Greenstein points his imperious finger..at me!

 

There are times when I don't know whether to laugh, cry or just shrug my shoulder in disbelief at the lack of self-awareness of some people on the so-called "left". The anti-Zionists are the worst and one of the worst of them is the self-anointed guru of all things to do with Israel/Palestine one Tony Greenstein now leader of some tiny groupscule of malcontents who were rightly kicked out of the Labour Party.

This group the Labour In Exile (LIE) which I blogged about yesterday has voted to establish an Anti-Zionist Action (AZA )group to target those individuals fighting antisemitism in the Labour Party who they like to describe as "Zionist" a word misused by the far-left to mean Jews. Of course some of our allies are not Jewish but most normal people outside the myopic world of the far-left would take that as read.

Not so the vainglorious guru of AZA/LIE would have us know. He actually troubled himself to post a comment from his Brighton lair which I thought I'd reprint in it's full hollow glory:

deliberately misleading. They will be targeting Zionist activists, many of whom are not Jewish. You should check your antisemitism Howard

So there will be Jews targeted then Tony! Plus some others! The threatening language of the motion passed was quite clear. Let us remind ourselves of the wording.

The main aims of AZA would be:

(1) to gain knowledge of the identity, location, activities and associations, of individual Zionist trolls;

(2) to use the knowledge so-gained for the purpose of (i) taking action against the individuals and (ii) warning other members to take care of those individuals.

Sounds ominously quite threatening and potentially encouraging to other to commit acts of violence. I certainly believe it needs to be treated as a serious threat and so do others following the uncovering of this groups motion

I understand this matter has been passed to the main Jewish security organisation the Community Service Trust (CST) and also complaints have been made to the appropriate authorities.

As for the laughable accusation of antisemitism (this blog has been at the forfront of fighting the rise of left-wing antisemitism) I would remind readers of the outcome of a recent court case involving Mr Greenstein:

brightonandhovenews reported in November last year that:

One of the first Brighton Labour members to be expelled during Labour’s anti-Semitism crisis has lost his case for libel after being called a “notorious anti-Semite”.

A high court judge has ruled that Tony Greenstein’s defamation case against the Campaign for Anti-Semitism (CAA) should be struck out......

It also said he had lied in a letter to the Guardian when he said the International Definition of Anti-Semitism (or IHRA) prevented criticism of Israel.

Mrs Justice Tipples said that it was possible for an honest person to hold this opinion, based on the facts that he must have known the CAA does challenge neo-Nazi anti-Semites, and that the IHRA explicitly says criticism of the Israeli government is acceptable.

The ruling also quoted tweets of Mr Greenstein’s such as: “I loathe racist scum and Jewish Nazis like you” and “yes the holocaust did happen and you Zios have been milking it ever since even though u collaborated with the Nazis.”

Mrs Justice Tipples said an honest person could reasonably hold the opinion Mr Greenstein was anti-Semitic based on tweets such as these.

Whatever your view of the Israel/Palestine conflict there's one thing for certain you really wouldn't want someone like this on your side.