Is Your Vote Going to the Henry Jackson Society?

THERE's more to politics than party leaders appearing on television and supporters canvassing for your vote.  Amid all the messages I'm seeing on Facebook concerned with the May 7 general election, and what politicians said or did, comes this posted by an old friend:

Brendan Simms, president of the Henry Jackson Society, will be speaking alongside UKIP's Patrick O'Flynn in favour of Britain leaving the EU, at the New Statesman and Cambridge Literary Festival.

And he provides a link:
http://www.newstatesman.com/2015/03/new-statesman-and-cambridge-literary-festival

I first met Marko Attila Hoare at a Bosnia rally in Trafalgar Square, and got to know him in Workers Aid for Bosnia, which sent aid convoys chiefly to the mining town of Tuzla. Marko also wrote for our paper Workers Press (alas now gone), and now he is the author of several books on Bosnia and its history, particularly during World War II.


Brendan Simms is Cambridge professor of the History of International Relations. I knew his name as the author of Unfinest Hour, which sharply criticised Britain's role in Bosnia, the appeasement of Serb aggression by Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd, and the British army's reluctance to carry out its UN mandate protecting humanitarian aid routes or defending civilians from ethnic cleansing and massacre.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/nov/04/politicalnews.politics


Simms' revulsion from what he called "conservative pessimism" was shared by others, and undoubtedly influenced the formation of the Henry Jackson Society. Taking its name from a US Democrat Senator who believed in asserting US power to promote his ideas of freedom, the Society sought to combine an activist foreign policy and support for democratic values. For some this might seem to echo Robin Cook's call for foreign policy to have a "moral dimension" (Described succinctly as "bollocks" by an anonymous FCO civil servant).

For others, like the signatories of the 'Euston Manifesto', it could mean endorsing US or Israeli wars and denouncing opponents as supporters of dictators like Saddam Hussein or reactionary Islam. The Society's statement of aims stresses the importance of maintaining the military strength of the United States, and Britain in Europe. Asserting that Western liberal democracies are the model for the world to follow, it says that international organisations which include undemocratic regimes have no right to pronounce on human rights issues. (So much for the UN!)

The Henry Jackson Society says it is "A cross-partisan, British-based think tank with a strong British and European commitment towards freedom, liberty, constitutional democracy, human rights, ...".  http://henryjacksonsociety.org/

Others, including former members, don't hesitate to call it neo-conservative or simply right-wing, even 'hard-right'.

 Marko Attila Hoare was Greater Europe Co-Director, then European Neighbourhood Section Director of the Henry Jackson Society from 2005 until 2012. Nowadays strongly critical, he remarks on Brendan Simm's appearence alongside a UKIP MEP to show how much the HJS leadership has moved from its commitment to British leadership in Europe to calling for British exit.  Indeed, Brendan Simms is co-chair of the Brexit-euroexit project and author of Europe: The Struggle for Supremacy.

But it goes further. Raheem Kassam, who was variously described as "Director of Marketing" or "Campaigns Director" for the Henry Jackson Society, is now a senior advisor to UKIP's Nigel Farage.

We have met Mr.Kassam before. He was linked with a story which the BBC and the Jewish Chronicle ran about people at a conference in London's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) drowning out a Jewish audience speaker with antisemitic chants. The supposed victim was Zionist Federation chairman Jonathan Hoffman. The BBC eventually withdraw the story after other Jewish people who had been at the conference said it wasn't true, and a recording of the conference contained no antisemitic chants. The Jewish Chronicle took longer to withdraw, but did so after Jewish people involved in the conference went to the Press Complaints Commission over it.

Kassam has been a busy man. Besides being a spokesman for Student Rights, which seems to be a Henry Jackson Society project with not many actual students, he found time to run a Climate Change skeptic campaign called 'Greencease' (geddit?)  More recently with the 'Jihadi John' excitement he was introduced on TV as a "former student" and "expert" on how the ISIS killer's "radicalisation" might have started at the University of Westminster.

Before joining Nigel Farage's entourage, Raheem Kassam was managing director of the London end of Breitbart, a conservative American news agency website noted for its unconservative, creative news stories.  Not even other conservatives are immune from attack.

The Fictitious "Friends of Hamas"

On February 7, 2013,  Breitbart.com in the United States ran a story by Ben Shapiro claiming former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, a nominee for Secretary of Defense, might have been paid to speak at an event sponsored by a group called "Friends of Hamas"  Breitbart.com said that the story was based on "exclusive" information by "Senate sources". The story was repeated by websites, and commented upon by Senator Rand Paul.

But other reporters could not find any evidence that "Friends of Hamas" even existed. On February 19, New York Daily News reporter Dan Friedman said that the story had originated from a sarcastic comment he made to a Congressional staffer.  "Hagel was in hot water for alleged hostility to Israel. So, I asked my source, had Hagel given a speech to, say, the 'Junior League of Hezbollah, in France'? And: What about 'Friends of Hamas'?".  But Breitbart continued to claim its story was from reliable sources, and Friedman was denounced as a hack.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breitbart_%28website%29


"Democracy"?  But not at home!

In 2012, Marko Attila Hoare, who had known Brendan Simms at Cambridge, and been a founder member of the Henry Jackson Society, decided he'd had enough.
  

"Earlier this year, I resigned from the Henry Jackson Society (HJS) and requested that my name be removed from its website. The HJS is a UK think-tank frequently described as ‘neoconservative’. It includes among its Trustees Michael Gove, the current Secretary of State for Education, and it is alleged to have influenced the foreign policy of David Cameron and William Hague. It currently serves as a secretariat, at the House of Commons, to the All-Party Parliamentary Groups for Transatlantic and International Security and for Homeland Security. I had held a senior post within this organisation for seven years, first as Greater Europe Co-Director, then as European Neighbourhood Section Director. However, I reluctantly had to face the fact that the HJS has degenerated to the point where it is a mere caricature of its former self. No longer is it a centrist, bipartisan think-tank seeking to promote democratic geopolitics through providing sober, objective and informed analysis to policy-makers. Instead, it has become an abrasively right-wing forum with an anti-Muslim tinge, churning out polemical and superficial pieces by aspiring journalists and pundits that pander to a narrow readership of extreme Europhobic British Tories, hardline US Republicans and Israeli Likudniks. The story of the HJS’s degeneration provides an insight into the obscure backstage world of Conservative politics.

There are three factors that define this degeneration. The first is that almost all the people who founded and established the HJS have either left or been edged out of the organisation. ...

The second factor is that there is absolutely no internal democracy in the HJS, nor any transparency or rules of procedure. Absolutely none whatsoever. Less than in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Probably less than in the Syrian Arab Republic. As someone with an early background in far-left politics, I grew up with groups like the Socialist Workers Party, in which total power is held by one or two leaders, but the totalitarianism is disguised by window-dressing consisting of branch meetings, annual conferences, meetings of the Politburo and the like. Well, the HJS is like that, but without the window-dressing: there isn’t even the pretence of democracy or consultation. Instead, the organisation operates on the basis of cronyism and intrigue. Sole power is held by one individual – Executive Director Alan Mendoza. He was not elected to the post and is not subject even to formal or technical restraints, nor to performance review and renewal of contract.

The third factor is that, although the HJS was intended to be a centrist, bi-partisan organisation, its leadership has now moved far to the right, and abandoned any pretence of being bi-partisan or pro-European (its Associate Director, Douglas Murray, is on record as having stated that ‘the EU is a monstrosity – no good can come of it… The best thing could just simply be for it to be razed to the ground and don’t start again [sic]’).

Alan Mendoza is an ambitious young professional politician of the Conservative Party and a former Tory local councillor in the London Borough of Brent. ... Once he took over the running of the HJS from Rogers and Simms, Mendoza had his hands on all the levers of power within the organisation, of which the most important was control of the website. Mendoza set about converting the HJS into his personal fiefdom, packing its staff with his own apparatchiks recruited via his personal network.

The practice of regular staff meetings was now ended, and staff members were no longer consulted or even informed about major policy or organisational decisions. In practice, Mendoza just did whatever he wanted to, adding or removing staff to and from the website and inventing or erasing their virtual job-titles as and when he felt like it.

 Praise from 'Mad Mel' to Audience with AIPAC

Marko describes how HJS members who differed from the changing line on Europe were sidelined or sat upon.  But he also noted another aspect of Mendoza's takeover.

The people who replaced the HJS founders at the head of the organisation were staff members of another think-tank: the Israel-advocacy organisation ‘Just Journalism’, of which Mendoza was a member of the Advisory Board and which shared the HJS’s London office. At the time of Just Journalism’s launch in March 2008, the Spectator columnist Melanie Phillips wrote of it that ‘A very welcome and desperately-needed initiative has just been launched to monitor distortions, bias and prejudice in British media coverage of the Middle East.’

Neo-con former Daily Mail columnist Melanie Philips acquired a name for linking her support to Israel with Islamophobia.  Her book "Londonistan", claiming Britain was harbouring a "terror" state within was a hit with the far Right, while she became known as "Mad Mel" to many Jewish people, even Zionists.

