In your article about the local elections in Hertsmere (5 May) you again ‘alleged’ that Jeremy Newmark ‘deceived’ the Jewish Leadership Council ‘out of tens of thousands of pounds’. (Note the use of the word ‘alleged’ to avoid a defamation charge). In March 2019 the JLC published parts of the accountant’s report (the ‘Crowe’ Report) it commissioned into a whistleblower’s allegations. The report is no longer on the JLC website but I blogged about it.
Mr Newmark was not able to respond to the allegations because he was gagged (his published statement is also no longer on the JLC website). The JLC refused to publish his 46 section response – even redacted – because of concerns about defamation and information which might have identified the whistleblower.
There is nothing in the Crowe Report that suggests that Mr Newmark ‘deceived the organisation out of tens of thousands of pounds’. What there is, is a note that there was a lack of documentation of expenditures in 2012-13 – hardly unusual in a startup organisation. The JLC trustees were said to be ‘satisfied’ that consultancy fees to Mr Newmark of £266,189 ‘were eligible expenditure’.
Using the word ‘alleged’ may protect the JC from litigation but it does not absolve you from the moral responsibility to apologise to Mr Newmark for a grossly unfair – indeed defamatory – article.
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Barrister and defender of Ken Livingstone(and here) David Wolchover casts doubt over the legality of the extra-judicial killings of the terrorists who murdered three members of the Dee family and draws a parallel with Bibi Netanyahu’s aim of judicial reform. He calls this…
a vexatious plan to stem judicial intervention in government policy.
An academic lawyer (post ‘friends only’) has supported Wolchover ….
In states which place a high value on an independent judiciary, and in which the law is above the executive, you can usually be sure that things such as extrajudicial executions do not happen.
Just because killings are extra-judicial – and therefore outside the influence of lawyers – doesn’t make them wrong!As Alan Dershowitz has argued, the key is ‘proportionality’ (which also applies to the use of force in War). All deaths in conflict are extra-judicial! The alternatives to targeted killing are either to allow terrorists free rein in targeting civilians or to engage in less focussed military actions that are likely to cause more casualties. Targeted assassination is often be the least bad alternative in an inevitable choice of evils. Moreover every extra-judicial killing by the IDF has been examined ex-ante by lawyers.
Turning to the academic lawyer’s sweeping generalisation, one only has to look at the evidence – as opposed to the vacuous theory – to know that it is nonsense. Osama Bin Laden was killed by the US in an extra-judicial assassination. Does the US not ‘place a high value on an independent judiciary’?
How about Wolchover’s sneery assessment of Israel’s judicial reform as a ‘vexatious plan’?
The fact is that under Chief Justice Aharon Barak Israel’s Supreme Court took unto itself a range of powers that no other Supreme Court possesses. It can even veto the democratic result of an election. One just has to look at the list of Supreme Court decisions to realise they are not in the national interest. For example in 2022 it forced the Education Ministry to award the Israel Prize to a BDS supporter. And of course we do not know how many sensible laws have failed to be passed, for fear they would be struck down by Judges.
And although the main purpose of the judicial reform is to stop unelected judges striking out laws made by elected politicians, Wolchover ignores (or is ignorant of) the fact the reform actually strengthens the position of the Supreme Court in some respects (see ‘Tiptoeing into Israel’s Judicial Minefield’ by Melanie Phillips).
One only has to look at judicial appointments in Israel to see that there is a problem.The composition of the selection committee for Supreme Court judges is profoundly undemocratic. The committee has nine members: the Justice Minister, a Cabinet Minister, two Knesset members (usually one from the coalition and one from the opposition), three Supreme Court Judges and two members of the Bar Association. A centre-left government has a certain majority to select any judges they want. Because the three Supreme Court judges always vote as a block for their friends who support their ‘progressive’, activist judicial philosophy; the two Bar members vote with the Supreme Court judges, since they have an eye to promotions in the Court system. That’s already 5 votes out of 9. Then a centre-left coalition has three more votes: the Justice Minister, an additional Cabinet Minister and an additional Knesset Member from the coalition. That makes 8 votes out of 9for any judicial appointments they want. They never have to negotiate with the right-wing opposition: There is no need.
However a centre right government only has three votes out of nine for their appointments: the Justice Minister, the Cabinet Minister and a member of the coalition in the Knesset. The other six votes are with the left – so there is always a need to negotiate. So centre right governments are never able to select all the judges that they want – even when they form the government, they must negotiate and compromise with the political left that has a built-in majority in the committee.
The judicial reform simply seeks to put an end to the left’s permanent control of the selection committee. Coalitions on either side will be able to nominate the Judges they want.
Just who is the ‘vexatious’ one here?
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Ha’aretz columnist Mika Almog (she’s also Shimon Peres’ granddaughter) has made a video opposing the proposed judicial reform in Israel. Complete with scary music it is directed at the US Jewish Community. It is full of hyperbole and lies, even suggesting that if the reform succeeds, the children and grandchildren of US Jews will not be recognised as Jewish.
Another scare tactic is to suggest that the reform will have the consequence of increasing antisemitism in the Diaspora (What has Mika Almog ever done to combat antisemitism in the Diaspora? Answers on a postcard please….) .
Almog’s script even includes unmistakeable Nazi comparisons (“We saw what happened in Poland”). Four times Almog exclaims “The ground is burning beneath our feet” suggesting absurdly that the government is a bunch of arsonists.
How telling that the opponents of judicial reform have to resort to conspiracy theory-type lies and Nazi analogies! US Jews are highly educated. They are not idiots. They will realise that such tactics are a shameless attempt to hide the weakness of the case against judicial reform.
This is an attempt by extreme religious nationalists to gut Israeli democracy by attacking its gatekeepers
Dictatorship
Gender segregation, send women to sit at the back of the bus, strip rights for minorities
Ultra-Orthodox Rabbis will adjudicate marriage, adoption, divorce, immigration, education. They will determine who is a Jew. And they will not recognise your children and grandchildren as Jewish.
(On the new National Guard) Their sole purpose is to intimidate us.
In the middle of the month of Ramadan … — Why on earth is this relevant?
The comments about Bibi’s trial are absurd. The trial is collapsing.
Dictatorship
Emotional blackmail about antisemitism in the Diapora increasing – Has this woman EVER done anything to combat antisemitism??
We saw what happened in Poland
Coup
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Having reviewed ‘Jews Don’t Count’ I thought I’d look at Baddiel’s latest.
For a Jewish reader, there are several howlers from this obviously well-read author who attended an Orthodox Jewish primary school:
Page 4: ‘Christianity got it right by believing in the afterlife’ – One, how can a self-confessed atheist side with Christianity in believing in an afterlife? Two, where is the discussion of Jewish belief of ‘The World To Come? Nowhere!
Page 11: ‘At heart though G-d is about death’ – Absolutely not, in Judaism.
Page 72: ‘To be a Jew, even a practising one, you don’t need to have much of a sense of G-d.. What you need to have is a sense of ritual.” – How long is it since Mr Baddiel was in a synagogue?
Page 83: ‘Religion has always been down on physical pleasure’-Certainly not true of Judaism!
Fortunately it’s short … 112 pages saying what could have been said in one sentence:
‘I’d love to believe G-d exists but I can’t…’
I was left wondering why anyone should be interested in such an unremarkable thought…..
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Postscript:
Rabbi Chapper (JC 28/4) says it far more eloquently:
The 10pm News on BBC One TV on 15 April had a piece about the celebration of Orthodox Christian Easter in Jerusalem. (And here on BBC News website). Much of it – by Yolande Knell – concerned the alleged persecution of Christians in Jerusalem by Jews. Central to her allegation was the restriction imposed by Israeli Police on the number of Christian worshippers allowed into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to celebrate Orthodox Easter.
Knell also suggested that attacks by extremist Jews were causing Christians to leave Jerusalem. Let’s look at the facts. Christians are thriving in Israel, the only country in the Middle East where they are free to worship and the only one where their numbers are growing. 84% of them are happy with their lives in Israel.
Of course Christians in Judea and Samaria – controlled by the Palestinian Authority – are not so happy and their numbers have shrunk sharply. But you won’t hear about this from the BBC –or indeed from most Christian leaders – like the Archbishop of Canterbury. Guess they’re scared of being called ‘Islamophobic’….
An utterly disgraceful misrepresentation of the facts. But hey it’s the BBC and hey …it’s Israel ….
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Gary Mond has resigned as a JNF UK trustee after 12 years. Nothing in the least ‘sinister’ about his resignation which was due to the time commitment of running a successful business combined with the Chairmanship of the National Jewish Assembly, which he set up.
Nothing in the least sinister … unless you’re the despicable Jewish News whose leftist propagandist Lee Harpin thought fit to quote Hamas in his report of the murder of the Dee sisters and called their murderers ‘militants’ rather than ‘terrorists’, BBC-style.
Here’s the way the Jewish News (anonymously –why?) reported Mond’s resignation. Note how they frame it in a smear: He ‘denied he was asked to go as the Charity Commission continues its probe into JNF UK’.
This smear is their entrée to regurgitating the insignificant social media which the obsessive leftist neophyte archaeologists at the Board of Deputies found in January of last year (Jewish News claimed the credit but of course it was passed to them by Webber, Schonfield, Spence et al).
The smear of Mond is completed with the mention that the Charity Commission is ‘investigating’ JNF UK. Anyone who knows anything about the Charity Commission knows that when it receives a complaint about a Charity it is duty-bound to ‘investigate’ — and it has received hundreds of complaints about the JNF from the Israel Haters. JNF UK has been unscathed by years of these complaints and it will continue unscathed.
This despicable smear of Mond will only serve to intensify calls to boycott Jewish News.
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The phrase ‘Community business chiefs’ implies that the three people he mentions (Jonathan Goldstein, Ian Rosenblatt, Gary Lubner) have some kind of democratic legitimacy – that they ‘represent’ the UK JewishCommunity. This is entirely false.
In the Bloomberg piece which is Harpin’s source Goldstein did NOT express support for Labour. He said “The backers of the party who were strong backers of the Blair and Brown governments are coming back under the new environment.“ Is it seriously news that with Labour way ahead in the polls, corporate donations have recovered slightly, from close to zero under Corbyn??
After all it’s prudent corporate practice to woo ALL parties which might form the next government. Parliament’s Register of Members’ Financial Interests shows that as well as Keir Starmer, Goldstein also donated Chelsea tickets to the Conservative Nadhim Zahawi. Of course Labour publicist Harpin doesn’t tell you that!
Spot the Jewish donor: Harpin’s trawl through the Register mysteriously failed to catch these donors to Conservatives: Sir Mick Davis, David Esfandi, Eleanor Wolfson. They have as much right to be labelled ‘Community’s business chiefs‘ as Goldstein, Rosenblatt and Lubner!
Labour remains toxic on Israel (and here) (and here) and Corbyn is still a member. Starmer endorsed Corbyn and was willing to serve in his shadow Cabinet. No amount of Harpin-authored propaganda in the Jewish News can change the record!
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On 20 October 2020 a group,of anti-Israel thugs attacked the building in Kingsway, London WC2 where an Israeli defence company – Elbit – had an office. They drenched the building in red paint and also drenched pro-Israel counter-demonstraters, one of whom was me:
The following suspects were charged with ‘conspiracy to cause criminal damage’:
The trial ended a few days ago. Unbelievably the Jury at Southwark Crown Court acquitted them.
The accused said that they “did not intend to get the paint on either police or protesters”. A flat lie. The paint was thrown straight at me. I gave a Witness Statement to this effect. Why was it ignored?
There is no justice for Israelis, Israeli organisations or Israeli arts companies in the UK (Why do you think that major arts groups like Batsheva and the Israel Philharmonic don’t come any more …..?)
Just look at the recent record:
OFCOM/BBC: Failure to censure BBC for defending its journalist who lied about what happened on a bus with young Israeli passegers at Chanuka last year; failure to call out the journalist’s lie;
Police: Failure to catch the antisemitic thugs who harassed the passengers;
King Charles styles himself as ‘Defender of Faiths’ – OK let’s hear him speak about this disgraceful state of affairs for Jews in the UK – Or don’t we count?
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Lee Harpin is patently unfit to work for a Jewish newspaper and it beggars belief that his Jewish News Editor Richard Ferrer has not shown him the exit. It’s no secret that the paper is losing money. Until Harpin is sacked advertisers should pull out. If the paper goes under it would be no loss – under its new Editor the JC is on a roll and the (also free) Jewish Weekly is excellent.
Harpin’s speciality is smearing non-Leftist Jews who stand up to antisemitism and advocate for Israel. And here. His cronies all appear to be on the Left – for example Naamod, Yachad and the Jewish Labour Movement. They feed him the smears, he obliges.
In an article published yesterday afternoon (20 September) about the forthcoming Al Jazeera three-part ‘Investigation’ of antisemitism in Labour during the Corbyn years, Harpin libelled me as ‘hard Right’ – the same epithet as he might use for Nick Griffin or other leaders of the BNP, for example. A robust protest to Ferrer resulted in an edit to ‘outspoken right-wing.’
‘Right-wing’ is the insult of choice that Harpin and his leftist cronies use against activists against antisemitism. Na’amod recently called David Collier ‘far Right’ after he exposed their support of a Holocaust Denier’s attempt to bring an antisemitic Neturei Karta adherent to the UK. It’s their way of heading off criticism for their own passivity in the face of antisemitism and their abject failure (at best!) to support Israel.Remember that among the wreckers of the Zionist Federation were four JLM members, all of whom are Yachad signatories.
I challenge Harpin to produce evidence that I am ‘Right-wing’– truth is, he knows Zilch about me.
To further see Harpin’s malice, consider this: Harpin chooses to hide the names of seven people ‘linked to’ JLM who submitted evidence on antisemitism to Labour and who are attacked by Al Jazeera. So why then does he name me? I too submitted and I too received Al Jazeera’s ‘right of reply’ letter. So what’s different about me from the ‘seven’, apart from my not being ‘linked’ to JLM?
The thesis of Peter Oborne’s new book is that Muslims are unfairly victimised by the authorities. He focuses on the US, France and the UK.
He doesn’t convince. He argues for example that Asian-heritage men are not disproportionately involved in ‘grooming’. Simply not true. And 18% of prisoners in the UK are Muslim, way in excess of their proportion in the population of 4%. And of course Islamists have committed a string of atrocities in the UK: for example the Manchester Arena bombing, the London Bridge attack and the Westminster attack.
Oborne describes the UK’s Prevent counter-extremism programme as ‘the backdrop against which a cold war on British Islam has been waged’. That expression comes from a 2011 paper by David Miller, Tom Mills and Tom Griffin – which Oborne cites in his reference list. Referencing a tendentious paper by Miller – dismissed from Bristol University for antisemitism – does not exactly advance his thesis …..
Inevitably there are Muslims who are wrongly implicated in the counter-extremism programme. It’s inevitable – but it doesn’t mean the programme should be discontinued!
In addition Oborne grossly distorts the Prevent statistics. On page 289 he states that in the year April 2020 to March 2021 ‘86% of referrals to Prevent were falsepositives’. His source is here.It goes without saying that you will not find the 86% figure. What you will find is that of 4915 referrals to Prevent in the year, 688 were adopted as ‘Channel’ cases (‘Channel’ is the government’s intensive deradicalisation programme, see here). So 4227 (or 86%) were not so adopted. But that does not mean these 4227 were not on the path to extremism! They could have been referred to other sources of support. In addition people who are already being investigated for terrorism-related crimes (or ‘should be’) are not eligible for Channel!
In fact several of Oborne’s statements in support of his case strain credulity. For example he states evidence-free that the Murdoch press ‘produced a relentless diatribe of fabrication, propaganda and bile aimed at Muslims’. And he argues that the US government needed an enemy ‘to fill a vacancy in the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989’ – so it chose Islam. Ridiculous.
Like the Miller/Mills/Griffin 2011 paper, Oborne implicates the think tank Policy Exchange in the alleged ‘cold war on Islam’. He devotes a 16 page chapter to this estimable organisation and in particular to its Director, Lord Godson (discourteously Oborne fails to recognise his elevation to the House of Lords even though it was announced in 2020, giving him plenty of time to edit his manuscript). Policy Exchange is said to have ‘dismantled the British approach of tolerance’ (!).
Bizarrely Oborne writes that Policy Exchange ‘urged that with Islamists the UK should abandon the strategy of engagement used during the Troubles in Northern Ireland with republicans.’ Bizarre – because he doesn’t understand what happened in Ireland. The ‘engagement’ which led to the Good Friday agreement was only possible because the IRA renounced terror. Very different from Islamists.
However what made me read this book was not its central theme of victimisation of Muslims. It was this review by Malise Ruthven in the Financial Times:
Part of the strategy by the extremist fringe, known as the “management of savagery”, is to stir up trouble in the west by encouraging Islamophobia to alienate Muslim communities, and here they have many unintentional accomplices on the right. Oborne shows this by trawling through the American media, where he exposes Islamophobic currents that are often linked to Israel, with Israelis happy to collaborate with Christian Evangelicals who regard a maximalist Israeli state occupying Arab lands as the prerequisite for the second coming of Jesus.
‘He exposes Islamophobic currentsthat are often linked to Israel….. ‘ Again echoes of that infamous Miller/Mills/Griffin 2011 paper (even though that focused on the UK rather than the US).
Let’s probe Ruthven’s statement…. The only connection in the book in the US between Zionism and hatred of Muslims is Oborne’s statement that Daniel Pipes and David Horowitz are ‘fervent Zionists’. (What is a ‘fervent Zionist’? A Zionist supports the re-establishment of Israel in the Middle East. It’s binary – either you do or you don’t. So how can one be a ‘fervent’ Zionist??). And Oborne fails to produce a single piece of evidence that either of them was ‘Islamophobic’ (that is, hating all Muslims, as opposed to just Islamists).
As for Malise Ruthven, he is yet another academic IDS (Israel Derangement Syndrome) sufferer. Read this:
The accusation that anti-semitism motivates any condemnation of Jewish or Israeli terrorism has been the stock-in-trade of Zionist leaders ever since Menahem Begin’s Irgun killers slaughtered the whole village of Deir Yassin, near Jerusalem, in 1948.
It’s none other than our old friend – the Livingstone Formulation – beloved of antisemites since time immemorial. The accusation that Jews (and NJ supporters of Israel) use the charge of antisemitism to stifle legitimate criticism of Israel. The antisemites who resort to this slander can never provide an example – for good reason – there isn’t one.
Back to Oborne. Clearly he doesn’t understand the meaning of the word ‘Zionism’. He writes (p131) that Trump ‘was committed to a Zionist policy’. What does this mean? That Trump recognised the right of Israel to exist? Of course he did!
On page 133 Oborne writes of Trump’s ‘unconditional recognition of undivided Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.’ Wrong. Congress has recognised Jerusalem as the capital since at least 1995, setting aside funding to move the Embassy. But the law allowed the President to invoke a six-month waiver, reissued every six months on national security grounds.
The organisers were well aware of Rosen’s background.And here. They had been encouraged to disinvite but stood firm. Reportedly another of the invited speakers (whose photo appears above) expressed strong reservations at the event about Rosen’s participation.
So we stood outside the venue supplying around 50 copies of a relevant informative newspaper article to invitees.
There are those who say that Corbyn was not antisemitic. …. I know Rabbis who ….
He had some some views that I would not agree with ……
There are Jewish people I respect who know him better than I do …..
Some people are so open-minded that their brains fall out!
And then, in response to me saying that the Chief Rabbi had called Corbyn an antisemite:
He’s not my Chief Rabbi
Which of course is nonsense, in secular matters ALL denominations accept the leadership of the Chief Rabbi.
Unbelievably and horrifically Lancaster appeared to have no problem that Rosen and his Corbynite followers falsely reported Dr Newbon to his employer for ‘antisemitism’ and that Northumbria University appallingly disciplined him (unbelievably the woke idiots took it to a stage 2 hearing and gave him final written warning – due to expire this month).
Mr Newbon was given a final warning in January or whenever it was. Legally there must have been over the previous six months at least two previous written warnings.
In last week’s Jewish News I had the following letter published:
I could have also mentioned how Rosen and his Corbynite supporters made spurious complaints about a Jewish academic and fighter against antisemitism, Dr Pete Newbon. Incredibly Northumbria University – where Dr Newbon was a Senior Lecturer – took the complaints seriously, in part no doubt because one came from Rosen himself. Dr Newbon tragically committed suicide early this year.
I also complained to the Anne Frank Trust, a Charity. They chose to respond with a letter to Jewish News in response to mine. It wasn’t published. Here it is:
Michael Rosen is one of Britain’s most distinguished authors and educators – a Professor of Children’s Literature and Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature whose achievements range from the much-loved children’s story ‘We’re All Going on a Bear Hunt’ to ‘The Missing’, his deeply moving account of members of his family lost during the Holocaust. It is entirely appropriate that the Anne Frank Trust UK, as an education charity working in schools, commissioned him to help mark the 75thanniversary of the publication of Anne Frank’s Diary last month – as is clear above all from the exquisite poem he produced, viewable on our website.
Tim Robertson
Chief Executive
The Anne Frank Trust UK
email to me
The choice of Rosen and the reponse to my complaint demonstrate that the Anne Frank Trust either does not understand antisemitism – as defined by IHRA – or does not take it seriously (I’ve asked if they accept IHRA).
As such their name is morally indefensible and needs to be changed.
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Addendum: They do accept IHRA. Their letter was published in Jewish News 14 July.
Here’s Alex Hearn’s article in this week’s Jewish News (21 July):
Addendum 3:More shocking revelations, from David Collier. The Trust has virtually stripped Anne Frank of her Jewish identity thus continuing Hitler’s demonic mission.
He was suspended from Labour last year but then – incredibly – reinstated.
Was this because of the importance of Muslim voters in Peterborough? (13.7% of the voters versus 4.5% nationally)?
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Addendum: Look at the Labour and ex-Labour MPs and Peers who met US Representative Ilhan Omar last week. Omar was voted Top Antisemite of 2021 by StopAntisemitism.org.
The photo shows Afzal Khan, Zarah Sultana, Kate Osamor, Bell Ribeiro-Addy, Baroness Warsi (Conservative), Naz Shah, Sarah Owen and Claudia Webbe (expelled from Labour). The Labour Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, also met her.
Professor Frances Corner, Warden of Goldsmiths, has also offered public support for Dr David Hirsh, from the Department of Sociology, who was the subject of unjustified comments made on social media earlier this year.
But on the other, not only does Goldsmiths’ Management have the bare-faced unashamed chutzpah (Yiddish word for cheek) to claim that it has adopted the IHRA Definition of Antisemitism – despite elimination of all the ‘case studies’ (they mean the examples), which makes it a meaningless platitude – but it also has adopted the sham ‘Jerusalem Definition’ of antisemitism, a bastard child cooked up by academics who want impunity when they compare Israel Jews to Nazis and declare that ‘Zionism equals racism’.
Antisemites will use it to shield themselves from accusations of antisemitism. It is in effect, a carefully crafted ‘get away with antisemitism free’ card. It needs to be rejected and shunned everywhere that it surfaces.
Shame on you, Corner, and shame on your ‘Academic Board‘ and Council. You are aiding and abetting antisemitism!
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Addendum 1
The IHRA Definition stripped of its examples is a meaningless ‘Motherhood and Apple Pie’ Platitude:
Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.
Addendum 2
Goldsmiths’ statement promises an “independent review into antisemitism”.
Who will lead it?
Faites Vos Jeux:
Tony Lerman 3-2
David Feldman 2-1
Hugh Tomlinson 5-2
Stephen Sedley 11-4
Geoffrey Bindman 11-4
Geoffrey Robertson 3-1
Brian Klug 4-1
Jeremy Corbyn 9-2
Anthony Julius 10,000-1
Addendum 3:
David Collier has pointed out to me that – appallingly – the ‘examples’ are NOT EXCLUDED by Goldsmiths from the Islamophobia definition (p56/7 ‘Islamophobia Defined’) – unlike their emasculation of the IHRA definition.
Denying Muslim populations the right to self-determination e.g., by claiming that the existence ofan independent Palestine or Kashmir is a terrorist endeavour
But denies that this is antisemitic:
Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.
The anti-Israel charity (!) Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) brainwashes left wing UK MPs with lies about Israel. Left-wing MPs are too lazy or too bigoted (or both) to find out the truth for themselves.
Three years ago I caught out Labour MP Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Muslim electorate 10.7%) who falsely claimed that a mother of triplets was forced by the permits system to return to Gaza, thus having to abandon her newborn babies and miss the tragic death of two of them.
Bambos Charalambous is the MP for for Enfield Southgate (Muslim electorate 11.1%) and the Shadow Minister for the Middle East and North Africa. He recently returned from a visit sponsored by MAP and CAABU.
Wicked Israel, separating newborn babies from their mothers! Charalambous and Allin-Khan must know! Both are MPs, one a Doctor and the other Foreign Office Minister responsible for Israel, if Labour wins the next election ….
Chris Williamson is a former Labour MP who was expelled. He recently voiced support for applying the death penalty to anyone in the UK with contact with Israel or an Israeli, including on social media (as recently voted by the Parliament of Iraq). That would include me and tens of thousands of others.
Press TV is the mouthpiece of Iran. It lost its licence to broadcast in the UK and is banned from Youtube. Williamson fronts an Israel hate series on the channel – called ‘Palestine Declassified’. His sidekick is David Miller, the former Bristol academic dismissed for antisemitism.
