30 May 2017

Zionist 'Jewish Human Rights Watch' are Attempting to Destroy Expo 2017 the Biggest Palestinian Cultural Event ever in Europe

The Lies of Far-Right Zionist Solicitor Robert Festenstein in his letter to QEII Centre




Part of the Zionist campaign on social media to censor anything to do with Palestine
It was predictable that Palestine Expo 2017, a celebration of Palestinian culture, art, food, music and politics would, sooner or later, come to the attention of the Zionist movement in this country.  Robert Festenstein of the ‘Jewish Human Rights Watch’ [JHRW] sent a threatening and intimidatory letter to the managers of the Queen Elizabeth II Centre on the South Bank of the Thames alleging that the Conference and the groups behind it are terrorist supporters and that their sole purpose is ‘Jew-hate’.
Support for the Palestinians and opposition to Zionism is, according to the Zionist/Israel lobby in this country, automatically ‘anti-Semitic’ and also supporting ‘terrorism’.  Thus we seen how the anti-terror climate in this country is being used to try and clamp down on free speech.

I have written Festenstein a letter [see bottom of page] by way of response as his letter is a clear abuse of his position as a solicitor and a thinly veiled attempt to use his position as a solicitor in order to try an intimidate the Queen Elizabeth II Centre into calling off a perfectly lawful festival.
RHF letter to the  QEII Centre where Palestine Expo 2017 is being held
There is a duty on solicitors under the second principle of the Law Society’s  Code of Conduct to act with integrity.  There is also a subsidiary principle to ‘behave in a way that maintains the trust the public places in you’.  It is clearly the case that Festenstein has done neither.  I would encourage people to submit a complaint in writing to the Law Society concerning Festenstein’s deceptive and dishonest conduct.

Festenstein and JHRW’s use of the ‘anti-Semitism’ scare is of course par for the course.  Anything to do with the Palestinians is, by definition, ‘anti-Semitic’.   In Israel the army and police force use force and violence to close down anything they disagree with e.g. last weekend’s attack on Jewish protesters in Jerusalem who were trying to prevent the normal march of Israeli settler youth through the Arab quarter, replete with their chants of ‘death to the Arabs’.  One Jewish woman had her arm broken. 
Welcome to RHF Solicitors - not only are they politically bankrupt but their legal expertise is in bankruptcy - even JHRW according to its accounts is bankrupt!
It seems that Festenstein has form on these matters.  He threatened Cambridge University if it allowed Israel Apartheid Week to go ahead.  It even demanded the names of individual students.  It also mounted a failed judicial review challenge to 3 local councils for passing pro-Israel motions.
Festenstein also wrote threatening legal action to Celtic Football Club and UEFA after fans had greeted an Israeli football club Hapoel Beer Sheva with a mass of Palestinian flags.  JHRW on that occasion substituted Nazi flags for Palestinian ones, presumably that was what they wished for.
JHRW is an interesting organisation, or rather it isn’t an organisation.  It consists of 2 limited companies (presumably so that in the case of failed legal actions or libels, its directors won’t be legally liable).   
The Directors of Jewish Rights Watch Ltd. - all of whom reside at Festenstein's solicitors' office!
The first company, Jewish Rights Watch has four directors.  It was founded on 17th December 2014 and its first director, Osker Heiman, was appointed and resigned on the same day.  Clearly a man in a hurry. Jonathan Neumann, who is listed by Powerbase, the Public Interest Investigations site as its spokesperson was appointed the same day as Heiman resigned.  Emmanuel Manny' Weiss, Robert Henry Festenstein and Joseph Rosenfield were appointed as directors subsequently.
Soldiers get ready to attack Jewish protesters in Jerusalem at the weekend when trying to stop settler march through Arab quarter - thousands of settler youth ramage through the area chanting 'death to the Arabs' - in Europe they used to chant 'death to the Jews' - such is the 'Jewish' state
The second company Jewish Human Rights Watch Education Ltd. has just one director, Robert Henry Festenstein!  It was formed less than a week ago, 24.5.17. 
JHRW does not seem to be that healthy financially - then again most transactions are probably off the books in the form of Israeli government slush-fund grants
So when Festenstein wrote to QEII on behalf of his ‘clients’ he was lying through his teeth.  He was his own client.  Despite accusing the organisers of Palestine Expo of not informing QEII of who they were, it is in fact Festenstein who was dishonest in not explaining his connection with his ‘client’.
Judging by its accounts Jewish Rights Watch owes over £13,000.  JHRWE has £100 in share capital, all owned by Festenstein.
Recently formed, this company has but one director - the same Festenstein - it must be difficult representing himself
It is therefore disappointing that the management of the QEII Centre gave these racists the time of day.  On JHRW’s web site there is a copy of a letter that the QEII Centre has apparently sent, saying that are carrying out ‘due diligence’ into the organisers of Expo 2017.  Instead of putting the organisers under stress and strain they would perhaps better employ their resources into doing a little basic research into the bona fides of bent solicitor Festenstein and his so-called Jewish Human Rights Watch.
QEII response to JHRW - let us hope they don't take fright at the scare words 'anti-Semitism'

