Baddiel, an ignorant, arrogant charlatan 31 Jul 2023 6:29 AM (last year)

 If Twitter obsessed David Baddiel's book, Jews Don't Count was a Wikipedia entry it would be flagged as having "multiple issues".

The first problem I see is that David Baddiel is a so-called Centrist and Centrism could even be defined as a Rightism that thinks it's a Leftism. It becomes a major problem when it so thinks it is a Leftism it gets worse and thinks it is the only Leftism that the legitimate political spectrum has room for. Leftism has enemies to its right who it must defend against or attack but Centrism doesn't have enemies to its right, only to its left. 

The book is published by the Times Literary Supplement which is supposed to be intellectually highbrow. Well bang goes that reputation.  For a wit, indeed for a Yiddisher wit, Baddiel isn't very smart at all. He could be lamenting or simply asking where all our good Jewish intellectuals went but since the answer is probably that they got crowded out by a bunch of redbaiting self-appointees he won't be asking that. 

Uh-oh, I've just seen David Baddiel in conversation with one of the nastiest pieces of work in the Zionist movement, Ruth Smeeth, and he's describing his book as nuanced. Wow.

I guess Mr Nuance isn't going to be asking about any tntellectuals then

So what is he saying? According to Hugo Rifkind, "Calmly, relentlessly, wittily, Baddiel makes the case that anti-Semitism is a racism like any other".  While for Howard Jacobson, "This is a bare-knuckle fist-fight of a book". Clearly, they didn't read the same book. And for Hadley Freeman, Jews Don't Count is, "Just so brilliantly argued and written, I was completely swept along". I reckon she wrote that before she read it and then switched on a page turning auto-pilot. The book isn't argued at all. I'll show you what I mean by that.

Here's a whole passage from page 10 to 12:

The major BBC current affairs show, the one that sets the news agenda every morning, is the Today programme on Radio 4. It's a must-listen for those interested in politics. And a must-react to: if something controversial is said on Today, Twitter is set alight, and the conversation explodes. 

On 13 March 2019, the American pollster John Zogby was on. At one point, he began talking about fissures in the Democratic Party, specifically around the then new Congreswoman Ilhan Omar's views about Israel and its supporters in the US. The interviewer, Justin Webb, who is a regular on Today, said in response:

It was a strange moment. It felt less like a question and more like a helpful suggestion. Maybe this would be a way forward for the Democrats? was the tone. Webb did not qualify or contextualise it. He did not preface or add "Obviously this is offensive to say, but perhaps it's what some people in the party actually think". His tone was neutral. 

Zogby moved on without really answering. But even if he had, it was the question itself I was struck by. I remember listening and thinking, Blimey, it's rare that someone just comes out with it: Anti-Semitism is a second class racism. I thought there would be an intense reaction.

Well it turned out there wasn't much reaction but Baddiel recorded the section he had heard and eventually got some reaction but only from Jews and from Justin Webb himself who got in touch to say that he only wondered if that was what some Democrats were thinking. A similar thing happened when Baddiel disagreed with Anthony Julius introducing the recital of TS Eliot's specifically antisemitic poems. He contacted Julius and spent 3 hours at lunch with him.

But where's the argument? It's all assertion. Where did Webb get the question about antisemitism from? Ilhan Omar has been falsely accused of antisemitism but from what we see that wasn't mentioned until Webb said it. Maybe there's as insight into Baddiel himself here. Look what he's done. Like Webb he has decided that the stuff about Omar and Israel is about antisemitism, not just a left/right thing or a foreign policy or a lobby group thing. Then he suspects Webb of saying that a) antisemitism is a bit like anti-whitism, ie, not really racist or not so racist, then b) that Webb would even suggest that the Democrats ought to play to that antisemitic prejudice that only Webb and Baddiel have inferred. And even when Justin Webb seeks Baddiel out to disabuse him, Baddiel still puts the thing in his book as if his own understanding of what Webb said trumps Webb's own explanation of what he meant.

And check out the very start of the session where the news agenda for the day starts with a BBC Radio 4 programme and continues through Twitter. I looked at Baddiel's own account for that day and it appears that Justin Webb's incitement to the hatred, well actually his helpful suggestion of incitement to the hatred of Jews in America didn't put Baddiel off his lunch.

Lunch today - Bigoli Carbonara - comes courtesy of brill pasta delivery service ⁦@pastaevangelist⁩. pic.twitter.com/E9MW057Qqy

— David Baddiel (@Baddiel) March 13, 2019

And apart from the next day, he didn't tweet again until some time in May 2019 so I don't know when he posted his recording. 

A few times Baddiel makes clear that his book "is for progressives" but it is embarrassing that he thinks of himself as one. He does combine laddish lad, even at 50 something, with Jew. Laddish lads are not progressive and his entire framework is a conservative one. I have read the book to the end but all of its general faults appear in the first few pages. And his Jewish identity is based on his oft stated belief that Hitler, the Gestapo, the SS or the Nazis would kill him tomorrow. In fact he rejects almost everything about Jews. He's not religious, he's not a Zionist. I'm very confused about his take on his own Jewish identity which only exists through his bloodline.

Baddiel swallows whole many a falsehood throughout the book, including the Nazis pseudo science of race, the good faith and even the meaning of the IHRA working definition of antisemitism without setting it out or relating any of the arguments against it, the sincerity of the EHRC without getting into any detail, etc, etc. He even accepts that Ken Loach supported at least the right to deny the Holocaust on the strength of a tweet by CST's Dave Rich where you can see, since Baddiel replicates it in the book, that Rich tampered with a quote from Ken Loach to make his point.

On page 40 you get a full blast of Baddiel's sheer ignorance of race, racism and history itself. He challenges the idea that there can't be racism against Jews because Jews aren't a race, only a religion and "religious intolerance is not as bad as racism". Of course, not being a race doesn't insulate people from racism and doesn't absolve racists, anti-Jewish, anti-Muslim, anti-Catholic, etc, of racism. We'll leave aside that religious intolerance has taken millions of lives throughout history and is still taking lives and causing exclusions. But this is where in a footnote Baddiel "explains" why he believes Jews to be a race.

"I'm an atheist and yet the Gestapo would shoot me tomorrow". I have heard Baddiel say it many times. Here he is on Twitter. 

Not as far as racists are concerned. I'm an atheist. The Gestapo would shoot me tomorrow. I've said this on here about five thousand times. So yes: you are fucking silly #gutsforgarters https://t.co/Dp8QMKG2BI

— David Baddiel (@Baddiel) April 11, 2018

I couldn't resist a quick QRT when I found that by googling baddiel "gestapo would shoot me tomorrow" when I read his footnote (p41) where he wonders why he always says tomorrow "as they would no doubt shoot me today". They won't shoot him today and of course, tomorrow never comes.

But it is strange that Baddiel offers nothing really as a positive thing about being Jewish. For all he calls anti-Zionist Jews "self-haters" when I am with my own anti-Zionist Jewish friends, we are very conscious of our cultural identity, you might even say we take pride in it at the same time as acknowledging there is something jarring about taking pride in what is partly (Baddiel says entirely) an accident of birth.

And this brings us neatly to Baddiel's professed non-Zionism. If Baddiel is truly a non-Zionist, he certainly helps them out when they're busy. He has participated enthusiastically in the smear campaign against Corbyn and the left and more recently he joined the campaign against Bristol University's Professor David Miller. The campaign against the left was not entirely about Israel but you can't run a smear campaign alleging antisemitism without a significant number of Jews on board.  By no means all Jews or even all Zionists supported the campaign but Baddiel definitely did even minting at least one lie of his own. 

Click this link to Baddiel on Frankie Boyle's programme in 2018. Baddiel says "29% of people who voted for Corbyn in the Labour Party think the world is controlled by a secret global elite and that global elite are Jews". Here is the YouGov poll that is closest to what Baddiel said. 

28% agree with the statement, "The world is controlled by a secretive elite". Actually some might believe that the elite are Jews but it doesn't say so in the poll. It doesn't even say that the agreers agree that the elite is unified. They might just take the view that the aggregate of all of the world's ruling classes could be fairly described as a secretive elite. It wouldn't be a good way to describe it but of itself it is certainly not antisemitic and not even necessarily conspiracistic. Put simply, Baddiel lied. Ok, maybe he didn't lie. Maybe he is so paranoid he thought he heard what he falsely claimed to  hear. He actually feathers that nest of perception being more important than actuality on page 39:

Baddiel's stupid book 31 Jul 2023 6:27 AM (last year)

The book is ridiculous from its ludicrous title thru its methodology of preferring inference over research, description over definition and assertion over evidence, to its inconclusive conclusion. It's hard to see why this book has been written except maybe for Baddiel to settle some scores with people who, unlike on Twitter, can't have a right of reply or maybe it's just to make money. It is not to fight antisemitism and in some cases it's to invent it. It provides no insights and there is nothing new in any of Baddiel's suggestions/demands.

In fact come to think of it, it's hard to see who he's addressing. He claims he's talking about progressives and the left and sometimes the progressive left. But his own worldview like his framing is profoundly conservative

Something he is saying, you might say, clearly, is that Jews are a race/ethnicity (these are not interchangeable terms except in BaddielWorld). But anyway he claims Jews are a race and therefore that Jews are susceptible to racism like any other race of people. Actually he seems to think antisemitism, which he renders anti-Semitism. There's much literature on why you shouldn't do that but Baddiel hasn't read it.

So hard up is Baddiel for genuine antisemitism, he goes on extended whinges about when non-Jews have played Jews in movies and plays. He might not have noticed this if it wasn't for certain other communities protesting when one of their members is portrayed by a non-member like hetros playing gays or the fact that trans roles can only be played by trans actors. This is a logic fail and a lack of understanding. Trans and gays are still very much in struggle for emancipation. In both cases legal equality has only just been achieved and we are still in a culture around acceptance of the ever lengthening LGBTQ. Jews are not struggling for emancipation and there's no issue around the proportional representation of Jews in show business. 

Baddiel calls non-Jews playing Jews #Jewface though he's never seen it "trend on Twitter". (p60). Honestly, what is a Jewface? Of course, there's an element of self-justification there. Baddiel famously blacked up and used a pineapple to represent a still current hairstyle among Blacks. (pp 69-72)

His mea culpa re Black footballer Jason Lee was all culpa and no mea that I could see. In fact there's not a whole lot of culpa especially since he somehow thinks it's equivalent to an Italian-American playing the role of a Jew in a film or play. Really, he goes off on an extended one about how white non-Jews playing Jewish roles somehow equates with the mockery of our (yes our, whites including white Jews) ownership of and trading in Blacks people. That's where blacking up comes from. Oh and I checked #Jewface and it appears on Twitter often enough going back to 2012 (maybe earlier) usually from supporters of the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians including a rabbi in 2019 to slag Corbyn probably over his attending a Seder night. But to equate serious non-Jewish actors playing Jews with whites (Jewish or not) blacking up calls into question Baddiel's understanding of antisemitism and racism more generally.

So quite early in the book, Baddiel has equated Jews to a gender type and a sexual orientation neither of which are races. They are however disadvantaged and the disadvantage of Jews is one of the things he wants to establish even though it's mostly absurd. But where does he get the Jews are a race idea from? Well, he is Jewish mostly because the Nazis say he is. He also likes Jewish food and a couple of Jewish authors. He doesn't like the religion. He so doesn't like the religion he manages to place the Talmud in the wrong millennium (p7) before saying that antisemites invent quotes from it to disparage Jews. Now given that he doesn't know the Talmud, how would he know if quotes are misquotes? Every so often an Israeli chief rabbi will make some statement about G-d's plan to make gentiles subservient to Jews according to the Talmud. Baddiel really should have done some research.

In spite of antisemitism allegations having been used every day for 6 years now to destroy the prospect of the Labour Party ever being a party of conscience and reform, Baddiel claims that racism against Jews is being given a free pass by the "progressive left". Ah, now here's where we rely on Baddiel's descriptions to know or guess what or who he means when he says progressive and left. At one point he even seems to include David Cameron. (pp 24/5) who Baddiel actually had access to.

Which brings us to the Y-word, ie, the word "Yid" versus the N-word which is, by progressives and leftists considered so taboo it can never be said in its proper form except by Black people themselves. Baddiel says the Y-word should be similarly taboo. What surprises me, I don't know if it's his laddish persona that prevents him from drawing on anything he learned from his double first in English at Oxbridge but he does nothing to analyse these words to establish their etymology and history. N-words were owned and traded by Whites including white Jews. The word Yid is actually Yiddish for Jew. Yes it's offensive but it doesn't denote ownership. Offence does happen in degrees. Not all slurs have equal weight. Having said that, Baddiel would be enormously hard pressed to find examples of leftists using Yid as terminology in any circumstances except in discussing his stupid book and the only people he quotes are David Cameron and notoriously racist football fans.

Baddiel's equating of N-words and Y-words is because he thinks racism against Jews is treated as not being as serious as racism against say, blacks. So often his examples tell us more about Baddiel than about what he claims to be writing about though sometimes he stumbles on something he has to shy away from. For example, BBC Radio 4 had a reading of TS Eliot's poetry including his antisemitic poems. Those latter were introduced by the famous Jewish lawyer, Anthony Julius. Baddiel said that the Beeb would never dream of reciting Agatha Christie's Ten Little N*****s. That may or may not be true (remember I said inference) but what is definitely true is that the Beeb would have had enormous difficulty finding a Black Anthony Julius to introduce the recital. That, of course, doesn't occur to Baddiel. By the way, Baddiel met up with Anthony Julius for 3 hours to discuss the Eliot recital.