He regards himself as being part of the democratic left tradition though he says he has no objection to being recognised as a Jew or as a Zionist
Me neither. I’m proud of both. Why shouldn’t I be? Why shouldn’t HE be? In what way does being Jewish and Zionist violate the ‘democratic left tradition’?
It has been claimed that Zionist lobby groups – the Board of Deputies and Jewish Leadership Council – funneled £50,000 to Engage, which challenge the idea it was a grassroots campaign
Shock horror … Jewish communal organisations fund organisations fighting antisemitism .…. And Bears Shit In The Woods ….
Palestine Declassified has searched the publications of David Hirsh over the last two decades and found no conflict of interest disclosures by him referencing any money, expenses or hospitality received from the Zionist movement or directly from the regime.
Where is the ‘conflict of interest’? Why is it a ‘conflict of interest’ for a University Lecturer to fight antisemitism? And to be Jewish and Zionist? Would it be a ‘conflict of interest’ for a Muslim University Lecturer to fight Islamophobia?
Now the actual vomit-inducing programme:
The Jewish National Fund is described as ‘racist’. A lie, it supports all communities in Israel.
At 14.30 David Hirsh is called a ‘McCarthyite stool pigeon’. This phrase is straight out of the Stalinist lexicon – which speaks volumes about Williamson and Miller.In fact coming from those guys it’s a Badge Of Honour. I’m jealous.
And he’s described (14.45) as an ‘alleged academic’!! Yeah right. I guess the ‘genuine academics’ are the deranged UCU idiots who signed support for Miller.
And David Hirsh is ‘doing his best to denigrate calls for decolonisation by student groups’. This is in response to this tweet:
Let’s try to explain – in simple words for our stool pigeon friends ……….. The antisemitic Left regards Israel as a ‘colony’. This is demented because Israel was created thanks to the COLLAPSE OF A COLONY – the Ottoman Empire. In addition Israel has none of the characteristics of a colony – eg a language like French, Spanish or English that is widely spoken or a former Imperial Capital such as London, Paris, Vienna or Istanbul.
But if you are a student or an academic who wants to ‘decolonise’ the curriculum and you (wrongly) think Israel is a ‘settler colonial state’ then it’s not rocket science to see how you can slip into antisemitism – especially (IHRA definition) ‘claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor’.
David Hirsh is referred to as an “Israeli asset” suggesting he is some kind of paid puppet of the Israeli government. (Pretty ironic coming from stooges of Iran – oh sorry I am not supposed to understand irony …)
At 16.46 the UK’s counter-extremist Prevent Programme is falsely and libellously described as ‘targetting Muslim children’. Later (21.30) Williamson describes Prevent as ‘Islamophobic’ (at 22.00 Miller agrees). Horrifically a student of Hirsh went to PressTV to try to smear him .. Hirsh brought Prevent coordinator William Baldet MBE into one of his classes. Ludicrously Miller says that this presented a threat to Muslim students….
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As for ‘McCarthyite stool pigeons’.………. Who do you think fits the bill …..
1. An eminent Jewish academic who has never shied from criticising Israel?
or
2. Proven antisemites in the pay of a regime which is committed to the destruction of the world’s only Jewsh State?
?
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two Palestinians go doggingat the Royal Court is set in the year 2043 in the fictional Judea/Samaria Arab village of Beit-al-Qadir. Thanks to a transparently ludicrous fiction ………..
…… presumably so the author can include cheap shots, Benjamin Netanyahu is still the Prime Minister of Israel.
Sara Yadin a female IDF soldier is killed and a young Arab woman Salwa is killed in reprisal. The Fifth Intifada breaks out. For more detail see here and here.
After the antisemitic play ‘Seven Jewish Children’ and the ‘Hershel Fink’ antisemitic debacle in 2021 you’d think the Royal Court management would be more careful about showing an Israel Hatefest.
No chance.
After a dance to Arab music including audience members (presumably to ingratiate with them – not that the woke London soi-disants last night seemed to need it….) came ‘Bibi Says’, a game like ‘Simon Says’. It rapidly degenerated into an anti-Israel rant – example: “Bibi says, be complicit in the oppression of the Palestinian People”. The main character Reem (Salwa is her daughter; the evil Israelis had previously killed another daughter age 12 in cold blood because that’s what they do, doncha know…) tells us that Bibi “is quite obviously a cunt’ (Uproarious laughter) and “Bibi wants to cripple a nation”. Every Thursday, Reem and her husband like to go dogging in military areas (a ‘Red Zone’ appears – again ludicrous). Speaking of Israelis who also go there to ‘dog’, Reem says “Fuck them so hard they’ll know what it’s like to be occupied”.
Towards the end of the play Reem’s (Hala Omran’s) eyes are wet: Crying to order is quite a talent!
Reem’s nephew Tariq spends most of the interminable 2 hours 50 minutes of the play stuck in the barbed wire around an Israeli settlement. The supposed brutality of Israelis is underlined by the failure of anyone to come to his aid.
We meet Adam, the father of Sara the murdered IDF soldier. If you’re thinking ‘Parents’ Circle’ …. Forget It! Reem says she wants to “mash Adam’s brain to Humous”. In a deranged ahistorical rant Adam removes his shirt and is portrayed as an ultra-aggressive maniac who speaks of the inheritance of his “ great great great [he repeats the word about 200 times!] grandfather”. Of course the audience is meant to think that he’s a typical male Israeli.
From Reem we get the hackneyed invalid argument that more Palestinians have died than Israelis – she illustrates this with a bucket of 1448 pebbles for the Palestinian dead versus 6 for the Israeli dead. Yawn: The law of War allows defensive action that is proportionate to achieve the aim, it does not mandate an equal body count!
The Guardian reviewer of course salivated over the play:
This local focus on one family has echoes of Lorca, in its intractable grudge-bearing and cycles of violence. Reem tells us of the terror of the Red Zone, of Israeli troops taking sniper shots at unarmed Palestinians, of drone strikes on houses, of children being gunned down at point blank range – including her own 12-year-old girl and then a second daughter, Salwa (Sofia Danu). Directed by Omar Elerian, the production is many things at once: playful and tragic, baggy and taut, always pulling back from whimsy at the tipping point of self-indulgence. Just as we are lulled by a moment of comedy or metafictive silliness, violence comes careering around the corner.
As did the Woke Twitterati:
The truth: It’s a crude Israel Hatefest whose author has never been to Judea, Samaria or Gaza (and probably not to Israel). It incites antisemitism and – yet again – shame on the Royal Court!
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To mark 15 years of blogging and during the quieter summer break I am republishing some of my blogs which were inadvertently deleted.
Professor Richard Landes has written far more eloquently than I can about the problem of Jews whose criticism of Israel not only oversteps the mark but feeds the current wave of antisemitism that began nearly ten years ago and is still gaining momentum. At every Israel-bashing meeting, for example, it is de rigeur to have a gaggle of Neturei Karta in a prominent position in the audience. They never say anything, of course, but George Galloway (or whoever is speaking on the platform – but it often is him) always thanks the “Rabbis” for coming and uses (or abuses) them to claim that the meeting cannot be antisemitic if they are there. That’s nonsense of course, as is the use of the word ‘Rabbis’ – none of them is a “Rabbi”.
This week – deliberately timed to coincide with Holocaust Memorial Day on Wednesday – a small group of such Jewish hypercritics is teaming up with the usual suspects to parade their performing trophy Israel-hating Holocaust survivor, Hajo Meyer, the length and breadth of the UK and Ireland. He started in Scotland and the first newspaper report has come out, including a quote from me.
Like some grotesque, ungainly performing bear in the circus, Meyer is dancing willingly to his ringmaster’s tune, saying that Israel’s actions are the same as those of the Nazis, that Israel causes antisemitism and that “an anti-Semite is somebody who is hated by Jews.” He may be a competent scientist and violin-maker but (like most such ‘trophies’) his knowledge of Jewish history and of antisemitism is poor (I have ‘debated’ with him). So please go along and question him, and protest if he crosses the line into antisemitism (Nazi comparisons are antisemitic, see the EUMC definition of antisemitism). In particular ask him the following:
— How can you claim that Israel causes antisemitism when if it had been created ten years earlier, millions of Jewish lives might have been saved?
— Making comparisons of Israel’s actions with the Nazis is a form of Holocaust Denial – how do you defend being a Holocaust Denier?
— If it is Israel that causes antisemitism how do you explain the antisemitism of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, who five years before Israel was created called on Arabs and Muslims to slaughter the Jews wherever they might be?
Times, dates and venues:
Today 7pm Cinema 5, Showroom Cinema, Paternoster Row, Sheffield city centre (opposite the Railway station)
Monday 7.30pm Quaker Meeting House, 22 School Lane, Liverpool L1 3BT
Tuesday 6pm Richard Hoggart Building, Goldsmiths College, New Cross, London, SE14 6NW
Wednesday 6.30 pm (but leave 20 minutes to get through the bag check) House of Parliament, Portcullis House (Boothroyd Room) Bridge Street London SW1A 2LW
Friday 7pm The Grosvenor Hall, 5 Glengall Street, Belfast
Saturday 7pm The Central Hotel, Exchequer Street, Dublin
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Dr David Hirsh is a senior lecturer in sociology at Goldsmiths, Unversity of London. He is Jewish and an eminent authority on antisemitism. That much has been enough to ensure he has not been made a Professor. Such is the appalling state of Humanities in UK Academia.
He has been smeared as a ‘far white supremacist’, a ‘Zionist‘ and an academic with ‘explicit racist history‘ by Sara Bafo. the outgoing President of Gooldmiths Student Union.
Sara Bafo is the outging President of Goldsmiths Students Union
Incredibly Goldsmiths UCU (the trade union of the academics) is supporting those responsible for the smears. Dr Tara Povey is co-President of Goldsmiths UCU.
SMT = Senior Management at Goldsmiths
Seven ‘academics’ at Goldsmiths (including some UCU activists) signed the support letter for David Miller, the disgraced academic who was dismissed from Bristol University for antisemitism (Anastasia Stouraiti, Des Freedman, Feyzi Ismail, Marian Carty, Milly Williamson, Natalie Fenton, Susan Kelly).
Goldsmiths has failed to adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism, doubtlessly due to pressure from these and other academics.
The government has cut ties with the NUS. I doubt a Labour government would have done the same, notwithstanding Starmer’s modest progress in tackling Labour antisemitism.But it needs to go further. 20 academics are being made redundant at Goldsmiths.Let’s hope that the names include those supporting the smears of Dr Hirsh – and if not then that the numbers increase.
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Addendum: In 2021 these Goldsmiths ‘academics’ signed a petition attacking Glasgow University for apologising about an antisemitic article that was published in a peer review journal on the Glasgow University website:
Althea Greenan, Ben Seymour, Des Freedman, Gholam Khiabany, Marion Carty, Marjorie Mayo, Milly Williamson, Natalie Fenton
As David Collier commented: ‘They are not angry that the university published a paper full of errors and anti-Jewish conspiracy, but rather because the university apologised for doing so’.
Update
Goldsmiths has announced an ‘independent’ review into antisemitism in response to “reports of such behaviour”.
To mark 15 years of blogging and during the quieter summer break I am republishing some of my blogs which were inadvertently deleted.
On 4 December Bricup held a meeting at SOAS. There were around 300 there. The Chair was Tom Hickey(UCU, UCU NEC, BRICUP). Other speakers are listed here:
There were many antisemitic statements about Israel as an apartheid state.
The video of the Q+A is here. At 4:50 I ask why UCU had invited a speaker (Bongani Masuku of COSATU) who had been found guilty of hate speech by the South African Human Rights Commission. I read out the last paragraph of the HRC finding. I was shouted down but managed to ask the question. When I had finished asking the question Hickey said that no-one should answer my question – not in the lecture theatre and not on the Panel. It is all in the video on YouTube.
The rest of the meeting is on videos, click on the above link
The BBC published the following report on Friday:
Footage has emerged of a man being told he is “not welcome” after revealing his Jewish name at a School of Oriental and African Studies debate on Palestine. The film shows Jonathan Hoffman ask why Soas university allowed a man condemned as an anti-Semite by the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHR) to talk. Upon revealing his name there are boos and shouts of “Jewish!” Anti-racism campaigners called it “chilling”. A spokesman for the London university said nobody broke hate speech rules. The event, entitled The Case for Sanctions and Boycott [of the nation of Israel] was organised by the School of Oriental and African Studies’ [Soas] Palestinian Society. They invited South African trade unionist Bongani Masuku to speak. The SAHR has condemned Mr Masuku for “hate speech”, saying his comments “are of an extreme nature that imply the Jewish community are to be despised, scorned and ridiculed”. The film, posted on YouTube, shows Mr Hoffman ask: “Why does the University and College Union (UCU) invite somebody who practises hate speech?” Once boos have subsided the chairman of the debate, Tom Hickey, of the UCU, directs the speakers to “ignore” the question. Mr Hoffman has described himself as “cross” after the “anti-Semitic” meeting. The name Hoffman is of German-Jewish origin. Raheem Kassam, of student anti-racism campaigners Student Rights, said: “The overpowering racist jeering as displayed by some audience members at the event is a stark and chilling revelation of what can happen when extremism is allowed to take root in universities. “This man was first shouted down, then ignored by the event chair and panellists. “Why? From what we hear shouted when he is speaking, because he is, ‘Jewish’, and ‘not welcome here’.”
After intensive lobbying the BBC changed the story:
They dropped the reference to ‘”..shouts of “Jewish” “
I have now listened again (from 4.50). I say “I didn’t interrupt you, why do you interrupt me?” Then immediately there is indeed an audible jeer of “Jew—ish!”.
I will be taking this further. Zero Tolerance to Antisemitism.
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To mark 15 years of blogging and during the quieter summer break I am republishing some of my blogs which were inadvertently deleted.
Unfortunately Lord Phillips of Sudbury is no stranger to this blog.
He was the first speaker at last night’s PSC meeting in a Committee Room at the House of Commons. He started confidently (or seemed to…). He seemed to be anxious (maybe too anxious) to convince us at the outset that “some of his best friends…” so he told us that his first visual memory was of the Holocaust (he was born in 1939). “I do believe in the right of Israel to exist” he said. (Well thanks buddy – and France? Germany? England?). He suggested that Israel was created only because of the guilt felt by the West after the Holocaust (nonsense of course, there were many other historic and political reasons) and that ¼ to 1/3 of “Israeli Jews” “loathe what the government is doing” (nonsense, there is perhaps 90% support for government policy, that was what the polls were showing during Cast Lead).
Then he claimed that everything Israel does is illegal. “The Wall is illegal” (it isn’t) “and why has the British government never told Israel that “ (Errrrr – because it isn’t illegal……) “Europe cannot think straight about Israel because of the Holocaust and America is in the grip of the well-organised Jewish lobby” (yes, redolent of the nastiest tropes). “Lieberman is more racist than anyone on the Palestinian side”.
Phillips went on to agree with another speaker, Richard Allday of the Unite trade union, who advocated a boycott of Israeli goods and people.
Jeremy Corbyn MP also spoke. He said “When it’s in Israel’s self interest they do something” (Er, how about the humanitarian missions to Haiti and other natural disaster sites………)
Then Andrew Slaughter MP lamented the fact that the Palestinian Authority “does not have anything to give any more”. “Recognition” I suggested and for a one-word heckle nearly got thrown out by the Chair, Sarah Colbourne of the PSC, who is rather weak and clearly not used to debate. If MPs were thrown out for one-word heckles there would be none left!
Finally Kevin Ovenden, who referred to the “Zionist entity” and tried to spin the old lie about General Petraeus, suggesting he said that Israel’s actions were a threat to the lives of US soldiers in the region.
I asked Lord Phillips for support for his assertion that America is in the grip of the well-organised Jewish lobby, in view of the fact that in the USA support for Israel comes from a huge variety of people. He could give me none. I pointed out that the Hamas Charter sought the genocide of Jews — so how could he say that Liberman was more racist that any on the other side?
His answer was breathtakingly ignorant. He said that the Hamas Charter is “a load of bullsh*t”. He had been told that by a terrorist leader, so it must be true. I tried to remonstrate with this answer. Sarah Colbourne promptly threw me out. (In a House of Commons Committee Room this is the way that censorship is achieved at these kind of meetings. There are police outside the room who will enforce any eviction by a chair of a meeting, however spurious the reasons – they don’t ask questions).
The PSC is losing ground fast: Bathurst Norman was severely reprimanded by the OCJ; they failed to get a full boycott of Israeli goods and people from the TUC; it is clear that this government will be a lot tougher on Islamist extremism than the previous one; all over Europe political movements are rising in reaction to extremism (albeit movements that are not always welcome).
But animals are at their most dangerous when they are cornered…..
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The subject was the “Palestine Papers”. The speakers included Tim Llewellyn (ex-BBC), who said that Israel is a rogue state, who supports a boycott, who thinks that Resolution 242 was solely about Israeli withdrawal (it was about withdrawal in exchange for peace) and who spoke about “the ghastly stranglehold of the Israeli Lobby“; Clayton Swisher – the Al Jazeera reporter who analysed the Palestine Papers; Kathleen Christison who has been called “an Israel-hating loon” and Oliver McTernan of “Forward Thinking” who is critical of the demand that Hamas recognise Israel and denounce violence before it is allowed into negotiations.
It was chaired by LibDem Lord Andrew Phillips and fittingly the prize for the most antisemitic comment of the evening went to him. Discussing a scenario from Swisher which saw Israel under attack on all fronts and the US not coming to its assistance, Phillips commented, looking at the Panel:
The Jews aren’t lacking in intelligence. They may be deeply prejudiced but they are saying the same things as you are saying.
Well, if it quacks like an antisemite … and Phillips sure does a lot of quacking …
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To mark 15 years of blogging and during the quieter summer break I am republishing some of my blogs which were inadvertently deleted.
Baroness Tonge aka ‘Jihad Jenny’ is on record as saying:
The pro-Israeli lobby has got its grips on the western world, its financial grips. I think they’ve probably got a grip on our party.
She has been stripped of her party responsibilities in the House of Lords and it is ‘deliberate vandalism‘ on the part of Nick Clegg that she has not been thrown out of the LibDem Party.
On 16 January 2012 in the Grand Committee Room of the Houses of Parliament we were treated to another volley of Tonge-twisting drivel. We heard about the IDF “specialising in the humiliation of the Palestinians” (when I quoted to her Colonel Richard Kemp (“..the most moral army in the world“) she did an excellent goldfish impression). Then we got the antisemitic ‘how can Jews act like Nazis?’ innuendo:
What is it about these people that makes them do it? Their ancestors suffered in camps in Germany. The Palestinians had nothing to do with the Holocaust. I understand why no-one takes action against them: Holocaust Guilt. Also the strength of the israeli Lobby: criticise Israel and they tell you you’re being antisemitic. What the Israelis are doing is damaging Jews all over Europe
Mads Gilbert was another speaker. He defamed the IDF as follows:
@Jeremy Corbyn MP – You must be very proud of hosting such people in the Palace of Westminster
@Louise Ellman MP – Well done for coming to at least some of the meeting. Please report back to your colleagues on the All Party Group Against Antisemitism. On what interpretation of “free speech” is Jeremy Corbyn MP free to book rooms in the Houses of Parliament for meetings where antisemitic discourse runs free?
@Nick Clegg MP: – you are a sickening hypocrite -you call the settlements ‘deliberate vandalism’ but have done nothing to throw a woman who is genuinely guilty of racist vandalism out of your party
The following Early Day Motion had been signed by 16 MPs thus far:
That this House is shocked by the killing of Al-Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh by Israeli forces whilst reporting on raids in Jenin; extends its sincere condolences to her family and colleagues who are devastated by her death; is appalled that this widely-respected, brave and committed journalist was hit by a bullet whilst wearing a press vest, with gunfire having started without prior instruction to stop filming; notes that fellow journalist Shatha Hanaysha who was present at the time believes that the group was targeted for attack by the Israeli army; considers that this shocking incident must be in the wider context of Israeli forces systematically targeting journalists working in Palestine and the failure to properly investigate killings of media workers; notes that the International Federation of Journalists, the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate and the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians previously submitted a formal complaint to the International Criminal Court last month regarding such treatment; calls for a full independent investigation of this case, with swift action to bring those responsible for Shireen’s death to account; and joins the National Union of Journalists and the International Federation of Journalists in demanding an end to, and justice for, the wider targeting and killings of Palestinian journalists by Israeli forces.
Nine Labour MPs – plus Corbyn who remains a Party Member and Webbe who was expelled – have signed this EDM which not only blames Israel for the death of Shireen Abu Akleh but also suggests that Israel targetted her and targets other journalists.There is no evidence that she was killed by Israel and the assertion that she was – plus the repulsive conspiracy theory – is deeply antisemitic (IHRA: ‘Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective’).
Plans for the funeral procession were coordinated in advance by the Israel Police together with the Abu-Akleh family. About 300 rioters arrived at the hospital in Jerusalem and prevented the family members from loading the coffin onto the hearse to travel to the cemetery. The mob threatened the driver of the hearse and then proceeded to carry the coffin on an unplanned procession to the cemetery by foot. This went against the wishes of the Abu-Akleh family and the security coordination that had been planned. Police instructed that the coffin be returned to the hearse, as did the EU Ambassador and Abu-Akleh’s own family, but the mob refused. Police intervened to disperse the mob and prevent them from taking the coffin, so that the funeral could proceed as planned in accordance with the wishes of the family. During the riot that was instigated by the mob, glass bottles and other objects were thrown, resulting in the injury of both mourners and Police officers.
Labour suggested that its victory in Barnet ten days ago demonstrated “the progress Keir Starmer has made to regain the trust of Jewish voters.” The response of Labour MPs to the recent events in Israel prove that this is a barefaced lie.
No Jew should vote Labour.
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Postscript 1: Elder of Zion fisks the strategy of the anti-Israel propagandists: ‘Thinking Past the Sale’
Adding Naz Shah MP (Muslim proportion in constituency 51.3%).
Zarah Sultana (see above – 7.4%) signed the EDM. Postscript 4:Apsana Begum has signed (33.6%).
Postscript 5: McDonnell and Sultana spoke at the anti-Israel PSC / StopTheWar rally in London on 15 May
Postscript 6: Three more Labour MPs have signed: Cat Smith (and here) (1.8%), Graham Stringer (16.7%) and John Cryer (22.6%). Stringer is a member of Labour Friends of Israel!! But he clearly feels the need to curry favour with his Muslim constituents. Or is he (like Wes) trying to play from both ends simultaneously?
Postscript 7: Two more Labour MPs have signed (making 20 in all, 10% of all Labour MPs): Mick Whitley (1.0%) and Nadia Whittome (13.2%) Postscript 8: Number 21 is Lloyd Russell-Moyle (1.9%)
‘Eleven Days in May ‘ is screening at 12 cinemas of the Picturehouse group: Bromley, Crouch End, Finsbury Park, Fulham Road, Hackney, Picturehouse Central, Ritzy, Stratford, West Norwood – all London – plus Arts Cambridge, Cinema City Norwich and Fact Liverpool. Also at the Showroom Workstation, Sheffield; Curzon, Bloomsbury.
I saw the film at Crouch End on 8 May. It is a terrorist propaganda film which incites hatred against Israel and its supporters. It is mendacious, completely devoid of context and emotionally manipulative and exploitative (it shows dead children including horrifically injured faces – hence the ‘18’ rating). Whoever at Picturehouse decided to show it should be fired.
Shame on Russell Brand who presented the film at the London Premiere:
No doubt of course that the film will be made available to University Palestine Societies free or at nominal cost and that many under-18s will see it. And that Vice Chancellors will turn a blind eye to objections that it incites hatred.
To aid the reader I divide my fisk into two parts: first, general criticisms about distortions and errors and second, specific omissions about the context in which several of the casualties occurred.
1: General criticisms
There is substantial evidence that education in Gaza incites children to hate Israel and to want to become terrorists. To die as a suicide bomber (‘shahid’) is considered a great honour. None of this comes out in the film, neither in the portraits of the casualties nor in the eulogies given by their families. They all wanted to become politicians, doctors, lawyers or journalists!
The film begins by blaming Israel for the start of the hostilities in May 2021. Israel is blamed for ‘evictions from the Al Aqsa Mosque’; for firing hand grenades in the Mosque in response to the mere ‘throwing of water bottles’; for threatening evictions from Sheikh Jarrah.
The truth is that Israeli security forces entered the Mosque to pursue terrorists who had been throwing rocks at Jews in the Old City. And that the Court ruled that Arab families were living illegally in Jewish-owned homes in Sheikh Jarrah. See my previous blogs, here, here and here.
According to the film seven rockets were fired into Israel before Operation Guardian of the Walls began. The film fails to tell you that they were fired at Jerusalem – the first such attack. And the film ignores the thousands of rockets that were fired for months before the Operation began. And ignores the 4360 fired DURING Operation Guardian of the Walls – including Tel Aviv. Hundreds were fired during the first night (10 May) of the Operation.
The film fails to inform the audience that Israel always issues a warning before any airstrike on Gaza (though the alert viewer might infer this from a single comment (regarding strike on 13 May) that ‘there was no warning’). Also that when numerous civilians are present around a military target, a strike is aborted. Also that Israel achieves a 1:1 ratio of civilian to military casualties- a record low for asymmetric warfare.
Most people who see the film will assume that Israel is to blame for all the deaths. But we know that nine children were killed by the 680 terrorist rockets that fell inside the Gaza Strip. We also know that Hamas’ military positions were located within the civilian population. Yahya al-Sinwar, the head of the Hamas political bureau in the Gaza Strip, admitted as much (al-Jazeera, 5 June 2021).
