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Shadow Emergency Services Minister Chris Williamson MP allegedly praised Jackie Walker and said her suspension was “disgraceful”

Chris Williamson, the Member of Parliament for Derby North and Shadow Fire and Emergency Services Minister, has defended disgraced suspended Labour activist Jackie Walker according to a post by Ms Walker on Facebook.

Ms Walker posted a photo on Facebook from the Labour Conference hugging Mr Williamson along with a message of solidarity: “Chris Williamson, Shadow Fire and Emergency Services Minister — practised my courage and said the way I had been treated was dreadful. I agree!!!” We assume that Ms Walker meant “praised” instead of “practised”.

We have sought a comment from Mr Williamson, who has so far not replied.

Ms Walker was suspended by Labour in September 2016 following comments she made about Holocaust Memorial Day at the Labour Party Conference. Ms Walker said that Holocaust Memorial Day is not inclusive enough and that Jewish schools do not need special security in the face of threats. She reportedly claimed that antisemitism was being “exaggerated” and that the “aim of such allegations is to undermine Jeremy [Corbyn].” She also claimed that “many Jews”  were the “chief financiers” of the African slave trade.

Mr Williamson to the Guardian in August that the controversy surrounding Jeremy Corbyn’s handling of antisemitism within Labour was “proxy wars and bulls***”. He went on to say: “I’m not saying [antisemitism] never ever happens but it is a really dirty, lowdown trick, particularly the antisemitism smears. Many people in the Jewish community are appalled by what they see as the weaponisation of antisemitism for political ends. It is pretty repellent to use that to attack somebody like Jeremy Corbyn, who has spent his whole life fighting for social justice and standing up for the underdog. But I feel people have stopped listening to the smears and lies and dirty tricks…”

Ms Walker will also be performing her one-person show, “The Lynching” on the fringe of the Labour Party Conference. The show purports to expose the “witch hunt” she says she has been subjected to over allegations of antisemitism. Labour MP John Mann attacked her performance as a “sad and miserable way of hiding from antisemitism”.

Ms Walker is believed to be suspended from the Labour Party and awaiting a disciplinary hearing, which makes her warm embrace from Mr Williamson and the fact that she is staging her show all the more perturbing.

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New CAA research shows antisemitism amongst officials in Labour is eight times worse than any other party

Today, Campaign Against Antisemitism has published the initial findings of a comprehensive ongoing research project to track antisemitism amongst office holders in political parties, comprising MPs, peers, councillors, party officers and candidates selected to contest any public election. The International Definition of Antisemitism adopted by the British Government and the College of Policing, and the deployment of the so-called ‘Livingstone formulation’ has guided our research. Our researchers used a supercomputer to analyse four million social media posts by more than two thousand parliamentary candidates, together with a review of our private logs and publicly available reports of allegations of antisemitism amongst office holders.

Our findings show that Labour Party office holders account for 61% of the cases of alleged antisemitism, which is nearly eight times higher than the number of office holders in the second-placed parties.

80% of cases were in parties of the progressive left, namely Labour, the Greens, the SNP and the Liberal Democrats. In all cases, the parties also had poor track records for addressing allegations of antisemitism.

The supposedly anti-racist Labour Party has shamed itself by failing to firmly and consistently address antisemitism, even proving incapable of expelling a Holocaust revisionist, a senior MP who said that “Jewish money” controls the Conservative Party, and another prominent official who claimed that Jews were “among the chief financiers of the slave trade”. The Labour Party has compounded its antisemitism problem by shrouding all disciplinary matters in secrecy under guidelines introduced in the wake of Baroness Chakrabarti’s report into antisemitism, thus concealing the fact that it has failed to address antisemitism within its ranks.

Our analysis of the Liberal Democrats confirms that prominent and egregious antisemites have been allowed to remain as office holders in the party for many years after allegations were made.

Our analysis of antisemitic discourse amongst Green Party office holders indicates that, in common with their counterparts in the Labour Party, they seem to have little or no consciousness of the nature of post-Holocaust antisemitism, so that even parliamentary candidates have been repeating antisemitic myths without inhibition.

It is concerning that four of the five UKIP representatives who feature in our report have neither been publicly and transparently investigated nor disciplined by the party.

Only two SNP representatives feature in our report. We believe that the party could and should have taken stronger action against both.

The Conservative Party is not immune from criticism, having failed to discipline a sitting MP who referred to the supposed “power of the Jewish lobby in America”.

The extreme-right has largely ceased to function politically, and is now largely confined to non-political criminal activity. Thus the BNP and Patria, while undoubtedly harbouring racist views, have fielded very few candidates in the last few years. Campaign Against Antisemitism continues to pursue cases against neo-Nazis in court, and played a leading role in the proscription of National Action.

Set against a background of identity politics and a hair-trigger sensitivity to racism elsewhere, Campaign Against Antisemitism believe it is astonishing that 64 officials of any political parties would feel able to use a public platform and the authority of their parties for the dissemination of racism against one single group, still less that their parties would be so relaxed as to mostly fail to discipline them effectively. Out of all 64 cases, only five cases (6.3%) were effectively and transparently dealt with.

The Labour Party intends to vote on Tuesday on a motion to strengthen the sanctions against antisemites found in its ranks. However, Campaign Against Antisemitism notes the repeated failures of Labour to apply existing sanctions, the inability of the leadership to recognise post-Holocaust antisemitism, and the secrecy surrounding all disciplinary cases as recommended by the Chakrabarti report. Unless these matters are addressed, new measures will be meaningless.

Our research does not claim to be exhaustive: there may be other cases that we are not aware of. We are confident, however, that our research has been sufficiently broad to give a realistic picture of how the various political parties are dealing with antisemitism, or failing to deal with it.

The research does not include rank and file party members who do not hold any office. We have included in our research any office holders who have been subject to clearly evidenced allegations of antisemitism, have deployed the so-called ‘Livingstone formulation’, or have posted antisemitic content to their social media accounts.

Our research and the results of the review are now catalogued on our website, where they will remain and be updated, providing a resource for journalists and researchers seeking to understand and monitor discourse among those holding office in the UK’s political parties. A form will be available to allow members of the public to notify us of new incidents.

The research follows polling released by Campaign Against Antisemitism last month which revealed that 76% of British Jews felt that recent political events have resulted in increased hostility towards Jews, with 83% saying that the Labour Party is too tolerant of antisemitism among their MPs, members and supporters. 78% had witnessed antisemitism that was disguised as a political comment about Israel or Zionism.

At a time when it would seem unthinkable for an elected official of a political party to publicly make a racist statement against other minority communities, it seems acceptable in many parties to make such statements about Jews. We call on all parties to sign up to the transparent disciplinary processes set out in our Manifesto for Fighting Antisemitism in Political Parties.

Our most striking finding is not just that the supposedly ‘anti-racist’ Labour Party stands shamelessly above other parties in the number of incidents, but that it has failed to take meaningful action against brazen offenders. We often hear in Labour’s defence that cases of antisemitism are isolated, but this research shows the degree to which the rot has become widespread amongst senior figures.

Any political party wishing to be taken seriously as an anti-racist party must treat antisemitism with zero tolerance and expel offenders publicly and transparently. Actions, as ever, will speak louder than words, and we will judge all political parties by how they now address the cases our research has highlighted.

You can read more by visiting our new online database of antisemitism in political parties.

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Calls to allow Holocaust denial and expel the Jewish Labour Movement electrify Labour Conference fringe event

Calls by speakers at a Labour Conference fringe event to allow Holocaust denial and expel the Jewish Labour Movement from the Labour Party were reportedly met with rowdy applause and cheering earlier today.

The packed event run by “Free Speech on Israel” heard from American-Israeli activist Miko Peled that people should be free to ask “Holocaust, yes or no” because “there should be no limits on the discussion”, for which he was cheered.

Michael Kalmanovitz, a member of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, reportedly asserted that claims of increasing antisemitism were intended to undermine Jeremy Corbyn and the left, before demanding that the Jewish Labour Movement be expelled from the Labour Party. He reportedly said: “The thing is, if you support Israel, you support apartheid. So what is the JLM [Jewish Labour Movement] and Labour Friends of Israel doing in our party — kick them out”, to raucous cheering and calls of “throw them out”.

Ironically for an organisation called “Free Speech on Israel”, the organisers reportedly ordered attendees not to tweet or take photographs for fear of “hostile coverage” whilst leaflets were passed around claiming that concerns about rising antisemitism were a “manufactured moral panic”.

The event was also reportedly addressed by Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, who had earlier been given a standing ovation by the Labour Party Conference plenary for stating that “There is no problem with Jews in the Labour Party”, and notorious antisemite Tony Greenstein, who was among a number of attendees able to attend and participate despite being currently or previously suspended from the Labour Party over allegations of antisemitism.

Labour MP Wes Streeting said: “This is not a question to which there is any other answer than ‘the Holocaust is one of the greatest crimes in human history and this should never happen again’. There are plenty of far-right websites where you can peddle hatred. The fringe of the Labour Party isn’t the place to have that discussion.” However it seems that large numbers of Labour Party activists disagreed and thronged the event, pouring out of the door to the room and into the corridor outside. The high attendance will doubtless have been helped by the fact that the event was advertised in official Labour Party Conference literature.

In another room, Labour MP John Cryer told delegates that some of what is written “makes your hair stand up”, saying “This stuff is redolent of the 1930s.”

It is repugnant to see a thronged officially-advertised fringe event at the Labour Party Conference at which Labour supporters cheered in favour of freedom for Holocaust deniers, and chanted their approval for censoring and expelling Jews and ‘Zionists’. It is a reminder of how low the Labour Party has plunged.

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“Labour Party Marxists” allege Nazi-Zionist collaboration and urge “counterattack” against allegations of antisemitism in article distributed at Labour Party Conference

Labour Party Marxists have published an article titled “Anti-Zionism does not equal antisemitism” in which they defend Ken Livingstone arguing that “the point he was making about the Nazi regime and Zionism is basically correct”, dedicating an entire section to “Nazi collaboration”. They have reportedly been handing out this article at their stall at the current Labour Conference in Brighton and have published the article on their website.

The article, written by Moshe Machover, alleges that “the Jewish Labour Movement and the right wing media have been running a completely cynical campaign. The whole campaign of equating opposition to Zionism with antisemitism has, in fact, been carefully orchestrated with the help of the Israeli government and the far-right in the United States.”

Machover has previously been exposed for suggesting that Hamas should adopt tactics more akin to those of Hizballah. Both are genocidal antisemitic terrorist organisations which are proscribed under the Terrorism Act. He also reportedly accused Jewish students at an event at Queen Mary, University of London, of being under the control of the Israeli Embassy.

The article concludes: “we must go on the counterattack against the current slurs. It is correct to expose Zionism as a movement based on both colonisation and collusion with antisemitism. Don’t apologise for saying this.”

According to their aims and principles, “The central aim of Labour Party Marxists is to transform the Labour Party into an instrument for working class advance and international socialism.” Their website, however, shows an emphasis on dismissing claims of antisemitism, with separate sections on antisemitism and on the “witchhunt” both of which show a large focus on dismissing the concerns of the Jewish community.

https://twitter.com/AaronPSimons/status/911605433005170688

https://twitter.com/Lewis_ALee/status/911940961613287424

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German federal government adopts International Definition of Antisemitism following independent review of measures against antisemitism

The German federal government, the Bundeskabinett, has today formally adopted the International Definition of Antisemitism. The definition is clear and detailed, leaving no doubt as to what antisemitism is. In particular, the definition tackles the full spectrum of antisemitism, from ancient slurs to conspiracy myths to antisemitism in discourse about Israel.

Thomas de Maizière, the German Interior Minister, told Deutsche Welle: “We Germans are particularly vigilant when our country is threatened by an increase in antisemitism. History made clear to us, in the most terrible way, the horrors to which antisemitism can lead.” The cabinet adopted the definition at it regular weekly meeting, and has recommended that public officials including law enforcement use the definition. The move came in response to an independent commission on antisemitism which recommended that the International Definition of Antisemitism be adopted. A member of the commission, parliamentarian Volker Beck, told Deutsche Welle that the adoption of the definition should be seen as a “first step” which would help formalise measures ranging from “legal prosecution to educational measures to the sensitisation of the judicial system”. Deidre Berger, the director of the Berlin Ramer Institute for German-Jewish Relations of the American Jewish Committee gave Deutsche Welle examples of antisemitism being “all too often ignored in recent years”, citing an incident in which “the courts considered an arson attack on a synagogue in Wuppertal as non-antisemitic”.

The formal adoption of the definition was also praised by officials of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance who have been urging the alliance’s 31 member states to formalise the domestic use of the definition.

Britain was the first country in the world to adopt the definition, something for which Campaign Against Antisemitism, Sir Eric Pickles and others worked hard over many meetings. Austria became the next national government to adopt the definition, followed by the Romanian government, and now the German government has done the same.

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Unite the union hires former Labour candidate Vicki Kirby, who said Jews have “big noses” and Hitler is the “Zionist G-d”

Update: Unite has now told us that Vicki Kirby does not presently work for the union, but they would not confirm whether she did work for them in the past, or when and why she may have left.

Vicki Kirby, who was twice suspended from the Labour Party over allegations of antisemitism has now reportedly been appointed by Unite, the union, as a regional officer, according to political blog Guido Fawkes.

Ms Kirby twice stood as a parliamentary candidate for the Labour Party and was Vice-Chair of its Woking branch. In 2014 she was suspended by the Labour Party after the Sunday Times and political blog Guido Fawkes exposed a number of tweets in which she wrote “What do you know [about] Jews? They have big noses and support Spurs”, said that Hitler was the “Zionist G-d” and Zionists’ “teacher”, and proposed that ISIS should attack Israel. After she remained active within the Party, Ms Kirby was suspended again following an outcry from Labour MPs.

Ms Kirby has been found repeatedly making antisemitic comments. If true, it is a disgrace that she has been recruited by Unite. Members may wish to contact the union’s Executive Council to express their concerns.

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Labour Party Conference will reportedly include a session on the supposed antisemitism “witch hunt”

The Labour Party Conference later this month is reportedly due to include a session labelling the Labour Party’s chronic antisemitism scandal as a “witch hunt”.

According to political blog, Guido Fawkes, the session will be entitled “Free speech on Israel – why we oppose the witch hunt” and will be chaired by the notorious Vice Chair of the Chingford branch of the Chingford and Woodford Green Constituency Labour Party, Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi.

Ms Wimborne-Idrissi denies that the Labour Party has an antisemitism problem and has even previously taken to the airwaves to say that Israel has “inflicted” the Holocaust on other people and “they use and exploit” the Holocaust for political ends. In October last year she told LBC: “When it comes to the Holocaust, of course, there must never be any minimisation of that horror. It’s inflicted on other people in the sense that apologists for Israel use the suffering of Jews to excuse the suffering of Palestinians. I hear it all the time: ‘Oh, they’ve suffered so much, let them get on with it.’ I’m not saying that Israel is committing a Holocaust. I’m saying they use and exploit the fact of the Holocaust to justify what are, in some cases, crimes against humanity…So the mass slaughter of Jews in Europe should never be inflicted on others. That’s my view and that includes Palestinians. But for that, I’m called a self-hating Jew.”

The comments came after Ms Wimborne-Idrissi told the radio station that a Jewish MP had staged an antisemitic incident in order to undermine Jeremy Corbyn. Listening in the studio, Labour MP Alison McGovern became visibly emotional, holding back tears, as Ms Wimborne-Idrissi alleged that Ruth Smeeth, a Jewish Labour MP, had used an antisemitic incident to “completely undermine the launch of a really important report about racism”, referring to Baroness Chakrabarti’s whitewash report into antisemitism in the Labour Party. Ms Wimborne-Idrissi said that Ms Smeeth was clearly motivated to concoct the incident because she “is against Corbyn, against his whole Socialist vision”. Continuing, Ms Wimborne-Idrissi claimed that the Jewish MP’s supposed ruse had worked: “Did anybody know about racism after the release of that report? No they didn’t. All they knew was that an angry Jewish MP had run out of the room. That’s all they knew…The Chakrabarti Commission has been undermined at every turn by people like Ruth Smeeth and Louise Ellman [another Jewish Labour MP] and others like them who have a political agenda. The question of antisemitism is being used as a weapon in a political battle.”

Last year’s Labour Party Conference was awash with antisemitic incidents, and sadly we see nothing to suggest that this year will be any different.

If you are attending the Labour Party Conference and would like to help us monitor it, please e-mail [email protected].

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CAA calls on Home Secretary to ban alleged antisemite Sheikh Ekrima Sabri from entering the UK to address MPs

Sheikh Ekrima Sabri, a former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and current Imam of the city’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, who allegedly denied that six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, is reportedly scheduled to visit Britain from 11th-15th September as part of a delegation organised by the pro-Palestinian group EuroPal. It is reported that he will also meet with MPs in Parliament.

Sabri has a history of making antisemitic statements. According to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) Sabri denied the number of Jews murdered in the Holocaust, telling Italian newspaper, La Repubblica, in 2000: “Six million Jews dead? No way, they were much fewer. Let’s stop with this fairytale exploited by Israel to capture international solidarity.” Under the International Definition of Antisemitism adopted by the UK Government, “Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g. gas chambers) or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices during World War II (the Holocaust)” is antisemitic.

Furthermore, Sabri reportedly said in a New York Times Magazine interview in 2000 that “If the Jews want peace, they will stay away from Al Aksa…This is a decree from Allah. The Haram al-Sharif belongs to the Muslim. But we know the Jew is planning on destroying the Haram. The Jew will get the Christian to do his work for him. This is the way of the Jews. This is the way Satan manifests himself. The majority of the Jews want to destroy the mosque. They are preparing this as we speak.” Under the the International Definition of Antisemitism, “Making mendacious, dehumanising, demonising, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions” is antisemitic.

Also according to MEMRI, Sabri said in an interview with the Egyptian weekly, Al-Ahram Al-Arabi, in 2000 that “I enter the mosque of Al-Aqsa with my head up and at the same time I am filled with rage toward the Jews. I have never greeted a Jew when I came near one. I never will. They cannot even dream that I will. The Jews do not dare to bother me, because they are the most cowardly creatures Allah has ever created…”

In 2012, Sabri was reportedly banned by the French Government from entering France.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has asked the Home Office to follow suit and ban Sabri from entering the UK and speaking to MPs in Parliament.

We encourage you to add your voice by contacting your local MP using the simple form at writetothem.com.

We would like to thank the individuals and organisations which brought this matter to our attention.

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Chris Williamson MP must apologise and withdraw his claim that antisemitism allegations against Labour are “bulls***” and “dirty tricks”

For some time, it has been undeniable that the Labour Party has lost its status as an anti-racist organisation. Following the Party’s failure to expel Ken Livingstone a full year after his statements claiming that Hitler supported Zionism, 107 of its MPs felt moved to sign a statement declaring: “We stand with the Jewish community and British society against this insidious racism. This was not done in our name and we will not allow it to go unchecked.” Nearly five months on, nothing has changed.

The handling of Ken Livingstone’s case is merely one item in a sad litany of incidents involving not just rank and file so-called ‘hard-left’ members of the party, but candidates and elected officers of the party, virtually all of which have been shown to be antisemitic under the terms of the International Definition of Antisemitism, adopted by the UK Government and accepted by the Labour Party. However, even when these incidents have (rarely) resulted in a disciplinary process, the cases and their outcomes have been obscured under the terms of the Chakrabarti report, a whitewash of antisemitism in Labour that supresses transparency.

What is more, these incidents have taken place against a backdrop of leading figures of the party, including Diane Abbott, Len McLuskey as well as Ken Livingstone, declaring that allegations of antisemitism in Labour constitute nothing more than a disingenuous political attack on the leadership of the Labour Party, despite Campaign Against Antisemitism, the Chief Rabbi and almost all of the other major organisations of the British Jewish community making clear their concerns that many of these incidents were indeed antisemitic.

This is a record that should leave any political party hanging its head in shame. Therefore for Chris Williamson, the MP for Derby North and Shadow Minister for Fire and Emergency Services, to assert in an interview with The Guardian that — with very few exceptions — controversies over Jeremy Corbyn’s handling of antisemitism within Labour were “proxy wars and bulls***” and the result of a “really dirty, low-down trick” seem astonishing.

Whereas the comments of Abbott and McLuskey imply that Jewish complaints of antisemitism are essentially disingenuous and politically motivated, Williamson has now couched that assertion in racist language, redolent of antisemitism. If we take them at face value, Jews’ complaints in this context are “dirty”, “low-down”, “bulls***” and “tricks”.

In addition, Mr Williamson invokes a ‘good Jew, bad Jew’ trope, claiming that “Many people in the Jewish community are appalled by what they see as the weaponisation of antisemitism for political ends” — in the teeth of contrary evidence that the Jewish community’s support for Labour has ebbed badly under its current leadership, and that our recent polling indicates alarm among UK Jews in relation to Labour antisemitism.

When criticised by Jewish groups, including the Jewish Labour Movement itself, Mr Williamson responded by saying: “I absolutely did not and never would blame the victims of antisemitism or any form or racism and bigotry. Antisemitism is utterly repugnant and a scourge on society, which is why I stand in absolute solidarity with anyone who is subjected to antisemitic abuse. The point I was trying to make is that accusations have on occasions been used for factional or party political ends.”

In doing so, Mr Williamson has disingenuously attempted to re-frame what he described as part of an “expected…onslaught” as a phenomenon that occurs only “on occasions”. He has failed to fundamentally address the evidence, the problems associated with Jeremy Corbyn’s past, and his own past problematic behaviour with regard to this issue, nor has he apologised for his own repugnant use of language. He has failed to explain how his comments are supposed to be interpreted with regard to those who point out that antisemitic incidents in the Labour Party are both widespread and abundantly evidenced under the terms of the International Definition of Antisemitism that his own party has accepted.

It is very hard to see how Mr Williamson stands “in absolute solidarity” with Jews subjected to antisemitic abuse, when he himself, as things stand, is characterising those in our community who complain of it as “dirty, low-down trick[sters]”.

Should he continue to stand by his comments, then they could be construed as antisemitic under the International Definition of Antisemitism.

We call on Mr Williamson to acknowledge the evidence that antisemitic incidents in the Labour Party are real, widespread and have not been dealt with adequately under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership; to apologise for his use of language and to publicly withdraw his comments.

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Baroness Tonge shares “Jewish lobby” rant complete with antisemitic caricature of hook-nosed Jew

Disgraced Baroness Tonge, who was twice suspended from the Liberal Democrats over allegations of antisemitism and eventually resigned as pressure mounted, has shared an antisemitic caricature on Facebook.

The caricature was part of an image which claimed to expose the “AIPAC Jewish lobby” through a quote supposedly from Pink Floyd singer Roger Waters. In the bottom-right corner of the image, an antisemitic caricature of a big-nosed Jew clasping his hands together can be seen. The caricature is commonly used by neo-Nazis and far-left extremists in antisemitic social media memes.

The original post, which Baroness Tonge shared, was posted by Saeed Sarwar, who commented on the image: “I’ve checked with 4 specialist friends in case anyone tries to suggest this is antisemitism. It’s actually bang on.”

Baroness Tonge has a long history of using inflammatory, and sometimes antisemitic, language. In 2003 she compared conditions in Gaza to those in the Warsaw Ghetto, for which she was criticised by the chairman of the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum. The following year, during a spate of suicide bombings targeting Jews in Israel, she said that she “might just consider becoming [a suicide bomber] myself” if she was a Palestinian. After her comments were condemned as “completely unacceptable” by her own Party leader, Charles Kennedy, she told the BBC that suicide bombers’ actions are “appalling and loathsome”. Two years later in 2006, she told a fringe meeting at her Party conference: “The pro-Israeli lobby has got its grips on the western world, its financial grips. I think they’ve probably got a grip on our Party.” Once again, her Party leader, then Sir Menzies Campbell, said that her comments had “clear antisemitic connotations”, but she was unapologetic.

In 2010, in response to an antisemitic blood libel alleging that Israeli soldiers providing aid in Haiti were secretly harvesting victims’ organs, Baroness Tonge suggested that Israel should conduct an inquiry to “clear the names of the team in Haiti”. The Party leader, who by then was Nick Clegg, called the comments “wrong, distasteful and provocative”, and removed her as the Party’s health spokesperson. In 2012, the situation worsened when Baroness Tonge told a group at Middlesex University: “Beware Israel. Israel is not going to be there forever in its present performance.” Party leader Nick Clegg challenged her to apologise or resign for her remarks, following which she resigned the Party whip.

In 2015, Campaign Against Antisemitism condemned Baroness Tonge for asking a written question in the House of Lords which held Jews collectively responsible for perceived wrongdoing by Israel by calling for “Jewish faith leaders in the United Kingdom [to] publicly to condemn settlement building by Israel and to make clear their support for universal human rights.” Last year, she used a speech in the House of Lords to again call on “Jewish faith leaders in the United Kingdom publicly to condemn settlement building by Israel”, for which we condemned her, however her Party refused to act. When we called on our supporters to complain to the Liberal Democrat Party, the Party bizarrely responded that they would investigate if they received complaints. We then confirmed that our complaint was already a complaint and heard nothing more. Meanwhile Baroness Tonge wrote a misleading letter to The Independent claiming that Campaign Against Antisemitism was in fact an organisation which secretly opposed organ donation.

She then hosted a meeting in the House of Lords at which attendees compared Israel to ISIS and suggested that Holocaust victims provoked their own genocide. She was suspended from the Liberal Democrat party pending investigation, following which she resigned from the Party, but she remains in the House of Lords. Subsequently, the House of Lords Commissioner for Standards, Lucy Scott-Moncrieff, declined to take action against Baroness Tonge.

In October last year, Baroness Tonge responded to a report on rising antisemitism by the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee with a letter in which she wrote: “It is difficult to believe that a 75% increase in antisemitism [the Committee] reports, have been committed by people who simply hate Jewish people for no reason. It is surely the case that these incidents are reflecting the disgust amongst the general public of the way the government of Israel treats Palestinians and manipulates the USA and ourselves to take no action against that country’s blatant disregard of International Law and the Geneva Conventions.” The failure to act led a Liberal Democrat former candidate to quit the Party. One member of the public reported the letter to Sussex Police.

In February, after Baroness Tonge called for Campaign Against Antisemitism to be deregistered as a charity, Parliamentarians rallied to support us in the media.

In May, Baroness Tonge shared and then deleted an image belittling the Holocaust by equating it with the situation in Gaza. The cartoonist, Carlos Latuff, had won second prize in one of Iran’s repulsive Holocaust denial cartoon competitions.

We consider that Baroness Tonge’s ongoing membership of the House of Lords and the medical profession are stains on both institutions.

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Labour selects Councillor Luke Cresswell, who tweeted “Moses must be proud” of supposed genocide, to run in by-election

Labour Councillor Luke Cresswell has been selected as the Labour candidate in the Sudbury South by-election. In the past, we have highlighted Councillor Creswell’s disturbing tweets, but rather than being disciplined by the Labour Party, it appears that Councillor Cresswell enjoys the Party’s continuing support.

In one, he tweeted a blood-drenched Israeli flag accusing Israel of genocide, captioned “Moses must be proud of you”. In another tweet, he uses a cartoon to portray Israelis as the new Nazis.

Under the International Definition of Antisemitism, “using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g. claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterise Israel or Israelis” is antisemitic, as it “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis”.

Councillor Cresswell also made clear his support for Ken Livingstone in a Facebook comment after Mr Livingstone claimed that “Hitler was supporting Zionism”.

Confronted over the tweets by other Twitter users at the time, Councillor Cresswell defended the tweets, claiming that “it is nothing to do with religion”, but his reference to Moses, for example, rather contradicts him. Councillor Cresswell now appears to have deleted his Twitter account.

