At the beginning of this week, the SKWAWKBOX contacted the Jewish Chronicle (JC) to ask why it hadn’t published a text from an Orthodox Jewish group confirming that a Corbyn-supporting letter by leading Charedi (Orthodox) rabbis was genuine and that this blog would be publishing it shortly.
The JC had quietly rowed back from claims last week that the letter published by the SKWAWKBOX was fake, but had not published the definitive evidence that it was authentic. Minutes after the SKWAWKBOX’s email was sent, the JC published an article about the text.
On the same day, this blog published a letter from a prominent Charedi activist calling Corbyn a “long friend to our community” and condemning the “smear and witch hunt” against him, which the Chronicle had declined to print.
But today, the Chronicle – which was one of three papers to print a front-page claim that Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was an ‘existential threat’ to the UK’s Jewish people – has again been forced to amend its narrative by an article published by the SKWAWKBOX.
Early today, this blog revealed that Charedi Jews are planning a substantial protest outside the annual dinner of the Board of Deputies (BoD) in November because they disapprove the BoD’s claims to represent the views of British Jews when it does not speak for them and they have no say in its elections or pronouncements.
Hours later, the JC has had to follow suit:
For months and even years, the BoD and a handful of other right-leaning organisations have been backed by the Establishment media and the Labour right in their claim to be the only authentic representatives of our Jewish citizens.
But at last the existence of fifty thousand Charedi Jews – almost a fifth of the UK’s Jewish population and expected to represent over half within fifteen years – who are overwhelmingly in disagreement with the BoD and similar organisations on matters concerning Israel and other political issues, is being acknowledged in the media narrative thanks to their resoluteness.
Will the BBC and other mainstream media now follow suit and finally end their dismissiveness toward Orthodox Jews and their opinions – and will they stop misleading the public?
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Still Skwarkbox fails to name the ‘left’ traitors on the NEC who sold us out on mandatory reselection! COVER UP!
Skwark, we need to know who connived in the betrayal because we need to know who to eliminate from the Left slate next time around.
This is nothing out of the ordinary for ‘leftists’ to betray their comrades on mandatory reselection. Remember the ‘Mikardo compromise’, when Ian Mikardo MP had to be removed from the Left slate after having promoted a ‘divorce should not be easy’ sell-out of reselection back in the 1970s. He was hoicked off the NEC the very next year. That fate should await the traitors this time around.
And how did the traitors vote on the Leadership nomination thresholds which would remove all hope of a leftish successor to Corbyn?
I am glad to see however that not all the NEC left are Fake Left:
https://labourlist.org/2018/09/huda-elmi-labours-grassroots-have-three-days-to-be-heard-or-forgotten/
It’s time you started skwarking, mate! NAMES NOW!
NO!!!!!
No infighting. There is too much to work together on to end up fighting amongst ourselves on the few things we disagree on.
Let it ride. If the new scheme does not work to get rid of the traitors, the demand for open selection next year will be unstoppable.
But if we end up fighting amonst ourselves over this, only the right of the party will win.
Eyes on the prize, and this can be just one battle lost in the course of a war won.
Fight among ourselves and the right will triumph again.
YES!!!
Danny is correct, we need an NEC which reflects and supports the members. Open selection is required to restore democracy to the Party. It is possible for Socialists to disagree with each other as many do, without falling out and MPs who have diverse opinions one way or another within Socialism have nothing to fear.
Those MPs who want Jeremy Corbyn ousted as Leader because they have an existential motive, detrimental to the Labour Party and Britain, are the ones who need to be de-selected. If we have a core of people at the heart of the Party in the NEC who are determined to prevent the members from choosing their own MPs then they too have to go and we need to know who they are.
For too long in the Labour Party secrecy has caused corruption and led us into being the Party responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths of innocent people in Iraq and other places. We have to face up to it and forget this approach of ‘anything for an easy life’ IT HAS TO STOP NOW, or it will never stop.
This is silly. Either your are wildly overreacting or you are purposely trying to foment a row in the left…
@Danny
You really must understand that the skwawkbox is not about socialism it is about the pursuit of power. Mushrooms like you and I should shut up in the interests of ‘solidarity’. Getting into power is what matters, and if that means compromising with the Blairites and the Zionists so be it. ‘ Eyes on the prize’ is the current infantile soundbite.
