LFI vice-chair and Labour MP Louise Ellman has been at the forefront of much of the loud criticism of the party and its leader over alleged antisemitism, appearing regularly on programmes to express her dismay. The latest manifestation of that criticism is a claim that he acted somehow inappropriately in arranging an event at which Jewish Auschwitz survivor Hajo Meyer spoke.
Last night, she appeared on the BBC’s Newsnight programme, claiming to have been ‘appalled’ to find out about the event:
She did not mention – nor did the programme – that she attended the same 2010 event for which she and others were criticising Corbyn.
In fact, she was there far longer than Corbyn was.
Corbyn introduced the event and then had to leave to be elsewhere, before returning later. Ms Ellman, by contrast, is reported as staying throughout – including during a major disruption caused by pro-Israel demonstrators who invaded the event and heckled survivors of other genocides when they spoke.
A letter, written at the time to the Tribune, puts her attendance beyond question:
On Holocaust Memorial Day I went to Portcullis House at the Houses of Parliament to hear Auschwitz survivor and Resistance fighter Hajo Meyer, and Dr Haidar Eid who had to speak by phone from Gaza. Hajo spoke of his feeling of betrayal and outrage that the universalist Jewish culture of his youth had morphed into callous nationalism supporting a racist settler state. He deplored the way that Zionist leaders – who’d once despised concentration camp survivors as “unusable material” – were now making a religion of the Holocaust to justify war crimes and mass reprisals against civilians. Both he and Dr Eid described ‘a slow motion genocide’ against the Palestinians – the term first used by Israeli historian Ilan Pappe and recently by Palestinian boycott leader Omar Barghouti.
Coming from a family of Hungarian Jews whom I’d slowly discovered had been victims of the Holocaust, the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network’s 27 January commemoration, ‘Never Again—For Anyone’, fulfilled a long-standing dream of mine. It was an open reminder of all genocides: somewhere Native Americans could speak with the Roma facing murder today, and survivors and resisters from the Irish Famine, Rwanda and the colossal genocide of slavery could share their stories without being told arrogantly that Jewish suffering was ‘unparalleled’ and ‘beyond telling’.
Painful to tell, but a tiny group of Zionist fanatics invaded the gathering and shouted so continuously that the careful programme was derailed, though not prevented from happening. This was a total destruction of the democratic space for over an hour – something I’ve never seen before in any Parliamentary meeting. It was sickening to hear the hounding of 85 year-old Dr Meyer, and the bellows of ‘boring!’ every time any survivor of a different genocide tried to tell their experience.
Most shockingly, Louise Ellman MP – who as Vice Chair of Labour Friends of Israel was presumably attending as an observer with a companion from the Board of Deputies – both sat unmoved without making the slightest attempt to quell their fellow supporters of Israel and create an open space. They later tried to guilt-trip MPs Jeremy Corbyn and Brian Iddon for bravely hosting the event.
Ms Ellman has been contacted for comment about why she told viewers she was ‘absolutely appalled to read’ about an event she attended personally – one that was especially memorable because of the protests. She has not yet responded.
Comment:
The revelation that one of the most prominent and vocal critics of the Labour leadership appears to have misrepresented her knowledge about an event that has been dug up eight years after the fact raises serious questions. Will the mainstream media give those the same prominence they have given to the claims and criticisms?
The SKWAWKBOX needs your support. This blog is provided free of charge but depends on the generosity of its readers to be viable. If you can afford to, please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal. Thanks for your solidarity so this blog can keep bringing you information the Establishment would prefer you not to know about.
If you wish to reblog this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
Cannot wait for BBC radio4 news bulletin at 1700 where I bet this is the main item and covered in depth with Ms Ellman called to account for her deception. John Mann will then appear and call for her expulsion from the party and Tom Watson will state her actions disgust him.Alternatively it may be another attack on Mr Corbyn.
My apologies for butting in at the top of the page, but if you can help Mike Sivier fight his case (and not just for himself, but for ALL of us on the left), please donate whatever you can afford, however little that is. Thanks:
https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/mike-sivier
Surely this makes her Anti-Semitic , don’t it , I mean well that’s the same set of judgement rules applied to Corbyn , he was there , Ellman and her mates called him AS so , surely the same standards of judgement apply to her for , well just being there , like !
I see my post didn’t make it before the Ddos… Nevermind.
Obviously ellman enjoys seeing her arse, or the taste of her foot. Or both.
Riverside CLP put her right on the IHRA after she reckoned MP’s ‘referred to their constituents’. on the matter.
Now this. Withholding entirely relevant information in order to sensationalise and stigmatise…
What will she come up with for the hat-trick? And will the MSM finally get as pissed off with her bullsh*t as the rest of us are, and start asking the relevant questions?