The film shows Israeli fighter jets being loaded and there are aerial shots of the devastation in Gaza. Then there is a day-by-day chronology of deaths of children age 17 and under, with clearly scripted interviews of their family and friends.
2: Specific important and deliberate omissions about the child casualties
Mohammad Saber Ibrahim Suleiman (age 15 or 16) died on 10 May in an IDF airstrike east of Jabalia. He was a Hamas member. A video shows him wearing the Hamas military wing’s uniform during weapons training. In other photos he is seen holding a rifle (@DigFind_ Twitter account, June 1, 2021).Despite his youth, he was apparently an operative in the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades.
The four al-Masri children (Rahaf 10, Yazan 2, Marwan 6, Ibrahim 11) were killed at Beit Hanoun by terrorist rockets that fell short – not by the IDF. The same applies to Hussein Muneer Hussein Hamad, age 11, and to Ibrahim Hassanian age 16.
On 11 May Lina Iyad Fathi Sharir, age 15, died with her parents. Her sister Mana Iyad Fathi Sharir, age 2, was also hit and died on 18 May. The film fails to reveal that they were hit in a strike at their father Iyad Fathi Feyeq Sharir – the Commander of Hamas’s anti-tank units in Gaza.
The film tells us that on 12 May Bashar Ahmad Samour, age 17, ‘was shot alone while going to turn off water’. We see his dead body; he died near the fence in the Khan Younis region. But we are not told that he was a Fatah operative.
On 13 May Khaled Imad Khaled Qanou, aged 17 died. His mother talks about him and his father is shown in tears. But we are not told that the Mujahedeen Brigades, the military wing of the Mujahedeen Movement in the Gaza Strip, issued a mourning notice for him, saying he was 20 years old and an operative in their ranks. (Telegram channel of the Mujahedeen Brigades, May 13, 2021)
On 13 May Ibrahim Mohammad Ibrahim al-Rantisi, age 6 or 7 months, died. His brother is shown eulogising him. But we are not told that Ra’ed Ibrahim Khamis Azara al-Rantisi (his father? Brother?) against whom the strike was aimed in the Al-Junya neighbourhood of Rafah was according to social media an operative in Hamas’ military wing (Twitter account of Abu Obeidaal-Filistini, May 14, 2021). The Izz al-Din Qassam Brigades website called him a ‘Hamas shaheed’ (Izz al-Din Qassam Brigades website).
On 14 May the film informs us that three children from the al-Attar family died: Amira age 6, Islam age 8 and Mohammad Zain age 9 months. We see a sister eulogising and one of the dead children’s faces being touched. We are not told that they died on the street connecting the Al-Salatin and Al-Atatra neighbourhoods in Beit Lahia which was hit in an airstrike against Hamas tunnels – the tunnels used to enter Israel to murder and to hide armaments destined for use to kill Israelis.
On 15 May four children of the Hatab family died: Yamen (5), Bilal (9), Yousef (10 or 11) and Miriam (7). They died in the Al-Shati refugee camp. We are not told that they were the children of Hamas operative Alaa Abu Hatab. There are shots of children playing in the sea close to the shore.
Also on 15 May the film tells us that Osama (?Huseina) al-Hadidi, age 4, died and that she had a ‘brain condition’. We are told she ‘loved tomatoes.’ Three other children of the al-Hadidi family also died: Abdurrahman (7 or 8), Suheib (12) and Yahya (10). But we are NOT told that they also died in the strike against Hamas operative Alaa Abu Hatab (see above).
On 16 May we are told that 18 children were killed in attacks on Gaza City– (my observation: the highest child casualty number for any of the eleven days of the Operation).
We are told that 8 children of the Al-Qulaq family died (including Qusai age 6 months) (plus their mother and father) and 4 children of the al-Auf family including: Tala (age 12 or 13). What we are NOT told is that they died in strikes against terrorist tunnels that caused buildings on Al-Wahda Street to collapse.
We are told that Tawfeeq Ayman Tawfeeq Abu al-Auf (16 or 17) died. And that he was good at science and wanted to be a doctor. But not that he died in the same event. We see the children’s dead bodies.
Zain Riad Hasan Ashkuntna, age 2, also died in the same event. So did his sister Lana (6). We see their grandmother eulogising.
On 19 May the film describes the death of Nagham Iyad Abdulfattah Salha, aged 2 and Nina Al Adalyiya age 11. Kate Winslet says “A plane fired a missile at her”. Obviously a lie. Israel does not target innocent children! How can an actress lie like this? Do they not question the script that is given to them? Do they not do some Due Diligence?
This is the most heart-rending part of the film. Nina’s mother talks, there are beautiful photos of her and we see her mutilated dead body. Max Richter’s funeral music crescendos. We see close-ups of exquisite children and crying families laying out the clothes of the dead children on their beds. We see cakes given out to children, presumably at a funeral wake.
Finally the obscenity ends. The disingenuousness peaks with a famous quote (used by Churchill) on the screen:
At the going down of the sun, we will remember them
‘For the Fallen’ by Laurence Binyon
Unbelievably we see the UNICEF logo in the closing credits. Did UNICEF fund the film? If so there are serious questions to be asked in Parliament.
There are also serious questions to be asked of the film’s narrator, the actress Kate Winslet.A reminder of one of her lines
If you do a film about the Holocaust, guaranteed an Oscar. I’ve been nominated four times, never won. Schindler’s bloody List? The Pianist? Oscars coming out of their arse.
Please consider donating through my Patreon page. Every penny will go toward Israel advocacy and fighting antisemitism. Or by Paypal.
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Postscript:
Jan Shure correctly argues that this anti-Jewish terrorist propaganda is incendiary in the current climate of antisemitism: ‘Freedom of expression’ does not mean that this obscenity should be able to be shown in Picturehouse cinemas! ‘As the US Supreme Court decided more than a century ago – freedom of speech should not extend to shouting “fire” in a crowded theatre.’
CameraUK picks up some of the points in my blog above
Melanie Phillips: ‘Yes, those Gazan children were also victims — but victims above all of Hamas and the Palestinian Arab leadership. They indoctrinate their children in hysterical and murderous lies about Israel and the Jews, recruit them into terrorism and use them as human shields. Gaza’s children are the victims of systemic Palestinian Arab child abuse. If that wasn’t the case, those children who died in Gaza last year would still be alive.‘
David Rose in Jewish Chronicle: ‘An emotive documentary narrated by Kate Winslet about children killed in Gaza by Israeli air strikes which has been dubbed “propaganda” was made by a passionate Hamas supporter, the JC can reveal.
Eleven Days In May, which is out in British cinemas now, depicts the deaths of 60 Palestinian children in May last year with little context or acknowledgment of the complexities of the conflict.
Co-director Mohammed Sawwaf was presented with an award by Hamas leaders for his work “countering the Zionist narrative”.
On social media, he has celebrated the launching of rockets against civilian targets and effectively called for the destruction of the State of Israel, saying that the map of Palestine should extend “from the sea to the river”.’
‘……the film preys on the emotions of the viewers to make them side with those bent on pushing Israel and its residents, into the sea. As Eleven Days would have you believe, 60 children were killed in Gaza, and that is all you need to know.You don’t need to know, according to those who brought the film to fruition, that a terrorist father endangered his child’s safety by failing to remove him to a less dangerous location than by his side. You don’t need to know, say the producers, financers, and screeners of the film, that the “children,” who were murdered, were, in many cases, teens who received extensive training in the use of arms, and who were well educated to use those arms against Jews. You don’t even need to know the identity of the aggressor or the timeline, according to those who brought you Eleven Days in May. Because if you knew those things, you might not hate Israel. You might not hate the Jews enough. And that, after all, is the entire point of the film. ‘
David Collier ‘Raw Hamas propaganda has no place being shown anywhere on our shores. It should be dealt with the same way that an Al Qaeda or Al Shabaab propaganda movie would be. Picturehouse should take this movie off our screens and all those involved should apologise for allowing Hamas propaganda to be shown here in the first place.‘
Competition is as healthy for interest group organisations as it is for manufacturers of soap powder. The NJA will do many of the same things that the Board of Deputies (BoD) does – but so what? The Board has had a monopoly throughout its history and inevitably that has impacted negatively on its performance. The argument that ‘Government will be confused’ is simply spurious. Just look (for example) at the many organisations that represent the countryside! Ministers and civil servants are not idiots.
If you join the NJA you will have far more say than you will ever have in the BoD. To become a Deputy you (i) need to be a member of a synagogue or Jewish organisation that is a member (ii) you need to be elected or appointed (iii) you need to then be elected to a position as an Executive Member. Regarding (i), an estimated 43.7% of UK households with at least one Jewish adult hold no synagogue membership (see JPR July 2017). Even for the remaining 56.3%, only some 150 out of 454 synagogues in the UK are BoD members. So thousands of Jews (in all likelihood, the majority) are ineligible to be Deputies. Even if they are eligible, (ii) is very difficult because incumbents hardly ever stand down. On the basis of a random sample of some 40 who were Deputies when I was one in 2012, nearly two-thirds remain Deputies 10 years later. I have challenged the Board to publish a full breakdown of membershipby length of service. No response. Even if you do get elected, most Deputies have zero influence. Now (iii): To make a difference in the areas that matter, you need to be elected to the Executive, eg as the Chair or Vice Chair of one of the Divisions.
But in the NJA you can make a difference from the start.
Although there are several Deputies with valuable expertise – eg on Jewish medical ethics – the Board and its staff are dominated by Leftists. Many things have gone wrong in recent times. See here and here. The sad demise of the Zionist Federation amply demonstrates the risks of Leftist Entryism. By contrast the NJA will be ‘entryist proof’ because applicants whose record suggests that they do not fully support its three key goals will be turned away.
The Board’s Constitution obliges it ‘to take such appropriate action as lies within its power to advance Israel’s security, welfare and standing.’ In recent times that obligation has been blatantly violated. Examples: The rejection of membership of the Zionist Central Council of Manchester (ZCC); the rejection of a motion ‘welcoming any mutually agreed peace settlement between Israel and its neighbours and adopting no position on the form such a settlement should take’ and endorsing of a ‘two state solution’; the vilification of Gary Mond and Samuel Hayek, both office holders at the JNF; the endorsement of Yachad as a Board Member; the Oxfam tie-up; the failure to organise a protest against the recent Al Quds Day march; the absence of any support for Kevin Myers or Stephen Lamonby. If Deputies were given the chance to endorse a united Jerusalem, a majority would veto it. Whereas in the Jewish Community a majority would support it: Deputies are unrepresentative of the Community.
By contrast ALL the members of the NJA’s ‘Advisory Board’ and Executive Staff have a track record of ‘taking such appropriate action as lies within [their] power to advance Israel’s security, welfare and standing.’ With the sad demise of the ZF – vindictively destroyed by Leftists – there is no national ‘grassroots’ pro-Israel organisation in the UK. The NJA is ideally placed to fill the gap.
The Board’s USP has always been ‘democratic legitimacy’. But it’s hardly democratic: – The President is elected by Deputies but once elected s/he can virtually act as a dictator for six years. – The President’s job is unpaid. How many people can afford to take time out of their careers unpaid for six years? A position that is only open to the wealthy is hardly ‘democratic’! – On the lamentably few occasions when there is a vote it is impossible to know how a Deputy has voted – there’s no democratic accountability. – See above: Possibly half of all Jews in the UK cannot become Deputies.
Anyone not of the Left who puts themselves forward for office at the Board has to be prepared to have their social media crawled over with a fine toothcomb by the Leftist activists and quoted (selectively and context-free of course) by Lee Harpin in Jewish News. The vilification of Gary Mond – the Deputy who won most Vice President votes at the last Board elections – was shameful. The same goes for the smearing of James Marlow.If you’ve ever stood up for anything that the activist Jewish Left doesn’t like, beware!
Unlike the Board the NJA will not use its limited resources for causes which – while admirable – are well supported elsewhere – eg climate change, persecution of Uyghur Muslims.
Gary Mond is a very astute hard-working political operator whose record of support for Israel is sans pareil. He was a strong contender to be the next President of the Board of Deputies – which was why the activist leftist social media archaeologists trained their sights on him. If for no other reason, this is ample justification for supporting the NJA.
Kevin Myers very kindly invited me to his Dublin lunch to celebrate his defamation win over RTE, the Irish State broadcaster, for calling him a Holocaust Denier. (In 2017 just two days after his controversial Sunday Times piece I defended Kevin against absurd and ignorant accusations of antisemitism – including by Gideon Falter – Chair of the Campaign Against Antisemitism – who has still failed to apologise).
Although RTE briefly apologised for the defamation it never repeated the apology and never reported it on any RTE news bulletins. The Irish Times, though fully informed of the apology and the legal and financial settlement, did not report a single word.
See this terrific video of the lunch – especially Kevin’s heartfelt speech – made by Karl Martin who began the legal process that led to the legal victory.
The other guests were fascinating and like-minded. I was lucky enough to be sat next to Mary Kenny the columnist. I remembered her from the Evening Standard, now she writes inter alia for The Oldie and the Irish Independent. Her new book is called ‘The Way We Were’. Before sitting down I met Maurice Cohen who heads the Jewish Community (we discussed Noa Tishby’s brilliant book) as well as Kevin’s mother and many others.
I took the opportunity to look round Dublin for a couple of days – it’s a fascinating city and the weather was glorious. Dublin’s tram/light rail systemis called ‘Luas’. I was trying to work out the acronym for ages — until I learned that ‘Luas’ is the Gaelic word for ‘Speed’ …
At Dublin Castle; explains the derivation of the word ‘Dublin’
Recommended in Dublin:
The Premier Inn in South Great George Street (the entrance is in Stephen Street Lower).
The Museum of Emigration in the Docklands area.
Jameson Distillery
Shouk restaurant
Little Museum of Dublin
St Stephen’s Green
The Chester Beatty collection
Isaac Herzog protesting at the UN against the ‘Zionism Is Racism’ motion‘Books’ by Irish writers (they are copies of the covers!)
In the Museum of Emigration there’s a video of Isaac Herzog, Israel’s President, addressing the UN General Assembly. Herzog’s father was born in Ireland. His paternal grandfather was the first Chief Rabbi of Ireland (1922 to 1935). It’s a lovely Museum which tells the story of Irish expats and the Irish culture (eg music) they brought with them.
Notice the chandelier …
The building of Jameson Distillery has been repurposed, with a wonderful open plan bar.
U2 in the Little Museum of DublinComemmorating the ducks killed in St Stephen’s Green in the Easter RisingMarking Ireland’s 1980s Boom-Bust
The ‘Little Museum of Dublin’ is in a Georgian house in St Stephen’s Green. A lovely Museum of the history of Dublin, including a whole room devoted to the band U2.
Loads of history that I hadn’t known: O’Connell printed election leaflets in Yiddish; the Magdalene Laundries (in the 1950s Ireland locked up 1% of its population); there was a statue of Nelson which was blown up by Republicans in 1966, the 50th Anniversary of the Easter Rising – replaced by The Spire). The guide was excellent. The Museum is run jointly with a Museum in Northern Ireland. It doesn’t gloss over Ireland’s appalling ‘neutrality’ in WW2. There are even five model ducks to represent the ducks killed in the Easter Rising during clashes in St Stephen’s Green.
Neutrality in WW2James Malton(1761–1803) was an Irish engraver and watercolourist. He drew the beautiful Georgian buildings in Dublin.
St Stephen’s GreenShelbourne Hotel
After the Museum I walked around St Stephen’s Green, which is beautiful. There are many memorials to the volunteers in the 1916 Rising – the Green saw fierce fighting. I looked into the beautiful Shelbourne Hotel (I did a work presentation and stayed there nearly 30 years ago).
The potato blight caused the Great Famine (1845-9) resulting in around 1 million deaths and over 1 million people fleeing Ireland; the population fell by 20-25%.
A friend had recommended the Chester Beatty collection of manuscripts, rare books, and other treasures from Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and Asia. It is indeed magnificent – beautiful books and manuscripts. Sir Alfred Chester Beatty (1875 – 1968) was born in the US and trained as a mining engineer. He made his fortune in the Gold Rush. He moved to London, assisting Churchill during WW2. But Attlee won the postwar 1947 election and hit Beatty with a huge tax demand. Disgusted he moved to Ireland (he had Irish grandfathers).
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Back to Kevin Myers … “Fuck the Lynch-Mob!” ……. Yes I’ll drink to that ….
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Lee Harpin of Jewish News fronted the smear. The Harpin who in 2015 was the fifth journalist to be arrested in relation to allegations of phone hacking at the Mirror. (He was released after the CPS found there was insufficient evidence to bring charges).
Harpin has fronted several smears of ‘non-leftist’ Jews. Such as me:
Unlike Marlow and Gary Mond (the Chair of the NJA), Harpin is no supporter of Israel. Maybe that explains his smear attempt. In fact he called Israel’s response to the libellous Amnesty Report ‘hysterical’ and ‘a typical hasbara fail’:
Of course he is just the front guy. The social media archaeology is done by the leftists, possibly including the likes of Webber, Schonfield and Spence. Schonfield quickly trumpeted the Marlow smear. He is another smear merchant.
I have joined the NJA, donating significantly as well as paying the membership fee. I will make the case for the NJA in a future blog in coming days. But this blog is to refute the smear about James.
Full disclosure: I know James reasonably well, because of his expertise on Israeli politics and his involvement with me in the Stephen Lamonby case (2020). James’ knowledge of Israeli politics is unrivalled in the UK. He is sought after as a commentator, both at election time and at other times. When I wrote about the Lamonby scandal I arranged to visit him to record a podcast for Jonny Gould’s Jewish State. James did the interview and he was superb – well briefed, sensitive and highly articulate (there is a link in my blog). What a contrast with Harpin and his leftist cronies – who were completely silent abut the disgusting treatent of Lamonby by Solent University.
The smears are utterly ridiculous and libellous. It is ludicrous to suggest he is a supporter of Tommy Robinson, ludicrous to suggest he is anti-gay, ludicrous to call his tweets critical of Soros ‘concerning’ and ludicrous to suggest he is contemptuous of Reform or Liberal Jews (note that James is Orthodox while Harpin and his leftist groupies are not – maybe inter-communal pettiness has something to do with their smears of James).
James merely wrote to the effect that Reform conversions are not accepted by Orthodox Rabbis. Which is true, however much Harpin and Co wish it wasn’t.
Regarding the Soros allegation, James simply said that it is not antisemitic to criticise Soros for his animosity towards Israel – for example Soros has blamed Israel for antisemitism. Harpin called James’ tweet(s) on Soros ‘concerning’. Rubbish. What is ‘concerning’ is Soros blaming Israel for antisemitism. Of course neither Schonfield not Harpin has ever commented on that antisemitic libel. Schonfield tweeted that James ‘defends antisemitic Soros slurs’. That is a defamatory lie.
I’m sure no-one will be deterred by these clumsy leftist smears from joining the National Jewish Assembly. In truth they probably help. I understand it will be proof against leftist entryism – which means that Schonfield and Co will not be interested in joining it anyway.
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Please consider donating through my Patreon page. Every penny will go toward Israel advocacy and fighting antisemitism. Or by Paypal.
There are no superlatives sufficient to do justice to Noa Tishby’s wonderful book. It deserves to become as universally acclaimed as the Bible or Shakespeare. Buy it for your children or grandchildren who are off to university. Buy it for your partner. Buy it for your dentist, gynaecologist and the teachers at your children’s school. Buy it for your MP. Buy it for anyone!
In response to numerous requests I have for years wanted to write the definitive book which lanced every lie about Israel that the IDS sufferers spew out (IDS: Israel Derangement Syndrome).
I had searched high and low but no such book existed.
Now it does! And in paperback, Kindle and audio. Thank you Noa Tishby, 44 years old (and stunning). In 333 pages she covers it all, in simple, unflowery Kick-Ass language. As she says, ‘Israel is also a casual society that doesn’t waste time on unnecessary ceremonial decorum.’ Exactly the same is true of her writing style. So much of the writing on antisemitism is written in lofty convoluted style by academics. Like the man who knows 350 positions in which to make love but has never had a girlfriend. But not this book. But that doesn’t mean that the research is sloppy. It is every bit as meticulous as in the 900 page academic door-stopper. There are over 160 references, 7 maps, a comprehensive index, a 3 page glossary and a 5 page summary. There is the history of the Jewish People, from the time around 1500 BCE when the land of Canaan is mentioned in the Old Testament.
Here are just some of the rants of the IDS super spreaders that Ms Tishby demolishes:
Israel is a settler-colonial state
Israel is an apartheid state
Israel is an Occupier
There are 5.6 million Palestinian refugees
The people on the Mavi Marmara were peaceful
The Quran doesn’t mention the connection of the Jewish people to Jerusalem
The Jews ‘took Palestine’.
In many years of fighting the IDS hordes I have come across very few born in Israel who ‘get it’. Sure there are many who made Aliya (that is, relocated to Israel) who ‘get it’, Emily Schrader and Professor Richard Landes being just two examples. But native-born Israelis lived their lives in a Jewish State so how can they understand antisemitism? … But Ms Tishby ‘gets it’, despite self defining as ‘leftist’, ‘liberal’ and ‘secular’. No question that she ‘gets it’. Unlike many on the left she doesn’t fight shy of the truth. She asserts that ‘fundamentalist Islam allows land that was once Muslim to be invaded’. And that ‘anti-Zionism is the politically correct version of antisemitism’. On the ‘occupation’ she writes ‘the land was never recognised as officially part of any country so how can it be ‘occupied’?’ And far from being ‘stolen’ she details how lands of Israel were bought:
You could easily buy lands there, and at a bargain, from either the Turkish government or private Arab or Christian landowners, most of whom didn’t live on the land and were absentee landlords living in less peripheral Ottoman regions.
Ms Tishby relates that the land where the first Kibbutz, Degania, stands was bought for the franc equivalent of just $16 per acre.
Minutes after I finished the book (in two days) Israel’s Foreign Minister Yair Lapid named Ms Tishby as the first Foreign Ministry’s ‘Special Envoy for Combating Antisemitism and the Delegitimisation of Israel’. What an inspired choice! We are waiting to welcome you to the UK – where you’re sorely needed. In the book Ms Tishby recounts that she has already had one notable success: Following Roger Waters’ inevitable letter to the Rolling Stones in 2015 ‘I picked up the phone and called my friend Mick’ …………… And you know what happened …
The book is simple but absolutely not simplistic. Even a seasoned obsessive like me will learn loads from it. Like T. E. Lawrence’s sympathy for Zionism. Like the etymology of the word ‘nakba’ (it was first used in the context of Israel by Syrian Professor Constantin Zureiq in 1948 as the war was still raging. Zureiq (hardly pro-Zionist – he referred to ‘the Zionist enemy’) did NOT refer to the nakba as something the Israelis did to the Arabs – BUT as a self-inflicted and humiliating wound caused by the Arabs themselves . But Arafat rebranded the word).
Not only is this superb book about the history and controversies surrounding Israel: it also provides some fascinating and very personal insight into the family and upbringing that drove Noa Tishby to put pen to paper. Like most Israeli families, hers was touched by tragedy due to the conflict: her sister lost her boyfriend in Lebanon in 1970 and her mother was widowed in 1967, aged 26 (her first husband was a fighter pilot). We learn about her grandfather (her mother’s father) Hanan Yavor, Israel’s first Ambassador to Ghana, Nigeria and Liberia; about Fania Artzi, the mother of her mother’s first husband, who joined Degania Kibbutz in 1930; and about Nachum Tisch – the grandfather of her father – an engineer who made aliya in 1922. He started the Yishuv’s Office of Industry and Trade. He brought the diamond industry to Israel.
One small gripe: In the discussion of Deir Yassin (p111) Ms Tishby is too ready to accept the conventional wisdom that it was a ‘massacre’ by Jews of Arabs, including women and children. But a book (published in 2018 so available to her) suggests on meticulous evidence that the conventional wisdom is wrong and demonises the Jews who were present.
Early on in the book Ms Tishby tells us that in September 1999, a few months after she moved to Los Angeles age 22, her father called her to wish her ‘Happy Holidays’. She had completely disconnected ‘from anything Israel’ and had even forgotten that it was Rosh Hashana!
Update: Discussion and vote postponed “for legal reasons”……
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Tomorrow (Tuesday 29 March) Edinburgh’s Policy and Sustainability Committee will – disgracefully – discuss and vote on a petition to twin the City with Gaza. The meeting begins at 10am and will be livestreamed.
David Collier has blogged about the meeting and the antisemitic history of the petition’s orginator Steve Gregson. The vote is likely to be on a show of hands and unless you can put names to the Councillors’ faces you will not be able to identify those who support the Jew-hating Hamas terrorists.
Therefore to facilitate democratic accountability please find below photos of the 12 non-Conservative Committee Members (Images from the Council Website):
At a pro-Israel counter-demo last May I was attacked by Jed Zia-Hughes. Hughes was 18 at that time. He lives with his parents and is studying Life Sciences at Brunel University. He says he’s ¼ English, ¼ Irish and ½ ?Pakistani ?Palestinian (It was hard to hear).
He pleaded guilty to the crime of Violent Disorder. In a landmark decision the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service asked that his sentence should be increased due to a ‘racial and religious’ element – if the Court agreed, this would (as far as I know) have been the first time in the UK that a crime perpetrated on a pro-Israel advocate was considered more than just ‘political’; the first judicial recognition of the unbreakable link between Jews and Israel.
