With Corbyn gone, the Israel lobby is targeting Palestinians directly
Published
by
Richard Kuper
JVL Introduction
Born in Jerusalem in 1940, Ghada Karmi and her family were forced to flee Palestine as refugees in 1948.
committed activist and scholr, she wrote recently of Jeremy Corbyn’s defeat that “it was the pro-Israel lobby that dealt the final blow…”
For that judgment she is being accused of antisemitism by self-styled “antisemitism watchdog”, the Campaign Against Antisemitism.
Jonathan Cook tells the ongoing story
This article was originally published by Middle East Eye/jonathan-cook.net on Tue 12 May 2020. Read the original here.
With Corbyn gone, the Israel lobby is targeting Palestinians directly
Anti-Palestinian bigotry from an antisemitism watchdog is the latest move to dress up bullying as victimhood
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Excellent photo at the top of the article, not present on Cook’s blog version. Worth copying and turning into a greetings card, possibly…
All this is good – but we do need a means to go off the back foot, and on to the offensive. Let’s think:
Maybe a list of “Liars about the Palestine cause” – a public list of sources that we can legitimately regard as discredited in all discussions of these issues? We have to be sure – agencies and names with evidence … they must fear being put on the list.
All responses to the liars then cite the “list of liars” – then more simply refer to the “liars’ list” – and then the ‘liars’ … maybe put the Friends of Israel or the BoD at the top?
What sort of credibility does such a body need to make its move ? generally I am n favour of mirroring the bourgeois bodies, so an image of the ECHR would be good… of a “friends of the Middle East” to counter the FoI better.
I don’t understand how it is that the CAA is still a registered charity. I have raised this matter with JVL officers before.
According to Skawkbox (28/08/2018) a challenge was made to its charitable status. On October 30th 2018 the Jewish Chronicle reported that “The Campaign Against Antisemitism has had to tone down the wording of a petition against Jeremy Corbyn, after the Charity Commission intervened.” It seems the Charity Commission, quick to challenge the sligtest political inflection in charitable campaigning by Oxfam, ruled that it was okay for the CAA to call the Labour leader “an antisemite”, but not to say that he “must go”.
On 02/02/2020 the Morning Star headlined “Green Party spokesman reports the Campaign Against Antisemitism to Charity Commission over anti-Corbyn smear campaign”.
Why is it that a blatantly political organisation like the CAA can still be a registered charity? What is JVL doing to challenge this status?
By going after Ghada Karmi, CAA is scraping the barrel. She deserves our full support.
She is an incisive and level-headed exponent of the Palestinian cause. She experienced the Nakba at first hand and thoroughly understands the perspectives of Jewish people, among whom she grew up in the UK. I recommend her autobiographies: “Return; a Palestinian memoir”, and “In Search of Fatima”.
This bullying, often based on inaccurate and subjective assertions, must be dealt with. Institutions should not allow themselves to be used in this way to silence voices. In our society, the principle of freedom of expression is held up as an example to the rest of the world, in order to maintain this moral ground, we must be seen to practice what we preach. There is a vast amount of research and published work on the lobby or lobbies that support Israel’s interests both in our main political parties and in the media. It is to be hoped that people of conscience and academic probity will protect the right of people to speak about this, and their own experiences, and to write in detail showing their sources to reinforce their viewpoints.
Dear JVL
Thank for publishing the superb article by Jonathan Cook.
It is heartbreaking to see the plight of the Palestinians and the political and intolerant Zionism advocated by Netanyahu can only lead to more suffering to both Palestinians and Israelis. Netanyahu’s vision is tragically short-sighted and he may believe as the hard Zionist Ben-Gurion did (at the 1937 Zionist congress in Zurich), the “right to Palestine, all of it, is unassailable and eternal” – but this is a ruthless and unjustifiable policy that is unsustainable and will mean Israel is sadly no longer a democracy, but an oppressor (in violation of scores of UN Resolutions and international law).
Thank you.
God bless you all