Yoiks Tally Ho! It's the Harry's Place Hunt!

I was paid a visit recently by one of our courageous heroes at Harry's Place. Or was I? Certainly Marcus (for it is he) claims that he came here and to a handful of other sites that are listed on the Lenin's Tomb site as "organic intellectuals". He berates all these "trotbloggers" for not mentioning Galloway's criticism of the SWP over various issues at Respect. It's all a bit strawman really. Most of the people listed stopped blogging some time ago. They were hardly going to return after, in every case (bar Lenin, I think), over a year simply to report a falling out between Galloway and the SWP. But look what he says about little old me:

Jews Without Frontiers, which is next on the recommended list, contains plenty of rants about perfidious Zionists but not so much as a peep about what or whom is to be preferred in the coming RESPECT implosion. No joy there either then.

You see this is where my headline comes in. Those of you born within the sound of bow bells may have thought that I was fluffing my rhyming slang and that Berkshire Hunt may have been the expression I was looking for. But you'd be wrong. Cheeky little imp (imp! geddit!!!) that I am, I'm being sarcastic about our intrepid hunter coming here to the home page, looking around for something about Respect, George Galloway and the SWP and somehow missing this:

MP George Galloway criticises Socialist Workers Party

"Unhealthy" internal relations, a lack of democratic decision-making, financial crisis and looming "oblivion". Last week, the Respect MP sent a scathing eight page document to all members of the Respect National Committee. The SWP leadership reacted furiously

Click here to read his document It was the best of times, it was the worst of times
Click here to read an extract from the SWP's internal Party Notes, reacting to the document
Of course, the next issue of the Weekly Worker (September 6) will be analysing and commenting on the document in detail

This is curious. I allowed my membership of Respect to lapse when I heard that the SWP had prevented Salma Yakoub from censuring Galloway over his Big Brother appearance. That showed a lack of democratic values, I thought. I also heard that Galloway was criticised over financial mismanagement at War on Want and that he was suspended from the UK parliament because of some financial issue over his Iraqi charity. And Galloway is accusing the SWP of financial mismanagement and lack of democracy. All we need now is for Gilad Atzmon's promoters at the SWP to accuse Galloway of betrayal. Let's just wait and see, shall we?

How did he do it? This is still (at the time of writing) on the home page. It was 4 September. So, did he see it and decide that he wouldn't let the truth get in the way of a good story? Did I tell him what he didn't want to hear? Or did he not come here at all in spite of having told his readers that he did? Or perhaps his get-out will be that I didn't actually take sides between Galloway and the SWP but criticised them both? Of course, if I was a Harry's Placer I'd be hopping up and down demanding an apology and retraction and so on. But I'm not a Harry's Placer so I'm just going to add this post to all of my "rants about perfidious Zionists."

Just a little addition here. If anyone wants to actually check to see if I have posted about anything or anybody then you can go to the little search blog bar at the top left corner of the page and punch in what you are looking for, like say, Galloway, put Galloway in the box and click on the button marked "search blog." Of course you might not need to do that if what you are "searching" for is on the home page. Then you need to scroll down a little.

Galloway beyond the pale?

Curiously insightful comment by the ever repentant Roy Greenslade.

In quick succession since his election victory last week in Bethnal Green and Bow, Galloway has been subjected to a television mauling by Jeremy Paxman, a radio sandbagging by the MP he defeated and a raft of newspaper headlines about a set of reheated allegations which he has not only strenuously denied but which ended with him winning a major libel action.

What seems to have triggered Greenslade's article is the rehashing of the old allegations of "oil-for-Galloway" and the way they have been handled by the media.

In spite of Galloway's court victory and the accumulated evidence in his favour, the BBC saw fit to lead its news bulletins yesterday with the story of supposedly "new" accusations that he received money from Saddam Hussein's Iraq through its oil-for-food programme. Yet the only difference between the claims made against Galloway by the Daily Telegraph in April 2003 and a US Senate subcommittee this week was that they were based on (already published) documents allegedly retrieved from Iraq's oil ministry rather than its foreign ministry - and not, as wrongly claimed, that they covered different periods.

In all other essentials, the allegations made by the Senate committee are the same as those originally outlined in the Telegraph articles that resulted in Galloway being awarded £150,000 in libel damages and £1.2m in costs, though an appeal against the high court ruling in his favour is still outstanding.

During the case Galloway successfully rebutted every point in the Telegraph story that led its journalists to conclude that he had profited from Saddam's government. So it's hardly any wonder that Galloway has found himself repeating his former denials.

He ends with a nice swipe at Oona King

Naturally, when she did lose, King was devastated, as were many other unseated MPs. But, unlike them, she was given a lengthy slot on BBC Radio 4's Today programme this week to air her grievances in what was a strikingly tame interview - no balancing material was offered - allowing her to vent her spleen about the nature of a "dirty" campaign and insinuating that Galloway's Respect party had been responsible for her suffering anti-semitic slurs.

A Respect spokesman described the claims as ludicrous and a smear. But I saw it differently. The nature of the King interview, in which she was not challenged with anything like that programme's normal robustness, was further evidence of the way Galloway is now regarded within the media. He is simply not being given a fair crack of the whip.

If you weren't up for King...

Click the link in the headline for links to the BBC's film clips of Oona King being ousted, Galloway being "interviewed" by Jeremy Paxman and of a jubilant Galloway being carried along Brick Lane by his supporters.

I have to say that Paxman was a disgrace. He started by asking the stupidest question he could think of which was if Galloway was proud of having unseated one of the very few black women MPs. Galloway warned Paxman that he would terminate the interview if Paxman kept asking the same stupid question. Paxman lifted a quote from Galloway out of context to the effect that Iraqi women with blacker skins than Oona King had been killed thanks, in part, to her vote for war. Paxman omitted to say that this was in response to Galloway's detractors suggesting that he shouldn't be challenging a black woman MP. Finally, Galloway indicated that he had had enough of the interview and Paxman said something about Galloway refusing to talk to people who disagree with him. I didn't know it was Jeremy Paxman's job to lift quotes out of context to undermine his interviewees and to disagree with them. I think we should be told what it is about Respect and George Galloway that Jeremy Paxman doesn't agree with and whether he should be allowed to give vent to his own political partiality under the cover of the supposedly impartial BBC.

Rules of Engagement?

I've just stumbled on the zionist Engage website's guidance to commentors. Here:

The editors of Engage are looking to enforce a stricter policy in the comments boxes. We all had our fun over the holidays - but:

1 Comments will be posted if the editors think that they add something to the debate. Editors will make a judgment about the quality and relevance of comments. Editors will try to be consistent but will not always succeed. Commenters should not feel they have a right to have their comments posted - it is an editorial decision.

2 Engage is not primarily a forum for discussion of the Israel/Palestine conflict. Its focus is on antisemitism. Endless and in-depth discussion about why the peace process broke down, for example, are interesting and important - but are not the core business of Engage.

3 Short comments are more likely to be posted than long comments.

4 Reasoned argument is more likely to be accepted than insults and hype.

We very much encourage people to write longer pieces. These should be submitted as posts to alex@EngageOnline.org.uk for consideration.

posted by The Editor at January 15, 2006 08:59:06 AM

Now as I posted earlier, I posted a comment on their blog a few days ago now. The post was about a letter by a Cambridge Law and Philosophy professor, Matthew Kramer in which it was claimed that George Galloway is

a man who has made a number of anti-Semitic pronouncements in various settings. I shall be happy to supply you with relevant quotations. I should note that, when I say "anti-Semitic", I mean "anti-Semitic"; I do not mean "anti-Israeli" (though Galloway is of course implacably opposed to the state of Israel).

