{"id":109534,"date":"2017-02-16T23:26:44","date_gmt":"2017-02-16T23:26:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/footballagainstapartheid.wordpress.com\/?p=109534"},"modified":"2017-10-31T13:06:03","modified_gmt":"2017-10-31T13:06:03","slug":"saddened-witness-early-collapse-labour-hopeful-heading-owen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/footballagainstapartheid.org\/no\/2017\/02\/16\/saddened-witness-early-collapse-labour-hopeful-heading-owen\/","title":{"rendered":"We are saddened to witness the early collapse of a Labour hopeful. Where are you heading Owen?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thursday, 16 February 2017\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Tony Greenstein
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Owen Jones \u2013 the Final Betrayal – Supporting Zionist Apartheid & the Jewish Labour Movement<\/strong><\/p>\n

Supporting Israeli Apartheid and the Palestinians is not compatible<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\u00a0\"owen-jones-branded-stooge\"<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Its difficult to know who could possibly think Jones is a racist stooge – his mum?<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The eviction<\/a> less than a month ago of the Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiran in Israel\u2019s Negev desert should have told even the most obtuse supporter of Zionism that Israel is a settler colonial state. \u00a0Yes some, a few, cities are mixed.\u00a0 No there is no forced segregation as in South Africa or the Deep South, but the structures of Apartheid are present in Israel.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Apartheid is never more obvious than when it comes to land.\u00a0 When the High Court in Kadan ruled<\/a> that the Jewish National Fund could not bar Israeli Palestinians from 93% of Israeli land, the then Knesset, including its Labor members, fell over themselves to enact a law which said that retaining land for Jewish use only was not discrimination.\u00a0 In other words it was a law which said that Black=White.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The fragrant Ella Rose will be responsible for your tickets<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The Law eventually became the Access to Communities Law. \u00a0It allowed existing residents to bar those wishing to live in the area and naturally existing Jewish communities barred Arabs.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

People make excuses for Israel\u2019s behaviour in the West Bank, which is under Occupation, where the settlements are Jewish only, because all the arrangements the fiction is that they are only interim ones pending a final solution and two states.\u00a0 But in Israel Arabs are supposed to be equal citizens yet half the villages they live in, like Umm al Hiran are \u2018unrecognised<\/em>\u2019.\u00a0 What this means is that they are not connected to the electricity grid, they don\u2019t have mains water or sewerage or any of the other essentials of modern life.\u00a0 The villagers of Umm al Hiran were moved in 1956, as a result of the Suez war and dumped where they are, or were.\u00a0 Some 60 years ago.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But there is a plan, the Prawer Plan<\/a>, whose purpose it is to displace existing Bedouin communities and concentrate them in townships.\u00a0 Much like South Africa under Apartheid.\u00a0 In their stead will come Jewish towns. In Israel, despite the ten fold increase in the Arab population since 1948, not one single Arab town has been\u00a0 built.\u00a0 Zoning and planning law are an essential accompaniment to Zionist Apartheid and they have been used to confine Israel\u2019s Arab population into tighter and more densely packed communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
IDS nodding off during Jones speech on Question Time<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

So when Israel demolished<\/a> the Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiran it immediately began work on building the Jewish town of Hiran.\u00a0 In normal language this is called Apartheid.\u00a0 In order to demolish Umm al-Hiran hundreds of Israeli Border police were despatched to the village to protect the bulldozers.\u00a0 They came with all the paraphernalia of riot squads \u2013 tear gas, rubber bullets etc. and they immediately fired two bullets at Aymen Odeh, leader of the Arab-Jewish llist in the Knesset.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They also opened fire<\/a> on a car driven by an Arab resident.\u00a0 The result was that he lost control of the car which then ploughed into some policemen, killing one and injuring another.\u00a0 Netanyahu and his fascist Interior Minister Gilad Erdan promptly took up police lies and branded, without a shred of evidence, the dead Palestinian as an ISIS member.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Apparently the stool -pigeon didn’t like Jonathan Cook’s article<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

It is worth noting that unlike Palestinian demonstrations, at Jewish demonstrations such as that at the illegal Ammona settlement last week, despite throwing stones and missiles, the Police did not open fire.\u00a0 That is because the Israeli police never open fire on Jewish demonstrations.<\/strong>\u00a0 But they have no hesitation in attacking with gun fire Arab demonstrations.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Which brings me to Owen Jones, the former socialist who it has just been announced will speak on the platform of the Jewish Labour Movement on April 2nd<\/sup>.\u00a0 In a sympathetic article in the far-Right Jewish News, <\/em>Jones whines about being \u2018branded<\/a> \u2018an Israeli stooge\u2019 for agreeing to speak at JLM.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The JLM is the British branch of the Israeli Labour Party, which was the original party of ethnic cleansing.\u00a0 It is in the Knesset as the Zionist Union and has, unsurprisingly, failed to speak out against the evictions at Umm al Hiran because it itself followed a policy of Judaisation of the Galilee when they were in government.\u00a0 It was called the Koenig Plan<\/a> at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Jones when he was still on the left speaks at Question Time<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

