In recent days, the British National Party leader Nick Griffin, and the Labour Party’s Jeremy Corbyn MP, have unwittingly demonstrated how modern day antisemitism and anti-Zionism work; and how people respond to them.

 On 19^th April 2012, Griffin reacted on Twitter to five far right activists having been arrested by counter-terror Police on suspicion of Public Order offences:

Govt using naked repression of free speech now. After arrest of our Mike Coleman in Stoke, key members of North West Infidels arrested today. Dawn raids for thought crime – Cameron a slimy Big Brother. Arrests also in Yorkshire…More arrests ongoing. Looks like State taking out those who refuse to be Zionist puppets… 

 The BNP and Griffin come from a Nazi tradition, making it legitimate to argue that when Griffin says “State taking out those who refuse to be Zionist puppets”, he is using the language of anti-Zionism as an expression of antisemitism.

 Where 70 years ago the BNP equivalent would have said that the State was under the thumb of “Jews”, or “Big Jews” or “Jewish Capital”, today they say “Zionist”. No matter, the underlying meaning and impact is straightforward.

 But what if someone else, someone who isn’t of this stripe, echoes Griffin’s depictions of Zionist “naked repression of free speech”; and of Zionist control ensuring that those who don’t toe the line are singled out for legal oppression?

 Step forward, Jeremy Corbyn MP, a man who is most certainly not Nick Griffin. It is hard to think of two politicians further apart in their ideology, yet Corbyn has strongly backed calls for an independent inquiry into “pro-Israeli lobby” influence upon Government behaviour. 

 Of course, no MP would back an inquiry into the “pro-Israeli lobby” if the demand came from the BNP. Rather, this demand came from the supporters of Sheikh Raed Salah, the Israeli / Palestinian Islamist leader who was banned from entering the UK, but ultimately won his appeal against deportation.  (The video footage of the inquiry demand is here: Salah’s lawyer explains the need from 40secs in. Corbyn echoes it from 2min51secs in.)

 The inquiry is supposedly required because

one might infer…a very serious problem with the Government’s relationship to the pro-Israeli lobby.

 One example cited is “changing laws to protect alleged [Israeli] war criminals”, but this inquiry demand is all about the Salah case. It includes a tentative suggestion that a certain Conservative Party funder is a trustee of CST and the Board of Deputies of British Jews. The suggestion is wrong, but the implication still lingers. 

 Neither Griffin, Corbyn nor Salah’s team explicitly mentioned Jews, but there is an inescapable similarity between Griffin on the arrests of North West Infidels and the Corbyn-Salah crew on the “house arrest” of Raed Salah. Free speech is repressed through arrests.

 Corbyn is assumed, understandably, to be entirely different to Griffin in his opinion of Jews (and Salah’s team is totally not the BNP): but it is equally understandable that philosophical distinctions between “pro-Israeli lobby” and Griffin’s more crude “Zionist puppets” will be of little import for many Jewish observers, who fear the old antisemitic theme of Jewish financial control over politicians and lawmakers.

 However affronted or surprised Corbyn and his ilk may be, it is the impact of such words that matters. It is their impact upon Jews, it is their impact upon antisemites and it is their impact upon antisemitism.

 (See here for Corbyn’s response to some of the reporting of his inquiry support.)

 How to concisely and accurately explain concerns over similar language, from political polar opposites, is an extremely important matter for CST, as it is for anyone looking to grapple with such issues.

 Sadly, most of the far left, and way too much of the liberal-left and its media, are insufficiently concerned with grappling over the historically wrought language of today’s anti-Zionism. Yes, these people say they care about antisemitism, but their concern is always strictly conditional, always upon their own terms, not upon that of the victims (or perpetrators).

 The case was “starkly” put by Socialist Workers Party theorist, John Molyneux, who explained the “progressive” logic in his June 2008 article, “More than opium: Marxism and religion”.

 To put the matter as starkly as possible: from the standpoint of Marxism and international socialism an illiterate, conservative, superstitious Muslim Palestinian peasant who supports Hamas is more progressive than an educated liberal atheist Israeli who supports Zionism (even critically).

 Did you catch that? In plain English: if the situation relates to Zionism and you support “Zionism (even critically)” then you can forget about anti-racist solidarity from this section of political opinion; and from those who sympathise with it. (And that means Zionism as defined by the far left and/or its Islamist allies. It most certainly does not mean Zionism as defined by most Jews.)

 The Raed Salah example has demonstrated that if a Palestinian (in this case, actually Israeli) Muslim is found to have pushed the old blood libel (ie the one about Jews using the blood of Christian children to make matzos at Passover), then that’s just not relevant for his “progressive” allies. Similarly, the allegation that Salah pushed the new blood libel (ie the one about 4,000 Jews being pre-warned not to attend work in the Twin Towers on 9/11), appears irrelevant.

