A federal judge in New Jersey will soon issue a ruling on where the deportation case of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian student who led the student encampment at Columbia University last year, can be litigated. On March 8, Khalil was abducted in New York by agents from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) who told him his lawful permanent residency status had been “revoked.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
A growing number of Jewish people stand for Palestinian liberation. Neither Khalil’s detainment, nor broader assaults on Palestine solidarity activists or continued attacks on Palestine, are protecting Jews.
The post Jewish Supporters Rally For Mahmoud Khalil appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
If the secretary of state can simply declare a legal permanent resident deportable based on their constitutionally protected activities, the First Amendment no longer applies to noncitizens.
This post was originally published on Dissent Magazine.
Nine organisations who had previously engaged in good faith in Goldsmiths’ Inquiry into Antisemitism have published a statement publicly withdrawing their participation from the Inquiry, which has been ongoing since May 2023.
The groups include the Goldsmiths’ Students Union, Goldsmiths UCU Executive, and the Goldsmiths research group Forensic Architecture, as well as civil society groups including the Muslim Association of Britain, and legal organisations including the European Legal Support Centre (ELSC).
Their public statement cites ‘incoherent and contradictory statements’ from the College and the Chair of the Inquiry, and a ‘lack of transparency’ over ‘who and what is being investigated’ that has led to a widespread loss of confidence in the Inquiry from students, staff and civil society.
One example they say is the Inquiry’s refusal to confirm even what definition of antisemitism it is applying to inform its work.
The signatories say that the Inquiry has failed to meaningfully engage with the political context of Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, and the legitimate question of how unfounded accusations of antisemitism are used to silence Palestinian voices and those who stand with them.
They say the two-year process “marginalises Palestinians and adopts an approach which discriminates against them, and appears to target those who criticise Israeli policies and Zionism.” Goldsmiths has recently apologised and paid damages to a lecturer they wrongly suspended after complaints that constituted part of this inquiry.
The Inquiry, which is investigating the period 1 September 2018 to18 May 2023, has not indicated when it is due to complete. Freedom of Information requests sent by Michael Rosen (Goldsmiths Professor of Children’s Literature) in May 2024 found that the Inquiry had cost Goldsmiths £128,872 up to that point.
Ed Nedjari, Goldsmiths SU Chief Executive said:
It is crucial to address the rise of antisemitism; however, these efforts must not violate the rights of other marginalised groups, such as Palestinians, nor hinder the free expression of those who criticise Zionism and Israeli state policies, particularly against a backdrop of an ongoing Genocide in Gaza and an expansion of Settler Colonialism in the West Bank. The growing list of concerns, including the lack of transparency and questionable decisions made by the inquiry, has eroded any remaining confidence in its fairness and impartiality, ultimately leading to our decision to withdraw our support and participation.
We cannot, in good faith, support this inquiry while it advances without proper regard for the fundamental principles of equality and justice. Goldsmiths Students’ Union has consistently supported students’ critical engagement in their academic studies and civic activities. This inquiry contradicts our core values; we cannot risk complicity in restricting the freedoms of our members.
Ben Jamal, Director of Palestine Solidarity Campaign said:
It is deeply concerning to see universities attempting to intimidate students who are engaged in campaigning for Palestinian human rights, or who make legitimate criticisms of Israel’s apartheid system and genocidal attacks. British universities collectively invest almost £430million in companies complicit in Israeli violations of international law. Instead of targeting those speaking out against these grave violations of international law and undermining academic freedom, universities should be working to divest their money from apartheid and genocide.
Dr Lewis Turner, Chair of the BRISMES Committee on Academic Freedom, said:
BRISMES is deeply concerned that this Inquiry’s approach threatens freedom of expression and academic freedom on the question of Palestine, which have been under sustained attack on UK campuses, especially since October 2023. It is particularly concerning that the Inquiry has refused to confirm whether it will use the widely-discredited IHRA definition of antisemitism and its examples, which have been shown, in our September 2023 report with the European Legal Support Center, to clearly undermine freedom of expression and academic freedom in universities.
Featured image via the Canary
By The Canary
SPECIAL REPORT: By Markela Panegyres and Jonathan Strauss in Sydney
The new Universities Australia (UA) definition of antisemitism, endorsed last month for adoption by 39 Australian universities, is an ugly attempt to quash the pro-Palestine solidarity movement on campuses and to silence academics, university workers and students who critique Israel and Zionism.
While the Scott Morrison Coalition government first proposed tightening the definition, and a recent joint Labor-Coalition parliamentary committee recommended the same, it is yet another example of the Labor government’s overreach.
It seeks to mould discussion in universities to one that suits its pro-US and pro-Zionist imperialist agenda, while shielding Israel from accountability.
So far, the UA definition has been widely condemned.
Nasser Mashni, of Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, has slammed it as “McCarthyism reborn”.
The Jewish Council of Australia (JCA) has criticised it as “dangerous, politicised and unworkable”. The NSW Council of Civil Liberties said it poses “serious risks to freedom of expression and academic freedom”.
The UA definition comes in the context of a war against Palestinian activism on campuses.
The false claim that antisemitism is “rampant” across universities has been weaponised to subdue the Palestinian solidarity movement within higher education and, particularly, to snuff out any repeat of the student-led Gaza solidarity encampments, which sprung up on campuses across the country last year.
Some students and staff who have been protesting against the genocide since October 2023 have come under attack by university managements.
Some students have been threatened with suspension and many universities are giving themselves, through new policies, more powers to liaise with police and surveil students and staff.
Palestinian, Arab and Muslim academics, as well as other anti-racist scholars, have been silenced and disciplined, or face legal action on false counts of antisemitism, merely for criticising Israel’s genocidal war on Palestine.
Randa Abdel-Fattah, for example, has become the target of a Zionist smear campaign that has successfully managed to strip her of Australian Research Council funding.
Intensify repression
The UA definition will further intensify the ongoing repression of people’s rights on campuses to discuss racism, apartheid and occupation in historic Palestine.
By its own admission, UA acknowledges that its definition is informed by the antisemitism taskforces at Columbia University, Stanford University, Harvard University and New York University, which have meted out draconian and violent repression of pro-Palestine activism.
The catalyst for the new definition was the February 12 report tabled by Labor MP Josh Burns on antisemitism on Australian campuses. That urged universities to adopt a definition of antisemitism that “closely aligns” with the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition.
It should be noted that the controversial IHRA definition has been opposed by the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) for its serious challenge to academic freedom.
As many leading academics and university workers, including Jewish academics, have repeatedly stressed, criticism of Israel and criticism of Zionism is not antisemitic.
UA’s definition is arguably more detrimental to freedom of speech and pro-Palestine activism and scholarship than the IHRA definition.
In the vague IHRA definition, a number of examples of antisemitism are given that conflate criticism of Israel with antisemitism, but not the main text itself.
By contrast, the new UA definition overtly equates criticism of Israel and Zionism with antisemitism and claims Zionist ideology is a component part of Jewish identity.
The definition states that “criticism of Israel can be anti-Semitic . . . when it calls for the elimination of the State of Israel”.
Dangerously, anyone advocating for a single bi-national democratic state in historic Palestine will be labelled antisemitic under this new definition.
Anyone who justifiably questions the right of the ethnonationalist, apartheid and genocidal state of Israel to exist will be accused of antisemitism.
Sweeping claims
The UA definition also makes the sweeping claim that “for most, but not all Jewish Australians, Zionism is a core part of their Jewish identity”.
But, as the JCA points out, Zionism is a national political ideology and is not a core part of Jewish identity historically or today, since many Jews do not support Zionism. The JCA warns that the UA definition “risks fomenting harmful stereotypes that all Jewish people think in a certain way”.
Moreover, JCA said, Jewish identities are already “a rightly protected category under all racial discrimination laws, whereas political ideologies such as Zionism and support for Israel are not”.
Like other aspects of politics, political ideologies, such as Zionism, and political stances, such as support for Israel, should be able to be discussed critically.
According to the UA definition, criticism of Israel can be antisemitic “when it holds Jewish individuals or communities responsible for Israel’s actions”.
While it would be wrong for any individual or community, because they are Jewish, to be held responsible for Israel’s actions, it is a fact that the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former minister Yoav Gallant for Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity.
But under the UA definition, since Netanyahu and Gallant are Jewish, would holding them responsible be considered antisemitic?
Is the ICC antisemitic? According to Israel it is.
The implication of the definition for universities, which teach law and jurisprudence, is that international law should not be applied to the Israeli state, because it is antisemitic to do so.
The UA’s definition is vague enough to have a chilling effect on any academic who wants to teach about genocide, apartheid and settler-colonialism. It states that “criticism of Israel can be antisemitic when it is grounded in harmful tropes, stereotypes or assumptions”.
What these are is not defined.
Anti-racism challenge
Within the academy, there is a strong tradition of anti-racism and decolonial scholarship, particularly the concept of settler colonialism, which, by definition, calls into question the very notion of “statehood”.
With this new definition of antisemitism, will academics be prevented from teaching students the works of Chelsea Watego, Patrick Wolfe or Edward Said?
The definition will have serious and damaging repercussions for decolonial scholars and severely impinges the rights of scholars, in particular First Nations scholars and students, to critique empire and colonisation.
UA is the “peak body” for higher education in Australia, and represents and lobbies for capitalist class interests in higher education.
It is therefore not surprising that it has developed this particular definition, given its strong bilateral relations with Israeli higher education, including signing a 2013 memorandum of understanding with Association of University Heads, Israel.
It should be noted that the NTEU National Council last October called on UA to withdraw from this as part of its Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions resolution.
All university students and staff committed to anti-racism, academic freedom and freedom of speech should join the campaign against the UA definition.
Local NTEU branches and student groups are discussing and passing motions rejecting the new definition and NTEU for Palestine has called a National Day of Action for March 26 with that as one of its key demands.
We will not be silenced on Palestine.
Jonathan Strauss and Markela Panegyres are members of the National Tertiary Education Union and the Socialist Alliance. Republished from Green Left with permission.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
Asia Pacific Report
An independent Jewish body has condemned the move by Australia’s 39 universities to endorse a “dangerous and politicised” definition of antisemitism which threatens academic freedom.
The Jewish Council of Australia, a diverse coalition of Jewish academics, lawyers, writers and teachers, said in a statement that the move would have a “chilling effect” on legitimate criticism of Israel, and risked institutionalising anti-Palestinian racism.
The council also criticised the fact that the universities had done so “without meaningful consultation” with Palestinian groups or diverse Jewish groups which were critical of Israel.
The definition was developed by the Group of Eight (Go8) universities and adopted by Universities Australia.
“By categorising Palestinian political expression as inherently antisemitic, it will be unworkable and unenforceable, and stifle critical political debate, which is at the heart of any democratic society,” the Jewish Council of Australia said.
“The definition dangerously conflates Jewish identities with support for the state of Israel and the political ideology of Zionism.”
The council statement said that it highlighted two key concerns:
Mischaracterisation of criticism of Israel
The definition states: “Criticism of Israel can be antisemitic when it is grounded in harmful tropes, stereotypes or assumptions and when it calls for the elimination of the State of Israel or all Jews or when it holds Jewish individuals or communities responsible for Israel’s actions.”
The definition’s inclusion of “calls for the elimination of the State of Israel” would mean, for instance, that calls for a single binational democratic state, where Palestinians and Israelis had equal rights, could be labelled antisemitic.
Moreover, the wording around “harmful tropes” was dangerously vague, failing to distinguish between tropes about Jewish people, which were antisemitic, and criticism of the state of Israel, which was not, the statement said.
Misrepresentation of Zionism as core to Jewish identity
The definition states that for most Jewish people “Zionism is a core part of their Jewish identity”.
The council said it was deeply concerned that by adopting this definition, universities would be taking and promoting a view that a national political ideology was a core part of Judaism.
“This is not only inaccurate, but is also dangerous,” said the statement.
“Zionism is a political ideology of Jewish nationalism, not an intrinsic part of Jewish identity.
“There is a long history of Jewish opposition to Zionism, from the beginning of its emergence in the late-19th century, to the present day. Many, if not the majority, of people who hold Zionist views today are not Jewish.”
In contrast to Zionism and the state of Israel, said the council, Jewish identities traced back more than 3000 years and spanned different cultures and traditions.
Jewish identities were a rightly protected category under all racial discrimination laws, whereas political ideologies such as Zionism and support for Israel were not, the council said.
Growing numbers of dissenting Jews
“While many Jewish people identify as Zionist, many do not. There are a growing number of Jewish people worldwide, including in Australia, who disagree with the actions of the state of Israel and do not support Zionism.
“Australian polling in this area is not definitive, but some polls suggest that 30 percent of Australian Jews do not identify as Zionists.
“A recent Canadian poll found half of Canadian Jews do not identify as Zionist. In the United States, more and more Jewish people are turning away from Zionist beliefs and support for the state of Israel.”
Sarah Schwartz, a human rights lawyer and the Jewish Council of Australia’s executive officer, said: “It degrades the very real fight against antisemitism for it to be weaponised to silence legitimate criticism of the Israeli state and Palestinian political expressions.
“It also risks fomenting division between communities and institutionalising anti-Palestinian racism.”
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
Nothing, but nothing, is worse than those Jews who level totally unfounded allegations of genocide and ethnic cleansing against the State of Israel. They are repulsive and revolting human beings. Their relatives who were murdered by the Nazis – the role models for Hamas – will…
— Mark Leibler (@LeiblerMark) February 8, 2025
COMMENTARY: By Jeffrey Loewenstein
As someone Jewish, the son of Holocaust survivors and members of whose family were murdered by the Nazis, it is hard to know whether to characterise Mark Leibler’s tweet as offensive, appalling, contemptuous, insulting or a disgusting, shameful and grievous introduction of the Holocaust, and those who were murdered by the Nazis, into his tweet — or all of the foregoing!
Leibler’s tweet is most likely a breach of recently passed legislation in Australia, both federally and in various state Parliaments, making hateful words and actions, and doxxing, criminal offences. It will be “interesting” to see how the police deal with the complaint taken up with the police alleging Leibler’s breach of the legislation.
In the end, Leibler’s attempted intimidation of those who might have been thinking of going to the rally failed — miserably!
There are many Jews who abhor what Israel is doing in Gaza (and the West Bank) but feel intimidated by the Leiblers of this world who accuse them of being antisemitic for speaking out against Israel’s actions and not those rusted-on 100 percent supporters of Israel who blindly and uncritically support whatever Israel does, however egregious.
Leibler, and others like him, who label Jews as antisemites because they dare speak out about Israel’s actions, certainly need to be called out.
As a lawyer, Leibler knows that actions have consequences. A group of concerned Jews (this writer included) are in the process of lodging a complaint about Leibler’s tweet with the Commonwealth Human Rights Commission.
Separately from that, this week will see full-page adverts in both the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age — signed by hundreds of Jews — bearing the heading:
“Australia must reject Trump’s call for the removal of Palestinians from Gaza. Jewish Australians say NO to ethnic cleansing.”
Jeffrey Loewenstein, LLB, was a member of the Victorian Bar and a one-time chair of the Anti-Defamation Commission and member of the Jewish Community Council of Victoria. This article was first published by Pearls & Irritations public policy journal and is republished here with permission.
This full-page ad appears in today’s @smh and @theage with the names of 500 Jews, many more signed but couldn’t fit onto the page!, to clearly say that they’re utterly opposed to removing Palestinians from Gaza. Notice the silence from most “mainstream” Jewish groups? It’s… pic.twitter.com/GuUqvVMWNZ
— Antony Loewenstein (@antloewenstein) February 24, 2025
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
Media outlets continue to print headlines about antisemitism based on Anti-Defamation League statistics known to be faulty and politicized. In doing so, they grant undeserved credibility to the ADL as a source.
Producing statistics helps the ADL to claim objectivity when they assert that antisemitism is increasing dramatically, prevalent in all fields of society, and emanating from the left as well as the right. Those “facts” are then used to justify policy recommendations that fail to respond to actual antisemitism, but succeed in undermining the free speech rights of Palestinians and their supporters, including those of us who are Jews.
James Bamford (The Nation, 1/31/24) : “The New York Times, PBS and other mainstream outlets that reach millions are constantly and uncritically promoting the ADL and amplifying the group’s questionable charges.”
