Smearing anti-racists to protect Zionism

The above title was the heading for a letter by Free Speech on Israel's Les Levidow to the Camden New Journal. The letter appears in the print edition but not (yet) on line. Here it is:

As Vice-Chair of the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM), Mike Katz has again asked the Labour Party to expel members for antisemitic views and for a rule change making this easier. Otherwise the Party will be seen as ‘not welcoming to Jews’ (Katz plea, CNJ, 29.09.2016).  Which Jews does he mean?  And how does the JLM define ‘antisemitic views’?   

The latter question was raised at the JLM’s training session on antisemitism during the Party’s September conference.  Running the session, Mike Katz eventually claimed that the standard definition of antisemitism is ‘the EUMC definition’, i.e. from the European Union Monitoring Committee.  Many Jewish participants there objected, for good reasons: The EUMC never adopted the ‘working definition’ which was temporarily on its website; its successor body has disavowed it.  Although the definition rightly begins with ‘hatred toward Jews’, it also encompasses any views ‘Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g. by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour.’  

The latter criterion aims to protect some Jews’ emotional or political attachment to Israel, despite its basis in colonial-settler racism which continues today.  This is perversely equated with 'Jewish self-determination'.  The JLM is affiliated to the Israeli Labour Party, which early on urged employers to select ‘Jewish-only Labour’, has supported new Jewish settlements and today colludes with anti-Arab racism. 

In the Labour Party here, why do pro-Israel activists want to make expulsions easier?    Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership has mobilised and attracted new Labour Party members sympathetic to the campaign of Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment (BDS) against Israel.   Many Jewish members are dissociating themselves from the Zionist project.  To counter these anti-racist forces, the JLM smears them as antisemites.  Many have been suspended from the Labour Party, with little recourse to the due process that was advocated by the Chakrabarti Commission.  In these ways, the JLM aims to protect the colonial-settler character of Israel. Both should be opposed as racist.  For more information, see our website.

Les Levidow, Free Speech on Israel, www.freespeechonisrael.org.uk

UPDATE: The letter is now on line at the Camden New Journal online

The Video the Board of Deputies, Momentum's Jon Lansman & Politics Home tried to ban

Sheesh, I thought this video was lost and gone forever.   I first heard about it via this piece in Politics Home.  Here look:

A controversial video criticised as a “slap in the face” by Jewish campaign group is still posted on Jeremy Corbyn’s official Facebook page, PoliticsHome can reveal.

The film, made by Mr Corbyn’s campaign team, features his supporters responding to a number of accusations often levelled at the Labour leader’s backers.

One of the questions is ‘Do you promote anti-Semitism?’ – in reference to a string of suspensions and expulsions over the last year.

One of the participants in the video throws away a piece of paper with the question written on it and says “so that’s gone as well”.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews spoke to veteran left-winger Jon Lansman, Mr Corbyn's campaign director, who apparently agreed to withdraw the video.

It has since been taken down from YouTube and the main page of Mr Corbyn’s Facebook account, but it is still available to view on the ‘videos’ section of his page.

“The dismissive video was a ‘slap in the face’ for the Jewish community,” said Board of Deputies chief executive Gillian Merron in a statement released last night.

“Having spoken directly to campaign director Jon Lansman, the Jeremy for Labour campaign now recognises the inappropriate message conveyed and has committed to remove the video and apologise. This is the right result.

Now, after a couple more paragraphs Politics Home hosted the video that the Board of Deputies had complained about and Jon Lansman had apologised for but now look:

I think we can guess that under the capitulationist advice of Jon Lansman, Jeremy Corbyn's Facebook probably zapped the video too.  I asked one of the participants if they retained a copy but they hadn't. I was getting frantic.  Even when Politics Home hosted the video it couldn't be downloaded.   But when you see the video you will see that there was nothing in it to complain about or to apologise for which I am guessing is why Politics Home removed it.  And now thanks to Jamie Stern-Weiner who found it on YouTube here it is:

So just like the whole of the antisemitism smear campaign against leftists and Palestine solidarity supporters this is yet another case of "nothing to see here", which in the case of Politics Home and probably Corbyn's Facebook page is now literally true.

PS: I've just seen that Harry's Place has missed the point of the removal of the video and hosted it on their racist site.  It was actually HP's David Toube (he calls himself Habibi) who uploaded it to YouTube but rather smartly disabled the comments.

