In view of the current outbreak of compulsory Zionism, I thought that I might make certain my own position is quite clear, as delivered to an audience of 250,000 people a few years ago
UPDATE The Blairite witch-hunt of Palestinian advocates has of course accelerated since I posted this. I am quite certain that Ken Livingstone is no racist of any kind.
However the subject of any collusion between certain Zionists and Nazis had been a banned topic on this blog for years, because it is a subject of no modern relevance, and is attractive to actual anti-semites who I do not wish to have making comments. If you wish to discuss whether or not Ken Livingstone was factually correct, please do it somewhere else.
Sorry, I’m new to these ideas.
What happens to the Jews (or any non-Muslims) in your single-state model? Does it imply a permanent UN peace-keeping presence?
And wasn’t the original UN Partition Plan pretty close to two-state anyway?
Krief
Precisely the same thing will happen to them which happened to the white South Africans in post-apartheid South Africa. Who also believed they would be massacred, persecuted etc. and were not.
Not quite the same set of circumstances is it…..
I mean – i get the comparisons between Israel and Apartheid and I have read a bit about the 2009 International/South African study into these comparisons.
Im just not sure who you can claim knowing what will happen in the future??
– I know many Israeli’s and Jews who are in no way “Zionists” yet their heads are still called for, the spilling of their blood is still dreamed about and the death of their beliefs and way of living is threatened on a regular if not daily basis.
There are charters calling for their destruction – not for a second taking into account their political stance on Zionism.
This is just as abhorrent as what you deem to be unjust and while i do understand where you are coming from and i do, to a point, respect your standing up for what you believe in – I don’t hear you creating a distinction between those who are fully integrated into the “Zionist” movement and those who happen to be Jews living in Israel.
The solution is to get round the table as they did in Northern Ireland – it’s the only hope of peace
Really? Since 1994 some 70,000 White South Africans have been murdered. Sure this is only a small percentage of the total number of people murdered in South Africa – some of which can be explained by the interest in “xenophobic violence” which basically involves murdering migrants from other parts of Africa.
The ANC is corrupt by any measure, but for historical and demographic reasons, is likely to remain in power thus assisting with the morphing of South Africa into a one party state.
A student at Witwatersrand tried out a T shirt with catchy slogan of “Fuck White People” This guy was far to reactionary for students at UCT who prefer the much less ambiguous slogan of “Kill White People”
I do not imagine that many people would support Apartheid – but hey, aint it funny that when Apartheid ended all the social justice warriors declared victory and comprehensively closed their eyes and ears to anything bad that has happened in the post Apartheid era.
Want to import several million muslim migrants into Europe? No problem! Are you a white South African? Sorry mate you have the wrong passport – don’t you know that there is no right of return. Europe is all full up.
The ANC took over the orderly management of fascism, just like the zionist regime did in Palestine. What was the murder rate of “white people” in South Africa before fascism lost its racist fig-leaf?
Yeah that would be it. Orderly management would explain why a country with some of the largest coal reserves in the world has ongoing power outages.
President Zuma’s house is also benefiting from some orderly management – at least it is a lot more orderly than the management of places like Khayelitsha.
Maybe among the right-on people it is the height of cool to go around wearing T shirts emblazoned with the slogan “Kill White People” How I wonder what would happen if people in the UK took to wearing T shirts exhorting the murder of any particular group they did not like.
South Africa is a coal exporter isn’t it? Have there been any cuts in exports? To be fair you should offer statistics of the murder rate for all groups in South Africa for the same number of years before and after.
PS I don’t want anyone murdered, not even abortionists.
The state spend some of that money or has oozing out of its pores creating fair schooling and social housing for all no matter their background in the new Isralopalistine.
Let’s not forget there are plenty of poor Jews, Christians and Muslims living in Israel.
The great advantage that the Blairites have is that, after running the party for more than twenty years they constitute a Fifth Column within it. And they have no incentive to attempt to stabilise the Party: they have no political ambitions to fulfill. They are already in power, the policies which they support- US imperialism, the EU, Trident, bashing the vulnerable, dismantling the NHS, crushing the Unions etc- are all being pursued in government. Cameron is their man.
The strategy is crystal clear: this row is calculated to hobble the party on the eve of the elections, which the people running Transport House, or whatever, are praying will be lost. In London they are longing for a Goldsmith victory.
Their object is a classic triangulation technique, to reduce the muslim vote to one which, like the Black vote in the US, can go nowhere else, thus allowing the Fifth Columnists to attack muslims, to win the applause of racists, whenever they choose.
I’m not sure what Corbyn can do now but what he ought to have done, a few months ago, was to refuse to campaign for staying in the EU. He ought to have forced the rightwing to make a break over a real policy question, while advancing socialist alternatives to the TTIP and other delicacies from Brussels.
Labour has already made this mistake, and very recently, when it allowed its right wing to draft the party into taking the Unionist Tory position over the Scots referendum. That killed the party north of the border, me-too- ism over the EU, combined with a fall bore media campaign for Zionist loyalty oaths, could do the same in England.
