My Right Word: August 2018

Friday, August 31, 2018

A Fact Falsifier and An Adulterator of History

Nimer Sultany is Senior Lecturer in Public Law, the School of Oriental and African Studies at University of London and a member of its Center for Palestine Studies. Sultany expresses an affinity and identification with "radical left theoretical thought and radical left practice". At that Center, a graduate student, and undergraduates as well I would presume,

will develop an understanding of Palestinian history, political structure, development, culture and society.

As for Israel, insight into the school's agenda perhaps could be gained from what Sultany published in one of his early articles on Israel's Supreme Court, he paraphrases David Grossman's, The Yellow Wind, writing of "occupation" that

With one stroke, the West Bank becomes Judea and Samaria, Nablus becomes Schem, al-Khalil turns into Hebron, and the Occupied Territories become the Area, the administered Territories or the Territories. Language becomes a mechanism to disguise and conceal the reality, a mechanism to present an alternative reality by giving it new packaging.

I would maintain that that semantic sleight-of-mind is exactly what the Arabs-called-Palestinians have done and do to Eretz-Yisrael. By the way, Nablus is the Arabic pronunciation of Neapolis, the Roman name for Shchem, just as Filastin is the approximation in Arabic pronunciation (the language has no 'P' sound) of Palestina, the Latin term the Romans awarded vanquished Judea.

He now has an essay, in Critical Legal Thinking — Law and the Political" no less, which attacks Zionism as imperialist, non-democratic, illiberal nationalism, settler colonialism, etc., and challenges liberals when he writes

modern day-liberals deny the Palestinians’ the ability to meaningfully resist their servitude

There is much too much there to fisk and illustrate the lack of academic integrity, factual presentation and historical misrepresentation, like the "illiberal and anti-democratic genesis of Zionism" (whatever that means and as if 'Palestinian Arab' politics are somehow democratic and liberal), but I did comment on one assertion of his. I wrote:

I am still digesting all this but at the end you mention a Palestinian "right of return". Two points:

a. is there truly a "right" of return or but an option; the other being compensation?
b. since UN 190 originally was to be applied to "Palestine Refugees" (not "Palestinian Refugees" as if only Arabs somehow were to be numbered) which, of course, included over 10,000 Jews (20,000 if the Jews forced to move from their homes during 1920-1948 due to an Arab campaign of ethnic cleansing are counted), can not Jews make an equal-value claim for a right to return to Hebron, Gaza, Shchem, etc., where Jewish communities had existed, many for centuries and even before the Arab conquest and occupation of 638 CE?

Basing himself on Hannah Arendt, Sultany states that "the fertile ground for the rise of Zionism" was predicated on "the secularization of European Jewry" and "anti-Semitism and the rise of assimilated Jewish intelligentsia." If I am to fathom that, am I to understand that religion, culture and a 3000-year history the Jews possessed had little if anything to do with Zionism? No tribal federation, kings, priests and prophets in Eretz-Yisrael? I can relax knowing Sultany will not accuse me of Biblical messianism?

Totally out of time and place, I think he is somewhere in the 1920s, he again seeks out Arendt to justify his racism, his ignorance and his prejudices:

Arendt (The Jewish Writings 180-181, 354) points out that “Zionism has never been a true popular movement..."

That is not true. With the majority of Jews in Israel, it patently is not true. Even then, the Bund, Zionism's main competitor for the "gasse", the Jewish street, was down and out in Soviet Russia. The waves of post-1948 waves of immigration also prove Arendt wrong then and surely today.

He purports that Zionists who seek to separate between 1967 and 1948, between consequences and origins, err in that they are engaged in "reducing the ongoing nature of the settler colonial enterprise into an event". So what were the Jews in Eretz-Yisrael doing when they revolted in 132 CE under Bar Kochba's leadership, in 363 CE when they responded to the permission decree of Justinian to rebuild the Temple, in 400 CE when they finished redacting the Jerusalem Talmud and on and on throughout the 1800 years of loss of political sovereignty when, despite that situation, the lived, immigrated to, planted and built prior to the appearance of political Zionism of Herzl.

How much is a professor at a London university allowed to lie, fabricate and mislead?

Two leading anti-Zionists are praised as having provided "cool-headed warnings". Quite the academic terminology there.

And how does he 'prove' Zionism is "colonialism"? In part by quoting Moshe Hess, "a founder of Labor Zionism" [?], who

envision[ed] in his Rome and Jerusalem (1856) “the founding of Jewish colonies in the land of their ancestors”

as if the term "colonies" had anything to do with the charge he is making against a people returning to the land of its fathers and mothers, as if the League of Nations knew nothing about this when they wrote in its 1922 Mandate decision that

recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country;

Sultany, his students should know, is but a cheap propagandist, a falsifier of facts and an adulterator of political, social and cultural history.