Now the guy said a lot of other things but as it says above

Engage is not primarily a forum for discussion of the Israel/Palestine conflict. Its focus is on antisemitism.

So I left a comment, or tried to anyway, asking what George Galloway has ever said that was anti-semitic. Sorry, but here's the exact comment again:

Here's a quote from the letter - "you are apparently intending to allow the Arts Theatre to be used as a platform by a man who has made a number of anti-Semitic pronouncements in various settings. I shall be happy to supply you with relevant quotations. I should note that, when I say "anti-Semitic", I mean "anti-Semitic"; I do not mean "anti-Israeli" (though Galloway is of course implacably opposed to the state of Israel)."

Leaving aside the fact that being anti the State of Israel doesn't make a person "anti-Israeli", does anyone have any quotations from Galloway that are anti-semitic? I remember the Galloway v Telegraph Group case when the Telegraph's barrister (I think he was a QC) tried to accuse Galloway of anti-semitism, the judge, Eady, upped the damages. Here.

It might interest people to know that when I asked that same question on this blog two days ago, out of 43 comments not one said what it was that George Galloway has said that was anti-semitic. Anyway, what aspect of Engage's rules do you suppose I broke? Add something to the debate? The debate, according to Engage, is anti-semitism. If Norman Geras or David Hirsh or anyone could come up with some quotes we could debate whether they're anti-semitic but we're not even allowed to ask for quotes and Engage doesn't seem to want to know. I didn't break rule 2. I didn't raise any issues about Israel/Palestine. I could have broken rule 3 but the bogus allegation doesn't actually appear on the Engage page - frightened of being sued perhaps. So perhaps it was too long. But I don't think that would be fair. How about rule 4? Reasoned argument, not insults. No insults by me. So what's going on at the Engage site. Who can participate in this debate on anti-semitism.?

Anyway, a friend of mine has now written to Professor Kramer to ask for the quotes he said he could provide. He referred my friend to the comments of Harry's Place on 6 December 2005. Don't laugh it's true. A Cambridge don has used, not just Harry's Place, but the comments at Harry's Place as source material. So there I've made it easy. Now find some anti-semitic quotes by George Galloway. The relevant post might be this one but I'm not sure.

Iraq, not race or sex, lost King her seat

Here are two letters to the Independent supporting George Galloway:

Sir: Respect MP George Galloway has received much criticism for deposing one of the few black women MPs. This is a nonsense argument. I am a black Afro-Caribbean male who was born and bred in Hackney and stood for Respect in the Hackney South and Shoreditch constituency. There were no cries of outrage that New Labour were standing a white middle-class woman, the Blair babe Meg Hillier, against a local working-class black man in such an ethnically diverse constituency.

Political commentators should stop patronising the voters in Bethnal Green and Bow and write something interesting, like a report on why Respect's policies against the war, against privatisation and against racism are finding an echo among many people who used to look to Old Labour. As well as winning in Bethnal Green and Bow, Respect came second in three other constituencies, just 18 months after its formation. This demands some serious analysis, not tedious mud slinging.

DEAN RYAN
LONDON E5

Sir: Following George Galloway's victory (and more pertinently, Oona King's defeat) I found comments by Tony Banks (and many others) patronising, insulting and highly offensive to us British-Bangladeshis/ Muslims.

Contrary to the shameful excuses they were making for her, we did not vote against Ms King because she was a woman, or because she was black, or because she was Jewish. She was all those things when we voted for her in 1997 and 2001. We voted her out this time because she did not listen to us on Iraq. If she had done her job and represented her constituents she would still be our MP. Simple.

SUBER AKTHER
LONDON E15

And here's a cut from Jeremy Paxman's cross-examination of Galloway for the impartial BBC:

JP: We're joined now from his count in Bethnal Green and Bow by George Galloway. Mr Galloway, are you proud of having got rid of one of the very few black women in Parliament?
GG: What a preposterous question. I know it's very late in the night, but wouldn't you be better starting by congratulating me for one of the most sensational election results in modern history?
JP: Are you proud of having got rid of one of the very few black women in Parliament?
GG: I'm not - Jeremy - move on to your next question.
JP: You're not answering that one?
GG: No because I don't believe that people get elected because of the colour of their skin. I believe people get elected because of their record and because of their policies. So move on to your next question.
JP: Are you proud -
GG: Because I've got a lot of people who want to speak to me.
JP: - You -
GG: If you ask that question again, I'm going, I warn you now.
JP: Don't try and threaten me Mr Galloway, please.
GG: You're the one who's trying to badger me.
JP: I'm not trying to badger you, I'm merely trying to ask if you're proud at having driven out of Parliament one of the very few black women there, a woman you accuse of having on her conscience 100,000 people.
GG: Oh well there's no doubt about that one. There's absolutely no doubt that all those New Labour MPs who voted for Mr Blair and Mr Bush's war have on their hands the blood of 100,000 people in Iraq, many of them British soldiers, many of them American soldiers, most of them Iraqis and that's a more important issue than the colour of her skin.
JP: Absolutely, because you then went on to say "including a lot of women who had blacker faces than her"
GG: Absolutely right, absolutely right. So don't try and tell me I should feel guilty about one of the most sensational election results in modern electoral history.
JP: I put it to you Mr Galloway that Nick Raynsford had you to a T when he said you were a "demagogue".
GG: Sorry?
JP: Nick Raynsford. You know who I mean? Nick Raynsford. Labour MP?
GG: No, I don't know who you mean.
JP: Never heard of him.
GG: I've never heard of Nick Raynsford, no.
JP: What else haven't you heard of?
GG: Well, I've been in Parliament a long time...
JP: He was a Parliamentary colleague of yours until very recently.
GG: Well, most of them just blend one into the other, Jeremy, they're largely a spineless, a supine bunch.
JP: Have you ever heard of Tony Banks?
GG: Yes I have, yes.
JP: Right, Tony Banks was sitting here five minutes ago, and he said that you were behaving inexcusably, that you had deliberately chosen to go to that part of London and to exploit the latent racial tensions there.
GG: You are actually conducting one of the most - even by your standards - one of the most absurd interviews I have ever participated in. I have just won an election. Can you find it within yourself to recognise that fact? To recognise the fact that the people of Bethnal Green and Bow chose me this evening. Why are you insulting them?
JP: I'm not insulting them, I'm not insulting you
GG: You are insulting them, they chose me just a few minutes ago. Can't you find it within yourself even to congratulate me on this victory?
JP: Congratulations, Mr Galloway.
GG: Thank you very much indeed. [Waves, removes microphone]

Curiously the BBC website cuts the bit where Paxman refers to people (ie himself) not agreeing with Galloway.

Respect for George Galloway

Here's a letter in today's Independent defending George Galloway from the latest round of attacks on him.

Galloway's proud record as an MP

Sir: Your article "Respect? You're having a laugh" (11 January) contains several distortions. George Galloway has established a proud record of campaigning for his constituents. He has held more public meetings in Bethnal Green and Bow in the first eight months of his incumbency than Oona King did in her eight years.

The "major Parliamentary debate" on the cross-London rail link in the House of Commons on Thursday is on technical motions. George Galloway spoke out against the bill and voted against it on the second reading. He has presented his own petition against the bill and is supporting those of other constituents. These will not be discussed in the select committee until Big Brother is a distant memory.

George's surgery proceeded as normal last Friday as it will this Friday. Local protesters did not parade up and down outside it.