As much as it shames me to say I think this move will backfire simply because average British voters are tired of being told what to think regarding social justice and identity politics.
I have a book called A special kind of State – Israel and the London ‘Times’. The foreward states the following –
‘ We do not like being called anti-Semitic because that is the whole world away from our position. It is however , clearly damaging to the interests of the state of Israel . It does Israel harm by pretending that she is a special kind of state which either can do no wrong, or, when she does wrong, must not be criticised because of the memory of the wrongs that have been done to the Jews by other nations. ‘
Editorial, The Times
Saturday, November 1, 1969.
In this book the Times reproduces the complete texts of the articles, editorials, and correspondence published in The Times between October 27 and November 8, as well as Hansard’s report of the discussion in the House of Commons on October 30. These texts shed great light on the major issues at stake, and readers can easily draw their own conclusions : they also throw an unusually clear light on the methods adopted by some of the more eager or interested ‘friends’ of Israel to discredit or to silence voices speaking what they do not wish others to hear or to believe themselves.
Do you think John Manning would like a copy in order to check his facts as Ken Livingstone suggested he should do ?
I posted this as I caught the end of news report so I thought he was telling him to check facts about the difference between being critical of Israeli government and being anti semitic.
Predictive text changed Mann to Manning.
oh I see, how silly of me, the subject under discussion is not Israel, but party politics. So 3 comments deleted for being off topic.
labour party internal politics , yawn. better things to do.
I’m wondering what opprobrium a Labour MP would incur by publishing a map of Israel superimposed on a map of Palestine..
http://thrivalroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/palestinian_lossofland.jpg
This could be an opportunity to do so. As often as possible. The best form of defence is attack.
If you start a war, you might end up losing land instead of gaining it. It’s unfortunate, but true. Ask the Germans…
Martinned.
Or the Hungarians. ?
Or even the Italians (Fiume).
No, not the Italians. Their adventures in World War I are a perfect example of someone losing a war and still gaining territory.
The Italians gained 2 regions, Trentino Alto Adige and Friuli Venezia Giulia ( so called at the time). Is trial remained under the empire. I am not aware that that war was lost.
From 1914-1917, the Italians launched a series of attacks that got them exactly nothing except lots of casualties. Subsequently, they were pushed back to Lake Garda and the Po area until the Austrians ran out of bullets, etc. because of developments on other fronts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Front_(World_War_I)#1917:_Germany_arrives_on_the_front
So no, that’s not what winning looks like. The only reason why Italy got South Tyrol and Trieste was that they were on the winning side.
“No, not the Italians. Their adventures in World War I are a perfect example of someone losing a war and still gaining territory.”
___________
Martinned.
Well technically Italy won the war, they switched sides in 1943, okay I see your point Italy surrendered, to the allies, then began fighting against the Nazi’s.
I suppose that make them losers and winners . ?
That’s World War II, a whole different story. I have to say, the first time I encountered the World War II victory monument in Florence (near the station), I was a little confused…
Martinned
re Fiume: I was referring to after WW2.
Before 1947 : Fiume Italian
After 1947 : Fiume Yugoslav, as Rijeka.
Who says it was the Palestinians who started the war?
THAT got the tag team out, didn’t it? A hit. A palpable hit. You can’t even suggest relocating Israel to the US, but actual coercion and ethnic cleansing of the Pals is wholly legitimate. And I note our Dutch PhD (soi-disant) instantly assumes that I was subscribing to his own mad-dog policy as played out by Israel since 1948. I wasn’t, but hey, they didn’t lose any territory, did they?
” And I note our Dutch PhD (soi-disant)….”
_________________________
Does “soi-disant” mean “so-called”?
It does?
Goody, then I’ll begin…….
Surely you don’t harbour the same suspicions about Martinned as I do about our Transatlantic Sage “Lysias”?
It is not difficult to discover who Martinned is. I am certain he is everything that he says he is.
It is indeed sad to observe the plight of the Palestinians. The
influx of large numbers of people of a different culture, one
antipathetic to theirs in religion and customs, has been a dreadful
disaster for them.
Their fate is a warning for any people who find themselves faced with
a similar threat. As the disparity in numbers moves inexorably
against the old-established inhabitants, they will find their
traditions threatened and their once secure sense of themselves
undermined like a melting ice-shelf. They sense, with ominously
increasing clarity, how they might become a subjugated minority in
what was once their own land.
Well, any people except white people of course, because then they’d be
racist.
@Lord Palmerston – Just a reminder, but there are 5 million Palestinian refugees. It’s not that “new inhabitants” have moved in and become “established”. You talk of “sensing” with “increasing clarity” – I’d encourage you to find out about the Catastrophe (Naqba) of 1948. It’s not similar to, say, Asian people moving to Leicester and becoming the majority there.
There are 20 million refugees in the world, and half of them are Arabs from Palestine or Syria.
I salute the people in Germany who are taking refugees into their homes. Do you notice any such assistance to Arab refugees being given by Jews in Israel?
Don’t be so daft, N_, and do stop making those silly-clever remarks.
If the situation were reversed, how many Arab states would give assistance to Jewish refugees?