 Worse, complain about Salah, as CST and others have done; and you risk being derided as a Zionist lackey, an agent of Israel, or simply a fool who cannot distinguish between antisemitism and mere so-called “criticism of the acts of the Israeli state”, as implied by senior Guardian figure, David Hearst, on the Guardian’s Comment is Free:

As the CST makes clear in its reports, there is a world of difference between antisemitism, anti-Zionism, and criticism of the actions of the Israeli state. All three discourses have their own dynamic. There are grave dangers in conflating the three.

 Hearst, who both praised and criticised CST’s work, is correct in the above summary of CST’s reports, but (like so much of the Guardian’s Salah coverage) he only tells half the story. He neglects to say that CST’s reports also stress the way in which old antisemitic themes resonate within today’s anti-Zionism. CST’s reports clearly do not attack “criticism of the acts of the Israeli state”, but they do attack the manner in which the ridiculously vast mythology of modern day anti-Zionism resonates with old antisemitic themes.    

 The history of antisemitism shows what Griffin’s Zionists really are, but this is also why we fear Salah’s input into our already fraught local dynamic.

 In the case of Salah, move against him and you risk his supporters suggesting that this reveals a “pro-Israeli lobby” control mechanism over the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary; an anti-racist Labour MP champions their call for an inquiry, adding that he will take tea with Salah at Westminster; and, totally predictably, the Guardian sides with the oppressed Palestinian.   

 That is the state of anti-Zionism and antisemitism today.  The situation may not suit depressingly large sections of self-styled “progressive” society, but it certainly suits Jewish communities far, far less.

CST is taking part in the Community Fun Run 2012 on Sunday 20th May at London Maccabi. Over the past 5 years over £500,000 has been raised for Jewish charities through the Community Fun Run. This important communal event has grown from the involvement of 13 charities in 2007 to 39 charities in 2012.

 Please join us to complete either the 1km, 5km or 10km course and raise money for CST.

You can read more about the event here and sign up here.

The Guardian has removed a comment posted in Raed Salah’s name in a comment thread on their Comment Is Free website at CST’s request, which included a false and damaging allegation against CST.

Raed Salah wrote an opinion piece for the Guardian last Thursday, in which he did not mention CST. However, in the comment thread under the article, a comment was posted in his name which suggested CST had provided the Home Secretary with a “doctored” version of a poem he had written, “to make it appear anti-Jewish”. This allegation is untrue. Several other comments, by other people, making similar allegations against CST were also removed from the comment thread at CST’s request.

This particular allegation relates to a version of a poem written by Salah which was quoted by the Home Office in the Deportation Order (pdf) which was served on Salah in June 2011. According to the recent Immigration Tribunal ruling on Salah’s appeal, which overturned his deportation, the Home Secretary was “misled” as to the terms of this poem. However, despite the impression that some of Salah’s supporters have given, the ruling does not blame CST for this: it states that “It is not clear where this originally came from…She must have been provided with a version from elsewhere but we do not know where.” (para. 47)

As we have said previously, CST did not provide the version of the poem which was used in the June 2011 Deportation Order, which came from an article in the Jerusalem Post dated 20 June 2009. In fact, it was CST that provided the full, accurate version of the poem in July 2011.

There is more evidence that CST provided the accurate version of the poem, not the inaccurate one, in the ruling itself. In paragraph 45, the ruling notes that CST’s version of the poem “also refers to the Arab tribes of ‘Aad and Thamud who were destroyed in an earthquake as punishment for their behaviour.” These Arab tribes were not mentioned in the Jerusalem Post‘s inaccurate rendering of the poem that the Deportation Order relied on – so that cannot have been the version provided by CST.

The accurate version of the poem that CST provided was accepted by Salah’s supporters to the extent that Middle East Monitor, his hosts in the UK, used it (with just two very minor alterations to the translation) on p.19 of their report on the Salah Affair (pdf).

The false notion that CST provided inaccurate or doctored information to the Home Office regarding Raed Salah appears to have been encouraged by articles such as this one, by David Hearst of the Guardian, which accuses CST of providing a “dodgy dossier” and suggests that CST did not “get its facts right”. On the contrary, it is those who peddle this false allegation against CST who have got their facts wrong.

In February, CST Blog discussed Guardian Comment is Free headlines that wrongly claimed an article by Rachel Shabi revealed how “Israel’s rightwing defenders” make “false accusations of antisemitism“.  

