Stinkers From the Swamp: Stephen Sizer's "Sad Day"

"A sad day."  

That's the so-called Peacemaker Trust's CEO Stephen Sizer's reaction to the loathsome life peer Jenny Tonge's news of the parting of the ways between her and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign over her reprehensible assertion regarding last week's synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh.

David Collier observes in his latest analytical post ("In the antisemitic swamp with Jenny Tonge")  here,

"As someone who spends time researching antisemitism within anti-Israel activism, I [Collier] frequently come across Jenny Tonge’s activity online. What I have known for a long time, is that many of the supporters she regularly interacts with are hard-core antisemites. I pointed this out in my report on Palestine Live, and even to this day, Tonge has remained a member of the group....

 63% of posters were found to have shared antisemitic material. When we include those who are responsible for putting antisemitism onto the streets, or helping to spread it, then we reach 72%. These are her Facebook friends. Even for me, with years of research behind me, these concentration levels are as high, if not higher than I have experienced before. This on the social media account of a member of the House of Lords.

These levels reinforce the underlying issue with antisemitism in anti-Israel activity. Whether Jenny Tonge is an antisemite herself is an irrelevance. What is certain is that she is surrounded by it. Antisemites are attracted to her presence and form the main basis of her visible support.

How can Jenny Tonge not be aware, after all this time, that so many of these people swarming around her social media pages have deep issues with Jewish people? Far too many of these posters are attracted to Holocaust Denial, and a support for ideologies of the hard-right. In the images above we have support for David Duke, Trevor Labonte, Gilad Atzmon and there is even a link to the white nationalist, neo-Nazi website Renegade Tribune. How many Holocaust deniers, how many people sharing white supremacist material, do we need on ONE THREAD, before we can call them ‘far-right racists’? More to the point, how can Jenny Tonge swim in this antisemitic swamp every day and not realise that there is a problem she needs to address?

Perhaps the time has come for other members of the House of Lords to force her hand."

Among the individuals Collier mentions in his post are our old mate the ex-vicar of Virginia Water, and, at length, the latter's Facebook chum Tony Gratrex (a founder of Reading PSC and an inveterate 9/11 truther).

As I've remarked many times, Sizer really needs to defriend Gratrex and other incorrigibles on his social media posts, if he is in earnest about his own denials of antisemitism. 

But he carries on regardless.  The pseudonymous Christian Israel-hater Harriet S. Place, who happens to be featured in the above example of Gratrex's posts posted by Collier (there are others) is a repeat offender in the conspiracy stakes.  Witness these posts, for instance.

(The self-inflicted scars incurred by that infamous 9/11 Facebook post of yours, eh, vicar?)

.
 The reference immediately below is to blogger and Anglican vicar's husband Robert Cohen,

 Stinkers from the swamp, indeed.

Pieces of Hate: "The Palestinian cause is ... for the exploited & oppressed masses in our era"

In London last week, a mob of abusive Palestine Solidarity Campaign activists taunt an unexpected showing of pro-Israelis, standing in dignified fashion in silent counter-protest while the PSCniks raise fists in the air, rasp familiar chants, sound a silly shrill trill, and even indulge in a taunting improvised rhyme that includes da Joo word.

 The doughty David Collier gives the context (and another video) here

And in Toronto on Al Quds Day teacher Nadia Shoufani reminds her fellow Israel-haters of another Israel-hater's words ("... We are here to urge you all to believe ... that the Palestinian cause is not a cause for Palestinians only but it's a cause for every revolutionary whereever he [sic] is, a cause for the exploited and oppressed masses in our era ...") before launching into a full-scale rant against the Zionist Entity.

There's a very able refutation here of her damaging nonsense

(Hat tip: Vlad Tepes blog)


Meanwhile, an old friend of ours, Jeremy Moodey, CEO of Engage the Middle East, surfaced in the correspondence columns of the Church of England newspaper (12 May) to argue against its behind-a-paywall editorial of the previous week.  (Hat tip: reader P)

Notice that Moodey has the spiteful audacity to consider Israel a "rogue" state.  He implicitly favours an end to Jewish statehood.

Shame, shame, shame on him.

On social media, another old friend of ours, Stephen Sizer, likes the dissembling Israel-bash, and incorrigible antisemite and 9/11 troofer Tony Gratrex (founder of Reading PSC)  seems equally pleased, sharing the article.

 In defiance, I think we should give this fine fellow with the magnificent moustache a twirl:

PSC Branch Organiser Keeping Antisemitic Company (again)

Tony Gratrex, who was (I'm not sure whether he still is) organiser of the Reading Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) branch, has veered into antisemitism on several occasions.  See, for instance, here and here

I've drawn attention in a couple or more posts to the antisemitic stuff that he tolerates on his Facebook wall.