Considering Iran has quite a Jewish population which it is very protective of, and who are quite happy there, are you sure you want to make that point?
Yes, quite sure.
But I cannot prove it and you cannot disprove it so why don’t we both just unite is saying that N_’s post was a silly-clever one which would better not have been made?
You shouldn’t be so sure. What we can say with certainty is that Jews living in an Arab country are happy there, as full citizens. Arabs living in Israel cannot say the same. The desperate contortions you go through to act as Israel’s apologist here do not do you credit.
Glenn, I love the way you manage to avoid taking a position on N_’s silly-clever “point”.
You dare not criticise it but some small, residual honesty still in you prevents you from endorsing it.
It’s a hard life on this blog, isn’t it Glenn… 🙂
Iran isn’t an Arab country you moron. And the number of Jews there has been dwindling for generations.
Anon1.
Yes you are quite correct, Persian’s are not Arab’s, and Afghani’s are not Persian, even though Persian is one of Afghanistan’s official languages.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/999070/posts?page=2
“The question of how many Jews should be expelled from Palestine is an open one, but of course there is a good case for a proportion being allowed to remain,”
___________________
That’s big of you, N_ .
I can see why you call yourself a humanitarian 🙂 .
Let me know when you’ve touched down again.
It was reversed, in 1492, when Spain expelled the Jews. And the muslim states made room for them and accommodated them.
There is no reason to believe that if Jews returned to Yemen, Iraq, Egypt or Tunisia, for instance, they would not be welcomed, except for the likelihood that the wahhabi sect, which the US has done so much to promote by arming and financing its terrorist militias, would persecute them as, to the general satisfaction of NATO, they currently massacre Christians, shiah and other ‘kafirs’ in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
How do you feel about this Mr H?
http://www.jonathan-cook.net/2016-04-19/israel-paramedics-accused-of-medical-violations/
Or this?
http://www.jonathan-cook.net/2016-04-09/israels-bible-trail-demolishing-palestinian-homes-to-make-national-parks/
Lots of Arab societies gave refuge to Jews fleeing Europe, and specifically, Spain, this is how the Sephardis ended up in North Africa and elsewhere. The Ottoman Empire gave refugee to many thousands from Spain too. And during WW2, Turkey gave refuge to thousands of Balkan Jews felling persecution in Europe. Moris Farhi – a writer of Jewish Turkish origin – has written extensively on this subject.
You have asked this question before, and I have answered it before. You know the history fine well.
“.. there are 5 million Palestinian refugees.”
_______________________
IReaders will suspect you’ve got to that figure by taking the figure for the original refugees (including those now dead) and adding on the number of all their descendants over several generations.
If I’m wrong, feel free to put readers right.
I got the figure of 5 million Palestinian refugees from the United Nations (UNRWA).
Millions of Palestinians are living in refugee camps and shanty towns right now as a result of Zionazi terror. Yes the figure does include descendants of those who were terrorised out of their homes. (They’re not like Jewish multi-millionaires in New York who smirk that they are “victims” of Nazi slaughter because their greatgrandparents were murdered in Auschwitz.)
This is from the United Nations:
“Today, some 5 million Palestine refugees”
“Nearly one-third of the registered Palestine refugees, more than 1.5 million individuals, live in 58 recognized Palestine refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, the Syrian Arab Republic, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.”
“The remaining two thirds of registered Palestine refugees live in and around the cities and towns of the host countries, and in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, often in the environs of official camps.”
Tell me, how many people nowadays are living in refugee camps or shanty towns because they are the descendants of those chased out of their homes by terror committed by the German Nazis?
It’s Jewish Nazism (Zionism, as it’s also called) that’s the problem today, not German Nazism.
Lots of people were thrown out of their homes in/after World War II, and have simply built a new life somewhere else. For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_Germans_from_Czechoslovakia
Thank you for confirming my suspicion, N_.
The methodology is a little strange, however: you might as well take the ethnic Germans who were expelled from Poland and what became western Poland after the war and multiply the number several times in order to include all their descendants over several generations.
You will no doubt say : ah, but those Germans are not still living in refugee camps, or even : they only lived in refugee camps for a short while; therefore you cannot use that method of calculation.
To which there are two points:
1/. Only a minority of Palestinian refugees and/or their descendants are still living in refugee camps;
2/. Despite the fact that absorption of refugees was possible, it has been the deliberate policy of some neighbouring Arab govts to keep open a number of refugee camps for decades. Good for anti-Israel propaganda, not so good for the unfortunates stuck in them.
> It’s not similar to, say, Asian people moving to Leicester and
> becoming the majority there.
Oh Heavens no, not similar at *all*! Perish the thought!
There’s no need for sarcasm, Lord Palmerston. In some areas of Britain, people who are native-born and who are the children of native-born parents are in a minority because of internal native migration and because of incomers who are not native-born or whose parents weren’t. Unlike many on the left, I have no difficulty recognising that fact. I descend from a white British family all of whom have left London, a city which now has a non-white majority, and I have no desire to obscure facts. In Palestine, much of the Arab population was chased out by murderous Zionazi terror, and there are now 5 million Palestinian refugees, mostly living in camps or in shanty towns. There is no white British equivalent of that. Get a grip, please. I’m happy to discuss facts and similarities and dissimilarities.
