Jews & friends who say antizionism is NOT antisemitism
This interview pre-dates the lifting of Walker’s suspension on 27 May.
Published by RT on May 21, 2016: ‘Afshin Rattansi goes underground with Jackie Walker from British grassroots activist group Momentum, who gives her first international exclusive TV interview since being suspended for alleged anti-Semitism by Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party.’
UPDATED: The Jewish Chronicle erroneously reported that “Following complaints by blogger Edgar Davidson to the Speakers Trust” the decision was taken not to put her through to the grand finals. They had already taken the decision to censor her (more details below).
(Via Artists for Palestine UK)
A British Palestinian school girl, Leanne Mohamad of Wanstead High School, won the “Speak Out” challenge after giving this impressive performance to enthusiastic applause. But a day later, Speakers Trust decided Leanne will no longer be sent through to the grand final of the public speaking competition. It seems that giving a personal account of the Nakba and a plea for an end to discrimination against Palestinians is not acceptable in the UK in 2016.
Competition organisers Speakers Trust have removed the video from their website, Speak Out Challenge, and their YouTube channel. Copy below.
The Speak Out challenge is described thus: “In each one-day workshop, students take part in games and exercises to encourage them to think on their feet in a fun, interactive and safe environment. The day culminates in a ‘Speak Out’ speech contest where students can speak on any topic they feel strongly about – using only their voices, their words and their passion. Notes are not allowed; they must use the techniques from the training.”
The Free Speech on Israel network objects to any undue influence that was imposed on Speakers Trust; 15 year old Leanne Mohamad should have been allowed to go through to the final, on condition that she amended her fatality figures to conform to the historical record.
The Jewish Chronicle accurately reported that a letter from the Speakers Trust CEO was sent to Davidson in response to his own explicitly racist letter, confirming that: “There are two fundamental rules that are made explicit during the training: the speech must have a positive and uplifting message – in fact this is one of the core terms of the agreement with the Jack Petchey Foundation [and] a speaker should never inflame or offend the audience or insult others and this, by definition, means that propaganda is ruled out absolutely from the outset… Speakers Trust and Jack Petchey Foundation judging panel decided unanimously against sending Leanne Mohamad through to the next stage and she will not be speaking at the Grand Final. These were precisely our concerns.”
Written By: Amanda Sebestyen
May 28, 2016
The inquiry which Jeremy Corbyn has set up under Shami Chakarabarti to investigate charges of anti-Semitism will be hearing eloquent Jewish voices saying unexpected things. The first member suspended from the party on these charges is the son of a rabbi, and the latest (at the time of writing) is of mixed Jewish and African-Caribbean descent.
It has taken some time for the missing voices to be heard. During these weeks of raging media accusations of anti-Semitism rife within Labour, British Jews who reject the claims of Israel to speak in their name have been meeting to organise and respond. They have a website now, “Free Speech on Israel”, declaring “as Labour and trade union activists, we assert the right to campaign in solidarity with all oppressed people, including Palestinians. Campaigning to end the injustices inflicted by Israel on the Palestinian people is in the very best traditions of the British labour movement.”
Their statement concludes by calling on “the Labour Party establishment to listen to the many Jews who are outraged by the lie that Jews are not safe in the Labour Party; cease victimising those who work for justice for Palestine; adhere to fair practice and transparency when investigating charges against members; call to order Labour Party members who bring the party into disrepute by spreading calumnies about widespread anti-Semitism in the party.”
The Jewish Socialist Group, founded in the 1970s and thriving despite years of abuse from self-appointed community leaders, wrote in its own statement: “Those who conflate criticism of Israeli policy with anti-Semitism, whether they are supporters or opponents of Israeli policy, are actually helping the anti-Semites. As anti-racist and anti-fascist Jews who are also campaigning for peace with justice between Israelis and Palestinians, we entirely reject these cynical agendas. The Conservative Party demonstrated their contempt for Lord Dubs, a Jewish refugee from Nazism, when they voted down en masse an amendment a few days ago to allow 3,000 child refugees into Britain while Labour, led by Jeremy Corbyn, gave total support to Lord Dubs and his amendment.”
