Brighton and Hove Labour Party Emerges as the Largest Party in the Local Elections Despite the Best Efforts of the Zionists

Tweeting Your Opposition to Israeli Apartheid Can Get You Suspended as the racist Jewish Labour Movement makes clear their opposition to a Corbyn led Labour Party

Below are photos of Alex's leafleting team - despite being suspended, Alex obtained the highest vote of the labour candidates 

The election results were Labour 20 (23), Tories 14 (20) and Green 19 (11) Independent 1 (0) with the 2015 election results in brackets.  

In fact Labour held 20 seats prior to the elections because there had been 2 defections to the TIG group, including former leader Warren Morgan and one councillor, Ann Meadows, crossed the floor and joined the Tories.

Meadows, a councillor for 20 years stood again for the Tories and obtained just 627 votes, 47 votes ahead of the next Tory and 23 votes below the third placed Green!  The Labour candidates all gained over 1,500 votes which demonstrated that after 20 years as a councillor she hadn’t secure a personal following, thus proving the wisdom of deselecting her.

In Wish Ward, Momentum supporter and the only Black woman standing, Alex Braithwaite was suspended. Her offence was to call into question the fake anti-Semitism campaign supported by the Tory press.  According to The Argus her offence was that

‘She retweeted an article by Vox Political entitled ‘A general election is in the offing – time for another anti-Semitism smear against Jeremy Corbyn’

According to that well known anti-racist paper, the Daily Mail Alex ‘shared messages supporting Ken Livingstone and claiming the Rothschild family controlled the European Central Bank.’

The Nazis struck a coin, with the Zionist Star of David on one side and the Swastika on the other after the Head of the Jewish Desk in the Gestapo , Baron von Mildenstein, came back from a 6 months visit to Zionist settlements in Palestine. The Zionists were delighted at the time but now referring to Zionist relations with the Nazis is 'antisemitic'

Even worse ‘she posted a cartoon which suggested the BBC was controlled by the ‘terrorist state’ of Israel.’

Supporting Ken Livingstone is now part of the definition of anti-Semitism! Suffice to say sharing a tweet five years ago about the Rothschilds hardly counts as anti-Semitism either.

The Sussex Jewish Representative Council (which is fronted by Fiona Sharpe of Sussex Friends of Israel) sent this tweet:

 “We are very concerned by a tweet from Labour candidate, Alex Braithwaite.

“Once again she has questioned and belittled the allegations of anti-Semitism within the Labour Party.

“More than this, she again suggests that it is concocted to ‘smear’ Jeremy Corbyn.”

So questioning the fake anti-Semitism smear campaign is itself proof of ‘anti-Semitism’. Just as challenging the claims of witchcraft in Salem could earn you a place on the gallows.

Every week the Jewish Chronicle runs a new story accusing Corbyn of ‘anti-Semitism’. This week there is a bonus. The next has been extended to John Prescott, Labour’s former Deputy Prime Minister for suggesting that the fake anti-Semitism campaign is about Israel!

John Hobson's classic book on Imperialism

And as if to prove Alex and John Prescott are correct the Jewish Chronicle Editor and former Daily Express editor, Stephen Pollard, wrote an editorial Hobson’s Voice, which openly called Jeremy Corbyn an anti-Semite. Pollard wrote

Week after week, more evidence emerges cementing the inescapable conclusion that Jeremy Corbyn is an antisemite. So, once again, we pose this question to mainstream, decent Labour MPs: How can you, in all conscience, work towards making a racist politician Prime Minister?

Those who campaign to put today’s Labour into power are, inescapably, working to put an antisemite into Ten Downing Street.

Outrageous McCarthyism against someone who, unlike Pollard, has spent his whole life fighting racism, anti-Semitism included.

The subject of Pollard’s ire is the foreword that Jeremy Corbyn wrote in 2011 to John Hobson’s 1902 book, Imperialism: A Study. The book Imperialism some 8 years ago.  Hobson like so many people a century or more ago believed that Jews were the centre of world finance.  Many Zionists like Theodor Herzl also wrote about the ‘terrible power of our purse’.  However malevolent racists and defamers like the Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland forget about Zionism’s anti-Semitic pedigree, included its alliances with anti-Semites like Viktor Orban and Steve Bannon today.