Councillor Cresswell has not yet responded to a request for comment.

We are grateful to the Labour Party members who brought Councillor Cresswell’s selection to our attention.

If you would like to join our Political and Government Investigations Unit, our Online Monitoring Unit, or one of our other teams, please volunteer.

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Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign rejects in-depth report forensically detailing antisemitism within their movement as a “smear”

A newly-released 160-page report has confirmed widespread antisemitism inside the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC). The report, titled “Jew Hate and Holocaust Denial in Scotland” is the result of two years of research and investigation into the activities of the SPSC, particularly on social media, by researcher David Collier. The report corroborates our own report into antisemitism inside the Palestine Solidarity Campaign released in February.

Predictably, instead of investigating and taking action over the report’s revelations, the SPSC responded by dismissing it. In a statement published on its website, the SPSC said that it “is not inclined to take seriously the so-called ‘research’ of a pro-Israel blogger whose primary purpose is to smear organisations that support Palestinian rights”.

According to Mr Collier: “At every event checked, on every high street, at every demonstration, those pushing hard-core antisemitic ideology were at the very front of SPSC activity. Two separate case studies suggested that between 40% and 50% of SPSC front line activists (at a minimum) engage in sharing Jew-hating material.”

In one case study, the investigation uncovered that of the sixty-one activists listed as present at the “No to Brand Israel at Edinburgh Festival” protest organised outside the Shalom Festival by the SPSC, thirty-one of them posted antisemitic content on social media. This included antisemitic images, promoting the conspiracy theory about global Jewish domination and Holocaust denial. This breaches the International Definition of Antisemitism adopted by the British Government.

The report found numerous activists sharing everything from far-left claims that ISIS is an oil-stealing apparatus of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, through to claims about the Holocaust which the uninitiated would consider to be the preserve of the far-right.

The report found: “The inevitable conclusion is that antisemitic tendency is a primary driver of anti-Israel activism…There is a strong probability that those who are introduced to anti-Israel material by SPSC activists on the streets are being influenced by people who adhere to an antisemitic mindset…Much of this activity seeks to spread antisemitic thought.”

Mick Napier, the Secretary of the SPSC, was a key focus of the report. Last month, Mr Napier was found guilty in court of aggressive behavior at a protest outside an Israeli-owned cosmetics store in Glasgow during the 2014 Gaza war. Mr Napier was also a speaker at the pro-Hizballah Al Quds Day march in Central London on 18th June. Campaign Against Antisemitism has submitted formal complaints over the “Al Quds Day” march.

We commend David Collier, and Jewish Human Rights Watch which commissioned the report, for producing such an important study.

Whilst the International Definition of Antisemitism clearly states that “criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic”, it is very evident that in the anti-Israel movement, flagrantly antisemitic prejudices are widely-held and publicised.

The line between legitimate political discourse about Israel and antisemitism was expertly analysed in the legal opinion commissioned by Campaign Against Antisemitism, but sadly it is a line that many anti-Israel activists appear to be happy to cross, and which too major anti-Israel organisations appear to tolerate. It would seem from its response to the report that SPSC can safely be added to that list. Indeed, the SPSC website includes a section on antisemitism (a word which it places quotation marks around) and that section is subdivided into sections entitled “smears” and “legal attacks”.

SPSC appears to enjoy the support of numerous MPs and MSPs. Until the organisation takes credible steps to address the antisemitism within their movement, starting with the formal adoption of the International Definition of Antisemitism, support for the SPSC should be considered beyond the pale.

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CAA writes to Sajid Javid after review of evidence from Palestine Expo finds concerns over antisemitism and extremism were well founded

Campaign Against Antisemitism has now analysed a large volume of evidence captured by the brave volunteers of our Demonstration and Event Monitoring Unit who attended Palestine Expo earlier this month, and also evidence from members of the public who sent us videos us or posted them on social media.

Palestine Expo 2017 was held on 8th and 9th July at the government-owned Queen Elizabeth II Centre in Westminster, opposite the Houses of Parliament.

The organiser, Friends of Al-Aqsa, chose to advertise a number of controversial speakers, which gave cause for concern about what the nature of the event would be. Prior to the event, we wrote to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government warning about the risk of giving a platform to speakers with a history of making extremely troubling statements. Had the event merely been “the biggest social, cultural and entertainment event on Palestine to ever take place in Europe”, as it was advertised to be, we would not have objected, but sadly our concerns were proven to be correct.

We will now be writing to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government again, this time asking for his assurance that he will intervene should the organisers attempt to hold another event at the government-owned venue. We will include the following concerning speeches and incidents in our letter.

First, in a speech on “Democratic Engagement and Justice for Palestinians”, Tariq Ramadan, an Egyptian-Swiss academic, claimed that the genocidal antisemitic terrorist group, Hamas, should not be regarded as terrorists, stating: “Netanyahu said that, just in 2001, what we heard is ‘what you’ve got in the States, is what we are getting in Israel.’ As if, Al Qaeda is exactly like Hamas and the Palestinian resistance. By saying that they are all terrorists, that’s exactly the game. And we are saying we contain terrorists? But there is a legitimate resistance to your state terrorism. Your state terrorism. What you are doing with the civilians in Gaza or in the West Bank, the way you are treating the Palestinians — this is something which has to be said and we know there is a connection…This way of playing with the word terrorist, is like yesterday you were a terrorist, today you are a freedom fighter — the way they did with Mandela.” Hamas calls for the genocide of Jews worldwide, whilst committing and condoning terrorist attacks targeting civilians and oppressing Palestinians, for example by hurling homosexuals from rooftops. To suggest that they may merely be freedom fighters is a gross and deliberate distortion.

Next, Lina Hadid Bourichi, a lawyer, allegedly said “Lobbying? Let me tell you about lobbying. I come from Washington DC, OK, that is where I was born and raised. My mother is a Palestinian who was raised in Nazareth and kicked out with her family, the Hadid family, in 1948. Where I come from, the Jewish Lobby is omnipresent. AIPAC the American Jewish lobby is omnipresent. 40,000 employees and that’s the start. East Coast, West Coast, the centre.” AIPAC is not a “Jewish lobby”, nor does it have 40,000 employees pulling strings throughout the United States (Hadid Bourichi appears to have inflated the number by a factor of approximately one hundred). According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, “Making mendacious, dehumanising, demonising, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions” is antisemitic.

In another speech, a speaker for a group called Free Speech on Israel allegedly stated that there were false accusations of antisemitism in the Labour Party, saying: “So, we switch now quickly to the UK Labour Party. We’ve had this wave of false antisemitism accusations. I’m in the Labour Party, I know lots of people in the Labour Party, we’ve also been on the left, I’m sorry where’s this antisemitism? Doesn’t exist in the Labour Party, it’s less in the Labour Party than in the population at large and… even in my branch I’ve got a fairly right — the leadership of my Labour Party branch is still the Blairites, the right wingers — they don’t like being accused of antisemitism either, it’s a false program, it’s a false set of accusations.” We have extensively chronicled antisemitism in the Labour Party and we consider attempts to smear those Jews who complain of antisemitism as conspiratorial liars to be an antisemitic endeavour.

Disgraced Labour activist, Jackie Walker, also provided evidence of very concerning statements when she posted a number of videos on her Facebook page from the breakout session at Palestine Expo. In one of the videos , Professor Jonathan Rosenhead, an academic at the London School of Economics, can be heard defending Ken Livingstone, who claimed and maintains that Zionists collaborated with the Nazis, claiming: “What happened was that in a rather confused radio interview, [Ken] used the words ‘Hitler’ and ‘Zionism’ in the same sentence…What he did was to reveal in a slightly gullible way something which people should have known more about, which was the fact that the Zionists and the Hitler regime did combine together and talk about how to get more Jews out of Germany into Palestine in the 1930s. So…we’re supposed to say that Ken is an antisemite. He’s not, he’s a hero.” In another video, Rosenhead is heard making the spurious and discredited claim and myth about the invention of the Jewish people and that Ashkenazi Jews are descended from Khazars. He said that: “Interestingly enough, an Israeli historian, not the most favourite Israeli historian of Israelis, called Shlomo Sand, who gave quite convincing evidence that most Jews are not Jewish [laughter] in that a high proportion of them are actually the result of forced conversions in the Middle Ages in central Europe. So in fact not only have those people not been to Israel but none of their relatives ever came from Israel before.” We will be writing to the London School of Economics, requesting a disciplinary investigation into Professor Rosenhead’s comments.

Outside the venue, attendees also engaged in antisemitic discourse. David Collier, an activist who blogs about antisemitism and the Middle East, posted a video on YouTube of an unidentified man outside the venue who demanded: “Who founded Israel? Rothschild. Who was Rothschild everybody?…They might have the nuclear weapons, they might have the tanks, they might have the media, they might have the banking system, they might have everything on their side but Jesus has G-d on his side…Who gives them the right to pull money out of thin air and then lend it to us as interest.” The libel that Jews control banking, media and government is one of the most well-known antisemitic conspiracy myths, which explicitly falls foul of the International Definition of Antisemitism. A woman is also visible in the video performing a Nazi salute, in full view of security officers.

Another activist, Joseph Cohen, also posted a video from outside the event. In the footage, a young child could be seen dressed up in military uniform as worn by armed Palestinian groups, while an unnamed man asked: “Who’s under the table running the world?…Who’s got the money in America?…American Jewish.” When a Jewish man asked who has the money in the Middle East, the man replied: “The leaders, they’re your crooks.” In the background, a group stood outside the venue chanting “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free,” a chant that only makes sense as a call for the destruction of the Jewish state and its replacement with a Palestinian state. Under the International Definition of Antisemitism, “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination” is antisemitic.

We are also concerned about the admissions policy in effect at the event which we believe may have breached the Human Rights Act and other legislation by discriminating against attendees on the basis of their political or religious beliefs. One man posted a video online in which he is asked to leave by the venue’s head of security and then a police officer, which the man alleges happened because he was wearing a Jewish skullcap. He claimed that he had been in the venue filming events peacefully for hours but was only ejected when he donned his skullcap. In the footage he posted, security officers are heard claiming that he was being asked to leave for filming, but numerous other bystanders were also filming without attracting attention from the venue or police officers. The incident is now being investigated by the police and the videos have been removed from social media. In another incident, notorious antisemite Tony Greenstein alerted security staff to the presence of the blogger David Collier who had gone to observe the event. Whilst eating lunch at the venue with his wife and child, at Greenstein’s behest, Mr Collier and his family were allegedly made to leave by the venue’s staff, which Mr Greenstein said he was responsible for arranging on the basis that Mr Collier is a “Zionist snoop”. Supporting Zionism (the movement for the Jewish people’s right to self-determination) is a perfectly legitimate position and no person should be excluded from a public event for adhering to it, particularly not at the behest of a well-known antisemite.

Having warned the Department for Communities and Local Government about the event in advance, we are disturbed that the government-owned venue, which is an executive agency of the government, did not appropriately train its security officers or monitor what was being said.

Prior to the event we also wrote a letter, along with military leaders and MPs, calling on the Prime Minister to ensure that the government acted on her pledge in the wake of the recent terrorist atrocities to “deprive the extremists of their safe spaces” and to “become far more robust in identifying [extremism] and stamping it out across the public sector and across society.” Palestine Expo 2017 was a failure to deliver on that promise which the Department for Communities and Local Government must learn from and not repeat.

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Ken Livingstone reportedly facing a new investigation by the Labour Party after his claims that “Hitler was supporting Zionism” only resulted in suspension

Ken Livingstone, the former Mayor of London, is reportedly facing a new disciplinary investigation by the Labour Party over comments he has made since he was suspended from the Party for claiming that Hitler supported Zionism.

According to the JC, Labour sources have confirmed to them “that another probe into the former Mayor of London “is under way”. It is said to centre on claims against Mr Livingstone since he was first suspended from the party in June 2016 and also his failure to show any remorse.” According to the report a leading lawyer has been appointed to make an initial assessment of the new allegations, which are believed to relate to Mr Livingstone’s statements since his suspension.

The Labour Party’s failure to expel Ken Livingston for his repeated claims that “Hitler was supporting Zionism” was the Party’s final act of brazen, painful betrayal.

We are monitoring these latest developments closely.

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CAA publishes lawyers’ opinion endorsing the International Definition of Antisemitism, including for further adoption by public bodies

Campaign Against Antisemitism has today published the opinion of expert counsel on the adoption of the International Definition of Antisemitism. The definition, which was adopted by the British government in December, following campaigning by Campaign Against Antisemitism, Sir Eric Pickles and others, has become a vital tool in the fight against antisemitism.

David Wolfson QC and Jeremy Brier, who acted for Campaign Against Antisemitism pro bono, drew up the nine-page opinion which includes a detailed assessment of the definition itself, considers the application of the definition in difficult cases, and contains useful advice for politicians and public bodies (such as universities) which are considering using the definition.

The opinion finds that “The Definition is a clear, meaningful and workable definition” and that it “should be used by public bodies on the basis that it will ensure that the identification of antisemitism is clear, fair and accurate.”

Since the government adopted the definition, we have seen disturbing efforts to attack its legitimacy by far-left elements within constituency branches of the Labour Party and the University and College Union. This opinion makes clear the baseless nature of such attacks.

We have now circulated the opinion to all universities, and we are writing to all MPs to draw it to their attention.

We are extremely grateful to David Wolfson QC and Jeremy Brier for providing this valuable tool which clearly sets out the legal position with regard to the definition.

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Lloyd Russell-Moyle, Labour MP for Kemptown, reportedly defends Melanie Melvin’s claim that “Israeli lobby” faked Syrian sarin gas attack

The Argus, based in Brighton and Hove, in East Sussex, has revealed that newly-elected Labour MP for Kemptown, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, has allegedly called for Labour activist Melanie Melvin to be reinstated to the Labour Party despite her claim that the BBC faked footage of a Syrian gas attack at the behest of the “Israeli lobby”.

On 7th April, a tweet on Ms Melvin’s account suggested that the Israelis were part of a conspiracy to fake a nerve gas attach by the Assad regime. She allegedly tweeted: “Breaking: Sarin gassing was filmed by the BBC at Pinewood on the orders of Mrs May and the Israeli lobby.” The tweet appears to have been deleted.

According to a report in the JC at the time, “Labour has confirmed that an activist who sent anti-Israel and anti-Jewish tweets is no longer a member of the Party.” It added: “However, a spokesperson for South East Labour Party declined to comment on whether she had been expelled or suspended.” The Argus suggests that Ms Melvin was subsequently suspended.

The Argus revealed that Brighton and Hove city councillor, Caroline Penn, told the paper that “she felt lied to by Kemptown MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle after the MP told her over Twitter he was “not appealing” on behalf of a Labour Party activist.” But in a leaked letter from Mr Russell-Moyle to the General Secretary of the Labour Party, seen by The Argus, the MP says he “recommends” the member’s reinstatement, concluding: “I do hope her record and her apologies will be enough to…allow her to return to membership.”

Councillor Penn told the paper that she was “furious” to learn of the content of the letter, written a week before the Twitter exchange with Mr Russell-Moyle in which she accused him of “defending the indefensible.”

The Argus alleged that “Following a conversation with Ms Melvin, Mr Russell-Moyle wrote to Labour Party General Secretary Iain McNicol on June 30 to say her tweet seemed ‘unhinged at best’ but had, he believed, been made as a parody of online conspiracy theorists. He said her behaviour showed ‘naivety but no malicious intent’ and said, as a ‘stalwart of the campaign’ who has apologised, the member should be reinstated.”

Ivor Caplin, the former MP for Hove, told The Argus: “I can’t see how anyone could say she should continue to be a member of the Labour Party. We have to take firm and decisive action on this issue.” He said there was “ample evidence” that the tweet by Ms Melvin breached the International Definition of Antisemitism.

According to the paper, Mr Russell-Moyle told Councillor Penn via Twitter that he had “reported” the conversation with Ms Melvin to the Party, writing: “I’ve a duty to relay a genuine conversation…She will have to appeal herself. I’m not appealing on anyone’s behalf.”

Yesterday he told The Argus: “I’m not appealing on her behalf. My understanding is there was an appeal going in and I was asked for evidence on her behalf. I was asked what my opinion was. She had assured me she was trying to show how stupid those views were. Based on that conversation I believe she’d been suitably apologetic.” He added that if further evidence came to light that Ms Melvin held antisemitic views, that there “should be no place her her [sic]” in the Labour Party. He said he would be “more than happy” to apologise to Councillor Penn “if she feels betrayed.”

The only problem with this excuse is that the tweet about Sarin gas was not Ms Melvin’s only problematic tweet. On 2nd February, responding to a post calling for action against the “bullying” of Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott, Melvin allegedly tweeted that “maybe she could claim Jewish ancestry. Then there’d be action.” She also claimed that allegations of antisemitism in the Party “weaken us all” and were “unfounded smears.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism welcomes Councillor Penn and Mr Caplin’s intervention. We will continue to monitor this case closely.

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CAA, former military leaders and MPs issue a call to the Prime Minister on extremism and antisemitism

Former military leaders and MPs have joined Campaign Against Antisemitism in issuing a call to the Prime Minister over extremism and antisemitism. The joint letter has today been made public in The Telegraph. The letter stated:

On Westminster Bridge, at the Manchester Arena, on London Bridge, in Borough Market and outside a mosque near Finsbury Park, 36 innocent people were murdered and over 150 were hospitalised by Islamist and far-right terrorists. Since June 2014 alone, our security services have stopped 18 terrorist plots inspired by Islamist extremism.

The number of plots will continue to increase and the demand on our excellent security services will grow, unless we defeat the ideologies of hatred that turn our citizens away from the pluralistic British values that we all enjoy. We have to identify, challenge and stamp out the extremism that lurks in our communities.

Islamist extremism is an evil ideology that is a perversion of Islam. It exploits our freedoms and democracy to preach hatred, sow division and promote intolerance. As the Prime Minister rightly acknowledged on the steps of Downing Street on 4th June, things need to change and we cannot allow this evil the safe spaces it needs to breed, even if it means having “some difficult, and often embarrassing conversations”.

Public platforms, including UK taxpayer-owned buildings, are being used to aid the spread of Islamist extremism. Whilst the Prime Minister is right to challenge internet service providers to play an active role in combating the spread of extremist material online, we must also look at the gatherings where extremism can spread offline.

The government failed to ban the Islamic Human Rights Commission’s Al Quds Day march on 18th June. This was an event which saw hundreds march with the flag of the terrorist group, Hizballah, through the centre of London, chant “ISIS and Zionists are the same”, with one speaker blaming “Zionists” for the horrendous Grenfell tower disaster.

Islamist extremism and antisemitism go hand-in-hand. On 8-9th July, the Queen Elizabeth II Centre, a UK taxpayer-owned building opposite Parliament, will host Palestine Expo, “the biggest social, cultural and entertainment event on Palestine to ever take place in Europe”. The event is organised by Friends of Al Aqsa, despite the Communities Secretary, Sajid Javid, writing to Friends of Al Aqsa over concerns that the organisation and those connected with it “have expressed public support” for Hamas and have “supported events at which Hamas and Hizballah have been praised” .

Whilst the government is rightly strong in its rhetoric, it must back this up by denying extremists of all kinds the platforms they require to divide our communities.

We call on the Prime Minister to take all necessary steps to prevent Palestine Expo from taking place in UK taxpayer-owned buildings, and prevent the future use of such buildings, including the Houses of Parliament, by groups which oppose our values and ideals.

Signed:

Bob Blackman, MP for Harrow East
Colonel Tim Collins OBE, former commander of the 1st Battalion, Royal Irish Regiment
David Davies, MP for Monmouth
Baroness Ruth Deech DBE
Gideon Falter, Chairman of Campaign Against Antisemitism
Colonel Richard Westley OBE MC, former commander of the Operational Training and Advisory Group
Colonel Richard Kemp CBE, former commander of British Forces in Afghanistan
Dr Matthew Offord, MP for Hendon
Andrew Percy, MP for Brigg and Goole, Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Communities and Local Government

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Antisemitic hate preacher permitted to enter the UK for Palestine Expo despite CAA warning the Home Office

The Prime Minister told the nation that “enough is enough” following the recent terrorist attacks and she promised that extremists would be deprived of their “safe spaces”. In the month since making that promise, London’s iconic major roads have been closed by police in order to allow a march by supporters of the terrorist organisation Hizballah, and now Ebrahim Bham, an antisemitic hate preacher, has been permitted to enter the country to address the Palestine Expo at the government-owned prestigious Queen Elizabeth conference centre.

We warned the government about the pro-Hizballah march, we voiced our concerns about the speakers at Palestine Expo, and we implored them to stop Bham from entering the country.

In a speech delivered by Bham on the “Middle East” and posted on the website “Lectures by Sheikh Ebrahim Bham”, he said compared Israelis to Nazis, quoting Goebbels to say that: “‘People tell me that Jews are human beings. Yes, I know they are human beings. Just as fleas are also animals. Just as fleas are also animals, they are also part of human beings like that.’…Using that example, the psyche of the whole people seems to be to mete out the very same treatment to others the way was meted out toward them. And that seems to be the psyche. That they don’t regard Palestinians as human beings.” Under the International Definition of Antisemitism adopted by the British Government, “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” and “Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel” is antisemitic.

In another speech delivered by Bham on the “Situation of the Muslims”, he said that all Jews and Christians are agents of Satan: “For us to expect otherwise, or to try and appease the Americans or the Western world is naïve in the extreme. The Qur’an tells us ‘the Yahood [Jews] and the Nasara [Christians] will never be pleased with you.’ You can never appease them until you follow their religion, their way of life, and we are not prepared to do that. We will never be able to do that. It is naïve to expect otherwise.” He continued: “Then secondly, the aims, the objectives, the goals of Islam are completely opposed to what they believe, are completely opposed to their dreams, objectives and goals. So they are fulfilling their evil urges. They are fulfilling their evil urges, acting as agents of Shaytaan [Satan] in employing instruments, methods and plots against Islam and the Muslims.”

The government is doing a difficult job in difficult circumstances, but as an organisation which works closely with the government even we find it incomprehensible that despite the intelligence we have provided, the government is permitting extremism to flourish. Ebrahim Bham will not be speaking out of sight at some hidden gathering place; he will openly address a ticketed audience in the government’s very own convention centre opposite Parliament.

Rather than merely stepping up the rhetoric against extremism, we need to see concrete action. If Britain is to protect its Jewish citizens and indeed all of society, then its government cannot continue to be outwitted by extremists and terrorist sympathisers.

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Two weeks after losing his temper over pressure to call for a total ban on Hizballah, Sadiq Khan adds his voice to growing calls for complete proscription

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has finally decided to add his voice to the growing clamour to proscribe Hizballah in its entirety under the Terrorism Act 2000.

Whilst the British government has proscribed the “military wing” of Hizballah under the Terrorism Act 2000, the “political wing” is not proscribed, something that even Hizballah finds ridiculous. In October 2012, Hizballah Deputy Secretary-General, Naim Qassem, said: “We don’t have a military wing and a political one; we don’t have Hizballah on one hand and the resistance party on the other…Every element of Hizballah, from commanders to members as well as our various capabilities, are in the service of the resistance, and we have nothing but the resistance as a priority.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has long led calls for Hizballah to be proscribed in its entirety by the Home Secretary.

Hizballah seeks the annihilation of all Jews worldwide and has committed acts of terror from Bangkok to Buenos Aires to Burgas, yet on 18th June, hundreds of its supporters were permitted to march through central London for the annual “Al Quds Day” pro-Hizballah show of force. Our lawyers are reviewing evidence from the march, which the Metropolitan Police Service allowed to go ahead, even closing major roads and moving anti-terrorism demonstrators out of the way.

In a letter to London Assembly Member Andrew Dismore, Mr Khan said: “I share the concerns of the Jewish community about support shown for Hezbollah, which is an illegal, proscribed and antisemitic organisation. Antisemitism or hate crime of any kind has no place in our city, where we don’t just tolerate diversity, we respect and celebrate it. I remain in contact with the [Metropolitan Police Service] Commissioner about this issue, and will be writing to the Home Secretary to make strong representations on behalf of London’s Jewish communities about their legitimate and understandable concerns. I will continue to work with the [Metropolitan Police Service] and communities across the capital to do everything in my power to crack down on extremism and ensure London’s Jewish communities feel safe and secure in London.”

Two weeks ago, Mr Khan​ grew angry and lost his temper during a session of Mayor’s Question Time at the London Assembly. One by one, Assembly Members David Kurten of UKIP, Andrew Dismore of Labour, and Andrew Boff of the Conservatives had asked the Mayor whether he would join calls for the Home Secretary to proscribe the whole of Hizballah. The Mayor however refused to be pressed on whether he would back such calls with his own letter to the Home Secretary, repeatedly insisting that he needed to see more evidence, and even that the best thing for him to do would be to obtain more funding for the Metropolitan Police Service, despite the police refusing to take any action until the whole of Hizballah is proscribed. When Assembly Member Andrew Boff demanded clarity on whether the Mayor will write to the Home Secretary, the Mayor lost his temper, refusing to confirm what he would do and instead resorting to astonishing playground taunts.

We welcome this turnaround by the Mayor.

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Three months after 107 Labour MPs issued an ultimatum to expel Livingstone, the Labour Party remains a dystopia for Jews

The Jewish Community stands at a key moment in its history as a minority community living in the United Kingdom. Though after the Second World War it might have expected a certain low-level of antisemitism to rumble on — particularly on the far-right, among neo-Nazis — it did not expect antisemitism to make the leap it had made in earlier epochs: namely to reinvent itself and find a stronghold on the left.

Though this reinvention has been in the making for several decades on the so-called hard, doctrinaire left, it did not fully bear fruit until the Gaza War of 2014, when it finally became obvious in mainstream discourse: especially to users of social media, in sections of the press, and to Jews on campus, both as teachers and as students.

But when that same ‘hard left’ took over the leadership of the Labour Party, there was a sickening lurch, as those closest to this new antisemitism became emboldened and promoted. In a short period of time under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, that antisemitism has matured beyond tropes demonising the Jewish state, until it is now possible to hear tropes favoured by the Nazis being spouted by elected Labour officials.

Despite losing the election, Mr Corbyn has strengthened his grip on the Labour leadership. Amongst the young in particular, he seems to have attained a populist status that is impervious to criticism. Labour Party critics of Mr Corbyn, who formerly laid down antisemitism as a red line issue for endorsing his leadership, are now seeking posts in his cabinet, as if that racism is now an  ‘undesirable flaw’ that can be morally accommodated. In this setting, British Jews cannot be blamed for imagining themselves to be living in a dystopia: one in which  many Corbynites identify with a community of virtue, but where  hatred of a particular ‘other’ is nevertheless permitted. The atmosphere is pregnant with premonitions of disaster for the Jewish community.

Arguably two individuals personify that dystopia best, as both are not only senior figures on the Corbynite left, but also have been close personal friends and allies of Mr Corbyn himself: Ken Livingstone, the former Mayor of London and Jackie Walker, the former Vice-Chair of Momentum.

As regards Ken Livingstone, three months ago today the Labour Party failed to expel him for claiming that “Hitler was supporting Zionism”. At that point, 107 Labour MPs and 48 Labour peers signed a statement expressing their disgust, declaring: “We stand with the Jewish community and British society against this insidious racism. This was not done in our name and we will not allow it to go unchecked.” Though a snap General Election intervened, the dust has settled to reveal Livingstone still standing, and the summary expulsion that should have seen him banished so long ago apparently forgotten.