Baddiel has been quite a key player in the smear campaign against Jeremy Corbyn and of course Corbyn isn't spared in this stupid book except Baddiel at one point comes across as almost charitable when discussing Corbyn's take on the not necessarily antisemitic mural. Remember MuralGate? Well for Baddiel it is unambiguously antisemitic in spite of him knowing that the portrayal is of six founding fathers of the modern banking system only two of whom were Jews,. Now where he gets that from is that he accurately describes the artist's response to the complaints about the mural as being wildly antisemitic even hashtagging #Warburg and #Rothschild. What he doesn't describe accurately is the mural itself. It does not depict "hook-nosed bankers". They are literally stoney faced and fairly representational except they are monochromatic. Suspiciously, in spite of pictures of some of the tweets he mentions he doesn't include a picture of the mural either freestanding or with a tweet. He claims "Jews seemed to think" the mural was antisemitic but David Toube of the rabidly pro-Israel hate-site Harry's Place didn't think so. He's Jewish. So am I and whilst I hate the stupid mural for its conspiracism and garishness there is nothing essentially Jewish in the symbols or the faces. 

But anyway, on Corbyn, Baddiel charitably though patronisingly, says that he might not have known about the depictions of Rothschild and Warburg. Actually if Baddiel was completely honest he would say what is the case and that is, no-one knows if Corbyn even saw the mural. He simply asked why it was being taken down. But Baddiel plows on and how. Corbyn would have seen the anti-capitalism but not the antisemitism. Well if he saw the mural at all he might have seen just what David Toube and I saw.  But the idea that Corbyn would place his anti-capitalism above his anti-racism across the board is just plain wrong. 

Corbyn has condemned antisemitism specifically many times. An aside here. When Baddiel was on Frankie Boyle's programme in 2018 he complained that Corbyn always says he is against all forms of racism including antisemitism but that Baddiel wanted him to commit to fighting antisemitism as a stand alone thing. That is just a little bit of a contradiction of his position in this book that Jews are an ethnic minority or a race just like Blacks are a race. Anyway, I remember Corbyn condemning Tam Dalyell for accusing a "cabal of Jews" of unduly influencing Tony Blair over Iraq. So his opposition to antisemitism was not obscured by his opposition to the war. He condemned Paul Flynn for saying that Matthew Gould shouldn't be ambassador to Israel because he is Jewish. That was in spite of Gould self-describing as a "proud Zionist". So again Corbyn's opposition to antisemitism was placed before his anti-Zionism. Baddiel's inference was plain wrong and unfair.  There is no reason to assume that Corbyn would allow his anti-capitalism to allow antisemitism to fly below his radar.

But what right has Baddiel to infer rather than research or simply ask people stuff anyway. With Julius he met him for lunch. He met Cameron too. Why doesn't he connect with the more ordinary people so he won't have to infer?

A similar thing happens when Baddiel manages an inference about someone else's inference. See this on page 10:

-----

"At one point, he [John Zogby] began talking about fissures in the Democratic Party specifically around the new Congresswoman Ilhan Omar's views about Israel and its supporters in the US. The interviewer Justin Webb, who is a regular on Today, said, in response:

If the party decided to say to its supporters, 'Look, we think that anti-Semitism is a bit like the way some of our people might regard anti-white racism, that it's actually a different order of racism. It's not as important - it's still bad -...." 

-----

From that Baddiel leaps to this:

-----

"It felt less like a question, more like a helpful suggestion. *Maybe this would be a way forward for the Democrats*? was the tone." 

-----

So, as far as Baddiel's readers can see, the idea of antisemitism wasn't mentioned by Zogby. Nothing antisemitic was quoted from Omar. The very notion was introduced by Webb and inferred beyond recognition by Baddiel. What tosh, honestly.

Yet another over-inference is in the case of Ash Sarkar. He even quotes her accurately and still manages to misrepresent the words he quotes. "Antisemitism...is primarily experienced as prejudice and hostility towards Jews as Jews largely without aspects of material dispossession (such as structural unemployment) that manifest in other forms of racism".  And here's Baddiel to infer, "The suggestion here is that, because Jews are better off....than other ethnic minorities, it is a lesser form of racism". Pay attention, she didn't say either of those things. She merely said that racism against Jews does not have a socio-economic impact. So wherever Jews are on the socioeconomic scales, high or low, is not down to their being Jews. Idiot!

Sorry about the disjointedness but it is such a silly book. Let's take a look at Baddiel's claim of being non-Zionist. It is true that most false allegations of antisemitism are made by Zionists to cover up their own racism and Baddiel being Jewish and happily repeating many false claims of antisemitism on Twitter and even inventing one of his own on telly make people suspect he's a Zionist. I remember in the 1990s Baddiel saying that leftists who criticise Ariel Sharon were antisemitic at the same time as saying he's not actually an Israel supporter. I think Zionism, like racism more generally and even antisemitism, is something he just doesn't get. 

For example he correctly calls Jenny Tonge antisemitic whilst cheekily linking her to Corbyn. She's actually almost literally a centrist having been a LibDem. But one of the examples he gives of her "antisemitism" is that she reports that she is sickened by the entitled attitude of a New Zealand woman presenting a YouTube vid titled Why I'm a Zionist". Baddiel watched it. He wasn't sickened by it. Actually I was as sickened by the racist video which accuses the Palestinians of colonialism and Israel as their victim, as I was by Jenny Tonge trying to explain away the killing of 8 worshippers in a Pittsburgh shul by reference to Israel's atrocities. Baddiel watched the vid and wasn't sickened by it. But then he's not sickened by racism.

So one accurate example of antisemitism on the left and it turns out to be closer to his own professed position of centrism.

Anymore naming and shaming? The stuff about (pp67-69) Ken Loach is bizarre because Baddiel shows that allegations that he supports Holocaust denial are lies. The thing takes a bit of unpacking but Baddiel can even see that the Zionist he quotes was lying about what Loach actually said. And this is where I think Baddiel uses the book to settle scores. He posts a tweet from Ken Loach's son protesting the defaming of his father and linking the most famous but not the only example of Baddiel's racism, the Blackface Jason Lee thing.

This gives Baddiel an opportunity to show he doesn't understand whataboutery. Whataboutery is when you justify wrongdoing on your own side by reference to similar wrongdoing by your enemy or opponent. Jim Loach wasn't doing that. He was saying that his dad is being smeared (defamed) and so Baddiel is a liar and he finished by pointing to one example of Baddiel's own racism.

Failing to mention the smear campaign against the left is a serious omission. At one point he has Dawn Butler rattling off a list of identity groups she said Labour was pitching to. He laments, you can guess, she didn't mention Jews. OMG, what if she had? Is not just faintly possible that she was terrified to mention Jews. It appalled me at the same conference that Corbyn didn't mention the Palestinians in his last speech ever to Labour.

A couple of times Baddiel's mask slips and it's clear he believes that Jews are more important than everyone else eg Jews are "one of the most persecuted minorities in history" (p3) and for all his claim of non-Zionism, he describes orthodox Jewish anti-Zionists as "stupid f*cking frummers" and secular ones like me as "ashamed Jews" which is downright silly given how we self-identify and actually how we live. 

Given his book revolves mostly round Twitter you don't need to read it. It is just a bunch of tweets or tweetable nonsenses.  His right to infer is there to see.

Away from the book there are several instances of Baddiel's racism available to see on line. In one interview he describes himself as looking "like a pikey". I remember him on a panel programme once being asked why a certain view of Jesus's mum was pulled from the schedules and whilst other panellists tried to point to the offensive nature of the portrayal, Baddiel simply said "the BBC heard the words "Muslim" and "offended" and crapped themselves". 

This is a putdown for Gypsies, Roma and Travellers. The Jason Lee thing is legendary. Back in the nineties he penned for the Guardian "Black men can jump" where he pigeonholed the various ethnicities of the UK by occupation, Blacks jump, Asians shopkeep and of course Jews don't lay bricks, they do accountancy. Oh! See that? Jews do count after all.

Fake antisemitism claim, shock! 3 Jun 2021 5:17 PM (3 years ago)

 Oh look, yet another false claim of antisemitism. I see Lee Harpin is now writing for the Jewish News maybe as a result of some merger of it and the Jewish Chronicle. Anyway, Lee Harpin is reporting on the fakery which is unusual because reports on fakery in Jewish media are more often about Harpin than by him. But this involves a false allegation that a nurse made a cutthroat gesture at a Jewish patient following the patient's refusal to be treated by a nurse wearing a badge indicating support for the Palestinian cause.

The Harpin report headed, Royal Free staff member’s ‘cut-throat gesture’ claim found to be fictitious, was the first I heard of the case. Let's see some of that report: 

The director of communications at the north London NHS hospital confirmed on Wednesday that following a “thorough” probe into last week’s allegation the claim was found to be “fictitious and has subsequently been withdrawn.

It had been alleged that a patient attended the hospital for a blood test last month when she allegedly noticed the health professional wearing a Palestine flag on their jacket and a badge which said: ‘Stop killing our children.'

So I did a bit of googling and found among the original reports of the alleged incident, the Campaign Against Antisemitism was claiming to be "in contact with a witness and officials from the hospital". But in the Jewish News it said that "the claim was found to be 'fictitious'." So who was CAA's witness?

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Napolean the Zionist - Scottish PSC On This Day Series 20 Apr 2021 1:13 AM (3 years ago)

On this day in 1799, Napoleon issued a call for a Jewish Palestine as a bulwark against Britain, a century

before the birth of Jewish Zionism. “In year 7 of the French Republic, Buonaparte, Commander-in-Chief of the Armies of the French Republic in Africa and Asia - to the rightful heirs of Palestine“...herewith calls on you…to take over that which has been conquered and, with French warranty and support...to maintain it against all comers.”  https://www.scottishpsc.org.uk/on-this-day?id=246&view=event  

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Is Baddiel calling Ken Loach a Holocaust Denier? 19 Apr 2021 12:59 PM (3 years ago)

David Baddiel attempted a bit of a pile on against me a couple of weeks ago and in so doing seems to have accused Ken Loach of Holocaust denial.

The smearing of Ken Loach begins with the BBC wildly misrepresenting a speech by Miko Peled at a fringe meeting hosted by Free Speech on Israel at the Labour Conference 2017. Labour had done remarkably well in the general election of that year and the establishment decided to focus all the smearing on exaggerated, manipulated or fabricated allegations of antisemitism. Anyway, here's Miko Peled:

There was no discussion, just that remark by Miko Peled. Anyway, let's see now what the BBC did with that:

It's interesting but at some point in the interview the interviewer notes that Loach is alleging that some Labour MPs - actually it was mostly Labour MPs - were "confecting" allegations of antisemitism before going on to do exactly that herself. But anyway, this is the interview where Loach is wrongfooted by a Beeber flat out lying about what had occurred at the aforementioned FSOI meeting. She said that there had been a discussion as to whether or not the Holocaust had happened. Having no clue what she was talking about but knowing she was lying, he couldn't straight up condemn Holocaust denial or debate because that would have seemed like confirming that the discussion that had not taken place had taken place.  Wow, I just looked at the video again and the Beeber was such an outrageous liar.  Look from 01.44 "there was a discussion about the Holocaust, did it happen or didn't it?" Loach shakes his head vigorously and says "I don't think there was a discussion". She then says "well it was reported and it was on the [unintelligible]" She then says 01.57 "would you say that is unacceptable?" Loach then says "I think history is there for us all to discuss", thereby turning to a generalisation about history, not the specifics of the Holocaust.

This is one of the most lied about lines of the whole long smear campaign and the BBC's tweet truncating the clip so as to lie about Loach is still in place. Dave Rich of the Israel lobby and security group, Community Security Trust, couldn't resist his own mischief, tweeting that "Ken Loach said....whether the Holocaust happened "is there for us all to discuss".

But Dave stops short of calling Loach a Holocaust denier. He was challenged by Linda Sayle.

You are wickedly mis-quoting Ken Loach. He said "history is there for us all to discuss". Calling people holocaust deniers without basis and scattering accusations of antisemitism around like confetti does great damage.

— Linda Sayle (@LindaSayle) February 5, 2020

Now if you look, even Dave Rich wasn't stooping to accusing Loach of denial, just of tolerance towards deniers and debate with them.

I didn't call anyone a Holocaust denier, so you are misquoting me. I have no idea whether you are doing it "wickedly" or not.

— Dave Rich (@daverich1) February 5, 2020

Poor Linda didn't know how Dave likes to play with quotation marks. Do you see how his quotes are simply around "is there for us all to discuss", not "whether the Holocaust happened"? Dave does that all the time. Anyway, Dave did not, repeat not, call Loach a Holocaust denier. But note, he stops short of denying "scattering accusations of antisemitism around like confetti". He should have stopped at "I have no idea".

