The Lobby

The silencing of critics of Israel using anti-semitism as the pretext is far from restricted to the current wave of attacks on Jeremy Corbyn and his Labour party. It is now used to intimidate anyone who steps out of line on Israel. Once we raged against the conflation of anti-semitism and anti-Zionism. We have so lost that battle that it is now standard operating procedure for Israel’s apologists to conflate anti-semitism with simple criticisms of the current ultra-nationalist Israeli government.

Is it a charity or political fundraiser for a right-wing foreign government?
People need to take a look at Canada’s Jewish Federations.

Journalists are often told never to be the story themselves; “Tell the story, but never be part of the story” is the general advice. Al-Jazeera’s journalists and the network itself, however, have for years been at the centre of the story.

There is real antisemitism and there is ersatz antisemitism. The latter has of late been getting more press than the former. The coinage has been debased.
Israeli academic Neve Gordon, a sometime target, notes:1

Remember the days of poking fun at Pravda, the Russian government-owned press? We asked: how could anyone rely on the truthfulness of reports that were filtered by agenda-driven government agents? Aren’t we Americans lucky to live in a land where our news isn’t filtered, where we — unlike our Russian counterparts — enjoy a “free” press?
We have witnessed how Jewish Power persuaded at least a half dozen billboard companies to refuse our attempts to run billboards with the simple message:

Israeli footprints are becoming more apparent in the US security apparatus. Such a fact does not bode well for ordinary Americans.

Al Jazeera English has been cleared of any wrongdoing by a British broadcasting regulator after complaints were submitted about The Lobby, a documentary series it broadcast on the political influence of the Israeli embassy in Britain.
Two complaints were submitted to Ofcom about the series after it was aired, with one complainant accusing the series of being anti-Semitic.
But Ofcom dismissed the complaints and ruled that Al Jazeera was not in breach of any regulations. It stated the documentary “provided sufficient balance”.

Shouldn’t leaders who claim to support the interests of the poor and working class inside Canada also take left wing positions internationally?
Yet when a leadership candidate for a left wing party embraces a politician who has repeatedly taken pro-imperialist international stances it hardly creates a stir. Reflecting an indifference to the injustices the Canadian government commits abroad, Jagmeet Singh’s alignment with Hélène Laverdière has been all but ignored.

On August 19, a week after a heavily publicized clash over a statue of Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Virginia, an estimated 8,000 people converged on Boston Common to protest a speaking event organized by a group calling itself the Boston Free Speech Movement. Who are the Boston Free Speech Movement and what do they stand for? We’ll never know because antifascists, leftists, anti-racists, and progressives of Boston prevented them from even speaking.

Dear Mr Mundell,
It was a pleasure meeting you at the Dumfries Agricultural Show. If you recall, we talked briefly about Mrs May’s perverse plan to celebrate the centenary of the Balfour Declaration “with pride” and invite Israel’s PM Netanyahu to the jollifications.