Feuding Fantasy Forces or Desperately seeking Redress

I wouldn't have noticed this Jewish Chronicle article but for the fact that a hoax is doing the rounds about how "whistle blowers" from the Board of Deputies, the Office of the Chief Rabbi and the offices of the Jewish Chronicle all trundled along to a one man site calling itself Redress to try to save the Jewish establishment from itself. A regular commenter to JSF left a comment to my previous post about the Gaza commemoration linking to the hoax and a zionist troll mentioned a name, Nureddin Sabir, as having something to do with it. A little googling showed Nureddin Sabir to be the "editor" of Redress and it turned up the JC article.

So first let's look at the JC article by Martin Bright:

Anti-Zionist activists are increasingly turning their attention to a web-based de-legitimisation campaign against Israel rather than high-profile public protests against individual politicians.

The Community Security Trust is particularly concerned about the organisation Redress, which highlights alleged injustice across the Middle East via its website and social networks Facebook and Twitter.

The editor of the site is not identified although it is thought to be Nureddin Sabir, and there is no information about how Redress is funded.

Now there is less content on Redress than there is on Jews sans frontieres so how much funding would it need? JSF requires none, Redress? Logically, less than none.

A good look at the site reveals no more than a casual glance does, that is most of its articles are by Gilad Atzmon (or someone called Balles) and I remember when I first saw the hoax I thought it looked like a cross between Jewdas, who I have time for, and Atzmon for whom I have no time. Ok apologies to Jewdas but let's have a look at the Redress article.

In recent weeks Redress Information & Analysis has been approached by a number of existing and former employees and volunteers of prominent Jewish bodies, all pointing to an acute internal crisis within their institutions.

I suppose recently, even a year ago, there has been a bit of a wobble in the Jewish establishment partly over the attack on Gaza and partly over the accession of Netanyahu and Lieberman to power in Israel. But the idea that whistle blowers from very small organisations would try to make contact with an anonymously run website is too outlandish to take seriously. Indeed, Redress comes close to making this point itself:

Naturally, we were curious as to why our interlocutors chose or were willing to talk to Redress Information & Analysis rather than voice their concerns to a national media outlet such as the Guardian, the Independent or the BBC. All said that they were worried that their names would be leaked back to their institutions or published in the press and that, as a result, they would be sacked or ostracized by their Jewish relatives and friends. Some feared the possibility of “moles” in the national media, or people in these media who have “special relations” with the Jewish institutions, doing the leaking.

First up, Redress appears to be not so much a "we"as a "me".

But let's look at what one of the "whistle blowers" from the Board had to say:

Our support for Israel, especially its attack on Gaza in 2008-09, is creating ruptures in the wider Jewish community in Britain and placing institutions such as ours under unbearable pressure. The fact that the Board of Deputies’ support for Israel is couched in relatively anodyne terms and in a superficially impartial context no longer works. The wider Jewish community, and the general public at large, are beginning to see through this.

For the first time in my memory, we are being pressed by British Jews to answer questions that have always been in the backs of our minds but which we can no longer brush aside. Are we British or are we Israelis? If we are British, then is it not incumbent upon us to question, as the wider British public is questioning, the policies and behaviour of the State of Israel without harbouring any feelings of disloyalty – because our loyalty is to the UK and not to Israel?

This is nonsense. It is anti-zionist Jews who are at odds with UK policy on Palestine, not zionists. That was the first of two BoD whistle blowers, by the way and the first of a few things that had me thinking that the article plays to a bit of an anti-Jewish agenda. Reading on we see the take of "Our second contact at the Board of Deputies of British Jews":

the question of our allegiance is the one that is the most serious and damaging in the long term. It does not help in this regard when some of our Jewish ministers, such as the foreign secretary, David Miliband, and the Foreign Office minister, Ivan Lewis, are either openly pro-Israel or are seen to be supporters of Israel. This casts doubt on the loyalty of all of us to Britain, our country.

The entire cabinet is openly pro-Israel and Miliband and Lewis are no more so than any of their colleagues and possibly less so than the Prime Minister himself. I don't even think the Jewish establishment considers Miliband to be Jewish given his leftist lineage. But let's get the view "According to our contact at the Office of the Chief Rabbi":

The Office of the Chief Rabbi, the Board of Deputies, the Jewish Chronicle and many other Jewish organizations up and down the country – at universities, for instance – are living in a time warp, as if today were 1948 or the eve of the 1967 war.

