Sargon of Gasbag Smears Black Lives Matter as Anti-Semitic

Despite their recent popularity and the wave of sympathetic protests and demonstrations that have erupted all over the world in the past few weeks, Black Lives Matter is a very controversial organisation. They’re Marxists, who wish not only to get rid of capitalism, but also the police, the patriarchy and other structures that oppress Black people. They support trans rights, and, so I’ve heard, wish to get rid of the family. I doubt many people outside the extreme right would defend racism, but I’m not sure how many are aware of, let alone support, their extreme radical views.

A number of Black American Conservatives have posted pieces on YouTube criticising them. One, Young Rippa, objects to them because he has never experienced racism personally and has White friends. He’s angry because they’re telling him he is less than equal in his own country. It’s an interesting point of view, and while he’s fortunate in not experiencing racism himself, many other Black Americans have. Others have objected to the organisation on meritocratic grounds. Mr H Reviews, for example, who posts on YouTube about SF and Fantasy film, television, games and comics, is a believer in meritocracy and so objects to their demands for affirmative action. For him, if you are an employer, you should always hire the best. And if the best writers and directors are all Black, or women, or gay, their colour, gender and sexuality should make no difference. You should employ them. What you shouldn’t do in his opinion is employ people purely because they’re BAME, female or gay. That’s another form of racism, sexism and discrimination. It’s why, in his view and that of other YouTubers, Marvel and DC comics, and now Star Wars and Star Trek have declined in quality in recent years. They’re more interested in forced diversity than creating good, entertaining stories.

Now Carl Benjamin aka Sargon of Akkad, the man who broke UKIP, has also decided to weigh in on Black Lives Matter. Sargon’s a man of the far right, though I don’t think he is personally racist. Yesterday he put up a piece on YouTube asking if the tide was turning against Black Lives Matter ‘at least in the UK’. He begins the video with a discussion of Keir Starmer calling BLM a moment, rather than a movement, although he later apologised for this and retracted the description. Starmer also rejected their demand to defund the police. Benjamin went on to criticise a Wolverhampton Labour group, who tweeted their opposition to Starmer’s comment about BLM and supported defunding. Sargon also criticised the football players, who had taken the knee to show their support, and also Gary Lineker, who had tweeted his support for BLM but then apologized and made a partial retraction when it was explained to him what the organisation fully stood for. But much of Sargon’s video is devoted to attacking them because they’re anti-Semitic. Who says so? Why, it’s our old friends, the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism. Who are once again lying as usual.

Tony Greenstein put up a piece about a week or so ago on his blog discussing how the Zionist organisations hate BLM and have tied themselves in knots trying to attack the organisation while not alienating the Black community. Black Lives Matter support the Palestinians, and according to all too many Zionist groups, including the British Jewish establishment – the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Chief Rabbinate, Jewish Leadership Council and the Jewish Chronicle and other papers, anyone who makes anything except the mildest, most toothless criticism of Israel is an anti-Semitic monster straight out of the Third Reich. This also includes Jews. Especially Jews, as the Israel lobby is doing its damnedest to make Israel synonymous with Jewishness, despite the fact that’s also anti-Semitic under the I.H.R.A. definition of anti-Semitism they are so keen to foist on everybody. As a result, Jewish critics in particular suffer insults, smears, threats and personal assault.

Yesterday BLM issued a statement condemning the planned annexation of one third of Palestinian territory by Netanyahu’s Israeli government. This resulted in the usual accusation of anti-Semitism by the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism. The deliberately misnamed Campaign then hypocritically pontificated about how anti-Semitism, a form of racism, was incompatible with any genuine struggle against racism. Which is true, and a good reason why the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism should shut up and dissolve itself.

Israel is an apartheid state in which the Palestinians are foreigners, even though in law they are supposed to have equality. In the 72 years of its existence, Israel has been steadily forcing them out, beginning with the massacres of the Nakba at the very foundation of Israel as an independent state. The Israel lobby has been trying to silence criticism of its barbarous maltreatment of them by accusing those voicing it of anti-Semitism. The Campaign Against Anti-Semitism is a case in point. It was founded to counter the rising opposition to Israel amongst the British public following the blockade of Gaza. And Tony Greenstein has argued that Zionism is itself anti-Semitic. Theodor Herzl believed that Jews needed their own state because there would always be gentile hostility to Jews. He even at one point wrote that he had ‘forgiven’ it. It’s a surrender to anti-Semitism not an opponent, although obviously you would never hear that argument from the Israel lobby.

Sargon thus follows the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism in accusing BLM of being anti-Semitic. He puts up on his video a screen shot of the CAA’s twitter reply to BLM’s condemnation of the invasion of Palestine. But there’s a piece on BLM’s tweet that he either hasn’t seen or is deliberately ignoring.

Black Lives Matter issued their condemnation as a series of linked tweets. And the second begins by noting that over 40 Jewish organisations have objected to Netanyahu’s deliberate conflation of Israel with Jews.

That tweet can clearly be seen beneath the first and the CAA’s reply as Sargon waffles on about anti-Semitism.

