Good piece, but he doesn’t mention the name of this underground apparatus, although he gives it away here
“A tool originally intended to suppress student debates about Israel and block Israel anti-apartheid week on campus has now been successfully pressed into service against the leader of a major British political party.”
And here.
"Erdan’s number two, Sima Vaknin-Gil, a former military intelligence officer, told a parliamentary committee in 2016 that most of the ministry’s activities had to stay “under the radar” because of “sensitivities”.
“I can’t even explain in an open forum why there are such sensitivities,” she said.
The ministry’s job, she added, was to build a “community of warriors”
It’s called Act.IL and it’s an app to subvert democracy in other nations(millennials are everyone’s target now).
Imagine the outrage from some, if Russia had done this, but always quiet about Israel(maybe the job demands it?).
Come on, surely everybody knows by now that this has got nothing to do with Anti-Semitism. Lets be grown up. Regardless of ones politics, left or right or in the middle, surely it is blindingly obvious that there is a concerted campaign to stop Jeremy Corbyn becoming Prime Minister of this country, by establishment vested interests. They are clearly terrified of the threat he poses to them. No politician in my living memory has been subjected to such a sustained and prolonged campaign of lies, misrepresentation, character assassination and personal abuse. It is to his great credit that he has refused to engage with these people, refuses to join them in the gutter. It really must piss them off mightily.
Jeremy Corbyn’s great sin in the eyes of the establishment is to refuse to ignore the State of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people. Beyond the pale. The thought of a British prime Minister recognizing the Palestinian people as human beings, equal to their Israeli oppressors fills them with horror. Corbyn has made it quite clear that a government led by him would recognize the State of Palestine. As do most civilized nations anyway so not controversial. But up to now, with successive governments, Tory and so called Labour, doing what is right and decent in the real world has always been trumped by the interests of the State of Israel. And these interests are powerful, and clearly becoming increasingly desperate. But they have over egged it, their desperation is starting to be ridiculed. The ‘Jumping The Shark’ moment was surely the Margaret Hodge interview on Sky News a week ago,( studiously ignored by BBC, The Guardian etc), when she had a meltdown. She claimed that receiving a letter from the Labour Party informing her that she would be the subject of disciplinary proceedings for screaming at her boss, in front of witnesses, including members of the press that he was a “fucking racist and an anti semite” made her realize, “how a jew would have felt in 30s Germany”. “I remember my father telling me, Margaret, always keep a suitcase packed by the front door”. So, receiving this letter can be equated to the fate of Jewish people under the Nazis! Surely trivialization of the holocaust is a criminal offence yes? No wonder the Beeb etc totally covered this up, the poster girl for their ‘get Corbyn’ campaign exposed as a nutter.
Hilariously, even her usual supporters from the Labour Party Friends of Israel appear to have dropped her like a stone. When you can’t even get Jess Phillips to go on the World at One on your behalf you know you are in trouble!
So looks like a complaint has been made about Corbyn.
And it will be thrown out because it’s ridiculous.
Love the reporting there. Suggesting that Corbyn sought to clarify his comments (suggesting weasilling out or back tracking) and that him seeking to clarify his comments has ensured the antisemitism row continued.
It’s continued because there’s a concerted and organised campaign against him.
Heard an interesting stat during the Finkelstein interview. In the last general election, only 15% of the Jewish electorate voted for Labour. Most of the rest went for the Conservatives, that have no code of conduct on racism or antisemitism, plenty of alleged incidents and no ostensible tumult surrounding them.
Over the pond, you have actual Neo Nazis rolling up at Charleston in SC, shouting antisemitic slogans. It took three days for the Israeli government to condemn it.
I see no ongoing campaign on the part of the Israelis to remove antisemitism from either the Conservative Party or day to day American life, yet I’ve seen wall to wall coverage of Corbyn’s alleged indiscretions.
The long and the short of it is that Israel seems not to give a shit about actual antisemitism. It practices it itself, on its own terms, and ignores it in others whenever it is convenient to do so, such as when a US embassy might be about to move.
As I’ve said above, and I am in no way getting all threatening, weird, bigoted, racist and certainly not antisemitic on this, but the state of Israel will feel a backlash over this strategy.
Perhaps Israel is expecting that - perhaps even wanting that.
But how would Israel benefit from a closer scrutiny and greater criticism of its actions?
It wouldn’t, but if it were able to obfuscate and conflate that closer scrutiny and greater criticism of a STATE with the vile hatred of a belief, then it can play martyr, cry “I told you so” and blur legitimate criticism of a nation’s government’s policy with racially motivated hatred and thus stop dead any moves to curb its actions.
FTAOD Criticism of Jewish people for their beliefs is wrong. I still wonder if they, as a group, need greater protection than any other religion, mind. But criticism of a state for the way it acts in trying to build a homeland for the those that identify as Jewish is fair game. In fact, non-criticism of racist policies of a state is actually shameful.
This afew months old, but we’ll put together and Hopkins writing is very good.
One on America(mainly).
Good luck with that…
A couple of thoughts - £250k won’t be enough and lets assume they went for it and lost - who picks up the legal fees of the other side.
Second - this chap isn’t half evasive when challenged to prove he is an official fund raiser - Just keeps on saying - cos i said so
That chap is “Damian from Brighton”. He’s fairly famous in Labour circles, is a regular contributor to Galloway’s show and has recently seen the right of the party try to pull a huge fast one down in Brighton.
I think there are rather more people saying they’ll donate to the fund.
I’d welcome a legitimate way to stop malicious libel like this, but the headlines will be…
“Corbyn gags Jew in Court”
Because the papers/TV/Social Media commentators know that putting Corbyn within 3 words proximity to the word Jew is all they have to do to leave the suggestion of antisemitism.
Labour needs a way to regain the debate. A slogan or a viral hash tag or something.
It needs to unwind the three separate strands that this anti-Corbyn campaign has mendaciously conflated and intertwined - the idea that if you’re critical of Israel then you’re critical of Jews and therefore antisemitic.
It needs to show that these 3 things are not mutually exclusive.
Something like Love Jews, Hate Antisemitism, Critical of Israel #LJHACOI
Maybe something like this?
International Holocaust & Antisemitism Treaty Empowering Jewish Empathy Within Society.
Might not be the best # though 
How about: Not Anti-semitism, Zionism Is Separate.
I think taking them to court is the only way to sort it.
If the cases are won, then there’s no argument about its validity as a tactic.
There’s also no satiating this lobby. Your idea would likely be as shat upon as the court idea.
At least the court idea has official status.
The reason it appealed is that it empowers a criticism of Israel and immunises any written communication from attempts to cast it as antisemitic.
A single court creates a martyr and Israel has deep pockets to defend such actions.
It would become a spectacle for Hodge and others to be interviewed on Sky about the case and if won, then next one simply takes their place.
Regularly and openly ending a communication with a statement that separates the three strands that have been blurred stops dead the willful misinterpretation.
Yeah, except it’ll be taken out of context and used against you.
A court case would bring scrutiny to all sides and a public record.
Jonathan Cook’s latest piece reminds me of Caitlin Johnstone.
So it’s JC goes CJ on JC.
Surely Corbyn must sue. This is a clear libel, all over the front pages.This is getting ridiculous now, these Israel firsters have moved to a state of hysteria in their desperation to unseat Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party. They must not be allowed to prevail.