As Guerilla Wire points out in a 1995 pamphlet for the Fabians (page 11), Tony Blair described Hobson as “probably the most famous Liberal convert to what was then literally ‘new Labour’.” – strangely no mention of ‘anti-Semitism’ there.  Likewise in his 2005 Chatham House speech on liberty and the role of the state, Gordon Brown cited Hobson with approval – also nothing was said about ‘anti-Semitism’.

Indeed despite the fulminations of the Guardian’s racist and Zionist columnist Jonathan Freedland, the cover of the 2011 edition to which Jeremy Corbyn wrote the foreword, carries a Guardian review which said ‘Hobson’s Imperialism belongs to the small group of books in the years from 1900 to the outbreak of war that have definitely changed the contours of social thought.’

Again no mention of ‘anti-Semitism’ and in 2015 the Guardian’s former political editor Michael White wrote:

“At his Nottingham rally someone thrust into my hand a copy of JA Hobson’s influential classic, Imperialism (1902) whose 2011 edition contains Jeremy’s own perfectly decent introductory essay. Its analysis will impress many”. 

Strangely enough Michael White made no mention of ‘anti-Semitism’. 

If anything proves that the ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign against Corbyn and people like Alex Braithwaite is fake then the attacks on Corbyn over his review of a classic text on Imperialism by John Hobson proves it definitively.

It’s not surprising Corbyn didn’t mention the 10 or so anti-Semitic lines in a book of 400 pages because they were wholly irrelevant. As Guerilla Wire says:

‘Phil Miller quoted Glyn Secker, secretary of Jewish Voice for Labour:

“Daniel Finkelstein, in his scurrilous piece for the Times (April 30th), ingeniously cobbles together quotes from two different books by Hobson . . . (he) does in one passage make a reference to the Jewish element in international finance and to the Rothschilds as did many others at that time. But he also referred to JP Morgan and Cecil Rhodes — neither of them Jewish — as examples of financiers backing imperialism”.

In other words the racist duo, Finkelstein and Freedland, deliberately manufactured a story out of nothing with the sole intention of  maligning Corbyn.

The Editor of the Jewish Chronicle, Stephen Pollard, has form.  When the Tories formed an alliance with anti-Semitic parties in the European Parliament in 2009 they were attacked by the then Foreign Secretary David Miliband. Who defended the Tories?  Stephen Pollard, who wrote that Michal Kaminski, the Polish Law & Justice Party MEP was “one of the greatest friends to the Jews in a town where anti-Semitism and a visceral loathing of Israel are rife.’ And it is true.  Besides being an anti-Semite, Kaminski was, like Trump and Bannon and many others, a strong Zionist.  Because Pollard defines anti-Semitism in terms of Israel not Jews. Whereas to most people anti-Semitism is hatred of Jews to Pollard anti-Semitism is criticism of Israel.

Once upon a time Jonathan Freedland called out genuine racists and anti-Semites including Jewish Chronicle Editor Stephen Pollard

Ironically on this occasion Freedland waxed lyrical about Kaminski and his fascist origins. He wrote in an opinion piece:

there was a time when no self-respecting British politician would have gone anywhere near such people. Kaminski began his career in the National Rebirth of Poland movement, inspired by a 1930s fascist ideology that dreamed of a racially pure nation. Even today, the PiS slogan is "Poland for Poles" … In 2001 he upbraided the president for daring to apologise for a 1941 pogrom in the town of Jedwabne which left hundreds of Jews dead. Kaminski said there was nothing to apologise for – at least not until Jews apologised for what he alleged was the role Jewish partisans and Jewish communists had played alongside the Red Army in Poland.

Today Freedland sings a different tune alongside Pollard. However that is no reason why the Labour Party should sing the same song.

Alex Braithwaite’s offence was being an anti-Zionist not an anti-Semite. Hove must be one of the most anti-Semitic places in Britain! Although the Tories retained Wish Ward the other Labour candidate gained 1,107 votes whereas Alex gained 1,275, 168 or 15% more votes! Despite the false claims of Fiona Sharpe that Jewish voters in the ward would be concerned, voters made it very clear what they thought of these false allegations.

The sooner that the Labour Party begins to stand up to this bogus campaign from the Jewish Labour Movement and Zionist pressure groups, the sooner the anti-Semitism issue will be put to bed. The JLM have made it clear that they will not support a Labour Government led by Jeremy Corbyn.  This racist group should be disaffiliated immediately.