On January 27, Holocaust Memorial Day, this vile antisemitic post appeared on Facebook, from a group that specialises in antisemitic anti-Israel material that make its way to Mr Gratrex's wall.   Shame to say, Mr Gratrex seems to approve:

Gratrex's Facebook friends, in addition to overt antisemites, include the vicar of Virginia Water (account at present suspended), members of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the CEO of a well-known Israel-criticising NGO, and members of Jewish Israel-bashing fringe organisations.

Surely these people don't want to be associated any longer with a man who approves of such posts as that.

Isn't it high time for them to de-friend him?

Meanwhile, from the new Bishop of Guildford on Twitter:

The Antisemitic Likes Of A Palestine Solidarity Campaign Organiser: Sarah Colborne, does the PSC approve?

Tony Gratrex, an anti-Israel activist in the UK, has long been associated with the Reading branch of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (unambiguous Israel-delegitimising logo at left).  It's a branch that, despite the apparent disapproval by the PSC top brass of branches linking on their websites to articles in the Redress online rag, since Redress is blatantly antisemitic, does so.

This is how a post on the well-known blog Harry's Place referred, inter alia,  to Gratrex in 2011:

'Gratrex is an organiser for the Reading Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Reading PSC keeps tabs on the Viva Palestina convoys, and is very supportive of their work.

Gratrex has also been a guest speaker at Oxford PSC, attended a branch meeting at Bristol PSC, and was affiliated with the Bristol Convoy of Viva Palestina....

Here is what Gratrex thinks about “the Jews”, in a comment addressed to Jenny Tonge:

 I admire the work you do and am in agreement with virtually everything you say except for your attitude regarding the media.

You state that the jews do not control the media but that it is under self censorship.

This is patently wrong and only a cursory glance using the internet will show that a majority of the media is jewish owned or controlled.

During the interview you use the expression “who pays the piper calls the tune” and that is precisely the problem when one considers who controls the international banking system.

So Jews control the media, global financing, and the world.

Gratrex left the comment on the blog of Alan Hart, a 9-11 truther.

Here’s Gratrex on reading about the Holocaust in an article about an Israeli spy in Germany:

With the mention of the holocaust in this article I can only think again of Norman Finkelsteins book; The Holocaust Industry (Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering). How much longer is Israel going to continue to blackmail the world? 

So Israel = Europe’s Jews. The surviving Jews are blackmailing the world....'

A subsequent post on Harry's Place that same year noted:

'Here’s another comment, not in the original report, that Gratrex left on an overtly anti-Semitic blog:

 Not all adherents to the Torah are enemies of humanity.

    You are forgetting the Neturei Karta Jews

Aside from the obvious anti-Semitism of calling all but a tiny handful of Jews “enemies of humanity”, one wonders what attracted Mr Gratrex to this particular blog… '

 Gratrex's eyebrow-raising record has been mentioned on my blog before; most recently here

His Facebook page over the past few days includes a number of items that give the lie to the notion that the Palestine Solidarity Campaign has no truck with antisemitism.

Here are a trio of examples that should make the PSC ashamed, and which should have at least one of Gratrex's Facebook buddies, the Rev. Stephen Sizer, pushing the de-friend button.

Do we assume that the Palestine Solidarity Campaign approves Gratrex's flirtations with this crude antisemitism?

Perhaps  PSC director Sarah Colborne can enlighten us.

The Hand That Rocks Wikipedia ...

Among the more eyebrow-raising of the referees enlisted by peripatetic – recently in South Korea, he's since been on a lecture tour of Algeria – anti-Zionist crusader the Reverend Stephen Sizer, to convince his diocesan bishop  that, contrary to perceptions by the Board of Deputies of British Jews (among others), he's not antisemitic, is retired aerospace engineer Tony Gratrex.

Mr Gratrex wrote in part in his letter to "Dear Bishop Christopher":

"In the late 1960's I lived close to Dachau whilst working in Munich. This gave me the opportunity to visit the concentration camp there many times.

Each time I visited the camp I would a[l]ways ask myself the same question; what were the Christian Church leaders in Germany doing at this time? The answer was, keeping their heads down most of the time.

Then I found out there were some few like Dietrich Bonhoeffer who didn't. In the early 1980s I was living and working in Israel. It was only then that I became aware of the history of what happened to the Palestinians....

For me Stephen Sizer is another Dietrich Bonhoeffer, but I pray there will be a better outcome.

Oh! the ironies of history."

It hardly takes a Mensa IQ to recognise, and reject, the repellent analogy implied.

A blogpost on Harry's Place stated, inter alia, a couple of years ago,

"Gratrex is an organiser for the Reading Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Reading PSC [which unlike many if not most PSC branches does not shrink from linking on its website to overtly antisemitic material, causing concern even to a prominent anti-Zionist Jew, as seen in this JC blogpost  dating to 2010 and its comments] keeps tabs on the Viva Palestina convoys, and is very supportive of their work.Gratrex has also been a guest speaker at Oxford PSC, attended a branch meeting at Bristol PSC, and was affiliated with the Bristol Convoy of Viva Palestina....

