over the wrongful decision to expel and smear him as an anti-Semite. His case is solid. When I went to court to support him the other month, the judge express surprise that, given the importance of the case, the press wasn’t present.

I don’t doubt it will be there next time. And that will be very embarrassing for those responsible for the smears.

 

Ian McCulloch – Ready to Continue the Witch Hunt?

This is another piece about the deputy leadership hustings in Bristol, and about one of the contentious issues that was inevitably raised there – anti-Semitism. All the candidates made it clear that they were determined to stamp out racism and Jew-hatred in the party, but it was the comments by Ian McCulloch and, to a lesser extent, Rosena Allin-Khan, that gave me concern. McCulloch seemed absolutely ruthless about it, stating that he would do anything to crush it in the party.

These are dangerous words, as the amount of real anti-Semitism in the Labour Party has been massively exaggerated. It exists, but it’s vanishingly small. Less than one per cent of Labour Party members have been found to be anti-Semitic. It’s far smaller than the amount of racism, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism that’s very often openly displayed in the Tory party and among its supporters. The extent of anti-Semitism in Labour was played up purely for political reasons. The Tories, their media lackeys and the Blairites in Labour simply wanted to use it as a stick to beat and oust Corbyn. The Israel lobby, including the Jewish establishment – the Jewish papers, Board of Deputies, Chief Rabbis, Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, Jewish Labour Movement and so on, also wanted to overthrow Corbyn and purge the party of his supporters because they were afraid of the election of a national leader, who would genuinely defend the Palestinians. These organisations aren’t interested in defending Jews from real racial hatred. In their view, anti-Semitism is nearly synonymous with opposition to Israel. It was made very clear by Stephen Pollard, the editor of the Jewish Chronicle, who wrote a piece declaring that Michal Kaminski, a far-right Polish MEP, wasn’t anti-Semitic because he was a ‘good friend to Israel’. It’s shown in the way the Israeli state greets and welcomes genuine far right leaders and heads of states so long as they trade with Israel and buy their arms.

As a result of these political intrigues, many hundreds of entirely innocent individuals, including self-respecting Jews, have been purged from the party simply for voicing opinions on Israel’s barbarous treatment of the Palestinians. Opinions that the Thatcherite establishment and Israel lobby wish to suppress. Either that, or they’ve been thrown out simply for defending those, who’ve been libelled, suspended and expelled. The victims include Jackie Walker, Tony Greenstein, Marc Wadsworth, Cyril Chilson, Mike Sivier, Martin Odoni, Ken Livingstone and many others. As you can see from this brief list, many of them are Jewish, and all are absolutely convinced anti-racists. But because they are genuinely anti-racist and are not prepared to exclude Israel from criticism and are concerned with historical truth, they’ve been victimised and expelled.

As the leadership elections commenced, the Board of Deputies sent the candidates a list of pledges they demanded them to commit to. These pledges, as Mike has made clear on his blog, give the Board and its subsidiary organisations total control over who is to be judged an anti-Semite, and the processes by which they are judged and punished or expelled. This is unacceptable for several reasons. The Board has been one of the parties pushing the anti-Semitism smears, and so is hardly a disinterested, objective party. It is also an outside organisation, not a part of nor responsible to the members of the party. Its interference in the party’s affairs is unacceptable purely on that account. All of the leadership candidates signed their wretched piece of paper, which means that instead of drawing a line under the anti-Semitism controversy, it will almost certainly result in further interference, smears and fake accusations by the Board.

It’s a pity that the candidates weren’t taking questions directly from the audience about their answers. I would have liked to have challenged McCulloch about this, made the point that majority of accusations were false, and asked him what he was going to do to make sure any accusation and trial were just. But this was not permitted by the format. Instead, McCulloch got thunderous applause from those present.

I was also rather concerned by Rosena Allin-Khan’s statement about anti-Semitism. She wanted it cleaned out because she had Jewish friends, who were considering joining and standing for the party. But they had been put off, and wondered if there was a place for Jews in it. Now I don’t doubt that this is true. There are many Jews within and outside the Labour party, who do realise what is going on and that the accusations are false. But nevertheless, the Jewish establishment have done an excellent job of scaring Britain’s Jews into believing that Corbyn and the Labour Party really are anti-Semitic and an ‘existential threat to Jewish life in Britain’. I wanted to ask Allin-Khan what she had done to calm their fears. Had she tried to refute them, to show that the vast majority of accusations were false, that nearly all of them were purely political in motivation? And was she concerned about the vast numbers of Jews inside and outside the party, who were being smeared as ‘the wrong kind of Jews’ by the Zionist Jewish establishment? Did she know, had she told them, that the Jewish Labour Movement was at the time tiny, and that most of its members were gentiles and that many of them weren’t even members of Party, against Jewish Voice for Labour, which was much bigger and the majority of whose members were, through its constitution, very definitely Jewish? Didn’t she point out and defend the Jews, who had been falsely accused, smeared and then expelled or bullied into leaving, who very definitely weren’t self-hating, or anti-Semitic? Quite the opposite, in fact. Many Jews despise Israel and its treatment of the Paletinians because they are Jewish. They include Torah-observant Jews, such as the Haredi, who object to it because the Torah and Talmud state that Israel can only be restored by the Messiah and the hand of the Almighty. Or they see liberal values as the moral core of Judaism, and object to Israel because it’s the same kind of ethnic state that persecuted them. And one Jewish journalist has said that British Jews are afraid to speak out against the Israel lobby. This is really persecution, but as it’s done by the self-professed British Jewish establishment, it’s totally ignored. It’s victims really are the ‘wrong kind of Jews’, you see.