George has travelled the country speaking to thousands of people about the policies that his constituents voted him in on - opposition to war and the continued bloody occupation of Iraq, privatisation, cuts in the NHS and so on. And this has meant he has not attended votes in the House of Commons when the outcome has already been decided by the whips' offices of the two major parties (which is most of them). His decision to go on Big Brother was motivated by the same sentiment - the need to reach a very large and young audience with the political message the majority of his constituents support.

ROB HOVEMAN

ASSISTANT TO GEORGE GALLOWAY MP, BETHNAL GREEN AND BOW RESPECT CONSTITUENCY OFFICE LONDON E1

I was actually surprised that the Independent ran with the two articles that it did yesterday since both were low on politics and were the kind of hatchet jobs on Galloway that you'd expect in every paper bar the Independent but of the two that appeared the second, by Denis Macshane, was by far the worst. Take this:

Galloway's fate will be decided by the sensible voters of east London who must be asking themselves why they lost the services and hard-working brilliance of the Jewish-African-American, Oona King, for someone who has been denounced in the Commons as Saddam Hussein's "Lord Haw-Haw".

Perhaps it was, regardless of her ethno-religious background, the fact that she supported the war on Iraq, tuition fees and made a grotesquely sycophantic speech about the Queen Mum in the run up to the war in Afghanistan.

Mind you I must say that appearing on Big Brother was a stupid move for someone who gets bad media coverage anyway.

Hitchens v Galloway on Democracy Now!

You can see the whole debate on the Democracy Now! website. The most non-political point that I could make here as that as the evening wore on, Hitchens's accent grew more American and, well, strange. At times he was almost singing his words. In his opening statement he sounded his normal public (that, in the UK, is posh) school self. But listen to the whole thing. I'm guessing he was drunk. Many leftists have been dismayed and angered by Hitchens's conversion from some kind of libertarian leftist to an apologist for the Bush regime. He even praised the US authorities handling of New Orleans in the wake of Katrina. I'm actually finding it painful to see his self-destruction. It doesn't, for me, invoke a political parallel. To me it looks like Paula Yates (the late Mrs, or was it Lady? Geldoff) sinking deeper into heroin and alcohol addiction and ultimately death. That what he's doing. Hitchens is dying a death. Galloway, by contrast, was on vintage form. He even managed to suggest that US policies in the Middle East were in some way to blame for 9/11 and 7/7. Much of the audience hated him for it but that is simply testimony to his courage. I'm actually listening to Hitchens now. He is denouncing Galloway as having cashed on the "oil for food" programme. He is asking "how can he show his face here?" This is the man who requested the debate in the first place. What a shmock, or shmuck if you're in America.

If you listen to or watch this, compare it with the Finkelstein/Dershowitz debate. As Finkelstein refrained from interrupting Dershowitz's opening remarks, no matter how outrageous, so Galloway refrained from interrupting Hitchens's opening shots. Now compare Hitchens's conduct through Galloway's opening with Dershowitz's response to Finkestein's opening remarks. Just as Dershowitz kept on interrupting Finkelstein, so Hitchens interrupts Galloway until Galloway objects.

I'll update this later because there are various links that one might want to visit to firm up on this or that detail mentioned by Hitchens and/or Galloway.

Galloway defeated New Labour, not Oona King

Here's a slightly sneery article on Galloway's election victory on Thursday. Lenin, over at the tomb is in good cheer regarding much of the election. Me, I found it a bit of a damp squib except for the Galloway result. But look how the Guardian and the BBC are trying to belittle what was a great success for the anti-war movement:

Mr Galloway has been criticised for ruthlessly targeting a seat with a high Muslim vote rather than hitting out at Mr Blair in his Sedgefield constituency.

This is a seat with a large number of anti-war voters and one that had a pro-war MP. The only other places for anti-war voters to go was to the Lib Dems (who seem to have supported the war once it was on and support the occupation now) or the Greens whose sectarianim has mean that little has been heard from them througout the campaign. Anyway, look how Jeremy Paxman chose to address Galloway:

in a morning confrontation with Jeremy Paxman...[George Galloway] repeatedly refused to say whether he was "proud" of having unseated one of the few black women MPs.

Eventually, he said: "All those New Labour MPs who voted for Mr Blair and Mr Bush's war have on their hands the blood of 100,000 people in Iraq, many of them British soldiers, many of them American soldiers, most of them Iraqis.

"That is a more important issue than the colour of her skin. So don't try and tell me I should feel guilty about one of the most sensational election results in modern electoral history."

He accused Mr Paxman of "insulting" his new constituents by ignoring the result.

"They chose me. Can't you find it within yourself even to congratulate me?" he asked, before terminating the interview.

Paxman has widened the net of allegations against Galloway from focused anti-semitism to a more generalised racism. Paxman seems not to have noticed that his own belittling of the Muslim communities of Bethnal Green and Bow has more than a whiff of racism to it. Paxman should also note that the litigious George Galloway received increased damages from the Telegraph group when the Telgraph's barrister falsely accused him of anti-semitism.

Conversion at Harry's Place

A few days ago, actually five days ago, Harry's Place ran a post by David t on the conversion of the son of a Hamas leader to Christianity. There is, as you'd expect, a certain smugness to the piece together with at least one blatant falsehood in the statement attributed to the convert in his interview with Ha'aretz.

“Do you know that Hamas was the first to use the weapon of suicide bombers against civilian targets?” he continues.

If we're talking bombings only then that honour belongs to the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka or India. If we're talking suicide missions then we should consider the case of Baruch Goldstein, the American GP who killed 29 Muslims at prayer in Hebron before being overpowered and killed. The Israeli response was to place the natives of Hebron under curfew while the settlers celebrated his heroism. The Hamas response was to embark on a policy of their own suicide missions. Curiously Harry's Place and its star convert avoid considerations of cause and effect. For David t, the post is an excuse for him to indulge a little hypocrisy:

I don’t believe that it is necessary to reject Islam for Christianity, or indeed believe in any god at all, in order to embrace the Golden Rule.

Ok, standard HP fare.

But there was a story of another conversion that caught my eye a few days before the one above. It's the conversion of David t himself. The post is a thinly veiled and false allegation of antisemitism against George Galloway and anti-zionists in general. The excuse for this post is that George Galloway won yet another libel action, this time against a Jewish radio station that "satirised" him as being antisemitic. The lawyer David Toube knows he is on thin ice with the bogus allegation against Galloway so here's a little distancing from it:

I have argued, strongly, and for some time that George Galloway is not a man who expresses racist views about Jews. In fact, when Galloway was a guest on the radio show of right wing conspiracy nut, Alex Jones, I remember that he specifically argued against his host’s contention that Israel controls the foreign policy of the United States. I can honestly say that I have never heard George Galloway deliver a racist diatribe directed at Jews.

He then goes on to outline what he claims is an anti-zionist position by showing a ludicrous ignorance about zionism and the State of Israel and then hinting that anti-zionism is indeed antisemitism:

There are serious arguments to be had about George Galloway’s views, and about the politics in which he and others with whom he is allied are engaged. Why, for example does Galloway’s section of the Left deny the right of self determination only to Israelis - and to nobody else - which they support for Palestinians? Why do they promote a one state “solution” for Palestine which they must know would result in the expulsion and massacre of persons who are the descendants of Jewish refugees from Middle Eastern and European lands? What does it mean for a politician to form a party with people who do express openly racist and conspiracist views, or to speak on the same platform as Hamas and Hezbollah activists, and to glorify them?