The ‘racial and religious aggravation’ ‘Newton Hearing’ happened yesterday afternoon (23 March) in Court 13 at London’s Southwark Crown Court. The Judge was Alexander Milne QC. The barrister for the Crown was John Coates. The defence barrister was Zara Brawley. I was called as a Witness but John Coates in the Witness Room told me I would not be needed.
Sadly the race/religion aggravation case failed – so there was no uplift to his sentence. For Violent Disorder, Zia-Hughes received a 9 month sentence suspended for 2 years plus 100 hours of Community Service.
What happened
I want here to focus on the way the case was prosecuted by Mr Coates. Because his arguments were totally shambolic and misguided. He said he had no evidence that the motivation for the crime was racial/religious but the ‘context’ suggested that it must have been. Zia-Hughes must have known that some of the 10 counter-demonstraters were Jewish. The fact that Zia-Hughes had jumped from a height ‘with hyper-extended legs’ (police evidence) – using his legs as a weapon- showed a hatred of Jews and/or Israelis.
Taking the stand, Zia-Hughes easily rebutted these arguments. He had no idea about the religion of the 10 pro-Israel demonstraters. There were many ethnicities in the anti-Israel demonstration and there was no reason to suppose that the pro-Israel demonstration was any different. When he jumped, his mind was not focused on either our nationality or our religion. He denied any hostility to Israelis or Jews. He was purely focused on the ‘atrocities’ committed by the IDF who had ‘raped and murdered’ Palestinians: “I see Palestinians as innocent and Israel supporters as supporting terror”. He had jumped not to injure us but to ‘confront’ us (!) He had climbed the steps to the platform above us “to get away from the chaos” of the main demonstration (!). He had joined in shouts of ‘Shame on You” but said they were neither directed at all Israelis nor at all Jews. (In his police interview he called us – the 10 pro-Israel demonstraters – “terrorist supporters” and said it was not right that we had police protection. On arrest he said “I could have got away with it but I stood there and took it like an idiot”).
Ms Brawley noted that he had taken a photo of Neturei Karta with a Palestinian flag at the demonstration, the obvious inference being to ‘break the link’ between Judaism and Israel. But Mr Coates cast doubt on whether Zia-Hughes had taken the Neturei Karta photo, by pointing out that another photo which Zia-Hughes claimed was taken in front of the Royal Albert Hall was in fact taken in Trafalgar Square. He accused Zia-Hughes of dishonesty because he had said he could not use the stairs to descend from the platform over us (because he would have descended into the police ‘bubble’).
I could see that Judge Milne (who presided by video – why? How can you spot if someone’s body language is mendacious by video? As the victim would it not have been courteous to apologise and reveal the reason?) was unconvinced by Mr Coates’ arguments. After Mr Coates’ submission, Judge Milne said:
So you are inviting me to conclude that Israeli and Jewish are interchangeable for racial purposes?’ Judge Milne asked. ‘As I understand it, the Israeli people embrace both those of Jewish and Arab heritage.’
(This is from the Court Report report but my notes say he used (either here or later) the word ‘Palestinians’ and not the correct nomenclature, ‘Israeli Arabs’). Another victim had said in his statement that the hostility shown to us was due to our ‘political views’. Of course Judge Milne and Ms Brawley seized this as showing that hostility to Israel was ‘political’ and not ‘racial/religious’. (The other victim does not have English as their first language and I am sure they would say that the use of the word ‘political’ does not preclude racial/religious motivation).
In the light of the execrable submission of John Coates I cannot argue with Judge Milne’s verdict – that a racial/religious motivation for Zia-Hughes’ crime was not proved to the criminal standard – ie beyond reasonable doubt.
Note 28(1)(b) – ‘the offence is motivated (wholly or partly) by hostility towards members of a [racial or religious group] based on their membership of that group’. Note also 28(4): ‘In this section “racial group” means a group of persons defined by reference to race, colour, nationality (including citizenship) or ethnic or national origins’. The key point is that the offence in this case was (see below) clearly motivated by Zia-Hughes’ hostility towards Israelis (‘a group of persons defined by reference to nationality’). It was blindingly obvious that we were not – for example – there to support Belgians. Because of our Israeli flags and the huge banner we were displaying. Our religion was IRRELEVANT. Ditto our citizenship. Zia-Hughes’ hostility was directed towards Israelis.
(Also irrelevant is whether it was all Israelis or just the IDF. In any case since the vast majority of Israeli Jews- and some Israeli Arabs – serve in the IDF – and the IDF is essential to the State’s survival – venom directed at the IDF is effectively directed at all Israelis).
(ii) The Motive
That of itself would have been enough to win the case. But there is also considerable evidence suggesting that Zia-Hughes has become indoctrinated against Jews and Israel. And the prosecution should obviously have considered that. It’s common sense FFS. How can you delve into someone’s motive without delving into their background?
Hajaj was previously (August-October 2012) Head of Campaigns for the Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS), founded by Islamist activists from the Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat-e-Islami in 1962. He participated in the Muslim Prisoner Support Belmarsh Iftar. FOSIS was condemned by former Home Secretary Theresa May and former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg for its failure to ‘challenge terrorist and extremist ideology’.
FOSIS has in the past hosted alleged extremists such as Azzam Tamimi, who has spoken in support of suicide bombing, and Al Qaeda preacher Anwar al-Awlaki.
In addition, The Telegraph reported that several individuals convicted for terrorism offences have been affiliated with FOSIS.
This link shows Hajaj as head of FOSIS in 2014 (9 August, a few days after Operation Protective Edge in Gaza). The antisemitism runs free. He refers to the ‘heroes’of Gaza – this can only mean Hamas fighters. He calls for the ‘Zionist regime to leave Palestine in its entirety’ which is a call for the end of Israel as the world’s only Jewish-character country. This is clearly antisemitic (I use the widely accepted IHRA definition).
Hajaj has spoken on a platform arranged by the Muslim Research and Development Foundation (MRDF). ‘Underwear bomber’ Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab – who attempted to bomb a transatlantic flight on Christmas Day 2009 – attended a three day intensive programme organised by MRDF-Sabeel. Hajaj has been public relations executive of MRDF since July 2016.
This link (posted 31 May 2021, so shortly after the Gaza ceasefire) is to a ‘round table’ in which Hajaj was a participant. It contains vicious antisemitism. At 36:20 Abu Haneefah Sohail says that “Zionism is the most potent form of racism in the world”. The widely accepted (including by the UK government) IHRA definition of antisemitism states that it is antisemitic to claim (a) that ‘the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor’ or to (b) ‘make mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective’. Sohail’s statement violates (a). Soon after, Salman Butt says that ‘pro-Israeli groups are funding the likes of Tommy Robinson’. This is a lie which violates IHRA (b). Butt continues: “The end of Islamophobia and racism requires the end of Zionism”. This also violates IHRA (b).
Here above is Omar Hajaj in October 2020 asserting that Israel ‘stole land’. It’s a lie which violates IHRA example (b) above. The land was either bought or acquired as a result of defensive Wars in 1948 and 1967 (an offer at Khartoum to return the lands acquired in 1967 was rejected):
In September 2012 FOSIS Head of Campaigns Omar Hajaj spoke at a rally calling for the release from prison of Dr Aafia Siddique, an allegedly antisemitic (and here) Al-Qaeda facilitator convicted of attempted murder in February 2010.
Siddique told a US court that Israel was behind the Sept 11 2001 terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers in New York.
34.36: In this talkOmar Hajaj says Palestinians had their businesses stolen. An antisemitic lie violating IHRA (b), see above.
1.00.29: Hajaj says “The Jews are invading Al Aqsa whenever they want, they occupy the whole of Palestine”. It’s an antisemitic lie violating IHRA (b). The only reason Israeli security forces entered the Al Aqsa Mosque in April or May 2021 was to pursue alleged criminals who had entered it.
1.00.30: Hajaj mentions a prophecy: he says ‘even the trees will support the Muslims in fighting the Jews’. This is a reference to the antisemitic Article 7 of the Hamas Charter.
On 21 May 2021 (the day after the ceasefire, following Israel’s attack on terrorist sites in Gaza) Salman Buttspoke to Yaseen Youth. He told them (02:59) the antisemitic lie that Israel was “attempting to murder the Palestinian brothers and sisters again and again and again”. Again at 03:32. At 07:19: “The Muslims are learning how to play the media game that the Zionists have been playing for 50, 60, 70 years.” See IHRA example (b) above: Jewish control of the media is a well-known antisemitic trope. 12:28: “The Zionist Lobby can get the media to say whatever they want” 15:25: he suggests Israel has committed “ethnic cleansing, apartheid, attempted genocide” – all antisemitic suggestions according to IHRA example (b). 29:25: He tells his audience to boycott Israeli goods (“BDS”). This is antisemitic on two counts. First Israel has done nothing to merit a boycott. It has simply acted to protect its population from terror. So IHRA (b) is violated. Second the IHRA definition of antisemitism states that it is antisemitic to (c) apply double standards to Israel, by requiring of it a behaviour not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation. If Israel is the only democratic country Butt wants to boycott, that’s antisemitic.
Here is Salman Butt – again, a regular speaker to Yaseen Youth – supporting Hamas and making the antisemitic comparison of Mark Regev to Goebbels.
3.30: He says ‘Millions of Palestinians were ethnically cleansed’. It’s a lie and it’s antisemitic (IHRA (b)).
4:14: He says that the Al Aqsa Mosque (he calls it the ‘first qibla’) was attacked. This is a lie and is antisemitic (IHRA (b)). The only reason Israeli security forces entered the Mosque in April or May 2021 was because suspected criminals had entered.
9.41: He speaks of ‘stolen land’, an antisemitic lie, see above
10.20: He suggests Al Aqsa is being attacked, an antisemitic lie, see above
So those are the arguments that John Coates SHOULD have made.
And precisely those are the arguments on the document that I hand delivered to the CPS (102 Petty France SW1) on 4 January. I know they got to the right person ….
… and that they should have got to John Coates. In the Witness Room on 23 March I checked if he had seen the document and offered him a quick teach-in but he declined …
Conclusion
I was pleased that at long last the CPS was prepared to admit that there is a link between Judaism and Israel. But I was appalled at the way the Zia-Hughes case of race/religion aggravation was prosecuted. I’ve complained to John Coates’ Chambers and to the CPS. And look at the red underlined sentence in the above letter: Is the CPS seriously admitting defeat before the hearing?
I hope the CPS will take this blog as a Case Study and that it enables future similar cases to be handled with far more competence and understanding of the meanings in legislation. This case could have succeeded if only the prosecutor had done his homework!
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On the fifth day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Israel’s Foreign Minister and Deputy PM Yair Lapid said
Israel effectively has a security border with Syria. Russia is the most significant military power in Syria, and our cooperation mechanism with them assists in our determined battle against Iranian entrenchment on our border.
This is why Israel, though critical of the invasion, has trod very carefully as regards overt military support for Ukraine. But there has been masses of humanitarian support: 100 tonnes of humanitarian aid, 17 tonnes of medical equipment and medicine, water purification systems for 200,000 people, emergency water supply kits for 100,000 people, winter tents for 3,000 people, 15,000 blankets, 3,000 sleeping bags and 2,700 winter coats.
Israel has also set up a field hospital in Ukraine at a cost of $6.5 million. It has also sent a group of organ transplant coordinators.
Yesterday Zelensky spoke to the Knesset. He berated Israel for the lack of military assistance. Fair enough – But Israel has good reason. But what was not ‘fair enough’ was his Holocaust comparisons. And most outrageous was his ending:
Ukrainians have made their choice. 80 years ago. They rescued Jews. That is why the Righteous Among the Nations are among us.
Pointing this out does NOT make Putin’s crime any less!And however great the pressure on Zelensky, it doesn’t mean that blatant distortion of the Holocaust should go unremarked.
Dear Vlodomor Zelenskyy, So let’s clear a few things up…You’re the underdog here and Israel usually aligns itself with the underdog because the truth is that in every war we’ve fought, we were the underdog because we were out-numbered, isolated, and countries like yours chose to align themselves with our enemies. In your case, more than 35 times in recent years.
Let’s be clear, Israel doesn’t owe Ukraine ANYTHING. It is our choice to send what aid we feel is appropriate, and we have. Vast amounts of humanitarian aid, medical assistance, bullet proof ambulances and more.
You’re welcome.
Your comparison of the Holocaust to today’s fight is abhorrent and historically inaccurate. The Jews didn’t have an army, anti-aircraft missiles, 100,000 rifles to distribute to our people and no military training.No one sent aid and rescue missions and let’s not even begin to describe how the majority of the Ukrainians treated our people.
You feel that we owe you because you are Jewish…your parents are Jewish.
I guess we won’t mention that your children are not only not-Jewish, but have, with your permission, been baptized.
So let’s do this.
You stop complaining that Israel isn’t doing enough, start saying thank you and next time a vote comes up in the UN, remember how many Arab countries stood by, while Israel acted.
And if you want Israel to CONTINUE to support Ukraine, don’t you dare compare your situation, where tragically over 900 have died, to the massacre of more than six million Jews in World War II, to the victims who lie in mass graves, like Babi Yar.
We’ll help…not because you are a Jew, but because WE are Jews.”
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Update:
Melanie Phillips has a superb article in today’s Times (22 March – paywall) about Zelensky’s Knesset address and – more generally – Israel’s delicate position on Russia/Ukraine:
— Israel depends on Putin – the Patron of the Iranian regime – turning a blind eye to Israel’s sorties into Syria to destroy Iranian weapons targeting Israel.
— Israeli banks have severed links with sanctioned Russian banks
— Oligarchs have been sanctioned: their private jets and yachts must leave after 48 hours.
— The US is ‘staggeringly two-faced’: It has pressured Israel to impose sanctions but it is using Putin to broker the Iran nuclear deal. And it wants to allow Russia’s state-controlled energy company to fulfil its contract to expand an Iranian nuclear plant. The US is thus enabling Iran to make Israel the ‘potential victim of a genocidal nuclear regime’.
In the UK, Sheffield Hallam University lecturer Shahd Abusalama (who blocks me on Twitter) was recently reported for supporting the use of Nazi terminology to describe Israel’s campaign against Hamas terror in Gaza.
See herehereherehere and here. Astonishingly (Sheffield Hallam has adopted IHRA) she was allowed to return to teaching.
On 7 March Lowkey (real name Kareem Dennis) released a video of his interview with Abusalama (‘The Israel Lobby’s War Against Academia’).
Before she begins talking (7:20), Lowkey indulges in a litany of ‘joining the dots’ about the funding of Jewish organisations (Board of Deputies, JNF, JLC, Jerusalem Foundation). This bears the unmistakeable stamp of disgraced academic David Miller. (There is also a potshot at the Quilliam Foundation: “The discredited organisation which pushed mythology about Muslims”). Lowkey claims (6:50) that the Board of Deputies “has massive political sway with the government in our country“. Yeah right – so massive that several UK Universities are off-limits for most Jewish students because of the extent of antisemitism.
He begins by taking an LBC quote by Institute of Economic Affairs Director-General @MarkJLittlewood totally out of context. Here is the whole context. Littlewood was being pressed to disclose the source of all donations to the IEA. He gave reasons why he would not comply. In support he cited similar ‘interest group’ charities who have the same non-disclosure policy eg the Church of England. Rhetorically (!!!) he asked (this is where the Lowkey clip begins) his questioner “Do you think the Board of Deputies of British Jews should disclose its donors?“
Later – at 57:59 Lowkey (as the mouthpiece of Miller, whose appeal against dismissal by Bristol University appears to be still ongoing) ‘joins the dots’ about UK Lawyers for Israel and @CAMERAorgUK (1:05:06)
Here are some excerpts from the video:
43:20: Abusalama (on IHRA):
Is that definition really interested in combatting anti-Jewish bigotry or is it trying to quell criticisms of Israel and protect Israel from accountability? (This of course is theLivingstone Formulation).
45:15: Abusalama:
The organising principle of the Israeli State – even before it came into existence – was maximal land, minimal Palestinans (antisemitic: mendacious allegations about Jews)
50:49: Abusalama:
We have members of our staff at Sheffield Hallam University who are proud members of UK Lawyers for Israel…..This is part of a chain of complexity that is masking the normalisation of Israeli oppression against the Palestinians (antisemitic: mendacious allegations about Jews)
52:09: Abusalama (On UK Lawyers For Israel (UKLFI)):
At times these people would come to our events, they would hijack our events and provoke us. I remember at one time we had a legal event on the ‘apartheid Wall’ – the criminal aparthied wall …. We had a Palestinian film maker who was investigating what was going on in The Hague …. and she [a supporter of UKLFI] dared to justify Israel and made a very provocative statement there. And I challenged her after the event…. And she was like ‘No they’re not bombing your hometown.’ This is White Privilege in expression…. They says things like ‘Israeli Apartheid is a trope, Israelis killing children in Gaza is a trope’ … They were the people that were also pushing for the IHRA to be enforced on campus … I was leading the students in opposing the university’s adoption [of IHRA] because I thought that this wasn’t about protecting Jews, this was about silencing Palestine.
57:40 Lowkey:
You were right … You’ve clearly been vindicated.
1:02:02 Abusalama:
I am being harassed and intimidated and defamed every week for more than a month by the Jewish Chronicle and its allies….. They have been looking into my social media posts in order to find something they could flag against me, in order to support their demonisation of me as not only an antisemite but also a terrorist…. We know that they deliberately try to construct these misrepresentations in order to protect Israel from accountability and deflect attention. And part of it is also Islamophobia (antisemitic: mendacious allegations about Jews)
Abusalama (justifying terror against Israel):
When you are under extreme violence you are going to cling to any glimpse of hope .. and some of the hope for us was represented in the resistance …. Justified resistance led by a colonised people (antisemitic: mendacious allegations about Jews)
1:06:16 Lowkey:
None of these are good faith. This is about pushing you out of a job. It’s about silencing you. It’s about haunting you. It’s about punishing you for existence.
1:07:16 Abusalama:
They’re also part of the same lobby group that are trying to construct these terms like ‘Islamic antisemitism’ and ‘anti-Zionist antisemitism’. These terms are so dangerous .. Racist and Islamophobic. This is so dangerous and also inciting hatred and racial and ethno-religious division.
1:10:15 Lowkey:
[You are a] survivor of the Zionist War Machine (antisemitic: mendacious allegations about Jews)
1:12:45 Abusalama:
Gaza is the world’s largest open-air prison (antisemitic: mendacious allegations about Jews)
1:13:11 Abusalama:
We are agents of change and we can be so powerful and so effective if we use our voice effectively and galvanise support and build solidarity and keep on pushing the momentum until we reach our South African moment and free Palestine from Israeli apartheid (antisemitic: mendacious allegations about Jews).
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The Appeal Panel that considered his complaint was chaired by Dr David Hirsh of Goldsmiths. It recommended that there should be an independent investigation into ‘whether there was a toxic, antisemitic environment and institutional antisemitism at the School and/or its student union’. The Panel stated that there was a prima facie case which warrants a full investigation.
The panel I chaired made clear and unanimous determinations which have so far been completely ignored. This is further prima facie evidence that there is a problem of institutional antisemitism at Soas. It is clear enough by now that Soas does not take the claim that it has a problem with institutional antisemitism seriously enough to do anything about it. Good practice requires that an institution is not well placed to make that kind of determination about its own culture, but that is what Soas has done.
…… where we have established an independent panel as part of a complaints process, we would of course consider the findings of such a panel thoroughly and take appropriate action.
Addendum 3: Instead of carrying out an ‘independent investigation’, the SOAS authorities published a “Charter on Racism, Antisemitism and All Forms of Cultural, Ethnic and Religious Chauvinism”. (Of course SOAS has not adopted IHRA). Just as Corbyn uses the phrase “antisemitism and all forms of racism” in order to downplay the importance of antisemitism, the SOAS statement does too, eg this:
We therefore welcome the renewed attention to discriminatory practices and the multiple separate calls to take a stand against racism, antisemitism, religious and cultural intolerance, xenophobia and the like.
And look at this:
Religious fundamentalists may equate religion and state, and demand not only acquiescence from all those within their nations who oppose their agendas but also silence others including scholars and journalists who subject their actions and words to critical reflection and scrutiny.
It is clearly aimed at supporters of Israel. It’s the ‘Livingstone Formulation’ – that is, the lie (beloved by antisemites) that supporters of Israel try to suppres all criticism of Israel by labelling it ‘antisemitic’.
Read David Hirsh’s critique of this shoddy piece of wokery here.
SOAS – the School of Oriental and African Studies – is the most institutionally antisemitic of all UK Universities. It has featured in many of my blogs. The vast majority of Jewish students won’t go there. One Jewish student won £15000 compensation as a result of being forced to quit SOAS because of the atmosphere of Jew hate.
The previous Director, Baroness Amos, was useless at dealing with SOAS’ antisemitism problem. She was rewarded by being appointed as Master of an Oxford College. There were high hopes for her replacement, Adam Habib. But no sooner had he started than the SOAS Revanchists nobbled him.
SOAS has a ‘Centre for Palestine Studies’. It holds an ‘Annual Lecture’. The World’s Most Eminent Israel-Hating Academics queue up to be invited to be honoured with an invitation to deliver this Highly Prestigious Lecture. The Prize goes to the one who has the most examples of IDS on her/his CV (IDS = Israel Derangement Syndrome). Thus 2 years ago it was Haneen Zoabi. Zoabi is a former Arab Party member of the Knesset who wants to rid Israel of all Jews.
The Lecture is always held on a Friday evening, out of consideration for Jewish scholars – so thoughtful!
This year’s honorand is Professor Nadia Abu El –Haj. The same academic who wrote a book ‘denying that the ancient Jewish or Israelite kingdoms existed’.
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Update 1: SOAS has emailed: Regrettably our speaker is no longer able to join us on campus, so this event will now be taking place online.
Are they frit??
Update 2: Unbelievably abut 5 minutes into this Lecture SOAS locked me out.
Just what are they afraid of?
Update 3:Here’s the recording. Boring lecture, I didn’t miss much. Her thesis: Even ‘liberal Zionists’ ignore the ‘Naqba. (Maybe that’s because (see Karsh) of the 600,000 Arabs who left their homes; only a fraction were driven out by Jews/Israelis and twice as many by Arabs. The vast majority simply fled in fear, disorientation, and lack of national cohesion).
I blogged recently about the Leftists who got themselves elected to the ZF’s National Council with the secret agenda of wrecking the organisation. Today’s Jewish Chronicle has an article about the final email sent to the National Council by the estimable Executive Director of the ZF, Steve Winston. But it only included extracts from the email. I set the record straight by publishing the complete email below. The emboldening is mine.
Reportedly there remain questions to be asked about the inference of the quote in the penultimate paragraph of the JC article.
Dear NC,
Today is my last day with the Zionist Federation, and whilst the saying “as one door closes, another one opens” applies to me here, it is with sadness that I bid farewell to the ZF, an organisation almost 123 years old, created in 1899 to help facilitate the reestablishment of a Jewish homeland in our ancestral land. Under the leadership of the great Chaim Weizmann, it was the ZF which was specifically mentioned by Lord Balfour in letter of support for Zionism. To have led an organisation with such illustrious forbears was and always will be an honour for me.
I would like to express my very sincere thanks to Richard P Woolf and Rabbi Lea Mühlstein who have handled the redundancy process with professionalism, sensitivity, and a commitment to ensure that the payroll staff would receive what was due to them in line with statutory regulations. I am aware it has not been easy, given the scarcity of funds, and so am very appreciative of your combined efforts, with the help of Noeleen Cohen who took on the task of overseeing the finances, as well as the Arzenu and Meretz movements who helped facilitate this process. Thank you!
I would also like to thank Barbara Goldberg who took on the position of Chair of the Advocacy and Communications committee. Barbara, you very quickly showed yourself to be fully committed to the committee and its purpose, even whilst dealing with your daily life and personal Aliyah. Thank you! I look forward to visiting you in Israel next time I am there.
And Ruth Nyman, please can you process the application by Eretz Ha’kodesh. The ZF’s financial situation and associated hiatus should not be a reason to delay the processing of their application, perhaps more so that they are a bona fide member of the World Zionist Organisation.
I think it is fair to say that the past year at the ZF has not been easy for a number of reasons, and whilst the situation continues to be difficult and challenging for the ZF, my sincere hope is that it will re-emerge, in the not-too-distant future, as a stronger, more secure, and purposeful organisation. After all, with modern Antisemitism all too often targeting Israel, the Jew amongst the nations, a solid and forthright Zionist Federation is needed, to stand up for the noble cause of Zionism.
Now for a couple of home truths.
Mercaz-Masorti, as one of the main affiliates of the ZF, it was disappointing that you didn’t see fit to stand up for the ZF and at least pay the dues at the level you were paying last year. The same goes for the JLM. It is not as if either organisation has not been aware of the dire situation of the ZF’s finances.
But more pointedly, it is hardly reasonable for either of these organisations to take all the seats they did in the last biennial and then not make a commensurate contribution.
Arzenu have always paid their way, and Meretz, as I write above, stood up and joined suit. It is disappointing that the two other large affiliates did not join them.
With regard to confidentiality, I wrote to you all back in January 2022 informing you that the story of the ZF’s difficulties had been leaked prior to the termination of the embargo we had agreed at the National Council meeting just 16 hrs earlier.
When I consider how the day after the Jan 2021 Biennial, news of the ZF’s accounts hit the headlines, it certainly does seem that there are one or more on the NC who are acting in bad faith by leaking information to the press, something that goes against the ZF’s constitution.