We can't blame Alan Mendoza for that, but we can for the line he took adressing members of the main Israeli lobby organisation in Washington, AIPAC:

“Immigration is also a reason for rising anti-Israel feelings [in Europe]. In 1998, 3.2 percent of Spain was foreign-born. In 2007, that percent had jumped to 13.4 percent, Mendoza said. In cities such as London, Paris and Copenhagen, 10 percent of residents are Muslim.”
“The European Muslim population has doubled in the past 30 years and is predicted to double again by 2040.
“For all the benefits that immigration has brought, it has been difficult for European countries to absorb immigrants into their society given their failure to integrate newcomers. Regardless of their political views, Muslims in Europe will likely speak out against Israel whenever any Middle Eastern news breaks, just as they will against India in the Kashmir dispute. Their voices are heard well above the average Europeans, who tend not to speak out Mendoza said, adding that the Muslim immigrants do this with full knowledge that they would not be allowed to speak out like that in many Middle Eastern countries.’

This line that European criticism of Israeli actions is solely motivated by fear of Moslems has been widely repeated in US, particularly Murdoch-owned media, which has followed up with stories about parts of British cities becoming entirely Muslim, no-go areas for non-Muslims.

 The HJS website is currently running a piece by Douglas Murray, originally published on March 18 in the Spectator, in defence of Benyamin Netanyahu against criticism. Murray, Associate Director of the Henry Jackson Society, also founded the Centre for Social Cohesion. If that sounds harmless enough, this is what it means, in Douglas Murray's words:

‘Conditions for Muslims in Europe must be made harder across the board: Europe must look like a less attractive proposition. We in Europe owe – after all – no special dues to Islam. We owe them no religious holidays, special rights or privileges. From long before we were first attacked it should have been made plain that people who come into Europe are here under our rules and not theirs. There is not an inch of ground to give on this one. Where a mosque has become a centre of hate it should be closed and pulled down. If that means that some Muslims don’t have a mosque to go to, then they’ll just have to realise that they aren’t owed one. Grievances become ever-more pronounced the more they are flattered and the more they are paid attention to. So don’t flatter them.’


If that sounds like a slightly more articulate version of the lumpen who follow the English Defence League, it should be no surprise that Murray has described the EDL as acceptable, and spoken favourably of Robert Spencer, a leading Islamophobe in the United States who denies the Srebenica massacre.  That's coming full circle from 'Unfinest Hour'.

https://greatersurbiton.wordpress.com/2012/08/13/alan-mendozas-putsch-in-the-henry-jackson-society/

https://greatersurbiton.wordpress.com/2012/11/13/alan-mendozas-henry-jackson-society-and-william-shawcrosss-charity-commission/

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/articles/middle-east/5440-the-henry-jackson-society-and-scaremongering-with-aipac 

http://leftfootforward.org/2013/05/labours-links-with-the-anti-immigration-right/

http://liberalconspiracy.org/2013/06/05/exclusive-top-libdem-resigns-from-controversial-think-tank-henry-jackson-society/

Alan Mendoza is now the Tory candidate for Brent Central. I trust his views will be made known to voters, even if not by him.

 A top Lib Dem resigned from the Henry Jackson Society.

But several Labour MPs remain members, including the Labour Party leader in Scotland, Jim Murphy, who is on the Society's Political Council. .  If he has resigned from it, I will be happy to apologise and record that.

Two Down....

 BRIAN COLEMAN (l) and DENNIS MCSHANE (r)

SUPPOSE I shouldn't crow over the downfall of individuals whom I happen to have taken potshots at in this blog, but what the hell, amid the ongoing bad news this last week, what with storms, ash disease, global warming, Michael Gove and ATOS, it was nice to end the week with something to laugh at.

That was supplied first of all by Brian Coleman, "Mr.Toad" as he was dubbed by some bloggers in the London Borough of Barnet, where he is illustrious councillor for leafy Totteridge. Having lost his seat on the Greater London Authority to Labour's Andrew Dinsmore in May, Coleman nevertheless  seemed his old cocky self in September, saying he would refuse to apologise to a Barnet woman whom he had likened to a pre-war Blackshirt because she wrote to him about the Veolia company's involvment in Israeli occupation.

"In my book anti-Zionism is just a modern form of anti-Semitism", Coleman declared, going on to slam an Israeli friend of mind, Ron Cohen, as "disloyal", because he too had written to him about Veolia.

Coleman was found to have breached the council's code of conduct and censured by the Local Government Standards Tribunal, but he refused to apologise to the two constituents, and said September that he felt “under no obligation ... This was a matter dealt with by the flawed Local Government Standards regime, now abolished.”

That same week he was detained by police after allegedly attacking a café owner who filmed him parking in a loading bay in North Finchley. Council parking restrictions and charges have been a sore point in Barnet, as has been the councillor's own parking. Charged with assault and careless driving after the September 20 incident, Coleman is due in Hendon Magistrates Court on Monday.

Meanwhile he has been suspended from the Conservative Party. It seems the decision came from the party at national level while the Barnet Tories were still dithering. And a belated and grudging apology to one of the constituents he had insulted was too late to save him.

Now the 'Toad' has turned. In an amazing attack on the "One Barnet" outsourcing policies he formerly supported, which would leave the council as a mere procurer of services, handing £50 million a year contracts to private firms, the Totteridge councillor says this was a typical "New Labour" idea, and should be scrapped. Claiming the council was hoodwinked by its officers (the chief of whom departed recently), Coleman also blames trade unions, presumably for cleverly supporting the scheme by pretending to oppose it. 

Whomsoever the Gods (and this blog) wish to destroy, they first drive bonkers, even if showing a flash of sanity. Local bloggers in Barnet, by whom our Brian will be sorely missed if he goes for good from local politics, have written to the council for a consulation over the "One Barnet" scheme.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-20150560   
 
http://wwwbrokenbarnet.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/brian-coleman-story-behind-those.html

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/brian-coleman-i-wont-say-sorry-for-blackshirt-slur-8179749.html

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/tory-councillor-brian-coleman-arrested-for-assault-after-camera-row-8162659.html

http://politicalscrapbook.net/2012/11/brian-coleman-u-turn-one-barnet-outsourcing-easycouncil/

http://www.hamhigh.co.uk/news/one_barnet_a_billion_pound_gamble_1_1670311

http://www.barnet-today.co.uk/News.cfm?id=38205&headline=BrianColeman:%27OneBarnetshouldbescrapped%27

http://citizenbarnet.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/bloggers-to-conservative-councillors.html 

GHOSTS of Christmas Past.  Protest at Barnet House, Whetstone, over council plans to cut staff and outsouurce services.  

FROM Tory Councillor Coleman (who incidentally has his own blog as "the King of Bling" to Labour MP Dennis MacShane who decided to resign this week after Kevin Barron, the Labour chair of the cross-party committee on expences, described the findings against him as the "gravest case which has come to the committee for adjudication".

The committee recommended that MacShane should be suspended from the Commons for 12 months, with loss of pay and pension rights for the period, after ruling that he had submitted false invoices to pay for official trips to EU countries. He also allowed interns to keep laptops, paid for by parliament, when their internships came to an end.

MacShane is no stranger to parliamentary committees. As chair of the inquiry panel of the All-Party Parliamentary Group against Anti-Semitism, he was a leading campaigner for the claim promoted by the Israeli government and American Zionist lobbyists, and adopted by Brian Coleman, that anti-Zionism is the "new antisemitism". His panel condemned the lecturers' union UCU for allegedly interfering with academic freedom and creating problems for Jews by publicising the Palestinian call for a boycott of Israeli universities.

Writing in the Jewish Chronicle, back in March, under the headline Tragedy in Toulouse shows Jew-hatred is alive and well, MacShane lumped gunman Mohammad Merah's attack on Jewish schoolchildren with critics and opponents of the State of Israel, ranging from Iranian president Ahmadinejad to his own old union the National Union of Journalists.

"There is little media or political concern when the National Union of Journalists or the University and College Union back boycotts of Jewish journalists or Israeli academics", complained McShane, accusing the unions of "double standards" and antisemitism.  .

http://www.thejc.com/comment-and-debate/columnists/65561/tragedy-toulouse-shows-jew-hatred-alive-and-well

As I pointed out at the time, neither union had decided any such thing. The UCU had publicised a call for Israeli academic institutions to be boycotted because of their involvment with repressive government policies, and the NUJ sent a resolution to the TUC, in the wake of the onslaught on Gaza,  concerning a consumer boycott of Israeli goods which many people see as justified by discrimination and the treatment of Palestinian farmers and their produce, just as a previous generation boycotted South African goods, or if you go further back, the TUC boycotted Nazi Germany

If McShane had merely wanted to argue against these policies he might as a good journalist have checked his facts, but he seemed to prefer the old tabloid adage "Never let the facts stand in the way of a good story!" even when attacking his old union, and smearing it by association with terrorists. 

It seems McShane was equally imaginitive in his expences claims. During the 2009 expenses scandal the Daily Mail reported that he had claimed £125,000 over a period of 7 years for his garage, which he used as a constituency office. One fellow Labour MP privately told the journalist that he was ‘very surprised’ at the scale of Mr MacShane’s claims given that he does not have to pay to rent an office.

In total, MacShane was ordered to repay £1,507.73 in wrongfully claimed expenses, with his appeals against the ruling being rejected. In addition, he was alleged to have passed twelve invoices from the "European Policy Institute" for "research and translation" expenses to the parliamentary authorities, and claimed for eight laptop computers in three years. A number of newspapers stated that the EPI was "controlled" by MacShane's brother, Edmund Matyjaszek, a claim which MacShane denied: "The EPI was set up 20 years ago by a network of people on the Left working in Europe and the US...Ed is my Brother, but simply administrates it."

On October 14, 2010 Labour decided to suspend Denis McShane from the whip after the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards had referred an expenses-related complaint about him to the Metropolitan Police. In June 2011 The Daily Telegraph highlighted further discrepancies in MacShane's expenses which had been uncovered by former independent candidate Peter Thirlwall. As a result he held an emergency meeting with House of Commons officials and agreed to repay a further £3,051.38.