While it frames itself as a civil rights organization, the ADL has a long history of actively spying on critics of Israel and collaborating with the Israeli government (Nation, 1/31/24). (FAIR itself was targeted as a “Pinko” group in ADL’s sprawling spying operation in the ’90s.)
Though it professes to document and challenge antisemitism, it openly admits to counting pro-Palestinian activism as antisemitic: In 2023, the ADL changed its methodology for reporting antisemitic incidents to include rallies that feature “anti-Zionist chants and slogans,” even counting anti-war protests led by Jews—including Jewish organizations the ADL designated as “hate groups.”
The ADL’s political motivations are clear in its advocacy for the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism, which alleges that criticizing Israel based on its policies (e.g., “claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor,” or “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis“) is antisemitic. The ADL and their allies also deem speech supporting Palestinian human rights to be coded antisemitism.
Criticism of the ADL is increasing. In 2020, activists launched #DropTheADL to raise awareness among progressives that the ADL is not a civil rights or anti-bias group, but rather an Israel advocacy organization that attacks Palestinians and supporters of Palestinian rights in order to protect Israel from criticism. Last year, a campaign to Drop the ADL From Schools launched with an exposé in Rethinking Schools magazine, and an open letter to educators, titled “Educators Beware: The Anti-Defamation League Is Not the Social Justice Partner It Claims to Be,” that garnered more than 90 organizational signatories. These efforts build off research that exposes the ADL’s work to normalize Zionism and censor inclusion of Palestinian topics in the media, policy circles, schools and in society at large.
In 2023, some of its own high-profile staff resigned, citing the group’s “dishonest” campaign against Israel’s critics. In June 2024, Wikipedia editors found the ADL regularly labels legitimate political criticism of Israel as antisemitic, leading the popular online encyclopedia to designate the group an unreliable source on Israel/Palestine.
Critiquing the ADL’s statistics does not serve to argue that antisemitism is acceptable or less deserving of attention than other forms of discrimination. Rather, it demonstrates that we can’t rely on the ADL for information about the extent or nature of antisemitism—and neither should media.
This New York Times report (10/6/24) obscured the fact that many of the “antisemitic incidents” counted by the ADL were chants critical of Israel.
And yet corporate media use the ADL uncritically as a source for reports on antisemitism. For instance, the New York Times (10/6/24) not only headlined the ADL’s assertion that “Antisemitic Incidents Reach New High in the US,” it chose to contextualize the ADL’s findings “in the wake of the Hamas attack,” and called the ADL a “civil rights organization.”
Important media outlets like The Hill (4/16/24), with outsized influence on national policy discussions, ran similar headlines, failing to note the ADL’s highly controversial methodology.
At least the Wall Street Journal (1/14/25) acknowledged that the ADL has been challenged for counting criticism of Israel as antisemitism. But it immediately dismissed the applicability of those challenges to the ADL’s Global 100 survey, which found that 46% of adults worldwide hold antisemitic views. (The ADL’s Global 100 survey was criticized for its flawed methodology as far back as 2014, when researchers found it “odd and potentially misleading.”)
The media’s willingness to accept ADL claims without scrutiny is evident in CNN’s choice (12/16/24) not to investigate the ADL’s accusations of antisemitism against speakers at a recent conference of the National Association of Independent Schools, but rather to simply repeat and amplify the ADL’s dishonest and slanderous narrative.
A Jewish Currents report (6/17/24) concluded that “the ADL’s data is much more poised to capture random swastika graffiti and stray anti-Zionist comments than dangerous Christian nationalist movements.”
Even setting aside the ADL’s prioritization of Israel’s interests over Jewish well-being, the ADL’s statistics should be thrown out due to methodological faults and lack of transparency.
Even FBI statistics, frequently cited by the ADL, don’t tell a clear story. Their claim that 60% of religious hate crimes (not mere bias incidents) target Jews is misleading, given the systemic undercounting of bias against other religious groups. Because of the history of anti-Muslim policing, Muslims are less likely to report than people of other religions.
In fact, a national survey of Muslims found that over two-thirds of respondents had personally encountered Islamophobia, while only 12.5% had reported an incident. Almost two-thirds of respondents who encountered an Islamophobic incident did not know where or how to report it. When Muslims experience hate, it is less likely to be pursued as a hate crime.
On the other hand, the ADL has an unparalleled infrastructure for collecting incident reports. It actively solicits these reports from its own network, and through close relations with police and a growing network of partners like Hillel International and Jewish Federations.
Perpetrators’ motivations are also relevant and should not be inferred. In 2017, Jews were frightened by over 2,000 threats aimed at Jewish institutions in the United States. It turned out that nearly all came from one Jewish Israeli with mental health problems. Without this level of investigation, policymakers could enact misguided policy based on the ADL’s sensationalism, like CEO Jonathan Greenblatt’s claim that “antisemitism is nothing short of a national emergency, a five-alarm fire that is still raging across the country and in our local communities and campuses.”
David Klion (Zeteo, 2/4/25): “How did the ADL, which for generations has presented itself as America’s leading antisemitism watchdog, find itself prostrated before the most powerful enabler of white supremacy in recent American history?”
Although critics have long argued that the ADL’s politicized definition of antisemitism and flawed statistics cannot be the basis of effective policy, policymakers continue to rely on media’s deceptive journalism.
Massachusetts State Sen. John Velis cited ADL statistics to claim the state has “earned the ignominious reputation as a hub of antisemitic activity,” and therefore needs a special antisemitism commission. In Michigan, ADL reports of escalating antisemitism led to a resolution that will affect policy in schools across the state. In Connecticut, the ADL referenced its statistics in a government announcement about changes to the state’s hate crimes laws. The ADL’s statistics undergirded the logic of President Joe Biden’s National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism.
But how can politically distorted research be the foundation for effective policy?
Antisemitism is surely increasing. Hate crimes have increased in general—most targeting Black people—especially since the first Trump presidency, and hate incidents generally rise during violent outbreaks like the war on Gaza, and during election periods. But since most antisemitism originates in the white nationalist right wing, why focus primarily on people—including Jews—who are legitimately protesting their own government’s support for Israeli actions against Palestinians? Or on Palestinians themselves, who have every right to promote the humanity and rights of their people?
The ADL’s bad-faith accusations weaponize antisemitism to protect Israel at the expense of democratic and anti-racist principles. Anyone who doubted the ADL’s politics should be convinced by its abhorrent defense of Elon Musk’s Nazi salute (FAIR.org, 1/23/25) and its support for Donald Trump.
To pursue effective public policy, policymakers and the public should refuse to cite the ADL’s flawed statistics, and instead develop thoughtful and nuanced ways to understand and address antisemitism and other forms of bigotry and discrimination. Media can play a key role by exposing the politicization of antisemitism by the ADL, including its prioritization of protection for Israel from criticism over the free speech that is fundamental to democratic discourse.
This post was originally published on FAIR.
On Sunday 9 February, the Labour Party “sacked and suspended” health minister Andrew Gwynne (sacked as a minister/suspended from the party). Why did they suspend him? Because leaked WhatsApp messages showed him being racist, sexist, and vile towards colleagues and older constituents – constituents he also wished death on for daring to ask Gwynne to do his job.
While the things Gwynne said are sickening, they’re not surprising. As many have pointed out, the Forde Report uncovered Labour’s institutional racism years ago. It’s also clear from Labour’s decision to remove the Winter Fuel Allowance that they don’t care about the lives of old people.
Martin Forde KC said that a ‘hierarchy of racism’ existed in The Labour Party under Keir Starmer’s leadership. The Andrew Gwynne revelations have proved that this is still the case. pic.twitter.com/BDAFSKsslY
— MikeD (@mjdaly57) February 9, 2025
There is one thing that’s shocking, however, and that’s the fact that Labour have only suspended Gwynne – i.e. they haven’t expelled him for good. It’s particularly shocking because on 7 February Labour expelled a councillor following his public criticism of Keir Starmer:
BREAKING – Labour Councillor Steve Edwards, who represents Brockmoor and Pensnett, as been expelled from the Party after saying that Sir Keir Starmer had ‘lied to the British public and has turned his back on working-class people’ | Dudley News https://t.co/5nM1XuRubi
— Joe Rich (@joerichlaw) February 7, 2025
What sort of party can excuse racism but not criticism?
The Daily Mail exposed Andrew Gwynne and his messages on 8 February, with the Guardian summarising what was revealed later that evening:
The Gorton and Denton MP’s alleged messages include one in which he joked that he hoped a 72-year-old woman would soon die after contacting her Labour councillor about her bins.
“As you have been re-elected, I thought it would be an appropriate time to contact you with regard to the bin collections,” she wrote.
When the letter from the resident was shared in the WhatsApp group, Gwynne wrote a suggested response: “Dear resident, fuck your bins. I’m re-elected and without your vote. Screw you. PS: Hopefully you’ll have croaked it by the all-outs.”
His reference to “all-outs” refers to local council elections in which the whole local authority is up for election. In many cases, only a third of a council faces elections each year.
Among the other messages, Gwynne is alleged to have said someone “sounds too Jewish” and “too militaristic” from their name. He also asked: “Is he in Mossad?”
He is also said to have made comments about both Diane Abbott, the veteran Labour MP, and Rayner.
In 2019 in the WhatsApp group, called Trigger Me Timbers, Gwynne is alleged to have said support for Abbott’s historic appearance as a black woman at prime minister’s questions was a “joke”, apparently adding that her appearance was “because it’s Black History Month apparently”.
Gwynne offered a half-arsed excuse on social media:
I entirely understand the decisions the PM and the party have taken and, while very sad to have been suspended, will support them in any way I can. 2/2
— Andrew Gwynne MP (@GwynneMP) February 8, 2025
“Badly misjudged” is how Wynne describes his comments.
Given that Labour has actively created a hostile environment for old people and that Gwynne has voted in line with Starmer’s government, it’s clear this man doesn’t give a shit about human life, making it difficult to believe he was joking.
It’s also hard to believe that Gwynne being repeatedly racist and sexist was a joke. He’s not Roy Chubby Brown; he’s a 50-year-old professional speaking to other professionals in a professional context. Beyond that, he’s a person with significant responsibility for the fair and equal treatment of the public. Even if we believe his comments were not reflective of his true feelings, Gwynne should be smart enough to realise that doing bigoted banter with colleagues is not going to be productive if his ambition is to promote social justice for all.
As Samantha Asumadu wrote for the Canary, the Forde Report had already exposed the toxic attitudes which exist within the Labour Party:
In 2020 Keir Starmer commissioned an investigation into antisemitism, racism, sexism, and bullying in the wake of a leaked document containing private WhatsApp messages exposing an insidious racist environment fostered by senior Labour Party workers.
The Forde report exposes a hierarchy of racism denied by the Labour leadership. It came out to a tsunami of Labour PR approved tweets. Their response effectively was ‘the report says the party was out of control. Keir is now in control and everything is going to be ok now because he’s getting rid of those people’.
However, racism in the Labour Party predates both the current and last Labour leader.
It’s hardly surprising that Starmer would do nothing to improve things, as Asumadu wrote:
As former director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer has a legacy of fast trials and night courts rigging the system so that Black and brown people served longer sentences after the England-wide riots in 2011. Thus the current leader of the Labour Party is finding it difficult to appease those he marginalised both at that time and now, as the left of the party accuses him of purges.
Speaking after the release of the report, MP Dawn Butler wrote:
IN APRIL 2020 I was notified by party staff that I was mentioned in a leaked internal report from Labour Party HQ.
This leaked report would lead to an establishing of an independent investigation called the Forde Inquiry.
The leaked report revealed that senior staff in the Party HQ had apparently mocked me for raising issues of racism within the Party.
I often had a feeling that my concerns were not being taken seriously, but was afraid to say in case I was seen as paranoid. But seeing it written down in black and white, being mocked by senior members of staff within the party made me feel sad and let down.
The Forde Report, now published, is a thorough and considered piece of work that vindicates my stance: the party did and does have an ongoing problem.
As the Forde Report says: “there are serious problems of discrimination in the operations of the party”.
This is not easy to acknowledge. I understand the resistance, but it is vital to acknowledge if we are to improve and move forward as a Party. We need to be our best selves as we get ready to govern the country.
Butler wrote this in 2022. Sadly, it seems like nothing has changed since then.
People reacted with revulsion to what Andrew Gwynne said:
Forde report exposed horrific sexism, anti-black racism and appalling treatment of Black women in the Labour Party. Abused, hated, gaslighted, targeted and ignored.
Under Keir Starmer’s leadership it was buried. No acknowledgment, action or apology.
Now this from Andrew Gwynne! pic.twitter.com/AJxKfBnic6
— Claudia Webbe (@ClaudiaWebbe) February 8, 2025
1/ Here is a print out of some of the Labour "Trigger Me Timbers" WhatsApp group that has seen Health Minister Andrew Gwynne sacked.
I wonder if fellow Labour MP Oliver Ryan will still have the whip by the morning? pic.twitter.com/czEKZCSwkO
— Alex Tiffin (@RespectIsVital) February 8, 2025
One user noted that the BBC seems to have stopped taking antisemitism seriously:
BBC News just covered the Andrew Gwynne sacking and, I shit you not, *did not mention* the anti-semitism.
— Wittgenstein's Slab (@frolix22) February 8, 2025
Novara Media’s Aaron Bastani found an issue with some reporting:
The FT’s George Parker refers to Andrew Gwynne as a ‘Corbyn ally’.
Just complete nonsense, essentially an untruth. Gwynne nominated Starmer in 2020 btw…
I’d bet a fair bit that line comes from a briefing by a Labour spokesperson, maybe off the record.
Fake, fake news. pic.twitter.com/RsUzcMtUOz
— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) February 8, 2025
Gwynne may be glad to know that many online deadbeats agree with him when it comes to the racism:
I'm kinda with him about dianne abbot though.
— Blue Fin Choona (@BlueFinChoona) February 9, 2025
On 7 February, Dudley News reported that Labour had “booted out” councillor Steve Edwards:
STARVER PURGES LABOUR COUNCILLOR FOR SPEAKING THE TRUTH!
Dudley Labour councillor Steve Edwards has been BOOTED from the party after calling out Keir Starmer for betraying the working class and lying to the British people.
"He has been treacherous to everybody. He is a… pic.twitter.com/VcYLxqmGie
— Jim Ferguson (@JimFergusonUK) February 8, 2025
Following his expulsion, Edwards said:
I kind of expected it after I have been so vocal about Starmer, six or seven months before the general election, that he seemed to turn his back on the working class.
Cllr Steve Edwards, a founder of Black Country Day which champions the region’s heritage and working class roots
Cllr Steve Edwards, a founder of Black Country Day which champions the region’s heritage and working class rootsI was apprehensive about what he would be like when he became Prime Minister but he made various promises, that our heating bills would go down, pensioners would be looked after, school children would be fed, that there would be no tax rises but within weeks of being elected he completely changed his mind.
It filters from the top down and they are not listening to us from the bottom up, the working class are the wealth creators in this country, what Starmer is offering is no help at all.
He has been treacherous to everybody. He is a massive liar.
Before his expulsion, Edwards shared a letter on 3 February in which he accused Starmer of abandoning his election pledges:
Edwards has further criticised Starmer and his Labour Party since his sacking:
‘I was told I shouldn’t be trying to embarrass the government. I said it’s the government that’s embarrassing me!’
Councillor Steve Edwards on why he was expelled from the Labour Party over criticism of Keir Starmer.
Become a GB News Member: https://t.co/mNsRsGC8ef pic.twitter.com/OXMxOSfwlv
— GB News (@GBNEWS) February 8, 2025
Andrew Gwynne’s exposed comments are going to create problems for Labour because they crystallise what everyone already knows – that Starmer’s Labour actively despise the people of this country. It’s hard to imagine Starmer lasting a full term at this point, and if he goes, we can only hope that those speaking out against him are able to wrestle control of the party from these corporate sellouts.
Featured image via Chatham House – Flickr / Sophie Brown – Wikimedia
By The Canary
This post was originally published on Canary.