Independent Jewish Voices – at whose launch in 2007 I found myself sitting next to a member of the Board of Deputies who spoke frankly of the corroding effect of the Occupation of Palestinian territories after 1967, and hoped to make changes in the way the Board reacted to criticism – said this: “The battle against anti-Semitism is undermined whenever opposition to Israeli government policies is automatically branded as anti-Semitic. The more public opinion turns against Israel’s indefensible actions, the more our opponents will resort to name calling in an attempt to discredit us. As Jewish critics of Israel’s policies, we urge people of conscience not to succumb to this campaign of intimidation and to continue the struggle for equal rights and freedom for all people.’
So what is happening? The Chief Rabbi has openly told Jews to vote Tory, following such luminaries as Danny Cohen (former head of BBC TV and chief dumber-down of Newsnight) who plaintively asked in The Times: “How can Jews vote for Corbyn?”
Jews for Justice for Palestinians is now 14 years old with 1900 signatories. One of these, Michele Hanson wrote in her Guardian column: “Labour is not ‘rife’ with anti-Semitism or packed with ‘dirty old [Stalinist] men’. It has always been, and still is, anti-racist. And so is Jeremy Corbyn, my MP. And so am I, but I do not like a lot of what the Israeli government is doing, particularly the continuing illegal occupation of Palestine. If I can’t say that without being told off for being anti-Semitic, then the world has gone mad.”
Open Democracy’s online magazine has been a welcome refuge from much of the printed media, with a comprehensive scrutiny of all the anti-Semitism charges by British-Israeli researcher Jamie Stern-Weiner. He has also just elicited a coruscating interview with Norman Finkelstein, that child of Holocaust survivors hounded from one American campus after another for battling with Zionist orthodoxies.
“Compare the American scene. Our Corbyn is Bernie Sanders. In all the primaries in the US, Bernie has been sweeping the Arab and Muslim vote. It’s been a wondrous moment: the first Jewish presidential candidate in American history has forged a principled alliance with Arabs and Muslims. Meanwhile, what are the Blairite-Israel lobby creeps up to in the UK? They’re fanning the embers of hate and creating new discord between Jews and Muslims.” Continue reading “Missing voices have been heard”
With barely a month to go to put forward motions to this year’s Labour Party conference, supporters of Free Speech on Israel are fighting back against the smear campaign which has branded anti-racist activists antisemitic because of their support for justice for Palestine. One of the most high-profile victims, Jackie Walker, had her suspension from the party revoked on Friday after taking an uncompromising stand.
Labour Party members have until June 24 to take decisions in their constituencies on resolutions, rule changes, constitutional amendments and delegates to represent them at the annual conference in Liverpool on September 24-28. The same deadline applies to nominations for places on the National Executive Committee (NEC).
The Zionist Jewish Labour Movement, backed by the right-wing “Progress” faction, is pushing relentlessly for a change to membership rules that would allow proponents of one particular ideology to intimidate and exclude people who oppose them. It is being deliberately rushed through in order to pre-empt the findings of the Shami Chakrabarti inquiry which is due to report after the June 24 conference deadline.
The rule change the JLM and Progress are proposing seeks to insert the following new paragraph E (at Clause I, section 4 (‘Exclusions’) in the party’s membership rules:
Where a member is responsible for a hate incident, being defined as something where the victim or anyone else think it was motivated by hostility or prejudice based on disability, race, religion, transgender identity, or sexual orientation, the NEC may have the right to impose the appropriate disciplinary options ….(our emphasis)
This is a deliberate misreading of the Macpherson report recommendation that a victim’s perception must be taken into account in a case of hate crime. Macpherson did NOT intend to empower an alleged “victim or anyone else” to determine when a hate crime was being committed without reference to any other criteria. If passed, Zionists will use their new rule to claim that someone attacking their political beliefs is attacking their race or religion, making them an antisemite and therefore guilty of a hate crime.
The rule change is being presented as if it is needed to protect Labour Party members from racism and has received the backing of some on the NEC. But if a hate crime is committed there are laws that can – and should – be brought into play. The motivation of JLM and Progress – neither of which has any record of support for anti-racist struggles in British society at large – is to make it impossible to question the ideology which gave rise to the creation of a racially exclusive Israeli state on land stolen from the Palestinians.
