Softpanorama

May the source be with you, but remember the KISS principle ;-)
Home Switchboard Unix Administration Red Hat TCP/IP Networks Neoliberalism Toxic Managers
(slightly skeptical) Educational society promoting "Back to basics" movement against IT overcomplexity and  bastardization of classic Unix

Softpanorama

May the source be with you, but remember the KISS principle ;-)
Home Switchboard Unix Administration Red Hat TCP/IP Networks Neoliberalism Toxic Managers
(slightly skeptical) Educational society promoting "Back to basics" movement against IT overcomplexity and  bastardization of classic Unix

Attack on Corbin

  The first rule of political hypocrisy: Justify your actions by the need to protect the weak and vulnerable
...If you bomb Syria, do not admit you did it to install your puppet regime or to lay a pipeline. Say you did it to save the Aleppo kids gassed by Assad the Butcher. If you occupy Afghanistan, do not admit you make a handsome profit smuggling heroin; say you came to protect the women. If you want to put your people under total surveillance, say you did it to prevent hate groups target the powerless and diverse.

Protecting the Jews, by Israel Shamir, unz.com Jun 24, 2019

News Israel lobby Recommended Links Weaponizing anti-Semitism Dual Loyalty problem Does Israel attempts to rig the US elections?
Attack on Corbin  Syria civil war Iraq War Iran saber-rattling Les Wexner and Mega group Epstein as the symbol of moral degradation of the US elite
Israel as the largest recipient of US aid The crazies in the basement: Russophobia of Eastern European Diaspora Amorality and criminality of neoliberal elite   Neocon foreign policy is a disaster for the USA  Wolfowitz Doctrine "F*ck the EU": State Department neocons show EU its real place
War is Racket Media-Military-Industrial Complex Nation under attack meme Madeleine Albright Hillary "Warmonger" Clinton Demonization of Putin
Robert Kagan Anatol Leiven on American Messianism National Security State / Surveillance State Predator state National Socialism and Military Keysianism Leo Strauss and the Neocons
Neoliberalism as a New form of Corporatism Neocolonialism as Financial Imperialism IMF as the key institution for neoliberal debt enslavement Machiavellism vs Mayberry Machiavellians Gangster Capitalism: The United States and the Globalization of Organized Crime Power abroad rests on justice and decency at home
The Deep State Amorality and criminality of neoliberal elite Corporatist Corruption: Systemic Fraud under Clinton-Bush-Obama Regime Two Party System as polyarchy Neoliberal Propaganda: Journalism In the Service of the Powerful Few From EuroMaidan to EuroAnschluss
Fighting Russophobia  War is racket  Media domination strategy  Bureaucracy as a Political Coalition Politically Incorrect Humor Etc

IS Labour's National Executive Committee (NEC) adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Association's "non-legally binding working definition" of anti-Semitism The definition states:

"Anti-Semitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities."

Please not that the state of Israel and the ideology of Zionism (including Zionist lobby) are not included in this definition.  In other words critique directed toward those two entities does not represent anti-Semitism.

The "illustrations" which accompany this definition include some which are uncontroversial for any fair-minded and relatively rational person. The uncontroversial illustrations of anti-Semitism includes:

But there are also  weaponized accusations of anti-Semitism  that are devised to suppress of critique of Israel as a racist ethnostate and Zionism as far-right nationalism, a supremacist ideology. Among them:

Zionist lobby which are supported by a part of financial oligarchy  tries to occupy and control the power centers of the West. They want three things:

  1. To be placed above criticism
  2. Supported unconditionally including large military support
  3. Modifying foreign policy objectives to suit Israel goals in the region.

Top Visited
Switchboard
Latest
Past week
Past month

NEWS CONTENTS

Old News ;-)

[Dec 08, 2019] Politization of anti-Semitism as any anti-Israel position: anti-Semite is any person who does not contribute to Jewish settlements; who does not believe in God-chosen Jewish nation being above all laws and displace Palestinians by Israel Shamir December 7, 2019 2,000 Words

Dec 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

129 Comments Reply

England and France, two antagonists, two mainstays of European civilisation, are simultaneously engulfed in paroxysm of Judeophilia. The result of the forthcoming very important parliamentary elections in Britain hinges on this issue, with Labour and Tories competing who will express their love of Jews more profusely, while the Jews can't decide whom they loath less. France, after a year of the middle-class Yellow Vests rebellion, enters the fresh working class uprising with million strikers rioting on the streets, but its parliament finds prime time to ponder and rule how Frenchmen should love Jews and hate those who hate them. What is the meaning of this charade?

Surely they do not argue about Jewish cuisine. While palatable, it is rarely more than that. A proof can be found in Israel, where Arab food rules, Japanese is recognised, Italian cherished but Jewish cuisine shines by its absence. It is not Jewish noses, though a significant feature of facial anatomy, they are not more elaborate or prominent than, say, Sicilian. It is all about ideas.

Judeophilia, love of Jews is a troublesome symptom of a dangerous malady, of elites' estrangement from its working classes, the malady presently in full bloom in France and England. Judeophilia strikes divided societies and could lead to their collapse much faster than its Siamese counter-twin, antisemitism. It did so in the past, most famously in Kingdom of Poland, where the szlachta (nobility) loved Jews and despised ordinary folks, the bydlo ( rednecks), until their state collapsed. In a Christian, or post-Christian society, Jews are a symbol, a signifier of a certain attitude and behaviour that is profoundly non-Christian.

Jews are a small minority that defies the large society and opposes it. Jews care for themselves and disregard the majority and its needs; they have no scruples beyond prescribed by the criminal law; they feel no communality with the majority. Jews do not share communion with majority, and do not appeal to the same deity. Jews prosper when the majority regresses. They are fast to see a break and use it for their advantage.

We won't enter a discussion whether the real Jews fit the description, and to what extent. That is how they are perceived by those who love them and who hate them. There were Jews who acted against the paradigm, and they weren't considered 'good for Jews'. Bruno Kreisky, the Austrian Chancellor, Lazar Kaganovich, the Soviet official, Leon Trotsky or Torquemada weren't 'good for Jews'. And there are plentiful Gentiles who were considered 'good for Jews', like Hillary Clinton or Tony Blair. Usually they were bad for everybody else. So, while we shall defer our judgment on 'real Jews', there is no doubt that philo-Semites are bad for your health.

The dominant economic and political paradigm, Neo-Liberalism claims that Jewish attitude is the right one, and that we all should emulate Jews. This is an impossible claim; a majority can't emulate a minority. A society whose members relate to each other as Jews-to-Gentiles is a cannibals' cabal, and that is exactly what happens in our world. Jews prosper because they are few; if all emulate Jews, the result is misery, not prosperity . An all-Jewish society can't exist; Israel is a place where Thai, Chinese, Ukrainians and Palestinians work, the Russians and Druze guard them, while Jews do usual Jewish things.

In England, the Jews are divided about Boris Johnson. They do not want Brexit to succeed, but the access of Corbyn scares them even more. Corbyn is an avowed enemy of no, not of Jews, but of neo-liberalism. Combine it with his rejection of Israeli politics, and you come to the sum of anti-Jewish attitudes. Yes, Corbyn is anti-Jewish, if you wish, even anti-Semite, i.e. a man whom Jews hate, for he is against both Jewish modes of operation, the capitalist and the Zionist. He is perfectly ok with people of Jewish origin, he has no prejudice, he is no racist, but it is irrelevant. His victory won't be 'good for Jews', neither for Jews who bleed Palestine, nor for Jews who prosper at the expense of the British worker. Perhaps Corbyn would be wonderful for Jewish workers, but they are not represented in the Board of Deputies , and the Chief Rabbi does not care for them.

On the international scene, Corbyn is not a friend of NATO. If he could he would take the UK out of this obsolete military alliance. So would President Trump, who is looking for a justification to steer the US out of NATO. Jews do not like this attitude. For them, the US and the UK should stay in NATO, for NATO is a strong defender and supporter of the Jewish state.

Brits have a difficult choice in the coming elections. Johnson is not too bad, and his stand against EU should be applauded. Corbyn is likely to seek compromise on every position, including Brexit, immigration, NATO, but his initial stand is good. For a working man, he is the right choice. And the Jewish attitude to him is a strong indicator: of the two contenders, Corbyn would be better for those who do not emulate Jews.

France

In France, the Jews are very close to power, and it is usually a sign that things do not go well for native middle and working classes. Indeed things go from bad to worse. While a million of French workers demonstrated against Macron's government, the French parliamentarians discussed antisemitism. Not surprisingly, they accepted the definition produced by a Jewish organisation. Demurring against this definition caused a lot of trouble for Corbyn; Macron had learned a lesson.

I am all for such definitions; their scope is too narrow, if anything. I'd prefer a broad definition that would describe as anti-Semite any person who attends a church or a mosque; who does not contribute to Jewish settlements; who does not believe in God-chosen Jewish nation being above all mortal laws. Maybe then the Gentiles would be healed of their fear of being labelled 'anti-Semite'. This fear kills their souls more than the accusation. Though, best of people, Shakespeare, St John the Divine, Dostoyevsky and Chesterton are considered anti-Semites, and it did not diminish their fame and glory.

You can't escape this label; if they want they will attach it to your name. Likewise, a man can't avoid being called a male chauvinist and accused of harassment by a radical feminist. Anna Ardin, the Swedish feminist who accused Julian Assange of rape and destroyed his life as surely as if she'd knifed him, also accused a student of harassment because he avoided looking at her. Such accusations should be shrugged off.

France is not doing well because its elites are engaged in the rip-off and sale of their country's industrial, political, and cultural assets. In the last few years, France had lost Alstom, Pechiney, Technip, Alcatel. These premium assets were lost to US companies. French businessmen and officials who were supposed to care about French heirlooms, betrayed their trust and defrauded their country, that's why France is not doing well.

Not all of these treacherous men are Jewish, not by a long chalk. But Jews are invaluable partners in such publicity-shy schemes, and that's why: "The Shoah Memorial is a secular temple for the entirety of France's post-Christian elite. Holocaust foundations, Jewish communal projects, Jewish benevolent societies and Jewish philanthropies allow the Jewish community to discourage reporting affairs they are involved in. They can facilitate the deals in obscurity" – I was told by a knowledgeable Jewish person, well versed with goings-on within the French Jewish community and in the higher business, banking and political circles of the Republic. I'll call him JT (I shall share more of his knowledge in the next essay – ISH). –

"Jewishness has once again become a way of avoiding scrutiny and accountability. Only anti-Semites dare to see a link between the sale of Alstom, Macron's career, the Rothschilds, and the Jewish community." Wink wink.

"At two crucial moments Jewish communal support was decisive to Macron's political career; first, at the second tour of the French elections, in which major Jewish organizations unanimously cajoled and preached the Macron vote to all and sundry; second, to suppress the Yellow Vests Uprising. Only anti-Semites dare to think the Rothschilds had anything to do with either."

JT is very critical with France and French people: "French White gentiles are ashamed of their past and identity, flee into hedonism, profligacy, drugs, anti-depressants, libertinism, pornography, and homosexuality. Their Stockholm syndrome is driven by an extra-European-birth-cohort whose numbers now exceed that of the native population. Unwilling to fight for their land and heritage, ignorant of their past and increasingly illiterate, their love of France is futile, superfluous, and incoherent at best.

"As France increasingly resembles a North African backwater, its Jews, the chief facilitators of this demographic shift, have become its chief losers, and a process of Jewish de-assimilation from the Republic has began. French Jews cannot identify with a society on its last legs, and a spineless native population. In such circumstances, French Jews shift their focus to survival and opportunism, not to national defence. Israel, Miami, New York have become second homes. France's Jewish patricians (all to the last dual-citizens since the fifties), are helpless. Their ties to an increasingly hard-up Israel and to the powerful Jewish American community make them leaders of the fire-sale of France's industrial, political, and cultural assets. France is sliding into failed nation status in which everyone is abandoning ship."

French Jews help the US to rob France, says JT. The American companies supported by all-powerful DoJ are the main reason why France does not prosper. When France attempted to tax American Internet companies (Amazon, Google, Facebook) Trump threatened to slap 100% custom duties on French wine. The right choice for France is to part the company with the Yankee predator, to cease paying billions of fines for breaking unjustifiable unilateral American 'sanctions', to part with NATO and to laugh at Trump's demands to pay more for unnecessary American protection. But France, and other European nations are hesitant. They do not jump at the opportunity offered by Trump's stupidity and arrogance, though the Orange man did everything he could to free the Europeans. He opened the gates, he insulted them and kicked them, but they refused to leave the stables.

An Excellent American expert in International relations, Prof Michael Brenner of Pittsburgh U, has noted:

"Europe's political class is psychologically unable to break free of its dominant/subordinate relationship with America. This pattern endures despite the presence of a mentally impaired man in the White House. The prognosis, therefore: 'Wither thou goest, we go!" American leaders have exploited this compulsive deference ruthlessly. It allows Washington to ensure European fealty at virtually no cost. Moreover, they can extract compliance across a wide array of non-security issues – commercial, financial, IT (warring against Huawei), political, diplomatic – by drawing on the same free-floating loyalties.

Europe has been obedient to the siren call of Uncle Sam in following it over the cliff time after time – in Afghanistan, in Iraq (France excepted), on Russia, on Iran (by acquiescing in severe sanctions), on Saudi Arabia, in Yemen, in embracing Bolsonaro (invited Keynoter at Davos), even on Venezuela and Bolivia. The ultimate test will come were Washington to pick a fight with China that it, and the West, cannot win; will Europe then take the final, fatal leap hand-in-hand?"

It appears that love of Jews is an integral element of this fealty, together with LGBT nonsense and other peculiar American imports. Love of Jews and love of America – are they separable at all? If and when France and England regain their independence, their Jews would recover their normal place in their societies. Admittedly, it won't be a place at the top, but it would be a respectful place of equals in a healthy society, rather than a place of a symbol and a facilitator of foreign influence on the ruins of Europe, as it is now.

[Dec 07, 2019] This is clearly one of the most dirty tricks played by UK Israel lobby, if we talk about Corbin. Baseless charge of anti-Semitism became a political smear, the way to destroy political opponent.

Zionist McCarthyism?
Notable quotes:
"... Charges of anti-Semitism against Corbyn are highly suspect. From what I can see, they all stem from Corbyn's remarks supporting Palestinian rights in the face of the Israeli government's institutionalized racism and oppression of Palestinians. ..."
"... Yes. This is clearly one of the most dirty tricks played by UK Israel lobby, if we talk about Corbin. Baseless charge of anti-Semitism became a political smear, the way to destroy political opponent. ..."
Dec 07, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

JohnH -> anne... , December 06, 2019 at 03:53 PM

Charges of anti-Semitism against Corbyn are highly suspect. From what I can see, they all stem from Corbyn's remarks supporting Palestinian rights in the face of the Israeli government's institutionalized racism and oppression of Palestinians.

If Bernie were not Jewish, there would have been an enormous smear campaign against him for exactly the same reasons.

likbez -> JohnH... , December 07, 2019 at 01:53 AM


Charges of anti-Semitism against Corbyn are highly suspect. From what I can see, they all stem from Corbyn's remarks supporting Palestinian rights in the face of the Israeli government's institutionalized racism and oppression of Palestinians.

Yes. This is clearly one of the most dirty tricks played by UK Israel lobby, if we talk about Corbin. Baseless charge of anti-Semitism became a political smear, the way to destroy political opponent.

Much like charge of "Putin stooge" in the USA. And Russophobia is very similar to Anti-Semitism, if you think about it. It serves as a kind of politically correct anti-Semitism.

[Dec 04, 2019] American Pravda the Nature of Anti-Semitism by Ron Unz

Notable quotes:
"... Now consider the notion of "anti-Semitism." Google searches for that word and its close variants reveal over 24 million hits, and over the years I'm sure I've seen that term tens of thousands of times in my books and newspapers, and heard it endlessly reported in my electronic media and entertainment. But thinking it over, I'm not sure that I can ever recall a single real-life instance I've personally encountered, nor have I heard of almost any such cases from my friends or acquaintances. Indeed, the only persons I've ever come across making such claims were individuals who bore unmistakable signs of serious psychological imbalance. When the daily newspapers are brimming with lurid tales of hideous demons walking among us and attacking people on every street corner, but you yourself have never actually seen one, you may gradually grow suspicious. ..."
"... It has also become apparent that a considerable fraction of what passes for "anti-Semitism" these days seems to stretch that term beyond all recognition. A few weeks ago an unknown 28-year-old Democratic Socialist named Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez scored a stunning upset primary victory over a top House Democrat in New York City, and naturally received a blizzard of media coverage as a result. However, when it came out that she had denounced the Israeli government for its recent massacre of over 140 unarmed Palestinian protesters in Gaza, cries of "anti-Semite" soon appeared, and according to Google there are now over 180,000 such hits combining her name and that harsh accusatory term. Similarly, just a few days ago the New York Times ran a major story reporting that all of Britain's Jewish newspapers had issued an "unprecedented" denunciation of Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party, describing it as an "existential threat" to the Jewish community for the anti-Semitism it was fostering; but this apparently amounted to nothing more than its willingness to sharply criticize the Israeli government for its long mistreatment of the Palestinians. ..."
Aug 05, 2018 | www.unz.com

I recently published a couple of long essays, and although they primarily focused on other matters, the subject of anti-Semitism was a strong secondary theme. In that regard, I mentioned my shock at discovering a dozen or more years ago that several of the most self-evidently absurd elements of anti-Semitic lunacy, which I had always dismissed without consideration, were probably correct. It does seem likely that a significant number of traditionally-religious Jews did indeed occasionally commit the ritual murder of Christian children in order to use their blood in certain religious ceremonies, and also that powerful Jewish international bankers did play a large role in financing the establishment of Bolshevik Russia .

When one discovers that matters of such enormous moment not only apparently occurred but that they had been successfully excluded from nearly all of our histories and media coverage for most of the last one hundred years, the implications take some time to properly digest. If the most extreme "anti-Semitic canards" were probably true, then surely the whole notion of anti-Semitism warrants a careful reexamination.

All of us obtain our knowledge of the world by two different channels. Some things we discover from our own personal experiences and the direct evidence of our senses, but most information comes to us via external sources such as books and the media, and a crisis may develop when we discover that these two pathways are in sharp conflict. The official media of the old USSR used to endlessly trumpet the tremendous achievements of its collectivized agricultural system, but when citizens noticed that there was never any meat in their shops, "Pravda" became a watchword for "Lies" rather than "Truth."

Now consider the notion of "anti-Semitism." Google searches for that word and its close variants reveal over 24 million hits, and over the years I'm sure I've seen that term tens of thousands of times in my books and newspapers, and heard it endlessly reported in my electronic media and entertainment. But thinking it over, I'm not sure that I can ever recall a single real-life instance I've personally encountered, nor have I heard of almost any such cases from my friends or acquaintances. Indeed, the only persons I've ever come across making such claims were individuals who bore unmistakable signs of serious psychological imbalance. When the daily newspapers are brimming with lurid tales of hideous demons walking among us and attacking people on every street corner, but you yourself have never actually seen one, you may gradually grow suspicious.

Indeed, over the years some of my own research has uncovered a sharp contrast between image and reality. As recently as the late 1990s, leading mainstream media outlets such as The New York Times were still denouncing a top Ivy League school such as Princeton for the supposed anti-Semitism of its college admissions policy, but a few years ago when I carefully investigated that issue in quantitative terms for my lengthy Meritocracy analysis I was very surprised to reach a polar-opposite conclusion. According to the best available evidence, white Gentiles were over 90% less likely to be enrolled at Harvard and the other Ivies than were Jews of similar academic performance, a truly remarkable finding. If the situation had been reversed and Jews were 90% less likely to be found at Harvard than seemed warranted by their test scores, surely that fact would be endlessly cited as the absolute smoking-gun proof of horrendous anti-Semitism in present-day America.

It has also become apparent that a considerable fraction of what passes for "anti-Semitism" these days seems to stretch that term beyond all recognition. A few weeks ago an unknown 28-year-old Democratic Socialist named Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez scored a stunning upset primary victory over a top House Democrat in New York City, and naturally received a blizzard of media coverage as a result. However, when it came out that she had denounced the Israeli government for its recent massacre of over 140 unarmed Palestinian protesters in Gaza, cries of "anti-Semite" soon appeared, and according to Google there are now over 180,000 such hits combining her name and that harsh accusatory term. Similarly, just a few days ago the New York Times ran a major story reporting that all of Britain's Jewish newspapers had issued an "unprecedented" denunciation of Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party, describing it as an "existential threat" to the Jewish community for the anti-Semitism it was fostering; but this apparently amounted to nothing more than its willingness to sharply criticize the Israeli government for its long mistreatment of the Palestinians.

One plausible explanation of the strange contrast between media coverage and reality might be that anti-Semitism once did loom very large in real life, but dissipated many decades ago, while the organizations and activists focused on detecting and combating that pernicious problem have remained in place, generating public attention based on smaller and smaller issues, with the zealous Jewish activists of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) representing a perfect example of this situation. As an even more striking illustration, the Second World War ended over seventy years ago, but what historian Norman Finkelstein has so aptly labeled "the Holocaust Industry" has grown ever larger and more entrenched in our academic and media worlds so that scarcely a day passes without one or more articles relating to that topic appearing in my major morning newspapers. Given this situation, a serious exploration of the true nature of anti-Semitism should probably avoid the mere media phantoms of today and focus on the past, when the condition might still have been widespread in daily life.

Many observers have pointed to the aftermath of the Second World War as marking a huge watershed in the public acceptability of anti-Semitism both in America and Europe, so perhaps a proper appraisal of that cultural phenomenon should focus on the years before that global conflict. However, the overwhelming role of Jews in the Bolshevik Revolution and other bloody Communist seizures of power quite naturally made them objects of considerable fear and hatred throughout the inter-war years, so the safest course might be to push that boundary back a little further and confine our attention to the period prior to the outbreak of the First World War. The pogroms in Czarist Russia, the Dreyfus Affair in France, and the lynching of Leo Frank in the American South come to mind as some of the most famous examples from that period.

Lindemann's discussion of the often difficult relations between Russia's restive Jewish minority and its huge Slavic majority is also quite interesting, and he provides numerous instances in which major incidents, supposedly demonstrating the enormously strong appeal of vicious anti-Semitism, were quite different than has been suggested by the legend. The famous Kishinev Pogrom of 1903 was obviously the result of severe ethnic tension in that city, but contrary to the regular accusations of later writers, there seems absolutely no evidence of high-level government involvement, and the widespread claims of 700 dead that so horrified the entire world were grossly exaggerated, with only 45 killed in the urban rioting. Chaim Weizmann, the future president of Israel, later promoted the story that he himself and some other brave Jewish souls had personally defended their people with revolvers in hand even as they saw the mutilated bodies of 80 Jewish victims. This account was totally fictional since Weizmann happened to have been be hundreds of miles away when the riots occurred.

Although a tendency to lie and exaggerate was hardly unique to the political partisans of Russian Jewry, the existence of a powerful international network of Jewish journalists and Jewish-influenced media outlets ensured that such concocted propaganda stories might receive enormous worldwide distribution, while the truth followed far behind, if at all.

For related reasons, international outrage was often focused on the legal confinement of most of Russia's Jews to the "Pale of Settlement," suggesting some sort of tight imprisonment; but that area was the traditional home of the Jewish population and encompassed a landmass almost as large as France and Spain combined. The growing impoverishment of Eastern European Jews during that era was often assumed to be a consequence of hostile government policy, but the obvious explanation was extraordinary Jewish fecundity, which far outstripped that of their Slavic fellow countrymen, and quickly led them to outgrow the available spots in any of their traditional "middleman" occupations, a situation worsened by their total disinclination to engage in agriculture or other primary-producer activities. Jewish communities expressed horror at the risk of losing their sons to the Czarist military draft, but this was simply the flip-side of the full Russian citizenship they had been granted, and no different from what was faced by their non-Jewish neighbors.

Certainly the Jews of Russia suffered greatly from widespread riots and mob attacks in the generation prior to World War I, and these did sometimes have substantial government encouragement, especially in the aftermath of the very heavy Jewish role in the 1905 Revolution. But we should keep in mind that a Jewish plotter had been implicated in the killing of Czar Alexander II, and Jewish assassins had also struck down several top Russian ministers and numerous other government officials. If the last decade or two had seen American Muslims assassinate a sitting U.S. President, various leading Cabinet members, and a host of our other elected and appointed officials, surely the position of Muslims in this country would have become a very uncomfortable one.

As Lindemann candidly describes the tension between Russia's very rapidly growing Jewish population and its governing authorities, he cannot avoid mentioning the notorious Jewish reputation for bribery, corruption, and general dishonesty, with numerous figures of all political backgrounds noting that the remarkable Jewish propensity to commit perjury in the courtroom led to severe problems in the effective administration of justice. The eminent American sociologist E.A. Ross, writing in 1913, characterized the regular behavior of Eastern European Jews in very similar terms .

Lindemann also allocates a short chapter to discussing the 1911 Beilis Affair, in which a Ukrainian Jew was accused of the ritual murder of a young Gentile boy, an incident that generated a great deal of international attention and controversy. Based on the evidence presented, the defendant seems likely to have been innocent, although the obvious lies he repeatedly told police interrogators hardly helped foster that impression, and "the system worked" in that he was ultimately found innocent by the jurors at his trial. However, a few pages are also given to a much less well-known ritual murder case in late 19th century Hungary, in which the evidence of Jewish guilt seemed far stronger, though the author hardly accepted the possible reality of such an outlandish crime. Such reticence was quite understandable since the publication of Ariel Toaff's remarkable volume on the subject was still a dozen years in the future.

Lindemann subsequently expanded his examination of historical anti-Semitism into a much broader treatment, Esau's Tears , which appeared in 1997. In this volume, he added comparative studies of the social landscape in Germany, Britain, Italy, and several other European countries, and demonstrated that the relationship between Jews and non-Jews varied greatly across different locations and time periods. But although I found his analysis quite useful and interesting, the extraordinarily harsh attacks his text provoked from some outraged Jewish academics seemed even more intriguing.

For example, Judith Laikin Elkin opened her discussion in The American Historical Review by describing the book as a "545-page polemic" a strange characterization of a book so remarkably even-handed and factually-based in its scholarship. Writing in Commentary , Robert Wistrich was even harsher, stating that merely reading the book had been a painful experience for him, and his review seemed filled with spittle-flecked rage. Unless these individuals had somehow gotten copies of a different book, I found their attitudes simply astonishing.

I was not alone in such a reaction. Richard S. Levy of the University of Illinois, a noted scholar of anti-Semitism, expressed amazement at Wistrich's seemingly irrational outburst, while Paul Gottfried, writing in Chronicles , mildly suggested that Lindemann had "touched raw nerves." Indeed, Gottfried's own evaluation quite reasonably criticized Lindemann for perhaps being a little too even-handed, sometimes presenting numerous conflicting analyzes without choosing between them. For those interested, a good discussion of the book by Alan Steinweis, a younger scholar specializing in the same topic, is conveniently available online .

The remarkable ferocity with which some Jewish writers attacked Lindemann's meticulous attempt to provide an accurate history of anti-Semitism may carry more significance than merely an exchange of angry words in low-circulation academic publications. If our mainstream media shapes our reality, scholarly books and articles based upon them tend to set the contours of that media coverage. And the ability of a relatively small number of agitated and energetic Jews to police the acceptable boundaries of historical narratives may have enormous consequences for our larger society, deterring scholars from objectively reporting historical facts and preventing students from discovering them.

The undeniable truth is that for many centuries Jews usually constituted a wealthy and privileged segment of the population in nearly all the European countries in which they resided, and quite frequently they based their livelihood upon the heavy exploitation of a downtrodden peasantry. Even without any differences in ethnicity, language, or religion, such conditions almost invariably provoke hostility. The victory of Mao's Communist forces in China was quickly followed by the brutal massacre of a million or more Han Chinese landlords by the Han Chinese poor peasants who regarded them as cruel oppressors, with William Hinton's classic Fanshen describing the unfortunate history that unfolded in one particular village. When similar circumstances led to violent clashes in Eastern Europe between Slavs and Jews, does it really make logical sense to employ a specialized term such as "anti-Semitism" to describe that situation?

Furthermore, some of the material presented in Lindemann's rather innocuous text might also lead to potentially threatening ideas. Consider, for example, the notorious Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion , almost certainly fictional, but hugely popular and influential during the years following World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution. The fall of so many longstanding Gentile dynasties and their replacement by new regimes such as Soviet Russia and Weimar Germany, which were heavily dominated by their tiny Jewish minorities, quite naturally fed suspicions of a worldwide Jewish plot, as did the widely discussed role of Jewish international bankers in producing those political outcomes.

Over the decades, there has been much speculation about the possible inspiration for the Protocols , but although Lindemann makes absolutely no reference to that document, he does provide a very intriguing possible candidate. Jewish-born British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli certainly ranked as one of the most influential figures of the late 19th century, and in his novel Coningsby , he has the character representing Lord Lionel Rothschild boast about the existence of a vast and secret network of powerful international Jews , who stand near the head of almost every major nation, quietly controlling their governments from behind the scenes. If one of the world's most politically well-connected Jews eagerly promoted such notions, was Henry Ford really so unreasonable in doing the same?

Lindemann also notes Disraeli's focus on the extreme importance of race and racial origins, a central aspect of traditional Jewish religious doctrine. He reasonably suggests that this must surely have had a huge influence upon the rise of those political ideas, given that Disraeli's public profile and stature were so much greater than the mere writers or activists whom our history books usually place at center stage. In fact, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, a leading racial theorist, actually cited Disraeli as a key source for his ideas. Jewish intellectuals such as Max Nordau and Cesare Lombroso are already widely recognized as leading figures in the rise of the racial science of that era, but Disraeli's under-appreciated role may have actually been far greater. The deep Jewish roots of European racialist movements are hardly something that many present-day Jews would want widely known.

One of the harsh Jewish critics of Esau's Tears denounced Cambridge University Press for even allowing the book to appear in print, and although that major work is easily available in English, there are numerous other cases where an important but discordant version of historical reality has been successfully blocked from publication. For decades most Americans would have ranked Nobel Laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn as among the world's greatest literary figures, and his Gulag Archipelago alone sold over 10 million copies. But his last work was a massive two-volume account of the tragic 200 years of shared history between Russians and Jews, and despite its 2002 release in Russian and numerous other world languages, there has yet to be an authorized English translation, though various partial editions have circulated on the Internet in samizdat form.

ORDER IT NOW

At one point, a full English version was briefly available for sale at Amazon.com and I purchased it. Glancing through a few sections, the work seemed quite even-handed and innocuous to me, but it seemed to provide a far more detailed and uncensored account than anything else previously available, which obviously was the problem. The Bolshevik Revolution resulted in the deaths of many tens of millions of people worldwide, and the overwhelming Jewish role in its leadership would become more difficult to erase from historical memory if Solzhenitsyn's work were easily available. Also, his candid discussion of the economic and political behavior of Russian Jewry in pre-revolutionary times directly conflicted with the hagiography widely promoted by Hollywood and the popular media. Historian Yuri Slezkine's award-winning 2004 book The Jewish Century provided many similar facts, but his treatment was far more cursory and his public stature not remotely the same.

Near the end of his life, Solzhenitsyn gave his political blessing to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Russia's leaders honored him upon his death, while his Gulag volumes are now enshrined as mandatory reading in the standard high school curriculum of today's overwhelmingly Christian Russia. But even as his star rose again in his own homeland, it seems to have sharply fallen in our own country, and his trajectory may eventually relegate him to nearly un-person status.

A couple of years after the release of Solzhenitsyn's controversial final book, an American writer named Anne Applebaum published a thick history bearing the same title Gulag , and her work received enormously favorable media coverage and won her a Pulitzer Prize; I have even heard claims that her book has been steadily replacing that earlier Gulag on many college reading lists. But although Jews constituted a huge fraction of the top leadership of the Soviet Gulag system during its early decades, as well as that of the dreaded NKVD which supplied the inmates, nearly her entire focus on her own ethnic group during Soviet times is that of victims rather than victimizers. And by a remarkable irony of fate, she shares a last name with one of the top Bolshevik leaders, Hirsch Apfelbaum, who concealed his own ethnic identity by calling himself Grigory Zinoviev.

ORDER IT NOW

The striking decline in Solzhenitsyn's literary status in the West came just a decade or two after an even more precipitous collapse in the reputation of David Irving , and for much the same reason. Irving probably ranked as the most internationally successful British historian of the last one hundred years and a renowned scholar of World War II, but his extensive reliance on primary source documentary evidence posed an obvious threat to the official narrative promoted by Hollywood and wartime propaganda. When he published his magisterial Hitler's War , this conflict between myth and reality came into the open, and an enormous wave of attacks and vilification was unleashed, gradually leading to his purge from respectability and eventually even his imprisonment.

These important examples may help to explain the puzzling contrast between the behavior of Jews in the aggregate and Jews as individuals. Observers have noticed that even fairly small Jewish minorities may often have a major impact upon the far larger societies that host them. But on the other hand, in my experience at least, a large majority of individual Jews do not seem all that different in their personalities or behavior than their non-Jewish counterparts. So how does a community whose individual mean is not so unusual generate what seems to be such a striking difference in collective behavior? I think the answer may involve the existence of information choke-points, and the ability of relatively small numbers of particularly zealous and agitated Jews in influencing and controlling these.

We live our lives constantly immersed in media narratives, and these allow us to decide the rights and wrongs of a situation. The vast majority of people, Jew and Gentile alike, are far more likely to take strong action if they are convinced that their cause is a just one. This is obviously the basis for war-time propaganda.

Now suppose that a relatively small number of zealous Jewish partisans are known to always attack and denounce journalists or authors who accurately describe Jewish misbehavior. Over time, this ongoing campaign of intimidation may cause many important facts to be left on the cutting-room floor, or even gradually expel from mainstream respectability those writers who refuse to conform to such pressures. Meanwhile, similar small numbers of Jewish partisans frequently exaggerate the misdeeds committed against Jews, sometimes piling their exaggerations upon past exaggerations already produced by a previous round of such zealots.

Eventually, these two combined trends may take a complex and possibly very mixed historical record and transform it into a simple morality-play, with innocent Jews tremendously injured by vicious Jew-haters. And as this morality-play becomes established it deepens the subsequent intensity of other Jewish-activists, who redouble their demands that the media "stop vilifying Jews" and covering up the supposed evils inflicted upon them. An unfortunate circle of distortion following exaggeration following distortion can eventually produce a widely accepted historical account that bears little resemblance to the reality of what actually happened.

So as a result, the vast majority of quite ordinary Jews, who would normally behave in quite ordinary ways, are misled by this largely fictional history, and rather understandably become greatly outraged at all the horrible things that had been done to their suffering people, some of which are true and some of which are not, while remaining completely ignorant of the other side of the ledger.

Furthermore, this situation is exacerbated by the common tendency of Jews to "cluster" together, perhaps respresenting just one or two percent of the total population, but often constituting 20% or 40% or 60% of their immediate peer-group, especially in certain professions. Under such conditions, the ideas or emotional agitation of some Jews probably permeates others around them, often provoking additional waves of indignation.

As a rough analogy, a small quantity of uranium is relatively inert and harmless, and entirely so if distributed within low-density ore. But if a significant quantity of weapons-grade uranium is sufficiently compressed, then the neutrons released by fissioning atoms will quickly cause additional atoms to undergo fission, with the ultimate result of that critical chain-reaction being a nuclear explosion. In similar fashion, even a highly agitated Jew may have no negative impact, but if the collection of such agitated Jews becomes too numerous and clusters together too closely, they may work each other into a terrible frenzy, perhaps with disastrous consequences both for themselves and for their larger society. This is especially true if those agitated Jews begin to dominate certain key nodes of top-level control, such as the central political or media organs of a society.

Whereas most living organizations exist solely in physical reality, human beings also occupy an ideational space, with the interaction of human consciousness and perceived reality playing a major role in shaping behavior. Just as the pheromones released by mammals or insects can drastically affect the reactions of their family members or nest-mates, the ideas secreted by individuals or the media-emitters of a society can have an enormous impact upon their fellows.

A cohesive, organized group generally possesses huge advantages over a teeming mass of atomized individuals, just as a Macedonian Phalanx could easily defeat a vastly larger body of disorganized infantry. Many years ago, on some website somewhere I came across a very insightful comment regarding the obvious connection between "anti-Semitism" and "racism," which our mainstream media organs identify as two of the world's greatest evils. Under this analysis, "anti-Semitism" represents the tendency to criticize or resist Jewish social cohesion, while "racism" represents the attempt of white Gentiles to maintain a similar social cohesion of their own. To the extent that the ideological emanations from our centralized media organs serve to strengthen and protect Jewish cohesion while attacking and dissolving any similar cohesion on the part of their Gentile counterparts, the former will obviously gain enormous advantages in resource-competition against the latter.

Religion obviously constitutes an important unifying factor in human social groups and we cannot ignore the role of Judaism in this regard. Traditional Jewish religious doctrine seems to consider Jews as being in a state of permanent hostility with all non-Jews , and the use of dishonest propaganda is an almost inevitable aspect of such conflict. Furthermore, since Jews have invariably been a small political minority, maintaining such controversial tenets required the employment of a massive framework of subterfuge and dissimulation in order to conceal their nature from the larger society surrounding them. It has often been said that truth is the first casualty in war, and surely the cultural influences of over a thousand years of such intense religious hostility may continue to quietly influence the thinking of many modern Jews, even those who have largely abandoned their religious beliefs.

The notorious Jewish tendency to shamelessly lie or wildly exaggerate has sometimes had horrifying human consequences. I very recently discovered a fascinating passage in Peter Moreira's 2014 book The Jew Who Defeated Hitler: Henry Morgenthau Jr., FDR, and How We Won the War , focused on the important political role of that powerful Secretary of the Treasury.

A turning point in Henry Morgenthau Jr.'s relationship with the Jewish community came in November 1942, when Rabbi Stephen Wise came to the corner office to tell the secretary what was happening in Europe. Morgenthau knew of the millions of deaths and the lampshades made from victims' skin, and he asked Wise not to go into excessive details. But Wise went on to tell of the barbarity of the Nazis, how they were making soap out of Jewish flesh. Morgenthau, turning paler, implored him, "Please, Stephen, don't give me the gory details." Wise went on with his list of horrors and Morgenthau repeated his plea over and over again. Henrietta Klotz was afraid her boss would keel over. Morgenthau later said the meeting changed his life.

It is easy to imagine that Morgenthau's gullible acceptance of such obviously ridiculous war-time atrocity stories played a major role when he later lent his name and support to remarkably brutal American occupation policies that probably led to the postwar deaths of many millions of innocent German civilians .

[Dec 04, 2019] Britain's Chief Rabbi in interfering in the UK election using anti-Semitism charge the way intellignce againces use false flag oprations

Dec 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Mirvis' intervention in the election campaign makes sense only if he believes in one of two highly improbable scenarios.

The first requires several demonstrably untrue things to be true. It needs for Corbyn to be a proven antisemite – and not just of the variety that occasionally or accidentally lets slip an antisemitic trope or is susceptible to the unthinking prejudice most of us occasionally display, including (as we shall see) Rabbi Mirvis.

No, for Mirvis to have interfered in the election campaign he would need to believe that Corbyn intends actively as prime minister to inflame a wider antisemitism in British society or implement policies designed to harm the Jewish community. And in addition, the chief rabbi would have to believe that Corbyn presides over a Labour party that will willingly indulge race-hate speeches or stand by impassively as Corbyn carries out racist policies.

If Mirvis really believes any of that, I have a bridge to sell him. Corbyn has spent his entire political career as an anti-racism campaigner, and his anti-racism activism as a backbencher was especially prominent inside a party that itself has traditionally taken the political lead in tackling racism.

... ... ...

Even now, our most prized rights, such as free speech, are being eroded and subverted to protect Israel from criticism. In the US, the only infringements on the American public's First Amendment rights have been legislated to silence those seeking to pressure Israel over its crimes against the Palestinians with a boycott – similar to the campaign against apartheid South Africa. In the UK, the Conservative manifesto similarly promises to bar local councils from upholding international law and boycotting products from Israel's illegal settlements.

Rewarding war crimes

The real left focuses on this continuing colonial crime against the Palestinians not because it is antisemitic (a claim the Economist survey amply refutes), but because the left treats Israel as emblematic of British and western bad faith and hypocrisy. Israel is the imperial west's Achilles' heel, the proof that war crimes, massacres and ethnic cleansing are not only not punished but actively rewarded if these crimes accord with western imperial interests.