Right-wing Labour candidate defeated in Hanover - member of Apartheid supporting Jewish Labour Movement (although she's not Jewish)

The results for Labour in Brighton were mixed. In Hollingdean and Stanmer Ward, Labour lost one of its seats to the Greens. Phil Clarke, former General Secretary of the Trades Council was defeated by 56 votes. In Preston Park Ward, Labour lost its two councilors as the Green Party won all 3 seats. An excellent local activist Denise Frend was defeated but the consolation prize was the defeat of JLM member, the racist Julie Cattell who belongs with Chuka Ummuna’s TIG. Likewise in Hanover and Elm Grove, although Danielle Spencer, a Momentum supporter was defeated another JLM supporter Emma Daniels was defeated, a clear victory for anti-racism.

Daniel Yates, Blairite leader of Labour Group, member of racist JLM who banned the public from the election count for the first time ever

In Queens Park a strong challenge by the Greens meant that Labour lost one of the 3 seats and Momentum supporter Colin Piper.  A number of good socialists were elected in wards such as in Moulsecoomb where Kate Knight was elected and East Brighton where Nikki Brennan was elected. Overall the balance in the Labour Group is estimated as tilting towards the left. Currently the leader Daniel Yates is a Blairite and member of the JLM. It is to be hoped that he is replaced by a socialist.

I also found it strange that for the first time ever, under Yate's undemocratic administration, local people were refused access to the election announcements unless they had pre-existing passes. I await an explanation.

There can be no doubt that the campaign waged by the Right of the Labour Party in Brighton & Hove aimed at destroying the chances of success in the local elections. In this they were unsuccessful. Prominent amongst these were Luke Stanger, a racist who believes that Travellers are a ‘nasty blight’.  But although Stanger has been suspended the kid glove treatment he has been afforded makes it clear that ‘anti-Semitism’ is a privileged form of racism in the Labour Party today.

Tony Greenstein

We Demand that Palestine Solidarity Campaign Rejects the Resignation of Jenny Tonge as Patron

Cowardice Beyond the Call of Duty - PSC forces Jenny Tonge’s resignation and Briefs Against Her 

Yesterday I learnt from the Facebook page of the far-Right Sussex Friends of Israel that ‘Palestine Solidarity Campaign issued “deep concerns” about its patron Baroness Jenny Tonge, after she appeared to blame Israel for a resurgence in antisemitism in the wake of the deadly Pittsburgh massacre.’

In Jewish News I learnt that ‘Palestine Solidarity Campaign told Jewish News it has “contacted Jenny Tonge to express our deep concerns at her post and is in the process of considering any further steps.” What did Jenny say that the Zionists reacted so furiously to and which PSC found impossible to defend?

Jenny Tonge said, in response to the Pittsburgh massacre:

“Absolutely appalling and a criminal act, but does it ever occur to Bibi and the present Israeli government that it’s actions against Palestinians may be reigniting anti Semitism? I suppose someone will say that it is anti Semitic to say so?”

The offending remarks

Jenny was attacked by Eric Pickles, former Chair of Conservative Friends of Israel and the nearest thing to a rattle snake in human form. Pickles ‘called on the minister to condemn the “the words of Baroness Tonge in suggesting that the murders in Pittsburgh were caused by the actions of the Israeli government”. It would apparently ‘cause great pain in Pittsburgh and falls foul of the International Holocaust definition of anti-Semitism.” I doubt if anyone in Pittsburgh was even aware of the comments of the noble Baroness but of course that wasn’t the point of Pickle’s attack.

Open Letter to Ben Sofa, Secretary of Palestine Solidarity Campaign

Pickles is the same foul creature who defended the Tory’s alliance in the European parliament with the European Conservatives and Reformists.  A group that contains at least 3 anti-Semitic parties and which was chaired by Michal Kaminski, who used to belong to the anti-Semitic and fascist National Revival before founding the mainstream anti-Semitic Polish Law & Justice Party. The ECR also included Robert Zile of the Latvian Fatherland and Freedom Party/LNNK. 