MacShane had previously written an article for The Guardian in which he quoted Macaulay ridiculing the British public in its "fits of morality", and tried to play down the expenses scandal: "There will come a moment when moats and manure, bath plugs and tampons will be seen as a wonderful moment of British fiddling, but more on a Dad's Army scale than the real corruption of politics."

Referring to the use made of the European Policy Institue and claims for travel and books, as well as office equipment, the committee said: "The real mischief of Mr MacShane's actions was that the method he adopted of submitting false invoices, as the commissioner said, bypassed the checks and controls the House had instituted in a way which enabled Mr MacShane to spend public money as he thought fit." The committee was also critical of his use of laptops. "We do not believe that any reasonable member would have considered it proper to have allowed interns to take laptops provided by the public purse away with them at the end of their internship," it said.

Back in March I wrote :.

"The people of Rotherham surely deserve better? And if Labour is not prepared to remove the disgusting Denis McShane, I hope trade unionists and socialists will make it their business to send him packing and into obscurity".
http://randompottins.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/dishonourable-member-for-rotherham.html

It appears that MacShane said he would resign after accepting the findings of the investigation by John Lyon, the parliamentary standards commissioner, which was launched after a complaint by Michael Barnbrook, a former BNP member.

The disgraced MP is reportedly giving the BNP credit for his downfall, claiminng it wants to thwart his "campaigning against antisemitism", forgetting perhaps that regardless of its antisemitism the BNP at the last election voiced strong support for the State of Israel, just like him, and admiration for what it was doing to the Palestinians.  The BNP's Nick Griffin may now be abandoning that turn if only to distance his party from the Israel flag-waving English Defence League, and he could be hoping to restore his fortunes with a by-election in Rotherham where the BNP got over 10%  of the vote in 2010.

Any chance the far-Right could do better this time may be spoiled by their splits, with Griffin rival Andrew Brons, already a Yorkshire MEP, likely to be eying the seat for his breakaway hardline True Brits. But in any case, what has to be faced is not whether the far Right played any part in bringing McShane down, but the extent to which Labour MPs who dip into the public purse, run sidelines, and deride the concerns of the public, provide opportunities for the fascists. It is the job of socialists not to shield such politicians but to block those openings by interposing our own alternative.     

"Entry Denied" : Israeli forces lock out visitors to West Bank

AS the Swedish boat Estelle heads on its way to Gaza, aiming to challenge the Israeli blockade, Israeli forces have reminded us that they are also controlling access to the Palestinian West Bank.

Last year people coming from abroad were stopped at Ben Gurion airport. The Israeli government's influence even extended to stopping some individuals in Europe boarding planes.

"Reasonable" people suggested helpflly that those who wanted to visit the West Bank should travel via Jordan and present themselves at the Jordan bridge crossings. That's what some have just tried. Here's what happened:

About 7.30 pm, more than a hundred activists from all over the world arrived from Jordan to the Israeli border crossings at the Allenby/King Hussein Bridge, telling that they on their way to Bethlehem at the invitation of its Palestinian governor and of civil society organizations there, and that they were carrying with them notebooks and school equipment for Palestinian pupils about to begin their school year.

However, their entry into the West Bank was denied. In the Israeli-controlled area of the Allenby Bridge was seen a major alert of military forces, and journalists there were told that the area had been declared "a closed military zone".

"They did not even let us get off the bus," said Olivia Zemor of Paris, one of the organizers of the visit. "They collected our passports and a few minutes later returned them with each and every passport stamped 'Entry denied'. The soldiers refused to give any explanation, they just said - that's it, your entry is denied, go back to Jordan."

Zemour noted that last year, when she and her fellows tried to reach the Palestinian Territories through Ben Gurion Airport, they were told, "Why don't you come through the Jordan bridges?". "So we did try to get through the Jordan bridges, and now we got a definite answer from the government of Israel."

"Violent settlers, those who under the name of 'price tag' set olive trees and mosques on fire, are all the time getting reinforcements from abroad. For the settlers' friends, Jews and Christians, Israel's border crossings are wide open. From the airport they go to the settlements" says Adam Keller, Gush Shalom Spokesperson.

"When the Palestinians living under Israel's rule try to invite guests to come and visit them, the government of Israel instructs the army and police to block their way. The government has the power and the ability to act in such a belligerent and arbitrary way. But by so doing, the government ends up emphasizing and demonstrating to the entire world that – despite the so- called 'judicial report' which the government commissioned from Judge Edmond Levy - the territory is indeed under an oppressive occupation".

http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/press_releases/1346017234/

I expect that as with the Gaza blockade, we will hear those for whom Israel can do no wrong repeating like an endless tape or record with the needle stuck that the IDF is acting purely defensively to prevent "terrorist attacks....rockets....missiles....rocket attacks".

Well, you never know, those pencils could be used to poke soldiers' eyes out if the children-who -are- all- raised -as - terrorists can stand on each others' shoulders, and pages from notebooks can easily be fashioned into pellets to be fired as missiles, if we let them get hold of elastic bands.

Of course others more nasty-minded may malevolently suggest that the object of the Israeli occupiers (if we are permitted to call them that) is to make the lives of Palestinians as unpleasant as possible, prevent development, and deny anything which might help their morale, such as visits from abroad, so as better to break their spirit and encourage them to emigrate.

Meanwhile, besides stopping legitimate access and goods just to show that it can, the IDF is facilitating the invasion of the West Bank by hundreds of other foreigners, not only to join the settlers, but by recruiting them to its ranks. Using the war hysteria built up over Iran, it is enlisting young American Jews who will probably end up reinforcing the occupation, and asserting dominance over people whose language they do not understand and whose rights they do not respect.

Israeli soldiers, at least those critical of the occupation, say these extra numbers are not needed, and could find better things to do. But for the Israeli government, giving young Americans the opportunity to strut around with guns is not just about strengthening the occupation of the West Bank. Drawing them into this dirty work is a way of reinforcing the Zionist grip over American Jews, which is also insecure.

http://www.dw.de/dw/article/0,,16195059,00.html

Sheikh Salah can sue. So what happens to CST ...and Cameron??

SHEIKH RAED SALAH getting the last laugh?

THE High Court has ruled that Sheikh Raed Salah was unlawfully detained and is entitled to claim compensation. This is an embarassment for Home Secretary Theresa May, who ordered his detention.

Sheikh Salah, leader of the northern section of the Islamic Movement in Israel, and a former mayor of Umm el Fahm, came to this country on June 25 to honour speaking engagements, one of them with MPs at the House of Commons.

These meetings had alll been pre-advertised and were public. No one told the Sheikh that he was banned from this country. An immigration officer at Heathrow scanned his passport reportedly ignored an alert to exclude him.

Three days after entering the UK, having spoken at at a meeting in Leicester, and with his other engagements, including that at he Houses of Parliament, to keep, Sheikh Salah was detained at his west London hotel, handcuffed and taken to Paddington Green police station, which has often been used for alleged "terror" suspects.

No clear reason was given. No crime had been committed, although newspapers like the Mail implied Sheikh Salah had somehow breached Britain's security. The Home Ssecretary subsequently served a deportation notice on him, on the grounds that his presence in the UK was "not conducive to the public good".

Salah challenged his removal and obtained bail in July. He is appealing against the decision to deport him in separate proceedings before an immigration tribunal which continues next week. In the judgment released on Friday, Mr Justice Nicol found for Salah on one of three grounds that his detention was unlawful. He rejected his claim on two other grounds.

It was reported this week that senior officials at the UK Border Agency had opposed the Home Secretary's decision, warning that the evidence against him was disputed, open to legal challenge and the case "very finely balanced". Salah had sought damages for illegal detention, arguing in an earlier hearing that he had been "confined without lawful authority" and subjected to what was essentially "false imprisonment".

It was also observed that the government action had succeeded in prolonging the Sheikh's stay in Britain for much longer than his originally planned trip.

Salah has been imprisoned before in Israel for funding Hamas and leading a violent demonstration. But unlike some other cases - from the Anglican Canon Riah al Awal to the nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu - he had evidently not been banned from travelling. Yet the order banning him from entering the UK has apparently been based on allegations from Israel concerning antisemitism as well as fundamentalism.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/sep/26/may-warned-case-sheikh-salah?INTCMP=SRCH

It is reported that Theresa May decided to act after receiving a dossier on Sheikh Salah from the Community Security Trust (CST). a body whose official remit is to protect Jewish people and institutions in Britain from any threats, and monitor antisemitism. The CST, which has enjoyed good relations with the police for some years, boasts of having alerted the authorities.

Informed members of the Jewish community, including those who have worked with the CST, say it receives much of its guidance from the Israeli state. Supporters of Sheikh Saleh say that the evidence against him, including alleged antisemitic statements, was fabricated.

I've nothing against people organising to defend themselves and others against racist attacks, and antisemitism, quite the contrary beingJewish myself. But I've had my own experiences with the Jewish community's security, and so have friends, and they did not leave us feeling secure. It was the Community Security Organisation, as CST used to be called, which excluded several people from a film festival, apparently because one of them had been recognised from a previous occasion selling Jewish Socialist. Even after he spoke to the organisers, whom he knew, assuring them he had come to see the films and not sell magazines, the security men told them they would not be responsible for the security of the festival if this man was admitted.