But ardent friends of Israel such as Mirvis are blind to these arguments. For them, one western antisemitic crime – the Holocaust – entirely obscures another western antisemitic crime: seeking to rid Europe of Jews by forcing them into the Middle East, serving as pawns on an imperial chessboard that paid no regard to the Palestinians whose homeland was being sacrificed.

In his state of historical and political myopia, Mirvis cannot begin to understand that there might be political activists who, in defending the Palestinian people, are also defending Jews. That they, unlike him, understand that Israel was created not out of western benevolence towards Jews, but out of western malevolence towards "lesser peoples". The real left in Britain speaks out against Israel not because it hates Jews but because it holds dear a commitment to justice and a compassion for all.

Mirvis, on the other hand, is the Zionist equivalent of a little Englander. He prefers particularist, short-term interests over universalist, long-term ones.

It was he, remember, who threw his full support behind Israel in 2014 as it indiscriminately bombed Gaza, killing some 550 children – a bombing campaign that came after years of an Israeli blockade on the Palestinian population there. That siege has led the United Nations to warn that the enclave will be uninhabitable by next year.

It was Mirvis, along with his predecessor Jonathan Sacks, who in 2017 endorsed the fanatical Jewish settlers – Israel's equivalent of white supremacists – on their annual march through the occupied Old City of Jerusalem. This is the march where the majority of the participants are recorded every year waving masses of Israeli flags at Palestinians and chanting "Death to the Arabs". One Israeli newspaper columnist has described the Jerusalem Day march as a "religious carnival of hatred".

Anonymous [106] Disclaimer , says: November 28, 2019 at 2:45 pm GMT

Just goes to show how ... so called "Chief Rabbi" has become the most important commentator on a British general election, and the Tories and much of the media in Britain absolutely love it.

Not even America they would let a Rabbi blatantly interfere with a presidential election. It's incredible how a British general election has literally become about Jews, I've never seen anything like it in any other country. The media is so obsessed with what Jews think anyone would think Corbyn was running to be PM of Israel!

[Dec 01, 2019] Opinion - The Antisemitic Card

Notable quotes:
"... Mirviz got prominent media coverage for his views this week in the London Times and Daily Mail, among others. Britain's rightwing media are owned by billionaire oligarchs who despise Labour's manifesto for progressive wealth redistribution. ..."
"... The antisemitic card is played to shield Israel from important criticism; and by Britain's plutocrats and their media who would rather see the public squabbling over spurious claims about antisemitism so they can keep on plundering wealth from the majority of British people. ..."
Dec 01, 2019 | www.informationclearinghouse.info

The Antisemitic Card

By Finian Cunningham

November 27, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - It is a ludicrous situation when anyone criticizing Israeli state violations against Palestinians or neighboring countries is then instantly discredited as being "antisemitic".

We see this in Britain and the United States all the time. Congresswomen like Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib have been denounced for being "anti-Jewish", including by President Trump, simply because they protested Israeli policy of occupying Palestinian lands or for having a malign influence on US foreign policy.

In Britain, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and his party have once again this week been vilified as "antisemitic" in prominent news media.

The reality is that Corbyn is neither racist or anti-Jewish . The specious allegation stems from him and sections of Labour being vehemently critical of Israel and its conduct towards Palestinians.

If elected in the general election next month, Labour says it will cut military trade with Israel and move to officially recognize a Palestinian state.

This conflation of valid criticism of the Israeli state with being "anti-Jew" is a cynical distortion which is wielded to give Israel impunity from international law. It plays on moral blackmail of critics by equating the historical persecution of Jews and in particular the Nazi holocaust with the sanctity of the modern Israeli state.

That distortion is exposed by many Jews themselves who have spoken out in the US and in Britain to defend the right of people to criticize Israeli policies. They understand the vital distinction between the Israeli state and the much wider existence of Jewishness. They understand that to be opposed to Israeli state practices is in no way to mean animus towards Jews in general.

Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda?

Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter No Advertising - No Government Grants - This Is Independent Media

Only in the past week, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared his government intends to expand annexation of Palestinian territory in the West Bank. The land occupied by Israeli forces since the 1967 Six Day War is illegally occupied , according to multiple UN resolutions under international law. Now Netanyahu wants to increase the violations. And with the support of the Trump administration which also announced it was no longer viewing Israeli settlements on Palestinian land as illegitimate.

Over the past month, the Israeli military has stepped up airstrikes on the Gaza Strip where nearly two million Palestinians subsist in abject poverty largely because of an Israeli blockade. One family of nine, including children, was killed by an airstrike on their home on November 14. As always the death toll among Palestinian civilians is grotesquely disproportionate to Israeli victims of rockets fired from Gaza.

Israeli forces have also been carrying out hundreds of airstrikes in Syria, including the capital Damascus, over the past year. Russia, among others, has condemned those attacks as "unlawful aggression". Arguably, war crimes.

When Jeremy Corbyn and Britain's Labour Party and a handful of American politicians speak out to denounce Israeli violations they are doing so to uphold international law and voice support for victims of state violence. That is a principled and honourable position.

Shamefully, the US and British governments and much of the corporate news media never do speak out. They shield Israeli leaders from international accountability by vetoing UN resolutions or by turning a blind eye. Pro-Israeli lobbies funnel massive donations to politicians in Washington on both sides of the aisle, and to the British Conservative Party. Their silence is bought. Not only silence but outright distortion, such as when people criticize Israeli malfeasance – and there is much of that – then they are absurdly character-assassinated as "antisemites".

Admittedly, many British Jews phoned into radio stations this week to complain that they feel unwelcome in Britain due to what they perceive as growth in antisemitism under the Labour Party . To be fair though, their claims were not backed up by hard evidence of specifically anti-Jewish behaviour. They were eliding their Jewishness with Labour's criticism of Israel.

The claims made against Corbyn this week by the British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirviz of being "unfit for office" because of an alleged complacent attitude towards antisemitism in his party should be put in context.

Corbyn has apologized several times for a tiny fraction (less than 0.1 per cent) of party members accused of antisemitism. Why should he be obliged to keep on apologizing, as BBC interviewer Andrew Neil imperiously demanded again this week?

Chief Rabbi Mirviz is a self-declared friend of Conservative leader Boris Johnson and an ardent, uncritical supporter of the Israeli state.

Mirviz does not represent all British Jews, as many other Jewish groups came out voicing their support for Corbyn and his valid right of free speech to criticize Israel.

Mirviz got prominent media coverage for his views this week in the London Times and Daily Mail, among others. Britain's rightwing media are owned by billionaire oligarchs who despise Labour's manifesto for progressive wealth redistribution.

Official race-hate figures for Britain show that physical attacks against British Muslims are preponderantly more than attacks against any other religious minority, including Jews . Boris Johnson's Conservatives have evident problems of fomenting Islamophobia. Yet we don't see British media providing proportionate criticism on that to balance their focus on Corbyn and his alleged views.

The antisemitic card is played to shield Israel from important criticism; and by Britain's plutocrats and their media who would rather see the public squabbling over spurious claims about antisemitism so they can keep on plundering wealth from the majority of British people.

Finian Cunningham has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages. He is a Master's graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in newspaper journalism. He is also a musician and songwriter. For nearly 20 years, he worked as an editor and writer in major news media organisations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent.

[Nov 30, 2019] Chief Rabbi Mirvis is Helping Stoke Antisemitism Dissident Voice

Notable quotes:
"... Mirvis has no lessons to teach Corbyn or the Labour party about racism. In fact, it is his own, small-minded prejudice that blinds him to the anti-racist politics of the left. His ugly message is now being loudly amplified by a corporate media keen to use any weapon it can, antisemitism included, to keep Corbyn and the left out of power – and preserve a status quo that benefits the few at the expense of the many. ..."
Nov 30, 2019 | dissidentvoice.org

Chief Rabbi Mirvis is Helping Stoke Antisemitism

by Jonathan Cook / November 29th, 2019

Chief rabbi Ephraim Mirvis has not only misrepresented the known facts about Labour and its supposed antisemitism crisis. He has not only interfered in an overtly, politically partisan manner in the December 12 election campaign by suggesting that Jeremy Corbyn – against all evidence – is an antisemite.

By speaking out as the voice of British Jews – a false claim he has allowed the UK media to promote – his unprecedented meddling in the election of Britain's next leader has actually made the wider Jewish community in the UK much less safe. Mirvis is contributing to the very antisemitism he says he wants to eradicate.

Mirvis' intervention in the election campaign makes sense only if he believes in one of two highly improbable scenarios.

The first requires several demonstrably untrue things to be true. It needs for Corbyn to be a proven antisemite – and not just of the variety that occasionally or accidentally lets slip an antisemitic trope or is susceptible to the unthinking prejudice most of us occasionally display, including (as we shall see) Rabbi Mirvis.

No, for Mirvis to have interfered in the election campaign he would need to believe that Corbyn intends actively as prime minister to inflame a wider antisemitism in British society or implement policies designed to harm the Jewish community. And in addition, the chief rabbi would have to believe that Corbyn presides over a Labour party that will willingly indulge race-hate speeches or stand by impassively as Corbyn carries out racist policies.

If Mirvis really believes any of that, I have a bridge to sell him. Corbyn has spent his entire political career as an anti-racism campaigner, and his anti-racism activism as a back-bencher was especially prominent inside a party that itself has traditionally taken the political lead in tackling racism.

Rising tide of nationalism

The second possibility is that Mirvis doesn't really believe that Corbyn is a Goebbels in the making. But if that is so, then his decision to intercede in the election campaign to influence British voters must be based on an equally fanciful notion: that there is no significant threat posed by antisemitism from the right or the rapidly emerging far right.

Because if antisemitism is not an issue on the right – the same nationalistic right that has persecuted Jews throughout modern history, culminating in the Nazi atrocities – then Mirvis may feel he can risk playing politics in the name of the Jewish community without serious consequence.

If there is no perceptible populist tide of white nationalism sweeping Europe and the globe, one that hates immigrants and minorities, then making a fuss about Corbyn might seem to make sense for a prominent Jewish community leader. In those circumstances, it might appear to be worth disrupting the national conversation to highlight the fact that Corbyn once sat with Hamas politicians – just as Tony Blair once sat with Sinn Fein leaders – and that Corbyn's party has promised in the latest manifesto to stop selling weapons to Israel (and Saudi Arabia) of the kind that have been used to butcher children in Gaza. Mirvis might believe that by wounding Corbyn he can help into power a supposedly benevolent, or at least inoffensive, Tory party.

But if he is wrong about the re-emergence of a white nationalism and its growing entry into the mainstream – and all the evidence suggests he would be deeply wrong , if this is what he thinks – then undermining Corbyn and the Labour party is self-destructiveness of the first order.

It would amount to self-harm not only because attacking Corbyn inevitably strengthens the electoral chances of Boris " watermelon smiles " Johnson. It plays with fire because Mirvis' flagrant intervention in the election campaign actually bolsters a key part of the antisemitic discourse of the far right that is rapidly making inroads into the Conservative party.

Succour to white nationalists

White nationalists are all over social media warning of supposed Jewish global conspiracies, of supposed Jewish control of the media, of supposed Jewish subversion of "white rights". It was precisely this kind of thinking that drove European politics a century ago. It was arch-antisemite Arthur Balfour who signed off the Balfour Declaration of 1917 that sought to end Britain's "Jewish problem" by encouraging European Jews to move far away, to a part of the Middle East then known as Palestine.

That is, of course, why today's white supremacists love Israel, why they see it as a model, why they call themselves " white Zionists ". In creating a tribal democracy, and one heavily fortified, land hungry, belligerent and nuclear-armed, Israel has done for Jews exactly what white nationalists hope to do again for their white compatriots. The white supremacists' love of Israel is intimately bound up with their hatred and fear of Jews.

Mirvis has given succour to white nationalist discourse both because he has spoken out against Corbyn without offering evidence for his claims and because those entirely unsubstantiated claims have been echoed across the media.

There is good reason why the billionaire-owned print media and the Establishment-dominated BBC are happy to exploit the antisemitism smears – and it has nothing to do with concern for the safety of Jews. The corporate media don't want a Labour leader in power who is going to roll back the corporate free-for-all unleashed by Margaret Thatcher 40 years ago that nearly bankrupted the rest of us in 2008.

But that is not what those flirting with or embracing white nationalism will take away from the relentless media chorus over evidence-free antisemitism claims.

Mirvis' intervention in the democratic process will drive them more quickly and more deeply into the arms of the far-right. It will persuade them once again that "the Jews" are a "problem". They will conclude that – though the Jews are now helping the right by destroying Corbyn – once the left has been dealt with, those same Jews will then subvert their white state. Like Balfour before them, they will start thinking of how to rid Britain and Europe of these supposed interlopers.

This is why Mirvis was irresponsible in the extreme for meddling. Because the standard of proof required before making such an intervention – proof either that Cobyn is an outright Jew hater, or that white nationalism is no threat to the UK – is not even close to being met.

The left's anti-imperialism

In fact much worse, all the evidence shows the exact reverse. That was neatly summed up in a survey this month published by The Economist, a weekly magazine that is no friend to Corbyn or the Labour party.

It showed that those identifying as "very left-wing" – the section of the public that supports Corbyn – were among the least likely to express antisemitic attitudes. Those identifying as "very right-wing", on the other hand – those likely to support Boris " piccaninnies " Johnson – were three and a half times more likely to express hostile attitudes towards Jews. Other surveys show even worse racism among Conservatives towards more obviously non-white minorities, such as Muslims and black people. That, after all, is the very reason Boris " letterbox-looking Muslim women " Johnson now heads the Tory party.

The Economist findings reveal something else of relevance in assessing Mirvis' meddling. Not only is the real left (as distinguished from the phoney, centrist left represented by Labour's Blairites) much less antisemitic than the right, it is also much more critical of Israel than any other section of the British public.

That is easily explained. The real left has always been anti-imperialist. Israel is a particularly problematic part of Britain's colonial legacy.

Elsewhere, the peoples who gained independence from Britain found themselves inside ruined, impoverished states, often with borders imposed out of naked imperial interest that left them divided and feuding. Internal struggles over the crumbs Britain and other imperial powers left behind were the norm.

But in a very real sense, Britain – or at least the west – never really left Israel. In line with the Balfour Declaration, Britain helped to establish the institutions of a "Jewish home" on the Palestinians' homeland. British troops may have departed in 1948, but waves of European Jewish immigrants were either encouraged or compelled to come to the newly created state of Israel by racist immigration quotas designed to prevent them fleeing elsewhere, most especially to the United States.

The west helped engineer both the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and Israel's creation to solve Europe's "Jewish problem". It provided the components necessary for Israel to build a nuclear bomb that won it a place at the international top table and ensured the Palestinians were made Israel's serfs in perpetuity. Ever since, the west has provided Israel with diplomatic cover, military aid and special trading status, even as Israel has worked relentlessly to disappear the Palestinian people from their homeland.

Even now, our most prized rights, such as free speech, are being eroded and subverted to protect Israel from criticism. In the US, the only infringements on the American public's First Amendment rights have been legislated to silence those seeking to pressure Israel over its crimes against the Palestinians with a boycott – similar to the campaign against apartheid South Africa. In the UK, the Conservative manifesto similarly promises to bar local councils from upholding international law and boycotting products from Israel's illegal settlements.

Rewarding war crimes

The real left focuses on this continuing colonial crime against the Palestinians not because it is antisemitic (a claim the Economist survey amply refutes), but because the left treats Israel as emblematic of British and western bad faith and hypocrisy. Israel is the imperial west's Achilles' heel, the proof that war crimes, massacres and ethnic cleansing are not only not punished but actively rewarded if these crimes accord with western imperial interests.

But ardent friends of Israel such as Mirvis are blind to these arguments. For them, one western antisemitic crime – the Holocaust – entirely obscures another western antisemitic crime: seeking to rid Europe of Jews by forcing them into the Middle East, serving as pawns on an imperial chessboard that paid no regard to the Palestinians whose homeland was being sacrificed.

In his state of historical and political myopia, Mirvis cannot begin to understand that there might be political activists who, in defending the Palestinian people, are also defending Jews. That they, unlike him, understand that Israel was created not out of western benevolence towards Jews, but out of western malevolence towards "lesser peoples". The real left in Britain speaks out against Israel not because it hates Jews but because it holds dear a commitment to justice and a compassion for all.

Mirvis, on the other hand, is the Zionist equivalent of a little Englander. He prefers particularist, short-term interests over universalist, long-term ones.

It was he, remember, who threw his full support behind Israel in 2014 as it indiscriminately bombed Gaza, killing some 550 children – a bombing campaign that came after years of an Israeli blockade on the Palestinian population there. That siege has led the United Nations to warn that the enclave will be uninhabitable by next year.

It was Mirvis, along with his predecessor Jonathan Sacks, who in 2017 endorsed the fanatical Jewish settlers – Israel's equivalent of white supremacists – on their annual march through the occupied Old City of Jerusalem. This is the march where the majority of the participants are recorded every year waving masses of Israeli flags at Palestinians and chanting "Death to the Arabs". One Israeli newspaper columnist has described the Jerusalem Day march as a "religious carnival of hatred".

It was Mirvis and Sacks that encouraged British Jews to join them on this tub-thumping trip to Israel, which they suggested would provide an opportunity to spend time "dancing with our brave soldiers". Those soldiers – Israeli, not British – occupy West Bank cities like Hebron where they have locked down life for some 200,000 Palestinians so that a handful of crazed religious Jewish bigots can live undisturbed in their midst.

What is so appalling is that Mirvis is blind to the very obvious parallels between the fearful Palestinians who hastily have to board up their shops as a Jewish mob parades through their neighbourhood and today's white supremacists and neo-Nazis in the west who seek to march provocatively through ethnic minority communities, including Jewish neighbourhoods, in places like Charlottesville .

Mirvis has no lessons to teach Corbyn or the Labour party about racism. In fact, it is his own, small-minded prejudice that blinds him to the anti-racist politics of the left. His ugly message is now being loudly amplified by a corporate media keen to use any weapon it can, antisemitism included, to keep Corbyn and the left out of power – and preserve a status quo that benefits the few at the expense of the many.

Jonathan Cook , based in Nazareth, Israel is a winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (Pluto Press) and Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair (Zed Books). Read other articles by Jonathan , or visit Jonathan's website .

[Nov 26, 2019] Anti-Semitism Bandwagon Resumes Against Corbyn by JonathanCook

Notable quotes:
"... The anti-Semitism smear campaign is being revived in the corporate media for good reason. The stakes could not be higher for Britain's ruling class. As worried as many of them are by Brexit, Corbyn is seen as a bigger threat. He might call time on the banquet they have been gorging on for four decades uninterrupted. ..."
"... A Corbyn government, by contrast, is an unknown quantity. The free-lunch might end, or at least start to feel more like an unsatisfying snack. ..."
"... Or, more likely, the right-wingers and centrists who conflate Israel and Jews -- as a proportion appear to do -- are equally indulgent of a particularist and regressive approach to rights. Instead of committing to universal human rights, shared by all alike, the particularists assign superior rights to those they think of as more like themselves. Right-wingers, it seems, tend to exclude Jews from this category, while centrists have a greater tendency to include them. ..."
"... It is OK to say that financial elite is largely Jewish. Especially if you are happy about it. But if you do not cherish those most productive members of the society for the oodles of money they produce every minute, then you make them insecure, and thus you are an anti-Semite. Perhaps of self-hating variety, although at that points perhaps even Mr. Pollard would feel some strain, a middle class Socialist Jew is not in this "most productive" elite. ..."
"... The attack on Corbyn is just the elite seeking to smear him, in defense of their own interests. They have stolen so much, that they need now above all to stop anyone who would prevent them from keeping it all. ..."
"... That Israel can be used in this turns on the fear that good government in Britain would not support what Israel has been doing for so long. No doubt. No principled government could, nor does any such government anywhere in the world. ..."
"... With z-list celebrities like Rachel Riley adding to the 'anti-semite' debate routinely on twitter this story will not ever go away until Corbyn does. One way and another the media elites under the tutalage of the upper classes in the UK Corbyn is depicted as everything that is 'evil' with the world. It is of course all fake news. There's no more anti-semitism in labour as any other part of the country. But it suits those in fear of change. ..."
"... Aww, the parasitic financial elite (of ALL religio-ethnic backgrounds) doesn't like Corbyn's policy proposals so they're going to resort to Alan Dershowitz style mud-slinging. What's new? They will resort to any tactic, no matter how vile and pernicious, in order to hold onto their class privileges. That 40% of working folks can't come up with $500 for an emergency car repair or medical bill simply does not matter. ..."
Nov 15, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

With the election nearing, the British corporate media is once again running smears of the Labour leader. And for good reason, says Jonathan Cook. The stakes could not be higher for Britain's ruling class.

In the coming elections, Prime Minister Boris Johnson on left, is facing off against Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Jonathan-Cook.net

F or a few months over the summer the British corporate media largely lost interest in smearing Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as an anti-Semite. Maybe they had begun to worry that the constant drum-beat of the past three years was deadening the public's sensitivity to such claims.

But an election is now weeks away, and the anti-Semitism smear bandwagon is being rolled out once again.

Stephen Pollard, editor of The Jewish Chronicle (who also writes for the Tory-loving Mail , Express , Sun and Telegraph newspapers) has yet again been terrifying readers as best he can, implying not so subtly that voting for Labour might risk a genocide of British Jews. After several years of painting Corbyn – preposterously – as some kind of unkempt, gray-bearded leader of a British Gestapo-in-the-making, Pollard spent a few recent days highlighting in the corporate media the predictable results of the latest survey of Jewish public opinion. It suggests that a growing number of Jews are considering leaving Britain if Corbyn manages to oust Boris Johnson from power.

That we have reached the point where so many British Jews have been persuaded that Corbyn's vocal criticism of Israel's oppression of Palestinians means his entire party is infected with a supposed hatred of Jews needs some explaining. It is something I have been trying to do regularly, and in real time, as life has been breathed into these various slurs , both by a corporate media that detests the fairer society a Corbyn party promises and by an Israel lobby that identifies so closely with Israel that it has completely dehumanized Palestinians, to the extent that the crimes against them can be entirely overlooked -- treated as no more significant than stepping on an ant.

In the figure of Pollard, we have a journalist who merges both outlooks, typified in this extraordinary tweet last year that at the time stunned even some of his followers but has now become a staple of the campaign against Corbyn and his democratic socialist politics. Efforts by the left to highlight the class war waged by an elite that's been sucking the life out of the British economy to enrich itself have been maliciously recharacterised by Pollard and other rightwing journalists (some of whom ensconced themselves in the Labour party during Tony Blair's rule) as an attack on Jews. But it is not the left that conflates the corporate elite with Jews, it is rightwing journalists like Pollard.

We shall return to this issue later in the post.

Jonathan Freedland's Libel

A recent incident helped to illustrate just how organized and malevolent the anti-Semitism smears against Corbyn truly are.

Jonathan Freedland, a supposedly liberal columnist at The Guardian newspaper and a BBC regular, again proved how he has been a key figure in weaponizing this allegation against a Corbyn-led party. So eager is he to damage Labour and make sure it is no position to end a decade of Tory-imposed austerity that he threw aside all normal journalistic caution and published a libelous claim of anti-Semitism against a potential Labour candidate in the coming general election.

There were several revealing aspects to this incident. Freedland defamed Majid Mahmood, a Labour local councilor in Birmingham, without making even the most rudimentary factual checks that the highly damaging claim was actually true -- a basic journalistic duty. He simply relied on the word of a "previously reliable Labour source" -- in other words, one of the many Blairite enemies of Corbyn within the Labour parliamentary faction and party bureaucracy who have been briefing against the leader for the past four years.

(It is worth recalling that a prominent anti-racism activist, Marc Wadsworth, was hounded from the party last year, accused of anti-Semitism, for warning that Blairite MPs like Ruth Smeeth were briefing against their own leader to journalists in the rightwing press. Smeeth accused Wadsworth of anti-Semitism because she is Jewish, though Wadsworth says he did not know that -- and, of course, her Jewishness is irrelevant to the issue of whether she was seeking to malign her own party's leader through the media. Wadsworth's mistake, it seems, was to assume that corporate "liberal" journalists like Freedland were not also part of those smear efforts.)

In Mahmood's case, it was an egregious example of mistaken identity. Freedland and his "source" had confused the Birmingham councilor with a London lawyer of the same name who was fined over anti-Semitic comments four years ago. Such confusion was clearly neither accidental nor innocent. Mahmood's case highlighted something that was already patently obvious: that anti-Corbyn groups have been trawling the histories and social media posts of Labour members in an organized effort to weaponize anything they can find against the Labour leader. The defamation of Mahmood was simply the latest smear to emerge from this campaign.

Smears from Within Labour

Freedland's "defense" was itself telling. The person relaying the smear to him was, he said, from inside Labour and had been "previously reliable." That meant someone fairly senior in the party -- thereby explaining Freedland's readiness to believe him uncritically -- and someone who had passed on similar damaging information before. It was irrefutable confirmation that Corbyn's most venomous opponents are not in the Conservative Party but drawn from Labour's own top ranks. They want a Corbyn-led party destroyed even if it means keeping the Brexit-backing, austerity-loving, racism-indulgent Tories in power.

There was another ugly aspect to the behavior of Freedland and his "source." It looked suspiciously like both had uncritically accepted the unfounded claim against Mahmood because he had a Muslim name. They both appeared to have assumed that Muslims are more likely to be racist towards Jews and therefore accepted the claim with a much lower standard of evidence than would have been expected in the case of anyone else.

In fact, the councilor's name is a Muslim equivalent of "David Brown" or "George Smith." Can we really imagine Freedland libeling someone with either of those names so casually, without making even cursory checks to be sure he had identified the right David Brown or George Smith?

This kind of behavior has a name: it is called racism. And it is quite extraordinary to see Freedland so susceptible, after he has made a journalistic career out of exploring the intricacies of racism when it applies to Jews. It almost leaves one suspecting that this paragon of liberal journalism is really a hypocrite.

Fears the Free Lunch Will End

The anti-Semitism smear campaign is being revived in the corporate media for good reason. The stakes could not be higher for Britain's ruling class. As worried as many of them are by Brexit, Corbyn is seen as a bigger threat. He might call time on the banquet they have been gorging on for four decades uninterrupted.

If Corbyn shunts Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the Tories out of power, the millionaires and billionaires who control both the British print and broadcast media, including the BBC, fear the good times could come to an abrupt end. The Brexit threat pales in comparison. That would simply shift our primary economic allegiance from Europe to the United States, leaving the predatory capitalism on which the corporate class has grown unimaginably rich as strong as ever.

A Corbyn government, by contrast, is an unknown quantity. The free-lunch might end, or at least start to feel more like an unsatisfying snack.

In truth, given the bitter divisions tearing apart his own party -- between most of the mass membership, who are behind him, and the holdouts from the Blair-Brown era that still dominate the parliamentary party -- it is hard to imagine Corbyn being able to do as much as his critics fear.

He may manage to curb the worst excesses of the neoliberal financial system; he may block further privatization of the National Health Service, even reverse it a little; and he may bring a few vital national industries back into public ownership. He may manage too to redirect some of the cream the fat cats have been lapping up back into the public coffers for a New Green Deal. All of that would be a relief after so many years of Tory-designed austerity for the many and state socialism for the few.

But the corporate class are now so greedy, so used to getting their way, that even the smallest diminishment of their power and wealth is seen as an unbearable offence against what they divine as the natural order.

Tool of Class War

They are not about to leave anything to chance. Corbyn must be tarred and feathered again. Four years of experimenting with various smears have selected anti-Semitism as the weapon of choice. That false accusation can most easily be disguised to ensure it does not look like what it is intended to be when used against Corbyn and Labour: a tool of class war.

Claims of anti-Semitism have worked ideally in damaging Corbyn because no real evidence has been needed. In fact, such claims succeed even when opposed to the known evidence (as we shall see). They work chiefly by innuendo and emotion. And better still, they work even when those accused like Corbyn and his allies deny the accusation. As in all good witch-hunts, denial is proof of guilt, as an ally of Corbyn's, the MP Chris Williamson, has repeatedly found out. He has been barred from standing in the election, and has now resigned from the party, after correctly noting that Labour had in effect made the anti-Semitism smears appear more credible by constantly apologizing over evidence-free claims of anti-Semitism from those seeking to harm the party's image with voters.

This is a winning formula for the ruling class because anyone who tries to argue that Corbyn's opponents are weaponizing anti-Semitism through the corporate media is thereby proved to be an anti-Semite. The smears are entirely resistant to all evidence that they are smears.

Survey: Little Anti-Semitism on Left

That the anti-Semitism claims are slurs has been demonstrated over and over again. But paradoxically the latest refutation came last week from the corporate elite's house journal, The Economist -- though, of course, it was not presented that way .

The magazine published a new survey of British public opinion showing that an ideological group it labelled as "very left wing" -- presumably the people who share Corbyn's views -- were among the least likely to hold anti-Semitic opinions, even though they also had by far the most critical views of Israel (an outlook The Economist mischievously termed "highly anti-Israel").

In other words, those people on the left who firmly oppose Israel's oppression of the Palestinians were unlikely also to harbor anti-Jewish views. The great majority could clearly distinguish between Israel and Jews, and did not hold Jews responsible for the crimes committed by the state of Israel.

The same could not be said, however, of either the center or the right. Supporters of the right were less than half as likely to adopt critical views of Israel as the left but were three and a half times more likely to hold anti-Semitic views. Meanwhile, only a small number of centrists were critical of Israel, and an almost identical number held anti-Semitic views.

What the figures reveal is the very opposite of the Labour anti-Semitism narrative -- unless we wish to argue improbably that Labour and its 500,000 members (the largest party in Europe) are entirely unrepresentative of the wider public that shares their ideological worldview. The left overwhelmingly opposes Israeli colonial oppression of Palestinians but very few blame Jews for Israel's behavior. Israel is seen as a political project, one driven by an ugly ideology of settler colonialism, not a project representing all Jews. The latter is an anti-Semitic position that, paradoxically, is supported and promoted by Israel itself.

Conversely, the same figures suggest that there is an identifiable problem of racism and anti-Semitism on the right, and a potential one among centrists too. Whereas the left understands that Israel and Jews are entirely separate and distinct categories, both the center and right appear to share a tendency of conflating Israel and Jews.

Racism Rife on the Right

In the case of the right, the figures show a close correlation between opposition to Israel and anti-Jewish feeling. A significant portion of the right either blame Jews collectively for Israel's crimes or dislike Jews and so oppose the state that claims to represent them. Even though you would never know it from the media coverage, which concentrates exclusively on a supposed problem within the Labour Party, anti-Semitism is rife on the right in a way that simply isn't true on the left.

The survey also hints at the possibility of a more veiled problem of racism and latent anti-Semitism among "centrists," a group presumably represented politically by the Lib Dems and the Blairite wing of the Labour Party. Very few in this group express anti-Jewish sentiments – in fact, exactly the same small proportion as on the left. (Tellingly, despite these identical results, the Labour Party has been smeared as "institutionally anti-Semitic", whereas the centrist Lib Dems have not.)

Nonetheless, there is a significant difference between the two political blocs -- and one that could reflect much less well on the centrists than the left.

A much larger proportion of the centrist group appear to harbor sympathies for Israel, or at least view it uncritically, despite the ever-mounting evidence of Israel's record of human rights abuses and intensifying oppression of Palestinians.

Remember that large numbers of the centrist Blairite faction of Labour MPs (though not the wider Labour membership) belong to Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) and have proudly maintained their association with that organization. They have continued to do so even after the LFI at first vigorously defended, then fell silent on Israel's repeated massacres over the past 18 months of Palestinians protesters at the Gaza perimeter fence that encages them.

More than 220 Palestinians, including women, children, journalists, and medical staff, have been killed by Israeli snipers at the protests, while tens of thousands more have been maimed. But in a blatant example of anti-Arab racism, the LFI has blamed Hamas for these deaths, as though ordinary Palestinians in Gaza are simply pawns of Hamas and lack the volition to demand for themselves an end to an Israeli blockade that has imprisoned them for 12 years.

Centrists Conflate Jews & Israel

Only a quarter as many centrists as leftists are critical of Israel, according to The Economist survey. In other words, a proportion of centrists appear to identify with Israel's colonial oppression of Palestinians -- possibly because they favor Jews over Arabs and Muslims (presumably as part of a "clash of civilizations" worldview) or maybe because they have positive feelings about Jews that translate into uncritical support for Israel, whatever it does to the Palestinians it rules over.

That could indicate a significant problem of anti-Arab or anti-Muslim prejudice among centrists, similar to the ugly assumptions made by Jonathan Freedland and his "source." However, we can do little more than speculate on this point because the survey is concerned exclusively with Jews and Israel.

Nonetheless, the figures also allude to a potential anti-Semitism problem in the ranks of the centrist camp. The stark lack of criticism of Israel among centrists, combined with little anti-Semitism, suggests that a significant proportion of centrists, like right-wingers, consider Jews and Israel to be intimately connected -- that they struggle to disentangle a political project (Israel) from an ethnic or cultural group (Jews).

There is only a narrow distinction between a right-winger who conflates Israel and Jews in a way that vilifies Jews and a centrist who conflates Israel and Jews in a way that venerates Israel.

Rejecting Universal Rights

The difference in the respective outcomes of this conflation could reflect differing understandings of what Israel does. Israel's treatment of Palestinians – whether seen as justified or not – is then projected on to Jews. Once the conflation is accepted, Jews unfairly receive either credit (from centrists) or blame (from the right) for Israel's actions.

Or, more likely, the right-wingers and centrists who conflate Israel and Jews -- as a proportion appear to do -- are equally indulgent of a particularist and regressive approach to rights. Instead of committing to universal human rights, shared by all alike, the particularists assign superior rights to those they think of as more like themselves. Right-wingers, it seems, tend to exclude Jews from this category, while centrists have a greater tendency to include them.

But the danger is that, if these centrists can be persuaded that Jews are not part of their in-group -- for example, by undermining the idea of a supposed Judeo-Christian West, embodying the supposed values of "civilization" -- then they could be as susceptible as the right to a generalized Jew hatred. It is a commitment to universal human rights -- a doctrine to which most on the left subscribe but which some on the right and the center appear to reject -- that provides the only sure-fire political inoculation against racism in general and anti-Semitism in particular.

The Economist , of course, wishes to avoid drawing this very obvious conclusion, one implied by its findings, because that would wreck the narrative it and the rest of the corporate media have been constructing to damage Corbyn. In fact, The Economist poll echoes earlier research ignored by the corporate media, such as figures showing that instances of anti-Semitism in Labour amount to 0.08 percent of the membership, and surveys demonstrating that the Tory party -- and its "watermelon smiles" leader Boris Johnson -- have a far bigger problem with racism, towards both Muslims and Jews .

'Not a Whiff of Anti-Semitism'

Not everyone in the political and media class is ready to dance to the same tune, as was made clear in an interview that gently turned the tables on Alastair Campbell, chief adviser to Tony Blair when he was Labour prime minister. Campbell helped Blair distort the intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war in 2003 that gave superficial credence to a different but equally confected story: both that Saddam Hussein's Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that those weapons were just a hair's-trigger away from being fired at the U.K. Up to 1 million Iraqis were killed as a result of that illegal war, and many millions more were driven from their homes.

Campbell, a man whose anti-Muslim, anti-Arab prejudices permitted him to help lay waste to another country on an entirely bogus pretext, and whose reputation in the corporate media suffered not a whit as a result, decided to use the interview to try to revive the Corbyn anti-Semitism smears and undermine Labour's chances of winning the election. Like other Blairites, Campbell has been an outspoken critic of Corbyn, even going public with the fact that he has started voting for the Lib Dems.

He asked his interviewee, John Bercow, the outgoing speaker of the House of Commons and a Jewish member of the Conservative Party, to comment on Corbyn and the anti-Semitism allegations. Campbell's transparent aim was to recruit Bercow to the smear campaign – both as a Jew and as someone who has come to be widely trusted since becoming house speaker as an arbiter of an even-handed politics.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/SVcWo-W60lU?feature=oembed

Bercow's response was not what Campbell hoped for. The former speaker answered cautiously, but observed: "I myself have never experienced anti-Semitism from a member of the Labour Party I do not myself believe Jeremy Corbyn is anti-Semitic I have known him for the 22 years I have been in parliament and I have never detected so much as a whiff of anti-Semitism from him."

Campbell's face could barely conceal his disappointment.

The interview was another reminder that those leading the anti-Semitism smear campaign often have, given their own histories, precisely zero credibility on the issue of racism, let alone class politics. Whatever they may think they believe, it is not racism that truly concerns Campbell or Freedland; it is their fear of a different kind of politics, one that requires from them an entirely different way of understanding British colonial history, of interpreting Britain's role in the world, and of ending the U.K.'s gaping class divide. They, like so many others in the media and political elite, are frightened that a different kind of politics might force them to look in the mirror – and finally understand that long ago they chose to stand with the oppressors rather than the oppressed.

Jonathan Cook is a freelance journalist based in Nazareth. This article is from his blog Jonathan Cook.net .Tags: Anti-Semitism Jeremy Corbyn Jonathan Cook


Piotr Berman , November 19, 2019 at 01:48

"But it is not the left that conflates the corporate elite with Jews, it is rightwing journalists like Pollard."

The author does not understand what is (New) anti-Semitism. One of the un-enumerated symptoms is begrudging. It is OK to say that financial elite is largely Jewish. Especially if you are happy about it. But if you do not cherish those most productive members of the society for the oodles of money they produce every minute, then you make them insecure, and thus you are an anti-Semite. Perhaps of self-hating variety, although at that points perhaps even Mr. Pollard would feel some strain, a middle class Socialist Jew is not in this "most productive" elite.

Corbyn is vile in so many ways that the responsible forces in UK had to try all methods. The first I have read was that he is a bicyclist who uses a CHEAP (!!!) bike to go to work. A template from Maoist China. The second thing, he does not like Trident. How can Britannia rule the waves without Tridents, rented for the occasion from Colonials. Without Tridents, Russians would overrun Norway and than, in quick succession, Scotland and Isle of Man. Then I read that Corbyn is inept, so inept that he cannot be sufficiently snide during the question period in Parliament. And so on. (Everything from The Guardian.) I still do not understand why "anti-Semitism" is sticks so much better than this other stuff.

Cara MariAnna , November 18, 2019 at 14:48

Thank you Jonathan Cook (and CN) for this excellent in-depth analysis of how and why the predatory elite deploy false accusations of anti-semitism in their ongoing campaign to horde wealth, resources and power.

Joe Bien , November 18, 2019 at 10:48

Thank you, CN. Very good analysis/observation. That this is only one of countless cases of the same merry-go-round, of the same flaccid (yet effective) tactic(s) employed by the lobbies and individuals perpetuating the quashing of dissent, is, as ever, truly shocking and compelling.
Excellent article.

Mark Thomason , November 16, 2019 at 14:56

The attack on Corbyn is just the elite seeking to smear him, in defense of their own interests. They have stolen so much, that they need now above all to stop anyone who would prevent them from keeping it all.

That Israel can be used in this turns on the fear that good government in Britain would not support what Israel has been doing for so long. No doubt. No principled government could, nor does any such government anywhere in the world.

The use of Israel in this way is just one more cost, one more burden borne, by the West. It is the price of doing the wrong that is the Israel Project today.

Israel could have been done better. It has not been. Especially under Netanyahu, it is an exercise in "How low can you go?" It has found deep depths, and has not yet ended its plunge.

bob , November 16, 2019 at 03:41

With z-list celebrities like Rachel Riley adding to the 'anti-semite' debate routinely on twitter this story will not ever go away until Corbyn does. One way and another the media elites under the tutalage of the upper classes in the UK Corbyn is depicted as everything that is 'evil' with the world. It is of course all fake news. There's no more anti-semitism in labour as any other part of the country. But it suits those in fear of change.

Drew Hunkins , November 15, 2019 at 17:24

Aww, the parasitic financial elite (of ALL religio-ethnic backgrounds) doesn't like Corbyn's policy proposals so they're going to resort to Alan Dershowitz style mud-slinging. What's new? They will resort to any tactic, no matter how vile and pernicious, in order to hold onto their class privileges. That 40% of working folks can't come up with $500 for an emergency car repair or medical bill simply does not matter.

[Nov 26, 2019] Israel, racism, anti-semitism and the definition of jewishness: When the central task of a state is to import persons of a select religious/ethnic group -- and to develop the country for their benefit alone -- it is crucially important to be officially recognized as a bona fide member of that group

Nov 26, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org

Israel's champions owe us an explanation. First, they insist that Israel is and always must be a Jewish state, by which most of them mean not religiously Jewish but of the "Jewish People" everywhere, including Jews who are citizens of other states and not looking for a new country. To be Jewish, according to the prevailing view, it is enough to have a Jewish mother (or to have been converted by an approved Orthodox rabbi). Belief in one supreme creator of the universe, in the Torah as the word of God, and in Jewish ritual need have nothing whatever to do with Jewishness. (We ignore here the many problems with this conception , such as: how can there be a secular Judaism?)