This is mealy mouthed nonsense, neither zionism nor the State of Israel are about self-determination for Israelis. They are about self determination for Jews. Self-determination for Jews embodied in a territorial state means no self-determination for non-Jews within that state. Israel refuses to recognise Israelis as a nation for precisely that reason.

It could be that David Toube has genuinely been misled by the propaganda that has it that Israel is just another state and not the colonial settler state it clearly is. But then we come to the other story of conversion. In the thread, an anonymous commenter has this to say:

Is this the same David T who, only a few months ago on the Socialist Unity blog, complained that “Everybody calls me a Zionist, even though I’m in favour of non-ethnically based states….”?

Anyone who, in a moment of boredom and lacking anything more interesting to do, has ever googled “David Toube” will be aware that he was at one time undoubtedly a committed anti-Zionist.

Back in 1990 he was a signatory (no.301) to the “Return Statement” in which members of the Jewish community opposed the Israeli Law of Return and called for the right of return to be granted to the Palestinian people.

The statement took a hardline anti-Zionist position. The signatories declared their “opposition to the state of Israel as a Jewish state and to the Zionist movement”, adding that “the Zionist structure of the state of Israel is at the heart of the racism and oppression against the Palestinian people, and should be dismantled”.

How times have changed. Writing in the Jewish Chronicle in January this year, David T attacked the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign in the following terms:

“The reference to the ‘occupation and colonisation of all Arab lands’ is a barely disguised demand for the disestablishment of the state of Israel: as is the requirement that Palestinian refugees ‘return to their homes and properties’.”

What there is in David T’s current politics that justifies the assertion that he is not a Zionist certainly beats me.

So, a dramatic conversion, easily on a par with that of the son of the Hamas leader. Now people change their minds but what was it about David t in his younger days that made him what he now pretends is antisemitic? How was it that he understood zionism clearly enough in his younger days to sign a statement calling for the right of the Palestinians to return to their homeland and yet now, if his writing is to be believed, doesn't even understand what zionism is? He has even pretended that Britain favouring people of British descent is on a par with Israel favouring people of Jewish descent. But Israel's discrimination involves discriminating against people who come from there. Britain's involves discriminating in favour of people who come from here. And that's when it comes to continuing to or coming to live here. Boy, how they try.

I should note here that, as the anonymous commenter says, twice recently, David Toube has denied being a zionist on the grounds that he doesn't like the ethic or religious definition of statehood. I'm not sure how this squares with his anger directed at those who would boycott the One Voice charade where Palestinians were co-opted into supporting not just Jewish supremacy throughout most of Palestine but the settlement blocks as well.

There are other questions too. He suggests that if he can't pin the false allegation of antisemitism on Galloway then he can at least berate him over his associations. But what of David t's associations? In his post on the Muslim convert to Christianity, one comment verges on the genocidal:

Only another 1.8bn to go!

Glancing down the comments, David t is still involved in the discussion but nowhere does he criticise or seek clarification of a blanket condemnation of all Muslims. Conversely, in the thread where David t is outed as a former anti-zionist and the question is raised a few times as to whether he was a racist or antisemite in his younger days, the used to be mysterious Mr t, makes no reappearance in the comments. He does have one defender who suggests that David t simply matured but that doesn't explain how he can now accused Israel's detractors of racism and even genocidal intent at the same time as calling himself anti-zionist.

So, where are we? David t seems to think that support for wars on third world countries and support for a state (Israel) based on colonial settlement, ethnic cleansing and racist laws, can somehow be reconciled with the "golden rule". I just can't deal with the fact that he wants the continued existence of Israel, he wants the Palestinians to remain exiled from their homeland and yet he claims to be anti-zionist. I think he's just being silly there or trying to confuse matters. But anyway, he promotes the idea that if someone who wants or who associates with people who want the abolition of the State of Israel is accused of antisemitism, they will only win a libel action on a technicality or quirk of the British legal system. And yet he was such a person once upon a time, so much that he put his name to a demand for the abolition of Israel. As the anonymous commenter asks further down the thread, "was he a racist then?" Or is he one now? Go on Mr t, jump through another hoop.

Still, one mystery has been solved. When I first found out that David t was some kind of financial lawyer called David Toube, I wondered why he told people that if he was outed as the famed HP blogger, it would cause him problems in his work. Given his politics and his work I don't see how that can be true. I now think he wanted to cover up his past and, given his pretence at misunderstanding some of the most basic issues with regard to Israel, I don't blame him.

Hadley Freeman accuses George Galloway of Antisemitism

I didn't see the BBC's Question Time (#BBCQT or @BBCQT on Twitter) with George Galloway and Jonathan Freedland.  I could have watched it on iPlayer or some such but I find GG and JF pretty cringe-worthy.

Jonathan Cook wrote an article about it slagging Jonathan Freedland's behaviour in the proceedings and calling him The Guardian's "resident antisemitism obsessive".  Now I would have preferred "resident zionist" because "antisemitism obsessive" could imply that he is obsessed with genuine cases of racism against Jews and this of course would be wrong, Freedland has quite a lot of form for false allegations of antisemitism.

Well another resident zionist at The Guardian, Hadley Freeman, didn't like the "resident antisemitism obsessive" jibe either and got into a bit of a Twitter exchange with Glenn Greenwald about it.

@ggreenwald Yeah, he lost me at "resident anti-Semitism obsessive" and the Palin-esque "liberal media elite." As tho Galloway is not "elite"
— Hadley Freeman (@HadleyFreeman) February 10, 2015

Hadley Freeman also has form for false allegations of antisemitism over campaigning against Israel.

Now at some point George Galloway enters the Twitter fray.  I should say I came to all this very late when someone drew my attention to it when the hubbub was dying down.  I always find Twitter hard to follow beyond one tweet and a reply but here's the first tweet from GG that I noticed:

@HadleyFreeman @ggreenwald you must withdraw this tweet or face the legal consequences
— George Galloway (@georgegalloway) February 10, 2015

Wow! What tweet? Let's have a look at Hadley Freeman's tweets.  Too late, look:

@georgegalloway Seriously? I'm sure our lawyers have better things to do... To save us both a day in court, I'm happy to delete it.
— Hadley Freeman (@HadleyFreeman) February 10, 2015

But someone challenged Freeman over what she had claimed in her tweet:

Can @HadleyFreeman cite 'plenty of' examples to back this up about @georgegalloway? cc: @ggreenwald @Jonathan_K_Cook pic.twitter.com/5cdrEbf1gZ
— Media Lens (@medialens) February 10, 2015

As far as I can tell Freeman hasn't risen to the challenge of finding Galloway saying and doing "plenty of things that cross the line from anti-Israel to antisemitic" and Galloway is insisting that he is taking legal action because her deletion was too late.

So what will come of this?  It would be interesting blowback if Jonathan Freedland had to refrain from his negative hasbara because of the dishonesty of one of his zionist comrades and colleagues at The Guardian.

Galloway not impartial shock!

That Engage site has got its uses. I just had one of their groupies complaining that I was on their case while lots of people are being killed in Palestine and Lebanon. Well I checked the Engage site to catch up on their position on the current situation and, lo and behold, they haven't got one. They have however got an article complaining that George Galloway's radio talk show is biased against Israel. Remember Engage claims to exist to combat antisemitism. Does this mean that they are accusing George Galloway of antisemitism? Why have the article if it's not about antisemitism? Ah yes. To defend Israel and attack a critic of Israel of course. That's what Engage exists for. I've just noticed that they got their article from Harry's Place. I don't think the latter even pretend to be combatting antisemitism.

