Attendees at PSC “antisemitism training” at local National Education Union event told “Israel is the biggest amplifier of antisemitism there is”
Last night, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Redbridge National Education Union (NEU) hosted an event “in association with” the Newham, Tower Hamlets and Redbridge branches of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC).
PSC is known to regularly organise national anti-Israel demonstrations and earlier this year, its Director, Ben Jamal, encouraged thousands of protestors to “ramp up pressure on MPs” and flood into Parliament “so that they would have to lock the doors of Parliament itself”.
The event, which took place in Newham, East London, was titled, “How to talk about Palestine in our schools”. According to an online flyer for the event, the supposed conference would include “workshops on antisemitism and anti-Zionism”.
Approximately 40 people attended the event, which was open to parents, carers, youth-workers and the general public. Attendees were split into smaller workshops to talk about specific topics.
Several people, including three children, attended a workshop on antisemitism and anti-Zionism, which was led by two representatives of the PSC. The discussion in the workshop was primarily focused on criticising the widely-accepted International Definition of Antisemitism, which was reportedly dubbed “the bad one”, whilst promoting the adoption of the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, which was allegedly referred to as “the good one”.
The Jerusalem Declaration is a wrecking document intended to undermine the globally-recognised Definition.
In the supposed critique of the International Definition, the PSC representatives allegedly said: “Speak against Israel, oh you’re antisemitic,” and “If people say something against Israel, they say it is antisemitic.”
Another reported comment regarding the Definition was: “They use the Holocaust as a sort of cover because it says once you’ve got Holocaust in there, it must be right.”
During the workshop, the PSC session leaders allegedly claimed that “Israel is nothing to do with being Jewish” and are understood to have told attendees that “if you’re anti-racist you’re anti-the-State-of-Israel.”
One of the representatives allegedly stated: “Israel is a racist endeavour.” According to the International Definition, “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination (e.g. by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour)” is an example of antisemitism.
Organisers were also heard saying: “A large proportion of the people killed on October the 7th were killed by the Israeli army,” before going on to later claim that Israel has not fought for its hostages that currently remain in Gaza.
On 7th October last year, Hamas, an antisemitic genocidal terror organisation, carried out barbaric attacks in Israel, massacring over 1,200 Israelis and taking some 250 hostage. The event has since been described as the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
Astonishingly, these claims were not the only controversial statements that were heard at the workshop. One PSC representative was heard stating: “The Nazis were ashamed of the gas chambers, sadly Israel is not ashamed of what it’s doing in Gaza,” and “Gaza is not an open-air prison camp, it is an open-air ghetto in the same way that our ancestors were kept in ghettos before they were murdered.”
According to the International Definition, “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” is an example of antisemitism.
In yet another sickening comparison to the Holocaust, a representative allegedly said: “Like the Nazis, [Israel] wanted to keep the Holocaust quiet because it didn’t play into their narrative.”
Attenders were also given supplementary written materials, which included a “further reading” list. On the list was Norman Finkelstein’s The Holocaust Industry. Mr Finkelstein is a controversial American activist who once praised Holocaust-denier David Irving at a pro-Corbyn meeting of Labour Against the Witchhunt, an antisemitism-denial group of former and expelled Labour members.
Other claims that were heard throughout the event were: “They [Israel] wanted the Holocaust to happen,” and “Israel is the biggest amplifier of antisemitism there is.”
A clear theme throughout the workshop was opposition to Zionism, the embodiment of the Jewish right to self-determination. Attendees reported that organisers compared Zionism to a “virus” and asserted that “too many Jews” have been “injected” with it.
Eight in ten British Jews consider themselves to be a Zionist. Only six percent do not, according to our representative polling.
This is not the first time that the PSC has found itself at the centre of an antisemitism-related controversy, with many of its rallies being host to antisemitic placards and rhetoric. A month-long investigation by Campaign Against Antisemitism in 2017 exposed extensive antisemitic bigotry amongst PSC supporters on social media. Last year, the PSC Brixton published an Instagram post calling Zionists “brainwashed racists” who should be fired from their places of work.
The General Secretary of the NEU also has a controversial record when it comes to antisemitism.
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism: “It appears that this so-called workshop was rife with antisemitism. This conference had it all, from comparisons of Israel to Nazi Germany, to allegations that the Jewish State was somehow complicit in the murder of its own people on 7th October, to characterising Israel as a ‘racist endeavour’, to describing Zionism as a virus, to the wild claim that Israel ‘wanted the Holocaust to happen’.
“What makes the whole thing even more appalling, is that it was organised by the National Education Union ‘in association with’ members of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Both organisations have a long history of causing distress to the Jewish community. The only silver lining of this conspiracy-fuelled event is that it was so very poorly attended.”
