48 thoughts on “UK Jewish Chronicle Hosts BNP White Supremacist Blogger – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم
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  1. Yes, the Zionist and White Nationalist far right symbiosis is a well documented phenomenon and has been discussed by many observers. It is actually a quite natural alliance because of the fact that Jewish Nationalism (Zionism) and White Nationalism are basically two sides of the same coin and share quite a bit of ideological underpinnings. But while Jewish Nationalism is mainstream and acceptable (in fact it is the ruling ideology in Israel), white nationalism is relegated to “white supremacists” and a hate group. Therefore, a White Nationalist movement can confess its love for Israel and the Jews and get a Kosher stamp in return, putting it within the acceptable range of political views.

    I wrote an essay about it not too long ago: http://dancingwithpalestinians.wordpress.com/2011/07/28/zionism-and-islamophobia/

  2. “To make common cause with those who only a decade or so ago admired Adolf Hitler and denied the Holocaust?”

    In the back of the BNP’s collective closet is a framed picture of Der Fuehrer in his gray wartime uniform, and a well-worn copy of Arthur Butz’s book “The Hoax of the Twentieth Century” along with some tomes of Julius Evola.

    The same people who are BNP now were skinheads in the National Front of the late 1970s, cursing The Clash while listening to Skrewdriver at the “Rock Against Communism” concert. I agree with Ahad Haadam; Zionism (when you strip away all the talk of socialism and dignity) bears striking resemblences to the white nationist movements of Europe and America, and if the racists can cut the anti-Semitism and the “Holohoax” verbiage, the crazer sectors of Zionism will embrace them bcause both hate a common enemy: Arabs and Islam.

  3. The Neo-Nazi / White Supremacist – Zionist alliance only works out in Western Europe and Russia, where major Muslim communities are present. In Eastern Europe antsemitism still carries the day.

    Interestingly, BNP fired one of its top leaders because he was filmed making heil Hitler salutes last year in Hungary, in a Nazi camp:
    http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3734183/BNPs-racist-slur-as-they-expel-Nazi-lout-Chris-Hurst-who-was-exposed-by-Sun-probe.html

  4. RE: “their [the BNP’s] background is in the more traditional European neo-Nazi context and the National Front…” ~ Winstanley

    MEET THE EDL/BNP TYPES: This Is England, 2006, NR, 100 minutes
    Set in 1983, this semiautobiographical drama from writer-director Shane Meadows follows a lonely 11-year-old boy named Shaun as he grieves over the recent death of his father, who was killed fighting in the Falklands War. When he falls in with a gang of young skinheads, Shaun’s pain and anger make him susceptible to carrying out the group’s hateful agenda, exposing a dark side of modern Britain not often seen in the movies.
    Cast: Thomas Turgoose, Andrew Shim, Stephen Graham, Kieran Hardcastle, Frank Harper, Jo Hartley, George Newton, Jack O’Connell
    Netflix Availability: Streaming and DVD
    NETFLIX LISTING – http://movies.netflix.com/Movie/This_Is_England/70061577
    This Is England Trailer HQ (VIDEO, 02:28) – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXDNsPRTANw

    P.S. You have to give Carlos Cortiglia credit for one thing; judging from the photo, he certainly has perfected the ‘smug, superior look’!

  5. Richard, Sizer has turned “blog” into “regular column” (check the source he gave). Additionally, anyone can register for a blog at the Jewish Chronicle. He must have registered prior to announcement as BNP Mayoral candidate in early Sept and slipped under the radar (they don’t monitor who signs up for reader blogs at all). He made three reader blog posts, all in September, and hasn’t blogged since. Sizer’s taking an MPACUK website article which clearly says blog, and describing this as being offered a regular column is quite a misrepresentation, isn’t it? It implies an agency that doesn’t exist.

    1. It isn’t Stephen’s fault. It’s my fault. I misinterpreted the JC Blogs page since the link to Cortiglia’s blog took me to the page for the JC’s official blogs. I therefore thought Cortiglia was a JC designated blogger. Frankly, I’ve never heard of a newspaper allowing any reader to create a personal blog at the paper’s website. The fact is though that JC allowed Cortiglia a platform for his campaign and his noxious views. I’ve updated this blog post to reflect the new information I’ve learned.

      I don’t know if you ever received my Twitter DM some months ago, but you were upset that I posted publicly on your timeline and told me I should’ve DM’ed you. I just wanted you to know that I couldn’t do that since you weren’t following me. If you had followed me I would’ve DM’ed you.

  6. As Richard has kindly pointed out, I never said he was given a regular column. All I asked on Facebook was “what is the Jewish Chronicle doing promoting the BNP?” with a link to Richard’s piece above. It’s ironic that in January the JC criticised me for posting a link to an article on my Facebook in October that had some antisemitic material on it (and which I removed as soon as it was pointed out to me) and here they are doing the same for much longer….

    1. Yes, please note that any initial errors in this blog post were mine & no one else’s. The errors derived from the fact that the URL for Cortiglia’s JC blog resolved to the JC’s main blogger page which featured their official bloggers. This led me to believe that Cortiglia was as well. The main point here is that JC offered a BNP national leader a blog platform & published his work for eight months. Others (not Stephen) are trying to put lipstick on this pig, but it’s still a pig.

      1. The JC did not offer a BNP national leader a blog platform. The BNP Press Officer, prior to his announcement as Mayoral candidate, TOOK a blog at the open blogging platform provided by JC. Anyone could have taken a blog then. The only valid inference worthy of note is the political opportunism & underhandedness of BNP activists; the fact that the open blogging platform left JC wide open to such an incident occurring. For the BNP, it would have been too difficult to resist. Please note that JC have consistently rejected BNP.

        1. You’re once again making distinctions w/o a difference & have been saying the same thing on my Twitter feed. I don’t want to rehash the pallid excuses you’ve been offering on behalf of the JC. They “offer” any reader who wants one a blog on the JC site. Hence they did “offer” Cortiglia a blog & he accepted the offer. Yes, anyone could’ve taken a blog then. Which only shows the editor’s stupidity in not restricting or better monitoring who was blogging on the site. And in fact, Pollard acknowledges that he knew that Cortiglia was blogging there all the way back to September & allowed his four posts to remain publicly accessible.

          1. I’m not making pallid excuses, Richard. I’m explaining how it came to be that the BNP managed to take a blog at JC.

            As for “offering” Cortiglia a blog, they didn’t offer either him personally or the BNP a blog. – that’s really stretching the meaning of ‘offer’.

            You say Pollard allowed Cortigilia’s blog to remain after he denied him access. As that’s not the only unsavoury user-blog to remain after the use was denied access, perhaps take that up with the JC. I for one find archives valuable evidence to use against BNP (and Counterjihad) activists who are shmoozing the Jews.

            Finally, if you haven’t already read Toby Archer’s 2008 paper “Learning to love the Jews: the Impact of the War on Terror and the Counterjihad blogosphere on European Far-Right Parties”, I urge you to do so now: http://www.scribd.com/doc/90039108/Learning-to-Love-the-Jews-T-Archer

    2. Ironic? Not really comparable. Since you linked to the racist conspiracist site The Ugly Truth (and removed the link), just over a month ago you used an image (coded into your website) from Veterans’ Today.
      It’s a rightwing, pro-US patriot site that promotes David Duke. I don’t get why you’d use such sites to inform your views/readers, when there are a plethora of reliable websites which don’t peddle racist conspiracies. That kind of pro-Palestinianism hurts the Palestinians and Palestinian activists won’t thank you for it.