^

Monday, August 27, 2018

Martin Peretz Falls Victim to Fake News

Martin Peretz, former editor of The New Republic for 35 years, has an opinion concerning Israel's newest legislation brouhaha, the Nation State Law, and he published it in the New York Times.

To his thinking, the "West Bank Model Is a Failure And Israel’s new nation-state law will import those failures into Israel itself".

Israel, as he describes, is

a state whose symbols are Jewish; whose holidays and calendar come from the Jewish tradition; whose gates are always open to any Jew seeking refuge or a new home; whose government is accountable to an elected parliament; whose administration operates within the bounds of law; whose free market grows and brings in more people from more diverse backgrounds to participate in its activities; and whose people are entitled to the minimum civil and legal protections of a modern free society regardless of their religion or ethnicity.

I can see that but his next paragraph reads that the new nation-state law is

odious

Why?

Well, he makes an error - and there's no better place to make an error than on the pages of the New York Times - writing that the law

says that “development of Jewish settlement” is a “national value” — settlement including in the West Bank.

Does it?

No.

It does not.

Section 7 reads: "The state views Jewish settlement as a national value and will labor to encourage and promote its establishment and development."

To be fair to Peretz, an earlier draft of the bill was more limiting by expressly restricting that activity to promoting

Jewish settlement within its [the State's] boundaries

But that would have included at least all of the post-1967 neighborhoods in Jerusalem. I trust, however, that Peretz does not consider Ramat Eshkol, Gilo, Ha Homa, etc. as "settlements".

Yet to be very fair to Israel and Zionism, the League of Nations Mandate decision charging Great Britain with reconstituting the Jewish national home in a Palestine after removing the territory of Transjordan (see Article 25) does includes, in Article 6, this very forthright and clear statement of support for Jewish 'settlement' throughout the Land of Israel west of the Jordan River:

"The Administration of Palestine...shall encourage, in co-operation with the Jewish agency referred to in Article 4, close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes."

Peretz and Arabs may gnash their teeth but "settlement", or actually resettlement, is an internationally-recognized and confirmed right of the Jews. Close settlement, to be exact.

And he continues to mislead:

Why not change this clause to exclude the hyper-controversial West Bank settlement project?

Mr. Peretz, it isn't there. It is not in the text.

He continues further:

the inclusion of the West Bank settlements points to what the law truly represents: A small minority is trying to make Israeli society as a whole resemble the model of Israeli government in the territories.

"West Bank" isn't there. And settlement takes place in the Negev and the Galilee as well.

And as regards numbers, he asserts

in the West Bank the Jewish population, even after 50 years of settlement, still doesn’t reach 15 percent. The “West Bank model” may or may not be Jewish, but if it is Jewish, it certainly isn’t on account of demographics.

One other point irks him and that he fears Israel's continued presence in Judea and Samaria is inimical to the state of Israel. As he explains:

The present law — accidentally or not, and probably not — will import the West Bank model into Israel. That will be a catastrophe.

Mr. Peretz, the "model" is what Jews have always been doing: settling in the Land of Israel -

Take possession of the land and settle in it, for I have given you the land to possess. - Numbers 33:53 ( וְהוֹרַשְׁתֶּם אֶת-הָאָרֶץ, וִישַׁבְתֶּם-בָּהּ... וְהִתְנַחַלְתֶּם אֶת-הָאָרֶץ )

Of course, Mr. Peretz can claim that he knows the real intentions even if the words he claims are there simply aren't.

But intent has to be proven. Peretz hasn't done that.

P.S.

Here is the comment I got into the comments' section at the NYT.

Saturday, August 25, 2018

Dosh - and Lechi

The Jerusalem Post Weekend Magazine, in its August 17 edition, devoted attention to Kardiel Gardosh, the famous "Dosh", one of Israel's premier political caricaturists.

He created for "Maariv" the Srulik image of young Israel.

As you can, a brief biography appears off to the side in a 'box' authored by Talia Levin.

What isn't there is his membership in the Lechi, the Fighters for the Freedom of Israel (FFI).

He joined sometime in 1946 in France to where he emigrated from Hungary with his then wife. He and she sought out the underground contacts, trained in small arms use and contributed his cartoons and illustrations to the Lechi press in Mandate Palestine. His non de plume was Shir

He worked with Betty Knout, who was also in the French anti-German Resistance.

Immigrating in early 1948, he first joined the staff of the Lechi's legal newspaper, "HaMivrak", (that had begun as a joint venture with Tnuat HaAm of Binyamin Lubotzky and Yigal Horowitz). He then drew for Herut:

Yes, there really was a right-wing in Zionism with cartoonists, journalists, novelists, poets, playwrights and other cultural spheres of activities.