Jews and the Slave Trade: JC Letter

There was a letter in the Jewish Chronicle today which unfortunately doesn't publish its letters on line.  Here it is:

SLAVE TRADE: JEWS NOT ENTIRELY INNOCENT

The part played by some prominent Jews with regard to the history of slavery is perhaps less savoury than Doreen Berger suggests (Letters, May 27).  The 1807 Act abolished the slave trade within the British Empire, but slave ownership remained legal.  The 1833 Act abolished slavery itself, awarding generous compensation to the slave owners, including a proportionate number of Jews.

Nathan Mayer Rothschild struck a "profitable" deal to fund the compensation.

According to Eli Faber, recently identified by Geoffrey Alderman as "a distinguished expert in American-Jewish history", Jews had once been prominent in Brazil's sugar industry, where, as creditors, they "dominated the slave trade". Faber also cites Salo Baron's advice to face up to "historically unpleasant truths".

Some Jews subscribed to abolition societies, others profited from slavery, in one form or another.

Roy Wolfe,

Reading, Berkshire

I'm assuming that the headline was supplied not by the letter's author but by the JC itself.

Unfortunately I don't have access to the letter that Roy Wolfe is responding to but I have read of Jewish involvement in the slave trade many times.

This whole issue of course has blown up around some stuff that Momentum's Jackie Walker is supposed to have said about Jewish involvement in the slave trade and subsequent attempts to have her expelled from the Labour Party and to rubbish what she said.

Well it's starting to look like what she said wasn't so rubbish after all and just as happened with Ken Livingstone's suspension over Hitler's well documented support for Zionism in the 1930s, people are examining the historical record which in the case of the slave trade doesn't quite tally with Zionist claims of eternal, perennial and universal Jewish suffering.  Which of course isn't to say that all Jews were involved in the slave trade or that the slave trade consisted only or mostly of Jews. But there were aspects of the slave trade in terms of destination which were dominated or indeed monopolised by Jews and financed by the them.

Why is a Sun reporter supporting Momentum Head Jon Lansman?

I noticed a Sun reporter, @MrHarryCole touting Jon Lansman ludicrous idea of banning the word "Zionism" from discussions in Labour Party circles.  I thought it was odd for anything anyone connected to Corbyn to get Sun approval.  Sam Kiley, an ardent Zionist, before he began working for Murdoch at Sky actually left The Times because of Murdoch's aggressive proprietorial interventionism for Israel's sake.

Here's his tweet:

Well known Blairite agitator Lansman is calling for sanity and asking comrades to stop banging on about Zionists. https://t.co/aQDWKuub38

— Harry Cole (@MrHarryCole) May 3, 2016

Obviously leftists noticed how Jon Lansman of the supposed grass roots Corbynite support group, Momentum, had won the approval of a Murdoch staffer.  It's hard to imagine that a pat on the back for a Corbynite from a Murdoch staffer would happen without approval from the Digger himself.  It would be like Ha'avara happening without Hitler's approval. At the time I didn't think too much of the Sun imprimatur.  I just tweeted how it was ludicrous to ban the word "Zionism" from Labour Party discussions.  But I then got retweeted by this Harry Cole chap, look:

Grim https://t.co/kNFZmFScZJ

— Harry Cole (@MrHarryCole) May 3, 2016

Now look at the thread after the tweet Cole quote/retweeted:

See my little offering there?

.@BDSJustice The Digger's digging in the Golan. No one at the Sun or Times will criticise Zionism @TheBirmingham6 @jonlansman @MrHarryCole

— Jews Sans Frontieres (@jewssf) May 3, 2016

Well at this point Jon Lansman's Comrade Harry Cole seems to have had a panic because now look:

See that? The guy engages with me by QRTing my tweet then blocks me. But did you see the side bar when it asks you to consider following something similar to what you were looking at? Yup, The Telegraph - no surprise there - and Jon Lansman. And why am I not surprised at that one?

So what have we learned? Jon Lansman is either a Zionist himself or at least someone willing to appease Zionism for some short term gain. He certainly seems to have pleased someone at the Murdoch stables. And when I mentioned the Diggers interests in the Golan heights the previously cocky Harry Cole had a panic.

And what haven't we learned? Well what I, rather than we, haven't learned is what the flip is going on?