Swapping “Zionist” or “pro-Israeli” for “Jewish” is not opposing antisemitism. It is, at best, a lazy linguistic complacency that camouflages antisemitic ways of thinking: making antisemitism harder to expose and fight. An unusually explicit example of this can be clearly seen in the footage of a meeting at London journalist haunt, the Frontline Club. View it here (but read the below first).

The meeting, on 12 June 2013, used a book by British Islamist, Ibrahim Hewitt, as the basis for discussion about the media’s approach to the Israel-Palestine conflict. The discussion, between Hewitt, ex-BBC Middle East correspondent Tim Llewellyn, and Guardian foreign leader writer David Hearst, was chaired by Mark McDonald, a founder of Labour Friends of Palestine & the Middle East.

Under the title, “Anti-Zionism: the Frontline”, CST Blog had already warned what might happen at this meeting. We related some of the overblown anti-Zionist conspiracy theory and imagery that Hewitt’s group, MEMO, had previously published. We noted that Llewellyn might be worse than Hewitt. We recalled Hearst’s silence in the Guardian after a judge had found against Sheikh Ra’ed Salah’s denials of having made a blood libel speech. (The judge still granted Salah his appeal.) We asked, without optimism, if Hearst or McDonald might intervene if either of their fellow Frontline speakers strayed into territory occupied by antisemitism.

The footage shows that Hewitt did not repeat the wilder material from MEMO, and that Llewellyn was indeed worse than him. Hearst explained things calmly and without resort to conspiracy theory, but does not seem to have directly rebutted either Hewitt or, especially, Llewellyn. If anything, Hearst surely normalised his fellow speakers to the mainly young audience – rather than undermined them.

The footage also shows that there was only one intervention against a speaker who took things too far. This was against Llewellyn, when Hewitt pulled him up for saying “the Jewish Lobby”: whereupon the meeting chair, Mark McDonald, said that it should be “the Zionist Lobby” or “pro-Israel Lobby” instead.

Any serious objection to antisemitism must go far deeper than swapping “Zionist” for “Jewish”. Otherwise, it simply becomes an exercise in how to swap an antisemitic conspiracy theory for an ‘anti-Zionist’ one. The anti-Zionist left claims, furiously, to oppose antisemitism, but swapping “Zionist” for “Jew” is advising upon camouflage, not anti-racism.

The salient moment occurs approximately 30 minutes and 45 seconds (30:45) into the footage, when Tim Llewellyn asks David Hearst to explain why he says that newspaper editors “wilt under pressure”. Llewellyn:

Is it because. I can see it in the BBC. They’re frighten’, these people are quite aggressive, right. The Jewish Lobby is not much fun. They come at you from every direction.

Off camera, Hewitt says “no”, then, “its the pro-Israel lobby”. It is not exactly clear who says what after this, but it includes McDonald talking over Llewellyn, stating:

I mean that’s a very important thing to say, that its not a Jewish lobby. Can I interrupt a second. Its not a Jewish lobby. It might be a Zionist lobby. It may be a pro-Israel lobby.

But Llewellyn won’t give it up. He retorts:

Yes, but they use Jewish connections to get you.

McDonald’s anti-racism intervention now wilts. He wants consensus, not a discursive analysis on the meaning of “they use Jewish connections to get you”. So, he lamely replies:

Yes, but its not necessarily a Jewish lobby, as in

McDonald’s words trail off. He does not say ‘its not necessarily a Jewish lobby as in the way that antisemites allege Jews run the media and politics, via intimidation, money and power’. Llewellyn gives an inch:

Alright, its an Israeli lobby. A friends of Israel lets say. Lets not be too polite about them, because they’re not very polite about us.

Llewellyn continues, asking why “we are afraid of them”:

Why are we afraid of them. That’s what I don’t understand. You know, I mean, we’re all British…I may be Welsh, but I’m British.

Nobody intervenes. Nobody asks Llewellyn to clarify if he is meaning to say that these lobbying, connected Jews are somehow not British. There are no more anti-racist interventions, not even half-hearted ones.

And so the meeting goes on, showing how easily anti-Zionist conspiracy can be normalised when people are willing to sit alongside it and treat it with respect.  In particular, Hearst and McDonald treat Llewellyn’s interventions as if they are entirely normal and legitimate. They are not merely bystanders in this, they facilitate it. The audience takes it all in.

Contemplate the following low points and note that all of them were treated as being entirely normal:

06.20 Ibrahim Hewitt stresses England football manager Roy Hodgson was right to visit Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, but asks about his not visiting the nearby remains of Palestinian village, Deir Yassin.

08.57 Hewitt says that Abraham Foxman (of the Anti Defamation League) is the only person “guaranteed”  to get their letters published in the New York Times.