      1. What’s wrong with using an image from a far-right site if it’s useful. Does the image change its pixels in a racist manner if it comes from a kosher site? Please don’t be ridiculous.

        In any event, far-right and right are inextricably linked. After all most of Israel’s friends in the European Parliament – Michal Kaminski, Robert Ziles etc. are from the far right but in alliance with the British Conservatives. So what is acceptable and what is not?

        As Raul Hilberg said of the holocaust deniers, don’t deny them freedom of speech or imprison them. they may indeed pick up on particular aspects of the holocaust which we need to revisit, even if their motives are to deny history rather than correct it.

        There are times, as with the far-right Adelaide site in Australia, where it is essential to link to if one is trying to show the links between the far-Right and those who claim they are mainstream.

        1. Tony, you know me and my friends have been opposing the counterjihad and far-right for over 7 years now. The opportunism of the BNP does not surprise me.

          Re. Sizer linking to VT – he should be more careful. Using it implies he’s been reading their dross (and conspiracy-laden dross it is and belongs firmly on the US patriot right). I’m not being ridiculous and you know yourself how these things are used.

          Not denying holocaust deniers their freedom of speech, just choosing not to associate with them. It’s like quoting from RB, or MR, or Myers/AdelaideInst < unwise, and calls ones critical faculties into question (e.g. GA). I accept that sometimes it's necessary to link to the far-right but that wasn't (AFAIK) why Sizer linked to the image at VT – he wasn't illustrating the iniquities of VT by doing so, and since there's other reputably-sourced material available to use, why not use that unless the point being made is specifically to draw attention to GA's circle of wingnuts.

          And yes, there is a problem with the far-right linking up – US – EURO – IL. And yes, we should draw attention to it, but the BNP blog wasn't an example of that.

          1. I don’t know whether the BNP are being opportunistic or whether they are simply coming home. There is a very long tradition of anti-Semites supporting and quoting Zionists. In Nazi Germany between 1933-39 it is incontestable that the Zionist movement was favoured over and above anti-Zionist/assimilationist groups. Heydrich issued a memo to that effect to the SS in 1935 and even the Nuremburg Laws included amongst other things a law on flying flags. jews were allowed to fly the Zionist flag.

            Holocaust deniers are completely irrelevant as they are considered akin to flat earthers. What Israel and Zionism does, by repeatedly associating the holocaust with their latest enemy, Iran today, is to devalue the holocaust and cause many to doubt the holocaust on the principle that if it didn’t happen then Israel has no justification for what it does today.

            Zionism loves holocaust denial because it gives it a reason to exist outside of justifying repression. That is one good reason for why in Britain Palestine Solidarity Campaign expelled one such person and made support for HD incompatible with membership.

            I judge Stephen Sizer on what he says, not where he links to. His ‘crime’ was minute in comparison with the JC’s, especially given that the latter has removed any trace of opposition to Zionism from its blogs.

            I’ve based a whole article on Veteran’s Today. It contains mostly conspiracy st uff from what I’ve seen and frankly its as tedious as hell but the story I did on mary Rizzo and Atzmon parting could only be obtained from VT

          2. Linking to a site does NOT imply you read the content. I do thousands of Google searches & find articles published at sites to which I wish to link. I don’t necessarily read anything at the site when I make such linkages. Believe it or not I often visit right wing sites & DO read them. But not because I agree w. them but for precisely the opposite reason. And yes, alas you are being ridiculous.

            Why have you not criticized Pollard for knowing Cortiglia was blogging at his site & not removing the posts he published there? That’s condoning BNP propagandizing.

        2. Blissett is an apologist for the JC. In fact, he’s made this overstated claim via Twitter:

          British Jewish mainstream are exemplary in their rejection of #Counterjihad.

          Which means that he claims UK Jewry are anti-BNP. Except when they weren’t, which was when Stephen Pollard had an opportunity to take down Carlos Cortiglia’s four blog posts at the JC site & didn’t–for eight months!

          But what you’ve left out is that JC is crawling with Islamophobes & Pollard drips with Arab-hatred. So I’m sorry, merely because UK’s Jewish leadership doesn’t crawl into bed with neo-Nazis doesn’t let it off the hook in terms of being racist.

          1. There you go, using intemperate language again.

            Pollard isn’t British Jewish leadership (you insist he is). He holds no positions in the Jewish communities apart from his job as a journalist/editor. His politics are Tory rightwing. He’s just a journalist, not a leader.

            And yes, I do claim that UK Jewish leadership has been exemplary in rejection of Counterjihad. And no, I don’t mean only anti-BNP, and it’s disingenous and incorrect of you to claim otherwise.

            There are some sad deluded fools who actively support BNP/EDL/SIOE/BFP, but they’re less than 0.05% (Social Media Analytics).

            By Counterjihad I mean the Counterjihad Europa Project & blogosphere. I don’t mean the BNP when I say Counterjihad.

            JC isn’t “crawling” with Islamophobes. There are articles which criticise those racist traits.

            There are articles which paint a bleak picture for a just peace for Palestinians and Israelis, and articles which are display positivity.

            There are articles which talk of Muslim-Jewish cooperation, and there are unfortunately articles which smear prominent Muslims as ‘jihadis’ which are later retracted.

            Your beef with Pollard and various unamed journos has been mishandled.. If you were looking for support for BNP from UK Jewish community, you’ve looked in the wrong place.

          2. Luther Blissett claims that Pollard’ politics are Tory right-wing. Actually he votes for New Labour!

            The Jewish Chronicle has become little more than a propaganda sheet.

            British Jews not supporting Israel enough is the lead story this week. It drips with Islamaphobic comments – so much so that Luther has become immune to reading about how Muslims are at the forefront of the worst bout of anti-Semitism since 1930’s Germany etc. etc.

        3. Replying here, as we’ve reached the end of the reply-nest.

          >> Luther Blissett claims that Pollard’ politics are Tory right-wing. Actually he votes for New Labour!

          You have got to be joking me?! !!??!!!

          His article today, calling for out of the #ECHR, was more like the Tory-right/UKIP/BFP etc.

          >> The Jewish Chronicle has become little more than a propaganda sheet.

          There’s room for alot of improvement. There’s not enough real community issues discussed, and way too much attacking Brit Jews for not going on enough counter-demos, or being too pro-Palestinian, etc. Many of the user-blogs are appalling – embarrassing. Apparently these are my elders and betters hurling insults at each other. A responsible blogging drive would be useful. An clear policy to ensure no Arabophobia, Islamophobia, Racism, etc is purveyed would also be welcome.

          >> British Jews not supporting Israel enough is the lead story this week. It drips with Islamaphobic comments – so much so that Luther has become immune to reading about how Muslims are at the forefront of the worst bout of anti-Semitism since 1930′s Germany etc. etc.

          Don’t make assumptions about me like that, Tony. You’ve no idea what I think of that story unless you ask me first. Plus, anyone who knows me would scoff at your base insult – my track record says different.

          JC has the potential to be a good newspaper. There are lots of complaints about it’s current track, under you-know-who’s editorship.

          1. >> Luther Blissett claims that Pollard’ politics are Tory right-wing. Actually he votes for New Labour!

            Pollard made a video before the last election endorsing the Conservatives for a national newspaper.

      2. This is utter nonsense. Linking to a site does not infer you approve of the site’s entire contents. A link is not an endorsement. That’s why so many Twitter users note a retweet is not an endorsement. David Duke links to my site. Does that mean that David Duke agrees with my views? Hardly.