Anyway George has been causing a bit of a stir on his radio programme on Talk Sport. It's the Jewish Telegraph that has the article:

The firebrand MP's programme on Talk Sport may have breached Ofcom�s guidelines on impartiality which govern the station�s output.

He has been accused of using Saturday�s three hours on air to galvanise opposition towards the Jewish state � without attempting to add any balance.

Board of Deputies Chief Executive Jon Benjamin warned: "An entirely one-sided show can only raise tensions here." Only a few listeners were allowed to challenge the Respect Party leader's tirades, which included branding Israel an "American colonial enterprise."

Israel's supporters, he claimed, "are involved in a systematic deception of public opinion". One Jewish caller was branded "racist" when trying to condemn Islamic terrorists.

Another attempting to discuss the Palestinian rockets raining down on the Israeli town of Sderot was told: "Just you calm down."

And he had the audacity to warn a later caller: "Don't hurl pro-Israel epithets at me."

Galloway has been accused of �bullying� anyone who attempted to defend the fight against terrorism by cutting them off and repeatedly intervening.

But his supporters' ramblings were unabridged and praised for their "genuine indignation".

Occasional Talk Sport presenter Uri Geller led the chorus of criticism.

The paranormalist said: "I am outraged that Galloway was allowed to host a mostly one-sided phone-in."

"I have been on the station many times, including with my own programme" but have never used it as a one-sided podium.

"Supporters of Israel should unite and complain to ensure more balance on the station."

Manchester-based media monitor Frank Baigel added: "He told a couple of lies and was very obnoxious. He acted as a bully to any caller who didn�t agree with him."

Galloway admitted during the show: "I'm not remotely impartial."

Five listeners have complained to radio watchdog Ofcom that he could be in breach of their code on "due impartiality". Section 5.9 says: "Presenters must not use the advantage of regular appearances to promote their views in a way that compromises the requirement for due impartiality."

"Presenter phone-ins must encourage and must not exclude alternative views."

A radio industry insider insisted: "When people were put on with a different opinion he tied them up in rhetorical knots. The station should have had the responsibility to give the other side a fair hearing."

A Talk Sport spokesman admitted that Galloway's show was a "platform for his politics", while insisting that a one-sided debate against Israel was comparable with a pro-England football phone-in.

Programme Director Bill Ridley maintained: "The broad policy would be similar but the subjects are so different." I'd encourage people to come on and challenge his views. "I don't think there was any case where people were not allowed to say what they felt."

The JT then adds the web address for Ofcom: www.ofcom.org.uk

Engage on Galloway's "anti-semitism"

Hey get this. I was just looking at the Engage site when I noticed this article.

In December, Norm published a letter sent to the Cambridge Arts Theatre by Matthew Kramer, Professor of Legal and Political Philosophy, Cambridge University. Matthew Kramer was concerned that the theater was giving a platform to George Galloway, instead of fulfilling its role as a platform for performing arts.
Norm has now posted an update of the case.

I posted (or tried to post) this comment.

Here's a quote from the letter - "you are apparently intending to allow the Arts Theatre to be used as a platform by a man who has made a number of anti-Semitic pronouncements in various settings. I shall be happy to supply you with relevant quotations. I should note that, when I say "anti-Semitic", I mean "anti-Semitic"; I do not mean "anti-Israeli" (though Galloway is of course implacably opposed to the state of Israel)."

Leaving aside the fact that being anti the State of Israel doesn't make a person "anti-Israeli", does anyone have any quotations from Galloway that are anti-semitic? I remember the Galloway v Telegraph Group case when the Telegraph's barrister (I think he was a QC) tried to accuse Galloway of anti-semitism, the judge, Eady, upped the damages. Here

Well guess what. The comment is awaiting moderation. I've never commented there before so it seems to be a precaution of some kind. I remember when Engage began its campaign against the boycott. They wouldn't take comments. You can see discussion on that in the comments to this post. Now they're vetting the comments before allowing them on the site. I delete objectionable or irritating stuff all the time but I try to let people know I've done it. Their twists and turns on comments remind me of Nick Cohen's little fiasco here, not that I needed reminding (ho ho).

Anyway, any takers? What has Galloway said that amounts to "a number of anti-Semitic pronouncements in various settings."?

Withering attack on Brother Galloway by Nick Cohen

Nick Cohen has astonished his readers by launching an attack on George Galloway. His excuse this time is that George Galloway is appearing in Big Brother.

Galloway's new Big Brother

In the 1990s, George Galloway flew to Saddam's Iraq and greeted a genocidal tyrant with: 'Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability!' Since the war, he has joined with European Holocaust-deniers to demand the release of Tariq Aziz, and said that Syria 'represents the last castle of the Arab dignity'.

If this makes him sound like a neo-fascist, I should add in fairness that he's a walking Hitler-Stalin pact. He described the fall of Soviet communism 'as the worst day of my life', and said of Fidel Castro, the dictator of Cuba: 'He's not a dictator.'

After saluting so many big brothers, it is no surprise that he is now on Celebrity Big Brother. What remains incredible over the years has been the refusal of all the nice, respectable liberals in the media to scrutinise the leader of the anti-war movement.

The astonishing thing is that Nick Cohen is allowed to pursue such an obsession in a serious newspaper. But there's more. See that last line seeking "nice, respectable liberals in the media to scrutinise the leader of the anti-war movement." I know being a lying toad might not qualify as "nice, respectable" in many circles but Nick Cohen writes for the pro-war Observer, so where's his scrutiny of George Galloway? So far he's told us that Galloway has a moustache and that he made a silly speech in front of Saddam Hussein and a similar one in front of Bashir Assad but where's the scrutiny? And at a time when the BBC is making us all cry with violins playing out Ariel Sharon to the strains of Hatikva (the zionist anthem) can't he find real fascistic characters to vent his spleen on?

It's that debate again

I've read this blog post a few times now but I just read it again and then the comments and its well worth a look at. It's by a Hitchens fan who is desperately disappointed at his performance in the debate. It's shallow in parts, for example he believes that Galloway shot himself in the foot when he suggested that 9/11 was explained by America's support for Israel. Now that might not be the full explanation of 9/11 but it certainly goes a long way towards an explanation. So the guy is just a tad superficial but he seems earnest and that's what makes his post on this of interest.

Hitchens was terrible. He stammered and mumbled his way through the debate, which lasted almost two hours. Occasionally pursuasive, but mostly unsteady, his arguments often lacked direction and veered off on tangents which though powerful on the pages of a magazine or webpage, were no match for Galloway’s soapbox bluster. I didn’t score each of the rounds, but I would say Galloway won each and every one of them. At the end, when it looked like Hitchens was about to make a comeback, he shot himself in both feet and a couple of other orifices to boot, by appearing to defend Bush’s handling of the New Orleans flood crisis by springing to the defense of the troops who were belatedly deployed to the scene.

But this misses the point about this phase of Hitchens's career. He doesn't get paid now to articulate a principled stand. He gets paid to support Bush. That's what makes these allegations against Galloway so ridiculous. Suppose it's true that Galloway is personally corrupt. Hitchens's corruption is part of a group corruption. He can't condemn Bush's handling of anything, though he might hint at condemnation now and then.

The comments to the post are also very informative of ways of thinking about this debate, the war and politcal positions in general. Here's a comment from a chap called JohnG that sums up what's wrong with the post and the pro-war "argument" in general:

# johng Says:
September 15th, 2005 at 7:44 am

This just seems incoherent and a bit sad:

“Among Galloway’s ugly bombast tonight were such gems as his blatant support of the murderous Iraqi insurgency”

This is a suprise? Its what the argument is all about. If its an illegal invasion and occupation then people have a right to resist it. And the horrors now unfolding are connected to a war being waged not just by the insurgency but by the coalition and its backers (one imagines Blair ‘there is a connection but its a twisted connection’). This is called ‘ugly bombast’, which is apparently ‘blatant’.

