Antisemitism, the "Splitters", & a Commons Debate

Following news that seven Labour MPs (and now an eighth, Joan Ryan, who in a devastating indictment of Corbyn has made his failure to deal with antisemitism in the party central to herdefection) have left the party and formed their own Independent Group, "the oldest hatred" rears its ugly Medusa's head.

No surprise to Labour Against Antisemitism, aware as it is of the loathsome sentiments engendered in the party under Corbyn:

See, for instance, the comments that greet this report. (Bonus: a chance to see Gorgeous George!)

Gorgeous George again:

 Young Labour shows its true colours:

Conservative candidate Robert Largan deploring vile comments encouraged by this MP's malice:

And then there's this (hat tip: Jonathan Hoffman in a  Facebook post).  Tim Llewellyn, of course, used to be a BBC correspondent.

And on Twitter via an extreme anti-Israel activist, this:

Interesting tweets regarding the latest developments in Labour ranks from international relations academic Dr James Vaughan:

The Times of London (19 February):

And (hat tip: Jonathan Hoffman) at the instigation of Mrs May's government, in order to embarrass Corbyn, the House of Commons (20 February) will debate [update: has debated] the topic "Antisemitism in modern Society"!

Meanwhile, it's perhaps no surprise to learn that notorious antisemite Alison Chabloz is a keen Corbynista.

Good news from Oz: notorious antisemite and general fruitcake David Icke has been denied entry into the country.

British Brogues and Bluster

In London on 25 January, at a demonstration by Inminds supporting the American-Iranian Teheran-based Press TV journalist Marzieh Hashemi (born Melanie Franklin), who was held in a US prison on a visit to her homeland, a Brummie (?)-accented call for Muslims to emulate Da Lobby or "be picked off one by one":

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zq_Tkxpw0gw

North of the Border Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign chief Mick Napier inveighs on Facebook against India

and poses a question to which I'm sure 99 "Zionists" (of all creeds and none) out of 100 could give an immediate accurate answer

and is met with Muslim activist Ibrahim (born Brian) Hewitt with enthusiam:

That so-called "Trojan horse" wily old Mick refers to is the Stand Up to Racism organisation, whose conference just held in Glasgow:

leaving the Zionist entity's foes unhappy:

As for the Glasgow Friends of Israel, they're unfazed:

Among their subsequent tweets:

For Jennie Formby's remarks see here

Incidentally, among SUTR events coming soon:

 and (nice poster boy!)

"But What if the Strangers ... Want to Turn Your Own Country into Egypt? "

To sign go HERE

Last evening I stumbled online across lovely footage from "the Swinging Sixties".  Specifically it shows scenes of London in the summer of 1967.  Glimpses of Carnaby Street fashions, and the Portobello market, Biba, and much more. Bouffant-haired girls in their summer dresses, groovy guys with Beatles haircuts ...

The footage has attracted many views, together with innumerable comments.  The general theme, from both older commenters and people who were not even born in the 1960s, is the way in which Britain has changed since that decade.

Yes, some  remark how great it is to see people actually looking where they are going rather than being glued to mobile phones, while others remark how better dressed people seemed to be back then, and how slim.

But by far the prevailing nostalgia focused on the comparative homogeneity of the population, and a strong Islamophobic thread weaves through the comments.

Shocking to behold, though not numerous, are comments blaming population diversity and mass immigration on "Jews" and "Zionist Jews", with one avowedly "Asian" commenter joining in the antisemitism, and somebody adding obscenely that "the Jews" won the Second World War.

I felt like asking why, since mass Islamic migration, with what it portends at the ballot box and elsewhere, is hardly in the interests of Zionists and Jews, would any Jew want to encourage, much less engineer, it.  But then I figured that conspiracy theorists are incorrigible and best left alone.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKaDoR1qfKc

Why encourage it, indeed?  There are plenty of Jews who realise that mass Muslim immigration is not in their interests, nor in those of the wider society. However,  Melanie Phillips, in an article concerning Israel's new Nationality Law, wrote, inter alia, a few days ago:

'Two utterly fundamental and seismic issues are threatening to tear apart Britain, Europe and America. They are mass immigration and national identity.

