Kerry-Anne Mendoza, editor in chief of The Canary.
Despite protests by journalists at the Guardian/Observer, the Claudia Jones memorial lecture will be hosted by that paper’s chapel (branch) of the National Union of Journalists, and the speaker will be Canary editor in chief Kerry-Anne Mendoza.
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Kerry-Anne Mendoza, editor in chief of The Canary. This shot is from a Newsnight appearance in 2016, in which she promoted other members of the New Left Media, including Vox Political.
This is a story about treacherous people getting their just desserts.
The editor-in-chief of The Canary – This Site’s friend Kerry-Anne Mendoza – has been honoured with an invitation to give the Claudia Jones Memorial Lecture, as part of the series held in memory of the pioneering black female journalist.
The lecture is organised by the National Union of Journalists’ Black Members Council and the choice of speaker is nothing to do with the Guardian-Observer chapel (that’s their word for a branch) of the NUJ – but it seems these reporters complained bitterly at the choice of speaker:
The release of Mark Di Stefano’s tweet (above) prompted something of a backlash. The fact that white journalists at the Guardian were seeking to vote that one of UK media’s only black/minority ethnic editors-in-chief be stopped from giving the Claudia Jones Memorial Lecture for Black History Month was considered by many to be a sign of The Guardian officially losing the plot.
Kerry-Anne herself said: “I’m a proud member of the National Union of Journalists and honoured to be invited to give the Claudia Jones Memorial Lecture this year.
“It’s a sign of the entitlement of our establishment journalists that they would behave so poorly in response.
“I think we’ve reached peak Guardian. A group of mostly white, middle class journalists trying to stop one of Britain’s only working class, BAME editors in chief from giving a speech for Black History Month.”
Followers of the social media agreed – and it just happened to be the case that a Twitterstorm in support of the hashtag #BoycottTheGuardian had been arranged, to take place between 7pm and 9pm on September 27. You can understand why Kerry-Anne called for us all to support it:
You did it! #BoycottTheGuardian is trending! Well done everyone for making a stand for quality, diverse and honest journalism. Together we're going to rebuild the media. And everyone but the establishment will benefit from it. pic.twitter.com/lRax5lJJC4
Dear @guardian, Right-wingers don't read you. So when there are so many people on the Left saying #BoycottTheGuardian that it's trending, who exactly are supposed to be your target readers? Your best friends and relatives? Regards, Tom
Looks like #BoycottTheGuardian going to trend at number 1. I must admit I enjoy it at times but it’s politics coverage is abysmal and it seems increasingly irrelevant. Which is sad – Britain needs progressive media now more than ever. The long reads, in particular, are brilliant.
#BoycottTheGuardian Because it is a neo-con rag that deliberately promotes false left identity politics to undermine horizontal solidarity between the exploited ordinary people.
.@TheMendozaWoman is a worthy choice to deliver the Claudia Jones memorial lecture. She's an antidote to the msm output. Remember Malcolm X said "If you're not careful the newspapers will have you hating the people being oppressed and loving the people doing the oppressing" https://t.co/FoZNGLy5Oa
Corbyn linked to anti-semitism 100+ times in The Guardian. Their quinoa-munching journalists would call this an example of 'Agenda Setting Function Theory.' The rest of us would call it propaganda. #BoycottTheGuardian
In fact, this had been the intention behind the Twitterstorm – and it would have received much less attention if the Guardian-Observer NUJ chapel’s members had just kept their mouths shut (or their typing fingers away from whatever messaging system they have been using).
The result of all this activism is not yet known. The NUJ itself has said nothing on the subject.
It is possible that the Establishment will try to hush up the fact that there has been a huge protest against what can be seen as a clear example of racism by mostly white, middle-class university-graduate journalists.
If that happens, we’ll just have to run another campaign – bigger, louder, and impossible to ignore. Repression always incites rebellion.
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Stephen Pollard’s tweet accidentally refers to the anti-Semitic stereotype suggesting an international conspiracy of Jewish bankers. But when he attacks others for making similar references, he always claims they are deliberate. How does he know, when he can’t even stop himself from making the same mistake?
The desperation at the heart of the anti-Semitism accusations against Jeremy Corbyn is getting embarrassing now.
The latest anti-Corbyn campaigner to humiliate himself is Stephen Pollard, editor of the Jewish Chronicle. Mr Pollard, it seems, was infuriated after Labour Party leader (and constant victim of anti-Semitism accusations) Jeremy Corbyn tweeted the following:
Ten years ago today the financial crash began.
