The Campaign Against Antisemitism is no such thing

JVL Introduction

JVL has been trying for some years to get the Charity Commission (CC) to investigate the “Campaign Against Antisemitism” (CAA), on the basis that so much of what it does in not charitable.  The CC has closed its investigation and John McDonnell MP has voiced his concerns. Also, as Sir Geoffrey Bindman told the Morning Star : “I should have thought there was considerable public interest in an organisation which is challenging anti-semitism, which is presumably a charitable purpose, and which is in fact using its resources to conduct political campaigning on behalf of the state of Israel.”

JVL’s initial complaints related mainly to the CAA’s leading role in weaponising antisemitism against Corbyn and the progressive ideas he and his supporters espoused. They are partly responsible for there now being a Labour Government that is little better than the Tories on a range of issues.  Although they pose as a defenders of UK Jews against antisemitism, we believe we have shown that the CAA’s main role is as a partisan Zionist political organisation. They have referred to Jews who supported Corbyn as “Sham Jews”, which is surely antisemitic in itself.

But in the context of the murderous assault on Gaza over the past 13 months, their conflation of criticism of Israel with antisemitism has grown even more heinous. We are grateful to Middle East Eye for permission to publish the article below, which shows that even the slightest attempt to curtail Israel’s murder of Palestinians has become too much for the CAA.

In addition to the important points covered below, we would add that the Charity Commission failed to take seriously a complaint by Rabbi Chaim Blayer about the CAA’s Chief Executive Officer, Gideon Falter who, on 13 April 2024, together with his security guards, disrupted a peace march for Palestine. Rabbi Blayer wrote to the CC on 23 May saying that “the conduct of the Chief Executive of the CAA has misrepresented the experience and views of many Jews in the UK about peaceful protest against the actions of the Zionist State of Israel”.  The CC’s response to Rabbi Blayer, and separately to JVL, was that Mr Falter was acting in his personal capacity!

In another example of the CAA’s non charitable actions, in their blog of 8th April 2024, they called on the Conservative Party to expel Sir Alan Duncan.  In July the Conservative Party dismissed the allegations against him but, as Duncan noted there has been no apology from the CAA.

JVL will continue to pursue this case, despite the attempts to fob us off.  The CAA’s influence is unwarranted and may be hard to limit but at least their charitable status should be removed.

LL

This article was originally published by Middle East Eye on Thu 24 Oct 2024. Read the original here.