The majority of Jews in Britain and America are warmly disposed towards the former and terrified of the latter. They have got it precisely the wrong way round. 

Diaspora Jews have a Pavlovian response to immigration. This is entirely understandable: the vast majority, myself included, are the descendants of immigrants and refugees.

Jews are also commanded in the Torah not to wrong or oppress a stranger “for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” But what if the strangers in question want to turn your own country into Egypt? 

For what’s happening today is not so much immigration as the mass movement of peoples from global south to north. 

If unchecked, this will transform the developed world, overwhelm its public infrastructure, and forever alter the culture and identity of its constituent nations.

.... Society has to pull together in pursuit of a common project or else it will disintegrate into warring tribes. That common project — based on a shared history, language, religion, institutions and traditions — is called a nation....'  [Emphasis added]

 The real unease here is surely over Israel asserting its national identity at all, just as most British Jews are uneasy about Britain asserting its own national identity.

But without it, democracy and political freedom in the West will die. And without their own acknowledgement that they are themselves a nation, diaspora Jews will also fade away.

The Jewish world will merely consist instead of the State of Israel — the one place where Judaism’s defining and indissoluble connection between the people, the religion and the land to form the Jewish nation really does have meaning.'

Meanwhile, for Spain as a new stepping stone for mass migration to Europe see here

Hart Disease

As many readers will know by now, Alan Hart is no more.  Aged 75, the (non-Jewish) inveterate Israel-demoniser, whose Twitter page shows that he was tweeting anti-Israel propaganda almost to the end, shuffled off this mortal coil last week, deeply mourned by inveterate Israel-demoniser Gilad Atzmon (see, for instance, here) and others of that ilk.

Hart (Arafat's biographer and author of the odious 2010 book Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews) was a former newspaper journalist, chief Middle East correspondent for Independent Television News (ITN), and presenter of the BBC's flagship current affairs programme Panorama.  He became a regular on Iran's satellite news channel Press TV, delighting his masters with his diatribes against the Jewish State and its supporters.

Wikipedia's article about him (which provides footnoted sources) tells us of such sentiments of his as:

"The colonial enterprise that Zionism is has corrupted everything it touched, beginning with the United Nations and including the mainstream media, what passes for democracy in the Western world (America especially) and Judaism itself"

And:

"[T]he Zionist state, which came into being as a consequence of Zionism terrorism and ethnic cleansing, had no right to exist and, more to the point, could have no right to exist ... In international law only the Palestinians could give Israel the legitimacy it craved. And that legitimacy was the only thing the Zionists could not and cannot take from the Palestinians by force.... 

Jews who went to Palestine in answer to Zionism's call had no biological connection to the ancient Hebrews. The incoming Zionist Jews were mainly foreign nationals of many lands... The notion that there are two entire peoples with an equally valid claim to the same land is an historical nonsense."

Hart described Zionists as "The New Nazis" and argued that

"Europeans and Americans could have stopped the original Nazis and prevented the extermination of six million Jews. If Europeans and Americans do not stop the New Nazis, it is likely that their end game will be the extermination of millions of Palestinians."

Regarding 9/11 he stated on various media outlets that

 "The twin towers were brought down by a controlled ground explosion, not the planes." 

He speculated that the planes had been fitted with transponders and that Israeli Mossad agents guided them into the towers.

“My guess is that at an early point they said to the bad guys in the CIA – hey this operation's running what do we do, and the Zionists and the neo-cons said let's use it."

Moreover:

"In my analysis there's enough evidence – visual, technical and scientific, and from eye-witnesses including fire fighters – to invite the conclusion that the Twin Towers, like Building Seven, were pre-wired for controlled demolition with nanothermite, the highest-tech military explosive."

