The manufactured row this week about Jeremy Corbyn’s 2013 comments about a disruptive group of ‘zionists’ has taken an interesting turn with the revelation today by the Times of the identity of one of that group:
It’s an interesting turn because Mr Millett is a well-known figure at pro-Palestinian events to both pro-Palestine and pro-Israel activists:
Mr Millett also writes a blog – and one article in particular is very telling.
Yesterday, the SKWAWKBOX published an article showing comments by well-known supporter of Israel – and anti-Corbyn Labour activist – Luke Akehurst and by the Jewish Telegraph, who both acknowledged that many ‘zionists’ are not Jewish. This in itself is enough to discredit current attempts to claim that Corbyn’s comments about one small group of zionists is antisemitic.
Many of the non-Jewish zionists, as Akehurst also mentioned in his Jewish Telegraph interview, are fundamentalist Christians – the DUP is a handy example – who have their own motives for zionism, because they believe that the ‘Second Coming’ of Jesus can only take place after the restoration of Israel.
But those Christians sometimes also hold deeply antisemitic views – in particular that Jewish people are ‘Christ-killers’, a trope that played a key part in some of the ugliest historical behaviour towards Jews.
And an article on Mr Millett’s blog (archived here) defends a woman who made such an antisemitic comment.
Titled “Ahava’s female staff suffer continued bullying”, the 2010 post features a video taken of a Christian female staffer who, when challenged to explain why she says the person making the video ‘killed Jesus’.
As the video shows – shown below with subtitles and with text of Millett’s article also included and with subtitles added – she responds, “Because you’re Jewish”:
Imagine if a Corbyn supporter had said that last week. But Millett’s response was to criticise those who asked the question – and to defend the woman’s comments as appearing antisemitic because of unfair editing:
‘Painting in the worst possible light’. It’s difficult to imagine a ‘light’ in which ‘you killed Jesus because you’re Jewish’ doesn’t look antisemitic. Yet according to pro-Palestinian group ISM, the Jewish Chronicle also published a similar defence by Mr Millett.
Again, imagine if a Corbyn supporter had been filmed saying those words this week. But instead we have myriad examples of a pointed – but definitively not antisemitic – comment by Jeremy Corbyn to a disruptive group of individuals being clearly ‘painted in the worst light’ in an attempt to attack him.
Richard Millett was contacted for comment. He responded:
Have you published an article attacking Corbyn for his antisemitic ‘English irony’ comment?As for my comment, yes the shop worker’s comment is indefensible, if she said it, but she was surrounded by a group of aggressive anti-Jewish men who were hounding, taunting and filming her while she was trying to earn her living so I felt sympathy for her plight. So, yes, the videos are highly edited. And, yes, his objective was to make her look like a nasty Christian fundamentalist. Weirdly your screenshot doesn’t even have her saying it.”
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This is much the same as the US pastors, who had similarly anti-Semitic views, who went to the opening of the US embassy in Jerusalem, but those views were tolerated because they supported actions that Israel liked.
And this shows that the whole smear campaign aimed at Corbyn is nothing at all to do with anti-Semitism. It’s about Corbyn’s support for Palestinian rights.
Similarly, I don’t recall the BoD, JLC, Berger, Streeting, Mann, Hodge and Umunna demonstrating on Parliament Square when Theresa May was rolling out the red carpet for the Saudi crown prince whose country bans synagogues and whose education system, mosques and media are all riddled with endemic anti-Semitism. But when Corbyn fails to enlarge a facebook image six years ago, they are out on Parliament Square in force calling him names and demanding that he resign!
Thin skinned & sensitive.
& just plsin wrong
I was the person who the Ahava shop assistant was talking to and was also the person who shot the video. It was just me and another person at the time in front of the former Ahava shop in Covent Garden, London, as most everyone else had left. Originally it was not my intention to film the sales asst, but when she started her antisemitic diatribe, I took out my camera and started filming.
Millett’s claim that the video was edited was is false, wrong and misleading. The video was not edited and anyone watching it could plainly see that. Neither were we ‘hounding’ and ‘taunting’ her. It’s important to note that Millett wasn’t present at the time, so how could he be so confident surrounding the circumstances?
As I myself am Jewish, how could I also be ‘anti-Jewish’? I certainly don’t hate myself or others based on their beliefs.
Millett’s remarks are typical of Zionists who label every Jew and Gentile who criticise apartheid Israel as antisemitic and is nothing short of slanderous.
Glad to set the record straight.