It was October of 2000, and the internet had suddenly exploded with anti-Israel venom after the outbreak of the Second Intifada. As a way of trying to understand the sea of hatred, I created my first ‘alter-ego’, an online account that was designed to ‘take a closer look’ at those that hated the Jews. This was long before Facebook, in an age of anonymous forums and chat rooms. Two months from now I will be ‘celebrating’ eighteen years of direct engagement with our haters.

About three years ago I began to notice a change in the wind. British antisemitic anti-Zionism headed in the direction of the Labour Party. The reason? Jeremy Corbyn.

Elleanne Green founded the ultimate antisemitic playground in Palestine Live. Pam Arnold is a well known and outspoken antisemite. Tapash is Palestine Solidarity royalty and his vile posts have been picked up in my previous research.  We cannot know how many of today’s Labour antisemites were in the stampede to join Labour in 2015 and 2016, but it would be logical to argue that quite a few brought their Jew-hatred into the party for Corbyn.

Yet it is vital to understand that what we see now is not a Jeremy Corbyn disease. The antisemitic poison that is spreading throughout the Labour Party has been growing in our society for years. We are fighting back a tsunami today because people have ignored all the warnings, and dismissed signs of antisemitism as fringe, trivial and insignificant.

Labour’s antisemitism

Nobody today can keep up with the antisemitism running through the Labour Party. Tireless Labour activists, fighting to save the soul of the party, cannot report an antisemite quickly enough, before their inbox is swamped with screenshots from a dozen others. Our grassroots heroes like Sussex Friends or North-West Friends can spend all day on social media and still miss 50% of what is happening. There is too much going on, the problem is too large, for any one group to have a firm grasp on all the unfolding events.

In just the last few days, new headlines about antisemitism have rocked Labour. ‘Councillors’, in the plural, have been found to be sharing antisemitic views. Damien Enticott resigned after it emerged he had said ‘Hitler would have had a solution to the Israel problem’. Mary Bain Lockhart was suspended after accusing a Jewish community newspaper of working for the Mossad. As these are dealt with, the already accused are being forgiven. Michelle Harris, who shared David Icke articles about ‘Rothschild Zionists’ has been told by Labour that she “has no case to answer” and has had her suspension lifted.

Yet most of the headlines have focused on Jeremy Corbyn, whose history of close alignment with dark antisemitic forces continually throws up new evidence. So quickly are videos of Corbyn’s speeches emerging, that each article on Corbyn has to be read diligently, to be sure exactly which antisemitic incident it is related to.

Most of these events are only known about because a handful of Jewish people have been fighting this battle for years. People like Richard Millett, going into rooms full of hate, witnessing, recording, writing. On many occasions they were told to stop recording and on others they were thrown out of the building or denied entry. These Jews became stigmatised as ‘trouble makers’ or ‘oddities’, even within parts of our own community. They were warning us all but nobody wanted to know the truth. Their concerns were raised in blogs that became shared amongst those few who knew the threat was real and the world just carried on spinning towards disaster.

Councillor Kevin Neil

All the while the hate was growing.

Meet Councillor Kevin Neil. Kevin was a Labour Councillor until recently. Apparently he was suspended by Labour due to a Police investigation and is currently listed as an ‘independent’. According to an archive of his own website, he is part of Corbyn’s original fan-club:

‘I became actively involved in Jeremy’s campaign, setting up a local group to support his campaign.’

His Twitter feed still says he is a Labour Councillor:

He was also the Secretary of the Local branch of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC). The PSC are an organisation riddled with antisemitism. Like Corbyn, Kevin Neil has been affiliated with the PSC for years. Jeremy Corbyn is still a patron.

This is a social media post where Neil shared a 9/11 antisemitic conspiracy post by Gordon Duff, Senior Editor at Veterans Today:

Here is another share of conspiracy talk:

The post above links to a video from an antisemitic conspiracy YouTube channel. The specific video deals with how Israel ‘controls’ the news and links back to yet another well known fake news conspiracy website called ‘theuglytruth‘. These conspiracy websites, which even push Holocaust Denial seem to have been a haunt of Neil’s. Here is another post of his, linking to ‘globalresearch.ca‘:

His sourcing of conspiracy theorists was endless. Here is a post linking back to the website of 9/11 truther and antisemitic conspiracy theorist Ken O’Keefe:

Here is a direct share of an O’Keefe video:

There is a reason I am listing the old Facebook posts. It shows where Neil received his education from. His early timeline is full of shares from conspiracy sites and propaganda websites such as  ‘intifada-Palestine.com’ (it no longer exists but used authors such as Alan Hart). Like most blind anti-Zionist activists his understanding of the conflict has been shaped by conspiracy and he has shared endless fake anti-Israel propaganda created by Russia Today, Iranian Press TV and Electronic Intifada.

It creates an entirely twisted view of the world. These are some of his posts about Israel:

Neil would feel ‘100% safer in a Hamas controlled area’. The guy is a lunatic who has no idea about the real world. Look at this one:

‘Unwavering support to the resistance’ and ‘no forgiveness to Zionists’. Why not just publicly state you support the suicide bombing of innocent civilians? How about this:

The ‘IDF are astonishingly disgusting people’. In reality the IDF are a conscript army and most Israeli youth have to serve. Yet his ‘gut feeling wants to ‘rejoice’ when Israeli youth are killed by resistance fighters’ (Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah etc). This person is a Councillor?