Then this week, Jackie Walker, an individual who has taunted Jews with offensive references to the Holocaust that even Corbynites like Owen Jones have been repulsed by, as well as citing the trope promoted by Louis Farrakhan that “many Jews” were the “chief financiers of the slave trade”, launched a renewed tirade on social media.

In addressing a Jewish social media user against whom she had taken umbrage, she wrote “I’m offended by people who claim Israel is a democratic state and who use holocausts for political ends. I’m offended that in a year when we have seen unparalleled attention on racism it’s been almost 100% confined to antisemitism. I’m offended that in the recent dialogue on racism it’s power that has counted not so much evidence. I’m offended by people who…claim victimhood to mask their own deep racism, who copy fascists…who make one people more important than another.” She concluded: “You want to be offended — go ahead.” Though repetition in her case is proving tedious, Jackie Walker has once again made statements in clear breach of the International Definition of Antisemitism accepted by the Labour Party, which are also clearly offensive to Jews, and which, in addition, bring the Labour party into disrepute.

On the three month anniversary of the ‘Not in my name’ declaration, and in the light of yet another offensive post by Jackie Walker, we at Campaign against Antisemitism call once again — despite the imperviousness of the Labour party — for swift action to be taken and for transparent justice to be seen to be done. We will, in addition, continue to point out that antisemitism has holed Labour below the moral waterline, in a way that ultimately will cause it to sink entirely, no matter how healthy its fortunes seem to be now.

However, nothing less than the moral health of the United Kingdom’s polity is now at risk. For Her Majesty’s Opposition to turn away from such bigotry as if it was something to be politically accommodated is unacceptable for the nation as a whole, let alone a party that claims to be a bulwark against racism.

To an adoring crowd at Glastonbury, Mr Corbyn proclaimed to the biggest cheer of the night: “…racism is wrong, divisive and evil within our society”.

We live in a dystopia of the kind we never thought we would witness, but it is here. As a consequence, both the Jewish community and the Labour Party find themselves teetering on the edge.

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Sajid Javid authorises use of government-owned conference centre for troubling Palestine Expo, after organisers threaten legal action

Palestine Expo 2017, with a list of controversial speakers, will be going ahead on 8th and 9th July at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in Westminster, opposite the Houses of Parliament. The conference centre “is an executive agency, sponsored by the Department for Communities and Local Government”.

It is extremely troubling that this event is being held at an iconic, government-sponsored venue, right opposite the seat of British democracy. We wrote to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Sajid Javid, expressing our concerns, however today the Department for Communities and Local Government confirmed to Campaign Against Antisemitism that the event is authorised to proceed following “checks” made by the government. We understand that Mr Javid wrote to the organisers in contemplation of cancelling the event, but that after the organisers threatened legal action, he authorised the event to proceed.

The event is billed as “the biggest social, cultural and entertainment event on Palestine to ever take place in Europe” and is being heavily advertised. According to the Palestine Expo Facebook page on 6th June: “This week over 200 Palestine Expo billboards went up across London Underground platforms.” A closer look, however, has uncovered troubling undertones to what is billed as a cultural event that will give the British and European public a taste of Palestinian food, art, music, entertainment and history. We would like to thank Jewish Human Rights Watch for sharing detailed information about this event with us.

The organisers of the event are the Leicester-based, Friends of Al-Asqa, which was founded and is chaired by Ismail Patel. At a “Stop the Gaza Massacre” demonstration in London on 10th January 2009, during “Operation Cast Lead”, Mr Patel told a cheering crowd that “Hamas is not a terrorist organisation. The reason that they hate Hamas is because they refuse to be subjugated to be occupied by the Israeli state and we salute Hamas for standing up to Israel.” Hamas is listed by the British government as a proscribed organisation under the Terrorism Act and advocates the murder of Jews around the world. In 2009, Friends of Al-Aqsa published an opinion article by Palestinian journalist Khalid Amayreh, who claimed that “It is well known that Israel, through the numerous Zionist lobbies or pressure groups, more or less controls America’s politics, media and financial institutions” and that the Iraq war “was conceived in and planned by Israel through the mostly Jewish neocons in Washington.”

We put these matters to Friends of Al-Aqsa and Mr Patel. Friends of Al-Aqsa told us that “We consider antisemitism and any form of racism extremely repugnant”, that Mr Patel’s praise for Hamas was merely “intended to be specific to that time period [during ‘Operation Cast Lead’] while Gaza and its governing body (Hamas) were under sustained military assault”. It also noted that it removed the article by Mr Amayreh from its website and has published articles by a number of Jewish people.

The list of speakers for the Palestine Expo 2017 includes individuals with worrying views.

One speaker, John Pilger, an Australian film-maker, wrote in The Guardian in 2006 that Hizballah represented “humanity at its noblest”, writing: “The resistance to rapacious power, to epic crimes of invasion (which the Nuremberg judges called the ‘paramount’ crime) is humanity at its noblest; yet the paradox warns us that no resistance is pretty; that each adds its own form of violence in order to expel an invader (such as the civilians killed by Hizbollah rockets); and this has applied to heroic partisans in Europe and heroic Kurds and those faceless, despised Iraqis who have succeeded in pinning down the American homicidal machine in their country.”

Another speaker, Tariq Ramadan, an Egyptian-Swiss academic, was banned from 2004 to 2010 from entering the United States for allegedly supporting a charity that the Bush administration labelled a fundraiser for Hamas (the ban was lifted by the Obama administration). He also reportedly wrote on Facebook in May 2014 that Belgian officials may be part of a conspiracy to falsely present the Brussels Jewish museum shootings as antisemitic. According to The Forward, Professor Ramadan wrote: “The two tourists targeted in Brussels worked for the Israeli secret services”. Claiming that the Belgian government had not commented, Professor Ramadan pondered: “Coincidence. Is this a case of antisemitism or a maneuver to divert attention from the real motives of the executioners? We oppose all slaying of innocents and racism but at the same time, it’s time they stopped taking us for fools.”

A third speaker, Malia Bouattia, is the recently-defeated President of the National Union of Students (NUS), who called Birmingham University a “Zionist outpost in higher education” because it has “the largest Jsoc [Jewish student society] in the country.” She railed against “Zionist-led media outlets”, characterised Palestinian terrorism as “resistance” and voted against condemning ISIS. When called on by Campaign Against Antisemitism and numerous student leaders to retract her comments, she penned an article in The Guardian claiming that her accusers were simply sexists and racists. Ms Bouattia has since refused to confirm that Israel even has a right to exist, and she told an audience at the School of Oriental and African Studies that the government’s anti-terrorism strategy is led by “Zionist and neo-con lobbies”. Last July, Ms Bouattia drew further condemnation when she used her casting vote to strip Jewish students of their ability to elect their own representative.

On 18th June, the Metropolitan Police Service permitted supporters of Hizballah to march through the streets of our capital. Today, we have learned that the government intends to allow its own conference centre opposite Parliament to be used for this troubling event. It is impossible to square these decisions with the government’s promises to the Jewish community.

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Sadiq Khan loses temper, resorts to playground taunts when asked by London Assembly members to back calls for full proscription of Hizballah

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan​ grew angry and lost his temper during Thursday’s session of Mayor’s Question Time at the London Assembly. One by one, Assembly Members David Kurten of UKIP, Andrew Dismore of Labour, and Andrew Boff of the Conservatives asked the Mayor whether he would join calls for the Home Secretary to proscribe the whole of Hizballah under the Terrorism Act 2000. Hizballah seeks the annihilation of all Jews worldwide and has committed acts of terror from Bangkok to Buenos Aires to Burgas, yet hundreds of its supporters were permitted to march through central London last Sunday for the annual “Al Quds Day” pro-Hizballah show of force.

Whilst the British government has proscribed the “military wing” of Hizballah under the Terrorism Act 2000, the “political wing” is not proscribed, something that even Hizballah finds ridiculous. In October 2012, Hizballah Deputy Secretary-General, Naim Qassem, said: “We don’t have a military wing and a political one; we don’t have Hizballah on one hand and the resistance party on the other…Every element of Hizballah, from commanders to members as well as our various capabilities, are in the service of the resistance, and we have nothing but the resistance as a priority.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has long led calls for Hizballah to be proscribed in its entirety by the Home Secretary, and our lawyers are reviewing evidence from last week’s march.

The Mayor however refused to be pressed on whether he would back such calls with his own letter to the Home Secretary, repeatedly insisting that he needed to see more evidence, and even that the best thing for him to do would be to obtain more funding for the Metropolitan Police Service, despite the police refusing to take any action until the whole of Hizballah is proscribed.

When Assembly Member Andrew Boff demanded clarity on whether the Mayor will write to the Home Secretary, the Mayor lost his temper, refusing to confirm what he would do and instead resorting to astonishing playground taunts.

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CAA raises concerns about Palestine Expo hosted at government-owned convention centre opposite Parliament

Palestine Expo 2017, with a list of controversial speakers, is being held on 8th and 9th July at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in Westminster, opposite the Houses of Parliament. According to the the government’s website, the conference centre “is an executive agency, sponsored by the Department for Communities and Local Government”.

The event is billed as “the biggest social, cultural and entertainment event on Palestine to ever take place in Europe” and is being heavily advertised. According to the Palestine Expo Facebook page on 6th June: “This week over 200 Palestine Expo billboards went up across London Underground platforms.” A closer look, however, has uncovered troubling undertones to what is billed as a cultural event that will give the British and European public a taste of Palestinian food, art, music, entertainment and history.

The organisers of the event are the Leicester-based, Friends of Al-Asqa, which was founded and is chaired by Ismail Patel. At a “Stop the Gaza Massacre” demonstration in London on 10th January 2009, during “Operation Cast Lead”, Mr Patel told a cheering crowd that “Hamas is not a terrorist organisation. The reason that they hate Hamas is because they refuse to be subjugated to be occupied by the Israeli state and we salute Hamas for standing up to Israel.” Hamas is listed by the British government as a proscribed organisation under the Terrorism Act and advocates the murder of Jews around the world. In 2009, Friends of Al-Aqsa published an opinion article by Palestinian journalist Khalid Amayreh, who claimed that “It is well known that Israel, through the numerous Zionist lobbies or pressure groups, more or less controls America’s politics, media and financial institutions” and that the Iraq war “was conceived in and planned by Israel through the mostly Jewish neocons in Washington.”

We put these matters to Friends of Al-Aqsa and Mr Patel. Friends of Al-Aqsa told us that “We consider antisemitism and any form of racism extremely repugnant”, that Mr Patel’s praise for Hamas was merely “intended to be specific to that time period [during ‘Operation Cast Lead’] while Gaza and its governing body (Hamas) were under sustained military assault”. It also noted that it removed the article by Mr Amayreh from its website and has published articles by a number of Jewish people.

The list of speakers for the Palestine Expo 2017 includes individuals with worrying views.

One speaker, John Pilger, an Australian film-maker, wrote in The Guardian in 2006 that Hizballah represented “humanity at its noblest”, writing: “The resistance to rapacious power, to epic crimes of invasion (which the Nuremberg judges called the ‘paramount’ crime) is humanity at its noblest; yet the paradox warns us that no resistance is pretty; that each adds its own form of violence in order to expel an invader (such as the civilians killed by Hizbollah rockets); and this has applied to heroic partisans in Europe and heroic Kurds and those faceless, despised Iraqis who have succeeded in pinning down the American homicidal machine in their country.”

Another speaker, Tariq Ramadan, an Egyptian-Swiss academic, was banned from 2004 to 2010 from entering the United States for allegedly supporting a charity that the Bush administration labelled a fundraiser for Hamas (the ban was lifted by the Obama administration). He also reportedly wrote on Facebook in May 2014 that Belgian officials may be part of a conspiracy to falsely present the Brussels Jewish museum shootings as antisemitic. According to The Forward, Professor Ramadan wrote: “The two tourists targeted in Brussels worked for the Israeli secret services”. Claiming that the Belgian government had not commented, Professor Ramadan pondered: “Coincidence. Is this a case of antisemitism or a maneuver to divert attention from the real motives of the executioners? We oppose all slaying of innocents and racism but at the same time, it’s time they stopped taking us for fools.”

A third speaker, Malia Bouattia, is the recently-defeated President of the National Union of Students (NUS), who called Birmingham University a “Zionist outpost in higher education” because it has “the largest Jsoc [Jewish student society] in the country.” She railed against “Zionist-led media outlets”, characterised Palestinian terrorism as “resistance” and voted against condemning ISIS. When called on by Campaign Against Antisemitism and numerous student leaders to retract her comments, she penned an article in The Guardian claiming that her accusers were simply sexists and racists. Ms Bouattia has since refused to confirm that Israel even has a right to exist, and she told an audience at the School of Oriental and African Studies that the government’s anti-terrorism strategy is led by “Zionist and neo-con lobbies”. Last July, Ms Bouattia drew further condemnation when she used her casting vote to strip Jewish students of their ability to elect their own representative.

It is extremely troubling that this event is being held at an iconic, government-sponsored venue, right opposite the seat of British democracy. We are writing to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government expressing our concerns.

We would like to thank Jewish Human Rights Watch for sharing detailed information about this event with us.

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Labour MP Tulip Siddiq demands “truly independent” inquiry into Party’s antisemitism problem

Newly re-elected Labour MP Tulip Siddiq has demanded a “truly independent” inquiry into the Labour Party’s antisemitism problem when Parliament reconvenes. She also said that she wants Ken Livingstone to be expelled from the Party over his comments that “Hitler was supporting Zionism”.

The Labour Party held an infamous whitewash internal review into antisemitism in the Party which concluded that the Party did not have a major problem. The report’s author, Shami Chakrabarti, was elevated to the peerage following the publication of her report (she remains the only peer ever nominated by Jeremy Corbyn). The fiasco led one of Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Honorary Patrons, Lord Mitchell, to resign from the Labour Party, telling a television audience that Mr Corbyn had failed to tackle antisemitism in the Party and had surrounded himself with people who are hostile to Jews. The Party’s abject failure to deal firmly with antisemitism in its midst was exemplified by the decision merely to partially suspend veteran Labour figure Ken Livingstone, instead of expelling him from the Party. We called the decision “the Labour Party’s final brazen act of betrayal”.

Ms Siddiq told Jewish News: “I grew up in Hampstead around the Jewish community. They felt the Labour Party was their natural home. Now, people say to me they feel like they don’t belong anymore and that they’re not welcome. I think there are certain elements of antisemitism in the Party that have not been dealt with properly. I am determined that MPs like me, Wes Streeting and Joan Ryan will stand up and say, to borrow from Theresa May, ‘enough is enough’. We can’t go on like this this while the community feels so disenfranchised and disillusioned.”

We endorse Ms Siddiq’s request for a transparent, genuinely independent inquiry into antisemitism within the Labour Party, which should scrutinise the manner in which individual cases have been handled and failures of leadership. We also call on the Labour Party to adopt our manifesto for fighting antisemitism in political parties.

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Woman outside Borehamwood polling station filmed chanting “Vote Labour, let’s get the Jews out” at voters

A woman outside a Borehamwood polling station has been filmed chanting: “Vote Labour, let’s get the Jews out” as voters simply walk past her. The video has not been released publicly.

Michelle Vince, the leader of the local Hertsmere Labour Group, has made a complaint to the police. She told the Borehamwood Times: “We are horrified and shocked that antisemitic behaviour has occurred outside of a polling station in Hertsmere. This is not a vote that we want. We are asking to see images of the person and if they are a member of the Party they will be expelled. We are asking for this to be investigated and we will always challenge this behaviour as racism of any form cannot be tolerated.”

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UKIP candidate Philip Rose tweeted David Icke’s conspiracy myth about “Rothschild Zionists”

It has been discovered that Philip Rose, the UKIP parliamentary candidate for Amber Valley, in Derbyshire, in the general election that has just closed, has tweeted the views of David Icke, and his theories about what he calls “Rothschild Zionism”. Mr Icke claims that a secret cabal of “Rothschild Zionists” has subverted democracy and secretly runs the world, writing in his book: “I strongly believe that a small Jewish clique which has contempt for the mass of Jewish people worked with non-Jews to create the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the Second World War. This Jewish elite used the First World War to secure the Balfour Declaration and the principle of the Jewish State of Israel (for which, given the genetic history of most Jewish people, there is absolutely no justification on historical grounds or any other).”

Mr Rose has repeatedly voiced his support for Mr Icke’s various theories on Twitter and Facebook, including claiming that: “Fabians a part of the elite communitarian agenda – Rothschild-Zionist clean sweep. Perhaps real division = liberty or [New World Order]?”

It is disturbing that UKIP should have selected a parliamentary candidate who subscribes to antisemitic conspiracy myths. Recently we discovered that another UKIP candidate, Captain Paddy Singh had tweeted: “At times I ask myself were the Nazis right in herding the Jews into concentration camps”.

According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, “Making mendacious, dehumanising, demonising, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions” is antisemitic.

Campaign Against Antisemitism put it to Mr Rose that he believes antisemitic conspiracy myths, however Mr Rose decried Campaign Against Antisemitism as the real racists, pointing out that his father’s mother was Jewish and that not all Zionists are Jews, so “Rothschild Zionists” is not a racial term. He added: “I am not familiar with the ‘International Definition of Antisemitism’ but from what you write it looks like a catch-all for anyone who may question anything about Jewish people or institutions.”

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Labour suspends blogger who allegedly demanded to know if BBC interviewer was a “Zionist” after Corbyn’s performance is ridiculed

Labour member Phillip Jones has reportedly been suspended by the Labour Party pending investigation over a tweet in which he allegedly demanded to know whether a BBC interviewer was a “Zionist”.

BBC journalist Emma Barnett had just interviewed Jeremy Corbyn on Woman’s Hour, during which she repeatedly asked him to give the costs of the Labour Party’s childcare pledge. Mr Corbyn was pilloried for his performance, leading various Twitter users, including antisemites whom we have been aware of for some time, to claim that Ms Barnett had deliberately tripped Mr Corbyn up because she is a “Zionist”.

The “Labour Insider” Twitter account allegedly used by Mr Jones demanded more information, asking: “Allegations have surfaced that @EmmaBarnett is a Zionist. Are the allegations true Emma?”

According to The Times, Mr Jones insisted he did not personally post the offending tweet but he has been suspended pending investigation.

Mr Jones has not yet responded to Campaign Against Antisemitism, and when we tweeted the “Labour Insider” account, we were blocked within minutes.

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Audience member shouts “Jew, Jew, Jew!” at Labour candidate in Bradford for saying that Israel has a right to exist

Labour candidate for Bradford West, Naz Shah, was shouted at during a hustings in Bradford. When berated by a member of the audience for being a “Zionist”, Ms Shah confirmed that she believed that Israel has a right to exist, to which an audience member should “Jew, Jew, Jew!”

According to the International Definition of Antisemitism adopted by the British government “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 antisemitic.

Social media posts from 2014 by Ms Shah led to her being suspended from the Labour Party in May last year. She had suggested that the Jewish state should be “relocated” to America, suggesting that she would “tweet Barack Obama and David Cameron and put this idea to them”. She also tweeted an image with the quote “Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal” and added “#ApartheidIsrael”. In August 2014 Ms Shah tweeted a link to an article claiming that Zionism used “religious symbolism…to groom other modernised men and women of Jewish descent to exert political influence at the highest levels of public office by using the guilt of the pogroms and offered a solution to the ‘Jewish Question’ in Europe.” In July 2014, she posted a link on Facebook to a newspaper poll asking whether Israel had committed war crimes in Gaza, commenting: “The Jews are rallying to the poll.” When the posts were discovered, Ms Shah apologised for them and was subsequently readmitted to the Party.

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Conservative candidate’s posters may have been targeted with swastikas over “longstanding support for the Jewish community”

The Conservative candidate for South East Cornwall, Sheryll Murray, has said that she was “sickened” after swastikas were carved into one of her election posters.

Mrs Murray told Jewish News: “I am sickened by this attack on my posters which was signed with a swastika. This symbol is incredibly offensive to both Jews who lost so many and the British who stood firm against its tyranny.” Mrs Murray’s election agent, Bob Davidson, added: “This is clearly an attack from a group who despise Sheryll’s longstanding support for the Jewish community. The posters were cut with a sharp implement so clearly they went prepared with something that could also be used as a weapon.”

Mrs Murray is a supporter of Holocaust Memorial Day and has visited the Auschwitz concentration camp. She is also a member of Conservative Friends of Israel.

Devon and Cornwall Police is investigating.

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Romanian government resolves to incorporate the International Definition of Antisemitism into national law

The Romanian government has decided to formally adopt the International Definition of Antisemitism. The definition is clear and detailed, leaving no doubt as to what antisemitism is. In particular, the definition tackles the full spectrum of antisemitism, from ancient slurs to conspiracy myths to antisemitism in discourse about Israel.

Romania’s Ministry of Justice will now consult the Ministry of Internal Affairs and law enforcement agencies, before proposing reforms which will incorporate the definition into Romanian law. The definition will be used to train law enforcement officers and will also be incorporated into the national curriculum in schools.

The Romanian government described the move as an “expression of Romania’s resolute action against antisemitism, extremism, racism and all forms of discrimination and intolerance”, saying that the country “will gain an efficient instrument for better defining antisemitic actions and for better understanding the consequences deriving from these”.

Britain was the first country to adopt the definition, something for which Campaign Against Antisemitism, Sir Eric Pickles and others worked hard over many meetings. Austria became the next national government to adopt the definition, and now the Romanian government has done the same.

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European Parliament calls on EU member states to adopt International Definition of Antisemitism and appoint politicians tasked with fighting antisemitism

The European Parliament has voted today to call on member states to adopt the International Definition of Antisemitism and to appoint politicians in each member state who are tasked with fighting antisemitism.

MEPs spoke to condemn rising antisemitism, demanding that member states cooperate to prosecute antisemitic hate crime, gather more accurate data on hate crime and its causes, “take expeditious action to prevent and combat antisemitic hate speech online” and “promote the teaching of the Holocaust”. The MEPs voted to ask the “[European] Commission and the Member States to increase financial support for targeted activities and educational projects against discrimination and hate crimes, to build up and strengthen partnerships with European Jewish communities, institutions and civil society organisations, and to encourage exchanges between children and young people of different faiths via joint activities, launching and supporting awareness-raising campaigns in that regard.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism strongly welcomes the European Parliament’s endorsement of the definition which is clear and detailed, leaving no doubt as to what antisemitism is. In particular, the definition tackles the full spectrum of antisemitism, from ancient slurs to conspiracy myths to antisemitism in discourse about Israel.

The International Definition of Antisemitism is already used around the world, but only recently have national governments begun to formally adopt it. Britain was the first country to adopt the definition, something for which Campaign Against Antisemitism, Sir Eric Pickles and others worked hard over many meetings. Austria became the next national government to adopt the definition, and now the Romanian government has followed.

 

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Labour candidate for Vauxhall, Kate Hoey, canvassing with Jeremy Corbyn’s brother, Piers, who tweeted antisemitic conspiracy myths

Kate Hoey, the Labour candidate seeking re-election as the MP for Vauxhall in South London, has been canvassing with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s brother, Piers Corbyn, who retweeted that Jewish conspirators and the Royal Family will force Donald Trump into war, just like they supposedly did to Hitler.

Hoey, who has been the MP for Vauxhall since 1989 and served as Minister for Sport from 1999-2001, posted a photo on Twitter on 16th May with Piers and other supporters with the caption “Such a well organised group @VauxhallLab good fun too!” Another photo appeared on Twitter on 20th May, showing Piers and Hoey canvassing again.

On 21st January this year, we exposed that Piers, a fervent supporter of his brother, retweeted @whiteknight0011, a notorious neo-Nazi who declared that “They will force Trump in to war What do you think happened to Hitler? Bilderberg CIA IMF Banker Gangsters They are the problem” along with four images. The @whiteknight0011 account has since been suspended.

One image showed Lord Jacob Rothschild, the Jewish banker and philanthropist, against the background of a Nazi flag, claiming that he controls the world. A second showed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a puppeteer controlling ISIS through Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, orchestrating the war in Syria and Paris attacks as Lord Rothschild and the Queen look on approvingly. A third image showed the faces of supposed Jewish conspirators who run the world to society’s detriment, proclaiming: “Know your enemy”. The last image showed a family photo of the Royal Family, claiming that they are in cahoots with these Jewish conspirators in committing “the worst genocides, invasions and theft in all history.”

Piers also claimed that “Zionists” were conspiring against his brother: when Jewish MP Louise Ellman complained of antisemitic attacks against her, Piers accused her of using it as a cover for political attack, tweeting: “ABSURD! JC+ All #Corbyns are committed #AntiNazi. #Zionists cant cope with anyone supporting rights for #Palestine”. Brother Jeremy’s response: “He’s not wrong.”

https://twitter.com/JolyonGreen/status/865858849940623360

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“At times I ask myself were the Nazis right in herding the Jews into concentration camps” muses UKIP candidate Captain Paddy Singh

Captain Paddy Singh, UKIP’s candidate for the Wiltshire North constituency in the upcoming General Election, has tweeted a series of shocking antisemitic comments with repeated references to “Nazi Jews” and comparing Israeli policy to the Nazis. Captain Singh also stood for UKIP in the recent Wiltshire Council Election. In one, he mused: “At times I ask myself were the Nazis right in herding the Jews into concentration camps.”

The appalling antisemitic tweets were discovered on the Twitter account he operates for his travel agency, Hindoostan Tours, between 2014 and 2015. The tweets include:

On 20th July 2014: “The Israelis are basically Nazis in mentality. The survivors of the tragic Holacast [sic] learnt from their captors.”

On 30th July 2014: “No hope of a ceasefire with the Nazi Jews like wild dogs on the rampage.”

On 1st August 2014: “Israel pulled out in 2005 but the Gaza still in a vicelike grip. but Nazi Jews provoke Hamas to violence so as to ethnically cleanse them.”

On 2nd August 2014: “At times I ask myself were the Nazis right in herding the Jews into concentration camps.”

On 5th August 2014: “Sinister similarities to what Nazis did when they lost soldiers in occupied territory. Lessons learnt by Jews.”

On 2nd September 2014: “Rogue Nethanyu [sic] and Jews will never allow Palestine to exist. Their goal? Ethnic cleansing. aided by US.”

On 30th July 2015: “The Jews well learnt well from Nazis hence the easy ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. UN impotent as always.”

On 2nd September 2015: “Nazi Jews hammering the last nail in the coffin spelling Palestinian cleansing.”

On 24th December 2015: “Nazi Jews learnt their lessons well.”

Under the International Definition of Antisemitism, “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” and “Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel” is antisemitic.

When Campaign Against Antisemitism called Captain Singh, he admitted that he had sent the tweets and offered “total apologies” and said that he should not have commented “spontaneously” after reading articles, but had no explanation for why he had made the comments repeatedly over the years. When asked whether he supported the International Definition of Antisemitism, he said that he did but then seemed surprised that he had breached it.

Captain Singh has now been suspended by UKIP over the allegations. Campaign Against Antisemitism calls on UKIP to expel Captain Singh from the Party immediately.

If you would like to join our Political and Government Investigations Unit, our Online Monitoring Unit or one of our other teams, please volunteer.

https://twitter.com/hindoostantours/status/490787926872059904

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Jeremy Corbyn teams up with rapper Jme who allegedly retweeted “#ImSweatingMoreThan a Jew at a cash machine”

Jme, the rapper and MC, who teamed up with Jeremy Corbyn in a plea to young people to register to vote, has been exposed by MailOnline for allegedly sending an antisemitic retweet about a stingy Jew. On his verified Twitter account, Jme reportedly retweeted an antisemitic message in 2011, saying: “#ImSweatingMoreThan a Jew at a cash machine.” The stereotype of the miserly and cheap Jew is extremely offensive.