Anyway, David Baddiel picks up and runs amok with Dave Rich's smear and, for the book, sexes it up just a tad.  See page 66 on:

The film director Ken Loach was made a judge of a school competition run by Show Racism the Red Card, which is a football anti-racist charity similar to Kick It Out. In 2016, [it was 2017] during an interview at the Labour Party conference, Loach said, on being asked about the presence at a fringe meeting of a speaker alleged to have questioned the history of the Holocaust, [Miko Peled in the above clip] ‘Well, I think history is there for us all to discuss.’ He has since very strongly refuted being a Holocaust denier*, [my italics] but nonetheless this appointment led to protests from the Jewish community. For a while, SRtRC reacted angrily, doubling down, getting Eric Cantona to tweet about what a great anti-racist Ken Loach was and suchlike. In the end, Loach did step down from judging the competition, but as ever there was no outcry from progressive quarters – only Jewish ones – about the possible incongruity of his appointment.

Followed by a second tweet that just said: ‘I can think of better judges for an anti-racism competition.’ I retweeted it. And then Ken Loach’s son, Jim, tweeted this:

I see @Baddiel casually retweets internet trolls like @daverich1 who defame my father @KenLoachSixteen. You’d think with his background he’d be a bit more careful when accusing others. pic.twitter.com/6gSlz4KSKw

— Jim Loach (@JimLoach) February 6, 2020

First up Baddiel misrepresents Miko Peled. Baddiel has written a book which he intends to be taken seriously. Clearly he is either lying about Miko Peled or he simply didn't check anything, even the thread that he RTd a tweet from. In fairness the lack of checking is possible given he gets the year wrong. But even without checking, surely he realised that Dave Rich was being slippery with the Ken Loach quote. If he didn't know any of this or didn't reason any of this for himself, then why did he ignore most of Jim Loach's tweet?  "@Baddiel casually retweets internet trolls like @daverich1 who defame my father @KenLoachSixteen".

Jim Loach protests Baddiel RTing "internet trolls like @Dave Rich who defame" his father. No pause for thought over the word "defame", no? Jim Loach is accusing Baddiel and Rich (and by extension and most concerning of all, the BBC) of lying about Ken Loach, which they all were. But Baddiel had points to score and scores to settle so he takes the opportunity to show what a know-nothing he really is. 

You see, Jim Loach references one of Baddiel's racist outbursts, this one against the former footballer, Jason Lee who Baddiel encouraged famously racist football fans to mock by way of Baddiel donning blackface makeup and wearing a pineapple on his head to represent dreadlocks.Googling Baddiel, pineapple, Jason Lee, stuff like that, you will happen upon many an article with Jason Lee saying that Baddiel never apologised to him for what he did. Baddiel claims he apologised. He doesn't say who he apologised to and doesn't seem to realise even what he did wrong. Now see page 70:

What the apologies make no difference to is the recurring presence of that photo on my Twitter timeline. Particularly since I started speaking out publicly about anti-Semitism, whether it be anti-Semitism in general or on the left. In fact, it can seem that what the people demanding apologies from me want is not apologies. What they seem to want, really, is silence. They want me to shut up, particularly about anti-Semitism. As far as they are concerned, the photo of me as Jason Lee is a trump card that means I cannot speak about racism...

There is a tactic some of you may be aware of called Whataboutery. 

Yup, there is a tactic called Whataboutery. It's when you justify your own wrongdoing by reference to the wrongdoing of your opponents.  But Jim Loach is not accusing Baddiel of doing what his father has done. He is correctly calling Baddiel a liar about his father and a hypocritical liar over antisemitism. 

But there is another charge of hypocrisy to be made against Baddiel. He says that his own racism is used to try to disqualify him from talking about racism in other situations, in particular in his case, against Jews, He says this is a #Jewsdon'tcount instance. But that's exactly what Baddiel is saying about Ken Loach. The only difference is that Baddiel, Rich and the BBC all lied about Loach. You don't have to look far to find examples of Baddiel's racism. That is, you don't have to lie to make a racist out of Baddiel.

Here he is saying he looks like a "pikey".

Here he is essentialising Blacks, Asians and Jews by occupation. He got some rare mainstream flack for that, albeit in the Guardian's letters page.

But really mentioning two (three with blackface - many with blackface many times) examples of Baddiel's racism spanning over 20 years doesn't convey nearly enough of it.

He does another slippery thing. He claims that people have tried to silence him since he started talking about antisemitism as if this postdates the examples of his racism which go back to the 1990s but I'm sure I saw him alleging antisemitism against Israel's leftist critics back in the 1990s, which you could say was Baddiel's racist heyday if only it was over. 

But the final thing is this. I remember the first time I read Baddiel's stupid book, the line about Ken Loach that baffled me the most was after Baddiel claimed Loach was challenged about "the presence at a fringe meeting of a speaker alleged to have questioned the history of the Holocaust" we have what looks like a non sequitur:

He has since very strongly refuted being a Holocaust denier

Now remember Dave Rich insisted he certainly wasn't accusing anyone, certainly not Loach, of Holocaust denial. So who did accuse Ken Loach of being a Holocaust denier? Why would Baddiel say he denies it?

It rankled with me as I was sure my skim reading had let me down. That's one reason I got the Kindle version, so I can cross-reference, search, copy and paste, etc.

But then a couple of weeks ago I was googling for something, probably Baddiel related and I found that Baddiel himself has been "confronting Holocaust denial", ie, debating with Holocaust deniers,ie, what I thought Baddiel, Dave Rich and the BBC were falsely accusing Ken Loach of promoting.

I noticed that in the BBC puff for the stuff two Holocaust deniers are named and it appeared that Baddiel goes off to debate these people. I tweeted that Baddiel was doing what he falsely accused Ken Loach of doing, ie, debating the Holocaust. Actually, it's worse, it's publicising not simply the fact that some people deny the Holocaust but their names. This meant that people intent on denying the Holocaust could hone and further publicise their arguments by going to the go-to names. 

I tweeted my criticism in a four tweet thread.

The irony of David Baddiel smearing Ken Loach as a promoter of Holocaust debate is that Baddiel & Lipstadt both publicise Holocaust denial and confront it with the facts thereby engaging in the very debate Baddiel falsely accuses @KenLoachSixteen of promoting. https://t.co/dtbyzR5saQ

— Jews Sans Frontieres (@jewssf) April 3, 2021

When Lipstadt wrote a book on deniers, including Irving, Irving's plan was to cross-examine her on the Holocaust & expose that she knew nothing. Thankfully she didn't have to take the stand so he lost but it could have been a disaster. That's the dangerous game they're playing.

— Jews Sans Frontieres (@jewssf) April 3, 2021

The BBC's lie that Jewish socialists discussed whether or not the Holocaust happened was the most disgusting of all the lies in a smear campaign that is still ongoing. In fact, Baddiel's book with the Loach smear replicated in it is the most recent contribution to the campaign.

— Jews Sans Frontieres (@jewssf) April 3, 2021

And the fact that Baddiel publicises Holocaust denial is of course much worse than irony, worse than hypocrisy, in fact it wasn't even hypocrisy,it was projection: accusing people of doing a bad thing that they don't do but Baddiel does.

— Jews Sans Frontieres (@jewssf) April 3, 2021

That could have been that but rather then respond to my first tweet that QRTd his tweet, he grabbed the fourth one which didn't name anyone and didn't tag him. He knew that I was slagging him over Loach but none of his followers could know because he grabbed the tweet, he didn't QRT it. Sneaky huh? Look: 

Here's @jewssf suggesting that because I did a documentary challenging and exposing Holocaust denial, I am secretly a Holocaust denier. When people on here hate you, for whatever reason, it's amazing the contortions they will undergo to channel that hate. pic.twitter.com/wg1VOv41Is

— David Baddiel (@Baddiel) April 4, 2021

Now even in the tweet he grabbed there is no suggestion he is a Holocaust denier. That's just silly and his followers are silly. Many of them replied to him saying how illogical I was and some had a go directly at me. I responded pointing out that I had said that he condemned Loach for promoting Holocaust debate whereas by confronting Holocaust deniers he is engaging in the debate that he falsely condemned Loach for promoting.

Well in all the toing and froing, I finally said to someone, the only way Baddiel's tweet tagging me works is if he thinks that me comparing what he is doing to what he accused Loach of doing is if he is accusing Loach of Holocaust denial. Oh wait! Finally the penny dropped. "He [Loach] has since very strongly refuted being a Holocaust denier" followed by the word "but". Baddiel seems to be flatly contradicting his mentor, Dave Rich (or maybe Rich is Baddiel's mentee). Baddiel appears to be accusing Ken Loach of Holocaust denial. I wonder.

By the way, the smearing of Ken Loach is yet another score settling exercise in Baddiel's stupid book. This time it is more aimed at Ken's son Jim. What a piece of work that Baddiel (aged 55) is.

BBC still smearing Ken Loach after all these years 19 Apr 2021 9:55 AM (3 years ago)

 This BBC tweet basically lying about Ken Loach should not still be there. But since it is, I'll embed it here to show what liars they are. 

"History is for us all to discuss." - Ken Loach on reported #Lab17 fringe comments about whether it's OK to ask if the Holocaust happened. pic.twitter.com/cXkpqMsb0R

— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) September 26, 2017

Please watch the 46 seconds that the BBC presents via its tweet. Thank you.The length of that one is 2 minutes and 28 seconds. The fuller version shows the BBC's desperation in trying to present evidence of left antisemitism.

JDA Smokes Out the IHRA - It's all about Israel 5 Apr 2021 1:20 PM (4 years ago)

It didn't take long for the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism to come to the attention of the Zionist movement. The JDA is a new definition of antisemitism that directly challenges the IHRA with its eleven examples, 6 of which are about The State of Israel and none of which mention racism against Jews or indeed Zionism.

Here's the JDA's definition:

Antisemitism is discrimination, prejudice, hostility or violence against Jews as Jews (or Jewish institutions as Jewish)

There you go. I would have simply said racism against Jews but that'll do. It works as a definition which is more than can be said for the IHRA which is as follows:

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.

It's hardly a definition at all. According to that definition I could go outside and say something pleasant to a non-Jew and that could be construed as antisemitism because I "may" have been perceiving Jews in a "certain" way when I "directed" my pleasantness at a "non-Jewish individual". On the other hand, someone could break into my house, point a gun and me, shout "die effing Jew" and shoot me and that "may" not be picked by the IHRA definition but it definitely would be picked up by the JDA as you can see.

But the IHRA has examples upon which it depends for meaning or I should say meaningfulness. Even the first one looks sound but is dodgy. 

Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion.

Really? What about calling for aiding or justifying the killing or harming of Jews simply for being Jews. Suppose militant supporters of some ideology or other kill people who turn out to be Jewish but it wasn't the reason they were targeted? Bloody stupid. But of course the JDA has that one sorted in the definition.

But of course the real villain of the IHRA piece is its example number 7:

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.

But it also has other little protections for The State of Israel:

Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.

 And

Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis

But

criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic

Jews Don't Count: a wretched book, cowardly, ignorant and dishonest 28 Mar 2021 2:09 AM (4 years ago)

Purim is a time of laughter. It is a cross between Halloween and April Fools Day and it was in that spirit that a friend gave me the book because, she said. it's a joke. And so it turned out. I don't even know if Baddiel was joking by writing it. It contains no new insights at all. 

It is basically arguing that Jews should be considered an ethnicity or race (Baddiel conflates the two) mostly because the Nazis did. He ignores that it was actually an aspect of their antisemitism that the Nazis posited Jews as a race but Baddiel swallows whole their pseudoscience (p41) and refuses to consider that Jews in free societies have identity choices denied to the essentially non-white BAME communities.

The positive reviews Baddiel's book has received are either sycophancy or collusion especially those that say it is "well researched". It's a bizarre thing to say about a book which consists entirely of Baddiel's own experiences or whatever he has gleaned from Twitter, Facebook, television and newspapers.

If he had have conducted research he might have written a very different book. For example, he has an officer of an Israel advocacy and Jewish security group tampering with a quote (p68) from Ken Loach to make it look as if Loach had said that "history is there for us all to discuss" to promote debate on whether the Holocaust happened or not. 

He didn't. And when he replicates Loach's son's tweet (p69) objecting to the defamation of his father and calling Baddiel out on Baddiel's own past racism, 

Baddiel sidesteps the defamation issue and accuses Jim Loach of "whataboutery", a concept Baddiel doesn't seem to understand. 

Baddiel's claim to be addressing himself to the "progressive left" by highlighting what he claims are instances of antisemitism on the left is laughable. The progressive left is not Baddiel's milieu and apart from some faked cases, all the examples of antisemitism he gives come from non-left sources. Jenny Tonge (p94) with her LibDem background is a centrist now in the Lords as an independent, ironically since the centre is roughly where Baddiel places himself. Other genuine cases of antisemitism from football club directors (p28) or racist football fans (p13), are likewise not from the left.

The book is  peppered with accidental or deliberate false inferences. Discussion of the case of US Congresswoman, Ilhan Omar, (pp10-12) had him and BBC's Justin Webb accusing her, without evidence, of antisemitism. He wildly exaggerated the notorious Mear One mural of 6 bankers (including 2 Jews) lording it over the suffering masses to claim that the bankers depicted in it had hooked noses (p44) and suspiciously he didn't include a replica of the mural so people could see for themselves. 

He quotes the artist's antisemitic response to criticisms of the mural (p41) and then quotes Corbyn asking why it is being removed and referring to other cases of anti-capitalist works being destroyed. But nowhere did Corbyn say he had even seen, let alone that he liked, the mural and certainly he wouldn't have agreed with the artist's response to criticisms.