I am writing about this here because once again, a confidential chat which took place in the ZF’s Advocacy and Comms What’s App group just a couple of weeks ago, regarding Bezalel Smotritch, was screenshotted and leaked. Whilst I am aware that after today, such issues will cease to be any of my business, I do hope that this will stop and that those responsible will finally find it in themselves to act FOR the ZF rather than agitate against it.
Or, if it continues, that those responsible are identified and removed.
In last May’s Guardian of the Walls defensive operation against the unprecedented rocket fire from Gaza, the Board of Deputies and Jewish Leadership Council decided to run a virtual rally, which called upon people to take photos of themselves holding up placards which read something like “No to Rockets, Yes to Peace”. The ZF supported it (the ZF is a member of both orgs and has a duty to collaborate on such things) and advertised it, yet LJY-Netzer (and no doubt other groups and individuals) chose to oppose it directly naming the ZF on Twitter, maintaining that the placard’s words should be more along the lines of “No to Rockets, Yes to Peace, No to Occupation, No to Settlements (and other perceived ill-doings by Israel) etc”.
Had Israel NOT been under attack from genocidal Jew-hating terrorists at the time, and had thousands upon thousands of teenage Israelis NOT been risking their lives defending their country and all its people, such a reaction from LJY-Netzer would have remained as just predictable.
But to ignore the many and actual hate-fuelled and often illegal practices of the Palestinian leaders against Israel and its people, LJY-Netzer, whilst stoking the anti-Israel flames when the whole of Israel was under attack (physically and on social media), made its activity utterly disgraceful.
In my view, the conduct of LJY-Netzer during such a time was morally reprehensible and certainly arguably fell short of the requirements of NC members as specified in the constitution.
The Jewish community has lots of challenges ahead.
To those who, either individually or through affiliation to some fringe groups, focus obsessively on “the occupation”, “those settlements”, and a whole variety of other perceived ill-doings by Israel, you are all too often throwing Israel under the bus whilst cosying up to the woke culture, something which certainly won’t help any of us in the long run, let alone our Homeland.
To you all, be well and I wish you the best of luck for the future.
I will be hovering in the background for a a few weeks whilst Richard and colleagues complete the handover of accounts etc.
Kind regards Steve
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I’ve covered a previous LBC tête-à-têtebetween presenter Iain Dale and IDS-afflicted ex-Conservative Minister Sir Alan Duncan (IDS: Israel Derangement Syndrome). (Dale saw fit to block me on Twitter after I criticised him).
On last night’s show Duncan was a member of a panel invited by Dale to discuss Ukraine. Other members were Admiral Lord West, Jude Kelly and Corbynista Grace Blakeley, proud owner of the most wasted Oxford PPE degree in history. At 1 hour 38m 40s ‘David in Enfield’ asks about the Panel’s view of the UK government issuing ‘golden visas’ to Russian citizens – some of whom are funding UK MPs – despite the deaths of British citizens in the Russian attack of the Crimea, the Salisbury poisonings and the Skripal murder.
At 1:43:56 you can hear Duncan’s response. He twists the question in order to bash Israel with a blatantly premeditated strike:
Our own credibility only holds together if we are consistent. Do we turn a blind eye to the fact that Abramovich is reported to have given £100m to settler causes in Israel which is an illegal breach of the rules-based international order?
It was $100m not £100m. But when it comes to bashing Israel, Duncan couldn’t give a toss about detail!
Dale adds the word “allegedly”. Duncan reminds him that he said “reportedly”. Then he says
A lot of American money undoubtedly does go into a similar such cause. The annexation of the West Bank … is a long simmering such example.
Look what Duncan did. He drew a parallel between Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s presence in Judea and Samaria.
Far from remonstrating at the antisemitic offensiveness of this comparison, the oleaginous Dale quips obnoxiously
You do realise you’re going to set Twitter off by saying that?
For the record, there is NO point of comparison between Israel’s policy in Judea and Samaria and Putin’s invasion of Ukraine: Judea and Samaria were taken as a result of successful defence against aggression in 1967. They were quickly offered back at Khartoum and have been substantially offered back four times, in exchange for a peace commitment. Nothing remotely like Ukraine, a sovereign nation that has been illegally invaded.
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Yet more proof that Labour remains unelectable came on Tuesday (22 February 2022).
On Tuesday the British Parliament considered whether to stop public sector organisations – including local authorities – from directing their pension funds to adopt an independent foreign or defence policy by excluding the shares of specified companies. Neither ‘Israel’ nor ‘BDS’ was mentioned in the relevant proposed legislation but it was perfectly obvious that it was aimed at outlawing Israel boycott policies (such as the one disgracefully voted by Lancaster).
Legislation was needed to overturn a Supreme Court ruling that (former) Communities Secretary Sajid Javid had gone too far in saying that trustees must not invest contrary to government policy. In truth pension fund trustees have to act for the benefit of beneficiaries. They obviously cannot impose ‘ethical’ constraints without consulting those beneficiaries. To market a new ‘ethical’ unit trust is perfectly legal. To impose constraints on a pension fund without the agreement of all the beneficiaries is obviously not.
But because the PSC indulges in ‘gesture politics’ to publicise Israel Hate via these dead-on-arrival local authority motions, it’s important to legislate.
The legislative proposal (an Amendment to a Pensions Bill) was sponsored by Conservative MP Robert Jenrick. (He is married to an Israeli-born daughter of Holocaust survivors; their children are being brought up as Jewish). He had an excellent article in The Times Red Box on Monday explaining the proposed Amendment:
The place for legitimate debate around the UK-Israel relationship is in Westminster. There will be differing opinions, as befits our democracy in which we prize freedom of speech. It is there that I will continue to argue that, despite its flaws, Israel is a beacon of light in the region and a country with which deeper ties can only make us safer and more prosperous.
The amendment was approved by 296-81, making 377 MPs who voted. There are 650 MPs but the 7 Sinn Fein MPs do not take their seats; that makes 277 MPs who abstained. Appallingly Starmer told his 198 Labour MPs to abstain. Presumably he knew that he would face a significant revolt from IDS virus sufferers if he whipped his MPs (IDS = Israel Derangement Syndrome). So he bottled out.
Let’s take a closer look at the 81 MPs who vetoed Robert Jenrick’s amendment. 23 of them are Labour Party members (including Corbyn who has had the Whip removed but disgracefully remains a Party Member). 34 are SNP (so all but 11 SNP MPs vetoed). 3 are ex-SNP plus Alba. 1 Green (Lucas). 12 of the 13 LibDems vetoed. The remaining 7 naysayers are SDLP, current or ex-Plaid Cymru and Alliance. No Conservative MP vetoed.
Begum, Burgon, Lavery, McDonnell, Ribeiro-Addy, Sultana, Whitley and Winter also signed the ‘Stop the War’ letter (but later withdrew their signatures).
All have a history of antisemitism or of support for antisemites or of IDS.
McDonnell even endorsed the widely ridiculed Amnesty Report in the debate. (Amnesty issued briefing against the amendment – of course they did).
And Zarah Sultana referred to ‘illegally occupied Palestinian lands’ – they are not ‘illegally occupied’, no genuine Court has ever ruled otherwise. Ditto Begum in her proud statement after the vote:
Despite being regarded as a campaigner against antisemitism in Labour, Dame Margaret Hodge failed to endorse the amendment. Neither did turncoat Christian Wakeford.
Time and again Labour has proved that it cannot be trusted on Israel. Starmer’s copout is merely the latest example.
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Full disclosure: I’m a 3rd generation Spurs supporter who started going in 1961, the ‘Double’ Year. I was last at the ground to see us lose 2-3 to Southampton on 9 February in a terrific match. I didn’t intend to respond to the idiocy of Baddiel et al but today they crossed a line ……And by the way, no-one can accuse me of being soft on antisemitism….
Jewish News and the Baddiel brothers have campaigned against Spurs Fans chanting our ‘Yid Army’ soubriquet. The latest is this piece by Lee Harpin. Before I address the substantive issues about the ‘Y-Word’ let’s look at the inaccuracies and distortions in the piece.
Harpin quotes Lord Mann calling for national flags to be banned in football stadia.
This is the Lee Harpin who – appallingly – attacked Israel’s response (and by extension mine – and that of many others) to the Amnesty Report:
The fact that ALL national flags already are banned at Spurs (and presumably other grounds) simply demonstrates how little he and Harpin know about this issue. And let’s remember that it was Mann who said a year ago the IHRA definition of antisemitism should not be used to assess the suitability of external speakers at Universities. Seriously? Why does he support its adoption by Universities then?
And where’s Lord Mann’s ‘own research’ that Harpin cites? We are not told whether his sample is just Spurs fans or the wider population? Was it a statistically representative sample? Who carried out Lord Mann’s survey? It’s an insult to readers to cite ‘Lord Mann’s own research’ without assuring us that it was scientifically carried out!
Harpin quotes from the 2019 Spurs survey of fans about the Y-Word. His quotes are both incorrect and selective.
Incorrect: He quotes ‘94 per cent recognised the word “Yid” could be a racist term‘. No that’s not what the survey said. It said ‘94% acknowledged that ‘some people consider the Y-word to be a racist term against a Jewish person’.’ In other words they do not disclose their own view – they merely recognise that at least one person in the world thinks it is a racist term. Very different from Harpin’s misquote.
Selective: Harpin fails to disclose the survey result that 66% of Jewish Spurs fans (me included) join the ‘Yid Army’ chant (36% ‘regularly’, 30% ‘occasionally’). And only 35% of the remaining 34% think that the word ‘Yid’ used in the Spurs context is offensive. That makes only 12% of the Jewish Spurs fans surveyed (=0.35 times 0.34).
Now to the substantive issues, of which there are two. The first is that those who oppose the chant wilfully ignore its origins and context. There is a long history of links between Spurs and London’s Jews. Most notably in December 1935 White Hart Lane was the venue for an international between England and Germany. Opposition was organised. “The Jews have been the best supporters of the Tottenham club ever since its formation, and we shall adopt every means in our power to stop the match,” one of the protest organisers told the Star, London’s paper. “We regard the visit of the German team as an effrontery, not only to the Jewish race but to all lovers of freedom.” 4 December 1935 was the day the swastika flew over White Hart Lane. The German team gave a wincingly sinister Nazi salute to the crowd before kick-off. The swastika flag didn’t last long – a fan climbed onto the roof of the West Stand and pulled it down.
The second issue is the context. When non-Jewish fans chant ‘Yid Army’ it’s in recognition of the history. And remember that the chant started in response to antisemitic abuse from the supporters of other clubs – notably Chelsea – who Baddiel supports! Non-Jewish Spurs fans are proud of the club’s Jewish links and that’s how they show it.Israel flags – along with all national flags – are banned but if they weren’t, I would feel 1000 times safer with an Israel flag at Spurs than at eg SOAS!
That’s why Anthony Clavane’s quoted comments are so wrong:
Personally, I feel uncomfortable walking to White Hart Lane and hearing the “Yid Army” chant. I feel it gives racist fans the licence to respond with offensive songs like ‘Spurs are on their way to Auschwitz’ and ‘He’s only a poor little Yiddo.’
The context of ‘Yid Army’ is a completely positive one. If antisemites respond offensively that is NOT a reason to try to ban it.
The argument is precisely analogous to those who want us to stop using the word ‘Zionist’ because antisemites use it abusively.
The day we allow antisemites to shape our language is the day Jew haters can declare victory.
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Another name to add to that list is Vivian Wineman. He’s the former President of the Board of Deputies who failed to notify Deputies of his decision to partner with the anti-Israel Charity Oxfam. Then there was the whitewashing of the Muslim Council of Britain, an organisation with which the government had severed relations. The Board issued a joint statement with the MCB which many including the MCB took to say that Israel deliberately targeted civilians. Two former Presidents called on him to resign. And Yachad was allowed to join the Board on Wineman’s Watch.
You won’t find Wineman challenging Amnesty’s antisemitic lies about Israel or explaining the reason for Israel’s anti-terrorist actions in Gaza. No. Nor fisking Thomas Suarez’s antisemitic lies.
His shtick is to Virtue Signal by regurgitating Ha’aretz articles which appear (‘appear’: context-free and awaiting verification) to show Israel in a bad light; complain that no UK media is covering them; and vilify UK Jewish Community institutions for supposedly turning a blind eye to them (of course there were innumerable similar examples when he was Board President!!).
A recent film (shown on 20 January at the Sundance Film Festival) has revived the question of what happened at Tantura – an Arab village – in 1948.In the film, several Israeli veterans are interviewed who, in the 1948 War of Independence, served in the Alexandroni Brigade. Allegedly they forcibly displaced Arab residents following the formal conclusion of the War.
‘Allegedly’ … All there is, is oral testimony – not under oath. Remember to so-called Jenin ‘Massacre’? That libel was based on oral testimony too ….
But in his drive to vilify Israel, Wineman has no doubt: ‘….determined attempt to cover it up’ … ‘ plaintiffs in libel actions to go into court and systematically commit perjury’ …. ‘systematic cover up’ … ‘Even now, that the testimony in the film has really settled the question’.
And – he writes – ‘The UK press have not covered it. As for the diaspora Jewish press their response has been one almost complete silence.’
Aha … the ‘cover up’ goes global … ‘Tanturagate’ …. Apart from the Guardian and BBC – who never miss a chance to vilify Israel – why on earth should the Times or Telegraph cover what remain a series of Out-Of-Court allegations?
But the pièce de résistance comes next:
As for the diaspora Jewish press their response has been one almost complete silence.As usual one has to go to Haaretz to come across any coverage. It is like the killing of Eyad Hallak or the recent death of Omar Abdalmajeed As’ad.-as far as the diaspora is concerned these things never happened. The debate about Israel in the mainstream British Jewish community already pretty poor has now plumbed new depths.
One – he’s wrong. The Tantura film has also been covered in Times of Israel and Jerusalem Post (a critical article!).
Two – Why on earth should the ‘diaspora Jewish press’ – by which he means the JC, Jewish Weekly, Jewish Telegraph and Jewish News – cover what remain merely allegations?
Three – To draw the conclusion that ‘as far as the diaspora is concerned these things never happened’ is beyond ludicrous. Is Wineman seriously saying that a Diaspora Jew (like me) relies purely on the UK Jewish Press for information about Israel? This argument is intellectually demented! A Cambridge Graduate? Seriously?
I blogged about Tuesday’s horrific Amnesty vile attack on Israel here. Thus far over 1200 people have signed my Petition to deprive Amnesty of its tax-exempt status in the UK. Because (see CC9) charities with a political message have to tell the truth. The report bears about as much relationship to the truth as a duck does to an elephant. And charities have to act ‘in the public interest’. Where is the ‘public interest’ in stoking antisemitism by vilifying israel with lies?
But what has been the response of the UK Jewish Left? The Virtue-Signalling Jewish Left that got so exercised when JNF Chair Sam Hayek called out the extent of Muslim antisemitism and questioned whether Jews have a future in the UK? You’d think they’d be up in arms about a report from a London-based organisation that traduces the world’s only Jewish State with antisemitic lies, right?
Wrong.
Jewish Labour Movement? Search for ‘@jewishlabour Amnesty’ on Twitter. Nothing. Ditto from JLM Chair @MikeKatz.
JLM’s mouthpiece in Jewish News, Lee Harpin? Ludicrously and shamefully all he could manage was to label Israel’s response ‘hysterical’, endorsing an equally shameful Ha’aretz article by Anshel Pfeffer. Both of them unforgivably fail to appreciate how the Apartheid Lie stokes antisemitic attacks in the Diaspora.
How about Sabrina Miller, Yachad supporter and cub reporter on Jewish News? No mention of Amnesty on her Twitter. Far too difficult and embarrassing to try to defend Israel in public! Much easier and multiculti to protest against China holding the Winter Olympics. Great for interfaith name-dropping too. Never mind that Afzal Khan MP in 2014 allegedly tweeted “The Israeli Government are acting like Nazi’s in Gaza” and that this followed a speech he made in 2002 when he was recorded apparently claiming that Israel was “committing genocide against the Palestinian people”…….
‘We take the findings of this report extremely seriously’.What? A report labelling Israel an apartheid state, which seeks to criminalise the existence of the Jewish state as the national homeland for the Jewish people?You take it SERIOUSLY???
Next time you see Yachad’s slogan ‘Together for Israel, Together for Peace’ just remember their response to the AmNasty Report.
Kanter-Webber? Who’s soon going to be the Liberal Rabbi of the ‘Progressive’ (?towards what?) Synagogue in Brighton? Utterly craven. Sees the Shamnesty Report as mere ‘criticism’ of Israel! And worried about how the antisemites who play the Livingstone Formulation card might react to those (like me) who have called the Report out for what it is.
Surely some of them care enough about the Amnesty Report to want to sign my Petition? Surely they care that the taxes they pay are higher in order to subsidise AmNasty’s antisemitism?
Wrong. Not one of them has signed. Same goes for the Leftist Cuckoo Entryists who have taken over the Zionist Federation with the probable intention of killing it off.
On Tuesday I recorded a TV interview with Revelation TV about the AmNasty Report. You can see it next Friday 11th at 9pm, repeated the following Sunday at 3.30.
Hard to remember the truth in such a week – but the truth is that the likes of AmNasty are being routed by Israel’s diplomatic and economic successes.
And remember thata wounded animal is at its most dangerous in the hours before death…………..
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The 200+ page Amnesty Report, to be published tomorrow (1 February), parrots other ‘human rights’ organisations – eg Human Rights Watch – in making the Apartheid Slur. The Report (principal author: Philip Luther) is a farrago of malicious lies about Israel.
Only on 4 pages is there any attempt at ‘balance’. On pages 5, 18, 31 and 130 you will find:
Palestinian armed groups fired thousands of indiscriminate rockets towards cities and towns in Israel killing or injuring dozens of civilians
NB the page numbers in this blog are from the pre-publication document – they are inferred as there are no numbers – the numbers in the published version may be different.
Elder of Zion exposes some of the lies here and here. Amnesty has to resort to the demonstrable falsehood that discriminating against “national origin” is ‘apartheid’. In other words the UK government – by charging non-citizens for NHS services – is guilty of ‘apartheid’! Plus it alleges ‘apartheid’ within Israel using false logic. Thus there is supposedly ‘apartheid’ against Israeli Arabs- they do not join the IDF therefore do not get the same post-service benefits as Jews. Elder points out that many Arabs DO join the IDF – and Charedi Jews do not – so how can it be ‘apartheid’?
As Elder says
In these and countless other cases in this long report, Amnesty is going out of its way to twist the facts to make Israel appear guilty. The decision that Israel is guilty of “apartheid” was made by HRW, B’Tselem and HRW way before they gathered any evidence. It was a pre-ordained conclusion and any facts that prove they have been dishonest in their information gathering is simply ignored or buried.
It isn’t an honest report about Israel. It is a hatchet job. And Amnesty knows that very few people will read it critically, because they assume that Amnesty is an honest broker. So later this week we will see AP and Reuters and the New York Times give fawning coverage of this report, and not one mainstream reporter will take the time and effort to look at it critically.
Below I document 16 lies in the Report. There are plenty more. How many can you find? Let me know and I’ll add them at the end.
Lie #2: The only security action by Israel within the Mosque compound was to pursue suspected criminals who had attacked people and fled into the Mosque thinking it was a safe haven. Arab aggression was initiated at the start of Ramadan with attacks on Jews in the streets of Jerusalem and its light railway. A yeshiva student was murdered in an attack that left two other students critically wounded. A terror cell was thwarted on its way to commit a major atrocity in Jerusalem. Arabs desecrated the al-Aqsa mosque by turning it into a war encampment. Stockpiled rocks and Molotov cocktails were lobbed from the mosque compound at police and at Jews praying at the Western Wall. The police entered the mosque purely to stop this murderous onslaught.
Page 5
Lie #3: Israel always warns before a bombing raid in Gaza. Yes there are civilian deaths but Israel achieves the lowest-ever ratio of civilian:combatant casualties (1:1) in asymmetric warfare.
Lie #4: There is no ‘blockade’ of Gaza. All there is, is a prohibition on goods entering which can be used to make weapons.
Lie #7: Non-Jews have equal rights in Israel. Just one example of many: An Arab Supreme Court Judge, Salim Joubran, helped to send a former Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, to jail.
Page 8
Lie #9: See Lie #6 above
Page 9
Lie #10: See Lie #4 above. No law prohibits Israel from restricting goods going into Gaza in order to protect its own citizens from terror.
Page 9
Lie #11: A massive lie – Nothing stops Arab Israelis becoming Members of the Knesset. Indeed an Arab Party – the Ra’am Party – is a member of the governing coalition!
Lie #13: There is no such thing as ‘international law’ in the sense of laws that can be enforced by a Court. No Court has ever ruled the settlements illegal.
Page 75
Lie #14: Checkpoints etc are there to prevent suicide bombers
Lie #15: Jewish presence in Judea/Samaria is perfectly legal. The League of Nations Resolution of July 24, 1922 remains valid. It endorsed Jewish settlement throughout the Mandate area.
Like many previous NGO publications, Amnesty’s report manipulates and distorts international law, Israeli policy, and events on the ground, as well as denies the Jewish people their right to sovereign equality and self-determination. Thus, Amnesty’s report can be considered antisemitic according to the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which notes that: “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.”
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Nevertheless, the agenda behind this report remains perfectly clear. Amnesty thinks the Jewish State needs to be dismantled. Indeed, in the intensity and obsession of its hatred for Israel, its inversion of victim and aggressor and its disdain for Jewish suffering and Jewish human rights, it has the feel of Palestinian Authority or Hamas propaganda.
This is hardly surprising. In 2019, David Collier wrote a report on Amnesty pointing out that key figures on its staff were Palestinian propagandists and terrorist sympathisers, including fans of Islamic Jihad, Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Amnesty International is a hate group, and should be treated by all decent people as a pariah organisation beyond the pale.
This report will also provoke increased violence, abuse and boycotts against Jews in Israel and Jews who support Israel in the diaspora, in an era where antisemitic attacks are already at a high point and on the rise. That may not be Amnesty’s aim in producing this twisted document, but they cannot be so blind as to fail to see its bloody consequences, which have played out over decades following similar distorted reports, debates, resolutions and media fabrications.
Ironically enough, the same week that the Amnesty report was published, Osila Abu Assad, from Nazareth, became the first female Arab judge to be elevated to an Israeli district court. She was one of six Arabs appointed to important positions in the judiciary this week, half of them women.
Update 5:Alex Safian of CAMERAexposes Amnesty’s deception in the first line of the report!
Update 8: I was delighted to have assisted Israeli Arab Yoseph Haddad and his fiancee Emily Schrader for their end-February roadshow in London and Dublin. Here’s Yoseph’s terrific address to the Irish Parliament on 24 February.
The Zionist Federation was founded in 1899, 123 years ago. It was the Federation of Zionist Societies in the UK and Ireland – the coordinating body in other words. One might have imagined that the ZF would have dissolved on May 14 1948 – ‘Mission Accomplished’. But thanks to dynamic, resourceful volunteers and professional staff, it continued as an Israel advocacy and educational organisation. I became involved some 40 years ago, first as a factfinder for the late Eric Moonman MP, then as Co-Vice Chair with the estimable visionary Andrew Balcombe as Chair. I remained a National Council Member for many years after.
However the ZF’s Constitution never changed. It remained a Federation. When Israel won the Six Day War in 1967, the price was growing hostility from the Left. Frustrated by their inability to mobilise the proletariat in the First World, they fixed upon the proletariat of the Third World, in particular the Palestine Liberation Organisation (see Robin Shepherd’s book). Elements in the ZF’s Federation – all from the non-Orthodox synagogue movements – went with the flow. They could have taken over the policy-making ZF National Council years ago and destroyed the organisation – but they were slow. However the Putsch came with the National Council elections on 24 January last year (the ZF ‘Biennial’). (The 2020 debate around declaring sovereignty in part of Judea and Samaria may have woken them up).
The election results are shown in this Chart.
I was kicked off and the ‘Progressive’ (joke) Left members of the Federation combined to ‘Occupy’ the National Council. (All but two of the organisations newly represented were present in a 2020 ‘youth letter’ protesting against resumption of sovereignty over parts of Judea/Samaria).
Key to the Chart: Jewish Labour Movement (JLM), Liberal Judaism, LJY-Netzer (LJYN), Meretz UK (Me), Masorti Judaism (MM) and Pro Zion – Arzenu (PZ).
Let’s take a closer OSINT look at 13 Cuckoos on the National Council – from left to right in the Chart. Jonathan Black signs Yachad petitions. (Yachad was kept out of the ZF thanks to me).
Daniel Mautner recently signed both letters traducing JNF Chair Samuel Hayek (which I fisked here).
At the January 2021 ZF Biennial Yachad signatory Ruth Nyman successfully proposed a motion (incredibly 69% voted for, 25% against, 6% abstained) gagging the ZF Executive (Paul Charney hadn’t yet quit, he left in May), obliging it to get signoff from the National Council for any ZF ‘political’ statement (ie everything).
Professor John Strawson(and here) represents the far Left MeretzUK which campaigned against the US Peace Plan. Strawson regards Israel’s control of Judea and Samaria as ‘colonial’ and the settlements as ‘illegal’. Both are lies – and are completely at odds with the ZF’s ethos which is to support the elected government of Israel. Strawson is a Yachad signatory. And here he is in 2008 voicing the Apartheid Lie:
Reform Rabbi Celia Surget blocked me on Twitter (her account has been deleted). In 2018 she walked out of the ZF Dinner addressed by Minister Gideon Sa’ar. She knew who the speaker was in advance so why did she attend the dinner? Just to make a scene? (She was accompanied by Liberal Rabbi Lea Mühlstein, quoted extensively in Harpin’s piece and now also a National Council member (replacing Surget who has left the UK)). Both Surget and Mühlstein signed a petition protesting about policy towards the Bedouin – policy which was aimed at providing them with decent homes.