The definition of Jew has been bitterly controversial inside and outside of Israel since its founding. The point is, as anthropologist Roselle Tekiner wrote, "When the central task of a state is to import persons of a select religious/ethnic group -- and to develop the country for their benefit alone -- it is crucially important to be officially recognized as a bona fide member of that group." (This is from the anthology Anti-Zionism: Analytical Reflections , which is not online and is apparently out of print. But see Tekiner's article, "Israel's Two-Tiered Citizenship Law Bars Non-Jews From 93 Percent of Its Lands." )

Second, Israel's champions insist that Israel is a democracy -- indeed, the only democracy in the Middle East. They vehemently object whenever someone demonstrates how Israel-as-the-state-of-the-Jewish-People must harm the 25 percent of Israeli citizens who are not Jewish, most of whom are Arabs.

Israeli law uniquely distinguishes citizenship from nationality . The nationality of an Israeli Arab citizen is "Arab" not Israeli, while the nationality of a Jewish citizen is "Jewish" not Israeli. Are citizens of any other country distinguished in law like that? The prohibition on marriage between Jews and non-Jews is not the result of political bargaining with religious parties but of a desire to protect the Jewish people from impurity. These contortions are required by Israel's self-declared status as something other than the land of all its citizens. Early Zionists said they wanted Palestine to be as Jewish as Britain is British and France is French -- a flagrant category mistake that has had horrific consequences for the Palestinians.

The insistence by Israel's supporters -- that Israel can be both Jewish and democratic -- thus is puzzling. What does it mean for Israel to be a Jewish state if that status has no real consequences for non-Jews? If all it meant was that the Star of David was on the flag, we might hear far fewer objections to Israel. But of course it means much more.

To see what it means, one has to look beyond Israel's Declaration of Independence, Basic Law (its de facto constitution), and specific statutes, which contain language that on its face forbids discrimination against non-Jews. We should know better than to take official documents at face value. What matters in any society is the "real constitution," the principles that underlie commonly accepted behavior. The old Soviet Union's constitution listed freedom of the press among the "rights" of Soviet citizens, and the U.S. Constitution says that only Congress may declare war and that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

More pertinent, the 1917 Balfour Declaration, wherein the British government "view[ed] with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people," also stated that "it [was] clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country." We know how that worked out.

So what's the story inside Israel? (I'm not talking about the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which Israel has occupied for 52 years and where Palestinians have no rights whatever.)

After doing an interview recently about my new book, Coming to Palestine , I was challenged by a listener over my statements that the Israeli government treats Arab and Jewish criminals differently depending on whether they shed "Jewish blood" or "Arab blood" (no such distinction actually exists) and that political parties can't call for changing Israel from a Jewish state to a state of all its citizens.

Who is right?

Regarding criminal justice, Ha'aretz columnist Gideon Levy shows anecdotally that Arab Israeli citizens who kill Jews can spend more time in prison than Israeli Jewish citizens who kill Arabs. "Arab blood is cheaper in Israel," Levy wrote in 2014, "and Jewish blood is thicker." He says things are the same today. Over the years, many articles have been published documenting this de facto, though not de jure, disparity. Indeed, Ha'aretz reported in 2011 that

Arab Israelis who have been charged with certain types of crime are more likely than their Jewish counterparts to be convicted, and once convicted they are more likely to be sent to prison, and for a longer time. These disparities were found in a recent statistical study commissioned by Israels Courts Administration and the Israel Bar Association . The [unpublished preliminary] study is unique in that it is the first of its kind to be commissioned and funded in part by the courts administration, and in that it sought to examine claims by attorneys that Israeli judges deal more harshly with Arab criminals than with Jews.

Note that government discrimination against non-Jews across the spectrum of issues is not usually written into the law, although it may be . Mostly flagrantly, discrimination is legally applied to the "right of return." People defined as Jews, no matter where they were born or live, can become Israeli citizens/nationals virtually on arrival, while Arabs driven from their ancestral homes in 1947-48 and 1967 may not go back, much less become full-rights citizens/nationals. Put concretely, I, an atheist born in Philadelphia to Jewish parents born in Philadelphia (with roots likely in the vicinity of the Black Sea), can "return" [sic] to Israel and become an Israeli citizen at once, while my friend Raouf Halaby, a naturalized American citizen born to Arab Christian parents in west Jerusalem three years before Israel was founded, may not. The only difference is that my mother was Jewish, making me, a Spinozist, a Jewish national in Israel's eyes, and Raouf's mother was not.

Regarding restrictions on political parties, the Basic Law: The Knesset states :

A candidates' list [party] shall not participate in elections to the Knesset, and a person shall not be a candidate for election to the Knesset, if the objects or actions of the list or the actions of the person, expressly or by implication, include :

1. negation of the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state;

Before proceeding, let us note a conundrum. The issue I'm raising here is whether a state be both Jewish and democratic. The root of the word democracy is demos , people. So if the raison d'être of Israel is the welfare of only some of its citizens and millions of certain others who are citizens and residents of other countries, how can Israel be a real democracy? Strictly speaking, considering that word and , the law's language legitimizes a party that "negat[es] the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish state" but not as a democratic state. Would the Israeli election authorities accept that distinction? I don't think so.

In the past the Israeli Supreme Court has reversed government bans on a party's or candidate's inclusion in an election. Particular cases will revolve around the exact wording of a party's mission statement or candidate's platform, and legal language is subject to endless, unpredictable, and political interpretation. But, regardless, the government has the power to ban at its disposal, and future Supreme Courts may not be so liberal. So the threat of a ban always looms. Incidentally, a party or candidate that engages in "incitement to racism" is also ineligible to participate in elections, yet this provision has yet to be applied to Jewish parties and politicians, such as Likud and Benjamin Netanyahu, that routinely spout racist rhetoric.

Israel's champions also deny that Arab Israelis -- citizens, mind you -- have grossly inferior access to land, most of which is owned by a "public" authority and the Jewish National Fund (very little is privately owned); building and village permits; public utilities; education; roads; and other government-controlled services and resources. The Israeli government has carried out programs in the Galilee and Negev, known as Judaization, from which Arab Israelis, especially Bedouins, have been cleared to make way for Jewish Israelis. Such restrictions inside Israel have the stink of apartheid.

In his book Palestinians in Israel: Segregation, Discrimination, and Democracy , Ben White documents that the Israeli government allocates resources -- unsurprisingly -- just as one would expect, considering that Israel by its founding doctrine is not the land of all of its citizens but only of some. This doctrine was reinforced last year in the Nation-State Law , which declares that "The right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people."

So, as Israel's champions say, all Israeli citizens are indeed equal. It's just that some -- those whose nationality is "Jewish" -- are more equal than others -- those whose nationality is "Arab" or anything else but "Jewish." Join the debate on Facebook More articles by: Sheldon Richman

Sheldon Richman , author of Coming to Palestine , keeps the blog Free Association and is a senior fellow and chair of the trustees of the Center for a Stateless Society , and a contributing editor at Antiwar.com . He is also the Executive Editor of The Libertarian Institute.

[Nov 26, 2019] Slavoj i ek's "Pervert's Guide" to anti-Semitism by Andrew Joyce

In any case, as a philosopher Zizek is a nothing-burger, like most of these Post-Modern clowns.
Nov 26, 2019 | www.unz.com
V. Jews, Big Capital, and the Ruling Class

Equally unsustainable is the implication that Big Capital and the establishment ruling class is not, and has not been, significantly Jewish over historical time. Žižek simplifies and caricatures the Middle Ages as a time when "the Jew emerged as the enemy, a parasitic intruder who disturbs the harmonious social edifice." Žižek obviously employs the term "harmonious social edifice" with skepticism and disdain, seeing the pre-existing order (that before the arrival of the Jews) as fraught with exploitation, tensions, and contradictions. In Žižek's framework then, Jews may be a chaotic capitalist force that enters Europe, but this was a Europe already experiencing chaotic capitalist forces, and therefore it would be irrational to blame Jews for anything arising from their emergence and expansion in Europe. What needs to be distinguished here is the distinction between what might be termed the organic development of finance in Europe, [18] For an excellent summary in relation to this process in feudalism, see R. Allen Brown, Origins of English Feudalism, (New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1973). and the exorbitant and often extremely negative developments ushered in by the arrival of the Jews and their subsequent special relationship with European elites and with capitalism itself.

The organic development of finance and class divisions in Europe is demonstrated in the evolution of feudalism as a result of the adoption of heavy cavalry by the Franks in the eighth century, with other, non-military, aspects of continental feudalism arising as the inevitable social repercussions of this change in military organization. [19] Ibid .
(For an excellent summary in relation to this process in feudalism, see R. Allen Brown, Origins of English Feudalism, (New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1973).)
Since knights needed money, horses, servants, attendants, and freedom from all other non-military occupations, like tilling the soil, knighthood gradually became an upper-class affair. Increasing technological sophistication then made mounted warfare more and more expensive and caused knights to become more sharply distinguished from the ordinary peasant. It also caused free peasants to become less and less valuable as soldiers, and they therefore declined towards mere servitude. It was, therefore, in a sense inevitable that the new class of knights should become a landed aristocracy, and its members were thus in a sense destined to low-level jurisdiction of a semi-agricultural kind over their peasants. This situation really was, in a sense, a "harmonious social edifice" to the extent that it followed a clear logic and permitted these communities and their territories to be competitive in a rapidly changing military and geopolitical context. The ruling classes were obliged to adopt paternalistic practices in relation to the peasantry, and outright exploitation was rare since it could be dangerous and counterproductive in that it could provoke a mass uprising and thus damage militarily-valuable social cohesion. The social edifice was thus indeed "harmonious" in the sense that it was coordinated and balanced, and was generally beneficial to the organic national community.

The arrival of Jews in Europe undoubtedly created an imbalance in these class relations, and between the ruling class and the lower orders. Evidence of this imbalance in medieval Europe can be obtained both from surviving documentation and artefacts, and from analogous modern situations such as the the Great Romanian Peasant Revolt of 1907, during which Jewish intrusion into the existing quasi-feudal social arrangement ended in widespread rebellion and societal collapse due to the specific excesses of Jewish exploitation. The arrival of the Jews in Western Europe as a financial and geopolitical power can be dated to their ascent under the Carolingians in the ninth century, and possibly earlier in the Narbonne where they were noted as an extraordinarily wealthy class. In this development, the birth of formal, symbiotic relationships between Jews and self-interested European elites, we see a crucial fissure in European class relations. Jewish financiers entered into the harmonious social edifice as privileged and protected outsiders whose sole purpose was to accelerate and distort resource transfer between European classes, rendering internal class division less about communal efficiency than about personal gain. In this system, paternalism gave way to such situations as the permitted Jewish trade in Christian slaves (a key reason for the agitations for Agobard of Lyons) and widespread exploitative tax farming.

One of the great modern myths, a stroke of Jewish revisionist genius, is that Jews were forced into such practices by restrictive laws on the ownership of land, and certain other local contexts. This is historicist relativism at its most bankrupt and, thankfully, modern scholarship is slowly eroding such misrepresentations and outright falsehoods. Take, for example, the most recent edition of The Oxford Handbook of the Economics of Religion , which states the "remarkable" fact that Jews

whether in Narbonne in 899 or Gironne in 922, in Trier in 919 or Worms in 1090, in Barcelona in 1053 or Toledo in 1222, or in early medieval England, were permitted to acquire and own land if they wished. Not only were Jews legally permitted to own land, they could acquire significant amounts (especially in Italy, southern Spain, southern and east-central France, and Germany); possessed fields, gardens, and vineyards; and owned, transferred, and mortgaged land holdings. They preferred to hire tenants, sharecroppers, and wage laborers to work their lands. For themselves, they chose the most skilled and profitable occupations, foremost money lending. [20] R. M. McCleary (ed), The Oxford Handbook of the Economics of Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, 68.

Essentially then, we see the immediate and deliberate entrance of the Jews into European society at the level of knight, if not higher, but without any of the logic or benefits of the position of knight within the organic social edifice. The Jew in this new social order existed for no logical reason other than the personal enrichment of certain elites and the communal enrichment of the Jews themselves. This may be regarded as the first perversion of capitalism and the first true exploitation (excessive or unfair use of workers with no reason other than greed) of the serving class within this system.

Again, dispensing with historicist relativism, we can demonstrate the pattern of Jewish disruptive behaviors within capitalism with reference to analogous modern conditions. For example, the arenda system of late nineteenth- and early twentieth century-eastern Europe (especially Poland, Ukraine, and Romania) was remarkably similar to the feudal system of medieval Western Europe. The arenda system can be regarded as broadly harmonious until the mass influx of Jewish arendasi during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which saw the Jews increasingly operate as tax farmers, property agents, customs agents, and loan merchants. Jewish monopoly in these roles prompted both the rapid commercialization of land and the expansion of Big Capital, both of which were intended by Jews to exclusively benefit their in-group. Since the existence of entire Jewish communities depended on exploitative capitalism, Jews fiercely contended for monopolies in key areas. For example , The Va'ad Medinat Lita (Lithuanian Jewish Council) twice passed a resolution supporting the lease of customs and taxes by Jews, stating: "We have openly seen the great danger deriving from the operation of customs in Gentile hands; for the customs to be in Jewish hands is a pivot on which everything (in commerce) turns, since thereby Jews may exert control."

Crucially, high Jewish position in the social hierarchy was not accompanied by paternalism of any kind. In fact, Jews are notable throughout history for their incredibly hostile and exploitative behaviors towards non-elite Europeans. Philip Eidelberg, a historian of the Great Romanian Peasant Revolt of 1907, describes how Jewish arendasi " exploited the estates more ruthlessly than the native Rumanian arendasi ." He continues by explaining that Jews were not interested in the long-term prosperity of estates or their workers, and often hiked rents to breaking point "even at the risk of eventually exhausting the available land and inventory." [21] P. G. Eidelberg, The Great Rumanian Peasant Revolt of 1907: Origins of a Modern Jacquerie (), 39. In Rumania, Jews enjoyed monopolies, with Eidelberg demonstrating that Jewish bankers would decline to grant capital to any non-Jew wanting to enter this form of finance. [22] Ibid , 120.
(P. G. Eidelberg, The Great Rumanian Peasant Revolt of 1907: Origins of a Modern Jacquerie (), 39.)
Thus, the Jews competed for profit solely with each other, ever-increasing the chokehold on their European peasantries. Eidelberg writes that "the result was a bidding spiral in which the peasant was the loser. In fact, it was just such a competition between the two greatest Jewish arendas families -- the Fischers and the Justers -- which was to help spark the 1907 revolt." [23] Ibid, 39.
(P. G. Eidelberg, The Great Rumanian Peasant Revolt of 1907: Origins of a Modern Jacquerie (), 39.)

Jews, of course, continue to occupy conspicuous roles in the worst and most exploitative aspects of capitalism. Jews have also continued to acquire land for exploitative purposes, the most interesting example being the Argentinian activities of the British Jewish oligarch Joe Lewis , a tax avoider and currency speculator who made his billions alongside George Soros when both gambled on the British pound sterling crashing out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1992. As one commentator explains, "Soros' and Lewis' bet against the pound actually led to the pound crashing, after Soros ordered his hedge fund to " go for the jugular " and aggressively trade against the currency, thereby prompting its sharp devaluation. Though Soros is often called "the man who broke the Bank of England" as a result of the $1 billion in profits he made on that fateful day, Lewis is said to have made an even larger profit than Soros." While these Jews made billions, the British public suffered a rapid economic recession. Lewis didn't mind. He repeated the experiment in Mexico, causing the Mexican peso crisis , which "led to a massive jump in poverty, unemployment and inequality in Mexico and left its government beholden to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) through a loan package arranged by then-U.S. President Bill Clinton."

Growing extravagantly rich from parasitic currency speculation, Jewish oligarchs Soros and Lewis, together with co-ethnic Big Capitalists Eduardo Elsztain and Marcelo Mindlin, started buying massive tracts of Argentine real estate, particularly in Patagonia, where they pooled resources to take over local banks, the regional water supply, oil and gas wealth, and the area's largest energy supplier. Lewis then set about buying tens of thousands of hectares, declaring his wish to create "his own state in Patagonia." Some locals were willing to sell their land. One, Irineo Montero, had refused, and he, along with his wife María Ortiz and their employee José Matamala, were all found dead under mysterious circumstances. Lewis' land consolidation was then made complete, and paved the way for a Zionist enclave that has exploited locals so thoroughly that there have been regular massive demonstrations ("March for Sovereignty) against this new Jewish ruling class, attracting 80 percent of the local population. According to the research of former French intelligence officer turned journalist Thierry Meyssan, Lewis is much more amenable to his fellow Jews, and has been inviting thousands of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers to his territory annually. In late 2017, former French intelligence officer turned journalist Thierry Meyssan alleged : "Since the Falklands War, the Israeli army has been organizing 'holiday camps' in Patagonia for its soldiers. Between 8,000 and 10,000 of them now come every year to spend two weeks on Joe Lewis' land."

What we see here is just a very modern example of the millennia-old Jewish pattern of establishing full-scale operations for extracting a nation's riches and exploiting its people. We must earnestly ask of Slavoj Žižek: Has Big Capital and the establishment ruling class not been, and does it not remain, significantly Jewish


Digital Samizdat , says: November 21, 2019 at 6:37 pm GMT

Another ringer from Andrew Joyce! We are so lucky to have him. He is helping us all to recover our collective racial memory (as Jung might call it) as White Gentiles.

In April 2019, Žižek and Jordan Peterson sold out the Sony Centre in Toronto for their debate titled "Happiness: Capitalism vs. Marxism"

And who, pray tell, was invited to defend the honor of National Socialism?

In a 2009 lecture at the European Graduate School titled "Anti-Semitism, Anti-Semite and Jew," Žižek argued that anti-Semitism places Jews in "impossible Otherness"

Judaism places Jews in "impossible Otherness." Their bizarre 'chosenness' is the root of their collective pathology. (Notice how all their theories concerning our supposed ethno-centrism are just so much projection!)

It is a matter of special irony that Marxists should present their own contradictions in relation to anti-Semitism and the supposed psychosocial aspects of the anti-Semite.

Have these self-described Marxists never read Karl Marx's own scathing treatment of the Jews in Zur Judenfrage ? Here's a well-known passage:

"Let us consider the actual, worldly Jew – not the Sabbath Jew but the everyday Jew. Let us not look for the secret of the Jew in his religion, but let us look for the secret of his religion in the real Jew. What is the secular basis of Judaism? Practical need, self-interest. What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly God? Money. Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist. Money degrades all the gods of man – and turns them into commodities . The bill of exchange is the real god of the Jew. His god is only an illusory bill of exchange . The chimerical nationality of the Jew is the nationality of the merchant, of the man of money in general.[ ] The Jew has emancipated himself in a Jewish manner, not only because he has acquired financial power, but also because, through him and also apart from him, money has become a world power and the practical Jewish spirit has become the practical spirit of the Christian nations. The Jews have emancipated themselves insofar as the Christians have become Jews. [ ] In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism."

Pretty frickin' harsh, eh! I guess if old Karl were still around to hear the pathetic maunderings of post-modern Communists like Žižek, he would just shake his head and say, 'I am not a Marxist.'

According to the research of former French intelligence officer turned journalist Thierry Meyssan

That's interesting, Dr. Joyce. I've been following him over at Voltaire-net on and off for nearly a decade, and I had no idea that Meyssan had been an intelligence officer. Neither Wikipedia nor Infogalatic ever mention it. Good to know

israel shamir , says: November 21, 2019 at 10:02 pm GMT
I wrote about Zizek

http://www.unz.com/ishamir/slavoj-zizek-and-freedom-flotilla/

Slavoj Zizek went "full Monty" during his recent visit to Tel Aviv at the invitation of some sincerely dissident Israelis. They expected words of encouragement, but instead he informed them that fighting anti-Semitism is more important than defending Palestinians. The Slovenian philosopher spoke kindly of the swindler Bernie Madoff, who was "a scapegoat who was easy to blame, when in fact the real problem is the system that allowed and even pushed Madoff to commit his crimes." Indeed, it must have been 'the system' that pushed poor Mr. Madoff into crime, just as it was 'the system' that pushed Shylock to enter into money-lending and Jack the Ripper into the business of carving.

Sam J. , says: November 23, 2019 at 11:13 am GMT
" Rubin wrote that all anti-Semites see Jews as both:

Moronic, brilliant.
All-powerful, weakling.
Cosmopolitan, provincial.
Cunning, naïve.
Extraordinarily sensitive, calloused.
"Nigger-lovers," "worst bigots."
Richest, poorest.
Artistic, tasteless.
Money-lovers, intellectual snobs.
Socially pushy, exclusively clannish.
"

Some of the above are correct but there's a much more succinct and accurate description. There's one idea that describes the Jews perfectly. It describes their parasitism, their lying, their chameleon like behavior, their sense of superiority and belief that they are different from everyone else. There's a simple explanation for why the Jews are hated so much that also explains their behavior and success. The Jews are a tribe of psychopaths. Not all, maybe not even the majority, but a large number. All of the Jews ancient writings are nothing more than a manual for psychopaths to live by. The Talmud is nothing but one psychopathic thought after another. The Talmud "great enlightenment" basically says that everyone not Jewish is there to serve Jews. All their property is really the Jews. No one is really human unless they're Jews and their lives don't matter. A psychopathic religion for a psychopathic people.

Even if I'm wrong thousands of years of history show a bunch of Jews moving into your territory in in no way distinguishable from a tribe of psychopaths moving into your country

They've been thrown out of every single country that they've been to in any numbers.

COMPLETE LIST OF JEWISH EXPULSIONS (1,030)

https://archive.is/8Uvx5

Psychopaths having no empathy themselves can only go by the feedback they get from the people they are exploiting. So they push and push to see what they can get away with. The normal people build up resentment towards them. Thinking "surely they will reform or repent" like a normal person who does wrong. Of course the Jews do not. They don't have the mental process for reform. Then in a huge mass outpouring of hate for the Jews, fed up with the refusal to reform their behavior, they attack and/or deport them. In this stage of the cycle the Big/Rich Jews escape and the little Jews are attacked.

Start over.

Even if it's wrong if you assume the Jews are a tribe of psychopaths you will never be surprised and Jew's behavior will make sense.

In order to predict Jews behavior read the great book on Psychopaths by Hervey Cleckley, "The Mask of Sanity". Here's a chapter you should read. It's about the psychopath Stanley. Who does all kinds of manic bullshit and spends all his time feeding people the most outrageous lies. Look at the astounding array of things he's able to get away with. Maybe it will remind you of a certain tribe. New meme. "They're pulling a Stanley". The whole book is on the web and worth reading.

http://www.cassiopaea.com/cassiopaea/cleckley.pdf

or

http://docplayer.net/21248949-Young-man-induces-five-teen-age-girls-to-shave-their-heads.html#tab_1_1_2

Here's another link but the graphics are a bit odd.

http://www.energyenhancement.org/Psychopath/psychopath-Hervey-Cleckley-the-mask-of-sanity-SECTION-TWO-THE-MATERIAL-Part-1-The-disorder-in-full-clinical-manifestations-19-Stanley.html

" In the course of his European Graduate School lecture, Žižek comments that "the real mystery of anti-Semitism is why it is a constant "

This is not a mystery at all. NO ONE can stand psychopaths over the long term. They're fucked up. You even hear Jews leaving Israel because the culture is so fucked up. Even psychopaths don't want to live with psychopaths.

The only know recipe to living with psychopaths recommended by psychiatrist is don't live with them at all. The sooner we realize that the Jews are a damaged, evil, twisted tribe of psychopaths and there's no reasoning, dealing, co-opting or living with them the better we will be. The only 100%. guaranteed, tried and true, tested with 100% satisfaction of dealing with the Jews is to get rid of them. Peacefully if we can get it but by any means necessary get them away from you and leave them no control of any sort over your country or any other aspect of your and your countrymen's lives.

John Gruskos , says: November 23, 2019 at 11:59 pm GMT
@israel shamir

the real problem is the system that allowed and even pushed Madoff to commit his crimes

The slovenly Slovene succinctly summarizes Marxism.

John Gruskos , says: November 24, 2019 at 12:16 am GMT

Žižek copying, almost verbatim, a review of MacDonald's book by Stanley Hornbeck that appeared in the March 1999 issue of The American Renaissance.

What a damning indictment of American Renaissance!

Slavoj Zizek, the uttermost dregs of human intellectual depravity, agrees so utterly with an Amren article he feels comfortable copying it word for word as it it were his own!

Fidelpoludo , says: November 24, 2019 at 8:22 am GMT
@Digital Samizdat

Have these self-described Marxists never read Karl Marx's own scathing treatment of the Jews in "Zur Judenfrage"?

This "well-known (pretty frickin' harsh) passage" is permanently cited by anti-marxists to denunciate "Karl" as "antisemite" and with the intention to subsequently ignore his analysis of capital (for being founded in his "antisemitism").
By the way, it is not necessary to imagine "old Karl" to be "still around" or "to turn in his grave" to enlighten us with the word "I am not a Marxist". If we can trust in the words of Engels he said it in reality: "What is certain is that I myself am not a Marxist" (a remark cited by Engels in his letter to Bernstein of 2-3 November 1882).

Robert Dolan , says: November 25, 2019 at 5:23 am GMT
Yeah .they are a horrible people to be sure and they've cucked the entire western world.

Thomm is a low IQ degenerate, but he's right about one thing ..it truly is astonishing that such a small group could engineer so much destruction.

neutral , says: November 25, 2019 at 9:09 am GMT
Regarding this whole "jews are both for communism and capitalism, and thus anti semites are full of contradictory nonsense", one needs to point the obvious fact that these jewish inventions are meant for consumption for the gentiles and not the jews.

Some will think that Ayn Rand and Karl Marx are polar opposites, but this is not true, both preached a universal ideology, and both would not think it is problem at the same time that jews are immune from this ideology (because Marx would no doubt support Israel if it existed at his time).

Irish Savant , says: Website November 25, 2019 at 10:57 am GMT
A car-wreck of logic indeed. What absolute rubbish Zizek comes up with. JM Keynes observed that economics exists only to give astrology a good name. Judging by today's 'philosophers' the same could be said about them.
anon [138] Disclaimer , says: November 25, 2019 at 12:48 pm GMT
@israel shamir It's the system that has allowed Slavoj Zizek to showcase his theory . System works with usual laziness who knows who and not what .

If Maddoff were a victim may be Epstein was , then so were Hitler and Polpot
System around them allowed them to reach mass appeal and inflict severe damages .
Abusing system is not self-victimization . Prince Andrew did not hurt self .

It's the system one works to prevent undesirable products . We undermine the system .

When you side with proponents of right for Palestinian or the victims of usury banking , financialization or against penchant for military budget or eternal war you bring normal perspective , you restore balance between cause and effect and you remove artificial false intellectual reasoning g like existence of antisemitism or American responsibility or America being the beacon to humanity or America being a mystic abstract concept of higher values .
Allowing and worshipping these kinds of ideas
we make inroads by the parasites possible

Abstract concept is easy target for corruption distortion emotional manipulation .

Antisemitidm should be described and that description should be applied to other anti -ism ( anti black anti Arab anti Iran anti Chinese anti Vietnamese anti Russian etc ) epidemiological survey should be conducted along those detailed descriptive points not like -the way ADL puts out questionnaires .

It is time for Slavoj Zizek. to go to a library and get hold of the books by Herzl just to get started .

anon [153] Disclaimer , says: November 25, 2019 at 1:27 pm GMT
@anon masonry is clear example of this they tricked british and french people that let jews play an important paper in the ideological foundation ,germans understanding the danger but recon¡gnizing that the ilustration was the way of the future adapted his own version of masonry with greek symbols and pure european myths and of course mantaining jews out of the inner circle of power more or less like in scandinavia .
spanish people simply banned the masonry .

its curious how italian and iberians and their colonies were able to crush any jewish resistance and asimilate the rest of them in the new world even if they arent the smartest europeans .

i think we need a fusion of german and latin character to face this new era

Greg Bacon , says: Website November 25, 2019 at 1:39 pm GMT
There's around 200 nations in the world and if I may be so bold–since this is going against the Cultural Marxists agenda that race is a social construct–4 main races that contain around 30 subgroups.
In other words, lots of stories to pick from for the MSM.

Yet, day after day after day, we usually only hear about ONE nation and ONE race, Israel and the Jews.
It's gotten all so tiresome to have these human peacocks constantly parading around, demanding that us Goyim worship them or else.
And if we fail–in their minds–to show them the proper adoration, we get accused of anti-Semitism.

Does this insanity ever stop?

Verymuchalive , says: November 25, 2019 at 1:42 pm GMT
@HammerJack Andrew Joyce's work would never appear in American Renaissance. Taylor and his cohorts prevent any criticism of Jewish involvement in White dispossession.
anon [138] Disclaimer , says: November 25, 2019 at 1:51 pm GMT
https://medium.com/@rosselson/theodor-herzl-visionary-or-antisemite-97bfbe92980

Herzl did not like Jews , celebrated possible future conversion of his son , thought en masse conversion to Christianity , did not think of allowing Hebrew as state language and did not conceive Shabbat a holiday

But also thought sneak attack on local Arab , planned deceptive discussions and ploys to make them leave Palestine without arousing immediate large scale protests , he offered the service of new state to be a barrier between uncivilized Asia and developed Europe , he promised Balfour of protecting British interest

He wanted no Arab in the midst and eagerly and glowingly promised his visions of equal democratic society .

Above all he can't pull it off himself . He needed help . He needed money that he by threat and persuasion got from rich Jew . What about other nations shedding their non Jews blood to erect a pure Jews nation ????

His minions got there also by lying false promising misrepresenting and bribing They also used religious hatred of Christianity to Islam and racial hatred of European to Arab and Turkey .
Britain pod in blood and money Now its Germany and USA .

-- -- --

But there are antisemite thinking or musing that. A-gentile never be able to get rid of , so said the Slovenian

The paradoxes Mr Slovenian sees in antisemite argument is what litter the philosophy of Zionism .

Verymuchalive , says: November 25, 2019 at 2:11 pm GMT
@Digital Samizdat Meyssan is a leftist of North African origin. Earlier in his career, he was involved in harassing the National Front and other parties of the right.

From 1996 to 1999, he worked as substitute coordinator of the National Committee of Surveillance against the extreme right, which held weekly meetings with the 45 major political parties, unions and associations belonging to the French left-wing in order to draw up a common response to escalating intolerance

I think Dr Joyce mistakes Meyssan's involvement in the above committee with that of performing intelligence functions. Meyssan was an enthusiastic supporter of Hate Speech laws to be used against the Right. Except later he fell foul of them himself and no longer lives in France.

tumi , says: November 25, 2019 at 2:33 pm GMT
Indeed, for an anti-segregation organization, the early NAACP was essentially divided between the Jews who ran it, and the Blacks who went along for the ride. As Hasia Diner puts it in In the Almost Promised Land: American Jews and Blacks, 1915–1935, many in the NAACP's Jewish leadership "worked most intensely with other Jews."[7]"

Muslim has replaced Blacks . Muslim "leaders " seek in Israel the conduit to power or pipeline to something ( usually end up getting less scornful hateful mutterings in Fox and WSJ ) . In return they attend interfaith meeting to be lectured ,open up discussing Koran with ideas of dropping some pages ,and agreeing to hate Shia ,agreeing to start propaganda against Iran Syria and Muslim Brotherhood ,spreading the FDD orchestrated fear of Iran, imbibing hook line and slinkier the narrative against Iran Syria Hizbullah Libya Houthi and Taliban or Qatar . Add to that Russia and china also. And they start discussing direct flight from Tel Aviv to Medina from where their prophet once banned the Jews after decades of deceptive behaviors of the Jewish clan.

What does muslim get ? The same stuff the blacks got- violence drugs sex trafiiciking, destruction of community, shuttering down of school college and enrichment of few who sing Hosana to the Jews .
For the time it is ;limited mostly to ME S Asia and N Africa . But I won't be supposed to see it get into a more permanent footing in USA ,Canada,Australia. For a back on the back Muslim will hurt themselves the way Afroamerican were taken for a ride.

Anon [409] Disclaimer , says: November 25, 2019 at 2:56 pm GMT
Nice, that the Oxford Handbook cited sells for $429 over at Amazon. I hadn't liked Joyce's articles particularly, but this one is helpful because it shows not just history, but the link to current events. Particularly useful the info about Joe Lewis, (never heard about him before). Doubly so in view of the fact that South America seems very unstable now, with a migrant expulsion towards Mexico/US that is as bad as the Syria-to-Europe a few years back. But much more under the radar.. no "color this" or "spring that" hashtags this time.
jack daniels , says: November 25, 2019 at 3:00 pm GMT
@neutral Capitalism and communism have materialism in common. Various schemes based on religious principles vary from both.

Secondly, a capitalist can favor communism so long as it doesn't damage his own interests.
1) He may be able to make money trading with a foreign communist government e.g. Kaiser, Ford.
2) He may favor communism as a means of destroying the old Christian order, which was the case with US capitalists who funded the Bolsheviks e.g. Schiff, Warburg, Hammer.
3) A corrupt communist regime may allow selected friendly capitalists to flourish with in effect a state subsidy. Most regimes of any kind are corrupt.

The idea that a capitalist can't be a communist is childishly simplistic, really just a slogan.

Germanicus , says: November 25, 2019 at 3:48 pm GMT
@Fidelpoludo

"Karl" as "antisemite" and with the intention to subsequently ignore his analysis of capital (for being founded in his "antisemitism").

Nonsense, Moses Mordechai Levi advocated for the establishment of a privately owned central bank, and never criticized interest/usury.

anonymous [307] Disclaimer , says: November 25, 2019 at 4:16 pm GMT
@israel shamir [Slavoj Zizek went "full Monty" during his recent visit to Tel Aviv at the invitation of some sincerely dissident Israelis. They expected words of encouragement, but instead he informed them that fighting anti-Semitism is more important than defending Palestinians. ]

Who were these 'sincerely dissident Israelis' who didnot' know Zizek is a zionist charlatan?
They are not 'sincere' but they are like him zionist jews.

This fact is obvious many years now and he showed himself as a zionist racist anti Palestinians and non Jew many years ago in Israel. Who are these dummies that they don't know who is Zizek.

Zizek like Trump is a charlatan zionist racist. He is a fraud like Henry Bernard Levy

You should see the video when he appeared at 'charlie Rose program' – a womanizer and racist American exceptionalism, to see how this 'communist' clown was admiring Jewish capitalism to please another clown charlie rose.

[Nov 22, 2019] Avigdor Liberman, leader of Israael's far right secular party Yisrael Beytenu has failed in his attempts to form a government of national unity and is now denouncing the ultra orthodox parties as "anti-semitic!"

Nov 22, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

johnf , 21 November 2019 at 02:26 AM

...Avigdor Liberman, leader of Israael's far right secular party Yisrael Beytenu has failed in his attempts to form a government of national unity and is now denouncing the ultra orthodox parties as "anti-semitic!"

... ... ...

https://www.timesofisrael.com/left-and-right-unite-in-denouncing-libermans-anti-semitic-speech/

[Sep 18, 2019] An Excellent Study Of The Manufactured Labour "Antisemitism Crisis" by Kenneth Surin

Notable quotes:
"... The results showed that on average people believed that a third of Labour Party members had been reported for antisemitism. A key part of the authors' investigation was to examine how it could be that so many people came to believe this when the actual figure was far less than 1%. ..."
"... What is clear is that for Ukania's Joe and Jill Normal, who don't often go beyond the newspaper headlines to look at news source ..."
"... The crucial factor here is that no matter what steps Labour's left leadership takes to deal with the party's antisemitism problems (and these steps have been taken, unevenly and somewhat slowly), those bent on ousting Corbyn as leader for reasons internal to the party's politics will not cease their efforts no matter what Labour does to address antisemitism within its membership. ..."
"... The perfect example here is Tom Watson, Labour's deputy leader, who is on the payroll of the UK's Zionist lobby. Watson did his utmost to stoke the fires of the antisemitism crisis. Sensing now he has played his full hand on this issue, he is currently using Brexit as his foil for attacking Corbyn. ..."
Sep 18, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org

I've just finished reading the uncorrected proof copy an excellent study of the manufactured Labour "antisemitism crisis". [Greg Philo, Mike Berry, Antony Lerman, Justin Schlossberg and David Miller, Bad News for Labour: Antisemitism, the Party & Public Belief (London: Pluto Press, 2019)]

The launching point for the book's analysis is a national poll, accompanied by the use of focus groups, on how people make judgments and form opinions.

The results showed that on average people believed that a third of Labour Party members had been reported for antisemitism. A key part of the authors' investigation was to examine how it could be that so many people came to believe this when the actual figure was far less than 1%.

The book focuses on how this chasm between (mis)perception came to exist. The authors used questionnaires as part of their survey, and the anonymous written answers show just how ignorant and poorly informed many Brits are -- a significant percentage believe what they read in the trashy rightwing tabloids or what they see on TV!

Some focus group members even believed Corbyn would bring in Sharia Law if elected.

Bad News for Labour begins with an overview of the focus group discussions. Several participants in the focus groups who came believing that a third of Labour Party members had been reported for antisemitism revised this number downwards, sensibly, as the group discussions went on and participants took to educating each other.

At the same time focus group members believed the controversy has done serious damage to the party.

What is clear is that for Ukania's Joe and Jill Normal, who don't often go beyond the newspaper headlines to look at news sources, etc., it is the case that

MASSIVE MEDIA COVEREAGE OF X = X MUST BE A BIG PROBLEM.

Bad News for Labour then looks at the plethora of competing positions and interests within Labour which created a confusing context for dealing with the antisemitism controversy. The authors identify 3 main areas:

1) the argument that there was a significant and widespread problem regarding antisemitism within the Labour Party;

2) that the issue was being used to undermine Labour's left leadership, and specifically Jeremy Corbyn, as part of the internal politics of the Party;

3) that the controversy was linked to the defence of Israel and attempts to change Labour policy with regard to that state.

The crucial factor here is that no matter what steps Labour's left leadership takes to deal with the party's antisemitism problems (and these steps have been taken, unevenly and somewhat slowly), those bent on ousting Corbyn as leader for reasons internal to the party's politics will not cease their efforts no matter what Labour does to address antisemitism within its membership.

The perfect example here is Tom Watson, Labour's deputy leader, who is on the payroll of the UK's Zionist lobby. Watson did his utmost to stoke the fires of the antisemitism crisis. Sensing now he has played his full hand on this issue, he is currently using Brexit as his foil for attacking Corbyn.

Labour has edged its way towards a fragile truce within itself on Brexit, by making the ridding of Johnson and the Tories its priority, so that having a general election is the first objective, and only after that can such matters as a second EU referendum with options of a viable deal and remain be contemplated.

Watson is now trying to upset this arrangement by saying a second Brexit referendum has to come before a general election (echoing a position taken by Blair a few days before) -- a ridiculous proposition, because having a referendum first will simply reopen divisions within Labour that existed during and after the first Brexit referendum. Far better to win an election, which will leave Labour more in control of events (and probably more united by virtue of electoral success), and then tackle the thorny matter of a second EU referendum.

Watson was promptly slapped down by Corbyn.

Bad News for Labour sensibly suggests that the best way for Corbyn and the party's left to overcome these attempts by Labour's mainly Blairite rightwing to undermine the Left is for the Blairites to be deselected by their local Labour parties as candidates in the next election.

Several Blairites, knowing they face deselection, have already jumped ship and joined the centrist Lib Dems while a couple went on to be Independents. Other Blairites, knowing which way the wind is blowing, have announced they won't be standing in the next election.

The outrage of the Labour Zionists making life difficult for Corbyn is highly selective. It is certainly true that some of these Labour MPs received antisemitic abuse (though mainly from people who were not party members).

At the same time, the Labour politician Diane Abbott, a Corbyn ally who is shadow home secretary/interior minister, was targetted by racists, though this has received much less media attention. Amnesty International's research showed that Abbott received 45% of all abusive tweets sent to female MPs in the 6 weeks before the 2017 election.

The crux of Labour's antisemitism controversy is the bruhaha over its grudging acceptance of the flawed International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of "antisemitism". The media's coverage of this controversy was framed by 2 assumptions: that under Corbyn antisemitism in Labour had become "institutionalized", and that Corbyn and his associates had failed to counter this.

The IHRA definition is deeply flawed, so much so that it is deemed not fit to be given any legal standing.

