Jones Treats Racism as an act of Solidarity & Treachery as Apostasy
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Jones a racist hypocrite - currying favour with Zionists by supporting the expulsion of Jackie Walker |
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Jones fully backs the false anti-Semitism nonsense - his favourite phrase is 'anti-Semitism is a menace'! |
Ever since then Jones has been
in retreat. I first criticised Jones in
the summer of 2014 Gaza Reveals the Empty and Vacuous Heart of Owen
Jones’s writing when Jones was still the darling of most
people on the left. The first signs that
Jones was moving into the Zionist camp were apparent, even whilst he proclaimed
his support for the Palestinians. Jones
made his comments in the middle of Operation Protective Edge in 2014.
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The photographs make it clear that this was cold-blooded murder of 4 innocent children - yet to the Zios it was a 'tragic mistake' |
This was a time when 2,200 Palestinians,
including 551 children, were massacred by Israel. Many people will still remember the murder of
4 young boys playing on the Gaza beach. An Israeli plane fired missiles at them
as they ran. Like American pilots in
Iraq, killing these innocent children was nothing more than moving a computer
joystick and pressing a button.
It was later described as a ‘tragic accident’ but it was no accident
– Israeli planes boast the latest up to date technology and it is inconceivable
that they mistook the children for anything other than what they were. Israel
exonerates itself over Gaza beach killings of four children last year The Guardian’s Peter Beaumont explained that
neither he nor other journalist witnesses had been contacted by the Israeli
military in the course of their ‘investigation’. Israel
failed to interview eyewitnesses to soccer boys’ slaughter
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Jones linked in to the narrative of the far-Right Campaign Against Anti-Semitism that anti-Semitism was the problem |
However Jones believed that the real problem
was not the massacre of the innocents but ‘anti-Semitism’ in Britain. It was a time when the rabidly right-wing Campaign Against Anti-Semitism was first
established. In response to support for
the Palestinians of Gaza, the Zionists responded in their usual manner by
accusing Israel’s critics of anti-Semitism.
This was a theme heard, as much from the Right as the Left Zionists – as
much from Conservative Friends of Israel as Labour Friends of Israel and Jewish
Labour Movement.
In order to deflect opposition to Israel’s
genocidal attack on Gaza the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism held a demonstration
outside the Royal Court of Justice on the theme that opposition to Israel’s
attack on Gaza had resulted in an increase in ‘anti-Semitism’. [sign the petition
to get this racist ‘charity’ deregistered]
Jones immediately jumped on this bandwagon
with all the fervour of a Judas in search of his 30 pieces of silver. Not once did it occur to Jones to question
whether or not this might be the traditional Zionist ploy of besmirching and
smearing critics of Israel. The
supporters of Israel’s carnage in Gaza were now pretending to be victims. According to the Zionist CAA it was they, not the Palestinians who were the
real victims. Jones immediately recognized
them as white victims of privilege.
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Anti-Semitism is a menace again, unlike Zionism |
Israel is a state that receives more
military aid from the USA than every other country in the world put
together. It is the United State’s
racist rotweiller in the Middle East. Donald Trump's dumb bitch. The
pretext for Israel’s attack had been the puny firecrackers fired from Gaza in
response to Israel’s heavy bombing. Virtually
no Palestinian rockets had even been fired in the previous year. Some 20
Israelis had been killed in a decade by Palestinian rockets but Israel’s
advanced weaponry and missile technology had killed thousands. Just 70+ Israelis had died during Operation Protective Edge all but 6 of them Israeli soldiers, whereas nearly all of Israel's victims were civilians.
Israel targeted homes, clinics, schools,
hospitals – it used chemical weapons – white phosphorous, without being accused
of having crossed any ‘red lines’ Yet
Owen Jones was concerned about anti-Semitism.
He responded to the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism demonstration with an article Anti-Jewish
hatred is rising – we must see it for what it is. The article began as do all of his articles with ‘Anti-Semitism is a menace’. The only menace though was Owen Jones.