We noted: 

The Jewish community has probably had more run-ins with the Guardian than every other British newspaper combined…

…In recent years, Jewish upset has been exacerbated by the Guardian’s Comment is Free (CiF) website, which carries many more articles than the print edition; and is fundamental to the paper’s future…

…last week it [Comment is Free] reverted to type with a particularly poor and offensive article by Rachel Shabi. Its title claimed to reveal how “Israel’s rightwing defenders” make “false accusations of antisemitism”.

We asked where the proof lay for such offensive claims and noted that there was none:

…So, surely the article is about how the NY Times new Jerusalem correspondent has been falsely accused of “antisemitism” by “Israel’s rightwing defenders”?

Well, no actually… The article’s first three paragraphs deal with the new [NY Times] correspondent, Jodi Rudoren. Shabi claims Rudoren has been called an “anti-Zionist”, but there is no mention here by Shabi of antisemitism, none whatsoever. The word doesn’t feature, nor in any of the three articles linked to by Shabi’s article (here and here and here). It isn’t even hinted at in any of them. The headline and sub-headline are simply wrong and insensible. This, despite their being so provocative and insulting.

Now, on-line, the Guardian has changed its “false  accusations of antisemitism” title to read:

Rushing to judge Israel’s critics is dangerous. Slicing and dicing commentary on Israeli policy can lose the bigger picture. The NYT’s Jerusalem correspondent is not the problem

The foot of the article now states:

headline and subheading on this article were amended on 17 April 2012. The originals incorrectly implied that the New York Times’s new Jerusalem correspondent had been accused of antisemitism

It was not the article’s author Rachel Shabi who came up with the heading and subheading about “false accusations of antisemitism”. It was Guardian CiF staff.

So, after contact from CST, this particular false accusation has been removed. It is very little and it is very late.

The damage is done: to Guardian readers’ perceptions of antisemitism and to many Jews’ perceptions of the Guardian (yet again).

Yesterday, CST Blog carried CST’s initial response to the 5th April 2012 decision by the Upper Tribunal to overturn the Home Secretary’s decision to deport Sheikh Ra’ed Salah.

Now, having read the Tribunal’s judgement, CST adds this, in addition to yesterday’s blog posting: 

CST was contacted by the Home Office to provide information relevant to Sheikh Ra’ed Salah’s deportation on the grounds of his presence not being conducive to the public good. CST provided information, in good faith, exactly as our community would expect us to. CST stands by its actions and notes, in particular, that the Tribunal (in paragraph 53) recognised that Sheikh Salah’s intemperate expression could offend and distress the Jewish community.  CST trusts that the Home Office will appeal this decision, which threatens to significantly undermine the Government’s Prevent anti-extremism policy.

Some of Salah’s defenders are attempting, for whatever reason, to move CST to the forefront of this story. The full judgement is 91 paragraphs long. CST features in three of them.     

It is being reported that Sheikh Raed Salah, the leader of the northern branch of Israel’s Islamic Movement, has won his appeal against the decision of the Home Secretary to exclude him from the UK.

CST is disappointed that Salah’s exclusion has been overturned, but we have not yet seen a copy of the judgement of the Immigration Tribunal and therefore we cannot make a general comment on the ruling or the reasons for the decision. However, there is one aspect of the media coverage of this ruling which cannot pass without immediate comment from CST.

The tribunal is being quoted as stating that the Home Secretary was “misled” and “acted as to a misapprehension as to the facts” in deciding to exclude Salah. This appears to relate to the government’s use of a poem that Salah wrote in 2002, an inaccurate version of which was reported in the Jerusalem Post in 2009. Some of the media coverage (for example in the Guardian) has noted that CST provided several pieces of evidence to the Home Office regarding Salah’s previous statements and activities, and carries the implication that CST is reponsible for misleading the Home Secretary by providing her with inaccurate information.

This implication is something that CST utterly rejects, and which is not supported by the facts.

Far from misleading anybody with inaccurate information, throughout this process we have done more than anybody else to ensure that the most accurate information possible was available for the government, and the immigration appeal tribunal, to use in making their decisions.

Firstly, it is important to state that CST did not provide the Jerusalem Post report of the 2002 poem to the Home Office. Secondly, it was CST – not Salah or his supporters – who located an original copy of the poem and provided it to the government, in Arabic and with an English translation. We did the same with a transcript of Salah’s 2007 speech, for which he faces charges in Israel of incitement to racism and incitement to violence.

We have already written in detail about our role in locating accurate versions of the 2002 poem and the 2007 speech on the CST Blog, here. In contrast, Salah and his UK supporters put out several contradictory statements regarding the 2007 speech, which we documented here.