Unlike PSC America's Liberal Zionist The Forward isn't afraid to draw the connections between the Pittsburgh murderer, Trump and Netanyahu

Zile has a quaint habit of marching with the veterans of the Latvian Waffen SS every March, something which Pickles had no problem defending. As Jonathan Freedland observed Pickles

‘offered an appalling defence, telling the BBC last month that the Latvian Waffen-SS were only conscripts fighting for their country, and to say otherwise was a Soviet smear. Again, this misses the fact that a substantial minority of the Latvian Waffen-SS were eager volunteers, including veterans of pro-Nazi death squads who had already taken part in the first phase of the Holocaust – and that should be enough to decide that those who march in celebration of men who fought with Hitler, and against Britain and its allies, are beyond the pale. Once no self-respecting politician would have gone near people such as Kaminski

Pickles who sees nothing wrong with forming an alliance with Kaminski, who excused the Jedwabne massacre of Jews in 1941 (up to 1600 were herded into a barn which was then set alight) on the grounds that they had collaborated with the Soviet Union and a Latvian MEP who marches with formers members of the SS, was however concerned about “the words of Baroness Tonge in suggesting that the murders in Pittsburgh were caused by the actions of the Israeli government”. Apparently it “will cause great pain in Pittsburgh and falls foul of the International Holocaust definition of anti-Semitism.”

Netanyahu makes it clear that his and Trump's refugee policies are one and the same

Well it may well fall foul of the IHRA because that is the sole purpose of the IHRA, to conflate anti-Zionist comments with anti-Semitism.  Jenny herself posted on her  Facebook page that:

‘PSC are very worried about the furore surrounding my remarks following Pittsburgh and I have resigned to save them embarrassment!!! Sad day.

Let us look at the comments which have so aroused the Zionist ire and which PSC is too cowardly to defend.  First she condemned without hesitation the murders in Pittsburgh.  No one bar a malevolent mischief maker could therefore accuse her of anti-Semitism.

She then asked whether it has ever occurred to Netanyahu and the Israeli government that their actions may be reigniting anti-Semitism.  That is a fair question.  The only possible objection to the comment is not that it is wrong but that the actions of the particular individual, Robert Bowers, were those of a more traditional neo-Nazi who believed that Jews were responsible for the destruction of the white race by introducing into them non-white refugees.

What is though clear is that Bowers was motivated by the racist atmosphere that has been stirred up to fever pitch by Donald Trump against refugees, in particular the refugee caravan. It can hardly have escaped even PSC’s notice that Netanyahu has been to the forefront of this campaign.  Netanyahu has done his best to deport 40,000 Black African refugees because they are neither Jewish or White.  He has even tweeted in support of Trump’s plan to build a wall on the border with Mexico. Clearly Netanyahu has contributed to this anti-refugee campaign of Trump with his own, not inconsiderable efforts.

Jenny’s observation that Israel’s attacks against Palestinians are stirring up anti-Semitism in the West is a fact.  Zionist bodies go out of their way to say that Jews, all Jews, support Israel’s attacks against the Palestinians.  Only recently the Board of Deputies defended Israel’s shooting of unarmed Palestinians in Gaza. Is it surprising that when the self-proclaimed body that represents British Jews supports Israel’s murderous actions in Gaza that some people will then blame and even attack British Jews?

However just as racists like Pickles reject the idea of connecting what Israel does with anti-Semitism in the West, so Israel’s Education Minister Naftali Bennett was reported in The Times of Israel as saying that connecting Trump to the attack is wrong because Trump has been a good friend to Israel and has strongly condemned anti-Semitism, in particular he had moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.

Bennett defended Trump’s anti-Semitism on the grounds that he is pro-Israel. This is the standard Zionist defence of anti-Semites. 

“Using the horrible anti-Semitic massacre to attack the president is unfair, it’s wrong. He condemned anti-Semitism in the strongest possible words. Clearly President Trump is a great friend of Israel and of the Jews.’

There is however a very clear connection between Trump and anti-Semitism (and therefore Netanyahu). After the election of Trump Dana Millbank of the Washington Post wrote Anti-Semitism is no longer an undertone of Trump’s campaign. It’s the melody. In it Dana described how Trump’s election campaign had deliberately used anti-Semitism as a means of appealing to the White Supremacist vote.

In the wake of the Pittsburgh massacre Dana Milbank wrote describing how Trump’s election ‘began with genteel anti-Semitism, progressed to dog whistles and ended with a full-throated targeting of Jewish “globalists.’ Millbank gave us a few examples:

Telling Jewish Republicans they wouldn’t support him “because I don’t want your money.”

Tweeting an image from an anti-Semitic message board with a Star of David atop a pile of cash.

Saying “I don’t have a message” for supporters who threatened anti-Semitic violence against a Jewish journalist, and Melania Trump saying the writer “provoked” the threats.

