Day: 3 June 2016

Via Tony Greenstein’s blog:

Greenstein has painstakingly transcribed what was slightly more than an hour’s interrogation, on bank holiday Monday, having been suspended from the Labour Party on March 18. Read the transcript in full here.

Excerpt:

Harry Gregson – Labour’s SE Regional Organiser: … second item which was raised in the original complaint.  It was about Zionist  collaboration with the holocaust.  Following on from the original thing I sent you I have also found this article which the original comments referred to Zionism and the Holocaust

Tony Greenstein: Yes that’s an article I probably produced in the Weekly Worker.  It’s quite a long article do you want to comment on any particular aspect since you are worried about it?

HG There’s quite a few things in it that I think that I think some people may find

TG What is the question?

HG One of the comments which is highlighted on page 6 is ‘all wings of the Zionist movement played down reports of annihilation and obstructed the rescue efforts of others’.  That suggests that everybody who was in favour of Zionism at the time played down the holocaust [I ask HG to point out exact reference, which I then quote from]

TG ‘Why did all wings of the Zionist movement play down reports of annihilation and obstruct the rescue efforts.’  and then I quote Nathan Schwalb.  In fact the quotes from Nathan Schwalb were from a letter sent to Rabbi Weissmandel who was a leader of Slovakian Jewry.  Slovakia was a separate Nazi puppet state which was created out of the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Hitler in March 1939.  He was sent a letter by the leader of Hehalutz Nathan Schwalb, in Switzerland.  He actually denied sending it at the time of Perdition [a play in London about 25 years ago which dealt with the collaboration of Hungarian Zionism with the Nazis]  I don’t suppose you remember the play Perdition about some of those events.  It was a controversy in Britain when the play was banned by the Royal Court [Theatre].  He brought legal action for libel and he lost it because he was unable to provide legal proof from his own archives as to whether he had sent the letter.  

[The letter from Schwalb was reproduced in the article that HG quotes from:  It reads:

“After the victory [of the Allies], they will once again divide up the world between the nations, as they did at the end of the first war,¦ we must be aware that all the nations of the Allies are spilling much blood and if we do not bring sacrifices, with what will we achieve the right to sit at the table when they make the distribution of nations’ territories after the war? … Because only through blood will the land be ours.  And so it would be foolish and impertinent on our side to ask the nations whose blood is being spilled for permission to send money into the land of their enemies in order to protect our own blood.  Because “rak b’dam tihyu lanu haaretz” (only through blood will the land be ours). “[S. Beit Zvi, Post-Ugandan Zionism on trial, Tel Aviv 1991, pp.295-96].

The evidence is quite clear.  In your researches you probably didn’t come across a book by Shabtai beit Zvi ‘Ugandan Zionism in the Crucible of the Holocaust’.  It’s a book by a Zionist, an ultra-Zionist, who went through the papers of the Jewish Agency and the Palestinian press at the time, all of whom played down reports of the holocaust.  The Jewish Agency, the Zionist government-in-waiting in Palestine repeatedly denied that there was a holocaust or extermination of the Jews up until its admission on November 23 1942 that there was a holocaust.  But even after that they reverted to type and said ‘yes many thousands of Jews were being killed but there was no extermination.  The Jewish Agency and the Palestinian press repeatedly did that and they quoted from Nazi papers.  This is a matter of historical fact and what I find strange about this suspension process is that what you are questioning me about are matters of history.  History which might be disputed but there is no doubt that the Zionist movement obstructed rescue  because the Zionist position at the time was a very simple one.  They wanted Jews to go to Palestine and there is a famous quote from David Ben-Gurion [the Chairman of the World Zionist Organisation at the time and later first Prime Minister of Israel] that if he had the choice between saving half Germany’s Jewish children in Palestine or all of them in England, this is at the time of the Kindertransport.  I don’t know whether you know anything about the Kindertransport when 10,000 Jewish children were taken to England from the Greater German Reich in 1938-9, [repeat of quote].  That was the Zionist policy throughout the war.  It’s a fact.

[the full quote was:  ‘If I knew that it would be possible to save all the children in Germany by bringing them over to England, and only half of them by transporting them to Eretz Yisrael, then I would opt for the second alternative. For we must weigh not only the life of these children, but also the history of the People of Israel.’ The Burning Ground 1886-1948, p.855 Shabtai Teveth, official biography of Ben-Gurion]

HG: But my point was that you contend that there was collaboration between the Nazis and the Zionists

TG: Well there was, it’s not what I contend

HG: But that point in the article suggests that all wings of the Zionist movement….

