Follow up on UKIP 'antisemitism' article: the insanity of the "as-a-Jews"

My article yesterday (showing that antisemitism was rampant in all the major political parties so it was hypocritical to single out UKIP) was reposted to a number of facebook sites. Given that the article was highlighting antisemitism across the entire political spectrum, you would have thought it would be welcomed by those people who claim to be fighting racism.

But, unfortunately, it attracted some curious reactions especially from a number of "as-a-Jew" leftist trolls. These people (often brainwashed youngsters)  are very selective in their concerns about

1. racism - they feel that antisemitism is not as serious as other forms of racism; and
2. antisemitism - they feel that the antisemitism of a party like UKIP (which they classify as "right wing and racist") is unacceptable but the antisemitism from other parties is either OK or should not be discussed in case it distracts attention away from the "real threat which is UKIP". 

And, of course, there was also the "being anti-Zionist is not the same as being antisemitic" argument. The fact that this argument was made is especially hypocritical when you examine the specific accusation of antisemitism against the UKIP candidate Anna Marie-Crampton that was the whole basis for the story. What she had allegedly written was that Zionists conspired with the Nazis during World War 2. This is, of course, a disgustingly antisemitic slur. Yet the claim of Zionist-Nazi collaboration is absolutely standard amongst anti-Zionists all over the world and it is considered completely mainstream, especially among the left (for example, the Guardian Travel writer Gail Simmons made exactly this claim, while other Guardian writers are happy to tweet that Zionism equals Nazism). It was even the main claim of PA President Mohammed Abbas's doctoral thesis. In fact, if you criticise someone on the left as being antisemitic for making the Zionist-Nazi collaboration claim you will be told that anti-Zionism has nothing to do with antisemitism. So, basically:

• if someone 'on the right' claims that there was a Zionist-Nazi collaboration then they are antisemitic
• if someone 'on the left' claims that there was a Zionist-Nazi collaboration then they are not antisemitic, but are simple expressing a valid anti-Zionist viewpoint.

Clearly, if Anna Marie-Campton had written her article in the Guardian as a member of the Respect Party then, instead of being the subject of universal vilification, she would have been lauded and guaranteed a regular spot on BBC Question Time for years to come***.

Another type of hypocrisy in the responses was the claim that 'racial slurs about Romanian neighbours' (which UKIP leader Nigel Farage had allegedly made) was somehow uniquely despicable compared with any of the examples of antisemitism that I cited. Notwithstanding the fact that this was irrelevant to my article (which focused only on antisemitism) it was interesting that this was coming from people who also made the 'anti-Zionism is not antisemtitism' claim. So, apparently saying that

people had "a right to feel uncomfortable if a Romanian family moved in next door" (Farage's exact quote)

is uniquely racist, but saying things like

"Israelis are baby-killers" , "Zionists are cockroaches that need to be stomped out", "Israeli Jews should go back home to Russia/Poland/Germany/America" (take your pick as all have been said regularly); "Israelis are Nazis" ; "Israel is a mistake"; "Israel must be destroyed"

(which are all actual statements made by politicians from a range of parties, but mostly on the left) is absolutely OK and has nothing to do with racism or antisemitism.

Finally there was also the "being pro-Zionist means you are a racist" criticism of my article. So an article exposing the oldest form of racism and bigotry gets accused of being 'racist'.  That is the mindset of the left.

***just minutes after writing this Questions Time announced one of its panel on next week's show is none other than Joey Barton - an ignorant football thug turned into political celebrity because of his extreme anti-Israel - and also antisemitic - views 

Update: The many concerned 'anti-racists' who were forwarding messages of UKIP 'racists' were curiously not forwarding the far more serious story of the attack on a UKIP Asian candidate Bobby Anwar (by a Muslim calling him a kufar - the Arabic word for 'infidel')  that left him requiring surgery for a broken cheekbone and eye socket. Note, however,  that the main stream media even managed to spin this as a potential UKIP=racist story by a) ignoring that the victim was himself an Asian; and b) putting parenthesised emphasis on the 'claim' by Anwar that the attack was by a 'Muslim' as if to suggest that he was actually being a racist to make such a claim.