^

Wednesday, August 22, 2018

On The Voices Denying An "Arab Palestinian People"

The following was published at Facebook here.

It follows from the publication of an op-ed.

Of course, there were comments. A few I'll place at the bottom of this.

The content zeroes in on one aspect of the original op-ed and responds to comments previously made on his piece. I feel some fisking is required as it relates to the issue of the right of Jewish to resettle the Land of Israel and the ramifications of our presence there. I Iwill, however, include the entire text so as to avoid charges of selective quoting.

The FB post and my comments in blue and bracketed:

To each and every one of you that wrote to me about using the word "Ashkenazi" in my article to inquire about it, to ask why I did it, or who publicly (or privately) had to made a statement, calling me a Jew hater, anti-Israel, dangerous, racist, etc.

Ask yourself: when was the last time you were as outraged about race issues? About actual racial injustices against minorities? When was the last time you spoke about race issues in Israel? Did you speak out about the discrimination against Mizrahim in Israel? [This is an issue that Menachem Begin and his Herut Party got involved in almost from the start, 1949. His famous election eve speech in June 1981 was on this charge. As A Betari and Herut member, I can vouch that I and hundreds of thousands of Ashkenazi Jews did speak out and even did something and even improved the situation] Against the disproportionate representation of minorities like Mizrahim and of course Ethiopians, Druzim, Arabs, in leadership of most industries and official bodies? [Two of my daughters went to Addis Abba for several weeks to do community work, including Pesach] Did you protest in the streets for the Ethiopians? [I was involved with כנף דרום לציון {South Wing to Zion} run by now Likud MK Avraham Neguise and Yehuda Etzion in the late 1980s and almost went to Addis with Geulah Cohen in 1991] For any of the minorities in Israel?

If the last time it happened was my article, because I mentioned Ashkenazim in a way that you didn’t like, it dose [sic] not make me the racist.

These are the facts:
- Jews are indigenous to Israel whether Ashkenazi or Mizrahi, I’ve mentioned it in my article.
- There is a disproportionate number of North American immigrants in the settlements. [I would love to see the proof of that, especially as compared to any other immigrant group, like from the former Soviet Union. I think we are more highly profiled due to the need of journalists to speak with someone who actually speaks a passable English for TV & radio interviews. Even Sara Hirschhorn's figures are disputed]
- The majority of North American Jews are of Ashkenazi descent (90%) [and? until the early 19th century, most immigrant Jews in the United States were of a Sfaradi origin but things change and Jews could get out of Europe but either couldn't from Arab/Islamic lands or didn't want to]
- Ashkenazim in Israel have a history of discrimination against Mizrahim and minority communities in Israel. [that could be understood as a bit racist. I think Yemenites discriminate against everyone, Iraqis don't appreciate North Africans and vice versa and so on]
- The fact that those voices, in my personal experience (as I wrote), are so passionate not about returning to our legitimate homeland, but about *denying* another peoples connection to the land, is exactly the irony I was talking about. ["those" re those that discriminate? Sfaradim do not *deny* Arabs recognition as a separate national grouping inherently "Palestinian"? really? And, by the way, although I cannot point to figures, the proportion of "mixed" Ashkenazi-Mizrachi/Sfaradi marriages in the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria I think are quite high or impressive as compared to any other sub-community in Israel]

That is not to say that there aren't racist intolerant Mizrahim [whew!], it is to say that there is a problem in Israel with race, and coincidentally the group with a history of institutionalized racism against people of color is the same group in the West Bank who is vocally opposing Palestinian self-determination, from what I have seen. [that is an opinion, a problematic one and a charge I would deny]

All of the radical right wing experts on "how to appeal to progressives and millennials" and the fake progressives that went to universities in the US and in their time achieved nothing but creating more noise about BDS and more hate against Jews [ah, it's those "experts' fault?], all the linguistic experts on which words work and how to make “the case for Israel to liberals” that have failed over and over again, [and the writer has succeeded? as a progressive Mizrachi?] All of you that challenge my commitment to my country [very few challenged your commitment. Almost all challenged your charges, your "facts" and your perspectives] when you served for few months, or never at all [poor Shimon Peres, having not served in the IDF], in the Israeli army while I gave 5 years, All of you that were born and raised in the diaspora and still feel comfortable attacking an Israeli that STILL lives here [I'm still here after 48 years] and dedicated the last 7 years of my life to defending Israel around the world, facing hundreds of protestors, and all of you that liked me as long as I say only what you want to hear, then you “love” me...