Jme, whose real name is Jamie Adenuga, is the co-founder of the Boy Better Know grime collective and record label. He met with the Labour Party leader to discuss the reasons why young people do not register to vote. The pair recorded a message on Mr Corbyn’s Snapchat account to urge young people to submit their application before the deadline on 22nd May. The Labour leader also shared a photo on Twitter.

According to MailOnline, a “spokesman for Mr Corbyn today insisted the Labour leader condemned racism, antisemitism and misogyny.”

Jme was much less understanding though, tweeting: “The retweet, was a series of ‘sweating more than’ hashtags, which played on Jewish being rich. I still don’t get the anti semite part???”

Twitter users stepped forward to explain.

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Police called in after Conservative candidate who converted to Judaism says Corbyn supporter jabbed him, then said she will “need a wash now”

Andrew Percy, the Conservative parliamentary candidate seeking re-election as MP for Brigg and Goole, has said that he was accosted by a woman identifying herself as a “Corbyn supporter” whilst he was out campaigning. The woman allegedly shouted at Mr Percy: “You’re that Israeli scum, you’re Zionist scum, you’re disgusting!” and started jabbing at him. Mr Percy said that he retorted sarcastically that she “probably didn’t want to touch a Jewish person”, to which he says she replied: “Oh, I will need a wash now” and then started chanting “Corbyn, Corbyn, Corbyn!”

Mr Percy wrote a post condemning the incident on his Facebook page. He wrote: “Whether a Labour member or not it does show just what hate has been unleashed by the Corbynista set.” He added that Mr Corbyn had “unleashed something very nasty and sinister”. However he soon deleted the post as he was having to spend too much time deleting comments such as: “F*** Israel, f*** Zionists”. In a new Facebook post he wrote: “I have now reported the incident to the authorities and will leave it for the police to deal with. I had initially thought I’d get it off my chest on here and then move on, but given how some responded, I have decided it is better it is reported.”

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Jeremy Corbyn adviser Tim Lezard questions whether security for British Jews should continue due to “Israel bombing Gaza”, Labour calls it a “staffing matter”

Political website Guido Fawkes has revealed a series of antisemitic tweets by Tim Lezard, a new advisor to Labour Party Leader, Jeremy Corbyn, on relations with trade unions.

In one tweet, Lezard implies that Jews should be left to face rising antisemitism without security because he opposed an Israeli military operation in Gaza, asking: “When antisemitism rises as a result of Israel bombing Gaza, should UK tax-payers fund security for synagogues?” According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, “Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel” is antisemitic.

In another tweet, he asked his 3,000 followers: “I’m thinking of setting up another new campaign group. Either Conservative Friends of Nazis, or Nazi Friends of Israel. Whaddya reckon?” According to the definition, “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” is antisemitic. He also appears to suggest in yet another tweet that the Holocaust is being used as a means of “blackmail”.

According to Guido Fawkes, Lezard confirmed that he has been hired to work for Corbyn. The only comment from Corbyn’s spokesman is reportedly that: “We do not comment on staffing matters”.

Tim Lezard should not be allowed to remain in the Labour Party, let alone in its inner circle, advising its leader. His antisemitic tweets span a period of several years and at the time of writing they have not been deleted. That the Labour leader’s spokesman saw fit to describe these tweets as “staffing matters” is sickening.

https://twitter.com/TolpuddleTim/status/564693576861638656

https://twitter.com/TolpuddleTim/status/145973052218408961

https://twitter.com/TolpuddleTim/status/626001170897747968

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Melanie Melvin leaves Labour after claiming “Sarin gassing was filmed by the BBC at Pinewood on the orders of Mrs May and the Israeli lobby”

Labour activist, Melanie Melvin, who was elected Women’s Officer of the Brighton Kemptown Constituency Labour Party earlier this year, has reportedly left the Labour Party after antisemitic tweets allegedly appeared on her Twitter account.

According to a report in the JC, “Labour has confirmed that an activist who sent anti-Israel and anti-Jewish tweets is no longer a member of the Party.” It added: “However, a spokesperson for South East Labour Party declined to comment on whether she had been expelled or suspended.”

On 2nd February, responding to a post calling for action against the “bullying” of Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott, Melvin allegedly tweeted that “maybe she could claim Jewish ancestry. Then there’d be action.” She also claimed that allegations of antisemitism in the Party “weaken us all” and were “unfounded smears”.

Then on 7th April, a message on Melvin’s account suggested that the Israelis were part of a conspiracy to fake the Assad regime’s chemical attack. She allegedly tweeted: “Breaking: Sarin gassing was filmed by the BBC at Pinewood on the orders of Mrs May and the Israeli lobby.”

Unfortunately it is very unlikely that we will get clarity on what disciplinary action has been taken, or whether Melvin simply resigned, because following Baroness Chaktrabarti’s whitewash report into antisemitism in the Party, Labour has kept its disciplinary decisions secret.

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Baroness Tonge shares and then deletes cartoon which claims that the situation in Gaza is the same as the Holocaust

On the day that we noted the absurd comparisons which belittle the Holocaust, Baroness Tonge has brazenly compared the situation in Gaza to the situation of the six million Jews who were murdered during the Holocaust.

Baroness Tonge took to Facebook to share a cartoon by the notorious antisemitic cartoonist, Carlos Latuff, who won second prize in one of Iran’s repulsive Holocaust denial cartoon competitions.

The cartoon portrays an anguished Jew in concentration camp prisoners’ uniform hanging on barbed wire beneath the words “Never again”, alongside an Arab man in an identical pose with the word “Gaza” on his leg, above the word “Over again!” Both figures’ arms and legs are arranged in the shape of swastikas.

Under the International Definition of Antisemitism, “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” is antisemitic.

Baroness Tonge has now deleted the Facebook post, but it is merely the latest in a litany of incidents. The House of Lords Commissioner for Standards has previously refused to take action against Baroness Tonge, but we will complain again.

It is disgraceful that Baroness Tonge retains her title and position as a legislator.

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Austria becomes the latest country to adopt the International Definition of Antisemitism

The Austrian government has decided to formally adopt the International Definition of Antisemitism. The definition is clear and detailed, leaving no doubt as to what antisemitism is. In particular, the definition tackles the full spectrum of antisemitism, from ancient slurs to conspiracy myths to antisemitism in discourse about Israel.

The decision was taken by Austria’s Council of Ministers. The definition will now be used by Austria’s government and judiciary, as well as in educational establishments such as universities.

A spokesman for the Austrian People’s Party said that the decision sent a “national and international signal”.

Britain was the first country to adopt the definition, something for which Campaign Against Antisemitism, Sir Eric Pickles and others worked hard over many meetings.

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Scottish Jewish community leaders allegedly branded “ideological terrorists” during antisemitism meeting at Scottish Parliament

Micheline Brannan, the Chair of the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities (SCoJeC), has lodged a complaint with the Scottish Parliament’s Presiding Officer following a debate about the definition of antisemitism in which she and two colleagues were allegedly branded “ideological terrorists” at the Cross Party Group on Palestine meeting in the Scottish Parliament on 25th April. There was also an attempt to have them excluded from the meeting.

According to a SCoJeC statement, “Philip Chetwynd, Treasurer of the Cross Party Group, referred to the three observers as ‘representatives of Zionist organisations’, called them ‘ideological terrorists’ and he said he felt intimidated by their presence. He had been intending to lead a discussion in the Group about the definition of antisemitism in Scotland — although this was not on the published agenda — but said he would not give his presentation because of the presence of the three observers.”

The Herald Scotland reports that “Mr Chetwynd admits using the term ‘ideological terrorists’ but denies being antisemitic.” Mr Chetwyn told the paper: “I said I regard Zionists as ideological terrorists because I think that is what they are. They actually infiltrate and try and destroy pro-Palestinian activities wherever they come across it.”

In her letter to the Presiding Officer, Ms Brannan wrote that “The effect of the antisemitic attack which I experienced was distressing and concerning and indeed I have never in my adult life or my role as Chair of SCoJeC been targeted so overtly.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism takes a close interest in fighting antisemitism in Scotland and we commend Ms Brannan for standing up to these allegedly appalling comments and intimidation. We trust that the Presiding Officer will take an appropriately tough stand.

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UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, pledges to be on the front line in the fight against antisemitism

António Guterres, the new Secretary-General of the United Nations, has pledged to be on the front line in the fight against antisemitism. In a powerful speech to delegates at the World Jewish Congress’ Plenary Assembly in New York, Guterres proclaimed that: “You can be absolutely sure, as Secretary-General of the United Nations, I will be in the front line of the struggle against antisemitism and to make sure the United Nations is able to to take all possible actions for antisemitism to be condemned, and if possible, eradicated from the face of the earth.”

“A modern form of antisemitism is the denial of the existence of the State of Israel,” Guterres said. “As Secretary-General of the United Nations, I can say that the State of Israel needs to be treated as any other state, with exactly the same rules.” Campaign Against Antisemitism welcomes and endorses this direct statement from the head of the United Nations regarding what is defined as antisemitism. It aligns with the International Definition of Antisemitism that was adopted by the British Government following a long campaign by Campaign Against Antisemitism and others. The definition states that “Applying double standards by requiring of Israel a behaviour not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation” is antisemitic.

Guterres, who only assumed office in January, also called the Holocaust “the most heinous crime in the history of mankind” and denounced rising antisemitism. “We see today antisemitism alive and well,” he said. “We see it in acts of physical aggression, murders of Jewish people in different parts of the world, destruction of property, destruction of monuments, destruction of centres.”

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Tim Farron sacks disgraced parliamentary candidate David Ward over antisemitism, after first claiming that he was powerless to intervene

Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron has bowed to pressure to sack his disgraced former MP, David Ward, after Ward was selected as the Liberal Democrat candidate for Bradford East. Mr Farron first claimed that he was powerless to intervene in local parties’ selection processes.

Campaign Against Antisemitism had worked with outraged Liberal Democrats to raise the issue with Mr Farron when news of Mr Ward’s selection broke yesterday, but to no avail: Mr Farron said that his hands were tied.

The knockout blow was delivered by Sir Eric Pickles and the Prime Minister during Prime Minister’s Questions. Sir Eric praised the Prime Minister for adopting the International Definition of Antisemitism on behalf of the government, and asked whether she felt that all parties should “not just pay lip service to it, but to actually do something about it”, before attacking Mr Ward’s views. The Prime Minister demanded that “all parties maintain the strongest possible censure on all forms of intolerance”. When Mr Farron was then called upon to speak, he avoided the issue, but tweeted later: “I believe in a politics that is open, tolerant and united. David Ward is unfit to represent the party and I have sacked him.”

Mr Ward has previously been suspended by the Party over his comments about Jews, the Holocaust and Israel. Mr Farron personally welcomed him back into the Party last year, saying he had “served his time”.

In 2013, he marked Holocaust Memorial Day by writing and entry on his website and in a Holocaust memorial book saying: “Having visited Auschwitz twice – once with my family and once with local schools – I am saddened that the Jews, who suffered unbelievable levels of persecution during the Holocaust, could within a few years of liberation from the death camps be inflicting atrocities on Palestinians in the new State of Israel and continue to do so on a daily basis in the West Bank and Gaza.” In a later statement he added: “It appears that the suffering by the Jews has not transformed their views on how others should be treated.” The International Definition of Antisemitism states that “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” is antisemitic.

In July same year he was suspended by the Party for three months over a tweeted statement appearing to call for the destruction of the State of Israel. The International Definition of Antisemitism states that “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 antisemitic.

In July 2014 he appeared to side with terrorist group Hamas, which seeks the annihilation of all Jews globally and is banned in the UK, tweeting: “The big question is – if I lived in #Gaza would I fire a rocket? – probably yes”. He apologised under severe pressure.

Last year, we complained to the Party after Mr Ward tweeted in response to the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee’s inquiry into antisemitism: “Antisemitism row becoming daft — for a voice of sanity see the PSC evidence to the Chakrabati Inquiry (and HASC)” but no action was taken against him.

We will remain in contact with senior Liberal Democrats whose work against antisemitism we applaud, however Mr Farron deserves no credit for allowing the selection of such an unsuitable candidate, then claiming to be powerless to intervene, then sacking him.

Just as in the case of Ashuk Ahmed MBE, who was suspended from the Party after we exposed him in the media yesterday, the Party was well aware of Mr Ward’s past but only acted under intense pressure.

It is a great shame that Tim Farron only seems to act on antisemitism when enough people are watching.

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Antisemitic candidate suspended by the Liberal Democrats after being exposed by CAA, but reappointed to advise Bedfordshire Police

Antisemite Ashuk Ahmed MBE has been suspended as the Liberal Democrat candidate for the Parliamentary constituency of Luton South after being exposed in the media by Campaign Against Antisemitism.

However Ahmed has been appointed Vice Chair of Bedfordshire Police South Independent Advisory Group (IAG). Ahmed was previously a member of the Luton IAG for Bedfordshire Police but quietly stood down following a complaint to police in November 2014 about his appalling antisemitic posts on Facebook.

Ahmed’s social media output has been riddled with the most virulent antisemitism, including the conspiratorial charge that ISIS is a Jewish invention whose horrors are propagated by the “Jewish media and their gentile pawns” in order to “justify more slaughter.” He described these conspiracy theories as the “truth about ISIS.” One of the conspiracy theory videos shared by Ahmed was by “Humanity United against AshkeNAZI”, an extreme antisemitic group which claims to “expose…the current take over of the united states by the jewish ashkenazi tribe.”

Ahmed further claimed that “Zionists control half the world”, told racist jokes in which Jews spitefully spit in Arabs’ clothes and urinate in their drinks, claimed “Jewish democracy” means bloodlust, wrote that the Labour and Conservative Parties are in the grip of their “Zionist paymasters” and painted the Israeli Prime Minister with blood dripping from his mouth while feasting on a child (an invocation of the blood libel, a medieval antisemitic trope).

Despite interviewing him under caution about the posts, Bedfordshire Police have allowed him to remain on the IAG and even permitted him to be promoted. The IAG advises on hate crime, and tells the Bedfordshire community, particularly its Jewish members that their police force is quite content to allow antisemites to hold positions of power.

In a statement to Campaign Against Antisemitism, Chief Superintendent David Boyle from Bedfordshire Police said: “The Bedfordshire Independent Advisory Groups (IAGs) provide independent advice to the force, as well as observe and monitor aspects of policing. We are aware of the current Vice-Chair of the South IAG’s former position within the IAG prior to its reformation, and of his decision to stand down during 2014. A police investigation was launched into reports of the sharing of antisemitic posts on Mr Ahmed’s Facebook page, but no criminal offences were found to have been committed. The selection of IAG committee members takes place jointly with Bedfordshire Police, and during the current formation of the South IAG there have been no concerns raised among the force of impartiality from any current serving members.”

Ahmed removed the offensive material when he discovered that he had been reported to police, but Campaign Against Antisemitism has screenshots of the hate-filled pages. We have been told that Ahmed was not charged with a crime because Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) lawyers said that they could not charge him because he did not write the material himself but was just passing it on. This appears to be another example of CPS lawyers failing to comprehend the law on antisemitism; it is of course a criminal offence to distribute antisemitic material written by others.

Despite the fact that Ahmed had been exposed as an antisemite, the Liberal Democrats still decided to select him as their candidate for the Luton South Constituency in the forthecoming General Election, just as they did in 2015. The Party only moved to suspend Ahmed when Campaign Against Antisemitism exposed him in the Daily Mail. This is outrageous and we call on the Liberal Democrats to expel him from the Party and send a clear message that their party is not a safe place for antisemites. Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron has previously said that he “thinks antisemitism should be called out at every single opportunity it rears its ugly head” and that Jews will find “a warm home” in his Party.

Ahmed clearly has some standing in his local community and was awarded an MBE in 2009 for “services to young people.” He has worked as a community development officer for North Hertfordshire Council, and he has also worked at a radio station which received the Queen’s Award for Volunteering and which purportedly works to tackle extremism.

It is unconscionable that someone who has been expelled from a police advisory group for such vile antisemitism can be reappointed as Vice-Chair a little over two years later. Both Bedfordshire Police and the Liberal Democrats must terminate their association with him immediately, in the case of the Liberal Democrats by expelling Ahmed from the Party. It should also be said that, had the Crown Prosecution Service not failed again to do its job properly, it is highly unlikely that he would still be in possession of his MBE.

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Labour Council candidate Mike Sivier defends far-left antisemites and quotes far-right Holocaust denier

Mike Sivier is a freelance journalist based in Llanindrod Wells, Mid Wales. He writes a blog called Vox Political as well as having a Facebook and Twitter feed. He is standing as a Labour Party candidate for Radnorshire and Builth Wells in the upcoming elections to Powys County Council. He enthusiastically supports the hard ‘Corbynite’ left within Labour, referring to those who formerly led the Party as “neoliberals”.

He writes prolifically on issues relating to Zionism and Jews and has ardently defended numerous members of the Labour Party who have been suspended or expelled over allegations of antisemitism. He has defended Jackie Walker, particularly for her comments that Jews were the chief financiers of the the slave trade. He endorses the views and cross-posts the writing of Tony Greenstein.

Concerning the late Tam Dalyell’s comment that Tony Blair may have been “unduly influenced…by a cabal of Jewish advisers”, Mr Sivier suggests that this may have been “entirely justified”, later writing to us to say that he had not intended to suggest that Mr Dalyell’s comment was accurate. He has defended some of the antisemitic tweets of Naz Shah, despite that MP accepting that what she had said was indeed antisemitic. He has asserted that the Socialist Workers’ Party’s omission of Jews from a list of victims of the Holocaust may have been “politically correct” and defended NUS President Malia Bouattia’s reference to the “Zionist-led media”. He regularly accuses Jews and others who point to antisemitism in his Party of acting in bad faith.

In fact, it seems there are virtually no allegedly antisemitic incidents or individuals on the Left that Mike Sivier has not either defended or supported.

Mr Sivier explicitly states that he believes that there is a “conspiracy” by Jews: “…it is a conspiracy, have no doubt about that” and those who would defend them in the UK. In the same breath as naming leading Jewish figures, Labour MPs and British journalists he says: “We are being told that agents of a foreign country have infiltrated our institutions”.

This would be enough for Campaign Against Antisemitism to question why the Labour Party is allowing him to remain a member, never mind stand for office in its name. However, Mr Sivier’s taste for antisemitic discourse runs to a deeper shade still: his support and enthusiastic defence of Ken Livingstone, and his assertion that Hitler supported Zionism, runs so deep that he has even written an e-book on the subject. Despite Mr Livingstone being found guilty of bringing the Labour Party into disrepute for making his assertions, and the unanimous determination by the world’s leading Holocaust historians that his interpretation of history is twisted, Mike Sivier is persistent and undaunted. After the verdict, unintimidated by historians of infinitely greater learning than himself, he determined that the Jewish community of this country is incapable of understanding its own history.

Mr Sivier seems determined, however, to ‘complete the set’ of every variety of contemporary antisemitism by linking to the work of Gilad Atzmon, an individual so antisemitic that he has been disowned by those on the left that are no strangers to antisemitism themselves. Gilad Atzmon has taken antisemitism to a new level, asserting that ‘Jewishness’ is toxic. He has written that “With Fagin and Shylock in mind Israeli barbarism and organ trafficking seem to be just other events in an endless hellish continuum” and said at a British University event that “…the burning down of a synagogue…is a rational act”. The post itself featured on the website Redressonline, a website so antisemitic it features Mr Atzmon’s work on a regular basis. Mr Sivier quoted directly in his own piece from the editor’s supplementary comments to Atzmon’s post.

When it was pointed out to Mr Sivier on Twitter that he had linked to Mr Atzmon’s work, and that Atzmon had re-posted his writing, Mr Silvier shrugged his shoulders, saying he was “…not all that bothered”.

Mr Sivier’s extensive writing provides Campaign Against Antisemitism with an unwelcome resumé of the varieties of antisemitism that have emerged in the contemporary Labour Party. He is not only antisemitic on several counts under the terms of the International Definition of Antisemitism, but, en route, defends many of the leading individuals responsible for it. Not content with that, he has shown himself to be unconcerned about both linking to and being reposted by a neo-Nazi.

In the light of this, and the very public nature of his extensive and offensive posts, it seems inconceivable that he has been allowed to stand as a Labour Councillor in next month’s elections. We call on the national and local Labour Party in Radnorshire and Builth Wells to deselect him as a candidate immediately.

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Holocaust denial comments and antisemitic libels left up on George Galloway’s Facebook page as supporters rail against Jews

Antisemitic comments have been posted by George Galloway’s supporters on his official Facebook page. Galloway, the controversial former Member of Parliament for the Labour and Respect Parties, is an independent candidiate in the by-election in Manchester Gorton that was scheduled for 4th May and is now being held as part of the General Election on 8th June following the death of Sir Gerald Kaufman MP.

The disgraceful Holocaust denial and revisionist comments should have been immediately removed by whoever is administering or moderating the page, or by Galloway himself, but instead they have been left for all to see.

In response to a video by Galloway on “What right did Britain have to grant you somebody else’s country”, which falsely claims that the Palestinians have been made to pay for the Holocaust, and that Muslim countries historically did not discriminate against Jews, Facebook user “David Spade” wrote that: “Red cross released figures showing only 271,000 people died in German camps, there has not been a single instance of a gas chamber proven, nor a document found showing hitler had any such idea. One need only dig deeper to see only 20,000 Jews died in those camps,a true end of the war, after the allies bombed Europe into dust. For more information check out the interviews for swindlers list you didn’t see”.

In one exchange, Facebook user “Elaine Kauai” wrote: “Please drop the 6 million number. Your video is very good and effective until you mention that number then the vid loses credibility.” She added that “the jew holocaust is a SHAM.” Spade responded: “20,000 Jews due to starvation when allies destroyed all supply lines. The camps were in fact pleasant places with swimming pools, theaters tuck shops and paid work”.

This is further evidence of the growing problem of online antisemitism. Just last week, we exposed antisemitic comments posted on Labour affiliated Facebook pages following the decision not to expel Ken Livingstone from Labour. In February, Campaign Against Antisemitism made a submission to the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee’s “Policing for the future: changing demands and new challenges” inquiry. We set out in detail the challenge presented by online antisemitism and proposed a robust plan for dealing with it.

If you would like to join our Political and Government Investigations Unit, our Online Monitoring Unit, or one of our other teams, please volunteer.

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Labour candidate Terry Couchman reportedly suspended for posts attacking “ZioNazi Final Solution” and “Jewish Organisations”

Terry Couchman, a Labour Party candidate for the Lyneham Ward in Wiltshire, appears to have been suspended by the Party over alleged antisemitic tweets and Facebook posts, including repeated references to “ZioNazis”. Before setting his Twitter account to keep his tweets private temporarily, an account using his name tweeted: “Suspended by the Labour Party for criticisms of ZioNazis. To minimise the ZioNazi biased Media towards Labour I will go private temporarily.”

In Facebook posts, an account using his name attacked “Jewish Organisations”, commenting: “Lets get things clear here – It is the ZioNazi Storm Troopers of IsraHell that are using ‘Chemical Weapons’. They are continuing their Ethnic Cleansing by way of other means of poisoning now. I hope all you Jewish Organisations that still support IsraHell are proud of yourselves.”

The account also declared the US strike on a Syrian airbase to be the “ZioNazi Final Solution”, whilst also suggesting that “The ZioNazis of IsraHell are at their dirty games of provoking wars again…they pay off US and UK Politicians to divide up the Middle East for them.”

These vile comments clearly breach the International Definition of Antisemitism which has been accepted by the Labour Party.

A Labour Party spokesperson told Jewish News: “The Labour Party is aware of complaints about Terry Couchman. The Party takes all complaints seriously and will take all appropriate disciplinary action in line with the Party’s rule book and procedures.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism awaits to find out more details about the apparent suspension and what further disciplinary action, if any, the Labour Party will take over these grossly antisemitic comments. In the past, the Labour Party has refused to reveal whether it has taken any disciplinary action, as recommended in a whitewash report on antisemitism in the Party by Baroness Chakrabarti.

Last week the Labour Party decided not to expel Ken Livingstone for saying that “supported Zionism, before he went mad and ended up killing six million Jews”.

If you would like to join our Political and Government Investigations Unit, our Online Monitoring Unit, or one of our other teams, please volunteer.

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Ken Livingstone is not alone, as shown by thousands of supporters on social media blurring the lines between far-left and far-right

The decision not to expel Ken Livingstone from the Labour Party has unleashed a tirade of antisemitism on many Labour-affiliated Facebook pages from Livingstone’s apologists and supporters who have jumped to his defence.

Far from being alone, Ken Livingstone is just the tip of the iceberg. His beliefs are shared by thousands of supporters, whose views are even more offensive. Posted openly on public Facebook pages for Labour supporters, not only are the comments themselves virulently antisemitic, but they have also been liked by other users with no opposition, and the pages’ administrators have not deleted the vile antisemitic comments or ensured that the debate on their forums is civil.

We have seen countless examples of extremely troubling Facebook comments in support of Livingstone. Many of them blur the lines between far-left and far-right antisemitism. We have reproduced a selection of the comments below, with corrected spelling and grammar.

On the “Truthers against Zionist lobbies” Facebook page, whose banner proudly declares “We support Jeremy Corbyn”, without commenting, “Kristi Cochran” posted a video entitled “Can you handle the truth about Jews?” and captioned: “How blind are you? Do you just refuse to hear? Wake up, this is not that hard.” Despite being a video by a neo-Nazi, four users ‘liked’ the video, and one, “Richard Norwood” even replied with a similar video which opens with the proclamation that “There is absolutely no doubt that Donald Trump is supported, owned and operated by the Zionist Jew power structure.”

Over on the “Jeremy Corbyn for PM” Facebook page, “Pat McGinley” was very disappointed that Jeremy Corbyn had criticised the decision not to expel Ken Livingstone from the Labour Party, posting: “It’s a great shame Jeremy seems to have caved in to the Zionist paid-puppets, like Watson, etc. He’s obviously under tremendous pressure from these puppets who can always count on their powerful media friends in the BBC, etc to aid and abet. And almost certainly, much more devious pressure which we are not privy to? But, Jeremy’s refusal to point out the vital difference between legitimate anti-Zionism and Zionist-engineered ‘antisemitism’ is extremely disappointing and inexcusable.”

Similarly, on the “We support Jeremy Corbyn” Facebook page, “Lynn Evans” was also sure who was subverting democracy, commenting: “The Zionist lobby is running this country. When will people wake up to this fact? They infiltrate the right, the left — every group. They are so pervasive as to be everywhere. If we left the EU because we want our country back, you’d better look under your bed!”

Over on the verified Facebook page of “Socialist Labour”, the administrator wrote: “Zionism did commit these crimes against the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, it is a right-wing racist and repulsive ideology which does not and should not be accepted as the legitimate representative of either the Jews of Israel or international Jewry. It now falls to Ken Livingstone and Jackie Walker and their supporters to win this struggle and strike this blow for the oppressed Palestinians and thereby for the whole of oppressed and exploited humanity.”

On the “Labour Party Forum” Facebook page, “Helen Butcher” wrote: “Could every Jewish person who knows Ken Livingstone is not antisemitic take to the airwaves to condemn this suspension? This is how antisemitism works, by finding scapegoats that are innocent.” In response, “John Joyce” commented: “A wise man once said to me — or hang on it could have been a wise woman — the advice is always the same: follow the money”. Elsewhere on the page, “Steve Gadget” warned: “That lobby is stronger and better organised than we can imagine. They’ve infiltrated each of the political parties and sponsor many MPs. Not only that, but they control most of the mainstream media, ensuring Palestine is silenced.”