I couldn’t ask these question, but they do need to be asked. I realise the candidates have to be very careful in the answers they give, because any sign that they don’t back Israel 100 per cent or that they believe the anti-Semitism accusations to be grossly inflated will result in further smears and accusations against them. I want a Labour government back in power. But I also want a party genuinely committed to justice, and not dominated on this or any other issue by an outside party acting primarily in the interests of another nation. I believe this can be done, if the party is prepared to stand together to rebut the lies and libels.

And I definitely don’t want to elect a leader, who will continue the witch hunt and wreck decent peoples’ lives, Jewish and gentile, by seeing them smeared as anti-Semites when they are absolutely not.

The Crisis at the BBC and the Cancellation of the Victoria Derbyshire Show

A few days ago the Director-General of the Beeb, Lord Tony Hall, formally stepped down. According to Mike over at Vox Political, Robert Peston has said that this means that the Beeb’s chairman, David Clementi, can oversee the installation of a new D-G, who isn’t under the control of Boris and the Tories. But Mike argues instead that Clementi’s time as chair is nearly over, and it’s likely that Johnson will use his influence instead to make sure the next D-G is a Tory puppet, who will purge anyone BoJob and Cumming’s don’t like. He also reblogs posts from the ever-perceptive Tom London, who points out that the Beeb has already been significantly biased towards the Tories. The bias against Labour and Jeremy Corbyn personally was so pronounced that it denies the election democratic validity. Tom London says that while it might say ‘Democracy’ on the tin, that democracy has already vanished when nothing but propaganda is being pumped out.

Quite so. As Mike says, the Tories’ plan is to install someone, who will raise no objection to their privatisation of the Beeb and its replacement by commercial operators, who will kowtow to the Tories.

See: https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2020/01/22/johnsons-corrupt-plan-for-the-bbc-the-propaganda-arm-of-the-tory-party/

In fact, as Mike also says, the Beeb has been under Tory influence for quite some time. Ever since David Cameron passed legislation allowing the public sector to recruit from the private industry. This has led to the influx of further senior management and corporate bosses at the Beeb, determined to turn it into a propaganda mouthpiece for the Tories.

It was also announced today that the Corporation was axing the Victoria Derbyshire Show. Derbyshire is a highly respected journalist, and the decision dismayed journalists and media figures as diverse as Paul Lewis, Stephen Pollard, the extreme right-wing editor of the Jewish Chronicle; Martin Barrow, and the Labour MP Tracy Brabin. Lewis described the show as ‘innovative’, praising the way it dealt with important social issue like poverty other mainstream shows would have struggled with, and called it ‘a people’s current affairs programme’. The former MP Danielle Rowley said that the show made complex issues accessible through a wide-ranging format, different voices, and great journalism and presenting. Martin Barrow, who is a foster carer as well as a journo, condemned its cancellation, and said he would always be grateful to the show for its reports into children’s care and young people’s mental health. Brabin said that the show was unique in having rigorous campaigning and allowing the public to have their say. She also praised Derbyshire as sharp, approachable and with a personal story that made her relatable. Laura Smith from Crewe and Nantwich praised the show for making sure that the voices of the survivors of historic abuse were heard, and praised the personal bravery of named victims that appeared on the show.

Zelo Street states that not everyone was upset by the show’s cancellation. Right-wing guttersnipes Darren Grimes and the Economist’s David Vance were overjoyed, though Vance considered it no more than a welcome start and wanted the complete closure of the Beeb.

Zelo Street believed that the show’s cancellation might not be unrelated to the fact that Derbyshire showed up Dominic Raab in the 2017 general election. Raab had claimed that the people using food banks weren’t poor, just experiencing ‘cash flow problems’.

The Street concluded

‘Once again, journalism is publishing, or indeed broadcasting, what someone does not want to see published, or broadcast. And the increasingly craven BBC is axing it.

Trebles all round for leering Tory boot boys. A lesson in grim reality for everyone else.’