The actual post on which Neil made his disgusting comment was made by a Hamas propagandist ‘Mohammed Matter’. Most anti-Israel activists are linked with people who live or say they live(d) in Gaza who do nothing but push lies. The activists call these propagandists ‘friends’ and their testimony is spread as ‘truth’. This is a comment Mohammed made about Hamas rockets being launched from populated areas:

‘When I was in Gaza I lived in an area that is very close to the border, My house is the highest in the the north west of Gaza and from the top I could see the areas were rockets were launched and I can assure you that there was not a single rocket from populated areas .. Most of the rockets were fired from the agricultural areas outside the camps .At the end, I want to say that people should be careful from the Israeli lies and fraud of facts. Do not get deceived by Israel’

This is how the lies end up in being spread. It is clearly false information but it is delivered as personal testimony. The conclusion is clear. The account is a Hamas supporting propaganda account. Neil often shared or commented on Mohammed’s posts. There are thousands of such accounts online.

Here are two other comments by Kevin Neil:

 

Neil’s world vision is so twisted he thinks the world needs to invade / attack Israel and ‘degrade’ it.  How about this post:

Zionists (that includes me and approximately 90% of Jews worldwide) are ‘basically bestial filth’.  He goes on of course to compare us all to Nazis. This is why when we fight back and scream antisemitism, they’re not listening. They really see us as evil.

A twisted mindset

Kevin Neil’s posts are a good example of the anti-Israel mindset. It is this way because for years, they have been drip fed conspiracy, antisemitic ideology and hate. It gets shared as ‘alternative news’ because sites like the BBC cannot be trusted.

This is the mindset of the hard-left Corbyn clan. It is far removed from reality. This is a dangerous movement and it has taken a firm grip of the Labour party apparatus.

What is occurring is frightening and for those that wonder how nations fall into the abyss, the current climate in the UK is an example in the making. Most Labour party members are decent, normal people. Like most their knowledge of international affairs isn’t great and they are easily swayed. On the one side they like the promises that Jeremy Corbyn makes, on the other they see him under attack. When they are forced to choose, they will align with Corbyn. Not because they are antisemitic today, but because they will be tomorrow. Jews are being turned into the enemy. It is happening NOW.

One only has to read the YouTube comment section under a recent video on the Labour Antisemitism crisis to know that Jewish people in the UK are in serious trouble. This ‘Zionist as Jew’ world vision underpins the entire British anti-Israel movement. This recent post from Palestine Live is a good example:

 

Zionism becomes a story of corrupt Jewish power and money. Jews even forced the world in two world wars for it. And of course in 2015 Arnie Hindhaugh was posting support for Corbyn:

And it is all so easy. Find a few fringe Jews to hide behind, pretend it is anti-Zionism not antisemitism, and this transparent strategy is capable of taking hard-core antisemitism all the way to Downing Street.

This is not just a Labour problem

This isn’t about Jeremy Corbyn. As much as Corbyn presents a threat, there is a danger in making this all about the man. What happens if he goes? Is it over? Of course not. We are paying for decades of over-confidence and inactivity. We cannot afford to get this wrong.

When you walk into almost ANY high-street bookshop, you’ll see anti-Israel propaganda on sale. Walk into your nearest library and see what is on the shelf for those seeking information. Go to your nearest university and see what events are on offer. Go to your local church, Quaker group, union, council or school. See what conversation is taking place.

This is the result of decades of inactivity, and shrugging. The ‘interested’ British population have been raised on a drip feed of conspiracy, lies and hard-core antisemitism. This occurred as most people, even those who lead our community, thought this was ‘fringe’ and didn’t have to be challenged. When they held events set-up to demonise Jews we wanted to negotiate with them to make it all less harmful. This is the result. People today are desensitised. They are so far down the line, it seems like a suppression of free speech when we just ask people to be balanced or tell the truth.

There is propaganda that demonises Zionists taking place all over the country, every day. Whether it is a charity event, a history lesson or a boycott meeting. Anti-Israel propagandists control entire departments on campus. Hundreds of organisations that drip feed antisemitism have been legitimised and are seen regularly on our streets. People have accepted these movements and given them standing even though they are fronted by people drowning in antisemitic conspiracy and Jew hate. When we say we want to push antisemitism back into the shadows, what do we mean? Back into the universities? Into the libraries?

For years we have permitted what is referred to as a ‘narrative’ to spread freely. In effect it is just hate built on empty lies and antisemitic conspiracy theories. How was a national crisis with antisemitism NOT GOING to be the result of such a blind strategy. This did not arrive with Jeremy Corbyn, it has just grown to a size where it can try to seize power.

And here we all are.

 

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Please help support the research

This blog is unique, and the type of investigative journalism this work requires is intense, and at times expensive. I fight antisemitism and the revisionist narrative that demonises Israel. I was recently named as one of the J100 (‘top 100 people positively influencing Jewish life’) by The Algemeiner. My work is fully independent, and your support makes much of what I do possible. This research can and does make a difference.

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