Branding his campaign with the “America First” slogan of the anti-Semitic pre-war movement.

Alleging that “blood suckers” and “a global power structure” including “international banks” are secretly plotting against ordinary Americans.

And, when urged by the Anti-Defamation League to stop using traditionally anti-Semitic tropes, repeated the tropes in an ad with images of prominent Jews, including George Soros.

Once in office, in addition to making common cause with the Nazis of Charlottesville, Trump stocked his administration with people like Stephen Bannon and other figures of the nationalist “alt-right;”, issued a Holocaust remembrance statement without mention of Jews; and lamented the attempts to silence Alex Jones, who peddles anti-Semitic conspiracy theories; declaring himself a “nationalist,” as well as increasing verbal attacks on “globalists,” particularly Soros. This was in addition to appointing as an advisor the openly neo-Nazi Sebastian Gorka.

PSC shamefully leaked against its own patron

The attacks on Jenny Tonge are wholly hypocritical and for PSC Executive and its Secretary Ben Sofa, to have bowed before the tide of Zionist hypocrisy, beggars belief. If PSC Executive don’t retract and either refuse to accept Jenny’s resignation or alternatively invite her to reconsider then I shall move a motion of censure on PSC Executive at the forthcoming AGM.

It would appear from the latest issue of Jewish News that PSC have accepted Jenny’s resignation and they also quote me as saying ‘“I suggest that you retract your resignation as nothing you said was in the least bit wrong. I am at present writing them a letter and now I know this will adjust it accordingly. Please retract your resignation“.

See also the excellent Mondoweiss article The Israeli government is exploiting the Pittsburgh murders to try to demonize Palestine solidarity

The Sad and Steady Decline of the World’s Oldest Jewish Newspaper

In his efforts to destroy Jeremy Corbyn Stephen Pollard has Destroyed the Reputation & Circulation of the Jewish Chronicle

Even by the feral standards of Britain’s tabloid press, the Jewish Chronicle is in a class of its own.  Under former Daily Express editor, Stephen Pollard, the favoured son of Britain’s largest pornography publisher and EDL/UKIP supporter, Richard Desmond, the JC has staggered from the gutter to the sewer. Even the Sun and the Mail make occasional attempts at separating news from commentary. The JC sees no purpose in even pretending to be neutral (or even accurate).

The Jewish Chronicle has, over the summer, behaved like a demented cat on hot tiles. Its one and only abiding theme is that Jeremy Corbyn is an anti-Semite. It has failed of course to provide even a smidgeon of proof to back up this libel. What it lacks in evidence it more than makes up for in shrieking, screaming headlines.

Pollard's screeching has not done the JC's circulation any good

It is little wonder that its circulation has declined since Pollard took over in 2008 from over 32,000 to 20,000 today. It also appears to be in considerable financial difficulty which might explain why Pollard has become the journalistic version of a rabid dog.

The Jewish Chronicle's absurd Goebbel's like propaganda

Things were not always like this.  Even though the paper has long supported the Zionist cause it has, in the past sought to achieve a modicum of balance.  Historically it was the paper of the Jewish Establishment and dull as ditchwater. Its main problem used to be how to keep its readers awake long enough to read it. (see British Jewry’s Family Newspaper:A Century of the “Jewish Chronicle”)

When the Zionist movement was first founded by Theodor Herzl at the end of the 19^th century, the Jewish Chronicle reflected the position of the Jewish Establishment which was hostile to this attempt to suggest that after having won the battle for Emancipation, British Jews didn’t belong in Britain. It described Zionism ‘as ill-considered, retrogressive, impracticable, even dangerous.”

The JC demonstrates its visceral racism in this headline. The continuous death of Palestinians murdered by the Israeli military is not considered 'violence'.  The death of a settler by contrast 'raises fears of fresh violence' in a Gaza which saw 160 people mown down by sniper fire

It was only the mass influx of Jews, fleeing the Russian pogroms, which caused a section of the Jewish Establishment to have second thoughts about Zionism. Palestine’s attractions lay in keeping the East European Jewish hordes from British shores and what they saw as the accompanying anti-Semitism. Chief Rabbi Hermann Adler summed up their attitude when he refused to condemn the 1905 Aliens Act, introduced by the Zionists' hero Arthur J Balfour. 'We must frankly agree' he wrote to Herbert Bentwich, 'that we do not desire to admit criminals and that there is force in the argument against the admission of those [Jews] mentally or physically afflicted.' [Geoffrey Alderman, Modern British Jewry]

The key battle in the struggle within the Jewish Establishment over Zionism came when Claude Montefiore and David Alexander of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Conjoint Committee sent a letter to The Times on 24^th May 1917 opposing Zionism and the movement to create a Jewish state. It caused a split in the Board and a vote to disown the letter.