When physician and human rights activist Suzanne Barakat was invited to give a keynote address at the People of Color Conference (PoCC) in December 2024, she was excited and did not anticipate that her remarks would elicit a barrage of hate. After all, friends had previously told her that the conference was one of the few places where educators of color and their anti-racist allies felt at ease.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has come to Elon Musk’s defense after the billionaire performed a salute at Donald Trump’s inauguration that is being widely celebrated by neo-Nazis as a Nazi salute. In a post on social media, Netanyahu said that Musk is being “falsely smeared” and suggested that Musk’s support of Israel is proof that he isn’t antisemitic — even as numerous Jewish…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
The Nazi salute of world’s richest man Elon Musk was hardly surprising, considering the way he’s been spreading racist disinformation and backing fascists all around the world in recent months. He’s apparently now funding the legal fight of British far-right figure Tommy Robinson (Stephen Yaxley-Lennon), for example. But the BBC‘s ‘both sides’ response was awful – as was a supposedly Jewish organisation – the ADL.
The British public broadcaster simply said “Musk responds to backlash over gesture at Trump rally”. This was despite it quoting historians specialising in fascism as saying Musk’s “gesture” was clearly a Nazi salute.
Even a confidant of Musk had reportedly praised the return of the “Roman salute” – which Benito Mussolini’s fascists used in Italy and then Adolf Hitler’s Nazis adopted in Germany. Whatever its pre-fascist historical origins, it is widely recognisable in the West as a commitment to the far-right cause.
Musk of course has pushed back – saying “Frankly, they need better dirty tricks. The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired”. Yet he didn’t deny or give explanation as to why he did a Nazi salute – and the argument that he was ‘sending his heart out’ to people doesn’t wash when you watch the actual timing of events.
Perhaps even more absurd, however, was the defence that the pro-Israel lobbyists at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) offered for Musk.
The ADL, which has waged a battle against TikTok because it reflected the pro-Palestinian sentiment of its mostly younger users, clearly thinks Musk is the ‘right kind of antisemite’ as he, like most other multi-billionaires, supports Israel. Because it tried to play down the importance of Musk’s salute, tweeting:
It seems that @elonmusk made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute
It said people were “on edge” and that “all sides should give one another a bit of grace, perhaps even the benefit of the doubt”.
People were quick to point out that the ADL hasn’t given “grace” or “the benefit of the doubt” to people opposing the genocide in Gaza in the last 15 months. Its record has been quite the opposite.
Just recently, for example, it criticised historians for calling out Israel’s mass destruction of the occupied Palestinian territory’s education system. And many people are fully awake to the ADL’s shameless hypocrisy and complicity with the resurgence of fascism:
19 year old student says 'Free Palestine'
Antisemitic!
Musk backs Germany's AfD and antisemitic replacement theories. Buys Twitter so Nazis load at the top. Sieg Heils multiple times.
Give him the benefit of the doubt!
The @ADL has one job. But @JGreenblattADL can't do it.
— Bend the Arc: Jewish Action (@jewishaction) January 20, 2025
According to the ADL, I (a Jewish person) am wearing the equivalent to a swastika in this photo but Elon Musk (a Christian) doing the Nazi salute has no connection to Nazism. https://t.co/Sh79Nhn7eN pic.twitter.com/mC2QOApyxl
— eli n. (@elinachos) January 21, 2025
Elon Musk did a Hitler-adjacent salute at a Trump rally, and the ADL rushed to defend him, calling it “an awkward moment of enthusiasm.”
This is the same ADL whose CEO called tweeting “Free Palestine” at him antisemitic in 2023.
Cartoon by @LatuffCartoons pic.twitter.com/HCgMkXOoKL
— Mondoweiss (@Mondoweiss) January 21, 2025
This should not be surprising to anyone who has watched the ADL and its leadership operate these past few years—its chief executive said that Elon Musk is the “Henry Ford of our generation”, but wow is it shocking to see nazi apologia be so outright and shameless. https://t.co/q3Mdytvxw8
— Jason Rosenberg (@mynameisjro) January 21, 2025
When college students protest to end genocide, the ADL calls for militarized police across campuses. When the richest man in the world gives a nazi salute on national television, they tell everyone to calm down.
The ADL may not care about the safety of our communities, but we… https://t.co/sIzFKlIH15
— Jewish Voice for Peace (@jvplive) January 21, 2025
Even some supporters of Israel can see through the ADL’s double standards. Shaiel Ben-Ephraim, for instance, says the ADL fears holding Musk to account and that:
They, and all major Jewish organizations will pursue any little powerless person with a Palestinian flag pin, but will not protect us from the real threats from powerful people.
The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, meanwhile, rightly insisted:
The use of an antisemitic genocidal signal by the world’s most powerful man, who has engaged in racism and antisemitism in the past, cannot be taken lightly or written off as a mistake.
The @LemkinInstitute is horrified to be issuing a Red Flag Alert for the #UnitedStatesofAmerica on the very first day of the second Trump term as president @realDonaldTrump . However, #ElonMusk 's clear use of the #Nazi salute — twice — during his speech has given us no other… pic.twitter.com/dDrkmGmJis
— Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention (@LemkinInstitute) January 21, 2025
Considering the ADL describes the Nazi salute as “the most common white supremacist hand sign in the world”, you’d think it would have given Musk no grace at all. Clearly, though, when it comes to Zionists are are ‘the right type of fascists’.
Featured image via the Canary
By Ed Sykes
This post was originally published on Canary.
Berlinale head, Tricia Tuttle, says some artists fear criticism of Israeli actions will be condemned as antisemitism
A polarised debate about Gaza in Germany is leading some artists to shun one of the world’s top film festivals, its new director has said.
Tricia Tuttle, the head of the Berlin international film festival, said a perception that Germany had been overzealous in its policing of speech about the Middle East conflict, and controversy over this year’s awards ceremony, were having an impact as she planned her first edition.
Continue reading…This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.
The New York Times (11/8/24), like other corporate media, framed the Amsterdam violence in terms of antisemitism—treating anti-Arab violence as an ancillary detail at best.
When violence broke out in Amsterdam last week involving Israeli soccer fans, Western media headlines told the story as one of attacks that could only be explained by antisemitism. This is the story right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants them to tell: “On the streets of Amsterdam, antisemitic rioters attacked Jews, Israeli citizens, just because they were Jews” (Fox News, 11/10/24).
Yet buried deep within their reports, some of these outlets revealed a more complicated reality: that many fans of Israel’s Maccabi Tel Aviv Football Club had spent the previous night tearing down and burning Palestinian flags, attacking a taxi and shouting murderous anti-Arab chants, including “Death to the Arabs” and “Why is there no school in Gaza? There are no children left there” (Defector, 11/8/24).
As Marc Owen Jacobs of Zeteo (11/9/24) wrote, the media coverage revealed
troubling patterns in how racial violence is reported; not only is anti-Arab violence and racism marginalized and minimized, but violence against Israelis is amplified and reduced to antisemitism.
James North (Mondoweiss, 11/10/24): “You had to jump to paragraph 7, buried on an inside page, to learn that the Israeli fans had, in fact, been violent and provocative the night before.”
“Israeli Soccer Fans Attacked in Amsterdam,” announced NBC News (11/8/24). That piece didn’t mention until the 25th paragraph the Maccabi fans’ Palestinian flag-burning and taxi destruction, as if these were minor details rather than precipitating events.
Similarly, the Washington Post (11/8/24)—“Israeli Soccer Fans Were Attacked in Amsterdam. The Violence Was Condemned as Antisemitic”—didn’t mention Maccabi anti-Arab chants until paragraph 22, and didn’t mention any Maccabi fan violence.
James North on Mondoweiss (11/10/24) summed up the New York Times article’s (11/8/24) similar one-sided framing:
The Times report, which started on page 1, used the word “antisemitic” six times, beginning in the headline. The first six paragraphs uniformly described the “Israeli soccer fans” as the victims, recounting their injuries, and dwelling on the Israeli government’s chartering of “at least three flights to bring Israeli citizens home,” insinuating that innocent people had to completely flee the country for their lives.
Also at Mondoweiss (11/9/24), Sana Saeed explained:
Emerging video evidence and testimonies from Amsterdam residents (here, here and here, for instance) indicate that the initial violence came from Maccabi Tel Aviv fans, who also disrupted a moment of silence for the Valencia flood victims.
But despite that footage and Amsterdammer testimonies, coverage—across international media, especially in the United States—has failed to contextualize the counter-attacks against the anti-Arab Israeli mob.
Image from Annet de Graaf’s video showing violence by Israeli soccer fans—widely misrepresented as an example of antisemitic violence.
Several news outlets outright misrepresented video from local Dutch photographer Annet de Graaf. De Graaf’s video depicts Maccabi fans attacking Amsterdam locals, yet CNN World News (11/9/24) and BBC (11/8/24) and other outlets initially labeled it as Maccabi fans getting attacked.
De Graaf has demanded apologies from the news outlets and acknowledgement that the video was used to push false information. CNN World News‘ video now notes that an earlier version was accompanied by details from Reuters that CNN could not independently verify. BBC’s caption of De Graaf’s footage reads “Footage of some of the violence in Amsterdam—the BBC has not been able to verify the identity of those involved.”
Message to news outlets:
Today I received an apology from Tagesschau for abusing my footage of the incident which took place after the soccer game in Amsterdam between Ajax and M. Tel Aviv. I refer also to the footage of reporter @OmeBender who covered that same fight with more… pic.twitter.com/9QyEezb8tL
— iAnnet
(@iAnnetnl) November 9, 2024
The New York Times (11/8/24) corrected its misuse of the footage in an article about the violence:
An earlier version of this article included a video distributed by Reuters with a script about Israeli fans being attacked. Reuters has since issued a correction saying it is unclear who is depicted in the footage. The video’s author told the New York Times it shows a group of Maccabi fans chasing a man on the street—a description the Times independently confirmed with other verified footage from the scene. The video has been removed.
Jacobin (11/12/24): “Far from acting like tsarist authorities during a pogrom, the police in Amsterdam seem to have cracked down far harder on those who attacked Maccabi fans than the overtly racist Maccabi hooligans who started the first phase of the riot.”
It is undoubtedly true that antisemitism was involved in Amsterdam alongside Israeli fans’ anti-Arab actions; the Wall Street Journal (11/10/24) verified reports of a group chat that called for a “Jew hunt.” But rather than acknowledging that there was ethnic animosity on both sides, some articles about the melee (Bret Stephens, New York Times, 11/12/24; Fox News, 11/10/24; Free Press, 10/11/24) elevated the violence to the level of a “pogrom.”
Jacobin (11/12/24) put the attacks in the context of European soccer riots:
There were assaults on Israeli fans, including hit-and-run attacks by perpetrators on bicycles. Some of the victims were Maccabi fans who hadn’t participated in the earlier hooliganism. In other words, this played out like a classical nationalistic football riot—the thuggish element of one group of fans engages in violence, and the ugly intercommunal dynamics lead to not just the perpetrators but the entire group of fans (or even random people wrongly assumed to share their background or nationality) being attacked.
But Jacobin pushed back against media using the word “pogrom” in reference to the soccer riots:
Pogroms were not isolated incidents of violence. They were calculated assaults to keep Jews locked firmly in their social place…. Pogroms cannot occur outside the framework of a society that systematically denies rights to a minority, ensuring that it remains vulnerable to the violence of the majority. What happened in Amsterdam, however, bears no resemblance to this structure. These were not attacks predicated on religious or racial oppression. They were incidents fueled by political discord between different groups of nationalists….
Furthermore, using that designation to opportunistically smear global dissent against Israel’s atrocities in Gaza as classically antisemitic only serves to trivialize genuine horrors. This historically illiterate conflation should be rejected by all who truly care about antisemitism.
Breaking with the Netanyahu government’s spin, former Israeli President Ehud Olmert said that the riots in Amsterdam were “not a continuation of the historic antisemitism that swept Europe in past centuries.” Olmert, unlike Western media coverage of the event, seemed to be able to connect the violence in Amsterdam to anti-Arab sentiment in his own country. In a more thoughtful piece than his paper’s news coverage of the event, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman (11/13/24) quoted Olmert extensively:
The fact is, many people in the world are unable to acquiesce with Israel turning Gaza, or residential neighborhoods of Beirut, into the Stone Age—as some of our leaders promised to do. And that is to say nothing of what Israel is doing in the West Bank—the killings and destruction of Palestinian property. Are we really surprised that these things create a wave of hostile reactions when we continue to show a lack of sensitivity to human beings living in the center of the battlefield who are not terrorists?
The events in Amsterdam called for nuanced media coverage that contextualized events and condemned both anti-Jewish and anti-Arab violence. Instead, per usual, world leaders and media alike painted Arabs and Pro-Palestine protesters as aggressors and Israelis as innocent victims.
This post was originally published on FAIR.
This content originally appeared on The Grayzone and was authored by The Grayzone.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Sky News has been caught in a storm over it’s deleting and then re-editing of a report on the Maccabi Tel Aviv fan’s rioting in Amsterdam. However, the original filmmaker who captured some of the footage it used has now come forward – and claims that it, and other media outlets, misrepresented it to shore up the narrative that the attacks were antisemitic.
On 8 November, media outlets and politicians decried “antisemitic attacks” on Israel’s Maccabi Tel Aviv football fans, with some referring to the incident as a “pogrom”, and others comparing it to the events of pre-war Nazi Germany. These same outlets and politicians received criticism for leaving out significant context on what happened in the run up to the later violence – but at the time, this didn’t include Sky News:
Maccabi Tel Aviv fans:
– chanted "kill the arabs"
– chanted "there are no schools in Gaza, because all the children are dead"
– ripped down Palestinian flags
– disrupted the minute silence for the Valencia flood victims – with fireworks"Antisemitic attacks"?
Get a fucking grip. https://t.co/tJL5F6T6Wt pic.twitter.com/W5GXFDYjB7— jewdⒶs // ייִדהודה (@jewdas) November 8, 2024
While there is evidence of violence being directed towards the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans, the narrative that this was a Nazi-style pogrom just doesn’t hold up, as we reported ourselves. Another outlet which game some semblance of balance was Sky News, but the initial report they produced was later deleted:
— Marc Owen Jones (@marcowenjones) November 9, 2024
Marc Owen Jones is an associate professor and author of Digital Authoritarianism in the Middle East. In a summary of an article he wrote for Mehdi Hasan’s Zeteo, he tweeted:
3/ They have also inserted into the video, right after the opening footage of Dutch Prime Minister condemning antisemitsm. This was not in the original video. pic.twitter.com/H57zN9NSXw
— Marc Owen Jones (@marcowenjones) November 9, 2024
The term ‘anti-Arab slogans’ has itself become controversial, with Reuters using the term in contrast to ‘anti-Israeli slurs’:
Arabs say slurs
Israelis say slogans.
The change in framing is insane. They think we’re stupid. pic.twitter.com/anmhSTZN2v
— ADAM (@AdameMedia) November 9, 2024
Jones continued:
5/ As if it couldn't get any worse – the original report ends with the reporter saying that while politicians had called it a pogrom, "their statements failed to mention the assaults by Israeli hooligans against Dutch citizens" . This bit was DELETED. I've included it below pic.twitter.com/2VFTDzGqCJ
— Marc Owen Jones (@marcowenjones) November 9, 2024
In his Zeteo article, Jones wrote:
So marginalized were stories attempting to explain violence from Maccabi Tel Aviv fans that one Amsterdam resident took to social media to call out the media bias. She described hiding in fear as Israeli supporters attacked her home for displaying a Palestinian flag, stating in Dutch, “I hardly see anything in the media about my experience – that letting loose agitated football hooligans with war traumas, from a country that commits genocide and engages in extreme dehumanization, in the city *regardless of whether there are counter-protests* is not a good idea.”
Sky News’s reason for re-editing the video to remove the above context? Apparently it didn’t meet their “standards for balance and impartiality”:
Editor’s Note: This is a re-edit of a previous video which didn’t meet Sky News’ standards for balance and impartiality.