On another occasion a couple I know were trailed around the foyer of the Royal Festival Hall by these Community Security heavies even though they were only treating his parents to a concert of Russian Jewish music. What kind of security "threat" they were suspected of plotting neither they or I know. But I did recognise one of the "security" team as having doubled as a guard for Ariel Sharon when he visited London.

I doubt whether I would have much political agreement with Sheikh Raed Saleh. I would certainly not support his party if I was a Palestinian. But that is different from seeing him as a "security threat" or saying he has no right to speak to members of the public or MPs in this country. As for his alleged antisemitism, considering some of the people the government has allowed in, for instance extremists who support the ant-Islamic EDL. it is hard to justify privilege. Nor would I trust an Israeli security-influenced source for evidence.

If some of us have learned to distrust an organisation which confuses security with policing, terror with politics it does not like, and leaves doubt as to where its accountability lies, one man thinks it is fine. Prime Minister David Cameron was guest at a CST dinner earlier this year. "And it’s great to be able to show my support again for Community Security Trust and the brilliant work you do. ... I believe CST is a model for all our communities in Britain. So much of what you do epitomises what I’m getting at when I talk about the Big Society. You don’t say “just leave it to the government, it’s not my responsibility", uou say “I want to play my part; I want to do my bit.”

"I want to be frank with you. It shames our country that our Jewish schools should need protection. But they do. And it’s fantastic that CST provides it. But just as your community does so much to raise money so we should help too. So I’m proud that Michael Gove has announced up to £2 million on security for schools this year and there will be more to come for all the years it’s needed in our country".

http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/46044/david-camerons-speech-cst

Cameron went on to extol the importance of countering extremism by educating in British national identity.

Welcoming Salah's arrest in June, CST's blog said "Most of the publicity regarding his visit had concentrated upon his speaking in the House of Commons tonight, alongside various pro-Palestinian activists and Jeremy Corbyn MP, Yasmin Qureshi MP and Richard Burden MP.

"Salah’s Islamist ideology is reflected by those organising the events, most of whom are leading lights in Britain’s pro-Islamist, Muslim Brotherhood type circles, such as the MEMO group. These groups and activists seek to dominate the ideological and political leadership of Britain’s highly diverse Muslim communities. Many on the secular far Left have made common cause with these Islamist ideologues: not because they believe that British society will be a better place for having such groups dominate Muslim communities, but rather because both ideological streams are would-be revolutionaries with many enemies in common.

"The fiasco over how Salah actually entered the UK, should not distract attention from the crucial fact that the Government has shown the meaningfulness and intent of its recent review of Prevent counter-extremism strategy. Salah’s banning and subsequent detention demonstrates that Government has now moved beyond only seriously challenging those who are explicitly pro Al Qaeda, or otherwise in favour of terrorism against Britain and British overseas forces and facilities.

"Now, Government is also facing up to the enormous challenge of how to reverse the influence of those pan-Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood (including Hamas) and Jamaat-i-Islami, both of which make common cause and have significant control over British Muslims’ physical and political infrastructure; including an extensive network of lobbying groups, umbrella bodies, charities and mosques. Prior Governments have attempted to work with such groups (largely out of perceived necessity), but have repeatedly found them to be, ultimately, not conducive to the public good and social cohesion.

"The Labour Party may also have shifted its position. Some Labour MPs have long mixed in the Islamist and secular pro-Palestinian circles demonstrated by Salah’s visit, and exemplified by the past behaviour of Ken Livingstone. The Shadow Home Secretary has criticised the Government’s handling of border controls, but such criticism risks rebounding unless Labour is able to rein in those MPs and Lords who move in such circles"

http://blog.thecst.org.uk/?p=2639

Note that satisfaction over Salah's detention and some lumping together Muslim parties and "secular pro-Palestinian circles" was followed by the admonition to Labour to "rein in MPs and Lords..".

The writer seems confident of having his way. Mind you that was in June, and this is September.

Netanyahu's Deputies get their way -with help from Gove

THE BRITISH government has decided, as expected, that it will not support the Palestinian declaration of statehood and bid for recognition in the UN. Not much surprise there, then. So much for David Cameron's interest in freedom and the 'Arab Spring'.

If some friends of the Palestinian people have appeared hesitant or unsure about supporting the bid for statehood and UN recognition, their enemies have not hesitated to oppose.

Here's the website of the Board of Deputies of British Jews:

'Board Statement: UDI Latest

The Board and the JLC have written to both the Prime Minister David Cameron and the Shadow Foreign Secretary Douglas Alexander restating the Jewish community's opposition to a Palestinian unilateral declaration of independence. We believe that the only route to achieve a lasting peace is via negotiations. The Board is concerned and disappointed at the statement issued by the Opposition this week endorsing the Palestinian bid for statehood at the UN. The letter to the Prime Minister can be found here. The letter to the Shadow Foreign Secretary can be found here.'

That use of the expression "Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI)" harks back of course to Ian Smith's Rhodesia, a white settler regime which declared independence of Britain without making any concession to its black African people's aspirations for freedom and majority rule. But the only supremacist regime enforcing its rule in Palestine is the State of Israel, with its settlements, which of course the Board of Deputies supports.

Thirty years ago when Israel was treating Palestinians as just "terrorists", the Board of Deputies mobilised a huge rally to oppose Britain's Lord Carrington, then at the Foreign Office, from meeting with the PLO. It continued opposing local authorites like Dundee twinning with West Bank towns like Nablus, and it has had a long-running feud with Ken Livingstone since his days at the GLC. Then after Oslo, when the Israeli government decided it was temporarily kosher to talk with Palestinians, the Board went so far as to welcome Arafat, even though it had condemned one of its own leaders, June Jacobs, for meeting with Palestinians before Israel gave the OK. By the recent wars in Lebanon and Gaza these "community" leaders were rallying again for Israel, though without the enthusiasm, unanimity or numbers of bygone years.

The Jewish Leadership Council, JLC, consists of various bigwigs and big donors expecting political clout, among them Tony Blair's old chum Lord Levy. In July 2009 Conservative Party Treasurers Howard Leigh and Stanley Fink joined the Council as individual members. In December 2009 the Council sought and published a legal Opinion from Lord Pannick QC advocating a change in UK law to prevent the issuing of arrest warrants against Israeli leaders without prior consent of the Attorney General. The Con Dem government has now changed the law in accord with promises.

Not everyone agrees with such spokespersons. On September 23, 2011, Independent Jewish Voices issued a statement:

'In keeping with our support for a fair and just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Independent Jewish Voices welcomes the Palestinian initiative at the United Nations. We see it as a legitimate demand for fuller recognition on the world stage and as an affirmation of Palestinian nationhood.

At the same time it is clear that it is not an end in itself. It leaves many questions unanswered and problems unresolved – the continuing occupation, the need for free and fair elections in the West Bank and Gaza, the status of the Palestinian diaspora. Nonetheless it provides the only current opportunity to break the long-standing deadlock. We call on all parties – including the British and Israeli governments, and fellow Jews – to express their support.

on behalf of IJV Steering Group
20th September 2011

http://ijvoices.wordpress.com/

Unfortunately, as we can see, these are not the kind of voices listened to by H.M.Government. So the Palestinian delegation in London will not yet be upgraded to an embassy. Whereas the Israeli government, thanks to supporters like the Board of Deputies, has two.

This enables its repressive policies not only to evade criticism from the British government but to influence events happening here. This weekend sees an ambitious cultural festival in the north London borough of Haringey,

Welcome | Tottenham Palestine Literature Festival 2011

www.tottpallitfest.org.uk

Join celebrated writers, film makers, rappers, photographers, story tellers and locals to listen, talk, learn, rap, discuss, watch, question and share ideas on Palestine at the inaugural Tottenham Palestine Literature Festival, Thursday September 29th to Sunday October 2nd.

Among those taking part is poet and former children's laureate Michael Rosen, and the event was apparently designed to include Palestinian children's poetry and opportunities for London schoolchildren to learn about the lives of children their age in Palestine. But earlier this week I read that Michael and Islington North MP Jeremy Corbyn were angered to learn that schools were being told they could not attend.
http://www.islingtontribune.com/news/2011/sep/anger-palestinian-festival-ban-schools

It was reported that the Board of Deputies had expressed concern about schools participating, claiming some children might "feel uncomfortable" or get a one-sided impression from the events. It turns out that as the Jewish Chronicle reports, the Board has not been alone in intervening.

Gove asks schools to pull out of Tottenham festival

By Marcus Dysch, September 27, 2011
Follow Marcus on Twitter

Education Secretary Michael Gove has intervened to ask primary schools to pull their pupils out of a literature festival organised by pro-Palestinian campaigners.

Mr Gove wrote to headteachers after learning of the plans for youngsters to attend workshops at the Tottenham Palestine Literary Festival.

Eight schools from the north London boroughs of Islington and Haringey had signalled their intention to take part in workshops led by anti-Israel activists at which children would be encouraged to examine "the themes of human rights".

Organised by the Haringey Justice for Palestinians branch of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the festival begins on Thursday, the first day of Rosh Hashanah.

The Board of Deputies had earlier called the plans for children to take part "extremely troubling".

A Department for Education spokesman said: "Schools have a statutory duty to offer children a balanced presentation of opposing political views.

"The Secretary of State has written to the schools reminding them of their duty to present a balanced argument, and has asked them to either withdraw from participation, or explain how they will comply with [their statutory duty]."

Board president Vivian Wineman said: "I can think of few organisations which would be less appropriate to run a workshop in a school than the PSC. The conspiracy theories and hostile propaganda promoted by some of its members are particularly obnoxious. I am delighted the Secretary of State has taken such strong action."