        In many cases in fact, I’ve linked here to sites I detest because I want readers to be able to see better into the mind of the far right. Does that mean I endorse the views of such sites?

        You are being fatuous & disingenous. Stephen Sizer did nothing wrong.

        1. No doubt the JC does have the potential to be a good newspaper. And I have the potential to be a marathon runner! But I suspect that this side of 2050 or so I won’t be one. It’s a potential that is unlikely to be realised.

          I take your word for it that Stephen Pollard endorsed the Tories at the last election. But I also remember him saying he was a supporter of New Labour. Not that there’s much difference these days – 2 cheeks on the same arse, so jumping from one to the other shouldn’t present the rotund Pollard with any problems.

          No I know nothing about you Luther but I’m surprised you don’t discern the pervasive hostility to Arabs and Muslims and the condescension that is typical of a colonial mentality.

  7. Thank you both Stephen Sizer and Richard. It is the fault of the JC, for not monitoring their blogs.

    The far right are desperate for allies, and so are the Zionist Jewish far right. already you see a few of these alliances, but they are mostly cranky bloggers like Pam Geller, and some Israeli sites like Arutz Sheva,

    One odd thing..you’d think these far right nazi types would be warmly embraced by the Christian Right, but they seem to find common cause with Jewish rightists…albeit they are a minority..rather than the Christian Right. I suspect it’s because the Christian Right at the end of the day are American, and they can’t turn the US into an Israel, or Israel as it is today, a semi apartheid, ethno theocracy, masquerading as a democracy.

    Im wondering if the Jewish Chronicle did know? How could they not know? I find that hard to believe…

    Anyhow, excellent reporting…thank you.

    1. Chayma said: “One odd thing..you’d think these far right nazi types would be warmly embraced by the Christian Right”

      They have been doing just that, in America. For example, the CVF have made co-demonstrations with Mawyers’ Christian Action Network: CVF was 910Group now ICLA joint demo with allies ChristianActionNetwork in Feb 2007″. They rely on Brent Bozell’s MRCTV to host their video media. Pat Robertson’s CBN is another favourite video media, hosting EDL founder, Heritage faculty member and various assorted Islamophobes. They’ve linked up to EDL co-founder Alan Ayling’s 4Freedoms, which recommends various rightwing US Christian groups. In fact, the push towards rightwing Christian fundamentalism couldn’t be clearer. EDL leader Tommy Robinson has spoken on Christian Nationalist radio host Kevin Lehmann in USA. He has appeared on the obscure Sunnews Arena show with Catholic>Evangelical>Catholic convert and rightwing Christian Michael Coren. The shadowy figure (Kinana) who wrote Robinson’s first speech is a rightwing Christian. Alan Lake is an evangelist. EDL founder Paul Ray appeared on Pat Robertson’s CBN in a programme about Multiculturalism and is a born-again Christian. EDL’s motto is entirely derived from Constantine I. Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff was inducted into Jerry Boykins Ecumenical (Pentecostalist) Knights of Malta. Need I go on?

  8. The JC’s ex-tabloid editor, Stephen Pollard, is being disingenuous as well as slippery. The paper he once edited, the right-wing Daily Express, owned by Richard Desmond (who is Jewish!) has come very close to endorsing the English Defence League (which is the activist wing of the fascist movement in Britain today).

    In fact the JC’s defence is a nonsense. I registered simply to make comments on other’s blogs, like the Zionist ‘co-vice chair’s’ blog – Jonathan Hoffman. My posting rights were removed when complaints were made that anti-Zionists were using the JC as a platform (i.e. taking the battle to them!).

    The reality is that the JC’s main focus is anti-Zionism and any criticism of Israel. It has less and less coverage of the far-Right and of course significant sections of the Zionist movement in Britain, not least Hoffman, have made it clear by their actions that they consider the fascists the ‘lesser of the 2 evils’.

    That is the reason why Cortiglia’s blogs went unnoticed whereas I was removed.

  9. I agree with Tony Greenstein, thank you for your thoughtful comments, Tony

    Luther Blisset

    Please see the update to this article, that Richard wrote. I’ve posted some links there that shed light on S Pollard’s closet Islamophobia, and neo con agenda. He cannot be openly Islamophobic and anti Palestinian as that would be unnacceptable, but it’s clear to anyone who follows this character, that he is a closet Islamophobe and hates Palestinians and Muslims. This is not something out of the ordinary for Zionists because they want to expand territory but see Muslims as standing in the way of a greater Israel. They pretend that Hamas, a rag tag motley crew are a serious threat to the worlds fourth largest military.

    Jewish Chronicle Editor Lies Regarding Publishing UK White Supremacist Blogger
    https://www.richardsilverstein.com/2012/04/20/jewish-chronicle-editor-lies-regarding-publishing-uk-white-supremacist-blogger/

  10. and Luther Blissett,

    You may be wondering what I said above has to do with Britian or the world at large, and the answer is Zionist fanatics have an agenda of allying themselves with anti Muslim populists, neo nazis and far right fascists in the hope that they will end Muslim immigration, and spread incitement against Islam.

    They do this because they think the West getting on with Muslims and the Muslim world alliance, will mean less support for their expansionist project. Hence they seek to cause a split. That is why neo nazis like Anders Brievik love Israel. Not because they love Jews but because of it’s vile nationalist racist pollicies.

  11. FYI, All four JC Blog posts by Carlos Cortiglia are still available via Google cache. Links to the 4 posts are included below, together with a public profile of Cortiglia and a feature of his most recent post on the Blogs page.

    JC-Blogs 1 Cortiglia Post – “When things go wrong, we need common sense” (Google cache as at 11 Apr 2012)
    http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:09W7pHMGKYoJ:217.18.90.33/blogs/carlos-cortiglia/when-things-go-wrong-we-need-common-sense+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au

    JC-Blogs 2 Cortiglia Post – “Recognition is a two-way process: Will the Palestinians recognize Israel?” (Google cache as at 2 Apr 2012)
    http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:c7c6lOQe4vIJ:217.18.90.33/blogs/carlos-cortiglia/recognition-a-two-way-process-will-palestinians-recognize-israel+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au

    JC-Blogs 3 Cortiglia Post – “Two-State Solution? What kind of Two-State Solution?” (Google cache as at 2 Apr 2012)
    http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:uwPPqeQ9CScJ:217.18.90.33/blogs/carlos-cortiglia/two-state-solution-what-kind-two-state-solution+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au

    JC-Blogs 4 Cortiglia Post – “Anti-Semite Rage” (Google cache as at 3 Apr 2012)
    http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:N9n5txfemAkJ:217.18.90.33/blogs/carlos-cortiglia/anti-semite-rage+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au

    JC-Blogs 5 Public Profile & Posts by Carlos Cortiglia (Google cache as at 1 Apr 2012)
    http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:zWK1uOmEfXkJ:217.18.90.33/users/carlos-cortiglia+&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au

    JC-Blogs 6 Cortiglia featured under LATEST USER BLOGS (Google cache as at 12 Apr 2012)
    http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ER18m9rb4roJ:217.18.90.33/blogs+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au

    1. iResistDe4iAm said:

      JC-Blogs 6 Cortiglia featured under LATEST USER BLOGS (Google cache as at 12 Apr 2012)
      http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ER18m9rb4roJ:217.18.90.33/blogs+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au

      Except the actual JC-Blogs (your 6) doesn’t show Cortiglia featured under LATEST USER BLOGS (Google cache as at 13 Apr 2012)
      http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:cxBrsoijpfEJ:www.thejc.com/blogs+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk

      The Editor blog is from 27th March, the LATEST USER BLOG is Leon A. Smith.