Baddiel concludes MuralGate by patronisingly suggesting that Corbyn sees the anti-capitalism but not the antisemitism (p46). Another false inference. Again if Baddiel did any research he would know that there are many instances of Corbyn placing his opposition to antisemitism before his anti-war and anti-Zionist positions. He condemned Tam Dalyell when the latter said that Blair was in thrall to a "Jewish cabal" of advisers over Iraq and Corbyn condemned the late Paul Flynn for saying that the UK shouldn't have a Jewish ambassador to Israel. The ambassador in question, Matthew Gould, was a declared "proud Zionist".

Baddiel takes the opportunity thrown up by MuralGate to assert that "There is, on both left and right, of capitalist power being represented as Jewish power" (p46). No examples given, no research required.

Baddiel claims to be a "non-Zionist" and yet he appears to support the IHRA working definition of antisemitism (p74) which essentialises Jews as supporters of The State of Israel. He assumes that opponents of the definition don't care about Jews. It appears that Baddiel hasn't read the definition or, worse, he has. He protests (p75) that during a time of unprecedented pressure on universities over Covid19, one university official expressed irritation at, though Baddiel doesn't mention it, a blackmail attempt by a right wing Tory government to defund universities if they fail to adopt a bogus definition of antisemitism which, if adopted and adhered to, would prevent not just criticism of The State of Israel, which it already has, but also accurate description of its character and its history.  But for Baddiel, the failure or refusal of some universities to succumb to the blackmail shows that they don't care about Jews or antisemitism.

In order to falsely accuse the leftish journalist Ash Sarkar of antisemitism he misrepresents her as saying that all Jews are rich. She actually said that unlike racism against other identities the socioeconomic status of Jews is not affected by racism one way or the other. Baddiel even claims to be unable to consider anything other than his own misinterpretation (p26). Again, a lack of research. Why didn't he ask her? Later in the book, because Sarkar used the word "dispossession" in her tweet (p110) about the current situation, Baddiel takes the opportunity to mention his wealthy ancestors as having been dispossessed by the Nazis as if Sarkar was some kind of Holocaust denier. He misrepresents Sarkar three times overall (p120). I'm left with the impression she probably won the argument on Twitter.

Baddiel is a man who has chatted with a PM about a cause of his concern, he met up with Princess Di's lawyer to talk to him for 3 hours about TS Eliot's antisemitism and he had radio 4's Justin Webb contact him to tell him he wasn't advising the Democrats to pitch to antisemitism as Baddiel had falsely inferred. And yet he couldn't even conduct the basic research of contacting people on Twitter to get them to clarify their position before he went ahead and, well, smeared them.

Of course his lack of research wasn't just laziness. It was agenda driven. Why does multimillionaire David Baddiel worry about inflated and invented antisemitism from the redistributive left and not even seem to know about the very real antisemitism of the current PM and some.of his senior cohorts? 

This brings us to his nonchalant dismissal of those Jews with whom he disagrees. Like Howard Jacobson before him, he believes Jews who are perfectly, you might say proudly, upfront about being Jewish, are actually ashamed of being Jewish if they criticise Israel or if they are anti-Zionist altogether. Miriam Margolyes comes in for a particularly nasty swipe here (p30). Also, Baddiel seems unaware of a whole swathe of unabashed anti-Zionist Jews in the Haredic and very numerous Satmar and Chasidic communities who he dismisses on Twitter as "stupid fucking frummers" but doesn't mention them in his book unless he's lumping them in with democratic secularists like myself.

His condemnation of Jewish opponents of Israel like his condemnation of all leftist critics of Israel seems to belie his claim not to care about "stupid fucking" Israel at all.

Actually other Jews Baddiel seems to be unaware of are truly non-white Jews from North Africa and Asia also from other parts of Africa like Uganda. It's an irony when Baddiel makes Jews out to be "not quite" white, he is only referring to Jews who were on the white side of Jim Crow laws in America, the white side of apartheid in South Africa and of course on the white side of the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

Another thing suggesting his dismissiveness of much Jewishness (Yiddishkeit) is how he treats the Talmud. He dismisses it as a book of exegesis of the Old Testament, codified in the fourteenth century". (p7) It was the 6th century and Old Testament is Christian terminology and a bit of a putdown. He complains that antisemites misquote it to make Jews look bad but a) how would he know? and b) it's not unheard of for Israeli rabbis to embarrass Israel by saying how one day gentiles will be the slaves of Jews.

I really can't see why this book was written at all or why it is being so lavishly praised - including by at least two Tory peers. Ok, I can see why it's being praised by Tory peers and other Rightists. But we have had over 5 years of smears and the progressive left is all but destroyed for a generation. For Baddiel the book seems to be a settling of scores on a platform away from Twitter and real life where his targets cannot have a right of reply. It is cowardly, mean spirited and dishonest.

How so-called Jewish Labour Movement greeted Chakrabarti Report 11 Mar 2021 3:27 AM (4 years ago)

With breathtaking arrogance and sheer dishonesty,  the so-called Campaign Against Corbyn Antisemitism has denounced St Paul's School for inviting Shami Chakrabarti to address pupils:

Shami Chakrabarti has been invited to speak at the prestigious St Paul’s School on the subject of “equality between people” on the occassion of International Women’s Day, despite her role whitewashing antisemitism within the Labour Party.

Following a complaint to us from an appalled alumnus, Campaign Against Antisemitism has written to the High Master of the boys’ school to ask why the disgraced peer has been invited to speak tomorrow, to insist that she is challenged on her role whitewashing anti-Jewish racism in the Labour Party, and to make welfare arrangements for Jewish students and anyone else affected by her address.

All very strange because CAA's partners in slime, so-called Jewish Labour Movement quite liked her report when it was first published:

Posted by Adam Langleben on June 30, 2016

Reacting to the publication of the Chakrabarti Inquiry report, the Jewish Labour Movement have released this statement:

"This is a sensible and firm platform which gives the Party an opportunity to get off the back foot and on to the front foot in setting a new standard for tacking racism and anti-Semitism. 

The report has accurately diagnosed the nature of the problem.  There will rightly be a debate and discussion about the specifics of the very detailed recommendations on rules, regulations and processes.

But all the talk about high standards will need to  be borne out by implementation. This will require strong leadership.

One of the very first tests will be how the party deals with the ongoing disciplinary case against Ken Livingstone. There can be no future for a politician with his track record in a post Chakrabarti report labour party. 

We at JLM will be meeting with the party leadership  in next few days to begin discussions around implementation."

ENDS

UPDATE: 6 July 2016

Read JLM National Chair, Jeremy Newmark on the Chakrabarti Report in The Jewish News - here. 

All the lies must catch up with them eventually.

 

Israel destroying Palestinian Covid19 Testing Centres - Ethnic Cleansing by Pandemic 23 Jul 2020 2:32 PM (4 years ago)

Cor, sometimes I think Israel wants to destroy the Palestinians just because they can. Here's a Press Release from Hebron:

Israel has demolished Hebron’s Covid 19 Testing Centre
Early on Tuesday, 21 July 2020, the Israeli Civil Administration in the West Bank oversaw the demolition of a Covid 19 Test Center located just outside the northern entrance to the city of Hebron. Hebron is currently the epicentre of the Corona outbreak in the West Bank, accounting for roughly 80 percent of all infections. The Covid Test Centre would have been a key line of defence in the population’s battle to contain the virus.


Background
Construction of the Covid Test Centre had begun in March, with clear signage indicating the humanitarian purpose of the building works. The Centre was located on land donated to the Hebron Municipality by a private landowner.  Since it is extremely rare for Palestinians to be granted planning permission in Area C of the West Bank, construction began without a permit.

On July 12th, with the Test Centre only two days away from completion, the Israeli Civil Administration issued demolition orders, using the controversial Military Order 1797, which has been criticised by human rights lawyers for the way in which it bypasses normal recourses to appeal.

This is not the first time that Israel has moved to squash Palestinian pandemic responses:
back in April, the Jerusalem police closed a COVID-19 testing station that was opened in the Silwan neighborhood in East Jerusalem, citing a law prohibiting Palestinian Authority activity in the city.

My Response to the Labour Party's Suspension Letter 20 Jul 2020 4:14 PM (4 years ago)

The previous post links to the suspension letter I received from the Labour Party on 30 April 2020. You don't need to read the suspension letter to get its ghyst from here but the complaint purported to arise out of two blog comments (not posts, comments to posts) and four tweets. The suspension letter didn't link to any of them and the letter's author effected at least to believe they were from Facebook. I didn't find the "offending" items prior to responding to them so I will try to find them now.

I'll list them as the suspension letter does but by linking rather than quoting:

Item 1. https://twitter.com/jewssf/status/1245385832267165698?s=20

CST is an Israel advocacy group. It does security for shuls etc but its propaganda efforts are against Israel's critics, opponents and victims. As for Dave Rich invoking Cable St, Zionism began as an agreement with antisemitism collaborating with Tsarism, Nazism, Galtieri & EDL. https://t.co/7Mvy4CcB2G

— Jews Sans Frontieres (@jewssf) April 1, 2020

Note the date of item 1. It's 2020, this year.

Item 2.   http://web.archive.org/web/20090626033019/http://www.haloscan.com/comments/levi9909/5773458525484843543/#319340

If you've read Eurosabra's previous offerings, you don't have to read the latest at all to know that it offers "breathtaking mendacity."
The sad thing, I think, is this propensity for sheer instinctive dishonesty has become a habit of mind with many, maybe most, Jews. It's part of the culture now and it'll be a hard slog shifting it. I think as communities, the Jews are heading for a disaster thanks to this grotesque culture of deceit. I can't imagine what form this disaster will take but suppose it happens like a flash, in a moment. I wonder who will be identifying as Jews after it happens. 

I was just reading this: http://www.alfredlilienthal.com/...om/ zionamer.htm
The whole site is worth a look at but I find it a bit hard to navigate. Maybe it's me, I'm just a poor navigator. 

Mark Elf (levi9909) | Homepage | 11.13.07 - 7:49 am | #

And see the date on that one, 2007. Kinda outta sync. What's all that about?

Item 3.    http://web.archive.org/web/20090626033019/http://www.haloscan.com/comments/levi9909/5773458525484843543/#319538

Anon - the press in the UK is overwhelmingly pro-Israel. Even a pro-Israel journo - Sam Kiley - had to leave the Times because in spite of being pro-Israel himself he was asked to run an article on the unit of the Israeli army that killed Mohamed al-Durra, without mentioning the killing of Mohamed al-Durra. Kiley left in disgust. The Telegraph is no less pro-Israel now than when it was owned by Conrad Black who also owned the Jerusalem Post. He took the Jerusalem Post over to the Likud and did the same with the Telegraph. It has less op-ed pieces on Israel now because Barbara Amiel couldn't publish her fanatically right wing zionist vanity pieces when her husband no longer owned the paper. The Guardian and Independent both have determinedly pro-zionist editorial policies though both are more critical of Israel than the Times and Telegraph. Both have resident zionists commenting on Israel and zionism. They also have resident anti-zionists but rarely are they allowed to comment on Israel or zionism, they're just known to be anti-zionist. 

Logic can't really be used to assess the pro-Israeli-ness or not of this or that newspaper. It's a matter of observation. That being the case, show us some links to the ant-Israel op-eds in the Guardian or Independent newspapers. 

Mark Elf (levi9909) | Homepage | 11.16.07 - 12:40 am | #

Item 4.  https://twitter.com/jewssf/status/1229424582165135360?s=20

— Jews Sans Frontieres (@jewssf) February 17, 2020

Item 5. https://twitter.com/jewssf/status/1231379194703220736?s=20

Most allegations of antisemitism against Labour members have been false and of course many have been made by racists like JLM members and LFI members. That's not zero tolerance. Labour "strictly protects" racists while suspending anti-racists. https://t.co/v1GN8lWnuC

— Jews Sans Frontieres (@jewssf) February 23, 2020

Item 6.    https://twitter.com/jewssf/status/1236296569789480960?s=20

You are in denial about Zionist collaboration with the Nazis. You are the revisionist https://t.co/eZAKSJa18y. The Holocaust would have happened without Zionist collaboration but of 6 m Jews dead, 100s of k could have been saved but for Zionist collaboration. Read about it.

— Jews Sans Frontieres (@jewssf) March 7, 2020

So there is the evidence now read on....

My Administrative Suspension from the Labour Party 20 Jul 2020 2:38 PM (4 years ago)

OK, here's the letter suspending me from the Labour Party. I don't know why it's so difficult to publish a pdf but you need to click on the top right corner of the doc below and then you'll see the whole thing:


 

My suspension from, reinstatement to and departure from The Labour Party 19 Jul 2020 3:41 PM (4 years ago)

I got a letter shortly after beginning a secondment as an ambulance driver in a team devoted to transport for Covid19 patients. It was from the Labour Party notifying me of my suspension on account (long story short) of antisemitism. It was dated 30 April 2020 though the 1st April would have been more appropriate. Anyway, here is the letter.