Because the one thing that JHRW is not concerned about is human rights – whether Jewish or Palestinian.

Below is an article about what has happened on Middle East Monitor
Tony Greenstein


Leaflets for the Palestine Expo 2017 event [Palestine Expo/Facebook]
May 26, 2017 at 12:12 pm

An unprecedented hate campaign has been unleashed on the social networks aimed at wrecking a ground-breaking two day event to celebrate Palestinian life and culture. Palestine Expo 2017 is billed as the biggest ever social, cultural and entertainment event of its kind in Europe; however, there are those calling for the festival to be stopped before it even starts.

Trading on unfounded fears and using the Westminster and Manchester terrorist attacks as ammunition, some groups and Twitter campaigns have described the expo in London on 8 and 9 July as a “festival of hate”. Others have been more targeted and made potentially defamatory statements, accusing the organisers of having terrorist links in a desperate bid to stop the event — for which thousands of tickets have already been sold — from going ahead.
Israel doesn't need to ban dissent - it just breaks its arm - Jewish protester being dragged off in Jerusalem when trying to stop annual pogrom against Arabs in Jerusalem
Now lawyers on all sides are examining the accusations and allegations about the event in July, which is designed to celebrate Palestinian culture, art, food and history. Robert Festenstein of RHF Solicitors in Manchester represents Jewish Human Rights Watch; he has sent a letter to the prestigious Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in Westminster urging it not to host the event. The letter makes several damaging allegations against the event’s co-sponsors – Friends of Al-Aqsa and Palestine Solidarity Campaign – both of whom are taking legal advice and vehemently deny the accusations made against them.

Festenstein’s letter has found its way onto social networks and has been distributed widely. “Our client [JHRW],” it claims, “is aware that the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, who are also advertising the event, has clear links to the terrorist group Hamas.”

The letter further informs the venue that Friends of Al-Aqsa had its bank account with the Co-operative Bank closed. It claims that both pro-Palestine organisations “support Jew hate” and have “no right of audience anywhere in the UK, especially not near the scene of the recent Westminster terrorism attack.”
A campaign on social media calling for the ban of the Palestinian Expo 2017 [Twitter] 

Despite several email requests for a comment, RHF Solicitors have not responded other than to ask, “Can you please confirm how you obtained our Mr Festenstein’s e-mail address? We look forward to your response, following which we will consider your request further.” Subsequent requests have failed to elicit a comment, even after revealing that his email address was obtained via the Law Society website.

“Palestine Expo,” explained PSC Director Ben Jamal, “will be a celebration of the rich Palestinian culture, with traditional dancing, food, artisan goods, art exhibits, and children’s entertainment alongside talks on the current political situation.” He described the allegations as “false and disturbing” before adding, “We are sure that reasonable people have no issue with any national group celebrating their heritage.”


Friends of Al-Aqsa was established in 1997. It describes itself as an NGO concerned with defending the human rights of Palestinians and protecting the Noble Sanctuary of Al-Aqsa in Jerusalem. A spokesman declined to comment due to pending “legal issues”.