But at least Jones’ article acknowledged
that Douglas Murray’s Spectator article which described the 150,000 strong Gaza solidarity march in London as having consisted of ‘Thousands of anti-Semites’was ‘reprehensible’ . Jones at that time said this was ‘an unforgivable libel against peace protestors – Jews among them – who
simply object to their government’s complicity in the massacre of children. It
makes it much harder to identify genuine antisemitism.’ In other words in 2014 Jones at least recognized
that false allegations of anti-Semitism are used against Palestinian supporters .
Jones article almost exactly a year later,
in August 2015, Antisemitism
has no place on the left. It is time to confront it, is instructive. This was during the first Labour leadership
contest at a time when Jeremy Corbyn came under fierce attack by the press, the
Jewish
Chronicle, the Daily
Mail and the Guardian
in particular, for having associated with a Holocaust denier Paul Eisen.
Whilst acknowledging that false accusations
of anti-Semitism were made, reminiscing that ‘At a recent wedding a former Times journalist I’d never met apprehended
me and accused me of antisemitism, threatening to punch me.’ he went on to argue,
oblivious to what he had just written that ‘While
they [Palestinian supporters] would
never dream of denying the existence of racism against, say, black people or
Muslims, they treat antisemitism as a political device constructed by militant
supporters of Israeli occupation.’
Therein lies the first problem of identity politics.
Anyone can become a victim, be they Jewish, Muslim or Black. If you claim victimhood then you are to be
treated as a victim, regardless. After
all none of us believe in a ‘hierarchy of racism’ so each claim must be treated
as equally valid. So a Jewish lawyer on
£200,000 a year is to be treated as equally a victim of racism as a Black
youngster who has been beaten up in police custody and charged with assaulting
the Police.
When your politics are entirely subjective
and lacking any sense of history, then you won’t appreciate that the Jews of
today would probably recoil from their predecessors of 80 years ago. Jews today are neither economically exploited
nor racially oppressed. The Jewish
working class has long disappeared. Jews
don’t live in Whitechapel but the suburbs of Golders Green. They are predominantly white, middle class professionals
not working class trade unionists anymore. In other words their identity has changed. Where once, Jews were identified with the
left and trade union militancy, today they are overwhelmingly of the
Right. One reason why many Jews now support
Israel is because that reflects their class position. Supporting Israel is the same as supporting
British and US foreign policy.
In 1945 the Jews of the East End helped elect Phil Piratin for the constituency of Mile End. He was the only elected Communist MP in England. An estimated half of his votes were from Jews. Today more Jews would vote for a fascist candidate than a communist one.
In 1945 the Jews of the East End helped elect Phil Piratin for the constituency of Mile End. He was the only elected Communist MP in England. An estimated half of his votes were from Jews. Today more Jews would vote for a fascist candidate than a communist one.
No doubt Jones thinks that saying that
Britain’s Jewish community is white, middle-class and prosperous is ‘anti-Semitic’. Perhaps William Rubinstein, former President
of the Jewish Historical Society of England is also anti-Semitic? In ‘The Left, the Right and the Jews’ (1982)
he wrote that London Jewry is ‘arguably
more bourgeois now than at any time since the mid-nineteenth century, and it is
certainly more Conservative…’ [p.51 see also JC 28. 3. 86. 'Two Cheers for
the GLC'].
Rubinstein wrote that ‘The Jewish proletariat virtually disappeared
in the post-war period and since the 1950's Western Jewry has, as a whole,
risen into the upper-middle class.’ Geoffrey
Alderman, in his book, ‘The Jewish
Community in British Politics’ 1983, (p.137) wrote that ‘By 1961, over 40% of Anglo-Jewry was to be
found in the upper two social classes’ compared to less than 20% of the general
population.’
On a mundane level one of my favourite restaurants used to be Blooms in Commercial Road in Whitechapel. When I was a child I can remember long queues to get in there at a lunchtime. About 15 years ago it closed its doors because of a lack of custom. Jews no longer lived in the East End or indeed worked there.
On a mundane level one of my favourite restaurants used to be Blooms in Commercial Road in Whitechapel. When I was a child I can remember long queues to get in there at a lunchtime. About 15 years ago it closed its doors because of a lack of custom. Jews no longer lived in the East End or indeed worked there.
In March 2016, in the middle of the false
anti-Semitism campaign, I had been suspended from the Labour Party, Jones wrote
yet another article about anti-Semitism.