11.30 Hewitt says he enjoys reading the obituaries in the Guardian. Llewellyn interrupts, “any day now”.

21.55 Llewellyn asks “a deeper question” about BBC reporting:

why is it like this?…is it a sinister conspiracy…a lazy way of looking at, you know, the fact that the Israeli lobby is very powerful in all three of our main political parties. Is it the BBC being very fearful?

40.44 Hewitt’s curious use of the word “diaspora”: “one of the paradoxes…that the media in Israel is often more lively and robust on this issue than the media in the so-called diaspora in New York and Europe”.

41.11 Llewellyn jokily tells Hewitt, “learn to write in Yiddish”, to get his letters published in Israeli media. Someone (from the audience) says “Hebrew”, Llewellyn counters, “No, Yiddish”.

50.04 A well spoken English woman cites Moses, her ‘them and us’ style is a classic of the genre:

AIPAC, America’s Jewish Israeli lobby, they are sooooo well organised. And we’re too nice. Whether we’re the Palestinians, or the British, we are awfully nice, we, as you say, go make a cup of tea. They don’t make cups of tea…they are desperately tough…Moses said that they were a hard-necked people. They are. And they are so well organised… 

58.40 Llewellyn adds more about what “troubles” him. He objects to Europeans regarding Israelis as being like themselves, whereas Palestinians are not seen that way. He says “the Jewish lobby”, interchangeably with “the Israeli lobby”:

We talk about the Jewish lobby, the Israeli lobby, the friends of Israel. There is this people like us thing…   

1.01.20 Llewellyn brings the lobby’s political power into the BBC equation:

The BBC is pressured because its part of a Governmental system. There’s no question about the friends of Israel are big in each three political parties, right.

1.14.08 Hewitt reveals his theory about the “sleepers” that the Israelis are now allegedly activating in media positions of power around the world:

Its very telling that…the Israeli Foreign Ministry actually issued a directive to the hasbara people, the propaganda people, around the world, start placing articles…so they were very confident that they had the ability, the people in place to be able to do that…said a lot, if they can just basically give this directive and all these sleepers all of a sudden wake up and start doing things. There are clearly people in positions of influence who are able to do this.

1.32.06 Finally, the last word at the meeting went to Tim Llewellyn:

The editor of the Guardian who said that comments were free and facts were sacred: was the biggest Zionist who ever lived.

(The footage link, again, is here.)

 
Old friends and (new) foes have advised David Ward MP that he is in a hole and really should stop digging. (For background, see here and here.) Unfortunately, whoever runs his website disagrees, and has posted an article that renders Ward unfit to serve as a Member of Parliament for so long as it remains there.

With this new article, Ward has swapped his spade for a bulldozer.

The article is entitled, “Guardian continues the hounding of David Ward”. It exemplifies the type of loose – and therefore dangerous and highly offensive – language about Jews, Israel and the Holocaust that got Ward exactly where he is today.

Having posted this, it is clear that David Ward and his constituency team neither understand the power of words, nor the importance of precision of language. They most certainly underestimate its importance in the context of dealing with Jews and in relation to racism. So it is fitting, and somewhat sad, that the article is itself a counterattack on a recent Guardian interview with Ward, headlined “David Ward: ‘The solid ground I stand on is that I am not a racist’ ”.

The interview, by Aida Edemariam, criticises Ward for not understanding why he caused offence with his Jews-Holocaust-Israel-Palestinians linkage, but it does seem to afford him every opportunity to state his case and quotes him at length. It is well worth reading, but outraged John Hilley who wrote about it on his (ill-termed) Zenpolitics website. This is the article that is now on Ward’s website, where it resides under Ward’s name and the logo of the Liberal Democrat Party.

Hilley begins by reminding us what Ward originally said about “the Jews” having suffered in the Holocaust and then “inflicting atrocities on Palestinians”. He acknowledges that Ward’s wording was poor, but states that the outrage about it is somehow artificial:

whatever lack of qualification or carelessness in his words, were we really to believe that Ward meant or implied that all Jews were/are responsible for Israel’s repressions and occupation?

To which the answer, for most of us, would be a resounding “yes”. When someone says “the Jews”, we take that to mean “the Jews”. Indeed, isn’t that the standard defence of every anti-Zionist who has ever been accused of antisemitism? “Errr…I didn’t say ‘the Jews’, I was clearly only talking about Ariel Sharon / the IDF / Israelis / Zionists / George Bush / the Board of Deputies of British Jews…”.

Building from this self-serving deceit, the article vilifies those who have taken issue with Ward’s Jews-Holocaust-Israel-Palestinians construct. It includes these misrepresentations of complaints:

the expected criticism from outraged Zionists…

Edemariam like all Ward’s detractors, really knows what he meant…

his [Ward’s] meaning is likely to have been well understood…

Ward’s real ‘mistake’, as far as the Zionist lobby and many liberal commentariat are concerned – and as his Liberal colleague Jenny Tongue also found out to her cost – was to criticise Israel at all…

Those, like David Ward, who courageously speak in any kind of similar vein – despite his subsequent corrections – are, as usual, pilloried for being anti-Semitic and hounded by liberal media types for not subscribing to the template Zionist narrative…

There is a small mercy in that the article’s insistence that Ward did not mean “the Jews”, helps inoculate it against similar charges. Hilley clearly does not mean all “the Jews”, but this article still leaves the reader believing that any complainant is part of a conspiracy to silence all dissent on Israel, Zionism, or prevailing Holocaust narratives.