It says

‘More than 40 Jewish groups around the world in 2018 opposed “cynical and false accusations that dangerously conflate anti-Jewish racism with opposition to Israel’s policies of occupation and apartheid.”‘

This section of their condemnation should demonstrate that BLM aren’t anti-Semites. They made the distinction, as demanded by the I.H.R.A.’s own definition of anti-Semitism, between Jews and the state of Israel. If Black Lives Matter was genuinely anti-Semitic, not only would they not make that distinction, I doubt that they would bother mentioning that Jewish organisations also condemned it.  It is also ironic that it’s up when the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism and Sargon are doing precisely what these 40 Jewish organisations condemned.

Black Lives Matter as an organisation is controversial, and I don’t believe it or any other movement or ideology should be immune or exempt from reasonable criticism. But I don’t believe they can fairly be accused of anti-Semitism.

As for Sargon, the fact that he drones on accusing them of it while just behind him is the statement clearly showing that they aren’t tells you all you need to know about the level of his knowledge and the value of his views in this matter. But you probably guessed that already from his illustrious career destroying every organisation he’s ever joined.

I’m not going to put up Sargon’s video here, nor link to it. But if you want to see for yourself, it’s on his channel on YouTube, Akkad Daily, with the title Is The Tide Turning Against Black Lives Matter. The tweet quoting the Jewish groups denouncing the deliberate conflation of Israel and Jews to accuse critics of Israel of anti-Semitism can be seen at the bottom of the twitter stream at 5.26.

 

 

Rioting and Looting Hurts Black People and their Businesses

It shouldn’t need to be said that rioting and looting hurts people, regardless of their colour. But the point that it also harms Blacks as well as Whites seems to have been lost on some people over the other side of the Pond. So far in Britain the Black Lives Matter protests seem to have been largely peaceful with the exception of those at the weekend at Downing Street, where there seem to have been attacks on the police. I say ‘seem’, because although the footage of the attacks look convincing, like many other people I remember the way the Beeb reversed the footage of the attack on the miners by the police at Orgreave colliery during the miner’s strike in order to make it look like the miners were attacking them. The reality was that it was the other way round. I hope this hasn’t happened this time, but the Beeb is so riddled with Tory bias and the blatant falsification of the news that you can’t be sure.

In America it’s been rather different. Some of the protests over there have descended into riots and people’s businesses have been trashed and looted. And they have included those belonging to Black people. ‘Young Rippa’ is a Black American Conservative, who has a channel on YouTube. The other day he put up a long video of about 20 minutes fiercely attacking the looting and rioting. His piece included a short video posted by a middle-aged Black lady. She was part-owner of a small business, working alongside seven other people. As he points out, that’s not unusual for small businesses. It had been broken into and trashed. She was there standing in some of the broken glass and other wreckage with what looked like her employees and co-workers. She angrily asked the viewer the rhetorical question ‘Do you think that’s got anything to do with Black Lives Matter?’ It’s a good question. It doesn’t seem to have absolutely anything to do with saving Black lives, or protesting poverty and despair to me. It looks far more like opportunistic criminals helping themselves at the expense of the law-abiding.

But weirdly some people have got it into their head that looters are some kind of anti-racist heroes. ‘Mr H Reviews’ is another YouTube channel, which reviews SF, Fantasy and Horror films and television shows. Again, it seems to come from a broadly conservative perspective, but that doesn’t disqualify it from being worth watching. Nearly a week ago, on June 3rd, ‘Mr H’ put up a piece about the X-Men actor Evan Peters being accused of racism and forced to make an apology after he had a tweeted his approval of a piece of footage of the LA police arresting a suspected looter. This was another case of the ‘cancel culture’ in which extreme left-wing activists to try to stop their opponents being heard. I am very much aware that same cancel culture exists on the right, and that Conservative activists and media monitoring groups are also doing their level best to make sure that only Conservative voices are heard. But on this occasion, assuming that the situation was as Mr H describes, he’s right to attack it.

Rioters and looters don’t help Black people, and it is not racist to condemn them.

I was talking to a Black friend a few years ago, whose business was also trashed during riots. He had had a small business near the centre of Bristol. But it had been hit and looted during the 2012 riots. As a result, he packed up and moved out. Now those riots weren’t about race, but the effect was the same: a Black entrepreneur trying to better himself had his livelihood trashed and destroyed. I don’t know if he employed anyone, but small businesses obviously help the economy and wider community. When they make a profit, it allows them to employ other people and purchase others’ goods and services. Moreover, the small grocers, butchers, fishmongers, greengrocers and so on are actually better for the community than the big supermarkets. They’re less efficient, but employ more people. Which means that those people have work, money, and so are able to buy others’ goods and services. And so everyone in the community benefits from small, local businesses.

The Black Lives Matter protests are all about improving Black people’s lives. It’s not just about police violence, but also about the racism that are holding Black people back and achieving equality.

But they can’t do this if criminals smash and destroy their businesses and livelihoods.

Let’s support peaceful protest, and condemn any violence and looting, regardless of the colour of those doing it.

Here are the two videos I mentioned. I haven’t watched Young Rippa’s all the way through as it’s long and a bit repetitive, and so can’t comment on all of it. I don’t share his political Conservatism, but absolutely support his condemnation of those just trying to stop ordinary Black people making a decent living for themselves and their families.