— Sky News (@SkyNews) November 9, 2024
Jones captured both videos for those who want to see:
Another thing I noticed is that in the new edited video – the narrative changed from describing @iAnnetnl 's video (I think) as 'Maccabi hooligans' chasing people down a steeet, to 'a group of hooded men can be seen chasing'. Wow. https://t.co/JADMlWcZxo
— Marc Owen Jones (@marcowenjones) November 10, 2024
Novara Media’s Rivkah Brown, meanwhile, highlighted that Sky News editor Sandy Rashty has been retweeting messages which align with the ‘Nazi pogrom’ version of reality:
There is absolutely no mystery here: @SandyRashty is Sky News' News editor. Take a quick look at her feed. https://t.co/PCpJAH430M
— Rivkah Brown (@rivkahbrown) November 10, 2024
A photographer with the Twitter handle iAnnet captured footage of the violence in Amsterdam:
Amsterdam – M. Telaviv. Supporters guided to Central Station by a huge police force #Ajax #Maccabi #TelAviv ©iAnnet #ajamac pic.twitter.com/5uwVJvLBJ2
— iAnnet
Maccabi supporters just left Central Station in a big group and used big fireworks on Damrak. They now run into the center. #ajamac #Israël #ajax pic.twitter.com/khYH3EPYZo
— iAnnet
Annet noticed that many outlets were ignoring and even reversing the context she gave them, with a picture of a “Maccabi mob” chasing pedestrians presented as antisemitic violence:
Legitimate question:
What I explained to several media channels is that the Maccabi supporters deliberately started the riot in front of central station returning from the game. They came from two directions. Lit heavily fireworks at Damrak and gathered in front of the hotel.… https://t.co/nZckzq3Q1R
— iAnnet
Annet has been contacting outlets, questioning the use of her footage, and demanding retractions and apologies. She’s already had some success:
This morning, I received an apology from journalist Christian Feld (@ChrFeld) of @ARD_BaB
Tagesschau is the first news outlet to apologize for using my footage of the Maccabi supporters attacking Amsterdam citizens in a framed anti-semitism context and has removed my footage… pic.twitter.com/S9zSlvYRI6
— iAnnet
At the time of writing, she has yet to report receiving a satisfactory response from Sky News:
By the way: I have received a lot of questions about @Skynews and the two versions of one video they produced, concerning my footage.
I’m on it!
— iAnnet
The West is responsible for funding and tolerating Israel’s ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people. As such, it suits the establishment to present a narrative that all Jewish people support Israel and that any attack against Israel or its people is an attack on Jewish people everywhere.
Western media’s handling of this latest story is a textbook example of how they will ignore, edit, and delete context that doesn’t support their preferred narrative. What’s not so textbook is we now get to see these edits being made in front of our very eyes – like those of Sky News.
Featured image via Sky News
By The Canary
Western media, governments, and Israel have erupted in outrage after Israeli supporters of Maccabi Tel Aviv FC got beaten up in Amsterdam. The BBC, like other outlets, particularly pushed the narrative that this was a solely antisemitic attack. Of course, in reality what actually happened was classic ‘chat shit, get banged’ – after the far-right, racist and Zionist football thugs went on the rampage in Holland.
BBC News extensively covered the incidents. It reported that:
Dutch and Israeli officials have condemned a series of attacks on Israeli football fans in Amsterdam overnight.
Supporters of Maccabi Tel Aviv were attacked in the capital as their team were in the city for Europa League match against Ajax.
Police in Amsterdam have arrested at least 57 people.
Footage circulating on social media shows a series of violent assaults on Israelis in the street, as well as people breaking into hotels apparently searching for Maccabi fans.
Head of Holland’s far-right government Dick Schoof condemned the attacks as ‘antisemitic’ – as did Israel’s genocidal far-right PM Benjamin Netanyahu. He ordered planes to be sent to the Netherland to evacuate football fans. These were later cancelled.
Now, the Canary wouldn’t condone violence against anyone. However, if you look at the Western media coverage of the attacks on Maccabi Tel Aviv fans – it’s clear that there’s a narrative being built. That is, that the violence was antisemitic and the Israeli fans were the victims.
Except, that’s not quite the case – as even an unlikely source pointed out:
“Israeli football hooligans tore down Palestine flags as they marched through Amsterdam in a Wednesday night of chaos ahead of Maccabi Tel Aviv's visit to Ajax. Videos show dozens of hooded figures dressed fully in black cheering and chanting 'f*** you Palestine' and 'ole' as one… pic.twitter.com/d22kvJbBMZ
— أبو عمّار (@MaajidNawaz) November 8, 2024
Because what came before the attacks on Israelis was blatant Islamophobia and genocidal intent:
Maccabi Tel Aviv fans:
– chanted "kill the arabs"
– chanted "there are no schools in Gaza, because all the children are dead"
– ripped down Palestinian flags
– disrupted the minute silence for the Valencia flood victims – with fireworks"Antisemitic attacks"?
Get a fucking grip. https://t.co/tJL5F6T6Wt pic.twitter.com/W5GXFDYjB7— jewdⒶs // ייִדהודה (@jewdas) November 8, 2024
Yes, that is a crazed Israeli Zionist 'football fan' shouting "Gas Gaza" as he films attacks on Palestine supporters in Amsterdam.
But the Israelis are the *victims*, right?
Riiighhtt… pic.twitter.com/fDyG7dZK2I— The Prole Star (@TheProleStar) November 8, 2024
Some Maccabi Tel Aviv fans also refused to observe the minute’s silence before their match against Ajax for the victims of the Valencia floods:
Maccabi Tel Aviv
fans jeering through a minutes silence for victims of Spain’s
floods.
Earlier the same fans were filmed chanting racist, genocidal slogans and tearing down pro Palestinian
flags.
The violence in Amsterdam is not about religion.pic.twitter.com/gctNcyqLYC
— Howard Beckett (@BeckettUnite) November 8, 2024
Amsterdam councilman (the equivalent of a British city councillor) Jazie Veldhuyzen told Al Jazeera that:
[Maccabi Tel Aviv fans] began attacking houses of people in Amsterdam with Palestinian flags, so that’s actually where the violence started. As a reaction, Amsterdammers mobilised themselves and countered the attacks that started on Wednesday by the Maccabi hooligans.
Interview with @AJEnglish about who actually started the violence in Amsterdam the last couple of days. 1/2 pic.twitter.com/xPTKQXsiWp
— Jazie Veldhuyzen (@JazieAnthony) November 8, 2024
Of course, that’s not the impression you get if you read the Western corporate media. The BBC in particular was heavily pushing Zionist’s comparison to the Kristallnacht of WWII. Except Maccabi Tel Aviv fans have a history of racist violence:
Inspired by the IDFs genocide, they have been touring Europe (yes, despite not being in Europe, they get to be in the Champions League!) causing mayhem, chanting anti-Arab songs & attacking ethnic minorities in cities around Europe. (2/4) pic.twitter.com/t8qXHeBG3u
— Ben Sellers (@MrBenSellers) November 8, 2024
Just a little reminder for @BBCNews & all the rest. This was Maccabi Tel Aviv “sports-tourists”
in Greece a few months ago. https://t.co/WBwTdMzbY7
— Ben Sellers (@MrBenSellers) November 8, 2024
Some of the BBC’s coverage was forced to admit that Maccabi Tel Aviv fans may have started it:
So Maccabi Tel Aviv fans, with a history of racist violence, rampage though Amsterdam,chanting genocidal slogans,attacking taxi drivers and tearing down Palestine flags, and when they are then attacked,this becomes an anti Jewish pogrom condemned across the political mainstream. pic.twitter.com/jYR50tbYwU
— Ben Jamal (@BenJamalpsc) November 8, 2024
But overall, Western media and politicians were falling over themselves to paint the attacks as antisemitic and the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans as the victims.
Once again, this kind of propaganda does nothing in the fight against actual antisemitism. And of course, victims Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were not – nor innocent civilians, some of them:
One of the Israeli rioters involved in the incident was identified as a soldier in the Israeli occupation army.
pic.twitter.com/1wU1A1CdJQ
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) November 8, 2024
Admittedly, if the BBC is to be believed then some innocent British citizens got caught up in the violence. If this is the case, then this is not acceptable.
However, much like the 40 beheaded babies psyop we witnessed after 7 October, the violence in Amsterdam is arch Zionist propaganda – but with a twist:
It appears the Jerusalem Post reported that there were agents of Israel's external intelligence agency with Israeli football hooligans in Amsterdam just three days ago. pic.twitter.com/DWgKf2xhN2
— Lowkey (@Lowkey0nline) November 8, 2024
That is, it is a distraction. But what on earth could the Israeli settler colonialists be trying to draw attention away from?
Whilst world leaders scramble to condemn violence that started after Israeli football hooligans attacked people, property & chanted "death to Arabs"
A UN report found 70% of those killed by Israel in Gaza are women & children
Ages most represented among dead were 5 to 9 yr-olds
— Double Down News (@DoubleDownNews) November 8, 2024
Let’s be real. What happened in Amsterdam was cause and effect. Far-right, racist Israeli thugs went on a rampage in someone else’s country (much like they’re doing in Gaza and Lebanon), and local people didn’t like it. A Kristallnacht this is not, and won’t be – however much the media and politicians tell us it is.
They must think we’re fucking stupid.
Featured image via screengrab
By The Canary
This post was originally published on Canary.
What are the limits of free speech on a college campus? The New York Times has deployed one of its highest-ranking soldiers in the culture war against liberalism to remind us that the speech of white supremacists must be defended, but criticism of Israel and support for Palestinian human rights are going too far.
Times columnist John McWhorter, who teaches at Columbia University, is a part of the paper’s growing chorus of elite, pearl-clutching commentators (e.g., 6/7/18, 11/9/21, 3/18/23, 2/24/24) who blame society’s ills on an amorphous enemy of tyrannical “wokeness,” which McWhorter (3/21/23) presents as “an anti-Enlightenment program.” The Times embraces the idea, widespread in corporate media (Atlantic, 1/27/21; Newsweek, 7/25/23), that today’s social justice warriors are the true enemies of free speech.
John McWhorter (New York Times, 4/23/24): “Why do so many people think that weeklong campus protests against not just the war in Gaza but Israel’s very existence are nevertheless permissible?”
McWhorter found a limit to free speech and academic freedom earlier this year. He wrote (New York Times, 4/23/24) that he decided not to subject his students to an exercise where they would listen to the sounds around them, because they would be forced to listen to pro-Palestine protesters’ “infuriated chanting.” He said:
Lately that noise has been almost continuous during the day and into the evening, including lusty chanting of “From the river to the sea.” Two students in my class are Israeli; three others, to my knowledge, are American Jews. I couldn’t see making them sit and listen to this as if it were background music.
I thought about what would have happened if protesters were instead chanting anti-Black slogans…. They would have lasted roughly five minutes before masses of students shouted them down and drove them off the campus…. Why do so many people think that weeklong campus protests against not just the war in Gaza but Israel’s very existence are nevertheless permissible?….
The idea is that Jewish students and faculty should be able to tolerate all of this because they are white.
He’s clearly trying to portray leftist protesters as hypocritical and applying double standards: They readily seek to shut down racist speech but find anti-Israel speech “permissible.”
Yet McWhorter himself, so quick to condemn what he says is “a form of abuse” of Jewish students through the “relentless assault” of protesters’ Israel-critical speech—and with no words of reproach for the school president’s decision to “crack down” on the protests and their freedom of expression—applies a very different standard when the campus speech in question is racist, sexist or homophobic.
For McWhorter (New York Times, 10/3/24), “upholding the ideals of free speech” requires not punishing a professor who publicly insults her Black students.
In sharp contrast to his denunciation of pro-Palestine protesters’ speech, McWhorter (New York Times, 10/3/24) offered a full-throated defense of Amy Wax, a University of Pennsylvania law professor who has been sanctioned by the school for “flagrant unprofessional conduct,” including “a history of making sweeping, blithe and derogatory generalizations about groups by race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and immigration status,” as well as “breaching grade privacy requirements” (Wall Street Journal, 9/24/24).
A faculty panel unanimously recommended Wax be suspended for a year at half salary, publicly reprimanded and stripped of her named chair; Wax has appealed the recommendation and is still teaching.
Wax has said that the US is “better off with fewer Asians and less Asian immigration” (CNN, 9/25/24). The Daily Pennsylvanian (8/10/17) wrote that, in an interview, Wax “said Anglo-Protestant cultural norms are superior”: “I don’t shrink from the word ‘superior’…. Everyone wants to go to countries ruled by white Europeans.”
Wax made public comments about Black students’ grades that were both a violation of confidentiality and, according to the Penn law school dean, false (Vox, 2/16/23):
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Black student graduate in the top quarter of the class, and rarely, rarely, in the top half. I can think of one or two students who scored in the top half of my required first-year course.
The law professor has repeatedly invited white nationalist Jared Taylor to deliver guest lectures in her class, including this semester, after the faculty panel’s recommendation. She will be a featured speaker at a conference sponsored by Taylor’s white supremacist journal American Renaissance (Daily Pennsylvanian, 9/10/24)—where, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, “racist ‘intellectuals’ rub shoulders with Klansmen, neo-Nazis and other white supremacists.”
Given McWhorter’s previously stated belief that Jewish students shouldn’t have to listen to speech like “from the river to the sea,” one might expect that he would similarly condemn Wax’s subjection of her Black and brown students to eugenicist, white supremacist speech.
Instead, McWhorter uses the Wax affair to defend the right of free speech, a role he didn’t take on when his own school clamped down on anti-genocide protests (Columbia Spectator, 4/4/24). Her views might be “Outrageous, Demeaning, Dangerous,” his headline declared, but “She Shouldn’t Be Punished” for them.
“We regard this to be a case not of free speech, which is broadly protected by University policy…but rather of flagrant unprofessional conduct by a faculty member,” a U Penn faculty panel insisted (Daily Pennsylvanian, 9/10/24).
McWhorter, as a part of the anti-woke media movement to frame liberalism as the opponent of openness, accepts Wax as a victim of the cancel mob: “Her suspension,” he said, “is a kind of ritual act, an unconvincing performance of moral purity.”
He wrote: “Upholding the ideals of free speech means living with the discomfort—or even anger and injury—that offensive ideas can cause.”
The contrast with his earlier column is striking. If a Black or brown student is subjected to white supremacist speech, by his account, that student’s “discomfort—or even anger and injury” is their problem, and of less importance than protecting free speech. But if a white student is subjected to anti-Zionist speech, McWhorter considers it a “form of abuse” that they should not be expected to simply “be able to tolerate.”
Penn Provost John L. Jackson, Jr.’s statement on the matter makes clear that Wax isn’t being sanctioned for merely breaking liberal conventions of decorum. A faculty review board found that Wax “engaged in ‘flagrant unprofessional conduct’ that breached [her] responsibilities as a teacher to offer an equal opportunity to all students to learn” from her (University of Pennsylvania Almanac, 9/24/24). The decision resulting from the investigation, to which the statement links, also says that the inquiry board decided against recommending a much tougher punishment, “namely, termination from her faculty position.”
McWhorter deems the disciplinary action “egregious,” yet he voiced no similar complaints about disciplinary actions taken by Columbia and other schools against pro-Palestine protesters. He was also quick to call for the ouster of Harvard President Claudine Gay, a Black scholar who had been hounded by right-wing congressmembers over allowing criticism of Israel on her campus (NPR, 12/12/23; FAIR.org, 12/12/23) before being pushed out in a plagiarism scandal. McWhorter (New York Times, 12/21/23) admitted that the school’s plagiarism “policy may not apply to the university’s president,” but said the vibes of the matter trumped procedure, saying “Gay would be denigrating the values of ‘veritas’ that she and Harvard aspire to uphold” if she stayed.
Columbia University’s suspension of the school’s Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace chapters (Columbia Spectator, 11/29/23) apparently did not contradict “the ideal of free speech,” in McWhorter’s view, because the university had not “categorically prohibited criticism of Israel.”
McWhorter recognized the parallels between the Wax affair and the pro-Palestine protests, but insinuated the usual, and false, media equation between pro-Palestine and anti-Black speech that paints anti-Zionism as antisemitism (FAIR.org, 12/15/23). He wrote that the protests are another example in which universities have struggled with “identifying the line between legitimate protest and threats or harassment”:
Student clubs have been suspended, demonstrations have been pushed off campus and at least one professor has been fired for sharing anti-Israel sentiments. But no university has categorically prohibited criticism of Israel. That’s because, as uncomfortable as the debate about Israel can be, and as close to home as it hits for many students, letting them encounter ideas that differ from their own is an important part of their education that prepares them to take their place in a democracy.
The idea that racism is so uniquely toxic that it should be an exception to the ideal of free speech is not self-evident. It is specific to this moment, and will probably seem unwise and arbitrary to future chroniclers. Especially for universities, if exposing people to potential discomfort is permissible when it comes to geopolitics, then it must also be permissible when it comes to race.
