Opposing the proscription of Palestine Action
JVL Introduction
Jenny Manson, JVL’s Co-chair, made a witness statement on behalf of JVL in the judicial review of the Starmer regime’s arbitrary decision to ban anti-genocide protest group Palestine Action (PA).
In it she argues that there has been a consistent failure of government to consult anti-genocide Jewish groups like JVL. Many Jews support direct action to challenges UK arms manufacture and sales to Israel.
The evidence presented included a letter to government of 5th August with around 300 signatories. This letter was cited by Raza Husain QC, counsel for PA, along with Manson’s statement on day one of the hearing. Mr Husain mentioned that this letter was signed by the late Geoffrey Bindman and quoted from this paragraph:
“We are Jews who oppose the genocide by Israel against the Palestinian people, the reality of which is agonisingly on show every day on radio, television and social media. Opposing the brutality of genocide, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing taking place in Gaza and the West Bank, including taking direct action, is not antisemitic. Nor is it terrorism. We consider the proscription of Palestine Action as illegitimate and unethical.”
The witness statement also talks of the risks to all affected by this decision: the cloak of false antisemitism allegations protecting Israel and the chilling effect on free speech will tend to associate all Jewish people with Israel’s atrocities, increase division between Jewish and other communities, and harm and endanger cohesion within UK society.
RK
This article was originally published by Skwawkbox on Sat 29 Nov 2025. Read the original here.
Exclusive: anti-genocide Jewish woman’s testimony to PA proscription court
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A very impressive statement. Thank you, Jenny.
So grateful for Jenny’s eloquent and measured witness.
To my mind, respect, consideration and empathy with other beings characterise EVERY ethical standard, law and faith worthy of support. Jenny’s witness reminded us all of that.
Thank you, Jenny.
I’d also like to thank all of those (Jewish Bloc and others) who marched in London and elsewhere on Saturday. The witness of 100,000 people on the 33rd march FOR human decency, compassion and civil rights is a clarion call to us all … and a stinging rebuke to our government.
This is a historic document. Well done to Jenny Manson for stating the situation as it is and has been for far too long for pro-Palestinian Jews having to watch in frustration this government acting against them while claiming to be acting for them. Nowhere does she use the word ‘Zionism’; but the implication is clear. Zionism is not a distinctively Jewish political philosophy; it is the nationalism of a Jewish sect allied to the realpolitik of nations with specific interests in the Middle East. It cannot represent the Jewish people when the actions it prompts are oppressive in the way that Jews have in the past been oppressed. And the actions of this government are oppressive; there is no other word that describes them better. It must be resisted in every way that reason allows.
Thank you Jenny for eloquently expressing the position many of us Jews hold vis-à-vis the proscription of Palestine Action and, more generally, the danger to Jews posed by the conflation of Zionism and Jewishness.
Also thank you Tony & co for lifting up our spirits with your singing, while we waited to be arrested for holding signs in Cambridge.
On the danger of encouraging antisemitism, as a direct result of bundling all Jews with Israel and the consequent political repression of pro-Palestinian activists “on our behalf”:
Don’t be tempted to think this is merely reckless disregard on the part of the Zionist lobby, treating Jews as ‘collateral damage’ for the sake of promoting their interests (it is that as well); there’s more to it:
The assumption of an a-historical, ‘eternal’ antisemitism in the ‘diaspora’ is the bedrock of Zionist ideology, its raison d’être. Furthermore, rising antisemitism is the best means of “convincing” reluctant Jews to migrate to Israel. There are ample examples attesting to this in Zionist writings, from its inception to the present.
Interestingly, ‘Ha’aretz’ columnist Kobbi Niv published an op-ed (Dec 1st), in which he quotes a prominent Israeli journalist, Ben Kaspit, who expressed his views concerning antisemitism, during a political program he co-hosts on a public radio channel (it is worth noticing that Kaspit is identified with the ‘liberal’, centre-left, anti-Netanyahu Zionist camp in Israel). Here are a few spine-chilling ‘pearls’ [it has only appeared in Hebrew, so I translate]:
“I want all of them [Jews] to do aliya [immigrate] to Israel. I am an old-time and consistent supporter of antisemitism. I am glad that Mamdani won [the elections in NY, Mamdani being an antisemite in Kaspit’s view]. Because I’m for, I’m [like] Rabin, for me the Jews, let [them have it] bad.” At this point, the other co-host asks sarcastically: “Are you for pogroms abroad?”, to which Kaspit replies: “I’m for antisemitism. I’m for all Jews to come over here”.
THANK YOU JVL
and THANK YOU JENNY MANSON!!!!!!!
Well said Jenny, and I’m so glad to see Raza Husain representing. We knew each other back in the 90s when defending Roma refugees through immigration appeals tribunals. How good that Raza cited Geoffrey Bindman, who was so disgracefully ignored by Camden council when the IHRA definition of antisemitism was being rammed through (or ‘hastily adopted’, to put it more politely). One of those who ignored and did not even speak to Bindman was Cllr Angela Mason, who has since written an elegiac letter in our local Camden New Journal recalling the years when she actually worked in his law firm!
An excellent statement, Jenny. Many thanks for making it.
Well done Jenny, a brilliantly presented argument. Keep up the great work JVL do
I would like to add my thanks to Jenny and to everyone who played a part in the drafting and submission of this statement.
Whether or not it will be of help to the judges considering Huda Amori’s application for judicial review remains to be seen, but it certainly helps to bring into focus two aspects of this great struggle.
First, that the longer the state of Israel pursues its genocidal oppression of the Palestinian people, the more it is likely to trigger unthinking anti-semitism around the world – and thus expose all Jews to greater prejudice and danger.
Second, the barbarism and depravity of Israel’s behaviour in Gaza and the West Bank, which is seen daily on television and ‘phones, is now exposing the underlying dishonesty of the “anti-semitism” smear campaign against (and within) the Labour Party between 2015 and 2020. That campaign had two purposes: to get rid of Jeremy Corbyn and anyone who dared to criticise the racist ideology of Zionism, and then to transform the party into a mass version of Labour Friends of Israel – unquestioning support at all levels and nobody to ask where the money is coming from.
The paradox is that by their very success in tying the Labour Party into unquestioning support for Israel, Starmer and his colleagues are now inescapably tarred by Israel’s crimes.
A very important statement for British Jews and all who rndorse the ‘plausible genocide’ label from the world’s highest court and which Starmer and Lammy refuse to accept. To add to Richard Snell’s comments about Zionism, most Zionists are the Christian Zionists in the USA who are Trump’s greatest supporters. They wish to see Jews enter Israel/Palestine so that when the messiah returns the Jews will all convert to Christianity and those who refuse will burn in hell. Let us continue to campaign to recognise the lies of the Israel lobby and support the Palestinians who now face the greatest threat to their existence through Trump’s so called peace deal. Jenny’s support through JVL is most important for the campaign to legitimise the Palestine campaign which is increasingly threatened by both labelling it as antisemitic and as supporting terrorism. Support the Prisoners for Palestine campaign.