“…his claims that the US and the UK were the two rogue states in the world”

Given that ‘rogue state’ simply means any state that opposes the US and its partners (and from a part of the world where big powers can get away with arm-twisting), Galloway here simply asks us to take the phoney pretext seriously. Perhaps Galloways invoking of a few passages from St Augustine’s confessions would be preferred. St Augustine uses essentially the same argumentative move.

“…his accusations that Britain and America sent Islamists to Afghanistan”

So is the vast apparatus set up by the US with its partners inside and outside the Islamic world to do precisely this not allowed to be spoken about? Amply documented in a range of historical accounts incidently. Its tasteless perhaps? In New York? In the US?

“his singling out of US support for Israel as the reason for September 11 while standing less than a couple of miles from Ground Zero almost four years to the day since the attacks took place”

Perhaps it would have been better if he made the rather obvious point somewhere else? Is this the famous cultural relativism you guys like to go on about? Would anyone seriously suggest that US support for Israel has not historically generated political currents which Bin Laden draws on?

Just perplexing. Oh and then apparently there was the Hitlerian way he gripped the lecturn. If this is the best pro-war liberals can do one wonders why they criticise Hitchens. I suspect that the problem is not Hitchens. Its difficulties in sustaining a coherent argument. I do detect a split in reactions to this. There are those who react to the crisis of their position by dropping leftist language and simply embracing Bush. And there are those who try and distance themselves from Bush but still support the war.

I have to admit its interesting to watch.

I grabbed this stuff from Lenin's Tomb to which I post occasionally. As I reached for the url I noticed that at the time of writing, Lenin's Tomb has generated 413 comments on this. I should be so lucky. For a blow by blow almost transcripted account see Justin Raimondo at antiwar.com.

Galloway misrepresents BDS as does BICOM

Now look what George Galloway has gone and done.  Admittedly there are supporters of BDS who support Galloway's refusal to speak to an Israeli recently but the general BDS idea is better summed up on the BDS Movement website:

The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), the largest coalition of Palestinian unions, mass organisations, refugee networks and NGOs that leads and and sets the guidelines for the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, supports all principled action in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice and equality that is in line with universal human rights and international law.

In its 2005 BDS Call, Palestinian civil society has called for a boycott of Israel, its complicit institutions, international corporations that sustain its occupation, colonization and apartheid, and official representatives of the state of Israel and its complicit institutions. BDS does not call for a boycott of individuals because she or he happens to be Israeli or because they express certain views. Of course, any individual is free to decide who they do and do not engage with.

The global BDS movement has consistently adopted a rights-based approach and an anti-racist platform that rejects all forms of racism, including Islamophobia and anti-Semitism.

These guidelines and the fact that BDS has been initiated and is led by Palestinian civil society are major reasons behind the rapid growth and success that the BDS movement has enjoyed around the world.

Now take a look at what BICOM, the Britain Israel Communication and Research Centre are saying in the Huffington Post:

What is so abhorrent to him about conversing with an Israeli? Why is he so adamant that the Israeli should not be seen; that the Israeli should not be heard?

Perhaps he is afraid that if people hear from Israelis first hand, it will belie the demonic image he would like to create of them. 

Now that's just plain silly because the mainstream media always puts Israel and Israelis in the most favourable light possible and there's not a whole lot Galloway can do about that.  And, the writer of the HuffPo piece, Toby Greene, comes close to admitting as much:

Galloway himself is of course irrelevant. His repeated, ridiculous acts of buffoonery are a gift to those who reject his opinions and a liability to anyone who might share them.

So what's the problem from the Israel lobby perspective?

Unfortunately, Galloway is the thin end of a more disturbing wedge. There is a small but energetic movement to silence the voices of Israelis and prevent them from being heard more widely. Most people completely reject this movement, but they are nonetheless succeeding at times to impose their will.

On Wednesday, Israel's deputy ambassador, Alon Roth-Snir, was prevented from speaking at Essex University, where he had been invited by the Department of Government, and forced to leave the campus. This month the student union at Oxford University is considering whether or not to endorse a motion to promote a boycott of Israel.

Such attempts to silence Israelis extend even to Israeli academic work and cultural expressions that have nothing to do with politics. In the past year there have been attempts to disrupt Israeli dance performances, plays and concerts, carried out by individuals who simply cannot stand the sight or sound of an Israeli.

Now this is nonsense.  The issue here is the extent to which an individual or group can be said to represent the Israeli state.  An Israeli diplomat is obviously a representative of the Israeli state.  I know of no other diplomat from a notoriously human rights abusive state being invited to address a university in the UK.  That doesn't mean it hasn't happened but it seems unlikely.  A dance troupe from Israel might be harder to discern as boycottable but this is the first paragraph of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel's call to boycott the troupe that Greene is referring to, ie, Batsheva:

The Batsheva Dance Company of Tel Aviv is touring the US and Canada in January, February, and March, 2009. A recipient of public financing since the 1990s, the dance troupe is clearly an Israeli apartheid cultural institution. Writing October 26, 2008, in The Independent of London, Jenny Gilbert reports that the dance company is "funded by Israel's government, its performers include none of Arab extraction, and it is 'proud to be considered Israel's leading ambassador.'"

Read the whole thing and see for sure that clearly this isn't a case of people being unable to "stand the sight or sound of an Israeli".

Galloway did manage to convey that impression to non-initiates but it's hard to believe that there is anyone at BICOM who doesn't know the general thrust of the BDS Movement.

David Aaronovitch: Damned by, ain't praise

It's strange this Galloway v Telegraph Group. business. Reports have been unanimous that Galloway won the case. That is, the judge in the case ruled that Galloway had been libelled by The Daily Telegraph. And yet Johann Hari, the BBC and now (well yesterday) David Aaronovitch have persisted in libelling Galloway in pretty much the same way that had The Telegraph coughing up £150,000 in damages and a possible £1.4 million in costs. Perhaps they think that the judge's ruling was on some technicality or that, post- Lord Hutton, a judge with integrity is an abberation. For those who think the former then here is the judgment itself. Sorry it's a pdf and it runs to 60 pages. I wouldn't have read it but I felt compelled to when David Aaronovitch wrote in yesterday's Guardian. , "The account of the finding of the documents by the reporter David Blair was not challenged, he himself was praised by the judge. " Now it struck me as very strange that a journalist might be praised by a judge for running with an article that had the judge describing his employers as "disingenuous", at best. Also for various reasons connected with his tenuous grasp of facts, I just don't trust David Aaronovitch. So let's search for "praise" or "praising" in the judgment. It appears in the following passage:

"There is something faulty about this logic. The documents did not publish themselves and the mode of their presentation was wholly under the control of The Daily Telegraph. The argument may have some superficial attraction. On the other hand, it is a little ironic that while the newspaper was, understandably., praising Mr Blair’s "superlative" detective work, and claiming that its scoop had led the news, it should also be seeking to distance itself from the consequences of the publication to the world at large."

So the closest the judge came to praising David Blair was to say that his "disingenuous" employers "understandably, praise[d] him". In other words he didn't praise him at all. But it gets worse. The judge looks into what the Telegraph. might have done to establish whether or not the documents it published were genuine. And the relevant passage in the judgment:

"Did the Defendant take any steps to verify the contents of the
Baghdad documents, in so far as they related to the Claimant,
by reference to independent sources of information, such as the
governments of the United Arab Emirates or Saudi Arabia, Mr
Fawaz Zureikat, the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, the
Home Office or intelligence sources, before publishing the
articles complained of?"