The hypocrisy of the attacks on UKIP - look at the real and powerful antisemites in the main stream parties

The disgraceful campaign by the entire main stream media and all major political parties to demonize UKIP as a 'racist' party has now led to Facebook buzzing with messages about an 'antisemitic' UKIP candidate (based incidentally on a report over one year old). Lots of well-meaning Jews are now worriedly passing these messages on imploring people to vote for any 'main stream' party other than UKIP to 'stop these racists winning' in the local and European elections.

In fact, while there may well be a number of racist and even antisemitic candidates among the many thousands being fielded by UKIP, they really do pale into insignificance when compared to the number of antisemites in each of the other 'main stream parties' (by which I mean only those who have at least one member of Parliament - UKIP have NO member of parliament). To show the extent to which antisemitism is rampant in all the main stream parties (and note that I consider anti-Zionism as an example of antisemitism) I have decided to maintain a log of these parties and (as per my log of anti-Israel charities and log of antisemitic footballers) I have awarded a number of Arafats (rather than stars) to each (where 5 Arafats is the worse possible). As you can see UKIP is a long way behind the others in the antisemitism stakes.

The Labour Party
The party that forced its own leader and PM Tony Blair out of office because he supported Israel's right to defend itself against Hezbollah and Hamas terrorists in 2006.
The party whose mayoral candidate was none other than Ken Livingstone the country's best known antisemite, anti-Israel, pro-Jihad politician.
The party represented in the House of Lords by Lord Ahmed who (having being jailed for 12 weeks for dangerous driving when he admitted sending texts before his Jaguar ploughed into a stationary car on the M1, killing its driver) remarked that the prison sentence he received was

"due to pressure that had been placed on the courts by .. Jewish friends who own newspapers and TV channels". He added: "My case became more critical because I went to Gaza to support Palestinians", something that these Jews "opposed".

The party in which over a third of its MPs in Parliament (i.e. with real power unlike UKIP) are committed to the total destruction of Israel and who actively push for a total boycott of Israel to achieve this aim. These MPs include the likes of:

• Paul Flynn who accused Britain's first Jewish ambassador to Israel of having 'divided loyalties'; 
• Martin Linton,  who spoke about the "long tentacles of Israel" reaching into British politics; 
• Gerald Kaufman who stated that "Just as Lord Ashcroft owns most of the Conservative Party, right-wing Jewish millionaires own the rest," and said "Here we are, the Jews again" when pro-Israel MP Louise Ellman rose to speak in the Commons;
• Jeremy Corbyn, Sadiq Khan, and Andy Slaughter (the latter who even holds the position of Shadow Justice Minister) who not only campaign obsessively for the destruction of Israel, but have a long history of support for Hamas and other Palestinian terrorists, and they have all shared platforms with members of terrorist organisations, and notorious anti-Semitic, homophobic Islamists.
• Former Foreign Minister Jack Straw who claimed that "Unlimited Jewish funds control US policy, and block Mideast peace" while also demanding respect and sympathy for the aspirations of the Islamic Republic of Iran

The above is just the tip of the iceberg. The Labour Party has hundreds of elected local councillors and thousands of grass-root members whose antisemitism is channelled into their obsessive hatred of Israel and their belief in an international Zionist conspiracy.
Rating

The Conservative Party

The ambivalent, and at times openly hostile attitude of the Cameron government to Israel has been extensively catalogued on this blog (where I have argued it is the most anti-Israel government since Ted Heath - another conservative antisemite - was PM in 1973). This Conservative government has led the EU initiative to boycott Israeli goods from the "occupied territories", sells arms to just about every despotic Arab state yet maintains an arms embargo against Israel. This Government even banned two US human rights activists from entering the country because they were 'too pro-Israel'.  The antics of Baroness Warsi alone have been the subject of several articles on this blog. There are many current and former members of the Conservative party in parliament and the House of Lords who share the same obsessive 'Zionist conspiracy', anti-Israel world view as their Labour colleagues. These include people like David Mellor who has a long record of antisemitism cloaked in 'anti-Israel' rhetoric and who recently described Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich as an 'Israel-obsessed Russian' and Chris Patten the anti-Israel campaigner who also happens to be the Chairman of the anti-Israel BBC.  There are also many good old-fashioned antisemite Conservative MPs like Patrick Mercer who was caught on camera describing a female Israeli soldier as a “bloody Jew” in 2013. And there are MPs like Aidan Burley who hosted a Nazi-themed stag party.