Several of the apparently leading opponents of Palestine Expo who appear to have led the Twitter campaigns against the event have been contacted for a comment. At the time of writing, they have failed to respond to any of the allegations that they have made.
JHRW makes it clear that it has nothing to do with human rights, except in so far as it tries to destroy the human rights of supporters of the Palestinians.  BDS is its main objective
Nonetheless, it is hard to see how the damaging allegations of promoting “Jew Hate” and “Terrorism” could be substantiated when looking at the widely publicised programme at “PalExpo”. This includes exhibitions by internationally acclaimed photojournalist Hamed Abu Rahma and award-winning photographer Rich Wiles.

Among the 70 stalls at the event will be examples of fashion, health, beauty, arts, entertainment and food focussing on Palestine and its people. Lively panel discussions, workshops and talks will be on offer while spoken-word performers, musicians and artists will demonstrate how to use creativity and the arts in campaigns and activism.

Speakers and performers will include the popular Leanne Mohammed and Muslim Belal, Aamer Rehman and music by the children’s group Fatafeat. Dave Randall, described as a “faithless guitarist and producer” will discuss his book ‘Sound System: The Political Power of Music’.

The much-admired Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods along with Free Speech on Israel will be discussing anti-Semitism. Visitors will be invited to take part in discussions and workshops on Muslim and Jewish experiences in Europe from an academic perspective. More details will follow soon.

Palestinian cuisine will also be a major focus with the opportunity to “master the art of Palestinian cooking” at a live, purpose-built kitchen in the food court. The author of ‘Palestine on a Plate’, Joudie Kalla, will make an appearance.

A campaign on social media calling for the ban of the Palestinian Expo 2017 [Twitter] Click to enlarge

Billed as the “perfect space to unleash your inner child” it’s hard to see how the two day event could be viewed as a festival of hate or a terrorist threat.

Israel and its supporters seize every opportunity to divert attention from its own human rights abuses and contempt for international law. “If the Manchester attacker was Palestinian and the victims Israeli,” moaned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week, “the terrorist’s family would receive a stipend from Mahmoud Abbas.” It is possible that he used the Manchester atrocity rather cynically as a stick to beat the Palestinian Authority leader because, on Tuesday morning in Ramallah, US President Donald Trump heaped praise on Abbas for being ready to resume peace negotiations with Israel, which Netanyahu is trying to stall.

Other Israeli ministers posted tweets very similar to Netanyahu’s suggesting that they were part of a coordinated government campaign to exploit the Manchester tragedy. Certainly, a similar coordinated effort to have the Palestine Expo stopped before it even starts can be evidenced by doing a quick search on the social networks, although there is no suggestion this is being organised or instigated by JHRW or its lawyers.

Nevertheless, it is difficult not to conclude that the pro-Israel lobby swings into action to trash the reputations of Palestinians and those who support their struggle for their legal and human rights every time that something positive about Palestine emerges which will expose the Zionist narrative for what it is. Indeed, Robert Festenstein and his chums have a bit of a track record on this already. Some of their activities were exposed by my colleague Ben White on these pages in March last year.

What’s more, Festenstein also tried to get the chair of Interpal, Ibrahim Hewitt, banned from speaking at a fund-raising event organised by the British charity in Manchester in September 2014. In a very aggressive email to a local councillor, he alleged that “it is the likes of Mr Hewitt and his accomplices who are responsible for the deaths, rapes and destruction in the Middle East…”

Interestingly, in his mini-campaign to get Hewitt banned from Manchester the lawyer said nothing about a talk that he was due to give just a few days after the Interpal event, in the same venue, for a British advocacy organisation. Mr Festenstein’s “concern”, it would appear, wasn’t so much about stopping “peddlers of hatred” as he claimed, but more of an attempt to damage an event at which funds would be raised by a British charity to help Palestinians in desperate need.
A campaign on social media calling to put a stop to the Palestinian Expo 2017 [Twitter] 

The management of the QEII Conference Centre also failed to respond to MEMO enquiries on Thursday, although it is understood that it has carried out extensive due diligence checks regarding the allegations contained in the JHRW lawyer’s letter, and is content to allow Palestine Expo 2017 to proceed.

