Harry's Place

Fox News’s house renegade, Shepard Smith, says what needs to be said about Mitt Romney’s excruciatingly insincere tribute to his “friend” Newt Gingrich after Gingrich officially ended his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.

If you want to know what Smith was talking about, the Obama campaign has helpfully compiled some of Gingrich’s comments about Romney from earlier.

Lech Walesa, the former Polish Solidarity leader and president who was probably more responsible than any other single person for the collapse of the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe, sounded suspiciously socialist on a visit to a Chrysler auto plant in Detroit.

Walesa, 68, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983 after founding the Soviet bloc’s first independent trade union. The labor leader blamed business owners for unemployment in cities such as Detroit and called for creating more ownership among the working class. For instance, he said, perhaps workers should have to invest half their wages back into their companies.

He credited Chrysler’s willingness to work with union members for accelerating its turnaround. The union made sacrifices during Chrysler’s 2009 bankruptcy, but has benefited from the automaker’s revival under Fiat. On Thursday, Chrysler reported a $473-million first-quarter profit.

Jefferson North, where workers assemble the very profitable Jeep Grand Cherokee and the Dodge Durango, will add 1,100 new workers in November. Next year, it will begin making a new luxury SUV for Maserati, another Fiat-owned brand.

Walesa told the United Auto Workers local president at the plant that if Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne was not a good boss, “I’ll stay with you and we’ll go on strike.”

I wrote about Pamela Geller’s intervention into the case of Jessica Mokdad here.  She recently held a conference about honour killing, exploiting Mokdad’s name against the wishes of her family – Robert Spencer has declared that those with doubts about this event are pro-honour killing.

This is quite an interesting report on the event.  It is claimed that Geller, as well as those in charge of registration on the day, tried to prevent Arab Americans from registering and/or accessing the conference.  It was particularly ironic to see the many Muslim women excluded from the event, given that it was ostensibly set up to support them, and used Jessica Mokdad’s face, rather queasily blended with a famous image by Lichtenstein, on its publicity material. Sheila Musaji writes:

Geller is wrong.  Opposition to Geller and Spencer’s conference does not equal support of honor killing, gendercide, and the subjugation and oppression of women.  Opposition to their conference is because it is just another of their anti-Muslim hate fests.

You don’t have to see eye to eye with all the opponents of the conference, or be indifferent to the dangers posed by Islamism, to think she has it about right.

The polls now have closed on the mayoral elections in Liverpool and Salford. Feel free to discuss.

Also welcome would be thoughts on the referendums for a directly elected mayor in Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Coventry, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, Sheffield and Wakefield; as well as the vote in Doncaster on whether or not to abolish this office.

But, please, no London.

This is a cross post by Adloyada

“Every word she writes is a lie, including “and” and “the”.

So wrote Mary Maccarthy of Lillian Hellman, but it is equally true of the statements made by Ken Livingstone, who Andrew Gilligan names as:

“the most prolific liar to have sought high public office in Britain in at least a generation”.

Gilligan listed yesterday the last of his total of 85 Livingstone election lies. His total for Boris lies was 12.

These are a relevant couple of Livingstone’s lies that most incensed me, not least because I heard him telling them in person at the London Jewish Forum meeting on 24th April:

Anti-semitic attacks

67. Claim: “In each year I was mayor, anti-semitic attacks [in London] declined” (Guardian, March 26; when pressed about his poor relationship with the Jewish community)

Reality: The London figures, from the Community Security Trust’s annual reports, are as follows (reports before 2003 are not readily available online):

2003: 215 2004: 311 2005: 213 2006: 300 2007: 247 2008: 236

As will be seen, the number of anti-semitic attacks in London rose substantially – by up to 45% – in two of these years.

Hosting extremist cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi

84. Claim: “All I knew about Qaradawi when he came was that the Sun had praised him as a true voice of Islam.” (Newsnight 4 April)

Reality: Livingstone had actually been furiously lobbied by liberal, Jewish and gay groups not to host Qaradawi. A Labour Home Office minister, Fiona McTaggart, pulled out of the City Hall event with the hate preacher, urging Ken not to meet him and saying that “a perfectly good cause had been hijacked” by Qaradawi and his supporters. The shadow home secretary, David Davis, asked Ken not to give Qaradawi “the oxygen of publicity.” When Qaradawi touched down in the UK, the Sun in fact proclaimed: “The evil has landed.”