See: https://zelo-street.blogspot.com/2020/01/victoria-derbyshire-binned-big-bbc.html

Another right-wing figure, who was not at all sorry to see Derbyshire and her show cancelled was Carl Benjamin, aka Sargon of Akkad, the man who broke UKIP, who has made a video about it. Sargon and his equally deranged followers are convinced that the Beeb is biased towards Left and against the Tories, even when all the evidence shows the complete opposite. He thought she was particularly biased towards the Tories because she accidentally used the ‘C’ word for Jeremy Hunt’s surname when announcing a story. She immediately apologised, and said it was usually men, who used that word. Which is actually true, though I have heard it used by some foul-mouthed women. Sargon decided her comment showed that she had planned it, and thus her whole demeanour was an act. My guess is that it was a genuine mistake, but someone in the Newsroom probably had been referring to Hunt by the obscenity. Hunt’s name practically invites it. Derbyshire may well have heard it so often, that she accidentally said it herself, even though it was genuinely something she wouldn’t normally have said.

I’m not sure that Derbyshire is as unbiased as her supporters claimed. I was at a local Labour party meeting last week, and one of the subjects that came up again and again was the extreme bias against Labour by the media and its continued pushing of the anti-Semitism smears. And Derbyshire had done her fair share of this as well. When interviewing a spokesman from the Labour Party, Derbyshire had persistently asked them if they thought Corbyn needed sensitivity training. The spokesman had replied that he already had such training, as had they all. Too which she responded that she couldn’t believe the Labour party representative had said that he didn’t need it. Which is not what the Labour person had said.

Sargon’s video about it is interesting, however, for some of the stats he found. These included Derbyshire’s salary – £200 – £249,000 – and her viewing figures: 39,000. He concluded that her show had such a small audience that this was reasonable saving. He also pulled out the ratings for the audience of BBC news. Under Lord Hall, it has declined from 27 million three years ago to 18 million. It’s lost a third of its audience. While Sargon and other members of the right and extreme right are convinced it’s because of the Beeb’s nonexistent left-wing bias, the reality is that many of those 9 million viewers, who’ve turned off or over, will be left-wingers and Scots Nats put off by the Corporation’s pro-Tory bias.

My guess is that Derbyshire’s cancellation shows the direction the Beeb is moving. The Corporation’s being run down as it becomes nothing but a Tory propaganda outlet. The Tories would like to privatise the Corporation completely, but still recognise how valuable it is in the meantime. 70 per cent of the British public take their broadcast news from it. So the BBC will retain its main news programmes while closing down those, like Derbyshire, that provide a public service but don’t have massive ratings.

In that way the Tories will turn it into a propaganda network Goebbels would have been proud of, while preparing it for eventual privatisation and replacement by the networks of the Tories’ corporate backers.

 

Melanie Philips Criticised by Board of Deputies for Islamophobia Article in Jewish Chronicle

Oh the irony! Melanie ‘Mad Mel’ Phillips, Daily Mail hack, author, and determined opponent of anti-Semitism and Islamism, has been slapped down for an article she wrote in the Jewish Chronicle denying Islamophobia. According to her highly informed opinion (sarcasm), islamophobia is simply a made-up term used to close down criticism of the Islamic world, including Islamic extremism.

According to Zelo Street, without any trace of irony or self-awareness,  Phillips started the piece off by conflating anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism. Anti-Zionism, she declared, was merely the latest mutation of anti-Semitism. The two, according to her, share ‘the same deranged, obsessive falsehoods, demonic conspiracy theory and double standards. It is furthermore an attack on Judaism itself, in which the land of Israel is an inseparable element.’ This is twaddle. Zelo Street points out that Zionism and Judaism certainly aren’t the same, because how else can you explain Christian Zionism? It’s a good question, especially as Christian and non-Jewish Zionism often stemmed from anti-Semitism. Many genuine anti-Semites and Fascists supported the foundation of a Jewish state as a way of clearing Jews out from their own countries. This attitude was so strong that, when one German aristocrat was approached by the Zionists c. 1920 and asked why he didn’t support the creation, he replied that he did, but didn’t want to make it public in case people thought he was an anti-Semite. The Nazis and other European Fascists considering setting up a Jewish homeland in Madagascar, and the were similar schemes among British Fascists for Uganda. This was succeeded by the infamous and short-lived Ha’avara Agreement between the Zionists and the Nazis, in which the Nazis smuggled Jewish settlers in Palestine, then under the British Mandate. But mentioning this, according to the Israel lobby in this country, means that you’re an anti-Semite. Look what happened to Mike when he did in his long piece defending Ken Livingstone, The Livingstone Delusion.

The identity of Zionism and Judaism is also highly dubious. Ultra-Orthodox Jews, such as the Haredi and True Torah Jews, passionately reject the state of Israel for religious reasons. They believe that Israel can only be founded by direct divine action through the Messiah. Modern Israel was founded by secular atheists, and so to them is an abomination. Before the Second World War, most Jews throughout the world, whether in America or Europe or wherever, simply wanted to be equal citizens of the countries, where they had lived for centuries, if not millennia. They regarded these as their real homelands.