To all of you, know that if anything, today you’ve pushed me away, further, and you've made my case for me. You are the problem.[no, your ideological perceptions and your new opinions are problematic as they are based on facts that aren't quite facts]

----------------------------------------

Comments at the post:

I had a similar experience while in Israel in the late 60s/early 70s.... I will not name the kibbutz, but suffice to say that it was populated with mainly European Jews - most being Holocaust survivors, and a very few of Turkish and other Middle=Eastern descent.... I have witnessed discrimination, racial and, yes, fist fights ... it left a bitter taste in my mouth....

Truth. Internalized Whiteness is a problem among left wing and right wing Jews, among Ashkenazim and Sephardim

As an Ashkenazi, I completely agree with you. Sometimes feels like there’s no unity between our own people. Truly disappointing.

I strongly disagree with some of your words and points you make but will never attack you on a personal level. I am very sad about the whole Ashkenazi/Mizrahi thing. We are Jews and it does not make the slightest difference where you lived in the diaspora and with whom you mixed. We all are from the twelve tribes no matter the shade of our skin. We are JEWS! That is it. And if there are more Jews from America in Judea and Samaria so be it, it does not matter. They are Jewish residents, not settlers, not Ashkenazim but Jewish residents of Israel.

No one should doubt your commitment to Israel. My father’s family has been in Israel since before the Ottoman’s and I grew up hearing about how the Ashkenazim just came in and took over. Needless to say there was resentment. What you said isn’t easy for everyone to hear, that’s why you are receiving the backlash.

[calling me a Jew hater, anti-Israel, dangerous, racist, etc.]

I never called you any of these things. In fact, I never insulted you at all.

[Ask yourself: when was the last time you were as outraged about race issues? About actual racial injustices against minorities?]

I speak about this stuff constantly. In fact, it's all I ever talk about.

In case you've forgotten, Jews in North America are on the receiving end of racist abuse as well.

[Did you speak out about the discrimination against Mizrahim in Israel? Against the disproportionate representation of minorities like Mizrahim and of course Ethiopians, Druzim, Arabs, in leadership of most industries and official bodies? Did you protest in the streets for the Ethiopians? For any of the minorities in Israel? ]

How about last week when I chided Bibi for the nation state law and lost like 50 friends in less than an hour?

[All of the radical right wing experts on "how to appeal to progressives and millennials" and the fake progressives that went to universities in the US and in their time achieved nothing but creating more noise about BDS and more hate against Jews, all the linguistic experts on which words work and how to make “the case for Israel to liberals” that have failed over and over again,]

This is where you've lost me.

If you're going to label everybody who took umbrage at that particular passage as "radical right wingers", then I suppose I am not all that welcome here.

I'll bow out. Sorry for bothering you.

Sorry, in my opinion you zigged here when you should have zagged.

Your article in the Forward was incorrect and wrong in many parts and went way to far in trying to make its points. That certainly makes it fair game for discussion and criticism. It doesn’t make it fair game for questioning your commitment to Israel or to Zionism.

But your response here is incredibly defensive. Like your article itself, it goes too far. And I guarantee you that many of the people who object to many of the things you wrote in your article in the Forward have served the country for years and protested and fought against discrimination against Ethiopians and Mizrachim; and find all efforts to somehow say or imply that any group of Jews is somehow more “Jewish” or more indigenous to Eretz Yisrael than any other group wrong. Very wrong.

You did that in your article (among other things) and you also asserted that Arabs too have the claim to being indigenous to the land of Israel, which is also simply wrong.

These are things that I object to in your article and these are things I think we should be able to discuss without hyperbole and without accusations of hypocrisy or racism.

As you know, I fully support the goal of trying to connect with more people about the justice of Zionism and the incredible story that is the Jewish people’s return to sovereignty in their indigenous homeland. And I support and respect your passion for expanding that reach. I just think this article missed the mark and that it unfortunately could be used as another tool in the hands of those who seek to demonize and delegitimize Israel.

I am sure you disagree with me on this point. But I hope that is something we can discuss without vitriol or anger. Just as two Zionists who love Israel and the Jewish people and who want to figure out the best way (in our own little way) to help both as much as we can.

I can only speak for myself but you seem to be increasingly confusing legitimate criticism with a personal attack on your character...

With respect to those agreeing that Ashkenazis have discriminated against Mizrachi and others in Israel, sorry but that is a red herring. A straw man. I doubt many of the people critical of the article in the Forward disagree with that fact and in any event that is not what the article was about. At all.

Correct. It has nothing to do with the substance of the criticism.