And it continues (eventually): "No one on the Defendants’ behalf
suggests that they did make such enquiries."

Now given that David Blair found the documents, should it not have fallen to him to at least try to establish their veracity? Anyway, according to Mr Justice Eady this rudimentary check wasn't undertaken and taking the judgment in total it appears that the failure to try to prove whether the documents were genuine was, among other things, an aggravating factor leading to such a high level of damages.

In fairness to David Aaronovitch I should point out that the judge did praise David Blair as a witness:

"Like the other witnesses in the case, Mr Blair seemed to me to be impressive and straightforward in his evidence. I have no doubt that he believed the documents he found were genuine and that they gave rise to legitimate questions – at least requiring the attention of serious investigative journalists."

but, in that, he was, as the judge said "[l]ike the other witnesses in the case".

but, of course, that isn't what David Aaronovitch said.

Another aggravating factor that Aaronovitch doesn't. lie about, because he doesn't mention it, is the fact that The Telegraph's. barrister - James Price QC - falsely attributed a written statement to George Galloway that he had referred to Barbara Amiel as Conrad Black's "Jewish. wife". Here's the relevant passage:

"One aspect of aggravation was the unfortunate attribution in cross-examination of anti-semitism. I am quite prepared to accept that it was a slip, in the heat of the moment, and that it was not intended to be put forward as part of the Defendants' case. It is necessary for me to consider exactly how it came about. Mr Price wished to refer to a fund-raising letter written by Mr Galloway for the purposes of obtaining support in these proceedings. In it he suggested that he had been attacked by The Daily Telegraph. because of his views on the Middle East in general and the Palestinian cause in particular. Wisely or unwisely, he referred to Lord Black (formerly proprietor of The Daily Telegraph) and his wife Barbara Amiel as being among Mr Sharon’s most vociferous supporters. Mr Price wished to put this document to him in the course of cross-examination. Before he did so, and I believe when it was not actually in front of him, he somewhat unguardedly said that Mr Galloway had referred to Barbara Amiel’s hostility towards him being due to the fact that she was Jewish. The document, of course, said no such thing."

Now here I have to say that the judge was being very charitable to James Price QC given the way The Telegraph. hurls bogus allegations of anti-semitism around sometimes.

Anyway, please read the whole judgment. I'm no lawyer and I would welcome any alternative view to my own. Here it is in html.

George Galloway can't take the foot out of his mouth.

George Galloway has a tendency to draw circles around himself and then argue that this is where the truth is. This time he took upon himself to define what BDS is, and did it in the Bull-in-China-Shop manner that is his trademark.

He was apparently invited to an Oxford debate club to debate a Zionist. He agreed. I have a lot of respect for people who are able to participate in such debates calmly. I don't. Of course it would be nice if we could just not talk to racists, but sometimes the situation requires engaging them, so one cannot strategically always avoid participating in such fora where racism is being defended and even with official representatives of the state.

Then it turned out that the person who was to take the other side of the debate is Israeli. Galloway stormed out, explaining later that,

I refused this evening at Oxford University to debate with an Israeli, a supporter of the apartheid state of Israel. The reason is simple: no recognition, no normalisation. Just boycott, divestment and sanctions, until the apartheid state is defeated. I never debate with Israelis nor speak to their media. (The Guardian)

Noble sentiment. Unfortunately pinned on the wrong argument.

Needless to say, that statement immediately prompted accusations of racism against him. That's a load of tosh. Racism is a structure of discrimination and the historic prejudices that accompany it. Israelis are not the victims of racism as Israelis. So being personally boycotted by Galloway does not make one a victim of racism. At worst it might be called "to be given a taste of one's own medicine".

The Western media however has a fetish with "reverse racism." so obviously they would echo those accusations and give them credibility. As activists, we should expect to be called "racists" at every opportunity when we challenge mainstream racism. That's a good reason not to make it too easy for those who want to misrepresent us.

And that's the problem, however, misrepresentation, and also lack of logic and consistency. Normalization is accepting the legitimacy of Israel's apartheid practices and adopting a "business as usual" attitude towards them. To the extent that a political debate is real, that is, that it takes place in a context with consequences (for example, reaction to news), it is not normalization even if one is debating the news with the IDF spokesperson. In so far that there was normalization involved in this particular case, it consisted in the form of this kind of club debate itself, a kind of sportive entertainment in which the audience comes to see two gladiators exchange blows and to judge who was a better "advocate." One could argue that participation in such a debate constitutes indeed normalization, because the form of the debate itself is apolitical, a form of entertainment. In that sense, such debates are no different than putting together an Israeli film and a Palestinian film and calling it a "multicultural" evening. But if that was the case, the debate constituted normalization because of the way it was structured, not because of the identity of the speakers.

Galloway however made it about that, defining normalization as "debating with Israelis." He further described the refusal to debate with Israelis as "Boycott, Divestments and Sanctions". The BDS National Committee issued a statement directly clarifying that neither boycotting Israelis for the fact that they are Israelis, nor boycotting racists for their racist views, was what BDS strategy consisted in (although, everybody can decide when, if and how they engage with either):

The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), the largest coalition of Palestinian unions, mass organisations, refugee networks and NGOs that leads and and sets the guidelines for the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, supports all principled action in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice and equality that is in line with universal human rights and international law.

In its 2005 BDS Call, Palestinian civil society has called for a boycott of Israel, its complicit institutions, international corporations that sustain its occupation, colonization and apartheid, and official representatives of the state of Israel and its complicit institutions. BDS does not call for a boycott of individuals because she or he happens to be Israeli or because they express certain views. Of course, any individual is free to decide who they do and do not engage with.
The global BDS movement has consistently adopted a rights-based approach and an anti-racist platform that rejects all forms of racism, including Islamophobia and anti-Semitism.

These guidelines and the fact that BDS has been initiated and is led by Palestinian civil society are major reasons behind the rapid growth and success that the BDS movement has enjoyed around the world. (http://www.bdsmovement.net/2013/bds-movement-position-on-boycott-of-individuals-10679 )

There may have been good reasons to agree to participate in that Oxford debate. And there may have been good reasons not to. Making it about the fact that the speaker has a certain passport, or about the fact that the organizers did not informe Galloway in advance about the nationality of the participants, is not a good reason for anything. It is an example of needlessly feeding the media reinforcement for its already existing prejudices, an own goal. It is still Galloway's right to choose to speak or not to speak on the same podium with whomever. But it would be nice if he didn't insist on confusing his personal flair for drama with principles.

Ingrams on George

Here's Richard Ingrams's take on George Galloway on the Hill. I have just received a text message from a friend in Ohio, saying that she has joined Respect following George Galloway's demolition job in Congress. Now, note the fact that "two of America's most prestigious papers, the Washington Post and the New York Times," failed to report the proceedings.

George and the dragon

Galloway's knack of making smug Americans mad is his star quality

Richard Ingrams
Sunday May 22, 2005
The Observer

When George Galloway wrote his autobiography the publishers asked me for a quote to put on the cover which hopefully would help to boost sales. My submission ran as follows: 'George Galloway is awful - but I like him!'

For some reason, however, it failed to find favour and was not used. Yet it seemed to be the response of many people last week who up till then had failed to warm to the newly-elected member for Bethnal Green and Bow. Whatever their doubts and misgivings, they could not conceal their delight in the way the MP had flown to Washington and berated a group of smug-looking senators sitting in judgment on him.