The video clip I’ve included with this post shows that so many of Livingstone’s present aims, especially that of establishing London as a city-state go back to the Trotskyist programme of the Socialist Action group coterie who were his highly paid enforcers when he was Mayor, and whose Simon Fletcher is the head of his campaign team today.

What a stain on the record and reputation of the Labour Party. I heard Miliband parroting Livingstone’s election promises to slash fares and restore the EMA on BBCR4 a few days ago, claiming he’d be the best Mayor for London. As they say, the fish stinks from the head.

Why was a gang of Livingstone/Galloway supporters threatening to beat up the Green candidate? The police are involved.

Now this is interesting. The Greens are also a Left wing party. So why would Labour and Respect supporters – who are supposed to be rivals – be ganging up against a Green? Unless….

Despite some of the anti-Ken Livingstone feeling and out of kilter polls it is still all to play for today as London finally goes to the polls. Boris Johnson’s team have tried as hard as possible to distance him from the Conservative Party, but that is his party and you can not divorce them.

This is a two horse race and if you vote today that is what it comes down to.  A choice between the party of bankers, public service cuts, austerity, attacks on the NHS and tax cuts for the rich and Labour.

Today is a day to put aside doubts and disagreements and vote Labour. It’s what I will certainly be doing and I hope many of you will as well as helping elect Boris Johnson only helps one party and one group of people and they are dedicated to looking after themselves and their friends and as far as I know none of them are from around here.

Livingstone said, earlier: “Today is a clear choice between Labour and Conservative. The choice has never been clearer. Vote Conservative for four more years of fare rises, police cuts and economic mismanagement.

“Or vote Labour for a fares cut, more police on the street, more and cheaper housing, the reintroduction of the London EMA, grants for childcare and cheaper heating bills.

“Today, David Cameron is urging voters to elect Boris Johnson. That tells us the stakes for Londoners. Despite the incessant and relentless attacks from the right wing press, this election is going to go to the wire.”

A Friend to Hate Preachers Read more »

This is a guest post by Rev Nick Howard

The Rev. Dr Stephen Sizer with Sheikh Salah, the anti-Semitic hate preacher in 2011.

According to a statement by Surrey police, the Rev. Dr Stephen Sizer will not be prosecuted for the incitement of racial hatred. While the police and the Crown Prosecution Service found that Dr Sizer did post a link on his Facebook page to ‘The Ugly Truth‘ (http://www.uglytruth.wordpress.com), they did not consider the material on the website likely to stir up racial hatred. Detective Superintendent Mark Preston said, ‘Whilst the webpages will clearly stir emotions … it is difficult to see a scenario in which these pages are likely to create a disruption in public order.’ The statement closes with these words: ‘I will of course reconsider future allegations [sic] in the event that the nature of the material deteriorates further.’ Much could be said about this conclusion. It is hard to imagine how the nature of the material could deteriorate further than the image below, which comes from ‘The Ugly Truth’. Surely it’s not exaggerating to say that the cartoon stands comparison with the worst propaganda of Nazi Germany, which contributed to arguably the most severe disruption in public order in human history?

However the purpose of this post is not to criticise the police, but to set out some as yet unanswered questions concerning Dr Sizer’s link to ‘The Ugly Truth’. Christian leaders are held by the Bible to higher standards than those maintained by the criminal justice system. If Dr Sizer cannot provide satisfactory answers to the following questions, it is hard to see how the members of Christ Church Virginia Water could continue in good conscience to submit to him as their moral and spiritual leader.

Dr Sizer’s link to ‘The Ugly Truth’ was on his Facebook page from October 4th 2011 to January 4th 2012. He took it down under pressure from a Jewish Chronicle reporter who contacted him on January 4th. During those three months Dr Sizer appeared to ignore attempts that were made to alert him to the racist nature of the website. For example Rev. Mark Heather, Chaplain to the Bishop of Guildford, has confirmed to me in a recent email, ‘As promised, Bishop Christopher forwarded your email of 22 November to Dr Sizer, and spoke to him, asking him to be more careful about his Facebook links.’ That email forwarded to Dr Sizer in November was a complaint about his link to ‘The Ugly Truth’.