  I can't remember when the first false allegations of antisemitism began but I do remember my dismay when Corbyn took the sick jokes seriously enough to appoint Shami Chakrabarti to do a report about it. That act of appeasement sent Zionists into a feed frenzy just as Corbyn had been warned by mostly Jewish activists. As had been predicted the appeasement made matters worse which led to more appeasement which made worse matters worse still. I thought about leaving the party back then but I must have been persuaded to remain until the General Election 2017 when Corbyn and Labour did, to my mind, surprisingly well. This placated the opportunists who saw him as an electoral liability but it sent the Rightist enemy even more apoplectic. Realising they could not win reality based arguments, they intensified the smear campaign. And Corbyn made more and more concessions.

I can't remember the order the concessions came in off the top of my head. Knowing as Corbyn did and does that Jewish Labour Movement is racist to its core, he gave it an anti-racism award. The award was in the name of the late anti-racist activist, Del Singh. Poor Del Singh's family was outraged and I believe the award having been so tarnished (by Corbyn don't forget) no longer exists. Several years after Corbyn had shared a platform with anti-Zionist Jewish Holocaust survivor, Hajo Meyer, Corbyn was accused of sharing a platform with an antisemite, Hajo Meyer. Guess what?! Corbyn apologised of course.

An aside here. Many thought that Corbyn was appeasing the supporters of racist war criminals because he was too nice. He wasn't too nice. He was downright nasty and to his friends too. He wasn't too nice, he was too Labour. Then there was mural gate. A garish arguably but by no means unambiguously antisemitic mural. Even David Toube of Harry's Place, no slouch when it comes to false allegations of antisemitism, didn't think the image antisemitic when he saw it in real life though he changed his mind when he heard the artist's explanation of it. Corbyn didn't even say he like it. He just asked why it was being removed. He might not even have seen it. And guess what? Yup, Corbyn apologised again. And again. And again.

At some point, the Labour Party adopted the IHRA working definition of antisemitism. Corbyn resisted for a little while but there were some bogus assurances that a definition which deliberately set out to ban criticism of Israel would not be used to ban criticism of Israel. Guess what? It was and is used only to ban criticism of Israel.

Why all this? Oh yes, why after all this did I remain in Labour. I was mesmerised by the near miss of
2017 so I stayed. I even went to my first ever Labour conference in September last year. I was optimistic I even thought the ludicrous fudge over Brexit/Remain was clever.

Even at his last Labour conference Corbyn managed a couple of last unprincipled concessions to the Zionist movement. Before he got the chance to fail to mention the Palestinians in his speech it was drawn to his attention that a poster had appeared at the conference hall entrance showing BiBi flying a fighter jet firing missiles, one marked "Antisemitism" and the other "Defamation". So what did Corbyn do about this defence of, er, Corbyn. He denounced it as antisemitic of course. Nice Mr Corbyn.

Anyway, after all the people Corbyn kept appeasing got the result of his appeasement, ie, Labour lost the election miserably in 2019, I couldn't even be bothered to leave. The £4 a month didn't bother me too much but I began arguing against people remaining in the party. I got a job as an ambulance driver a little into the new year and I was quite excited about that and I ignored politics for a while, save for tweeting. But then as soon as I had tweeted that I am working on a project for Covid19 patients I got the letter you see above.

I told friends about in spite of its insistence on keeping the news to myself. I said I wanted to leave and that I didn't think I was being honest in remaining in such an openly racist party but I was persuaded by other Jewish comrades to stay especially given the antisemitic and racist implications of the witchhunt. Our Jewish identity itself was under attack and we had to defend against that. I reluctantly agreed to compose the following letter:

So, I carried on business, work and twitter, as usual for a few weeks and waited for their reply. Of course there were still more betrayals of principle by the Corbynista left. Between my suspension and response and the Party finally exonerating me of their bogus charges there was the leak of a document which showed beyond any doubt that there was a real conspiracy at the heart of the Party to stop it winning the General Election of 2017. But a few days ago I got an email from the Party telling me that I have been cleared of all their charges.

I now felt free to leave but let me just get my home address off the letter lifting my suspension and come back tomorrow with another post....

Betrayed by Bureaucrats? That Leaked Labour Report and the Disappearing Daily Mirror Article 27 Apr 2020 3:11 AM (4 years ago)

I did a post yesterday night about how an article in The Daily Mirror about the "leaked Labour report", had been disappeared from its website. I found it on the Wayback Machine and copied and pasted it to my own post without much comment but I am mystified as to its content and why it has been pulled. Most newspapers only do that in extreme circumstances like they've been threatened in some way by the state or by lawyers.

Let's see that article again:

Labour ask police to investigate claims staff worked for Tory election victory 

EXCLUSIVE: Sir Keir Starmer ordered the probe after being elected the new leader of the Labour party - and police have started to look in to death threats made against staff

Labour chiefs have called in police as part of an inquiry into claims party HQ staff worked secretly for a Tory election victory. 

A probe was ordered by new Labour leader Keir Starmer and approved by an emergency meeting of the National Executive Committee last week. 

Death threats and abuse against staff involved have been reported and police called as the wide-ranging probe gets under way.  

A full-scale operation has been mounted to shut down distribution of a leaked report alleging that senior campaign managers were part of a clandestine group trying to stop Jeremy Corbyn becoming PM.  

A report has been filed with the Information Commissioner’s Office while an internal investigation is looking at a “serious” data breach via WhatsApp messages and email. 

Party officials have also contacted social media companies to take down any copies of the report still online and local parties told not to share it. 

Crucially, the NEC decided to prioritise the claims made in the report over the circumstances of how it was leaked. 

An NEC member confirmed it was decided to refer the matter to the police, who will be updated on the party’s findings. The inquiry has been fast-tracked to conclude in mid-July. 

There is speculation it may be headed by Lord Larry Whitty, who was party general secretary under Neil Kinnock.

So, the headline tells us that the police have been called to "investigate claims staff worked for Tory election victory". Ok, so already there is ambiguity. Are police investigating the staff for some breach of electoral law or are they investigating those who claim that McNicol, Sam Matthews, et al (the Mirror report doesn't name them) worked for a Tory election victory?

The Mirror then says that "Sir Keir Starmer ordered the probe" [my emphasis] but it hasn't said what the probe probing. It then says that the police are looking into death threats made against the staff. So what started as the possibility of police investigating allegations of serious, possibly illegal, misconduct by a bunch of Blairite bureaucrats quickly becomes an attempt to garner sympathy for the people the police might truly be investigating.

The Mirror was clearly working on the assumption that anyone who follows these things, Labour members and many voters would know about the "leaked Labour report". The report might well be findable on the net but if you can't find it, Craig Murray's report on the report is as good as any except he falls for the false allegations of antisemitism against Ken Livingstone. Sorry, don't let me digress.

Anyway, so the Mirror has said police are on the case of matters in connection with the now famous, in spite of the media and a certain Zionist lawyer trying to bury it, "leaked Labour report" but it doesn't say what the police are investigating apart from death threats and abuse.

Now the evidence of skulduggery and possibly illegality on the part of McNicol and his cohort is evidenced in the report. I mean it's possible that whoever wrote the report simply fabricated the content of emails and WhatsApp messages but a) it's not likely and b) layers have threatened proceedings over Data Protection and breach of privacy. I reckon that suggests that the alleged content of the emails and WhatsApps must be true or else how could it be a breach of privacy or data protection protocols?

And then the Mirror piece gets back to the stuff of the headline. Apparently police have been called to look into the work the skulduggerers were doing to secure a Tory election victory. I don't know if that is illegal or how illegal it was to do what they did. The Mirror kind of says that it's the Labour leadership that has called in the police for this but then seems to be saying that Starmer is more interested in the leaking of the report.

Labour chiefs have called in police as part of an inquiry into claims party HQ staff worked secretly for a Tory election victory. 

A probe was ordered by new Labour leader Keir Starmer and approved by an emergency meeting of the National Executive Committee last week. 

Death threats and abuse against staff involved have been reported and police called as the wide-ranging probe gets under way.  

See? it's all a bit garbled but whereas the "leaked Labour report" purports to show evidence of what it is alleging, where is the evidence of death threats against the people named in the report? The only evidence I heard of a death threat against anyone named in the report was against Sam Matthews and that threat was made by Sam Matthews himself and he admitted, well claimed as much in the now notorious BBC Panorama programme by John Ware supposedly on Labour antisemitism.

The article then speaks of the extraordinary effort going into barring the report from public view and reports of data protection breaches before making this interesting observation:

Crucially, the NEC decided to prioritise the claims made in the report over the circumstances of how it was leaked. 

Now that would be a crumb of comfort if it were true. The claims made in the report are absolutly damning and have already led to the welcome departure of Lord McNicol from the Labour front bench while Sam Matthews seems to have dug in and Zionist and Blairite lawyers together with leading Goyishe Zionist, John Ware, making all sorts of legal threats over I'm not sure what.

After all that, I have no answers and for the immediate term I only have one question, why did the Daily Mirror disappear the article?

Labour ask police to investigate claims staff worked for Tory election victory 26 Apr 2020 2:53 PM (4 years ago)

Labour ask police to investigate claims staff worked for Tory election victory 

EXCLUSIVE: Sir Keir Starmer ordered the probe after being elected the new leader of the Labour party - and police have started to look in to death threats made against staff

Labour chiefs have called in police as part of an inquiry into claims party HQ staff worked secretly for a Tory election victory. 

A probe was ordered by new Labour leader Keir Starmer and approved by an emergency meeting of the National Executive Committee last week. 

Death threats and abuse against staff involved have been reported and police called as the wide-ranging probe gets under way.  

A full-scale operation has been mounted to shut down distribution of a leaked report alleging that senior campaign managers were part of a clandestine group trying to stop Jeremy Corbyn becoming PM.  

A report has been filed with the Information Commissioner’s Office while an internal investigation is looking at a “serious” data breach via WhatsApp messages and email. 

Party officials have also contacted social media companies to take down any copies of the report still online and local parties told not to share it. 

Crucially, the NEC decided to prioritise the claims made in the report over the circumstances of how it was leaked. 

An NEC member confirmed it was decided to refer the matter to the police, who will be updated on the party’s findings. The inquiry has been fast-tracked to conclude in mid-July. 

There is speculation it may be headed by Lord Larry Whitty, who was party general secretary under Neil Kinnock.

I can't see what's problematic enough for the article to be pulled. It doesn't name any names.

Oh wait. I sent the Wayback link to a friend and she couldn't open it. I said to just click it which I just tried to do and, what do you know? It's disappeared from Wayback. I'll need a masters in Kremlinology to get to the bottom of this one.  This JSF page might be the last surviving record of an unremarkable article except it seems to be trying to make martyrs of the biggest traitors against democracy and the Labour movement the UK has ever known.

UPDATE: 10:57 27/04/2020. I got an email from Wayback Machine early this morning because I had tagged them in two tweets complaining at the disappearance of the Mirror article from their website and they assured me that it was only a technical glitch and that they had fixed it which they have. So apologies to them and you, dear reader (if you exist), for any aspersions cast.  It's business as usual at the Wayback Machine.  BTW, the Mirror article was saved at Wayback three times before it disappeared from the Mirror website.

Chutzpah! If you want to know about racism why not ask racists, they should know 6 Feb 2020 8:24 AM (5 years ago)

Read this and weep or laugh out loud. I suppose that's an option.  This is from a newsletter from the Board of Deputies of British Jews, aka the Tory Party at Shul.

Redbridge councillors reach out to Board of Deputies over antisemitism

Board of Deputies Vice President Amanda Bowman met Redbridge councillors, including Council Leader Jas Athwal, to discuss antisemitism. Elected representatives from Redbridge reached out to the Board of Deputies after allegations of antisemitic conduct in a Labour Party ward meeting emerged. Amanda said: “It was great to see both Labour and Conservative councillors reach out to the Board of Deputies to learn about antisemitism. That is just the sort of leadership political parties need if they want to rid themselves of racism.” Jas Athwal said: “It was wonderful to meet with Amanda Bowman and Daniel Elton from the Board of Deputies to get a fuller understanding of the challenges facing the Jewish community and our society as a whole. It was an important reminder that the Jewish community’s fight is our fight and that we must all play our part in driving out antisemitism in all its forms.’

The trouble is that one of the challenges facing the Jewish community, as in people who are Jewish, is that people masquerading as the Jewish community make false antisemitism allegations against Leftists whilst giving Rightists like Johnson, Rees Mogg & Co. a free pass.

Ilford South Labour Party Branch passes resolution condemning Board of Deputies ludicrous #10Pledges demand 14 Jan 2020 5:18 AM (5 years ago)

Tonight was the worst Labour party meeting I have ever attended. A member accused me and others of being 'agents of a foreign power' as they proposed a motion attacking the Board of Deputies of British Jews. Me and a Jewish member spoke against the motion, but the motion passed.

— Alex Holmes (@alexcholmes) January 13, 2020

I urge readers to follow the thread:

Now see the resolution itself:

Deborah Maccoby on Dave Rich's Book, The Left's Jewish Problem - Jeremy Corbyn, Israel and Anti-Semitism 8 Aug 2019 2:11 AM (5 years ago)

I just spent forever trying to find Deborah Maccoby's withering review of Dave Rich's dumbarsed book, The Left's Jewish Problem. So here it is where at least I can find it. Apols for awkward (ie lack of) formatting.