Media coverage of Labour's disputes with this definition cloak this fact by referring to it as "the widely accepted IHRA definition", "the widely accepted definition put forward by the IHRA", "the IHRA's widely accepted definition", "the global definition of antisemitism", "the globally recognized definition", "the near universally accepted definition", and so on, in effect suggesting that Labour was completely out of line in its reluctance to accept the 38-word definition, despite the fact that a powerful body of legal opinion saw it as a hopelessly vague statement accompanied by a rag-bag of "examples".

The IHRA examples in effect make it automatic that any characterization of Israel as "racist" is perforce "antisemitic", in this way placing Israel's apartheid policy towards Palestinians beyond criticism.

Under immense pressure Labour alas caved-in and accepted the definition and all its examples.

Perhaps the fact that the Equalities and Human Rights Commission's announcement in May that it was investigating Labour's handling of antisemitism complaints following submissions from the Jewish Labour Movement and the Campaign Against Antisemitism had something to do with Labour's capitulation on this score.

Bad News for Labour therefore trades on a double entendre -- news that is bad for Labour, but also "faux news" that itself is bad precisely because of its all-too-common distortions, biases, and underlying malicious intent. It's no surprise that two Murdoch papers, The Times and Sun , have been at the forefront of this campaign against Labour.

Perhaps more surprising are the outfits that kept company with Murdoch newspapers in this campaign against Corbyn, namely, the supposedly objective BBC and the "progressive" Guardian , both of which matched the Murdoch rags step for step in a rush for the gutter.

Bad News for Labour presents a flood of evidence detailing how this campaign was confected and what its effects on the party have been.

Since I'm a British citizen I'll be in the UK next week attending the Labour Party annual conference as a member-delegate. Testing the waters on this issue will be interesting to say the least.

Meanwhile the media say nary a word about the rampant Islamophobia in the Conservative Party (starting with its leader, BoJo, and his insouciantly feeble jokes about burka-wearing women looking like "letter boxes" and "bank robbers", and so on), and the fact that surveys show antisemitism to be more prevalent in the Tories than it is in Labour.

As Americans say: go figure.

Join the debate on Facebook More articles by: Kenneth Surin

Kenneth Surin teaches at Duke University, North Carolina. He lives in Blacksburg, Virginia

[Sep 15, 2019] A False Accusation of Antisemitism from Where You Would Least Expect It Dissident Voice

Sep 15, 2019 | dissidentvoice.org

Browse by Topic Poetry on Sunday Latest Articles

Recommended Reading A False Accusation of Antisemitism from Where You Would Least Expect It

by Jeff Blankfort / September 12th, 2019

I know what America is. America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction.

-- Benjamin Netayahu, 2001, quoted in Ha'aretz , July 15, 2010

It is not uncommon, of course, to be labeled "anti-Semitic" for calling attention to the inordinate power of the Israel Lobby over our political processes or suggesting that the Iraq War was launched on Israel's behalf. The last place that I would expect to find such an allegation, however, was on the CounterPunch website to which I have contributed a number of articles on the subject over the years.

On August 2nd in an opinion piece by Ron Jacobs, headlined, "Israel -- The Largest US Aircraft Carrier in the World," those, like myself, who have described, in detail, on CounterPunch and elsewhere, the manner in which the Israel Lobby controls both Congress and the White House on issues relating to Israel, were accused of propagating "what is an essentially anti-Semitic argument concerning the nature of the Washington-Tel Aviv alliance."

That Jacobs, a veteran of the Sixties as long of tooth as myself, a prolific writer and frequent contributor to Left publications, would make such an allegation, after what we have learned about the role of pro-Israel Jewish neocons in fomenting the Iraq War and following that, implementing crippling sanctions on Iran while agitating against the nuclear agreement with Tehran, is as mind boggling as it is insulting.

Jacobs did this under the cover of what purports to be a review of a new book by historian Stephen Gowans, Israel: A Beachhead in the Middle East , which Jacobs contends is "a necessary and forceful rebuke of those on the left and right who insist that Washington is Israeli-occupied territory."

First, a book review it is not. One cannot do justice to any serious book in just 764 words which is the length of Jacobs' piece, although whether Gowans' book which amplifies the charge of antisemitism can be taken seriously is open to question.

If not a book review then, what is it? Let's start with the title, a quote from the late general and Secretary of State Alexander Haig whose very sanity came into question following the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan when Vice-President George HW Bush was away from the capital. At that point, as the New York Times described it , Haig "raced upstairs [to the press room] and went directly to the lectern before a television audience of millions. His knuckles whitening, his arms shaking, Mr. Haig declared to the world, 'I am in control here, in the White House.' He did not give that appearance."

In any case, Gowans use of Haig's quote in his book turned out to be hearsay from a dubious source.

From Jacobs' opening sentence, it seems clear that his intention was to provide "damage control" for the plethora of predominantly Jewish organizations whose primary raison d'etre is pushing the agenda of the Netanyahu government on Capitol Hill whose activities, not to mention, existence, have been largely ignored or dismissed by others on the "Left" who share Jacobs' aversion to blaming even a segment of American Jews for anything. (Think Noam Chomsky, Phyllis Bennis, Stephen Zunes).

"The Israeli government does not control the foreign policy of the United States.," is how Jacobs began his article. True, but none of those he is criticizing argue that it is and Jacobs must surely know this. They affirm, with considerable evidence to back it up, that supporters of the Israeli government are largely responsible for shaping US policies in the Middle East and nowhere else. In other words, Jacobs has created a straw man.

If we restrict ourselves to this millennium, one only has to look at the appointees from the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) that George W Bush brought into his administration, and particularly to the Pentagon and who became activated, like sleeper cells, after the events of September 11.

From PNAC, came a troop of 20, foremost among them, Dick Cheney, Dubya's Vice-President, Donald Rumsfeld, (Secretary of Defense), Paul Wolfowitz, (Deputy Secretary of Defense), Richard Perle, (Defense Advisory Board), Doug Feith, (Under Secretary of Defense for Policy), Lewis (Scooter) Libby (Cheney's Chief of Staff), and John Bolton who received a recess appointment as UN ambassador when it was clear he wouldn't get Senate approval. (Bolton would later be hailed by Israel's UN ambassador, Dan Gillerman, as "the sixth man in our office" and last year, after replacing H.R. McMaster as Trump's National Security Adviser, he received the "Defender of Israel" award from the Zionist Organization of America).

Launched in 1997 by neocons Robert Kagan and Bill Kristol, (son of Irving Kristol, the neocon movement's co-founder), PNAC drew attention on Capitol Hill the following year when it sent a letter to then President Bill Clinton, calling on him to overthrow Saddam. Among its signatories were Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz. Legislation was passed, the Iraq Liberation Act, in 1998, which stated that it was US policy to oust Saddam but no action was taken or contemplated.

What makes the Israeli connection indisputable was that PNAC was preceded a year earlier by a policy paper prepared for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, entitled, "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm." Its authors were a study group led by Perle which included Feith, David Wurmser and his Israeli wife Meyrav Wurmser and called for the removal of Saddam Hussein , highlighting Iraq's possession of "weapons of mass destruction." Wurmser would go on to become a Middle East Advisor for Vice President Cheney and with Feith, help set up the Office of Special Plans to produce evidence of Iraq's WMDs when the CIA failed to come up with it.

What those who insist that the 2003 war on Iraq was just a continuation of traditional US imperialist policies refuse to acknowledge is that the invasion of Iraq marked a 180 degree break with what US Middle Eastern policy had been up to that point, namely, to maintain stability in that oil rich region.

That is why former president George HW Bush, his Secretary of State, James Baker and his National Security Advisor, former general, Brent Scowcroft, publicly opposed the war and why Bush Sr resisted demands from the neocons and Israel's allies in the media, to have US troops march to Baghdad and remove Saddam from power after ousting Iraqi troops from Kuwait a decade earlier.

When this fact was pointed out to George W Bush by Tim Russert on NBC's Meet the Press , Dubya responded, "I answer to a higher father."

Before the war went south, Perle and Wolfowitz were competing in the media for credit for the great victory over Saddam. Both men, along with Cheney, Feith, and Bolton, were also members of JINSA's Advisory Board, an influential but little known neocon operation that came into existence in 1976, apparently in response to President Gerald Ford having suspended a shipment of US jet fighters to Israel for six months upon Israel's refusal to give up land in the Egyptian Sinai that it had captured in the October 1973 war.

Moreover, Ford sent a private letter to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin warning him about a likely re-evaluation of US-Israel relations, hinting that he might call for Israel to return to its pre-1967 borders. Rabin made the letter public which alerted AIPAC to respond. It struck back against Ford by getting 76 senators, three-quarters of that body, to sign a letter to the president, warning him that the US-Israeli bond was sacrosanct and should not be meddled with. Ford quickly backed off and over the years, many more such letters, drafted by AIPAC, would reach the desk of our presidents.

JINSA saw its goal as making sure that the US and Israeli militaries would become so entwined that no future president would ever contemplate or be able to disentangle the armed forces of both countries. To ensure that, it created a large advisory board composed of former generals and admirals and a few police chiefs while arranging programs to take newly retiring generals and admirals on all expense paid trips to Israel. There are currently 57 former generals and admirals on the JINSA advisory board. The first and last article about JINSA in a national publication appeared in The Nation in 2002 and like PNAC, its existence has been ignored by those engaged in damage control on Israel's behalf.

Even Colin Powell's attribution of the war to Donald Rumsfeld's embrace by "the JINSA crowd," in Karen DeYoung's biography of Powell, Soldier , did not stir any of the latter to reconsider their positions.

Going back to the first US war on Iraq, all of the sanctions put in place against governments viewed by Israel as its enemies, have largely been the work of AIPAC and its sister organizations such as the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. WINEP or TWI (its current acronym) was spawned by AIPAC in 1985 in order to make the step from lobbying for Israel to actually making policy itself. It has become arguably the most influential of the Beltway think tanks whose "experts" routinely appear before Congressional committees and whose op-ed pieces invariably find their way into the opinion sections of our leading newspapers and the inboxes of members of Congress.

To enforce the sanctions, after 9/11, President Bush set up a special department in the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence which, beginning with the appointment of pro-Israel zealot, Stuart Levey, became the exclusive provenance of pro-Israel Jews, the latest of whom, Sigal Mandelker, is actually an Israeli. It is this department, in essence, an arm of the Israeli government, that determines what countries and companies are adhering to or breaking sanctions on Iran and Syria and which organizations should be placed on the terrorist watch list.

When Obama took office, the Israeli press reported that Levey had made a special trip to Israel to assure Netanyahu that under the new president, nothing would change.

Were there not sanctions on Iraq and on Iran, the major US oil companies would have been more than happy to do business with both countries. The last company that tried, Conoco, was obliged to cancel a deal it had made with Tehran in March, 1995.

The only way the Obama Administration was able to sign the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) with Iran and the other members of the UN Security Council plus Germany was to declare it to be an agreement, not a treaty, thus avoiding having a vote on it by the Senate where it would surely have been defeated. Not to be denied, Israel's friends in Washington had the Senate pass a bill requiring Obama and succeeding presidents to ratify US participation in the agreement every 90 days. This was the equivalent of a poison pill and a perfect set-up for Donald Trump.

There is far too much evidence of Israel's control of Washington to include in this short article but two more items should seal the debate.

The first begins in 2015 in Las Vegas when Jewish multi billionaire Sheldon Adelson held two auditions for prospective Republican presidential candidates at his Venetian Hotel to determine which one would be the best for Israel. Adelson was at the time and still is the owner of the most widely read newspaper in Israel, Israel Hayom , which is provided free and has been seen, until recently, as a mouthpiece for Netanyahu. On the day he opened his newspaper, he apologized to his Israeli audience for having "worn the uniform of the US army and not the Israeli Defense Forces," a clip of which can still be seen on You Tube.

Adelson's choices after the auditions were first Ted Cruz and then Marco Rubio. When both failed to attract the voters, Adelson switched to Trump, pumping tens of millions of dollars into his campaign and, judging from Trump's gifts to Israel, not the least of which was moving the US embassy to Jerusalem and recognizing Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights, it is safe to say that Adelson bought himself a president.

Cut now to last December, in Florida, at the annual convention of the relatively new Israeli American Council, the major funder of which happens to be Adelson. On the stage as the host was Israeli-American Haim Saban, one of the Democratic Party's major funders who once boasted to a New Yorker writer that he was a "one issue man and that issue is Israel."

It was shortly after the November mid-term elections and Saban was interviewing the returning House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Charles Schumer, the Senate's top ranking Democrat. As Ron Kampeas of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) described it on Dec. 2:

Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat who likely will be speaker of the new US House of Representatives, listed pro-Israel lawmakers she plans to name to key committee positions and said her party remained fundamentally pro-Israel.

'We have people very well placed to share our values,' Pelosi, a California Democrat, said in addressing the final event Sunday of the annual Israeli-American Council conference, after listing planned assignments.

Pelosi said she would name Rep. Nita Lowey, D-New York, to chair the Appropriations Committee; Eliot Engel, D-New York, to chair the Foreign Affairs Committee; Ted Deutch, D-Florida, to chair the Middle East subcommittee; Adam Schiff, D-California, to chair the Intelligence Committee; Alcee Hastings, D-Florida, to chair the human rights-monitoring Helsinki Committee; Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Florida, to a key Appropriations Committee position; and Lois Frankel, D-Florida, to a key Foreign Affairs Committee position.

All have longstanding pro-Israel records and all but Hastings are Jewish." 1

Pelosi's exchange with Saban can still be viewed on You Tube but don't look for any report on that conference outside of the Jewish press. The corporate media, like Congress, is under the thumb of the Israel Lobby.

  1. Wasserman-Schultz had been the chair of the DNC who was forced to resign after the release by WikiLeaks of the DNC's emails exposed the DNC's efforts to sabotage Bernie Sanders on Hillary Clinton's behalf. Obviously, that did not hurt her in Pelosi's eyes. [ ]
Jeffrey Blankfort lives in Northern California. He can be reached at: [email protected] . Read other articles by Jeff .

This article was posted on Thursday, September 12th, 2019 at 6:49am and is filed under Israel/Palestine , Prejudice , The Lobby , Zionism .

[Sep 12, 2019] Was Benjamin Frankin anti-Semite by today's standard? Yes he was. But that does not diminish accuracy of some of his observations if we replace Jews with Zionists and/or "financial oligarchy"

Notable quotes:
"... According to a FOX News report from December 2001, 60 Israelis were apprehended or detained after September 11, with most deported, and a total of 140 Israelis were arrested and detained in all of 2001 by federal authorities. That report claimed that the arrests, ostensibly including the “Dancing Israelis,” were in relation to an investigation of “an organized [Israeli] intelligence gathering operation designed to ‘penetrate government facilities.’” ..."
"... The report also added that most of those arrested, in addition to having served in the IDF, had “intelligence expertise” and worked for Israeli companies that specialized in wiretapping. Some of those detained were also active members of the Israeli military; and several detainees, including the “Dancing Israelis,” had failed polygraph tests when asked if they had been surveilling the U.S. government. ..."
"... The FBI presence at the Urban Moving Systems search site drew the attention of the local media and was later reported on both television and in the local press. A former Urban Moving Systems employee later contacted the Newark Division with information indicating that he had quit his employment with Urban Moving Systems as a result of the high amount of anti-American sentiment present among Urban’s employees. The former employee stated that an Israeli employee of Urban had even once remarked, “Give us twenty years and we’ll take over your media and destroy your country” (page 37 of the FBI report ). ..."
"... The company’s owner — Dominik Otto Suter, an Israeli citizen — had fled to Israel on September 14, 2001, two days after he had been questioned by the FBI. The FBI told ABC News that “Urban Moving may have been providing cover for an Israeli intelligence operation.” Surprisingly, since at least 2016, Suter has been living in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he works for a contractor for major tech companies like Google and Microsoft. According to the public records database Intelius, in 2006 and 2007 Suter also worked for a telecommunications company — Granite Telecommunications — that works for the U.S. military and several other U.S. government agencies. ..."
Sep 12, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

ExposeThem511 , 58 minutes ago link

Quote memorialized by Jean Patrice in "Communism Unmasked" first edition in the 1940s:

The author used the following quote in the referenced book at pp. 257-258 because the topic of Appendix II on p. 257 was "Jews and Vatican II." The author was questioning why the Jews would have been invited to Vatican II as if anyone invites a corporate adversary to a board meeting. Appendix II beginning on p. 257 is a worthwhile read.

Author's prefacing statement:

Let me here quote the warning issued by Benjamin Franklin. He is reported as being very hostile to the Jews. According to the diaries of Charles Pinckney of South Carolina, one of the framers of the American Constitution, Franklin protested very strongly against the Jews. He is reported as saying at the Constitutional Convention:

In whatever country Jews have settled in any great numbers, they have lowered its moral tone, depreciated its commercial integrity, and segregated themselves and not been assimilated; have sneered at and tried to undermine the Christian religion and upon which that nation is founded, by objecting to its restrictions; have built up a State within a State, and, when opposed, have tried to strangle that country to death financially, as in the case of Spain and Portugal. . .

If you do not exclude them from the United States in this Constitution, in less than 200 years they will have swarmed in such great numbers that they will dominate and devour the land and change our form of Government for which we Americans have shed our blood, given our life and substance and jeopardised our liberty. If you do not exclude them, in less than 200 years our descendants will be working in the fields to furnish them substance, while they will be in the counting houses rubbing their hands. I warn you, gentlemen, that if you do not exclude the Jews for all time, your children will curse you in your grave, Jews, gentlemen, are Asiatics. Let them be born where they will never be otherwise.

Interesting how Franklin mentioned "a State within a State" just like today's "the Deep State."

History has been significantly veiled to hide these truths.

Lumberjack , 1 hour ago link

This is new:

https://www.mintpressnews.com/newly-released-fbi-docs-shed-light-on-apparent-mossad-foreknowledge-of-9-11-attacks/258581/

A crowded dance floor

While the case of the “Dancing Israelis” has long been treated as an outlier in the aftermath of September 11, what is often overlooked is the fact that hundreds of Israeli nationals were arrested in the aftermath of the attacks.

According to a FOX News report from December 2001, 60 Israelis were apprehended or detained after September 11, with most deported, and a total of 140 Israelis were arrested and detained in all of 2001 by federal authorities. That report claimed that the arrests, ostensibly including the “Dancing Israelis,” were in relation to an investigation of “an organized [Israeli] intelligence gathering operation designed to ‘penetrate government facilities.’”

The report also added that most of those arrested, in addition to having served in the IDF, had “intelligence expertise” and worked for Israeli companies that specialized in wiretapping. Some of those detained were also active members of the Israeli military; and several detainees, including the “Dancing Israelis,” had failed polygraph tests when asked if they had been surveilling the U.S. government.

Lumberjack , 45 minutes ago link

More:

note the head of urban moving systems fled to Israel on Sept. 14, when all airspace was shut down over CONUS., Did he cross the border into Canada to flee?

The FBI presence at the Urban Moving Systems search site drew the attention of the local media and was later reported on both television and in the local press. A former Urban Moving Systems employee later contacted the Newark Division with information indicating that he had quit his employment with Urban Moving Systems as a result of the high amount of anti-American sentiment present among Urban’s employees. The former employee stated that an Israeli employee of Urban had even once remarked, “Give us twenty years and we’ll take over your media and destroy your country” (page 37 of the FBI report ).

The FBI returned to search the premises of Urban Moving Systems a month later, but by that time found:

The building and all of its contents had been abandoned by…the owner of Urban Moving Systems. This [was] apparently being done to avoid criminal prosecution after the 09/11/2001 arrest of five of his employees and subsequent seizure of his office computer systems by members of the FBI-NK on or around 09/13/2001.”

The company’s owner — Dominik Otto Suter, an Israeli citizen — had fled to Israel on September 14, 2001, two days after he had been questioned by the FBI. The FBI told ABC News that “Urban Moving may have been providing cover for an Israeli intelligence operation.” Surprisingly, since at least 2016, Suter has been living in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he works for a contractor for major tech companies like Google and Microsoft. According to the public records database Intelius, in 2006 and 2007 Suter also worked for a telecommunications company — Granite Telecommunications — that works for the U.S. military and several other U.S. government agencies.

Lumberjack , 36 minutes ago link

Clip on the "5 Dancing Israelis"

https://mobile.twitter.com/zogistani99/status/907121866317467648

Barry Madingo-Odongo , 1 hour ago link

They did it. And if the American people do understand that, israel's going to disappear. israel will flat-*** disappear from this Earth.
- Dr. Alan Sabrosky

[Sep 11, 2019] The Center's CPAC 2019 Panel Why Anti-Zionism is a Form of Anti-Semitism and a Threat to National Security" by Alex Nitzberg

Notable quotes:
"... He said that, "The point that I want this panel to make is that anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel is soaring on the left and this is a real danger for this country." ..."
"... The Pennsylvania Congressman said that "there's one democratic nation in the Middle East that believes in Western values, and it's Israel." He described the Jewish State as a "little oasis of freedom" in the region. ..."
Mar 18, 2019 | www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org

The Center for Security Policy hosted a panel at the 2019 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) titled "Why Anti-Zionism is a Form of Anti-Semitism and a Threat to National Security."

Speakers included Center President Fred Fleitz, Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA), Rabbi Yechezkel Moskowitz of the National Council of Young Israel, Dan Pollak of the Zionist Organization of America and investigative journalist and author James Simpson.

During his opening remarks Fleitz noted that, "There is an effort right now to dress up supposed criticisms of the Israeli government and Prime Minister Netanyahu as just criticisms of their policies, that there's nothing against the state of Israel. This is not right. This is repackaged anti-Semitism. It is repackaged Israel hatred to delegitimize the state of Israel and the state of Israel's very right to exist."

He said that, "The point that I want this panel to make is that anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel is soaring on the left and this is a real danger for this country."

Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) noted that the U.S. reaps tangible benefits from its relationship with Israel. Citing an example from his own experience, he said that when he served as an Apache helicopter pilot he utilized Israeli-developed technology.

The Pennsylvania Congressman said that "there's one democratic nation in the Middle East that believes in Western values, and it's Israel." He described the Jewish State as a "little oasis of freedom" in the region.

During his remarks, Rabbi Yechezkel Moskowitz stated:

From my perspective the greatest existential threat to the Jewish people in this country is the liberal progressive Jewish community. I think that what they've done is that they've replaced Judaism with liberal progressivism. It's become practically speaking a religion for them," he explained, saying that "in order to push forward their liberal progressive agenda, they are willing to throw Israel under the bus.

Watch a recording of the event below:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/XWLB3EJwyaE

[Sep 10, 2019] When Ilhan Omar Is Accused of Anti-Semitism, It's News. When a Republican Smears Muslims, There's Silence. Portside

Notable quotes:
"... in the seven days after Omar's "Benjamins" tweet, "Fox News mentioned her during 21 shows, CNN in 53, and five on MSNBC." The freshman Democrat's name, according to a Lexis search, was also mentioned in a whopping 479 newspaper articles. ..."
"... And in the seven days since Brooks's remarks? Zero mentions of him in the national press. Zero coverage of him on network and cable news. Not one story; not one report. ..."
"... Can you imagine the reaction if Ilhan Omar had said that Jews had become the "dominant influence" within the Republican Party, or if she had decried the "growing influence" of the Jewish religion in the GOP? Or if she had spoken about Jews gaining "greater and greater influence" in elections? ..."
"... We would now be embarking on another seven (or even 70!) days of nonstop coverage, and condemnation, of what would be (rightly) described as her brazen and shocking anti-Semitism. It would be front-page news; the subject of almost every panel discussion on cable. ..."
"... The net result? Omar is hung out to dry while Brooks gets a pass. Omar is now a household name, and the subject of multiple death threats , while Brooks gets to carry on making offensive and conspiratorial claims about Islam, Muslims, and the Democratic Party without any sanction or censure. ..."
Sep 10, 2019 | portside.org

When Ilhan Omar Is Accused of Anti-Semitism, It's News. When a Republican Smears Muslims, There's Silence. The difference in coverage is startling and disturbing. August 28, 2019 Mehdi Hasan The Intercept printer friendly

Rep. Ilhan Omar participates in a panel discussion during the Muslim Collective for Equitable Democracy Conference and Presidential Forum at the National Housing Center in Washington, D.C., on July 23, 2019. , Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images "IT'S ALL ABOUT the Benjamins, baby."

That is, of course, what Rep. Ilhan Omar famously tweeted on February 10, in response to a tweet from my colleague Glenn Greenwald decrying "how much time U.S. political leaders spend defending a foreign nation" -- namely, the state of Israel. Then, when a journalist followed up by asking Omar who she believed was "paying American politicians to be pro-Israel," the congresswoman tweeted: "AIPAC!"

The freshman Democrat from Minnesota "unequivocally" apologized the very next day, saying that she was grateful to Jewish allies and colleagues who were educating her "on the painful history of anti-Semitic tropes" and insisting that she never intended to "offend my constituents or Jewish Americans as a whole."

But it was too late. With those two (since-deleted) tweets, Omar kicked off a political and media firestorm that lasted for weeks and saw her condemned and castigated by, among others, cable news pundits , newspaper op-ed columnists , Jewish community groups , Donald Trump , congressional Republicans , and even the leaders and members of her own party.

Now, fast forward to last week, specifically August 21. Rep. Mo Brooks, a right-wing Republican congressperson from Alabama with a long history of controversial and offensive remarks, was interviewed on WVNN, a radio station in Huntsville, about the decision by Israel's government to deny entry to Omar and her fellow Muslim Democrat Rashida Tlaib.

"Usually, there is not much controversy with respect to Israel," Brooks told host Jeff Poor. "Usually, the United States Congress is overwhelmingly close to 100%, if not 100%, in support of recognizing Israel as a long-term American ally, and that we have a mutual defense relationship. Unfortunately, we now have people in the United States Congress who view Israel as an enemy, and that makes for an entirely different mix of conversation."

Which "people" would that be? Brooks didn't hold back.

"There is, and I think it's based on the growing influence of the Islamic religion in the Democratic Party ranks," he continued. "Keep in mind: Muslims more so than most people have great animosity toward Israel and the Jewish faith. And as you have more and more Muslims in the United States, as they gain greater and greater influence in elections, particularly in Democratic Party primaries, then you're going to see more and more people like Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and company that are anti-Israel, and that brings an entirely different viewpoint into the United States Congress."

"I think you're going to see this influence in the Democratic Party grow and grow and grow over time, but ultimately become the dominant influence within the Democratic Party, where the Democratic Party will become very strongly anti-Jewish and anti-Israel," Brooks added. (These comments start at about the two-minute mark of this recording of the show ).

Wow. I have been reporting on Islamophobia in U.S. politics for more than a decade, and I honestly cannot remember coming across a more brazenly Islamophobic statement from an elected member of Congress. "Growing influence of the Islamic religion" among Democrats? "More and more Muslims" winning elections? The "dominant influence"? "Anti-Jewish"? In an age of rising white nationalism, in which Muslims have been gunned down in mosques by domestic terrorists who believe such conspiracy theories about Islam, these remarks aren't just offensive, they're downright dangerous.

So you might think the media -- and the Democrats -- would be all over Brooks and the Republicans, right?

Right?

Not quite. I asked Parker Molloy, of Media Matters for America, to check the numbers. In terms of cable news, Molloy found that in the seven days after Omar's "Benjamins" tweet, "Fox News mentioned her during 21 shows, CNN in 53, and five on MSNBC." The freshman Democrat's name, according to a Lexis search, was also mentioned in a whopping 479 newspaper articles.

And in the seven days since Brooks's remarks? Zero mentions of him in the national press. Zero coverage of him on network and cable news. Not one story; not one report.

On Tuesday, Waleed Shahid, communications director for Justice Democrats, tweeted out a clip of Brooks's remarks, pointing out that it had received "nearly half a million views" on Twitter, yet had received "virtually no coverage" in the mainstream press.

Shahid told me that he had shared the clip with a number of reporters and producers last week, but none of them had followed up with a story on it. "No bite," he said.

Can you imagine the reaction if Ilhan Omar had said that Jews had become the "dominant influence" within the Republican Party, or if she had decried the "growing influence" of the Jewish religion in the GOP? Or if she had spoken about Jews gaining "greater and greater influence" in elections?

We would now be embarking on another seven (or even 70!) days of nonstop coverage, and condemnation, of what would be (rightly) described as her brazen and shocking anti-Semitism. It would be front-page news; the subject of almost every panel discussion on cable.

Yet Brooks makes these outrageous and bigoted claims about Muslims and Islam and ? Silence. A shameful and very deafening silence. No headlines. No op-eds. No panels. No reporters chasing down House Republicans and demanding a condemnation or disavowal from them.

Look, I expect nothing from the likes of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy or House Minority Whip Steve Scalise. They're bad-faith actors who, incidentally, have their own issues with racism and anti-Semitism: McCarthy accused Jewish billionaires of trying to "buy" the midterm elections for the Democrats, while Scalise once described himself as "David Duke without the baggage."

But what about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi? Why isn't she drafting a congressional resolution to condemn Brooks, as she did for Omar? Where are the statements of outrage from Chuck Schumer and Steny Hoyer, who were so quick to go after one of their own? Why aren't MSNBC and CNN rolling on this? How come the Washington Post and the New York Times aren't publishing long pieces about the GOP's Islamophobia problem? Why aren't the liberal columnists who lined up to slam Omar now writing op-eds denouncing this blatant and undeniable racism from Brooks?

As I pointed out last week , anti-Muslim bigotry has been normalized in liberal and Democratic Party circles. Meanwhile, anti-Semitism has been weaponized by Republicans eager to smear their Democratic opponents (while simultaneously turning a blind eye to the anti-Semites and white nationalists in their own ranks).

The net result? Omar is hung out to dry while Brooks gets a pass. Omar is now a household name, and the subject of multiple death threats , while Brooks gets to carry on making offensive and conspiratorial claims about Islam, Muslims, and the Democratic Party without any sanction or censure.

This week, ironically, Omar's alleged anti-Semitism was back in the news. Again. Media organizations that studiously ignored Brooks' bigotry for seven straight days managed to find time, and column inches, to cover the Alabama Republican Party's ridiculous call for Omar to be expelled from Congress.

Yes, you read that correctly: the Alabama GOP. The state party of Rep. Mo Brooks.

You can't make this stuff up.

Mehdi Hasan is a columnist and senior contributor at The Intercept. He is the host of The Intercept podcast "Deconstructed." Hasan is also the host of Al Jazeera English's "UpFront."

[Aug 25, 2019] Is the term chosen people a racist or anti-Semitic term

Aug 25, 2019 | off-guardian.org

Fins mcgee

The Chosen Folk are so "chosen" and clever they have Lucky Larry as their 911 made billionaire poster boy bragging he gave the order to pull 7. Not to mention Epstein, flaunting his sexcapades in the so called "news" like he's some kind of Charles in Charge. No, the one in charge is the Superior General. And the one who claims it all (you included) by Papal Bull enjoys his duper's delight and the inquisition continues unimpeded. Of course the owner of 3/4's of Jerusalem is never mentioned. The ruse (and who benefits) is plain as day.
Admin
The 'chosen folk' is a reductionist racist term. As is the ridiculous suggestion that an entire ethnicity can be blamed for the crimes of a few individuals who share that ethnicity. We're fairly sure you don't believe all white Anglo Saxons are responsible for every crime of the British empire. Please extend the same courtesy to Jewish people, many of whom deplore Zionism and Israel's own racism.
crank
@Admin

I don't think this is a coherent intervention.

Ethnicity is not racial; it describes cultural, linguistic and national associations. Race is generally understood as a reference to common biological ancestry.

Jewishness might, by some be accurately described as an ethnicity, but not as a race, as there are Jews from different 'racial groups' (-if one subscribes to such a notion at all).
If you are going to intervene with a response like the one above, I would suggest that you go the full mile and explore in an article or three which aspects of Jewishness which relate to ethnicity and which to ideology.

'Fins Mcgee' denotes 'chosenness' as a defining ideological characteristic of those who self identify as 'Jewish'. Writers and thinkers like Gilad Atzmon, Israel Shamir and others would be in agreement. If that is a fair summation, then anyone who strongly identifies as 'Jewish' is, in truth, self identifying as somehow 'chosen' or special or superior to non Jews.

If that is unfair or wrong, then explain yourself and explain why. Explain what is 'Jewishness' ?

Taking your comment as it stands as the extent of your view would mean that all criticism of Jewish ideology is, in essence, 'racist'.

[Aug 23, 2019] The Christian right in the United States who's become an ally, a political ally of Israel, you know, it's the equation of anti-Semitism with the State of Israel, that's what's so dangerous and one of the biggest racists in the Middle East is named Bibi Netanyahu

Aug 23, 2019 | www.rt.com

... ... ...

GG: Sure. And the success with which they have done that, the skill with which they have done that shows me that they do have a bigger lock than I thought that they did. Not even Israel has a bigger--not even in Israel does the Zionist movement have a bigger lock than it does in the United States. So nothing compares to that. But it does, and it's a trick, I know it's a trick because an Israeli Cabinet minister Shulamit Aloni giving me dinner in her house in Tel Aviv, literally told me that it was, it's a trick she said, we always do it. And they do it obviously because it works. If someone stands up for Palestinian rights, the first, the default position is to call them an anti-Semite. The fact that someone like me with my politics and the basis of my politics so heavily Jewish from Marx through Trotsky, through Chomsky, through, you know, half the Bolshevik Party's Central Committee were Jewish. It was, according to the right wing, a Judeo-Bolshevik conspiracy, that's what I was involved, and the idea that I can be described as an anti-Semite is patently absurd [INDISTINCT] Jeremy Corbyn who comes out of the same stable as me more or less. So, I like to think it doesn't work but obviously to some extent it does. My own wife who's a person of color, an Indonesian woman was abused in the street the other day as the--as the wife of an anti-Semite, as the wife of a racist. It's absurd but effective but less effective I think than before, on the principle that if you call everybody an anti-Semite then eventually nobody is an anti-Semite. The boy who cried wolf is a parable of note for a reason.

CH: Well, the poison is that, you know, the real anti-Semites, the Christian right in the United States who's become an ally, a political ally of Israel, you know, it's the equation of anti-Semitism with the State of Israel, that's what's so dangerous and one of the biggest racists in the Middle East is named Bibi Netanyahu. What do you...

GG: And there's worse than him waiting in the wings.

CH: And there is, Avigdor Lieberman and others. So, but let's talk about where we're going because we may be going in a very frightening direction if things don't go right. What are those forces out there that frighten you and what does the left have to do? How do we have to wake up to make sure those forces, we don't end up like Hungary with Viktor Orban?

[Aug 14, 2019] Charge of anti-Semitism as a sign of a bitter factional struggle in UK Labor Party between neoliberal and alternatives to neoliberalism wings

Highly recommended!
It attests inventiveness and vicious amorality of neoliberals, who now promote the idea that criticizing neoliberalism and removing Democratic party in the USA and Labor Party in the UK from clutches of Clintonism//Brairism is inherently Anti-Semitic ;-)
Israel lobby wants to extent the anti-Semitism smear to any critique of Israel. which is of course standard dirty trick in witch hunts like neo-McCarthyism.
Notable quotes:
"... This, of course, is compounded by the over-amplifying of anti-Semitism by the media and the alacrity with which it has been taken up by Corbyn opponents, including hypocrites who floated "rootless cosmopolitan" criticisms of Ed Miliband when it suited just a few years ago. ..."
"... The resolution of the anti-Semitism crisis then is not a matter of compromise -- for each side the issue will only go away with the complete crushing and driving out of the party of the other. ..."
"... A good analysis. But, it emphasizes the point I made in the previous post, which is that, the right are currently engaged in an all out push to remove Corbyn and crush the left with the same old bureaucratic means. Whatever else Williamson may or may not be guilty of, his point that the leadership have facilitated this situation by their continual appeasement of the right is absolutely valid. Its that he is being attacked for, not anti-Semitism. ..."
"... Coming on the day when the FT have a column seriously positing that criticizing capitalism is inherently anti-Semitic, it seems to me that dancing on the head of a pin ..."
"... As many of the comments on your blog on Williamson attest, the salient feature of this - well, call it witch-hunt for the sake of argument - is the double standards where we have to be whiter than white, whilst no account whatsoever is taken of the most egregious racism elsewhere. ..."
"... The other nonsense that has grown up is that it is only those that suffer any form of discrimination who can define what that discrimination is, i.e. only Jews can define anti-Semitism, only black people can define racism against them, only women can define discrimination against women. ..."
"... That then assumes that the members of each of these groups are themselves homogeneous, and agreed in such definitions. In reality, it means that dominant elements, i.e. those connected to the ruling class and ruling ideas get to make those determinations. ..."
"... If we look at anti-Semitism, for example, it is quite clear that there is no agreement amongst Jews on what constitutes anti-Semitism. The JVL, certainly have a different definition than the JLM. ..."
"... Secker wrote a piece in the Morning Star last year comparing claims of anti-Semitism within Labour to the story of the emperor's new clothes. ..."
"... Given that the actual data, even allowing for all of the spurious and mischievous accusations of anti-Semitism in the party, made by right-wing enemies of the the party, and particularly of Corbyn and his supporters, amounts to only 0.1% of the membership, and given that of these, 40% were straight away found to be accusations against people who were not even LP members, with a further 20%, being found to have absolutely no evidence to back them, its quite possible that individual members of the LP, have never seen any instance of it. ..."
"... Take out all those mischievous and malicious allegations made in order to whip up the hysteria, so as to to damage the party, by its enemies, and you arrive at a figure of only 400 potential cases, out of a membership of 600,000, which is 1 member in 1500. ..."
"... In fact, based upon the actual facts, as opposed to the fiction and factional hysteria that is being whipped up by right-wing opponents of Corbyn and the party, and by supporters of Zionism for their own narrow political reasons, the chances are about 14: that you will never see any even potential instance of anti-Semitism, even on the narrow definition that the party has now imposed upon itself, which comes pretty close if not entirely to identifying anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism, or even just criticism of the current Bonapartist regime of Netanyahu. ..."
"... In the US, Jewish groups that have long been ardent defenders of Israel have more recently come out to criticize the regime of Netanyahu, and the actions of the Israeli state. The main defenders of Zionism, besides the actual Zionists themselves, appear to be people like the AWL, who for whatever reason hitched their wagon to Zionist ideology some time ago, ..."
"... Just because the only case of stabbing I have witnessed was more than 50 years ago, does not, and should not lead me to think that knife crime was worse 50 years ago than it is today. The actual data would seem to suggest that cases of anti-Semitism were greater in the LP in previous times than they are currently, contrary to what the media and those with factional motives would have us believe. ..."
"... The apparent level of anti-semitism in Labour is a modern phenomenon turbo-charged and amplified by social media. People have their views reinforced within their bunkers where anti-Israeli memes become anti-Zionist and then become anti-Semitic. It is much easier to send an anonymous email than a letter. ..."
"... I wouldn't trust Lansman on this issue, any more than on many others. Lansman abolished democracy, to the extent it existed to begin with, by turning it into his personal fiefdom, reminiscent of the activities of Hyndman and the SDF. His position on anti-Semitism, and fighting the witch-hunt, and of appeasing the Blair-right's as they attacked Corbyn, has been appalling throughout. ..."
"... Having abolished any democracy in Momentum, which he now runs as its CEO, he also appears to want Corbyn to do the same thing with the Labour Party, abolishing its internal democratic procedures, and putting himself personally in charge of those disciplinary measures ..."
"... Its notable that, yesterday, when the Welsh Labour Grass Roots organisation came out to call for Williamson's suspension to be reversed, Kinnock and other Blair-rights immediately called for an investigation into them, ..."
"... This truly is reaching into the realms of McCarthyism, where you are found guilty not just of witchcraft, but of consorting with witches, or even having an opinion as to whether an individual charged with witchcraft is guilty, or even the extent to which the number of witches amongst might be exaggerated. ..."
"... It's not a factually accurate description of global political realities, because Israel does not control the US, if that is what the image is intended to imply. But, the message, is thereby anti-Israeli state, not anti-Semitic. It could only be considered anti-Semitic, if in fact you are a Zionist and claim that Israel and Jews are are interchangeable terms, which they are not. ..."
"... If we replace Zionism with Toryism, and Jew with British, the situation becomes fairly clear. If the we show the British state as being controlled by Tories, who implement their ideology of Toryism, in what way would criticism of the British state, under the control of such Tories, or criticism of Tories be the equivalent of British people as a whole? ..."
"... The hope of a Two-State Solution disappeared long ago, and was never credible. It simply allows Zionists to proclaim they are in favour of it, whilst doing everything to make it practically impossible, such as extending West Bank Settlements. The solution must flow from a struggle for democratic rights for Israeli Arabs, and for a right for all Arabs in occupied territories to be extended the same rights as any other Israeli, including the right to vote, and send representatives to the Knesset. As I argued thirty years ago, the longer-term solution is a Federal Republic of Israel and Palestine, guaranteeing democratic rights to all, as part of building a wider Federal Republic of MENA. ..."
"... Jim Denham: imperialist lackey and sycophant turned Witch hunter in chief ..."
"... Let us be very clear about what this witch hunt is about, it is about purging from public life any credible and effective opposition to Israel in particular and more generally opposition to the imperialist barbarians of the imperialist core. It is about driving from universities, social media and intellectual life any form of opposition to the interests of the imperialists. ..."
"... A UN report has concluded that Israel deliberately targeted and killed hundreds of protesting civilians, including children and disabled people and it shot 20,000+ people (yes 20,000+!). The UN says this likely a war crime. Why are the noble defenders of the Palestinian cause in the dock and not notorious Palestinian haters like Jim Denham? ..."
"... These attacks on Corbyn and his supporters, repeated in all of the most aggressive imperialist countries, are simply a proxy attack on the Palestinian people themselves. ..."
"... Jim Denham's comment here illustrates the problem entirely. The picture he has linked to shows an alien symbiote having attached itself to the face of the statue of liberty. The statue of liberty here represents the US. The symbiote has on its back the Israeli Flag, and likewise, thereby represents the state of Israel. The picture therefore, represents the well-worn, and clearly factually wrong meme that Israel controls the US. ..."
"... But, as a Zionist organisation, the AWL and its members cannot distinguish between the state of Israel and Jews, so they cannot distinguish between criticism of the state of Israel, and criticism if Jews. For them, as for the Zionist ideology of the state of Israel, which is most clearly manifest in the ideology of its current political leadership, in the form of the Bonapartist regime of Netanyahu, with the recent introduction of blatantly racist laws that discriminate even more openly against not Jewish Israeli citizens, and with his willingness to try to keep his corrupt regime in office by going into coalition with an avowedly Neo-Nazi party that until recent times was considered beyond the pale, even by most Zionists, the term Zionism is synonymous with the term Jew. So, any criticism of Zionism, or of Israel is for them immediately equated with anti-Semitism. ..."
"... Once again Jim Denham reefuses to engage in rational debate, and again resorts instead to his assumption that Israel = Jews, as well as his crude attempts at a typical Stalinist amalgam, to conflate the views of his opponents with some hate figure. ..."
"... Again Jim Denham makes the conflation of Israel and Jews explicit when he says, "This image also plays on the tired and disgraceful antisemitic 'conspiracy theory' trope of undue Israeli (Jewish) influence on world affairs." ..."
"... The way that the right are using anti-Zionism as the equivalent for anti-Semitism, and the appeasement of that attack has led them to widen the scope of that attack. As Labour List reports , right-wing Labour MP Siobhan McDonagh, is now claiming that to be anti-capitalist is also to be "anti-Semitic". The idea was put forward also by former Blair-right spin doctor, John McTernan, who wrote an article in the FT to that same effect ..."
"... As the right-wing extend their witch-hunt against socialists in the LP to claim that Marxists are necessarily misogynist, as well as anti-Semitic – and the same logic presented by McDonagh, McTernon, and Phillips would presumably mean that the Left must also be xenophobic, homophobic, anti- Green, and many other charges they want to throw into the mix – it will be interesting to see whether and to what extent the AWL, join them in that assault, in the same way they have done in their promotion of Zionism. ..."
Aug 14, 2019 | averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com

... ... ...