The administrator of the “Momentum Gosport and Fareham” Facebook page shared an image of Tony Blair and Ken Livingstone captioned: “This is Zionist Tony Blair. Tony killed 2 million innocents in Iraq and is still on the Labour payroll. This is Ken Livingstone. Ken told everyone facts about history was suspended for 2 years”. They also shared an image captioned “Spot the difference: Nazi Concentration Camp tower and Israeli wall tower, 2014”.

Some of the worst examples of antisemitism were posted on a Facebook page in response to an article in The Guardian about Labour’s decision to suspend Ken Livingstone from the Party for a year for saying that Hitler supported Zionism. While the Jewish community, Labour MPs and the national media reacted with fury to the lenient decision, “Frances Leader” wrote that “…The Labour Party is an idiotic pile of weak-willed money grabbing Judases for permitting this to happen. Bless Ken, he spoke for us all.” Another Facebook user, “Terry Dawe” replied: “The Jews are using the same tactics against the Palestinians as Hitler used against them; they are truly evil.” Another user, “Pete Moyes” was keen to expose the conspiracy he believes to be behind the decision on Livingstone: “A great game of smoke and mirrors, it is slowly dawning on more and more [people] that the Zioscum are not Jewish, and are behind all the conflict on the planet in the pursuit of debt slavery of all the countries involved, with their minions inserted in positions of power in each of these countries and trying extremely hard to keep their activities hidden from view.” He added: “It has just been announced that the Zionist-backed NEC has decided to further investigate Ken Livingstone. I say it is about time that they were disposed of.” Receiving likes from eight others, “Christopher Crossley” wrote: “Everybody knows Hitler was funded by the Zionists”, prompting “Jo Colby” to reply “They bankroll both sides of any war”, which Christopher evidently agreed with.

This is glaring evidence of the growing problem of online antisemitism, and the fact that Ken Livingstone’s offensive beliefs are far from uncommon in the Labour Party. In February, we made a submission to the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee’s “Policing for the future: changing demands and new challenges” inquiry. We set out in detail the challenge presented by online antisemitism and proposed a robust plan for dealing with it.

If you would like to join our Political and Government Investigations Unit, our Online Monitoring Unit, or one of our other teams, please volunteer.

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Labour Councillor Luke Cresswell defends tweets of blood-drenched Israeli flag captioned “Moses must be proud of you”, cartoon showing Israelis as Nazis

Labour Councillor Luke Cresswell has defended his decision to tweet antisemitic images, saying that “it is nothing to do with religion”, but his tweets contradict him. In one, he tweeted a blood-drenched Israeli flag accusing Israel of genocide, captioned “Moses must be proud of you”. In another tweet, he uses a cartoon to portray Israelis as the new Nazis. Cresswell is also clearly a strong supporter of Ken Livingstone, having used Facebook to declare his “solidarity” with Livingstone after Livingstone claimed that Hitler supported Zionism.

Under the International Definition of Antisemitism, “using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g. claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterise Israel or Israelis” is antisemitic, as it “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis”.

Disturbingly, a Twitter user claims to have reported him to the Labour Party a year ago, and rather than being disciplined by the Party, it appears that he has instead been selected by the Party to run in the upcoming Council elections.

We would like to thank the various Labour Party members who brought Cresswell’s posts to our attention.

If you would like to join our Political and Government Investigations Unit, our Online Monitoring Unit, or one of our other teams, please volunteer.

https://twitter.com/LukemCresswell/status/497881698403905536

https://twitter.com/LukemCresswell/status/489156747706527744

https://twitter.com/LukemCresswell/status/851905527412117504

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Diane Abbott suggests that Labour members accusing the Party of institutional antisemitism are traitors

As though to reinforce the sense of abject denial amongst Jeremy Corbyn’s allies over the Labour Party’s continuing descent into the grip of extreme-left antisemitic conspiracy theorists, Diane Abbott, the Shadow Home Secretary, has claimed that saying that the Party has an antisemitism problem is tantamount to an attack on the Party.

Speaking towards the end of BBC Question Time, Abbott was asked whether Ken Livingstone should have been expelled from the Labour Party. Despite a growing backlash against the decision merely to stop Livingstone from standing for office for a year, Abbott refused to say that he should have been expelled.

When fellow panellist Gerard Coyne, a candidate to lead the Unite union said that Livingstone should have been expelled because “his comments are an affront to the six million Jews who lost their lives — and their families — in the Holocaust” and that Labour has an general problem with antisemitism, Abbott retorted: “When Gerard says that the Labour Party has an institutional problem with racism, or institutional antisemitism, because they’re one and the same, when you say that the Labour Party has a problem with institutional antisemitism and racism, I’m sorry you feel the need to attack your Party. I’m proud of the Labour Party’s record on fighting racism and antisemitism.”

Diane Abbott has previously told a television audience that allegations of antisemitism in the Labour Party were a politically-motivated smear campaign against Jeremy Corbyn. Were the Labour Party to win a general election, Abbott would assume responsibility for tackling hate crime as Home Secretary.

It appears that Diane Abbott does not believe that Livingstone should have been expelled from the Party, and that she will accuse Labour members who challenge the Party’s appalling record on antisemitism of treachery. Only in the modern Labour Party could she comfortably retain her position as Shadow Home Secretary.

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Labour shows no signs of disciplining Afzal Khan, who now fails to agree that Livingstone should be expelled

It is a sad fact that the British public have now been exposed to the toxic distortion spread by the former Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, utilising what is known as Holocaust inversion — the toxic hoax that the Jewish state is now a Nazi one, genocidal and brutal, begotten of those who collaborated with Hitler. Mr Livingstone never shrank from it, even publishing a cartoon of an Israeli prime minister dressed as a Nazi, performing a straight-armed salute, standing on the bodies of the slaughtered.

Afzhal Khan, the Labour candidate in the forthcoming by-election in Manchester Gorton, also has form in this regard. In 2014 he tweeted: “The Israeli Government are acting like Nazi’s [sic] in Gaza.” He had earlier stated that a former Israeli leader had “been committing genocide against the Palestinian people”. The International Definition of Antisemitism, as adopted by the government and accepted by the Labour Party, says that “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” is antisemitic.

At the time, Mr Khan’s excuse was that “he was new to Twitter”, as lame an excuse as it is possible to give, and yet the Labour Party failed to discipline him. Unsurprisingly, only yesterday, he failed to agree that Ken Livingstone should be expelled from the party.

The ink on newspaper reports of Ken Livingstone’s comments is hardly dry, but there is no reason why Labour should lose time in facing up to its hypocritical failure to apply the principle of zero-tolerance policy towards antisemitism in the Party. We call on the Party to now formally discipline Afzhal Khan for what the entire British polity now understands is antisemitism: for if they did not understand that it was then, they certainly have no excuse for making that claim now.

After 33 years as the MP for Manchster Gorton, the late Sir Gerald Kaufman left Manchester Gorton as the ninth safest Labour seat in the country. In October 2015, Sir Gerald delivered an antisemitic speech to MPs on the Parliamentary Estate, and just like in the case of Khan, the Labour Party refused to investigate or discipline him.

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Jeremy Corbyn’s promise to review the decision not to expel Ken Livingstone comes too late — the horse has bolted

Having found Ken Livingstone guilty of all charges, the subsequent failure of Labour’s National Constitutional Committee (NCC) panel to expel him last night constituted perhaps the darkest hour of Labour history as a self-described “anti-racist” institution. On the international stage, Labour now stands as an institutionally antisemitic party with no fig leaf to cover its shame.

In a desperate attempt to claw back an ounce of dignity for his party, the man who exercises what is laughably called leadership over this once-great Party has bowed to a growing clamour from 42 decent Labour MPs appalled by events by issuing a statement describing the persistent and obscene Jew-baiting of the Jewish community as merely “hurtful” and “insensitive”.

Against a backdrop of tolerance by Jeremy Corbyn of gross and obvious antisemitism in Labour, which has led to a growing spread of the most extreme neo-Nazi antisemitic belief in the grassroots of the Party, describing what has happened as “hurtful” is an understatement so great that in itself it constitutes further injury.

Ken Livingstone’s case was referred to the National Constitutional Committee by the National Executive Committee. Now that the foul stench of antisemitism permeates every layer of the Party, even Jeremy Corbyn is beginning to have difficulty hiding it. Perhaps that is why he now proposes to have the National Executive Committee re-examine the case on the feeble grounds that Mr Livingstone did not apologise. Mr Livingstone’s lack of apology pales against the severity of his principal offence, and if he cannot be expelled for the principal offence, we hold out no hope that he will be expelled for failing to apologise.

The horse has bolted. Labour’s chance was yesterday, and it blew it. The rot has now corroded the very institutions which are supposed to defend Labour. Ken Livingstone’s case is one of hundreds, we believe. Antisemites are being readmitted to the Party, unnoticed. Our own disciplinary complaint against Mr Corbyn has not even been acknowledged. Labour’s relationship with the Jewish community is in its death throes, and there is no miracle left to save it from its moral failure.

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Today’s decision not to expel Ken Livingstone is the Labour Party’s final act of brazen, painful betrayal

Today is a day of disgrace for the Labour Party. That Ken Livingstone has been guilty of expressing grossly offensive views is of itself obvious: that Labour has failed to execute a moral duty to expel him has been astonishing, the more so that the Party now admits that he is guilty as charged.

It is important to understand the context of Mr Livingstone’s allegations, because despite the seeming complexity of the history he espouses, the nature of his claims is of a classic and easily-recognised type.

From the allegation that ‘the Jews killed Jesus’; the Rothschild conspiracy myths; the slur that Jews controlled the slave trade; to Mr Livingstone’s tirades about Hitler and Zionism, there is a recognisable pattern. In all of these conspiracy myths, a tale of Jewish malice is woven using scraps of real historical events. Scholars of antisemitism will attest that having fabricated what is apparently a technically-supportable claim of Jewish malevolence, those who wish to attack Jews then try to draw their opponents into a debate that grants their false tale parity with the truth. Attempts to not engage by Jews are then represented as suppression of free speech, or an example of ‘Jewish power’.

To engage with such tales in such a way is to betray a misunderstanding of the very nature of antisemitic discourse. In this particular case, the key aim is to manipulate the history of Zionism in a dishonest way so as to degrade and poison the reality of Jewish self-determination as a whole; from there to project it onto both the post-Holocaust period and contemporary Israel to reinforce a wider dialogue on the Left that continues to demonise Jewish self-determination and Israel as the Jew amongst nations. From there it impacts directly on Jewish communities such as those in the UK, forcing them to choose between supporting ‘evil Jewish self-determination’ or being ‘good Jews who forfeit their own rights’.

Mr Livingstone is also being true to the eponymous ‘Livingstone formulation’, a method of deflecting accusations of antisemitism named after him by academics: by saying that accusations of antisemitism against him are being brought by those “motivated by a plot to undermine the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, and his supporters in the party” he doubles down by attributing sinister motives to those bringing the accusations themselves.

That respected historians will continue to engage with the detail of Jewish history in the inter-war years, is a given. Mr Livingstone is a famous politician with a history of embracing an Islamist antisemite; of likening a Jewish journalist to a “concentration camp guard”; of publishing a cartoon depicting an Israeli leader as a Nazi; of claiming that Jews were too “rich” to vote for him; and of backing the comments of an MP who subsequently admitted those comments were antisemitic. When such a man supports his claims only by reference to a discredited book by an antisemitic journalist he himself acknowledges to be so , then alarm bells should have rung so loudly in Labour that their response should have been swift and summary. Instead they succumbed to a process by which, over a long period of time, Mr Livingstone was allowed to parade such lies for a wider audience, while portraying himself as a victim. He has succeeded in doing so.

Ken Livingstone has been portraying Jews as Nazis for decades. His claim that Hitler acted in support of Zionism, along with his constant repetition of that distortion, has been a repulsive spectacle. We felt sure that the Labour Party, blighted by antisemitism as it is, would reclaim some of its former self and expel him. Labour has long had a moral duty to expel Ken Livingstone, but instead it has allowed his vile views to gain support in the party. Today’s verdict confirms our worst fears: that it is possible to husband and broadcast such repellant beliefs and still remain a Labour Party member has shocked even us. This surely represents the last of the death throes of the Labour Party’s long relationship with the Jewish community. The Party had this one last chance to prove that it is not beyond salvation. Today’s decision is the Party’s final act of brazen, painful betrayal.

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CAA asks Foreign Affairs Committee to penalise state sponsors of antisemitism, ban Hizballah and shun PSC

Campaign Against Antisemitism has submitted a report to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee in response to its enquiry into Britain’s role in making peace between Israel and its neighbours. Whilst Campaign Against Antisemitism only focusses on antisemitism in the UK, we wanted to draw the Committee’s attention to the domestic ramifications of British foreign policy.

In particular, we are asking the Committee to ensure that the government adjusts its diplomacy to protect British Jews. We have asked that:

  • Britain ends aid to governments and agencies which do not adopt and enforce legislation or policies outlawing antisemitic propaganda in state media and education materials, and blocks such countries from taking roles in international bodies, where possible. Antisemitic propaganda from the Middle East is responsible in great part for radicalising immigrant Middle Eastern communities in Britain (and elsewhere) to hate Jews.
  • The Foreign and Commonwealth Office drops its opposition to the total proscription of Hizballah under the Terrorism Act, which is enabling Hizballah supporters in the UK to get away with flying the Hizballah flag at demonstrations and even to fundraise for Hizballah. Whilst the authorities should prevent this, they use the fact that Hizballah is only partially proscribed as a loophole to avoid taking action. The FCO’s shameful resistance to fully proscribing Hizballah is permitting the intimidation of British Jews, and may even assist terrorism against them.
  • The Foreign and Commonwealth Office ceases all engagement with Palestine Solidarity Campaign UK following a Campaign Against Antisemitism investigation into antisemitism amongst its supporters. The FCO’s policymakers, diplomats and civil servants often strengthen and legitimise PSC by engaging with it on foreign policy matters.

We await the Committee’s response with interest. Our full report can be downloaded from our website.

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Jackie Walker rejects the International Definition of Antisemitism

Disgraced Labour activist, Jackie Walker, has made more explosive comments while answering an audience question during a session at Noam Chomsky’s “The responsibility of intellectuals 50 years on” conference held at University College London on 25th February. In particular, she refused to accept the International Definition of Antisemitism.

Campaign Against Antisemitism transcribed a video of the question and answer which was posted on YouTube and Facebook by various groups, including on one Facebook page, where it has gained 226,000 views.

Walker, who is currently suspended from the Labour Party, had her case referred to the Party’s National Constitutional Committee (NCC) earlier this month. She was suspended by Labour in September 2016 following comments she made about Holocaust Memorial Day at the Labour Party Conference. Walker said that Holocaust Memorial Day is not inclusive enough and that Jewish schools do not need special security in the face of threats. She also reportedly claimed that antisemitism was being “exaggerated” and that the “aim of such allegations is to undermine Jeremy [Corbyn].”

Walker, a leading ally of Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, was previously suspended from the Labour Party and then readmitted — without explanation — after claiming that “many Jews”  were the “chief financiers” of the African slave trade, a proposition described by the Legacies of British Slave Ownership project at University College, London as based on “no evidence whatsoever.” The accusation is clearly antisemitic under the International Definition of Antisemitism by “charg(ing) Jews with conspiring to harm humanity” and by “Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing.”

Being so clearly antisemitic under the terms of the definition, it is therefore unsurprising that she would seek to reject it. So in this latest episode to be added to her long list of antisemitic remarks, she responds with a bizarre antisemitic litany to a question from the audience on why she does not accept the International Definition of Antisemitism. Disturbingly, her comments were met with applause from the audience.

Walker said: “Of course there are definitions I can work with. I like to stick to really simple definitions. I think antisemitism is hatred of Jews because they are Jewish. It has nothing to do with the Israeli State. Now I am going to go on from that and I’m going to say something really clear  and I’m sure people will be listening to this one. I do not accept your premise that Israel is not a racist state [applause]. As a non-Jew you cannot buy land anywhere you like. You cannot use any roads. If I’m in a hospital and I’m a Jew, I can choose whether I share that area with non-Jews or not. If you look at any definition of racism or apartheid, you might be very well informed on that. I have definitions, I have very good definitions that I can work with. And just because you can give me a big long list of all the people who agree with it. I think this is something that Chomsky is absolutely telling us and saying it clearly. It doesn’t matter how much harassment, how much vilification, how many, how much abuse you send to me, I will never accept that Israel is a necessary part of my identity as a Jew [applause]. And you see the way, I want you to know, I want you to know. Did you hear that? This is a typical way of responding. I, he says, I am not a Jew because because, because of course, because of course, these people believe just like the Nazis that they had the ability to define who is a Jew or not. I want to remind people that our hard fought for, our, our hard fought for vocabulary of liberation, names the person as being the one who claims what their identity is, not a state and not you [applause].”

What Walker says in this rant breaches the International Definition of Antisemitism which states that: “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, … by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour” is antisemitic. The Labour Party has accepted the International Definition of Antisemitism. Walker is clearly thumbing her nose at the Labour Party and contemptuously and defiantly going against Party policy by so emphatically rejecting the definition. In an effort to shield herself from criticism, Walker makes the dubious claim that she is a Jew, as though antisemitism is only antisemitism depending on who expresses it.

Campaign Against Antisemitism urges the NCC to take Walker’s new outburst into account when they review her case. Nothing short of expulsion from the Labour Party will suffice.

Walker is scheduled to speak on “Palestine, Free Speech & Israel’s Black Ops” at a number of events in Scotland from 27th to 30th March organised by the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign. We are monitoring these events closely.

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Conservatives reinstate Councillor suspended in ‘antisemitism’ row and provide full details to CAA

In April last year, Abdul Zaman, the Deputy Chairman of the Bradford Conservative Association, was suspended after making ‘antisemitic’ comments in support of local Conservative council candidate Sajid Akhtar.

The comments, delivered in the Mirpuri dialect, concerned the cohesion of the Biradari system, a system of politics which has caused major problems in Bradford. In his speech, delivered in a busy street, Mr Zaman called on his community to vote for Akhtar “so that the Jews and Christians know that we are one Biradari.”

This has been interpreted as either a message of unity, or as one of division, telling the local community to show Jews and Christians that they will adhere to the Biradri system and not be divided. Interpretation is made more difficult by the fact that Mirpuri is a purely oral dialect, and various phrases used in the speech can have different literal translations.

Local Bradford MP, Naz Shah, complained about the speech in a letter to the Prime Minister and Mr Zaman was suspended by the Conservative Party.

During disciplinary deliberations, it was agreed that Mr Zaman’s choice of words was not antisemitic, but it was unhelpfully open to interpretation. Mr Zaman apologised for using unclear language and was advised to use language more readily understandable by the wider community in the future.

The Party has provided Campaign Against Antisemitism with footage of the speech, along with a certified expert translation. The Chairman of the Bradford Conservative Association and the Conservative Party leader on City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council have given us a transparent account of their handling of the incident, and the handling of the incident by Conservative Campaign Headquarters.

We find no reason to criticise the conduct of this case, and are pleased that the Party has engaged with us so transparently.

We are now discussing the case of Dr Felix Aubel with the Conservative Party, which requires urgent rectification. Dr Aubel appeared to call in a tweet for a new Spanish Inquisition across the whole of Europe. A spokesman for the Welsh Conservative Party distanced the Party from Dr Aubel’s views, but that is not enough and Dr Aubel should be investigated according to the Party’s disciplinary process.

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Mayor of London’s new Police and Crime Plan offers few clues on fight against antisemitism

Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, and the Mayor of London’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) have released the Police and Crime Plan 2017-2021 — “A Safer City for All Londoners” following a public consultation. Campaign Against Antisemitism submitted its recommendations.

Campaign Against Antisemitism welcomes the approach of “zero tolerance” adopted by the plan, but the plan offers few details of measures for delivering it in relation to antisemitism. While there is a general section about hate crime, there is no specific mention of record-high antisemitism, and disappointingly there is very little to give us confidence that the Mayor and MOPAC intend to deal effectively with antisemitism.

In our submission to MOPAC, we set out in detail the challenge presented by antisemitic hate crime in London, and proposed a robust plan for dealing with it, including:

  • Adopting the International Definition of Antisemitism and training officers in how to apply it;
  • Producing a quick reference guide on antisemitism for all frontline officers;
  • Reviving a shelved plan to set up a city-wide hate crime reporting hotline;
  • Publishing even more granular statistics on hate crime, and allowing victims to report their ethnicity as “Jewish”;
  • Adopting a formal process by which organisations involved in fighting hate crime can point out a flawed investigation for review by a senior officer;
  • Adopting a policy of zero tolerance policing for those flying terrorist flags; and
  • Working with Campaign Against Antisemitism, the Home Office and others to develop a state-of-the-art monitoring system for online antisemitism.

We look forward to engaging with the Mayor and MOPAC and hope that the initiatives in the plan will be expanded and strengthened to ensure that antisemitism in London is met with the firmest response the law will permit.

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Labour Councillor resigns, citing Party’s failure to tackle antisemitism

Michael Inkpin-Leissner, a Labour Councillor who represents Hollingdean and Stanmer on Brighton and Hove City Council, has resigned from the Labour Party over the national leadership’s failure to confront antisemitism and its stance on Europe.

Councillor Inkpin-Leissner told Brighton and Hove News: “When I joined the Labour Party it was a centre-left party like the German SPD. Now it has been taken over by left-wingers and the Momentum extremists, who are working to build an axis with former German Communists ‘Die Linke’. As a German, you will understand, I can never support this and never will compromise my stance against any form of antisemitism. Unfortunately, the position of the Labour Party, though there are strong personalities standing up against antisemitism, seems to be not really sincere any more, proven by the lacklustre investigation of Baroness Chakrabarti. I have lost my faith in national Labour fighting antisemitism and for Europe.”

Councillor Inkpin-Leissner’s resignation follows that of a Jewish Labour Councillor in Shepway, Claire Jeffrey, who left the Labour Party in September 2016, saying: “As a Jew, I can’t stay in a party that tolerates antisemitism.” Jewish Labour Peer, Lord Parry Mitchell, had also resigned from the Labour Party in the same month writing that the Party “flirts with antisemitism”.

We thank Councillor Inkpin-Leissner for his principled stand in solidarity with the Jewish community.

Campaign Against Antisemitism and others consider that the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn is not safe for Jews due to its failure to adequately address antisemitism.

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CAA in touch with Home Office as former National Action members caught at a secret knife combat training camp

A shocking undercover investigation by ITV News has confirmed that former members of the violent, antisemitic neo-Nazi group, National Action, are still meeting in secret. This is despite the group being banned by the British Government in December 2016, following a long campaign by Campaign Against Antisemitism and others. The ban makes it a criminal offence for the group to exist or meet, with a jail term of up to ten years for anyone convicted of being a member or supporter.

Undercover filming by ITV News caught individuals with links to the banned group together at a training camp for far-right sympathisers in the Peak District earlier this month. The weekend billed itself as a “survival camp” with boxing and street fighting sessions, as well as how to deal with a knife fight. The group discussed the killing of Jo Cox MP as ITV News filmed secretly.

One of the participants was Garron Helm, a prominent former member of National Action. Helm was jailed in 2014 for sending an antisemitic tweet to Jewish MP Luciana Berger. The tweet showed a picture of Ms Berger with a yellow star superimposed onto her forehead, a reference to the Nazi practice of forcing Jews to wear distinctive yellow stars. Referring to the MP as “a communist Jewess”, the tweet bore the message “You can always trust a Jew to show their true colours eventually” along with the hashtag “#HitlerWasRight.”

Also at the camp was a man who calls himself James Mac, who was photographed last year at National Action demonstrations. Mac made antisemitic comments during the meeting, saying: “They carry on like somebody’s died. You know like if a family member died and somebody got off, they carry on like that, just about somebody who bad-mouthed them. This is the way these Jews carry on.”

The video appears to show criminal offences being committed which we expect to be prosecuted.

Campaign Against Antisemitism is monitoring developments closely and is confident that British authorties will respond appropriately and quickly to this very disturbing revelation. We are in contact with the Home Office.

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House of Lords Commissioner for Standards badly fails to understand antisemitism in verdict on Baroness Tonge

The House of Lords Commissioner for Standards, Lucy Scott-Moncrieff, has now delivered a verdict on whether or not an event chaired and hosted by Baroness Tonge at the House of Lords was “taken over by those promoting antisemitism” in a way that she was bound by “personal honour” to oppose.

The Commissioner has concluded that despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the Baroness acted on her honour.

Campaign Against Antisemitism, having read the Commissioner’s detailed considerations, and, having measured it against her remit, found it wanting on the grounds that the conclusions she reaches are unreasonable.

Particularly, the Commissioner has delivered a highly personal and dubious verdict which betrays, at best, a lack of understanding of key historic antisemitic slanders against Jews, and how they are used by antisemites to sanitise their hatred as political discourse.

For example, one member of the audience claimed that “I’m not talking about World Jewry, I’m talking about the Zionist movement that has that power…over our own Parliament.” We would contest that the idea that any group of Jews controls the British Parliament is transparently antisemitic, by any standards.

Further, the argument proposed by another member of the audience that “Zionists…antagonised Hitler over the edge” will be familiar to those who witnessed Ken Livingstone’s bizarre and offensive comments last year. Ms Montcrieff would do well to review the many eminent historians who at the time, dismissed these well-worn notions as the product of lies, published and disseminated by known antisemites. It is sad and worrying to us that she would have accepted as politically acceptable discourse that which scholars have identified as lies used in fabricating a classic antisemitic tale of Jewish malice.

We greet the verdict with dismay. It is our opinion that the author clearly was not suitably knowledgeable on the subject of antisemitism to deliver judgement. This verdict will encourage other antisemites to express antisemitic views at the House of Lords with impunity. Furthermore, we predict that by failing to act now, the Commissioner has only delayed the day when she must act until next time antisemitic libels are aired at the House of Lords, further shaming the House and damaging its institutional credibility.

It is clear to us that what has said at the meeting required Baroness Tonge to act on her honour to oppose it. We will be making our position clear in a written response to both the Commissioner and the House of Lords Committee for Privileges and Conduct.

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Welsh Conservatives must discipline activist who appears to yearn for Spanish Inquisition across Europe

The Reverend Dr Felix Aubel, a Conservative Party activist who was the West Wales coordinator for the Vote Leave campaign, has tweeted: “When will today’s Christian Europe say ‘Enough is Enough’, just like the Christian Spaniards did at the end of the Middle Ages?” The tweet was in response to a Swedish Twitter user who had tweeted about immigration in the country. Dr Aubel appears to be referring to the Spanish Inquisition established in 1478. The Inquisition consisted of a state-organised pogrom predominantly targeting Jews with torture and cruel murder, for example being burned at the stake. The Alhambra Decree of 1492, commanded all Jews in Spain to convert to Catholicism or leave the country.

However the Welsh Conservative Party has issued a meek and wholly inadequate response. A spokesman told the Daily Post: “Felix Aubel’s opinions are entirely his own and are in no way representative of the views of the Welsh Conservatives. We cannot condone the use of this kind of language.”

It is not enough for the Party to distance itself from these views and Dr Aubel should be investigated according to the Party’s disciplinary process. Campaign Against Antisemitism will be raising this troubling case with the Conservative Party.

It is also extremely troubling that he is minister to five independent churches.

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CAA makes recommendations to the Mayor of London’s Office for Policing and Crime

Campaign Against Antisemitism has submitted its recommendations to the Mayor of London’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC), which is preparing a new policing plan for the capital. The recommendations were submitted at the beginning of the month.