As for the accusation that anti-Zionism is based on conspiracy theories, well, there is a mass of very strong evidence showing that the attacks on anti-Zionists and critics of Israel as anti-Semites are very much instigated and supported by the Israeli state through its Office of Strategic Affairs. And recognising that is very different from believing idiotic, murderous myths about the Jews controlling capitalism and trying to destroy the White race.

Philips then went on to declare that ‘Islamophobia’ was invented by the Muslim Brotherhood to mimic antisemitism’. Er, no. Zelo Street states that the term was invented before 1923, citing the article in Wikipedia, which suggests that the term was first used in a 1918 biography of the Prophet Mohammed by the painter Alphonse Etienne Dinet and the Algerian intellectual Sliman ben Ibrahim. The Muslim Brotherhood wasn’t founded until 1928. Philips then went on to claim that  “‘Islamophobia’ appropriates to itself the unique attribute of antisemitism – that it is deranged – in order falsely to label any adverse comment about the Islamic world as a form of mental disorder”. Zelo Street succinctly demolishes this absurd claim by stating that the term is simply used to describe anti-Muslim bigotry. Which is correct. I haven’t heard of anyone seriously suggesting that anti-Muslim prejudice is a form of mental illness, or demanding that those who allegedly suffer from it should somehow need psychiatric treatment to cure them. Philips then continued “The concept of ‘Islamophobia’ is thus profoundly anti-Jew. Islamophobia’ is not equivalent to antisemitism. It facilitates it”.

The Board of Deputies found these sentiments to be unpalatable, and issued the following statement in professed solidarity with Muslims and others suffering racism. the Jewish Chronicle’s “fearless journalism has been at the forefront of tackling antisemitism & its denial. The publication of this piece was an error. Anti-Muslim prejudice is very real & it is on the rise. Our community must stand as allies to all facing racism”.

The Muslim Council of Britain also wasn’t impressed. Zelo Street quote a tweet by Miqdad Versi, describing how the Jewish Chronicle has a lot of previous in stirring up anti-Muslim sentiment, especially with articles by Philips. Versi said

“We should not be surprised by the Jewish Chroncile – it’s not the first time. When many Muslims were reeling after the massacre in Christchurch, they published a similar hate-filled piece by Melanie Phillips.They lied about the [MCB] & had to correct their lie … They lied about a Muslim charity, falsely linking it to terrorism, necessitating an apology and paying libel damages … When Baroness Warsi speaks up against Islamophobia in the Conservative Party, its editor tries to slur her … In one of a *number of articles* intending to undermine the definition of Islamophobia, it made false claims of links to extremism, about Professor Salman Sayyid, which it had to retract … This latest article is not a one-off but part of a pattern of behaviour – an editorial line on Muslim-related issues as the thread shows”. 

Zelo Street concludes that at least the Board of Deputies has called the Jewish Chronicle out on this one. It’s just a pity that it won’t have any effect on either Philips or the editor, Stephen Pollard.

See: https://zelo-street.blogspot.com/2019/12/board-of-deputies-calls-out-jewish.html

I also find the Board’s statement somewhat hypocritical.

David Rosenberg of the Jewish Socialist Group stated in one of his articles that when he was growing up in the 1980s, the Board of Deputies did not want Jews such as himself attending any of the anti-racism marches or protests by organisations like Rock Against Racism. The ostensible reason was that they were trying to stop Jewish youth from hearing anti-Zionist propaganda. But others on the Left thought the real reason was simple racism on their part. Whatever the reason, some of the meetings held by Jewish anti-racists had to be held in non-Jewish venues, like Quaker meeting houses and church halls, because the Board forbade synagogues to allow them to meet there.

The Board of Deputies is a Zionist organisation. It’s in their constitution. And as such, it has absolutely no qualms accommodating real Islamophobes. Let’s take their mass demonstrations with the Chief Rabbi and the Jewish Labour Movement against Jeremy Corbyn last year or so. The former Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, has led a group of British Jews to participate in the annual March of the Flags in Jerusalem. This is when Israeli super-patriotic bovverboys parade through the city’s Muslim quarter waving the country’s flag, vandalising Arab property and terrorising the neighbourhood’s people. Liberal Jewish organisations asked Sacks not to go. But he went anyway. As far as I am aware, there was not a peep of criticism from the Board, and they were happy to join the attacks on Corbyn by Sacks and his successor, Ephraim Mirvis, who may also have participated in the March. I also remember that among the protesters was one young man wearing a Kach T-shirt. Kach are an Israeli far-right organisation, which was banned under their terrorism laws. I am similarly aware of no criticism of this man by the Board.