As Ward has previously put it and as positively cited again in this article:

Ward’s point about the “huge operation out there, a machine almost, which is designed to protect the state of Israel from criticism” also applies to this kind of liberal baiting.

(“Liberal baiting” is a reference to the Guardian interviewer, Aida Edemariam. The news that the Guardian is also somehow in on this alleged conspiracy to silence Ward, Tonge and their ilk, may surprise those who have followed debates about ‘the new antisemitism’ in recent decades.)

Despite all this, the article’s primary thrust tries to reinforce Ward’s post-facto rationalisation of his behaviour in the controversy thus far: the notion that he is bravely trying to kick start an urgent debate on how the Holocaust impacted upon the subsequent actions of Israel and/or Zionists (but not “the Jews” – or at least not those Jews who kept out of it all).

Now we are no longer talking about the offence caused by stupid routine accusations about all criticism of Israel being falsely jumped on as antisemitism; or the even sillier (and far more original) idea that the Guardian is now in on the act. Instead, we are back to talking about the Holocaust. We are back to the original cause of the outrage against Ward. You might, therefore, expect the language to now, at long last, be careful and precise, empathetic even towards those who were so upset. Sadly, this is not the case:

Nor was Ward linking the Holocaust and the Occupation by comparing or equating them as “categories”. He was linking them in the obvious sense that the Holocaust was used as a part of the Zionist agenda for occupying another people’s land…

Indeed, how dare Zionists not ignore the near genocide of European Jewry, but to move on, Ward’s insistence that he was not equating “the Holocaust and the Occupation…as ‘categories’” has been central to his defence since day one of this squalid controversy. Bizarrrely, having just stated the above, Hilley then bulldozes under both his and Ward’s position, writing:

And if Edemariam really does believe after sixty years of ethnic cleansing, mass IDF murder, settler takeovers, apartheid transfer policies and the continued prison camp siege of Gaza that Israel “is not setting out to annihilate [the Palestinian] people”, perhaps she is the one who should be more carefully considering her incendiary language.

In the space of two small paragraphs, Hilley has gone from saying that the Holocaust is obviously not the same as “occupying another people’s land” to outrage that Ward’s interviewer has denied Israel “is not setting out to annihilate the Palestinian people”.

To be precise, “setting out to annihilate” is not the same as perpetrating an annihilation / Holocaust, but to the man on the Clapham (or Bradford East) omnibus, there will be little difference. Then, there is the seriousness of what Hilley’s angry denial of Edemariam’s words implies – that Israel is actually setting out to annihilate the Palestinian people, as the Nazis set out to annihilate the Jews.

If this is to be Ward’s chosen category comparison / equation, then he has no place continuing as an MP.

Hilley’s article is not yet done. It has “a rather basic set of sequential things to restate”. Bullet points follow, beginning with an accurate description and full condemnation of the Holocaust against “the Jews”. Nevertheless, the centrality of antisemitism and the Holocaust to Nazi ideology is undersold by the next point:

• “It was part of a systematic purge on any community, Jews, Gypsies, Communists, deemed inferior or/and a threat to Nazi ideology and power.”

The article continues:

• “Anyone who seeks to deny or misconstrue these basic facts is either peddling lies, misinformed  or uninterested in the truth”

More “basic facts” follow and again we are told that if you do not agree with them then you are either a liar or a fool. They include:

• “The Holocaust formed a central ideological, political and militarist agenda in the Zionist formulation and creation of a Jewish state.”

If anything, this goes even further than the earlier mention of the Holocaust and “the Zionist agenda”. Notwithstanding the first of Hilley’s points, it is as if the Holocaust has now been stripped of all meaning for Jews and reduced to some kind of deeper, more elemental truth about it being a Zionist tool. The bullet points continue, including:

• “We cannot reasonably learn or understand anything about Palestinian suffering without referencing the Holocaust and the ways in which Zionism has used it to legitimise the Occupation.”

So, whilst the basic reasons as to how and why the Holocaust might feed into Jewish support for Zionism are dehumanised, the opposite must apply for Palestinian suffering. For now, let us just say that this is a striking double standard.

Then, Hilley cites Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein “whose own Jewish family were murdered in extermination camps…this has been turned into ideological propaganda through the Holocaust Industry”.

All of which feeds to the article’s conclusion about Ward’s “careless discrepancy” being maliciously used “to keep other journalists in a state of  cautious apprehension about discussing the Holocaust in relation to the Occupation…[this] personalised hatchet-job does exactly what the Zionist lobby and self-protecting editors want in keeping all that prudently off-limits”.