Antisemitism
is a poison – the left must take leadership against it Once again Jones repeated that anti-Semitism ‘is a menace’ having given no examples whatsoever of anti-Semitism or anything like it in his article.
You might be forgiven for thinking that
there was no other form of racism. No
Stop and Search, no deaths in custody of Black people, no murders of Muslims or
attacks on mosques, no deportations or media campaigns against asylum
seekers. Britain was an oasis of racial
tolerance. The only racism that Jones was
aware of was anti-Semitism – a form of racism that barely exists other than as
a marginal form of prejudice against a minority section of the white
population.
Of course anti-Semitism hasn’t disappeared
entirely. Ironically the one group of
Jews who do suffer from attacks are the hasidic Jews of Stamford Hill in
Hackney who wear distinctive clothing and are much poorer than most Jews.
Yet they were totally omitted in the 2016 Home
Affairs Select Committee Report on Anti-Semitism that first introduced the
IHRA definition of ‘anti-Semitism’ that conflates anti-Semitism and
anti-Zionism. Anyone who claims anti-Semitism
is a mainstream form of racism is either a charlatan or a liar. I suspect Jones is probably a bit of both.
Jones article
begins once more with the imaginative intro ‘Antisemitism is a menace’.
It seems that like many Guardian writers, Jones writes for the sake of
writing, with nothing new to say.
Jones said he was unhappy because whenever
anti-Semitism is mentioned, people think about Israel. Presumably he must have forgotten when he was
nearly punched by a former Times correspondent. He is obsessed with ‘victim
blaming’ even if the victims are frauds.
Jones gives as an example of Labour’s
anti-Semitism Vicki Kirby who tweeted that Jews had “big noses. Alongside
Jones article is a link to an article Antisemitism
is racism. We need to acknowledge that by David Baddiel. It is ironic because Baddiel is the author of
a satirical play about Jews and Muslims called Infidels and Kirby’s comments were a direct quote from Baddiel’s
play! In other words her quotes were
stripped of context and on his basis she was adjudged to have been
anti-Semitic! [see Asa Winstanley’s How
Israel lobby manufactured UK Labour Party’s anti-Semitism crisis]
Jones therefore recommended
that the Labour Party indulge in a full scale anti-Semitism witch-hunt. Jones wanted Labour to play the Tory tabloid
game and engage in internal navel gazing.
Racism is a problem, but it isn’t a problem of the Labour
Party but British capitalism. Labour
should be at the forefront of fighting against racist immigration controls,
attacks on the free movement of labour and attempts to blame migrant labour for
low wages and unemployment and above all against state racism that sees far too
many deaths of Black people.
Islamaphobia and attacks on Muslims has increased exponentially since New
Labour under Tony Blair supported and helped invade Iraq in 2003.
It is people like the Jewish Labour Movement's Ivor Caplin, Junior Defence Minister & War Criminal under Blair who are responsible for most racism today
It is people like the Jewish Labour Movement's Ivor Caplin, Junior Defence Minister & War Criminal under Blair who are responsible for most racism today
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Ivor Caplin - former junior Defence Minister at the time of the Iraq War and war criminal |
It is people like Ivor Caplin, former Hove MP
and Junior Defence Minister under Blair, who are largely responsible for this racism
yet Caplin is the Southern Regional Organiser for the Jewish Labour Movement, the
main organisation alleging false anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. Jones sees no connection between the actions
of people like Caplin and increased levels of false accusations of
anti-Semitism. For Jones every victim
must be treated as equally oppressed especially if they are Jewish and
supporters of Israel. After all, to use
a favourite phrase of Jones, anti-Semitism is a menace. Unfortunately he doesn’t seem to consider any
other form of racism, other than anti-Semitism, as menacing.
It would be nice to think that Jones had
taken a break from his obsession with false anti-Semitism since writing this
article a year ago (yes another one is due any day now!) but unfortunately this
is not the case. Jones has now moved
firmly into the Zionist camp. When the
Jewish Labour Movement, which has waged a veritable witchhunt against Ken
Livingstone and Jackie Walker, the Black-Jewish woman who was Momentum
Vice-Chair, asked Jones to speak at a memorial meeting he immediately
agreed.