The schools were expected to respond to Mr Gove's request as the JC went to press.
http://www.thejc.com/node/55462

A blogger on the Board of Deputies website also had his say:

"Is the PSC really an organisation that head teachers want in their schools? Are racist conspiracy theories, antisemitic cartoons and the concept of the Holocaust as a means by which the Jewish community can maintain non-Jewish guilt, really views to which our young people should be exposed?

For anyone who believes that our schools should be inclusive and safe, this is a move which must be opposed.

And opposed it has been.

Today it was revealed that, following discussions between the Board of Deputies and Department for Education Officials, the Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove, had written to each of the schools concerned. In his letter Mr Gove reminds the schools of their legal duty to ensure that where pupils are exposed to issues of a political nature, there should be a balanced presentation of those issues (this duty is set out in the Education Act 1996). The schools have been asked either to provide evidence that they are meeting their statutory duty or to withdraw from the festival. Furthermore, Mr Gove has made clear that if the schools do not provide satisfactory evidence he will consider issuing a direction under the 1996 Act to secure their compliance."
http://www.bod.org.uk/live/content.php?Item_ID=130&Blog_ID=233

Although I am not a member of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, I have shared platforms with its leading members, attended conferences and worked with them in the Joint Committee on Palestine, and the Enough! coalition. I occasionally read their magazine. I can't recall any of them spouting racist conspiracy theory or Holocaust denial (in fact they have adopted a resolution against it) or displaying antisemitic cartoons. Nor can I imagine such stuff being acceptible to the Tottenham festival participants, who beside Michael Rosen include I see Hanna Braun, a Holocaust survivor and Israeli national whose memoirs have just come out.

But then though Vivian Wineman and blogger Jamie Slavin appear to be sticking to a similar script, the older Wineman is careful enough to attribute the objectionable views to "some" PSC members, whom he does not name. Maybe they exist. But should any of the people I know get indignant at his accusation, he can always say "But I did not mean you, ..." Now where have I come across that sort of tactic before?

Still, the Board can't have had much trouble getting the ear of Michael Gove. Here is the Jewish Chronicle again:

Gove tells UJIA: 'I am a proud Zionist'

By Jessica Elgot, September 22, 2011

Education Secretary Michael Gove told 700 UJIA supporters at the charity's annual dinner on Monday: "I'm proud to be a friend of Israel."

Mr Gove was the guest of honour at the London Hilton event, which raised £2.76 million for the charity's work in Israel and the UK.

He told an admiring audience that he had been a socialist in his teens and a journalist in his twenties, but one thing had remained constant in his life. "I was born, will live and die proud to be a Zionist.

"One of the more important lessons is that the best memorials we can give for the Holocaust is a Jewish state for the Jewish people." In a wide-ranging address, he also talked about faith schools, problems in the Middle East and rising antisemitism. He reiterated the pledge that "no Jewish parent should pay extra for school security".

It was "disgusting", he added, that a Jewish student at St Andrews University had been racially abused by a member of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. "We should condemn this vile prejudice wherever we encounter it."

And find it wherever we can, perhaps. (incidentally, though I don't know the details of the St.Andrews case I do know Scottish PSC includes Jewish members, but also that it is not part of the main PSC).

http://www.thejc.com/community/community-life/55213/gove-tells-ujia-i-am-a-proud-zionist

The more we are learning about Michael Gove, we may ask whether the Zionists can feel proud of him as a self-claimed adherent, however obliging he may be. A promoter of so-called Free schools, who gave his former PA a free £500k to 'assist' them, and former Rupert Murdoch employee who held a series of dinners with the press tycoon to persuade him to invest in Academies, Gove,has made the news recently for encouraging civil servants to communicate with him by private e-mail, so the messages are not subject to inquiries under the Freedom of Information Act.
Gove faces probe over private e-mails - FT.com
www.ft.com

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14981940

Michael Gove reportedly claimed £7,000 for furnishing a London property before 'flipping' his designated second home to a house in his constituency, a property for which he claimed around £13,000 to cover stamp duty. Around a third of the first £7,000 was spent at an interior design company owned by Gove's mother-in-law.[23] Gove also claimed for a cot mattress, despite children's items being banned under the Commons rule. Gove said he would repay the claim for the cot mattress, but maintained that his other claims were "below the acceptable threshold costs for furniture" and that the property flipping was necessary "to effectively discharge my parliamentary duties".[23] While he was moving between his multiple homes, he stayed at the Pennyhill Park Hotel and Spa, charging the taxpayer more than £500 per night's stay.


Considered by some to be a British neo-con, he was an early supporter of war on Iraq, and stated in October 2004 of Tony Blair: "I can't hold it back any more; I love Tony!" He is a signatory of the Henry Jackson Society, and an adviser to the Atlantic Bridge, which works to affirm the Transatlantic alliance. He has claimed that the invasion of Iraq succeeded in bringing peace and democracy to that country. Just the man to see to it that honest and balanced opinions are promoted in our schools.

Ah well.

BTW,

L' Shana Tova, Chaverim - Happy New Year Friends and Comrades.

Keeping their faith in Prince Rupert

MURDOCH and minder. Third wife Wendy Deng responded fiercely to shaving-foam pie wielder.

AS Rupert Murdoch and his minions stand pilloried, and custard pied, from all sides, one faithful band of friends of the multi-media emperor remains loyal. "Put not your faith in princes", advises the Good Book, but the Zionists who claim it as a title to real estate have disregarded this, among other counsels, or at least not considered it applied to press barons.

Here is a comment from the Jewish Chronicle, lamenting Murdoch's fall from grace:
"Anyone following the way Israel is portrayed here in Britain will be concerned. Murdoch's publications (from time to time, at least) provide rare counter blasts against the prevailing winds of anti-Israeli hostility. His commitment to Israel is resolute. In a speech last year to the Anti-Defamation League he spoke of "the disturbing new home that antisemitism has found in polite society - especially in Europe", and of "an ongoing war against the Jews".As long as Rupert is at the helm, The Times, the Sunday Times and the Sun are safe from the anti-Zionist consensus".

If like me you thought the media was overwhelmingly pro-Zionist in bias, you have to realise that this all depends where you are standing. If you sense a lot of people around you were not happy with, say, the Israeli bombing of Gaza, you have to blame it on the media. That the BBC refused to broadcast a charity appeal for the victims was an overdue acknowledgement that news coverage had been biased.

That the Sun carried a front-page story claiming (on the basis of a hoax) that Muslims were planning a campaign of attacks on prominent UK Jews, was irresponsible, you might say, but these things can be forgiven among friends. (Though not by Sir Alan Sugar, http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/people,2013,allan-sugar-sues-the-sun,75090?WTmc_id=rss).
A bit of tension keeps the troops in line.

The Zionist fears for the future of Murdoch's empire have been noted by my fellow blogger Mark Elf.
http://jewssansfrontieres.blogspot.com/2011/07/zionists-panick-over-possible-loss-of.html

Among those he mentions are Issi Leibler, a former fellow-countryman of Murdoch now domiciled in Israel, from where he denounces allegedly less fervent defenders of the Zionist state, such as our Board of Deputies of British Jews, accusing them of succumbing to a growing anti-Israel, indeed anti-Jewish atmosphere in Britain.

In his own blog, Leibler says:

"For Israel, a major erosion of the Murdoch media would have highly adverse repercussions. In an era in which the liberal global media has increasingly turned against Israel, most of the Murdoch outlets maintain a fair and evenhanded approach.

"Murdoch, whom I met personally on a number of occasions, is himself unquestionably a genuine friend of Israel. In fact, he has frequently been falsely described as Jewish by hostile Muslims and other extremists.

"While always sympathetic to Israel as the plucky underdog, the turning point in his relationship was 1982, when Ariel Sharon hosted him with a group of editors on a helicopter tour where he witnessed 'the vulnerability of the country' in terms of defensible borders".

(That was of course the same year when vulnerable little Israel, the 'plucky underdog' bombed Beirut and invaded Lebanon, and unleashed the Christian Falangist massacre of Palestinians at Sabra and Chatila, for which an Israeli inquiry held Ariel Sharon morally culpable).

"His friendship towards Israel was publicly displayed when he was honored in 2009 by the American Jewish Committee and more recently in 2010 by the ADL. At the AJC meeting he stated: 'In the West, we are used to thinking that Israel cannot survive without the help of Europe and the United States. I say to you: maybe we should start wondering whether we in Europe and the United States can survive if we allow the terrorists to succeed in Israel… In the end, the Israeli people are fighting the same enemy we are: cold-blooded killers who reject peace… who reject freedom… and who rule by the suicide vest, the car bomb and the human shield'.

"If Murdoch is found to have been aware of the transgressions, his reputation will be destroyed and he will face major punitive sanctions. But as of now, while his enemies continue baying for his blood, most Israelis will be hoping that despite the criminal nature of the News of the World scandal, Rupert Murdoch and his senior management will be exonerated of direct malfeasance and his media holdings will remain substantially intact.

ileibler@netvision.net.il

This column was originally published in Yisrael Hayom

-----------------------

Leibler has recently been in Britain observing how intimidated we Jewish people are by the anti-Israel mood, but he was heartened to meet a group of militant young Zionists hoping to emulate the right-wing US "Stand by Israel" outfit waging its brave war on the West Coast, and by such heroic figures as Jonathan Hoffman, of the Zionist Federation, and Daily Mail columnist Melanie Philips, author of Londonistan.

"She represents a beacon of light, fearlessly exposing the cant and hypocrisy of the viciously anti-Israeli media".