The people who caused it now call me a threat. They’re right.
In response, Mr Pollard wrote, “Been hesitating to tweet this because I keep thinking it can’t be, surely it can’t be.
“But the more I think about It, the more it seems it really is.
“This is ‘nudge nudge, you know who I’m talking about don’t you?’
“And yes I do. It’s appalling.”
Editor of the @JewishChron assumes bankers = Jews in an attempt to prove Jeremy Corbyn is antisemitic, thus being more antisemitic than all of the still unresolved geniune incidents of antisemitism in the Labour Party 🤔🤔🤔😫 pic.twitter.com/Sa9Cmm5JMM
The implication is that Mr Corbyn was referring to that staple of the anti-Semitic stereotypes, the ‘international Jewish banking conspiracy’.
This is made explicit in a follow-up tweet by Mr Pollard, which we’ll consider below.
But let’s start by making one thing plain. As David Rosenberg states: “Stephen Pollard and Jeremy Corbyn. One of them seems to think all bankers are Jews. Clue: it is not Jeremy Corbyn.”
Stephen Pollard and Jeremy Corbyn. One of them seems to think all bankers are Jews. Clue: it is not Jeremy Corbyn.
You know the bank that Mr Corbyn mentions specifically in his video message? Morgan Stanley?
That bank is run by one James P Gorman. I don’t have an explicit statement about his religion but, as he appears to have attending a Catholic school in Australia, I think it is safe to conclude that he isn’t Jewish.
So Mr Corbyn could not be making any kind of reference to the ‘international Jewish banking conspiracy’ trope.
Commentators were quick to point this out, and to provide their own explanations for Mr Pollard’s faux pas: Anti-Semitism of his own.
Completely unhinged right-wing Zionist fanatic editor of the UK's leading anti-Palestinian newspaper here indulges the antisemitic conspiracy theory that the banking system is run by Jews — purely to smear Corbyn as an antisemite.
My new favourite genre of self-own Tweets is people so desperate to smear Jeremy Corbyn as an anti-Semite that they resort to extreme displays of anti-Semitism themselves.
Using "bad Jew"/"self-hating Jew" tropes is one type. Stephen Pollard's 'banker = Jew' Tweet is another.
I'm not hesitating to tweet this. I will call out AS when I see it. I will also call out the weaponisation of AS when I see it & that's what this is. Corbyn is talking about bankers which is code for… Wait fot it…. Bankers! You know, the ones who caused a big financial crash! https://t.co/FkY4PMDxQw
The response he received was, “Because Pollard has carefully worded it in such a way to avoid outright libel. He frames it as a question… Old journalist trick!”
Actually he didn’t. And his follow-up tweet makes the anti-Semitism clear:
Stephen Pollard, editor of the right-wing Jewish Chronicle, accuses Jeremy Corbyn of antisemitism – for attacking the bankers
So, Stephen Pollard is now using antisemitism to prevent criticism of the bankers because – according to him – they are Jewish…
It certainly isn’t the most intelligent thing in the world to follow up a tweet that implies an anti-Semitic stereotype with another that makes it overt. But that’s what Mr Pollard did when he tweeted: “I accept all the criticism of this tweet, and that I may be way off beam.
“But this is what happens when antisemitism is allowed to flourish – and when an antisemite leads a party. You start to read his every word through that prism. Even if the words aren’t about Jews.”
He accepts that Mr Corbyn wasn’t referring to Jews and therefore there could be no reference to the ‘international Jewish banking conspiracy’ stereotype.
But he also accepts that he was implying anti-Semitism and, given the context, this can only have been done with reference to that trope.
With Mr Corbyn out of the picture, the only person here who could be suggesting an international banking conspiracy run by Jews is Stephen Pollard.
And that puts him in a highly actionable position.
Not only that, but Mr Pollard has compounded his error by continuing to claim anti-Semitism by Mr Corbyn, even though he has admitted that he has no evidence on which to base the claim.
Stephen Pollard says;
"I accept all the criticism of my tweet"
But then bizarrely blames Jeremy Corbyn for the words he has written this tweet.
Hold on, you are using an antisemitic trope by suggesting that all bankers are Jewish and therefore it is antisemitic to criticise them and you blame Corbyn for it?? Have a word with yourself, Stephen! https://t.co/Rj4QhWyRLg
No, this is what happens when the scumbag editor of a Tory/Israel propaganda rag uses antisemitism as a political weapon to destroy a lifelong anti-racist. This is classic boy who cried wolf shite. In the fight against genuine antisemitism, Stephen Pollard is now the enemy. #Marrpic.twitter.com/Kjdnds8u8o
— Frank Owen's Legendary Paintbrush (@WarmongerHodges) September 16, 2018
He was never anything else.