Having trawled extensively through the social networks and the programme lined up at the expo, a reasonable person has to conclude that there is indeed a hate fest in progress, but it’s certainly not organised by Palestinians or their growing network of supporters from various faith communities and among those of no faith. Far from promoting hate, Palestine Expo 2017 promises a celebration of culture, arts, crafts, food and music promoting the country and its people in a positive light. Who wouldn’t support that? Only those with no grasp of great British values such as democracy, justice and mutual respect and tolerance of others, that’s who. 

My letter to Festenstein

29 May 2017

Lest We Forget - The Dog That Failed Even to Whimper

Ella Rose, the JLM's new Director was none too happy at her former employment  being revealed
If you annoy me you are a fucking anti-Semite!
The Jewish Labour Movements fragrant Ella Rose giving vent to her feelings about anti-Zionists

I have taken this amusing but very true piece by Jonathan Rosenhead, a Professor at the LSE, from the newsletter of Bricup - British Universities Palestine.  It echoes the piece I did when the Al Jazeera  revelations first broke - why wasn't the story of state and Israeli interference in the Labour Party and the false anti-Semitism allegations revealed by the British press.  The answer of course is that our 'free press' was up to its ears in manufacturing stories about 'anti-Semitism'

Tony Greenstein

Al Jazeera's 'The Lobby' and the British Media

Jonathan Rosenhead
Iain 'Crooked' McNicol, Labour's General Secretary, has just exonerated the fragrant Rose despite her threats of violence
we couldn't put it better ourselves - the winning is all that counts with Ella Rose
Many readers of the Newsletter will already be aware of the ground-breaking Al-Jazeera English series The Lobby, broadcast on 4 consecutive nights from January 11th. Some will not – and in this they will be in the good company of the vast majority of the UK’s population. It got a front-page splash in the Daily Mail (of all places), but this was not followed up by the sort of in depth coverage elsewhere that its explosive contents deserved.

However that silence is not the one this article’s title refers to. This silence is analogous in its essentials to that of the dog in the Sherlock Holmes story The Silver Blaze. The crux of the plot is the disappearance one night of a famous race horse, and the violent death of his trainer. The dog slept in the stables where this happened. The celebrated dialogue runs like this:
Joan Ryan MP, LFI Chair inquiring about the money she had applied for
Labour Friends of Israel Chair Joan Ryan MP receiving the good news that she had won over £1m for her slush fund.  Her only other claim to fame is claiming more expenses than any other MP in 2005 and 2006
Gregory (Scotland Yard detective): "Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"
Holmes: "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."
Gregory: "The dog did nothing in the night-time."
Holmes: "That was the curious incident.”

The dog that signally failed to bark, not for one night, or over the last month, but for year after year is the entire British mainstream media – print, radio, television. What is the story that they missed and why did they miss it?
Labour Friends of Israel's Parliamentary Officer and Fabian Michael Rubin letting us know that he works closely with the Israeli Embassy
The set up

The Lobby is still viewable at  and if you haven’t seen it you should. It makes gripping viewing.

The programmes depend on ‘Robin’, whose face we never see. He created a cover story as an aspiring Labour party activist with strong Israeli sympathies, and for 6 months managed to penetrate the shadowy world where Israeli embassy officials set up sham organisations to support Israel, mingle with very willing activists (both Labour and Conservative) and make funds available to them. And all the while Robin wears a concealed camera.

We have known about ‘The Israel Lobby’ in the US, and its most notable unit AIPAC, for years. Mearsheimer and Walt wrote a celebrated book with that title. The Lobby however is about the UK’s own Israel Lobby. To UK activists its existence has been known, in principle, for years. There has been circumstantial evidence galore - the inside track which Israel so evidently makes use of, the lavish funding of pro-Israel organisations, the sabotage of pro-Palestinian events. So we ‘knew’. But now we really know.
Joan Ryan MP has tropes on her brain and precious little else
It is worth pointing up here the reason why the activity revealed in The Lobby is taking place at all - the growing world-wide success of the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. This is now seen by Israel as the principal strategic threat to its continuing domination over the Palestinian people. The frenetic and multi-headed activity of Israel’s friends, supporters and proxies revealed in these programmes is, paradoxically, a measure of BDS’s success. Israel can no longer afford to rely just on discreet words in sympathetic ears; it is mobilising on many levels. In the process, they run a greater risk of their slips showing.