 In a guest post on the well-known UK blog Harry's Place in 2009, Middle East analyst Jonathan Sacerdoti analysed Hart's modus operandi on his Press TV discussion programme:

 "The fact that Alan Hart was presenter, chairman and organiser of the ‘debate’ (he selected the panel and even the audience) only added to the sense of foreboding surrounding the programme.... [A] quick web-search will tell you all you need to know about his unconventional views on Israel and Zionism, and how they cannot possibly be rooted in antisemitic sentiment because he has a Jewish accountant....

Hart’s choice of panellists for the programme made it clear before anyone said a word that the project was nothing more than a thinly disguised hate-fest. He was joined by his regular sidekicks, Ilan Pappe and Hajo Meyer (both Jews, he boasted), in arguing that ‘Zionism’ was to blame for antisemitism. The estimable Jonathan Hoffman and Carol Gould represented the ‘other side’ as the cameras recorded what was to be one of the more surreal and amateur television productions I’ve experienced.

Alan and his regular helpers continued their desperate ongoing attempts to be recognised as ‘revisionists’, rewriting history and current thought as they see fit, while Hoffman and Gould were clearly intended to act as nothing more than fig leaves for this brazen, three-pronged attack on Israel, reason, and polite debate. With the dice weighted against them, it wasn’t easy, but Jonathan Hoffman, the co-Vice Chairman of the Zionist Federation, and Carol Gould, an author with an informed and authoritative perspective on the Middle East, held their ground well in the face of unrelenting bullying tactics....

Hart, it seems, is a man with a pronounced fear of being criticised, despite his frothing tirades against the Jewish state of Israel and its right to exist. His aggressive manner and apparent inability to form a logical line of argument don’t help his case.

From start to finish, the programme was a stitch-up....

[Hart's] fanatical assertions were usually backed up (if at all) by reference only to his own absurd books, while anything that Hoffman and Gould said was shouted down as ‘propaganda’, even when they gave accurate and specific references and figures. Instead of engaging with them, Hart threatened to chuck out Hoffman from the room.

It was Hart’s impotent and repeated threats to have Hoffman removed from the studio that really laid bare the true, absurd nature of the programme ... [N]o chairman interested in facilitating such a debate would ever invite guests to participate, only to shout over them, repeatedly cut them short, fail to offer them a chance to answer questions, and threaten to have them ‘evicted’ simply for expressing the views they had been invited to express in the first place....'

De mortuis nihil nisi bonum is an ancient adage.

But what about Jew-haters? Does "Speak no ill of the dead" apply to them?

On Atzmon's Facebook page Mr Hoffman has observed amid the tributes to Hart:

And brought upon himself criticism for his criticism, including personal attacks from Hart fans framed in antisemitic terms.  Here's an example:

Yes, Mr Hoffman does not flinch.  He isn't made that way.

Antisemitism: Stephen Sizer speaks out

See Jewish Chronicle: click HERE

As is clearly evident (see, for example, the Jewish Chronicle here and here) certain sections of the British Left, especially Corbynistas, are despicably opposed to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's Definition of Antisemitism.

To quote Board of Deputies president Jonathan Arkush:

"The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism is endorsed by the Jewish community in the UK and across Europe.

In the UK it is also supported by the government, the Labour Party and the National Union of Students – among many other bodies.

It beggars belief that anyone ... would want to dictate to Jews what constitutes antisemitic abuse against them."

A day or two ago on social media a follower of the Peacemaker Mediators' CEO asks him a question.  To which the ex-vicar, a Corbynista in case you didn't know, made an obtuse yet predictable reply:

Seems promising, this comment of Sizer's:

Until we reflect on the sting in the tail.  His ex-Reverence is one of the "Likers" of this comment in response:

And he's one of the four Likes for Hugh Walker's comment "... nobody likes exceptionalism":

The ex-vicar must surely feel it's reasonable to suspect of antisemitism someone who posts links to articles which claim that Israel was responsible for 9/11.

Nu, Mr Sizer?