Lawrence Joffe (like John Strawson) represents the far Left MeretzUK which campaigned against the US Peace Plan.
At the 24 January 2021 ZF Biennial I saw people who never attend ZF meetings or events. They wouldn’t be seen dead at ZF Lobby Day for example. They were therepurely to elect the Leftist Cuckoos.
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The writing has been on the wall for the ZF ever since. A sign was the ZF statement on the Ben and Jerrys boycott – here’s my letter in Jewish News last August:
The final blow came with Lee Harpin’s Jewish News ‘exclusive’ yesterday.Ex-Mirror, since he moved from the JC to Jewish News he seems to be waging a War of Words with those of us who are openly pro-Israel in the UK. If the Jewish Left want to spread a smear about us, Harpin obliges.
Predictably the Cuckoos blame the rightful occupants of the Nest for its disintegration. The truth is that THEY are to blame. Donations and membership subscriptions dried up after the Putsch. Inexcusably Harpin failed to contact Paul Charney BEFORE publication to defend himself. A breach of Journalism #101. Only after I complained was Charney approached for comment. His comment is correct of course (note how Harpin qualifies it: ‘claimed’
He claimed the change in direction of ZF policy had put the public off
The article is also factually incorrect. It states ‘The mainstream Orthodox Zionist organisation Mizrachi is now independent of the ZF’. Mizrachi always was independent of the ZF! (though they were at one time a member organisation I think).
Mike Katz’s comments are particularly despicable:
The previous leadership of the Zionist Federation, through financial and governance mismanagement, have run one of the oldest Jewish organisations into the ground. It’s very sad to see that long serving staff members will be made redundant as a result. The way in which the ZF was run by its previous leadership meant it served a tiny clique of unrepresentative members. This must change going forwards, and we will work with our partners to ensure that ZF is well-run, financially viable and representative when its re-organisation is complete.
Delete ‘unrepresentative’, insert ‘Genuinely pro-Israel’. As far as I know this is the first time in history that Katz has ever shown any interest in the ZF. I’ve certainly never seen him at a single ZF event eg Lobby Day, Yom Haatzmaut or Al Quds protest. Except of course as a Cuckoo at the Biennial.
Fortunately Israel goes from strength to strength as it approaches its 75th birthday in 2023. If the Cuckoos think that they can make any difference to Israel they are deluded.
Previous donors to the ZF must have got the message months ago. I hope that the WZO has stopped funding the ZF. If by any chance donors have been in hibernation, here are the surviving major pro-Israel UK organisations worthy of funding: ZCC, Mizrachi,UK Lawyers for Israel, JNF. Plus of course individual bloggers and campaigners such as David Collier.Modesty Forfends – but see below ….
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Update:
ZF RIP – It was inevitable and it was the reason why they muscled in …….
The names above are the ones on the London National Council. There are also some leftists from outside London: Gideon Leibowitz (LJY-Netzer), Michael Rubinstein (JLM) and Toby Kunin (JLM), Kunin was the mover of the Union of Jewish Students motion to distance the UJS from Israel (the motion passed).
The leftists attempted to block the ZF from allying with the October 2021 Israel Britain Alliance campaign on BBC bias against Israel.
Some weeks ago Joy Wolfe MBE resigned as ZF Honorary Life President.
TG the Texas hostages are safe and their Muslim attacker dead ברוך השם A British terrorist wanted to murder Jews … But Virtue Signalling Deputies vilify Sam Hayek for telling the truth about Muslim antisemitism
Gary Mond has been forced to resign as a Deputy and the Senior Vice President of the Board because – first – in 2017 he ‘liked’ two posts by Pamela Geller. David Collier notes here that merely ‘liking’ a post is an absurdly low threshold for disciplinary action. I would add that it is utterly ridiculous to regard ‘liking’ a social media post about the result of the French election in 2017 as a sackable offence! Do Mond’s Leftist power-crazed detractors think that every one of the 34% of the French electorate (10.6 million voters) who voted for Le Pen should also be sacked? The second supposedly offensive ‘like’ was for a Geller tweet welcoming free speech. Something with which the Leftists on the Board clearly have a problem.
Second, Mond responded to a Facebook post by Barry Shaw. In September 2014 Parliament voted for air strikes against Isis in Iraq, 524-43: Labour backed the Conservative government. One Labour MP, Rushanara Ali (an Israel hater), resigned from the Labour front bench in order to abstain. The Israel-based commentator Barry Shaw hypothesised that the higher the number of Muslim MPs and the higher the Muslim population, the less likely would it be that Parliament would support action against ISIS (he termed it ‘Britain’s essential security interests’). To which Mond answered:
When this happens – and the odds are that it will – the Britain that we knew will have gone forever.
The increase in the Muslim proportion of the population is a fact. According to the 2001 Census there were 1.6 million Muslims in England and Wales, or 3% of the population. By 2011 it had risen to 4.8%. In 2013 the respected US-based Pew Survey was quoted as projecting 8.2% by 2030. The correlation between constituencies with high Muslim populations and anti-Israel MPs is also a fact which I noted in this blog. Hardly controversial to ‘complete the circle’ by hypothesising that such MPs are more likely to oppose UK intervention in the Muslim Middle East.
Finally in immediate response to the horrific Islamic terror attacks on the Bataclan in Paris on 13 November 2015 (130 died,have we forgotten the horror?), Mond responded thus to his own post:
The post (his own) to which he was responding called the attackers ‘fanatical Muslim terrorists’ – a description to which no-one can possibly object. A reasonable person might therefore simply conclude that when he wrote ‘Islam’ he meant ‘Islamism’ or ‘Islamic terror’. A slip of the pen at a very distressing time for us all. But his accusers and judges are not reasonable people.
Update 19/1: Neither the Jewish News nor (worse) the JC reported this context. Harpin in the JN maliciously just printed the quote with zero context. Kaplan in the JC was even worse, leaving readers with the implication that Mond called ALL Muslims ‘evil bastards’.
Jewish News’ claim that it discovered these social media artefacts is patently absurd. They were almost certainly discovered by leftist online archaeologists – bent on smearing Mond and the JNF – who then passed them to Lee Harpin of the Jewish News. Ex-Mirror, he makes no secret of his leftist allegiance.
Equally despicable is the vilification of Samuel Hayek, the Chair of JNF UK, merely for identifying the prevalence of antisemitism among Muslims –a phenomenon for which there is ample statistical evidence and which is recognised by many Muslims. Particularly offensive was the comparison of Hayek’s comments with ‘the Great Replacement Theory’. White Supremacists in the US have used demographic trends to ‘justify’ racism against non-whites. To suggest that similar motivations underlay Hayek’s comments is shameful and insulting.
Samuel Hayek also said that Jews have no future in England. The communal leadership – including the Chief Rabbi – hit the airwaves to denounce him. Of course they did. You think they would talk themselves out if a job? Do turkeys vote for Christmas?
But is Hayek right?
Yachad Jews might have a future here but openly and genuinely pro-Israel Jews do not. In many careers – the humanities in academia, much of media including the BBC, teaching – being openly pro-Israel is a career killer. Displaying an Israel flag at a counter-demo is positively dangerous. The violence experienced by counter-demonstraters in May 2021 was so great that they decided it was in their best interest and that of the police to stay off the streets. Indeed one perpetrator, Jed Zia-Hughes, has pleaded guilty to the charge of Violent Disorder. He is a Muslim. He was inches away from putting me in a wheelchair. Most of the anti-Israel demonstraters were visibly Asian.
Why would unashamedly pro-Israel Jews want to live in a country where there is a high risk of life-changing injuries simply for holding an Israel flag in the street?
The response to Hayek’s comments from the Jewish Left has been completely over the top. See here and here.
Particularly obnoxious and offensive was the suggestion that Hayek’s comment that “the white Christian majority is shrinking” echoes ‘the Great Replacement Theory’.
Let’s look at the facts. Census data show that the percentage of the population of England and Wales that identifies as White British is indeed declining: from 2001 to 2011 it decreased from 87.4% to 80.5%. The 2001 Census found that 72% identified as Christian. In 2011 that had fallen sharply, to 59%. It is perfectly possible that the results of the 2021 Census will show a minority identifying as Christian.
In the language of social sciences these statements are simply ‘positive’ – factual, with no judgment as to whether they are ‘good’ or ‘bad’. But Hayek’s Jewish Left critics jumped on them, giving them a ‘normative’ spin: equating them to the ‘Great Replacement Theory’. This is simply intellectually dishonest. White Supremacists in the US have used demographic trends to ‘justify’ racism against non-whites. To suggest that similar motivations underlay Hayek’s comments is simply libellous and shameful.
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In 7 days’ time – 23 January – the Board of Deputies will vote on a motion to suspend JNF UK’s membership until Samuel Hayek resigns. The President (Standing Order 20 of the Board’s Constitution) has the power to disallow the motion. Despite its offensiveness and despite the fact that the JNF’s Deputy (one Gary Mond) will not be there to rebut the lies, she has not thus far showed the slightest inclination to disallow it.
Only 41 voting Deputies signed the anti-Hayek letter, fewer than 15% of the total. 117 signed the second ‘Young People’s’ letter but they are highly unrepresentative of the relevant Jewish Community. Of those showing an affilation to a synagogue movement, 89% show affiliation with Reform/Liberal/Masorti. Latest data show that only 32% of Synagogue members are in those movements (JPR July 2017, Mashiah and Boyd).
Signatories to the Deputies’ letter included Amos Schonfield who called three Jews (Yochy Davis, Martin Hizer, Esther Chayes) ‘fascist sympathisers’ simply because they disagreed with his view that Donald Trump was evil personified. A complaint to the Board under the Code of Conduct went nowhere – yet Gary Mond was disciplined for ‘liking’ those two posts. Utterly inconsistent.
Another signatory was Tommer Spence. He recently appeared to call the Israel Ambassador a racist (he wrote that she has ‘a record of racism’). He claimed that she said that the Naqba was an Arab Lie. She never said that. A complaint to the Board under the Code of Conduct (for bringing the Board into disrepute) went nowhere – yet Gary Mond was disciplined for ‘liking’ those two posts. Utterly inconsistent.
A third signatory was Nina Morris-Evans. She said Kaddish (the prayer for the dead) for dead Hamas terrorists who wanted to murder Israeli Jews. This occurred on 16 May 2018. A complaint to the Board under the Code of Conduct went nowhere – because the incident happened just 19 days before she became a Deputy – yet Gary Mond was disciplined for ‘liking’ those two posts. Utterly inconsistent.
Let’s look at the Young People’s letter. The first thing to note is that there are not 117 names there. There are 114. Because three names appear twice (Adam Tuck 48+79; Joshua Sadie 88+107; Sophia Ballin 51+80). The second is the duplication of names with the Deputies’ letter. Of the 41 voting Deputies, 11 or 27% also appear on the Young People’s letter (Keiles, Lubner, Mindel, Baker, Rosen, Felstein, Katz, Strauss, Hasenson, Kunin and Spence). (Additionally Mautner appears on both but as an U35 Observer he cannot vote).
And Gabriel Kanter-Webber who libelled me last year. I wrote this blog critiquing an article in the JC. He disagreed with me but instead of stating his reasons (which would take a scintilla of intellectual ability …..), he smeared me as a serial harasser of young women:
Webber will soon become the Rabbi of Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue. G-d only knows what they have done to deserve him! He also likes to tweet private posts from a Facebook group. ‘Private’ means ‘private’. If I was a congregant I wouldn’t trust him with sensitive information.
By contrast an Open Letter supporting Mond and Hayek has now been signed by 118 UK Jews. It remains open for signature. Most are the ‘Silent Majority’, horrified by the treatment of these two stalwarts.
Back to the Board of Deputies by way of a conclusion. It’s clear that leftist entryists hold sway. Many things have gone wrong in recent years – the Mond/Hayek disgrace is just the latest. The rejection last year of the 95-year old Manchester-based Zionist Central Council needs to be added to the catalogue of leftist idiocy.
The Board’s USP has always been ‘democratic legitimacy’. But it’s hardly democratic:
Some Deputies – eg those representing the United Synagogue – are not elected by all the members of the organisation. Many others continue for years, unopposed or with a rock solid majority often due to apathy. On the basis of a random sample of some 40 who were Deputies when I was one in 2012, nearly two-thirds remain Deputies 10 years later: I challenge the Board to publish a full breakdown of membership by length of service.
The President is elected by Deputies but once elected s/he can virtually act as a dictator for six years.
The President’s job is unpaid. How many people can afford to take time out of their careers unpaid for six years? A position that is only open to the wealthy is hardly ‘democratic’.
It is impossible to know how a Deputy has voted – there’s no democratic accountability for the electorate.
If the Mond/Hayek disgrace accelerates a rethink of UK Jewish community organisations then at least some good will have come of it.
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Appallingly the Board of Deputies voted 133-75 to pass the motion “The Board of Deputies hereby censures the Jewish National Fund UK (JNF UK) for failing to disavow the inflammatory and bigoted remarks of its Chair Samuel Hayek.”
Thanks to three Deputies who spoke brilliantly in opposition: Maurice Lawson (Reading Hebrew Congregation) who opposed; Josh Lee (UJS) and Paul Jacobus (Bushey United).
(The motion to suspend JNF until Hayek goes was dropped).
Last month BBC World Service broadcast a sound programme made by Batchelor-Hunt in Israel, about the Ethiopian-Israeli community. Predictably much of it consists of unfounded allegations about Ashkenazi prejudice against the immigrants and their descendants. There is one particularly shameful context-free allegation. At 4:20 she says
At one point the government were even secretly throwing away blood donated by Ethiopian Israelis
The truth is here. In common with many other countries including the UK, the Health Ministry in Israel prohibited the use of blood from people who were born or lived for more than a year in HIV-prevalent regions. These included sub-Saharan Africa (except South Africa), Southeast Asia and the Caribbean. The prohibition was lifted in 2016, more than five years ago.
Batchelor-Hunt tells us none of this context, apparently preferring the innuendo that the practise was racist against Jews of colour.
Of course the BBC lapped it up – the BBC that is still disgustingly protecting an Editor who slandered the young Jewish Israelis celebrating Chanukah on a bus in Oxford Street.
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Nobody who bans the Israel flag should be regarded as a ‘Zionist’. No ifs, no buts. Neither can they have full credibility in fighting antisemitism.
I’ve heard this chant countless times at anti-Israel demonstrations in London, most often at the vile annual antisemitic Al Quds Day march. But it’s not a sentiment I expected to experience at the Campaign Against Antisemitism’s demo last night at the BBC in London, in protest against the BBC’s fabricated lie to the effect that the Asian-heritage yobs who attacked a bus were provoked by an anti-Muslim slur from one of the passengers.
At the demonstration there were at least four Israel flags, including mine. Entirely appropriate because:
Most of the 40 young people on the bus in Oxford Street on the second night of Chanuka were Hebrew speakers from Israeli families in London. The bus trip was organised by the Chabad Israeli Centre in Temple Fortune. The Rabbi on the bus (Rabbi Glitsenstein, to whom I spoke today) spoke in Hebrew and much of the talk you can hear on the audio is unmistakably Hebrew (“Yalla!”).
The bad blood between the BBC and the UK Jewish Community does not stem from eg Holocaust Denial or Rothschild Conspiracy theories on Radio 4. Nor has Panorama made programmes opposing ritual circumcision or the process of koshering meat. It stems from the BBC’s anti-Israel bias (possibly acknowledged in the Balen Report, kept under lock and key). Example: Mohammed Hijab, who appears in a recent BBC ‘documentary’ about antisemitism, thinks pro-Israel Jews should ‘learn from the Holocaust”. There are many examples in this blog, eg this and this and this. And see the excellent BBC Watch.
In all likelihood the BBC’s fabrication was inserted by an anti-Israel editor sympathetic to Muslim antisemitism (the journalist whose by-line appears, Harry Farley, has denied that he inserted it). The lie was no doubt inserted to try to “balance” the appalling antisemitism of the Asian-heritage yobs. (Note that at the BBC, BBC Arabic & BBC Arabic News share a floor with BBC London News & BBC Radio London).
But the stewards harangued us to hide our flags (despite at least one of them even having an Israeli passport).
And when it came to the ‘official’ photo of the protesters – with the BBC building in the background – Gideon Falter (CAA CEO) was determined to airbrush the Israel flags out! ‘Can you clear out for a minute?’ he called out, to the people with Israel flags. Photoshop could not do better ….
Falter’s micromanaged Israel flag-free photo
Next time use cardboard cutouts: They’re far less trouble – and they don’t feel the cold
Weird – and doubly so for a Vice Chair of the Jewish National Fund. Also weird was that in his speech he never acknowledged that many of the young people on the bus were Israeli. Maybe Falter is fearful of the Israel Haters accusing CAA of being a branch of the Israel Embassy (they have form). Here’s a lesson for him: the day you start listening to antisemites is the day you might as well retire to the golf course. Or maybe it’s Stockholm Syndrome: he feels that charges of antisemitism are blunted if Israel is part of the argument. The problem with that argument is that it becomes self-fulfilling.
You can even hear Falter on the video (29.11) naming me when he asks the flag bearers to “clear out” so that he can have photos free of the oh so embarrassing Israel flags. I refused of course (at 29.26 I shout “the people on the bus were Israelis“). I will not be stopped from carrying an Israel flag in any public place in the UK – not by antisemites, nor by those who profess to oppose them – least of all by someone who is supposed … supposed .. to be on the same side. Of course Falter’s attempt to ban Israel flags – naming me – incited some Trembling Jew acolytes. This deodorant-free man (with a yarmulke) stood close to me in front to try to obscure and intimidate me:
This bearded man grabbed my telescopic flagpole and snapped it. Something only done previously by Israel haters.
Well Mr BraveWarriorAgainstAntisemitism – Your photo plus a description will go to the police with an allegation of assault (if anyone recognises him please contact me…….)
Far too many UK Jews think that Israel is an embarrassing inconvenience, to be airbrushed out of photos. As David Collier writes:
And far too many of us are even willing to point the finger of blame at Israel, as if somehow if Israel just ended the ‘occupation,’ all the antisemitism would just go away. It is as if 3,000+ years of history have taught us nothing
Well I’ve got news for them. Decent non-Jews (like Fiyaz Mughal and Atma Singh, both of whom were with us outside the BBC) respect us far more if we stand up for Israel, than if we treat it like the embarrassing uncle who farts in the corner.
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Addendum: Knowing that most of the young people on the bus were Hebrew Speakers provides yet more evidence that the BBC is lying, Even if a Hebrew speaker wanted to insult a Muslim, s/he would not use the word ‘Muslim’. S/he would say ‘Aravim’ (the Hebrew for ‘Arabs’). (Thanks to David Collier for this point).
It is nothing less than a complete shameful disgrace.
The lawyer finds that NOTHING that Miller has said or written either violates the law or is antisemitic! Let’s look at some of his/her reasoning (the only clue to the lawyer’s identity is his/her admission that s/he isn’t Jewish. One can also reasonably assume that it’s not Hugh Tomlinson or Stephen Sedley since they are quoted).
There are two key failings.
One, the reliance on the fake ‘Jerusalem Declaration’ definition of antisemitism (JD). The QC suggests (para 72.4) that the nature of what amounts to antisemitism is contested. Rubbish. No representative Jewish organisation in the world has adopted the fake JD. All the ones I know recognise the IHRA definition. The QC pathetically attempts to legitimise the fake JD by saying that it had ‘over 200 signatories in late March 2021’ and that (para 56) it was ‘developed by a group of scholars in the fields of Holocaust history, Jewish studies and Middle East studies.’
Yeah right, Idiot – I fisked the JD signatories here – They include a corpse, a Semiotics academic and a Gender and Sexuality Studies academic! 40% of them don’t work in the field of Jewish Studies! One third of the 208 suffer from Israel Derangement Syndrome!
Memo to Bristol’s Idiot QC: It is the right of legitimate representatives of Jews to say what is antisemitic. It is not YOUR right!
Two, the QC’s failure to recognise this element of IHRA (s/he never mentions it):
Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions
For example the QC (para 74) thinks that these statements of Miller’s are perfectly OK:
Jewish students are being used as political pawns by a violent, racist foreign regime
Britain is in the grip of an assault on its public sphere by the State of Israel and its advocates
And the following two Miller conspiracy statements are – ludicrously – deemed OK because (para 72.2) they ‘pertain to his area of academic research‘ (!!):
An all-out onslaught by the Israeli government … on the left globally
An attempt by the Israelis to impose their will all over the world
In common with many antisemites, the QC asserts that Judaism is a religion but Zionism is an ideology. This statement of Miller’s ….
…. is whitewashed by the QC thus:
Nonsense – Zionism and Judaism are two sides of the same coin – as IHRA recognises.
This apology for a QC even thinks (para 72.7) that it’s not antisemitic to state that ‘Israel is a racist State’:
Note how this moronic QC twists the Wolfson/Brier analysis(from which s/he quotes at para 54). Wolfson/Brier say that describing Israel as a ‘racist endeavour’ is ONLY not antisemitic under the following conditions:
And guess which lawyers’ opinions about IHRA gain this fool’s approbation … Yes, Tomlinson’s (para 45) and Sedley’s (para 49) both of which I fisked here and here. (Note that on reconsideration, I was wrong (in my Sedley fisk) to criticise the Swiss organisation CICAD for attacking what Ossipow wrote, because Ossipow did come close to antisemitism. The ECHR was borderline correct to reject CICAD’s case but for Tomlinson, Sedley and Bristol’s Idiot QC to adduce the ECHR’s decision in support of their claim (that Zionism and Judaism are unrelated) is positively obscene).
Finally this braindead QC asserts that Miller broke no law. However s/he fails to even consider the Malicious Communications Act. At least one email from Miller to a student appeared to contravene that Act. But the student was too intimidated to pursue it – appallingly that’s the depth we have reached in the UK in 2021 ….
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This lecture on Wednesday evening was fascinating, full of insights into a topic which is not simply live, it is burning. It will be published. It was quite long (over an hour) and very rich in content so I am summarising it here. In addition the subject matter remains live, not least because Miller has appealed – so Anthony Julius’ lecture needs to be studied as widely as possible – in particular by Hugh Brady, the Bristol Vice Chancellor, and the (unnamed) three members of the appeal panel. And by Julius’ 11 UCL colleagues who signed the letter of support for Miller (Ruth Dar, Sean Doyle, Judit Druks, Harry Hemingway, Owen Holland, Jocelyn Hurndall, Saladin Meckled-Garcia, Vanessa Ogunbowale, Stuart Tannock, Nalini Vittal and Sean Wallis).
Anthony Julius began (“somewhat obliquely”) and ended the lecture with Louise Gluck’s poem “A Myth of Innocence.” It is about Persephone, a goddess in Greek mythology, who is abducted and raped by Hades, her uncle. In the poem Persephone tries to convince herself that she was not abducted – rather, that she went of her own free will. But – writes the poet – ‘ignorance cannot will knowledge. Ignorance wills something imagined, which it believes exists’. ‘Willed ignorance’ is the leitmotif of the lecture (which Julius was prompted to write by the Miller Affair).
He moved on to the background of what Miller has said and written. After his dismissal Miller doubled down on his antisemitism, stating for example that Jewish students are ‘the products of elite private schools’. Anthony Julius said that the support given to Miller by some 450 academics was a “special disgrace”. Miller’s supporters claim that his dismissal is a further demonstration of ‘the power of the Israel Lobby’. Julius (18:42): “The conspiracy theorist has thus become the object of a new conspiracy theory” … “Miller’s supporters praised him ‘for exposing the wrong that powerful actors and well-resourced coordinated networks play in manipulating and stage managing public debate including on racism’ … they could just have said “Jews.”” Using the Miller case as an example, Julius asked: “Does liberal free speech doctrine require us to defend the antisemitic conspiracy talk of a sociology professor?” To answer requires responses to two subsidiary questions:
What is the ‘liberal free speech doctrine?
What is its present condition?
What is the ‘liberal free speech doctrine?’
The enabling of free speech is liberalism (see Spinoza and several Scottish Enlightenment authors). The ‘liberal doctrine’ sustains the diverse discourses of liberal democracy. It has two critical qualities:
One, it’s systematic. It doesn’t for example muddle academic free speech with political free speech. Each discourse has its distinct freedom and distinct method of regulation.
Two, it’s emancipatory: It stands against prejudice and superstition. It has a strong combative edge, it combats counter-discourses. Liberalism approaches free speech principles in fighting mode. It derives from active political desires. It is for liberty and against tyranny. Liberalism takes pleasure in contention; it is reconciled to the permanence of conflict.
(32:00) Julius quoted from Kant ‘What Is Enlightenment?’ Kant wrote: Dare to know! (Sapere aude) “Have the courage to use your own reason,” is therefore the motto of the Enlightenment.
But for the Enlightenment, nothing is required but freedom – the freedom to make public use of one’s reason. Kant writes of ‘the urge for and the vocation of free thought’. Kant’s essay has been commonly interpreted as a call for freedom of speech in the conventional sense. But two years later Kant drew out three crucial aspects of freedom of thought: its community aspect (ability to communicate); its uncoerced aspect; and thirdly its autonomous aspect: Freedom of thought signifies the subjection of reason to no laws – other than those which it imposes on itself. If ‘free speech’ violates reason then freedom in the true sense of the word is thrown away.To think for oneself, Kant writes, is the maxim of a never passive reason. To be given to passivity is prejudice.