We have set out in detail the challenge presented by antisemitic hate crime in London, and proposed a robust plan for dealing with it, including:

  • Adopting the International Definition of Antisemitism and training officers in how to apply it;
  • Producing a quick reference guide on antisemitism for all frontline officers;
  • Reviving a shelved plan to set up a city-wide hate crime reporting hotline;
  • Publishing even more granular statistics on hate crime, and allowing victims to report their ethnicity as “Jewish”;
  • Adopting a formal process by which organisations involved in fighting hate crime can point out a flawed investigation for review by a senior officer;
  • Adopting a policy of zero tolerance policing for those flying terrorist flags; and
  • Working with Campaign Against Antisemitism, the Home Office and others to develop a state-of-the-art monitoring system for online antisemitism.

Our full submission can be viewed online.

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Labour Party members and their Nazi beliefs

The antisemitism of the far-left often appears to be a distinct phenomenon — starting with the antisemitism of early Marxists, it later absorbed the antisemitism of Stalin’s Russia. From the 1980s onward, far-left antisemitism has been established as part of a supposedly anti-imperialist position. Elements of the far-left have embraced genocidally antisemitic Islamist movements, and under the cover of so-called identity politics have come to portray Jews as ‘white oppressors’.

These political and historical developments are real, but their existence lowered down ropes into the pitch-dark pit into which Western societies once cast older forms of antisemitism, enabling them to haul themselves to the surface once more.

The Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership is a case in point: antisemitism within it has been denied and has now gone unpunished for so long that it is possible to see the very worst forms of it appearing from the darkness, blinking into the light.

So it is that in the last few months we have seen numerous cases of notorious conspiracy myths about the Rothschild family of bankers and philanthropists appearing in the ranks of the Labour Party.

There is a wide antisemitic mythology about the Rothschilds controlling the financial systems of the world, starting wars for their own advantage, or even sinking the Titanic for their own ends; these are mostly linked to wider conspiracies — as espoused by the likes of David Icke — in claiming secret Jewish control of the world.

One key myth about the Rothschild family is that Nathan Rothschild had used his money to return to London from the battlefield at Waterloo ahead of official news of an English victory, turning his advance information into a fortune by manipulating stocks. Brian Cathcart authored a book on the subject of the battle news, and expertly dissects the Rothschild conspiracy myth in an article in The Independent.

The antisemitic ‘Satan’ pamphlet spreading the lie was published in 1846 and other Rothschild myths date back to the mid 18th Century: this, then, is old antisemitism, borne of an age pre-dating any modern socialist movements, including the Labour Party. Latterly, it was the Nazi Party who embraced it, for example in 1940 releasing a film: The Rothschilds’ Shares in Waterloo.

So it is with something of a sense of despair that we now observe myths favoured by the Nazis appearing frequently in the ranks of a Party that once claimed to be a bastion of anti-racism. Last month, Councillor John Clarke resigned after making such claims. Clarke has form when it comes to posting from Nazi and other far-right sites. In itself, that is regrettable, but that he is an ex-academic Labour politician who actively believes the Rothschild conspiracy myths is disturbing in the extreme.

Note that, significantly, he says “I will now block people who accuse me of antisemitism merely to close down legitimate criticism of Israel &/or Rothschild family”, claiming parity between Jewish attempts to ‘cover up’ the ‘evil’ of Israel and a plot to conceal banking conspiracies.

More incidents have now been reported to us from sources inside Labour. For example, the enthusiastic pro-Corbyn Facebook group: “Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party Forum” recently saw the posting of a Rothschild conspiracy blog from a ‘left-wing socialist website’ that is so antisemitic it includes blood-libel-associated pieces such as “Jewish Human Organ Trade in Turkey stealing Syrian Children”.

The posted article itself is entitled “The Complete History of the ‘House of Rothschild’” and begins: “The Rothschilds have been in control of the world for a very long time, their tentacles reaching into many aspects of our daily lives…” and which refers to “The Secret History of Jewish World Domination”. The person posting the article asks: “Is it OK to post here?” The answer was affirmative. Andy Ross, an administrator for the group says: “It’s OK, I think it’s about time people’s eyes were opened”. Another forum member and Corbyn enthusiast, Les Tasker responds: “They are the biggest parasites on the planet”. Another observes: “The author is a regular poster on here”.

Another member of the forum is John Bryant. He posted a picture of a number of politicians, including the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan and Chukka Umanna, saying: “These people are just Rothschild puppets”. The post was allowed to remain on the page. It was first posted on 27th February and at the time of writing, it has not been removed by administrators.

John Bryant and Andy Ross, friends on Facebook, are not just members of the forum, but are its administrators: in fact John Bryant is its creator and chief administrator. They are also both Labour Party members and ‘Corbynistas’, constantly reiterating their support for legitimate ‘social justice’ causes and their ardour for Labour’s leader.

In Facebook groups supporting Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party, such sentiments abound. For example, Paul Cook, an enthusiastic member of “Jeremy Corbyn will be Prime Minister” and “We support Jeremy Corbyn for PM” posts that “Zionist Rothschild Israel is an evil regime” and posts a piece asking “Is Judaism a Satanic Cult?”. Yet his posts and his membership of these groups is not moderated. Reports of such extreme postings are received daily by Campaign Against Antisemitism.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has previously highlighted Rothschild-based antisemitism by Labour figures, for example Councillors Andrew Slack and Ilyas Aziz, as well as from Jeremy Corbyn’s brother Piers. Ilyas Aziz, despite this and more besides, has been re-admitted to the Labour party without discipline. Andrew Slack was suspended, but Labour has declined to comment on his discipline.

All this in a month when a Labour councillor performed a Nazi salute in a council chamber.

When inviting Labour Party members to join “Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party” Facebook group, John Bryant himself says: “Everyone should feel free to join this group and find out the values of the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn”. These words send shivers down one’s spine, for the Labour left under Jeremy Corbyn has now reached an immoral low where antisemites within the Party are openly promulgating ideas favoured by the Nazi party, while waving the banners of ‘progressive’ social virtue.

Campaign Against Antisemitism must now warn that the Labour Party and its leadership is currently presiding over a tolerance of conspiracy myths amongst its politicians and membership that pose a real threat to the Jewish community in terms that are wholly outside any debate related to Israel.

Professor Cathcart asks why it has taken 200 years for the Rothschild antisemitic charge to be dismissed. He is mistaken: not in his historical analysis, but that the myth is dead, because it still lives on within the Labour Party in 2017.

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Labour candidate who shared antisemitic posts on Facebook says that scrutiny constitutes “intrusion and misrepresentation”

Alison Gove-Humphries, who has been selected to stand for Labour in Birmingham City Council’s Hall Green by-election in May, has been exposed for sharing antisemitic posts promoting conspiracy myths on her Facebook account. She shared articles putting forward the conspiracy myths that Israel is the “key link in exporting ISIS oil” and that the “Israel lobby manufactured [the] UK Labour Party’s antisemitism crisis.”

Gove-Humphries, a keen supporter of Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, has defended her posts in a statement to the Birmingham Mail: “I am extremely saddened by the allegation that my private Facebook posts were antisemitic. I merely shared a link to third-party posts with no commentary or opinion. I share many topical new pieces across a broad spectrum on my Facebook account and it is clear to me these old posts have been taken completely out of context.” She went on to claim that the allegations against her constituted “intrusion and misrepresentation” and said that she did not want to be “distracted by these hurtful allegations.”

Trying to deflect attention, Gove-Humphries said that she has demonstrated her commitment to diversity by co-producing articles for the Holocaust Education Trust, co-ordinating Black History Month events and hosting events where Holocaust survivors spoke to school children.

While the West Midlands Labour Party has declined to comment, Gove-Humphries is facing calls to step down from Labour Councillor Barry Henley, who said: “These are clearly antisemitic postings. In my view there should be a Labour Party investigation into Gove-Humphries’ membership and suitability to be a candidate, and in the meantime a new candidate should be put in place. As a Jewish member of the Labour Party I have written to them and asking for an investigation.”

The articles Gove-Humphries knowingly shared on Facebook are glaringly antisemitic in line with the International Definition of Antisemitism. Campaign Against Antisemitism echoes Councillor Henley’s principled and sensible call for Gove-Humphries to step down and an investigation launched.

We have little confidence, however, that any decisive action will be taken. For example, in September last year the Labour Party refused to investigate Birmingham Councillor Zafar Iqbal Said, who shared an antisemitic video produced by a former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klax Klan. He claimed that he had “no idea” how the video on how the “Zionist Matrix of Power controls Media, Politics and Banking” came to be posted on his Facebook timeline.

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Afzal Khan, whose tweet compared the Israeli Government to Nazi Germany, confirmed as candidate to replace Sir Gerald Kaufman MP

Afzal Khan CBE, whose tweet compared the Israeli Government to Nazis, has confirmed that he will be standing in the selection to be the Labour Party’s candidate in the by-election to replace the late Sir Gerald Kaufman MP in the seat of Manchester Gorton. Khan is a Labour Member of the European Parliament for the North West.

His candidacy has already gained the support of senior figures within the powerful Communication Workers’ Union and GMB union.

After 33 years as the MP for Manchster Gorton, the late Sir Gerald Kaufman left Manchester Gorton as the ninth safest Labour seat in the country. In October 2015, Sir Gerald delivered an antisemitic speech to MPs on the Parliamentary Estate, and just like in the case of Khan, the Labour Party refused to investigate or discipline him.

On 2nd August 2014, Khan tweeted a link to an article from which he quoted that “The Israeli Government are [sic] acting like Nazi’s [sic] in Gaza.”

According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, which was first devised by the European Union itself and has been adopted by the British Government, “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” is antisemitic.

Khan’s use of the slur was surprising given his prominence in interfaith dialogue work. He is co-founder of The Muslim-Jewish Forum of Greater Manchester and was awarded a CBE for his community and interfaith work in 2008.

The Labour Party refused to investigate or discipline Khan for his tweet and instead offered a pitifully weak statement: “These views are not shared by the Labour Party and Afzal Khan MEP has been reminded of his responsibilities as a Labour representative.”

If Khan believes that Israeli policy is to act like Nazis then according to the International Definition of Antisemitism, he is an antisemite. If that is so, and he is selected as the Labour Party candidate in Manchester Gorton, the Jewish community could be in for years of torment — the Labour Party would have swapped one antisemite for another.

https://twitter.com/akhanmep/status/839112689410584577

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Jackie Walker referred to Labour’s National Consitutional Committee over Holocaust Memorial Day comments

Disgraced Labour activist, Jackie Walker, who is currently suspended from the Labour Party, has had her case referred to the party’s National Consitutional Committee (NCC). The 11-member NCC has the power to expel individuals from the party. Walker was suspended by Labour in September 2016 following comments she made about Holocaust Memorial Day at the Labour Party Conference.

The JC reported that at a meeting of Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) in central London it was decided that the allegations were serious enough to push the hearing up to the party’s NCC.

The paper also reported that Marc Wadsworth has also had his hearing referred to the NCC. Wadsworth, a Labour activist, was suspended after accusing Jewish Labour MP Ruth Smeeth of conspiring with the media at the launch event of Baroness Chakrabarti’s whitewash report into antisemitism. Smeeth fled the event in tears whilst Chakrabarti and Jeremy Corbyn stood by inertly.

At last year’s Labour conference in Liverpool, during a training session on tackling antisemitism, Walker said that Holocaust Memorial Day is not inclusive enough and that Jewish schools do not need special security.

Walker, a leading ally of Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and the former Vice-Chair of the hard-left Momentum group, said that Holocaust Memorial Day should be “open to all peoples who’ve experienced Holocaust” and as delegates angrily heckled her, she told the room: “I was a bit concerned…at your suggestions that the Jewish community is under such threat that they have to use security in all its buildings…I have a grandson, he is a year old. There is security in his nursery and every school has security now. It’s not because I’m frightened or his parents are frightened that he is going to be attacked.” She earlier said that antisemitism was being “exaggerated” to “undermine Jeremy.”

Labour’s failure to act over allegations of antisemitism has been chilling. Campaign Against Antisemitism hopes that this time with Walker and Wadsworth it will be different. However, with Labour’s appalling track record, we have little confidence.

It is worth noting that although the egregious behaviour of Jackie Walker appears, finally, to be being dealt with, even longer standing disciplinary cases, such as those of Ken Livingstone’s offensive claims that Hitler supported Zionism and the antisemitic members of the Oxford University Labour Club, are still waiting to be heard. Many more remain cloaked in secrecy under the terms of the notorious Chakrabarti report.

This reluctance has provided a fetid place for antisemitism to breed, and that delay has in itself allowed older antisemitic conspiracy theories to flourish, such as the conspiracy myth that the Rothschild family exerts financial control over central banks.

We hope that justice will be done, and be seen to be done, however, with Labour’s appalling track record we have little confidence that it will be.

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Councillor suspended by Labour after performing Nazi salute in budget debate

Councillor Jonny Morris, 49, a Labour Party Councillor on Plymouth City Council, has been suspended from the Labour Party after he was caught on camera giving a Nazi salute during a budget meeting in Devon.

Councillor Tudor Evans, leader of the Plymouth Labour group, confirmed that Councillor Morris had been suspended while the matter was investigated. He said “The whips are now looking into the matter. Obviously we take this very seriously.”

Devon and Cornwall Police confirmed that they have been made aware of the shocking incident which is being investigated as a public order offence.

Councillor Morris claims he became “angry” after Conservative and UKIP councillors cut the debate on the budget short by calling for the vote to be taken. He was then captured on footage which was being live streamed online performing the offensive gesture at his Tory and UKIP rivals.

This prompted councillors within the chamber to voice their disgust and immediately call for him to apologise. After the meeting Councillor Morris apologised, saying: “I was very angry at the closing down of debate on Plymouth’s budget by the UKIP/Tory ruling group. I let that anger get the better of me, and made an inappropriate and offensive gesture. I apologise unreservedly.”

The Conservative leader of the council, Councillor Ian Bowyer, said the act could be considered a hate crime. He said “I think the Council’s monitoring officer will doubtless wish to investigate further — there are potentially serious consequences here. Although Councillor Morris apologised for his behaviour in my opinion this constitutes hate crime, which is totally unacceptable.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism commends the local Labour Councillors for their swift and firm action. Unfortunately, we can have no confidence that the national Labour Party will take this matter as seriously. Following Baroness Chakrabarti’s whitewash report into antisemitism in the Labour Party, the Party has kept disciplinary decisions secret whilst even unremorseful antisemites are being readmitted to the Party.

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Sir Gerald Kaufman MP’s words have left a rotting stain on our institutions

While the passing of Sir Gerald Kaufman MP is undoubtedly sad for his family and friends, it also marks the loss of an opportunity. Sir Gerald was the first Labour politician of the Corbyn period to have gone unpunished after publicly uttering indisputably antisemitic lies.

By saying that “Jewish money” was used to subvert the British government, he was complicit in a centuries-old chorus of those accusing Jews of conspiracy and of showing disloyalty to their own country. This is explicit antisemitism: the International Definition of Antisemitism (as adopted by the Labour Party) explicitly states that “Making mendacious, dehumanising, demonising, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions” is antisemitic.

At the same meeting he was also recorded saying: “…because perhaps I can tell you in a way no-one else can tell you” — intimating that his having being born Jewish afforded him a protection which intimidated others into silence. Is political correctness in the face of antisemitism any less weak and immoral when applied to Jews?

Not only did the Labour Party shame themselves by their failure to discipline Sir Gerald, but Parliament did so itself doubly: the comments were made on the Parliamentary Estate, before an audience including the Shadow Secretary of State for Justice, and Sir Gerald held the affectionate and respectful title of Father of the House. Our subsequent complaint was met by a Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards ruling that his remarks did not bring Parliament into disrepute and refusal to investigate. Then and now, we refuse to take this for any kind of reasonable answer.

Sir Gerald Kaufman MP is dead: it is only right that a period of reflection should be allowed as his friends and family reflect and grieve for a man whom they no doubt had diverse reasons to love and respect. We too offer our condolences.

By his passing, however, he can no longer be disciplined by British institutions that should have acted. His actions and words now hang in the air, continuing to embolden other antisemites to the detriment of the UK’s Jewish community, and society at large.

Sir Gerald has therefore left a rotting stain on both the Labour Party and Parliament that will continue to eat away at both institutions until such time as genuine and public acts of regret and apology are made.

Until then, Campaign Against Antisemitism will continue in our aim of seeing Britain’s institutions free of antisemitism; ensuring that they are not places that quietly give poisonous racism a pass because it happened to come out of the mouth of a rather harmless-looking old Jewish man who happened to be our longest-serving MP.

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Orthodox Jew told by Lib Dem candidate he’s unsuitable for Manchester mayoralty because of his religious beliefs

The Liberal Democrat candididate for Mayor of Greater Manchester, Councillor Jane Brophy, has made an extraordinary attack on UK Independence Party (UKIP) candidate and orthodox Jew, Shneur Odze, saying he is unsuitable to stand for Mayor because of his religious beliefs.

Councillor Brophy made this outrageous slur which was captured on video at an LGBT campaign event that Mr Odze was unable to attend due it being held on the Sabbath. She stated that he was unsuitable to be a candidate because of his religious belief of not having physical contact with women. It is also disturbing that her comments received applause from some in the audience.

Mr Odze responded to the apalling smear in a statement posted on social media: “I find it shocking and ignorant for Councillor Brophy to have made these comments. This is not just an attack on myself personally; she is effectively saying no orthodox Jew can stand for public office anywhere.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism calls on the leadership of the Liberal Democats, a party that prides itself on being open, inclusive and tolerant, to immediately discipline and repudiate Councillor Brophy for her comments and apologise to the orthodox Jewish community for their candidate’s inference that orthodox Jews are not fit for public office.

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The US Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism should not be scrapped, as Ira Forman’s legacy shows

Campaign Against Antisemitism strictly confines its output to antisemitism in the United Kingdom, leaving antisemitism elsewhere in the world to our Everyday Antisemitism project, which reports daily on antisemitic incidents across the globe, and is well worth visiting and subscribing to. However, sometimes events overseas impact the fight against antisemitism in Britain. Today is such an occasion.

Bloomberg has reported that due to budgetary considerations, the United States of America is considering removing various special envoy positions, including that of Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism. Whilst Special Envoy positions may sound like an extravagance, we formed a very successful relationship with the last Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, Ira Forman.

Over meetings with Special Envoy Forman in Brussels and London, Campaign Against Antisemitism helped to create an understanding that the one of the most effective ways in which the United States of America could help Jews around the world would be to pursue the adoption of the International Definition of Antisemitism. This is a cause which Special Envoy Forman embraced wholeheartedly. He brought the gravitas that the United States of America commands to international negotiations. One of Special Envoy Forman’s legacies is his involvement in the adoption by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance of the International Definition of Antisemitism. He also helped to secure support from 56 of the 57 member states of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe for adopting the definition, with only Russia disgracefully blocking its adoption.

The Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism is a hugely valuable asset to Jewish communities around the world, not only in Britain, but particularly in countries where smaller Jewish communities struggle to find a champion who will fend off their oppressors.

We hope that the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism will be one of the Special Envoy posts to survive the budget cuts under consideration.

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Tony Greenstein’s attempt to shut down Campaign Against Antisemitism showcases the similarities between far-left and far-right

When Baroness Tonge opens her mouth to speak on a subject involving Jews, then it is near-guaranteed that her utterances will cause offence. Her track record, from invoking the blood libel to hosting an event in Parliament where Jews were blamed for the Holocaust, is without parallel for a peer, and has earned her — along with Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party — the second-highest spot on the Simon Wiesenthal Centre’s global top 10 antisemites of 2016, as well as jumping before she was pushed following suspension from the Liberal Democrat party. Her views are vile and discredited. We were therefore unsurprised that she signed up to a petition proposed by notorious antisemite Tony Greenstein, demanding that the Charity Commission shuts Campaign Against Antisemitism down.

In a Daily Mail article yesterday morning, Mr Greenstein’s petition was scorned by both MPs and peers alike with comments including that it was “a sad comment on the rise of hate speech”, “a ridiculous attempt to close down an organisation fighting antisemitism”, “…absurd, and perhaps motivated by fear…[which] demonstrates just how effective the Campaign Against Antisemitism has been…”, “The CAA deserves every support and we need real antisemites to be shown up for what they are, even if they try to disguise their Jew-hatred” and “abject nonsense that has no place in public life”. We are extremely grateful to Baroness Deech, Bob Blackman MP, Matthew Offord MP and Mike Freer MP, all of whom rushed to defend our work.

At Campaign Against Antisemitism, we have experience in combating the many variants of antisemitism of both far-right and far-left. They are united by certain constants, for example a well-worn belief that when Jews complain about antisemitism, they are lying to cover up some other hidden motive in order to further ‘Jewish power’. In this case, we have been challenged by an antisemitism of the far-left which indulges the discredited historical distortion that Hitler in some way supported Zionism. The arguments involved are arcane, but most Britons are now familiar with the derision with which that assertion was met by expert historical opinion when articulated by Ken Livingstone, especially when he owned up to basing his statements entirely on his reading of a single notorious book by a journalist called Brenner decades earlier. Livingstone was later forced to admit that Brenner himself was an antisemite, and that his work was badly flawed.

Brenner’s intent was to somehow historically decontextualise Zionism, paint a particular group of Zionists of the 1930s and 1940s as fascistic co-travellers with Hitler, and by association paint all Jews associated with the creation of the Jewish State — then and now — as alien fascists, acting at the expense of ‘real Jews’. This bizarre and long-discredited distortion of history is an attack on the Jewish community of this country: it attempts to diminish Hitler’s responsibility for the Holocaust, shifts that blame on to Jews, and by demonising Zionism as a fascistic movement and contemporary Israel in the same breath, it attempts to coerce British Jews into choosing between being labelled as ‘good Jews’ by rejecting Israel or being labelled as ‘bad Jews’ by supporting it. This means of classification is hurtful, insulting and a completely false and distorted version of history.

Even Jon Lansman, the leader of Momentum, has now called out this false distinction between Zionists and Jews. He knows that the overwhelming majority of Jews of all political persuasions support the existence of Israel. However, none of this prevented Mr Greenstein from writing that “Ken Livingstone got it right”. Mr Greenstein regularly returns to this theme in his blog, and never misses an opportunity to abuse others who debunk his ideas, by characterising them as “Zionist scum”. By backing Ken Livingstone’s Nazi apologism in saying Hitler “supported Zionism, before he went mad and ended up killing six million Jews.” Mr Greenstein is to be squarely defined as an antisemite under the International Definition of Antisemitism, which states that “Denying the…intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany…during World War II” is antisemitic.

Mr Greenstein is to be classified as an antisemite on other grounds too. He openly and readily admits to Holocaust inversion (calling Jews Nazis). This breaches the International Definition of Antisemitism by “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.”

Mr Greenstein regularly characterises the creation of Israel as “racist,” which is also in breach of the International Definition of Antisemitism by “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)”. To boot, on his blogs he claims that Jews inflate the Holocaust in order to defend Israel, writing: “The holocaust has…been the alibi for every atrocity of the Israeli state.” However, under the definition: “Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust” is antisemitic.

On all these counts, and more, Tony Greenstein is also guilty under the International Definition of Antisemitism of “Making mendacious, dehumanising, demonising, or stereotypical allegations about Jews”.

Mr Greenstein, unsurprisingly then, has been previously expelled from the Labour Party, silently readmitted (as many antisemites were when Jeremy Corbyn became leader) and then, when publicly exposed, re-suspended by the Party, where he remains alongside other Labour antisemites against whom the Labour Party refuses to act, safe behind the cloak of anonymity afforded by Shami Chakrabarti’s whitewash report on antisemitism.

Mr Greenstein may be known also for the company he keeps: often appearing supporting Jackie Walker, who has also (twice) suspended by the Labour Party for antisemitism. Ms Walker’s antisemitism is well known, and Mr Greenstein embraces her as a colleague and friend, as does Jeremy Corbyn. Tony Greenstein is also allied with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign — an organisation which our recent investigation shows to be a viper’s nest of antisemitism — recently speaking with Jackie Walker at the Brighton and Hove branch.

Mr Greenstein is not above lying. In letters to The Guardian he has stated that the International Definition of Antisemitism prevents criticism of Israel, when, in fact, it explicitly states that it does not, confirming that: “criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.” He has claimed that Campaign Against Antisemitism is a lobby group acting on behalf of the Israeli government, a ridiculous allegation that would not stand up to any examination or audit. In this context, then, it is entirely relevant to mention that Mr Greenstein has previous criminal form for brazen deception, having past convictions for credit card theft and subsequent use, vandalism, drug possession and a number of other petty crimes. He also appears to also be a misogynist, for example saying about a woman who challenges him  “I suspect when [you] drop your knickers everyone runs away”.

All antisemites have to maintain a level of denial and self-deception. Without it, their beliefs cannot bear contact with the light. Mr Greenstein is no exception —  for him, in order to prove to himself that our own charity is “a McCarthyite Zionist propaganda organisation whose aim is to smear and libel opponents of Israel’s apartheid regime”,  he has had to deny reality by brazenly lying to the Charity Commission, claiming that Campaign Against Antisemitism is “…a nakedly right-wing political Zionist organisation” that is not concerned with “fascist groups, who are antisemitic Holocaust deniers.” When Mr Greenstein’s charges arrive on the desk of the Charity Commission, this will no doubt raise eyebrows, as it is well known that challenging fascist neo-Nazis is a primary focus of our work, and has been since our campaign was founded. We can only imagine the mental somersaults he has had to turn in order to avoid acknowledging this, but he must, for if he acknowledged our fight against fascists and Holocaust deniers, his whole thesis would collapse.

Perhaps he would like to come to court in March, to see members of our organisation and pro bono lawyers — who have suffered violent threats and intimidation — unflinchingly challenge alleged neo-Nazi Holocaust deniers, and witness a private prosecution we have brought against a reluctant Crown Prosecution Service, which has refused to prosecute open-and-shut cases of fascist antisemitism. There, in the public gallery, he will (if previous hearings are a guide) rub shoulders with some of Europe’s foremost Holocaust deniers — or even Gilad Atzmon — who have made the same charge as Mr Greenstein: that Campaign Against Antisemitism is the hidden hand of a ‘Zionist’ conspiracy to repress free speech.

Mr Greenstein and those neo-Nazis are nothing more than two sides of the same antisemitic coin, and we will continue to challenge them both.

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Baroness Tonge denounces CAA, prompting outpouring of support for our work from her parliamentary colleagues

As Baroness Tonge denounced Campaign Against Antisemitism in the Daily Mail, MPs and peers contacted the paper to defend us and our work, despite tight press deadlines meaning that they only had one hour on a Friday afternoon in which to do so.

Baroness Tonge had put her name to a petition by antisemitic criminal Tony Greenstein calling for Campaign Against Antisemitism to be shut down as a charity on the basis that we are supposedly a front for the Israeli government, prompting an outpouring of support for our work from her parliamentary colleagues.

Baroness Deech DBE told the Daily Mail: “It is a sad comment on the rise of hate speech in the UK today that anyone would wish to close down a leading organisation dedicated to fighting the oldest hatred of all. It is no coincidence that the protesters have themselves, at various stages, been accused of antisemitism. Antisemitism comes both from the extreme right and the extreme left — and from that point where the two extremes meet — and the CAA has done a good job of making antisemitism unacceptable. The protesters are conflating Judaism and Zionism by claiming that hate speech against Israel and Zionists is merely political. They should be aware, as I am sure the Charity Commission is, that there is a clear line to be drawn between (acceptable) political criticism of Israel’s government, and on the other side of the line, antisemitic statements going far beyond that. The government’s definition of antisemitism, (which is the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance one) which has recently been disseminated to universities, makes that clear.