The Jewish Chronicle takes Zionism to its logical antisemitic conclusion - Jewish MPs should separate themselves off

Margaret Hodge and Zionist Anti-semitism

Fast forward a century to Margaret Hodge’s outburst in the House of Commons when she called Jeremy Corbyn ‘a fucking anti-Semite and racist’ on account of his lack of sympathy for Zionism. This caused a rush of blood to Pollard’s head. Pollard called for Jewish MPs to leave the Labour Party. Jewish Labour MPs must quit the party and form a new bloc of independents.

It doesn’t seem to have occurred to Pollard that calling for Jewish MPs to leave the party they are a member of on the basis of their religious affiliation is itself anti-Semitic! We have to go back nearly a century to Poland where, as a result of the Minority Treaties a block of Jewish MPs sat as Jews in their own right.

Those who advocate the separation of Jews from  mainstream parliamentary parties are usually anti-Semites. The practice of Jews sitting apart on ghetto benches in universities in pre-war Poland was a consequence of the vicious antisemitism amongst Polish students. Yet this is what the Editor of the Jewish Chronicle was advocating when he urged Jewish MPs to separate themselves off from non-Jews. All in the name of fighting anti-Semitism!

Hodge’s behaviour had been triggered by the refusal of Corbyn and Labour’s NEC to adopt wholesale the IHRA‘Definition’ of Anti-Semitism. Pollard complained that ‘instead of adopting the definition... has excised the parts which relate to Israel and how criticism of Israel can be antisemitic.’  When we criticise the Zionists' false anti-Semitism campaign as really being about Israel we are condemned as ‘anti-Semitic’!

Pollard, in his enthusiasm for the dramatic, spoke of how ‘one extraordinary, unplanned event has indeed changed the dynamics. Dame Margaret Hodge’s confrontation of Jeremy Corbyn in a corridor of the House of Commons, calling him an “antisemite and a racist”, seems to have burst a dam.’

A week later the Jewish Chronicle, together with two other Jewish newspapers, in a collective act of madness, published a joint front page which spoke of ‘the existential threat to Jewish life in this country that would be posed by a Jeremy Corbyn-led government.’

The Jewish Chronicle all but accused Jeremy Corbyn of seeking to build concentration camps and why?  Because he refused to endorse a 'definition' of anti-semitism which has been universally panned  by legal and academic critics. 

The Director of the Pears Institute for the Study of Anti-Semitism Professor David Feldman, who was also Vice-Chair of the Chakrabarti Inquiry, described the IHRA as‘bewilderingly imprecise.’

Sir Stephen Sedley, a former Judge in the Court of Appeal who is also Jewish wrote that the IHRA ‘fails the first test of any definition: it is indefinite.’

Hugh Tomlinson QC in an Opinion declared that the IHRA had a potential chilling effect on public bodies which, in the absence of definitional clarity, may seek to sanction or prohibit any conduct which has been labelled by third parties as antisemitic without applying any clear criterion of assessment.

Geoffrey Robertson QC, a renowned human rights lawyer described the IHRA as 'not fit for purpose'.

Are all of these people vicious anti-semites whose pronouncements pose an 'existential threat' to the Jewish community today? The hysteria of Britain's Zionist press defies rational explanation.  Racism does strange things to people.  Yet these are the forces driving the Labour Party into declaring that opposition to Zionism is anti-Semitism.

The Jewish Forward

In one fell swoop the Zionist press in this country demonstrated not only how little difference there is between them but how they are little more than  propaganda sheets.  Contrast this with America's main Jewish paper The Forward which has a broad range of articles and themes on political issues, including from Jews who are not Zionists and even, God forbid, Palestinians!

It's a question that the JC avoids - why are so many anti-Semites such ardent fans of Israel?

Whereas the Jewish Chronicle has refrained from criticising the anti-Semites and racists that make up the Trump Administration, the Forward  has had a series of eviscerating headlines such as Naomi Zeveloff’s How Steve Bannon and Breitbart News Can Be Pro-Israel and Anti-Semitic at the Same Time. The Forward’s liberal editors and writers have been forced to confront the fact that the Trump regime is both anti-Semitic and ardently pro-Zionist at one and the same time.  The Forward has articles questioning the relationship between American Jews and Israel, a topic that the JC wouldn't even go near for fear of attracting a lightning bolt.