Deborah H. Maccoby

3.0 out of 5 starsSophisticated but Dishonest

22 August 2017

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

The stated aim of “The Left’s Jewish Problem” is to inquire into the reasons for the breakdown of the relationship between the British Jewish community and the British Left, especially the Labour Party. The unstated aim is to discredit Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Party. The book (which incorporates some parts of the author’s 2011 doctoral dissertation) was evidently timed to appear as a kind of companion piece to the Home Affairs Select Committee’s Report on Anti-Semitism.

Dave Rich, Jewish community leader and Deputy Director of Communications for the Community Security Trust (CST), admits that “there are socio-economic reasons for the long-term drift of Jewish voters from Labour to the Conservatives” – ie most British Jews have moved from the impoverished working class into the affluent middle class. But he insists: “these reasons alone do not explain the scale of the change nor its recent acceleration”.

His explanation for the “recent acceleration” and “scale of the change” is that, in the short term, the Labour Party has been taken over by far-left activists whose mind-set – “a sickness at the heart of left-wing British politics…..silently spreading, growing ever more malignant” (according to the cover blurb) - has given rise to the current crises over allegations of anti-Semitism; while, in the longer term, the diseased outlook of these activists is the product of trends which the author traces back to the anti-imperialist, anti-colonial New Left movement of the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s.

Another unstated aim of the book is to let Israel off the hook by, for instance, claiming that this malignant influence of the New Left over the wider left “played a decisive role in flipping left-wing opinion from being overwhelmingly pro-Israel to its current pro-Palestinian consensus”. But isn’t the British Left’s disillusionment with Israel the result of its policies, barely mentioned by the author?

Adopting a sophisticated approach, Rich does not allege that the British Left is anti-Semitic in the conventional sense. In the Introduction he writes: “Anti-Semitism does play a role in this story, but for the most part it does not involve people who are consciously anti-Semitic.” And in the Conclusion he claims: “There is a much-studied phenomenon of ‘anti-Semitism without Jews’…..the British left today gives the impression of being a slightly different phenomenon: a place where there is anti-Semitism without anti-Semites.” The author offers as an example of this puzzling form of anti-Semitism the “No Platform” policy adopted by the National Union of Students (NUS) in the 1970s and 1980s. This policy, which involved refusing to allow speakers or groups judged to be racist or fascist to speak or operate on campus, led a few individual student unions – acting against the instructions of the NUS -- to ban (by refusing to fund and recognise) university Jewish Societies which promoted Israel. Chapter 4: “When Anti-Racists Ban Jews” – is devoted to the issue.

Rich argues that, though there was no intention of anti-Semitism, the “No Platform” policy led to anti-Semitic actions. But the real problem was surely the policy itself, rather than anti-Semitism (even of the unintentional kind). The invokers of the “No Platform” policy erred on two counts: they reduced Zionism (which includes racist aspects but is far more than that) to racism; and they sought to curb freedom of speech on the grounds that they had decided what is and what isn’t racist.

Rich also exploits the issue and uses guilt-by-association to try to smear Corbyn. We are told that throughout the 1980s Corbyn sponsored and supported an anti-Zionist group called the Labour Movement Campaign for Palestine (LMCP): “When Sunderland Polytechnic’s Students’ Union banned its Jewish Society in 1985, the LMCP supported the Students’ Union. An unsigned article in its newsletter declared that while “it was a tactical mistake on the part of Sunderland Polytechnic Students’ Union to ban an overtly Zionist Jewish Society….we totally reject the assertion that Sunderland Poly’s action was in any way anti-Semitic.’” (Emphasis in original) Rich writes that, though “Corbyn did not comment directly on events in Sunderland”, the same newsletter that printed the unsigned article also carried a “message from Corbyn encouraging people to join the organisation”. But (a) Corbyn himself did not comment on the subject; (b) the article admits that it was a tactical mistake to ban the Jewish Society and only denies the charge of anti-Semitism – ie, contrary to Rich’s claim, the LMCP did not “support” the Students’ Union.

Rich describes Corbyn as “a typical product of the 1960s New Left”, implying throughout the book that he has not changed his views since the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s. Thus in Chapter 3, Rich claims that “Corbyn is ambiguous on the subject of Israel’s future existence”, citing as evidence an August 2015 Electronic Intifada interview “in which, when asked whether a one-state solution was inevitable, he suggested that it was a more likely option than a two state solution: ‘I think it’s up to the people of the region to decide what kind of long-term solution there would be. At the moment, all that’s on offer is the possibility of a two-state solution, [but] it’s difficult to see how it would operate with the degree of settlements that are there.’” Corbyn is not suggesting here that a one state solution is “a more likely option”. On the contrary, he says clearly that at the present time the only possible solution “on offer” is two states. To point out the problems created by the presence of over half a million settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and to envisage that many years hence there might be a different outcome, is not to suggest that a one state solution “is a more likely option”.

Rich omits all the recent occasions on which Corbyn has made his support for a two state settlement crystal-clear. For instance, after a February 2016 meeting between Corbyn and the Board of Deputies of British Jews (BoD), Jonathan Arkush, the BoD’s President, said: “We had a positive and constructive meeting and were pleased that Mr Corbyn gave a very solid commitment to the right of Israel to live within secure and recognized boundaries as part of a two state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict”.

Much is made in Chapter 5 -“The New Alliance: Islamists and the Left” - of a March 2009 speech in which Corbyn said: “Tomorrow evening it will be my pleasure and my honour to host an event in Parliament where our friends from Hezbollah will be speaking. I’ve also invited friends from Hamas to come and speak as well….the idea that an organisation that is dedicated towards the good of the Palestinian people and bringing about long-term peace and social justice and political justice in the whole region should be labelled as a terrorist organisation by the British government is really a big, big historical mistake.” (Rich also uses this quotation as the first of two epigraphs to the book’s Introduction; the second is a quotation from a 2015 Jewish Chronicle editorial attacking Corbyn).  This is the only one of Rich’s accusations against Corbyn that carries some credibility. These comments obviously leave out Hamas’s repressiveness towards its own people and its adoption of violent means to try to overthrow the Occupation. But is Rich justified in concluding this chapter with the claim that the Labour Party “has a new leadership that views Zionism as a hostile, discriminatory ideology and Hamas as a progressive movement”?

We have already seen that Corbyn supports a two-state solution and therefore accepts the existence of Israel. And in the passage cited above he does not describe Hamas as left-wing or progressive; nor has he ever done so. Rich ignores Corbyn’s other comments on Hamas, such as this in the same Electronic Intifada interview: “There has to be talks, there has to be negotiations with all the Palestinian forces, as well as with all the Israeli forces….That means talking to Hamas, it means talking to Hizballah – does it mean that you agree with what they say on social issues, on the death penalty? No it doesn’t, and you can make that clear to them in the discussion.”

Corbyn’s March 2009 speech was intended as a corrective to the labelling of Hamas as a terrorist organisation. Like all correctives, his comments were one-sided. He presented the main (and generally ignored) arguments against the proscription of Hamas: its role as a democratically-elected government and national resistance movement against an unjust Occupation, its peace overtures and its social welfare programmes. The speech was made just after Operation Cast Lead – ie just after a massive onslaught of Israeli state terrorism that had incomparably more devastating effects than Hamas rockets. Ehud Barak, Israel’s then Defence Minister - and Defence Minister during Cast Lead - was given a welcome speech and wined and dined by the then British Prime Minister and Labour leader, Gordon Brown, at a reception during the September 2009 Labour Party Conference.

When an arrest warrant for war crimes was issued in London in December 2009 by Westminster Magistrates’ Court against Tzipi Livni, who had been Israeli Foreign Minister at the time of Cast Lead, Gordon Brown rang her to assure her that she would always be welcome in Britain. The British government later made changes to the “universal jurisdiction” law, so that an arrest warrant invoking this law now requires the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Some of the big London protest marches against Operation Cast Lead ended in clashes between demonstrators and police, resulting in police injuries (Rich mentions “over 50 policemen injured” but omits to add that all except one - who was knocked unconscious - suffered minor injuries) and the smashing of windows of Starbucks coffee shops. Many of the very young and mostly Muslim men involved received excessively severe sentences – prison terms of up to two and a half years. To quote Ghazal Tipu in Open Democracy: “The judge in the case said he intended to send out a message to deter others. No doubt the message many will hear is that Muslims are to be punished more severely than others when they step out of line. Smash a Starbucks window and the state will come down on you like a tonne of bricks; smash a poor and desperate people with bombs and bullets and government barely murmurs”.

Rich castigates Corbyn for telling a meeting: “’The events that happened at the end of the demonstration were an expression of anger about what was happening in Gaza by a lot of very young people….the sentences they have suffered as a result of it are absolutely appalling’”.

Rich describes Operation Cast Lead merely as “a three-week conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza in January 2009”. He omits the statistics of civilian deaths in Gaza: 1,200, including over 350 children. To have included the figures would have put under too glaring a light his accusation that Corbyn, Seumas Milne, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Stop the War, who all supported the defendants, appeared to have failed “to consider that they have a responsibility to channel young Muslims away from illegal protests. Nor did they acknowledge, publicly at least, the impact that the violent demonstrations may have had on the mood of London’s Jews.”

This is probably the lowest point to which the book sinks. But a close contender is the guilt-by-association accusation in Chapter 6 – “Antisemitism, the Holocaust and the Left” - that, during a May Day rally speech by Corbyn - in which he condemned all forms of racism, including anti-Semitism – among those listening to him were “marchers carrying banners with images of Joseph Stalin”. Rich complains: “Anyone who truly stands against anti-Semitism….ought to recognise that Stalin was an anti-Semite, but if Corbyn was aware of this contradiction when he made his May Day speech, he didn’t show it.”

Is Corbyn supposed to be responsible for all the banners exhibited at the huge rallies at which he speaks? Rich also attacks Corbyn’s May Day speech for its “narrow understanding of anti-Semitism as a far-right phenomenon – part of a broader xenophobic politics that is against diversity and stigmatises refugees and minorities” – a view of anti-Semitism that, Rich writes, is “common across the left”. This is reminiscent of the Home Affairs Committee’s criticism of Corbyn for not understanding the “distinct nature” and “uniqueness” of antisemitism, which “unlike other forms of racism….often paints the victim as a malign and controlling force” (Report, paras 113 and 117). Yet, confusingly, Rich often attacks the left for excluding anti-Semitism from other forms of racism – for instance, he complains about “the separation of anti-Semitism from anti-racist politics that has occurred since the 1960s”. Presumably, Rich is accusing the left of a kind of split personality syndrome; but he never perceives the contradiction and so never tries to resolve it.

At the end of Chapter 6, just before the concluding chapter, Rich fires off a parting and climactic guilt-by-association shot against Corbyn. He quotes from a letter by a “veteran Communist”, Moira Gray, which was published in the Morning Star on July 27, 2002: “’Israel, and all that Israel has done and is doing, is an affront to all those millions who fought and died fighting fascism before, during and after the war against fascism….an Italian partisan, fighting the German invaders in Italy, survived a year in Dachau. A few years ago, he committed suicide. He left a note saying that the good Jews were all killed in the concentration camps.’” Rich comments: “The sentiments behind the letter are nauseating. The fact that it was deemed fit to publish is chilling”. He denounces in particular the last line: “Linger for a moment on that line: published in Britain’s leading communist newspaper; the newspaper for which Jeremy Corbyn wrote a column for several years before becoming leader of the Labour Party.” Even if the sentiments behind the letter were as “nauseating” as Rich claims them to be, why should Corbyn be associated with it and blamed for writing a column for the “Morning Star”? Don’t all reputable publications print letters with which the editors and columnists don’t agree? Moreover, a search of the Morning Star on-line archives reveals that Moira Gray’s letter was part of a correspondence; it was written in response to a “pro-Israel” letter which was also printed by the Morning Star.

According to Rich, Moira Gray’s letter represents the climax of his case against the British left: “The attitudes and the political logic that lead to it are no longer surprising. It is an extreme example of a way of thinking about Jews, Israel and Zionism that is all too common across the left. These attitudes, this way of thinking, are the reasons for the left’s Jewish problem”. So let’s follow his instructions and linger for a moment, not just on the last line he quotes, but on the letter as a whole. It is confused, badly-expressed and inaccurate. By “an Italian partisan”, Moira Gray probably means Primo Levi, who survived a year in Auschwitz, not Dachau. He did not leave a note before his suicide in 1987; the line cited seems to be a distorted recollection of his famous words in “The Drowned and the Saved”: “the saved of the Lager were not the best….the best all died”. It is absurd to see such an incoherent letter as in some way representative of the British Left, even in an extreme form. Nonetheless, viewed in context, are the sentiments behind the letter, under all its incoherence, really as “nauseating” as Rich claims?

The debate began with a letter of June 3, 2002, in which John Branson, recalling a visit to Auschwitz in 1951, compared “the nazi policy of punishing a whole people” with the current brutal suppression of the Second Intifada (including Operation Defensive Shield, in March-April 2002), in which Ariel Sharon had “set about destroying the whole Palestinian people in the name of an anti-terrorist war. I hope that the millions of good people around the world will act in time to stop this madman”. On June 29, the Morning Star published a “pro-Israel” letter in reply by Toby Levitas, blaming the situation on the Palestinians and beginning: “John Branson’s letter is an affront to the millions who were murdered by the nazis”. Moira Gray’s whole third paragraph is: “How dare Toby Levitas talk about affront to the nazi victims (M Star, June 29)? Israel, and all that Israel has done and is doing, is an affront to all those millions who fought and died fighting fascism before, during and after the war against fascism. It is an affront to the 28 million Soviet people killed in battle, in concentration camps and defending their country from the invaders and to our country's part in the struggle.” In effect, the meaning is: “the millions who fought and died in the battle against fascism gave their lives in a struggle which liberated European Jews, the paradigmatic victims of fascism. The atrocities committed by the Jewish State are an affront to the memory of these millions of anti-fascist fighters.”