Well, it does and it doesn’t… she was there, but not in the same way as Corbyn was, obviously.
Let me explain… a Jew can be there but if she doesn’t support Corbyn, being there wouldn’t be antisemitic and she’s not really ‘there’ in the sense of ‘being there’ in the IHRA definition of antisemitism.
Furthermore all other Jews being there, if not proven anti-Corbyn, are by the same definition antisemitic, as are all non-Jews not opposed to Corbyn or not supporters of Israel or of known anti-Corbyn activists like Ms. Ellman.
I hope that’s a little clearer now.
Examples are available if further clarification is required.
Thank you David but my post was to illustrate the gross hypocrisy of it all and the cynical inexcusable twisting of the truth of the situation to attack Corbyn , I have turned the tables to make this very point . Thanks for your kind offer but I don’t require any examples as I am aware of the context of the meeting and Ellman’s role in it .
Hope that clarifys my intent for folks who perhaps didn’t quite see it .
Rob, I was joking, just taking the piss out of the way the IHRA definitions are being used to mean whatever suits the ASmonger at any given time 🙂
Well I meant to. I liked your post anyway.
Ellman is typical of the Zionist apologisers for the barbaric state of Israel. They see no wrong in the establishment of a mono religious State in someone else’s land but when Jews of a different opinion voice their opposition and call into question the legitimacy of Israel or its treatment of Palestinians, they break into a frenzy of anger because they are being exposed by Jews with compassion for others.
The contrasts between the two strands of the Jewish faith are stark and highlighted by the hypocrisy and double standard of the Zionist strand who ironically are supported by the far right.
Louise Ellman and the others are a disgrace to their faith and the Labour Party, the sooner they are out the better.
For the love of Bod, Corbyn, will you stop apologising! That’s what they want you to do because it damns you and shows you as weak. The only way out of this is to confront it head-on. Conceding ground as a strategy isn’t working… and never has.
As for this story, it just shows the total dishonesty of these people. This story with Ellman is another thing that needs to be brought up again and again to show the cynicism of these lowlifes. Can the Left stop letting apologists for racism in Israel dictate the agenda unopposed.
As to your last point, how precisely would they go about that?
Or to put it another way: What leads you to believe that the Left ARE letting apologists for racism in Israel dictate the agenda unopposed?
All I see is a MSM totally complicit in the black propaganda op against JC and the Left, and given that THAT is the case, how are the Left supposed to stop the apologists from dictating the agenda.
You appear to be overlooking a certain very large elephant……!
F*** me
Mann – On CH4 news now – reckons stifling anti-israeli (NOT anti-semitic) sentiment actually ALLOWS debate and makes (pro) palestinians freer to speak their mind.
No – Honestly. That’s what I heard him say.
PS
By ‘stifling’ I mean implementing the full IHRA shizzle as they want to do
Does he even mean anti-Israeli, or is it really anti-Netanyahu sentiment?
I’m sure many of us support a two state solution, and by definition of that – Israel’s right to exist. That does not mean that criticism of Netanyahu is verboten.
Why is Mann always wheeled out, other than to attack the party?
Cos Mann is Tory Trash just like Austin and the rest of the Blairtes
He should not have been on before the watershed!
From: Amanda Sebestyen
Subject: staggering
Date: 31 July 2018 23:30:25 BST
To: newsnight@bbc.co.uk
I was staggered tonight to see Louise Ellman MP telling Newsnight how shocked she was by hearing that Jeremy Corbyn had hosted a meeting on Holocaust Memorial Day in 2010 where a speaker compared Israeli and Nazi policies — staggered because she was actually present throughout that meeting!
I was there too, in that House of Commons committee room in 2010.
Nowhere tonight did Emily Maitlis or the Times reporter mention that the speaker, Hajo Meier, was a Holocaust survivor. The other speakers were survivors of Atlantic slavery, Native Americans, Bangladeshis, Roma and others who shared their experiences with the many Jewish survivors of genocide in the audience. (It was my own family’s experiences that drew me to the meeting).
As it happened Jeremy Corbyn had to leave the meeting after introducing it, to attend a debate in the House. Louise Ellman, by contrast, was present throughout the meeting.
She sat calmly by when the room was invaded by five members of the small but fanatical Zionist Federation, who proceeded to shout until no one else could be heard. I particularly recall their shouts of ‘Boring!’ whenever any other survivors were speaking. As an MP Ms Ellman could have called the Hous eof Commons security to evict the disruptors but she did nothing.
Ms Ellman’s attendance is a verifiable fact, and I have written before to Emily Maitlis calling attention to the biased way that this issue is being covered.