Jones ignores the fact that the Jewish
Labour Movement describes itself as the ‘sister party’ of Israel’s
Labour Party, a party that is racist to the core, a supporter of
segregation and responsible for the ethnic cleansing of ¾ million Palestinians in
1948. As I explained in Owen
Jones – the Final Betrayal - Supporting Zionist Apartheid & the Jewish
Labour Movement, Jones has decided to support the very Apartheid state that
he used to lambast.
In
an interview with the Jewish Chronicle Owen
Jones: Why I'm defending Jews on the left he explained that ‘“Without sounding like a clichĂ©, a lot my
friends are grandchildren of Holocaust survivors and Stef’s family were killed
in their dozens in the Holocaust.’
Like all Zionists he Jones
reaches back to the Holocaust like a drunk leans on a lamppost, not for
illumination but support. What has the
Holocaust, which included the death of millions of people, to do with Israel’s
ferocious attacks and racist treatment of the Palestinians? A state where 93% of Israeli land is reserved
for Jews only? Where ‘death to the
Arabs’ is heard on the streets? Where
the leader of the Israeli Labour Party talks of his nightmare of waking up to a
Palestinian Prime Minister and fears his party being described as ‘Arab lovers’
(think Jew lover or Nigger lover by way of comparison).
Jones shift on Palestine is not unconnected
with his general move to the right. He openly
calls for Corbyn to stand down. Jones told
the Jewish Chronicle that ‘the
left has to battle to rid itself of anything that is fatal to what it exists to
do — and that is to build an inclusive society for all.” Presumably his inclusive society includes
white racist supporters of Israel? Since
the EDL and BNP are also keen supporters of Israel will he include those too? It is not for nothing that White Supremacists such as Richard Spencer of 'Heil Trump' fame and the alt-Right in the USA now describe themselves as White Zionists. Alt
Right’ Leader Ties White Supremacy to Zionism — Leaves Rabbi Speechless
In a sign of how far and
how quickly Jones has gone to the right, he demonstrates the depths of his
betrayal. Instead of praising those Jews
who oppose Zionism and stand up for the rights of the Palestinians to live in a
society free of racism, he asks:
“What
do people want? For me not to stand with any Jews in Britain? Or have a
dialogue, unless they are part of the one per cent of the Jewish community who
don’t describe themselves as Zionists?
Leave
aside the fact that anti-Zionist Jews, who are on the receiving end of constant racist abuse from Zionists, as he himself has previously described. Anti-Zionist Jews are the
equivalent of those Whites in South Africa who opposed Apartheid. The fact is that
Jones, in his journey to the racist right of the Labour Party is also
wrong. City University’s Attitudes
of British Jews Towards Israel found that 31%, i.e. nearly a third of British
Jews say they are not Zionists. 59%,
down from 71% five years ago, say they are Zionists. So not only has Jones made a bonfire of his
principles and signed up to defending the world’s most racist states but he has
done it on the basis of complete ignorance.
Owen
Jones is a good advert for what passes for a left-wing Guardian writer these
days. Another reason to boycott the
paper.
In his
talk to the JLM he was reported
to have called for the expulsion of both Ken Livingstone and Jackie
Walker. Jones invoked the sympathy of his audience: ‘Mr Jones had received criticism for
addressing the JLM from far-left extremists.’
Why he had even quit Twitter because he had been accused of being "a stooge of the Israeli state." Naturally he told the JLM that ‘"The menace of anti-Semitism needs to be
driven out."!!
On Jackie Walker he described his apostasy
thus:
I have called for Jackie Walker's expulsion but her partner Graham Bash was someone who was something of a mentor to me. I was close to him - but now that has changed."
Jones also praised Jon Lansman. One wonders whether Lansman, who got Jones to
write a nasty little witch-hunting article last December, Momentum
is a beacon of hope. It must be saved from the saboteurs now approves of
his latest stance. After all the ‘beacon
of hope’ is there to support Jeremy Corbyn but with friends like Owen Jones….
Jonathan Cook, the award winning former
Guardian journalist, has written a particular perceptive article on Jones
journey of apostasy, a not unfamiliar journey.