For supporters of academic boycott, such as BRICUP, and of BDS as a whole, the revelations of The Lobby are both an education, and a motivator.
It is tempting, I'll agree
The plot

There is so much material in these programmes that I can only be selective. But I’ll give a fairly detailed rundown of what is in the first programme, and then get more selective.

In Episode 1 we see Robin swanning around in the milieu of Labour Friends of Israel, the Israel Britain Alliance (a Zionist Federation Project), BICOM, Sussex Friends of Israel, Jewish Labour Movement. He is under the wing of Shai Masot of the Israeli Embassy, an unimpressive but gregarious character, anxious to be popular. He is quite deeply embedded – claiming for example to know all 200 London-based members of the Young Fabians. And in fact he did organise a trip to Israel for the Young Fabians in 2015. As Masot says in conversation: “Delegation to Israel – always a good start”.
The subtlety of fragrant Rose's analysis leaves us speechless
The revelations come thick and fast. We meet a couple of NUS Vice-Presidents plotting against their President Malia Bouattia, who supports Palestine. (The Chair of Labour Students is in on the plot.) One of them, not I think Jewish, had been taken on an expenses-paid Union of Jewish Students trip to Israel. The Israeli Embassy actually funds UJS itself! A University College London pro-Israel student activist has set up the Pinsker Centre which channels funds from AIPAC to appropriate causes.

We eavesdrop on the summer barbecue of the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM). We meet Ella Rose, who has been President of UJS, and has just been appointed Director of JLM. As she herself says, her CV didn’t have the most Labour Party experience among the candidates. But hey, what does that matter if you are applying from a staff position within the Israeli Embassy? (Later, unknowingly on camera, Rose boasts that with her martial arts training – from Israel – she could easily ‘take’ anti-racist campaigner Jackie Walker.)
Joan Ryan can't contain her glee at learning that she's won the Zionist jackpot
And then Masot invites Robin to chair the Young Labour Friends of Israel. It doesn’t exist – Robin’s job is to set it up. He is invited to apply for a job at the Embassy, first by Masot and then by its Head of Civil Affairs, who says his job would be to research the UK’s BDS movement.

What we get is a picture of a heady swirling mix of right-wing politics, ambition, wads of Israeli and US money, fake and shadow organisations, and over-weening self-confidence. Stirring the mix is an Israeli diplomat who isn’t even a diplomat.

Later episodes

We are really spoilt for choice. Episode 2 shows the famous JLM training session (on antisemitism!) at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool. This was the session at which Jackie Walker was set up, and secretly filmed so that an edited version of her interventions could present her in a bad light. It worked – she was ousted as vice-Chair of Momentum and suspended from Labour Party membership.

Shai Masot is on the scene at the conference, sometimes in convoy with Regev, or sitting hugger-mugger with him and the Chair of JLM Jeremy Newmark at a private meeting with pro-Israel supporters. (Regev says that people on the 3 left are very opposed to Israel “and probably antisemitic”.)

We share the delight of Joan Ryan MP, Chair of Labour Friends of Israel, when Masot tells her he has more than £1 million from Israel needed to fund trips to Israel by influential Labour MPs. We share her fury when a conference delegate persistently asks her how a 2-state solution can work – persistently because her interlocuter is dissatisfied with the non-answers she is getting. Ryan then persuades herself that the questioner has indulged in an antisemitic trope (about Jews working for banks – which we can see is Ryan’s own subconscious interpolation of material that wasn’t said). Ryan makes a complaint; the delegate is suspended from party membership.

Of course it isn’t only happening in and around the Labour Party. Masot seems to be best buddies with Maria Strizzolo, the young chief of staff to MP Robert Halfon, a Minister in the Government, and deputy chair of the Conservative Party at the time the recording happened. Simultaneously she is also a Westminster-based civil servant. Their highly indiscreet conversation is recorded as ever by Robin’s attentive camera. They talk about setting up a ‘City Friends of Israel’ for young finance professionals, with AIPAC’s assistance.