The world has changed, and the information the community has available to it shows that we Jews are not in peril – on the contrary, Jews in the UK and throughout Europe are prospering like never before. Anti-Semitism – by which I mean racist, anti-Jewish feeling – has all but vanished. In fact, it is the Muslims, not the Jews, who are bearing the brunt of racism in Europe. Islamophobia, spurred on by neo-Nazi parties and neo-conservatives, is what we Jews, as members of a wider multi-cultural community, should be fighting against.

Had the article have mentioned 1933 or 1938 it would have been more credible but it seems that the mole in the Chief Rabbi's office is lamenting the passing of the days when zionists had the British public fooled into seeing the zionist project as "plucky little Israel".

Anyway, on to "Our contact at the Jewish Chronicle who said:

As a strategy for extending the scope of the Jewish Chronicle’s appeal, the choice of Martin Bright as our chief political editor just underlines how out of touch with the real world Stephen Pollard is. It isn’t just a question of Martin’s neo-conservative and Israel baggage – and the circumstances under which he left the News Statesman – but what about the rest of the Jewish Chronicle’s coverage?

Take a look at some of our commentators and columnists. The average British reader would take one glance and say “What a rogues gallery!” You have Tzipi Livni, that broken record Melanie Phillips and, worse of all, Geoffrey Aldeman. For God’ sake, Geoffrey Alderman is one of our regular columnist, believe it or not! For a newspaper that’s struggling to keep its readers, the choice of Geoffrey Alderman is a damn strange one, but that’s Stephen Pollard for you.

Yes, Livni, Phillips and Alderman would appear in any gallery of Jewish rogues, as would Pollard with Bright as a particularly unrighteous gentile, but would "the average British reader" pick up on that? I hope so, I desperately hope so. But I am not so desperate as to believe so, still less to believe that there are insiders in mainstream Jewish organisations that would worry about that.

But what is all that about Martin Bright? Isn't he the chap who wrote the article inflating Redress's importance beyond even the Redress editor's fevered imagination? Er, yes he is. If Mr Bright is stupid enough to think that Redress is a threat to anything bar the credibility of those who promote its articles then he might just believe that he has a mole in his office who meets up with another mole in the Chief Rabbi's office who in turn meets up with two moles from the Board of Deputies and that they all get together to spill kosher beans to a silly conspiracy site.

There is nothing in the article in terms of facts that you would have to be an insider to know and the article does reflect some disquiet that has been expressed in the community but mostly in the early 1980s rather than more recently. It is an entertaining read for those of us who like a bit of wishful thinking. It would be nice to think that there are rumblings against the ridiculous Stephen Pollard, that the Board and the Office of the Chief Rabbi are growing weary of the false allegation of antisemitism and the uncritical support for the State of Israel. But the resort to tropes like "dual loyalty" and the concern about Jewish ministers as distinct from the rest of the imperialist "rogues gallery" that is the cabinet is too absurd to take seriously. Redress did well to get taken seriously by the JC and CST but honesty has never been the strong suit for either of them, any more than it has been for Redress. It appears that the fantasy forces' feud is a wind-up, nothing more.

UPDATE: Final proof if proof were needed: Liar, racist and buffoon Gilad Atzmon has posted the "Redress" article on his website. Redress has posted the Gilad Atzmon article on its website. Oh no, it's so confusing. The article clearly purports to be a Redress article. But what's this on Gilad Atzmon's site?

Britain’s Jews in crisis over national loyalty, identity and Israel By Redress Information & Analysis

Friday, December 25, 2009 at 9:44PM Gilad Atzmon

And on the Redress site?

Britain’s Jews in crisis over national loyalty, identity and Israel

Whistleblowers say top Zionist institutions in unprecedented crisis

By Redress Information & Analysis

26 December 2009

See the dates. Gilad, you imbecile! Redress was supposed to post it first. It was their exclusive. Oi gevalt! Better hurry on over before he doctors his post.

UPDATE II - the whistle blowers were so scared they had to cross the international dateline to conceal themselves.