McWhorter seems to be drawing a line between acceptable and unacceptable restrictions on speech: Suspending student clubs, “pushing” demonstrations off campus (with the help of police in riot gear) and firing professors for anti-Israel sentiments are apparently fine by McWhorter, whereas “categorical” prohibitions on anti-Israel speech would cross the line.
It’s remarkable that McWhorter doesn’t see that firing a professor over anti-Israel views is quite obviously a much harsher punishment than Wax faces—or that suspending a professor for a year for specific actions that harmed students is not a categorical prohibition on racist speech.
Natasha Lennard (Intercept, 5/16/24): “Since the beginning of Israel’s war on Gaza, academics…have been fired, suspended or removed from the classroom for pro-Palestine, anti-Israel speech.”
What’s more, while he claims there has been no blanket ban on pro-Palestine thought, there have been so many official actions against faculty and students that we now see an enormous chilling effect on speech.
McWhorter did link to the Intercept story (9/26/24) on the firing of a tenured professor at Muhlenberg College for having
shared, on her personal Instagram account…a post written not by herself but by Palestinian poet Remi Kanazi calling for the shunning of Zionist ideology and its supporters.
But there’s much more. New York University added “Zionist” to a list of “examples of speech that could violate the university’s Non-Discrimination and Anti-Harassment policies” (Washington Square News, 8/26/24), which has FAIR wondering what impact this might have on professors who teach Middle Eastern history.
Steven Thrasher, an acclaimed journalist who has commented here at FAIR, teaches social justice reporting at Northwestern University, where he may lose employment because of his activism against the genocide in Gaza. Democracy Now! (9/5/24) reported that the university “filed charges against Thrasher for obstructing police that were later dropped.” However, “students returning to Northwestern for the fall term will not see him in their classrooms, because he has been suspended as Northwestern says he is under investigation.”
Hyperallergic (9/20/24) reported that at Barnard College, the women’s college associated with Columbia, the administration sent
behavioral directives for Barnard employees, specifying that “messaging…supporting a geopolitical viewpoint or perspective while denigrating or remaining silent about an opposing geopolitical viewpoint or perspective” and posting political signs on office doors would go against the college’s community values.
Telling sociologists, historians, political scientists and anthropologists to refrain from “supporting a geopolitical viewpoint” is like telling a quarterback not to pass the football. Once again, this is the kind of directive that undoes the kind of open discourse McWhorter says he supports.
Radhika Sainath (Inside Higher Ed, 9/16/24): “Trying to appease pro-Israel forces by preventing protests against Israel’s brutal war in Gaza…colleges are rewriting policies that will have dire consequences on university life for years to come.”
This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to campus repression of anti-genocide activists—many of whom are Jewish, despite McWhorter’s attempt to treat criticism of Israel as a form of anti-Jewish bigotry. Radhika Sainath, a senior staff attorney at Palestine Legal, wrote about the widespread erosion of freedom on campuses this year at Inside Higher Ed (9/16/24):
Indeed, my office, Palestine Legal, is receiving a surge of reports of students being censored and punished as they return to school, often under the pretext that support for Palestinian rights (or wearing Palestinian keffiyehs, or scarves) violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by creating a hostile environment for Jews, even though Jewish students are at the center of many of the protests and wear Palestinian scarves. Often, no reason is given.
On one campus, students were slapped with conduct violations for writing an op-ed discussing a Gaza encampment in positive ways. Potlucks for Palestine have been canceled. Professors who reference Gaza or Palestine in their courses are told those courses are not fit for the curriculum, or having their syllabi scrutinized—or turned over to Congress in a manner reminiscent of the McCarthy era. Adjuncts have been fired. Tenure-track professors suspended. Tenured professors investigated.
If universities banned students from wearing Tibetan clothes or canceled “momo night” because these things might offend Chinese students, we could bet good money that McWhorter and the rest of the anti-woke pack would be up in arms, and rightfully so.
But McWhorter is only fighting to protect conservatives, which are classified as political victims in liberal academic society. We have come to expect such hypocrisy from the New York Times and other media’s anti-woke moral panic (FAIR.org, 10/23/20, 7/23/21, 11/17/21, 3/25/22). But it’s remarkable that McWhorter feels comfortable being so contradictory and misleading in disingenuous pursuit of “free speech.”
ACTION ALERT: You can send a message to the New York Times at letters@nytimes.com. Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective. Feel free to leave a copy of your communication in the comments thread.
This post was originally published on FAIR.
Later this month, Tommy Robinson and the far-right are planning a demonstration in London. It’s aim is to spread fear and division in our communities. We cannot let these voices go unchallenged, which is why we will be there – to ‘Stop The Far Right’ and stop them marching and spreading their hateful ideology.
Over the summer, we suffered the biggest racist attacks we’ve seen in a generation, with hotels housing asylum seekers set on fire, Muslims targeted on the streets and ugly, racist rhetoric on our streets and in the media.
Our march is about resisting the rise of racism, Islamophobia, and antisemitism.
This counter-demonstration is backed by organisations from across the country including trade unions, religious organisations, social justice groups, charities in the refugees sector, and anti-racist campaigns:
So join us to take a stand against racism, fascism, and the far-right’s hate.
Details:
In July over 20,000 people joined Tommy Robinson’s last demonstration and this one is expected to be even bigger. That’s why many of us opposed to his politics of division must join the counter-protest and send a clear message that we reject the politics of hate.
There will be coaches heading down to London from across the country to stop the far right.
From Glasgow to Gateshead, from Bangor to Brighton we will turn up in our thousands to show the far-right they are not welcome here.
You can book your seat here.
Across Europe, the far-right is gaining ground, with Le Penn’s National Rally electing their largest ever group of MPs into the French Parliament, the AfD gaining power in local government in Germany and the far-right Freedom Party topping the polls in Austria.
Finally, please share the demonstration on social media and with your friends and networks.
Together, let’s show that unity trumps division, and solidarity will win over hate. Let’s Stop The Far Right.
Featured image supplied
By The Canary
On 6 October, the BBC published new data from the Anti-Defamation League Center for Extremism (ADL). This suggested that antisemitism reached record highs in the US. But in true BBC fashion, its headline is misleading.
Towards the end of the article it stated that the figures also include anti-Zionism – which we all know is not the same as antisemitism. Similarly, data the BBC published back in August which related to antisemitism in the UK also used the same qualifier – but it completely failed to mention this then too:
Ah. https://t.co/wfEAxBrhT0 pic.twitter.com/9Eg8ekV7Er
— hannah gais (@hannahgais) October 7, 2024
The ADL data suggests that there were more than 10,000 incidents of antisemitism in the year up to 24 September. This was more than a 200% increase compared to the previous year.
Importantly though, over halfway through the article the BBC stated:
Part of the overall increase comes from a change in methodology to include “expressions of opposition to Zionism, as well as support for resistance against Israel or Zionists that could be perceived as supporting terrorism”, the ADL said.
Whilst we could argue it should have led with that, the important thing is that the BBC just repeated this ADL line. At no point did it question it, or let the readers know that anti-Zionism is not the same as antisemitism. As we have seen in other reports this week, the BBC is afraid of stepping out of line.
So much for ‘impartiality’.
On a deeper dive into the ADL report, it concluded:
ADL’s preliminary data also found that over 3,000 of all incidents took place during anti-Israel rallies, which featured regular explicit expressions of support for terrorist groups including Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), one of the most concerning antisemitic trends ADL captured since Oct. 7, 2023.
Over the last year, we have seen countless media reports of antisemitism at pro-Palestine rallies:
1,350 of these incidents (15% of the total) were included as a result of a methodology update that ADL implemented after the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, when we saw an explosion of anti-Israel activism that incorporated expressions of opposition to Zionism, as well as support for resistance against Israel or Zionists that could be perceived as supporting terrorism or attacks on Jews, Israelis or Zionists.
When they occur during public activism (such as at protests), in confrontations between individuals or in the form of vandalism (such as graffiti), these expressions constitute an implicit attack on the great majority of American Jews who view a relationship with Israel to be an important part of their religious, cultural and/or social identities.
Such rhetoric can be traumatizing to many American Jews and has led to their exclusion from some spaces simply because of that element of how they define and express their Jewishness.
However, this quote from ADL clearly conflates ‘anti-Israel’ with ‘antisemitism’. Obviously, if any country starts a genocide there will be an explosion of anti-whatever country started it. In this case, it’s Israel.
In August of this year, the BBC published an article titled:
Big rise in antisemitic incidents in UK – charity
The article stated that the Community Security Trust(CST) recorded 1,978 ‘anti-Jewish hate incidents’ from January to June 2024.
It goes without saying, we should not tolerate antisemitism in any shape or form. The important thing here though, is that the BBC article made zero mention of the CST conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism. Upon reading the full report, it is clear they have.
Anti-Zionism and antisemitism are not the same. Criticising the state of Israel or Zionism is legitimate – especially when Israel has murdered, at medical professionals’ best guesses, over 118,000 Palestinians. If we can’t criticise a genocidal regime, then what really is the point in anything?
Earlier this year, the World Socialist Web site (WSWS) commented that:
The CST’s “Antisemitic Incidents Report 2023” was targeted at the movement against Israel’s genocide, at Muslims and left-wing opponents, as the main source of antisemitism. This reinforces the campaign by the Conservative government, backed by the Labour opposition, to criminalise opposition to the genocidal actions of the Israeli state by equating antizionism with antisemitism.
The Canary also previously reported on the glaringly obvious bias from the Western corporate media and right-wing politicians, branding pro-Palestine protest demonstrations as antisemitic on multiple occasions.
During the reporting period, CST noted that 1,026 (52%) of the antisemitic incidents referenced or were related to Israel, Palestine and the situation in the Middle East. Of these, 836 had ‘anti-Zionist political motivation’ and the terms ‘Zionist’ or ‘Zionism’ were used in 208 incidents. In which case, this article will be included in the next figures.
This number is an increase of 547% from the first six months of 2023 – which was before 7 October and Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Who would have guessed that when you start carpet bombing an entire country, you might face a bit of criticism?
The CST report also stated:
In at least 210 instances, the phrase “Free Palestine” was employed, either in speech or writing. CST does not regard this in itself as an antisemitic slogan but, in each of these cases, it was targeted at Jewish people or institutions – who had not solicited discussion about the Middle East – simply for being Jewish, or comprised part of a larger tirade that did include blatantly anti-Jewish hate.
The report did not specify which institutions or people were targeted. However, it does mention ‘members of parliament’ and ‘public figures’. The important question has to be, whether people targeted these MP’s for being Jewish or for their support of Israel’s genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza. If the latter is true, then we also know it’s true that people have also targeted plenty of non-Jewish MP’s for their unwavering support of Israel.
Evidently, the ADL’s latest data is another instance where a pro-Israel lobby organisation is seeking to suppress Palestinian voices. The BBC’s reporting on this amounts to little more than shameless propaganda for Israel, and those in the US trying to shut down opposition to its horrific ongoing genocide.
Feature image via the Canary
By HG
This post was originally published on Canary.
CNN‘s Jake Tapper took a baseless accusation made on X and elevated it to a national story, smearing Palestinian-American Rep. Rashida Tlaib as antisemitic.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (Detroit Metro Times, 9/13/24) described the indicted protesters as “people that just want to save lives, no matter their faith or ethnicity.”
In an interview with the Detroit Metro Times (9/13/24), Tlaib accused Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel of “biases” in her prosecution of pro-Palestinian protesters and not other protesters:
“We’ve had the right to dissent, the right to protest,” Tlaib says. “We’ve done it for climate, the immigrant rights movement, for Black lives, and even around issues of injustice among water shutoffs. But it seems that the attorney general decided if the issue was Palestine, she was going to treat it differently, and that alone speaks volumes about possible biases within the agency she runs.”
Tlaib went on to blame the influence of academic officials for the prosecutions: “I think people at the University of Michigan put pressure on her to do this, and she fell for it.”
It’s a pretty straightforward charge that drew no particular notice for many days. A week later, Nessel—who is Jewish—posted on X (9/20/24): “Rashida should not use my religion to imply I cannot perform my job fairly as attorney general. It’s antisemitic and wrong.”
Referring to Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s prosecution of pro-Palestine protesters, Jake Tapper (CNN, 9/22/24) asserted that “Congresswoman Tlaib is suggesting that…she’s only doing it because she’s Jewish and the protesters are not.”
Nessel’s accusation is clearly groundless, as anyone reading Tlaib’s actual quote can see. But CNN‘s Jake Tapper (9/22/24), interviewing Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, presented the false accusation as fact, and used that newly invented fact to try to force Whitmer to condemn Tlaib for something she didn’t do.
Tapper quoted only one sentence from the Metro Times report—the one beginning “it seems the attorney general decided…”—followed by Nessel’s accusation. Tapper then asked Whitmer: “Do you think that Tlaib’s suggestion that Nessel’s office is biased was antisemitic?”
When Whitmer tried to avoid the bait, Tapper pressed on:
Congresswoman Tlaib is suggesting that she shouldn’t be prosecuting these individuals that Nessel says broke the law, and that she’s only doing it because she’s Jewish and the protesters are not. That’s quite an accusation. Do you think it’s true?
Contrary to Tapper’s assumption, some of the protesters charged by Nessel are, in fact, Jewish (CAIR, 9/23/24).
Tapper’s remarkable misrepresentation had ripple effects in corporate media, as other journalists (and their editors) repeated the smear without bothering to do any factchecking. Jewish Insider‘s Josh Kraushaar (9/22/24) reported on Tapper’s interview and mischaracterized Tlaib’s Metro Times interview as having “claimed that Nessel is only charging the protesters because she’s Jewish.” (The article later changed the word “claimed” to “suggested,” as if that were more accurate.)
CNN‘s Dana Bash (9/23/24) brought Tapper’s interview up on air the next day, comparing Whitmer’s response to Sen. Tom Cotton refusing to condemn Donald Trump’s declaration that if he loses, “it’s the fault of the Jews.” CNN political director David Chalian responded, perpetuating the smear as fact: “It’s not very hard to say that Rashida Tlaib saying that Dana Nessel is pursuing charges because she’s Jewish is an antisemitic thing to say.”
USA Today‘s Ingrid Jacques (9/24/24) charged Tlaib with antisemtism even after Metro Times (9/23/24) confirmed that Tlaib never referred to Nessel’s ethnicity.
The Metro Times published a factcheck (9/23/24) the day after Tapper’s interview, calling the characterization “spurious,” and clarified that “Tlaib never once mentioned Nessel’s religion or Judaism.” It noted that “Metro Times pointed out in the story that Nessel is Jewish, and that appears to be the spark that led to the false claims.”
But even after that piece should have put the issue to rest, USA Today published a column by Ingrid Jacques (9/24/24) that repeated the falsehood in its very headline: “Tlaib Makes Antisemitic Comments Again.”
Tapper’s initial segment warranted an on-air correction and apology. Instead, he doubled down, bringing on to discuss the matter the next day (9/23/24) the very person who initially smeared Tlaib. Only after giving Nessel a platform to repeat her baseless charge—”Clearly, she’s referencing my religion as to why she thinks I can’t be fair,” Nessel said—did Tapper tell viewers that he “misspoke” in the previous day’s segment, explaining, “I was trying to characterize [Nessel’s] views of Tlaib’s comments.”
He then asked Nessel:
What do you make of those today, noting that Congresswoman Tlaib never explicitly said that your bias was because of your religion, and so it’s unfair for you to make that allegation?
“Explicitly”? Tlaib never said it, period, which is what any responsible journalist would point out.
ACTION ALERT: Messages to CNN can be sent here. Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective. Feel free to leave a copy of your message in the comments thread of this post.
You can also sign a petition calling on CNN to retract its false report.
This post was originally published on FAIR.
During a campaign event on Thursday in Washington D.C., former President Donald Trump, the GOP presidential nominee for 2024, said he would partially blame Jewish voters if he loses the election to Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris. “[I]f I don’t win this election…[then] the Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss,” Trump said in his speech, which took place at an event…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
During a speech on Thursday at the Economic Club of New York, former President Donald Trump suggested that he would enlist multi-billionaire Elon Musk to work in his administration and help him make cuts to government spending. Musk, who owns Tesla, X (formerly Twitter) and SpaceX, apparently made the suggestion to Trump himself, the Republican nominee for president explained.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
The New York Times (8/21/24), knowing that “outrage” sells, saves for the last paragraph the information that a supposedly canceled author turned down an offer to reschedule his talk in the same bookstore.