Most people who call for ‘freedom of speech’ do not themselves speak freely in this strong Kantian emancipatory sense. They recycle clichés; they appropriate slogans opportunistically; they are not themselves inward with the demands that free speech imposes on them.
Julius then moved to apply his two ‘principles’ (the system and the emancipation principles) to academic free speech.
The system principle: Academic speech is a distinct mode of existence. It is more exacting. It has standards. It has no concern with diversity. But it is also more permissive: it stands for an ideal of unbounded enquiry. Its regulation is self-regulation.
The emancipation principle: Kant (Conflicts of the Faculties) took a stand against what he described as ‘the invasions into the university of obscurantism’. In the English translation, these invaders are said to be ‘incompetent in scientific matters’. ‘Scientific matters’ is the translation of Wissenschaftlichen. But ‘incompetent’ is the translation of the German word ‘Idioten’ – which in truth requires no translation. Kant’s formulation demands of us that we identify today’s ‘idiots’ – the followers of pseudo-sciences (which include Alchemy and Holocaust Revisionism). Distinguishing science from pseudo-science is what academics term the ‘demarcation problem’. Unlike political free speech, academic free speech imposes a positive obligation on academics to work to disempower pseudo-scientists (Kant’s idiots) in the name of academic integrity. Hence the ‘liberal free speech doctrine’ is actively both a pro-speech and an anti-speech doctrine. (46.00)
What is the present condition of free speech?
The fact that the question “Are Jews Lying?” (JH: for example, the accusation beloved of antisemites that Corbyn was called an antisemite because of opposition to his support of the Palestinians) is now being posed suggests that the ‘liberal free speech doctrine’ is in poor shape. (Reference to Luther ‘The Jews and their Lies’ and Mearsheimer ‘The Israel Lobby’).
Without the ‘liberal free speech doctrine’ no principled defence of free speech is possible.
Does the liberal free speech doctrine require Miller to be defended?
The ‘system principle’ suggests that Miller should be protected but the ‘emancipation principle’ suggests he should be condemned.
Julius answered this question with four propositions:
One: Conspiracism lives in several discourses. It posits that the truth about the world is a problem to be solved. No: The world can be meaningful only as an indeterminate horizon for further explanation. (51:52) Gustave Flaubert stated that the very definition of stupidity is wanting to conclude.
Two: Conspiracy theories do have serious political consequences. They can generate real catastrophic counter-conspiracies, most notably the antisemitic ones. They are the ones to which conspiracy theorists graduate. They are all iterations of the one thesis: ‘That the Jews are a malign collective acting in their own interest and to the detriment of the non-Jewish world’. Antisemitism itself is one giant meta-conspiracy theory. Antisemitic conspiracy theories are both inventive and repetitious. Though they ingeniously attach themselves to passing scandals, they possess a strong shared identity. They make the magicians move. There is always a Jewish rabbit to be pulled out of the hat. The rabbit of course will have different names. Reviewing these names across the centuries, we find: An assembly of rabbis and lay leaders in Narbonne; the governing body of the Minsk Jewish Community; various European Jewish philanthropic organisations; world leaders; the Elders of Zion; the members of the First Zionist Congress (1897); the Rothschild banking families; a New York charity; Israel – the Jewish State. To this list (said Julius) David Miller adds: The Bristol J Soc.
(56:52) We spend so much time exposing the viciousness and untruthfulness of all this, we tend to overlook how exceptionally feeble it is and what stupidity on the part of its adherents it reveals. It’s a stupidity which is wilful.
Three: Conspiracy theories in the academy comprise both pseudo- and counter- academic discourse. Miller’s conspiracy theories are both pseudo-academic and anti-academic (reference to Richard Hofstadter, The Paranoid Style in American Politics). (58:23). The embracing of conspiracy theories is the most radical of repudiations of the academic vocation: Of what it is to be a thinking, reflective person: Of what it is to think freely.
And – said Julius – Miller is our example. His longest work of conspiracy theorising is his booklet on the Israel Lobby and the EU. It is a weak child of Walt and Mearsheimer’s work. Its thesis is no more than that Jews support Israel and a few of the wealthier among them contribute to bodies that advocate for Israel’s interests in Europe. He does not argue the Walt/Mearsheimer thesis that these bodies are especially effective – still less that they are able to influence the EU to act against its own interest in any serious way.
There is a minor character in Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part Two: Francis Feeble. Falstaff praises him: ‘Most forcible Feeble!’.
So (said Anthony Julius) let me ask, what is feeble in Miller and what is forcible?
The ‘feeble’: Everything that should matter to an academic – methodology, research, evidence, history.
The ‘forcible’: Everything that an academic should shun. Extravagant claims unmoored from evidence; the antisemitic premises of his work – and the verbal assault on Jewish students
But of course the feebleness of the analysis does not matter to people already convinced of the malign existence of the Jewish Lobby. Miller is not called upon to prove anything, still less anything new. Just to write or speak the word ‘Lobby’ is enough. The sought-after effect is achieved. This is writing as evocation. And that’s why it misses the point to complain that (as seems likely) many of the signatories of the pro-Miller support letter haven’t actually read any of his stuff. All they needed to know was that he wrote about the Israel Lobby.
Four: Academics have a duty to combat professorial conspiracy thinking. They have a duty of scholarship and a duty of teaching.
Finally Anthony Julius explained why he opposed Miller but supported Professor Kathleen Stock.
Those (he said) who argue for free speech for both Miller and Stock are muddling the doctrine of academic free speech with that of political free speech.
Those who argue that both Miller and Stock are hatespeechmongers are also wrong. We must make a case-by-case assessment. The accusation of ‘hate speech’ should be a last resort. Judgments need to be reasoned, without ‘vigilante-ism’. (Julius conceded that self-discipline is not always easy, sometimes one needs a resourceful defence against attack and that the call for self-discipline can be inhumane in its indifference to the complainant’s suffering. But reasoned judgment of the issue should prevail).
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Nissim’s story is a remarkable one. He grew up in Seattle and was selling drugs by age 12.
He eventually converted to Chasidic Judaism and moved with his family to Israel.
Black’s lyrics reflect his short but packed life story. “I was able to have a life of redemption, I was able to overcome. We all have times when we feel we’re stuck, we’re pulled down by our environment, we get left with feeling ‘we can’t’. But if you don’t give up, ‘you can’. You’re too good to fail. That’s the message I want to reveal.”
Gabriel Kanter-Webber has recently been appointed as the Rabbi of Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue.
In September I published a critique of a JC article by a Yachad-supporting Bristol University student Sabrina Miller. The article complained that there had been no discussion in her Jewish school of ‘the Palestinian narrative’. Instead of defending Miller, Kanter-Webber ludicrously wrote that I was ‘harassing a woman young enough to be his daughter because she doesn’t share all his views on Israel.’ Not only is this ageist, it is libellous (suggesting that my critique was motivated by a desire to harass a woman) and intellectually lazy and insulting (instead of engaging with my critique Kanter-Webber stated it was merely about ‘different views in Israel’).
According to this idiot, unless you are a woman of the same age as Miller, any critique of her writing must stem from a misogynist and bullying motive. It’s so ridiculous as to be incredible.
This is a man who is trusted to advise congregants on sensitive matters? Seriously?
After I remonstrated with him Kanter-Webber doubled down with his libel about ‘harassing young women’:
She can’t even be arsed to spell his name correctly. That’s how much she cares.
‘Given him feedback‘ … I did not consider this sufficient response to the libel. So I appealed on 23 September (“I want this passed to a complaints panel, as per your complaints procedure”).
8 weeks after my request for an appeal I have not even had an acknowledgement, despite three requests (17 October, 27 October, 8 November).
(For those who ask why I have not sued for libel: the process in the UK is very expensive and very hard to prove).
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41 MPs have signed an EDM critical of Israel for designating six Palestinian ‘human rights’ organisations as terrorists. The EDM was tabled on 25 October. 18 of the 41 are Labour members and 14 are members of the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP). Jeremy Corbyn and Claudia Webbe also signed. At the time both were suspended, Corbyn from taking the Labour Whip in Parliament, Webbe from the Party (she has now been expelled).
The six proscribed organisations: Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees; ADDAMEER — Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association; Bisan Center for Research and Development; al-Haq Organisation; Defence for Children International — Palestine (DCI-P); and the Union Of Agricultural Work Committees.
Israel’s UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan was formerly Minister of Strategic Affairs. He published a detailed report proving the connection between these organisations and the PFLP (declared a terrorist organisation by the US, Israel, Canada, and the EU).
NGO Monitor has published here a summary of the PFLP’s NGO network.
It says by way of introduction: ‘NGO Monitor has identified a network of 13 NGOs linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terror organisation and funded by European, and in some cases, other governmental frameworks. As of September 1 2021, we have also identified over 70 staff and board members, as well as other officials who hold positions in both the NGOs and the PFLP. This document contains information about 36 of those individuals. The information below is based on open sources, including social media posts.’
The NGO Monitor article covers all six of the proscribed organsations, plus a further seven. It was published on 20 October – that is 5 days BEFORE the EDM was tabled.The six ‘sponsors’ of the EDM therefore had ample time to read it. But when you suffer from IDS – Israel Derangment Syndrome – you don’t give a F*** about ‘evidence’. Your sickness is an obsession – an obsession to vilify Israel irrationally, at every opportunity. In fact eminent psychiatrists have begun to recognise IDS. It runs rife among Labour and SNP MPs though it is rare (but not unknown) among Conservatives. Medical data scientists have established a link between IDS and the proportion of Muslims in the MP’s constituency. The only known cure is for the MP to spend two months in Gaza, as a guest of Hamas.
Let’s look at the record of these 41 IDS-suffering MPs ….
As many as 37 of them have ‘previous’ – a history of antisemitism or support for antisemites or extreme anti-Israel activity.
Only 15 (well under half) signed the letter written by a Labour MP, Siobhain Ann McDonagh, to the Chinese Ambassador expressing outrage about China’s attempt at ethnic cleansing of the Uighur Muslims.
26 of the 41 bought into the ‘Vaccine Libel’ and/or ‘Evictions Libel’ – the false claim either that Israel has an obligation to vaccinate Palestinians who live outside the country or that Israel has somehow acted illegally in evicting people without legal title to their homes.
7 of the 18 Labour MPs (plus Claudia Webbe, at that time suspended – now expelled) called for Corbyn’s reinstatement after Keir Starmer suspended him from taking the Labour Whip in Parliament.
History of Antisemitism Or Support for Antisemites Or anti-Israel?
David Collier recently wrote about the backlash following Glasgow University’s apology for publishing an antisemitic article in a peer review journal on the University website.
550 signed a petition attacking the university. The 550 are mostly academics but they include a few ‘big names’ who are not.
David writes
All the usual names have signed the petition. Ilan Pappe, Nicola Pratt, Hilary Rose, Ronit Lentin, Ken Loach and so on. We know who signs these things.
There are a few ‘usual names’ to add to that list: Avi Shlaim, Brian Eno (!), David Landy, Nira Yuval-Davis, John Chalcraft, Jonathan Rosenhead, Justin Schlosberg, Kamel Hawwash, Mike Cushman, Rebecca Gould, Richard Cooper, Ronnie Kasrils, Saladin Meckled-Garcia, Geoffrey Bindman, Iain Chalmers, Teodora Todorova.
Bindman is a member of the Labour Party. He should now be expelled for aiding and abetting antisemitism. So should other signatories who are Labour members.
‘Peer Review‘ is worth sweet FA if the ‘Peers’ suffer from IDS (Israel Derangement Syndrome) and are aiders and abetters to antisemitism.
I analysed the list for correspondence with the list who signed support for David Miller. Here are the 62 names that appear on both petitions. Where I wrote about someone in my blogs on the Miller signatories, I have added the relevant hyperlink.
Ahdaf Soueif, Author, political and cultural commentator, Fellow Royal Society of Literature, Egypt
The Neue Synagoge was built in 1866. It was a massive ‘Reform’ synagogue, accommodating 3200 worshippers. On Kristallnacht 1938 it was set on fire but the head of the local police precinct, Wilhelm Krützfeld, called the fire brigade, insisting that it was a historic listed building. Services were held here until 1940 when the building was confiscated by the Nazis and almost completely destroyed by Allied bombings in 1943. Amazingly the ‘everlasting light’ burned on throughout. After the War the East German governments only kept the main façade as a memorial – as this was the only structurally intact part of the building – but the main Hall had to be demolished in 1958. The front of the building was rebuilt in 1988-91 with Federal Government financial support and the magnificent Moorish-style golden Dome was reconstructed in 1991.
These are the names of some of the inhabitants who died when their house was destroyed. As a mark of respect the building has not been rebuilt.
‘Stolpersteine’ (stumbling stones) are brass plaques laid into the pavement to mark the last places of residence of victims of the Nazis.
Outside a Jewish Cemetery
Memorials
Stella Goldschlag was a Jewish beauty who was compared to Marilyn Monroe. She turned informant, partly to try to save her parents. She would even find out the details of Jewish funerals so that she could collect names to pass to the Nazis (after Jewish men or women had buried their non-Jewish spouse or husband, Stella was ready to hand over the Jews, no longer privileged by their marriage, to the Gestapo). There were four attempts on her life by Jews.
In 1994, the woman feared so much by Jews who attempted to hide committed suicide at the age of 72, by jumping out of the window of her Berlin apartment.
Stella had a daughter Yvonne who emigrated to Israel. She loathes her mother.
Frank Foley was the Head of the British Passport Control Office in Berlin. Foley was in fact Britain’s most senior spy in Berlin. During his time in Berlin, Foley is known to have saved an estimated 10,000 German Jews by stamping their passports and allowing them to enter Palestine.
We saw Otto Weidt’s workshop, now a Museum. Weidt was compelled by his growing blindness to abandon his work as a wallpaper hanger. He set up a workshop for the blind in Berlin, manufacturing brushes and brooms. Practically all of his employees were blind, deaf, and mute Jews. They were assigned to him from the Jewish Home for the Blind in Berlin-Stegliz. When the deportations began, Weidt, utterly fearless, fought with Gestapo officials over the fate of every single Jewish worker. He used both bribery and the argument that his employees were essential for fulfilling orders commissioned by the army. Once – after the Gestapo had arrested several of his workers – Weidt went to the assembly camp at the Grosse Hamburger Strasse, where the Jews were incarcerated pending deportation. He succeeded in securing their release at the last minute.
Rosenstrasse
We walked to the site of the Rosenstrasse protest. Goebbels was anxious that Jews who were married to non-Jews should also be deported. As part of the Fabrikaktion (starting 27 February 1943) to deport all the Jews who remained in Berlin and elsewhere, these Jews were arrested and taken to a welfare office for the Jewish community located on Rosenstrasse. But a group of the non-Jewish wives stood outside the welfare office for seven days to protest. Astonishingly they were successful. On 6 March 1943 Goebbels order that the men should be released. The Rosenstrasse protest was one of the few (?the only?) protest in Germany against the Nazis and the only protest that was successful.
Shabbat 23 October – Berlin
Book Burning
On 10 May 1933 the first act of what was to become the Holocaust occurred. Hitler-supporting students at Berlin University burned 20,000 ‘degenerate’ books. Goebbels congratulated them. The fire brigade was called – they poured petrol on the fire.
Memorial to the Roma murdered by the Nazis
The Nazis commissioned IBM in Switzerland to compile lists of Roma. They were required to wear a brown or black triangle.
Here’s the memorial to homosexuals murdered by the Nazis. It is a looped film in a cabinet with a viewer that is too high for children. The film includes men kissing. Despite being designed by gays we were told that it is quite controversial. Lesbians were not treated as severely as homosexuals. They were required to wear an asexual black triangle.
And here is the memorial to the Jewish victims. The abstract installation leaves room for interpretation, the most common being that of a graveyard. I first saw it several years ago. By comparison I was struck by the number of the blocks that had cracked. Outdoor memorials need to be constructed robustly.
Also people sit on the blocks – to my mind this is disrespectful and I remonstrated with one boy.
Memorials to the victims who were in the fashion trade – nearly all were Jewish
Fashion was one of the largest of Berlin’s industries and was dominated by Jews. The Nazis decimated the industry. There is a memorial at Hausvogteiplatz which was the heart of the industry. The steps leading to the U-Bahn station show the names of the fashion firms that disappeared.
Sunday 24 October – Berlin, Ravensbrück
The East Side Gallery comprises murals on an undemolished section of the Wall by the river (the Wall ‘came down’ on 9 November 1989. 9 November was also the date of Kristallnacht in 1938).
Grunewald station (now disused but preserved as a memorial) was the biggest deportation site for Jews in Berlin. It is in the middle of a beautiful residential area which our educator compared to Hampstead Garden Suburb. A total of 35 trains transporting 17,000 Jews departed from Platform 17 in cattle wagons to Auschwitz, starting on 18 October 1941. There were around 1000 on each train. Conditions were atrocious. Rachel Genuth – who was deported from Hungary – says that on the train to Auschwitz buckets were emptied of urine and faeces and then filled with water. Revolted, Rachel swore she would never again drink water – the trauma was so great that she could not drink water for sixty years.
By the Polish artist Karol Broniatowski
Never Again
Each train is recorded, with the number of deportees
By the end of the war 30-50,000 Jews had been deported through this station. The irony was that Jews came to Berlin from elsewhere in Germany because they believed they would be safer. Before boarding the trains, people had to deposit their valuables.
Minkie Orenstein bravely told us how her grandfather had been deported from here. She said that people threw letters out of the trains with their Jahrzeit date (anniversary of their death) – they knew they were going to die.
On 20 January 1942 leading Nazis met at a beautiful villa on the shores of Wannsee, a suburb of Berlin (ironically the villa was built by a Jew, Ernst Marlier, in 1914). The Wannsee ‘Conference’ was coordinated by Reinhard Heydrich. It lasted about two hours and formalised the Nazis’ policy of the extermination of Jews in occupied Europe. Minutes were taken, supervised by Eichmann. The 15 attendees were told to read the minutes then destroy them. Heydrich told them: ‘This meeting did not take place’. However Undersecretary of State Martin Luther saved his copy by mistake and this is how we know the detail of the meeting.
Senior Nazis meet to discuss the Final Solution
The meeting room
‘Mischling’: A pejorative eugenic word meaning hybrid, mongrel, or half-breed……
” … the germ cell of renewed Jewish revival.“
Planning the Final Solution for European Jewry
What stands out is the utter inhumanity of the meeting. It’s as if the attendees are planning the demolition and reconstruction of a building – not mass murder.
Ravensbrück was predominantly a women’s camp. But one of the four survivors travelling with us, Harry Olmer, spent time in Ravensbrück. He told us that the sick bay in the camp was there both to cure and to kill.
The inmates came from over 30 countries. The greatest numbers came from Poland (36%), Soviet Union (21%), the German Reich (18%, includes Austria), Hungary (8%), France (6%), Czechoslovakia (3%), the Benelux countries (2%), and Yugoslavia (2%).
Hygiene by Violette Lecoq, 1946
Anna Gould was a British inmate
Around 110,000 people died there.
The Crematorium
Himmler believed in building camps in beautiful parts of Germany – and also he had a lover near Ravensbruck. He believed that if Jews were taken to a place of beauty it would purify them. Notable prisoners in Ravensbruck included Margarete Buber-Neumann. She had already been in a Soviet Gulag. Her book is called ‘Under Two Dictators’. Another inmate was Gemma La Guardia Gluck, sister of the Mayor of New York.
A third was Odette Sansom, an SOE Officer. She had married Peter Churchill, a fellow SOE Officer. She used the name ‘Churchill’ in the camp because she was a spy and the British thought that if the Germans thought (wrongly) that she was related to Winston, they would keep her alive as a possible bargaining tool.
When it became clear that Germany would be defeated, the indescribably brutal camp Kommandant Fritz Suhren took Sansom hostage because she had fooled him into thinking she was Winston Churchill’s niece and he thought that taking her hostage and ‘rescuing’ her might save his skin. He said to her “The Führer has committed suicide” to which she responded “And when are you going to?” Suhren was executed by a French firing squad in June 1950.
In 1940 Himmler introduced a torture regime of 25 lashes. Another torture was requiring the inmates to stand on ice for hours. Also he put some of the women in trucks, telling them they were being taken to a better place. The trucks returned with only their clothes, some with warning notes in the pockets. The women were seen by a dentist (to check for gold in their fillings…) then gassed. Later (as the Russians advanced) a gas chamber was set up on the camp, close to the crematorium. Gemma La Guardia Gluck had her barracks close to the crematorium. She described the constant stench of death.
In 1941 the inmates began to be used as forced labour. Siemens was one company that used them.
Inmates were forced to be prostitutes – their payment was possible survival
UTF-8 45
UTF-8 46
Setting the price for sex with Polish inmates
Ravensbrück was the home of the ‘Rabbits’. They were called “the Rabbits” because they were used by the Nazis as laboratory animals for medical experiments. They were 75 young Polish women who had been Resistance members. The Nazi doctors inspected their legs and gave them crutches. They were then put to sleep and various substances were inserted into their legs, as medical experiments.
Not only did the ‘Rabbits’ work together to keep one another alive after the surgeries, but other inmates in the camp risked their lives daily, secretly bringing them food, water, and even medications to help them survive.
The ‘Rabbits’ themselves defied the Nazis, bravely protesting the illegal experiments and finding ingenious ways of smuggling out messages to the outside world about their surgeries and the “selections” in the camp. Inmates were allowed to write one letter a month. The ‘Rabbits’ used urine to write secret messages. They managed to convey to the Polish Resistance that they needed to iron the paper to see the messages.
The Nazis were determined to eliminate all evidence of war crimes. On 4 February 1945 the crippled young women learned of their death sentence. The SS were coming for the ‘Rabbits’ in the morning. Overnight, as the ‘Rabbits’ stayed up writing goodbye letters, the inmates came up with a plan to grab and hide the ‘Rabbits’ in the predawn hours, during roll call – and right in front of the SS. It worked. The ‘Rabbits’ were successfully hidden that morning – and then kept hidden for nearly three months – until Liberation. Amazingly, not one of the ‘Rabbits’ was ever betrayed. As one surviving ‘Rabbit’ put it, “You could say that the entire camp helped us, hid us, protected us.”
As the Russian Army advanced, prisoners were transferred from Auschwitz to Ravensbrück. Conditions were terrible. The bread had been gnawed by rats. Inmates looked in vain for worms to eat. There were fights over whether to remove dying people from the huts (Jewish law said that they have to be left to die naturally). Tents were erected to take more prisoners. They were a death-trap, they were freezing.
Ceremony to mark return of Mala Tribich to Ravensbrück for the first time
At the end of our visit to Ravensbrück there was a moving ceremony to mark the return of Mala Tribich MBE to the camp – for the first time (now 91) since she was an inmate aged 14. You can watch the video of her speaking here. And see the Times article here.
Monday 25 October – Bergen-Belsen
Approximately 50,000 people died in the Bergen-Belsen camp complex.
As Allied forces advanced into Germany in late 1944 and early 1945, Bergen-Belsen became a collection camp for thousands of Jewish prisoners evacuated from camps closer to the front. Such was the Nazis’ hatred of Jews, they diverted precious military resources into keeping them incarcerated.
The arrival of thousands of new prisoners, many of them survivors of forced evacuations on foot, overwhelmed the very limited resources of the camp. From late 1944, food rations throughout Bergen-Belsen continued to shrink. By early 1945, prisoners would sometimes go without food for days; fresh water was also in short supply. Sanitation was incredibly inadequate, with few latrines and water taps for the tens of thousands of prisoners. Overcrowding, poor sanitary conditions, and the lack of adequate food, water, and shelter led to an outbreak of diseases such as typhus, tuberculosis, typhoid fever, and dysentery, causing an ever increasing number of deaths. In the first few months of 1945, tens of thousands of prisoners died.
Posted by the British Army
On April 15, 1945, British forces liberated Bergen-Belsen. (An excellent account of the British Forces’ campaign in N. Europe – culminating in the arrival at Bergen-Belsen – can be found in Bernice Lerner’s book about her mother (liberated from the camp) and Glyn Hughes, a British Army doctor, see my review here). The British found around 60,000 inmates, most of them seriously ill. More than 13,000 inmates, too ill to recover, died after liberation. After evacuating Bergen-Belsen, the British burned down the whole camp to prevent the spread of typhus.
After liberation, British occupation authorities established a displaced persons camp that housed more than 12,000 survivors. It was located in a German military school barracks near the original concentration camp site, and functioned until 1951.
The survivors of Bergen-Belsen felt that the crimes against them were being whitewashed and forgotten. So on the first anniversary of liberation they arranged their own memorial with this paraphrase from the Book Of Job:
Earth conceal not the blood shed on thee!
That is, Don’t Pretend Nothing Happened!
The Obelisk
Memorials at Bergen-Belsen (memorials, not gravestones)
At the end of our visit to Bergen Belsen we had time to view the permanent exhibition. Before that there was a memorial ceremony at the obelisk. As well as the memorial prayer recited by Clive Lawton, there were speeches.
Dickie Winchester
Simon Ledger
First from the two British Army representatives: Colonel Dickie Winchester, Royal Artillery, representing the role of the Army in the liberation and in the role of 64th Anti-Tank Regt Royal Artillery and 113th Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment. And Lieutenant Colonel Simon Ledger (Ret.) of the 13th/18th Royal Hussars, the lead Armoured Regiment nearby in 1945 that were informed of the horror of Bergen-Belsen – their Reconnaissance Troop was sent to assess the camp. Both men laid wreaths.
