Tom Watson has been up to his old tricks, trying to undermine his leader, Jeremy Corbyn, and foist the I.H.R.A. definition of anti-Semitism in full on the Labour party. The I.H.R.A.’s definition is faulty and dangerous because it conflates hatred of Jews with criticism of Israel. The Israel lobby and the Blairites want it adopted, because they want to stifle any and all criticism of Israel. Labour has adopted part of the I.H.R.A. definition, but not all.
This isn’t enough for the Israel lobby, and they’ve been screaming and hurling accusations of anti-Semitism at Corbyn ever since. And last week, Watson added to the furore by spuriously claiming that the party would be sucked into ‘a vortex of eternal shame’ if it didn’t.
This didn’t impress the very many Labour party supporters, gentile and Jewish, who are critical of Israel and its brutal persecution of the Palestinians. As a result, a social media campaign has started against Watson demanding his resignation, under the hashtag, #resignwatson. He got very huffy and self-righteous about it, claiming that he never thought he’d be facing demands for his resignation for standing up for people, who suffer prejudice and hate.
The trouble is, he isn’t. Ruth Jenner on Facebook commented that he wasn’t standing up for people suffering from prejudice and hate. Corbyn had done that his entire life. Instead, Watson was just doing the dirty for his donors in the Israel lobby. She then posted up the figures of the donations to Watson, which show that he’s received £65,000 from the Israel lobby. Most of these donations are from Sir Trevor Chinn, but they also include money from Sir David Gerrard and Labour Friends of Israel.
Mike in his article about this also includes other comments about Watson’s shilling for the Israel lobby, defending a racist, apartheid state. And they point out the international double standards that sees Iran and North Korea attacked for possessing nuclear weapons, while completely ignoring the fact that Israel also has them, against international law.
Mike is also somewhat amused, because when he tried to get onto Watson’s twitter feed to see what Watson himself had to say about all this, he found that he was blocked.
Which shows that Watson is also childish, as well as troublemaker and hypocrite.
https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2018/08/06/tom-watsons-list-of-donors-tells-us-all-we-need-to-know-about-his-attitude-to-prejudice-and-hate/
The revelation of Watson’s funding by the Israel lobby also confirms another point Peter Oborne made years ago on his Dispatches programme about them. This was that the Israel lobby exercises its power through donations to MPs they think are sympathetic. One of the politicos Oborne interviewed described how, shortly after he met a member of the lobby, he received two sizable donations from businessmen he’d never met or had anything to do with before.
And the same system operates in America. The two others of one book on the Israel lobby in America also found that in their country the lobby operated, not through Jewish politicians elected to Congress, but through donations by Zionist businessmen and organisations to the country’s politicos, so that they supported Israel regardless of the wishes of their constituents. Of the book’s two authors, one was Jewish. Nevertheless, it caused a storm of protest, with accusations of anti-Semitism.
It’s the usual smears whenever the power of the Israel lobby is challenged. And it shows that there is a problem with the Israel lobby donating funds to politicians so that their country does not suffer the international condemnation that it should for the ethnic cleansing of its indigenous Arab population.
Matthew Davidson
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