      You’ve somehow obtained a mirror – the latest blog on it dates to November 2011. The cache was taken in 12 Apr, and so no updates to that mirror between Nov 2011 and Apri 2012.

      The actual blog cache shows blogs up to 12 Apr 2012.

      If you search for JC blogs, you’re taken to actual site, not mirror. Claims that Cortiglia was featured blogger as of 13 Apr 2012 are therefore also false, unless you mention it was a dormant mirror site which no-one clicking on JC’s actual site could have viewed.

      1. The screenshots of Cortaglia’s posts were taken from the real JC site, not a mirror site. These blog posts were accessible at the JC site to me and many of my readers who read them there as well. I have no idea what you’re claiming about mirror sites & if you have any specific proof you should offer it. This sounds like more gobbledy gook from you. I note that not even a liar like Stephen Pollard is NOT claiming there ever was a JC mirror site.

        1. RS said: “The screenshots of Cortaglia’s posts were taken from the real JC site, not a mirror site.”

          Yes, the blog was not deleted though the user was barred.

          Claims as to ‘top blog’ are specious. I gave you proof above in those two links. the actual JC site cache which features blogs to date of cache, and the dormant 217.etc mirror site cache, which featured blogs no later than Nov 2011.

          1. You gave no proof of anything Luther. It was you who mentioned mirrors, to wit ‘You’ve somehow obtained a mirror’. Now you admit it is untrue or rather you don’t admit it you just raise a few more red-herrings.

            You are a troll Luther, with nothing useful to say.

        2. RS said: “if you have any specific proof you should offer it”

          I gave proof in the post above – with links.

  12. This is the blog I’ve done on the JC’s latest acquisition.

    http://www.azvsas.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/meet-jewish-chronicles-new-blogger.html

    And here is an article on how the EDL and assorted fascists were driven out of Brighton at the weekend. Even the right-wing Murdoch Sun covered us favourably!

    http://www.azvsas.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/edl-humiliated-as-brighton-says-no-to.html

    And you know the funny thing. In the 1930’s when people took to the streets against the fascists it was Jewish people who were at the forefront. Today the only Jewish people in the anti-fascist movement and on the streets are those who’ve distanced themselves from Zionism.

    There must have been half Brighton & Hove’s Palestine Solidarity Campaign there – even I have to say one or two who are sympathetic to Atzmon – but no Jewish presence per se (of course the Zionists have never opposed anti-Semitic movements in Britain – indeed from the start they endorsed the Tory anti-immigration (i.e. Jewish immigration) candidates in 1900, including one David Hope-Kydd who described the Jews of Eastern Europe as “the very scum of the unhealthiest of the Continental nations.’’ (see Geoffrey Alderman’s ‘The Jewish Community in British Politics’,p.75. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1983).

    Alderman is, incidentally, an extremely right-wing columnist in the Jewish Chronicle.

    1. “of course the Zionists have never opposed anti-Semitic movements in Britain” This is nonsense Tony. You can’t use one example of the ZF in 1906 (when it was still a tiny movement) to make a generalisation about “the Zionists”. On one hand, labour leaders like John Burns and Ben Tillett said much more antisemitic things than David Hope-Kydd and received the support of Jewish socialists, and the then heavily anti-Zionist Anglo-Jewish communal leadership also endorsed antisemitic movements like Evans Gordon. On the other hand, labour Zionists in PZ played an active role at Cable St and in the Jewish People’s Council fighting Mosley in the 1930s, alongside Communists and other socialists. Zionists, as well as Trotskyists and anarchists, were active in the fights against Mosley at Ridley Rd etc when he re-emerged after the war. Most of the 43 and 62 Group activists were Zionists. Zionists like Ronson have funded anti-fascist organisations like Searchlight. Searchlight are politically very dodgy of course, but you can’t claim they haven’t fought antisemitic movements. More recently, even the most mainstream Zionist Anglo-Jewish bodies (like UJS and event the Board) have been unequivocal in condemning the BNP, including its skin-deep pro-Israel rhetoric. It is simply ridiculous to give one example of Zionist-antisemitic collusion in 1906 to make such an absurd sweeping statement.

  13. Greenstein gives a false view of British Jewish involvement in antifa activism. No idea why. One thing is certain, he’s not at the forefront of antiEDL activism. 1/3 of our antiEDL team is Jewish, another 1/3 Muslim and the remainder majority ‘non-militant’ atheists. Also reflected in the team are a range of political viewpoints – everyone works together in spirit of horizontalism.

  14. I don’t know who the ‘we’ is that Luther Blissett refers to. They certainly weren’t in Brighton on Saturday for one of the most successful actions that have been effected against the EDL. Despite 500+ police, pepper spray, horses and batons, they could not proceed more than a third of the way along their intended route.

    Not aware of Luther and his group. Plenty of anarchists, antifa types etc. There was no specific Jewish involvement as such, just individuals who happen to be Jewish. Certainly there was no Zionist involvement because Zionists don’t participate in anti-fascist demonstrations and certainly not against those who are pro-Zionist.

    I suspect Luther’s imagination is also engaging in a spirit of horizontalism!

  15. BobfromBrockley describes as ‘nonsense’ the idea that the Zionists never opposed anti-Semitic movements in Britain. I could also have added Germany to the list but we’ll let that pass.

    The example of the ZF was in 1900 not 1906. 1906 was the great Liberal victory of course when the anti-Semitic Tories that the Zionists supported were defeated. The question is not whether or not they were tiny, yes of course they were, but what their political trajectory even then was.

    Do I really need to point out the difference between labour leaders who made anti-Semitic comments and members of the ruling class like David Hope-Kydd? The major issue of the time, which even the bourgeois Board of Deputies supported, was opposition to the Aliens Act 1905. And who, as Prime Minister was responsible for that piece of legislation? None other than the hero and supporter of an alliance between British imperialism and the Zionist movement, one Arthur James Balfour.

    When the Jewish Chronicle printed a critical report on the British Brothers League in its edition of 18.10.01., its President William Stanley Shaw responded on 8.11.01. with a response he had made to Israel Zangwill. It deserves reading:

    ‘Now as to the Zionist movement. There I am with Mr Zangwill heart and soul. I am a firm believer in the Zionist movement, which the BBL will do much incidentally to foster.
    The return of the Jews to Palestine is one of the most striking signs of the times. ‘When his branch is yet tender and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh.’ All students of prophecy are watching the manifold signs of the times with almost breathless interest and there can be but little doubt that the world is rapidly drawing near to some great crisis which shall ‘shake all the nations.’

    Note the seamless tapestry of Christian Zionism and revelation with anti-Semitism. Or take the leader of Zionism for nearly 30 years, Chaim Weizmann, 1st President of Israel. Weizmann it was who forged the alliance with Balfour that resulted in the 1917 Balfour Declaration. Weizmann writes how, ‘In a most cordial letter, he has already declared his support for us at all times in London.’ [Letters & Papers Vol. 2 Chaim Weizmann pp. 41/43. (1. 12. 1903)]. And a year later he wrote (13. 7. 1904), at the height of the agitation over the Aliens Bill, that Gordon is “very kind, promised to help in every way.” Ibid. p. 279. Gordon’s views ‘cannot be looked upon as anti-Semitism in the ordinary or vulgar sense of that word.’