I do not find this sentiment “nauseating”; nor should Rich, since it follows on directly from his own “political logic”. He argues repeatedly in Chapter Six that “the Holocaust provided the moral justification for the creation of Israel”. Many will disagree with this premise, but, if we accept it, surely it follows directly that Israel has a moral duty not to defame the memory not only of the millions of victims of the Holocaust, but of the millions who fought and died in the struggle against fascism. Of course Moira Gray should not have identified Israel’s immoral actions with “Jews” in general. But on May 6, 2002, the British Jewish communal organisations had manipulated the Jewish community into attending an Israel Solidarity Rally in Trafalgar Square. The rally -- billed as “non-political”, but including Netanyahu as one of the platform speakers -- was funded by the United Jewish Israel Appeal, with “cross-communal involvement”. The event was very well-organised, with coachloads brought to London from all over the country. 30,000 British Jews, a tenth of the entire British Jewish community, attended. Most of those present probably did not support Ariel Sharon and Operation Defensive Shield (even if they did not speak out against them), but succumbed to deception and tribal pressure. But the community leaders deliberately created the false public impression that the whole British Jewish community endorsed Israel’s atrocities. In such circumstances, is a community leader like Rich justified in reacting with complete shock and condemnation to a misquotation, written two months later by a veteran Communist (who lost two brothers fighting fascism in Spain, while “another brother was torpedoed at sea four years later”, as she writes in her letter), incoherent with outrage: “the good Jews were all killed in the concentration camps”? Moreover, Rich himself encourages the conflation between Israel and Jews, implying, for instance, that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitic because Jewish identity is so much bound up with Israel that anti-Zionism attacks the roots of Jewish selfhood: “the idea that Israel shouldn’t exist or that Zionism – the political movement that created Israel – was a racist, colonial endeavour rather than a legitimate expression of Jewish nationhood, cuts to the heart of British Jews’ sense of who they are.”

Amid all Rich’s misrepresentations and guilt-by-association smears, there are some valid criticisms of the tactics of the Palestinian solidarity movement (though I disagree with his implication that these are anti-Semitic). The author cites useful comments made (during a 2010 interview that Rich conducted with him) by the Labour MP Richard Burden, an anti-Zionist in his New Left student days in the 1970s, but now a supporter of the two state solution: “analysing the conflict through a theoretic analysis of Zionism, or trying to undermine Israel by alleging Nazi/Zionist collaboration, are blind alleys that do nothing practical for the Palestinians.”

The book includes constructive criticisms of the Palestinian solidarity movement’s ambiguities on the subject of one or two states and about the troubling recent tendency to see Israel as only a “settler-colonial” state and to deny that Israeli Jews have national rights. Rich pertinently criticises the Palestinian solidarity movement’s support for “one secular democratic state” in the 1960s-‘80s. His history of the New Left during this period is on the whole interesting and readable; most of the extracts from his academic thesis have been well-digested (an exception is an over-long excursus in Chapter 2 about the Young Liberals during the 1960s-‘70s). However, he never acknowledges that the Palestinian solidarity movement has moved on since the 1960s-‘80s, even though at present – as any prospects of an end to the Occupation and the attainment of a two state solution seem remote – it has shown a tendency to regress; according to Rich, it has simply stayed the same. The book ends with a proposal of dialogue and reconciliation: “It is not contradictory to accept that Zionism was a genuine Jewish movement for freedom and a response to European anti-Semitism while also critiquing the process by which Israel was created and seeking to redress wrongs suffered by Palestinians….it’s not too late to bring this relationship back to health.”

The aspects of early Zionism mentioned at the beginning of this passage could surely be accepted by the Left. Rich omits any mention of the Nakba till here, four sentences before the end of the book – but it shows how much attitudes have changed in the Jewish community that he mentions it at all.

A large percentage of the British Jewish community, as the author points out, supports a two state solution and opposes expansion of West Bank settlements. The British Left certainly needs to reach out towards the Jewish community (and Corbyn’s meeting with the Board of Deputies shows that he is doing just that). But dialogue is a two-way process. Jewish community leaders like Rich also need to reach out to the British Left, above all by dropping the dishonest and unsubstantiated accusations and guilt-by-association smears that not only drown out the positive aspects of this book but have also, to a large extent, created the current rift between the Jewish community and the left – particularly the Labour Party - that Rich disingenuously claims to be investigating.

Geoffrey Alderman at Jewish Telegraph: WHY THE ANTISEMITISM DEFINITION IS FLAWED 1 Aug 2019 2:01 PM (5 years ago)

I nab these articles by Geoffrey Alderman at The Jewish Telegraph to keep them safe. The url now is: https://www.jewishtelegraph.com/alderman.html but on past performance it will be overwritten by his next article. I also save them at the Wayback Machine.

GEOFFREY ALDERMAN WHY THE ANTISEMITISM DEFINITION IS FLAWED

JUSTICE is a peer-reviewed journal published by the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists. Its autumn 2018 edition carried an informative article by Michael Whine tracing the history of what is known as the “Working Definition” of antisemitism adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance on May 26, 2016. Whine — currently a member of the Council of Europe’s Commission against Racism and Intolerance — is a leading expert on all things antisemitic. His article provides a succinct account of how the Working Definition came about and of its embrace by the UK government and by numerous governmental organs in this country. He reminds us that although the government “formally adopted” the Working Definition in January, 2017, and although its espousal since then by well over 100 devolved elected governmental bodies in the UK — not to mention political parties and other entities — has endowed it with an almost sacrosanct status, it is not, in fact, “a binding legal act”. As Whine explains: It was not designed to be transposed into European or domestic legislation, and this was made clear by the team that drafted it . . . it was only meant to be a guide to assist police officers and human rights activists to understand contemporary antisemitism, and not the basis for legislation. The Working Definition — the grammatical construction of which is indeed “cumbersome”, as Whine concedes — is confusing, not least because it is composed of two unequal parts. The first consists of the definition itself. The second comprises 11 examples of what that definition might mean in practice. The definition declares: Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred towards Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed towards Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, towards Jewish community institutions and religious facilities. So antisemitism “may” be expressed as hatred towards Jews, but need not necessarily be so expressed. If not, then surely we’re entitled to ask how else it might be expressed. The definition is silent on this point. The 11 examples are interesting, not least because they embed internal contradictions. One of them affects to condemn as antisemitic “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis”. But the preamble that introduces all 11 examples explains that manifestations of antisemitism “might include the targeting of the State of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity. However, criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic”. Well, a number of political regimes around the world have been criticised because they are alleged to be pursuing policies reminiscent of the Nazis. For example, the policy of Myanmar in relation to the Rohingya and other ethnic minorities. So how in principle can it be antisemitic to draw a comparison between “contemporary” Israeli policy and that of the Nazis?  [For the sake of clarity I state now that I do not believe any Israeli government has, in fact, ever pursued policies remotely reminiscent of the Nazis. The point I make is one of principle]. Another of the examples declares it to be antisemitic to accuse Jewish citizens “of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations”. This exemplar strikes me as very valid — up to a point.  There is no world Jewish conspiracy. There is no secret Jewish “government” endeavouring to manipulate to the exclusive advantage of the Jewish people the destinies of mankind.  But I know many Jews who hold dual citizenship — they are, for example, citizens of both Israel and the UK — who, under certain circumstances, would act (and have indeed acted) in the interests of Israel rather than of Great Britain.  How can it possibly be antisemitic to point this out? The examples also allege that it is antisemitic to make “stereotypical allegations about . . . the power of Jews as a collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about Jews controlling the media”. Well, in my book British Jewry since Emancipation, I point out — as other scholars have done — that in the early 20th century there was a case to be made in support of the view that Jews controlled important parts of the British film industry (of course, in so doing they had no Jewish “agenda” in mind). In summary, those who framed the IHRA’s Working Definition of antisemitism were well-intentioned, and the definition itself has commendable features. But it’s merely a work-in-progress. And deeply flawed into the bargain! E-MAIL: comment@jewishtelegraph.com

Geoffrey Alderman on Margaret Hodge 17 Jun 2019 10:10 PM (5 years ago)

Here's Geoffrey Alderman in The Jewish Telegraph taking a bit of a swipe at Margaret Hodge.  Because of The Jewish Telegraph's habit of pasting the latest article over the previous one I save Alderman's pieces to the Wayback Machine and copy and paste them here:

GEOFFREY ALDERMAN DAME MARGARET HAS SOME EXPLAINING TO DO

THE abysmal showing of the Labour Party in the recent European Parliament elections is the cumulative outcome of many factors. Prominent among them are said to be the prevalence of anti-Jewish prejudice in the party and the party’s seeming inability to confront the difficulty head-on. Of course Labour has a problem with antisemitism. But so do the Tories. So does virtually every mainstream political party in this country. In Labour’s case, however, antisemitism (too often not even disguised as anti-Zionism) has led to the exodus from the party of some of its members, and dire public warnings from others, among the most prominent of whom is Dame Margaret Hodge, Labour MP for Barking and former leader of Islington council. On April 17, in a short but forceful speech in the House of Commons, Dame Margaret gave public expression to her concerns. Born in 1944 as Margaret Oppenheimer to Jewish parents then living as refugees in Egypt, she spoke movingly of members of her family who had been murdered by the Nazis, and she recalled how, on a visit to Auschwitz, she gazed upon a mound of suitcases, one of which she recognised as it bore the initials of her uncle. Powerful stuff! And, politically, more compelling still for what Hodge had to say specifically — and not for the first time — about the Labour Party of which she has been for more than 50 years a member and remains so to this day. Ever since Jeremy Corbyn’s election as party leader, Hodge has, in fact, spent a great deal of time attacking her own party for not doing enough to stamp out antisemitism in its ranks, and she has made no secret of her personal disdain for Corbyn, whom (in a celebrated incident in the Commons on July 17 last year) she reportedly accused of being “an antisemitic racist”. Dame Margaret is unquestionably Jewish. Yet, according to her own testimony (offered in the April, 2019, debate): “My upbringing has been entirely secular. “I have never practised Jewish religious traditions. Neither of my two husbands were Jews. I am a consistent critic of the governments of Israel.” Nonetheless, she added, “my Jewish heritage is central to my being”. In an article in the online Spectator on May 8, I drew attention to the fact that as Labour leader of Islington council from 1982 to 1992, Hodge appears to have played a part — though exactly what part remains unclear — in the council’s decision to approve a planning application that would have led to the destruction of the original 1843 cemetery of the West London Synagogue and the sale of the land to developers. I was part of the ultimately successful campaign to have the decision reversed. So was Jeremy Corbyn. Was Mrs Hodge personally in favour of the proposal? We simply do not know. Hodge has claimed — in The Observer on July 21, 2103 — that she feels “passionately Jewish”. In October, 1986, members of Islington council — not all of whom were Jewish, by the way— were moved to protest against the scheduling of a race relations committee meeting on Yom Kippur. Council leader Hodge apparently saw nothing untoward in attending the meeting. Three years later, the media reported that members of Hackney’s Jewish communities were holding “top-level meetings with Islington council” in an attempt to buy an Islington-owned property in Stamford Hill, which the communities wanted to turn into a nursery and old people’s home. According to press reports, “Islington leader, Margaret Hodge . . . informed groups that Islington intended to use the building for people in bed-and-breakfast accommodation”. Hodge denied that the move was in any way discriminatory. But her apparent lack of empathy with the educational and social needs of practising Orthodox Jews surely needs some explaining. If Hodge wishes to pursue a totally secular lifestyle, that is no business of mine or yours, but she certainly has some explaining to do! E-MAIL: comment@jewishtelegraph.com If you have a story or an issue you want us to cover, let us know - in complete confidence - by contacting newsdesk@jewishtelegraph.com, 0161-741 2631 or via Facebook / Twitter

Geoffrey Alderman on JEWS WHO TURNED AWAY KINDERTRANSPORT KIDS 19 May 2019 12:41 PM (5 years ago)

Here's another article by Geoffrey Alderman in the Jewish Telegraph which, like the previous one will probably be overwritten by the next.  So off to the Wayback Machine go I and I'm posting the article here too.

