One of the reasons I won’t be criticising Israel today is because I am in London. I am not facing 40,000 rioters sent by Hamas to the Israeli border. Instead I am safely tucked away in a relatively secure part of the globe, with the armies of British enemies pushed back through centuries of brutal conflict. Even in the last two decades many have died … Continue reading Gaza, Hamas and why I won’t be criticising Israel today
The post will be about my recent visit to the Banksy hotel and the historical distortion and antisemitic imagery that was on show there, but first a little background. I recently spent a few days in Israel as part of a delegation led and facilitated by the Zionist Federation. It was a small group, led by Arieh Miller (ZF) and included representatives from Sussex Friends … Continue reading Banksy West Bank Bethlehem Hotel review: An antisemitic sham
Yesterday there was a meeting between the Jewish Leadership Council (JLC), Board of Deputies (BOD), and Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the UK Labour Party. The Jewish organisations reported that the meeting had been disappointing as Corbyn had failed to meet even the ‘minimum level of action’ necessary. As I wrote last week, these are the opening moves of a game ‘that must be played‘. Neither … Continue reading The Corbyn v Jews chess match. Gaining time by doing nothing
Since the Palestine Live report was first published on this blog 6 weeks ago, the focus on antisemitism in the Labour Party has intensified. I am working on two related reports and continue to engage with the sewer where the antisemitism exists. ‘Labour Against the Witch Hunt’, the group set up by people like Jackie Walker and Tony Greenstein, along with ‘Jewish Voice for Labour’ … Continue reading Attacking Jews, the whole antisemitism crisis, will ‘be positive for Labour’
It is seventy years since the ‘Jewish People’s Council’ gathered at the Tel Aviv Museum and approved the proclamation declaring the establishment of the State of Israel. For six months, Jews had been engaged in a bloody civil conflict that would turn the right of having a state, into actually creating one. To do this they had to fight united groups that stood against them. … Continue reading We don’t choose our battles, like with Corbyn, some choose us
Today is Yom Hazikaron laShoah ve-laG’vurah (יום הזיכרון לשואה ולגבורה) or ‘Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day’ in Israel. It is celebrated on the 27th of Nisan (Hebrew calendar) each year. For me, a student of history, the Holocaust is a living thing, that has roots stretching back decades before Hitler came to power, and still reverberates today. Outside of the details in a book, the … Continue reading Before the Holocaust, a bureaucratic snapshot of European Jews in 1934
Jeremy Corbyn attended a politicised Passover Seder service held by a fringe Jewish group called Jewdas. Up until three days ago many people had not heard of Jewdas and I imagine that they are thankful for all the publicity they have been given. Jewdas are agitators, which is why Jeremy Corbyn would probably feel at home with them. A small group of people on the … Continue reading The Jewdas Gambit, assimilation and distorted statistics
Justin Cohen from Jewish News has just done the Jewish community an enormous favour. He has created a piece for the historical record. A detailed and to-the-point interview with Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn in the midst of a crisis over antisemitism. All we needed to know about the man who wants to be Prime Minister is there for us to read. The conclusion is … Continue reading The Jewish community and Jeremy Corbyn are incompatible
Tuesday night saw a large gathering of Jewish people (and supporters) who came out to protest against anti-Jewish racism in the Labour party. It was an unprecedented show of disquiet from a community that clearly is unsettled by the persistent connection between Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and ‘pockets’ of antisemitism both inside the party and out. As someone who has been researching these pockets … Continue reading Conflation – Labour Party antisemitism is in the details and the media
Just after the October revolution a small band of Jewish radicals tried to help push communism onto the Jewish masses. They attacked Jewish identity, both from a religious perspective (Judaism) and a national one (Zionism). I have written about them before and they were called the Yevsektsiya. Reading about them is like watching history unfold. At their second conference, they demanded that the Zionist organisations … Continue reading Now the Labour party attack Jewish festivals, as Passover celebration is mutilated