Jones deplores the occupation of the West Bank but has nothing to say
about the source of that occupation, the Israeli Labour Party. In an article My
offer to Owen Jones: A tour of Nazareth Cook notes that Jones, who has
never visited Israel, is going to make his first trip soon. Cook wrote:
'That will mean doing more than just visiting the occupied territories – and then hearing his liberal Zionist friends decry what goes on there as the fault of the Israeli right wing. They will assure him that, when (sic) the Israeli Labour party returns to power, all the horrors he has seen will come to an end. They will tell him, not that he has witnessed just a few symptoms of problems inherent in Zionism, but that the occupation is the extent of the problem and it should be blamed on Benjamin Netanyahu and the settlers.
That is a deception – one liberal Zionists have been using to keep British Labour activists like Jones docile for decades. He has a duty to dig much deeper. That will upset his friends, but he must ignore their protests if he really cares about justice for the Palestinians and about getting to the truth.
Of course Cook knows that Jones has no intention of taking him up on his offer. Jones is full aware of the depth of racism in Israel today but rather than take a principled stance he prefers the easy option. To go along with the racist frauds that he addressed in the JLM. Cook continued:
It was Labour Zionism, which today is represented in the UK by the Jewish Labour Movement (to which he gave a memorial lecture) – who set up the original settlements in the occupied territories after 1967 and established the blueprint for creeping annexation and ethnic cleansing there. The model of permanent occupation was created not by Netanyahu, but by Generals Moshe Dayan and Yigal Allon of the Israeli Labour party, the same party that continues to maintain its close ties to Britain’s Labour party.
Cook invites Jones to take a tour of not
only the West Bank but Nazareth, the largest Arab town in Israel. Cook posed a number of questions that Jones
might care to ask himself:
What does citizenship mean for 1.7 million Palestinians when the state defines itself as Jewish? Can a state be Jewish and democratic, any more than it can be Islamic and democratic or white and democratic? Why do hundreds of communities in Israel specifically bar Palestinian citizens from living in them? How comfortable would he feel if hundreds of British communities banned black Britons from residing in them? Why is the state education system in Israel strictly segregated using ethnic criteria, whatever the views of parents? Why has the state de-recognised dozens of Palestinian communities that pre-date Israel’s creation, making their inhabitants criminals in the eyes of the state?
It will be interesting to see whether Owen
Jones responds to or ignores Jonathan Cook’s offer. I can’t see him accepting because that will mean eating a lot of humble pie and admitting he has been keeping the company of a bunch of Jewish supremacists for the past months. Instead he will fallback on support for a 2 State Solution that he knows will never happen. Thereby he can ignore and pretend the ingrained racism of the Israeli state doesn't exist. In Israel Palestinians aren’t even 2nd
class citizens.
Palestinians in Israel are possessed of a meaningless citizenship, the scapegoat for Israeli society’s ills. For example the fires which consumed Israel a few months ago were falsely blamed on ‘arson terrorism’ by Israel’s Palestinians. In the end not one Palestinian was charged with arson.
Palestinians in Israel are possessed of a meaningless citizenship, the scapegoat for Israeli society’s ills. For example the fires which consumed Israel a few months ago were falsely blamed on ‘arson terrorism’ by Israel’s Palestinians. In the end not one Palestinian was charged with arson.
As the Jerusalem Post reported: ‘In
Haifa, during the fires, Netanyahu said, “We are facing the terrorism of
arsonists.” At the same time, Education Minister Naftali Bennett tweeted, “Only
he to whom the land doesn’t belong is capable of burning it.” Meanwhile, Public
Security Minister Gilad Erdan claimed that almost 50% of the fires were caused
by arson.’ The comment of Naftalli
Bennett, the Education Minister was particularly revealing. ‘Only
he to whom the land does not belong’ in other words Israel does not belong
to the Palestinians who live there. Another
article in the Jerusalem Post described how ‘As the blazes raged’ Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other government ministers pledged to work to
revoke the residency of those found guilty — a threat typically reserved for
Arab Israelis.’ This is the racism of
the Jewish state. Jews never have their
residency or citizenship revoked.
Tony Greenstein