Let us be clear, an article such as Hilley’s is not exceptional within proper anti-Zionist and anti-Israel circles. Its weird claim that “Jews” really means “Zionists” or “Israelis” repeats what we have previously heard from Caryl Churchill and Paul Foot, two wordsmiths beside whom Hilley and Ward pale into insignificance. Its claim that outrage over Ward’s spitting on Holocaust memory is proof that any and all criticism of Israel is falsely accused of antisemitism is merely routine; as is the coterminous accusation that such claims succeed in shutting up all criticism.

Even the idea that Israel wants to repeat what the Nazis did is not that unusual, with Holocaust Memorial Day fast become a lightning rod for this sickening, perverse claim.

However, for all of this rubbish to be brought together in a single article on an MP’s website brings shame upon the Liberal Democrat Party, and upon Ward’s many decent colleagues who keep getting spattered with mud from these issues. So long as this article remains on David Ward MP’s website, he is unfit to serve as a Member of Parliament.

Ben Cohen has an excellent article on his website concerning recent American reactions to reminders that in 2010, Mohamed Morsi, employed the “sons of apes and pigs” slander that has been repeatedly directed at Jews, Zionists and Israelis by Islamists. 

In 2010, Morsi was a Muslim Brotherhood leader: so his remarks were taken, somewhat wearily, as yet another example of that group’s hatred. Now, however, Morsi is the President of Egypt. His words really do matter; and Ben Cohen’s article reminds us that antisemitism from such sources is seldom afforded the seriousness it deserves. Ben Cohen writes: 

“It’s a story that began with an eagle-eyed Jewish blogger who writes under the pseudonym “Challah Hu Akbar” and progressed all the way to the White House. In the process, it has reignited the debate as to whether Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood President, Mohamed Morsi, is really the pragmatic moderate that many believe him to be.

On Jan. 3, Challah Hu Akbar tweeted an item from the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) in which Morsi, in a 2010 speech, uttered what is a standard Islamist anti-Semitic slander, namely that Zionists are descended from “apes and pigs.” A little more than a week later, noticing that Morsi’s statement had barely registered with the wider media, The Atlantic columnist Jeffrey Goldberg wrote a blog post with the entirely apt headline, “Egyptian President Calls Jews ‘Sons of Apes and Pigs;’ World Yawns.” At Forbes magazine, Richard Behar made an identical point, adding that in the same set of remarks, Morsi had called for a boycott of the United States—whose taxpayers have provided Egypt with billions of dollars in aid—because of its support for Israel.

Eventually, the Morsi story found its way into the New York Times, which felt duty-bound to point out that “Mr. Morsi and other political and Brotherhood leaders typically restrict their inflammatory comments to the more ambiguous category of ‘Zionists.’” Actually, it’s not ambiguous at all. Especially since the Second World War, the word “Zionist” has always been code for “Jew” in the capitals of the Muslim world, as well as in the capitals of the late, unlamented communist bloc of states. And in case there was any lingering doubt, a subsequent Morsi item posted by MEMRI, also from 2010, showed the Muslim Brotherhood leader helpfully urging his people “not forget to nurse our children and grandchildren on hatred towards those Zionists and Jews.”

Unusually, given the prevailing view that accusations of anti-Semitism are a smear cooked up by an unscrupulous Jewish—sorry, I mean Israel—Lobby, condemnation of Morsi did follow. The New York Times published an editorial urging President Obama to directly convey to Morsi that such offensive comments ran counter to the goal of peace. White House spokesman Jay Carney also issued a statement, declaring, “President Morsi should make clear that he respects people of all faiths, and that this type of rhetoric is not acceptable or productive in a democratic Egypt.”

Of course, no apology from the Egyptians was forthcoming. Instead, Yasser Ali, Morsi’s spokesman, claimed that his boss’s comments had been taken “out of context,” and were really directed at Israeli “aggression” in Gaza. In fact, Ali’s statement is far less stupid than initially appears; anti-Semites in the Arab world know that there is a strong current of opinion in the west that regards their fulminations against Jews as justified, if unfortunately-worded, anger towards Israel. Ali was playing to that particular gallery.

And that leads to a broader, far more important observation. In its editorial, the New York Times asked, “Does Mr. Morsi really believe what he said in 2010? Has becoming president made him think differently about the need to respect and work with all people?” Disgracefully, the Times also argued, “Israelis are not immune to responding in kind either” (a sentence that appeared to have been overlooked by establishment Jewish groups like the American Jewish Committee, which rushed to welcome the editorial.) As for the White House’s Carney, his statement categorized Morsi’s remarks as “religious hatred,” a term that barely scratches the surface of what is really at issue here.