Even winning the GE will not guarantee that our own mps will work with the government. What the hell can we do? These parasites will hang on for dear life and they have constant support from the media. God speed comrades.
Antisemitism smears are anti-socialism attacks.
That’s what they’re really about and that’s why the right-wing ignore antisemitism within the right-wing. The Tories’ recent endorsement of Hungarian antisemites and right-wing Jews turning a blind eye to it is a prime example of the double standards and bias.
Antisemitism smears = anti socialism.
Agreed, Ella. One can also argue that these AS smears are also:
Anti solidarity with Palestinians:-
the mere fact of highlighting the plight of ordinary Palestinians and standing in solidarity with them is labelled antisemitic.
anti-anti Zionism:-
criticism of political Zionism which calls for ethnic cleansing of Arabs within the current political borders of the State of Israel and the envisaged Greater Israel is labelled antisemitic
Anti-anti racism:-
Criticism of some of the State of Israel’s policies that are patently racist is labelled antisemitic.
Anti-Corbyn:-
Last but not least, these smears are directed at Corbyn, both in person and the political beliefs that he holds: anti-Laissez-faire Capitalism, anti-Racism, anti-austerity, anti-neo-liberal economic order, anti-discrimination of any kind against members of society, more especially the weak and the vulnerable, anti-war, and anti-exploitation and anti-oppression of the workers. Basically, the beliefs that are the foundation stones of the Labour Party.
So, in summary, these AS smears are anti-Labour Party.
Good on the Orthodox (Charedi) Jewish citizens and keep up the good work Skwawkbox!
Oh and it sounds like some of the dreadful Bourgeois Socialist sectarian groups like Alliance for Workers Liberty (Revolutionary Communist League) et al are not happy with you despite all your trailblazing but they thankfully are failing by a clear mile to be amongst the stars that will ride the storm! Solidarity with all left wing democratic socialists.
I always suspect Trotskyism when small victories are dismissed.
I know a few communists who support the Labour Party because they understand the class struggle means building upon hard won victories – any victory, big or small. It’s a long road.
Trotskyists dismiss anything that’s not a general strike or a global revolution next week. It’s all ideology for them. The big dream.
A Labour government will save lives.
But thats just another label to throw unless you really know the people concerned
Good points Ella and it was Rosa Luxembourg who first warned of Bourgeois Socialisn and Lenin et al (and Trotsky would have) took the power as Leaders for themselves! Whilst Stalin was the ultimate Barbarian murderer Totskyists believe all they need is their vanguard and leaders to deposit their programme into the heads of the working class (the banking concept of political education) and they will then top down lead us to socialism, a socialism FOR! I call myself a left wing democratic socialist (and emphasise the democratic after visit a former Eastern European country in the 1990’s where because of Titoism socialism was a dirty word) so I suggest we need to be specific about rhis and try to build a left wing democratic socialist society (as an example to other countries) in a grassroots, bottom up, participatory approach where leaders lead but are also facilitators of our power, a socialism WITH and JC I believe gets this. Sorry if this is a bit heavy, am a down to earh working class socialist. Skwawkbox is a star and back to what should be the theme of this discussion, the Charedi and other diverse Jewish citizens (the 71%) give us hope! Solidarity!
Has anyone ( Skwawkbox ) found out if the membership motion of OS is still on the table for conference , if the NEC version is defeated .
Could we still see the OS succeed if the NEC is defeated by the delegates on the conference floor ?
Apparently it’s not on the table and the the only thing which will put it back on the table is massive pressure from the members.
Ok thanks Jack, looks like we have lost this one for now but will have to mount a terrific campaign for it ready for next yrs COnf
Rob, Labour International who originally proposed the motion are not giving up, they have a meeting tomorrow night at the Pullman Hotel near the conference centre in Liverpool.
https://www.labour-open-selection.org.uk/lobby_the_nec
‘Will the BBC and other mainstream media now follow suit and finally end their dismissiveness toward Orthodox Jews and their opinions – and will they stop misleading the public?’