Malkah's point is fine. Contend with it. But even still, how many compared to people who offered up legitimate concerns and also why not specify in this post that you are *not* referring to legitimate concerns
there are post’s and comments all over, whatsapp groups conversations, private messages I’m not going to screenshot everything. Just giving a taste. You’re content with “verbally assaults anyone who isn’t walking his party line”?
And specify what in this post?
I'm saying it's not an insulting accusation. Perhaps it's an incorrect accusation. But she's not calling you a name. So why not contend with it.
yeah, it’s an incorrect accusation, sorry, nvm
Correct. It has nothing to do with the substance of the criticism.

It’s very good that you got people thinking about so many issues.

Shalom! I’m only responding to the question you raised at the beginning of your defensive rant: “When was the last time you......” The last time, the many times, I thought/wrote was as a volunteer with an Ethiopian Israeli community in NYC.

you are one of the most dedicated pro-Israel people on the planet. That's a fact. I admire that. As for the discrimination, it exists. But don't you think it's lessening? As I said in one of my previous comments, there are so many "mixed" Israelis here now - like my three children. They don't consider themselves Mizrahi or Ashkenazi - if you asked them they would say that they are just Israelis.

No. Absolutely incorrect. I hope this isn't the best Israel education cam produce. Thus is basic history. The people who a history of institutionalized racism against mizrahim in Israel are on the Left and are opposed to west bank settlements.

I admire what you do and I'm sure your conclusions in this article are based on your personal experience - but there are two I would like to challenge: the first is that Palestinians want self-determination in the territories (all the evidence points to the fact they want a state in place of, not alongside Israel - a case not of self-determination but of Arab/Muslim imperialism as you yourself have written); the second is that the worst anti-Mizrahi racists are to be found on the Ashkenazi settler right. My view is that the left is equally, if not more racist towards Mizrahim, wilfully neglecting their grievances and refusing to recognise their rights to justice in the Arab-Israeli conflict. A case in point is the disgraceful way the Forward itself has covered the Iraqi-Jewish archive, showing more empathy to Iraqi claims than to the Jewish victims, and then refusing to publish letters from these Jews.

I don't think it's fair to blame the Ashkenzim from North America for the discrimination Mizrahim faced in Israel before they even made aliya. And in general, religious communities were not exactly beloved by the Mapay establishment, either, and outside of the major cities, settlers tend to be religious Zionists. So I don't think the argument of discrimination against Mizrahim is relevant to the Ashkenazim that your article is about.

What? You spoke of everybody who took issue with that one line in your article as if we're a monolithic hive of reactionary racist "settler" wingnuts. That's what I was challenging. I never at any point insulted you. I never questioned your Zionism. I never called you a Jew hater. All I did was express concern over that paragraph and, as politely as I could, explain how it could be read/taken the wrong way (which it was). But the next thing I know, you're calling me a radical right winger. What the hell, man?

Tuesday, August 21, 2018

Will So. Africa's Land Expropriation Be Copied by the Palestinian Authority?

I am going to make an educated - and informed - guess that what South Africa is now doing, will be applied by the Arabs-called-Palestinians. After all, they consider Zionism as colonialism.

And what are they doing in South Africa?

They have passed legislation, back in February, to begin a process to amend the country's Constitution to allow land expropriation without compensation. There were those who voted against as they considered a proposal to expropriate land without compensation is one that "undermines” property rights.

As it has been noted, this probably, economically, is a bad idea. Its neighbor, Zimbabwe, had a bad experience with expropriation without compensation:

Zimbabweans might have seized the land without compensation 18 years ago, but they collectively paid for it through eight consecutive years of economic decline that led to job losses, deindustrialization and a loss of agricultural export revenues.

But South Africa has already gotten onto the process, even if to test the legality of the matter:

Land Reform Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane signed another two final orders for expropriation in terms of section 42E of the Restitution of Land Rights Act, where negotiations have become deadlocked. While government is willing to pay for the land, the Akkerland case comes as the ANC’s top structures have decided over the past weeks that government must urgently proceed with test cases in order to test the concept of expropriation without compensation.
Mokona emphasised that there was no talk of expropriation without compensation, but that the courts would have to give clarity on what constitutes “just and equitable” compensation.

The Palestinian Authority looks to South Africa as a model and will go the same way.

Given, though, it behavior in Gaza, with the loss and destruction of all the agricultural advancements the Jews accomplished there, Zimbabwe is probably what will be copied.

^

Thursday, August 16, 2018

What's the Big Deal About Corbyn and UK Labour?

With the help of friends, a list in no particular order or prominence:

A.

A by no means exhaustive time line of antisemitsm within the Labour Party H/T Spectator blog

1. Corbyn came to the defence of Sheikh Raed Salah, who revived the medieval anti-Semitic ‘blood libel’ slur that Jews cook with children’s blood. Salah was arrested by British police in 2011 when he was due to speak at an event in the House of Commons – alongside Corbyn. In 2012 Corbyn called Salah ‘a very honoured citizen’.