The problem, however, is because this is overlaid by factional struggle ...

This, of course, is compounded by the over-amplifying of anti-Semitism by the media and the alacrity with which it has been taken up by Corbyn opponents, including hypocrites who floated "rootless cosmopolitan" criticisms of Ed Miliband when it suited just a few years ago.

Here's the thing. Just because your opponents take up an issue, some times cynically and in bad faith. and use it to inflict as much damage as they can does not mean the problem is fictitious.

Precisely because they can point to Facebook groups full of useful fools, and Twitter accounts with Corbyn-supporting hashtags acting as if the Israel lobby and "Zionists" are the only active force in British politics, this is the stuff that makes the attacks effective and trashes the standing of the party in the eyes of many Jews and the community's allies and friends.

The institutional anti-Semitism in the Labour Party is, therefore, somewhat different to the kind you find in other institutions. It is sustained by the battle for the party, a grim battlefront in a zero sum game of entrenched position vs entrenched position. As such, whatever the leadership do, whatever new processes the General Secretary introduces for one side it will never be enough because, as far as many of them concerned, the leadership are politically illegitimate; and for the other it's a sop and capitulation.

The resolution of the anti-Semitism crisis then is not a matter of compromise -- for each side the issue will only go away with the complete crushing and driving out of the party of the other. A situation that can only poison the well further, and guarantee anti-Semitism won't honestly and comprehensively be confronted.


Boffy said... 3 March 2019 at 16:42
A good analysis. But, it emphasizes the point I made in the previous post, which is that, the right are currently engaged in an all out push to remove Corbyn and crush the left with the same old bureaucratic means. Whatever else Williamson may or may not be guilty of, his point that the leadership have facilitated this situation by their continual appeasement of the right is absolutely valid. Its that he is being attacked for, not anti-Semitism.

It is first necessary to close ranks, and defeat the assault of the Right. As Marr said to Blair this morning, had Prescott announced he was forming a separate group, and was establishing his own witch-hunting bureaucratic apparatus in the party, Blair would have sacked him immediately - actually not so easy as the Deputy is elected. But the thrust is valid. Unless Corbyn deals with Watson, the Right will roll over the Left, despite the huge disparity in numbers.

Again it comes down to whether Corbyn is up for that task, or whether we need a leadership of the left with a bit more backbone to see it through.

asquith said... 3 March 2019 at 18:54
I'm afraid this IS due to the "intersectionality" cult, whereby certain groups are always privileged and wrong, and some are always oppressed and right. Jews are, according to this "analysis", the uber-privileged and uber-white.

We've heard several times that according to "intersectionality" that it's impossible to be racist against white people because racism requires both prejudice and power, and white people are by definition powerful. Therefore, anti-Semitism is dismissed because it can't be a thing because Jews are all-powerful and even more oppressive than other whites.

Those who don't subscribe to all of these beliefs are nevertheless tinged with them, which is why people who aren't staunch antisemites will nevertheless fail to take anti-Semitism seriously.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66qe76gkCxo&t=166s

Ian Gibson said... 4 March 2019 at 05:30
Coming on the day when the FT have a column seriously positing that criticizing capitalism is inherently anti-Semitic, it seems to me that dancing on the head of a pin about whether the 'careless' anti-Semitism you've described means the party is institutionally anti-Semitic is rather missing the point. (OK, the column is by John McTernan, but the FT gave him column inches to argue that case, and I guess they didn't mean it as the satire it most certainly is.)

As many of the comments on your blog on Williamson attest, the salient feature of this - well, call it witch-hunt for the sake of argument - is the double standards where we have to be whiter than white, whilst no account whatsoever is taken of the most egregious racism elsewhere. We live in society: we can never, ever be that whiter than white - especially when it comes to Israel/Palestine, which is so full of contradictions and traps for the unwary (e.g. the position of the Israeli state claiming to speak for all Jewry around the world, in the way that the Board of Deputies position themselves as speaking for all British Jews - neither close to being true, but small wonder that opponents of what they do and stand for take that universality at face value.)

The fight we need to take up is to compare and contrast just how pro-active the current party is against anti-Semitism in its constitution and machinery with the glaring absence of such elsewhere, and to present a positive picture of what we are doing, rather than mumbling apologetically into our beards. We need to take the fight to the rigged system at the same time as being unstinting in rooting out the troubling stuff.

Boffy said... 4 March 2019 at 09:47
The other nonsense that has grown up is that it is only those that suffer any form of discrimination who can define what that discrimination is, i.e. only Jews can define anti-Semitism, only black people can define racism against them, only women can define discrimination against women.

That then assumes that the members of each of these groups are themselves homogeneous, and agreed in such definitions. In reality, it means that dominant elements, i.e. those connected to the ruling class and ruling ideas get to make those determinations.

If we look at anti-Semitism, for example, it is quite clear that there is no agreement amongst Jews on what constitutes anti-Semitism. The JVL, certainly have a different definition than the JLM.

But, just rationally, the concept that only those discriminated against get to define the discrimination is bonkers. Suppose you come from Somalia or some other country that practices FGM, you could argue that it is part of your cultural heritage, and that anyone seeking to prevent you from undertaking this barbaric practice was thereby racist, on your self-definition of what that discrimination against you amounts to. Or Saudis might argue that it is racist to argue against their practice of lopping off women's heads, or stoning them to death for adultery, including having been raped, etc.

Jim Denham said... 4 March 2019 at 15:25
The JVL come pretty close to arguing that there is *no* anti-Semitism in the Labour party (Jenny Manson, for instance, says she's never witnessed any)and Glyn Secker wrote a piece in the Morning Star last year comparing claims of anti-Semitism within Labour to the story of the emperor's new clothes.
Boffy said... 5 March 2019 at 09:00
Given that the actual data, even allowing for all of the spurious and mischievous accusations of anti-Semitism in the party, made by right-wing enemies of the the party, and particularly of Corbyn and his supporters, amounts to only 0.1% of the membership, and given that of these, 40% were straight away found to be accusations against people who were not even LP members, with a further 20%, being found to have absolutely no evidence to back them, its quite possible that individual members of the LP, have never seen any instance of it.

Take out all those mischievous and malicious allegations made in order to whip up the hysteria, so as to to damage the party, by its enemies, and you arrive at a figure of only 400 potential cases, out of a membership of 600,000, which is 1 member in 1500. If the average branch size if 100 active members, it means on average there is one potential case of anti-Semitism in every 15 branches. So, if you are a member in any of the other 14 branches, you would never see that one potential case of anti-Semitism.

In fact, based upon the actual facts, as opposed to the fiction and factional hysteria that is being whipped up by right-wing opponents of Corbyn and the party, and by supporters of Zionism for their own narrow political reasons, the chances are about 14: that you will never see any even potential instance of anti-Semitism, even on the narrow definition that the party has now imposed upon itself, which comes pretty close if not entirely to identifying anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism, or even just criticism of the current Bonapartist regime of Netanyahu.

In the US, Jewish groups that have long been ardent defenders of Israel have more recently come out to criticize the regime of Netanyahu, and the actions of the Israeli state. The main defenders of Zionism, besides the actual Zionists themselves, appear to be people like the AWL, who for whatever reason hitched their wagon to Zionist ideology some time ago, probably in their usual knee-jerk reaction of putting a plus sign wherever the SWP put a minus. Having done so, and as a result of the bureaucratic centrist nature of the sect, they find themselves now having to follow through on the position they adopted on the basis of the "practical politics" - opportunism - as it dictated itself to them at the time.

If, and probably more likely when, they change position, it will come as with all their previous changes of position with the assertion that "nothing has changed", as when after claiming a few years ago that the LP was a stinking corpse - as they ridiculously stood their own candidates in elections with the inevitable result - and the next minute proclaimed themselves as its most ardent militants, as they sought to use their sharp elbows to gain positions on Momentum's leading bodies!

Boffy said... 5 March 2019 at 09:22
Incidentally, on the question of "observance", the only time I have seen someone get stabbed, is more than 50 years ago, when I was at school. I've seen plenty of other violent stuff in the intervening period, for example, people getting glassed, people having wrought iron tables smashed over their heads. My sister, who is several years older than me, and was out bopping during the days of the Teddy Boys, saw more people getting slashed, in the 1950's, because the flick knife was the Ted's favoured weapon.

But, that doesn't mean that I disbelieve the media when it talks about the current spate of knife crimes. Its just that, however, terrible such crimes are for those that suffer or witness them, and no matter how much the media that has to sensationalise every story, for its own commercial purposes, talks about an epidemic or a knife crime crisis, the number of knife crimes per head of population is extremely small.

The chances that 999 out of 1,000 of us will never be the victim of, or witness knife crime does not mean it doesn't exist. But, those that then claim that the 999 out of 1,000 of us who say we have not seen it, must be somehow being dishonest, are not dealing with the facts, and are simply fuelling a moral panic.

When some phenomena is statistically insignificant, which 1 in 1,500 cases, is, and when as with many such phenomena there is no normal distribution of the occurrence of such cases - for example, knife crime will tend to be concentrated in particular areas - trying to present any kind of rational analysis based upon personal observation is a mug's game.

Just because the only case of stabbing I have witnessed was more than 50 years ago, does not, and should not lead me to think that knife crime was worse 50 years ago than it is today. The actual data would seem to suggest that cases of anti-Semitism were greater in the LP in previous times than they are currently, contrary to what the media and those with factional motives would have us believe. It is certainly thec ase that anti-Semitism is a bigger problem in the Tory party, and other right-wing organisations than it is in the LP, again not that you would know that from the reporting of it, or from the attitude of certain factional sects, such as the AWL.

Jim Denham said... 5 March 2019 at 11:14

Labour has 'much larger' group of antisemitic members which Corbyn has failed to deal with, Momentum founder warns

By Rob Merrick Deputy Political Editor The Independent, Monday 25 February 2019 16:10 |

Labour has "a much larger" group of antisemitic members than it recognises which Jeremy Corbyn has failed to "deal with", Momentum founder Jon Lansman has warned.

The Labour leader's long-standing ally said "conspiracy theorists" had infiltrated the party – a consequence of its huge surge in membership in recent years.

Mr Lansman stopped short of backing the call from Tom Watson, Labour's deputy leader, for Mr Corbyn to take personal charge of the antisemitism complaints dogging Labour.

But he said: "I do think we have a major problem and it always seems to me that we underestimate the scale of it. I think it is a widespread problem.

"I think it is now obvious that we have a much larger number of people with hardcore antisemitic opinions which, unfortunately, is polluting the atmosphere in a lot of constituency parties and in particular online. We have to deal with these people."

Speedy said... 6 March 2019 at 06:39
Approaching this from another angle...

The apparent level of anti-semitism in Labour is a modern phenomenon turbo-charged and amplified by social media. People have their views reinforced within their bunkers where anti-Israeli memes become anti-Zionist and then become anti-Semitic. It is much easier to send an anonymous email than a letter.

History is very much the tale of new technology transforming the potential of human behaviour and beliefs, and one of the oldest beliefs ("the blood libel") is anti-Semitism.

This is how Labour has changed - ie, the rise of Corbyn has coincided with the ubiquity of this technology. In fact, arguably the rise of Corbyn was aided by it.

Corbyn's nuanced position on Israel/Palestine gives permission to social media extremists.

The rest is history.

Incidentally, this is why you are less likely to confront anti-Semitism in real-life while the internet may be awash with it - there are the real and virtual identities which only occasionally bleed into each other.

Which is true and which is not? We might wonder if technology has evolved ahead of human adaptation - the "real world" filters that govern apparently "real" behaviour missing.

I'm sure even certain posters here are less bananas in "real life" than their online comments might suggest!

Boffy said... 6 March 2019 at 10:42
I wouldn't trust Lansman on this issue, any more than on many others. Lansman abolished democracy, to the extent it existed to begin with, by turning it into his personal fiefdom, reminiscent of the activities of Hyndman and the SDF. His position on anti-Semitism, and fighting the witch-hunt, and of appeasing the Blair-right's as they attacked Corbyn, has been appalling throughout.

Having abolished any democracy in Momentum, which he now runs as its CEO, he also appears to want Corbyn to do the same thing with the Labour Party, abolishing its internal democratic procedures, and putting himself personally in charge of those disciplinary measures. That truly would be the actions of a Bonapartist. That Tom Watson is prepared to do that, as he sets himself up in a situation of dual power, to confront Corbyn is no surprise that anyone who even remotely considers themselves a part of the Left should support should a move is a disgrace. Perhaps no surprise that the AWL supporters of Zionism, and the witch-hunt, appear to be doing so, then.

Its notable that, yesterday, when the Welsh Labour Grass Roots organisation came out to call for Williamson's suspension to be reversed, Kinnock and other Blair-rights immediately called for an investigation into them, and for its Secretary who sits on Labour's NEC to also be suspended, for interfering in an ongoing investigation! So, why did those same Blair-rights not call for the suspension of Watson, who immediately demanded Williamson's suspension, and withdrawal of the whip, before any investigation, or indeed of Hodge and others who on a daily basis go to the media to sally forth about cases that are under investigation, or waiting for investigation.

This truly is reaching into the realms of McCarthyism, where you are found guilty not just of witchcraft, but of consorting with witches, or even having an opinion as to whether an individual charged with witchcraft is guilty, or even the extent to which the number of witches amongst might be exaggerated.

Jim Denham's comment is a case in point. How much more "anti-Semitism" exists? What is the factual basis of the statement, as opposed to click bait headline. Even if the actual extent is 100% more than the data so far presented, that would mean that potentially 1 in 750 LP members might be guilty of some form of anti-Semitism. Its hardly an epidemic, or institutional anti-Semitism, and far less than exists in the Tory Party, which is also infected by Islamaphobia, misogyny, homophobia and xenophobia.

In fact, its probably much less than you would find in the BBC, Sky or other establishment institutions. Anti-Semitism exists, and is a problem, but that does not mean it is not being used by Labour's enemies or the proponents of Zionism for their own political ends. The real conspiracy theorists are those that try to present anti-Semitism as a conspiracy based upon infiltration of the LP, the same people who presented the support for Corbyn from 300,000 new members as really just being a case of far left entryism, by Trots.

Jim Denham said... 7 March 2019 at 09:10
This is a meme, taken from Incog Man, a far-right site. It was posted with positive endorsement by a Labour member, Kayla Bibby, a delegate to conference in fact:

Link to the meme:

https://static.timesofisrael.com/jewishndev/uploads/2019/02/ellmann-640x400.jpg

Bibby subsequently received only a formal warning, with Thomas Gardiner of Labour's Governance and Legal Unit (what used to be the Compliance Unit), saying it was only anti-Israel, and not anti-Semitic.

Not only could a Labour member post something obviously anti-Semitic, it was not deemed to be so by the Compliance Unit. I bet we all know people who would agree.

Boffy said... 7 March 2019 at 12:36
It's not a factually accurate description of global political realities, because Israel does not control the US, if that is what the image is intended to imply. But, the message, is thereby anti-Israeli state, not anti-Semitic. It could only be considered anti-Semitic, if in fact you are a Zionist and claim that Israel and Jews are are interchangeable terms, which they are not.

In fact, there are probably not an inconsiderable number of Jews, who think that the state of Israel does exercise undue influence over US policy, and certainly it seems to be the case that, in the US, more liberal Jewish groups, seem to think that one reason that the Bonapartist regime of Netanyahu, in Israel, was so supportive of Trump, and we see the same support for Trump amongst Zionists in Britain, is at least in part due to the fact that Obama had been distancing the US from its historical uncritical support for Israel.

If we replace Zionism with Toryism, and Jew with British, the situation becomes fairly clear. If the we show the British state as being controlled by Tories, who implement their ideology of Toryism, in what way would criticism of the British state, under the control of such Tories, or criticism of Tories be the equivalent of British people as a whole?

Clearly it wouldn't, because there are a majority of British people who oppose Toryism, and thereby oppose the actions of the British state under the control of the Tories. A nationalist, or racist might want to equate the nation state with the whole of its people, but the people who are doing that here, by interpreting criticism of the Israeli state with anti-Semitism, are the Zionists themselves, and their apologists, because they seek thereby to delegitimize any criticism of the state of Israel and Zionism by equating it with anti-Semitism.

That in effect makes the Zionists themselves, and their apologists anti-Semites, because in adopting this equation of Jewishness with being Zionist, and with Israel, they make all Jews thereby responsible for the actions of Zionism and of the state of Israel!

Boffy said... 7 March 2019 at 13:47
The problem for the AWL, and its members like Jim Denham, on this issue comes down to this. Until thirty years ago, the organisation, under its previous names, was an ardent defender of the ideas and traditions of Jim Cannon. Cannon's "The Struggle for a Proletarian Party" was required reading for all of its members. Then, in an about face, the organisation overnight collapsed into what Trotsky called "the petit-bourgeois Third Camp", and so became ardent defenders of the enemies of Cannon, the petit-bourgeois Third Camp of Burnham- Shachtman. That kind of wild zig-zag is typical of bureaucratic-centrist organisations, which is what the AWL is.

As part of this collapse into the petit-bourgeois Third Camp, and the moralistic politics it is based upon, the AWL also adopted the ideas of Third Campists like Al Glotzer, in relation to Israel and Zionism, as opposed to the position of Mandel, which represented a continuation of the ideas of Cannon and Trotsky. I set this out in a short blog post 12 years ago Glotzer and the Jews as Special , after the AWL had repeatedly censored it appearing on their website in response to an article setting out Glotzer's position.

Having committed themselves to the reactionary Zionist ideology that essentially underpins Glotzer's stance - the same thing idea of having lost faith in the working-class, and so having to rely on the bourgeois state, or "progressive imperialism" to accomplish the tasks of the working-class, is behind the AWL's support for NATo's war against Serbia, Iraq, Libya etc., but is also behind the politics of other Third Campists such as the SWP, that instead look to other larger forces, such as reactionary "anti-imperialist" states to carry forward its moral agenda - the AWL are left now trying to defend their position of support for the creation of a racist, expansionist state in Israel, as the inevitable consequences of that venture unfold.

For a Marxist, it is not at all difficult to say that the establishment of the state of Israel is one that we should not have supported at the time, because it would lead to the kind of consequences we see today, and yet, to say, 75 years on from the creation of that state, it is an established fact, and trying to unwind history, by calling for the destruction of that state would have even more calamitous consequences for the global working-class. It is quite easy for a Marx to say that the current nature of the Israeli state, as a racist Zionist state, based, like almost no other state in the world on a confessional basis, i.e. of being a Jewish state, a state for Jews in preference to every other ethnic/religious group flows from the ideology, and nature of its creation. But, then to argue that the answer to that is not a destruction of the state of Israel, which could only be done on the bones of millions of Israeli citizens, Jews and Arabs alike, but is to wage a working-class based struggle against that racist foundation upon which the state has been founded, and that struggle is one that must unite Jews and Arabs alike. In fact, the position of palestinians today is a mirror image of that of the Jews 75 years ago.

The hope of a Two-State Solution disappeared long ago, and was never credible. It simply allows Zionists to proclaim they are in favour of it, whilst doing everything to make it practically impossible, such as extending West Bank Settlements. The solution must flow from a struggle for democratic rights for Israeli Arabs, and for a right for all Arabs in occupied territories to be extended the same rights as any other Israeli, including the right to vote, and send representatives to the Knesset. As I argued thirty years ago, the longer-term solution is a Federal Republic of Israel and Palestine, guaranteeing democratic rights to all, as part of building a wider Federal Republic of MENA.

Anonymous said... 7 March 2019 at 16:54

Jim Denham: imperialist lackey and sycophant turned Witch hunter in chief

Let us be very clear about what this witch hunt is about, it is about purging from public life any credible and effective opposition to Israel in particular and more generally opposition to the imperialist barbarians of the imperialist core. It is about driving from universities, social media and intellectual life any form of opposition to the interests of the imperialists.

This is nothing but authoritarianism in action, censorship of political opponents and the closing down of any credible definition of free speech.

In other words this is something any leftist worth half an atom would be fighting against with all their energies.

But what do we find, pathetic pro war pro imperialists leftists and post modern liberals joining the witch hunt.

Meanwhile in the real world:

A UN report has concluded that Israel deliberately targeted and killed hundreds of protesting civilians, including children and disabled people and it shot 20,000+ people (yes 20,000+!). The UN says this likely a war crime. Why are the noble defenders of the Palestinian cause in the dock and not notorious Palestinian haters like Jim Denham?

How can anyone on the left get away with supporting and providing ideological cover for Israel How can any leftist allow a socialist movement to be sabotaged by the Israel state and its army of appalling immoral apologists?

These attacks on Corbyn and his supporters, repeated in all of the most aggressive imperialist countries, are simply a proxy attack on the Palestinian people themselves.

Boffy said... 8 March 2019 at 11:15
Jim Denham's comment here illustrates the problem entirely. The picture he has linked to shows an alien symbiote having attached itself to the face of the statue of liberty. The statue of liberty here represents the US. The symbiote has on its back the Israeli Flag, and likewise, thereby represents the state of Israel. The picture therefore, represents the well-worn, and clearly factually wrong meme that Israel controls the US.

But, as a Zionist organisation, the AWL and its members cannot distinguish between the state of Israel and Jews, so they cannot distinguish between criticism of the state of Israel, and criticism if Jews. For them, as for the Zionist ideology of the state of Israel, which is most clearly manifest in the ideology of its current political leadership, in the form of the Bonapartist regime of Netanyahu, with the recent introduction of blatantly racist laws that discriminate even more openly against not Jewish Israeli citizens, and with his willingness to try to keep his corrupt regime in office by going into coalition with an avowedly Neo-Nazi party that until recent times was considered beyond the pale, even by most Zionists, the term Zionism is synonymous with the term Jew. So, any criticism of Zionism, or of Israel is for them immediately equated with anti-Semitism.

It is what leads such Zionists to then also insist on their right to determine who is a Jew or not. The AWL do that with all those Jews, such as the JVL, who refuse to accept the AWL's definition of anti-Zionism = Anti-Semitism. Its like the old saw that the definition of a Scot is someone who wears a kilt, and when asked about Jock McTavish, from Arbroath, who does not wear a kilt, the reply comes back, then he cannot really be a Scot!

The Zionists insists on defining anti-Zionism as anti-Semitism, and thereby closing down debate. Jim Denham does that most clearly here, in his refusal to debate the actual substantive points. It is typical of the attitude of the AWL, in general which long since gave up trying to defend its bourgeois liberal, opportunist politics by rational debate, and instead turned to bureaucratic censorship, and ill-tempered invective.

Boffy said... 9 March 2019 at 08:58
Once again Jim Denham reefuses to engage in rational debate, and again resorts instead to his assumption that Israel = Jews, as well as his crude attempts at a typical Stalinist amalgam, to conflate the views of his opponents with some hate figure.

Again Jim Denham makes the conflation of Israel and Jews explicit when he says, "This image also plays on the tired and disgraceful antisemitic 'conspiracy theory' trope of undue Israeli (Jewish) influence on world affairs."

The conflation of equating Israel with the term Jew flows directly from the Zionist ideology that underpins the Israeli State, but which also adopted by the AWL, and its members like Jim Denham. It thereby effectively denies statehood to non-Jewish Israeli citizens, making them non-persons, erasing them from history, in the same way that Jim Denham has sought to do in diminishing if not entirely denying the genocides against other ethnic groups such as Native North Americans, Australian and New Zealand aboriginals etc., as a result of his Zionist privileging of the specific genocide against Jews in the Holocaust.

It is the same kind of racism, of course, that is applied by the BNP and other white nationalists, who seek to portray Britain as being a nation for white Britons, and thereby deny other Britons the right to consider themselves really British. Every socialist, can understand the racist nature of that ideology when it is applied to Britain, and elsewhere, but the AWL, and its members, like Jim Denham, deny it when it is applied to Israel, which they want to treat as being different to every other state on the planet, in defence of their Zionist ideology that privileges Israeli Jews over others, and by extension equates the term Jew with the term Israel.

Its most extreme version comes with the fascists that Netanyahu has now gone into alliance with, whose ideology states that God only put gentiels on the Earth to be slaves and serve the needs of Jews, as the chosen people! It means that they see the place of non-Jewish Israelis in those terms, as being allowed to remain in Israel only on that subservient basis. This is the ideology that the AWL is now logically tied to, in having adopted Zionism as the answer to the problems of Jewish workers rather than socialism.

And, of course, the extension of that principle for other Zionists is illustrated in their support for fascists like Orban in Hungary, who wants to adopt a similar nationalist ideology of keeping Hungary, and other "white" European nations exclusively for "whites", in the same way that Zionists want to keep Israel exclusively for Jews.

It is a sorry state when socialists have degenerated to such an extent that not only do they fail to distinguish between nationalist ideology and socialist ideology by adopting nationalist solutions to workers problems such as "nationalisation", by the capitalist state, but where, in adopting such reactionary nationalist ideology, the logic of their position drives them to supporting the idea that nation states should be exclusively for particular ethnic groups, such as Israel for the Jews, Hungary for white Christians and so on.

Boffy said... 9 March 2019 at 16:31
The way that the right are using anti-Zionism as the equivalent for anti-Semitism, and the appeasement of that attack has led them to widen the scope of that attack. As Labour List reports , right-wing Labour MP Siobhan McDonagh, is now claiming that to be anti-capitalist is also to be "anti-Semitic". The idea was put forward also by former Blair-right spin doctor, John McTernan, who wrote an article in the FT to that same effect

Channelling Jim Denham, McTernan writes,

"As the historian Deborah Lipstadt points out, anti-Semitic tropes share three elements: money or finance is always in the mix; an acknowledged cleverness that is also seen as conniving; and, power -- particularly a power to manipulate more powerful entities.

All of these feature in the criticism of Israel and the so-called Israel lobby. They can be easily moulded into a critique of capitalism, too."

The line of argument was illustrated to me some weeks ago, in a comment I received in relation to an article I wrote about Marx's analysis of fictitious capital, as part of my critique of Paul Mason's Postcapitalism . The commenter, argued that Marx's analysis of fictitious capital appeared to be simply Marx blaming bankers and money lenders, for which read Jews, for the world's ills, and was thereby simply an expression of the well-known fact that Marx was a self-hating Jew, much as the AWL, describe all those other Jews that do not share their commitment to |Zionism. The commenter as evidence of this provided a link to a literary critique of Marx's On The Jewish Question , which is cited as proving that Marx was an anti-semite.

In fact, I pointed out that in nothing that Marx had written about fictitious capital, or what I had written describing Marx's analysis of fictitious capital are bankers discussed, let alone Jewish bankers. The anonymous commenter, has, in fact, since deleted their comments, meaning that my responses to them were also deleted.
But, this is the way this right-wing witch-hunt proceeds, by throwing a net to catch whatever they can trawl in, and at the very least sowing the seeds of doubt as they require those being attacked to respond to their wild accusations. It means that any statement can be framed to mean that there is some subtext beneath the actual words and pictures that is somehow anti-Semitic, if only you know the relevant coda to unlock the true meaning, and anyone who doubts the meaning being placed upon it, is thereby a defender of the anti-Semitic message. As with the attacks on Momentum, and the initial surge of membership supporting Corbyn, it is always phrased in dark conspiratorial language, about unseen forces being behind what is seen on the surface. So, we were supposed to believe that a few hundred Trots in Britain somehow morphed into 300,000 new LP members! But, Momentum now having shown that it is a tame part of the establishment, is even able to recruit McTernan himself as a member.

The appeasement as with all witch-hunts only provokes the witch-hunters to widen the scope of their activities. The AWL, which was at the forefront of helping the witch-hunters with their shameful support for the witch-hunting of Jackie Walker, was repaid by having their own members expelled too, and having right-wing Labour MP's appear on TV, to characterise the AWL themselves as "anti-Semites", despite their well-known Zionist politics. Yet, oddly, the AWL seem to consider that a price worth paying, as their advocacy of Zionism seems to trump any other consideration for them in their politics.

Boffy said... 10 March 2019 at 11:09
It didn't take long for my comment of yesterday to be proved correct. Today we learn that Jess Phillips has claimed that Marxism is necessarily misogynist, because it places class oppression above all else, and so now claims that as well as the Left in the party being anti-Semitic, it is also misogynist. The attack of the Right, as I said yesterday will spread ever wider on this irrational basis, using all of the usual conspiratorial language that such witch-hunts have always adopted. Rather like a Dan Brown novel, it will imply that there are dark (Marxist) forces at work, of which Corbyn is the head of the coven (or even worse that some unseen Dark Overlord is really standing behind Corbyn, who is only its representative on Earth (i.e. in the LP).

It will suggest that these dark forces do not speak openly, but only in codes and symbols that have to be unlocked by the forces of Light, who like Jim Denham, can look into the minds of men and women, and see what is really going inside.

I actually found that despite the anonymous Zionist commenter to my article on Medium having deleted their comments, my replies to them, were in fact still floating around here , here , and here .

As the right-wing extend their witch-hunt against socialists in the LP to claim that Marxists are necessarily misogynist, as well as anti-Semitic – and the same logic presented by McDonagh, McTernon, and Phillips would presumably mean that the Left must also be xenophobic, homophobic, anti- Green, and many other charges they want to throw into the mix – it will be interesting to see whether and to what extent the AWL, join them in that assault, in the same way they have done in their promotion of Zionism.

[Aug 03, 2019] I used to think the Guardian couldn't sink any further into hypocrisy but it has: A few months back the Guardian was pushing for various organisations, including the British Labour Party, to adopt the IHRA definition to combat so-called anti-semitism.

Aug 03, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Ghost Ship , Aug 3 2019 10:55 utc | 72

I used to think the Guardian couldn't sink any further into hypocrisy but it has :

The internal emails, released after a freedom of information request by the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, revealed the council attempted to assess the Big Ride website according to the rubric of the controversial IHRA definition .
A few months back the Guardian was pushing for various organisations, including the British Labour Party, to adopt the IHRA definition to combat so-called anti-semitism.

I don't remember it suggesting then that the IHRA definition was controversial then.

[Aug 03, 2019] The 2017 Anti-Semitism Scare Made in Israel by Franklin Stahl

It is anti-Semitism to attribute to all Jews certain set of individual traits. It is a realism to attribute to Zionists (Zionism is a flavor of far right nationalism) several unpleasant traits. There is not much difference between Zionism and, say, far right Ukrainian nationalism if we view them as nationalist movements.
Notable quotes:
"... If gentiles are so smart, why are Jews, whom gentiles outnumber 40:1 across the combined Western World, able to control everything? The entire premise of White Nationalism fails. ..."
"... Jews are not distinguished from other whites by blacks. So Jews face all the same risks from blacks that gentiles face. Somehow, this does not compute in WN 'logic' ..."
"... Virtually everything that White Nationalists say about Jews is what blacks say about whites. ..."
"... One can go online and find endless articles about many of these anti-Semitic incidents, only to find out some Israeli or American Jew were the ones behind the episode. Makes one wonder if the real anti-Semitic incidents were separated from the phony ones, just how many actual cases of anti-Semitism would remain. ..."
"... One significant addendum has to be mentioned: "Jews" do not control everything, nor do they have an amount of power most WNs think they possess. But, in the US society, rich Jews who are ethnically conscious have a much greater leverage than their numbers, because - why? Because they remain, many of them, an alien & clannish ethnic group whose interests run contrary to identity & culture of most people who built this country. Saban and Adelson finance their ethnic group, while Buffet, Gates & Koch brothers are basically traitors. ..."
"... What is WN fantasy is that Jews form some kind of organized secret society which "rules". There is no such thing, anywhere. But, one could point to a few unpleasant things about Jewish ethnic group: ..."
"... 1. they have been hugely over-represented in financial scandals which had had dire consequences (Panama scandals, Stavisky affair, certainly other numerous others). On the other hand- they did not have anything to do with Wall street panic of 1929. ..."
"... in dirty affairs which included Maxwell, Epstein we see corrupt & sleazy Jewish white collar criminals who are, in all likelihood, connected to Israel's spying agencies & secret services. ..."
Aug 03, 2019 | www.unz.com

Priss Factor says: Website August 3, 2019 at 5:20 am GMT 200 Words There are plenty of Jews who will side with Jewish criminals(often white-collar) and gangsters over Law & Order. Jewish Power pulled all manner of strings to ensure that their boy Obama would pardon Jonathan Pollard.


tac , says: August 3, 2019 at 6:19 am GMT

This may be out there for most of you here, but try and consider it nonetheless. Trump was pre-selected (just like the other POTUSes dating back Lyndon B Johnson), with a caveat of rendering the ever-growing skeptics of the political process and at the same time white race sympathizers as a fringe group. Since many would agree that Trump is a crypto-jew (as I've provided examples of this on UR), he was tasked with subverting the Nationalist movement and was made to steer it into the philo-Jewish sphere...
Thomm , says: August 3, 2019 at 5:34 am GMT
All these anti-Israel articles are designed to tickle the grudges of WNs, but nonetheless fail the basic logical test :

i) If gentiles are so smart, why are Jews, whom gentiles outnumber 40:1 across the combined Western World, able to control everything? The entire premise of White Nationalism fails.
ii) Jews are not distinguished from other whites by blacks. So Jews face all the same risks from blacks that gentiles face. Somehow, this does not compute in WN 'logic' .
iii) Virtually everything that White Nationalists say about Jews is what blacks say about whites. Given the small number of Jews and no prior history of enslavement, the WN claim is even weaker. Claiming oppression and superiority simultaneously is evidence of Dunning-Kruger.

Thanks,
-Mordecai 'Ira' Rabinowitz

Gyre07 , says: August 3, 2019 at 11:59 am GMT
@Thomm 1) Jews, not unlike Christian WNs use their religion as a 'closed' secret society which they use to leverage their various skills and 'access' to promote each other for personal gain (unlike Christian WN). Like a endless co-op.
2) Most Jews are raised (hard-wired) to worship money and power.
3) Jews are taught from an early age that they're 'exceptional' and have a right (due to an instilled sense of victimhood) justifying taking what they want when they want it. Otherwise known as 'entitlement'. This latter characteristic is what makes them toxic citizens of any country they set 'in their sites' as a means to their ends.

And there are lots of other notable distinguishing aspects. Mostly stemming from Jewish culture. Notably though, many Jews are very susceptible to hubris and the myopia that comes with it.

j2 , says: August 3, 2019 at 6:47 am GMT

"Chabad is a fast-growing orthodox Jewish sect that believes all Jews must return to Israel before the messiah can reappear to save humanity; a view consistent with Zionism's political objectives."

I find it very possible that this is indeed the goal: they want more Jews to move to Israel. For many Jews it also has a religious motive. I have often wondered if this is also the reason that this Unz webzine is allowed to publish critical articles on Jews and even more critical comments on them. Both may convince more Jews to make an aliyah.

Greg Bacon , says: Website August 3, 2019 at 7:09 am GMT

We'll leave readers to explore the internet's various conspiracy theories linking Scientology to Israel and the Mossad.

Israel and the quack religion Scientology seems to be a good fit. Both use layers of secrecy and fabrications to justify their existence and both have an unlimited thirst to separate you from your money.

One can go online and find endless articles about many of these anti-Semitic incidents, only to find out some Israeli or American Jew were the ones behind the episode. Makes one wonder if the real anti-Semitic incidents were separated from the phony ones, just how many actual cases of anti-Semitism would remain.

Just asking that question probably qualifies as anti-Semitic, as a certain group of land thieves abhor anyone who dare ask questions about their existence.

Bardon Kaldian , says: August 3, 2019 at 12:58 pm GMT
@Thomm This BS should be addressed, at least to shed some light on extreme stupidities

i) If gentiles are so smart, why are Jews, whom gentiles outnumber 40:1 across the combined Western World, able to control everything? The entire premise of White Nationalism fails.

White nationalism is stupid, but some – just some -- of its premises are not. For instance, Jews could be treated like successful parasites. Is cancer "smart" because it has a power to, sometimes, destroy the body? Jews had not created anything comparable to great existing civilizations (let alone old empires). For instance, ca. 50 million Germans around 1800-1850 created virtually whole new global civilization in all aspects of technology, arts, sciences, governance while perhaps 15 million Jews living in the world at that time- not much. Virtually all of their contribution came as followers of German creative spirit.

So, there is nothing superior with Jews if host nations allow them to sneak into positions of power which they themselves misuse for their tribal & frequently criminal activities. Host nations are not stupid; they are sometimes all-too well meaning toward clannish outsiders in their midst (Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Asians ..). When successful hosts come to their senses- all "power" of interconnected aliens evaporates.

O course, I am not here talking about creative & positive contribution of Jewish individuals, or even groups, to host nations.

One significant addendum has to be mentioned: "Jews" do not control everything, nor do they have an amount of power most WNs think they possess. But, in the US society, rich Jews who are ethnically conscious have a much greater leverage than their numbers, because - why? Because they remain, many of them, an alien & clannish ethnic group whose interests run contrary to identity & culture of most people who built this country. Saban and Adelson finance their ethnic group, while Buffet, Gates & Koch brothers are basically traitors.

If US ceased to be a plutocracy in many respects, at least 50% of Jewish influence would go through the window.

ii) Jews are not distinguished from other whites by blacks. So Jews face all the same risks from blacks that gentiles face. Somehow, this does not compute in WN 'logic'.