    Good gracious no! It was merely “a universal social and economic concomitant of Jewish immigration and we cannot shake it off.” Indeed:
    Sir William Evans Gordon had no particular anti-Jewish prejudice. He acted as he thought, according to his best lights and in the most kindly way, in the interests of his country.

    We are even told that he was “horrified” by events in Russia, indeed:

    He was sorry but he was helpless. Also, he was sincerely ready to encourage any settlement of Jews almost anywhere in the British Empire, but he failed to see why the ghettos of London or Leeds or Whitechapel should be made into a branch of the ghettos of Warsaw and Pinsk.

    The existing Anglo-Jewish leadership did not endorse Evans anti-Semitic movement. It opposed the Aliens Act, though its opposition was confined to the parlours of the establishment and letters to influential people, whereas socialists took the fight to the working class, who were of course affected by anti-Semitism. The difference is that workers should shake of these prejudices which the ruling class used, as we saw in 1936 when thousands of non-Jewish workers took to the streets against Moseley.

    The bourgeois ‘anti-Zionist’ of the Jewish communal leadership collapsed after 1917 into support for the Zionist movement but that is another story. Theirs was an anti-Zionism of the Jewish establishment and had little in common with Jewish socialist opposition to Zionism.

    The Zionist movement in Britain made no criticism of the Board of Deputies, which they had by then effectively taken over, when it called on Jews to stay at home and not confront Mosley’s Blackshirts. Poale Zion was as much as an irrelevance then as now. It was born of the contradiction between fighting anti-Semitism where you were or emigrating to Palestine and settling someone else’s country.

    Most histories of the period make no mention of the Labour Zionists. They were an insignificant strand in the Jewish working class. Those who had any class consciousness joined the Communist Party or the Independent Labour Party. Yes the 43 and 62 groups consisted of Zionists but this was after the war and the holocaust. Most Jews at that time, not unnaturally, did see Israel as a refuge against anti-Semitism. That was a consequence of the holocaust. But these Zionists, Sassoon etc. soon moved with the Zionist movement to the right and we see where that has led with the goon squad of the Zionist Community Security Trust which purportedly fights anti-Semitism but in practice targets anti-Zionists within the Jewish community. A group that produced falsified evidence in order that Raed Salah, an Israeli Arab leader, could be deported from Britain, thus colluding with Britain’s racist immigration policies. A CST which was and is oblivious to EDL members being alongside on a picket in support of the murders on the Mava Marmara outside the Israeli embassy or which has nothing to say about Zionists demonstrating alongside the EDL at the Ahava shop.

    The role of Searchlight, which even Bob can’t deny, because of his own experiences in Anti-fascist Action, had a seriously destructive effect on the anti-fascist movement in Britain in the 1980’s. It worked with the British secret state and Israeli security and we saw that exposed when Gerry Gable, as a London Weekend TV Reporter, was found out trying to portray the campaign against the deportation in 1977 of Phil Agee (the ex-CIA agent) and Mark Hosenball, a journalist as one which supported terrorism in the Middle East – fingering Phil Kelly, the later editor of Tribune.

    Bob knows as well as I do that UJS never fought fascism in Britain. It recoiled from anything other than paper declarations. It actually opposed in 1977 support for the Anti-Nazi League in the National Union of Students (which the Board of Deputies also did) at a time when the ANL was a mass movement, because it was also led by anti-Zionists. It spent much of its time labelling me as anti-Semitic! Physical opposition to the National Front and BNP were not what UJS, as a bourgeois student group, was about.

    Even today the headquarters of the Zionist movement in Britain are named after an anti-Semite, Arthur James Balfour!

  16. Thank you for your long reply Tony. My point, to be clear, is not that “Zionists” have NEVER supported antisemitic movements, but that you are wrong to say that “Zionists” have NEVER opposed antisemitic movements. It’s quite a simple point, and no amount of examples of Zioinists supporting antisemitic movements can refute it. I’ll try and read your reply more fully and get back again.

  17. A few further, less important, points.

    The example of the ZF was in 1900 not 1906. 1906 was the great Liberal victory of course when the anti-Semitic Tories that the Zionists supported were defeated. The question is not whether or not they were tiny, yes of course they were, but what their political trajectory even then was…. The major issue of the time, which even the bourgeois Board of Deputies supported, was opposition to the Aliens Act 1905.

    Sorry for my error. Not having my Alderman to hand, I googled David Hope-Kydd and was confused by this, from your article re-published by the Nazi “Radio Islam” site: “whom even a local Conservative Alderman, John Harris, refused to support in the 1906 General Election”. Don’t think it makes a huge difference to my point, except that ZF was even more marginal in 1900 than in 1906. 1900 (“Khaki”) election was mainly about Boer War, when both the mainstream left (Hyndman’s SDF) and many Lib-Lab leaders used antisemitic language against the Tory victors. Main issue of 1906 was so-called Chinese Labour Question, in which Liberals swept to landslide partly on antisemitic campaign on that issue.

    Do I really need to point out the difference between labour leaders who made anti-Semitic comments and members of the ruling class like David Hope-Kydd?

    Of course not. But they’re both antisemitic. My point is that not just “Zionists” endorsed antisemites in the 1900s; it was so deep in the political culture that it was impossible to participate in parliamentary politcs, or even labour movement politics, and not at the very least share a platform with antisemites. I know next to nothing about Hope-Kydd, but I doubt he was much more antisemitic than Hyndman, Tillett, Burns and co.

    On the pro-Zionism of antisemites like Balfour and William Stanley Shaw, the point is not whether the antisemites supported Zionism, whose aims happened to be congruent with theirs. (Some white supremacists in the US supported Garveyism for the same reason.) The question is therefore did the Zionist movement therefore endorse antisemitism, which is basically the claim you are making. And the answer is of course it didn’t. It supported Balfour because he was good for them, not because he hated Jews. For instance, did Zangwill reply to White’s crocodile endorsement with support for the British Brothers?

    The existing Anglo-Jewish leadership did not endorse Evans[‘] anti-Semitic movement.
    I’d need to find my copy, but Bill Fishman’s East End Jewish Radicals gives lots of examples of anti-Zionist Anglo-Jewish grandees supporting BBL or other such anti-alien movements.

    The bourgeois ‘anti-Zionist’ of the Jewish communal leadership collapsed after 1917 into support for the Zionist movement but that is another story. Theirs was an anti-Zionism of the Jewish establishment and had little in common with Jewish socialist opposition to Zionism.

    Of course, but that’s irrelevant. My point was simply that the support some 1900s Zionists gave to antisemitic movements is not really much different to the support some 1900s anti-Zionists of the left and of the right gave to antisemitic movements. Antisemitism was so ubiquitous it’d be surprising if this was not so. It tells us about the 1900s, not about some eternally evil “Zionism”, the same in your account in 1900 as in 1912.

    The Zionist movement in Britain made no criticism of the Board of Deputies, which they had by then effectively taken over, when it called on Jews to stay at home and not confront Mosley’s Blackshirts. Poale Zion was as much as an irrelevance then as now. It was born of the contradiction between fighting anti-Semitism where you were or emigrating to Palestine and settling someone else’s country.
    Most histories of the period make no mention of the Labour Zionists. They were an insignificant strand in the Jewish working class. Those who had any class consciousness joined the Communist Party or the Independent Labour Party.