This pernicious rule change motion needs to be opposed, and it is being opposed. There is a fine example here of the incredulity of its supporters when they were thwarted in Hampstead and Kilburn Labour Party last Thursday.
There are also a growing number of examples of positive resolutions being passed after thoughtful debate in labour movement organisations around the country. Below are just a few that we have heard about. Please let us know if you are aware of others.
You can download this leaflet about the JLM to hand out at labour movement meetings.
BELOW ARE SEVERAL RESOLUTIONS PASSED IN LABOUR MOVEMENT ORGANISATIONS IN SUPPORT OF FREE SPEECH ON ISRAEL Continue reading “Free Speech on Israel campaigners fight back against smears and intimidation in UK Labour”
Baroness Royall’s inquiry into charges of antisemitism against Oxford University Labour Club has concluded that there was no institutional antisemitism. But the inquiry recommends that all Labour student clubs receive training in antisemitism from the Jewish Labour Movement. This idea was first put forward in April by the Progress think tank: there is a strong overlap between Progress and the lobby group Labour Friends of Israel. Progress called for all Labour’s National Executive Committee members to be “properly trained on modern antisemitism by the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM) or its nominee.”
We deplore the proposal to task Jewish Labour Movement with training Labour Party branches and organisations. JLM is an affiliate both of the Israeli Labour Party which in office has promoted the building of settlements in the occupied Palestinian Territories and the World Zionist Organization, which has channelled funds to the illegal settlements.
JLM has proposed a change to the Labour Party Membership rules that gives “due regard to the Macpherson definition of a racist incident which places particular value upon the perception of the victim/victim group.” This deliberately distorts the Macpherson report recommendation that a victim’s perception had to be taken into account in a case of hate crime; it was not intended to empower an alleged victim to determine when a hate crime was being committed without reference to any other criteria. It allows pro-Palestinian, pro-boycott or anti-Israel statements to be labelled antisemitic, thus shutting down debate on Israel.
Some Labour Party members are being persuaded to join the JLM in the mistaken belief that this is a way of showing solidarity with “the Jewish community.”
The Free Speech on Israel network strongly objects to the Labour Party’s cooperation with the Jewish Labour Movement on combatting racism, given the latter’s record:
Continue reading “Leaflet: Why the JLM does not represent Labour’s Jewish members”
Via Labour Briefing
By Jamie Stern-Weiner, 26 May
LEADING MOMENTUM ACTIVIST Jackie Walker has been suspended from the Labour Party for alleged anti-Semitism. The allegation is baseless. The evidence for it consists of two comments Walker made on Facebook. The first accurately dismissed allegations that Labour has a “major problem with anti-Semitism”, on the same grounds and in much the same language as did those notorious anti-Semitic hate-groups, the Jewish Socialists’ Group and Independent Jewish Voices.
The second took issue with the argument that the moral legacy of the Nazi holocaust forbids Europeans from boycotting the State of Israel, on the basis that – in Walker’s words – the “Jewish holocaust does not allow Zionists to do what they want”. No historical group is purely and perpetually a victim, Walker observed, drawing upon the experiences of her own Jewish and non-Jewish ancestors, and in any case, “having been a victim does not give you a right to be a perpetrator”.
As Jon Lansman, chair of Momentum, has written, there was “nothing” remotely anti-Semitic in either of Walker’s comments. Walker’s critics evidently agree, since they felt obliged to misrepresent her words to make the charges stick. In response to a comment decrying “[any] action against” Jews (i.e. boycotting Israel) as “shameful” because of the Holocaust, Walker wrote:
“Oh yes – and I hope you feel the same towards the African holocaust? My ancestors were involved in both – on all sides and as I’m sure you know, millions more Africans were killed in the African holocaust and their oppression continues today on a global scale in a way it doesn’t for Jews . . . and many Jews (my ancestors too) were the chief financiers of the sugar and slave trade which is of course why there were so many early synagogues in the Caribbean. So who are victims and what does it mean? We are victims and perpetrators to some extent through choice. And having been a victim does not give you a right to be a perpetrator.”