I certainly wouldn’t put any money on it. Check out the following brilliant article re the media by John Pilger:
http://johnpilger.com/articles/hold-the-front-page-the-reporters-are-missing
The following is from a medialens article:
Labour was defeated in the general election of May 7, 2015, causing leader Ed Miliband to resign. On June 3, the BBC reported that Corbyn had joined the contest to replace him. We monitored this period closely and it is simply unarguable that Corbyn was portrayed by journalists, and even party political foes, as a basically decent person. He was depicted as a left relic, certainly – irrelevant and ridiculous – but also as sincere and well-intentioned. There was no sense whatever in ‘mainstream’ media coverage that Corbyn was a malign individual.
In July, we conducted a ProQuest newspaper database search, which found the following hits for UK press articles mentioning:
‘Jeremy Corbyn’ and ‘antisemitism’ before May 2015 = 18 hits
‘Jeremy Corbyn’ and ‘antisemitism’ after May 2015 = 6,133 hits
None of the 18 mentions before May 2015 included any accusation that Corbyn was antisemitic. And it was not, as some people have claimed, that Corbyn, a leading anti-war MP, was unknown or unworthy of attention. ProQuest found 3,659 hits for ‘Jeremy Corbyn’ before May 2015.
http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2018/879-without-merit-jeremy-corbyn-antisemitism-norman-finkelstein-and-noam-chomsky.html
Would be interesting to know how many more hits there are since July!
Media Lens, probably the best site on the internet for analytical journalism.
Afterthought: And THAT’S just the number of hits/mentions for UK press articles. I wonder how many it would be if you included BBC News/News24/Newsnight, ITN, Sky News, Channel 4 News and Channel 5 News. Probably 8,000 plus! And I doubt there would be even ONE ‘mention’ by the above news outlets prior to May 2015.
AND…… if you included the number of ‘mentions’ on the BBC and Sky press review programs AND the number of ‘mentions’ all round in the past couple of months, it’s probably not far short of 10,000.
And in case you didn’t hear the news (according to Murdoch’s rag), a Russian traitor “unmasked” the two Salisbury suspects Petrov and Boshirov. But for some odd reason, he or she decided to wait six months before doing so. Well, you would, wouldn’t you.
And as for Putin having ordered an international manhunt for the mole; as someone pointed out in one of the comments: ‘If Russia was really behind this do you think putin would be dumb enough to say he wants to find the traitor, thus admitting culpability?’
I think we all know who the traitor is, along with the editor and senior staff!
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7264915/putin-traitor-alexander-petrov-ruslan-boshirov-gru/
Newspaper lobbyists in the sun and the sunday times literally write this stuff on their desks. They imagine it, they formulate a story around their imaginings, they write it and finally they get some artist to draw a diagram with arrows all over it.
Can anyone explain how the furore when anyone suggests involvement of Mossad in smears against Jeremy? It is clearly the job of the Israeli secret services to protect their government against the danger of a previously unequivocal ally becoming a critical friend whose primary interest is in the lives of ordinary Palestinians and Israelis alike. It would be a dereliction of duty if they did not do all they could to undermine him.
Yes, it’s simple. Zionists do not want Israel to be associated or blamed for smears against Jeremy because to them, Israel can do no wrong and the ‘smears’ are not really smears in the first place they see them as a legitimate tactic to prevent Jeremy getting to power.
Anyone who dares to question their beloved Israel or the tactics they use, also becomes a target for their smearing campaign. It’s the only weapon they have because they know quite well they can not argue on the basis that Israel is legitimate as a Jewish State because that argument has already been well defeated, not least by Israel’s own actions with its new Jewish Nation State Law.
Modern Zionism is about forcing the return of Jews to Israel.
By placing the Jewish Community on the front line, in defense of Israeli right wing fascism they have acted irresponsible at best, dangerously at worst.
Correct, Zionism is the greatest enemy of the Jews.
I accuse the British Press of complicity in the atrocities – just two pages. Please share:
https://www.academia.edu/s/e2b86af96f/black-and-white-and-red-all-over