Author and journalist Joshua Leifer is the latest scribe to be—allegedly—canceled. A talk for his new book, Tablets Shattered: The End of an American Jewish Century and the Future of Jewish Life, at a Brooklyn bookstore was canceled when a member of the store’s staff objected to Leifer being joined by a liberal rabbi who was also a Zionist, although still critical of Israel’s right-wing government (New York Times, 8/21/24).
Leifer’s book is doing well as a result of the saga (Forward, 8/27/24). Meanwhile, the bookstore worker wasn’t so lucky, when the venue’s owner said “he would try to reschedule the event” and said “that the employee” responsible for canceling the event “‘is going to be terminated today’” (New York Jewish Week, 8/21/24).
It’s worth dissecting the affair and its impact to truly assess who can gain popular sympathy in the name of “free speech,” and who cannot, and how exactly Leifer has portrayed what happened.
To Joshua Leifer (Atlantic, 8/27/24), opposition to platforming Zionists is “straightforwardly antisemitic.”
Leifer is a journalist who has produced nuanced coverage of Israel and Jewish politics for Jewish Currents, the New York Review of Books and other outlets. Reflecting on the bookstore affair, Leifer said in the Atlantic (8/27/24) that Jewish writers like him are in a bind because of the intransigence of the left, saying “Jews who are committed to the flourishing of Jewish life in Israel and the Diaspora, and who are also outraged by Israel’s brutal war in Gaza, feel like we have little room to maneuver.”
He added:
My experience last week was so demoralizing in part because such episodes make moving the mainstream Jewish community much harder. Every time a left-wing activist insists that the only way to truly participate in the fight for peace and justice is to support the dissolution of Israel, it reinforces the zero-sum (and morally repulsive) idea that opposing the status quo requires Israel’s destruction. Rhetorical extremism and dogmatism make it easier for right-wing Israel supporters to dismiss what should be legitimate demands—for instance, conditions on US military aid—as beyond the pale.
The new left-wing norm that insists on one-state maximalism is not only a moral mistake. It is also a strategic one. If there is one thing that the past year of cease-fire activism has illustrated, it is that changing US policy on Israel requires a broad coalition. That big tent must have room for those who believe in Jewish self-determination and are committed to Israel’s existence, even as they work to end its domination over Palestinians.
For me, personally, canceling Leifer’s talk was a bad move. No one would have been forced to listen or attend, and if someone wanted to challenge the inclusion of a moderate Zionist at the event, they could have done so in the question and answer session. Speech should usually be met with more speech.
But Leifer is somewhat disingenuous about a “zero-sum” game that forces people into the “morally repulsive” concept that “requires Israel’s destruction.” Many anti-Zionists and non-Zionists believe that the concept of one state, “from the river to the sea,” means a democratic state that treats all its people—Arab, Jew and otherwise—equally. Leifer’s counterposing being “committed to Israel’s existence” with “one-state maximalism” suggests that the Israel whose “existence” he is committed to is one in which one ethnic group is guaranteed supremacy over others. People who are committed to the preservation of Israel as an ethnostate are probably going to have a hard time being in a “big tent” with those who “work to end its domination over Palestinians.”
It is understandable, given the context, that some people might object to a Zionist speaker on a panel while a genocide is being carried out in Zionism’s name. Would the Atlantic have reserved editorial space if an avowed Ba’athist was booted from a panel on Syria?
And Leifer is hardly being censored, and he has much more than a “little room to maneuver.” He has access to a major publisher and the pages of notable periodicals, and is pursuing a PhD at Yale University. His book sales are doing fine, and the event’s cancellation has, if anything, helped his reputation. (It got him a commission at the Atlantic, after all.)
Osita Nwanevu (New Republic, 7/6/20) writes in defense of “freedom of association, the under-heralded right of individuals to unite for a common purpose or in alignment with a particular set of values.”
Meanwhile, a bookstore worker who expressed a questionable opinion got fired. Free speech debates tend to value the importance and rights to a platform of the saintly media class—the working class, however, doesn’t get the same attention, despite the fact that “free speech” is meant to protect everyone, not just those who write and talk for a living.
And expressing the opinion that a bookstore should not be promoting Zionism is just as much a matter of free speech as advocating Zionism itself. The First Amendment doesn’t stop publications, university lecture committees, cable television networks and, yes, bookstores from curating the views and speech they want to platform. As FAIR has quoted Osita Nwanevu at the New Republic (7/6/20) before:
Like free speech, freedom of association has been enshrined in liberal democratic jurisprudence here and across the world; liberal theorists from John Stuart Mill to John Rawls have declared it one of the essential human liberties. Yet associative freedom is often entirely absent from popular discourse about liberalism and our political debates, perhaps because liberals have come to take it entirely for granted.
eLife‘s Michael Eisen’s approval of an Onion headline (“Dying Gazans Criticized for Not Using Last Words to Condemn Hamas”) was deemed to be “detrimental to the cohesion of the community we are trying to build” (Science, 10/23/23).
Worse is what Leifer leaves out. While his event should not have been canceled, he fails to put this in the context of many other writers who have suffered more egregious cancellation because they exercised free speech in defense of Palestinians. Those writers include Masha Gessen (FAIR.org, 12/15/23), Viet Thanh Nguyen (NPR, 10/24/23) and Jazmine Hughes (Vanity Fair, 11/15/23).
New York University has “changed its guidelines around hate speech and harassment to include the criticism of Zionism as a discriminatory act” (Middle East Eye, 8/27/24). Artforum fired its top editor, David Velasco, for signing a letter in defense of Palestinian rights (New York Times, 10/26/23). Dozens of Google workers were “fired or placed on administrative leave…for protesting the company’s cloud-computing contract with Israel’s government” (CNN, 5/1/24). Michael Eisen lost his job as editor of the science journal eLife (Science, 10/23/23) because he praised an Onion article (10/13/23).
Leifer’s Atlantic piece erroneously gives the impression that since the assault on Gaza began last October, it has been the pro-Palestinian left that has enforced speech norms. A question for such an acclaimed journalist is: Why would he omit such crucial context?
The lead example of “antisemitism on…the left” offered by the Atlantic (3/4/24) was a high school protest of the bombing of Gaza at which “from the river to the sea” was reportedly chanted.
Leifer has allowed the Atlantic to spin the narrative that it is the left putting the squeeze on discourse, when around the country, at universities and major publications, it’s pro-Palestinian views that are being attacked by people in power. The magazine’s Michael Powell (4/22/24) referred to the fervor of anti-genocide activists as “oppressive.” Theo Baker, son of New York Times chief White House correspondent Peter Baker, claimed in the Atlantic (3/26/24) that his prestigious Stanford University was overrun with left-wing “unreason” when he came face to face with students who criticized Israel.
Franklin Foer used the outlet (3/4/24) to assert that in the United States, both the left and right are squeezing Jews out of social life. Leifer is now the latest recruit in the Atlantic’s movement to frame all Jews as victims of the growing outcry against Israel’s genocide, even when that outcry includes a great many Jews.
Leifer’s piece adds to the warped portrait painted by outlets like the New York Times, which published an op-ed (5/27/24) by James Kirchick, of the conservative Jewish magazine Tablet, that asserted that “a litmus test has emerged across wide swaths of the literary world effectively excluding Jews from full participation unless they denounce Israel.” A great many canceled pro-Palestine voices would have something to add to that, but they know they can barely get a word in edgewise in most corporate media—unlike Kirchick, Foer or Leifer.
Leifer’s event should not have been canceled, and I would have been annoyed if I were in his position, but he continues to have literary success and is smartly cashing in on his notoriety. He should not, however, have lent his voice to such a lopsided narrative about free speech.
This post was originally published on FAIR.
Headlines such as ‘Antisemitism hits all-time high in explosion of hatred against British Jews’ and ‘Antisemitic incidents quadruple in UK since Hamas attack in Israel’ have again been splashed over the pages of our mainstream press. While the Canary has recently reported on two British journalists arrested for speaking about Israel’s human rights abuses in Palestine, many other areas of our society are also being prevented from speaking up, too.
The Community Security Trust (CST), a British charity that ’provides security to British Jews, records antisemitic hate crime data and analyses the activities of antisemitic extremist political movements’, documented a record number of antisemitic incidents in the first half of this year, whilst their Antisemitic Incidents Report states that in 2023, reported cases of antisemitism rose by almost 150% from the previous year.
Year after year, antisemitism figures rise despite increased government funding. Back in February, Rishi Sunak pledged to give the organisation record funding of more than £70m over the next four years, as part of the Jewish Community Protective Security Grant.
Should Jewish people be fearful of this exponential rise in antisemitism sweeping our country, or is there another explanation?
Antony Lerman, an antisemitism expert, founder and former director of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, is also an anti-Zionist Jew. He told the Canary:
Confusion and disagreement about what is meant by anti-Semitism have never been greater. Up until the 1980s, most people monitoring antisemitism didn’t need to have a formal definition, because everyone knew antisemitism is hatred of Jews.
But, particularly since the 1980s, the term has been expanded to include criticism of Israel.
Lerman’s book, Whatever Happened to Antisemitism? Redefinition and the Myth of the ‘Collective Jew’, discusses how Israel and its supporters began framing criticism of the state as criticism of Jews, which could be thought of as antisemitism.
He explains that from the beginning of this century there was a more formal move towards a new definition of antisemitism, equating it with anti-Zionism and criticism of Israel. This included the working definition, which was developed in 2004 mainly by pro-Israel Jewish organisations. However, it was slow to catch on until adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) in 2016, just a few months after Jeremy Corbyn – a life-long anti-racist and pro-Palestine campaigner – was elected leader of the Labour Party. Almost instantly, Corbyn fell victim to a politically motivated antisemitism smear campaign by the Israel lobby, falsely labelling him and many in his party as antisemites. Politicians and the corporate media, including the BBC, fuelled this lie, and these allegations eventually led to his suspension from the party in 2020.
Lerman argues that signing up to the IHRA definition of antisemitism is a way of establishing your antisemitism credentials, something he describes as “virtue signalling”. He points out that adopting it requires no action to be taken, but has the advantage of coming from a respected international organisation with ‘Holocaust Remembrance’ in its title.
He noted:
Who would dare question the authority of a definition of antisemitism coming from such a body? But, in my view the IHRA working definition (IHRA definition) is a fundamentally flawed document, an anti-Palestinian charter, as you can turn anything into antisemitism on the basis of what’s in the definition. I think it’s an appalling document, but it took off like wildfire and it’s been amazingly successful.
The IHRA definition was not designed to determine what hate speech is, and has been instrumentalised for political purposes. It says:
Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.
It also includes 11 examples of situations which could be antisemitism. The idea is that these are used to determine if a specific incident is antisemitic. They have sparked much controversy and debate:
Dr Lewis Turner, chair of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES) Committee on Academic Freedom, told the Canary:
There are seven references to Israel, in these illustrative examples, and they effectively conflate criticism of Israel and Zionism with racism and discrimination directed at Jews, erroneously essentialise Jewish self-determination as indistinguishable from the State of Israel, and delegitimise Palestinian claims to self-determination and opposition to Israel’s discriminatory policies against Palestinians as antisemitism. It is simply not possible to use the IHRA definition to determine whether or not an individual incident or statement is antisemitic, whilst simultaneously protecting freedom of speech and academic freedom and preventing discrimination.
Even though the use of the IHRA definition stifles free speech and academic freedom, it is often framed as an essential tool in combating antisemitism. As of 1 April 2024, 45 countries, mainly in Europe, have ‘adopted’ it, the UK being the first.
Our government, police forces, local councils, banks, businesses, the majority of universities, and even soccer teams have endorsed it, and it is utilised by both government and non-government agencies to train police, prosecutors, and judges. Although advertised and promoted as ‘non-legally binding’, it is increasingly used by public and private bodies as if it were law, especially to counter anti-Zionism and criticism of Israel.
Professor Haim Bresheeth, an anti-Zionist Jew, historian and filmmaker, is also founder member of Jewish Network for Palestine. He believes the IHRA definition is designed to distract from Israel’s actions. Bresheeth told the Canary:
It’s one of the smartest tricks of the Israeli Hasbara– the Israeli propaganda machine. Instead of talking about the genocide in Gaza, instead of talking about the many war crimes of Israel and Zionism, we are talking about something else- antisemitism. So it’s already succeeded in moving us from the real crimes of Zionism to another issue altogether, which is indeed related and important. Israel and its many partners in crime are using the IHRA to confuse people into thinking and believing antisemitism is anti- Zionism. Many are accepting it, and a whole lot of the elite are supporting this major lie. This means that Palestinians cannot defend Palestine, because they are immediately dubbed antisemites. The same also applies to everyone else who supports Palestine.
CST blames Hamas’s 7 October attack for the record high figures in its report, describing it as “a trigger event, which had a seismic effect on antisemitic incident levels in the UK”. However, as Bresheeth points out:
If supporting Palestine and opposing Zionism is antisemitic, then of course there is a record rise in this. People are so inflamed about the situation in Gaza that they are actually taking to the streets, writing articles, speaking on social media, to speak up against Israeli war crimes, for the simple fact they are being human and supporting the Palestinians. This, according to the IHRA, is antisemitic.
Massoud Shadjareh, chair of the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC), stresses that by equating antisemitism with anti-Zionism the IHRA definition is used to silence critics of Israel, and shield the country from criticism of its actions. He told the Canary:
Of course, antisemitism is as abusive as any other form of racism, and should be challenged by all of us. But misuse of it, in the protection of the state of Israel and what Israel is committing in the form of apartheid, genocide, war crimes and illegal occupation- which are all proven, is totally unacceptable. The vast majority of Zionists in the world are not even Jews. They are Christian Zionists and others, who are committed to that political ideology. So, to say anyone who is anti-Zionist or anti-Israel is antisemitic, really goes against all the facts and figures.
Shadjareh says that he, his colleagues, and even his Jewish friends have been targeted as antisemites just for “opposing the very clear abuses by Israel”. The IHRC put a Palestinian flag in front of their building, as a means of supporting the Palestinians, but this led to complaints and vandalism of their building. The campaign was so vigorous that police advised them to take down the flag, which they claimed was endangering themselves and their premises. Similar happened at the University of Birmingham:
He said:
What’s so antisemitic about a Palestinian flag? They can make it unlawful for Palestinians to have their flag in the occupied Palestinian territory, but they can’t force that on all of us everywhere else. But these are the ‘antisemitic’ incidents they add to these reports. There is a huge infrastructure used to silence any opposition to the state of Israel. Part of that is the CST, which is financed mostly by our government, part of that is the Zionist Federation, and part of that is those elements who claim to represent all Jews.
The IHRC sent an open letter to the home secretary and police chiefs, complaining that:
Enabled by their Zionist financiers abroad, far-right elements have weaponised the tragic murder of three young girls in Southport to incite the country into pogroms against Muslims and people of colour.
This led to 50 members of the House of Lords claiming the remark to be antisemitic, as it perpetuates harmful antisemitic stereotypes of a ‘shadowy Jewish conspiracy controlling the world’. But, Tommy Robinson has been a key instigators of the recent far-right race riots, and he hates Muslims. We also know his benefactors are Zionists. This is the truth. It is fact. The issue of antisemitism has nothing to do with this.
Shadjareh argues that:
The Times of Israel says the rioters are supported by the Zionists. Why are they allowed to say this but I can’t and, as a non-Israeli, and non-Jew I get called antisemitic. The names of those who complained about us are almost identical to those who told Barclays not to cut its ties with Israel. They are supporting the state of Israel, but hiding behind antisemitism.
Barclays, along with other high street banks, holds billions of pounds worth of shares in companies selling military technology and weapons to Israel, provides them with loans, and has been the target of a long-running BDS campaign:
However, more than 50 members of the House of Lords recently wrote to the bank’s chairman, urging him not to cut financial relations with Israel. They argued that the BDS campaign against Israel “often crosses into antisemitism through inflammatory language and endorsements of violence” and to give in to the demands of “political activists” would “severely damage Barclay’s reputation”. A few days previous to this, Yali Rothenberg, the accountant general of Israel, told the bank:
It’s crucial that leading global financial institutions, such as Barclays, choose to resist boycotting Israel and support its legitimate right to self-defence as a leading Western democracy.