True

iii) Virtually everything that White Nationalists say about Jews is what blacks say about whites. Given the small number of Jews and no prior history of enslavement, the WN claim is even weaker. Claiming oppression and superiority simultaneously is evidence of Dunning-Kruger.

The difference is here: blacks are whining parasitic idiots who themselves can't do anything, just create the chaotic turd world environment. Jews, as a group, are rather capable- Israel shows that-; then, they are a minority, while whites are majority compared to both blacks & Jews. Blacks fantasize about some imaginary civilization whites had, according to them, "stolen"; whites, on the other hand, have really created great civilizations in past 500 years across the world, and Jews had been of virtually no importance in building those civilizations, both in Americas or in Russian Asia or in European rule in India, Indonesia, Without a single Jew, there would be Anglo-America, Hispanic-America, Russian Siberia, British India, Anglo-American power in China & Japan, rench rule in Indo-China, British Australia

What is WN fantasy is that Jews form some kind of organized secret society which "rules". There is no such thing, anywhere. But, one could point to a few unpleasant things about Jewish ethnic group:

1. they have been hugely over-represented in financial scandals which had had dire consequences (Panama scandals, Stavisky affair, certainly other numerous others). On the other hand- they did not have anything to do with Wall street panic of 1929.

2. in dirty affairs which included Maxwell, Epstein we see corrupt & sleazy Jewish white collar criminals who are, in all likelihood, connected to Israel's spying agencies & secret services. There is some dirt in all that, and this dirt has unmistakably Jewish face. As does various criminal activities connected with Israel (diamonds, smuggling, prostitution etc.). Not that Israel is some super-villain (there are much worse countries, especially Islamic), just, more dirt can be traced to Israel than to, say, Germany or Switzerland.

j2 , says: August 3, 2019 at 1:58 pm GMT
@Franklin Ryckaert "But the Unz Review publishes also articles critical of Israel."

That is true, but a diaspora Jew, who has whole his life heard that goyim have irrational hatred of Jews, will explain to himself that these critical articles of Israel (or of Jews) are simply hatred and do not reflect the reality. That they only show that anti-Semitism is growing and he better move to Israel.

... ... ...

[Jul 29, 2019] The great antisemitism witchhunt McCarthyism redux by John Wight

Notable quotes:
"... Reds under the bed has been replaced with antisemites under the bed; this with the full and open complicity of a mainstream media whose dread over the prospect of transformational political change is entwined in tight embrace with that of an Establishment -- political and security -- in ensuring nothing but nothing will ever change in this country apart from the colour of the curtains on the windows in Downing Street. ..."
"... There is nothing more grotesque than being lectured to about antisemitism, or any other form of racism, by apologists for a racist apartheid state. Yet this grotesquerie is precisely where we have arrived at in response to Corbyn's unlikely elevation to the leadership of the Labour Party. ..."
"... I think one has to appreciate, despite all the 'far-left' labels stuck on him, that Corbyn only appeared to be a 'raving looney leftie' in comparison with the rightwing Blairite majority of MPs who've controlled the Labour Party for so long and capitulated to and followed a Thatcherite political agenda, for decades. ..."
"... Anti-semitism oldest form of gas lighting that was ever created in the western world especially after the second world war. If one were to go to Palestine it is not uncommon to find some ebraic semite wearing a t shirt with on it printed an IDF soldier taking aim at a pregnant arab semite. Israel has to be exposed for what it is. It is an anglo-zionist colonial outpost.. Zionism was born in England it pre dates Herzl. ..."
"... The key to the anti-Semitism problem is the conflation of Judaism with Zionism. This didn't happen by accident, it is a deliberate and relatively modern policy. (An old (Jewish) friend described the indoctrination he got to me growing up. That was quite a long time ago, its probably so ingrained now that nobody notices this process any more.) ..."
"... The comparison to a witch hunt is perfectly accurate. The attack works by mere accusation. The facts, evidence, criteria of evaluation are all irrelevant. ..."
Jun 29, 2019 | OffGuardian
This article was first published on March 1st of this year, however, it is given fresh relevance in the wake of Labour's reinstatement, and then re-suspension, of Derby MP Chris Williamson

Photo: The Crucible at the Pacific Conservatory Theatre

PUTNAM: Now look you, sir. Let you strike out against the Devil, and the village will bless you for it! Come down, speak to them -- pray with them. They're thirsting for your word, Mister! Surely you'll pray with them.

PARRIS: (swayed) I'll lead them in a psalm, but let you say nothing of witchcraft yet. I will not discuss it. The cause is yet unknown. I have had enough contention since I came; I want no more.
Arthur Miller – The Crucible

In his magisterial autobiography, Timebends , describing his motivation behind his classic work The Crucible (extracted above) -- the most compelling and enduring allegorical piece of drama to grace the American theatre -- Arthur Miller reveals the following:

What I sought was a metaphor, an image that would spring out of the heart, all-inclusive, full of light, a sonorous instrument whose reverberations would penetrate to the centre of this miasma. For if the current degeneration of discourse continued, as I had every reason to believe it would, we could no longer be a democracy, a system that requires a certain basic trust in order to exist."

The 'miasma' referred to by Miller in the above passage was the atmosphere of censorious paranoia whipped up by the anti-Communist witchhunts of the 1940s and 1950s, starting under the auspices of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), established in 1938, joined thereafter by Senator Joseph McCarthy's Senate hearings into alleged Communist infiltration from the late 1940s.

The period concerned, commonly referred to as McCarthyism, illuminated the parameters of free speech and expression in a country and culture which prides itself on both. It drilled home the profound truth that tyranny is less the by-product of totalitarian political systems and more the product of totalitarian ideas and nostrums that sustain political orthodoxy in a given space and time. And, too, whenever those ideas and nostrums come under challenge, said democracy is exposed as a cloak behind which mendacity resides, ruthlessly seeking malcontents to expose and miscreants to punish.

In Britain in 2019 we need no longer turn to US history for an understanding of McCarthyism and its execrable fruits.

For in Britain in 2019 McCarthyism is with us and among us, corroding our public and political discourse, poisoning it with the untruths, lies and mendacious smears of some of the most malignant political forces that ever existed in these islands.

Reds under the bed has been replaced with antisemites under the bed; this with the full and open complicity of a mainstream media whose dread over the prospect of transformational political change is entwined in tight embrace with that of an Establishment -- political and security -- in ensuring nothing but nothing will ever change in this country apart from the colour of the curtains on the windows in Downing Street.

Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party has to intents been usurped by his deputy Tom Watson, a man for whom Shakespeare's "Hell is empty, and all the devils are here!" line from The Tempest could have been written with in mind.

Labour Friends of Israel

Watson is the Labour Party's Matthew Hopkins, the infamous witch-hunter whose reign of terror in 17th century Britain finds its metaphorical equivalent in the 21st century with the objective not of locating and hanging out to dry antisemites but instead anti-Zionists, which means to say genuine anti-racists.

For what is Zionism if not racism, a species of white supremacy responsible for relegating the humanity of five million men, women and children of the illegally occupied West Bank and besieged Gaza Strip to that of latter-day Helots?

Adding to the mountain of intellectual and moral ordure erected in service to this miasma of untruth and base hypocrisy, are the findings of a UN investigation into the Palestinians killed and wounded by Israeli snipers during last year's Great Return March in Gaza.

According to the UN's Santiago Canton:

Israeli soldiers committed violations of international human rights and humanitarian law. Some of those violations may constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity."

In diplomatic-speak, Mr Canton is here referencing the manner in which Israeli soldiers shot down dozens of unarmed Palestinians -- among them children, medics and journalists -- like deer in a forest, with some of those Israeli soldiers caught on tape laughing and celebrating their 'kills'.

It is to this monstrosity of an apartheid state Tom Watson and his friends are giving succour and sanction; and it this supremacist juggernaut of oppression we are expected to accept as compatible with left-wing progressive values.

There is nothing more grotesque than being lectured to about antisemitism, or any other form of racism, by apologists for a racist apartheid state. Yet this grotesquerie is precisely where we have arrived at in response to Corbyn's unlikely elevation to the leadership of the Labour Party.

His legacy as a staunch supporter of Palestinian human rights and self-determination has been weaponised against him and his supporters by a pro-Israel lobby within and without the Labour Party, plumbing depths of indecency last witnessed during the era of McCarthyism across the Atlantic.

For those who doubt how deeply entrenched the pro-Israel lobby now is within the UK body politic, Al Jazeera's blistering documentary The Lobby is required viewing.

Given the context and the stakes involved in this ongoing witch hunt and smear campaign, the lack of meaningful resistance on the part of Corbyn is unconscionable; his refusal to mobilise his base in the face of it inexplicable. The result has not been to see it disappear but for it to prosper and grow in ferocity.

Be under no illusion either of the complicity of key figures in and around the Labour leadership in whipping up and/or acquiescing in this baseless hysteria -- Lansman, McDonnell et al. -- to the point where Corbyn has been rendered well nigh unelectable as a prospective prime minister.

That this is a smear campaign and witchhunt conducted, regardless of the fog of obfuscation deployed to the contrary, on behalf of a foreign power -- and an apartheid power at that -- compounds the offence.

But this issue is now bigger than Corbyn. It is about where we stand on matters of intellectual and moral integrity; and most of all on the rights we accrue to an oppressed people and those of their oppressor. Future generations are watching and waiting for the stance that we take.

Arthur Miller understood this, which is why his light will shine forever bright as a beacon of moral courage in an age of deceit.

End.


Ben Trovata

"They misunderestimated me."George Bush,the Younger,Nov. 6, 2000.

I'll not supply any facts. None whatsoever,saying only: Corbyn( I believe) is made of better material. Blairites must be expelled, or otherwise, go away!

MichaelK
I think one has to appreciate, despite all the 'far-left' labels stuck on him, that Corbyn only appeared to be a 'raving looney leftie' in comparison with the rightwing Blairite majority of MPs who've controlled the Labour Party for so long and capitulated to and followed a Thatcherite political agenda, for decades.

Corbyn himself isn't really a 'revolutionary' or even a radical. He's what half a century ago would have been described as a pretty normal, middle-of-the-road, Labour social democrat, barely on the left of the Party at all. But some of this is debatable, depending on where one stands on the spectrum personally. It's a sign of how far 'left' politics and 'left' discourse has degenerated in the UK, and political culture's moved so far to the right, that Corbyn, like a relic of a bygone era, is perceived as far more leftwing than he actually is, in reality.

What he is though, is ineffective as a leader. He lacks authority, I think, because he fundamentally lacks a set of strong ideas that show what he stands for and where he wants the country to move. There's no real narrative that mobilises support for him, and this is the curse of Labour; the leadership's fear of mobilising the membership and their supporters and votes in the country, too much and too far, which could easily lead to them raising their expectations way beyond what's 'realistic' and possible within the boundaries of bourgeois liberal democracy. Labour fought for political power in parliament; but didn't believe in openly challenging economic power in society in any meaningful way, because that strategy was simply not allowed because it was 'revolutionary' and not reformist.

mark
Of course Corbyn is a "raving loony lefty."
He wants to re nationalise the railways (maybe.)
And build a few council houses (maybe.)
How raving loony is that?
Obviously he's a raving loony.
Oh, and he objects to the genocide of the Palestinians.
Obviously a raving anti semite as well.
Just ask the Board of Deputies and Margaret Hodge and the Daily Mail. They'll explain it all to you.
Barovsky
More to the point; he's a (Labour) Party man. The Party comes first, regardless. For almost 130 years the Labour Party has been an integral part of British capitalism and imperialism and the British state. Thus Corbyn, a run-of-the-mill social democrat is concerned only with the survival of the Party and he will do whatever is necessary in its defence including defenestrating his election manifesto (compare his draft with the one finally circulated in 2017)!

Should he by some chance actually end up as PM, what are the odds of him actually reversing austerity when he's already sold out over every key part of his original manifesto?

There are going to be a lot of very disappointed and once more disconnected Labour voters.

mathias alexand
What is this "leadership" and "authority" thing? As for his ideas he could have any number of them that you will never hear about in the MSM.
Maggie
True Mathias, but you can see and hear about them on the Jimmy Dore Show whose shows truly are a breath of fresh air:

Bernie Sanders of Britain and why he is widely loved, and sadly rare. July 2016

https://www.youtube.com/embed/a29WF44jDug?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

Labour Party Platform, Amazingly specific and pro worker. May 2017

https://www.youtube.com/embed/vI073wq2zKY?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

Jeremy Corbyn Delivers Inspiring Speech June 2017

https://www.youtube.com/embed/8RsSPOcVcNM Wimbledon issues ban on chanting Jeremy Corbyn July 2017

https://www.youtube.com/embed/0MwqZkBOEz0 Pro Jeremy Corbyn ad makes Right wingers cry.July 2017

https://www.youtube.com/embed/ptC-0_gObNM NBC News Smears Jeremy Corbyn as an anti semite. July 2017

https://www.youtube.com/embed/F4d-ZAPx1q4 BBC Andrew Neil smashes Jeremy Corbyn Smear on Live TV Feb 2018

https://www.youtube.com/embed/IJZkYDYh37U Corbyn responds rationally to Russian nerve attack and is immediately smeared March 2018

https://www.youtube.com/embed/OsnAIUZIt8M Corbyn smeared as anti semite for attacking Bankers. September 2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9US9v0ndus

And on and on it goes, and the sh*t does stick. For the majority of people eventually just cave in and believe this Zionist garbage.

falcemartello
Anti-semitism oldest form of gas lighting that was ever created in the western world especially after the second world war. If one were to go to Palestine it is not uncommon to find some ebraic semite wearing a t shirt with on it printed an IDF soldier taking aim at a pregnant arab semite. Israel has to be exposed for what it is. It is an anglo-zionist colonial outpost.. Zionism was born in England it pre dates Herzl.

Hence until more exposure of the brutal nature of the Israeli zionist and their parents the anglo-zionist becomes exposed then the diluted term of anti semite will continue to be used. I find that with the dying western paradigm so will this gaslighting term become irrelevant .If any intellectual honesty were to be used the real anti semites are the zionist.

Post Scriptum : Israel has a shelf life and it is omploding with in hence so will zionism.

Having experience racism first hand growing up and still being exposed to it today for mhy ethnicity I am not fortunate enough as the ashkanazi /zionist to deflect and gaslight my oppressors.

harry law
Former South African Minister Ronnie Kasrils himself Jewish on Thursday accused Israel of conducting a policy against the Palestinians that was "worse" than apartheid.

Speaking on the sidelines of a UN meeting on the situation in the Palestinian territories, Kasrils said South Africa's townships had never been attacked by helicopter gunships and tanks, in contrast to the military means employed by Israel.

https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/israel-worse-than-apartheid-sa-kasrils-352481

andyoldlabour
Labour Friends of Israel, Conservative Friends of Israel, Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel – all different organisations?

No, of course they are not, even if the ordinary man in the street may think so.

They are all controlled by the Israeli state, to do the bidding of that state, to demonise any person who shows empathy with the plight of the Palestinian people, any person who dares criticise the actions of the Israeli state.

On the other hand, you have Jewish Friends of Labour, seen by the Israeli state as "self hating Jews", the "wrong type of Jew".
What we are seeing at the moment is – Zio-McCarthyism.

Capricornia Man
'McCarthyism' is exactly what I have been calling the witch-hunt for some time. It's surprising that the term is taking so long to come into general use when it is the appropriate term based on historical analogy, as shown by the article. The pile-on against anyone who dares to support the political and national rights of the Palestinians induces physical illness in anyone remotely interested in justice and truth.

The rancid 'liberal' media frames its "coverage" by treating accusations of 'antisemitism' not as the thing which has to be proved, but as the proof itself. A classic McCarthyite process.

The vast majority of Britons must be fed up having their politics held up to ransom in this manner. Stand up for yourselves and by-pass the fifth column and the coward element in the Labour Party.

vwbeetle
To read the Guardian, one would think that Williamson has no supporters in Labour whatsoever. As far as the Guardian is concerned, Jewish Voice for Labour and its condemnation of the witch hunt and smear campaign against Corbyn and Williamson and anyone who supports Palestinian rights, does not exist. Up until a couple of years ago I was a regular contributor on CIF discussion threads, largely rebutting Zionists and their propaganda and outright lies. I was eventually blocked, probably because large numbers of Zionists reported me, despite the fact that I largely restricted my posts to historical facts. Over the past two years it is almost impossible to make comments on CIF about any article about Israel/Palestine, or the anti-semitism smear campaign. What has happened at the Guardian? Does anyone know why the paper seems to have changed course?
MichaelK
The lurch to the political right at the Guardian is linked to the Snowden and Assange revelations that challenged the cosy ideological relationship between the media and the state, to a degree that is simply not allowed, if one wants to be seen as loyal and responsible. There are consequences is one, as an individual, group or institution, is perceived as being illoyal by the Establishment and the state.

Assange and Snowden pulled the Guardian over an invisible line, into a grey area, at the time, which was perceived as being tantamount to treason, and now the Guardian has been successfully reined in once more and now co-opperates with the state on matters relating to 'national security.' The damage, has been undone and a proper and reasonable relationship established.

Haltonbrat
The Guardian has been pro-Zionist since the days of editor CP Scott who introduced the Zionist leader to Looyd George and supported the Zionists in his writings in the Manchester Guardian.
Shardlake
It all changed, and not for the better, after Alan Rusbridger left. It's as much a mouthpiece now for this appalling government as the Murdoch press and their like. There's been a continual shift in centre ground politics to the right since the days of Thatcher.

We are seeing what Edward Bernays described in 1928 as the conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society.

Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.

We are governed, our minds are moulded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested largely by men we have never heard of.

In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses.

It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.

Stephen Morrell
PS. The Labour Party never fails to disappoint
Stephen Morrell
It's time to stop calling Israel an 'apartheid state'. Snipers today, missiles and bombs tomorrow, with deliberate and active ruination of amenity, infrastructure and the means to live -- by siege, every day.

Israel's atrocities are not simply 'crimes against humanity'. They're crimes directed against a particular ethnic/national/racial segment of humanity. That's called genocide. Netanyahu and his gang are genocidal, and consequently the garrison state of Israel is also a 'genocide state'. Time to start applying the g-word.

Haltonbrat
Yes, The actions of Israel meet the UN definition of genocide.
mark
The Times of Israel, a national newspaper, quite openly advocated genocide. It called for the Palestinian people to be exterminated at concentration camps in the desert. The "Justice" Minister, a woman called Shaked, called for Palestinian mothers to be exterminated, so that no Palestinian children could be born. Two rabbis in Israel published a book called "The King's Torah." It called for all Palestinian children to be murdered.

Killing a goy, any goy, is a Mitzvah, a praiseworthy act.

If the Jews get the war with Iran they have been trying to incite and agitate for for so long, they will use this as cover to carry out actual genocide on a massive scale.

People need to give up completely on Labour. It is infested wall to wall with 30 shekel whores.

maggie
Hi Mark, Do you have links to the information you have posted please.

If we give up on Labour, then who do we rely on? I think what we should be doing is focussing all our energies on removing (de selecting) the 90 "friends of Israhell" who have been baying for Chris Williamson and Jeremy Corbyn to be removed permanently from the Labour Party. Beginning with the evil with Hodge, and her cronies headed by Tom Watson.

mark
The Times of Israel, 1/8/14.
"When Genocide Is Permissible", by Yochanan Gordon.
Openly advocates, endorses and justifies the genocide of the Palestinians.

Ayelet Shaked, 14/7/14.
"Mothers of all Palestinians should be killed. They have to die and their houses should be demolished. They are all our enemies and their blood should be on our hands."
A day before Palestinian teenager Muhammad Abu Khudair was kidnapped and burned alive by 6 Jew thugs, Shaked published a call for the genocide of the Palestinians in Facebook.
"The entire Palestinian people is the enemy, including its elderly and its women, its cities and its villages, its property and its infrastructure."
She called for the slaughter of Palestinian mothers. "to prevent them giving birth to little snakes."

The King's Torah, 230 page book published 2009 by Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva. Authors Rabbis Yitzhak Shapira and Yosef Elitzur. Endorsed by many leading rabbis.
It openly incites and calls for the extermination of the Palestinians, and explains how this is morally justified.
It is a call for indiscriminate extermination.
The killing of children, en masse, responds to "the existence of an internal need for revenge."
"In the face of revenge, no one is innocent, be they old, young, children, men or women, and regardless of their health."
It rejects any notion of international law and the protection of civilians in time of war, or international humanitarian law on the prevention of genocide. Israel is above international law, because Jews are superior to Gentiles and the lives of Gentiles have no value.

Jews are indoctrinated from birth to hate all the goyim.
Israel is an openly genocidal, terrorist, racist state.
There is no doubt that in the event of a major war with Iran, it would use this as cover to commit genocide, which has been long planned.

Stephen Morrell
I apologise for taking up so much space in replying to your very telling question about what alternative is there to Labour. First, it should now be clear to everyone that Labour, whether led by Corbyn or any other 'left' social democrat, is no answer to the dire situation we face. Right now there is no mass party on this planet that can provide the leadership necessary, let alone serve as the instrument, for the revolutionary change so desperately needed to excise the malignancy of capitalism from the human social organism. This is a crisis of revolutionary leadership.

The bourgeois Greens are not the answer either, and most of the traditional left and 'far' left are mired in one form or another of opportunistic kow-towing to Corbyn and Labour or the Greens. This isn't to say that one should never vote Labour, the party of the working class. It's to say that one should only give support to Labour, as 'a rope supports a hanging man' (Lenin), when it furthers revolutionary and class consciousness in the working class. The working class, as politically backward as it might be now in many ways, is the only class with the social power to overthrow the capitalists -- it can stop and start production at will and, most importantly, if it had the political consciousness and leadership to do so, it could take over production and overthrow capitalism. Such a consciousness is smothered and suppressed by Labour and the current leaders of the trade unions (such as the latter currently exist).

Presently Labour deserves no vote because under Corbyn they've refused to support Brexit and are pushing for a second referendum. Tony Benn, Corbyn's mentor, would have been railing against him over his betrayal of this fundamental class issue in Britain. Corbyn is Blair lite. On the EU he's Blair quiet.

If in power, Corbyn would either be forced to bow to the diktats of capital and the ruling class or be pushed out, and pronto. Already forces centred on MI6's The Guardian, the Zionist lobby, the aristocratic feudal relics, the military, 'the City' rentiers, and of course the Blairites, have been undermining him because of his mild reformist and foreign policy stances. However, the ruling class would rush to Corbyn and Labour, or another 'left' alternative, if their rule were seriously threatened by an awakened working class. Before fascism, Corbyn would be their best and last hope.

What then of the left and far left? They're all still propaganda groups. We have the likes of the SP, SWP, Socialist Alternative and so on, who've advocated a vote for Labour unconditionally at just about every election. And they've also supported the bourgeois Greens. In doing so, they provide no alternative to Labour. Instead their strategy is to try to pressure Labour to the left. How's that been working? Corbyn still supports the EU. How many times has he mentioned Julian Assange? Or the basic necessity to do away with the monarchy and House of Lords and all the other 'traditions of the dead generations [that] weigh like a nightmare upon the living' (Marx). At least in the US, the ISO (followers of the late Tony Cliff) have decided to sate their opportunistic appetites and dissolve themselves to join the Democratic Socialists of America (ie, social democrats inside a bourgeois party, the Democratic Party of Hiroshima and Nagasaki).

Then we have the Socialist Equity Party, ostensibly 'Trotskyist' and followers of David North, that declares trade unions in principle to be an instrument for the subjugation of the working class. Imagine that: the prime defense organs of the working class historically are written off in advance because their leaderships betray the rank and file (which they do, but not always, not inevitably). Outfits like the SEP don't have a perspective to take these trade union leaderships on from within and fight to replace them with a revolutionary leadership in the heat of struggle to turn the unions into real working class defense organs.

Consequently, a revolutionary consciousness cannot be developed from within the working class in struggle for it to act in its own historic interests. The SEP have a slew of other programmatic issues that are awry as well, but their outlook boils down to opportunism afraid of itself.

This isn't to say that the World Socialist Website is completely useless. It isn't, but its articles on workers and trade union struggles in particular need to be taken with a large grain of salt.

In short, if there are only propaganda groups at the moment that pose an alternative to Labour, then it at least behoves those looking for an alternative to Labour to not waste time or effort on any group that can't get even the basics of a program right, let alone before they even dirty their hands in actual struggle.

What's left then? Right now, the first criteria to look out for is if an ostensibly revolutionary group advocates 'No vote to Labour', and draws a class line for Brexit and against a new referendum; one that works consistently to destroy any illusions in the bourgeois state and its parliament ever being 'reformed' to act in the interests of the working class -- which means also exposing those who do. That's pretty fundamental, but it's a start.

So far the only group that does these things in the UK is the Spartacist League of Britain. See:
https://www.icl-fi.org/english/wh/index.html
and
https://www.icl-fi.org/english/wv/1157/brexit.html

mark
Very shrewd assessment. But I'd say a re run of pre war Weimar is the most likely outcome. People are far more likely to turn to far worse than Trump or Farage as things deteriorate. Expect to see more Zionist controlled opposition like the EDL.
maggie
Mmm.. Stephen, a very interesting reply.. and links, which I will read and try to digest, though I have to confess a lot of the information contained therein, at 'first glance' I thought had been tried, tested and failed owing to the avarice of the capitalists and their power to remove the ground from under our feet.
This may be the wrong interpretation? But I will read the links more thoroughly and try to get my head around the concepts.

What I think we could do immediately, is to have the one man one vote system, to elect the 'man/woman' we choose to represent us and dispense with 'parties' altogether.
Surely, it can't be that difficult with today's technology, which would automatically dispense with the ballot box and the inherent frauds that continually happen.
Or am I being too simplistic and naοve?
Then again.. isn't this just the Russian system, and was that of Libya?

Stephen Morrell
The organs of power that spring up during revolutions are what work at the time. They're not created a priori, but they go on to serve the basis for the exercise of mass democracy. The Paris Commune had the The Committee of Public Safety, Russia had soviets (Russian for workers' council) that first arose in 1905 and again in 1917. The basis for their power rests on a politically conscious and armed constituency that has risen up which can recall elected representatives at any time (because they're armed).

Soviets elect representatives to higher soviet bodies (collegiate system), but their main purpose is to decide and vote on what, not whom. On an economic plan for example.

In contrast, bourgeois democracy at most gives you the privilege of voting for which scumbag will oppress you for the next 4 or 5 years. This is not to denigrate democratic rights but it is the way capitalist rule is disguised and legitimated; and we're made to feel responsible for outcomes because we participated in voting in elections. We help the executioner load his gun. One should never confuse elections with democracy.

I can recommend the following reading list which might help:

EH Carr, "What is History" (a great, broad-brushed approach to understanding different stages in human history and development).

K Marx, F Engels, "The Communist Manifesto"

F Engels, "Socialism Utopian and Scientific"

VI Lenin, "What Is To Be Done" (On the need for a party of the Bolshevik type)

VI Lenin, "State and Revolution" (On why the existing state must be smashed replaced by a new one, and what happens to it after a socialist revolution)

LD Trotsky, "Lessons of October" (On why the revolution occurred in backward Russia and not Germany)

LD Trotsky, "Results and Prospects" (On why backward countries in the epoch of imperialism not being able make a bourgeois revolution whose tasks can only be accomplished by a proletarian revolution -- the theory of 'Permanent Revolution')

LD Trotsky, "The Revolution Betrayed" (Why Stalin arose and soviet democracy was smashed in the USSR)

Some of these are a little heavy going and polemical (eg, Lenin), and Marx is full of historical and literary references, but patience will be rewarded. Except for EH Carr (available as a Penguin classic), these can all be accessed at: https://www.marxists.org/

espartaco
Too much ado about nothing It is very simple Socialism has NOTHING to do with religion Judaism, Christianism, Islamism or whatever. They invite these kind problems because the bourgeois that control Labour, allowed every kind of minorities to infiltrate the Party (and all other parties) to, eventually, destroy it through religious, racial and minority wars. What you see is what you get when leftist minoritymongering has taken over politics. The solution is very simple, all religious groups should be thrown out of the party, together with all the bourgeois. MP's first !!!
lundiel
I agree. We currently have MPs of all parties acting as agents for their countries of birth, or as agents of third countries (Ms Smeeth). This worked when they (agents) had no real political power, they were limited to cultural exchange visits etc. The change came with the growth in size and power of our security services .there's more than one way to skin a cat like Corbyn!
Maggie
Fear not Lundiel, the work is already begun . Jeremy will NEVER be allowed to lead.

Anonymous 'Civil Servants' (Deep State Operatives) have briefed the media regarding the allegedly frail condition of possible PM-to-be Jeremy Corbyn on the basis of – no evidence whatever.
Understandably, Corbyn is very angry about this demanding an investigation into the leak.

Given the story is without foundation and knowing the threat the establishment sees in Corbyn, a leader whose policies include the creation of a National Bank (aaaarghh the fiend the fiend) and the renationalisation of public utilities (including transport) a leader whose knee-jerk reaction to Ashkenazi Jewish assaults against the Semitic population in Israel is to speak out loudly and boldly in defence of Palestinians' rights

given all this, we know that the idea of Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister of Great Britain is absolutely unacceptable to our ruling 'establishment'.

Let it be said then what Mr Corbyn and his inner circle must be thinking about the appearance of this non-story that the establishment is 'creating the option to eliminate' Mr. Corbyn (by heart attack dart?) in the event of his winning or threatening to win a UK general election.

Performing such a national service would be 'business as usual' for our "protectors" at MI5.

For example -Keith Mothersson: After he died in 2009, his obituary appeared in The Guardian.

The following facts are not included in the obituary of this heroic absolute gentleman:

"Keith created an organisation in 2008/9 called "ALL FAITHS FOR 9/11 TRUTH".
He, like most members of '9/11 Truth (UK & Ireland)', saw 9/11 truth as a spiritual (as much as a political) matter.
He went round the country meeting religious leaders and forming connections and bonds between the various groups he had organised. There were C of E, Catholic, Muslim (the largest group based in a couple of the biggest mosques in the country), Buddhist, and even a Jewish group.
I was involved with Keith, approaching 'Catholic' leaders (as an aside, the couple I tried to talk to [it was early days] were hostile to the idea even engaging with the issue maybe, for someone who has taken vows of obedience, this is an issue for the Pope alone)."

The thing is that Keith was the connection and bond between the groups he had started forming.

He lived in Perth, Scotland. On one evening during September 2009 Keith returned to his house in Perth. He arrived home in a dishevelled state, exhausted and confused. He told his partner that he been accosted by a group of men on the walk home and had "a terrible struggle in a van". He had been held down then released. He repeated "Why me?" to himself a few times before his partner helped him to bed.

She told friends that when Keith woke up he didn't know who he was. He did not recognise her either. He was taken to hospital where he lay silently in bed for two weeks before dying.

A multi-faith, well-organised, religious collective demanding answers re 9/11 represented a genuine threat to the "Deep State".
Keith had gone too far. He was "eliminated" and his nascent organisation along with him.
And there is no one to whom one can even report this terrible crime. Such is the nature of our society.
https://wwwkevboyle.blogspot.com/2019/06/corbyns-health-and-keith-mothersson.html

Jeremy Corbyn is not a fool. He understands very well the 'options' for the Deep State such a story creates and what this leak could possibly imply.. that is why I believe he may look as if he is indecisive?

Mucho
Very interesting Maggie, thanks
andyoldlabour
That is indeed correct. The various politicians who are involved in this disgraceful hounding of Corbyn and others, have pledged alliegence to Israel and the interference of Israel in the politics of the UK.
Martin Usher
The key to the anti-Semitism problem is the conflation of Judaism with Zionism. This didn't happen by accident, it is a deliberate and relatively modern policy. (An old (Jewish) friend described the indoctrination he got to me growing up. That was quite a long time ago, its probably so ingrained now that nobody notices this process any more.)

I may have a very simplistic view of things but to me Judaism is an Abrahamic religion with deep roots going back thousands of years. Zionism is a relatively modern European movement that dates from the latter half of the 19th century that has origins and aims that are not unlike many other 'volk' movements from the same period. Most of these were relatively harmless, 'back to the land' sorts of things but the racial undertones provided the underpinnings for, among others, the Nazis.

I know I'll probably get flamed for saying this but seriously there's a huge undercurrent of racism in some parts of Jewish society. I was first made aware of this many years ago when and old (goy) friend made the mistake of marrying an Orthodox girl. Up to that point I had only known secular/reform Jews so didn't think too much of it but the reaction from her family was quite extreme, protracted and not at all nice. The culture's there if you look for it -- its actually not unlike radical Islam in mindset so if it ever gets to a position of power (e.g. in modern Israel) then its going to be trouble for the untermensch!

Ramdan
"Israeli Zionism is the singular cancer that has been forcefully injected into the minds of world leaders across the globe; a cancer that these similarly affected leaders would wantonly force upon what little remains of the moral, civilized and correct conscience of man."

https://www.globalresearch.ca/rise-and-kill-first-the-secret-israeli-worldwide-assassination-program/5682052

vwbeetle
Zionism is a malevolent influence upon the body politic of the western world.
Francis Lee
The picture of Tom Watson and the other political 5th Columnists in the Labour party standing in front of a very large blue and white star of David flag tells us all we need to know. A bit like a political group in the UK sporting a Hammer and Sickle flag at Tory party conference. Labour Friends of Israel is of course a Zionist front in the LP. It's object is to further Israeli interests, and therefore it necessarily means against British interests. What else would they be doing? Promoting socialism perhaps? LFI has already been set in motion to get Corbyn and his co-thinkers to change their ways or else. In this sense also the British elite are working hand-in-glove with LFI and the Israelis, and it wouldn't at all surprise me if the CIA were not also involved at some level.

The trouble with Labour is that it doesn't want to be regarded as being 'extreme' or 'unrespectable'; oh dear no. We've even done away with Clause 4. Now how much higher do you want us to jump? We want to be Her Majesty's loyal opposition. 'Pale pink humbug' as Orwell called it. He called it right.

mathias alexand
Labour is hampered by a lack of internal democracy which goes back to its origins as an alliance of pre-existing groups like trade unions, etc.
DunGroanin
The Obsessive Groaniads daily pile of AS mud slinging, Barbara Ellen froths
"maddening, mendacious, slippery, gormless, prevaricating'
she snarls NOT writing about the tory clowns.
"I've long been anti-Corbyn for reasons beyond Brexit (antisemitism, anybody?)"
She raves and slobbers not realising that she is projecting.

Another article there by a 'famous' author – ive never heard of – has his unnamed publicist getting lots of free advertising for his 'great' writings for free because he thinks he has been subjected to AS!

Complete Utter Nonsensical Crappery by the shameless gormless Groaniad.

Ho hum – wait till the next government tasks the completion and implementation of Leveson 2.

Gezzah Potts
DG . What do you expect from these presstitute stenographers. Full boycott of all mainstream media, including alleged 'progressive' media. On a tangent, used to read Barbara Ellen many years ago (30?) when she wrote for the NME which was basically my 'bible' back then. How sad the once great Babs Ellen has become a . Slug.
DunGroanin
Ah the NME – a bible for us back in the day – see how it was taken out and shot after it supported Corbyn in 2017.

A very accidental death it suffered.

Imagine what they would bave done to Russell Brand if he had had the same influence.

Yes i'm afraid most of the neolib con artiste creatures of the Obssezsive Groan are beyond saving. They will sizzle in the light.

Gezzah Potts
Thanks DG. I only know the NME is now online only, didn't know the reasons for its print demise. I wonder what the late Steven Wells would have made of all this ludicrous crap? I just can't tolerate the cretinous craven presstitutes in the MSM anymore. Gets me too fecked off knowing what they're loudly spouting is pro empire, pro imperialist bullshit in the service of the 0.01℅. Good site for you to check is Neoliberalism Softpanorama. A vast treasure trove of info.
Francis Lee
What is difficult to forgive is the fact in times gone by, and occasionally today, the Jewish intelligentsia have made a huge input into the development of western civilization. In terms of politics, Marx, Rosa Luxembourg, Greogy Lukacs, Eduard Bernstein, Leon Trotsky, Leonard Woolf; in terms of social theory, Emile Durkheim, Sigmund Freud, Erich Fromm, Hannah Arendt; in terms of literaure Franz Kafka, Saul Bellow. Contemporary intellectuals being Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein and possibly a less well-known and very courageous Jewish oppositionist, Gideon Levy, who writes for Haaretz. These were the guys I cut my teeth on as a student and whom I still revere to a great extent. It was the Jewish intelligentsia who led the opposition against the forces of reaction, particularly in Europe.

Times have changed it seems, Israel and Zionism are now the forces of reaction.

John Calvert
Yes. But how many of those great names would have willingly and proudly posed in front of the national flag of the state of Israel?
Philip Toal
Facts would be appreciated in light of the truth that G. levy, Finkelstein, Pappe etc. are indeed alive and well. It's apparently a case of informed opinions based on pure facts as opposed to ignorance as to who is alive or dead that is issue important.
Chris W
Antinationalism for goyim and nationalism for jews – because goyim have these genocidal tendencies Many, many Jews deep down believe that Non-Jews want to kill them, so pre-emptive strikes is the way to go. Most of all strikes against the ethnic and religious identity of non-Jewish people, because those identities make a people strong. So socialist Jews in Europe and zionist ones everywhere fight the same pro-Jewish/anti-goyim fight
harry law
John McDonnell encapsulates for me the pathetic spinelessness of the Labour Party, in a long interview with the Jewish news the interviewer asked him why Corbyn shared platforms with Anti-semites "So when we're talking about sharing a platform with anti-Semites, we're not talking about people who are just supportive of the Palestinian cause, do you think it might be time for an apology"?

JmD: "You have to look at why he was sharing platforms, it was not to endorse them, it was to try and engage with them".
There you have it, his friend Corbyn spent the past 30 years of his life traversing the country addressing Palestinian and antiwar groups and offering them his support, then in one sentence McDonnell throws his friend under the bus "it was not to endorse them". With a friend like McDonnell who needs enemies.
My advice to McDonnell is get on your belly and crawl and then ask for forgiveness from the Board of Deputies, it still will not be enough. They will only be happy when Corbyn is destroyed.

mark
However much you grovel and appease these people, it is never enough. Give $10 billion to Israel and you're anti semitic because you haven't given it $50 billion. Fight 5 wars for Israel, and you're anti semitic because you haven't fought 10 wars for Israel.

Netanyahu explained it all quite well.

"If we get caught, they will just replace us with persons of the same cloth. So it does not matter what you do. America is a golden calf, and we will suck it dry, chop it up and sell it off piece by piece till there is nothing left but the world's biggest welfare state that we will create and control. Why? Because it is the Will of God and America is big enough to take the hit. So we can do it again and again and again. This is what we do to countries that we hate. We destroy them very slowly and make them suffer for refusing to be our slaves."

To America, add Britain.

Steve Hayes
The comparison to a witch hunt is perfectly accurate. The attack works by mere accusation. The facts, evidence, criteria of evaluation are all irrelevant. Accuse emotively, and construe any dissent or even scepticism as proof of guilt. This is the modus operandi of the witch hunters, the arbiters of truth and the only acceptable version of reality. This becomes a loyalty test. Anyone who refuses to support the witch hunters is either already a witch or in imminent danger of becoming one. https://viewsandstories.blogspot.com/2018/09/on-dog-whistles-and-witch-finders.html
Harry Stotle
'The attack works by mere accusation. The facts, evidence, criteria of evaluation are all irrelevant. Accuse emotively, and construe any dissent or even scepticism as proof of guilt. This is the modus operandi of the witch hunters' – hammer, welcome to head of nail.
Maggie
Right out of Goebel's hand book
Steve Hayes
Maggie I am pretty sure that none of the quotes you attribute to Goebbels were said/written by him. Perhaps you could cite your source(s)?
Mucho
Hurricane survivors forced to pledge allegiance to Israel to receive Support (In Texas Town) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqOIeUTx8VQ&t=11s

Former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney talks with PressTV about how the Israeli Lobby owns both the Congress and the Senate and how AIPAC and the ADL took her out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_VNOk7Wv5A

More than 200 British MPs sign a pledge to Israel https://unitedwithisrael.org/over-200-uk-candidates-sign-pro-israel-pledge/

Montel Jordan – This Is How We Do It https://www.youtube.com/embed/0hiUuL5uTKc

Mucho
More than 200 British MPs sign a pledge to Israel ..should say Candidates for election, not MPs

[Jul 20, 2019] New Jersey lawmakers are trying to amend the state's discrimination laws to equate criticism of Israel with antisemitism by Michael Arria

I agree that denying Israel the right to exit is anti-Semitism, but "a double standard to Israel by requiring behavior of Israel that is not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation, or focusing peace or human rights investigations only on Israel" is an overkill. Which European country systematically kills and injure the protesters? Or bomb occupied territories? What about the absence of constitution or defined borders? What about Rabbinate approval of marriages?. What about generetic tests for Jewishness?
Critique of Israel as a theocratic state is still OK ;-) Critique of pro-Israel lobby is still OK too :-). And while holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of Israel is clear anti-Semitism, holding Zionists responsible is pretty straightforward and completely justified as Zionism was/is at the core of Isreal ideology. As a flavorof far-rigth nationalism Zionism is questionable on many levels.
Notable quotes:
"... The proposed New Jersey bill comes amidst a national debate regarding the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) and potential laws that would prohibit participation in it. As of April 2019, 27 states had adopted anti-BDS laws and there have been various attempts to criminalize the movement at the federal level. 344 Representatives currently back a resolution condemning BDS, while Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar recently proposed legislation affirming that all Americans have the right to participate in such boycotts. ..."
Jul 19, 2019 | mondoweiss.net

Lawmakers in New Jersey have introduced an antisemitism bill that would prohibit certain criticism of Israel in public schools and universities. The proposed legislation comes on the heels of similar bills being passed in South Carolina and Florida . Last year, the Department of Education adopted a new definition of antisemitism to include criticism of Israel.