2. Labour Students at Oxford University Labour Club mocked the Jewish victims of the Paris kosher supermarket attack, called Auschwitz a ‘cash cow’, and used the Neo-Nazi slur ‘Zio’, according to extensive testimony from Jewish students. After months of obfuscation, including an NEC decision to not publish a party report that concluded there had been ‘some incidents’ of anti-Semitic behaviour, Labour’s NEC decided not to discipline the key perpetrators.

3. A Jewish Labour MP, Ruth Smeeth, was sent a 1,000 word death threat from a Corbyn-supporter calling her a ‘yid c–t’. The threat followed Smeeth’s decision to walk out of a meeting outlining Labour’s response to anti-semitism because she was accused of working ‘hand in hand with the right-wing media to attack Jeremy’. Smeeth then received 20,000 abusive messages and has since questioned whether Labour is still ‘a safe space for British Jews’.

4. A Labour council candidate in Peterborough, Alan Bull, shared anti-Semitic material online including that the Holocaust was a ‘hoax’. The Labour party was made aware of the posts in 2017, but only suspended the candidate when contacted by the Jewish Chronicle in March 2018.

5. Jeremy Corbyn was an active member of an ‘anti-Semitic’ Facebook group, ‘Palestine Live’. The group included Holocaust denial, 9/11 conspiracy theories and anti-Semitic slurs. He said he did not see the offensive posts and left in 2015.

6. A former Labour parliamentary candidate in Witham, John Clarke, shared a Neo-Nazi meme saying the Rothschild family has used money lending and Israel to ‘take over the world’. He said the meme ‘contained a great deal of truth’ and was later suspended.

7. Jeremy Corbyn had a ten-year association with a group which denied the Holocaust. Mr Corbyn was a ‘stalwart’ supporter of Deir Yassin Remembered, attending events in 2013, with the group’s founder, Paul Eisen, a self-professed Holocaust denier.

8. Jackie Walker, formerly vice-chair of Momentum, said Jews were the ‘chief financiers of the sugar and slave trade’, criticised security for Jewish schools, and said Holocaust Memorial Day was not ‘inclusive’ enough. After the comments were made and widely condemned, Corbyn shared a platform and campaigned alongside Walker.

9. Jeremy Corbyn hosted an Islamic cleric in Parliament in 2009, who in 2006 wrote that ‘Europe has made political correctness, the cult of the Holocaust and Jew-worshipping its alternative religion’.

10. Nasreen Khan, a Labour council candidate subsequently barred from standing, asked: ‘What have the Jews done good in this world?’. She said schools were ‘brainwashing us and our children into thinking the bad guy was Hitler’ and said ‘Jews have reaped the rewards of playing victims’.

11. A Labour councillor in Birmingham, Zafar Iqbal, shared a David Duke video on Facebook entitled ‘CNN Goldman Sachs and the Zio Matrix’. The Labour party accepted Mr Iqbal’s apology and claim that he had have no recollection of sharing this video’ – no disciplinary proceedings were enacted.

12. Two Jewish Labour councillors in Haringey resigned, saying it is impossible to be a Jewish Labour councillor due to overwhelming anti-Semitic abuse. Joe Goldberg and Natan Doron reported that ‘many members have repeated to me assertions about Jews having big noses, controlling the media and being wealthy’, and that a fellow councillor accused Goldberg of ‘bagel-barrel politics’. On his resignation, a Haringey Momentum activist tweeted to Goldberg: ‘At least [you] will have more time to count your money.’ Mr Goldberg said complaints he made to party officials were dismissed.

13. Andrew Slack, a councillor in Chesterfield, was suspended after sharing an anti-Semitic meme of a blood-smeared, hook-nosed Israeli soldier. The meme said ‘Israel was created by the Rothschilds’.

14. Bethany Barker, a student activist who introduced Jeremy Corbyn at a 2017 local elections campaign event, described a Kippah as a ‘Jew cap’ and said Andres Breivik, the Norwegian far-right terrorist, should ‘get forced to live in a synagogue’.

15. Pam Bromley, a Labour Councillor in Lancashire, posted links to an antisemitic article entitled ‘World War 3: Trump Begins Paying His Homage to Rothschilds,’ commenting ‘we must remember that Rothschilds are a powerful financial family (like the Medicis) and represent capitalism and big business’. Bromley is still a Labour councillor and no disciplinary action has been taken.