Like Mad Mel, Issi Leibler is concerned about Islamic and Saudi influence, indeed he has accused the World Jewish Congress of "grovelling" to the Saudi rulers by attending a UN-approved Interfaith conference in Saudi Arabia from which overtly pro-Zionist bodies like the ADL and Conference of Presidents were excluded as "too political". Mind you, he also accuses Shimon Peres of a "servile" approach to the Saudi monarch.
http://wordfromjerusalem.com/?p=331

So I thought we might note this piece of news information:

Saudi Prince to retain shares even as News Corp's shame grows

Rebecca Hawkes ©RapidTVNews 11-07-2011

The UK phone hacking scandal rocking Rupert Murdoch’s media world will not result in any change to News Corporation’s second largest shareholder’s “strategic investment”, according to Prince Alaweed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.

The Saudi billionaire told Reuters yesterday (10 July) that the commitment in News Corp by Kingdom Holding, which controls 7% of News Corp votes, is not in jeopardy - despite the decision by Mr Murdoch to close the most widely read newspaper in the UK after sickening accusations its journalists hacked the phones of a murdered teenager and victims of terrorist acts.

"The crisis does not make Kingdom Holding blink at all. It makes our partnership stronger," Prince Alaweed bin Talal is quoted as saying by Reuters.

The investments between the Saudi billionaire and News Corp are reciprocal. The Saudi conglomerate Rotana Media, which is owned by Kingdom Holding, has recently had a US$35 million cash injection from News Corp, which raised its shareholding by 50% to 14.53%.

News Corp took a 9.09 stake in Rotana Media for $70 million at the start of 2010. The deal forged then provided Rupert Murdoch’s group with an option to double its holding within 18 months – a facility it drew upon in May 2011.

"Since the crisis erupted I have been in touch with them [News Corp] to contain this problem," Prince Alaweed bin Talal told Reuters. "Their decision to shut down this tabloid [News of the World] in England is supported by me because we have to put this issue behind us."

......................

For the EMEA region, News Corp plans to launch Sky News Arabia - an Arabic language version of BSkyB’s 24 hour rolling news channel – free-to-air in spring 2012. News Corp already broadcasts 12 channels in the Middle East and North Africa through its Fox International Channels arm, in addition to its Sky News channel which is available locally on pay-TV platforms.

Analysts had predicted the increased shareholding in Rotana Media would help News Corp to further expand its televisual presence in the Arab world, given the potential offered by a youthful audience sharing a common language.

http://www.rapidtvnews.com/index.php/2011071113508/saudi-prince-to-retain-shares-even-as-news-internationals-shame-grows.html

Incidentally, so far as Rupert's own religion goes, notwithstanding the superstition among some backward Muslims and old-fashioned conspiracy theories, I know of no evidence that he is even remotely "Jewish". In America, where born-again Christian fundamentalists can be much more fanatical than any mere Jewish Zionists, he is known as a church-goer and admirer of evangelist Billy Graham. He was also ennobled as a Papal knight by John Paul II, one assumes for his generous donations to Catholic institutions and causes, rather than his newspaper's contribution to faith and chastity. Perhaps at his age this is like taking out double insurance,

Here the Church of England, which might have tolerated the titillation offered in the News of the World, must consider whether the passing of that other Sunday institution in the path of the 'phone hacking scandal is good or bad news for its £4 million holding in Murdoch's News Corporation.

Enough! Stop 'Bibi''s bullies pushing us around!

IT was probably four years ago, when we had the Enough! coalition, formed to campaign against Israel's 40-year long occupation of the Palestinian territories. Taking part in a demonstration through Whitehall, a few people commented about a placard which appeared to show a map of Britain overlaid with settlements, implying that this was an Occupied country under "Zionist control".

The old guy carrying this home-made placard denied he had meant it that way, or intended any anti-Jewish interpretation, saying he had merely wanted to graphically illustrate the scale of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

Looking at some recent events, mind, I have had the nasty feeling that comparison with being in Occupied Territories is not all that far from the mark. The arrest on Tuesday of Sheikh Raed Saleh, for allegedly infringing a ban on entry to Britain, was just the latest straw.

Raed Saleh is the leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel, and mayor of Umm el Fahm. It is some years since myself and friends enjoyed hospitality at Umm el Fahm town hall, and listened to a discussion between town councillors - in English for our benefit - over their attitude to the State. I don't think I would vote for Raed Saleh or his party, and doubt whether we'd agree on many things, but he was legally elected, and he came to Britain by invitation, entering the country on his own passport, without any subterfuge. Apparently nobody had told the officials at the airport that Sheikh Raed had been banned, and they certainly had not told Raed Saleh.

He had spoken at a meeting in Leicester when he was arrested, and was due to speak at a meeting with MPs at the House of Commons when he was taken away instead to a cell at Paddington Green police station. Both these meetings had been amply publicised, and were arranged with a perfectly legitimate organisation, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which I would certainly not call "extremist".

The arrest, under Section 3 of the Immigration Act, appears to have come at the behest of Mike Freer, Tory MP for Finchley and Golders Green, who claimed Sheikh Raed had a "history of virulent antisemitism", and referred to his alleged views on 9/11 conspiracy. Freer is new to Westminster politics, and his previous experience in international affairs was going to Iceland in a fruitless quest for return of Barnet council's finances. But evidently he has been briefed on Sheikh Raed, who was also attacked in that well-known organ of objective information the Jewish Chronicle. (See for instance its startling expose of a non-existent ban on Israeli writers by West Dunbartonshire council).

Considering the way Barnet Tories have been hastening to divest themselves of everything that is normally thought of as a local council's responsibility I suppose we should be impressed by their turn to international affairs, even if it means attacking another council's leader, but having seen the attitudes of Freer's close mentor Brian Coleman, I don't want them swaying Britain's foreign policy nor interfering with our right to go along to a meeting if we wish, and to hear the views of a speaker who has been invited.

We might note the contrast with the way a US-based former West Bank settler rabbi was allowed into this country to join the hate-stirring activities of the English Defence League.

It's also ironic that a political leader who remains at liberty within Israel should be banned from Britain because of his anti-Israel views. But what we are seeing here is not even Israeli law and its much-vaunted democracy, but the authoritarian diktat we associate with Israeli rule in the Occupied Territories.

You don't have to be Muslim to be affected. Miri Weingarten is Jewish, and currently working for JNet a news service, and before this she spent ten years working for Israeli Physicians for Human Rights. In 2009 she was invited to speak at three North-West hospitals about her experiences, but two of them cancelled her visits because Zionist apparatchniks in the north-west decreed that her views must be considered "ant-Israel"
Here for once is a Jewish Chronicle report which is fairly objective,
http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/21462/zionists-stop-medical-talk-after-campaign.
Further comment:
http://jfjfp.com/?p=7545

This year, the University of Liverpool halted a course on access to health care, because two people complained about a section dealing with Palestinian refugees, and alleged that literature supporting "suicide bombings" had been distributed. It appears the literature was not part of the course material, but was a Palestine Solidarity pamphlet. I very much doubt whether it advocated suicide bombings. In fact, it appears that the publication allegedly suggested that we attempt to understand the motives that led people to these desperate acts. How dreadful to suggest students should try to understand anything! And how interesting to see that our friend Raheem Kassam, first spotted 'phoning the BBC with what proved dodgy information about a seminar in SOAS, also turns up in the Liverpool affair.
http://thejc.com/news/uk-news/50413/university-failed-probe-anti-israel-talk

It seems the Liverpool University authorities have decided to let the health course resume, and quite rightly so.

But meanwhile there is the continuing saga at Nottingham, where the university authorities who informed police about the supposedly suspicious activity of a student and a member of staff in downloading an official US document, have also suspended a whistleblowing lecturer who criticised surveillance on student meetings having anything to do with the Middle East.

Supporters of Israel like to boast that it is "the only democracy in the Middle East". Without going into this, it plainly sits hard with maintaining an occupation that has become almost permanent military rule, and conquest. Israeli opponents of Benyamin 'Bibi' Netanyahu say he is a bully, and that the reactionary brute force settler regime imposed on the occupied territories is now starting to overwhelm what remains of Israel's own democracy. They point to legislation requiring "loyalty" oaths, and a recnt move to ban anyone who advocates boycott of the settlements.

Let's wake up to those who are too readily serving as Netanyahu's bullies and trying to push us around here in the UK. And if Britain wants to put itself forward as a broker for peace in the Middle East it had better stop doing the Israeli government's bidding.

Comment by Knesset member Hanan Zouabi in the Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jun/29/israeli-trap-britain-raed-salah

And on al Jazeera by Robert Lambert:

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/06/201163018281599335.html

Don't let them get away with blackmail and bullying!

NEGEV Bedouin demonstrate in Jerusalem against repeated demolition of their village by Israeli forces. "KKL Steals Bedouin Land". K(eren) K(ayemet) Le(Yisrael) , Everlasting Fund for Israel, is the Hebrew name for the JNF, which has earmarked the villagers' lands for a settlement and forest. (photo Anne Paq /ActiveStills)


FIRST, two items of good news. One, Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron has quietly dropped out of his association with the Jewish National Fund (JNF). That's the Zionist "charity" which acquires and develops land in Israel and whose rules preclude Arabs from renting or working on it. Founded long before the State of Israel was established, it was left intact by successive Israeli governments not only for its fundraising abilities abroad but because the state could claim not to discriminate among citizens, knowing that a supposedly non-state institution was doing it. Its Hebrew name is Keren Kayemet LeYisrael - Everlasting Fund for Israel.