In my experience, the issue of the Palestinians looms very large amongst this country’s Muslims. I studied Islam at College in the 1980s and early ’90s. I once came across the equivalent of a Christian parish magazine put out by one of the mosques. Among its articles was coverage of the closure of a mosque and a nearby church by the Israeli authorities. The Israeli state has a policy of closing down unauthorised non-Jewish places of worship as part of the general pressure and discrimination against the Palestinians. And certain sections of the Muslim community in this country were very aware of it. My guess is that the mosque that published the article wasn’t alone in its concern for its coreligionists in the Holy Land, and that this attitude is general and persists to the present day. That does not mean that they all hate Jews or want to see Israel destroyed and its people massacred. It does mean, though, that they want the religious and ethnic persecution of the Palestinians stopped. But the Board of Deputies flings around accusations of anti-Semitism in order to stop criticism of Israel for its actions against the Palestinians.

If the Board of Deputies is really serious about standing in solidarity with Muslims against racism, then one excellent place would be to start protesting against the treatment of Muslims – and by extension Christians – in Israel.

Until that happens, the Board is just being hypocritical.

John Bercow Denies Jeremy Corbyn Is Anti-Semitic

More evidence to add to the plentiful pile of it showing that Jeremy Corbyn isn’t a Jew-hater was given by John Bercow the other day. Bercow, who has just stepped down as Speaker of the House of Commons, was interviewed by Alistair Campbell for GQ magazine. Campbell told him that he realised Bercow was a Jew, and asked him about the issue of anti-Semitism in the Labour party. Bercow responded cautiously and diplomatically, pointing out that racism was a problem across society. He said that anti-Semitism was an issue in the Labour party, and that it needed to be dealt with and that he respected those, who were concerned about it. But in all his time in parliament he had never encountered it from a member of the Labour party, and in the 22 years he had known and worked with Corbyn he had never experienced it from him either. This was not even when Bercow was a right-winger. Campbell joked with Bercow about Corbyn, as a long-time opponent of New Labour, probably voting with the Tories more often than he voted with the Labour party. Bercow chuckles, and admits that he always got on well with Corbyn, and found him personally very supportive.

Okay, it’s not a refutation of the lie that anti-Semitism is rife in the Labour party. It most definitely isn’t anywhere near as serious as the Tories and the right-wing media are making out. Anti-Semitism has actually dropped in the party since Corbyn became leader, and he himself has led numerous initiatives to root it out. But Bercow has said that Corbyn isn’t anti-Semitic, which contradicts what Stephen ‘Goysplaining’ Pollard of the Jewish Chronicle and Rabbi Jonathan Romain in the Torygraph have been telling people this week.

Tory Fibs has put a short clip of this part of Bercow and Campbell’s discussion in a tweet, which Mike posted on his blog yesterday. Along with twitter comments from other people supporting the Labour leader. Many of these messages came from Jewish Labour supporters, who have also found themselves abused as anti-Semites by those taken in or responsible for these lies.

Also, Mike and another twitter commenter, ‘Paul’, point out that Corbyn rarely voted with the Tories. The Conservatives mostly voted for New Labour policies, which is hardly surprising as both groups were Thatcherites. Corbyn, as an old-fashioned Socialist, would have opposed them.

There was also a tweet from RedCountessa, who said that there were plenty of left-wing Jewish people, who support Corbyn, but it was also very noticeable that they were rarely interviewed by the lamestream media to get the other side of the argument.

And Jill Gore showed a twitter response from a Mark Fleischmann to show the odious response some individuals have towards Jews, who support Corbyn. So convinced was Fleischmann that no true Jew could ever support the Labour leader, that he was demanding the Jews who did to prove their Jewishness. I’m not Jewish, but this strikes me as a form of anti-Semitism itself. It’s as racist as Richard Spencer ranting about ‘octaroons’ to smear Blacks and people of mixed race, and in my opinion, anti-racist Whites, ’cause he can’t understand how real White people don’t hate Blacks.

And there were other tweeters attacking Ian Austin, who was in the news yesterday telling everyone to vote for Boris.

Pauline Lane retweeted a message from Children’s Poet Laureate, Michael Rosen, asking the Tory party to stop using the Holocaust and the threat of anti-Semitism to attract people to the party of Windrush, the Hostile Environment Policy, the anti-refugee and 20 years of austerity.

There was also a tweet from ‘Norman’ of Austin interrupting Michael Rosen’s testimony before the Education Committee for Holocaust Education. Norman states that he was aware of Austin, because of his support for Phil Woolas. Woolas was a ‘moderate’ Labour candidate, who got deselected because he ran a dirty campaign designed to get White voters angry and smearing the rival candidate, a Muslim, as a supporter of terrorism. But his interruption of Rosen showed how really horrible Austin is. Rosen testified that when the Nazis invaded the Channel Islands, all nine Jews were deported. Austin says something about how we cannot know what would have happened in Britain, because we fought back and stood alone against the Nazis. Rosen corrects him about this, stating that we had the support of two major powers, the US and Russia.