The JC simply does not mention the phenomenon of real antisemitism in the Trump Administration despite the presence of people like Sebastian Gorka, a fully-fledged fascist and member of the neo-Nazi Vitézi Rend who was Deputy Assistant to Trump.

Whereas The Forward is not afraid of taking up debates about matters of concern to the American Jewish community regardless of Zionist sensitivities, the Jewish Chronicle ploughs the ever more shrill and hysterical furrow of a bogus and fabricated ‘anti-Semitism’.

You are unlikely to read an article such as American Jewry Is Israel’s New Opposition Party in the JC. Editor Jane Eisner writes about how 'the two largest, most important Jewish population centers on the planet are drifting dangerously apart.'  Eisner is a liberal Zionist.

Kaminski 

Michal Kaminski of Poland's Law & Justice Party, who openly wore the Chrobry Sword, the symbol of the anti-Semitic National Radical Camp (ONR) is defended as a 'friend' of the Jews by Pollard!

Pollard has never hesitated to defend anti-Semites who support Israel. His concern is the ‘Jewish State’ not the Jews. Pollard went out on a limb to defend the Tories' membership of the European Conservative and Reform group alongside anti-Semitic parties and members. Pollard defended one fascist in particular, the Chair of the ECR, Michal Kaminski, who had defended villagers in Jedwabne who had herded up to 1,600 Jews into a barn which was then set alight in 1941.

This did not stop Pollard in the Guardian of 9.10.09. writing that Kaminski was ‘one of the greatest friends to the Jews in a town where antisemitism and a visceral loathing of Israel are rife.’ Kaminski, even if he didn’t like Jews very much loved the State of Israel. Poland's Kaminski is not an antisemite: he's a friend to Jews

A good example of the dishonest and distorted coverage of anything related to Corbyn is the story in this week’s Jewish Chronicle ‘Corbynites in plot to unseat pro-Jewish MPs.’ Most readers would assume that this meant a campaign to target Jewish MPs because they are Jewish. The first paragraph of this article talks about ‘A co-ordinated and targeted hard-left plot to threaten and destabilise Jewish MPs and their supporters in the Labour Party.’

In fact Joan Ryan, the MP who was no-confidenced by her own Labour Party Enfield North last week is not Jewish or for that matter pro-Jewish (whatever that means).  Ryan is the Chair of Labour Friends of Israel and is well known for her greed and dishonesty having claimed the most expenses of any MP in 2006-7 and having been runner up in 2005-6, to say nothing of having tried to frame Labour delegate Jean Fitzpatrick as an antisemite at the 2016 Labour Party Conference. [See The Lobby - Episode 3 'An Antisemitic Trope]

The letter from 29 Jewish Rabbis supporting Jeremy Corbyn

The affair of the letter which was signed by 29 Orthodox Jewish Rabbis last week, dissociating themselves and their communities from the Chief Rabbi’s letter attacking Corbyn, is another example of the Jewish Chronicle’s dishonesty. When the letter first surfaced the Jewish Chronicle of 10th September claimed that the letter had been ‘condemned as fake’. Two days later it owned up to the fact that it was in fact genuine although it still tried to discredit it. Organisations distance themselves from ‘letter from Charedi rabbis’ defending Corbyn ran the headline. Because of course a letter from Jewish rabbis opposing its own campaign of vilification doesn’t quite square with the image of Corbyn that the Jewish Chronicle has portrayed.

In other words the JC now accepted that the letter was genuine.  However at no point did the JC follow normal journalistic practice which notes at the bottom of any article just what if any changes have taken place since the article first appeared.

 Skwawkbox, which has covered this issue in depth, noted that ‘The JC appears to use software to prevent any archiving of its pages.’ Not only had the headline changed but the content of the article had also changed.  Now it was being alleged, not that the letter was a fake but that the rabbis who signed it had been ‘misled’ as to its contents.

A spokesman for the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Communities in response to these allegations by the Jewish Chronicle commented that ‘This is a sad state of affairs and a commentary on the lengths to which some people will go. Of course the letter is genuine.’ And of course the Zionist organisations behind the anti-Semitism campaign have a vested interest in pretending that they represent the whole Jewish community. To them being Jewish is synonymous with being a Zionist.