The delay in removing the link, in spite of the complaints received by Dr Sizer, was central to the unprecedented criticism of Dr Sizer by the Bishop of Manchester and the Council of Christians and Jews. Dr Sizer’s explanations of the delay (see below) are therefore critically important, and yet they seem to contradict one another, and conflict with certain facts. Unless Dr Sizer can clear all of this up it will be impossible for observers to trust his word on the even more serious question of how he found his way to ‘The Ugly Truth’ in the first place – it has fewer than a thousand followers worldwide.

Explanation #1 (from Dr Sizer’s own blog):

‘”Israel’s Window to Bomb Iran” by Ray McGovern … had been reposted within days on hundreds of websites, including a racist website, “The Ugly Truth”. I made the mistake of linking to that copy on my Facebook in October rather than the original. When the unfortunate link was pointed out to me in January, I removed it straight away.’

Why does this explanation give the misleading impression that no complaints were received by Dr Sizer before the link was removed on January 4th? In addition to the November email mentioned above, I posted an article about Dr Sizer on the blog ‘Harry’s Place’ on 27th December, which began by discussing his link to ‘The Ugly Truth’. Dr Sizer issued a response to that article on his own blog on the following day, and yet still failed to remove the link. Imagine if Dr Sizer had used the explanation above in court (if the police and Crown Prosecution Service had given more weight to the racist material on ‘The Ugly Truth’, it seems the case would have gone to trial). Would Dr Sizer’s explanation have stood up to cross-examination? Christians, especially Christian leaders, are supposed to be as honest day by day as they would be in court (Matthew 5:34-37).

Explanation #2 (via the Diocese of Guildford, in a March 14th press release):

‘The allegation, as the Bishop understands it, is that Mr Sizer did not withdraw his reference swiftly enough once the nature of the website had been pointed out to him. The Bishop was informed by Mr Sizer that he had taken earlier steps to withdraw the reference, but that these had not effectively removed it, until January of this year.’ This explanation refers to ineffective attempts to remove the link, which are not mentioned in explanation #1. Why do the two explanations contradict each other? How are the members of Dr Sizer’s church supposed to know when to trust what he says, and when to disregard his word? It’s significant that this explanation was given by Dr Sizer to Bishop Christopher Hill, who – as Dr Sizer knew – had passed on to him my November email complaining about the link. It would have been awkward, to say the least, for Dr Sizer to admit to the Bishop that he had simply ignored my complaint or failed to read it. Did he therefore deliberately mislead an elderly Bishop unfamiliar with Facebook by claiming he had tried and failed to remove the link before January? (Anyone familiar with Facebook would know that removing a link is an extremely straightforward procedure. You simply click on the drop-down list next to the link. One of the options is “Delete Post…” Click on that, and a window appears saying: ‘Are you sure you want to delete this?’ There are two buttons: “Delete Post” and “Cancel”. If you click on Delete Post, the link disappears instantly from your page. It’s very hard indeed to believe that someone could accidentally fail to delete a link that they intended to delete. What’s more, checking that you’ve successfully removed a link on Facebook is an even simpler process than removing it – all you need do is refresh the page, a one click action.)

Explanation #3 (a message from Dr Sizer to his friend Phil Groom, as quoted on Groom’s blog):

‘The reality is I add many Facebook links daily and get criticised weekly. I did not look at the website till January and only then appreciated its anti-Semitic content. I removed the link as soon as I found it.’ According to this explanation Dr Sizer was aware of the complaints about the link before January (which fits #2 but contradicts #1) and yet didn’t actually look at ‘The Ugly Truth’ until January, having made no attempt to remove the link before then (which contradicts #2). Did Dr Sizer give a different explanation to Phil Groom to the one he had given the Bishop because he was aware of Phil Groom’s familiarity with Facebook - and therefore knew that telling him about ineffective attempts to remove the link wouldn’t wash? Again, how are the members of Dr Sizer’s church supposed to know when to trust what he says, and when to disregard his word?