    I think you exaggerate here, but are not completely wrong. I think you exaggerate, because many in the Workers Circle, one of the main sponsors of the JPC, were labour Zionists, including some also in ILP or Labour Party. (ILP was sibling party of Hashomer Hatzair at that point wasn’t it?) Also, as the majority of Jewish people at Cable St were members of no party, we have no way of knowing how many were Zionists. And didn’t the Zionist Jewish Chronicle criticise the Board for being too tepid about Mosley? Anyway, even if I was wrong about those things, it wouldn’t make any difference to my key point, that it is nonsense to say Zionists didn’t oppose Mosley. (The insignificance of PZ you stress being no more relevant than the insignificance of the ZF in 1900 which I stressed.)

    Yes the 43 and 62 groups consisted of Zionists but this was after the war and the holocaust. Most Jews at that time, not unnaturally, did see Israel as a refuge against anti-Semitism. That was a consequence of the holocaust. But these Zionists, Sassoon etc. soon moved with the Zionist movement to the right That all may be true. But again, it does not help your case that Zionists never opposed antisemitic movements in the UK. Sassoon and his comrades, by the way, have never disavowed 43 Group but remain proud of it, and are celebrated by mainstream Zionists for this.

    and we see where that has led with the goon squad of the Zionist Community Security Trust which purportedly fights anti-Semitism but in practice targets anti-Zionists within the Jewish community.

    At most, you can say that it targets anti-Zionists AS WELL AS right-wing antisemites. Are you really saying that all its time, energy and money is spent on targeting you and your buddies? Is their anti-BNP work just a smokescreen, an alibi for their anti-Tony Greenstein work?

  18. What a muddled mixture from Brockley Bob. Of course there is the snide aside, which one comes to expect from Zionists when they seek to align anti-Zionism with neo-Nazis. ‘I googled David Hope-Kydd and was confused by this, from your article re-published by the Nazi “Radio Islam” site.’

    Perhaps you will read the original in future, or even for that matter Alderman’s excellent book (which key members of the Board urged him not to publish, one of the reasons for his departure).

    I haven’t said that Zionists ‘endorsed’ anti-Semitism per se. It is somewhat more complex. Zionist was a reaction to anti-Semitism, the most reactionary reaction but a reaction. However in the course of such a reaction they came to adopt the outlook of said anti-Semites viz. that Jews did not belong in the countries that they lived in. That too is a typical feature of separatists and you point to Marcus Garvey’s Back to Africa movement as an example. Radical Feminism is another example. In Garvey’s case this involved meetings with the KKK. Not insignificant. Louis Farrakhan is another such separatist but the difference is that Garvey and Farrahkan did not achieve state power. If Zionist had failed in its primary objective then it too would have been another historical curiosity.

    I should add that some Zionists clearly did endorse anti-Semitism e.g. Jacob Klatzkin, co-editor of Die Welt, the Zionist newspaper and that many Zionists, not least Herzl in his Mauschel essays, spoke in overtly anti-Semitic terms. How else would you describe eg. the comments of Pinhas Rosenbluth, the first Israeli Minister of Justice that Palestine was “an institute for the fumigation of Jewish vermin.” [Classic zionism and modern anti-semitism: Parallels and influences (1883-1914), Studies in Zionism No: 8]’

    Jewish Vermin. Anti-semitic? Jews as degenerates. Anti-Semitic (Klatzkin).

    No anti-Semitism was not ‘ubiquitous’ and this demonstrates to me Bob that you have abandoned any class analysis of racism or anti-Semitism in favour of the Zionist myth that all non-Jews are inherently anti-Semitic. Despite you ignoring the example I will repeat it. The workers who, 30 years previously had called for restrictions on Jewish immigration, were the ones who stood side by side with Jewish workers at Cable street. Why? Not because they were such good hearted fellows or had a change of morality, but because it was in their interests to oppose racism.

    Anyone, yourself excepted, who has participated in movements against racism and fascism, knows that there is such a thing as a changing consciousness. That painstaking work can change the outlook of eg. football fans from racist to anti-racist. Zionism just writes off such change behind formulations of the 2000 year myth of unchanging anti-Semitism. The ‘eternal Jew’ of Herzl’s friend, the anti-Dreyfusard Edouard Drumont, has become the ‘eternal anti-Semite’.

    I don’t think one can call the ILP the ‘sibling party’ of the insignificant Hashomer Hatzair. I don’t doubt that most of them understood next to nothing about Palestine but from what I recall they also had close relations with the Bund.

    You say that the Zionist Jewish Chronicle criticised the Board of Deputies for being too tepid about Mosley. Did they? I haven’t seen any evidence for this. I have though seen the calls in the Jewish Chronicle for Jews to obey the Board and stay at home when Mosely was trying to march through the East End of London. The only criticism of note that the JC indulged in vs Zionism was when it criticised, albeit tepidly, the Nazi-Zionist economic agreement Ha’avara, which removed the one weapon – Boycott – from the armoury of those seeking to protect Germany Jewry.

    But that Zionists saw in anti-Semitism something of the divine will to good (Herzl) is beyond dispute. Try reading Herzl’s ‘The Jewish State’.

    You don’t understand my points about anti-Semitism and the labour movement. Let me reiterate it. Anti-semitism, like all forms of racism, is not one undifferentiated mass. Ruling class racism, which we see today in Islamaphobia and anti-Black racism is aimed at dividing the poor and oppressed, setting white against black. That was the purpose of anti-Semitism at this period, to set off Jewish and non-Jewish worker. In other words anti-Semitism was against the objective interests of workers, unlike the ruling classes to whom it was a boon.

    Divide and rule, in case you’ve forgotten, was the tried and trusted method of the British empire. Hyndmann is a special case of someone, a bourgeois incidentally who came to lead a section of the working class, who was overtly nationalist and racist, be it against the Irish or the Jews. He ended up, like the ‘marxist’ Zionist Ber Borochov supporting the first world war.

    Hope-Kydd was merely a virulent example of Tory racism as in when he described Jews as ‘“the very scum of the unhealthiest of the Continental nations.’’ I am not aware of support from the existing bourgeois leadership of the Jewish community for the BBL, but bearing in mind that Zionism, which sought to take over the leadership of the Jewish community was a bourgeois movement par excellence, then that is quite possible.

    There is no doubt that the opposition of the Jewish bourgeoisie to the Aliens Act was half-hearted and the Chief Rabbi, Herman Adler, who was anti-Zionist (of the right-wing variety, i.e. accepting that Jews belong to this and no other country, described the East European Jews as “criminals… mentally and physically afflicted’. Equally there is no doubt that the existing Jewish community opposed the immigration of the East European Jews as compromising their own hard-won emancipation.

    Of course Sassoon and co. don’t disavow the 43 or 62 groups. However what they did had nothing to do with Zionism and incidentally a large number of communist party members particapated in the former. What is more relevant is how meaningless such glorification is when Sassoon and others have done nothing to support anti-fascist movements in the current period.

    I think I made it clear that the CST doesn’t target right-wing anti-Semites and that it was oblivious and indifferent to the presence of EDL members at a counter-demonstration they were stewarding. They have no record of any participation in anti-BNP or anti-EDL demonstrations. They have no record of any anti-fascist activity. They see to insulate and isolate the Jewish community behind a wall called ‘anti-Semitism’. Just as Israeli school students who are taken each year to Auschwitz, are secluded in hostels in Krakow and told that this is because the Polish population outside is hostile and anti-Semitic. Anyone who has visited and stayed in Krakow knows that quite the opposite is the case.