How about those who, like Press TV  presenter Yvonne Ridley, talk of Israel's "dark arts" (an abominable phrase that conjures up medieval accusations that Jews poisoned wells and murdered Christian children at Passover) yet is apparently liked by Baroness Tonge, one of Sizer's Press TV and Peacemaker Mediators buddies.

 Anything you'd like to add in the way of enlightenment, Mr Sizer?

Nah. I guess not.

How about those who bear false witness against the aims of Zionism, like your friend Cozzens?  A contemptible bunch?

Silly me!  A redundant question on my part, as this old post of yours reveals:

And the economic cudgel against the Jewish State?

BDS is, in fact, as US Senator Chuck Schumer observed recently, just a repackaging of an old hatred:

'Antisemitism is a word that has been used throughout history when Jewish people are judged and measured by one standard and the rest by another.

When everyone else was allowed to farm and Jews could not; when anyone else could live in Moscow and Jews could not; when others could become academics or tradesmen and Jews could not,” he said. “The word to describe all of these acts is antisemitism. So it is with anti-Zionism; the idea that all other peoples can seek and defend their right to self-determination but Jews cannot; that other nations have a right to exist, but the Jewish state of Israel does not.

The global BDS movement is a deeply biased campaign that I would say, in similar words to Mr. [Emmanuel] Macron, is a "reinvented form of antisemitism" because it seeks to impose boycotts on Israel and not on any other nation.'

Stephen Sizer, this is not the first time you have advocated a single state to replace the legally constituted sovereign state of Israel.  Do not be surprised to find this extraordinary advocacy labelled antisemitism.  Once again, your lack of sympathy, of empathy, for the Jews of Israel, seems predicated on prejudice if not malice, and this blatant lack of objectivity gives the lie to any claim that your so-called Peacemaker Mediators as anything but a biased and mischievous body.

How can a body already blindly prejudiced against one side in a dispute "mediate" a just solution?

It is both a sad and a laughable presumption.

Finally, I draw to your attention, Mr Sizer, this article by Moshe Arens, in which Arens tells us baldly

"The leader of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement, whose battle cry is 'Al-Aqsa is in danger,' is the one most responsible for the current spate of violence"

 It's none other that Raed Salah whom Arens characterises as "Israel's inciter-in-chief"

Another of your anti-Israel chums from way back, eh, ex-vicar?

Deep sigh.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Not a wonderful advertisement for the integrity of Peacemaker Mediators, is it?


Certainly it's not calculated to make Israel ever entrust your mob with negotiations for a "peace settlement"!

Marvellous Melanie on British Leftist Antisemitism

Nobody tells it better than Ms Melanie Phillips.  A must-watch (or listen-to) video.

Nearly an hour's worth of footage, but this wonderful woman is worth every minute.

To quote the uploader:

 British Columnist for The Times, Melanie Phillips, critiques attempts
by the Left to equate Antisemitism with Islamophobia, distorting the
truth about Islamism in the process. JBS exclusive coverage of an
ISGAP program from the ISGAP Center in NYC.

Pamela Pamela: Her long and slimy trail

British journalist Leo McKinstry wrote:

"....Dressed up as criticism of the state of Israel, anti-Semitism is becoming not just tolerated but even fashionable in some of our civic institutions, including the universities and parts of the media.

Thanks to the Left’s neurotic hatred of Israel, we now have the extraordinary sight of self-styled liberal campaigners launching McCarthyite witch-hunts against anyone deemed to have Israeli connections, as in this week’s debate at the University and College Union’s annual conference at Bourne­mouth calling for a boycott of all Israeli academic institutions. 

 Respect for democracy, individual rights and freedom of speech are being crushed beneath the juggernaut of shrill indignation. 

What is particularly disturbing is the way opposition to the Jewish state descends into vicious antagonism against Jews themselves, as shown by this sickening recent outburst from writer Pamela Hardyment, a member of the National Union of Journalists, which in April voted to boycott Israeli goods.

Explaining her support for the NUJ’s stance, Ms Hardyment described Israel as “a wonderful Nazi-like killing machine backed by the world’s richest Jews”. 