Explanation #4: (via Dr Sizer’s supporter Rabbi Professor Dan Cohn-Sherbok, as quoted on Dr Sizer’s blog):

‘This week I have been in contact with Stephen Sizer regarding the issue of the website that has been referred to in the press. I asked him how it happened that this offensive website … on his Facebook was not removed straightaway. He has sent me all the relevant information including the offending website material. What he tells me is as follows: he assumed Nick Howard was based in the United States and did not in fact read Nick Howard’s complaint. This was a mistake and he regrets ignoring it, but due to his active involvement in Middle East affairs, he gets criticism on a daily and weekly basis. However, once he realized the seriousness of the error of linking his Facebook entry with the offending website, he did remove it and wrote to Marcus Dysch at the Jewish Chronicle on 4 January. He states that he had thought he had done so before.’ This complicated explanation conflicts in one way or another with all the rest. In this version of events Dr Sizer had no idea which link was being complained about until 4th January (which conflicts with #2), and so had not ‘realized the seriousness of the error’, yet nonetheless thought he had already removed it (which conflicts with #1 and #3). Why did Dr Sizer tell Rabbi Cohn-Sherbok that he thought he had already removed the link, when according to this very same explanation, he did not yet know which link was being complained about or ‘the seriousness of the error’? Did Dr Sizer add the afterthought recorded in Rabbi Cohn-Sherbok’s final sentence because he knew the Rabbi was planning to write to the Bishop, who had been told by Dr Sizer of ineffective attempts to remove the link?

God has provided the ten commandments to hold society together. When we persistently fail to keep just one of them the ground beneath us – and beneath those affected by us – starts to give way. If Dr Sizer has told a series of falsehoods concerning his link to ‘The Ugly Truth’ – which is what he appears to have done – he is surely not fit to be the moral and spiritual leader of the people of Christ Church Virginia Water. He therefore has a responsibility to account for the serious contradictions between the explanations above; and the departure of at least some of the explanations from the known facts. These explanations do not concern a trivial matter. They relate to the three-month presence of a link to a viciously anti-Jewish website on Dr Sizer’s personal Facebook page, which gave the impression that he endorsed the website and agreed with its position. Dr Sizer was first accused of anti-Semitism inThe Spectator ten years ago.
We acknowledge that he has publicly repudiated anti-Semitism, but that public statement is put in doubt by his apparent willingness to depart from the truth on other occasions, as demonstrated above. We await his response.

When presenting his show on the Iranian regime’s Press TV, Ken Livingstone expressed the remarkable view that the barriers to conversion to Judaism evidenced the religion’s “racial exclusiveness”, that these requirements arose in the 1880s, that this was similar to the racist notion of  the importance of “German blood”, and that this racism was the origin of Zionism.

Here he is:

[Part 3/3.24] Is not the problem here that when Zionism was conceived of back in the 1880s, the world was one that accepted racial division… The Germans talked about anyone of German blood, even if it had been a thousand years since they left, able to come back. The world broadly accepted this racism at all levels, and that was the origin of Zionism – ‘every other group is racially selective, we will do it’.

Here is Livingstone’s evidence to support his claim of Zionism as Jewish racism:

[Part 3/3.53] We see that today in this ridiculous situation that that whereas Christianity and Islam massively goes out there to convert people to its [sic] faith, it’s very difficult to convert into Judaism. I think it’s a real problem, there’s this racial exclusiveness that has its origins in that dreadful time… 1880s, when all nations suffered from it.

Just stunning.

I’ll leave it to you in the comments to respond to this.

But for starters:

- The contemporary rules on conversion to Judaism most certainly didn’t arise during the 1880s.

- What precisely does Ken Livingstone think would have happened to Jewish communities, living in societies which persecuted Jews for religious reasons, if they had actively sought converts?

- The Jewish position on conversion is not premised on “race”, in any event. Conversion by Orthodox ritual is designed to be difficult, but it is open to anybody.

Remember: Ken Livingstone expressed these views while taking the pay of the genocidally racist Iranian regime, on their TV channel.

The very best you can say about Livingstone’s performance is that he knows nothing about the history of Judaism or the history of antisemitism. But frankly, when a man starts railing against the problematic nature of the supposed “racial exclusiveness” of Judaism, I’m inclined to think they’re an actual antisemite.

Thanks to Joseph K in the comments.

Also, read Adloyada