The crunch point, politically, is when she and Masot discuss the possibility of ‘taking down’ some non-compliant Tory MPs. As Strizzolo says “If you look hard enough, I’m sure there is something that they are trying to hide”. The one name that they put in the frame for this treatment is Sir Alan Duncan – certainly well known for showing more sympathy for the Palestinian predicament than most of his colleagues. But he was, and is, Deputy Foreign Minister! This small indiscretion has lost Maria Strizzolo both her jobs, and got Masot sent back to Israel in disgrace. The Foreign Affairs Select Committee is now investigating “How UK policy is influenced by other states and interested parties”.

Strategic Affairs

So that’s all right then? Well, not really. This is the tip of a rather large iceberg. Craig Murray has ferreted out of a reluctant Foreign Office the fact that Masot was supposed to be a member of the embassy’s ‘technical and administrative staff’, a grade well below the diplomatic salt. But as we see in the series, Masot is Ambassador Regev’s chosen travelling companion to the Labour Party conference – not really a technical and administrative duty. Evidently this is not all above board.

In fact Murray has examined the register of Israeli Embassy employees, and believes he has discovered what he calls ‘a large nest of Israeli spies’. It is, he says, “simply impossible” that the FCO would normally grant seventeen technical and administrative visas to support sixteen diplomats, when six of those sixteen are already support staff. So it seems that we have quite a bunch of supernumerary staff at the Embassy, up to something, and connived at by the UK government.

There is certainly some circumstantial evidence for this reading in Masot’s own biography, in so far as it is known. Until quite recently he was a major in the IDF. London was his first ‘diplomatic’ assignment, it was temporary, and he was not a regular member of the diplomatic service. The very credible suggestion has been made that his placement in London was the responsibility not of Israel’s Foreign Ministry but of its Ministry of Strategic Affairs. The MSA was set up in 2010 to counter Israel’s perceived ‘strategic threats’, principally the international BDS campaign. In the last year or two it has been on a spending spree for new ‘talent’, quite affordable from its $50 million budget. The new employees are “mostly former officers from Israel’s intelligence community”. All this fits Masot’s profile rather well. And then there is the fact that when the Minister of Strategic Affairs Gilad Erdan visited London last September, Masot was among the Israeli officials he met.

No wonder, then, that Israel removed Masot from the UK at something approaching the speed of light, and that the FCO in an unseemly rush pronounced the matter satisfactorily closed. We must hope that the Foreign Affairs Select Committee will not so easily be deflected from its task.

The second scandal

In fact the fiasco of Masot’s incompetent machinations is only one, and perhaps the lesser, of two scandals. The other scandal is how this can have been going on, evidently for years, yet no British news organisation with the resources to do so thought it worth investigating. Why do we have to rely on Al-Jazeera to cleanse our stable? It is that overwhelming silence that shouts complicity.

There is one honourable exception to this charge sheet. In 2009 the respected right-wing journalist Peter Oborne made a television programme Inside Britain's Israel Lobby for the Dispatches series. He concentrated then on the Conservative Friends 4 of Israel (barely touched on in The Lobby), which the programme makers describe as "beyond doubt the most well- connected and probably the best funded of all Westminster lobbying groups". (The full text is available on line.)

Oborne is interviewed for comment on the Al-Jazeera programme, and is almost incandescent with indignation about the revelations of Israeli interference with UK political processes. But some of that rage should surely be diverted and redirected at our own media. In the USA the operations of big oil and the gun lobby in distorting the political agenda are well known and visible. This relative transparency doesn’t just happen – it needs an alert, vigilant media with the courage and freedom of its convictions.

The British media is a watch dog that hasn’t barked. It is as appropriate to ask why that is so, and perhaps more useful, than to fulminate about the iniquity of Israel’s ruthless pursuit of what it perceives to be its interests. Are the watchdog’s teeth rotten beyond repair? Is it muzzled? What are the mechanisms that have maintained this complaisant silence in the presence of a blatant affront to open democracy?

Postscript


























We left Conan Doyle’s dog in the stables waiting for Sherlock to sort out the mystery of its silence. But nowadays the government has adopted a problematic ‘definition’ of antisemitism, and the Anti-Antisemitic Tropes patrols are out in force. So I won’t draw any possible analogy. You’ll just have to read the story yourself.