For the Morsi affair tells us much more about how anti-Semitism is understood in the West than it does about the nature of Islamist anti-Semitism. If the Times is to be believed, then the episode is merely a depressing example of how both sides dehumanize each other with nasty rhetoric. Similarly, the White House wants us to think that Morsi’s offense was religious intolerance.

As I’ve long argued, anti-Semitism isn’t just another form of bigotry. It is a method of explaining why the world is as it is; incendiary rhetoric against Jews, therefore, isn’t just an afterthought, but the natural consequence of the genuinely held belief that our planet is in the grips of a Jewish conspiracy. One has to assume the Times would not have questioned whether the anti-Semitic outlooks of Hitler and Stalin were genuinely held, so why do so with Morsi?

There are two reasons. Firstly, the misguided view that anti-Semitism is essentially a European phenomenon, and thus an alien import into the Muslim world that will disappear once the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is resolved. That reflects, secondly, an enormous ignorance about the origins of anti-Semitism in the Muslim world and its centrality to the Muslim Brotherhood’s worldview.

In his masterpiece “Terror and Liberalism,” the scholar Paul Berman quotes Sayid Qutb, the leading theoretician of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was formed in 1928, as writing that “most evil theories which try to destroy all values and all that is sacred to mankind are advocated by Jews.” Elsewhere in the book, Berman painstakingly docments Qutb’s frankly Hitlerian view of the Jewish role in world history, including his repeated assertions that Jews had conspired against Muslims from the dawn of Islam.

These were the ideological foundations of the Muslim Brotherhood then, and they remain firmly in place now. Any compromise with the Jews, such as a peace treaty with Israel, would therefore be another twist in the same conspiracy. According to Qutb and his followers, the only honorable path is to vanquish the Jews entirely.

These are the same beliefs of Mohamed Morsi. They may be insidious, but they are authentically held. Asking him to recant them, as the White House did, is like asking Hitler to apologize for Mein Kampf.

A far more productive approach would be to integrate the persistence of Islamist anti-Semitism into policy analysis of our relationship with Egypt. Critically, we need to ask whether someone who really believes that there is a hidden Jewish conspiracy at work—and that, consequently, political relationships are camouflage for that—can be a partner in any sense of that term.

Going by their reactions to Morsi’s remarks, neither this White House nor its supporters in the commentariat are up to that task.”

This article, by Joel Braunold, Strategic Partnerships Officer for the pro-peace One Voice Movement, is from his own blog and also appeared in Israel’s Ha’aretz newspaper on 31 December 2012:

—————-

Growing up as an active Jew in London I always hated when Americans or Israelis would comment on anti-Semitism in Europe. Always hyperbolic and often boarding on racism, their declarations of doom and destruction of the Jewish community of Europe was as unwelcome as it was uneducated.

Iranian state broadcaster, Press TV, has excitedly blamed the dreadful Connecticut school shooting upon Israel, Zionists and Jews. It is quoting Mike Harris, financial editor of the American website, Veterans Today:

And I want you to look at this in a greater context of things. We have had a Zionist-controlled Hollywood, a Zionist-controlled news media that is the conduit to all of these violence…into every home in America and so you wonder why there is a culture of violence? It is because it comes from the Jews in Hollywood. That is where the conduit of violence comes from. That is the source of it.

Not content with indirectly blaming Zionist / Jewish control of American media , Harris directly blames Israel (and throws in the old Israel / Jews kill children routine for antisemitic measure):

But look behind that even deeper, I want to remind you of the Norway shooting of Mr. Breivik, which followed a week after Norway had agreed to support Palestine. Now you look at Israel just lost their bid to thwart Palestine from being recognized by the United Nations and now here we go, here is a revenge killing in the US, sponsored by Israel, that killed all these innocent children and that is something that Israelis do very, very well. They target the innocent, they target the children…

Of course, no self-respecting ‘anti-Zionist’ or antisemite would neglect to trot out the ‘Jewish money controls Congress’ charge:

So let us connect the dots here about what is going on globally, geopolitically with Israel involved. Now they are also calling for a Congressional hearing. Now one thing you can count on with a Congressional hearing is there is going to be a cover up because all the Congressmen are bought and paid for by the Israeli Lobby in the US.

So any truth of this is going to be hidden because Israel wants it hidden, because they are once again the guilty party.

Israeli death squads are then joined, seamlessly, by Jewish-controlled filth:

You have to realize Israel has been operating death squads in the United States since Gabrielle Giffords and Judge Roll were shot in Tuscan. There has been other incidents as the Colorado shooting, that was again Israeli death squads operating in the US…

…I watched the filth that Hollywood produces. The filth that comes out of Hollywood. Hollywood is Jewish-owned and Jewish-controlled and they spew filth and they spew violence out.

The Jewish end-game? Why, to further control America of course:

…taking guns away from low abiding Americans is pointless. The culture as we are talking about here is Jewish-inspired, comes out of Hollywood, comes out of the Jewish-controlled news media. It comes out …., our congress is bought and paid for. Look at who the major donors are!