In 2012, having watched Owen Jones searing critique of Israel\u2019s attack on Gaza on Question Time, I had no hesitation in praising<\/a> the way he had spoken out in support of the Palestinians.\u00a0 Jones distinguished himself when the rest of the Panel, including Charles Kennedy and IDS, had trotted out the usual \u2018Israel has the right to self-defence\u2019.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

However Jones, like much of the Labour left, Jones has rowed back ever since.\u00a0 For many socialists it is a kind of ritual.\u00a0 You start on the Left and as your career progresses you move further and further to the Right.\u00a0 That was why I p predicted that Jones would follow his mentor, Nick Cohen, into becoming a sage of the Right.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jones has written 3 mundane articles on \u2018anti-Semitism\u2019 for the Guardian.\u00a0 [Owen Jones\u2019 Obsession with \u2018anti-Semitism\u2019<\/a>].\u00a0 <\/strong>None of them had anything to do with anti-Semitism, but everything to do with the response of Zionism to Israel\u2019s murderous attacks on Gaza.\u00a0 When defenders of Israel squealed \u2018anti-Semitism\u2019 Owen Jones was there to hawk his conscience around the columns of the Guardian and tell us how bad he felt.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In August 2014, at the time of Operation Protective Edge, when Israel slaughtered over 2000 Palestinians in Gaza and murdered 551 children, what was Jones writing in the Guardian?\u00a0 Anti-Jewish hatred is rising \u2013 we must see it for what it is<\/a> To say that it was a badly written, meandering article, full of fury signifying nothing would be an understatement.\u00a0 In large parts it was incoherent.\u00a0 But at least Jones accepted that when he \u2018encountered sentiments that conflate the Jewish people and the Israeli government\u2019 that \u2018this is echoed by some staunch Zionists, and is no less antisemitic in implication<\/em>.\u2019<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Today he seems incapable of even that.\u00a0 In August 2014 as well as Jones writing about anti-Semitism, the bogus charity, the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism was setup with the purpose of libelling the opposition to the Gaza war as \u2018anti-Semitic\u2019.\u00a0 It is clear now that there was a concerted campaign by the Zionist movement to tar anti-Zionism and support for the Palestinians as anti-Semitic.\u00a0 No group has been more assiduous in doing this than the Jewish Labour Movement and its ugly sister, the Labour Friends of Israel.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader of the Labour Party it produced something close to panic among the Zionists at the prospect of a supporter of the Palestinians becoming leader of the Labour Party.\u00a0 From the start of Corbyn\u2019s leadership Jones has been a lukewarm supporter making plain his dissatisfaction at the fact that he wasn\u2019t at the centre of things.[Owen Jones \u2013 the Nick Cohen of Tomorrow]\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He has given consistent support to Jon Lansman in Momentum writing a nasty little red-baiting article shortly before Lansman\u2019s coup.\u00a0 Momentum is a beacon of hope. It must be saved from the saboteurs<\/a> \u00a0Jones has also made it increasingly clear that his support for Corbyn has disappeared.<\/p>\n

It was therefore no great surprise when it was announced in the Zionist press that Jones was to speak at a JLM event on April 2nd<\/sup> .\u00a0 According to the Jewish News<\/a> \u2018Leading Guardian columnist to speak at inaugural event in memory of Jewish Labour Movement stalwart\u2019.\u00a0 <\/em>It is titled the Henry Smith Memorial Lecture<\/a> no less.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The JLM \u00a0<\/em>has done its best over the past year to conflate anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.\u00a0 It has proposed a rule change for the Labour Party which deprecates the \u2018abusive\u2019 use of the term \u2018Zionism\u2019.\u00a0 Well Zionism is what happened in Umm al-Hiran and one thing you won\u2019t hear is\u00a0 the JLMM opposing what happened.\u00a0 Nor will you find the JLM supporting the refusenik young Israelis who refuse to serve in an army of occupation because the JLM \u00a0despite its vaunted 2 states position supports the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For Jones to speak on a JLM platform, whatever the pretext about an old friend, is no different from a member of the Labour Party having spoken on the platform of the Apartheid State of South Africa.\u00a0 We should in future treat Owen Jones as he we should have done long ago \u2013 a snivelling identity politics columnist who in line with identity politics believes that Jewish identity is bound up with supporting the actions of Israel and that opposing such is \u2018anti-Semitic\u2019.\u00a0 In speaking on the platform of the JLM Jones should be ostracised by the Left and allowed to gravitate to his natural home on the Right.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Why is Owen Jones helping to subvert Corbyn?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

15 February 2017<\/p>\n

I have never been overly sold on Owen Jones. From his platform at the Guardian, he has spent far too much time whining about Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and his failure to reach out to voters rather than using his rare spot in the mainstream media to help him to do precisely that.<\/p>\n