That is, in response to a particularist weaponisation of the Nazi holocaust to secure legal and moral impunity for the State of Israel, Walker urged a universalist compassion and a sober sense of historical perspective. The Jewish Chronicle rendered this thoughtful and nuanced plea as follows: “Labour suspends Momentum supporter who claimed Jews caused ‘an African holocaust’”. The obvious question is, if Labour truly were awash with anti-Semitism, would there be any need for such brazen and cynical misrepresentation as this? Continue reading “Suspension of Jackie Walker is ‘an outrage against justice and truth’”
You can view and download this leaflet here
See also Walthamstow Labour Party fundraiser suspended – who had it in for David Watson?
Via Jackie Walker @stopthesuspensions
“Islington North constituency Labour Party wholeheartedly and unreservedly condemns all forms of racism, including anti-semitism. We further wholeheartedly and unreservedly condemn the suspension by the Labour Party of Thanet Labour Party member Jackie Walker for alleged anti-semitism.
Jackie Walker is a long-standing member of the Labour Party, and was vice-chair of Thanet South Labour Party until her suspension. She played a key role in helping to organise the defeat of Nigel Farage when he contested Thanet South in the general election of 2015. She is an active anti-racism campaigner and a founding member of the Kent Anti-Racism Network. KARN has been organising for refugees stuck in the camps of Calais and mobilising opposition to openly fascist groups seeking to stoke anti-migrant sentiment and community divisions on Dover.
We welcome Jeremy Corbyn’s initiative to hold a full inquiry into anti-semitism in the Labour Party. Any member who has made obviously anti-semitic comments should face immediate suspension pending an investigation. But care must be taken not to suspend members on a spurious basis, and that is what Jackie Walker’s suspension clearly is.
Such suspensions are also a clear invitation to the party’s enemies to use our procedures to damage our party and its effective operation.
We call upon the National Executive Committee to lift the suspension immediately, to reinstate Jackie Walker and to apologise to her.
We resolve to send this motion to the National Executive Committee.”
It was carried by an overwhelming vote
by Michael Deas, 25 May 2016
The Netherlands has affirmed that activism calling for boycott, divestment and sanctions on Israel is a form of free speech. In response to parliamentary questions from Green Left MP Rik Grashoff, Dutch foreign minister Bert Koenders said that
statements or meetings concerning BDS are protected by freedom of expression and freedom of assembly, as enshrined in the Dutch constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights.
Koenders also said that the Dutch government regularly discusses BDS with Israel and makes clear to Israel that it “opposes a boycott of Israel, but that endorsing BDS falls under freedom of expression.”
The Dutch foreign minister’s comments are a serious blow to Israel’s relentless efforts to criminalize BDS and silence supporters of Palestinian rights. At Israel’s urging, governments in the US, UK, France, Canada and elsewhere are introducing anti-democratic legislation and taking other repressive measures to undermine the BDS movement.
[…] The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) is inviting supporters of free speech and Palestinian rights to co-sign an appeal to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein urging him to take action to protect the rights of Palestinian, Israeli and international BDS activists.
Continue reading here
By Tony Greenstein
In an article ‘Zionisms’ in Critical Thinking of 29th April 2016 Didi Herman argues that the left should drop the use of the term ‘Zionism’. I disagree. The term Zionism is as relevant now as it has ever been.
This argument is not taking place in a vacuum but in the context of a concerted attempt to depict the anti-Zionist left, including Black and ethnic minority members of the Labour Party, as anti-Semites. Part of the narrative of the defamers is that Zionism has become a dirty word, a term of abuse. There are those on the left who have been seduced by this special pleading. Not only Didi Herman but Jon Lansman of Momentum. [Why the Left must stop talking about ‘Zionism’]
There is, as always, when dealing with the Zionist hasbara [propaganda] a certain amount of disingenuousness. On the one hand we have the Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis asserting that ‘One can no more separate it [Zionism] from Judaism than separate the City of London from Great Britain.’ and then Didi writes that ‘scholars replace Jews and Judiasm with Zionists and Zionism, and label Zionism ‘racist’ or part of a ‘racial contract’ or ‘apartheid’.] I’m sorry Didi, but it’s not left-wing scholars but right-wing Zionists who conflate Zionism and being Jewish. It hardly takes a logician to work out that if Judaism and Zionism are one and the same, then Jews must indeed be responsible for the actions of the Israeli state. Continue reading “Why Zionism is as relevant now as it ever was”