70 percent of the money comes out of corporations that are Zionist Jewish-controlled. Let us put credit where credit is due and this goes squarely on the Jewish lobby and let us look at our control who want to take the guns, [Dianne] Feinstein, [Charles] Schumer, [Barbara] Boxer; those are all the ones; those are all Jewish senators, all Jewish people who want to take guns away from normal law abiding middleclass Americans, who have a right under this constitution to do it.

They have been trying to destroy this country and trying to destroy this constitution for the last 70 years..

We are not going to sit back and take this Zionist-occupied government that we have in this country anymore…We have had a Zionist-controlled Hollywood, a Zionist-controlled news media, that is the conduit to all of these violence…It is because it comes from the Jews in Hollywood. That is where the conduit of violence comes from. That is the source of it.

This talk of Zionist-occupied government and Jewish gun control is highly reminiscent of The Turner Diaries – the infamous American neo-Nazi guide to Race War that helped inspire the truck bombing of the Alfred Murrah building in Oklahoma in 1995, which murdered over 160 people. The book takes the “mass Gun Raids” under “the Cohen Act” as its starting point for a fantasy white revolutionary overthrow of the United States. This is its take on what must be done with the Jews:

If the White nations of the world had not allowed themselves to become subject to the Jew, to Jewish ideas, to the Jewish spirit, this war would not be necessary. We can hardly consider ourselves blameless. We can hardly say we had no choice, no chance to avoid the Jew’s snare. We can hardly say we were not warned….

The people had finally had their fill of the Jews and their tricks….If the [revolutionary] Organization survives this contest, no Jew will — anywhere. We’ll go to the Uttermost ends of the earth to hunt down the last of Satan’s spawn.

Meanwhile, back at the Veterans Today website, you can see some regular contributors who are better known for their work within British anti-Israel and leftist circles, than they are for attracting  fleas from crazy American neo-Nazis, survivalists, conspiracy nuts etc. Step forward, Gilad Atzmon and Alan Hart. In Hart’s case, he actually has an article on the school shootings. This avoids antisemitism, but attracts some rabidly antisemitic comments, including the first one:

You need a strong German who no longer cow tows to the jews. One who will take charge and eliminate their control over the press, media, banks and every policy and law that affects the population. A leader with strong ties and allegiance to his brothers at arms. One who has the National interest of the Fatherland in mind not the interest of the International bankers. One who wants to build rather than destroy. One who is not afraid to put his life on the line to unite his people to all want to create a better America. I only say German because the last time a man like this appeared he was a German.

George Galloway still presents for Press TV. Will he, or Alan Hart, (or even Gilad Atzmon) raise any meaningful protest against this mad antisemitic garbage?

On 21 June 2012, CST’s Mark Gardner and Mike Whine MBE addressed the ICCA Brussels Conference on Contemporary Antisemitism, held at the European Parliament. The conference was chaired by Claude Moraes MEP and John Mann MP; and included presentations by the Fundamental Rights Agency, and brief country specific overviews from Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Sweden and Britain “on the nature of contemporary antisemitism”. 

Mark Gardner’s presentation, concerning the UK, follows:

My organisation, the Community Security Trust, has collected data relating to antisemitic race hate attacks in Britain since 1984. These antisemitic incidents are reported to CST from Jews throughout the country and are analysed at length in our annual report.

Reporting rates will have improved since the 1980s and we should recall the wave of antisemitism that accompanied the reunification of Germany and the collapse of Soviet communism – but it is the escalation in antisemitism from the Year 2000, sometimes called ‘the new antisemitism’, that is the most relevant aspect of antisemitism in Britain today. 

And I think that we have to now regard this situation not as some kind of transitory or passing phase, but rather as a trajectory and a reality that we now face and that will now endure for the foreseeable future – which is why we should be so grateful to the work of John Mann MP, Gert Weisskirchen MdB and others who have helped lead the fightback, against all the different forms of antisemitism faced by European Jews in a variety of situations.

These initiatives are vital for the direct protection and morale of Jewish communities, but also benefit society as a whole.

So, to turn to this now enduring situation in Britain. In 2006, the war between Israel and Hizbollah caused that year to be the worst we had ever seen, with just under 600 incidents being reported to CST.

That was eclipsed by what happened two and a half years later during Israel’s last war with Hamas in Gaza in early 2009. In January alone we had almost 300 incidents; and after 6 months we had more incidents than ever before in an entire year. By the end of 2009, CST had recorded 929 incidents.

Over the last two years, incident figures have gradually fallen back to under 600 incidents. Nevertheless, the potential for further violence and threats is very obvious. It is like two inter-linked pressure cookers, one in the Middle East including Iran, and the other here in Europe: they build and build until they are unleashed, each in its own way.

And that pressure in Britain and much of Western Europe is a combination of things. Specifically, there is antisemitic and anti-Israel hatred, including that which is facilitated by social media and the Internet, but also by the unhealthy preoccupation of mainstream media and polticians with the actions of Israel. Then, we have broader societal aspects that also impact, such as the pressures that led to widespread rioting in Britain last summer. 