GEOFFREY ALDERMAN JEWS WHO TURNED AWAY KINDERTRANSPORT KIDS LAST month an important conference took place to mark the 80th anniversary of the Kindertransport. Two leading researchers — Dr Louise London and Professor Paul Weindling — presented what was reportedly regarded as shocking evidence relating to the choice of unaccompanied German and Austrian children who were — or were not — permitted to enter the UK under the Kindertransport scheme. Children were refused places if it was thought that they had ‘disabilities’ or had ‘too Jewish’ an appearance. What was wanted were children who were not religious and so could be all the more easily integrated into British society. Prof Weindling cited the case of a Viennese Jewish boy whom the authorities described as “very well behaved but very slightly mentally backward”. The application made on his behalf was rejected. We do not know what fate befell him. As Dr London remarked, the “problem of what to do with the Jews took precedence over efforts to save them”. I describe the evidence presented by Prof Weindling and Dr London as “shocking”. Unfortunately, those of us who have researched the Anglo-Jewish response to the Holocaust cannot have regarded it was shocking at all. Key to the choice of Kindertransport children was the Jewish banker Otto Schiff, head of the London-based Jews’ Temporary Shelter and ‘Overseer of the Poor’ of the United Synagogue. Schiff worked hand-in-hand with the Aliens Department of the Home Office, so that, in practical terms, Jewish refugees from Nazism were allowed into Britain — or were refused entry — on his authority. The Home Office trusted Schiff because it knew that, in his approach to this task, he would bring to bear prejudices and preferences of which the government approved. The Viennese boy was not rejected by the British government, but by Kindertransport officials in London. That is to say, by fellow Jews! Is there a case to be made in defence of Schiff and his colleagues? Anti-Jewish prejudice appeared to be on the rise in the UK at that time. With a handful of notable exceptions, the Anglo-Jewish leadership — at the head of which was the then-Board of Deputies president, Mancunian barrister Neville Laski — believed that allowing more foreign-born Germanic-speaking Jews into this country would add fuel to the fire. Laski had no qualms in publicly articulating the view that Jews, by their conduct, fostered antisemitism. In his book Manchester and the Rescue of the Victims of European Fascism (published 2011), the late Manchester Jewry historian Bill Williams reminds us that in December, 1935, the Manchester-based Women’s Lodge of Bnai Brith resolved that “the spread of antisemitism in England is largely brought about by ourselves”. But I need to stress that what was true of Manchester was equally true of London. Indeed within British Jewry this view was widely shared. And because it was widely shared, during the 1930s the official organs of Britain’s Jewish communities did their best to ensure that the least possible number of Jewish refugees were admitted to the UK, and that, as far as possible, only those were admitted who might be judged to be the most easily inclined to assimilate into the host society. Beyond that, the fewer foreign-born Jews who were permitted to enter the UK, the better. And what of those heavily traumatised children lucky enough to be chosen for the Kindertransport? Had they all been found billets in Jewish homes, their sufferings might have been lessened. But in 1943, Dayan Dr Isidor Grunfeld, of the United Synagogue’s Beth Din, recalled how in 1938, when the Kindertransport began arriving, Jews who had been only too willing to donate money to refugee causes “showed themselves very reluctant to take Jewish refugee children into their homes”. While a case can be made in defence of Otto Schiff and his colleagues, it strikes me as weak. As for Schiff himself, I never cease to be amazed at the praise still lavished upon him. I noted with dismay that as part of the 2018 Holocaust Memorial Day events, a number of posthumous awards were made to ‘Heroes of the Holocaust’. Among the recipients was Otto Schiff, upon whose activities the then-Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, waxed lyrical. Indeed, so preciously revered is Schiff’s memory in certain circles that a Jewish Care home in Golders Green actually bears his name. I am outraged. E-MAIL: comment@jewishtelegraph.com If you have a story or an issue you want us to cover, let us know - in complete confidence - by contacting newsdesk@jewishtelegraph.com, 0161-741 2631 or via Facebook / Twitter

The original of this article can be seen at the Wayback Machine.

Geoffrey Alderman on Jeremy Corbyn in Jewish Telegraph 18 May 2019 12:01 AM (5 years ago)

I'm sad to say that The Jewish Telegraph website is a cheap and not very cheerful affair. I don't know if they maintain an archive but I couldn't find it if they do. Geoffrey Alderman came to the defence of Jeremy Corbyn just recently in the article you see below. He wrote another similar one in The Spectator. I just wanted a quick reread of the Jewish Telegraph article but, alas, it has now gone. This is the url for the original article https://www.jewishtelegraph.com/alderman.html. Click it now and it takes you to his latest article with no pointer to his previous stuff.

Well thank goodness for the Wayback machine.  The Wayback machine is a way of archiving web pages that you think might change or disappear. Simply take a web page's url and paste it into the box marked "Save Page Now" and Wayback saves the page as it was when you do it.  Well as luck would have it, someone did just that with this https://www.jewishtelegraph.com/alderman.html.  And so I can bring you this:   https://web.archive.org/web/20190419203707/https://www.jewishtelegraph.com/alderman.html

It is the only Jewish Telegraph page ever saved to the Wayback machine, so far anyway.

So now, if you see a web page that you think is going to disappear or change and you want the original, screengrab and archive in the Wayback Machine.

Now read on....

GEOFFREY ALDERMAN HORRORS! CORBYN’S A ‘PM IN WAITING’ – ACCEPT IT

WE live in interesting times. Earlier this month, our beleaguered prime minister, Theresa May, invited into 10 Downing Street Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition. Her purpose in extending this invitation — which he graciously accepted — was to enlist his support in the current crisis over the precise terms of the UK’s exit from the European Union. But don’t worry. I’m not going to bore you about Brexit. My purpose, rather, is to focus on the person of Jeremy Corbyn, whom we must now clearly regard as a potential prime minister. The opinion polls, which for months have been showing the Corbyn-led Labour Party trailing the May-led Tories, are now announcing a Labour lead. I would be the last person to insist that we must trust the polls. We mustn’t. But if a general election was held soon, it is entirely possible that Labour would win more seats than the Conservative Party, whose back has been well and truly broken on the Brexit wheel. In that scenario, the Queen would be bound to call on Corbyn to form a minority government. What, from the point of view of British Jewry, would such a government hold in store? In spite of numerous scare stories, I honestly can’t see such a government banning shechita or brit mila. If Diane Abbott, currently Shadow Home Secretary, found herself actually in charge of the Home Office, would she outrage her many charedi constituents by closing down synagogues and moving to deprive Jews of the rights of British citizenship? Of course not. We might indeed see a Corbyn-led government cosying-up to the BDS movement. Labour is already committed to recognising a Palestinian state “immediately” it forms a government, so such a recognition is a probability. Would Israel then sever diplomatic relations with the UK? I doubt it. The recognition of a Palestinian state would remain a symbolic but, in practical terms, meaningless gesture. Corbyn’s Foreign Secretary (the tactless Emily Thornberry) might enjoy striding on to the podium at the UN Security Council to support — perhaps even to propose — some blood-curdling resolution denouncing the Jewish state as a neo-colonialist plot. She would do so safe in the knowledge that American president Donald Trump would veto it. And let’s remember that on December 23, 2016, in the dying days of the Obama-led administration, a UN Security Council resolution condemning in the most explicit terms Jewish control of the West Bank and east Jerusalem — including the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem and the Western Wall — was adopted with the full-hearted consent and approbation of Theresa May and her tactless Foreign Secretary, one Boris Johnson. The Tory-controlled UK government could have abstained. It could even have exercised its veto. It chose to do neither. Reacting to that act of betrayal, I outlined in this column on January 13, 2017, a number of concrete measures that those who order the affairs of British Jewry might have taken to signal the community’s anger. I suggested that May and Johnson could be disinvited from all communal events, and that Jewish groups should withdraw from co-operation with May’s government — for instance over security issues and the anti-terrorism “Prevent” agenda. A communal macher took me aside and pointed out that these bold suggestions would never be acted upon, because those who order the affairs of British Jewry would never forego the chance of a Downing Street photoshoot and the yichus that such an opportunity apparently confers. He’s right. By the same token, our narcissistic communal leadership would positively salivate on receiving, and being able to courteously accept, an invitation from Prime Minister Corbyn to take morning coffee or afternoon tea at No 10. As a matter of fact, Jeremy Corbyn has an impressive demonstrable record of supporting Jewish communal initiatives. In 2010, he put his name to an Early Day Motion — tabled by Diane Abbott in the Commons — calling on the UK government to facilitate the settlement of Yemeni Jews in Britain. He was supportive of Jewish efforts to facilitate the speedy issue of death certificates by the North London coroner. In June, 2015, he took part in a ceremony in his Islington constituency to commemorate the original site of the North London Synagogue. Of course, there’s another side to this story. In relation to Jewish sensitivities, Corbyn has on too many occasions acted foolishly, I suspect without thinking through the long-term consequences of his actions. The fact remains that he is a prime minister “in waiting”. We must learn to accept that reality. E-MAIL: comment@jewishtelegraph.com If you have a story or an issue you want us to cover, let us know - in complete confidence - by contacting newsdesk@jewishtelegraph.com, 0161-741 2631 or via Facebook / Twitter

Transcript of Professor Cain and Tristram Hunt discussing the antisemitism in Hobson's Imperialism on Radio 3 3 May 2019 9:48 AM (5 years ago)

A Day in the Life of Hobson's Imperialism on Wikipedia 2 May 2019 6:08 AM (5 years ago)

In common with many people when I woke up yesterday I noticed yet another manufactured antisemitism scandal was in full swing. I knew it was manufactured because of the prominence of the words "antisemitism" and "Corbyn" in the headlines.

It turns out that Corbyn wrote an introduction to a book called Imperialism by a chap called Hobson.  I'd never heard of the book, described by Corbyn, apparently. as "brilliant".  It was The Times's Daniel Finkelstein who led the charge yesterday, typically for the antisemitism smears, the day before local elections.

It didn't take long for the poison to spread throughout the media. The words "peculiar race" popped up as the unambiguous description of Jews in Hobson's book.  In one of the anti-Corbyn threads someone very helpfully gave a link to a searchable copy of the book (without Corbyn's intro) online.

Good old Marxists.org.  They have a searchable copy of the book right here: https://www.marxists.org/archive/hobson/1902/imperialism/index.htm

There's only one throwaway reference to Jews by way of the words, "peculiar race" and they're so buried as to be barely even "peripheral" to the entire book. That's me moaning that I now have to search every chapter to then search the words I'm looking for.  The fact is, it is a deeply antisemitic throwaway passage but not a deeply antisemitic book.

So, go to Chapter IV and search for "peculiar" and what do we see:

These great businesses – banking, broking, bill discounting, loan floating, company promoting – form the central ganglion of international capitalism. United by the strongest bonds of organisation, always in closest and quickest touch with one another, situated in the very heart of the business capital of every State, controlled, so far as Europe is concerned, chiefly by men of a single and peculiar race, who have behind them many centuries of financial experience, they are in a unique position to control the policy of nations. No great quick direction of capital is possible save by their consent and through their agency. Does any one seriously suppose that a great war could be undertaken by any European State, or a great State loan subscribed, if the house of Rothschild and its connections set their face against it?

Again in common with a great many people I had to google "Hobson's Imperialism" because I'd never heard of it and out came Wikipedia on top. I noticed it had sections on its influence on Liberalism and its influence on Marxism but nothing about its antisemitism.  Very strange given its description in "newspapers of record" like The Times and The Guardian as a "deeply antisemitic book".

Now I remember from the great Zio "controversy", Zionists are quite adept at creating a controversy out of nothing and then zipping over to Wikipedia to have a bit of a tamper.  When I first noticed Zionists complaining that the word "Zio" is a putdown for Jews as Jews I googled "Zio". Lots of Italian restaurants popped up because Zio is Italian for uncle. I checked Wikipedia and found in the disambiguation that Zio was coming in at the botttom. A quick check of the edits and, what do you know? Zio as a "pejorative abbreviation of Zionist, often regarded as antisemitic" only appeared at the bottom of a list on 15 March 2016.  The "controversy" began in February of the same year. I think that might have been the actual start of the smear campaign.

Anyway, so I dashed over to Wikipedia to see what it had to say about Hobson's Imperialism.  Here are the contents of the page I saw early yesterday:

• 1The Taproot of Imperialism
• 2Influence and criticism
  • 2.1Influence on Marxism
  • 2.2Influence on liberalism
• 3See also
• 4References
• 5Further reading

• 
  

Today I looked again because the Hobson's Imperialism controversy is still rumbling on and, what do you know?  Look at the contents now:

See what the smear merchants did there? They've inserted "Antisemitism".  Now, let's see what the entry on Hobson's Imperialism lacked for the past 14 years:

Antisemitism

 [edit]Hobson's antisemitic views have been described as influential,^[11][12] and while Imperialism does not contain the "violent anti-Jewish crudities" of his prior works,^[13] it asserts that Jews dominated international finance in Europe.^[14][15] According to history professor Norman Etherington this section on financiers seems irrelevant to Hobson's economic discourse, and was probably included since Hobson truly believed it.^[16]

It's very scrappy, isn't it? Let's check the edits history.

See?


I hope you can see that ok but what happened is, I looked at the page first thing yesterday. There was nothing about Hobson's antisemitism nor the one passage in the book Imperialism that was antisemitic.  Yesterday was 1 May 2019. The last update to the page was 30 April in the evening but it had nothing to do with antisemitism. So sometime yesterday when lots of people were starting to realise that Danny Finkelstein's scoop was yet another rightist fantasy, someone calling themselves Icewhizz decided they had better take notice of what no-one had noticed on a Wikipedia entry in 14 years of edits, re-edits and de-edits.

Well, I suppose we are lucky that Zionism is racism or Zionists might start to notice that the "lower races" of Africa and Asia get more mentions than the "peculiar race" which gets just one mention in the fourth chapter of the book.