Rosen is quite correct. We didn’t stand alone. We not only had the support of America and Russia, but we were also supported by the entire resources of the British Empire. If we hadn’t, I gather that we too would probably have only lasted a week. As for what happened on the Channel Islands, Norman states that his grandfather evacuated from Jersey, and that Austin ‘is wrong’.

Absolutely right there, too. The Nazis did invade UK/ Britain, as the Channel Islands are part of it. And the people there were starved, they saw Russian P.O.W.’s worked to death as subhuman slaves, as they were seen by the Nazis, as well as the deportation of the islands’ Jewish citizens. And we can be sure that what happened there, would have happened elsewhere in Britain if the Nazis had invaded. Years ago Anne Applebaum wrote a piece in the Spectator saying that Brits would have collaborated with the Nazis, which I think was probably based on the evidence of the collaboration of the island authorities with the Nazis. This comes from the Speccie, which is the arch-Tory magazine.

And Josh tweeted a clip from Question Time, in which a Jewish lady stood up and attacked the Tories and the Conservative media for using anti-Semitism to smear and demonise Corbyn and the Labour party. The lady states that she and all her family are Jewish, and they’re not scared of leaving the house because of anti-Semitism. The Tories and the press take quotes of context to vilify Corbyn. But only 7 per cent of the time do they discuss his policies. 80 per cent of the time, she says, they’re just attacking his character, because his policies are right.

See: https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2019/11/08/never-mind-the-newspapers-bercow-buries-claims-of-anti-semitism-against-corbyn/

Clearly, not all Jews buy this rubbish about Corbyn being an anti-Semite by a long chalk. Ken Livingstone, who has now resigned from the party because of the smears and suspensions, said in an interview with George Galloway that he had Jewish people walk up to him in the street and tell him that they know he’s not anti-Semitic.

Perhaps that explains the desperation of the Tories to keep repeating the claim. Because now more and more people don’t believe it!

David Rosenberg’s Refutation of Latest Corbyn Anti-Semitism Smears

As I said a few days ago, the Tories must be desperate. They and their allies in the press have fallen back to the old smears of anti-Semitism against Jeremy Corbyn. A Reform Rabbi, Jonathan Romain, wrote an article in last Friday’s Times warning its readers not to vote for Labour, because he was afraid of the terrible consequences of a Corbyn-led government for Britain’s Jews. And Stephen Pollard, the non-Jewish, goysplaining editor of the Jewish Chronicle, has written an article aimed squarely at gentile Brits, urging us not to vote for Corbyn because ditto.

David Rosenberg of the Jewish Socialist Group has written another excellent reply to the latest round of smears. Rosenberg himself has been the subject of smear attacks and protests by ultra-rightwing Zionists. A few days ago Jonathan Hoffman, a former leader of the Zionist Federation, was doing his usual schtick of marching around screaming about anti-Semitism in protest at a talk Mr Rosenberg was given to the East London Humanists. Whom he also accused of anti-Semitism, because they’re militant atheists and are anti-Judaism. Well yes, they are. They are also anti-Christianity, anti-Islam, anti-Hinduism, and anti-religion generally. That does not mean that they stand for the persecution of Jews, or Christians, Muslims, Hindus or anyone else. As for Rosenberg being an anti-Semite himself, his piece, ‘Who’s Afraid of Jeremy Corbyn’, begins with him describing a journey he made as part of a group of sixty people on a four day educational visit to Poland. It was organised by Unite Against Racism and many of the people on it were trade unionists and members of the Labour party. They also ranged from sixth former to older people, including Holocaust survivors, some of whose terrible experiences he briefly describes. Rosenberg was a speaker at the event, but before he did, they were treated to a message by Jeremy Corbyn. It was not electioneering, but a private message, meant for the travelers alone. Rosenberg writes

But just before I spoke, we watched a video message that had been filmed in one of the busiest weeks of Jeremy Corbyn’s year. The election had only just been called but he found time to record a message to wish our group well on our visit. This was not electioneering. This was not a social media post to be broadcast by Labour’s Press Team for sharing far and wide. It was simply a private, personal, heartfelt message to our group, from someone who has spent their life confronting racism and fascism and posing an alternative to hatred.

“Your visit to Auschwitz,” Corbyn told us, “will be a poignant experience. I have been there myself.” He described antisemitism as an “evil cult that has to be destroyed in all forms.” He recalled a visit he made, in summer this year, “to a small Jewish museum in Romania next to a railway line, where hundreds of thousands of Jews were rounded up in 1944 and deported to their deaths.” He closed by calling on us to “unite as people to say we will not tolerate racism in any form in our society, be it antisemitism, be it Islamophobia, be it homophobia or any other kind of discrimination.”