Then from Alfred Garwood, survivor of Bergen-Belsen, and Scott Saunders, chairman of March of the Living UK.
Alfred Garwood described how he survived as a baby in Bergen Belsen because his mother managed to breastfeed him. The children in the camp played among bodies. They knew not to cry: “Children who cried, died”. As a result of his experience in Bergen Belsen Garwood became a doctor, specialising in the trauma of survivors.
Ian Fenton also spoke. He held a photo of his father who was one of the first British Army liberators at Bergen Belsen. It affected him for the rest of his life. He always despised Germany.
Ian Fenton
Mala Tribich spoke, to thank the British Army.
Mala Tribich with the two soldiers
After ten weeks at Ravensbrück Ms Tribich was deported to Bergen-Belsen. She insisted on walking out of Bergen-Belsen upon liberation in April 1945, despite having typhus. “I got up and promptly collapsed. They scooped me up, put me on a stretcher, and carried me off, but I think it shows my determination.” (Here is a speech by Ms Tribich, a remarkable lady who looks 20 years younger than her real age).
It is often forgotten that even before the killings in the death camps. 2.5 million Jews were killed by bullets in East Europe and Russia.
The permanent exhibition at Bergen-Belsen is excellent. You can buy the catalogue (also excellent) here. Here are a few photos, in approximate chronological order:
Testimony from a neighbour of the camp
Testimony from a neighbour of the camp
Glyn Hughes was one of the first doctors into Bergen-Belsen, see Bernice Lerner’s book
‘We Survivors: What Now?’ – Drawing made at the Glyn Hughes Hospital
The Jewish DPs found themselves in limbo but were determined to organise towards beginning new lives
Jewish DPs in limbo
Even before liberation the Jeish inmates were becoming organised to lobby
Nearly three years after liberation a couple marry in the DP camp. In1945 after liberation there were six weddings a day on average and the birthrate rocketed.
Earl Harrison visited the DP camps on behalf of the US government
יוםהעצמאות The State of Israel is founded – the DP camp can close at last
#NeverAgain
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“Jews remember! Jews write!” These were the dying words of Simon Dubnow, the great Jewish historian, murdered by a Gestapo officer on a Riga street in 1941. His stirring mandate has been adhered to by generations of post-Holocaust authors who mined the darkness for acts of humanity that offer hope and optimism. Their narratives, describing the compassion and courage of saviours and survivors, comprise an invaluable literary legacy.
With the passage of time, Simon Dubnow’s dying words become ever more important: In a few years there will be no eye witnesses alive. Fortunately there are many historical records of the Holocaust. However ‘To Meet In Hell’ may be unique. Why? First, because it’s written by the daughter of a Survivor, who is an academic; second, because it is the story not just of the Survivor but of the doctor who was one of the British Army liberators of Bergen-Belsen. The helpful map at the front of the book shows their journeys to the Camp. At age 14, on 15 May 1944 at 5am, Rachel Genuth was deported with her family from their home in Sighet in Hungary. The train took them to Auschwitz in Poland. On 1 August she was taken with her sister Elisabeth to the slave labour camp at Christianstadt in Germany. On 15 January 1945 in the face of the advancing Russian Army the order came through to evacuate the labour camp at Christianstadt. Anyone who could not keep up was to be shot. They left on 2 February. On 9 March, after walking 250 miles, the deportees were forced onto a goods train at Cheb on the Czech/German border. On 15 March they arrived at Bergen-Belsen in Germany.
Glyn Hughes was born on 25 July 1892 in South Africa; his father, a doctor, had moved there with his wife to seek his fortune. After his father died of septicaemia, Glyn’s mother returned to Europe. Glyn eventually attended medical school (at UCH) and served as regimental medical officer in the British Army in World War One. He enlisted in the Army a short time before the outbreak of World War Two in 1939 and was appointed deputy director of medical services (DDMS) of the Second Army’s 8 Corps.
In the night of 12 June 1944 (six days after D-Day) 8 Corps set sail. Dr Hughes was to facilitate all the medical tasks for their advance into Germany: the establishment of field hospitals, treatment of the injured and evacuation if necessary. We read that Dr Hughes ‘paid meticulous attention to the smallest detail’. The 8 Corps’ journey took them through Normandy and Belgium. After the Battle of Normandy they entered Brussels on 16 September. On 17 September the Allies launched the Battle of Arnhem. For his heroism in that conflict Dr Hughes was awarded a second bar to his Distinguished Service Order (DSO). In his Foreword Dr James Le Fanu notes that a colleague called Dr Hughes ‘the bravest man I ever met‘. On 11 March 1945 the 8 Corps crossed the Rhine. On Sunday 15 April 1945 at 3.07pm – after thousands of casualties – they finally arrived at Bergen-Belsen.
Those are the facts about Rachel Genuth and Dr Glyn Hughes. But Bernice Lerner’s terrific book (also published in the US, as All the Horrors of War) is far more than just the bare facts. For 11 months Rachel and the other deportees from Hungary are subjected to the most horrifically cruel treatment. On the train to Auschwitz buckets were emptied of urine and faeces and then filled with water. Revolted, Rachel swore she would never again drink water – the trauma was so great that she could not drink water for sixty years. But the worst obscenities occurred in Bergen-Belsen (hence the book’s title). Everywhere was the stench of decaying bodies. Each morning open trucks would come to collect the bodies that inmates had removed from the barracks. The bodies were dumped in a corner of the camp. The camp was riddled with typhus. People slept on top of corpses. Close to the end, the SS brought bread laced with glass to a section of the camp. ‘At the sight of a group around a concrete pit with a few inches of dirty water, trying to fill tins tied to the end of long sticks, Hughes’s eyes welled with tears.’ Bernice Lerner records it all, an everlasting warning of the obscene consequences of unchecked antisemitism.
On April 17 – two days after Dr Glyn Hughes reached Bergen-Belsen – a BBC Journalist arrived. He was the first to tell the world about the horrors of Bergen-Belsen. British readers will recognise his name immediately: Richard Dimbleby. You can listen to his broadcast and read the transcript here. Bernice Lerner describes his visit and broadcast (page 136). ‘During two hours of reporting, he broke down five times.’ The horrors Dimbleby reported were so awful that at first his editors at the BBC refused to believe him.
In the wake of the horrors, life resumed. Along with the creation of Israel just three years later, one can only marvel at the resilience of the human spirit – even as one weeps for the dead. Maybe the former is the greatest possible tribute to the latter. When foreign dignitaries visit Israel, the first place they are taken to is Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial.
Bernice Lerner reports that on May 24 – barely a month after liberation – the DPs (Displaced Persons) ‘organised an international cabaret … British soldiers and men from the Canadian air force swung recovering girls, dressed in their new finery, on their arms’. Within weeks Dr Glyn Hughes attended a wedding at the DP camp. Twenty years later he met the couple and their family again, in Israel. The survivors married ‘at a staggering rate, averaging six weddings a day (!) in the Belsen DP camp for the rest of the year’. Yehudi Menuhin performed there in summer 1945, the survivors listening sitting on the grass.
While we honour individual British servicemen for their acts of heroism in the War – none more than Brigadier Glyn Hughes – we cannot forget the common antisemitism in British society at that time, nor the inhuman restrictions the British administrators of the Mandate placed on the DPs who wished to move to Palestine. Ms Lerner notes that references to Jews were edited out of Dimbleby’s early reports: ‘One of the two recordings he made – referring explicitly to the Jewishness of the victims – was not used’. Led by Josef Rosensaft, a committee of DPs ‘irritated British authorities by advocating for survivors who wanted to make their lives in the Jewish homeland’. Glyn Hughes was supportive of these aspirations: he has been described as the adopted ‘father of the Jewish survivors of Belsen.’
20 years later, at the 20th anniversary commemoration of the liberation at the Habima State Theatre in Tel-Aviv, Brigadier Hughes gave a speech in which he ‘considered the recovery of survivors and the formation of a self-governing community in Bergen-Belsen “a glorious moment in Jewish history.” ‘ Ben-Gurion visited the DP camp on 25 October.
As noted above, Bernice Lerner writes that Hughes ‘paid meticulous attention to the smallest detail’.Precisely the same must be said of Ms Lerner! As well as the privations suffered by her dear mother, she painstakingly describes the successes and setbacks of the 8 Corps’ advance across Northern Europe into Germany. We learn about the weapons used by the two sides, about the morale of the combatants and about the casualties. Ms Lerner describes the evacuation scheme set out by Dr Hughes, commenting on his ‘meticulous planning and organisational skills’ and including an image of the plan he sketched out. Ms Lerner’s mastery of military tactics is truly astonishing.
The book is also beautifully edited and produced by Amberley Publishing. Particularly welcome are the page references at the top of every page of the 50 pages of Notes. There are 482 such Notes – further evidence of Ms Lerner’s mastery of the detail.
Brigadier Glyn Hughes and Rachel Genuth never met. He died age 81 on 24 November 1973. He would surely have loved the fact that Rachel Genuth – now Ruth Mermelstein – at 92 still gives talks in schools in the US about the Holocaust.
Jonathan Hoffman London
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It has long been suspected that Ireland is one of the most antisemitic of all industrialised countries.
The ADL 100 poll showed that 52% of respondents in Ireland think that Irish Jews are more loyal to Israel than to their home country. Of 15 European countries polled only Greece, Portugal and Spain rank higher.
24 European countries have adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism. Of the 27 EU countries 9 have not. Ireland is one of the 9 (the others: Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Portugal, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, Malta),
The report comes shortly after two key UN-related events:
Just 15 days ago (22 September) the UN commemorated the 20th anniversary of the Durban Declaration. As David says, the 2001 Durban conference turned into what has been described as ‘the worst international manifestation of antisemitism since WWII’. To avoid any possibility of a recurrence, 21 of the 27 EU Member States boycotted the commemoration. The EU also refused to participate. But Ireland chose to attend.
Even more recently, at the UN Human Rights Council on 4 October, 47 States pledged to combat antisemitism. Even Belgium and Finland – 2 of the 6 EU Members who failed to boycott the Durban commemoration – signed the pledge. But Ireland did not.
The following 11 Irish academics signed in support of the disgraced Bristol academic David Miller, sacked for inter alia stating that pro-Israel Jewish students ‘render Arab and Muslim students, as well as anti-Zionist Jewish students, particularly unsafe’: Barry Finnegan, Conor Kostick, Cormac Ó Gráda, David Cronin (a journalist), Féilim Ó hAdhmaill, Martin Maguire, Mastoureh Fathi, Mélissa Mialon, Niall Meehan, Tom O’Connor and William Nolan. Ten academics based in Northern Ireland also signed: Brian Kelly, Cahal McLaughlin, Des O’Rawe, Michael Pierse, Mike Tomlinson, Paddy Hillyard, Phil Scraton, Richard Gallagher, Siobhan Wills and Teresa Degenhardt.
Nothing less than a wholesale cultural change can turn around Irish Jew-hate. But with Sinn Fein way ahead in the polls the chance of this happening is non-existent.
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Jawad Khan of Young Labour proposed the farrago of lies aka the motion
Conference condemns the ongoing Nakba in Palestine,
Lie 1
Israel’s militarised violence attacking the Al Aqsa mosque,
Lie 2
the forced displacements from Sheikh Jarrah
From houses where no rent has been paid
and the deadly assault on Gaza.
Israel has the right – obligation – to defend its population from terror and achieves a record low civilian:combatant ratio of 1:1
Together with the de facto annexation of Palestinian land by accelerated settlement building
Lie 3
and statements of Israel’s intention to proceed with annexation,
Lie 4
it is ever clearer that Israel is intent on eliminating any prospect of Palestinian self-determination.
Lie 5
Conference notes the TUC 2020 Congress motion describing such settlement building and annexation as ‘another significant step’ towards the UN Crime of Apartheid,
Lie 6
and calling on the European and international trade union movement to join the international campaign to stop annexation and end apartheid.
Lie #7
Conference also notes the unequivocal 2021 reports by B’Tselem and Human Rights Watch that conclude Israel is practising the crime of apartheid as defined by the UN.
Lie #8; both were mendacious
Conference welcomes the International Criminal Court decision to hold an inquiry into abuses committed in the occupied Palestinian territory since 2014
Conference resolves that action is needed now due to Israel’s continuing illegal actions
Lie #9; Israel has broken no law
and that Labour should adhere to an ethical policy on all UK trade with Israel, including stopping any arms trade used to violate Palestinian human rights and trade with illegal Israeli settlements.
Lies #10 and #11: Israel has the right to defend itself from terror; there is nothing illegal about the settlements
Conference resolves to support “effective measures” including sanctions, as called for by Palestinian civil society, against actions by the Israeli government that are illegal according to international law;
Lie #12; the settlements are perfectly legal
in particular to ensure that Israel stops the building of settlements, reverses any annexation,
Lie #13: there is no – and never was any – annexation. There was resumption of sovereignty proposed as part of the Trump peace plan but this was dropped as part of the Abraham Accords
ends the occupation of the West Bank,the blockade of Gaza, brings down the Wall and respects the right of the Palestinian people, as enshrined in international law, to return to their homes.
Lies #14 and #15: Judea and Samaria are Disputed, not Occupied. There is no ‘blockade’ of Gaza, nly prohibition of materials used for weapons-making. The ‘Wall’ saves lives. To call for the right of return is to call for the destruction of the State of Israel as a Jewish State. That’s antisemitic.
Conference resolves that the Labour Party must stand on the right side of history and abide by these resolutions in its policy, communications and political strategy.
The lies are non-binding but the fact that they were agreed by a majority of delegates (reportedly passed 2 to 1 on a show of hands) shows how far there is to go before Labour can end its alienation from the vast majority of the Jewish electorate.Pace Sir Keir Starmer, the door has certainly NOT been closed to antisemitism.
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“The Legacy is a book of passionate intensity. Like its author it is erudite and intelligent, brave and forthright. It is both a detective story and a rites-of-passage journey, as one assimilated Jew finds, in spite of himself, his true soul.” — Maureen Lipman, actor, author, and activist
The Legacy is a deeply personal novel. We meet many characters in a landscape with many water courses which often join and then separate again as the story develops. But the thread which kept this reader gripped is self-identity with coming of age. At the outset we meet an ‘ASHamed Jew’ called Russell Wolfe (for the taxonomy of ASHamed Jews see Howard Jacobson’s Booker Prize-winning book ‘The Finkler Question‘). Russell is a divorced, dissatisfied and morose Jewish TV producer who thinks the word ‘antisemitism’ is ‘so overused, as if the entire world was against them’. But by the end of the book’s near 400 pages he is a changed man, determined to find out more about his own legacy – his family history and the history of the Jewish People.
Why is it a deeply personal novel? Because Russell’s journey of self-identity mirrors not only that of the author but also my own (and no doubt that of many other British Jews born in the early 1950s). In her autobiographical book Guardian Angel(which I have yet to read – it’s on order) Melanie Phillips describes her journey from idealistic young liberal journalist on The Guardian to critic of the antisemitic left, identity politics and radical Islamism. My own coming-of-age journey has been very similar. Brought up in the ‘Age of Deference’ of British Jewry, believing that Britain would be good for us as long as we kept our heads down (I’ll never forget former Board of Deputies President Henry Grunwald admonishing my vocal activism in around 2008: “Jonathan, why shout when a whisper will do?”…….) I was blissfully unaware (mostly) of antisemitism for many years. Now I’m an unintentional activist, like Michael Waxman in The Legacy (though I hope I wasn’t (like him) ‘an attention-seeker and exhibitionist at school’), regularly thrown out of antisemitic meetings at universities which should know better but don’t, horrified that young Jews are forced to make their UCAS choices according to the extent of antisemitism they will encounter and that the Metropolitan Police has been infiltrated by antisemitic Islamists (?Hizbut Tahrir?) and their sympathisers – and that the same applies to several other UK public institutions.
In other words, The Legacy struck more chords for me than a Bach Cantata. Just one example: Around page 200 Russell takes his lovely new girlfriend Damia (born in Pakistan of a Hindu mother and Muslim father, educated at Cheltenham Ladies College and Bristol University) to a string quartet concert at the Wigmore Hall. As they approach the Hall, they see an anti-Israel demonstration outside – the quartet is Israeli (it isn’t named but must be based on the Jerusalem Quartet). Russell is furious: ‘Couldn’t he even take a woman out on a date without bloody Israel forcing itself into the picture? Couldn’t they have found another orchestra from anywhere else in the entire world…?’ Still in ASHamed Jew mode, he worries that if he goes through the hate demonstration it would be tantamount to supporting Israel and a fellow soi-disant might see him! Here is the chord that is struck: there is a pro-Israel counter-demonstration as well (yes I was there to support the Jerusalem Quartet) and who should be holding the megaphone than his old schoolfriend Michael Waxman. Then Waxman is assaulted by one of the Israel haters. But the police accuse him of being the perpetrator! It’s depressingly familiar……. As is the beautiful performance of the quartet and the rapturous applause at the end after Hatikvah (Israel’s national anthem). But (Ms Phillips slips into Russell’s thought ) this benevolent audience ‘would also campaign against ritual slaughter and the circumcision of baby boys’ ……..
The Legacy is an outstanding work of literary scholarship, elegantly and seamlessly marrying fact –the Clifford’s Tower pogrom and mass suicide of 1190 and the 1941 massacre of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne in Poland – with fiction – the story of Russell Wolfe’s metamorphosis into someone who ‘could now see that his share in Britain had been conditional all along’ and that ‘The world, he realised with relief, wasn’t binary. There was good and bad everywhere’.
Russell’s initial Weltanschauung is disrupted and painfully questioned as a result of a chance meeting in synagogue after his father’s funeral. He meets an elderly Pole, Joe Kuchinsky, who asks him to translate an ancient manuscript, written in French but in Hebrew characters. It was written by Eliachim of Aborak. Aborak was the medieval Jewish transliteration into Hebrew of the Latin ‘Eboracum’ – the City of York in other words.
Not only do fact and fiction smoothly elide: the narrative layers often do the same. Thus Russell, whose parents had not welcomed his marriage to a non-Jew, Alice, empathises with Eliachim, who fell in love with the younger sister of the woman to whom he was betrothed and was caught by his father kissing her. The story is mirrored in another fated relationship too …….. Spoiler Alert – you’ll have to read the book!
And Russell even envies the richness of Eliachim’s life, much to his embarrassment. And the young boy’s account rubs salt into the wound of guilt for Russell, the ASHamed Jew who never wanted to find out about his grandparents.
Many other parts of the book resonated with me – and will for you. At one point Russell finds himself ‘on both sides of the barricade at the same time’ – that is, sympathising both with Israelis and Palestinians. This reminds me of an Al Quds Day in London maybe 15 years ago where we counter-demonstrated against vile hatred of Israel. We were joined by the gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell. But then he left us – to march with the haters in sympathy with the Palestinians (they quickly disowned him though – for being gay!)
And there’s Ms Phillips’ most beautiful description of a Friday night meal with Rabbi Daniel and his wife Samantha (Russell only goes at the insistence of his teenage daughter Rosa): ‘Afterwards when he looked back on that meal the word that floated into his mind unbidden was joy’. It is at this point that the ASHamed Jew persona begins to change, in response to another guest, Sophie (married to a synagogue donor). She opines ‘Israel’s behaviour does us Jews here enormous harm’. (Another chord struck, Jewdar off the scale yet again). Sternberg, a professor of molecular science, rebuts her with history. ‘This was the first time Russell heard it said, calmly and rationally, that the facts were simply not as Russell had always assumed them to be.’
Part of the book is set in Israel – where Ms Phillips now spends much of her time. Her lyrical description of the land and its people strikes another chord for so many: the quality of the light, the chaos of the flight, the breathtaking simple beauty of Jerusalem, both ancient and modern. And the Israelis that Russell meets. His eyes are opened by the presence of Arab doctors in a hospital and by the care shown by Yael, an instructor at a stables for traumatised children – even though she is an appalling (for him) ‘settler’.
Melanie Phillips tells us that the book took years to write. All the more amazing that the narrative is seamless. I noticed that the spelling of ‘Kuchinsky’ changes but it’s deliberate (you’ll have to read it to find out why). Ms Phillips has written a magnificent, beautifully written and gripping book which both addresses head-on (but very sensitively) issues of Jewish Identification and touches on aspects of antisemitism over the past 1000 years. Highly recommended. (What a shame that it didn’t have launches at Jewish BookWeek or JW3, no doubt due to the absurd, totally unjustified cold-shouldering of Ms Phillips by the Jewish leadership in the UK. Their and our loss – not hers).
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It was Len McCluskey (71), the recently retired leader of the Unite trade union, who, at the height of Labour’s antisemitism crisis, appallingly suggested that the victimwas in truth the perpetrator: he told the leaders of the UK Jewish Community ‘to abandon their truculent hostility, engage in dialogue and dial down the rhetoric, before the political estrangement between them and the Labour Party becomes entrenched.’
So when I saw that he had published his autobiography (to coincide with Labour’s Conference) I was keen to see what he says about antisemitism in Labour.
I was not encouraged when I opened the book. There is no index and no references. McCluskey simply asserts his views as if they are facts. They most definitelyare not.
Of course McCluskey hasn’t changed – despite claiming (p15) that as a result of seeing as a child his father’s photo album of the Holocaust, ‘I have been a passionate fighter against antisemitism since I was 12’.
The Chapter entitled ‘Labour’s Antisemitism Crisis’ (p231) is 11 pages long. He ascribes the media criticisms of Corbyn to ‘his support for the Palestinian cause’. In support of this statement he writes that the antisemitism crisis ‘suddenly became invisible as soon as there was a change of leadership in 2020’.What utter nonsense. He claims that ‘no evidence that antisemitism was more widespread in the Labour Party than in wider society has ever been produced’. A blatant lie. And if he’d bothered to consult the organisation Labour Against Antisemitism, he’d have found out that they have referred around 1500 Labour members for antisemitism since 2017.
‘Research showed antisemitic attitudes were no more prevalent on the left – from which the Labour membership was drawn – than in any other part of the political spectrum’. Ludicrously there is no reference to this ‘research’. But I can hazard a guess: it’s this discredited (by me) JPR research.
More: ‘The idea that Labour represented “an existential threat to Jewish life” in Britain, as the three main Jewish newspapers declared in July 2018, was baseless’. OK if McCluskey won’t cite evidence I will: In a poll dated October 2019, 47% of British Jews said that would seriously consider leaving the UK if Corbyn became Prime Minister. Maybe McCluskey can tell us how high that number needed to be, to become an ‘existential threat? 100%?
On page 236 McCluskey renews his 2018 attack on Jewish Community institutions: he rightly says that they made demands of the Labour leadership, but ‘it increasingly appeared they were not willing to take yes for an answer’ (!). As in his HuffPost article linked to above, he suggests that Corbyn agreed to all their demands, but their response was ‘Intransigent hostility and a refusal to talk. The more Corbyn and Labour attempted to address their worries, the more extreme their rhetoric became.’ Breathtaking lies. But we’ve had centuries of this: Jewish victims being portrayed by antisemites as perpetrators. McCluskey is just the latest in a 2000-year long line.
Then on page 237 we come to Israel (yet again putting the lie to those who claim that Labour’s antisemitism crisis had nothing to do with Israel – those who for example objected to me carrying an Israel flag at the pre-2019 election rallies against antisemitism).
There’s no question that the issue of Israel-Palestine underlaid the Labour antisemitism crisis ….. My support for the Palestinian cause is longstanding. I will never accept that it’s antisemitic to criticise the government of Israel for its treatment of the Palestinians …. I do, however, accept Israel’s right to exist.’
McCluskey has learned nothing. Despite claiming to support the IHRA antisemitism definition, he repeats the lie (so beloved by antisemites) that ‘it’s antisemitic to criticise the government of Israel’. This is an element of the so-called Livingstone Formulation (in truth you will not find a better exponent of the Formulation than Len McCluskey). IHRA specifically says that ‘criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic’. As for ‘accepting Israel’s right to exist’, it’s laughable – does he also accept Sweden’s right to exist? Or New Zealand’s? Does he seriously think this puts him on the right side when it comes to fighting antisemitism??
He justifies Unite’s affiliation to the PSC by saying it accepts the right of Israel to exist. This is pure sophistry. The PSC supports the ‘right of return’ for all 1948 Palestinian refugees and their descendants. If it happened it would be the end of Israel as the world’s only Jewish-character State.
More evidence on McCluskey’s bigotry is his assessment of John Ware’s excellent BBC Panorama: ‘Is Labour Antisemitic?’ (July 2019). (And here). He says ‘I thought it fell well below the BBC’s standards’. Why? What’s his reasoning? HM The Queen or the Pope may have credibility when they make ex cathedra unevidenced statements. Contrary to what he might believe, McCluskey is neither.
The few times McCluskey DOES quote evidence, it’s slanted. As part of his thesis that the media (and others) way overstated the antisemitism problem, he refers (p239) to a 2019 poll by Survation. He claims the poll found that people thought that as many as one-third of Labour members had been subject to complaints about antisemitism.
McCluskey got the ‘one-third’ number from a book published two years ago. I fisked the ‘one-third’ (actually 34%) claim at the time, here. It’s simply deceitful.
McCluskey may be history but – as Labour members Emma Picken and Euan Philipps (two tireless admirable non-Jewish LAAS heroes in the fight against antisemitism) amply demonstrate in a just-published excellent Labour Uncut book extract (with input from others of LAAS) – the fight against antisemitism in Labour is definitely not.
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