Journalists like myself will also have relished his description of our own Bush-supporting hack, Mr Christopher Hitchens, described, accurately, by the MP as a 'drink-sodden former Trotskyite popinjay'.

The general satisfaction here perhaps had less to do with whether or not people supported the invasion of Iraq and more simply to do with seeing pompous Americans made to look foolish. Because when it comes to pomposity there is nothing to beat a pompous American, and if anything their journalists are even more pompous than their politicians.

Thus it was noted that Galloway's telling remark that, contrary to what was alleged, he had met Saddam Hussein no more often than Donald Rumsfeld (who had actually sold him weapons), this was not reported the following day in two of America's most prestigious papers, the Washington Post and the New York Times.

Why ever not? The only possible explanation would be that they considered it disrespectful towards a distinguished American statesman.

Nick Cohen playing the dissident Jewish Rationalist philosopher?

Get this bit of weirdness. I got this comment today:

"Just to add that there was a small contingent from the Socialist Workers Party and there was a local anarchist and some Respect people with us" [this was a quote from my post on the cantata picket]

They say never judge a man by his friends. But, you know, on this occasion I think I *will*.

Shame on you for your self-loathing sophistry. There is a rich tradition in Judaism of critique and dialectic: by keeping close quarter with Galloway's disgusting, viscerally antisemitic mob, who do everything to close down debate or discussion they disagree with, you discredit your own case which might well be very good for a healthy debate on Judaism and the rights of Palestinians of all faiths or none to a state.

You fall into the classic and dangerous chasm of Jewish self-hatred and cannot, I am afraid, see the fascism and totalitarian-appeasement of your new bed-fellows. You ought to be ashamed and write no more until your mind is free of egregious nonsense.

Then the guy signs off as Baruch Spinoza. Well this Baruch Spinoza is no rationalist philosopher. It is none other than Old Nick himself or someone very close to him.

Let me explain. Down the right hand side of the screen I have a tracker. It tells me where hits have come from, the IP addresses of the computers that were used and other stuff like country, town, etc. So if someone comes here by looking up, say "Nick Cohen" on google, my tracker will tell me so and I can find whatever the user found on google if I click on the link within my tracker. Well Nick Cohen too has a tracker (only his is hidden) and tracked a hit on his site back to Jews sans frontieres. He then left the outrrageous comment above. I got the IP address, not from my tracker actually but from haloscan (the comments facility) and looked it up on the IP locator of my tracker. The comment was so nutty I thought it had come from America so I was surprised to see that it came from London. It showed the link to the site where the hit came from and it was this: http://www.nickcohen.net/stats/awstats.pl?framename=mainright.

Now if you click on the link you get a password dialogue box which means that Nick Cohen's tracker is password protected. Which in turn suggests that only he, or someone close to him, can use it. So was it you Nick or did you phone a friend?

What is so bizarre is that he calls me "self-loathing." We had that abuse hurled at us last night at the cantata. It's something the hard right likes to throw at people they consider to be insufficiently patriotic. It's something Jewish zionists throw at Jewish anti-zionists when they seek to, er, "close down debate or discussion they disagree with." But Old Nick Cohen went to eloquent lengths to deny being Jewish in a recent article and he's accusing me of self-hatred. Chutzpah on wheels!

Anyway, here's my response:

Not sure what you mean by sophistry here.

You'll have to explain the allegation of anti-semitism. Everyone I was with last night wanted equality not supremacy or inferiority.

You'll have to give some examples of "classic" self-hatred and explain why opposing a colonial settler state based on ethnic cleansing and segregationist laws is fascistic.

I'm sure "egregious" is a good word to use, I've seen Norman Finkelstein use it but I still haven't got round to looking it up.

Anyway, you're not Nick Cohen are you?

There are other comments too but my favourite is this:

I am not a member or supporter of the SWP and supported those who criticised its invitation to Gilad Atzmon. I am also not a member of Respect, and have always had the gravest suspicions of George Galloway.

However I have never seen any remark attributed to Galloway which could reasonably be interpreted as antisemitic. And on the two occasions I have heard him speak - once at a student meeting in Birmingham and once at a Stop the War meeting in Oxford - he launched a ferocious attack on questioners from the floor who made remarks that did appear antisemitic.

Some do accuse both Galloway and Respect and the SWP of opportunism in their attitude to Islamic fundamentalism and to some reactionary Arab regimes, as well as of communalism in their approach to elections.

Whatever the truth of the accusations, even if true they do not amount to antisemitism.

Some try to portray the SWP and Galloway as heirs to Oswald Mosley; for example the increasingly fruitcake 'democratic imperialists' at Harry's Place and the professional McCarthyite political thug Oliver Kamm, not to mention Jim Denham, the AWL's hysterically hyperventilating drag act imitation of Melanie Phillips.

They are all guilty of a variety of gutter politics which actually obscures any legitimate political criticisms that may, or even must, be made of those they target.

And it is surely the ultimate in chutzpah for someone repeating these politically illiterate hysterics to assume the name of an earlier Jewish heretic, who was a spectacular victim of persecution by the Jewish establishment of his day.

Get that Nick Cohen or friend of? How dare you assume the mantle of Baruch Spinoza whilst trying to "close down debate"?

UPDATE: It definitely was Nick Cohen. I just got this from his site:

nickcohen.net was launched in October 2005. The pages are maintained by Nick himself, based on a design by James Pittendreigh. The site is hosted and published by Tom who would like to thank Steven Thurgood and Neil Levine for their generous support.

I have tried writing to him and posting comments to his blog but he has now closed down his comments. And this from the man who came to my blog to denounce "Galloway's disgusting, viscerally antisemitic mob, who do everything to close down debate or discussion they disagree with." So, being kind, let's assume that the closure of his comments facility is a little glitch that had nothing to do with the great open debater himself.

New left blog

Well newish anyway. It's called "An Unrepentant Communist....". It's random posts on whatever takes the fancy of the blogger who's based in Ireland but spent some time in the UK and was involved with the Communist Party of Great Britain. Now I meant to say some stuff about what's in the blog but I've gone and distracted myself with what I just saw on the CPGB website. So go to "An Unrepentant Communist" where you can sample such delights as the Great Red Jukebox featuring Paul Robeson singing the Soviet anthem complete with fulsome praise for Comrade Stalin. But before I wander into what it was that distracted me, does anyone know why "An Unrepentant Communist...." is in quotes? Is it a quote? I think we should be told.

Now here's what distracted me:

MP George Galloway criticises Socialist Workers Party

"Unhealthy" internal relations, a lack of democratic decision-making, financial crisis and looming "oblivion". Last week, the Respect MP sent a scathing eight page document to all members of the Respect National Committee. The SWP leadership reacted furiously

Click here to read his document It was the best of times, it was the worst of times
Click here to read an extract from the SWP's internal Party Notes, reacting to the document
Of course, the next issue of the Weekly Worker (September 6) will be analysing and commenting on the document in detail

This is curious. I allowed my membership of Respect to lapse when I heard that the SWP had prevented Salma Yakoub from censuring Galloway over his Big Brother appearance. That showed a lack of democratic values, I thought. I also heard that Galloway was criticised over financial mismanagement at War on Want and that he was suspended from the UK parliament because of some financial issue over his Iraqi charity. And Galloway is accusing the SWP of financial mismanagement and lack of democracy. All we need now is for Gilad Atzmon's promoters at the SWP to accuse Galloway of betrayal. Let's just wait and see, shall we?