It is easy to look at the spikes and increases in antisemitism and to be misled into thinking or saying that this is all about Israel, or mainly committed by Muslims, but in Britain that is mistaken.

This is racism, and, like any other type of racism, or political extremism, it draws comfort from the surrounding environment and from what it perceives in that environment. So, when Israel, the Jewish state, is in the news, it is encouraged and emboldened. When Israel is out of the news, it can decline somewhat and return to other themes.

So, last year, with no major Israel related trigger event, we had 586 incidents reported to CST; and of those, 135 used discourse that referred to Nazi Germany, using swastikas and the like. Israel was referenced in 84 incidents last year. Muslims were certainly not the majority of visible perpetrators.

Crucially, we also have the terrorist threat. Yesterday, a terrorism case began in Manchester which may well show how close we came in Britain to something very similar to Toulouse.

We always try to distinguish the hatred of Jews from the hatred of Zionism, and that from the hatred of Israel: but the pattern of antisemitic incidents and the case of terrorists such as Mohamed Merah in Toulouse, show that the linkage between these three phenomena, hating – not criticising, but hating – Jews, Zionism, Israel, is far stronger and far more important in this conversation than are the academic and philosophical distinctions between them.

Moving on, antisemitic discourse in mainstream media and politics is always notoriously difficult to measure. Also, in Britain at least, it is seldom against Jews for being Jews, rather it is a so-called anti-Zionism that has antisemitic impacts, and is based upon old antisemitic conspiracy motifs about Jewish money, and Jewish power; and all the rest of that rubbish.

So, for example, we hear that a Jew should not be a British Ambassador to Israel. Most commonly in the mainstream, we hear that the American pro-Israel or Jewish lobby dictates American foreign policy. Of course, in Britain as elsewhere, people who say such things are quick to say that they condemn antisemitism, but the reality is that their condemnation is usually highly subjective.  

I want to finish by talking about the overall context of British Jewish life.

Of course, when antisemitism makes the headlines, it leaves many Jews feeling afraid and uncomfortable - but that should be balanced against the fact that, especially in London and Manchester, we have thriving Jewish communities where, most of the time, Jews are largely free to lead the lives of their choice. Furthermore, we have confidence in the Police and in politicians, (well most of them) to take antisemitism seriously.

Nevertheless, the situation is also a precarious one. Many Jewish communities are shrinking to the point where synagogues are closing down, leaving smaller communities isolated and vulnerable, especially in times of crisis.

At a leadership and representative level I would add that our main concern is what the future might hold if things continue along the same trajectory that we have seen since the year 2000, whereby overseas tensions keep on impacting here in Britain and elsewhere in Europe.

In particular, I fear that instinctively we may still regard this as all meaning that the problem is somehow an external factor, an alien imposition that can somehow be alleviated: but it isn’t that. Rather, it is far more serious: because contemporary antisemitism is an integral problem, not an external one. And, as I began by saying, our worry is that it will only endure or indeed worsen in the foreseeable future.

Thank you.    

Jewish conspiracy theory is fundamental to antisemitism. It relies on the notion of Jewish wealth and power, working against the rest of society. It is commonly expressed as Jews controlling politicians and the media.

This does not render discussion of Jewish political and media influence illegitimate. It does, however, require discussion of them to be sensitive and careful. If one is not discussing a Jewish conspiracy, then a responsible journalist should say so, explicitly. For example, Peter Oborne knew the antisemitic risks in his Channel 4 programme, ‘Inside Britain’s Israel Lobby’. He explicitly stated that he had found no conspiracy, nor anything resembling one. (Sadly, the risks were made clear when many of those covering the programme made no such distinctions.)

Unfortunately, BBC’s flagship HARDtalk programme took no such care in its recent interview with the controversial Norman Finkelstein. On the contrary, the interview proceeded as if American foreign policy is beholden to Israel and that this can only be explained by “the Jewish lobby”.  

Complaints to the BBC solicited the answer you would expect: this is HARDtalk, so we have to reflect the views of our guest, Norman Finkelstein, and we then robustly challenge those views.

Indeed, you would expect a programme of BBC HARDtalk’s calibre to present and challenge such hard to hear views…except it did not. The BBC may well believe that it challenged these views; it may take it as axiomatic that HARDtalk would have done…but it did not.

The management and staff of HARDtalk would, of course, never be so stupid, nor so crass and antisemitic, as to say that “the Jewish lobby” runs America, or American foreign policy or American media. Indeed, they would likely be aghast at such statements: or, at least, with such statements from which all context and other rationales had been removed. And yet, HARDtalk stated that American Presidents have long been

too in thrall to the Jewish lobby…and that explains America’s unwavering support for Israel.