 Here is what Gratrex thinks about “the Jews”, in a comment addressed to Jenny Tonge:

I admire the work you do and am in agreement with virtually everything you say except for your attitude regarding the media.

You state that the jews do not control the media but that it is under self censorship. This is patently wrong and only a cursory glance using the internet will show that a majority of the media is jewish owned or controlled.

During the interview you use the expression “who pays the piper calls the tune” and that is precisely the problem when one considers who controls the international banking system.So Jews control the media, global financing, and the world. [Emphasis added here and below]

Gratrex left the comment on the blog of Alan Hart, a 9-11 truther.

Here’s Gratrex on reading about the Holocaust in an article about an Israeli spy in Germany:

With the mention of the holocaust in this article I can only think again of Norman Finkelsteins book; The Holocaust Industry (Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering). How much longer is Israel going to continue to blackmail the world?"

 Another blogpost on Harry's Place, by a different author, subsequently added:

'In the original report, Harry’s Place revealed who Gratrex thought controlled the media and international banking ....

Here’s another comment, not in the original report, that Gratrex left on an overtly anti-Semitic blog:

 Not all adherents to the Torah are enemies of humanity. You are forgetting the Neturei Karta Jews

 Aside from the obvious anti-Semitism of calling all but a tiny handful of Jews “enemies of humanity”, one wonders what attracted Mr Gratrex to this particular blog…'

Reader P, who's supplied me with several screenshots of Sizerisms in the past, has sent me this recent screenshot from Facebook:

Gratrex was commenting following fulminations by Stephen Sizer about changes to his own biographical entry on Wikipedia and on Wikipedia's editing policy:

"I am really sick of the way some people are manipulating my Wikipedia entry. I would be very grateful if some balance could be restored and some of the innuendo, slander and just plain nastiness could be removed or put more constructively ["That unmistakeable odour of Zioslime," commented one of his followers]."

A pro-Palestine activist from Worcester advised that, in response to that lament, he'd logged into Wikipedia to edit Sizer's entry, only to have what he'd written removed:

'....I added information at the end of the "censorship incident" section. I wrote the following:

"Less widely reported is the fact that [Joseph] Weissman’s attacks on Stephen Sizer were conducted from behind multiple anonymous identities and that in addition to his offensive blog (he falsely accused Stephen Sizer of “supporting terrorist activity against Israel”). Weissman himself sought to censor Stephen Sizer’s views, writing letters to organisations hosting Stephen Sizer “demanding that they cancel his appearances”

I used the following two references:

http://www.richardsilverstein.com/.../english-cyberbully.../

 http://seismicshock.wordpress.com/.../richard.../

I have just been back to the page and my addition has gone. I found an edit history section in which it appears that the person who I presume has removed my submission has put a comment alongside the record of their edit as follows "(Are you joking? No, this can't be included)".

Do I simply put it back? Do I complain? What is my next step? Any advice warmly welcomed.'

 Sizer:

"Yes put it back. This is how the Zionist Lobby try to make Wikipedia their private tool of propoganda [sic]."

Reply:

'So I have just seen! The latest message  – accompanied by a warning triangle with exclamation mark.

" Please stop adding unreferenced or poorly referenced biographical content, especially if controversial, to articles or any other Wikipedia page. Content of this nature could be regarded as defamatory and is in violation of Wikipedia policy. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing "....'

 Sizer:

'Take it up the food chain. Threaten to have her blocked for arrogance...

I know of some heavyweight 'friends' about to engage with Wikipedia –  watch this space..." 

Reply:

"My addition has been reinstated again as indicated previously to the censor in a message. I note that she is a very active Wikipedia contributor and so if she were to be blocked herself then I suspect that might hurt. I will pick this up again tomorrow...."

Sizer:

"'Very active Wikipedia contributor' that's how you exert influence - like being a generous donor to a university until they invite a Palestinian guest speaker..."

Sizer again:

"....[E]very initiative puts the Lobby on the defensive. Every proactive step, however small, challenges their position and forces them to be reactive – and remember they are reading this too. Among those who 'follow' me are some known to be working for the Lobby."

Reply:

'I have been back to your wiki entry, Stephen and added the Anthony Julius quote which acknowledges that you reject "any position that threatens the territorial integrity of Israel as a sovereign nation" and describes your work as having “the merit of clearly setting out the issues that divide the two sides, and furthermore doing so without the rancour or sheer nastiness of tone typical of the polemics in the conflict". It might not undo all of the poisonous lies and distortions that have been spewed out but I think it does represent a rational and credible alternative perspective to some of those cluttering up the page.'

Alas and alack!

The official publication date of Anthony Julius's magisterial tome on antisemitism in Britain, Trials of the Diaspora, was May 2010.  Since that date (if not before), Sizer has left on record at least one statement undermining the claim that he 'rejects "any position that threatens the territorial integrity of Israel as a sovereign nation"':

Here's a screenshot:

 Oy!

I wonder why Wikipedia, being allegedly in thraldom to "the Zionist Jews," has so far neglected to add an amendment pointing that out ...