    What the CST does do is to pay 3 of its workers over £100,000 a year. It has assets of about £11m and it works closely with Israel’s Mossad (MI6). It has nothing whatsoever to do with fighting either anti-Semitism or racism. It is a Zionist organisation using ‘anti-Semitism’ as a means of shoring up support for Israel.

    You have abandoned any class analysis in favour of ascribing racism to collectivities. Hence your inability to distinguish between anti-Semitism or any racism that permeates the workers’ movement, which can be fought, and ruling class racism whose purpose is to divide the opposition. This approach, which Zionism typifies, ends up accusing anyone it disagrees with of ‘anti-Semitism’.

    Unfortunately it is precisely such an approach which is the bedrock of Gilad Atzmon’s support. People who have been accused of ‘anti-Semitism’ for no other reason than they are anti-Zionists or supporters of the Palestinians conclude that if supporting the Palestinians means they are anti-Semtici, then so be it, because not everyone is as sophisticated as Bob imagines.

    Likewise the Zionist misuse of the holocaust as justification for its crimes is one of the key factors in holocaust denial.

  19. Richard, thank you for allowing so much space to this possibly tangential set of issues. Tony, thank you for your once again comprehensive reply.

    To say that antisemitism was ubiquitous at one historical moment, the 1900s, is not in any sense the same as saying that antisemitism is an eternal unchanging evil. You’re quite right that the workers who took an anti-alien position in the 1900s had different attitudes in the 1930s. I’m not saying anything about the workers; I’m saying something about the 1900s. Read what *Jewish* socialists said in the 1900s and you’ll get plenty of instances of the sort of soft antisemitism of Jacob Klatzkin was not unique to Zionism but went across the political spectrum.

    On the history, I dug out my Bill Fishman for the support of the anti-Zionist grandees for the BBL. He gives examples of Francis Montefiore and Nathan Rothschild endorsing T Dewar and Evans-Gordon as Unionist and Tory candidates, but not of actual support for Evans-Gordon’s BBL, so I might have misremembered. (He goes on to give examples of antisemitic language in Yiddish-language Jewish socialist periodicals from the same period.)

    On the later period, you have presumably seen David Rosenberg’s excellent book on Cable St. He shows that the JC editorial line was nearly as tepid as the Board on domestic fascism, but that it pushed the Board to harder action and published much more militant material by Watchman (Sidney Gilbert) and others. Cesarani’s book on the JC also talks about this division.

    Cesarani also talks about the ANL issue in the 1970s, which divided opinion in the JC, with the official JC line being critical of the Board and calling for at least joint action.

    I also recently re-read Martin Lux’s excellent memoirs, Anti-Fascist, and he talks about the immediate pre-1977 period, in which anarchists and the left had completely retreated from anti-fascism. In several of the incidents he recalls there, it was Zionists who he was working with in physically fighting fascists in Hoxton and elsewhere. At that time, there was still the remnant of a working class Zionist-leaning Jewish population in the East End, the same demographic that had been heavily represented at Cable St and in the 43/62 Groups.

    In this sense, I agree that a class analysis is important, but it seems to me that you flatten “Zionism” much more than I flatten antisemitism. Zionism has been largely a middle class movement, but for long periods it had a large working class support base, and in these periods there were not just active opponents of antisemitic movements, but actually militant anti-fascists.

    In your first reply, Tony, you dismissed lots of my examples of anti-antisemitic activity (Searchlight, UJS, BoD, etc) as not really real, just paper manifestos. Clearly, I agree with you about this. None of these organisations were militant anti-fascist organisations, and Zionism as a movement has rarely endorsed militant anti-fascism. Middle class movements have never been militantly anti-fascist. (The Labour Party leadership has never been militantly anti-fascist either, for example.) So, if your yardstick when you claim that Zionists have “never opposed” antisemitic movements some kind of physical militancy, then you’d have a stronger argument – with important exceptions such as the Zionists who participated in Cable St and in the 43 and 62 Groups etc. But to argue that Zionism has not been a militant anti-fascist movement (effectively what you are arguing) is not exactly a controversial position. So, to remind you, the position I was disagreeing with was this one: “the Zionists have never opposed anti-Semitic movements in Britain – indeed from the start they endorsed the Tory anti-immigration (i.e. Jewish immigration) candidates“.

    I’m not even going to go near your disgusting suggestion that “the Zionist misuse of the holocaust as justification for its crimes is one of the key factors in holocaust denial.” I’ll move on now, as we’re clearly not getting anywhere.

  20. Sorry, I said I’d leave, but I just worked out why Google provided no information about “David Hope-Kydd” apart from Tony’s articles. His name was David Hope Kyd – one D, no dash. Alderman’s book makes it clear that this restrictionist was supported not just by the insignificant Zionist Federation, but also and more importantly by the anti-Zionist communal leadership like Nathan Rothschild. This substantiates, I think, the point I was making about the mood of the 1900s, which is that antisemitism was ubiquitous at that time (and not that antisemitism is eternal, or something).

  21. I think this is an interesting discussion. Firstly let me clarify some of the terms we use. I have never said that Zionists have never fought anti-semitism. that would be ludicrous. Labour Zionism arose because of the contradictions between a Jewish nationalist project and the fight in the here and now against oppression, so clearly those in such groups were more than susceptible to taking part in anti-fascist actions.

    Indeed I make a sharp distinction between Zionism as a movement and Zionists as individuals or even, in some cases, like the Warsaw Ghetto as a group. But let us be clear. Zionism was founded, not in order to combat anti-Semitism. I’m sure you are aware of Herzl’s attitude to anti-Semitism. In Der Judenstaat he compared it to the steam in an engine. to be channelled constructively NOT to be fought. Because anti-Semitism was inherent in the gentile, a mental disease inherited for 2000 years (Leon Pinsker, Autoemancipation) it could not be fought.

    That was the starting point of Zionism. Anti-Semitism could not be fought and Zionism as a movement did not fight it. That was as true of Dreyfus as it was of the Nazis. The comparison is not disgusting. What was disgusting was that Zionists openly opposed any attempt to rescue Jews that didn’t involve Palestine. This is not speculation or hearsay but documented fact. leave aside the appalling catastrophe of Hungary and the crimes of the Jewish Agency and Kasztner, look at their attitude to any attempt to rescue Jews that did not involve Palestine.

    Nor should you take my word for it. Shabtai Teveth, the official biographer or rather hagiographer of Ben Gurion, also had limits.

    ‘He [BG] maintained a puzzling silence about what was taking place in Europe and Riegner’s telegram’. p. 842 But it wasn’t so puzzling. 1942 was the year of Biltmore when demands were explicitly made for a Jewish state. Zionist leaders were quite clear that their main task was statehood not saving Jews. The Riegner telegram was sent in August 1942 from Switzerland. Riegner was the Jewish Agency representative there. His telegram was sat on for 3 months at the request of the State Dept. I’ll leave u to work out how many died during that period. 1942 was the ‘high point’ of the holocaust.

    Ben Gurion was absolutely explicit about his opposition to ‘refugeeism’. In his 1938 Memo to the Zionist Executive which talks about establishing a national museum in Palestine if ‘refugeeism’ took priority over Zionism.

    The holocaust received no priority, indeed at the Jewish Agency Executive meetings [the proto-Israeli state govt.] no mention was made of the holocaust nor was it discussed on November 1, 8 or 15 1942] . p.844 By November 22 with the arrival of 69 Exchange Jews from Belsen, there was definite confirmation of Riegner’s telegram and all the other reports seeping out of Europe. Including confirmation of Auschwitz. When Eliayahu Dobkin of the JA told one woman from Radom he didn’t believe her stories he was slapped in the face for his pains.