But this news has knocked me sideways. It was announced<\/a> yesterday that Jones is lined up to give a memorial lecture in April on behalf of\u00a0the Jewish Labour Movement \u2013 the same group implicated in the recent efforts of the Israeli embassy to damage a Corbyn-led Labour party with confected allegations of anti-semitism. All of this was exposed<\/a> last month in an undercover Al Jazeera investigation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Jewish Labour Movement was effectively shown to be acting as a front for the Israeli government\u2019s efforts to oust Corbyn over a supposed anti-semitism crisis in the party. Israel hates Corbyn because of his long-standing position in support of Palestinian rights.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The announcement of Jones\u2019 lecture was\u00a0written by Ella Rose, the former Israeli embassy official who tried to conceal her past after she became the director of the Jewish Labour Movement.<\/p>\n

She was one of those caught on Al Jazeera\u2019s hidden cameras \u2013 in her case threatening to beat up<\/a> black-Jewish Labour party activist Jackie Walker, who has been the prime target of these phoney anti-semitism allegations. None of this is secret\u00a0history.\u00a0I first wrote about<\/a>\u00a0the Jewish Labour Movement\u2019s role in trying to subvert Corbyn back in September.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is not even as though we can credit Jones with some kind of live-and-let-live attitude to free speech. Remember back in 2013 he pulled out at the last minute, and without warning, as a speaker at an important Stop the War rally to prevent British military intervention in Syria. His grounds? He had come under fire from the armchair interventionists because he was to speak alongside Mothers Agnes, a Syrian-based nun who was seen as being too pro-Assad. (The reasons\u00a0Syrian\u00a0Christians like Mother Agnes might support Bashar Assad were pretty obvious even then, but are blindingly so now.)<\/p>\n

Mother Agnes pulled out of the rally to try to salvage it, but Jones continued to refuse to take part.<\/p>\n

I criticised<\/a> Jones then over his cowardly and irresponsible behaviour. Now he needs to explain how the principles that drove him away from the Stop the War rally can allow him to support a group, the Jewish Labour Movement, that is so clearly and maliciously attempting to subvert the elected leader of the Labour party.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

UPDATE:<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Owen Jones has responded to this\u00a0blog post both on Twitter, calling<\/a> it \u201ctedious nonsense\u201d in his usual, dismissive\u00a0style, and with a post\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0that tries to deflect attention from my argument with a straw man: that a conspiracy theory\u00a0is\u00a0painting\u00a0him as\u00a0a stooge of the Israeli government.<\/p>\n

No conspiracy is being posited here \u2013 only very, very poor judgement. I have\u00a0also not accused him of working on behalf of the Israeli government. Only of assisting, presumably thoughtlessly, those who are working on behalf of the Israeli government inside the Jewish Labour Movement, including most definitely its current director, Ella Rose.<\/p>\n

Sadly, though predictably, he has avoided addressing the point of\u00a0my\u00a0criticism.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is great that he wants to pay his respects to a friend\u2019s late father, and I am sure there are responsible ways he can do that.\u00a0But one of them is certainly not by adding his name and credibility to\u00a0an organisation that was recently exposed by\u00a0an undercover investigation to have been acting as a front for Israeli government efforts to subvert the elected leadership of Jeremy Corbyn.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Jewish Labour Movement has been working to\u00a0confect allegations of anti-semitism against other Labour party members. That is a serious form of verbal\u00a0violence against members of Jones\u2019\u00a0own party that has the power to do its victims\u00a0great harm, personally and professionally.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s not also forget, as I pointed out, that Ella Rose, who will be hosting Owen Jones\u2019 lecture, was\u00a0filmed threatening physical violence against a fellow Labour party member, Jackie Walker.<\/p>\n

I was astounded that Jones accepted this offer from the Jewish Labour Movement. I am even more astonished that he is so casually\u00a0dismissive\u00a0of the very real harm caused by\u00a0the actions of this organisation and its leaders.<\/p>\n

Posted by Tony Greenstein <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thursday, 16 February 2017\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Tony Greenstein Owen Jones \u2013 the Final Betrayal – Supporting Zionist Apartheid & the Jewish Labour Movement Supporting Israeli Apartheid and the Palestinians is not compatible \u00a0 Its difficult to know who could possibly think Jones is a racist stooge – his mum? The eviction less than a month ago of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":109535,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[19],"class_list":["post-109534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-english"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"2.12.2","language":"no","enabled_languages":["gb","es","fr","pt","ru","no","ar"],"languages":{"gb":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"es":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false},"fr":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false},"pt":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false},"ru":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false},"no":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false},"ar":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false}}},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/footballagainstapartheid.org\/no\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109534"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/footballagainstapartheid.org\/no\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/footballagainstapartheid.org\/no\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/footballagainstapartheid.org\/no\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/footballagainstapartheid.org\/no\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/footballagainstapartheid.org\/no\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/footballagainstapartheid.org\/no\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/footballagainstapartheid.org\/no\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/footballagainstapartheid.org\/no\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/footballagainstapartheid.org\/no\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}