Tony Greenstein is anti-semantic

Go on Comment is free, make an ass of me. I say its free for zionists and Tony Greenstein rears his head arguing that "our politicians are using semantics to outlaw criticism of US and British foreign policy.

"the report on anti-semitism, which the government has accepted by upgrading the committee's status to that of a select committee (Jewish Chronicle, March 30 2007: "Police told to focus on hate crime"), is deeply disturbing in its cavalier approach to the definition of anti-semitism, which it conflates throughout with anti-Zionism.

Even the basis for the report itself is hyped and unconvincing. By the reports own' admission (paragraph 29), the year 2005 saw a fall of 14% in recorded anti-semitic incidents compared with the previous year. Of course each and every incident is to be condemned, but where, one might ask, is the all-parliamentary committee on incidents of anti-Muslim abuse; and what, one wonders, would be the level of recorded incidents?

What is more worrying is how anti-semitic incidents are defined. In Brighton and Hove there were two demonstrations against the Lebanon war last summer. Police from Sussex and Surrey swamped the second demonstration, alleging a "serious racial incident" had occurred.

The incident concerned a motorist who had yelled "terrorist" at an Arab demonstrator on the previous march and got into a verbal altercation as a result. Despite a number of eyewitnesses, the police made no attempt to investigate the alleged crime. Instead, it was used as a pretext for some of the heaviest policing of a demonstration, including the use of racial profiling against Arabs, that I have ever seen. It has taken a six-month campaign for Brighton police to accept that the right to demonstrate is not a privilege handed down from on high.

In the course of a conversation I secretly recorded, Brighton's chief of police, Kevin Moore, admitted that before the demonstration, "We made contact with the local Jewish community leaders within the synagogues." In other words, it was the police who made the association between the bombing of Lebanon and the local Jewish community. And in an equally revealing remark, Moore let slip that the police had received a single complaint about the march and, because a "racially motivated incident is one which is declared by any person to be racially motivated", had therefore classified the march as anti-semitic!

There's more to this but I'm in a rush. Check out the whole thing and maybe leave a comment. I was exaggerating for effect when I said that Comment is free for zionists but they are very well organised and can swamp comments sections with complete dross if they're allowed to. So leave a coherent comment and if you notice zionists breaking the "talk policy" then click on "report" and see how you get on. Tell Georgina Henry I sent you.