“The petition to the Charity Commission is absurd, and is perhaps motivated by fear, but it demonstrates just how effective the Campaign Against Antisemitism has been in its relatively short existence. Antisemitism is spreading across continental Europe and has infected social media. The CAA deserves every support and we need real antisemites to be shown up for what they are, even if they try to disguise their Jew-hatred as attacks on Israel, and on self determination for the Jewish people.”

Bob Blackman MP commented: “This web page is just the sort of abject nonsense that has got no place in public life. The CAA and other groups are doing a first-class job of identifying antisemitism. This sounds to me to be an attempt to stifle those who are speaking out against it.”

Mike Freer MP added: “This is a ridiculous attempt to close down an organisation fighting antisemitism, which is on the increase. I have never found the group trying to stifle legitimate comment on Israel but the CAA are vigilant in exposing antisemitism that dresses itself up as anti-Israel comment. If Tonge et al are confident they are not being antisemitic then they have nothing to fear. Trying to close down a legitimate organisation suggests they do!”

Dr Matthew Offord MP said: “This petition is most concerning as the Campaign Against Antisemitism is an important charity that works tirelessly to raise awareness of anti-Jewish racism across the UK. The rise in antisemitic sentiment on the left in the past year is extremely disturbing to myself and many of my constituents. Once again we appear to see the opponents of the state of Israel conflating their opposition to a country with those of the Jewish faith. Whilst criticism of a government’s policies is one thing, we must not allow that to spread into hatred of Judaism. This is why the Campaign Against Antisemitism is currently so vital.”

We are extremely grateful to Baroness Deech, Bob Blackman MP, Mike Freer MP and Dr Matthew Offord MP for their staunch support, and for responding so quickly to nip Baroness Tonge and Tony Greenstein’s disingenuous campaign in the bud.

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Week two report card for the Palestine Solidarity Campaign following our Bigots for Palestine report

Following the release of our Bigots for Palestine report, which found rampant antisemitism on the Facebook page of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), PSC has improved the moderation of its Facebook page, but our questions about institutional Jew-hatred at the organisation have deepened.

Last week, our Online Monitoring Unit identified up 17 antisemitic comments on PSC’s Facebook page. All were removed by PSC within a reasonable timescale and this, unquestionably, is progress. But simultaneously, a troubling new report emerged during this week which provides direct evidence of active antisemitism within the PSC leadership itself.

A painstaking and unequivocal report by David Collier describes members of PSC’s leadership posting Jewish power conspiracy theories. Collier also documents “Rabid conspiracy theory, global Zionist control, rabid antisemitism, numerous links to neo-Nazi sites, right-wing fascist think tanks and of course Holocaust denial” shared amongst PSC supporters.

As we said last week, PSC should not settle for cleaning up its Facebook page but should now turn its attention to cleaning up its movement, starting with the roadshow of lectures by antisemite Jackie Walker, who proposes to explain how “false antisemitism allegations silence the Palestinian voice”.

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Lord Bourne announces much-needed £50,000 grant to support Stamford Hill Shomrim’s work recording antisemitic crime

Lord Nick Bourne, the Minister for Faith and Integration, has announced a government grant of £50,000 to Stamford Hill Shomrim, the Jewish neighbourhood watch patrol, to improve the reporting of antisemitic hate crime. Lord Bourne, a steadfast friend of the Jewish community, visited Shomrim and the charedi community in Stamford Hill to make this important announcement and to demonstrate his appreciation for Shomrim’s work. We applaud his strong commitment to fighting antisemitism.

This additional funding is particularly timely in light of the continuing antisemitic attacks on the charedi community. Charedi Jews are particularly recognisable and therefore are frequently victimised by antisemites. They are also rendered easy targets as during Jewish festivals and the sabbath, the only way for them to contact the police is to find a police officer.

The lack of attention to the charedi community led us to recommend to the Home Office that direct engagement with the charedi community over antisemitic crime should be made a priority, which the Home Office accepted and included in the government’s Hate Crime Action Plan.

Last year, a crime recording drive by Shomrim revealed horrifyingly-common antisemitic crime targeting charedi Jews, ranging from schoolchildren being attacked to women being chased through the streets, all motivated by antisemitism clearly expressed by the attackers. Sadly, the crime recording drive was too taxing on Shomrim’s resources and had to stop, but with this much-needed new grant, Shomrim will be much better resourced to combat antisemitism and to measure the true extent of antisemitic hate crime.

Over the years, Shomrim have emerged as the gold standard in community policing. Working closely with local officers from the Metropolitan Police Service, Shomrim’s volunteers patrol non-stop, frequently apprehending antisemitic criminals as well as thieves, vandals and other criminals, resulting in an appreciable fall in overall crime in the areas in which they operate. Greatly appreciated by the local community, both Jewish and non-Jewish, Shomrim also provide valuable services, such as helping to locate people who go missing, many of whom are vulnerable and need to be found extremely fast. Having won the praise of outgoing Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, Shormim has emerged as a template for engaging with local communities and creating a truly effective neighbourhood watch scheme.

We greatly admire Shomrim and the valuable work they do protecting the Jewish community and the general public, and we commend Lord Bourne for his firm support for Shomrim’s work.

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Racist Labour councillor resigns from Council to avoid CAA disciplinary complaint, but not a single word uttered by the Labour Party

John Clarke, a Labour Councillor and Chairman of Black Notley Parish Council in Essex, who was a parliamentary candidate for Labour in 2015, has tendered his resignation as a councillor after Campaign Against Antisemitism exposed him as a vicious and vile antisemite and instigated disciplinary proceedings with the District Council.

Mr Clarke had written a comment on Facebook berating Holocaust victims for ‘not fighting back’ and tweeted an image claiming that the Rothschild family, a Jewish family of bankers and philanthropists, has “used usury alongside modern Israel as an imperial instrument to take over the world and all of its resources, including you and I”. The image was clearly from antisemitic conspiracy myth website Smoloko and was first tweeted by an account whose biography proclaims that “Hitler was right”. Mr Clarke felt that the image represented “an oversimplified view of the world economy but containing a great deal of truth.” When challenged by other Twitter users, he retorted: “Antisemite smear in constant overuse as those who use it expand their power base”. It is not hard to imagine who he is referring to.

Campaign Against Antisemitism then learned from one of Mr Clarke’s former pupils that in a Facebook rant in 2012 he had written: “As for WW2, I am unaware of any significant military action taken by Jews against Nazi Germany; ask older Jews why they didn’t actually FIGHT the nazis. In addition, insulting the memory of the allied forces, which included many of my relatives, who actually freed Jews from concentration camps you are the ‘deniers’ here. You may also like to know that many British ex-soldiers now in their eighties remember what the Jews did to members of the British forces sent to keep the peace in Israel, before it was declared a sovereign state in the late 1940s. I’ll bet you have an excuse for THAT disgusting bit of Jewish history”. Despite being an unarmed civilian population facing the might of Nazi Germany’s genocidal forces, Jews famously did mount fierce rebellions and missions to sabotage or resist the Nazis.”

Unfortunately, such views appear to be quite common within the increasingly racist Labour Party, which has been secretly readmitting members who were suspended over antisemitism. The Labour Party has not uttered a single word since we exposed Mr Clarke.

We have repeatedly stated that we do not consider the Labour Party to be safe for Jews. Sadly for many in Labour, including Mr Clarke, accusations of antisemitism are like water off a duck’s back, or worse, a badge of honour.

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Week one report card for the Palestine Solidarity Campaign following our Bigots for Palestine report

In response to our Bigots for Palestine report, which found rampant antisemitism on the Facebook page of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), the PSC issued an evasive statement. Whilst it describes antisemitism as “abhorrent”, we find the statement weak and evasive because:

  • It conflates antisemitism with Islamophobia. Our Online Monitoring Unit found no instances of Islamophobia on PSC’s Facebook page. We therefore question why PSC would link the two.
  • It describes the perpetrators of the posts as “members of the public” rather than recognising that they are the PSC’s supporters, thus apparently externalising the problem.
  • It makes the excuse that PSC’s Facebook page is too busy to moderate effectively, but our report demonstrated that PSC was highly effective at removing other forms of hate speech but chose to allow antisemitism.

The reaction of some PSC supporters to PSC’s statement been antisemitic to the extent that PSC deleted its original statement and then republished it in a new thread. Supporter comments on PSC’s first post (now deleted) alleged that false antisemitism charges were being used by “Israeli agents”, “hasbarists” and “Zionists” as a weapon against them. One commenter posted a virulently antisemitic video entitled “CNN, Goldman Sachs and the Zio Matrix”.

However we do recognise and applaud the fact that PSC’s Facebook page has been much more effectively moderated this week, and the usual antisemitic slurs, conspiracy myths and Holocaust denial are being removed.

PSC should not settle for cleaning up its Facebook page but should now turn its attention to cleaning up its movement. For example, the Brighton and Hove branch of PSC and various branches of PSC in Scotland have scheduled events to explain how “false antisemitism allegations silence the Palestinian voice”, with speakers including Jackie Walker and Tony Greenstein, both of whom were suspended by the Labour Party for antisemitism.

When we published our Bigots for Palestine report, we wrote: “We fully expect that among PSC supporters, this report will be seen as cynical political manipulation, thus further proving our claim that the Pro-Palestine movement is deeply infused with antisemitism.” Sadly and predictably, we have been proven right.

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CAA submission to House of Commons Home Affairs Committee calls for robust plan for policing online antisemitism

Campaign Against Antisemitism has today submitted its evidence to the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee’s “Policing for the future: changing demands and new challenges” inquiry.

We have set out in detail the challenge presented by online antisemitism, and proposed a robust plan for dealing with it, including:

  • Development of a state-of-the-art monitoring system for online antisemitism, the benefits of which could be applied to the fight against other forms of hate crime;
  • The establishment of a national centre for policing online hate crime and extremism;
  • Enshrining the International Definition of Antisemitism in law so that it can be more easily acted upon by police forces; and
  • Regulation of social networks, and legislation to clarify the civil law remedies available to victims of online hate crime against perpetrators and the social networks themselves.

Our full submission can be viewed online.

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CAA investigation exposes bigotry within Palestine Solidarity Campaign, CAA calls for unions to disaffiliate

A month-long investigation by Campaign Against Antisemitism has exposed extensive antisemitic bigotry amongst supporters of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign UK (PSC). As it publishes its findings, Campaign Against Antisemitism has called on patrons, affiliated trade unions and students’ unions to end their association with PSC until it agrees to adopt and enforce the International Definition of Antisemitism.

For an entire month, our Online Monitoring Unit recorded antisemitic comments on PSC’s Facebook page and the response of PSC’s moderators. After reviewing and categorising nearly 3,000 comments by PSC supporters using the International Definition of Antisemitism used by the British government, the College of Policing and many other organisations and states, we found that:

  • Over 7% of all comments and replies on PSC posts were antisemitic and included anti-Jewish conspiracy myths, Holocaust denial, Holocaust inversion and religious and general hate speech against Jews.
  • There was very little counter-speech by PSC supporters. Hate speech against Jews was more likely to attract likes and supportive comment than condemnation from PSC supporters.
  • PSC permits hate speech against Jews, but does not permit it against other groups. We tested PSC’s moderation policy by posting hate speech against a non-existent people from a comic strip (the “Bangalla People”). The ‘hate speech’ we posted was almost identical to anti-Jewish sentiment which PSC allowed to be published. Within six hours, PSC removed the “Bangallaphobic” content and banned the account which posted it.
  • Some PSC Patrons were complicit in posting hate speech under the International Definition of Antisemitism.
  • Fifteen of PSC’s affiliated trade unions and all students’ unions have policies against ethnic and/or religious hate and discrimination. Affiliation to PSC is not compatible with these policies.

These findings are shocking given PSC’s public claim that it was established “in opposition to racism, including anti-Jewish prejudice”.

Our research shows that PSC has the means to block antisemitic hate speech on its Facebook page, if it wished to. It is profoundly disappointing that leading British trade unions and students’ unions, with strong anti- discrimination stances, allow themselves to be affiliated to an organisation that proliferates hate.

Our report includes sample disaffiliation motions for trade union and students’ union members to use.

PSC’s Facebook presence is a cesspool of antisemitism which proliferates and normalises hatred of Jews. We challenge the patrons, trade unions and students’ unions that endorse PSC to act on their commitment to fight racism by ending their association with PSC until it unequivocally endorses and enforces the International Definition of Antisemitism used by the British Government.

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Racist Labour’s Councillor Clarke found berating Holocaust victims for not fighting back

John Clarke, a Labour Councillor and Chairman of Black Notley Parish Council in Essex, who was a parliamentary candidate for Labour in 2015, has been found to have posted a comment on Facebook berating Holocaust victims for ‘not fighting back’. Despite being an unarmed civilian population facing the might of Nazi Germany’s genocidal forces, Jews famously did mount fierce rebellions and missions to sabotage or resist the Nazis.

We exposed Councillor Clarke on Tuesday after he tweeted an image from a neo-Nazi website claiming that the Rothschild family, a Jewish family of bankers and philanthropists, has “used usury alongside modern Israel as an imperial instrument to take over the world and all of its resources, including you and I”.

Now, Campaign Against Antisemitism has been contacted by a former pupil of Clarke’s over a Facebook rant in 2012 in which Clarke wrote: “As for WW2, I am unaware of any significant military action taken by Jews against Nazi Germany; ask older Jews why they didn’t actually FIGHT the nazis. In addition, insulting the memory of the allied forces, which included many of my relatives, who actually freed Jews from concentration camps you are the ‘deniers’ here. You may also like to know that many British ex-soldiers now in their eighties remember what the Jews did to members of the British forces sent to keep the peace in Israel, before it was declared a sovereign state in the late 1940s. I’ll bet you have an excuse for THAT disgusting bit of Jewish history”.

However as we learned when we first exposed him, Clarke believes that those who call him an antisemite are simply part of a conspiracy, tweeting: “Antisemite smear in constant overuse as those who use it expand their power base”. It is not hard to imagine who he is referring to.

Councillor Clarke is listed as a “Senior Lecturer” at the University of East London* and serves as a governor of school. We have made disciplinary complaints to the District Council, the university and the school.

Unfortunately, such views appear to be quite common within the increasingly racist Labour Party, which has been secretly readmitting members who were suspended over antisemitism. We have repeatedly stated that we do not consider the Labour Party to be safe for Jews. Sadly for many in racist Labour, including Councillor Clarke, accusations of antisemitism are like water off a duck’s back, or worse, a badge of honour.

*On 9th February, the University of East London contacted us to confirm that John Clarke no longer works there, but that his teaching profile had been accidentally left up on their website.

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Today in racist Labour, a Councillor tweets that “antisemite smear” is being used to “expand their power base”

John Clarke, a Labour Councillor and Chairman of Black Notley Parish Council in Essex, has tweeted an image claiming that the Rothschild family, a Jewish family of bankers and philanthropists, has “used usury alongside modern Israel as an imperial instrument to take over the world and all of its resources, including you and I”. The image was clearly from antisemitic conspiracy myth website Smoloko and was first tweeted by an account whose biography proclaims that “Hitler was right”.

Councillor Clarke felt that the image represented “an oversimplified view of the world economy but containing a great deal of truth.” When challenged by other Twitter users, he retorted: “Antisemite smear in constant overuse as those who use it expand their power base”. It is not hard to imagine who he is referring to.

Startlingly, Councillor Clarke is listed as a “Senior Lecturer” at the University of East London, with which Campaign Against Antisemitism is lodging a disciplinary complaint.*

Unfortunately, such views appear to be quite common within the increasingly racist Labour Party, which has been secretly readmitting members who were suspended over antisemitism. We have repeatedly stated that we do not consider the Labour Party to be safe for Jews. Sadly for many in racist Labour, including Councillor Clarke, accusations of antisemitism are like water off a duck’s back, or worse, a badge of honour.

*On 9th February, the University of East London contacted us to confirm that John Clarke no longer works there, but that his teaching profile had been accidentally left up on their website.

https://twitter.com/JohnClarke1960/status/828877521039015936

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Another antisemite readmitted to Labour with a “warning” sparking angry response from local members

The Labour Party has readmitted Terence Flanagan to the Party with a “final warning” after he claimed that Israeli secret intelligence service Mossad was behind a plot to undermine Jeremy Corbyn, and sent a message to members in which he said supporters of Israel were “polluting” the Labour Party.

The decision to readmit Flanagan was taken by the Labour Party at a national level and has caused consternation within Hampstead and Kilburn’s local branch of the Labour Party. All of the local Councillors, along with the area’s representative to the Greater London Assembly, Andrew Dismore AM, and the constituency’s MP, Tulip Siddiq, have issued criticised the decision.

Flanagan, a former worker at a print works said that he has been “vindicated” by the decision to readmit him. He now says he wants to stand for Labour at the Town Hall elections next year. He told the Camden New Journal: “It has been shown that the accusations against me were fraudulent. If I was racist or antisemitic, I wouldn’t have been allowed back in the Labour Party, and rightly so. But I’m not, and I am back in the Labour Party. There is no appeal process in the rulebook to get that warning off the record but I would dispute it being there, because I haven’t done anything wrong and Councillor [Phil] Rosenberg was wrong to make the accusations he did.”

In a statement, Chairman of the Hampstead and Kilburn Constituency Labour Party, Geoff Berridge, and its Secretary, Peter Taheri, said: “In the last few weeks, the Labour Party’s Disputes Committee has reportedly made a number of decisions (including in relation to at least one case in our [Constituency Labour Party]) on suspensions that have caused significant alarm in numerous quarters, not least, but by no means only, in the Jewish community. In addition to questions about the judgements themselves, there has been concern about the process, whereby those on the receiving end of abuse – and indeed, the local Labour Party itself – have had to learn about decisions through the local media and not through the Party’s official channels.

“This needs to be urgently reviewed. While we do not yet have full access to the facts and the reasoning behind any such decision, the absence of these would seem to be unacceptable and we will be writing to the Party’s General Secretary to ask for an urgent meeting to discuss and gain an understanding of this matter. In our local Labour Party, we expect nothing less than a ‘zero tolerance’ approach to antisemitism and we call on the Party nationally to give everyone the confidence that it shares this commitment equally. Where those returning from suspension are doing so on a formal warning for their past unacceptable behaviour, we intend to be rigorous in ensuring that any repeat offence will be dealt with speedily and strictly.”

Following Baroness Chakrabarti’s whitewash report into antisemitism in the Labour Party, the result of disciplinary decisions has been kept secret, so we only learn of outcomes that are revealed by local Labour Party members, or by those who have been disciplined.

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Just another day for racist Labour as antisemitic tweets of Party’s Chair in Hove, Brunswick and Adelaide revealed

Rebecca Massey, the newly-elected Interim Chair of Central Hove, Brunswick and Adelaide Labour Party, is an active user of Twitter. She uses her account, @beckycheabas, to propagate views familiar to those attempting to counter the strain  of antisemitism that masquerades as political discourse about Israel.

Whilst most of her tweets are dedicated to the demonisation of Israel, referring to it often in hyperbolic terms such as “pathological”, “barbaric” and “apartheid”, some reveal a deeper prejudice. For example, Massey asserts that Israel controls the British government, tweeting that “Israel has Tory & Labour parties under control”.

According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, which was adopted by the British Government in December, prompting Labour to also claim that they adopt it, “Making…stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as…Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions” is antisemitic.

When Chuka Umunna said following Ken Livingstone’s declaration that Hitler supported Zionism that “Offending Jewish people is a betrayal of our Labour values”, Massey jumped to Livingstone’s defence, tweeting that Umunna had “swallowed the conflation of Zionist with Jewish”. Massey is “Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews” according to the International Definition of Antisemitism.

On another occasion, Massey tweeted an article explaining how the “Israel lobby manufactured the UK Labour Party’s antisemitism crisis”, as if that crisis were not as a result of British Jews decrying egregious antisemitic statements by senior Labour Party figures. Since these allegations did not come from Israel but were from British Jews, the “Israel lobby” is a misnomer: she means a ‘Jewish lobby’ again deploying what the International Definition refers to as “the myth…of Jews controlling the…government or other societal institutions.”

We were unsure as we read Massey’s tweets that this could possibly be the same Rebecca Massey that has newly been elected to a position of responsibility in the Labour Party. But Greg Hadfield, the former secretary of Brighton, Hove and District Labour party, suspended last October, confirmed our fears when he tweeted his congratulations on her election.

As the local Labour Party’s minutes reveal, Rebecca Massey is the newly elected interim-Chair of Central Hove, Brunswick & Adelaide Labour Party. Moreover, she was recommended for the post by her local Momentum group. One can only wonder about how the local Jewish community in Brighton and Hove might feel about the news.

That Massey claims that Labour’s antisemitism crisis is a fabrication of the “Israel lobby” is truly ironic: for that antisemitism crisis rests squarely in the black hearts of individuals like her.

The Labour Party does not act on antisemitism. Even worse has been perpetrated by even more high-profile figures and yet has famously been dismissed after hearings in camera under the terms of the laughable Chakrabarti report. We have no confidence whatsoever therefore that Massey will be disciplined.

We will, however, continue to expose individuals like her until at some point, the Labour Party accepts that for so long as it remains an institutionally racist party, it cannot possibly command the respect of the British people.

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How can antisemitism go on? Holocaust Memorial Day in British politics

On Holocaust Memorial Day this year, a survivor called Dorit Oliver-Wolff spoke of her experiences surviving antisemitic persecution as a Jewish child in Nazi-occupied Europe. She recalled that when walking with her mother in a park in Budapest, a middle-aged woman approached her, bent over and spat in her eyes, telling her she was “a filthy Jew”.

It is difficult to imagine the irrational hatred that could so possess a grown woman as to make her spit in the face of a little five-year-old, but the evidence that such hatred still exists is, sadly, not far away.

When we commemorate the Holocaust, the organised disaster that saw six million Jews murdered, the antisemites are only spitting distance away, and like the woman in that Budapest park in 1941, they simply cannot control themselves.

Jackie Walker, for example, a Labour Party member who sits on Momentum’s steering committee, already once suspended for repeating the lie that Jews were the chief financiers of the slave trade, went out of her way to attack Holocaust Memorial Day (which she once called a “celebration”). She repeated her infamous and original erroneous attack on the commemoration of the Holocaust, suggesting that Jews do not remember other genocides on Holocaust Memorial Day, allowing it to be assumed that there is something malevolent in Jews mourning the disaster the befell them, and that the event promotes remembering the genocide of Jews at the expense of remembering other genocides. Walker was suspended from her Party for a second time.

David Ward, a Liberal Democrat with a long history of antisemitism also could not help himself. Last Thursday, we learned as much about him from when he chose to speak, as from what he said: by utilising the most widely used contemporary antisemitic charge against the Jewish community — so often used by Baroness Jenny Tonge who had to leave the Liberal Democrats after being suspended over antisemitism — that everything the Jewish people say or do is a front to protect Israel from criticism, including remembering the dead victims of the Holocaust.

Though the timing of these statements is clearly offensive, they are as nothing compared to the hypocrisy of the Labour Party and Jeremy Corbyn, who makes great play of how he mourns the Holocaust, saying: “This Holocaust Memorial Day let us…redouble our efforts to defeat evil and intolerance.” Yet the pious Mr Corbyn has taken money from the Iranian state to appear on their TV Channel, a state that denies the Holocaust and runs an annual cartoon competition mocking it. He has praised Hamas as “dedicated… to social and political justice” and describe working with them as a “pleasure and honour” despite Hamas’s constitution being genocidally antisemitic and quoting of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a text on which Hitler based his propaganda. He had a long and close friendship with the Holocaust denier Paul Eisen. He has steadfastly refused to disown or apologise for his actions since becoming Party Leader. He has recently expressed public and explicit support for Jackie Walker, and warmly welcomed her back into the Labour Party after she was inexplicably allowed to return following a secret hearing. Ken Livingstone, lest we forget, who has nurtured the idea that Hitler supported the right of Jews to self-determination, is still, astonishingly, a party member, as is Sir Gerald Kaufman MP, a man who said that Jews use money to control political parties. The list is longer still and is beyond disgraceful: it has stained British public life.

Whilst Tim Farron, Leader of the Liberal Democrats said that the day represented a chance to “think about our responsibilities as individuals, citizens and nations”, he pointedly failed to rebuke antisemitism in his own Party’s ranks.

The theme of Holocaust Memorial Day this year was “How can life go on?” The horror of the Holocaust is unspeakable, the stain on humanity indelible. One might ask: “How can antisemitism go on?” and a great part of the answer lies with the fact that our political leaders allow senior members of their movements to publicly use the occasion of Holocaust Memorial Day to spit in Jewish faces.

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On Holocaust Memorial Day, Israel follows UK Government in adopting International Definition of Antisemitism

Israel has adopted the International Definition of Antisemitism after the UK Government became the first in the world to do so last month.

Israel timed the announcement to coincide with Holocaust Memorial Day. The Definition incorporates “Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g. gas chambers) or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices during World War II (the Holocaust)” and “Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust” among the examples of antisemitism.

The UK was the first country in the world to adopt the International Definition, something for which Campaign Against Antisemitism and Lord Pickles worked hard over many meetings with officials at Downing Street.

Campaign Against Antisemitism calls on other national governments to follow the UK’s and Israel’s lead by also adopting the Definition.

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The Labour Party’s antisemitism is laid bare by its decision to drop its investigation into Oxford University Labour Club

As if attempting to inflict more public wounds on its tattered reputation, the once anti-racist Labour Party has today dropped its investigation into the rampant antisemitism at the Oxford University Labour Club (OULC), clearing the two members under investigation.

This verdict is an insult to the intelligence of the Jewish community, and adds that insult to the already traumatic injury to Labour’s once steadfast relationship with it. Jewish Students at Oxford have recounted in painful detail the incidents that took place.

Students testified that members of the OULC had called Auschwitz a “cash cow”. Jews were called “Zios”. They were asked to renounce Israel publicly before speaking. The dead Jewish victims of the Paris Hypercacher terrorist attack were mocked. Terrorist acts against Jews in Europe were rationalised. It was asserted that the banks were controlled by the “Paris-Tel Aviv axis” — all in clear breach of the International Definition of Antisemitism, a definition Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party have already shown to have been lying in saying they had accepted.

Following this, Labour Students was sent to investigate. Its findings were suppressed. Baroness Royall was commissioned to follow up, and although her positive findings for Labour were leaked (she found that there were rotten apples but no institutional problem), to her publicly expressed chagrin, those rotten apples were not exhibited. The ever more rancid, rotting pot was handed to Shami Chakrabarti, a former human rights barrister who proclaimed that the offenders would be dealt with under the terms of her new whitewash report, which introduced a system of secrecy over due process that would have made the Pinochet regime blush.

We can now see the fruits of her labours: with Ilyas Aziz and now, two un-named Oxford students, cleared without censure.

Within the small Jewish community, the Oxford students have told their story privately, as well as testifying for the Sunday Times. Here, in 2017, with the enormous weight of public evidence that antisemitic incidents took place, the only remaining way to profess that there was no actionable antisemitism in the OULC is to effectively call those who witnessed it liars.

From the case of the Oxford students, through Jeremy Corbyn’s stating that his brother was “not wrong” to characterise Louise Ellman MP’s complaints of antisemitism as politically motivated; to Diane Abbott and Len McCluskey’s public assertions that allegations of antisemitism in Labour were “smears” and “got up”; through Ruth Smeeth’s ordeal at the hands of Jeremy Corbyn himself as he stood by while she was attacked and consequently received 25,000 abusive messages including death threats; after our outcry at the silent readmission and public defence of Jackie Walker after she repeated the 1950s discredited canard that Jews were the authors of the slave trade; our protests at the failure to summarily expel Ken Livingstone for his offensive claim that Hitler supported Zionism; through Corbyn’s assertion that the respected Jewish journalist Jonathan Freedland’s thoughtful Guardian piece on Labour antisemitism represented “utterly disgusting subliminal nastiness”; and the video Corbyn himself released online characterising Jewish complaint as so much rubbish to be thrown on the floor: there is only one, single, clear message running through everything Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party has to say about our community: Jewish complaints are empty lies.