Rating 

The LibDem Party
While Labour's Ken Livingstone may be the most well-know main stream antisemitic politician, he is not the most antisemitic. That honour goes to Baroness Jenny Tonge who is so committed to the belief in a world-wide Zionist conspiracy that she is convinced that Israel steals the organs of disaster victims all around the world. She also famously expressed a desire to murder Israeli civilians as a suicide bomber. Yet Tonge is very popular in the LibDem party because her world view is shared by others MPs and most of the Party's grass-roots activists. She is not even the most senior LibDem to demand the destruction of the State of Israel since that is the wish and policy of none other than the Deputy Leader Simon Hughes, and there are few MPs more viciously antisemitic than David Ward, who equates Israel with the Nazis and who tweets about the power of the Jewish Board of Deputies. Not surprising therefore that the LibDems officially promote the campaign to boycott Israel.

 Rating 

The Green Party

The Green Party is represented in Parliament by the MP and fanatical Israel-hater Caroline Lucas. She is not only one of the most active campaigners of the "Israeli apartheid" lie, but she has blamed Israel for most of the world’s problems, including bizarrely the Mumbai terrorist attack of 2008 in which Pakistani Muslims massacred nearly 200 people including the Chabad Rabbi and his wife. Not content with the Party's official and total boycott of Israel, Lucas also supports violent action against Israeli interests in the UK.  A former member of the Green Party has explained in detail the extent to which the Party is  institutionally anti-Semitic. Lucas is certainly not alone. The Green Party is closely aligned with the antisemitic Palestine Solidarity Campaign and some of its leading activists (like the insane Deborah Fink) are now standing as Green Party candidates. The Green Party is also increasingly aligned with the antisemitic socialist-Muslim party Respect (see below) - during the 2010 General Election the Green Party stood down in favour of Respect candidates in Birmingham Sparkbrook and Manchester, Blackley and Broughton.

 Rating 

Respect
The Party (led by George Galloway) whose only three objectives are sharia law, socialism, and the destruction of Israel. Galloway's evangelical hatred of Israel is legendary, but he has plenty of competition in the Respect Party for the honour of being the most antisemitic. Yvonne Ridley (Respect's parliamentary candidate in the 2012 Rotherham by-election) said that "any Zionists in the Respect Party ... would be hunted down and kicked out. We have no time for Zionists." Many others in Respect have been less careful in saying "Zionist" when they meant "Jew".  Abul Hussain, a former member of Respect's national council, posted antisemitic comments on Facebook about "chopping off a Jewish person's sidelocks and confiscating their kippah". He also wrote about Jews, "Here's a penny go put it in the bank and [you] just might get a pound after ten years interest!".  Following her appointment as Respect's women's officer in Bradford in October 2012, it emerged that Naz Khan had recently commented on Facebook that "history teachers in our school" were and are "the first to start brainwashing us and our children into thinking the bad guy was Hitler. What have the Jews done good in this world??” Carole Swords, the chairwoman of the Respect Party in Tower Hamlets, was convicted for a public order offence after an assault on a Jewish man in 2011. Inside a Covent Garden Tesco Metro supermarket she had struck him in the face while he was protecting Israeli goods from unlawful damage (a subsequent appeal cleared her of the offence). At one rally she described Zionists as "cockroachs ... bugs [which] need to be stomped out" and at a different rally, Swords had told a Jewish protester to "go back to Russia"

 Rating  

To be added: SNP and Welsh Nationalists  
UKIP
After every major media outlet in the country spent months trawling through the background and social media activity of every one of the thousands of candidates and also tens of thousands of supporters of UKIP the 'antisemite' they managed to come up with was  Anna-Marie Crampton, a candidate in East Sussex, who apparently posted a blog article claiming that Zionists conspired with the Nazis to kill Jews in the Holoaust (a viewpoint, incidentally, that is shared by many 'progessive' thinkers including writers for the Guardian and Independent, as well as many of the MPs cited above who continaully equate Zionism with Nazism). In fact, she told the party her account had been hacked and she was not responsible for the posts. Nevertheless, she was suspended from the party pending an investigation. If only the other main stream parties would take the same approach to their genuine and proud antisemites.
My owns views of UKIP, based on attending a meeting with Nigel Farage, are described here.
Rating