SB 4001 was introduced on June 24 by Senate President Stephen Sweeney and Sen. Robert Singer. It aims to ensure that antisemitism is treated the same way as other forms of discrimination by amending state law. However, the bill equates criticism of Israel with antisemitism in a number of places including:

-[D]emonizing Israel by using the symbols and images associated with classic anti-Semitism to characterize Israel or Israeli people, drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis, or blaming Israel for all interreligious or political tensions;

-[A]pplying a double standard to Israel by requiring behavior of Israel that is not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation, or focusing peace or human rights investigations only on Israel; and

-[D]elegitimizing Israel by denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination and denying Israel the right to exist.

In fact, the bill states that criticism of Israel can only avoid being considered antisemitic if "it is similar to criticism toward any other country."

A group of 13 human rights groups (including Jewish Voice for Peace, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations) have sent a letter to the New Jersey Education Senate Committee urging lawmakers to reject the legislation:

We write to raise concerns with S. 4001/A. 5755, an Act prohibiting anti-Semitism in public schools and institutions of higher education (the Act), which fails to achieve this goal. The Act codifies a widely contested redefinition of antisemitism that includes protected speech critical of Israel.2 This vague and overbroad redefinition in the Act conflates political criticism of Israel with anti-Jewish hate, encouraging infringements on constitutionally protected speech related to a human rights movement, and undermining the fight against real antisemitism.

Indeed, in our experience defending civil rights on college campuses, we have seen firsthand how the redefinition that the Act would codify has been used as a tool to silence students, faculty, and staff who advocate for Palestinian rights.3 This experience makes clear that the primary aim of this bill is to censor First Amendment-protected criticism of Israeli government policies and speech calling for freedom, justice, and equality for Palestinians. It invites New Jersey schools and universities to violate free speech rights by discriminating against certain viewpoints and chilling one side of an important political debate.

SB 4001 is very similar to a Florida bill that was signed into law by Governor Ron DeSantis in May, just days after the state's cabinet held a ceremonial meeting in Israel. Last year, South Carolina became the first state to pass such a law.

Last September, the Department of Education changed the criteria for investigating antisemitism to include criticism of Israel and reopened a 2011 case in which Jewish students at Rutgers University were allegedly discriminated against. That complaint was originally made by the Zionist Organization of America in response to a pro-Palestinian event on campus. This new interpretation is sometimes referred to as the "State Department Definition" because it's listed on their website, but it hasn't actually been formally adopted as federal law. However, Congress is currently trying to change that.

In March, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) introduced the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act of 2019 . The bill would adopt the definition listed on the State Department's website "for the enforcement of Federal antidiscrimination laws concerning education programs or activities." A previous version of the bill died at the end of the last congressional session. Scott's legislation currently has 16 cosponsors, including Florida Senator Marco Rubio.

Liz Jackson is a founding staff attorney for Palestine Legal, an independent organization that defends the rights of people who speak out on issues of Palestinian freedom. "This definition is the result of a decades-long lobbying push by Israel advocacy organizations (and Israel itself) to codify the false equation of antisemitism and criticism of Israel, in order to censor calls for Palestinian rights," she told Mondoweiss , "This is an Israel lobby priority because there is no other way to address critiques of Israel's human rights record. They don't want to talk about brutality towards Palestinians because they have no good answer. Their only response to Palestinians' call for freedom and equality is to censor it."

The push the redefine antisemitism began to gain steam over a decade ago after pro-Israel groups began promoting a paper by Tel Aviv University professor Dina Porat titled, "The International Working Definition of Antisemitism and Its Detractors." Porat wrote that antisemitism could manifest itself with regard to Israel in the following ways:

• Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.

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

• Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.

• Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis. • Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.

Like the aforementioned state laws, Porat's definition stipulates that criticism of Israel is antisemitic unless it's "similar to that leveled against any other country."

The proposed New Jersey bill comes amidst a national debate regarding the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) and potential laws that would prohibit participation in it. As of April 2019, 27 states had adopted anti-BDS laws and there have been various attempts to criminalize the movement at the federal level. 344 Representatives currently back a resolution condemning BDS, while Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar recently proposed legislation affirming that all Americans have the right to participate in such boycotts.

[Jul 15, 2019] Redefining anti-semitism

Notable quotes:
"... The McCarthyite nature of this process of misrepresentation and guilt by association was underscored when Jewish Voice for Labour, a group of Jewish party members who have defended Corbyn against the anti-semitism smears, voiced their support for Williamson. Jon Lansman, a founder of the Momentum group originally close to Corbyn, turned on the JVL calling them "part of the problem and not part of the solution to antisemitism in the Labour Party". In an additional, ugly but increasingly normalised remark, he added: "Neither the vast majority of individual members of JVL nor the organisation itself can really be said to be part of the Jewish community." ..."
"... In this febrile atmosphere, Corbyn's allies have been required to confess that the party is institutionally anti-semitic, to distance themselves from Corbyn and often to submit to anti-semitism training. To do otherwise, to deny the accusation is, as in the Salem witch-hunts, treated as proof of guilt ..."
"... These attacks have transformed the whole discursive landscape on Israel, the Palestinians, Zionism and anti-semitism in ways unimaginable 20 years ago, when I first started reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Then the claim that anti-Zionism -- opposition to Israel as a state privileging Jews over non-Jews -- was the same as anti-semitism sounded patently ridiculous. It was an idea promoted only by the most unhinged apologists for Israel ..."
"... To criticise Israel is to attack them as Jews, and by implication to attack all Jews. And therefore any Jew dissenting from this consensus, any Jew identifying as anti-Zionist, any Jew in Labour who supports Corbyn -- and there are many, even if they are largely ignored -- are denounced, in line with Lansman, as the "wrong kind of Jews". It may be absurd logic, but such ideas are now so commonplace as to be unremarkable. ..."
"... As long as we colluded in the manufactured consensus of western societies, the system operated without challenge or meaningful dissent. A deeply ideological system destroying the planet was treated as if it was natural, immutable, the summit of human progress, the end of history. Those times are over. Accidents like Corbyn will happen more frequently, as will extreme climate events and economic crises. ..."
"... The power structures in place to prevent such accidents will by necessity grow more ham-fisted, more belligerent, less concealed to get their way. And we might finally understand that a system designed to pacify us while a few grow rich at the expense of our children's future and our own does not have to continue. That we can raise our voices and loudly say: "No!" ..."
Jul 05, 2019 | www.unz.com

Originally from: The plot to keep Jeremy Corbyn out of power, by Jonathan Cook - The Unz Review

Corbyn was extremely unusual in many ways as the leader of a western party within sight of power. Personally he was self-effacing and lived modestly. Ideologically he was resolutely against the thrust of four decades of a turbo-charged neoliberal capitalism unleashed by Thatcher and Reagan in the early 1980s; and he opposed foreign wars for empire, fashionable "humanitarian interventions" whose real goal was to attack other sovereign states either to control their resources, usually oil, or line the pockets of the military-industrial complex.

It was difficult to attack Corbyn directly for these positions. There was the danger that they might prove popular with voters. But Corbyn was seen to have an Achilles' heel. He was a life-long anti-racism activist and well known for his support for the rights of the long-suffering Palestinians. The political and media establishments quickly learnt that they could recharacterise his support for the Palestinians and criticism of Israel as anti-semitism. He was soon being presented as a leader happy to preside over an "institutionally" anti-semitic party.

Under pressure of these attacks, Labour was forced to adopt a new and highly controversial definition of anti-semitism -- one rejected by leading jurists and later repudiated by the lawyer who devised it -- that expressly conflates criticism of Israel, and anti-Zionism, with Jew hatred. One by one Corbyn's few ideological allies in the party -- those outside the Blairite consensus -- have been picked off as anti-semites. They have either fallen foul of this conflation or, as with Labour MP Chris Williamson, they have been tarred and feathered for trying to defend Labour's record against the accusations of a supposed endemic anti-semitism in its ranks.

The bad faith of the anti-semitism smears were particularly clear in relation to Williamson. The comment that plunged him into so much trouble -- now leading twice to his suspension -- was videoed. In it he can be heard calling anti-semitism a "scourge" that must be confronted. But also, in line with all evidence , Williamson denied that Labour had any particular anti-semitism problem. In part he blamed the party for being too ready to concede unwarranted ground to critics, further stoking the attacks and smears. He noted that Labour had been "demonised as a racist, bigoted party", adding: "Our party's response has been partly responsible for that because in my opinion we've backed off far too much, we have given too much ground, we've been too apologetic."

The Guardian has been typical in mischaracterising Williamson's remarks not once but each time it has covered developments in his case. Every Guardian report has stated, against the audible evidence, that Williamson said Labour was "too apologetic about anti-semitism". In short, the Guardian and the rest of the media have insinuated that Williamson approves of anti-semitism. But what he actually said was that Labour was "too apologetic" when dealing with unfair or unreasonable allegations of anti-semitism, that it had too willingly accepted the unfounded premise of its critics that the party condoned racism.

Like the Salem witch-hunts

The McCarthyite nature of this process of misrepresentation and guilt by association was underscored when Jewish Voice for Labour, a group of Jewish party members who have defended Corbyn against the anti-semitism smears, voiced their support for Williamson. Jon Lansman, a founder of the Momentum group originally close to Corbyn, turned on the JVL calling them "part of the problem and not part of the solution to antisemitism in the Labour Party". In an additional, ugly but increasingly normalised remark, he added: "Neither the vast majority of individual members of JVL nor the organisation itself can really be said to be part of the Jewish community."

In this febrile atmosphere, Corbyn's allies have been required to confess that the party is institutionally anti-semitic, to distance themselves from Corbyn and often to submit to anti-semitism training. To do otherwise, to deny the accusation is, as in the Salem witch-hunts, treated as proof of guilt .

The anti-semitism claims have been regurgitated almost daily across the narrow corporate media "spectrum", even though they are unsupported by any actual evidence of an anti-semitism problem in Labour beyond a marginal one representative of wider British society. The allegations have reached such fever-pitch, stoked into a hysteria by the media, that the party is now under investigation by the Equality and Human Rights Commission -- the only party apart from the neo-Nazi British National Party ever to face such an investigation.

These attacks have transformed the whole discursive landscape on Israel, the Palestinians, Zionism and anti-semitism in ways unimaginable 20 years ago, when I first started reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Then the claim that anti-Zionism -- opposition to Israel as a state privileging Jews over non-Jews -- was the same as anti-semitism sounded patently ridiculous. It was an idea promoted only by the most unhinged apologists for Israel .

Now, however, we have leading liberal commentators such as the Guardian's Jonathan Freedland claiming not only that Israel is integral to their Jewish identity but that they speak for all other Jews in making such an identification. To criticise Israel is to attack them as Jews, and by implication to attack all Jews. And therefore any Jew dissenting from this consensus, any Jew identifying as anti-Zionist, any Jew in Labour who supports Corbyn -- and there are many, even if they are largely ignored -- are denounced, in line with Lansman, as the "wrong kind of Jews". It may be absurd logic, but such ideas are now so commonplace as to be unremarkable.

In fact, the weaponisation of Anti-semitism against Corbyn has become so normal that, even while I was writing this post, a new nadir was reached. Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary who hopes to defeat Boris Johnson in the upcoming Tory leadership race, as good as accused Corbyn of being a new Hitler, a man who as prime minister might allow Jews to be exterminated, just as occurred in the Nazi death camps.

Last month a private conversation concerning Corbyn between the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and the heads of a handful of rightwing American Jewish organisations was leaked. Contrary to the refrain of the UK corporate media that Corbyn is so absurd a figure that he could never win an election, the fear expressed on both sides of that Washington conversation was that the Labour leader might soon become Britain's prime minister.

Framing Corbyn yet again as an anti-semite, a US Jewish leader could be heard asking Pompeo if he would be "willing to work with us to take on actions if life becomes very difficult for Jews in the UK". Pompeo responded that it was possible "Mr Corbyn manages to run the gauntlet and get elected" -- a telling phrase that attracted remarkably little attention, as did the story itself, given that it revealed one of the most senior Trump administration officials explicitly talking about meddling directly in the outcome of a UK election.

Here is the dictionary definition of "run the gauntlet": to take part in a form of corporal punishment in which the party judged guilty is forced to run between two rows of soldiers, who strike out and attack him.

So Pompeo was suggesting that there already is a gauntlet -- systematic and organised blows and strikes against Corbyn -- that he is being made to run through. In fact, "running the gauntlet" precisely describes the experience Corbyn has faced since he was elected Labour leader -- from the corporate media, from the dominant Blairite faction of his own party, from rightwing, pro-Israel Jewish organisations like the Board of Deputies, and from anonymous generals and senior civil servants.

'We cheated, we stole'

Pompeo continued: "You should know, we won't wait for him to do those things to begin to push back. We will do our level best. It's too risky and too important and too hard once it's already happened."

So, Washington's view is that action must be taken before Corbyn reaches a position of power. To avoid any danger he might become the UK's next prime minister, the US will do its "level best" to "push back". Assuming that this hasn't suddenly become the US administration's priority, how much time does the US think it has before Corbyn might win power? How close is a UK election?

As everyone in Washington is only too keenly aware, a UK election has been a distinct possiblity since the Conservatives set up a minority goverment two years ago with the help of fickle, hardline Ulster loyalists. Elections have been looming ever since, as the UK ruling party has torn itself apart over Brexit, its MPs regularly defeating their own leader, prime minister Theresa May, in parliamentary votes.

So if Pompeo is saying, as he appears to be, that the US will do whatever it can to make sure Corbyn doesn't win an election well before that election takes place, it means the US is already deeply mired in anti-Corbyn activity. Pompeo is not only saying that the US is ready to meddle in the UK's election, which is bad enough; he is hinting that it is already meddling in UK politics to make sure the will of the British people does not bring to power the wrong leader.

Remember that Pompeo, a former CIA director, once effectively America's spy chief, was unusually frank about what his agency got up to when he was in charge. He observed : "I was the CIA director. We lied, we cheated, we stole. It's -- it was like -- we had entire training courses."

One would have to be remarkably naive to think that Pompeo changed the CIA's culture during his short tenure. He simply became the figurehead of the world's most powerful spying outfit, one that had spent decades developing the principles of US exceptionalism, that had lied its way to recent wars in Iraq and Libya, as it had done earlier in Vietnam and in justifying the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, and much more. Black ops and psyops were not invented by Pompeo. They have long been a mainstay of US foreign policy.

An eroding consensus

It takes a determined refusal to join the dots not to see a clear pattern here.

Brand was right that the system is rigged, that our political and media elites are captured, and that the power structure of our societies will defend itself by all means possible, "fair or foul". Corbyn is far from alone in this treatment. The system is similarly rigged to stop a democratic socialist like Bernie Sanders -- though not a rich businessman like Donald Trump -- winning the nomination for the US presidential race. It is also rigged to silence real journalists like Julian Assange who are trying to overturn the access journalism prized by the corporate media -- with its reliance on official sources and insiders for stories -- to divulge the secrets of the national security states we live in.

There is a conspiracy at work here, though it is not of the kind lampooned by critics: a small cabal of the rich secretly pullng the strings of our societies. The conspiracy operates at an institutional level, one that has evolved over time to create structures and refine and entrench values that keep power and wealth in the hands of the few. In that sense we are all part of the conspiracy. It is a conspiracy that embraces us every time we unquestioningly accept the "consensual" narratives laid out for us by our education systems, politicians and media. Our minds have been occupied with myths, fears and narratives that turned us into the turkeys that keep voting for Christmas.

That system is not impregnable, however. The consensus so carefully constructed over many decades is rapidly breaking down as the power structure that underpins it is forced to grapple with real-world problems it is entirely unsuited to resolve, such as the gradual collapse of western economies premised on infinite growth and a climate that is fighting back against our insatiable appetite for the planet's resources.

As long as we colluded in the manufactured consensus of western societies, the system operated without challenge or meaningful dissent. A deeply ideological system destroying the planet was treated as if it was natural, immutable, the summit of human progress, the end of history. Those times are over. Accidents like Corbyn will happen more frequently, as will extreme climate events and economic crises.

The power structures in place to prevent such accidents will by necessity grow more ham-fisted, more belligerent, less concealed to get their way. And we might finally understand that a system designed to pacify us while a few grow rich at the expense of our children's future and our own does not have to continue. That we can raise our voices and loudly say: "No!"


The Alarmist , says: July 4, 2019 at 12:47 pm GMT

The initial attacks on Corbyn were for being poorly dressed, sexist, unstatesmanlike, a national security threat, a Communist spy – relentless, unsubstantiated smears the like of which no other party leader had ever faced. But over time the allegations became even more outrageously propagandistic as the campaign to undermine him not only failed but backfired – not least, because Labour membership rocketed under Corbyn to make the party the largest in Europe.

There was a term for that — Borking. But that was a much milder thing at its inception. So let’s just say that Corbyn is getting the Full Trumping. The latest smear is that JC is battling senior dementia, not far away from the 25th Amendment crowd, including a non-licenced Yale mental health “expert” who keeps pushing the case for Trump’s insanity in the MSM.

nsa , says: July 5, 2019 at 3:42 am GMT

Humble nsa has worked in the UK (nord zee oil) and spent considerable time in working class pubs when onshore. The vast majority of decent working class people in the UK are closeted jew haters, and for good reason. So chances are the jew smear campaign will get Corbyn elected PM in a three way race. Of course, he will eventually prove to be a disappointment….but it will be fun seeing the tribe and their legions of useful idiots squirm for awhile.

Daniel Rich , says: July 5, 2019 at 5:54 am GMT

antisemitism = all Arabs, Muslims and Palestinians fully excluded.

+ all european khazars in.

The word itself is devoid of meaning, rendered useless and become a full blown ‘stopper’ to end discussions about the Apartheid State and anything else to do with criticism of the state and the squatters in Occupied Palestine.

Simon Tugmutton , says: July 5, 2019 at 8:24 am GMT

Another accident might yet see Corbyn as Prime Minister. If it is the System – in the shape of Theresa May and sundry Conservative MPs doing their best to nullify the result of the 2016 referendum – that has been resisting Brexit, then that same system is responsible for the return of Nigel Farage to the fray. His new Brexit Party could split the right-wing vote and allow Labour in by default.

I sympathise with Corbyn on the Palestine issue, but I am old enough and unlucky enough to have lived through the comparatively centrist Labour administrations of the 1970s and view with trepidation the prospect of John McDonnell, an avowed Maoist, as finance minister. Corbyn is surrounded by equally sinister and unpleasant people: he would likely be replaced soon after his elevation, and then God help the people of Britain.

This prospect is evidently alarming a number of Labour’s core voters, who seem to be defecting to the previously somnolent Liberal Democrat party, so maybe the left-wing vote will be split as well. The Brexit Party is also set to mop up a lot of working-class Labour voters, especially in the north of England, who are viscerally opposed to the EU.

Interesting times ahead, in the very best Chinese and proverbial sense of that term.

9/11 Inside job , says: July 5, 2019 at 9:43 am GMT

The plutocrats who are served the intelligence agencies such as the FBI, MI5. CIA and MI6 hate socialist leaders such as Maduro and the UK’s former Prime Minister Harold Wilson , if they can’t control them they will be removed by an engineered coup , a scandal or an early death , in the future Corbyn should avoid the hotel toothpaste .

Ordinary Brit , says: July 5, 2019 at 11:24 am GMT
@Honor is Loyalty

I think very few British people have Jewish ancestry. I never met a Jewish person until I was in my 30s and he was a secular Jew – bacon eater, etc. Among ordinary people outside London there was no antisemitism because most people didn’t know any Jewish people. But this Israeli embassy organised campaign against Corbyn is waking people up to the disproportionate influence of Jews in the UK. In The Times where the columnists are mainly Jewish there is an Israeli embassy planted story nearly every day.

[Jul 09, 2019] Guilt of Anti-semitism Now Needs No Evidence by Jonathan Cook

Charge of anti-semitisim as tool to paint in black anti-neoliberal forces.
Notable quotes:
"... "Jews", however, are not of one mind on this issue, except in the imagination of centrists pursuing the "Labour is institutionally anti-semitic" narrative. Certainly, there are lots of different views among British Jews about Labour. It's just that only one strand of opinion is being given a platform by the political and media class – the one against Corbyn. That should hardly surprise us if, as I explained, the corporate media are not there to reflect different constituencies of opinion, but to enforce a consensus that serves the powerful. ..."
"... The problem with Iannucci's implicit argument that Jews should be left to decide whether Labour is anti-semitic – and that denying them that right is itself anti-semitic – is not only that it assumes Jews are of a single view. It makes two further dubious assumptions: that those who have been given a voice on the subject have actually experienced anti-semitism in Labour, and that they have no other identifiable motives for making such a claim. Neither assumption withstands scrutiny. ..."
"... And MP Ruth Smeeth's infamous claims of an anti-semitic remark against her by black anti-racism activist Marc Wadsworth crumbled on closer inspection, as did her claim to have received 25,000 anti-semitic comments in a matter of days. ..."
"... Again unsurprisingly given that the media serves the interests of power, Al-Jazeera's investigation received negligible coverage and made almost no impression outside pro-Palestinian circles despite its shocking findings. ..."
"... In other words, when we hear from Jewish organisations, it is specifically the ones that have an agenda deeply at odds with Corbyn's – either for his left wing politics or for his adamant opposition to Israeli oppression. Supposed "Jewish" opinion on Labour has simply become another echo chamber, one selected for amplification because its message is the one centrists want to hear: that Corbyn and his supporters are very bad people who must not be allowed near power. ..."
Jul 08, 2019 | dissidentvoice.org

That is why genuine radical leftists are much less interested in who becomes the figurehead of a corrupt and corrupting political system than they are in finding ways to challenge the system and thereby highlight how power operates in our society. The goal is fundamental change, now of a kind that is needed to save us as a species, rather than continuing image management.

Corbyn's rise is so important because he threatens to lift the veil on the power structure, either because he is forced into a clash with it as he tries to implement his policies or because he is crushed by it before he can pursue those policies. Corbyn offers a unique opportunity to hold up a mirror to British society, stripping away the beautified mask to see the ugly skeleton-face below. He risks making the carefully concealed structure of power visible. And this is precisely why he is so dangerous to the status-quo-supporting centrists.

No single Jewish view

But still, aren't Williamson and Labour members suggesting that "Jews" are the ones behind this, as Iannucci infers? When we speak of plots by the powerful, global corporations, the banks and capitalists, aren't we really using coded language for "Jews"? And if we aren't, how do we explain the fact that Jews are so certain that Labour is mired in "institutional anti-semitism"?

"Jews", however, are not of one mind on this issue, except in the imagination of centrists pursuing the "Labour is institutionally anti-semitic" narrative. Certainly, there are lots of different views among British Jews about Labour. It's just that only one strand of opinion is being given a platform by the political and media class – the one against Corbyn. That should hardly surprise us if, as I explained, the corporate media are not there to reflect different constituencies of opinion, but to enforce a consensus that serves the powerful.

The problem with Iannucci's implicit argument that Jews should be left to decide whether Labour is anti-semitic – and that denying them that right is itself anti-semitic – is not only that it assumes Jews are of a single view. It makes two further dubious assumptions: that those who have been given a voice on the subject have actually experienced anti-semitism in Labour, and that they have no other identifiable motives for making such a claim. Neither assumption withstands scrutiny.

When the largely conservative leadership of the Board of Deputies is given centre-stage as spokesperson for British Jews on the issue of Labour and Corbyn, it can speak with no meaningful authority. Its previous leader, Jonathan Arkush, was not only an unabashed supporter of the Conservative Party, but openly welcomed its governing alliance with Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party, extreme Protestant loyalists, as "positive news" for Jews. His successor, Marie van der Zyl, argues that the Board exists "to promote a sympathetic understanding of Israel" – a position that necessarily drives her and the Board into a profound ideological clash with Corbyn and much of the Labour membership behind him.

Examples crumble on inspection

Those Jews inside Labour vociferously promoting claims of a supposed anti-semitism "crisis" in Labour, chiefly the Jewish Labour Movement and a handful of Labour MPs, have been much less forthcoming with actual examples. There is no doubt, as we are often reminded, that former Labour MP Luciana Berger received death threats , but it is much less often noted that those threats did not come from Labour members, they came from the far right. Dossiers like the one submitted by MP Margaret Hodge have shown to be cluttered with cases of alleged anti-semitism that have nothing to do with the Labour party. And MP Ruth Smeeth's infamous claims of an anti-semitic remark against her by black anti-racism activist Marc Wadsworth crumbled on closer inspection, as did her claim to have received 25,000 anti-semitic comments in a matter of days.

The motives of the leadership of the Jewish Labour Movement need questioning too, as an Al-Jazeera undercover investigation revealed two years ago. It exposed the fact that the JLM was working closely with Shai Masot, an agent inside the Israeli embassy whose job was to help mobilise opposition to Corbyn. Again unsurprisingly given that the media serves the interests of power, Al-Jazeera's investigation received negligible coverage and made almost no impression outside pro-Palestinian circles despite its shocking findings.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/L3dn-VV3czc?feature=oembed

As self-confessed Zionists, and hardline ones at that, the leaders of the JLM – representing only a few hundreds members, some of them not Jewish – regard Israel as a supremely important issue, and seem largely indifferent to what Israel is doing to the Palestinians. The JLM and its allies in Labour Friends of Israel have been central to efforts to force the Labour party to adopt a new definition of anti-semitism that conflates strong criticism of Israel with Jew hatred.

Jewish supporters of Corbyn inside Labour, who have been highly critical the JLM and Labour Friends of Israel, such as Jewish Voice for Labour , have been mostly sidelined in media coverage or dismissed as the "wrong kind of Jews".

In other words, when we hear from Jewish organisations, it is specifically the ones that have an agenda deeply at odds with Corbyn's – either for his left wing politics or for his adamant opposition to Israeli oppression. Supposed "Jewish" opinion on Labour has simply become another echo chamber, one selected for amplification because its message is the one centrists want to hear: that Corbyn and his supporters are very bad people who must not be allowed near power.

[Jun 30, 2019] Antisemitism what does that even mean by Philip Roddis

Notable quotes:
"... Philip Roddis Scribbler for some sixty years, and for fifteen a photographer too, Philip Roddis began blogging in the early noughties by inflicting film reviews on an unsuspecting public. Soon he was doing the same with illustrated writings on wanderings in Asia and Africa. He writes "to help me think, and because I like to be read", and finds photography's problem solving aspects "a break from those of writing, as well as an aid to writing and to reflective travel". His blog is Steel City Scribblings ..."
"... Its the age old trick moving the goalposts to adjust the game so you win. ..."
"... It appears to not only want to redefine the concept but also to reapply it to the modern world as a tool for applying political leverage. Its rather cynically exploiting our revulsion for what happened 80 years ago by using the concept as a way of stifling political dissent, in particular Israel's relations with its neighbors. This is political opportunism of the first order -- and very cynical opportunism at that -- which is likely to backfire since its likely to embrace Fascism rather than oppose it. (Its legislative agenda appears to include outlawing dissent by criminalizing it.) ..."
"... As American writer Joe Sobran once noted, "An anti-Semite used mean someone who hated Jews; now it means anyone that Jews hate." ..."
"... "What is anti-semitism": that is a very good question? The answer is a biased and violent socio-political constructivism a purely politicised terminology – and an intentionally weaponised one at that. ..."
"... Everyone knows what anti-semitism is about: the phrase is meaningless – except as a politicised weapon. It is a 'plastic phrase' – like the words 'freedom' and 'democracy' – it's meaning is variable and contestable. It is a 'word to wound' and should be categorised as being hate speech in itself. Anyone who employs AS is a racist themselves, and their discriminatory bias should be exposed by their profane and performative pronunciations. ..."
"... A smart group or groupings: who wanted to resist the coercive silencing of dissensus – would strategically move to reframe the debate away from the nihilistic concretisation of racism that is the politicised discourse. ..."
"... There is a semantic discussion to be had on definition but that is something not even the keenest minds can yet agree on – more importantly, and germane to Phil's article is the weaponisation of antisemitism as a means of exploiting political opponents, in other words hasbara. ..."
"... One of its chilling effects of hasbara is to always put critics of Israel on the backfoot now matter how egregiously Israel or their supporters behave, such as disproportionate violence inflicted on Palestinian civilians, or Labour MPs working hand in glove with Israeli operatives to subvert left wing elements within their own party. ..."
"... Number 4 is the most interesting tactic. All racism is wrong and hate Speech can be a criminal offence. If the anti semitic accusations are true how is it that, as far as I know from within the Labour Party, no Court cases have ever troubled a Judge? The answer is simple – that would require proof/evidence. The MSM are Judge and Jury and their required standard of proof is zero. ..."
"... Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities. ..."
"... In this definition, it seems that semite is an imaginary type or set, with indeterminable tokens or instances. Thus "rhetorical antisemitism" has indefinable, non-existent victims. So any allusion to tabu speaking about Jewishness will be accepted as antisemitic, with no possibility of refutation or defence. The only victim required is the accuser. ..."
"... Orwell coined 'doublespeak' for self-contradictory mind. this runs deeper than we think, because it provides the very basis by which we seem to think alone. A psyop is a mind-trap that baits reaction by which the unwary is induced to give power away. The idea of deceit is not new – and the notion of a power of deceit as self-destructive illusion is not new. ..."
www.linuxtoday.com
Jun 30, 2019 | OffGuardian

... ... ...

Then came Giladgate and the suspension of Labour MP Chris Williamson for defending Israeli Jewish musician – and vehement critic not only of his own state but "a particular subset of Jews" – Gilad Atzmon.

I stress that term, a particular subset of Jews. Those who call Atzmon antisemitic have rarely in my experience troubled to read him in the round, though a few offer cherry-picked quotes. I blame a confusion Atzmon is at pains to disentangle.

In The Wandering Who? he sets out three understandings of Jewishness.

  1. One refers to those born Jewish
  2. Another to followers of ethical values and spiritual disciplines encoded in the Torah. To make important generalisations about either is absurd; to make important negative generalisations a double disgrace: a moral affront in and of itself, and a moral affront in light of a thousand years of Western history culminating in Hitler.
  3. The third understanding, however, refers to "Jews identifying as members of a superior race" . These last, says Atzmon, "are the Jews I speak of in such negative terms, and whom I urge to question their arrogant assumptions" .

If these are the words of an antisemite, call me one too.

I myself have not encountered that third category in personal life. The Jews I know and count as friends are on the left, or at any rate liberal. (Nor do any belong to Atzmon's second category: with a few exceptions I don't much rub shoulders with religious types, whatever brand they smoke). But this reflects the demography of my worlnon-existence the non existence of Atzmon's third category of Jews.

In the Never Again culture of Israel, and the powerhouses of London and New York City, they do exist, and I applaud the man's courageous, principled and costly[ 2 ] stance of calling them out.

Talk of cherry picking brings us, in this context, back to Dame Hodge.

Three nights ago she was on Newsnight to slam the reinstatement of Chris Williamson. In so doing she issued another slander, folded into an aside on the man Williamson had – with guilt by association a standard smear in Stalinist[ 3 ] McCarthyite and other forms of witchhunt – defended at no small cost.

The next day that man responded with clear proof that Hodge, probably through ignorance as much as malice, had profoundly misunderstood a statement he'd made.

Here then, is Gilad Atzmon on the subject of Margaret Hodge on the subject of Chris Williamson.

I offer it not because Hodge is important, though as the above photo shows she still commands respect within the Labour Party. I offer it because great care is called for when examining issues not intrinsically difficult but so buried by obfuscation and mendacity, so emotionally charged and in this case so tightly bound with the quite different agenda of ousting Corbyn.

On these matters, Hodge's interventions are at best crass, ignorant and spiteful. At best – and in this she exemplifies so much that is rotten in our political classes and debased media.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/U0G5ZqO6iJw

You might also read Atzmon's written response of yesterday, addressed more at Lord Falconer than Dame Hodge. After rebutting accusations of holocaust denial, he concludes:

I categorically deny being an anti-Semite. Crucially, I have never been charged or even questioned about anything I said or wrote by any law enforcement authority anywhere in the world. That Lord Falconer accuses an innocent citizen, one with an absolutely clean record, of being "guilty" and the BBC presenter does not challenge or even question Falconer's assertion is a clear indication that Britain is now a lawless place an authoritarian society governed by a compromised political class. Britain has become uninhabitable for intellectuals, truth tellers and peace lovers. Sad it is but no longer a surprise. NOTES:

[1] In this context we should note three ironies. One is that this same Labour right applauded the Maidan Square coup which brought antisemites, the real kind, into the Kiev administration to embolden Ukraine's far and thoroughly antisemitic right (as when in 2017 thousands of nationalists marched in Kiev to celebrate the birthday of Stepan Bandera.) Another, related, is that in devaluing the antisemite term – which is what you do when you call Corbyn one – you let real antisemites off the hook. A third is that like the West at large, Israel – I mention this given how many names on Tom Watson's tweet are in Labour Friends of Israel – has again and again been willing to work with antisemites, also the real kind, in pursuit of its agendas.

[2] The nature of Israel – both as a racist state and, to borrow from a Stephen Gowans book I'll shortly review, as a 'beachhead for imperialism' from which to control the middle east – is obviously relevant in more ways than one. Here I confine myself to the observation that Israeli Jewish critics of Israel, like white South African members of the ANC in the apartheid era, exemplify – whatever other traits they may demonstrate – considerable courage.

[3] I'm aware of a revival, outside the traditional circles of Western Communist Parties, of interest in defending Stalin. At one level this is understandable. Given the corruption of our media and political systems it can be tempting to assume that whomever our rulers and their servants hold up as paragons of virtue, or as monstrosity incarnate, will be the opposite. I'd go so far as to say such reasoning will more often than not deliver broadly accurate results. It's no substitute for proper investigation, however, and I'm planning a post addressing not so much the brutality of Stalin as his criminal incompetence. Facebook Twitter Reddit Pinterest WhatsApp vKontakte Email

Philip Roddis Scribbler for some sixty years, and for fifteen a photographer too, Philip Roddis began blogging in the early noughties by inflicting film reviews on an unsuspecting public. Soon he was doing the same with illustrated writings on wanderings in Asia and Africa. He writes "to help me think, and because I like to be read", and finds photography's problem solving aspects "a break from those of writing, as well as an aid to writing and to reflective travel". His blog is Steel City Scribblings

Can you spare $1.00 a month to support independent media


Martin Usher
Its the age old trick moving the goalposts to adjust the game so you win. I grew up in a family that was heavily involved in the anti-Fascist movement before the war ( before I was born) and was involved with what could be called "Jewish rescue" -- helping people who had got out of Europe settle in the UK. As such I never really gave the the definition of anti-Semitism any thought, it was obvious.

Recently I noticed that the definition had changed -- the goalposts had moved -- because of the work of a group I'd never heard of before, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. I grew up familiar with the ADL and knew it as relatively non-political organization that went after any sort of anti-someone, not just anti-Semitism, but the IHRA turned out to be not just focused on one issue but also intensely political.

It appears to not only want to redefine the concept but also to reapply it to the modern world as a tool for applying political leverage. Its rather cynically exploiting our revulsion for what happened 80 years ago by using the concept as a way of stifling political dissent, in particular Israel's relations with its neighbors. This is political opportunism of the first order -- and very cynical opportunism at that -- which is likely to backfire since its likely to embrace Fascism rather than oppose it. (Its legislative agenda appears to include outlawing dissent by criminalizing it.)

So I'll just stick with the old school definition and old school organizations, thank you very much. This upstart organization may have traction in government, its got the money, the PR and probably runs a very effective blacklist (which I'm now a member, I'd guess). However, I very firmly believe that we are ultimately obliged to do what's morally right, not what's expedient.

Seamus Padraig
As American writer Joe Sobran once noted, "An anti-Semite used mean someone who hated Jews; now it means anyone that Jews hate."
BigB
"What is anti-semitism": that is a very good question? The answer is a biased and violent socio-political constructivism a purely politicised terminology – and an intentionally weaponised one at that.

There has been no scientific basis for racial categorisation or discrimination for decades now. Probably not since Lewontin and Jay-Gould critiqued E O Wilson's 'Sociobiology' (see Lewontin's extended essay "Biology as Ideology" from 1991). Since even then; biology has moved on rapidly – genetic determinism is dead.

With it is the 19th century reductive materialist categorisation of population groups as 'objects with particulars' or distinct races with specific quotients of intelligence or other determining biological factors. Every grouping is of individuals who are more alike than any minor differentiations that may be apparent or supposed. No two people are ever the same: right down to the structure and functional neuro-anatomy their brains – as advanced imaging techniques and neuroscience have shown (see Gina Rippon's "The Gendered Brain" for an in-depth discussion of the science.)

So what shapes us if not our genes this does. Our conditioning and environmental reactions. That is this discourse, or any other encountered discourse we are primarily shaped by epigenetic environmental and socio-cultural factors. So much so, epigenetics supersedes genetics – and can even curtail genetic development (see Rippon's discussion of 'Caeusescu's babies').

We are picking up on social cues and other environmental factors all the time. To which we micro-adapt to on an instant by instant socio-interactional basis. This is what shapes identity – the affordances, cues and inter-subjective interaction with culture and the environment – Lewontin's 'Triple Helix'.

So what is anti-semitism: in the light of their being no scientific categorisation of race? The political constructivism of discriminatory social categorisations is an 'imagined sociology'. One that has no basis in either fact or reality. As Lewontin determined: "race is a racist construct".

Everyone knows what anti-semitism is about: the phrase is meaningless – except as a politicised weapon. It is a 'plastic phrase' – like the words 'freedom' and 'democracy' – it's meaning is variable and contestable. It is a 'word to wound' and should be categorised as being hate speech in itself. Anyone who employs AS is a racist themselves, and their discriminatory bias should be exposed by their profane and performative pronunciations.

So why is AS in the political lexicon if it is no longer acceptable in the scientific lexicon? Are we not supposed to have a science based empirical paradigm?

I would say that it's principal usage is as an attack vector on perceived socialism and character masking of capitalism itself – in its current expanded usage and iteration. It is more than just covering the heinous war crimes and apartheid of the Israeli state and Zionist venture. It's usage has been extended (I called it 'definition creep' of the IHRA) to defend the endemic and structural racism of capitalism itself. It is a morbid symptom of the move to curtail free speech, stifle debate and dissensus, and control the public fora which can be extended to 9/11 truth and anti-capitalist critique – specifically of any cabal or oligarchical domination – as well as defending Israel itself. It can basically mean anything: when allied with the pernicious and weasel worded 11 'working definitions'.

For me, the political universe of discourse is largely moribund. It is a capitalist-captured endocolonisation of any real discourse of freedom and liberation. And 'democracy': you can forget democracy policy is about consensus narrative construction, behavioural change, and conformity. There is no such ideology as anti-capitalist ideology any more there is only capitalist obedience conformity or capitalist obedience conformity binary constructivisms to choose from. One where you cannot critically unmask the core truths of capitalist institutional racism without being at risk of being branded a racist.

A smart group or groupings: who wanted to resist the coercive silencing of dissensus – would strategically move to reframe the debate away from the nihilistic concretisation of racism that is the politicised discourse. With education, and the application of the "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" – a whole new dialogic could be created one that circumvents the nihilism of the capitalist-captured racist constructivism of their political debate. After all, we have the science on our side – if we ever want to shift the paradigm. And not just for race: for all discriminations. Capitalism pretends to tackle racism by creating it. It is the commodification and objectification of individual human beings into perceived discriminatory groups that is at fault.