In 2017, lamentably and astonishingly, Her Majesty’s Opposition is resurrecting an ancient antisemitic charge against Jews: of dissembling. Jewish politicians, Jewish journalists and now Jewish students’ complaints are all similarly charged as being maliciously motivated. In this, the Labour Party has been guilty of what the International Definition of Antisemitism calls “employing sinister stereotypes” and invoking “… mendacious …demonising, or stereotypical allegations about Jews”.

The Labour Party itself is now in breach of the International Definition of Antisemitism. By the standard set by that definition, the Labour party is antisemitic and not safe for Jews; we further publicly call it out for lying in publicly saying it accepted the definition.

We call on Theresa May’s government, the courts, as well as Tom Watson and other senior Labour figures, to utilise the International Definition to oppose the Labour Party’s racism. It is no longer possible, in our view, to save the Labour Party from its own racism, but it is necessary to defend the Jewish community against what is becoming a waking nightmare.

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Muslim Public Affairs Committee founder defends Malaysian PM’s antisemitic speech

Asghar Bukhari, a founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, has spoken out to defend the former Malaysian Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamad, over an antisemitic speech he gave.

During an interview with Mehdi Hasan, Mahathir Mohamad was questioned over his 2012 speech to the Organisation of the Islamic Conference in which he claimed that “The Jews rule the world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them”. The heads of state of 56 other nations present gave him a standing ovation for the speech and afterwards he wrote that he was “glad to be labelled as antisemitic” and described sympathy with Jewish victims of the Holocaust as “wasted and misplaced”.

Astonishingly, Bukhari defended the comments and attacked the interviewer, bizarrely asserting in a blog post that the “whole argument revolved around the…use of the word Jew”, which he contended could either be used positively or negatively.

This is a brazen attempt to deflect from the true nature of Mohamad’s comments.

Saying that sympathy for victims of the Holocaust is “wasted and misplaced” is not a disagreement over the usage of the word “Jew”, but is a shameless attempt to delegitimise the irrefutable historical facts of the Holocaust and to dehumanise its victims. Indeed, when read alongside statements, which he refused to retract in the interview, that Jews “rule the world by proxy”, such a comment could easily be taken as him expressing the view that the Holocaust was somehow justified. Yet Ashgar Bukhari says that it is “wrong to call the Former Prime Minister of Malaysia antisemitic” even though Mohamad himself clearly relishes the label.

Similarly, claims that Jews control world affairs are antisemitic according to the International Definition of Antisemitism which states that it is antisemitic to make “mendacious, dehumanising, demonising, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective”. The claim that Jews “get others to fight and die for them” is particularly pernicious, and borders on blood libel, as well as suggesting a belief that Jews cause many of the world’s wars, a belief that research found to be held by 26% of British Muslims.

Bukhari has been no stranger to antisemitism. In 2006, he was forced to repudiate David Irving, the British Holocaust denier, to whom he had sent £6000, which he claims he did under the belief that he was merely an “anti-Zionist” who had been smeared as something much worse. He also famously accused Mossad of breaking into his house and stealing one of his shoes and claimed that “any Muslim who fights and dies against Israel and dies is a martyr and will be granted paradise”. Despite this, he has been allowed to speak for British Muslims on numerous occasions, both in his capacity as a founder of MPAC UK and independently, including appearances on BBC News, The James O’Brien Show, LBC, Sky News and The Big Questions.

In 2015, Bukhari announced that he was leaving the UK because nobody would donate to his organisation.

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Corbyn’s hypocrisy exposed yet again by Labour’s latest stealthy readmission of suspended antisemite

Three weeks ago, on 12th December, Jeremy Corbyn publicly stated that he and the Labour Party accepted the International Definition of Antisemitism, as adopted by the government.

Yet it has now been reported that Labour has quietly allowed the virulently antisemitic Labour councillor Ilyas Aziz back into the Labour Party after gross breaches of that same definition. Mr Aziz announced he had been readmitted on 31st December.

Mr Aziz has explicitly compared the actions of Israel to those of the Nazis.The International Definition states: “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” is antisemitic. He has also claimed that Jews in Israel should be forcibly relocated to America. The International Definition states that: “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination” is antisemitic. He shared a post invoking the blood libel: the International Definition states that: “Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g. claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterise Israel or Israelis” is antisemitic.

Mr Aziz’s disciplinary process has taken place in secret, with all the lack of transparency that Shami Chakrabarti, supposedly once an advocate of justice and human rights, enshrined in her whitewash report into antisemitism in the Labour Party: not only was it conducted in secret, but the reasons for the lifting of his suspension have not been explained.

Mr Corbyn has now been exposed as a hypocrite. He and the Party have dissembled on the matter of the Labour Party’s adoption of the International Definition of Antisemitism.

The report he commissioned from Baroness Chakrabarti has now once again been shown to be a whitewash. It has allowed cover for the quiet lifting of an antisemite’s suspension, and failed to adhere to the definition the Party claims subsequently to have adopted, despite Tom Watson also declaring on 29th November in relation to antisemitism that: “I know there are still some outstanding issues that cannot be ignored. They won’t be ignored. Action is being taken now.”

The Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership is, as the Labour MP Ruth Smeeth stated: “Not a safe space for Jews”. With its first action in relation to antisemitism in 2017, Labour have quietly but clearly demonstrated that the current leadership are determined to do nothing to cleanse the Party of antisemites. In doing so they have nakedly exposed their stated acceptance of the International Definition of Antisemitism as nothing more than a PR stunt, a declaration made hastily in response to the government’s adoption of the definition that Jeremy Corbyn never had any intention of making good on.

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British government becomes first in the world to formally adopt International Definition of Antisemitism

Today, we are proud that the Prime Minister, Theresa May, will announce that the British government will become the first in the world to formally adopt the International Definition of Antisemitism. This definition is clear and detailed, leaving no doubt as to what antisemitism is. In particular, this definition tackles the full spectrum of antisemitism, from ancient slurs to conspiracy myths to antisemitism in discourse about Israel.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has worked hard over many meetings for the government to take this step and we applaud the Prime Minister’s leadership. We also recognise the major contribution of Sir Eric Pickles to this important result.

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Success for CAA as Home Secretary agrees to declare National Action a terrorist organisation

Following a long campaign by Campaign Against Antisemitism, violent neo-Nazi group National Action will now finally become a “proscribed organisation” when Home Secretary Amber Rudd declares it a banned terrorist group tomorrow.

National Action is a growing neo-Nazi group in Britain. Whilst seeking prosecutions for its relentless incitement against Jews, including calling for a new Holocaust, Campaign Against Antisemitism has also long campaigned for the Home Secretary to declare the group a terrorist organisation.

In common with other terrorist groups, National Action radicalises and indoctrinates the young, teaches them violence, attacks the police and the public and demands the annihilation of Jews.

In recent weeks, National Action has lauded the murder of Jo Cox and attempted to assert control over territory in Liverpool and Newbury. Last month we increased our work in the media and on social networks, including releasing our five-minute video exposing the true nature of National Action, and successfully freezing donations by the public to the group.

Tomorrow, under section 3(3)(a) of the Terrorism Act 2000, the Home Secretary will issue an Order adding National Action to the list of Proscribed Organisations, which will instantly render it a criminal offence to recruit for, be a member of or in any way support National Action, including displaying National Action flags, posters or banners.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has worked hard for this change, along with others. This decision by the Home Secretary is something we have long called for and sends a strong message that the far-right is in the government’s sights and will not be permitted to continue its incitement and violence.

We would also like to thank everyone who supported our work.

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The leopard does not change its spots: Jeremy Corbyn and Hatem Bazian

It is now barely a week since Labour’s Deputy Leader, Tom Watson, stood before a Labour Friends of Israel lunch and declared: “Let me say something before we get any further today about taking on antisemitism in the Labour Party: that’s a moral responsibility. I am ashamed that I am saying antisemitism and Labour in the same sentence. But dealing with it can’t be something we do for show, for the sake of it, because we’ve come under media pressure, or because we need to deal with a political problem. It’s a commandment. I know that people here are understandably frustrated by how long it’s taking the Labour Party to deal with antisemitism in our midst. You’re right to be. It should have been quicker. I know there are still some outstanding issues that cannot be ignored. They won’t be ignored. Action is being taken now and if, G-d forbid, we find these problems again, action will be quicker in the future.”

As if to publicly right what he seems to see as a wrong, the Leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, has met with one Hatem Bazian: a founder and leader of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and the pro-Islamist American Muslims for Palestine. The event, significantly, was Bazian’s book signing and was hosted by Press TV, the international television channel of the Iranian regime, by which Mr Corbyn has previously been paid as a presenter. The event was organised by the Islamic Human Rights Commission Trust, organiser of an annual march through London brazenly supporting proscribed genocidal antisemitic terrorist organisation Hizballah, which led Campaign Against Antisemitism to complain about the Trust to the Charity Commission, on which we await an outcome.

Bazian has allegedly quoted in public the infamous Haddith enshrined in the Hamas constitution: “The Day of Judgment will not happen until the trees and stones will say, ‘Oh Muslim, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him.’” His organisation has constantly breached the International Definition of Antisemitism, comparing Israelis to the Nazis and calling into question Israel’s very right to exist. Bazian himself is alleged to have raised money for Hamas, a genocidal antisemitic terrorist organisation. This litany demonises Israel as the ‘Jew among nations’. He has publicly asked whether Jews should “have to pay reparations for slavery”

Bazian is credited with presenting his antisemitic movement as ‘progressive’ to a whole generation of students, yet SJP members have reportedly intimidated, harassed and even allegedly assaulted a Jewish student. Their demonstrations feature chants in support of terrorism targeting Israeli Jews.

Trust between the Jewish community of this country and the Labour Party is at an all-time low. The antisemites of the Oxford University Labour Club, Sir Gerald Kaufman MP, Ken Livingstone and Jackie Walker, and scores of others have still not been disciplined. The Chakrabarti report has drawn a veil over new cases of antisemitism. The cross-party House of Commons Home Affairs Committee  has issued a warning about antisemitism within the Labour Party and on university campuses. It therefore beggars belief that on Wednesday night Jeremy Corbyn chose to fête Hatem Bazain.

For a man who leads Her Majesty’s Opposition to take time out of his onerous schedule to meet Hatem Bazian in public, is unmistakable in its symbolism and signalling: the leopard not only does not change its spots, but is parading them for Tom Watson and the Jewish community to behold.

We still await a response to our complaint to Tom Watson about Jeremy Corbyn.

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US Senate unanimously passes Antisemitism Awareness Act adopting International Definition of Antisemitism

The United States Senate has unanimously passed the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which requires the US Department of Education to use the International Definition of Antisemitism “In reviewing, investigating, or deciding whether there has been a violation of title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964”.

The Act specifically notes that “Antisemitism remains a persistent, disturbing problem in elementary and secondary schools and on college campuses. Jewish students are being threatened, harassed, or intimidated in their schools (including on their campuses) on the basis of their shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics including through harassing conduct that creates a hostile environment so severe, pervasive, or persistent so as to interfere with or limit some students’ ability to participate in or benefit from the services, activities, or opportunities offered by schools.” It also particularly praises the International Definition for including “useful examples of discriminatory anti-Israel conduct that crosses the line into antisemitism.”

The legislation was proposed by Senators Bob Casey, a Pennsylvania Democrat, and Tim Scott, a South Carolina Republican, who said in a statement that the purpose of the Act was to “ensure the Education Department has the necessary statutory tools at their disposal to investigate anti-Jewish incidents.”

In 2005, the EU Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC), now the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), adopted a “working definition on antisemitism” which became the standard definition used around the world, including by the European Parliament, the UK College of Policing, the US Department of State, and the 31 countries comprising the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. The US Senate is the latest body to formally adopt it.

Earlier this year, the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee joined Campaign Against Antisemitism’s longstanding call for the British Government and its agencies, as well as all political parties, to formally adopt the International Definition of Antisemitism, and for educational institutions to use it in disciplinary cases.

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New CAA video calls on Home Secretary to ban neo-Nazi group targeting the young

National Action is a growing neo-Nazi group in Britain. It radicalises and indoctrinates the young, teaches them violence, attacks the police and the public and demands a new Holocaust.

Many of its activities are already criminal, but its members are not being prosecuted.

Under section 3(3)(a) of the Terrorism Act 2000, the Home Secretary can issue an Order adding National Action to the list of Proscribed Organisations, which would instantly render it a criminal offence to recruit for, be a member of or in any way support National Action.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has asked the Home Secretary to proscribe National Action under the Terrorism Act.

Add your voice at antisemitism.org/petition.

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Facebook group for UKIP supporters posts claim that Jews are conspiring against Brexit

According to an article posted by a Facebook group for UK Independence Party (UKIP) supporters, Jews are conspiring to subvert British democracy and engage in “treason” by undermining ‘Brexit’, Britain’s exit from the European Union.

Posted by ‘The UKIP Society’ Facebook page as a “very interesting observation”, the article attempts to expose a Jewish conspiracy by highlighting the people involved in Thursday’s High Court decision against the Government’s proposed Brexit process whom the author suspects of having Jewish heritage.

The post has been shared dozens of times, including by the ‘UKIP Hertford and Stortford’ Facebook page, and has attracted appalling antisemitic comments.

Facebook user ‘Darren Brown’ observed: “Rothschild. Soros. Rockefeller. Warburg. Du Pont. Morgan. ALL JEWS. ALL central banks are owned by Jews. It isn’t a coincidence they run the world.” Facebook user ‘Theresa Guilfoyle’ added: “No doubt. Rothschilds and rich bankers right behind it.”

Facebook user ‘Sue Thorpe’ complained: “Who else is going to poke their nose into our business? After what we did for the Jews during WWII they have a short memory! Just leave us alone to get on with our own lives!”

Facebook user ‘Maggie Tucker’ was sceptical that Jews oppose “British rule” but added “Mind you these Jews are all wealthy and that makes a difference now as in the past.”

Facebook user ‘Peter Baker’ earned a number of likes with his comment: “Tell the to keep their big noses out it’s not their business.”

Facebook user ‘Fred Matthews’ echoed Nazi propaganda, simply writing “Parasites”. ‘Jim Dunn’ contributed his solution: “Open up Hitler’s gas chambers the Jews know the way in”.

Facebook user ‘Nik Schofield’ was so outraged that he wrote: “Zionist c**ts these are the worst ya dont have to be Jew to be Zionist but all Zionists are Jews end of”.

According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, “Making mendacious, dehumanising, demonising, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions” is antisemitic.

The post was found by Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Everyday Antisemitism project, and has now been referred to our Online Monitoring and Investigations Unit, our Political and Government Investigations Unit, and our Crime Unit, all of which are run by volunteers.

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Jeremy Corbyn’s statement after meeting Bashar Assad promotes an antisemitic myth

Last week, Baroness Tonge finally stepped down after the Liberal Democrats suspended her over yet another antisemitism crisis of her own making. This time, she had hosted an event at the House of Lords organised by the Palestine Return Centre (PRC) at which Jews were blamed for the Holocaust. The PRC were the very same hosts of a Parliamentary event last year at which Sir Gerald Kaufmann MP claimed that “Jewish money” controlled British politicians.

It has now emerged that in 2009, Jeremy Corbyn accepted a trip to Syria at the PRC’s expense, along with Baroness Tonge, to greet and praise the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. In writing an account of the trip, he repeated a worn antisemitic conspiracy myth, in declaring that “the Israeli tail wags the US dog”, as well as characterising the Balfour declaration as “infamous”.

Mr Corbyn repeatedly claims that he “condemns antisemitism” yet he fails to act against it, and even normalises it. That was the finding of the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee’s report into antisemitism, which criticises Mr Corbyn directly and makes clear that under his leadership the Labour Party has not done enough to stem a flood of antisemitism amongst its supporters. The report demonstrates that at the very heart of Mr Corbyn’s politics lies a deep and profound denial of the nature of post-Holocaust antisemitism, reflected in his disavowal of the International Definition of Antisemitism, a definition that the Committee itself recommended be formally endorsed by the Government and all political parties.

The International Definition of Antisemitism incorporates a necessary understanding of the antisemitism of the period since the Holocaust in which Islamism and the far-Left from which Mr Corbyn hails have played a well-documented part. By making his claim that an Israeli tail controls the United States dog, Mr Corbyn is guilty, in the terms of the International Definition, of “making mendacious, dehumanising, demonising, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.”

The denial at the heart of the Labour Party’s antisemitism problem is embodied by Mr Corbyn. He can repeat indefinitely his assertion that he condemns antisemitism, but until he acknowledges its recent history, and accepts the definition endorsed by historians, governments, our Police and his parliamentary peers, he will continue to expose himself as a man supporting notions that are increasingly exposing British Jews to persecution.

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Baroness Tonge resigns at last from Liberal Democrats but remains in House of Lords

Following her suspension from the Liberal Democrat party pending investigation, Baroness Tonge has resigned from the Party. She had already had the Party whip withdrawn in 2012 over antisemitic comments that Israel should be destroyed.

Her resignation is the culmination of a long history of baiting Jews.

We are pleased that she is no longer a member of the Liberal Democrat party, but it shames the Party that she was allowed to remain a member for so long, despite her comments.

Attention will now turn to Baroness Tonge’s ongoing membership of the House of Lords, which she used on Tuesday to host an event at which attendees compared Israel to ISIS and claimed that Jews “provoked” their own genocide in the Holocaust.

It is high time that Baroness Tonge was stripped of her peerage.

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Suspending Baroness Tonge from the Liberal Democrats is not enough: expel and condemn her

Baroness Tonge specialises in baiting Jews, as we have been reminded in recent months by her renewed antisemitic statements.

We welcome Baroness Tonge’s suspension from the Liberal Democrats in response to complaints from Campaign Against Antisemitism and others, but Party Leader Tim Farron must now procure Baroness Tonge’s long-overdue expulsion from the Party.

Baroness Tonge’s ongoing membership of the House of Lords and the Liberal Democrats is a disgrace to both institutions. It is indefensible that the Liberal Democrats withdrew the whip in 2012 over her antisemitic remarks then but have allowed her to remain a Party member since. Her latest remarks have caused multiple complaints to her Party, including from Campaign Against Antisemitism, and the departure of at least one senior Liberal Democrat, but so far the Party has simply defended her. Each day that Mr Farron allows people like Baroness Tonge and former MP David Ward to remain in the Party leads more Jews to wonder quite how serious the Liberal Democrats are about fighting antisemitism.

The Liberal Democrats must now act decisively to purge their Party of high-profile antisemites and ensure that this cannot happen again by adopting our manifesto for fighting antisemitism in political parties as backed by the Home Affairs Committee.

 

 

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As Tim Farron fails to act, Jewish former Lib Dem candidate quits party over antisemitism

Whilst Liberal Democrat Baroness Jenny Tonge and Liberal Democrat Councillor and former MP David Ward have baited Jews in recent weeks, the Liberal Democrats have allowed both to remain Party members and Party leader Tim Farron has even defended David Ward.

Whilst Tim Farron appears to take no action whatsoever against two senior figures in his Party over complaints of antisemitism, a Jewish former candidate for the Party has decided to leave.

Matthew Harris, who stood as the Liberal Democrat candidate to become MP for Hendon in 2010 has had enough. In a blog post he wrote that the Party’s decision to defend Baroness Tonge was the “final straw”.

The Liberal Democrats have so far declined to answer Campaign Against Antisemitism’s letter regarding antisemitism in the Party.

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Report says Chakrabarti knew she was being offered a peerage before her whitewash inquiry into antisemitism

An exposé in The Telegraph appears to confirm our suspicions that Shami Chakrabarti’s peerage was a reward for her whitewash report into antisemitism in the Labour Party. Baroness Chakrabarti was then named Shadow Attorney General.

Shami Chakrabarti’s inquiry into antisemitism was suspected of being a fraud from the moment she promised to conduct it in Labour’s interests. Sure enough, she delivered a whitewash which failed to deal with Labour’s antisemitism problem in any meaningful way. She did not tackle allegations of antisemitism in the Labour Party or their woeful handling by Jeremy Corbyn, and she even refused to adopt a definition of antisemitism.

According to The Telegraph, “Jeremy Corbyn discussed giving Shami Chakrabarti a peerage with his team in March, it has emerged, amid claims she was aware her name was listed before agreeing to conduct a Labour report into antisemitism…The Shadow Attorney General’s name was added [to the honours list] before she was approached to conduct a report into antisemitism and Labour sources have claimed that the peer was told this prior to the announcement on 29th April that she would chair an independent inquiry into antisemitism and other forms of racism in the Labour party.”

Shami Chakrabarti, Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party have all repeatedly denied that the offer of a peerage was made before Baroness Chakrabarti concluded her report into antisemitism.

The failure of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party to stamp out antisemitism in its ranks was exacerbated by Shami Chakrabarti’s report into antisemitism and contributed to an institutional failure to address antisemitism which has made the Labour Party unsafe for British Jews.

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Why the Home Affairs Committee’s report could be a turning point in the fight against antisemitism

The following letter from Gideon Falter, Chairman of Campaign Against Antisemitism, was sent to the newly-elected Chair of the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee, and sent in copy to the MPs on the Committee who contributed to the Committee’s report on the rise of antisemitism in Britain.

Dear Ms Cooper,

I would like to congratulate you on your election as the new Chair of the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee.

As you know, the Committee published on Sunday its report on the rise of antisemitism in Britain, including recommendations that we have long called for. We hope that the report will prove to be a turning point in the fight against antisemitism in our country.

We have a limited window of opportunity to turn the tide against antisemitism in Britain. As I noted in my evidence to the Committee, Jews are leaving mainland Europe in their thousands, and antisemitic crime in Britain continues to rise to record levels. Should we succeed, Britain will remain a beacon of tolerance and justice, but should we fail, we British Jews will find ourselves on the same dark trajectory as Jews across mainland Europe.

For too long, Campaign Against Antisemitism has often been a solitary voice calling for the Government and political parties to adopt the international definition of antisemitism, for police forces and the Crown Prosecution Service to properly record, investigate and prosecute antisemitic crime, for the Labour Party and Liberal Democrats to fight antisemitism rather than normalising it, for the student movement to end the isolation and abandonment of Jewish students, and for social networks to shoulder their responsibility to cut off the torrent of hatred online.

The Committee listened, and by endorsing the measures we have called for, the Committee has forcefully challenged those responsible for allowing the normalisation of antisemitism. It was brave of the Committee to adopt the positions it has taken, and to pull no punches in doing so.

The Committee’s recommendations must be executed swiftly and in full. We hope that the first recommendation to be implemented will be the widespread adoption of the international definition of antisemitism by the Government, its agencies, and political parties, for as we have seen over the years, efforts to tackle antisemitism without defining it are doomed to failure.

There are only two respects in which we disagree with the report.

Firstly, the Committee found the performance of the justice system to be “for the most part, excellent”. Last year was the worst ever year on record for antisemitic hate crime, with a 26% rise in crime and a 51% leap in violent antisemitic crime, yet whilst the Crown Prosecution Service prosecuted a record 15,442 cases of hate crime, we are only aware of 12 prosecutions for antisemitic hate crime. We can assure the Committee from bitter experience in dealing with the Crown Prosecution Service that its shameful refusal to tackle antisemitism is only set to continue. Unless the failure of the Crown Prosecution Service is urgently addressed, the Committee’s other recommendations will ultimately prove to be ineffective on their own. For example, no action taken by social networks alone will be successful if the worst offenders face no criminal sanction for their persistent efforts to incite hatred against Jews.

Secondly, the report found the Cross-Government Working Group on Antisemitism to be “an effective forum for relationship-building, sharing of information and collaborative work aimed at addressing antisemitism in all communities” yet in reality the Working Group is exclusive, not inclusive. The organisations already represented on the Working Group determine the Working Group’s membership, and they use their position to ensure that less established voices are locked out. It is for that reason that Campaign Against Antisemitism has been forced to establish its own strong relationships with the Prime Minister’s Office, the Home Office, police forces and other Government bodies, rather than joining discussions within the Working Group. The consequence of allowing this situation to endure is that rather than the Government and its agencies having one discussion on antisemitism with all of the voices within the Jewish community, there are multiple disconnected conversations. That is best exemplified by the near total exclusion of the Ultra-Orthodox Charedi Jewish community from Government discussions, even though the Charedi community is the most visible Jewish community and therefore the most easily targeted.

Of course, the effectiveness of the Committee’s report will be judged by its implementation, but we are enormously grateful to the Committee for having taken this important first step, and there is no forum better suited to ensuring that the report’s recommendations are faithfully executed than the Committee itself.

We look forward to meeting with you and your colleagues on the Committee in order to discuss how we can work with you to the benefit of the entire Jewish community, and to our society as a whole.

Yours sincerely,

Gideon Falter
Chairman, Campaign Against Antisemitism

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Prime Minister endorses Home Affairs Select Committee report on antisemitism

The Government has not yet formally responded to Sunday’s release of the Home Affairs Select Committee report on antisemitism, but Theresa May endorsed it today during Prime Minister’s Questions, and challenged other political parties to do the same. Jeremy Corbyn has already attacked the report. The report contains recommendations long called for by Campaign Against Antisemitism.

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Senior Labour activist claims Israel has “inflicted” and “exploited” the Holocaust

Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, Vice Chair of the Chingford branch of the Chingford and Woodford Green Constituency Labour Party, and the founder of Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods, has taken to the airwaves to say that Israel has “inflicted” the Holocaust on other people and “they use and exploit” the Holocaust for political ends.

She said: “When it comes to the Holocaust, of course, there must never be any minimisation of that horror. It’s inflicted on other people in the sense that apologists for Israel use the suffering of Jews to excuse the suffering of Palestinians. I hear it all the time: ‘Oh, they’ve suffered so much, let them get on with it.’ I’m not saying that Israel is committing a Holocaust. I’m saying they use and exploit the fact of the Holocaust to justify what are, in some cases, crimes against humanity…So the mass slaughter of Jews in Europe should never be inflicted on others. That’s my view and that includes Palestinians. But for that, I’m called a self-hating Jew.”

Her statement is antisemitic according to the international definition of antisemitism which the Home Affairs Select Committee on Sunday unanimously recommended that all parties should use, in accordance with Campaign Against Antisemitism’s manifesto for fighting antisemitism in political parties.

The definition says that “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” is antisemitic.

Wimborne-Idrissi’s latest tirade came less than three weeks since she last appeard on LBC and moved a Labour MP to tears by accusing Ruth Smeeth, a Jewish Labour MP, of having staged an antisemitic incident as a means to attack Jeremy Corbyn. At the time, she claimed that Smeeth “is against Corbyn, against his whole Socialist vision”. Referring to the whitewash Chakrabarti inquiry, she added: “The Chakrabarti Commission has been undermined at every turn by people like Ruth Smeeth and Louise Ellman [another Jewish Labour MP] and others like them who have a political agenda. The question of antisemitism is being used as a weapon in a political battle.”

We are not aware of any disciplinary action having been taken against Wimborne-Idrissi, but in any case the Labour Party has refused to reveal whether it is disciplining members accused of antisemitism.

 

We are seeking to recruit a General Counsel an Executive Assistant an Education and Outreach Intern to join our London office

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Campaign Against Antisemitism is a volunteer-led charity dedicated to exposing and countering antisemitism through education and zero-tolerance enforcement of the law. Everything that we do is done by people who volunteer their time, using donations contributed by members of the public. Join the fight against antisemitism by subscribing to our updates, volunteering, or donating.