Labour Jewish voters take down Tom Watson – and it’s a joy to read
Tom Watson.
If you’re fed up with Tom Watson and his silly campaigns, that aim to publicise divisions within the Labour Party and make it easier for the Conservatives to win again, read what follows and then visit Breaking Down The News for the rest of the open letter.
This Writer finds himself in agreement with much of what is written – although I would say Ken Livingstone wasn’t suspended solely for being supportive of the Palestineians but also for quoting historical fact correctly.
We read with interest your speech to guests at the Labour Friends of Israel luncheon recently and watched the video of you singing ‘Am Yisrael Chai’. Perhaps you are not aware that this is the favourite chant of West Bank settlers and the fascist/neo-Nazi Jewish Defence League when attacking Palestinians and those they disagree with?
You began your speech by saying that you supported Israel because ‘our consciences dictate it’. If you had a conscience you would not have spoken of your ‘special pleasure’ at the presence of Mark Regev, Israel’s Ambassador who, as-Chief Spokesman for Benjamin Netanyahu, defended Operation Protective Edge in Gaza in 2014 when 2,251 Palestinians were killed, including 551 children.
You said that you were ‘ashamed’ at the ‘anti-Semitism in our midst’. Let us reassure you that although you have much to be ashamed of, anti-Semitism is not one of Labour’s sins. Anti-Semitism does not exist as a political force in the Labour Party. It never has and never will. Those who have been suspended for ‘anti-Semitism’, in particular, Ken Livingstone, Jackie Walker, and Tony Greenstein, have been suspended for supporting the Palestinians, not because of anti-Semitism. It is no coincidence that both the latter two are Jewish anti-Zionists.
You mentioned your recent, expenses paid trip to Israel recently, where you met the Chairman of the Israeli Labour Party Isaac Herzog. You spoke of his ‘determination to continue to push the path of peace’. Is this the same Herzog who, Ha’aretz reports, pushed for ‘Separation From Palestinians as (the) Party Platform’? In other words an apartheid solution with a Palestinian Bantustan?
I find it difficult to understand, in view of your purported opposition to anti-Jewish racism, why you turn a blind eye to Herzog’s virulent anti-Arab racism? Herzog recently spoke of his fear of waking up to a Palestinian Prime Minister in Israel. He said:
‘I want to separate from the Palestinians. I want to keep a Jewish state with a Jewish majority. I don’t want 61 Palestinian MKs in Israel’s Knesset. I don’t want a Palestinian prime minister in Israel.’
Source: Open letter to Tom Watson from Labour Jewish voters
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The same Tom What’s on at Glastonbury while pretending the coup he was part of wasn’t happening? What have Mossad set him up for to control him so well?
Tom Watson should be fired. All he has done is cause trouble for the labour party & head a smear campaign against Jeremy Corbyn. This man is a menace.
Tom Watson is a disgrace to labour, corbyn should get rid if him altogether
I think it is not Corbyn’s place to do that. I would guess that the proper process would be a challenge, in a similar way to a leadership challenge.
What a first class letter , I have great respect for these people but none for zionists I put them on par with nazis
Until he’s deselected or booted out – and the rest of the red tory filth – Corbyn doesn’t have a chance.
I reckon there will be a large number of deselections before 2020.
The most semites are the palestinians.
“Semitic” certainly used to refer to anybody living in that part of the Middle East, but nowadays it is taken as referring to Jewish people. Let’s not confuse the issue, eh?
Something is either defined or not. You can ‘bastardise’ a definition as applied within a geograhical location but its absurd to insist the rest of the world participates forcefully in the ‘bastardization’
Sorry Mike, you are not totally right in this, because a lot of sionists are not jewish and i think you confuse the issue by mixing the two. (sionist is politic, a lot of sionists were not born in Palestine, i.e. Mr Natanyahu)
A lot of Zionists aren’t Jewish, that’s true. But that has nothing to do with what constitutes a Semite.
I think YOU are the one who is becoming confused.
Mike, you come to my first comment, the real semites are the big number of Palestinians and the real Jewish not the Sionists.
the real Jewish lived in peace with the Palestinians and even today.
I see. You’re saying the people who are currently occupying the land known either as Israel or Palestine are not real Jews.
Thing is, they follow the religion and they belong to that ethnicity, so I don’t think you have much of an argument.
I think I get what you’re saying – and there may be something to it (although I honestly don’t know how well Jews who were in Palestine before the land was given to Israel got on with the native Palestinians) – but it can only be a side-issue.
Watson gave Michael Dugher, (sacked by Corbyn this year), a fake role overseeing an ‘inquiry’ into ‘fake news’ websites, much of which is instigated by those opposed to Corbyn….
A very good open letter which I assume Watson will do his utmost to disregard. Interestingly, the government have just adopted a definition of antisemitism from the Berlin-based International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) which seems sensible enough:
“Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”
Sadly, though unsurprisingly, the Guardian mentions Jackie Walker but omits the detail that she was questioning the definition that was being used in the ‘training’, as pushed by the JLM.
“In October, the vice-chair of the Corbyn-supporting group Momentum, Jackie Walker, was removed from her post in the wake of remarks questioning the need for security at Jewish schools, and about Holocaust Memorial Day.”
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/dec/12/antisemitism-definition-government-combat-hate-crime-jews-israel
Yes; Ms Walker was questioning a different definition that has been discredited. I’ve written articles about it in the past.
So relieved to read this article, hear Jewish LP voices deride his tactic to embrace current Israeli policy, to create false or exaggerated stories about anti Semitism in the LP, his divisive tactics to undermine practical policies from the elected LP leader. His behaviour at LP conference was disgracefully disloyal.