Shadjareh said:
At a time like this, while the biggest genocide of our lives is being committed by the state of Israel, this group of people – CST, the Zionist Federation, the Jewish Board of Deputies, the Chief Rabbi, and others – prevent any criticism by labelling all those supportive of Palestine as either antisemites or terrorist sympathisers. It’s shocking they get away with it, and it’s shocking that groups like CST are embedded in our police departments. At the present time, there is no way any of these people, including members of the House of Lords could defend the state of Israel, except through this hidden agenda. How else could you justify, protect or support a state that, every night, is committing genocide in front of our eyes.
According to the European Legal Support Centre (ELSC), making unfounded allegations of antisemitism and terrorism are indeed methods intentionally used to silence Palestinian rights advocates or organisations, and isolate and stile their work, and can also result in their defunding.
The mechanisms of silencing vary but are in force across countries in Europe, as last year’s report by the United Nations Human Rights Council details. It states that there is an:
increasingly restricted civic space resulting from an intentional strategy, pursued by the Government of Israel, of delegitimizing and silencing civil society. This includes criminalizing Palestinian civil society organizations and their members by labelling them as “terrorists”, pressuring and threatening institutions that give a platform for civil society discourse, actively lobbying donors and implementing measures intended to cut sources of funding to civil society.
According to the document, certain departments of the Israeli Government, including the Ministry of Strategic Affairs and Public Diplomacy and the Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism, are also “working towards delegitimising civil society locally and internationally”. In addition, Likud Members of the Knesset have recently set up a lobby to fight against antisemitism and delegitimisation, which focuses on combating the ‘undermining’ of Israel by foreign countries that finance human rights and civil society organisations.
Using the IHRA definition to successfully distort the meaning of antisemitism and suppress criticism against it, Israel with the help of many western governments has been able to continue, unabated, with its war crimes in Gaza and settler colonial project in the West Bank, whilst delegitimising and undermining the work of its critics – including that of international lawyers, the UN, and the ICJ.
Human rights organisations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and B’Tselem have found themselves targeted by allegations of antisemitism under the IHRA definition due to their critical reports on Israel’s human rights record. Much of their research into Israel’s practices – whether in the form of reports on settlement expansion, treatment of Palestinians, or military actions – is construed as antisemitic, leading to attempts to discredit their work.
A spokesperson for Amnesty International UK told the Canary:
The IHRA definition of antisemitism has never been fit for purpose. The definition’s overly-broad nature means that legitimate – and indeed necessary – criticism of Israel’s human rights record can be labelled antisemitic, with free speech and respect for international law both suffering as a result. The Israeli authorities and their apologists regularly weaponise the notion of antisemitism when Amnesty and other critics of Israel’s appalling human rights record speak out, and the Israeli government uses the term as an all-purpose shield. This is highly cynical and risks undermining the fight against real antisemitism.
Groups like NGO Monitor, a right-wing Israeli organisation, have accused Amnesty of disproportionately singling out Israel for condemnation. This has led to situations where detailed and well-researched reports, like Amnesty’s Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians: a cruel system of domination and a crime against humanity, are dismissed or labeled as antisemitic under the IHRA definition, as one given example of antisemitism is:
Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, for example, claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour.
Critics argue that these accusations, which have been directed at, among others, the United Nations, the International Court and international lawyers, are a means of deflecting criticism and maintaining a narrative that aligns with pro-Israel interests.
But it is not only human rights organisations that are bearing the brunt of this definition. Employees, academics, and students are also affected, as our places of work and entertainment, schools, universities, and police forces – along with on-line moderators – are suppressing pro-Palestine voices and activity, up and down the country, in a variety of ways.
Afra Sohail, an employee at Lloyds Bank at the time, took to the company’s internal communications channel to voice her opinion, after receiving an HP monitor for work purposes. She was then subjected to investigations and disciplinary hearings, and issued with a sanction which was reported to the Financial Conduct Authority and will stay on her record for six years. She is now suing Lloyds.
It was May 2021. Israeli soldiers had stormed the third holiest site of Islam, and Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza, which killed at least 260 people, was underway. Sohail said:
I was absolutely disgusted and wondered why there was no uproar, and why were these issues not being talked about at work, when other subjects were?
Sohail, who was working from home, had just become aware of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign accusing HP of:
providing hardware to Israel’s military and of being complicit in Israeli ’racial segregation and apartheid.
So, when the HP branded monitor from Lloyds bank arrived at her door, she knew she wanted to return it. She took to the bank’s internal portal, highlighting her concerns and called on Lloyds to question its moral stance, and not be complicit in the violation of international humanitarian law.
Several weeks later, Sohail was asked to go along to a meeting, and was surprised to discover it was about her comments, which had offended a work colleague. She said:
Although I felt there was nothing in them that would offend, I was asked very leading questions, such as ‘Did you know anti-Semitism has increased by 400 percent?’ They beat around the bush, accusing me of anti-Semitism, without putting that label on me. Because I mentioned that Palestinians are given inferior status compared to Israel Jews, who have a lot of benefits, I was being portrayed as a criminal against Jewish people, but I was coming from the perspective that everyone should be treated equally.
Sohail, who no longer works at Lloyds, was accused of going against the group’s anti-racist values. She says it was a distressing time that left her feeling worried and confused. As a result of the allegation, she also lost out on a graduate job promised to her:
An appeal against the disciplinary action was denied. So, last month Sohail and another colleague in a similar position, both of whom are being supported in their legal fight by the European Legal Support Centre (ELSC), took Lloyds to an employment tribunal, claiming they were discriminated against because of their religious and philosophical beliefs.
While a HR manager at Lloyds involved with the investigations admitted she did not know the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict, a lawyer for the women said the posts were not offensive, and the allegation claiming they were antisemitic was “irrational and spurious”.
Sohail said:
As a Muslim I believe oppression and injustice are wrong, and we should stand up against it if we can. My philosophical belief is that Zionism is racism, and it’s wrong and therefore should be opposed. There needs to be safe spaces to speak out about this, without feeling scared, but the state is penalising people and trying to put them down. We all need to come together collectively and speak out about this injustice, without facing repercussions, because silence will only perpetuate it further.
The closing submissions for this case are taking place in October.
Last November, Bristol’s Arnolfini Gallery cancelled two Palestine Film Festival films, saying they put a strain on the legal requirement for arts charities to remain apolitical. An angry backlash resulted, in more than 1,000 artists vowing to boycott the venue. Arnolfini eventually apologised unreservedly, saying freedom of expression was important and the decision was “based on the information and understanding we had at the time, but now believe it was wrong”.
But their apology, which stated “the International Court of Justice has described Israel’s actions in Gaza as plausible acts of genocide”, has now been picked to pieces by UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI), because it contains “dangerous untruths”. UKLFI denies any genocide and claims Arnolfini was a platform for “one-sided Palestinian voices” and it needs to “remain non-political”.
Bresheeth said of the situation:
The Jewish organisations supporting Israel say there is no genocide but this is a denial of such proportions, that we haven’t seen anywhere else, and it’s really quite amazing that people would even accept this as information- but they do! Jews in this country, who support Israel’s actions, believe Israel is acting in self defence, and that Jews are in danger, everywhere, but this is completely false.
In 2020, there was a drive to encourage all universities to sign up to the IHRA definition, with the government threatening to withdraw their funding if they did not comply. As a result, suppression of voices speaking out about injustice in Palestine has been especially severe in higher education settings.
Last year, a report by the European Legal Support Centre (ELSC) and the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES) advised against the adoption of the IHRA definition in a higher education setting – saying it was unfit for purpose.
It analysed 40 allegations of antisemitism against university staff and students between 2017 and 2022, based on the IHRA definition. The report found, in all 38 concluded cases, the accusations of antisemitism to be unjustified.
But damage had already been done.
Events were cancelled, student groups stamped out, not to mention reputations and careers in tatters and, in all cases, staff and students reported various levels of anxiety and stress.
Although freedom of speech and expression are protected by the European Convention on Human Rights, the report found the IHRA definition of antisemitism:
undercut academic freedom and the rights to lawful speech of students and staff, and caused harm to the reputations and careers of those accused.
The definition is now starting to take on the function of a speech code and, as the blurring of antisemitism and anti-Zionism continue, the UK now ranks lower in the ‘Academic Freedom Index’ than any other Western European country. Due to the wide adoption of the IHRA definition, academics and students with critical views of Israel or Zionism can easily be intimidated or silenced because of the fear of being labelled an antisemite.
This results in the chilling of discussion, making it extremely difficult to research, teach, or debate on Israel and Palestine – in relation to the conflict, Israeli government policies, the nature of the formation of the Israeli state, and the nature of Zionism as an ideology and movement.
According to Dr Turner from BRISMES, since the report findings were published last year, there has been an even greater clampdown on freedom of expression and academic freedom, with regards to Palestine, at universities throughout the UK:
Since October 2023, BRISMES has received numerous reports of university managers seeking to suppress, censor and surveil lawful expression and peaceful events relating to Palestine on university campuses. This includes cancelling events, creating unreasonable bureaucratic hurdles for event organisers, as well as subjecting staff and students to investigations, and even referring students and staff to Prevent based on their social media posts and other instances of lawful expression.
Although the University of Birmingham claims to have a ‘long track record of authorising events on campus, in recognition of the importance of the rights of freedom of speech and assembly’, back in December it prevented the go ahead of an event discussing law in Palestine, because of the inclusion, on the flyer, of watermelons, a symbol of Palestinian solidarity.
A University of Birmingham student, who wanted to remain anonymous because of fear of reprisals, told the Canary:
It was really important that I go to this event, because I study International Law and Globalisation. When the genocide started, the module we were studying was Transitional Justice After Genocide. We learned about previous genocides, such as in Bosnia, but there was no mention at all about Palestine. It was really hurtful for a lot of students there, especially those from Palestine. We really wanted our teacher to talk about how the international law was being broken.
Students wanted to know why, as future international lawyers, they were not being taught properly about this topic. Why was there was not even a mention of Palestine? That is why there was such excitement about the planned event, organised by some lecturers in the law department. Internal lecturers, who were experts in their field, were scheduled to discuss the topic.
The student said:
We also really liked the watermelons on the flyer because, at the beginning of the genocide, all the rhetoric was about Israel, and Israel’s right to self defence. So the watermelons were a good start.
But the night before the event, students received an email claiming it had been cancelled, with no explanation given:
We were all very confused, so we emailed our lecturers, and were told there were issues with how the event was advertised. We all emailed complaints to the Dean, and the head of the law school, saying it wasn’t freedom of speech. Then, all of a sudden they switched the story, and said the event hadn’t been cancelled, only postponed, because they wanted to make it ‘more inclusive’. The teachers themselves said that they were told by management that it was the watermelons that were the issue, not inclusion. We talk about the rule of law, but it seems as though we only apply this to certain groups and certain powers, not to everyone. I am questioning everything now, even the ethics of being a lawyer.
The student the Canary spoke to claims the event still has not happened, and all has gone quiet.
Rebecca Ruth Gould, distinguished professor, Comparative Poetics and Global Politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, and author of Erasing Palestine: Free Speech and Palestinian Freedom, found herself at the centre of the UK’s first major conflict over the definition of antisemitism and the censorship of Israel-critical speech, in 2017.
Frustrated and outraged by the injustices she witnessed in 2011 while living in Palestine and commuting to Israel, in 2011, Gould penned ‘Beyond Anti-Semitism’ which argued that the long history of antisemitism and of the Holocaust, forms the background against which Palestinian lives have been sacrificed since the creation of the state of Israel.
She wrote:
No people’s past should be allowed to determine another people’s future.
Five years later, while a lecturer at the University of Bristol, one of her students who identified as a Zionist found this piece of work online and wrote to the student newspaper, denouncing the piece and labelling Gould an antisemite. The Telegraph then spotted the piece, and wrote an article. A huge backlash followed. Gould was accused of Holocaust denial, and the Board of Deputies of British Jews called for her to be sacked.
She points out that although fear of being perceived as antisemitic stifles necessary criticism of Israel’s policies, speaking out against its injustices is crucial. Gould told the Canary:
Silence in the face of oppression only perpetuates further injustice… At a certain point I realised my ability to speak out about Palestine was central to my reason for existing on this earth. I could not relinquish my voice without surrendering my own humanity. My only option was to write openly about what happened, and in doing so, hopefully to empower and embolden others to speak out as well.
We should all speak out for what we believe is right, and should feel encouraged to do so by the recent of David Miller’s employment tribunal, as it has now become much harder for universities and workplaces to sack anti-Zionists for expressing their viewpoint.
Miller’s anti-Zionist belief – that Zionism is inherently racist, imperialist and colonial – was ruled, by the tribunal, not to be racist or antisemitic, and qualified as a philosophical belief, protected under the Equality Act 2010. Miller, who was unfairly dismissed from the University of Bristol in 2021 because of his viewpoint on Zionism, suffered an organised campaign to silence him, mainly by Jewish student groups and the CST. In a lecture, Miller had mentioned Zionism as being a driving factor in promoting Islamophobia. The Community Security Trust, which has found its way into British universities by employing National Student Security Co-ordinators, called Miller’s lecture a “false, vile, antisemitic slur”.
This ruling has reinforced the need to move away from the politicised IHRA definition, which equates antisemitism with Zionism and criticism of Israel. As the ELSC/BRISMES report stated, it is not fit for purpose. In the workplace, universities and wider society, legal protections are already in place against racially-motivated behaviour of all kinds – including antisemitism – are covered by Equalities legislation, such as the Equalities Act 2010, and by internal codes of conduct – and these are very effective when implemented correctly.
The above are just a few examples of the many times in which the IHRA definition of antisemitism is used in an attempt to silence criticism of Israel and any debate around Palestine, and to hide all that the Palestinians endure. These are also the incidents that make up the annual CST reports, and contribute to the ‘explosion of hated’, so often wrongly reported in the press.
By automatically branding opposition to Israel as antisemitic, the Israel-focused IHRA definition is also very harmful to the real fight against antisemitism, and this is extremely worrying for Jewish people such as Lerman.
Bresheeth concluded that:
I’m the son of two holocaust survivors from Auschwitz. I’m totally against antisemitism. The Israel lobby is the strongest lobby in this country, and at the moment there’s a very systematic approach that’s trying to demonise those supporting opposition to what’s happening in Palestine.
They are selling this criminality as the way to be Jewish, but Jews have never done this in 2000 years of history.
It’s not Jewish. There’s nothing Jewish about Israel.
All Jews really must oppose this, in the name of what’s happened to them.
What Israel is doing now, is definitely adding to the problem of antisemitism and will indeed make the problem worse.
Featured image via the Times – YouTube
By Charlie Jaay
This post was originally published on Canary.
Comedian Reginald D Hunter has been the victim of a Zionist smear operation – but not even a very good one, at that. Because the central actors at the heart of the story have a long history of agitating for the Israeli state; just ask Jeremy Corbyn. So, it wasn’t hard to expose who they really were when they tried to remain anonymous.
Social media has been in a frenzy over the story of two people who were hounded out of Reginald D Hunter’s gig at the Edinburgh Fringe – supposedly because they were from Israel. The Telegraph planted the seeds of the frenzy via Dominic Cavendish’s review of his gig. He asserted that:
Hunter… said a Channel 5 documentary containing a scene about an abusive wife herself accusing her husband of abuse made him think, “My God, it’s like being married to Israel.” There was audience laughter in response, but not from the couple on the front row, who shouted “not funny”.
The pair, who said they were from Israel, then endured their fellow audience members shouting expletives (“f— off” among them), and telling them to go – with slow-hand claps, boos and cries of “genocidal maniac”, “you’re not welcome” and “free Palestine” part of the toxic mix…
Instead of tolerating the couple’s joint heckle, he doubled down with a sinister air of beaming bellicosity: “I’ve been waiting for you all summer, where the f— you been?” He continued: “You can say it’s not funny to you, but if you say it to a room full of people who laughed, you look foolish.”
“Look at you making everyone love Israel even more,” he jeered, after the woman remonstrated with the audience.
The Telegraph then ran a separate story on the alleged incident – which noted that cops said there was no crime involved but regardless Hunter had already been cancelled by another venue. So, cue the Daily Mail ‘tracking down’ the Israeli couple – while misrepresenting the jokes entirely.