Furthermore, Norman Finkelstein did not even express himself as HARDtalk suggested he did. He did not speak of a “Jewish lobby”, but of an Israel lobby that included a “periphery of large numbers of Jews in influential places”. He argued that this “periphery”  has, until now, made an important difference to America supporting Israel, but is free thinking and is now moving to a more critical position.

Where HARDtalk simply states “Jewish lobby” and then risks the audience filling in the blanks with antisemitism, Finkelstein’s approach to his influential Jews is at least vaguely human and demystifying. You may well vehemently disagree with Finkelstein (about American Jewish media influence, about the lobby explaining American foreign policy decisions etc), you may recoil at the company he keeps, the people he emboldens, his attitudes and beliefs, but he still stresses that the formal Israel lobby is the same as any other foreign lobby group.

Even when Finkelstein discusses his influential Jews, he basically depicts them as behaving as any minority group would, with human behaviours. His argument also implies that these influential Jews are not beholden to Israel. They are capable of free thought and are, indeed, exercising it. (Hence his claim that American Jews are moving away from Israel.)

The HARDtalk programme can be seen here on BBC’s website. The programme description on the BBC website reads:

American Presidents have long been criticised for being too in thrall to the Jewish lobby. That American Jews influence US foreign policy and that explains America’s unwavering support for Israel.

So what happens if American Jews fall out of love with Israel? That’s what the Jewish American academic Norman Finkelstein claims is happening… Could he be right and if he is what does that mean for Middle East policy?

The description was repeated as the introductory remarks of HARDtalk interviewer Sarah Montague.

Following complaints, A BBC spokesman told the Jewish Chronicle

We consider the wording used in the introduction appropriate as the presenter was simply explaining and reflecting the public views of the guest. She makes clear these are the controversial views of Jewish American academic, Norman Finkelstein, and then robustly challenges him in the interview.

Actually, Montague robustly questions Finkelstein on his claim that American Jews are falling out of love with Israel. It is not Finkelstein who says that American Presidents are too “in thrall to the Jewish lobby”, it is Montague. She does not revisit or challenge this wording.  

For example, Montague’s opening question (at 01min 19secs) is, “What is the evidence that American Jews are falling out of love with Israel?”. She makes further interventions at 02.38, 04.30, and 05.41, all of which challenge Finkelstein’s suggestion that the American Jewish love-in for Israel is slipping. Then, interventions at 07.30 and 08.00 challenge Finkelstein’s reputation and reliability.

At 08.50, it sounds as if Montague may be about to challenge the Jewish lobby thesis, she asks Finkelstein, “Why does it matter. You know there is an argument that actually, so what?” Finkelstein replies about the “Israel lobby” and splits it in two. Firstly, the “hard core” which is paid by Israel to lobby, just as other lobbyists are by other countries. Secondly, (at 09.13) the important bit, the bonus ball, the leading Jews:

What makes the lobby so powerful is the periphery of large numbers of Jews in influential places, in magazines, in newspapers, on television, in film, a large periphery of Jews who also have deeply felt, heartfelt feelings for Israel and that periphery is now being lost. American Jews just don’t

Here, Montague intervenes, but she does not argue about large numbers of influential Jews in the media, or anywhere else. Neither does she quibble about how something that is a “periphery” can also be so large and powerful.  Instead, she wants to scrutinise Finkelstein’s claim that the “hard core” Israel lobby is paid for by Israel. There is no challenge to the Jewish power aspect of Finkelstein’s argument. Instead, they argue about who gets paid for what, before Finkelstein returns to the importance of the powerful Jewish periphery, saying the “hard core” Israel lobbyists will have

less sway, less power, if the periphery begins to distance itself from Israel.

Next (11.13), Montague appears to actually endorse the Jewish power thesis, she interjects:

But if the periphery don’t care, then the American President isn’t going to care

Three minutes later (14.11), a similar question again appears to endorse the Jewish power thesis, expanding it to the Jewish Diaspora:

If what you’re saying is true, we then have a Diaspora that doesn’t care so much about Israel. How’s that going to change things are you suggesting? 

Finkelstein answers that a pro-peace and anti-settlements Jewish community would be beneficial for all concerned (including Israel). The interview then goes on to argue over Finkelstein’s book ‘The Holocaust Industry’ and his abrasive style, until (19.24) Montague asks him:

…The argument that for example you feed the antisemites, do you ever have any qualms that actually, you are doing, that you could be doing, their work for them?

The charge is nothing new for Finkelstein. He answers it, but it is a question that the BBC and the HARDtalk team should now ask of themselves.

However inadvertently, the BBC have made a flagship programme sound as if it rests upon an antisemitic conspiracy thesis. They have then allowed that premise to go unchallenged in almost 30 minutes of face to face interview; and, if anything, it sounds like they actually endorse it. The BBC need to take a fresh and honest look at this programme and its promotion. If they have any qualms about perhaps feeding antisemitism, then they should apologise accordingly.