Last year I wrote a piece about John Mann, former Labour MP and anti-Semitism Tsar for the Tories. I refuse to use the honorific Lord for him as he has done nothing to deserve my respect. That was part one of a series about the continuing fake, libellous anti-Semitism claims made against Jeremy Corbyn, left leaning Labour party members/supporters, left-wing Jews and supporters of Palestine. It had been all quiet on social media for a while with the absence of the right-wing clique known as Gnasherjew, but recently it has started up again. As usual most of this is my opinion based on what I observe with links thrown in for readers to look at if they wish.
Recently there has been renewed attacks against socialist film maker Ken Loach. He was a target for those spreading these false claims last year. In February 2020 he and poet/author Michael Rosen were asked to be judges for an annual competition held by UK anti-racist charity Show Racism the Red Card (SRTRC). The pro-Israel lobby group Board of Deputies of British Jews immediately condemned this move by SRTRC and wrote to the charity with a “misleading series of decontextualised quotations” they attributed to Ken Loach. They took to social media to criticise SRTRC when they decided to stand by their choice. The JLM (Jewish Labour Movement), which has ties to the Israeli embassy in the UK, also criticised the decision by SRTRC. There followed an aggressive campaign by the Israel lobby to persuade government departments, football clubs, politicians and trade unions to stop funding and supporting SRTRC. This forced them to change their decision and after talking to Loach they said that they and Loach had agreed that he should not be a judge. This is nothing less than intimidation and bullying and should have been stopped at once by the Charities Commission.
Over the past few days Ken Loach has once again been under attack and wrongly accused of anti-Semitism after he was invited to talk at St Peter’s College at Oxford University. Once again the Board of Deputies of British Jews immediately criticised the invitation and wrote to Professor Judith Buchanan (Master of St Peter’s College) stating that they required “immediate confirmation this event will not be proceeding.” Professor Buchanan decided that the event would continue as advertised and that they “looked forward to a good conversation about the films.” The BoD (Board of Deputies of British Jews) does not represent all British Jews or indeed the views of all British Jews but they present themselves as if this was the case.
Michael Rosen is another well known and respected artist, he has written many poems and books for children. He is himself a Jew who lost family members to the Holocaust. This has not stopped him from being accused of being anti-Semitic or receiving anti-Semitic abuse. Dan Hodges(commentator for the Mail on Sunday) has referred to Rosen and other Labour supporting Jews as ‘a useful Jewish idiot’. Rosen has also been subject to Lee Harpin, so called journalist working for the Jewish Chronicle, calling him ‘a cheerleader for Soros’. Both ‘descriptions’ were anti-Semitic which is ironic considering they were both made by “high priests of the anti-Corbyn movement”. Lee Harpin has been guilty of making false accusations against people before and both he and the rag he works for have been found guilty of writing and printing untruths by the press watchdog IPSO.
This round of false anti-Semitism claims seems to be circulating around claims made by 3 people : a mediocre comic, an actor and a daytime television presenter. I am not going to name names but I am sure Twitter users will know who they are. The comic has made very dubious claims about a leaflet about the Holocaust going round at a Labour conference which, according to him, did not mention Jewish victims. He alleges that ‘someone on the NEC told him‘. Now I find it very hard to believe that a leaflet like that would be handed out at any political conference (unless we time travelled back to 1945 when the Nazis were trying to hide evidence of what they had done to Jews). Nobody would fail to mention Jewish victims when writing about the Holocaust not unless they were a Holocaust denier and that is a very serious accusation for the comic to make. Coincidentally, he has just had a book published and is about to embark on a tour, just thought I would add that. This is the same comic who back when he was ‘popular’ thought it would be a good idea to wear ‘blackface’ in an attempt to parody footballer Jason Lee.
I have seen the actor in a few roles and I thought he did a pretty good job but I have lost all respect for him after seeing him tweet attacks on Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters once again spouting the same old boring false anti-Semitism claims. He seems to have problems differentiating between Jeremy Corbyn and his anti-vaxxer, anti-mask brother Piers and lumps them together as if they were a single entity. On Twitter he posted “The way the far left cut the Corbyn brothers so much slack over antisemitism seems to me to reveal not only their tolerance and blind spot for this pernicious racism but also the inherent classism that still exists in this country, on both the left and the right.” I would laugh at Corbyn supporters being called “far left” if it was not for the fact that what he says is false and, to be honest, libellous to both Jeremy Corbyn and the “far left”. As for Piers Corbyn I have no idea about whether he has ever made racist comments but I do know that Jeremy Corbyn is not a racist and has been fighting racism all his adult life. Why Corbyn is still being attacked over a year after he was replaced as Labour leader is beyond me, but I do think these people would be better off looking into Tory racism, especially considering how racist our current PM is.
I am not going to type very much about the third person because she sets my teeth on edge and she has had way too much press coverage as it is. Her latest target is Aaron Bastani writer, journalist and co-founder of novaramedia.com. She accused him of being “One of the biggest ringleaders of left wing antisemitism.” in response to right wing Twitter user Guido Fawkes claiming he had left Labour. Twitter users I follow are waiting to see if Aaron sues her for libel because she seems to take great pleasure in doing that very same thing to Twitter users who retweet links to articles that have mentioned how she bullied a teenage girl on Twitter (allegedly).
I have to ask why some people persist in these false anti-Semitism claims especially as they can be dangerous for the Jewish community as a whole. If they are serious about fighting racism then they should join a group like Stand Up To Racism and tackle the true racists like Tommy Robinson, Katie Hopkins, and Boris Johnson.
Gnasherjew and Fake Anti-Semitism Claims on Facebook
Gnasherjew, LAAS, Sussex Friends of Israel and their latest tool – “Labour Anti-Semitism Map
Why? (The colonisation of Palestine by Israel and the constant screams of ‘anti-semitism’)
Rachel Riley, Endemol Shine UK and that T-Shirt
Anti-Semitism Smear Campaign Continues Part One
Anti-Semitism from one of Labour’s Loudest Anti-Semitism Accusers
Chief Rabbi, Mainstream Media and the smears against Jeremy Corbyn (Guest post by Peter Gregson) Chairperson of LAZIR)
History Repeating Itself Trump and Fascism
Are they really this incompetent?
The Damage done by False AntiSemitism Claims and the Weaponisation of the Holocaust
Way Past Time to Hold China to Account
Labour Is Now Officially The Puppet of the Israel Lobby
British Actor Spearheads Twitter Dogpiling on Twitter User
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