Sabrina Miller wrote for the right-wing tabloid that the couple – who wished to remain anonymous (shocker) – said that the audience had “hate in their eyes”, were afraid they would be ‘attacked and beaten’, and that Jewish people ‘were not safe in the UK’:
‘The looks on people’s faces in the audience – it was like they wanted to attack us and beat us’ the couple tell me.
https://t.co/7imGftjkfI pic.twitter.com/txxhAl6hQb
— Sabrina Miller (@SabriSun_Miller) August 17, 2024
They concluded by saying, as the Daily Mail wrote, that:
they now want to use their platform to tackle the rising wave of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel racism in Britain.
The wife added: ‘I do have an important message to get across and that is that people must stand up and not let hate win.
‘I’ve always spoken out, whether it’s about something Jewish or not’.
Aside from the fact that Reginald D Hunter’s joke wasn’t about Jewish people – it was about the genocidal Israeli state – this ‘anonymous’ couple have already used their ‘platform’ to speak out about what they view as antisemitism in the UK. This is because we now know who the couple are:
He did however remember this woman and her partner, because these were the very people who disrupted his humorous stories. He ALWAYS remembers people who disrupt his humourous stories. He loves telling humourous stories. pic.twitter.com/DptzEKs1xN
— Reginald D Hunter (@reginalddhunter) August 18, 2024
Yes, that’s right. It’s Mark Lewis and Mandy Blumenthal – the couple who infamously went on the BBC claiming they were leaving the UK because of Jeremy Corbyn. So, it seems there are quite a lot of questions they, and the Daily Mail’s Miller, have to answer over the Reginald D Hunter story:
Will Mark Lewis, Mandy Blumenthal and journalist Sabrina Miller tell us the truth about what happened at the Reginald D Hunter gig?
Because “Shimon and Talia” don’t exist, there was no “romantic holiday” and they weren’t “tracked down” for their story. Mark and Mandy are in… pic.twitter.com/jvSwuC0ioZ
— James Wilson (@per_incuriam2) August 19, 2024
Unfortunately, Mark and Mandy seemed to forget what century we were in (as did Sabrina Miller) – because video footage has already come out:
Video footage of ‘Israeli couple’ at the Reginal D Hunter gig in Edinburgh, who turned out to be professional UK Zionist victims Mark Lewis and Mandy Blumenthal, famous for Corbyn-bashing, representing Rachel Riley in legal actions and various publicity stunts.@reginalddhunter pic.twitter.com/XPpeZK7A9g
— Ragged Trousered Philanderer (@RaggedTP) August 19, 2024
Plus, journalist Sangita Myska was actually there:
I hoped to stay out of this (due to stress since April) but it’s unethical to let it pass: I was, coincidentally, at this show. The events are not being reported accurately by some press. Yes, it was upsetting but the couple were not ‘hounded out’ by a ‘baying’ antisemitic crowd https://t.co/ig8rGGsBU1
— Sangita Myska (@SangitaMyska) August 18, 2024
Photos emerged:
Incredible. This is a confrontation deliberately staged by Mark Lewis and Mandy Blumenthal?
If anyone is looking shouty and angry, it’s Mandy?
And then they’ve gone to the press with some cock and bull story about a romantic holiday?
Completely mind-boggling. https://t.co/yhDPwRBXoF pic.twitter.com/UFO2o20YgM
— James Wilson (@per_incuriam2) August 18, 2024
Yet still – STILL – Sabrina Miller doubled-down on the story:
All day people have tried to discredit, gaslight and intimidate the brave Jewish, Israeli couple who spoke up about their experiences at Reginald Hunter’s show.
Thank goodness @domcavendish was in that audience to tell their story. https://t.co/7imGftjkfI pic.twitter.com/jKVzxjXzNh
— Sabrina Miller (@SabriSun_Miller) August 18, 2024
Let’s be clear – Mark and Mandy are NOT a “brave” couple:
This is Mark Lewis and Mandy Blumenthal with fellow pro-Israel activists Jonathan Hoffman and Sharon Klaff – whose links to the extreme right we exposed in ep 2 of The Labour Files.
Any journalist swallowing the idea this was a random "Israeli couple" is beyond incompetent. /1 https://t.co/OcihLmXpKz pic.twitter.com/qNsMLsZaB5
— Richard Sanders (@PulaRJS) August 19, 2024
Nor are they just a ‘random’ couple. Lewis is a lawyer (involved in notorious Zionist outfit Campaign Against Antisemitism) who just happened to defend Rachel Riley in court and called for “unapologetic Zionism” in the UK.
So, it seems that the whole thing was a set-up. Reginald D Hunter’s joke about the STATE of Israel was NOT about Jewish people, nor did it mention Jewish people. Might we remind you that it is antisemitic to blame Jewish people for Israel’s actions? Yet here we are, with it being presented as if it was.
However, there is a big BUT with this whole story. Why would the Zionist lobby target Reginald D Hunter specifically? Maybe Mark and Mandy were genuinely at his show – and saw an opportunity for a quick newspaper headline and some faux outrage. Either way, this whole concocted story is just that; another example of why the phrase ‘it was a scam’ still rings true.
Featured image via X – screengrab
By Steve Topple
This post was originally published on Canary.
Multiple corporate media outlets – including the Independent and GB News – smeared members of a Palestine Support community as antisemitic for supposedly staging a protest outside a performance of Fiddler on the Roof. In reality however, they hosted no such protest.
What’s more, it was in fact Zionists attending the theatre show who threatened and hurled racist abuse at the group as they queued for ice-cream and coffee. Despite this, the corporate press spun the story to vilify them, and paint them as the agitators.
The Canary spoke to the group about the hate incident, and the impact of the spurious reporting which followed.
On Tuesday 6 August, numerous corporate media outlets falsely accused a group of people of antisemitism. Specifically, the mainstream press suggested that the group – carrying Palestine flags – had turned out to protest a performance of Fiddler on the Roof in Regent’s Park.
The Independent ran the headline:
Pro-Palestine demonstrators accused of antisemitism after protesting outside Fiddler on the Roof”
Meanwhile, GB News plastered its video coverage with the specious title:
‘Jew haters’ – Pro-Palestine demonstrators accused of anti-Semitism after Fiddler on the Roof march
The Jewish Chronicle carried the most in-depth report and was the first to publish on the incident. Notably, it included a series of comments from a party of theatre-goers claiming victimhood of the supposed antisemitic protest.
The outlets presented a series of videos from X posts portending to back this up. Of course, these invariably cherry-picked select clips from the footage, without portraying the full picture. Predictably also, none of the outlets contacted the supposed pro-Palestine protest group, or the venue to verify this. Unsurprisingly then, the reporting was a serious misrepresentation of events.
Crucially, the group in keffiyehs and Palestine flags weren’t protesting the theatre performance at all. Instead, they were queuing together for refreshments in a public cafe – at least a couple of hundred metres away from the open air show. What’s more, it was the JC’s interviewees – who proudly self-professed as Zionists – that actually enacted a vile tirade of racist abuse against the group of cafe patrons.
Given this, the Canary asked the group of cafe customers what happened from their perspective. We’ve maintained their anonymity for their own safety after the incident.
Firstly, the cafe group emphasised to the Canary how the reporting was an “utter lie”. One member expressed how:
We were getting a coffee after a Palestine Support event about a mile away from Regents Park. We knew nothing about any screening. We were all standing in the queue, chatting in pairs etc, waiting to order, and obviously just relaxing.
However, things suddenly soon took a turn. The cafe group member said that it was at this point that they were:
accosted by a group of Zionists who immediately started telling us to get out of the cafe, because some of us were (still) carrying Palestine flags.
Eventually, he said that:
We began to realise they had some kind of event going on because after several minutes one the women there started saying “you know we’re doing a screening today!” We tried to find out what she was talking about but she didn’t tell us.
It was only an hour or two later when I took a walk to investigate some orchestral sounds I’d heard that I discovered the cinema (which I didn’t even know existed!) and a poster for Fiddler on the Roof. I went back to the group and explained that that’s what I had found and we were all mutually stunned that anyone would believe that peace protesters would have been anywhere to protest about a film like Fiddler on the Roof.
Another member of the cafe group told the Canary that in the videos the Zionist theatre-goers supplied to the press, it appeared:
They also cut out of their video the fact that we asked multiple times what “what’s screening?” when they said “you’re here because of the screening aren’t you?”
One member who spoke to the Canary articulated that they had personal connections to Fiddler on the Roof, which made the accusations all the more shocking to them:
I was particularly amazed because the Jewish side of my family were the very same people that the film is about – Russian Jews who left due to the Cossack pogroms!
Aside from the corporate outlets purposely leaving out these vital details, they also omitted footage showing the extreme prejudice and bigotry the Zionist theatre-goers directed at the cafe group. One of the cafe group customers described the vile racist and abusive comments the Zionists shouted at them:
They called us animals, pigs one of them called my friend a dirtbag
Notably, they singled out a Black Somalian member of the cafe group and “went right up into” her face and:
said very aggressively “look at your face”
The cafe group explained that they felt the hate-fueled verbal assault:
had massive potential to descend into public disorder because of the suddenness, the volume, the physically threatening nature of the Zionist attack on our group.
Notably, a member said to the Canary how:
one man in particular looked like he was going to punch one of our group so I stepped in between them to ensure that he was aware there were several males there.
Eventually the aggressive man who kept rolling his sleeves up and was being held back by several women, this group went back outside to the tables.
What’s more, other people in the cafe appeared to recognise the risk of the Zionist party escalating the hate incident too. The cafe group member described how:
Other customers were worried for our safety, as evidenced by one man – of large physique – approaching us and saying if you need any help I’m just outside here – just shout for me.
Vitally, he felt that the fact that their group:
reacted rationally to their improved behaviour meant that the situation eventually de-escalated as we started to disengage with them.
To make matters worse, the cafe group told us how the Zionists verbally assaulted them while they were out socialising with their children.
Speaking separately to Migration Films about the incident, one of the children present told them it made him feel:
Distressed and scared, because I didn’t know what they were going to do
Migration Films also corroborated the group’s accounts with cafe staff:
AN INSIGHT INTO ZIONISTS IN LONDON…
‘On Monday 5th Aug, some people went into the Regent’s Park cafe for some refreshments – What followed was a barrage of insults, threats and an accusation of Antisemitism against them’
Investigation by Migration Filmspic.twitter.com/3Mt08Q2FG3
— Save Our Citizenships
(@LetsStopC9) August 18, 2024
They independently confirmed that the group of Zionists were the aggressors. Notably, one staff member stated that:
The guys with the Palestine flags – they just came in – they were just peaceful, they were just going about their way. And I think people just didn’t like that they had their Palestine flags in there.
Videos on X also backed up their story:
Those with
They then faced verbal abuse from
the other customers in the form of foul language & other hate speech2/3 pic.twitter.com/chJYfQgZ7X
— Viv (@VivCat123) August 7, 2024
Of course, it wouldn’t be the first time that the Jewish Chronicle had entirely fabricated a story to slander anti-racists and people critical of Israel. The Canary consistently covered the outlet’s vile smear campaign against dedicated anti-racists and socialists in the Labour Party during Jeremy Corbyn’s time as party leader.
Unsurprisingly, a number of people have previously won legal cases against the Jewish Chronicle for its libelous and fictitious reporting. Moreover, throughout Israel’s ongoing genocide and war crimes, the Zionist media site has run relentless stories branding pro-Palestine protesters as antisemitic.
Similarly, right-wing GB News has deployed a hostile media campaign against people speaking out against Israel committing genocide in Gaza. One of the cafe group customers explained to the Canary how one woman said to them that they:
shouldn’t carry the Palestinian flag in public because it was “provocative”.
Naturally, the GB News piece took this a step further. National Jewish Assembly chairman Gary Mond told the GB News presenters that:
Lots of Jews feel this way, that the Palestinian flag is really a terror flag – it’s not the flag of any particular individual country.
Of course, this was a palpably fallacious and bigoted statement on a number of counts. For one, over 75% of the United Nations member states – 145 separate parties – recognise Palestinian statehood. What’s more, none of that is to mention the fact that Israel itself is a settler colonial Western-imposed state, currently illegally occupying Palestinian territories.
On top of this, it blatantly played up Israel’s rancid racist propaganda painting all Palestinians and supporters as “terrorists”. Moreover, GB News failed to detail Mond’s affiliations with Israel and its Zionist project. For instance, until April 2023, Mond was also a board executive for the Zionist apartheid-enabling organisation, the Jewish National Front (JNF).
Of course, the similarity between Mond’s reaction and the Zionist theatre-goers response demonstrates the Israeli propaganda machine in action. In other words, right-wing outlets like GB News platforming Israeli propagandists has fed fuel to the fire of the racist apartheid and genocidal state’s motivated antisemitism smear campaign.
Given that both the Jewish Chronicle and GB News had form on this however, the antisemitism smears were completely on brand. However, even the so-called Independent uncritically regurgitated the factually erroneous report.
Again, it shouldn’t come as a surprise. Russian oligarch Evgeny Lebedev owns the largest shareholding in the corporate news outlet, so it’s name is a glaring misnomer. What’s more, the Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM), an arm of the Muslim Council of Britain, has identified distinct media bias in the UK mainstream press’s coverage of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The Independent was among these outlets showing a clear pro-Israel bias across its reporting.
In its report on this incident, the outlet sought a comment from head of policy at the Community Security Trust (CST) Dave Rich, who told it:
Fiddler On The Roof isn’t just a Jewish musical: it’s the family story of most Jewish families in this country. Holding an anti-Israel protest there is pure antisemitism.
But as the Canary has previously noted, the CST is hardly a non-partisan organisation. In fact, director of right-wing pro-Israel group Labour Against Antisemitism (LAAS) Alex Hearn recently invoked a report by the CST to smear black Labour MP Clive Lewis as antisemitic. In particular, the report claimed that antisemitism had sky-rocketed after 7 October. However, as the Canary noted, the CST had purposely conflated antisemitism with anti-Zionism. We wrote that:
This has been glaringly obvious as the Western corporate media and right-wing politicians have branded pro-Palestine protest demonstrations as antisemitic on multiple occasions.
So once again, the corporate press has done this over even minor expressions of support for Palestine. In this instance however, it was simply for wearing symbols of Palestinian solidarity in public. As one of the cafe group members expressed to the Canary:
The sense is that Palestine activists seem to be designated as worthy of any kind of common assault by many Zionists who feel they have a right to abuse us because we threaten their political ideology.
Ultimately, one of the cafe group customers felt that the incident showed:
how vile, aggressive, and racist Zionists can be when they simply see a Palestinian flag, and how insidious they are in accusing people of antisemitism without justification.
Already, following the verbal assault in public and the subsequent media misreporting, Zionists have doxxed one group member. In particular, they have tried to intimidate him in his private life, targeting his business. He told the Canary that:
They were trying to shock me with the news that they have “found me” obvs implied threat to business…. Haven’t checked yet but if reviews can be left I will no doubt have a few very unflattering ones to delete etc.!
Of course, it’s also precisely the corporate media’s fabricated antisemitism smears like this that have emboldened violent, racist right-wing and Zionists attacks against Palestinians, and people showing support for Palestine in public. One of the cafe group customers argued that:
It’s a similar philosophy to the recent EDL marchers who feel they can be as violent as they like if they encounter anyone who threatens their political ideology.
In that way, this racist verbal assault and corporate media antisemitism smear cannot be extricated from the violent racist pogroms fascists carried out across the UK.
If anyone was making a mockery of the meaning behind Fiddler on the Roof, it was the racist Zionists.
They viciously impinged on the social lives of the cafe customers. Wearing traditional keffiyehs and sporting Palestinian flags in public is a mark of solidarity and an expression of cultural pride, in the midst of Israel’s abhorrent genocide. As ever though, to Zionists, the only tradition that matters is Israel’s violent crusade of ethnic cleansing.
They’ll readily weaponise spurious allegations of antisemitism to silence anyone remotely showing solidarity in their public or private lives. It shows that Israel’s propaganda reaches far beyond its illegally occupying borders. Zionists and media apologists continue to prop it up in Israel’s allied Western coloniser core – while pushing pro-Palestine voices to the margins.
Feature image via the Canary
This post was originally published on Canary.
This week, leftists on multiple social media platforms debated whether the acronym “ZOG” is an accurate or acceptable descriptor for the United States government. The term “ZOG,” which stands for Zionist Occupied Government, was popularized by The Turner Diaries — a 1978 novel by neo-Nazi William Luther Pierce. Pierce was the founder and chairman of National Alliance, a white supremacist political…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