While the above has focused on antisemitism,  at some point in the future I will extend the analysis to other forms of prejudice. Given the disproportionate number of Muslims in the Labour Party and Respect especially, expect the 'star rating' for those parties to increase further as we take account of the sexist, homophobic and Islamist supremacist views of many of those people.

Update: On the reaction to this article.

More on James O'Brien and his claim not be an antisemite

Last week I wrote about the self-righteous James O'Brien (LBC presenter) explaining why, despite his protestations to the contrary, he was an antisemite based solely on his demonization of Israel. Since then I stumbled across an old email that someone sent me which illustrates that O'Brien is just a good old fashioned antisemite. The email was in response to the 2012 false story that the deadly terrorist attack on the US embassy in Benghazi was in response to an anti-Muslim youtube video produced by 'an Israeli funded by 50 rich American Jews' (the video - which had absolutely nothing to do with terrorist attack -  was actually the work of an Egyptian Copt with no 'Jewish' involvement at all):

Edgar
Same problem with James O'Brien on the LBC phone in . He repeatedly referred to the producer being an Israeli Jew . In order to reinforce the stereotype , he mentioned the standard trope of a 'shadowy group of cigar chomping individuals (early Hollywood Jewish moguls smoking cigars) and congratulating themselves on achieving the desired outcome. I eventually got through to one of his team informing her that as of the previous evening, AP and the Huff had identified him as being a 55 year old Coptic Christian from Egypt. It was obvious O Brian's researchers had not done their homework or as more likely were closed down.  Needless to say I was not put through and O Brien was allowed to carry on slating the Jews for something that was nothing to do with them.  I'm not surprised. O'Brien has previous form on Israel and it's all bad .
Joke is, on the same programme he went on to castigate the Sun for their reporting of the Hillsboro disaster labelling the Sun gutter press .
Man is a hypocrite without parallel.

More on Livni's meeting in London

I have reported on the demonstration outside the London Hotel venue where Tzipi Livni was speaking last week. Now I can report a friend's comments on what went on inside:

I haven't changed my opinion on Livni. She's arrogant, self opinionated and simply does not get it. She just kept going on about settlements and how wonderful she was with the negotiations. She is not somebody that you could warm to or forgive for her views. She spent about 45 minutes talking about herself and how wonderful Kerry was, leaving the Douglas Murray interview with only 15 minutes and he was far too easy on her. When he offered questions about 25 hands went up, but he only took 5 of them and she managed to squeeze out of the difficult ones by turning them around and not answering them.

At the end, everyone felt the same and were pretty disappointed with her and the lack of time for questions. One person I encountered wanted to know why she had said that compensation for Jews from Arab countries was not in the negotiations when it had been agreed that there would be no Palestinian compensation without compensation for Jews from the Middle East and North Africa. I wanted to ask her 2 questions:

1) why Jordan weren't brought into the negotiations, especially as they had an 85% Palestinian population.

2) why were they treating the "peace process" about land when it was actually a religious war and about Jews being in what was considered Muslim lands.

When Rosalind Pine asked her why as a solicitor and knowing the laws from San Remo was she not implementing them, she just replied coldly that that is not a question and moved on to the next person! One lady who innocently asked why couldn't the Palestinians move to the neighbouring counties. She replied something like (don't quote me) well you could want to move me to London, but I wouldn't because I like being where I am.

Obama's antisemitic best friend up to his usual tricks

Turkey's Islamist antisemitic Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is under pressure after the fallout from the catastrophic disaster earlier in the week in Soma that left 300 Turkish miners dead. IsraellyCool has a video of him saying to one of the protesters in Soma yesterday “Why are you running away from me Israeli sperm”(apparently calling someone an Israeli sperm is the Turkish way of really insulting someone). You can also see Erdogan's aid kicking a member of one of the bereaved miners' family here. More here.