Shraga Stern, the Haredi Jewish activist who helped organise the letter from twenty-nine Orthodox rabbis sent a letter to the JC in response to their attempts to portray the letter as either a fake or unrepresentative. Not surprisingly the Jewish Chronicle has not published it.  It is reprinted below.

It now appears that Haredi Jews, who are sick of the attacks in their name on Jeremy Corbyn by the Board of Deputies are now planning their own protests outside the Board's annual fundraising dinner in November.

Clearly the Board of Deputies have been stung by this demonstration by Haredi Jews that the Board does not speak for them.  The JC has acted as their faithful mouthpiece. In the Jewish Chronicle this week the Board condemned what they called the “divide and rule” tactics of a “small group of malcontents”. The Board’s anger boiled over adding that “The Charedi community has had no better ally than the Board of Deputies” and that they “should be protesting against antisemitism, not against attempts to fight it.”

This is doubly ironic as the Board has never organized against genuine anti-Semitism.  From the campaign against Oswald Moseley’s British Union of Fascism in the 1930’s to the Anti-Nazi League in the 1970’ the Board’s position has always been to appeal to Jews not to confront the fascists and anti-Semites.  Only when it comes to critics of Israel does the BOD gird its loins!

The Haredi community, because it is visibly different in how it dresses stands out as distinctly Jewish. Uniquely among Jews it experiences racist and anti-Semitic attacks. This was the one section of the Jewish community that was comprehensively ignored by the Report of Parliament’s Home Affairs Select Committee on Anti-Semitism which was issued in October 2016.

As the letter below from Shraga Stern makes clear, the Board of Deputies represents a minority of Jews in Britain.  The Board's claims have been supported by the BBC and the British media precisely because it is in their interests to support Israel.

Unpublished Letter from Shraga Stern to the Jewish Chronicle

We believe that the anti-Semitism smear and witch hunt against Jeremy Corbyn is a Zionist agenda and has all the footprints leading to that direction. It is being promoted by the Board of Deputies and by the self-made unelected JLC, who are a well-known pro-Israel bodies-  and it’s completely cruel and unjustified.

The Board of Deputies and JLC do not represent Charedi Jews, who do not have voting rights at BoD elections and number today over fifty thousand in the UK, of which 30,000 live in Stamford Hill. According to a 2007 study by Dr Markov Wise at the University of Manchester, almost three out of every four Jewish births in the UK – home to the largest strictly Orthodox community in Europe – are in the Charedi community.

The strange thing here is that they are 263,000 Jews living in UK according to the 2011 census. Half of them do not belong to a synagogue according to BoD population statistics, so this half would not have voting rights in the BoD elections.

Add this up with 50,000 Charedi Jews it equals 181,000 out of 263,000 who will not fall under the BoD and the BoD do not represent them. So how on earth can the BoD have the chutzpah to say they represent the Jews in UK? BoD is a pro-Israel body and only represent a very particular part of Jews who are pro-Israel.

Charedi Jews and most mainstream Jews in the UK are only interested in Anglo Jewry matters and do not get involved in Israel politics. However saying this we do recognise that real anti-Semitism is an issue all over the country and in all political parties. We are convinced that Jeremy Corbyn is doing his best to tackle real anti-Semitism in his party while still giving his people of his party freedom of speech to criticize Israel.

However, we are nowhere near to fleeing this country because of this. As a Charedi Jew I can say that Charedi Jews are the most vulnerable to anti-Semitic attacks as they dress differently and one can see that they are Jewish, therefore this support letter from leading Charedi rabbis from Stamford Hill including Chief Rabbi Padwa from the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations (UOHC) says it all.

Jeremy is a long friend and neighbour of the Charedi community here and everyone who knows him personally says that he loves Jews and is against real anti-Semitism, and this is what he has done all his life.

Times have changed and we will not stop here. We will not be hijacked by the BoD and JLC. We will go further then this to make it clear to all the government bodies and to the press, not to fall into the trap of the BoD and JLC who are extremist Zionist bodies and do not represent mainstream Jews.

Discussions are now taking place that I’m personally aware of and talks are in place on considering setting up a new body of Board of Deputies of mainstream British Jews that will focus only on anglo-jewish matters and will represent the entire Jewish population no matter if they are associated to a BoD synagogue or not and act for the many Jews not the few.