And we can throw his tweets in the pile with all the other false accusations. Here are a couple of recent examples:
Here's a cast iron example of people lying about anti-Semitism to attack Jeremy Corbyn.
Corbyn clearly accused a small group of abusive Zionist extremists who were disrupting an Israel-Palestine meeting of not understanding irony, not "all Jews". https://t.co/0V26VdfLZo
I think we can all agree that the speech in the video clip above is a pack of lies from beginning to end, not just the part referencing Mr Corbyn’s comments on “irony”.
How about this, from Canary supremo Kerry-Anne Mendoza?
During a media debate, I described Israeli soldiers’ routine kidnap & torture of Palestinian children. My pro-Israel opponent responded by accusing me of exploiting an antisemitic “Jews eat babies” trope.
Shameless weaponising of antisemitism to defend the indefensible. Stop it https://t.co/SCr70bp7FU
That’s a classic tactic of the accusers, by the way – claiming one thing is something completely different that happens to be anti-Semitic.
That’s lying – exactly the kind of lying that has created the ‘anti-Semitism’ row that has been festering for more than two years.
How hypocritical of Mr Pollard that he can claim his own anti-Semitism occurred accidentally but then find it (falsely) in the words of others – and demand that it must be intentional.
I seem to recall the Jewish Chronicle making that kind of claim about myself. How did that turn out, again?
I’m heartened by two other tweets that were published in the last couple of days. The first refers to the accusations against Mr Corbyn and the reaction of the general public:
I want to send a message of solidarity to @jeremycorbyn .We,'ordinary' members; 'ordinary'voters,know your life's work.Your brave campaigning on many issues,over many years, including anti racism+ anti-Semitisms .These truths cannot be undone+we see what's being done to you.
The truth of this is self-evident from the recent Labour NEC elections in which supporters of Mr Corbyn increased their presence on the party’s ruling committee, with the support of the party membership at large.
And then there’s this:
The schism between much of the Jewish community and Corbyn’s Labour could be mended BOTH sides feel they have been treated vilely by the other Dialogue in good faith could solve things but first people need to trust each other Meeting one to one or small groups would be a start
And this too is true. The differences between the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn and that part of the Jewish community that has taken issue with it could be mended very easily because they are based on falsehoods.
Discussion of the evidence supporting each side’s arguments – in good faith – could result in an epiphany.
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Look at the state of this: When Margaret Hodge launched her vile attack on Jeremy Corbyn, claiming against all the evidence that he was a “f***ing anti-Semite”, she knew she could be sure of good news coverage – because it seems her daughter is Lizzi Watson, deputy editor of BBC News at 6 and 10.
It follows that other news stories such as the Daily Mail smear alleging Mr Corbyn went to a cemetery and laid a wreath for terrorists (in fact, none of the terror suspects named by that hack-rag were buried in that site) would also receive strong coverage, on the insistence of a person with such a strong connection with the issue.
It also follows that stories that do not fit the anti-Corbyn agenda would be suppressed. So those of us who are fighting false allegations of anti-Semitism (please see my JustGiving page for details of my own case).
This tweet puts it very well:
Margaret Hodge’s daughter, Lizzi Watson, is Deputy Editor of BBC News programmes
In the name of balance, it should be noted that the BBC does have a policy under which employees must report any conflict of interest arising from family connections. We have no evidence to suggest that this was followed, as the BBC is refusing to admit any connection between Ms Watson and Margaret Hodge.
Oh, and you see that other story, about Saudi Arabia bombing a school bus in Yemen? Consider this:
Astonishing graphic from @CNN, identifying civilian massacres in Yemen with the bomb makers – Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics. This should be standard in war reporting. Searing images. https://t.co/EZqkSsAri6pic.twitter.com/NWJvPuN7ct
— 'I just want you to know I can see thru your mask' (@TimothyS) August 18, 2018
The school bus was in Saada, where the bomb makers included Lockheed Martin. A major shareholder in Lockheed Martin is Capital Group, and a senior executive of that company is none other than Philip May, husband of the UK’s Conservative Prime Minister, Theresa May.
Wouldn’t it have been better for the TV news to ignore the lie about the Labour leader and discuss the UK Prime Minister’s actual connection to the bombing of a school bus?
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