London does not have a nonwhite majority Bly an imbecile would believe that
Shatnersrug – You are correct London does not have a non white majority. It does however have a majority population that is not white British. Hence white British are a minority in London.
> There’s no need for sarcasm … get a grip … I’m happy to
> discuss…
Oh dear, you don’t seem very happy. Yet all I said was how white
people would be wrong to draw any analogy from the Palestinians’
plight, something you seem to agree with. But do try to explain why
what I said makes you unhappy, if possible.
And how many Arabs are taken in by other Arab states?
If you’re talking about Palestinian refugees from Israel’s ethnic cleansing, then there’s 3 million in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon and another 2 million in Gaza and the West Bank:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_refugee_camps#List_of_camps
You are still on that 5 million figure, which includes all generations after 1948.
That method of calculation might just be legitimate for the people still living in refugee camps* but it is certainly not legitimate for those Palestinians who have come absorbed into the general population/society of neighbouring Arab states or indeed of non-Arab states further afield.
_______________________
They are there mainly because certain Arab neighbours see political advantage in having those camps still exist….almost seven decades later.
You need to look at the bigger picture, Herbie.
Please see the update and respect the rule outlined there.
It’s your blog, so do what you like, Craig, but you censored my post which merely cited Professor Ian Kershaw’s definitive biography of the tyrant, which I would venture to suggest is highly pertinent to the current witchhunt by the Blairite clique of Palestinian advocates, instigated by the ignoramus John Mann, who is clearly wrong in slandering Ken Livingstone as a Nazi apologist.
Perhaps someone could send John Mann the tome in question, which is a tour de force by a highly respected, first rate historian.
Excuse me – Ian Kershaw’s biography of Hitler is the definitive one?
Only – perhaps – in the sense that that previous biographies of Hitler were hailed as definitive …… until the next one appeared.
I found it rather pedestrian, to be honest.
pedestrian it may have been -but was it wrong?
What do you mean by “wrong”?
Dp you mean something like “he presented a new vision of Hitler with which you disagree” or “you disagree with his new insights into how Hitler achieved power”?
If so, the question of whether I find him right or wrong is otiose because Kershaw does not appear to have broken any new ground.
The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation Ian Kershaw (4th Edition)
I don’t read biographies much, I think they’re too prone to the Great Man school of history. I think this is a better book to read, despite the usual distasteful pro-forma alibi against the predictable antisemitism allegation; it’s overdue for another revision though.
The problem is that the Israel lobby has lost control over the Labour Party under Corbyn which explains the anti-semite witchhunt. The lobby will not rest until both parties are once again singing from the Zionist hymnsheet.
That should read ¨all major parties¨, not ¨both parties¨
They used to be much subtler than this though, it’s way to heavy handed.
The world and its alliances are changing fast.
Israel can’t expect the easy rise it’s had in the West, all those years cultivating its story, a story very different to the oral memory of the East.
It’s desperation.
@Herbie – I disagree with your explanation of the fact that @Shatnersrug raises, namely the fact that they are getting less subtle. It’s not desperation. They don’t need to be so subtle any more, because they are in a position of such strength. The drift is towards out-and-out open supremacism:
* increasingly rabid mania on their side
* increasing acceptance of an ever more submissive marionette-like role by goy politicians
* decreasing scope among opinion “formers” (those who relay opinions, more like), and among the general population lower down the opinion chain, for articulating what is going on
As the economy goes kaput, wait and see…
Could be.
But.
I’ve noticed that their supporters in the West are getting more and more pissed off with very open displays of braggadocio and supremicism from particularly the younger generation of israel politician.
See Brookings discussions, for example.
Remember that the West had hoped to keep this issue one of human rights. Israel and diaspora human rights of course. That’s how it was to be managed.
But the internet and chutzpah seem to be undermining that strategy.
Were I a conspiracy theorist, I might argue that some of those many Russians in Israel are undermining the strategy from within.
Could be completely innocent of course.
Just Russians being macho, as ever.
The zionists are used as enforcers of the partei line, it’s one of the services they provide in return for Caesar’s complaisance in the occupation of Palestine. In the days of the Federation it was trumped-up charges of paedophilia as Roj Blake found out, when he accidentally challenged the bourgeois state. What was it that that Craig Murray bloke was smeared with, when he found he had a moral backbone?
A week today there are local elections. After Corbyn became Labour Party leader last year (by a record margin) the Blairites were saying that they’d give him until next week’s local elections, in which the Blairites stated that Corbyn will be trounced.
Are the doctors going to vote for Conservative Councillors? What about the teachers? What about steel workers? etc, etc.
The anti-semite stuff is obviously a slur ahead of next week’s elections, a slur repeated at this week’s PMQs by the most corrupt and incompetent prime minister this country has ever seen.
I predict that it will be the tories who are trounced in the local elections, by a record-breaking margin.