TG: All wings did but not all Zionists did.  There is a complete difference.  I’m talking about the leadership of the Zionist groups.  Do you know anything about ….?  The problem is that you don’t know a great deal about this.  The Warsaw ghetto resistance included Zionists in it, leaders of the Zionist youth movements. It was led by the Bund, the major anti-Zionist Jewish group (which in the last free elections in Warsaw in 1938 gained 17 out the 20 Jewish council seats compared to one for the Zionists) but the Zionist youth led by Mordechai Anielwicz they had to rebel against their own Zionist parties, all of whom opposed the resistance.  [I could have added the Zionist parties in Palestine sent orders not to take part in further resistance!]  So yes, Zionists participated in resistance without a doubt, but the leaders of those movements, without exception, collaborated.   Continue reading “Labour’s Inquisition: Tony Greenstein reveals details of his interrogation by Compliance Unit”

We received this article from an authoritative Zionist source who wished to remain anonymous.

S/he had “been concerned about recent events for many weeks now, and have penned an article for you which I think your readers may find interesting. It links to a long-forgotten legal case and is timely, in part because it concerns UCU (the union currently holding its annual Congress in Liverpool and currently being attacked for its latest Israel motions), in part because it concerns the current head of the Jewish Labour Movement, Jeremy Newmark, and the head of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Anti-Semitism, John Mann MP. Importantly, it links them with a past (failed) attempt to equate anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. My argument in this article is that the Chakrabarti review simply gives them the latest opportunity to do just that.”

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The direction of travel has long been clear, as has the goal: to equate criticism of Israel with hatred of Jews, making the former as unacceptable as the latter. In Britain, those pursuing this insidious agenda have had more success in 2016 than in all years previous. The culmination is forthcoming. Shami Chakrabarti’s inquiry is imminently to draw a line. Where she draws it will determine how far ‘the equators’ have come, or (one hopes) how far short of their goal they have fallen.

Events are not random. This has been a long time in the making. Given that most of the offending comments by Labour members were made years ago, the chronology of this recent scandal is a work of art, with the odd and added bonus (Livingstone) thrown in for good measure. The party, to its credit, has conducted itself well, suspending and investigating where it needs to, reviewing where appropriate. But the comments of a few were the latest identified opportunity to equate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, and they were by far the best, as has thus far been proved.

Some characters in this drama hold, or have held, the most senior positions in the British Jewish community and claim, or have claimed, to represent that community. In fact, they only represent the worst aspects of it, but play on the fears of most: the fear of Jew hatred. That fear is tailored to the opportunity, in this case the idea that Britain’s largest political party is infested with it. ‘Simplify and exaggerate’ – it’s a very simple formula.

As those charged with protecting Britain’s Jewish community will tell you, context is crucial. But for those hell-bent on equating anti-Zionism and anti-Israel sentiment with the world’s oldest hatred, ‘context’ simply means a battleground, with those battles often fought in court.

The father of Britain’s most recent drive towards officialising the ‘new anti-Semitism’ (anti-Zionism) is Anthony Julius, a lawyer who founded one of the City’s most respected firms. He has thoughtfully but incorrectly argued that criticising Israel or its ideological underpinning equates to hating Jews. With mixed results, Julius has acted against those fighting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign in the world of trade and finance, and those fighting discrimination or harassment cases in the world of employment.

The latter saw him represent (pro bono) Ronnie Fraser from 2008-13, in a case against an academic union (UCU) estimated to have cost £500,000. This case warrants renewed attention now, since it features the same arguments as Shami Chakrabarti will hear, and even some of the same characters who will no doubt be advising her.

Fraser took the University and College Union to an employment tribunal alleging that UCU’s criticism of Israel was ‘institutional anti-Semitism’. This, Julius argued, constituted his harassment as a Jew, and the case perfectly illustrates the purposeful blurring of lines between Judaism and Jewish identity (in this case, protected characteristics), and of Zionism and/or a similarly ideological belief in/attachment to Israel (an unprotected characteristic). Just as will Chakrabarti’s ‘expert witnesses’ argue, Julius said Fraser’s strong attachment to Israel was “a non-contingent aspect of his Jewish identity… that is, of his race and/or religion or belief”. He added that Jews’ attachment to Israel was “an aspect of their self-understanding as Jews”.

The judge dismissed this argument, and his ruling is well worth reading. In it, he summarises the debate, saying: “At one extreme, criticism [of Israel] could be seen as intrinsically anti-Semitic simply because Israel is the Jewish State. The polar opposite view is that the actions and policies of a state are by their nature political, and accordingly criticism of acts by or at the behest of the Israeli government and institutions cannot be anti-Semitic. Between lie many intermediate positions.” Continue reading “Why Newmark and Mann’s past (failed) attempt to equate anti-Zionism with antisemitism is relevant now”