Rosenberg goes on to criticise Romain’s article, which was part of the media’s general evidence-free argument against the Labour party. He also discusses how the Tories have been responsible for deliberately racist policies such as the Hostile Environment policy, and are now led by Boris Johnson and his vile remarks about ‘grinning picaninnies’ and women in hijabs. He also reminds voters thinking of switching from Labour to the Fib Dems because of the smears of racism just how racist the Lib Dems themselves are. They not only supported Tory austerity policies, which disproportionately affect ethnic minorities, they also supported the Hostile Environment. And they did some extremely racist campaigning themselves in Tower Hamlets. He writes

Some of us with longer memories might recall the role of the Liberal Democrats in Tower Hamlets in the early 1990s where Lib Dem leaflets linked the presence of Black and Asian people with the housing shortages, giving further credibility to the overtly racist BNP who were polling well. Other leaflets distributed by the Lib Dems accused Labour of diverting funds towards the area’s Asian communities. In the end the BNP won that seat, and the Lib Dems locally were widely seen as playing a despicable and racist role.

He also attacks the Torygraph article which quotes Conservative chairman James Cleverly that British Jews are preparing to flee Britain if Corbyn gets in. He notes that three years into Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour party, fewer Jews than ever are actually leaving for Israel. But he also notes the anti-Semitic undertones of the Torygraph and Jewish Chronicle’s article. Both stereotype Jews as rich capitalists. He writes

But the more serious point contained in this suggestion is the not-so-subtle antisemtism of both the Telegraph and Cleverly.

In essence they argue that a Corbyn government will launch a vengeful attack on wealth. Those most committed to private enterprise fear being squeezed by a radical Labour government, and the suggestion seems to be that the Jewish community, often stereotyped as an overwhelmingly rich, business-orientated community, will especially feel that pinch. It is an argument that has been rehearsed by the very right wing Jewish Chronicle editor, Stephen Pollard, who gave space in December 2018 for an appalling article in his paper by Alex Brummer with a headline you might have expected to see in a fascist journal: “The thought of Jeremy Corbyn as PM has Jewish investors running for the hills”.

Three months earlier, Pollard himself, had attacked a tweet by Jeremy Corbyn in which Corbyn said that the people who caused the financial crash of 2008 “call me a threat. They’re right. Labour is a threat to a damaging and failed system rigged for the few.” Pollard tweeted: “This is ‘nudge, nudge, you know who I’m talking about don’t you? And yes I do. It’s appalling” In response I tweeted: “Stephen Pollard and Jeremy Corbyn. One of them seems to think all bankers are Jews. Clue: it is not Jeremy Corbyn.”

But when I read this drivel, stereotyping the Jewish community as capitalists, I think of the many Jews I know well who work in the health service and caring professions who will be boosted by the prospect of a Labour government that is committed to funding their sectors rather than selling them off. I think of the struggling Jewish single parents and pensioners I know, and unemployed Jews, who have every reason to welcome a Corbyn-led government that would boost welfare payments rather than cut them, and would undertake other serious anti-poverty measures. I think of Jews I know who are users of mental health services, whose provision has been cut to the bone by the Tories. I think of elderly Jewish acquaintances living in the East End for whom repairs to their council housing and a well resourced health service are very high on their agendas. These people need a Labour government to be returned on December 12^th as much as as their non-Jewish counterparts.

Absolutely. I’ve met Jews, who’ve despised the Tories for what they’ve done to the Health Service because they’ve, or their parents, have worked in it.

He also gives more news that you won’t find in the lamestream media. Apparently here are two new initiatives by British Jewish young people to tackle the Tories. One is Vashti Media, which states that it is a ‘microphone for the Jewish Left’, and another is ‘Jews Against Boris’.

He also discusses a talk the group were given by a Polish socialist and anti-fascist, who talked about the current political situation in his country and the mobilisation of anti-Fascists to combat the recent nationalist marches through Warsaw. His article concludes by commenting on the way the Fascist and Nationalist right in Poland and eastern Europe are being supported by right-wing forces across the continent, including Britain’s Tories.

As we sat in a cab driving to the airport on Monday, we passed a wall graffitied with a crossed out Star of David in a circle. The populist right and far right in Poland, and other countries central and eastern Europe, have been drawing support from right wingers in Western Europe including Britain’s Tory Party. Those elements in Britain that are leading the false charge against Jeremy Corbyn, as if he were some sort of threat to Jews in Britain, need to stop playing dangerous factional political games and face up to where the threats are really coming from.

https://rebellion602.wordpress.com/2019/11/06/whos-afraid-of-jeremy-corbyn/

As Rosenberg and other, genuine anti-Fascist activists both Jewish and gentile have made clear, Jeremy Corbyn is not an anti-Semite. Since he’s been leader of the Labour party, the level of anti-Semitism has been at the lowest its ever been for years. Anti-Semitism, like racism generally, is always strongest on the right. And that means the very same Tories, who are trying to smear Corbyn as a Jew-hater.