16. Ken Livingstone reportedly said a Jewish journalist was ‘just like a concentration camp guard’, that Jews vote Tory because they are rich and that Hitler supported Zionism. Despite his attempt to draw a parallel between those who fought for Jewish freedom and those who perpetrated a Jewish genocide, Livingstone was only given a temporary suspension from a party disciplinary panel – a decision Corbyn supported, despite 100 Labour MPs calling for Livingstone’s expulsion.

17. Terence Flanagan, a member of Hampstead and Kilburn CLP, compared a Jewish councillor to Josef Goebbels and, when calling for his expulsion, referred to former Labour donor Michael Foster allegedly as ‘the Jewish millionaire’. Flanagan was suspended, but then readmitted to the party after formal written warning.

18. Tim Lezard was offered a job to work at Labour’s Southside HQ, despite tweeting ‘I’m thinking of setting up another new campaign group. Either Conservative Friends of Nazis, or Nazi Friends of Israel.’ When his tweets were revealed the job offer was rescinded.

19. Labour Party member and Momentum Teesside activist Bob Campbell has shared an image of a rat marked with a Star of David and claimed Israel controls ISIS. Campbell denied to the press that he had been suspended by the party.

20. Mike Sivier, author of the far-left Vox Political blog, has claimed there is a ‘conspiracy’ between Jews and those who defend them in the UK, saying: ‘We are being told that agents of a foreign country have infiltrated our institutions’. He was due to stand as a Labour candidate in council elections in 2017 but was suspended before the ballot took place.

21. Labour Councillor and former Labour Mayor of Blackburn, Salim Mulla, called Zionist Jews a ‘disgrace to humanity’, endorsed a video which blamed Israel for school shootings in the USA, and said ‘Zionism’ was orchestrating ISIS. After an initial suspension he was reinstated as a Labour member.

22. In 2016, Aysegul Gurbuz, a Labour councillor in Luton, resigned after tweet surfaced where she said Hitler was ‘the greatest man in history’.

23. The chair of Manchester Labour Students, Tayyib Nawaz, resigned after tweets surfaced where he claimed ‘Hitler was Jewish’ and Israel was comparable to ISIS.

24. A Labour Council candidate in Great Yarmouth claimed ‘it’s the super rich families of the Zionist lobby that control the world. Our world leaders sell their souls for greed and do the bidding of Israel.’ He was then dropped as a candidate.

25. Far-left activist Gerry Downing, a Labour member who claimed the existence of a ‘Jewish question’, said ‘elements of the Jewish-Zionist bourgeoisie… have played a vanguard role for the capitalist offensive against the workers’, was expelled after then Prime Minister David Cameron brought his case up at PMQs.

26. Terry Kelly, a councillor in Renfrewshire, wrote that the ‘American Jewish lobby is extremely powerful and it has its boot on Obama’s neck’ and that the film ‘The King’s Speech’ might not win an Oscar because ‘there is a powerful Jewish lobby campaigning against the film because of its historical inaccuracy about Hitler and the anti-Semitism’. Mr Kelly was temporarily suspended in May 2016 before being reinstated a month later.

27. Naz Shah, MP for Bradford West, was suspended from the party for sharing a post suggesting Israel should be ‘relocated’ to the United States and for saying that ‘the Jews are rallying’ to a Daily Mirror poll. She later apologised and was re-instated.

28. Former chair of Spitalfields and Banglatown Labour Party, Musabbir Ali, tweeted a far-right ‘timeline of the Jewish Genocide of the British People’. He was suspended after a complaint from the Jewish Labour Movement.

29. Former Lord Mayor of Bradford and Labour Councillor, Khadim Hussain, shared Facebook posts saying ‘Hitler killed six million Zionists’ and implying Israel ‘created the so-called ISIS and… is arming those vile terrorists!’ He was suspended and subsequently resigned from the Labour party.

30. Jeremy Corbyn called antisemitic terror groups Hamas and Hezbollah ‘our friends’ when inviting them to speak in Parliament. He claimed the invitation to Hezbollah was ‘absolutely the right function of using parliamentary facilities’ and that the group was committed to ‘social justice and political justice’. Corbyn later said this was ‘inclusive language I used, which with hindsight I would rather not have used’.

31. Labour member John McAuliffe was suspended for describing the Holocaust as a ‘useful political tool’ of Israel ‘to establish a financial racket’, in a Facebook status.

32. Josh Simons, formerly a policy adviser in Corbyn’s office, said one member of Corbyn’s team referred to a ‘Jewish conspiracy’ in office discussions. Simons claimed Seumas Milne, Corbyn’s chief spokesperson, subjected him to an ‘inquisition’ about being Jewish, his family and his attitude to Israel.