Just remember that Obama described Erdoğan as his most trusted ally - somebody who he asks for advice on raising his daughters.

Irony of the anti-Livni demonstration in London (including interesting revelation about Neturai Karta)

The ignorant Israel haters demonstrating tonight outside a Knightsbridge hotel against Tzipi Livni (who was guest speaker at a JNF event there) calling her a ‘war criminal’ presumably do not understand the irony of their protests. Her behaviour in seeking to undermine Netanyahu’s government in her role as ‘chief negotiator’ in the peace talks (where she has acted more as Obama’s chosen representative than Israel’s) means that she may be doing more to damage the long-term security of the State of Israel than the Israel haters would dare dream of.

motley crew of 'human rights' campaigners - click on the pictures to enlarge	no interest in Palestinians - only hatred of Jews
Good turn out of Israel supporters

Fortunately there was a very good turn-out (about 150) of Israel supporters to challenge the standard lies (“Israel is an apartheid state”) and genocidal chants (“from the river to the sea Palestine will be free”) of the bigots opposite.

Neturai Karta goons - funded by Iran	..and not even Jews as they desecrate Shabbat
The usual Marxist Jewish 'kapos'	Eerily similar Arsenal and Spurs anti-Zionist flags - and nobody there to claim ownership

The obligatory ‘stars’ for the bigots were, as usual, the Neturai Karta goons who were out in force. I have blogged before about my belief that they are not even Jews because I have seen them demonstrating – and carrying banners – on Shabbat. So I went up to their leader and questioned him about this (referring specially to the last time this happened at Trafalgar Square). He gave a truly remarkable response. He said they were allowed to carry banners in ‘that special place’ on Shabbat. It really is amazing what a barrel load of Iranian cash can buy these days.

Update: A report on that actual meeting with Livni inside the hotel

The UK media and the Nigerian kidknappings: "Muslims are the real victims"

The UK media's cover-up of the Islamist anti-Christian aspect of the Nigerian kidnapping has been more or less total. The fact that the girls were Christians was barely mentioned - instead we were treated to staged scenes of Muslims 'praying' for their safe return so that the clear implication was that, although Boko Haram was clearly an 'Islamist group', it was Muslims who were the real victims here. When the images of the girls dressed in hijabs were released yesterday, instead of focusing on the real story in that (the forced conversions) the media simply presented the images without that context at all and left viewers/readers to conclude that these were indeed all Muslim victims. Just look, for example, at how Yasmin Alibhai Brown, presents the story in the Independent. There are two 24-hour news stations in the UK - BBC News and Sky News. Both of these channels are spinning the same lie.

The fact that Boko Haram has been massacring Christians in their thousands in Nigeria for years has been completely ignored by the western media (for the same reason that the media completely ignores the Jihad wars in places like the Philippines, Thailand and China, the fanatical antisemitism prevalent in the Muslim world, and the constant Palestinian terror attacks against Israel). It does not fit their "Muslims as minorities/victims" narrative. The few website (like some of those listed in my links) that have consistently reported the Boko Haram attacks (and indeed reported these kidnappings 4 weeks ago when they actually happened) are vilified as 'hate sites' for reporting the truth.

The only unusual aspect of this story is that the western media finally covered it all, while ignoring far worse massacres carried out by Boko Haram. Daniel Greenfield has an excellent analysis of the reasons for this. 

Yachad: a statement

Following criticism of the "pro-Israel and pro-peace" organization Yachad for hosting the anti-Zionist group ‘Breaking the Silence’ on Israel’s Independence Day I see that Yachad has an important statement on its website*.

*Satire: but not much different to the reality.

For the reality about Yachad see:

• Yachad's love-in with (antisemite) Ben White
• Yachad supports boycott of Israel
• Why Anglo-Jewry does not need Yachad
• Yachad supports rights of Arab refugees but not Jewish refugees
• Yachad's contempt for Israel's democracy 
• Yachad's pathetic 'leader' Hannah Weisfeld
• Yachad's American sister organization J-Street
• More on J-Street

Why James O'Brien (like many other liberal commentators) IS an antisemite

Update: see here for example of James O'Brien's good old fashioned anti-semitism.  Also on 29 July 2014 O'Brien stated (during the Gaza war) that "any person who defends Israel must be classified as a radical extremist exactly like an Al Qaeda or ISIS supporter".