28 May 2017

Open Letter to Britain’s Only Green MP – Caroline Lucas

Don’t support the IHRA Definition of anti-Semitism that Conflates anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism


On Wednesday the European Parliament is going to debate a motion, ‘Combating anti-Semitism’ that includes support for the bogus International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism. 
Caroline Lucas MP supports a definition of anti-Semitism which brands BDS as 'anti-Semitic' thus proving that when they get near power, the Green Party jettisons its radicalism
I have sent a number of MEPs a letter asking that they oppose Clause C2 of the motion supporting the IHRA.  You can see my letter hereI am pleased to say that the Green group in the European parliament will be opposing the definition.  There is no doubt that the far-Right, Le Pen and co. will be only too happy to support the IHRA.  After all anti-Semitism and Zionism have always gone hand in hand and the IHRA definition has nothing to do with anti-Semitism and everything to do with supporting Israel.
Victor Orban, the racist Prime Minister of Hungary, who has villified and demonised asylum seekers at the same time as seeking to rehabilitate the anti-Semitic rulers of Hungary in the pre-war period, has no problems supporting the IHRA definition precisely because it has nothing whatsoever to do with opposing anti-Semitism.
On the picket line in Brighton but breaking the BDS picket line
I am therefore even more surprised to find that Britain’s only Green MP, Caroline Lucas, the MP for Brighton Pavilion, who has previously claimed to support the Palestinian cause, has signed up to support this bogus definition of anti-Semitism which the far-Right Zionist Campaign Against Anti-Semitism has campaigned for.  Already the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism has been used to stop Israel Apartheid Week at one university, has meant restrictions at Exeter University and UCL and has led to repeated attempts by Zionist organisations in this country to prevent speakers such as Jackie Walker and Tom Suarez speaking.

The IHRA definition of anti-Semitism is a menace to freedom of speech and liberty.  In the wake of the Manchester bombing there are increasing attempts to curtail our liberty in the name of fighting terrorism.  I realise that being a Green means that you have no guiding compass politically.  Capitalism for most people in the Green Party is something that can be tamed and reformed.  It is this lack of basic political principles that can lead to someone like Lucas giving support to the Zionist attempt to clamp down on support for the Palestinians.


Jonathan Bartley - co leader of the Green Party - joined the rest of the panel in supporting the expulsion of Ken Livingstone for telling the truth about Nazi-Zionist relations - a particularly pathetic performance
Another example of Green cowardice was the performance of Lucas's co-leader Jonathan Bartley on Question Time earlier this year.  As the rest of the Establishment hacks lined up to call for Ken Livingstone's expulsion from the Labour Party for daring to tell the truth, Bartley demonstrated what a political pygmy he is when he joined the mob.

I hope that others in the Green Party will give Ms Lucas a hard time.  Like most Greens who get elected into positions of power, she has already become part of the British establishment.  In Germany Die Grunen when it formed a coalition with the SPD with Joshka Fischer as Foreign Minister, became the first German government to send troops into battle in a foreign country, Afghanistan.  Without any class politics the Greens are destined to drift politically as Caroline Lucas demonstrates.

Below is an Open Letter to Ms Lucas taking her to task over her support for this fake definition of anti-Semitism.

Tony Greenstein
Professor Daniel Blatman, a Holocaust researcher at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, is according to the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, an anti-Semite


Caroline Lucas,
House of Commons
London SW1 1AA
Sunday 28th May 2017

Dear Caroline,

As you will be aware, following the Home Affairs Select Committee Report Antisemitism in the UK, Theresa May adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism. This Report was widely considered as politically motivated, lacking any evidential base and a hatchet job on Jeremy Corbyn by Chuku Ummuna of the Labour Right and the Tory members of the Committee. The Committee had no terms of reference and it criticised a number of people from whom it had refused to take evidence.

This Wednesday the European Parliament will be debating a Motion on Combatting Antisemitism which also recommends adoption of the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism. I am pleased to hear that the Green group in the European Parliament has decided to vote against it. 
I am therefore extremely surprised to hear from friends in the Green Party that you support this bogus and racist definition of anti-Semitism.  Racist because it proceeds from the basis that Zionism and Israel represents all Jewish people.