The IHRA definition is not ‘internationally recognised’: it was dropped by the EU and has been bitterly criticised by the very lawyer who drafted it.
The ‘examples’ outlaw terms which are commonly used by Israeli critics of their own government, such as comparisions with apartheid. One of the leading anti-apartheid campaigners, who is also Jewish, has said that the Israeli occupation-system is in some ways worse than apartheid. David Steel has also made the comparison with apartheid. Are all these people antisemites?
It is essential that a future Labour government should have an ethical foreign policy.
The shouts of ‘antisemitism’ from self-appointed community leaders are deeply upsetting to many of us of Jewish descent who do not identify with them or Israel. Tonight you claimed to interview ‘the whole spectrum of the left’. Where were our voices?
Such MPs are not fit to hold public office. I thought Tory MPs in May’s cabinet were of poor quality, questionable ethics and morals but some of these Labour MPs are worse. British public and LP is really let down by such MPs who wouldn’t know ethics if they bumped into it.
As for the so called public service providers and MSM they are now largely nothing more than poor quality propaganda outlets for wealthy vested interests and egregious foreign and domestic neo-colonial interests.
As I said before the worst thing about all this is that the public will simply see this all as a manufactured political spat, and discrimination, abuse, threats and violence against Jewish people and their communities, and vandalism and desecration of Jewish property will be lumped in with nonsense about bankers or Netanyahu or whatever, and discounted.
One of my friends is Jewish and her children have received real anti-semitic abuse and physical violence at school and in the local area. It is frightening. The media circus over this does nothing to help real victims at all. I’d have more time for these media pundits and MPs if they took their concerns to the police, or volunteered to work with local branches of the Shomrim working a shift (who have been doing a marvellous job).
Antisemitism is a malignant cancer in society and must be cut out. But the media showboating is nothing but a hindrance to dealing with it.
Yes, but the whole point is that these people really don’t give a damn about anti-semitism dogpole, but just use it – one way or another – for their own ends. As I’ve said on more than one occasion, the most reprehensible aspect of this black propaganda op is that they use the very thing that led to the Holocaust as a weapon against their political opponents, and you have to be totally evil to do that. And they ARE! So much so that it’s beyond most peoples’ comprehension, and THEY know it.
We live in a Psychopathocracy!
Perhaps there is more to run on this anti Semitic story, perhaps Jeremy is allowing these people to hang themselves. They seem to run to television studios at the drop of a hat in order to proclaim the absurd, thinking they are winning, whereas all they do is expose themselves.
The old saying you can fool some of the people some of the time but not all of the people all of the time.
The more they put their foot in it, clearly like this one, the more obvious the conspiracy becomes.
Fingers crossed
I think they should have the book thrown at them. They are causing a rift within the Party and are intent of damaging the Party. Mps like her call themselves the wrong name. They are not friends to anybody, because good friends point out when friend does or is about to do something bad. They are dangerous and need to be brought in line. Maybe a recourse to 20 century history would be advisable.
I found this article very interesting – just wanted to check a couple of facts. Firstly – Did Louise Ellmen write the letter in the Tribune that is quoted above? ( it doesn’t state the author’s name) – Secondly, could you give a full reference for the Tribune letter, with either it’s date of publication or edition?
Many thanks
Susan
No the letter was published in print only, not online. March 2010
Ms Ellman MP Riverside, Liverpool read a report about an event she attended in the Murdoch press. Lest we forget Hillsborough & THE TRUTH!
The report you claim shows that she was at the meeting actually says she was, “presumably present” .
Want to borrow my dictionary?
Don’t be an idiot or worse deliberately misleading. It presumes she was there *on behalf of JLM* – but confirms absolutely that she was present if you quote the whole sentence and not just a couple of words out of context:
“Most shockingly, Louise Ellman MP – who as Vice Chair of Labour Friends of Israel was presumably attending as an observer with a companion from the Board of Deputies – **both sat unmoved without making the slightest attempt to quell their fellow supporters of Israel** and create an open space. ”
Want to borrow some honesty?
Skwawky, you have pinpointed one of the problems exactly. The reframing of what supporters of Jeremy Corbyn say in order to discredit them and him.
By trying to spin, in another direction, what is said, they attempt to develop an argument which is bogus and in doing so, drag the discussion off into the long grass to confuse the unwary.
Better luck next time Maluus!
I would describe it as distorting and misrepresenting what it said in the article Jack so as to undermine the article itself AND skwawkbox for the purpose of making it look as if SKWAWKBOX is distorting and misrepresenting the story (to those reading the article).
The Tory shills are everywhere beavering away, some more subtly, and some NOT so subtly!
I agree Allan. My comment was a general reference to how the opposition raise straw men and then try to deflect arguments away from a position where they can’t win.