We do not have to follow the framing of the narrative that is a top-down polarising politicised dominion over humanity. Humanists can create their own debate, on their own terms, based on the latest science and information. Racism is defunct and bad education, poor and redundant 19th century classification, and Universal Humanism nihilation. If it is to dominate the politicised universe of discourse – a new paradigmatic universe of non-racist, non-sexist, non-violent, non-discriminatory discourse is easily achievable. Culture is who we are and what we do. Welcome to the micro-evolutionary nexus. Welcome to the future of humanist non-discriminatory thought and socio-cultural recategorisation. Welcome to the socialised redundancy of racism and race.

Tiny
The Boy Who Cried Wolf

An Aesop fable adapted by Louis Untermeyer

A boy employed to guard the sheep
Despised his work. He liked to sleep.
And when a lamb was lost he'd shout
"Wolf! Wolf! The wolves are all about."

The neighbors searched from noon 'til nine
But of the beast there was no sign
Yet "Wolf!" cried the boy the next morning when
The villagers came out again.

One Evening around 6 o' clock,
A real wolf fell upon the flock.
"Wolf!" cried the boy." A wolf indeed."
But no one paid him any heed.

Although he screamed to wake the dead,
"He's fooled us every time." They said.
And let the hungry wolf enjoy
His feast of mutton, lamb and boy.

The moral is this:
A man who is wise,
The Boy Who Cried Wolf

An Aesop fable adapted by Louis Untermeyer

A boy employed to guard the sheep
Despised his work. He liked to sleep.
And when a lamb was lost he'd shout
"Wolf! Wolf! The wolves are all about."

The neighbors searched from noon 'til nine
But of the beast there was no sign
Yet "Wolf!" cried the boy the next morning when
The villagers came out again.

One Evening around 6 o' clock,
A real wolf fell upon the flock.
"Wolf!" cried the boy." A wolf indeed."
But no one paid him any heed.

Although he screamed to wake the dead,
"He's fooled us every time." They said.
And let the hungry wolf enjoy
His feast of mutton, lamb and boy.

The moral is this:
A man who is wise,
Does not defend himself with lies.
Liars are not believed forsooth,
Even when liars tell the truth.

wardropper
Dame Hodge, as Normal Finkelstein beautifully describes her, is, frankly, not very bright.
Being bright is no longer a requirement for high political office.
In fact it is screened out at an early stage of a neophyte's career.
Louis Proyect
Atzmon is anti-Semitic. So is fellow Jew Ron Unz, who publishes everything that Atzmon writes. Here's something I wrote about Atzmon 8 years ago: https://louisproyect.org/2011/09/29/the-gilad-atzmon-controversy/
Seamus Padraig
And what if Atzmon is 'anti-Semitic'? I'm not saying he would claim to be; but it stands to reason that he would suit at least some people's definition of an anti-Semite–certainly your definition.

So what about it? If Gilad is critical of Jewish identity (identities?), maybe it's because he knows what he's talking about . Not only was he born in Israel and raised in a very Zionist family, but he has made it his lifelong avocation to study up on the history of Jewishness and Jewish identity. Even if you say his is just an opinion, you still have to admit that his is an extremely well-informed opinion. This is not Dr. Goebbels banging away on his Schreibmaschine here. Gilad certainly has a right to his views.

And what if it were to turn out that he's right, Louis? What if there are real problems with Jewishness that have historically caused gentiles–first Christian and now Moslem–to view Jews generally with suspicion if not contempt? In short: what if the rest of the world isn't just 'crazy'? What if?

I have read Gilad's books and followed his blog for some time now (even before he appeared at Unz), and while I may not agree with every last little thing he says, I find his writing in general very lucid and enlightening. But most of all, I have a lot of respect for the guy because of his integrity and courage; because of his determination to look in the collective mirror, as it were, and honestly report what he really sees–rather than what he wishes he saw.

(Oh: and he blows a mean stax, too! If any of you people here are into the old John Coltrane-style jazz, you really ought to check out Gilad the next time you get the chance. His shows are second to none.)

Devon
No one is interested in what others have to say about Atzmon, anymore. We read Atzmon and decide for ourselves.

It predictably contains something as shallow as your comment, that he is antisemitic. The world, save for a very small group with a sinister agenda, are bored with this stupidity.

mark
Oy vey, goy! The truth is anti semitic!! Shut it down!!!
Gilad Atzmon
I read your pathetic piece 8 years ago and looked at it again just now. You indeed manage to parrot other people's slander, yet the one thing you failed to do is to point exactly where in my work do i express hatred or call to discriminate Jews for being Jews. I certainly am critical of certain aspects of Jewish politics (in consistance with my opposition to all forms of biologically oriented identiterianism) . In my work I prove beyond doubt that Jewish ID politics is not merely a Zionist symptom but far wider phenomenon. In my work i insist that Jewish poliyics (left, right and centre) must be subject to criticsm I am indeed an opponent of Jewish Marxism as you pointed out in your article My criticism of this tribal phenomenon is identical with Lenin's criticism of the Bund (1903) ,,,I am about to go for a gig but will be interested to see whether you can produce an argument..I expect something slightly more profound that calling Unz or Shamir 'antisemites' or 'white supremacist' I hope that you are up for the challenge
Louis Proyect
I am indeed an opponent of Jewish Marxism as you pointed out in your article.

--

I imagine that you are referring to Groucho rather than Karl who was actually a Christian. I have to admit that the scene in "The Marx Brothers go West" was a bit troubling when Harpo smashed his harp over the head of a Catholic nun played in this film by Margaret Dumont.

Gilad
I actually have no issue with Karl Marx but I have a serious issue with the Bund and Bundists and I make this point clear in my work on tribal marxism.. you obviously didn't do your homework
Gilad Atzmon
Hello everybody, Gilad Atzmon here,,, Just in case you missed it, Here is an expose of caricature Lord Falconer reading a Zionist script in front of a BBC's camera https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fATmjCFckRs
Francis Lee
You think that anti-semitism violence (vintage 1941-45) was bad enough in Ukraine, try the Baltics, now our glorious NATO ally. As far as I know SS Waffen Units still had their reunions in Riga and Vilnius. Given the age profile it would seem that only few of the mass murderers are still alive. But the fact that they were still allowed to parade in an EU country at that late date is extremely disquieting. And it is a fact that the record past and present is studiously unreported. Censorship by omission. You see, Nazis are okay as long as they are own our side.

Of course the Baltic locals played their part in the mass murder, one in particular the Kovno garage massacre was so abominable that even the Germans were shocked. Check it out if you have the stomach for it.

In spite of Latvia Prime Minister's Maris Kučinskis disapproval, Riga authorized the March 16 march to honor Latvia's Waffen-SS Volunteer Legion established on that date in 1943. International protests have failed to prevent the march, just as they failed earlier. D uring WW2, some 150 thousand Latvians served on the side of the III Reich. They served in the so-called Volunteer Legion of the SS consisting of the 15th and 19th Grenadier Divisions of the Waffen-SS (or 1st and 2nd Latvian Divisions), the Latvian Luftwaffe Legion, German divisions and police battalions. They are responsible for many war crimes. One of them took place in Podgaje on February 2, 1945. During the breakthrough of the Pomeranian Wall, SS-men of Battle Group Elster which was part of the 15th Waffen SS Grenadier Division murdered 32 Polish POWs from the 3rd Infantry Regiment of the 1rst Infantry Division of the Polish People's Army. They were bound by barbed wire and burned alive in a barn.

Marches honoring Latvian SS-men have been a regular event in Riga since 1990. In 1998, the Latvian government made that date a national holiday, though international protests forced it to be reduced in 2000 to a national day of memory.

It is no different in neighboring Estonia. It celebrates August 28, which is when Waffen-SS began to recruit, in 1942, volunteer for its Estonian Legion which became the 20th Waffen-SS Grenadier Division. It fought at Narva and in Lower Silesia and Bohemia. Estonian SS-men also participated in counter-partisan operations in the rear areas of the Eastern Front, committing mass atrocities on the civilian population. It was commanded by SS-Obergruppenfόhrer Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, the future butcher of Warsaw. Apart from the 30 thousand Estonians in the Waffen-SS, thousands more served in SS border guard units, security police, and the Wehrmacht.

Lithuania maintains the cult of the so-called Plekhavicius Legion, the Lithuanian Local Corps, or LVR, a criminal collaborationist organization serving the III Reich, and Ukraine worships the 14th Volunteer Grenadier Division of the Waffen-SS Galizien, whose formation's anniversary (April 27, 1943), is loudly celebrated in Lvov and other cities of western Ukraine. Glorifying the SS-Galizien alongside the Banderist OUN-UPA became the foundation on which the post-Maidan Ukraine's national identity is being built.

Croatia honors the Ustasha and the SS-men of the 7th Waffen-SS Volunteer Mountain Division Prinz Eugen, while Bosnia-Herzegovina likewise honors the SS-men of the 13th Waffen-SS Bosnia-Herzegovina Mountain Division Handschar. Hungary and Romania often stage historic reconstructions and other events commemorating these countries participation in World War II on Hitler's side on the Eastern Front.

Finally the Baltic States are fostering a cult of the so-called "forest brothers", or anti-commmunist guerrillas of 1944-1953 consisting of many former SS-men and Nazi collaborators

bevin
One of the problems with this campaign is that it has come to be seen as being, basically, about Corbyn and the Labour party whereas in fact it is about expanding the Israeli state's license to kill Palestinians while being rewarded by taxpayers in the UK.

The real issue, which particularly interests the UK which is, in historical terms, largely responsible for the existence of this European colony in the Holy Land, is that the peoples of Palestine have been subjected to a series of injustices without parallel in the modern world. And that, at almost every stage of Israel's seventy year descent into fascism-for that is what it is and who Likud and its allies are- it has been supported by the UK and the UK's political master, the United States.

It is this matter- the snipers killing ambulance attendants in Gaza, the burgeoning and appalling crisis caused by the Israeli siege, the inhumane treatment of prisoners, the contempt shown for established international law, a contempt which has been an important factor is reducing the post-war UN system to wreckage and allowing the serial aggressions of imperialist states- it is this matter which ought to be exercising the media, Parliament and, most particularly, the Labour Party.

Members of the party cannot dodge the fact that, when the UK left Palestine, abandoning its mandates and withdrawing its police forces it handed the people of Palestine, whom it had systematically disarmed, over to the offices of the terrorist organisations which formed the Jewish state and perpetrated the Naqba.

And the government of the UK at the time was dominated by the Labour Party. Israel was created by the Labour Party's actions and irresponsible inactions. It weighs on the collective conscience of the party and of the, now shattered remnants of, the Trade Union movement whose leaders treated the working people of Palestine with a cynical indifference which telegraphed the movement's decline

In other words, no party in the world, with the possible exception of the egregious Democrats in the USA, has more reason to be critical of the government of Israel and to insist that that state be sanctioned and boycotted until it is ready to deal honestly with the majority of its subjects, the disenfranchised residents of the state, the occupied areas of Palestine and the millions of descendants of those expelled from their land and homes in 1948. The Party should call a special conference to examine its policies on Israel and to put together a comprehensive plan to reverse the crimes of the past, and present and to bring the justice and fair treatment Britain promised the League of Nations to these victims of the Empire.

And those who protest that Israel should be left alone, and its crimes condoned, its child murders welcomed and its abuse of prisoners approved, ought to be excluded from the Party on obvious grounds with the Whip being withdrawn from all those MPs who have chosen, in being 'Friends of Israel', to be enemies of humanity and advocates of evildoing.

Seamus Padraig
Eloquent! Thanks for the comment.
mark
This anti Semitism smear campaign serves two purposes. (1.) To criminalise any and all criticism of Zionist atrocities and war crimes, no matter how egregious. (2.) To vilify Corbyn and "drive him out of public life", as openly declared by the Board of Deputies and the Israeli embassy.
Philip Roddis
I'll say it again, bevin. You should be writing above the line
Rhisiart Gwilym
Hear, hear to Philip's comment! Your level of knowledge and perspicacity – with a central core of steely moral honour – isn't all that common in the world. Please don't hide you light, b! Let's hear more of your analyses.
Harry Stotle
There is a semantic discussion to be had on definition but that is something not even the keenest minds can yet agree on – more importantly, and germane to Phil's article is the weaponisation of antisemitism as a means of exploiting political opponents, in other words hasbara.

One of its chilling effects of hasbara is to always put critics of Israel on the backfoot now matter how egregiously Israel or their supporters behave, such as disproportionate violence inflicted on Palestinian civilians, or Labour MPs working hand in glove with Israeli operatives to subvert left wing elements within their own party.

Stephen Sizer discusses the manual explaining how certain hasbara techniques are applied at different stages culminating in accusations of antisemitism designed to bring about personal or professional ruin.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/4Qq257bPZ0c

When consider motive amongst those Labour MPs screaming for the head of Chris Williamson and by extension Jeremy Corbyn several possibilities come to mind.

MPs may be afraid they might be net to be accused so identify with the aggressor rather than the person being vilified (even though those being tainted are invariably left wing with a strong record on anti-racisim)

It may be that some of them are simply ignorant, an idea that cannot be entirely be dismissed given how indoctrianted some of our political class are.
Or it could be they are complicit: in other words they understand how useful hasbara can be, especially as a device to purge the Labour party of socialists and as a means of ushering a new age of Blairism.

Incredible as it may seem some Labour MPs still go all misty eyed when the views of Anthony Charles Lynton Blair come up, rather like right wingers in the tory party who still have attachment issues with Pinochets former girlfriend, Baroness Thatcher.

Ken Kenn
Number 4 is the most interesting tactic. All racism is wrong and hate Speech can be a criminal offence. If the anti semitic accusations are true how is it that, as far as I know from within the Labour Party, no Court cases have ever troubled a Judge? The answer is simple – that would require proof/evidence. The MSM are Judge and Jury and their required standard of proof is zero.

Just add " allegedly " to a quote or " he said/ she said " and that's all they need to bamboozle the masses.

I'll hazard a guess that no-one from the Labour Party will end up in any court on any antisemitic charges in the future either.

SharonM
Hasn't it got to the point of self-parody? The zionists have even managed to make remembrance of a genocide well overdone. That takes some astonishing exploitation.
Bob Marsden
IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) definition of antisemitism.

Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.

This definition of anti-semitism doesn't define semite.

If semite is held to be a synonym or euphemism for Jew, [all semites are Jews, all Jews are semites] then the word is redundant and can be removed from the definition of antiJewishness.

If this isn't the sense intended, as is implied by characterising "non-Jewish individuals" as potential victims, then a definition must include procedures for discriminating who is and isn't a semite, to answer such questions as: Is an Ethiopean Jew a semite? Is an Ashkenasi Jew a semite? Is a convert to Judaism a semite? and can non-Jews be semites?. Can a semite be identified by depictions of their facial features, such as the shape of the nose? If so Yasser Arafat was a semite.

In this definition, it seems that semite is an imaginary type or set, with indeterminable tokens or instances. Thus "rhetorical antisemitism" has indefinable, non-existent victims. So any allusion to tabu speaking about Jewishness will be accepted as antisemitic, with no possibility of refutation or defence. The only victim required is the accuser.

So the definition is a prejudicial nonsense, as is manifested in its current usage.

Incidentally:
Basic Law: Israel as the Nation State of the Jewish People
1 -- Basic principles
A. The land of Israel is the historical homeland of the Jewish people, in which the State of Israel was established.
B. The State of Israel is the national home of the Jewish people, in which it fulfills its natural, cultural, religious and historical right to self-determination.
C. The right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people.

This omits the fact that the land was home to other peoples, and defines the State in racial terms. So any adverse comment on Israel is automatically anti-Jewish.

Antipropo
You stumble when you say "if so Yasser Arafat is a Semite" because of course ALL Palestinians, in fact all Arabs are semitic. The term Semite and the slander antisemite have been stolen-just as they stole and continue to steal Palestine- by the Jewish zionists and their willing accomplices in the Christian west.
Guy
" If so Yasser Arafat was a Semite." Yes, as are the Palestinians .I am surprised that Israel , it's occupants ,zionists and all have not been taken to task as to whether they are actually Semitic . It is a canard and we have all fell for it.
mark
Palestinians are the real descendants of the Jews of the Bible. The fake Jews like Nuttyyahoo or Mielkevic, or whatever his name is, all hail from the Khazar kingdom near the Caspian Sea. That is their homeland.
Guy
I first came across this information many years ago in reading the book "The Thirteenth Tribe " by Arthur Koestler .I have since read much about this hidden peace of historical information from other sources and some from Jewish archives.

http://www.fantompowa.info/koestlerindex.htm

Cheers.

harry law
Tony Blair was asked at an Israeli University if he believed Jeremy Corbyn himself was anti-Semitic, Blair said yes.

Blair's false accusations while presenting no evidence are deeply damaging to Mr Corbyn and hugely damaging to the Labour Party, in fact it brings Mr Corbyn and the Labour Party into disrepute in blatant contradiction to Labour Party rules. A false accusation of Anti-Semitism is just as obnoxious as a genuine accusation, the former made with the intention of harming Jeremy Corbyn and to bring both Corbyn and the Labour Party into disrepute is met with a shrug of the shoulders 'nothing to see here, move along' Similarly Margaret Hodge can say Corbyn is " A fucking Anti-Semite and racist" and nothing happens to her. Hypocrisy of the highest order. Is it any wonder the Party has lost nearly 100,000 members in the past couple of years.

different frank
"Formerly an anti-Semite was somebody who hated Jews because they were Jews and had a Jewish soul. But nowadays an anti-Semite is somebody who is hated by Jews." ~Hajo Meyer (born August 12, 1924 – 23 August, 2014) holocaust survivor
Brian Steere
Another word for a post truth politics is the psyop. Using the mind as a weapon against itself. My response is to go deeper than the baiting reaction of emotional reaction or rational opposition. The ability of the mind to make special or indeed sacred is to set apart in order to set over and against – with the key being in the ability to seed, set, and enforce a framework of narrative identity.

Working the polarised identity is not unique to power seeking through Jewish influence but is part and parcel of power set apart and over life as the mind of cunning contrivance or cleverness.

Gilad Atzmon mentions in his book that for around 2000 years, the richest daughters were married to the cleverest sons, and that this worked a measurable eugenic outcome in the population as a whole.

Irrespective of the specific historical context of any particular development of cultural identity is the underlying matrix or mechanism of its assertion and substitution of relational being by managed conflict.

I write to illuminate this towards our re-cognition and re-membering in true relational being and not within the framework of problems that predefine the terms of their own 'answer' such as to protect the problem from resolution and release by means of packaged presentations of complex instruments.

There is another facet of relational being that needs to come in here and that is of resonant communication as distinct from coded symbols and association. Attention focussed within its own 'special' thinking is diverted and in a sense bubbled off from its true relational being. Narcissism in this sense is built into the idea or image of self along with threat of extinction that invokes both terror and rage as polarities of division that generate a progeny of reactive containment under illusion of escape.

The more investment in 'solutions' that displace or dissociate the original error, the more identity is set and subjected under its own original split-word – but projected or assigned to the OTHER – be that G-d or Creation – it is now perceived rather than beheld, and through a lens of separation of the a-tempt to lord it over, along with the fear and hatred of subjection. These two are one error but split the experience of victim and victimiser.

The characteristic signature of the 'ego' or false self is conflict under narrative control. But to maintain continuity (believed survival or sustainability) requires the ongoing inducement to avert the 'greater fear' of humiliation of loss of possession and control by sacrificing through 'lesser evils' or 'necessary lies, wars or sickness by which to repackage and redistribute psychic emotional conflict – AWAY from the 'self-special'.

Everyone protects their investment as they see it and yet the native intelligence by which to re-evaluate a poor choice so as to replace with a more truly aligned outcome, is self-denied by a refusal to look within – under fear of threat or weakness. Thus the clever-minded can seem to look within with astonishing clarity – but only to the weaponisation and marketisation of what is revealed. Which is riding the crest of the wave so as to be in position of control from a segregated sense of self or private agenda that is by definition set apart and over others – on whom one's own motives are projected and attacked there.

Orwell coined 'doublespeak' for self-contradictory mind. this runs deeper than we think, because it provides the very basis by which we seem to think alone. A psyop is a mind-trap that baits reaction by which the unwary is induced to give power away. The idea of deceit is not new – and the notion of a power of deceit as self-destructive illusion is not new.

That we are in a sense living what we take to be life under an already deceit or illusion is not new, nor the recognition that denials come back to the mind that thinks thereby to have become 'more' or 'better' in unexpected ways.

One way of reading the world is to use what comes to our notice as a thread to our own 'unconscious' participation or correspondence so that instead of enacting the mind of judgement and living its script, we observe the mind in act and release investment in conflict identity. If you give willingness for this you will notice the mind in every attempt to re-interject a sense of 'control' or separation. The more you notice the more energy and attention is released from succumbing to a personal sense of power, to an impersonal love. Perhaps 'love' – like 'God' – is too degraded a word to use – but love of power for its own sake is giving all power to powerlessness. What else would so intensely focus in embodying such an idea but a powerlessness in terror of looking within, set in rage on its sense of denial 'without'.

Is is said that all power is of God – but that does not make an illusion of power real. But to participate in an illusion of power is to give unto Caesar what is due unto God.

Releasing the reversal of cause and effect is recognising and aligning in truth we do not manufacture, possess or control – but are at-oned with in sharing. The narrative is shifted in purpose. You are given a special role in the healing and awakening from a collective entanglement. But it is never more or less than to be who you are – as distinct from trying to be what you are not at expense of a full or overflowing awareness.

Hate and guilt can make a world and suffer it real – but do You WANT this?

Who lives by the 'Seperation' word shall die by the S-word. For the true Word is before and after – and in a sense inside time that seems to cover story.

The power that works in darkness of denied conflict, deems light an attack on its power of protection from light. But light simply is awareness. Only an illusion of light can 'attack' an illusion of darkness. In this sense the mind is a trickster when spinning out from the heart's knowing. Entertainment becomes entrainment to an invested identity habit.

harry law
Tom Watson put this letter together endorsed by 80 Labour Party MP's. After implying that the changes to the composition of the NEC panel involved corruption. The letter goes on ..

"It is clear to us that the Labour party's disciplinary process remains mired by the appearance of political interference, this must stop, we need an independent process".

Then unbelievably in the very next sentence he contradicts himself by calling for political interference.

"We call on Jeremy Corbyn to show leadership by asking for this inappropriate, offensive and reputationally damaging decision to be overturned".

In his last sentence, after Williamson is allowed back into the party by a properly constituted and legal administrative process overlooked by two Barristers, he throws due process under the bus. People like Margaret Hodge who called Jeremy Corbyn "A fucking Antis-Semite and racist" and who called upon any CLP who minimised Anti-Semitism "that we should just close them down" these people reveal their true nature on free speech, democracy and due process, they are against all three. Here is his last sentence

"Ultimately, it is for Jeremy Corbyn to decide whether Chris Williamson retains the Labour whip, he must remove it immediately if we are to stand any hope of persuading anyone that the Labour Party is taking Anti-Semitism seriously". Can the Labour Party be taken seriously?

Philip Roddis
Since writing this I've happened on an interview Roger Waters – an exception, alongside Brian Eno, to the rule that rock stars shall not rile the Israeli lobby – gave in 2016 to the Independent. The header says it all: Pink Floyd star on why his fellow musicians are terrified to speak out against Israel
Jen
It's mostly British rock stars who have spoken out against Israeli policies and actions that terrorise Palestinians. That may say something about the nature of the music industry in Britain as opposed to its American equivalent.

The US music industry, indeed the entertainment industry generally since major record labels these days are owned and run by the same corporations that own and run television and movie studios, book and magazine publishers, and news media, is one where the power of money and to make and break careers is highly concentrated among a few companies and individuals.

Rhys Jaggar
Antisemitism is actually a very silly term since it means 'the state of opposing semites and their values'. The first question to ask is who, exactly, the Semites were and are? The definition broadly given is 'those people who speak the semitic languages'.

So here is a list of Semitic languages:

1. ARABIC – 300 million speakers. Ho hum, so being anti-semitic means hating arabs does it? Should I call Bibi Netanyahu antisemitic for hating the Palestinians? NAUGHTY BOY! SPANK! SPANK!!
2. AMHARIC – 22 million speakers. This is a bunch of Ethiopians who you may or may not choose to like. But they are most certainly not Jewish.
3. TIGRINYA – 6.9 million speakers. Another Ethiopian group.
4. HEBREW – 5 million native speakers. So rather less than one in sixty Semites are actually Hebrew-speaking Jews. Do 59/60 semites really wish Bibi Netanyahu et al to corral them all under one umbrella with him at the helm? I have my doubts, you know .
5. TIGRE – 1 million speaker. A third small Ethiopian sect.
6. ARAMAIC – 0.5 to 1 million speakers from Assyria.
7. MALTESE – around half amillion speakers.

So Jews have appropriated a term for themselves when they represent less than two percent of Semites. What arrogance they possess!

So before we go any further, I suggest Jeremy Corbyn uses as one defensive strand that he likes many arab semites .that should cause unrest with Miluds given orders by the Mossad, Downing Street and GCHQ.

Secondly I suggest that Jews coin a new term referring solely to them as they are not, nor will they likely ever be the overwhelming majority of semites on earth. How about JEW HATER?

Finally I call on all non Jewish semites to disavow the use of the term antisemitic when referring to Jews, expressing outrage that Jews could insult their distinct cultures, traditions and values through insisting on using a term despicably inappropriate for matters at hand.

They could call for Margaret Hodge to be kicked out of the Labour Party for antinonjewsemitic behaviour, but that might be being petty

[Jun 27, 2019] Protecting Zionists by Israel Shamir

Jun 25, 2019 | www.unz.com

Justify your actions by the need to protect the weak and vulnerable. This is the first rule of political rhetoric. If you bomb Syria, do not admit you did it to install your puppet regime or to lay a pipeline. Say you did it to save the Aleppo kids gassed by Assad the Butcher. If you occupy Afghanistan, do not admit you make a handsome profit smuggling heroin; say you came to protect the women. If you want to put your people under total surveillance, say you did it to prevent hate groups target the powerless and diverse.

Remember: you do not need to ask children, women or immigrants whether they want your protection. If pushed, you can always find a few suitable profiles to look at the cameras and repeat a short text. With all my dislike for R2P (Responsibility to Protect) hypocrisy, I can't possibly blame the allegedly protected for the disaster caused by the unwanted protectors.

This thought came to my mind during my recent visit to France for the publication of my new book In The Name of Christ . France is going through a rapid shrinking of freedom. All the nations experience that, but France leads. For years they had laws that banned things displeasing to Jews; and now they expand these laws punishing not only saying or writing but also thinking, implying or winking. The bill criminalising anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism may be voted on very soon. As the law voted in 2015 (after the Charlie Hebdo attack ), against the "apology of terrorism", the new law will allow the government to seize anyone, just for a tweet or a post on Facebook, and send a person for 18 months to "preventive imprisonment", even before he comes to a court. The judge will sanction him on the basis of "intimate conviction" of his "hidden intentions".

This fight against alleged antisemitism has become – like in the UK – a powerful tool of the ruling elites against the people. It is used against the Gilets Jaunes (the Yellow Vests), and against the opposition in general. The authorities apply the R2P principle to assault French freedom, that is they allegedly protect the Jews, as if Jews need protection, and in the name of Jews they steal freedom of all.

With a certain poetic license, one can proclaim the Jews are innocent of this assault, like the Aleppo kids are not guilty of bombing Syria and Afghan women are not guilty of American occupation. The Jews have been used as proverbial victims, but so were children and women. The guilt and responsibility is of those who use them as a pretext.

You may argue that the comparison is forced, for the French Jewish bodies actively participate in this campaign against French freedom. Yes, that's true, but these organisations are voluntary self-appointed guardians of Jewish interest. Jews didn't vote for them, didn't elect them. The government was free to disregard them saying they do not represent their Jewish citizens. Actually, that was the traditional French approach, refusing to deal with Jewish organisations saying the French Jews are French and they do not need an intermediary. If the government preferred to listen to them, it is only because they say what the government wants to hear.

In Annecy, one of France's prettiest medieval towns I had met Maître Viguier, the lawyer for Mr Alain Soral, and over the pot of cheese fondue the place is famous for he told me an amazing story.

In the course of their demo, the Yellow Vests had burned a picture of a French TV personality, Bernard Henri Levi (BHL for short), and of some other worthies. This event had been depicted in a jolly video clip that you can watch with pleasure and the clip had been uploaded on a website associated with Alain Soral.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/rxFchAvqwK4?feature=oembed

The CRIF (or/and LICRA and other bodies) had accused Mr Soral of antisemitism, a criminal offence, on the strength of this fact, and demanded 2 years of prison + 30,000 euros, requested as punishment + 82,500 as compensations for the "victims". The Maître said the elites try to unite the Jewish people against Gilets Jaunes and against ordinary French people. Other supporters of the GJ, Jean Bricmont and M. Chouard are the next on the list, after Soral.

The CRIF said that the rap was in coded language. The burned picture of BHL suggests a great fire to burn every Jew. "Between 1940 and 1945, the Nazis called the Jews 'vermin' and 'parasites' that should be exterminated", they say. And that's why the word "parasites" in the clip necessarily refers to Jews that should be exterminated. A very weak logic; Socrates would send these CRIF sophists back to the holes they usually hide from sunlight. Whatever the Nazis said, they have no copyright on the word 'parasites'. In the Soviet Union after the October 1917 Revolution, when Jews occupied quite a prominent place in the society, the most popular revolutionary song said the parasites have no right to rule the land.

Parasites are those who do not toil but consume; and this is not a specific Jewish feature. By claiming that Jews are the parasites, the self-proclaimed Jewish organisations indulge in vile antisemitism, I told them.

What's wrong in burning a picture of BHL? BHL is a French citizen who is entitled to his views. However, none of his views could or should be accepted as "the Jewish position". The French Jews, and certainly the Jews of the world, hold a wide variety of views, some of them agree with BHL in some points and some disagree, sometimes disagree strongly. Mr BHL had been a fervent supporter, or even an instigator of the NATO attack on Libya in 2011 that had made this rather prosperous North African country a failed state ruled by Islamist armed gangs. Mr BHL had been a fervent supporter or an instigator of the Kiev 2014 coup that deposed the legitimate president of the Ukraine and had brought followers of the Nazi Quisling Stepan Bandera to power. Mr BHL had tried to ignite the ire of his French compatriots against the GJ. These and other strong views of Mr BHL had caused indignation of some French citizens who expressed their indignation by burning his photo. These acts by Mr BHL and his adversaries are perfectly legitimate within the limits of free public discourse.

What is not and can't be legitimate is an attempt by the CRIF to create a false impression as if those opinions and acts by Mr BHL were an expression of the Jewish position. This is an obnoxious anti-Semitic lie. The Jews of France, of Israel and of the world didn't necessarily wish Libya to be bombed or Kiev upturned; the Jews have no united single political position on French elections or on French political movements. Some French Jews support the GJ, and some reject them. Some vote for Mr Macron and some for Mme Le Pen or Mr Soral.

It's only vicious anti-Semites who claim that all Jews follow and support BHL. This nasty claim had been upheld by a self-proclaimed "Jewish organisation" CRIF.

Let me reiterate: the body called CRIF does not represent French Jews, for it was not elected by French Jews. Its leadership is not accepted by French or any other Jews. It is a political organisation with its own goals; its goals do not coincide with those of majority of Jews in France or elsewhere.

While it is possible to argue that in some cases CRIFF acts in the interests of the Jews by fighting anti-Jewish prejudice, in this particular case the CRIF acts against the Jewish interests, as this action is likely to enforce the anti-Jewish prejudice of all Jews acting together for some dubious goal like break-up of Libya or Ukraine or for other controversial goal.

The Jews qua Jews have no position on these topics. Mr BHL is neither an elected representative nor a spiritual authority for the Jews in France or anywhere else. He does not dress as an observant Jew, he does not observe Jewish laws and customs; his family famously includes apostates; his actions were always those of a free agent; he never consulted with Jewish authorities, spiritual or temporal.

He is perfectly entitled to his views and opinions; however he may not claim he acts in the Jewish interests or represents the Jews. Even less so CRIF may present a protest against BHL as an act against Jewish people as the whole; as an act of anti-Semitism. If somebody is anti-Semitic it is CRIF that suggest that an attack of BHL is an attack on the Jewish people. If this would be a case, should we consider a condemnation of the Black comedian Mr Dieudonné – an act of anti-black racism?

It is perfectly legal to burn the image of BHL in Israel; and I intend to do it tomorrow in Tel Aviv on the Gordon Beach, I told them. No court in Israel would accuse me of anti-Semitism if I burn his picture; or a picture of Mr Netanyahu who is anyway an elected representative of the Jewish state of Israel. While Israeli flag is protected from desecration, an image of a person of a Jewish origin is not. It is free to burn or despoil it in any way you like.

I am certain that French citizens are not less free than Israeli citizens, and I hope that the French court will reject the frivolous claim of the self-proclaimed Jewish body called CRIFF against Mr Alain Soral. It would be good if Mr BHL would find courage to support Mr Soral against CRIF by affirming that he was not and is not acting as a legitimate representative or spiritual authority of the French Jews. It would be even better if the French Republic would accuse CRIF for encouraging anti-Jewish prejudice by frivolous claims.

If the French Republic finds it necessary to condemn Mr Alain Soral for whatever reason, let her do it without pretence of acting for the Jewish cause. Keep Jews out of this polemics! The Jews have enough troubles of their own without being used as a sort of supreme argument in an intra-French dispute.

This is what I said to the French lawyer, and he produced my argument in the French court. You can read all this argumentation here in French or just watch a conversation (in English with French translation) I had with a popular French presenter Jean-Michel Vernochet and the charming poet, political thinker and my translator Mme Maria Poumier:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/c_lg6lLknME?feature=oembed

... ... ...

Israel Shamir can be reached at [email protected]

This article was first published at The Unz Review


Pinche Perro , says: June 26, 2019 at 4:34 am GMT

I think it would be better for everyone, Jews included, if the organized Jewish community had less influence in the highest levels of society in western countries. I also think it would be helpful if it wasn't such a taboo to criticize them and their culture. Every other ethnic, racial, and religious group that I know of is subject to criticism. Jews should join the party.

I want what's best for all people, including Jews. Thank you to Israel Shamir, Gilad Atzmon, Ron Unz and others for reminding us that there are decent people of Jewish heritage out there.

Biff , says: June 26, 2019 at 11:29 am GMT
@renfro

I seriously doubt a non Jew in the US government thought up the idea of criminalizing BDS, which neither the government nor the public gets any benefit from.

You don't have to be German to be a Nazi, and likewise, you don't have to be Jewish to be a Zionist. Lots of non-Jews in Congress want to criminalize BDS.

Sick of Orcs , says: June 26, 2019 at 11:40 am GMT
@Pinche Perro You are correct, sir, but any criticism of The Chosen–however constructive or well-meaning–summons Zombie Hitler and the 4 Horsemen of the Holocaust...

Recommended Links

Google matched content

Softpanorama Recommended

Top articles

[Aug 14, 2019] Charge of anti-Semitism as a sign of a bitter factional struggle in UK Labor Party between neoliberal and alternatives to neoliberalism wings Published on Aug 14, 2019 | averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com

Sites



Etc

Society

Groupthink : Two Party System as Polyarchy : Corruption of Regulators : Bureaucracies : Understanding Micromanagers and Control Freaks : Toxic Managers :   Harvard Mafia : Diplomatic Communication : Surviving a Bad Performance Review : Insufficient Retirement Funds as Immanent Problem of Neoliberal Regime : PseudoScience : Who Rules America : Neoliberalism  : The Iron Law of Oligarchy : Libertarian Philosophy

Quotes

War and Peace : Skeptical Finance : John Kenneth Galbraith :Talleyrand : Oscar Wilde : Otto Von Bismarck : Keynes : George Carlin : Skeptics : Propaganda  : SE quotes : Language Design and Programming Quotes : Random IT-related quotesSomerset Maugham : Marcus Aurelius : Kurt Vonnegut : Eric Hoffer : Winston Churchill : Napoleon Bonaparte : Ambrose BierceBernard Shaw : Mark Twain Quotes

Bulletin:

Vol 25, No.12 (December, 2013) Rational Fools vs. Efficient Crooks The efficient markets hypothesis : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2013 : Unemployment Bulletin, 2010 :  Vol 23, No.10 (October, 2011) An observation about corporate security departments : Slightly Skeptical Euromaydan Chronicles, June 2014 : Greenspan legacy bulletin, 2008 : Vol 25, No.10 (October, 2013) Cryptolocker Trojan (Win32/Crilock.A) : Vol 25, No.08 (August, 2013) Cloud providers as intelligence collection hubs : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : Inequality Bulletin, 2009 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Copyleft Problems Bulletin, 2004 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Energy Bulletin, 2010 : Malware Protection Bulletin, 2010 : Vol 26, No.1 (January, 2013) Object-Oriented Cult : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2011 : Vol 23, No.11 (November, 2011) Softpanorama classification of sysadmin horror stories : Vol 25, No.05 (May, 2013) Corporate bullshit as a communication method  : Vol 25, No.06 (June, 2013) A Note on the Relationship of Brooks Law and Conway Law

History:

Fifty glorious years (1950-2000): the triumph of the US computer engineering : Donald Knuth : TAoCP and its Influence of Computer Science : Richard Stallman : Linus Torvalds  : Larry Wall  : John K. Ousterhout : CTSS : Multix OS Unix History : Unix shell history : VI editor : History of pipes concept : Solaris : MS DOSProgramming Languages History : PL/1 : Simula 67 : C : History of GCC developmentScripting Languages : Perl history   : OS History : Mail : DNS : SSH : CPU Instruction Sets : SPARC systems 1987-2006 : Norton Commander : Norton Utilities : Norton Ghost : Frontpage history : Malware Defense History : GNU Screen : OSS early history

Classic books:

The Peter Principle : Parkinson Law : 1984 : The Mythical Man-MonthHow to Solve It by George Polya : The Art of Computer Programming : The Elements of Programming Style : The Unix Hater’s Handbook : The Jargon file : The True Believer : Programming Pearls : The Good Soldier Svejk : The Power Elite

Most popular humor pages:

Manifest of the Softpanorama IT Slacker Society : Ten Commandments of the IT Slackers Society : Computer Humor Collection : BSD Logo Story : The Cuckoo's Egg : IT Slang : C++ Humor : ARE YOU A BBS ADDICT? : The Perl Purity Test : Object oriented programmers of all nations : Financial Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : The Most Comprehensive Collection of Editor-related Humor : Programming Language Humor : Goldman Sachs related humor : Greenspan humor : C Humor : Scripting Humor : Real Programmers Humor : Web Humor : GPL-related Humor : OFM Humor : Politically Incorrect Humor : IDS Humor : "Linux Sucks" Humor : Russian Musical Humor : Best Russian Programmer Humor : Microsoft plans to buy Catholic Church : Richard Stallman Related Humor : Admin Humor : Perl-related Humor : Linus Torvalds Related humor : PseudoScience Related Humor : Networking Humor : Shell Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2012 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2013 : Java Humor : Software Engineering Humor : Sun Solaris Related Humor : Education Humor : IBM Humor : Assembler-related Humor : VIM Humor : Computer Viruses Humor : Bright tomorrow is rescheduled to a day after tomorrow : Classic Computer Humor

The Last but not Least Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt. Ph.D


Copyright © 1996-2021 by Softpanorama Society. www.softpanorama.org was initially created as a service to the (now defunct) UN Sustainable Development Networking Programme (SDNP) without any remuneration. This document is an industrial compilation designed and created exclusively for educational use and is distributed under the Softpanorama Content License. Original materials copyright belong to respective owners. Quotes are made for educational purposes only in compliance with the fair use doctrine.

FAIR USE NOTICE This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to advance understanding of computer science, IT technology, economic, scientific, and social issues. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided by section 107 of the US Copyright Law according to which such material can be distributed without profit exclusively for research and educational purposes.

This is a Spartan WHYFF (We Help You For Free) site written by people for whom English is not a native language. Grammar and spelling errors should be expected. The site contain some broken links as it develops like a living tree...

You can use PayPal to to buy a cup of coffee for authors of this site

Disclaimer:

The statements, views and opinions presented on this web page are those of the author (or referenced source) and are not endorsed by, nor do they necessarily reflect, the opinions of the Softpanorama society. We do not warrant the correctness of the information provided or its fitness for any purpose. The site uses AdSense so you need to be aware of Google privacy policy. You you do not want to be tracked by Google please disable Javascript for this site. This site is perfectly usable without Javascript.

Last modified: April 16, 2020