Then, like some lunatic from the far-Right, she referred to the “so-called Holocaust” before concluding: “Shame on all Jews, may your lives be cursed.” ....

Such words could have come straight from Hitler or the most fervent supporter of Osama Bin Laden.But Ms Hardyment is hardly unique. 

This sort of seething resentment can be found throughout the Left, whether in demands that Israel be treated as a pariah state or in connivance at anti-Semitic propaganda...." 

A week later, Jewish Chronicle editor Stephen Pollard observed:

"....Some of those supporting a boycott are clearly the ‘useful idiots’ of the antisemites; they are not themselves antisemitic but are too blinded with hatred for to realise the real nature of their allies. But it is - and I'll put it no stronger than this - quite remarkable how many of those who call for a boycott, on whatever grounds, turn out to be plain old antisemites.

On Saturday, JCI received an email from one Pamela Hardyment, reacting to this stance on

Darfur . And it is, as I say, instructive. Her email gives the game away, exposing how much of the support for a boycott is suffused with antisemitism, pure and simple:

From: Pamela Hardyment

Sent: 26 May 2007 13:53

Subject:

Darfur

Ohmigod

You are worried about Dafur!!!!!!!!!!! Yet you have in a wonderful Nazi like killing machine (thousands of palestinians have died or are incarcerated in camps, including Gaza and the West Bank) backed by the world's richest jews and , you are joking about

Darfur aren't you?

Whatever you say, and I don't want to hear what you have to say because it will be the same old rhetoric, we in the UK have had enough of Israel, we (the NUJ of which I am a member) have finally voted to boycott Israeli goods (I have been doing this since 1957 so it just legitimises it and spreads the word, all items with 7.29 in the bar code, Jaffa Carmel, etc) - universities will bring in an academic boycott and architects are now joining in too. It won't stop there, we will do all in our power to make sure that you do not take any more land (you have already taken mine and refuse to pay for it). We can no longer send money to the PLO or Hamas, but we are sending people, we are not afraid of your wall, your evil soldiers (and you worry about one missing soldier, ha!) and will continue. We used to be mild, respected you because of the so called holocaust (a nice round number 6 million, what about the homosexuals, gypsies, deformed, dissenters, they NEVER get a mention and my family were among them)

So yes, we are very angry, we are working against Israel whereas before we supported you, and we will do all in our collective power to make life as uncomfortable for you as you make it for the Palestinians, shame on you, shame on all jews, may your lives be cursed

Yours with no shame whatsoever and no fear

pam hardyment

Ms Hardyment’s sentiments are representative of the underlying views of many boycott supporters. The references to the “Nazi like killing machinea¦ backed by the world's richest jews and America”, the “so called holocaust (a nice round number 6 milliona¦)” and “shame on all jews, may your lives be cursed”, may be more obvious than some of the more sly proponents of a boycott, who are careful to couch their arguments in apparently reasonable language; but antisemitism is antisemitism, whatever the tone in which it is expressed.' http://www.thejc.com/blogpost/the-real-antisemitism-underlying-boycotters

That was nine years ago, in May 2007.  As we know, the antisemitism that lurks within sections of the Labour Party persists and, emboldened and encouraged by Jeremy Corbyn's seemingly ambivalent attitude, now not infrequently shows its repellent face.

The last time I blogged about Ms Hardyment (described here as arts editor for the Palestine Telegraph) was two years ago almost to the day, when I reproduced some of her appallingly vile messages on Facebook, and asked whether Stephen Sizer should in all decency de-friend her. (Guess what? Despite her heavy duty antisemitism he hasn't.)

As many readers will be aware, late last year she made this shameful if not uncharacteristic outburst:

As we read here,  that outburst earned her the attention of PC Plod.

Another tasteless display from her:

These days on Facebook Pamela Hardyment goes by the name Pamela, or rather Pam, Arnold.  But her change of name has not heralded a change of heart.

Let's look at some of the nasties including eye-popping antisemitic obscenities she's posted so far this year:

Yes, like a slug, Pamela leaves a long and slimy trail.