 

Polish Right-Wing Paper’s Anti-Gay Stickers

Last Saturday’s edition of the I also carried a story reporting that a Polish paper was planning to print stickers attacking gay rights. The article, ‘Paper prints anti-LGBT stickers’, by Samuel Osborne, on page 31, ran

A Polish newspaper plans to hand out “LGBT-free zone” stickers in its next issue. Gazeta Polska tweeted a preview of the stickers, which show a rainbow flag with a black cross over it.

The weekly publication, which has a circulation of about 11,000, openly supports the conservative governing Law and Justice Party (PiS). The stickers are due to be distributed on Wednesday with next week’s issue.

Georgette Mosbacher, the US ambassador to Poland, criticised the move.

She tweeted: “I am disappointed and concerned that some groups use stickers to promote hatred and intolerance.

“We respect freedom of speech, but we must stand together on the side of values such as diversity and tolerance.”

Earlier this year, another right-wing newspaper in Poland published an article on its front page on “how to recognise a Jew.”

This is chilling stuff, showing how quickly the Law and Justice Party, and similar governments in the rest of eastern Europe, are quickly dragging their nations into very real Fascism and anti-Semitism. This is the same government, remember, which against the express wishes of the mayor of Warsaw, allowed far right, Fascist organisations to march alongside ordinary, patriotic Poles on their national holiday celebrating Poland’s liberation from German, Austrian and Russian imperialism. The Law and Justice Party is strongly anti-gay, nationalistic and with a strong current of anti-Semitism. There was an international outcry a few years ago when they introduced a law criminalising the mention or discussion of Polish collaboration in the Holocaust. I gather, however, from a Polish commenter to this blog that the law doesn’t, however, prevent all discussion of Polish collaboration in this most horrendous of war crimes.

However, as with Viktor Orban’s similarly intolerant and Fascistic Fidesz government in Hungary, there’s been precious little denunciation of the Polish government’s increasing turn to Fascism from the official Jewish bodies in this country, like the Board of Deputies, or papers like the Jewish Chronicle. Why? Poland, Hungary and other eastern European countries are purchasing arms from the Israelis. And so readers of the Groaniad a few years ago were treated to a nauseating piece by Stephen Pollard, the Jewish Chronicle’s non-Jewish editor, informing them that Poland’s government wasn’t anti-Semitic. They were ‘good friends of Israel’.

Yes, they are ‘good friends of Israel’. And that’s a major cause of offence to many Israelis. Jewish bloggers and commenters like Tony Greenstein and David Rosenberg over here have reblogged stories from Israeli papers about Israeli human rights activists, who are outraged by the way any number of very real Fascists from right across the globe have been welcomed by the Israeli state. All they have had to do is pay an official visit to the Holocaust monument at Yad Vashem, and their own mass murders, assassinations, torture and mass imprisonments are discreetly overlooked.

Let’s also make it very clear that while anti-Semitism and racism is rising in eastern Europe, just as it is over here, not all Poles or eastern Europeans are racists or sympathetic to the far right. Way back in April, David Rosenberg put up an article describing a ceremony the previous day held at the Ghetto Fighters’ monument in Warsaw, celebrating the heroic uprising against the Nazis during World War II. The folks assembled for the event flew the red flags of the Jewish Bund, the Jewish socialist group, along with one for the International Brigade from the Spanish Civil War. This celebrated the Poles who left their country, to fight against Franco and the Fascists. One side of this flag was in Yiddish, commemorating the Jews, who fought in the Naftali Botwin company in the Dombrowski battalion. There was also a choir from one of the Warsaw schools, which has a multicultural curriculum. These were mostly, if not almost all non-Jewish, but they proudly sang the Yiddish songs of the Jewish resistance, like “We will Outlive Them!’

https://rebellion602.wordpress.com/2019/04/20/hope-for-a-different-future-on-warsaws-streets/

There were Poles, who courageously defied the Nazis and aided and rescued Jews, and are commemorated with their own memorial in Poland. And the Polish nation itself, along with the other Slav peoples, suffered their own horrific persecution under the Nazis. Hitler considered the Slavs, like the Jews and Gypsies, to be subhuman. An area of land extending deep into Ukraine was to be cleared of its traditional inhabitants and colonised by Germans. If the Nazis had won, the Slavs would have been reduced to an agricultural peasantry, whose only function was to provide food for their Nazi masters. Non-Jewish Poles were massacred, pressed into force labour, and had their villages destroyed. And Hitler had worse planned. He said that the war against the Poles would be a war of extermination.

But the re-emergence of real, vicious racism and intolerance in eastern Europe, which extends not just to gays and Jews, but also to Muslims and other non-Whites, is being ignored by the British Jewish establishment and the Israeli state. David Rosenberg has blogged about his concern for these nations’ Jewish minorities, as have other Jewish commenters, including senior academics. But the very real threat these communities face is ignored, because the Israeli state and the British Jewish establishment that supports it, is more determined to destroy genuinely anti-racist critics of Israel through false charges of anti-Semitism.

Which shows just how hypocritical organisations like Jewish Chronicle, the Board of Deputies and the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism really are.