It’s not the racial slur – that’s meanly the tactic – the idea is to show a disunited party that is unattractive to voters. It may work, but it could just as easily backfire.
Isn’t it time Labour Party suspended
EITHER
1. All Jeremy Corbyn supporters in the House of Commons as being apologist for the working classes.
OR.
2. All the Israeli lobby, so called ‘Friends of Israel’ in Parliament as apologist for Israel and being anti-Corbyn
This confusion needs to be resolved and soon.
SEE also >>>
http://ahtribune.com/world/europe/803-corbyn-antisemitism.html
Meanwhile, Labour continues to tear itself apart as Michael Dugher claims Mann is 100% right, whilst Jeremy Corbyn wants Mann also to be suspended.
Dugher says Labour’s decision to threaten Mann with reprimand is ‘outrageous’
Michael Dugher, who was sacked as shadow culture secretary by Jeremy Corbyn earlier this year, says the decision to summon John Mann to see the Rosie Winterton, the chief whip, is “outrageous” because Mann was “100% right”.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2016/apr/28/labour-has-serious-problem-with-antisemitism-peers-claim-politics-live
On any analysis, it’s clear Mann is 100% wrong and his attack on Ken Livingstone is nothing but a smear. This is really serious stuff.
@ Ba’al Zevul April 28, 2016 at 09:09
‘The Naz Shah incident suggests a coherent effort to remove Corbyn and re-establish Blairism. Levy’s been stirring it for a couple of weeks now – smearing the hard left is rather easier than responding to its take on the economy. Also, as has been observed before, the perceived existence of antisemitism in a UK party (never mind EDL!) helps to validate the spurious narrative of Israel as a place of refuge.
George Galloway goes a good deal further in criticising Naz Shah’s demonisation, despite there being no love whatever lost between them personally. The medium is IMO suspect, but the message is atypically well-presented: http://ahtribune.com/religion/856-naz-shah-anti-semitism.html ‘
You’d have a job making it up.
I don’t think the anti-Semitism row will damage the Labour vote, because its a bit like racism it has become tiresome background noise which repels all voters who have grown weary of it being misused to score dishonest points against opponents and will stick with what they know and more pressing issues.
The fact it can be waged so fiercely by a partisan media is revealing, but the lesson for Corbyn is be radical and appeal to a wider public by promoting proportional voting reform which would knock out the Conservatives and diminish the influence of Zionist anti-Semitism in all parties.
Another example of out of touch Blairites.
Good point but the one thing that Corbyn won’t do is to come out guns blazing and put these fascist pigs in their place. The Liarbour Partei exists to back down in as craven and pathetic a way as possible. If you want a democracy here, smash the Liarbour Partei.
I can appreciate the reasons behind Craig’s unwillingness to be drawn into this discussion-which would obviously attract both anti-semites and hasbaristas- but the matter of whether Livingstone was right and whether Mann is either extraordinarily ignorant, shameless or both, is one that is going to need hashing out. And seven decades after the end of the war is surely time enough for people to sober up and start dealing with reality.
And the reality is that we cannot learn from historical experience whilst denying it.
Craig’s comment:
“However the subject of any collusion between certain Zionists and Nazis had been a banned topic on this blog for years, because it is a subject of no modern relevance..” is wrong. The matter may be one best avoided on this blog- he is the obvious judge of that- but it is not one which is irrevelant.
On the contrary, in history all facts are relevant. And none more than those which the Establishment suppresses.
Meanwhile Bevin Israel continues its persecution of Palestinians
http://www.jonathan-cook.net/2016-04-25/in-israel-an-ugly-tide-sweeps-over-palestinians/
‘“However the subject of any collusion between certain Zionists and Nazis had been a banned topic on this blog for years, because it is a subject of no modern relevance..”
Check my comment just two above yours!
Sorry, I’m going potty! I forgot to put the link in above (now corrected):
It Gets Worse – Now The Zionist Federation Stands Alongside A Swastika Poster!
http://azvsas.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/setting-edl-cat-among-zionist-pigeons.html
Hello Craig, I didn’t know that you didn’t allow mention of zionist exploitation of and collusion with the nazis; I’m disappointed that you do. I don’t compare the zionist colonists in Palestine with the nazis, because zionism is a secular, fascist, antisemitic ideology, there’s no need to labour the point. That said, the zionists are less inclined to hide their fascism these days because the US blank cheque is renewed every presidency, pogrom against Palestinians or not. I can’t resist the temptation to refer to Avigdor Lebensraum.
I think that zionist collusion is pertinent because it migrated to the US state after the war and arbitrarily barring mention is historically dishonest. Everyone tried to do deals with the nazis and the Munich Agreement is analogous to the UN (i.e. US) partition plan of 29 November 1947. In these matters the zionists were just the most distasteful opportunists, as Lenni Brenner’s writing demonstrates.
The zionist occupation serves the purpose of providing a constant irritation in the Middle East and a permanent proxy base for the US empire, which is why it gets Lend-Lease on give-give terms. The US state extracts its pound of flesh by using the zionists as domestic enforcers, like the SA or the Praetorian Guard, since anyone with integrity despises everything that zionism stands for. Call them the fascist bastards they are and you’re gone; lick their (jack) boots and you might be in, as a card-carrying friend of BICOM or AIPAC. How convenient for venal politicians to use “fear” the zionists as the universal get out of gaol free card….
