Tom Suarez challenges smears by the ‘Jewish Chronicle’

Tom Suarez describes his long struggle with press regulator IPSO to get them to force the Jewish Chronicle to publish even a partial apology for their bad faith allegations of antisemitism. Even though it was only a partial apology it represents a considerable victory to get the notoriously ineffective IPSO to  get a recalcitrant publications like the Jewish Chronicle ot admit any misrepresentation.

This article first appeared in Mondoweiss and is reprinted by permission of the author

Tom Suarez speaking
Tom Suárez speaks at the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution (BRLSI) in 2018.

“Accusing Jews of making accusations of antisemitism in bad faith in order to aid a hidden agenda is a well-established antisemitic slur.” — from the Campaign Against Antisemitism, a British pro-Israeli organization established in August 2014 to counter media fallout from that summer’s “Protective Edge” assault against Gaza.

Israel’s most powerful weapon is the smearing of its critics. This weapon — made from the hijacking of Jewish identity and historic persecution, and launched through Zionist media and organizations — silences opposition and keeps attention away from its crimes in Palestine. If we can defang this weapon, Israel’s arsenal of bombs will be impotent. Israel is keenly aware of this, and so front organizations such as that quoted above have declared that exposing Israel’s exploitation of antisemitism is … antisemitic.

What follows is a summary of one effort to challenge one such media “making accusations of antisemitism in bad faith in order to aid” the “hidden agenda” of Israel, the London-based Jewish Chronicle (JC); and indirectly challenge one such organization, the UK’s Board of Deputies of British Jews. Continue reading “Tom Suarez challenges smears by the ‘Jewish Chronicle’”

Pro-Israel Interference in Free Speech in the UK

How a Zionist campaign of distortions stopped audiences hearing Tom Suarez speak about his book State of Terror

Tom Suarez

State of Terror cover
State of Terror cover

Note: In late 2016, my work State of Terror : how terrorism created modern Israel was published in hardcover in the UK (Skyscraper Books) and paperback in the US (Interlink). This book was the culmination of several years’ research based primarily on British government source documents held by the National Archives (Kew), relating to Palestine during the four decades between the Balfour Declaration (1917) and the Suez Crisis (1956).

Book talks that were affected

1. SOAS (3 Nov)

My first publicised book talk was to students at SOAS. This was sabotaged by a handful of non-student outsiders, principally by well-known activists Jonathan Hoffman and, less flamboyantly, David Collier. Security was called, but Mr. Hoffman yelled “assault” when he was approached by a guard (who had done nothing), at which security declined to intervene. The student organisers were unable to control the situation and the Q&A was soon abandoned. The saboteurs had recorded the talk and uploaded out-of-context video snippets, labelling me as an anti-Semitic hate speaker.

A video of the talk that Tom managed to give in Cambridge despite harassment
Continue reading “Pro-Israel Interference in Free Speech in the UK”