    And did Ben Gurion attend the JA meeting of 22 November when all this was discussed? no, he had a ‘light cold’

    On p.848 Teveth wrote:

    ‘In spite of the certainty that genocide was being carried out, the JAE did not deviate appreciably from its routine and Ben Gurion the chairman, left all its rescue efforts completely in the hands of Gruenbaum, Sharett and Kaplan, not even taking part in the Rescue Committee. Two facts can be definitely stated: Ben-Gurion did not put the rescue effort above Zionist politics and he did not regard it as a principal task demanding his personal leadership; he never saw fit to explain why, then or later. Instead he devoted his effort to rallying the Yishuv and Zionism around the Biltmore Program and to the preparations for its implementation.

    And ‘For nearly 2 years… Ben-Gurion was more concerned for the fate of the Yishuv than for that of European Jewry. Ben-Gurion repeatedly stresed that the importance of the Yishuv went far beyond the individual Jews of Palestine.’ Why? Because ‘the Yishuv was a “great and invaluable security, a security for the hope of the Jewish people.’ [849] The State is more important than the Jewish people in essence. Now where does this idea come from?

    The holocaust was seen as a means of levering into being the Jewish state. No matter that millions of Jews would have died by then. ‘ “distress” could also serve as “political leverage” [850]. He [Ben-Gurion] told the JAE, “The harsher the affliction, the greater the strength of Zionism.”
    What other conclusion can be draw than Teveth’s following statement?

    ‘If there was a line in Ben-Gurion’s mind between the beneficial disaster and an all-destroying catastrophe, it must have been a very fine one.’ [851] or ‘The war and the Holocaust were not in his power to control, but he aain resolved to extract the greatest possible benefit from the catastrophe.’

    ‘Ben-Gurion probably forced himself to relate to the fate of the individuals in a manner in line with his Zionist ideology: there were no “personal” cases, no individual Jews for him; there was only ‘the Jewish people.’

    You can also read much the same in for example Tom Segev’s 7th Million. ‘Although I was then chairman of the Jewish Agency executive, the enlistment of the Jewish people in the demand for a Jewish state was at the center of my activity.’ [98] ‘the disaster facing European Jewry is not directly my business.’

    ‘purely philanthropic rescue, such as the rescue of German Jewry,… can only cause damage from a Zionist perspective…’ [100] ‘The leaders of the Jewish Agency generally agreed with the principle that the few that could be saved should be selected in accordance with the needs of the Zionist enterprise in Palestine.’ The apotheosis of this was the Kasztner episode when the Zionists train of 1684 was paid for by silence and complicity over the deportation of ½ million Hungarian Jews. Little wonder that members of the Jewish Agency grew queasy at how they would be seen after the war. ‘We are full of sin’ summed up one of them and another predicted that after the war the Jewish Agency would find itself in the dock. ‘Shame on us’ said Golda Meir.’ [103]

    This was not just the conclusion of one or 2 historians but most who are not utterly slavish to the Zionist cause.
    Yes there limits to what could be done but why attack the dissident Zionists led by Bergson and Merlin in the USA who did campaign against the anti-Semitic behaviour of the US State Department? Why describe them to the State Department, as Wise did, as ‘worse than Hitler’ and try to have them enlisted? Despite their miniscule size their efforts led to the belated establishment of the War Refugee Board in early 1944 which is credited with the saving of at least ¼ million Jews? Or Vrba whose report likewise led to the saving of Budapest Jewry? Someone the Zionists attacked for not being a Zionist unsurprisingly.

    It is an appalling thing to say but it must be said. that if anti-Semitism rears its head again, the Zionist movement will no more fight it than it did in Argentina when Israel was trading with a neo-Nazi Junta that was specifically selecting young Jews for torture and death.

    The Zionist movement was a movement of collaboration which wrote off, even denied, the holocaust when it took place and mercilessly exploited it after the war. And they used the reparations of the German state to help build the Israeli state whilst keeping the holocaust survivors (for whom the reparations were meant) in penury.

    I say this quite deliberately. During the Holocaust we had the Chair of the JA ‘Rescue Committee’ Yitzhak Greenbaum using Nazi reports about 53 ghettos in Poland to pour cold water on the ‘atrocity propaganda’. Don’t take my word for it. Read Shabtai beit-Zvi’s Zionism in the Crucible of the Holocaust and its internet version, which I can send you, that minutely examines the reaction of the Zionist press and the Jewish Agency.

    I don’t doubt, to return to the thread, that anti-Semitic feeling was widespread in the 1900s and that workers shared many of these prejudices. The reason I emphasise class is that it was possible to win workers to an anti-fascist and anti-racist position. The ruling class was different. The middle classes and petit bourgeois were different. Anti-Semitism was their life blood and nowhere more than on the south coast of England!

    Many Zionists did oppose it and fight it, including my dad, but that wasn’t because of but in spite of Zionism. People don’t change into different animals when they become a Zionist. They are susceptible to being won back. In times of defeat and demoralisation Zionism seems attractive, like all such millenarian movements. When people want to fight it is seen as irrelevant, as in Poland in 1938.

    Yes I’ve read David Rosenberg’s pamphlet. It is very good. The JC certainly backed the Board but, at that time, it also had a more independent stance and some of its commentators took differing views. The last real dissident columnist on the JC was Chaim Bermant. Under Pollard it is a right-wing Zionist rag, a propaganda sheet.

    The last real split was over the ANL in 1977, today that simply wouldn’t have happened because Zionism has now moved so far to the right that even its ‘socialist’ variant has all but disappeared. I can think of just one person, in my time in Brighton, who took part in anti-fascist activity (AFA) and was a self-declared Zionist of the Mapam variety.

    Re holocaust denial, this isn’t ‘disgusting’ but a fact. Many people in the underdeveloped world, including Arabia believe the holocaust never happened. Are they all neo-Nazis? In fact the same people are often those who proclaim that they have nothing against living with Jews but Zionists. Don’t forget that Iran, which is apparently ruled by the new Hitler, has a Jewish community of 25,000 who don’t seem particularly persecuted by Iranian standards.

    What has happened is that you justify every barbarity that Israel perpetrates in the name of the holocaust (can there be a greater misuse of the holocaust than using it to justify yet more death and destruction as in Beirut when Arafat was compared by Begin to Hitler in his bunker) and people end up saying that if that is what explains Israel’s actions then there was no holocaust. Just as others use the Protocols to explain how they came to lose their homeland.

    It is clear to me that such political attitudes, though reactionary and reprehensible, are not akin to that of European holocaust denial, which originated in neo-Nazi circles and mostly remains there. Anti-semitism in Europe had an entirely different social base to what is seen as anti-semitism in the Arab countries and third world.

    And yes the holocaust is used as a foundational myth by Israel. It has been stripped of its historical background and presented as something peculiar to Germans and Poles. It is used to justify racism not to oppose it. Debate on this should not be avoided for fear of stepping on toes or saying the wrong thing.

    That incidentally is why people like Rudolph Vrba, the Jewish escapee from Auschwitz, or Marek Edelman, the Bundist and last Commander of the Jewish Fighting Organisation in Warsaw, have been all but airbrushed out of history by the Zionist historical establishment.

    My last point is simply that the communal leadership in the early years of the last century – Nathan Rothschild, Claude Montefiore et al. were anti-Zionists because they feared that Zionism would make them aliens again. But they were politically reactionary nonetheless which was why they had so little difficulty making their peace with Zionism!

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