The less democratically inclined left behind Corbyn dumped Livingstone faster than you can say white phosphorous.
Of interest to avid fans of news here Lansman’s Wikipedia page was updated to include his tweet only minutes later by arch propagandist Philip Cross.
I agree that’s a fine rousing speech from Craig.
Ken Livingstone’s interview on the Politics show.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PrBQMJEObR8
Craig Murray said the Palestinians were being blackmailed into dropping their resistance and accepting the existence of the state of Israel, that’s not quite true, Arafat accepted and recognized the state of Israel before the Oslo accords were signed, the present Palestinian leadership recognize the state of Israel within borders set by the UNGA and agreed with the provisional Israeli government in the 1948 partition resolution, more recently they have referred to the 1967 borders with some small mutually agreed land swaps. Hamas have also recognized the defacto situation with what they call a hudna or cease fire for a long period. Because Craig Murray does not recognize the existence of the state of Israel as agreed on in International law he is at variance with every state at the UN and with a universal consensus that Israel’s existence and the birth certificate it received in 1948 is valid. If International law is to be invoked it is necessary to recognize the reality of the state of Israel within those defined borders. It is possible Craig Murray would like to see a one state solution where Palestinians and people of Jewish origin come together in one state called Palestine, unfortunately there is no state or UN agency at the UN or any political party anywhere in the world willing to advocate such a position.
In other words it is wishful thinking and a recipe for civil war. In my opinion the Palestinians should continue resisting the illegal Israeli occupation by pressing the ICC to act on their complaints and prosecute Israeli leaders who continue to commit war crimes on a daily basis including the transfer of Israeli citizens into Palestinian territory in breach of article 49.6 of the Geneva Conventions. I do not condemn armed Palestinian resistance as allowed by UN resolutions and within the rules as set out by that organization on the right to self determination and to oppose an illegal occupation, whether it is wise in the circumstances is not for me to say..
Great post. I believe all genuine Palestinians would heartily agree. Whilst still a travesty of justice, that could be made a workable solution, especially as Palestinians see all their potential Arab and Muslim countries support disappear as they become ruled by sell-outs to Israel and the West.
They are virtually on their own; Iran and Syria cannot help them much, being beleaguered themselves.
BUT, of course, Israel would never permit a return to pre-‘Six Day War’ boundaries, and indeed have their eyes and hearts (they really have hearts, already?) set on ‘Greater Israel’; and no one is going to force them to relent. They will not acknowledge their folly till Armageddon, and that will be a tad too late.
We have now reached the stage of clear collusion between extremist Zionists, the foreign-owned British media and members of Parliament, all of whom are betraying the people they claim to represent. But if there is anything positive about the disgusting episode for British democracy today, it is that the snarling, foul-mouthed face of zionism, in the form of John Mann, has been brought out for the public to see. And I don’t think they’ll be impressed at a scene reminiscent of McCarthy-era USA.
The Labour right have crossed a line today.
They are now an anti-party faction.
Theories;theories;theories.
Things are certainly getting tense. One senses more is going on than anyone knows-or reports.
Kit is interesting that there are a number of elections looming.
Local, Scottish and Welsh and of course the London mayoral and the referendum.
A genuine question: why does the concept of Jewishness persist? My problem is that Jewishness is primarily a designation that has lost a lot of its ancient meaning.Was Ed Miliband Jewish? Well that seems a strange way to think about it as so much of what we think of as that definable condition probably did not exist in any reality other than a category created by the human mind, even in ancient times when life was pastoral and bound by tribal affiliations, and governed by religious rites and custom-although things just seemed simpler then as people were much more constrained economically and socially. A rejection of the social and religious and economic mores in the distant past was probably tantamount to self destruction-so making life choices much more simple.
It seems even then that the variance within defined groups was as great as that between the same defined groups. Huge potential for category errors. I we then overlay ll the motivations of the many non-jewish actors in the matter.
What was the thinking and motivation of someone like Balfour.was his promotion of the land of Israel, an entity from biblical times that probably had little meaning by then after te break up of the Ottoman empire and its replacement with the British empire.
Essentially we have a racial category (which in modern scientific terms has little or no definable meaning), conflated with a religious meaning,(which also has a complex array of meanings and associatons), and a political category which shares some, but not all of those other meanings, and has many highly varied and coloured layers of affiliation and identification.
Here is something I have culled from the Guardian.
Claiming Hitler was a Zionist is not only a huge historical perversion, but it directly equates Nazism and Zionism. It suggests they share objectives and values; it is guilt by association. It is hard to think of a more offensive linkage.
Suspending him from the Labour Party is not the end of the matter. Livingstone is a symptom, not the cause.
I am nervous that by focussing on one large personality, we are not dealing with the issues which lead him to make such a statement.
The first step is to admit you have an institutional problem and then to set out strategies to deal with that.