33. A Momentum activist, Marlene Ellis, was suspended after saying, in an open letter in defence of Ken Livingstone, that Zionists were ‘involved with Nazis’ and that Labour sought to ‘curry favour with… the pro-Zionist lobby in and beyond the media’.

34. In December 2016, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn attended the book launch of – and posed for pictures with – Hatem Bazian, organised by the Islamic Human Rights Commission (the IHRC). Bazian later apologised for anti-Semitic tweets where he shared a picture of an ultra-orthodox Jewish man with the message: ‘Mom, look! I is chosen! I can now kill, rape, smuggle organs and steal the land of Palestinians ‘Yay’ #Ashke-Nazi.’

35. Miqdad Al-Nuaimi, a Labour Councillor in Newport, was suspended after tweeting that ‘#Israel regime and army are increasingly assuming the arrogance and genocidal character of the #Nazis’ and that ‘ISIS leader Al-Baghdadi dies in Israeli hospital…If confirmed, the #Israeli connection is very interesting’. He was initially suspended, but then cleared by the Labour party.

36. ‘Labour Insider’ blogger Phillip Jones branded Jewish journalist Emma Barnett a ‘Zionist’ after she challenged Corbyn on Labour’s spending plans on Women’s Hour.

37. Afzal Khan, then a Labour MEP and now the MP for Manchester Gorton, compared Israel to Nazis. No disciplinary action was taken.

38. A Labour council candidate in Wiltshire, Terry Couchman, ranted on social media about ‘ZioNazi stormtroopers of IsraHell’ and ‘fake Jews of IsraHell and the USA’. He was later suspended.

39. Vicki Kirby, formerly a Labour parliamentary candidate in Woking, had her membership reinstated after tweeting that Hitler might be a ‘Zionist God’ and Jews have ‘big noses’. She was subsequently re-suspended by the party.

40. Luke Cresswell, a Labour Councillor in Suffolk, tweeted an image of a blood-soaked Israeli flag, accused Israel of genocide and captioned the image ‘Moses must be proud of you’. Though initially suspended, he was then re-admitted, and subsequently selected as a councillor.

41. Alison Gove-Humphries, a Labour council candidate in Birmingham, was deselected after sharing allegedly ‘anti-Semitic’ Facebook posts.

42. Max Tasker, a Labour Councillor in North Wales, posted Youtube videos to his facebook page with entitled: ‘Is ISIS good for the Jews?’, ‘The whole story of Zionist conspiracy: the filthy history of pedophilia, murder and bigotry’, ‘Not for the immature! Zionist Antichrist will rule the [New World Order]’ and ‘Ukraine’s anti-Russian stance is a Zionist masterplan’.

43. A Labour councillor in Nottingham, Ilyas Aziz, was reinstated by Labour after being suspended for sharing posts from Neo-Nazi David Icke and a page called ‘Israel – Rothschilds’ Frankenstein Monster’.

44. Labour’s 2015 and 2017 parliamentary candidate in Tiverton and Honiton, Caroline Kolek, claimed Tory MP Nadhim Zahawi was buying oil from ISIS to sell to Israel, and that Israel was behind The Sun newspaper’s push for UK military action in Syria. She also tweeted a quote by Mr Livingstone in which he claimed to be the victim of a 35-year smear campaign by the ‘Israel lobby’.

45. Rebecca Massey, a member in Hove, tweeted that ‘Israel has Tory and Labour parties under control’, and believes Labour’s anti-Semitism crisis is ‘manufactured’. No action was taken and Ms Massey went on to be appointed Treasurer of Hove and Portslade Labour Party.

46. Mohammed Shabbir, a Labour Councillor in Bradford, tweeted the conspiracy theory that Israel was behind ISIS, accused Jews of ‘playing the Holocaust card’, and said the BBC was run by a ‘hasbara media cartel’.

47. Corbyn supporters in Bristol erected a 100 foot banner that depicted Theresa May wearing Star of David earrings, alongside anti Conservative slogans. Local Labour MP Thangam Debbonaire slammed the banner as anti-Semitic and it was taken down.

48. Jeremy Corbyn defended in 2012 an anti-Semitic mural in East London that depicted Jewish bankers playing a monopoly-style game on the backs of the poor. He has since apologised.

49. Jeremy Corbyn wrote a letter of support for Stephen Sizer, a vicar disciplined by the Church of England for sharing an article on social media entitled ‘9/11: Israel Did It’.

50. At a fringe event at Labour Party Conference 2017 a speaker said people should be allowed to question whether the Holocaust happened, and there were calls for the Jewish Labour Movement to be expelled from the party.

https://onthedarkside410122300.wordpress.com/2018/08/05/corbyns-response-to-the-antisemitism-at-hmd-2010-carry-on/