Just why Cameron has dropped out has not been made clear. Perhaps he feels he is in enough trouble. Some of that involves foreign aid and charities, Or he does not want any embarrassment to snare Britain's game in the Middle East. Gordon Brown and Tony Blair remain JNF patrons, but anti-Zionist campaigners are hoping Ed Milliband may now give it a miss. And though Cameron's aides only mention pressures of time, Zionists are worried at this straw in the wind.

http://electronicintifada.net/content/british-prime-minister-steps-down-jnf-patron/10027

The second bit of news is that despite heavy lobbying, a bit of bullying (including vague legal threats), emotionalism and Academics for Israel founder Ronnie Fraser performing like Violet Elizabeth Bott (saying he felt physically "sick". She said it better with a lithp), the Universities and Colleges Union(UCU) has refused to accept the European Union commission's "working definition" on antisemitism.

You can read about this in Mark Elf's blog:
http://jewssansfrontieres.blogspot.com/2011/05/uk-acadmics-union-rejects-eumc-bogus.html

And for a discussion of the issue, see:
http://www.opendemocracy.net/richard-kuper/hue-and-cry-over-ucu

The so-called "definition", entailing acceptance that Zionism is the legitimate expression of "self-determination" for Jews, would leave many a notorious antisemite free to say they only wanted Jews to "go to their own country", as Mosleyites could be heard saying after 1948, while many a Jewish figure would find themselves classified as "antisemitic". Tony Lerman, former director of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research says it is worse than useless, preventing reasonable criticism of Israel or Zionism, while blinding people to really dangerous antisemitism. Lerman was consulted by the commission, but says they ignored everything he said, while listening to American Jewish organisations instead. He sees the same "definition" influencing the Jewish Chronicle editor's cover for a right-wing Polish politician and the deliberations of some of our MPs.
http://jfjfp.com/?p=3922

The UCU rejection of this formula also puts the college lecturers' union ahead of the leadership in the National Union of Students.

But sadly, not all our academic institutions share either the logic showed by UCU members at their conference, or their courage. The other day we heard how a campaign had been whipped up against West Dunbartonshire council over its boycott policy, by inventing a fictitious council ban on books by Israeli authors. To hear some of the hysterical comments this was heading towards book-burnings across Scotland.

Only it was all bollocks.

Now from the book ban that wasn't, to a lecture ban that is:

"For the past 3 years the Medical School at the University of Liverpool has hosted a successful 4 week elective 'Healthy Inclusion' course that looks at issues such as homelessness, refugees and asylum seekers. It is one of the only courses of its kind in the UK and has been nationally acclaimed by academics and those in the medical profession.

On the 24th January 2011 a case study lecture on Palestine was held but before the lecture took place it was disrupted by a student. She was distraught at the subject matter and then missed most of the lecture. The lecture continued and received positive feedback from the attending students.

A complaint by another student at the University of Liverpool was made to the Medical School. It was never disclosed whether or not this was a formal complaint.

The University of Liverpool suspended the 'Healthy Inclusion' course for medical students on the 11th April 2011 without providing any reasons to students and staff.
On the 6th May 2011 the Jewish Chronicle online released a statement claiming the course had been suspended due to the distribution of literature that defended suicide bombing and that it was pending investigation; there has been no indication of this investigation and our own investigation has shown that:

- No pamphlet supporting suicide bombing was distributed, as was the basis of the 'investigation'

-The student who made the complaint was not enrolled on the course

-The course is highly acclaimed and a popular module choice for students and provides a great service in the community, supporting a local women's group

-The basis for suspending the course have not been made available for even those who teach on the module

We Believe that:

- No course should be closed down on the basis of one complaint that came from a student who was not enrolled on the course

-This module is an important subject to be made available to medical students and its popular reputation is testament to its important subject matter

We have an obligation to protect important subjects like this from suspension based on claims with no validation.

Moreover, we expect our universities to deal with these issues in a professional manner, and not to keep staff and students in the dark."

This is from an invitation passed on to me on Facebook by Mike Cushman, an academic and member of Jews for Justice for Palestinians, who was one of the first in with aid for education in Gaza. So, respect.

All the same my immediate reaction tended towards disbelief. Surely no one would be able to get a course, and one with such positive aims, stopped just like that? And surely they would not try? But then the mention of interest for medical students reminded me of something I commented upon two years ago:

Lectures cancelled after Zionist campaign
report by Robyn Rosen, Jewish Chronicle October 29,

Two lectures by Israeli-based charity Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-I) were cancelled after a Zionist organisation told hospitals holding the talks that they were “anti-Israel”.

Miri Weingarten from PHR-I was due to give a lecture, entitled The Right to Health in a Conflict Zone, to three hospitals in Manchester, Liverpool and Bury last week. But just hours before the lecture, the Manchester Royal Infirmary and Alder Hey Hospital in Liverpool cancelled the event.

Karen Solomon, director of the Zionist Central Council in Manchester, sent more than 200 emails to members urging them to contact the hospitals. Ms Solomon said that the original plan was to send members to the meeting to dispute some of the topics.'

So Alder Hey and Manchester Royal Infirmary cancelled, for what the latter's spokesperson called "security reasons", though Miri spoke to an appreciative audience in Bury without any problems.
http://randompottins.blogspot.com/2009/11/right-to-study-and-right-to-know.html

This kind of bullying only works if people surrender their own right to reason and prefer not to know anything and allow themselves to be bullied. Where does it stop? Last week a handful of women shop assistants in Liverpool's left-wing News from Nowhere bookshop had to face harassment and intimidation from a gang of lumpen thugs from the English Defence League. They are not, so far as I know, planning to close down their bookshop. Let's tell our academic institutions they should not be bowing to pressure from equally prejudiced right-wing Zionists, even if the latter are cleverer about the way they try to do their bullying.

For a petition on this subject, see:

http://www.PetitionOnline.com/ethics11/petition.html

---

A Voice They Could Not Silence

TEN MEN AROUND HER, AND NOT ONE MENSCH. Peace activist Rae Abileah needed hospital treatment after raising her voice against Netanyahu in Washington DC. Five other protesters were also injured.

IT wasn't all standing ovations for Binyamin Netanyahu in Washington, though with almost thirty of these the supposed representatives of the American people gave a performance that said more for their physical agility than their political sense or morality.

Here is America's Democracy Now radio station commenting:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech was warmly received by Democrats and Republicans in Congress on Tuesday. According to ABC News, he received 29 standing ovations during his address—four more than President Obama received during his State of the Union address earlier in the year. However, there was at least one dissenting voice inside the halls of Congress on Tuesday. Rae Abileah, a Jewish-American activist of Israeli descent with the peace group CodePink, disrupted Netanyahu’s speech. Standing in the congressional gallery, she yelled, “No more occupation! Stop Israel war crimes! Equal rights for Palestinians! Occupation is indefensible!” As she screamed, members in the audience tackled her to the ground, and undercover security forces later dragged her outside. She was taken to George Washington University Hospital where she was treated for neck and shoulder injuries. At the hospital, police arrested Abileah and charged her with disorderly conduct for disrupting Congress.

“Netanyahu is the Main Obstacle to Peace”: CodePink Activist Disrupts Israeli PM Speech to Congress

The campaigning group Jewish Voice for Peace has condemned the violent way Rae Abileah was treated, though if anything JVP was less shocked over this behaviour than over the enthusiasm with which congress applauded Netanyahu.

Five of the Jewish peace campaign's members were attacked the night before when they protested at a meeting of the America Israel Public Affairs Committee(AIPAC), Israel's main lobbying organisation in Washington, reports JVP deputy director Cecilie Surasky.


Declaring it "unbelievable" that US politicians greeted the Israeli premier's speech so warmly, Cecilie Surasky says: "To put it simply, Netanyahu proved yet again that he prefers settlement expansion and Jewish domination of Palestinians to any kind of true peace agreement that would benefit both peoples. He claimed that Israel isn’t occupying anyone—ignoring nearly 44 years of increasingly brutal Israeli control over the lives of millions of Palestinians".

Going through some of Netanyahu's assertions and answering them, the JVP leader urges fellow-Americans to protest to their political representatives over what happened, and says people outside America should write to President Obama about it.
http://jewishvoiceforpeace.org/blog/take-action-no-applause-for-netanyahu

Calling for an end to America's $3 billion annual military aid to Israel,Rae Abileah is a member of both the women's group Codepink, and Young, Jewish and Proud, formed by young JVP supporters. Interviewed from hospital on al Jazeera she said some of the people who attacked her were not Congress security, but visitors, members of AIPAC.
http://vodpod.com/watch/9553913-al-jazeera-interviews-rae-abileah

For more on this see:
http://www.moveoveraipac.org/2011/05/jewish-protester-disrupts-netanyahu-during-congressional-address/
http://www.wikio.com/themes/Rae+Abileah

And for more pictures of the incident, see:
http://mobius1ski.tumblr.com/post/5852087195/help-identify-rae-abileahs-attackers

Strange friends and dodgy dollars

PAMELA GELLER (left)claims President is a Muslim and says she has seen rude photos of his mother. RABBI SHIFREN (right),invokes the Alamo for Orange County Republicans. Ex-West Bank settler pitches his campaign against Mexicans and Muslims.



ROBERTA MOORE (above) in London with EDL and the Zionist Federation's Jonathan Hoffman (photo courtesy David Hoffman). What appears to be blue tattoo on her breast was subject of speculation. Someone thought it was a lyre bird, someone else suggested a character from Moomin. But we had no trouble recognising the tattoo sported by this doughty 'defender' of Wales (below), it went with the salutes.
That's the trouble with tattoos, they are not as easy to change as flags.

