“Vigil” against antisemitic graffiti attended by antisemitism enablers crying crocodile tears
Last weekend, while Jews in America were hit by yet another violent attack, South Hampstead Synagogue and businesses around Hampstead were daubed with graffiti commonly used by conspiracy theorists to suggest that Jews were secretly behind the 9/11 terrorist atrocities. This has led to outpourings of solidarity and support for the Jewish community, many of which have been admirable and sincere signs of support from across the country, however, some condemnation and support has come from unwelcome sources.
One of those sources is an organisation called Stand up to Racism, which organised a “vigil” against the graffiti.
Stand up to Racism has consistently failed to stand with the Jewish community when the community was faced with antisemitism from the far-left and has regularly platformed Jeremy Corbyn. Stand up to Racism was joined in organising the “vigil” by Unite Against Fascism, which supported the so-called “Al Quds Day” in the past, a pro-Hizballah march which has platformed antisemites including Reverend Stephen Sizer, who has claimed that an Israeli conspiracy was behind 9/11, and in February 2015 was ordered by the Church of England to stop using social media. While Revd Sizer protested that he was not problematic, the Church said the material that Rev Dr Sizer posted was “clearly antisemitic.”
The vigil appears to have had no speakers from the synagogues in the area targeted in these incidents. Amongst those attending, however, were members of the sham Jewish representative group Jewish Voice for Labour. Jewish community attendees and journalist Lee Harpin reported being harassed and ridiculed as a “Zionist journalist” by the organisers and activists weaponising these incidents to score political points and signal their own virtuousness.
Additional messages of support for the Jewish community have come in via Twitter from those who aided and abetted the Labour Party’s campaign to place an antisemite in office, often ignoring or downplaying accusations of antisemitism. This includes Sir Keir Starmer and Dawn Butler, who would have served in an institutionally antisemitic cabinet had the Labour Party won the election, Owen Jones, and Ash Sarkar of Novara Media, who defended the activist who vandalised of the walls of the Warsaw Ghetto and claimed that the International Definition of Antisemitism is merely a front to silence criticism of Israel.
Most insulting of all was Jeremy Corbyn, who has himself been guilty of numerous counts of antisemitism. Over the past several years, the Jewish community has watched the descent of the Labour Party into abject racism with horror. Mr Corbyn is an antisemite and under his leadership, Labour has become institutionally antisemitic, defending antisemites and victimising those who stood up to them, cultivating animosity towards Jews at all levels and hounding out of the Party Jewish MPs and the most decent of their colleagues.
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “For those who have done so much to mainstream antisemitism in the UK to cry crocodile tears on behalf of a Jewish community they have shown disdain for, when they suspect that the perpetrators hail from their political opposites, shows that to them antisemitism is something they are only willing to play lip service to when it is politically convenient. They are not welcome and our community deserves better than cheap virtue signals.”
Anybody with information about the graffiti should call the police on 101, quoting reference CAD 7282/28/12/19.