We also located a copy of the 2005 plea bargain in which Salah admitted his involvement in organisations that have been banned in Israel for funding Hamas. Again, we did this to ensure that the government and the immigration tribunal would be as well informed as possible in making their decisions. Again, nobody else provided this information either to the government or to the immigration tribunal, despite the fact that we obtained it all from public sources.

The Guardian also reports that witnesses who appeared for Salah’s defence argued that CST “failed to distinguish between antisemitism and criticism of the actions of the Israeli state”. Again, this is something we reject. Neither of the witnesses who made this claim – a former policeman, Bob Lambert, and a sociology professor, David Miller - are experts on antisemitism. CST’s Antisemitic Incidents Reports and Antisemitic Discourse Reports, which are available on the CST website, explain very clearly that we do not see antisemitism and criticism of Israel as the same thing. For example, page 32 of our 2011 Antisemitic Incidents Report  (pdf) explains in detail the criteria we use to decide whether a potential antisemitic incident is antisemitic or not.

The front page of this week’s Jewish Chronicle has two stories that go to the heart of the impact that anti-Israel campaigning can have on UK Jewish life, and on wider society.

The lead story is about arguments over the inclusion of Israel’s Habima theatre company in the ‘Globe to Globe‘ Shakespeare Festival, to be held at London’s Globe Theatre from April to June this year. Several British actors and directors signed a letter in the Guardian (where else?) this week which called for Habima to be dis-invited. Several others have now criticised this call, with Sir Arnold Wesker comparing it to Nazi book-burning.

Underneath this is a second story, about Members of Parliament who express positions that are supportive of Israel, receiving death threats and abuse from anti-Israel activists. The article gives several examples of MPs who have been threatened. Some of them no longer advertise details of their surgeries and have police protection when they campaign in public.

Both of these stories involve anti-Israel campaigners trying to limit the freedom of people or organisations that are central to public life in this country: our cultural life, in the first example, and our political life, in the second. The fact that threats from anti-Israel campaigners can force MPs to stop advertising their contact details to their constituents shows that this is not just an issue for Jews or supporters of Israel to worry about.

However, these campaigns do have a specific impact on Jews, because diaspora Jewish life is wrapped up with Israel in a way that is impossible to separate. To take one example: each year, around half the films that are shown in the UK’s highly successful Jewish Film Festival are made in Israel, or have some Israeli involvement in their production. Ban the Israeli films and you effectively disembowel the Jewish Film Festival.

The Globe to Globe Shakespeare Festival features 37 theatre companies from around the world, each performing in their own language. Clearly, it is mainly Jews who will go to see Habima’s Hebrew-language play that the boycotters want to see cancelled. Meanwhile, as the Jewish Chronicle editorial points out, the theatre companies from, for example, China, which occupies Tibet; Turkey, which imprisons more journalists than any other country on earth; or Russia, which killed tens of thousands in Chechnya and has armed Assad’s regime to do the same in Syria; are all untouched by the boycotters. Perhaps the excuse is that none of these theatre companies have any connections to their governments. I am guessing, though, that over the past decade at least some of the 37 signatories to the Guardian letter have performed at UK venues that get Arts Council funding, at the same time that the UK government was at war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

It is understandable that Hebrew-speaking UK theatre-goers might look at these contradictions and worry that they were being singled out for special treatment.

Similarly, Jews have a particular interest in public debates about Israel. If expressing pro-Israel views leads to death threats, the impact this has on the willingness and ability of pro-Israel people to join in these debates will fall dispropotionately on Jews. It should go without saying that democracy has failed if any member of the public, much less an MP, is silenced through this kind of intimidation.

Anti-Israel campaigners call their efforts BDS – Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions – but the last two parts have completely failed to affect trade links between the UK and Israel, which went up by 34% last year. It is only the first part – the boycott of Israelis and Israeli organisations in cultural and academic life – which has made any headway whatsoever. Yet this is the area where British Jews are most affected, and arguably are affected much more than anyone in Israel. “The vast majority” of British Jews, according to a 2010 survey, “exhibit strong personal support for, and affinity with, Israel”. BDS campaigners will fail to prevent new ventures like the UK-Israel Technologies Hub, but they may succeed in making the vast majority of British Jews feel intimidated, threatened and singled-out.

Tomorrow night Jews around the world begin celebrating the festival of Pesach, a story  of persecution, redemption and freedom. The Pesach Seder service ends with the line, “Next Year in Jerusalem”. Perhaps someone in a BDS campaign will suggest that this should be amended to: “Next Year in West Jerusalem, within the 1967 borders”. Or perhaps this year will see a new understanding amongst pro-Palestinian campaigners for the complex but legitimate relationship between Israel and diaspora Jews, and a new respect for Jewish concerns about where some of their activities might lead.

Wishing all our readers a Pesach Sameach.