ENGLISH DEFENCE LEAGUE supporters went on the rampage in
Leicester at the weekend. One brave pack were videoed chucking
stones and chasing a Muslim woman into a cafe, before they had
to join their pals making a strategic withdrawal after coming
face to face with local youth in Highfields.

Someone arranged for an EDL group to join the anti-Muslim 'Ground Zero' protesters
in New York recently, and in Sunday's Observer ( October 10) ,
Mark Townsend reported:
An Observer investigation has established that the EDL has made contact with anti-jihad groups within the Tea Party organisation and has invited a senior US rabbi and Tea Party activist to London this month. Rabbi Nachum Shifren, a regular speaker at Tea Party conventions, will speak about Sharia law and also discuss funding issues.

The league has also developed links with Pamela Geller, who was influential in the protests against plans to build an Islamic cultural centre near Ground Zero. Geller, darling of the Tea
Party's growing anti-Islamic wing, is advocating an alliance with the EDL. The executive director of the Stop Islamisation of America organisation, she recently met EDL leaders in New York and has defended the group's actions, despite a recent
violent march in Bradford.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/oct/13/ground-zero-islam


Curious to know more about this"senior" Rabbi, I learned that he hails from Los Angeles, but lived in a right-wing Zionist settlement in the occupied Palestinian West Bank for a time. Now employed as a teacher in LA he is running for office for the Republicans, and is billed as the "surfin'" rabbi.

'Yet he opted to reside in Kfar Tapuah, a West Bank settlement perched a half-hour from the “lousy” Mediterranean surf. Kfar Tapuah is considered an extremely militant, right-wing, anti-government stronghold. "I’d compare its residents to white militants in the United States" says Hagit Yaari, an Israeli spokesperson for Americans for Peace.
http://www.loonwatch.com/2010/02/rabbi-nachum-shifren-rides-the-wave-of-islamophobia


Actually putting the rabbi down as simply an Islamophobe seems a little unfair, he appears equally concerned with stopping more Mexican and other immigrants from coming into his "white America". Whether it worries him that similar prejudice in the 1930s and 1940s kept out Jewish refugees I don't know, as in the piece I read he does not mention the subject, preferring to identify with those who won the West from those pesky Hispanics. But he says he will urge British Jews, who he thinks are "terrified", to support the EDL.
http://www.newswithviews.com/Shifren/nachum113.htm

Pamela Geller runs a blog called Atlas Shrugs, and it's a fascinating read if you're not too bothered about the plausibility of her stories. Apparently she has information about President Obama's "sexual peccadillos", as well as his secret birth or conversion to Islam, and why he went to Pakistan -it could only be to score drugs or to meet the jihadis, or perhaps both. What's more she has seen obscene photos of Obama's mother in the nude. If other news channels like CNN have her information they are obviously afraid to use it.

http://www.loonwatch.com/2009/08/pamela-geller-the-looniest-blogger-ever

In our pic, Geller is wearing a Little Green Footballs polo, but in Wednesday's Guardian the guy who runs that discussion website, Charles Johnson, regretted they let her use it. "Geller often supports and glorifies people who can only be described as white supremacists and genocidal war criminals. For example, last April, Geller defended South African apartheid advocate and convicted terrorist Eugene Terreblanche, blaming his murder on "black supremacism" and warning that it was the start of "white genocide" in South Africa In July, Geller posted an ode of support to genocidal Serbian war criminal Radovan Karadzic.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/oct/13/ground-zero-islam

No matter. Now that she has made a name for herself, Pamela Geller seems to have access to mainstream media and 'respectable' political company in America, and besides, she is not short of a dollar or two to spread her views. Lawyer David Yerushalmi , whose clients include Stop Islamization of America, and the American Freedom Defence Initiative, was claiming " a victory for the First Amendment,” (i.e. free speech) after a lawsuit requiring the Manhattan Transit Authority to accept posters for buses that decry the so-called Ground Zero mosque and depict the Twin Towers burning. But as the lawyer must know, this kind of free speech does not come free. Apart from the lawsuit costs, Pamela Geller, executive director of Stop Islamization of America, paid $9,500 for the ads and signed a contract last month with CBS Outdoor, the MTA’s advertising representative. " http://www.dnainfo.com/20100809/downtown/mta-will-run-bus-ad-against-ground-zero-mosque-showing-burning-twin-towers#ixzz12MnWDWS4


The New York Times has run a profile of Geller, showing her to be a very wealthy woman, her wealth including a $4-million divorce settlement, a $5-million life insurance on the death of her ex-husband, Michael Oshry (her married name was Pamela G. Oshry), and a portion of the $2-million sale of the Hewlett Harbor home she jointly owned with Oshry. All of which allows her to live in luxury on an entire floor of upper Eastside condo

But as blogger Richard Silverstein tells us, ""What isn’t as well-known, and was whitewashed from her Times profile, is that the basis of her wealth is a criminal enterprise. Michael Oshry, her ex-husband who died of an alleged heart attack in 2008, owned a large Long Island car dealership which operated a scam allowing buyers to purchase cars using fraudulent identities. Such a scam is perfect for organized crime and others seeking to use cars in the commission of felonies. In fact, one such vehicle was used by a former car salesman to murder two New York City police officers. An employee who discovered the scam was murdered execution-style. Geller was listed as a co-owner of the dealership though she denied any knowledge of the fraud. However, the head of the local D.A.’s economic crimes unit is quoted as saying that the owners of the dealership knew about, and possibly actively organized the fraud, which implies that either Geller had to know about it or willfully kept herself in the dark:
Peress said the corruption at Universal “went all the way to the top.
http://networkedblogs.com/976Kj


Richard adds, "I note the Times profile reveals that Geller’s personal attorney is David Yerushalmi, who incorporated the non-profit entity under which she and Robert Spencer produce their blogs. This in turn allows David Horowitz to plow funds into their enterprise that have been given on a tax-deductible basis.
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/


Nick Griffin of the British National Party(BNP) has been telling his supporters that the EDL and its allies were Zionist-backed - sour grapes, perhaps, as he put his Holocaust skepticism on a back burner in order to concentrate on playing the anti-Muslim theme, and the Jewish Chronicle remarked on how pro-Israel the BNP had become. As we noted before the BNP's Jewish woman councillor from Essex was despatched to an American neo-con conference.

Judging from the number of known BNP members who have been spotted with the EDL, they are not put off by Griffin's strictures. Searchlight magazine has identified the EDL leader who calls himself 'Tommy Robinson' as being a former BNP member called Stephen Yaxley-Lennon. An article in the October issue of the anti-fascist magazine names other past and present BNP activists in the EDL. "Alan Spencer...is pretty much now the EDL organiser in Newcastle, but in May 2010 he stood as the BNP parliamentary candidate in Newcasstle East where he received 3.5% of the vote

Talking of Newcastle, as Searchlight's Nick Lowles noted on September 24:, "20 to 30 EDL thugs attacked a Socialist Workers Party meeting in Newcastle Wednesday evening. Two doormen were beaten but there are no reports of any arrests. Earlier today two EDL supporters were arrested in Gateshead which led to an EDL demo outside the local police station".
http://www.socialistunity.com/?cat=24

The EDL claims to have a Jewish section now led by the strange figure of Roberta Moore, and seeming to consist largely of Israelis. Ms.Moore herself is Brazilian born but lived in Israel for a time, and says she was a supporter of the Kach party founded by Rabbi Meir Kahane. The Community Security Trust advised Jews to give no support to EDL or Stop the Islamification of Europe, and even the Zionist Federation's Jonathan Hoffman has denied co-operating with them, claiming the photograph of him with Roberta Moore was a fake, thought he had to drop that claim. (The EDL and Zionist Federation had turned up to oppose pro-Palestinian demonstrators at the settler-owned Ahava cosmetics in Covent Garden). Jewish anti-fascists have of course joined others opposing the EDL and similar outfits, and when Stop the Islamification of Europe tried to march on the Harrow mosque, some rabbis raised their voice in solidarity with Muslims.

Though EDL claims it is only against "Islamic extremists" and sharia law, a lot of those who turn out for anti-Islamic demonstrations and street violence seem to be less sophisticated, and neither know nor particularly care whom they are attacking. In Luton they attacked the Sikh mayor, in Dudley they took out their rage on a Hindu temple, and despite recent alliances many of them don't bother to hide their hatred of Jews. But there are signs at times that more intelligent hands are guiding some EDL actions, as when they target left-wing meetings, or use the invitation of a particular Muslim speaker as pretext to threaten a mosque. When the speaker is banned they claim a victory. Judging from the amount of travelling they do, they also don't seem short of funds.

A north London businessman has come out publicly as supporting the EDL:
Alan Lake, a 45-year-old businessman from Highgate, North London, sees the EDL as a potential "street army" willing to be deployed against what they claim is rising Islamification of Britain.
http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/features/Businessman-bankrolls-street-army.php

But support and material encouragement also appears to be reaching the anti-Islamic movement from the wilder, and some would say, crazier wing of neo-cons and Zionists in America, and from some Christian fundamentalists there as well. They can overlook the odd tattooed swastika or Hitler salute that seem a hard to break habit among those they are unleashing. And the fascists, whatever their prejudices, don't mind money, by whatever route it reaches them and regardless of the source. I'd also guess that the strings we've been shown so far are not necessarily the only ones behind the scenes