While one can sympathise with the indignation of being associated with Hitler, at the same time I, like Craig am not inclined to say or think that Ken Livingstone is some weird secret anti-semite or secret racist, although there may be some overlap of the ideas he expresses with individuals who express . One has to accept that someone of his undoubted reflective and cognitive abilities will have fathomed out some kind of position that is tenable within the political milieu that he inhabits.
I also have concerns about Mann’s indignation at Livingstone and one cannot but be suspicious that his intemperate high dudgeon (as it nearly always does in my experience) provides a sanctimonious smokescreen for hidden motivations. Is there a factional battle going on? Almost certainly. Is there a political battle (Tory Labour I mean) going on? Almost certainly-with Cameron-until a few days ago under severe pressure re Panama.
I will be very interested to hear some theories.At any rate we seem to be seeing a real toxic problem coming to maturity, like a boil that needs to be lanced. There could be some big trouble over the next few months. Does anyone else sense a heightening tension and a feeling of the unexpected or unintended consequences.
Ken gave a hostage to fortune when stating in one of todays interviews that he’d never encountered anti semitism in his 40 odd years as a member of the Labour party. Clearly the researchers on the Daily Politics had worked assiduously to dredge up a series of such remarks, which were then flung at Ken with great glee by Andrew Neil. A classic ‘ambush’ interview- which apparently the press pack tried to continue after he left the studio-
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/ken-livingstone-briefly-forced-hide-toilet-bizarre-hitler-135514700.html
On the broader issue Israel/Palestine I’d endorse Harry Law’s comment @16.37
Has anyone got info on antisemites in the tory (Official) partei.
K Crosby,
All members of the Conservative Party, among them those who identify as Jewish are anti-semites.
Best to be safe in our presumptions given the rise of anti-semitism in the UK. Indeed, if the Zionists are to be believed the entire landmass of the UK is inhabited by anti-zionists, among them even the Zionists themselves, this based on the fact they do not reside in the State of Israel and are therefore very much suspect.
Indeed, and lets extend this to the known Universe and beyond, it’s a safe bet that if life exists outside of our hemisphere, then automatically it is anti-semite, unless of course they so happen to exist in Israel or have been sanctioned to represent Israel.
How much more daft can these buggers get?
If there were any real interest in the facts it would be clear enough that no party in Britain’s history has been less anti-semitic than the Labour Party.
As to Zionism, it was during the Labour party’s most important period of government, the only one in which it came close to exercising power over the state (as opposed to making mild compromises with the Establishment in office) that the State of Israel was established. And this was while the said Labour government actually ruled Palestine under a League mandate.
Nor did this occur accidentally: the government and the NEC of the Labour Party was full of Zionists, on both the left and right of the Party. The Cabinet included several Zionists and it was a common complaint of, for example, Army officers, that Ministry of Defence plans were routinely leaked to Zionist terrorists and that many British soldiers ha died as a result of such leaks. As to the merits of these complaints I make no claims but they were certainly made.
The Tory party not only contained traditionally all manner of anti-semites but, to do it credit, it also contained many Arabists who regarded the treatment of the Palestinians as unfair. They charged the Labour party with zionist prejudices.
It took Labour many years, well into the sixties, before it had largely purged itself of pro-imperialist and colonialist traditions. Until then there was a Fabian Imperialist tradition which held that the Empire and colonialisation had many benefits for the colonised… I think everyone understands the paternalist arguments. These arguments, eloquently presented through the Left Book Club, for example, were used to justify the Zionist flowering in the desert, the kibbutz, and the “civilisation’ being introduced by, those staunch allies of Labour, the Israeli Labour Party and the Trade Union movement in Palestine.
Allow me to make two more assertions, first, that the current ‘zionist’ agitation in the Labour Party is part if a general revival of imperialist ideas. Blairism is full blooded imperialism and runs directly counter to all the anti-imperialist traditions of the party and previous governments.
The second, which is related, is this: that zionism is not really a Jewish idea at all, but British. Its origins lie in the puritan racism that justified the devastation of Ireland, Virginia and New England by those who saw themselves as zionists. Herzl et al were latecomers to the idea of building villas in the jungle and Rhodesias wherever the natives were militarily and politically weak enough to push aside.
Anti-zionism is not anti-semitism but its direct opposite: it is anti-racism and anti-imperialism.
And those howling angrily at Livingstone and Shah are the lineal descendants of Colonel Blimp and Oswald Mosley. They believe that white Europeans have a God given right to enslave non white Asians, Africans and Americans.
I’m getting somewhat confused at the exponential growth of anti-semitism across the UK, but specifically within a political grouping known as the Labour Party, my ignorance is such, that I consider it pertinent to ask a few questions of readers of this blog – here goes.
Could someone instruct me how many persons in the UK claim to be Jewish and what percentage the number now makes as part of the UK multi-ethnic composition?
Now, as I can see, in the 2011 Census approx. 263,000 identified themselves as Jewish, which as of 2015 The Guardian estimated equated to 0.4% of the British population – Can someone please confirm this is correct?