This post is not really just about James O'Brien who is a presenter on radio station LBC and who often describes himself as a 'typical bleeding heart liberal'. The problem is that, like almost every other 'bleeding heart liberal', he feels that one of the worst accusations you can make against him is that he is an antisemite. So earlier this week he was ridiculing the fact that a listener had accused him of being an antisemite after he fiercely criticized Israel (something he does very frequently). He said this was ludicrous because many people in Israel criticised the country's government for similar things, so that's like calling them antisemites also. 

This an an argument you hear all the time by people who say they are anti-Israel but not antisemitic. But there is a simple, and fundamental, flaw in their argument. They select Israel for criticism but ignore the other 180 countries in the world where offences far worse than what they accuse Israel of are committed. And, until O'Brien spends time criticizing all those other countries, there is only one explanation for his continued baiting of Israel (a country he knows absolutely nothing about) - and that is good old-fashioned antisemitism.

And what makes O'Brien's defence even more hypocritical is that he accuses everybody who highlights the horrors of Islamic terrorism or Sharia law of being an 'Islamaphobe'.

Postscript: More on O'Brien's antisemitism here, here and here in his own words is why he considers it ridiculous to call him an antisemite. Yet there is something very revealing in what he says there. He ridicules a listener who suggested the media was antisemitic for failing to report the 2012 terrorist attack at the airport in Bulgaria that killed 7 Israeli tourists. He says he "asked her what crimes commited in Bulgaria she could remember ever being reported at length in British newspapers. She didn't have an answer, obviously,.." So, O'Brien thinks it is normal for the British media not to report a major act of international terrorism at an airport in a European capital .... yet somehow he thinks it IS the business of him and the rest of the British media to comment every time permission is granted for somebody to build an extension on a home in the Israeli capital city....

See also:
More on O'Brien and his claims not to be an antisemite
Is ant-Zionism the same as anti-semitism?

BBC's bizarre response to my latest complaint

Following a formal complaint to the BBC about their ludicrously biased coverage of the breakdown of the Middle East 'peace talks' last week I got the response below. What is incredible about their response is that they say they "were not able to source the Radio 5 Live report" that I referred to (even though it was repeated about 20 times) and so they do not actually respond to the specific complaint that I made (which was about the following Radio 5 Live statement: "Both sides are being blamed for the failure. Israel refused to release Palestinian prisoners and there was Palestinian anger at Israel's continued settlement building in the occupied territories"):

Thank you for contacting us regarding BBC Radio news on both Radio 4 and 5 Live broadcast 29 April. 

I understand you feel news reports displayed an Anti-Israel bias based on inaccurate information. 

I fully appreciate your feedback on this matter and reviewed the programme due to your concerns. 

I wasn't able to source the 5 Live report that you refer to in your complaint however I did find the report on Radio 4 which I have transcribed for your information. 

"A deadline set by the United States for a Middle East peace deal to be reached has expired with the process now in disarray. Israel and the Palestinians have both refused to commit to further talks. President Obama has blamed both sides for the collapse of the process. The negotiations floundered over Israel's rejection of a deal between the two main Palestinian factions to form a unity

 Of course this situation is a lot more complicated than this brief report was able to convey due to time constraints and perfect balance is difficult to achieve on every single occasion. Over all it is a more achievable goal, so account should be taken of the way a subject is dealt with over time. 

I do appreciate you feel strongly regarding this, and as we’re guided by feedback such as yours, I’d like to assure you that I’ve registered your comments on our audience log. This is a report of audience feedback that’s compiled daily and made available to staff across the BBC, including members of the BBC Executive Board, channel controllers and other senior managers. 

Thanks again for taking the time to contact us. 

Kind Regards 

Michelle McGahan
BBC Complaints
www.bbc.co.uk/complaints www.bbc.co.uk/complaints

If the BBC really want to understand why the 'peace process' failed thet should read Daniel Greenfield's article about it here or his letter to John Kerry.