The IHRA definition of anti-Semitism is another name for the Working Definition of Anti-Semitism which the Fundamental Rights Agency removed from its web site in 2013 because it conflated support for the Palestinians with anti-Semitism.  It has now been given a new lease of life. It deserves to be put back to sleep again, this time for good.

No one doubts the evils of anti-Semitism although the concentration on this form of racism to the exclusion of, for example, racism against Romanis or Islamaphobia, raises suspicions that the government’s real motive is to use peoples’ opposition to anti-Semitism to underpin its foreign policy alliances in the Middle East.

The IHRA, is an intergovernmental organisation consisting of 31 countries. It includes a number of countries which tolerate anti-Semitism, such as Poland under its far-Right Law and Justice government. Hungary’s government under Victor Orban, whose racist attitude to refugees needs no elaborating, is set on rehabilitating Admiral Horthy who presided over the deportation of some 430,000 Jews to Auschwitz between March 19th and July 9th 1944.  [The Reinterment and Political Rehabilitation of Miklós Horthy, Randolph Braham].  Orban though has had no difficulty signing up to the IHRA because like many anti-Semites he is ardently pro-Zionist.  That in itself should give you pause for thought.

The IHRA definition has nothing to do with opposing anti-Semitism. Its sole purpose is to conflate opposition to Zionism and the Apartheid State of Israel with anti-Semitism. Seven of its eleven examples of anti-Semitism mention the State of Israel. By identifying Jews with the actions of Israel, the IHRA is likely to increase not diminish anti-Semitism.

Brian Klug, when giving a talk What Do We Mean When We Say ‘Antisemitsm’? Echoes of shattering glass’ at the November 2014 International Conference at the Berlin Jewish Museum “Antisemitism in Europe Today: the Phenomena, the Conflicts” produced a definition of anti-Semitism in 21 words:  ‘antisemitism is a form of hostility to Jews as Jews, where Jews are perceived as something other than what they are.’  The IHRA definition needs 409 words, because its purpose is not to define anti-Semitism but to conflate anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism.

The IHRA definition of anti-Semitism includes ‘Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel’.  Ironically that is the main purpose of the definition.
According to the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, this article in Israel's Ha'aretz paper is 'anti-Semitic'
The IHRA definition states: ‘Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis’ is anti-Semitic.  Presumably Professor Daniel Blatman, a Holocaust researcher and head of the Institute for Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem is also anti-Semitic for comparing the Nuremburg laws with the raft of racist laws targeting Israeli Arabs in Ha’aretz.  Heading Toward an Israeli Apartheid State.  Indeed Professor Blatman is doubly anti-Semitic because he also transgresses another IHRA example of ‘anti-Semitism’:  ‘claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour.

Anyone who is seriously concerned about anti-Semitism and indeed any form of racism, should be determined to separate off Jewish people from the actions of Israel.  To associate Jews with the actions and policies of Israeli state, is to invite anti-Semitism. 

If calling out Israel as a racist endeavour is anti-Semitic, as the IHRA definition states, then we should be honest and admit that telling the truth can be anti-Semitic.

In a 2012 opinion survey 59 percent of Israeli Jews wanted preference for Jews over Arabs in admission to government jobs and 49 percent want the state to treat Jewish citizens better than Arabs. 42 percent don't want to live in the same building with Arabs and 42 percent don't want their children in the same class with Arab children. ‘Only’ a third wants a law barring Israeli Arabs from voting for the Knesset and 69 percent would oppose giving 2.5 million Palestinians the right to vote if Israel annexes the West Bank. In last year’s Pew Research Centres survey Israel’s Religiously Divided Society, a plurality of Israeli Jews, 48% supported the physical expulsion of Israel’s Arab citizens.
The prevalence of racism amongst Israeli Jews reflects the racist nature of the Israeli state.  There is nothing anti-Semitic in stating that openly.

The IHRA definition of ‘anti-Semitism’ is designed to keep the truth about Israel and Zionism under wraps. It has already been used in Britain to close down Israel Apartheid Week at the University of Central Lancashire and to prevent activities at other universities.  The IHRA definition of anti-Semitism is already having a chilling effect on free speech. 

I would hope that you reconsider your support for this bogus definition of anti-Semitism. .
Yours sincerely,


Tony Greenstein