Stay with me folks. If the Jewish population is less than 0.5% of the entire British population, that is for every 200 people in the UK, one identifies themselves as Jewish, the others are all Gentiles or non-Jews. Again is this assumption correct?
Extrapolating from the above facts as detailed in the 2011 Census and The Guardian during 2015, could someone please indicate how many of the MP’s in Parliament who belong to the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) are Jewish?
It’s my understanding that of January 2016 the PLP has 228 sitting members, or MP’s shall we say, as such, and if the PLP was representative of the UK electorate as a whole, it is my understanding that under 2 MP’s would be Jewish. Again, is this analysis correct?
Now, of the actual 228 sitting Labour MP’s the actual number of those who claim to be Jewish, or should that be who are Jewish, currently stands at approx. 10, or about 4% of all Labour MP’s, but we are told the Labour Movement is now anti-semitic, and this being the case, logic would dictate that you’d see few Labour MP’s who claim to be Jewish, although what the Zionists make of Gerald Kaufman, given his anti-Israeli/ anti-Zionist sentiments – no doubt a self-hating Jew like the American Senator Bernie Sanders.
We must remind ourselves that a number of prospective Labour Parliamentarians at last years General Election obviously failed to make the grade, among them one or two who were Jewish – no doubt the Constituency electorates that failed to elect them MP’s were anti-semites.
The moral of the above. I could not give a fuck what religion or what colour/ethnic grouping my MP belong’s too, and as a proud Welshman the Constituency I hail from had a Jewish Labour MP for many years, namely Pontypool in the shape of Leo Abse – a well respected solicitor from a well respected family – many of his electorate having little idea he was Jewish, suffice to say he was Labour and that’s all that mattered in our once railway dominated constituency – regrettably I was too young to ever vote for him, but did canvas on his behalf as a teenager.
Is it not strange then that over the past few years allegedly the Labour Movement has grown allegedly intolerant of those who identify as Jewish, given the number of those of the Jewish faith standing as prospective Labour MP’s and elected as Labour MP’s across the nation.
One of Labour’s prospective Parliamentarians in the 2015 was a Barrister and Jewish, she failed to win the seat, so perhaps she could handle the Brief on behalf of Mr. Livingston and others tarred as anti-semites, among them one Bernie Sanders.
Censorship is censorship however we look at it and anyone now critical of Israeli foreign policy or its behaviour towards the Palastinians is automatically labelled ‘anti-semite’ in an effort to close down any and all dialogue. This is a disgrace and one that needs challenging, for if we fail to act, our country will resemble the police state that the USA has become, a police state that came into being in 1916 under one President Wilson.
Here you’ll like this!
http://newsthump.com/2016/04/28/i-dream-of-the-day-when-a-jew-can-lead-labour-party-says-equality-campaigner/
I’m afraid now to leave my home for fear of bumping into a socialist anti-semite, or being accused of being a Socialist anti-semite. Suppose I’ll just have to stave to death as I’m now living in fear of my life – despite living on a small island in the South China Sea presently. Do you think its catchy like SARS, or should I kill myself in protest?
The Guardian has another comment piece by Gaby Hinsliff ”Antisemitism has rocked Labour’s self-belief ”
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/28/antisemitism-rocked-labour-self-belief
Horrible stuff. How do these so called journalist people sleep at night? Is the money that good?
Andy,
Don’t you find it strange, if now outright censorious, that that paragon of liberalism and Free Comment, The Guardian, allows no fucking comment under Ms. Hinsliff’s bollocks. I find it repulsive that comments made by a number of persons associated with the Labour Party have been taken out of context, not explained, or basically lied about to begin with to get the propaganda out. My God The Guardian, we know you detest Corbyn, but you have kept this bollocks up for nearly a year and your hysteria gets worse by the hour. If Hinsliff were a dog or cat I take her to the Vet and have her put out of her misery. Actually, I’m now of the opinion I’d hang, draw and quarter the majority of Opinion writers, faux-journalists and other non-entities plying their shit at The Guardian. Obviously for this I’m ‘anti-semitic’, which to be quite honest sounds like some kind of disease. Perhaps i too should visit the Vet as would not desire to be called biased or critical for fear of being labelled an ‘anti-semite’. Utter crap!!!!!!!!
http://www.thecanary.co/2016/04/28/how-the-establishment-is-trying-to-silence-corbyn-and-the-left-with-cries-of-anti-semitism/
The campaign to discredit and remove Corbyn by using smears and slurs of anti Semitism is ramping up fast and opportunists are jumping on the bandwagon so fast it is weighed down with shame, selfishness and naivety.
The losers, if this campaign is successful, will be British citizens, especially those subject to the worst of the austerity measures, Palestinian support groups and people, Jewish people around the world and the young Israelis who will continue to have to enforce the military occupation and live in fear and anger all their lives. Free speech will have been reduced to unsubstantiated angry, emotive rhetoric = truth. The British political class is now putty in the hands of those with their own agenda to continue and deepen the economic and wealth gap status quo and the situation in the Palestinian illegally occupied territories. Very few are standing up to call for reason… shame on the silent rest who cower in fear.
A very depressing, sorry, tragic and sad states of affairs.