The campaign of
incitement against Jackie has been instigated by Jeremy Newmark and the
so-called Jewish Labour Movement.  It has
been a campaign unprecedented in its nastiness. 
Her offence in their eyes is that, unlike Naz Shah, she hasn’t shown ‘contrition’
– she hasn’t accepted that she is guilty of the lies levelled against her. 

The whole affair is
proof that once a lie gains circulation it is difficult to put it to bed.  Even the liberal Israeli daily Ha’aretz penned
a nasty lying article Blame
the Jews for the Slave Trade: Labour’s Latest anti-Semitic Slander

It is a campaign which
bases itself on the racist trope that because Jackie is Black, she cannot be Jewish.  This is a common belief in Israel and amongst the
Orthodox.  In Israel many people deny
that the Falashas, Jews from Ethiopia, are really Jewish. [see Israel detains
and deports American Jews because they are Black].  When they first came to Israel in the 1990’s
the Chief Rabbinate forced the men to undergo new circumcisions because they
were not accepted as Jews.  This never of
course happened to white caucasian Jews from Russia, many of whom were Christians,
because the Russians were held to be of the right racial stock.

It is ironic that the main
hate figure for the JLM is a woman who just happens to be Black.  Although the JLM dearly wishes to see me expelled,
I have not been made into a hate figure in the same way because I am White.  It would not do to attack me in the way
Jackie has been pilloried, despite the fact that I have made it clear that I
back up and support Ken Livingstone’s thesis that the Zionist movement
collaborated with the Nazis during the Holocaust.  I am the child of an Orthodox Jewish Rabbi
and being White I am kosher.  I have also
restated Jackie’s thesis that there was considerable Jewish involvement in
financing the slave trade.  That is a
fact.  Jews were not the only people,
there were Quakers, Methodists and of course the Church of England which ran its
own plantation in Barbados, Codrington. 
But that theerw as Jewish involvement there is no doubt.  One of the world experts in the Slave Trade
(which I studied for my MA in Colonial History) is Seymour Drescher.  I disagree with his thesis in his book Econocide about why the slave trade was
abolished by Britain, but nonetheless he is undoubtedly right when he says that
at one particular time, Jews controlled 17% of the Dutch slave trade.  That to me is a pretty important figure. [see
the Jewish Journal How
culpable were Dutch Jews in the slave trade?]

Jackie’s misfortune is that
she is Black and that is why she has attracted quite phenomenal and unprecedented
levels of abuse.

John McDonnell has been
called upon by Newmark to explain why he has spoken on the same platform with
Jackie.  We say he has no need to explain
himself to a bunch of Zionists and racists and he should pull out
immediately.  So should Clive Lewis, the
Shadow Defence Minister who is himself Black. 
We would also call on Shami Chakrabarti to pull out of this festival of
race hate, masquerading as a Rally Against Anti-Semitism and Rhea Wolfson, the
newly elected left-wing member of the NEC. 

The Jewish Labour Movement are
not in the slightest interested in fighting the type of anti-Semitism that the
fascist and far-Right indulge in.  Their
only concern with ‘anti-Semitism’ is when Israel is on the agenda.  Hence their proposed Rule Change which traduces
the MacPherson principle, which speaks about a racial incident being defined by
the person reporting it.  The Jewish
Labour Movement, which like all Zionist organisations, has never played a part
in anti-racist or anti-fascist work in this country, borrowed from the struggle
of Black people over the Stephen Lawrence death and cynically used or misused
the findings of the MacPherson Inquiry.

MacPherson doesn’t that
there should be no investigation where a racial incident is reported and that
an allegation should be taken as fact. 
The Jewish Labour Movement would have those subject to allegations of ‘anti-Semitism’
i.e. anti-Semitism automatically condemned as anti-Semites.

As Shami Chakrabarti says in
her Inquiry Report:

The
principle that an incident should be recorded as “racist” when
perceived that way by a victim may indeed have some useful application outside
the policing context, and even here in the world of Labour Party discipline.
However the purpose of the approach is to ensure that investigators handle a
complaint with particular sensitivity towards the victim. It is to suggest the
seriousness with which a complaint must be handled, but in no way to determine
its outcome. If I complain to the police that I have been the victim of a
racist attack on the street, I should expect my complaint to be so recorded.
However investigation and due process must of course then follow and it is
perfectly possible that an investigator, prosecutor or magistrate will
subsequently find either that no attack took place at all, or that its
motivation was something other than racism. In the present context, my
complaint that I have been subject to racist or other personal abuse by a
fellow Party Member should be so recorded, taken seriously and handled
sensitively. However it will be for the investigation and any subsequent
process to determine whether my complaint was ultimately well-founded.   

The JLM proposes that

 “Where a member is responsible for a hate incident, being defined as
something where the victim or anyone else think it was motivated by hostility
or prejudice based on disability, race, religion, transgender identity, or
sexual orientation, the NEC may have the right to impose the appropriate
disciplinary options from the following options:

The idea that if a Zionist accuses
a supporter of the Palestinians or an anti-Zionist of ‘anti-Semitism’ that
there should be an inquiry is alien to these police state freaks.

The JLM amendment also tries
to define anti-Zionism as anti-Semitism. 
Its ‘supporting argument and rationale’ states that ‘This rule change would recognise that it is not acceptable to use Zionism
as a term of abuse or to substitute the word Zionist for where the word Jew has
been commonly used by antisemites, such as alleging Jewish political, financial
or media conspiracies and control.’

It is hypocritical
because of course it is Zionists who allege that Zionism is an inherent part of
being Jewish.  That was the argument that
Newmark and friends made in the Fraser v University College Union Employment Tribunal when the Judgment found that he had
perjured himself.  As for Zionism being
abusive it is like saying that Apartheid should not have been used as a term of
abuse!  It is abusive, get over it.

Below is an appeal to
John McDonnell – please sign the
petition and say which CLP you are in, if you are in the Labour Party.

To:       [email protected]

Dear
John,

Last
Monday you spoke at an LRC fringe meeting at TUC Conference in Brighton.  Congratulations  on resisting the pressure not
to speak on the same platform as Jackie Walker, who was wrongfully
suspended for ‘anti-Semitism’ last May and reinstated shortly after, despite
the pressure put upon you.

The
charges against Jackie were summed up by the Jewish Chronicle at the time thus:  ‘‘Labour
suspends Momentum supporter who claimed Jews caused “an African holocaust”’.  This headline was in the best traditions of
Britain’s tabloid press.  Unsurprisingly
the JC is edited by a former editor of the Daily Express, Stephen Pollard.

Jackie had in
fact been having a private Facebook conversation with two friends, one of whom
was an Israeli Zionist.  She was
rebutting the assertion that the holocaust of Jews meant that Boycott,
Divestment and Sanctions against Israel was illegitimate.  In the course of this conversation, which was
hacked into by the Israel Advocacy Movement, Jackie stated – in the context of
her own African and Jewish ancestry – that Africans too suffered a holocaust, the trafficking of enslaved Africans,
and that ‘many Jews (my ancestors too)
were the chief financiers of the sugar and slave trade.“

Only a
particularly warped and dishonest mind could interpret these remarks as saying
that the Jews caused an African holocaust. 
It does not suggest an exclusive Jewish role in the slave trade, but it
is a fact that in certain areas of the world –Surinam, Netherlands and Brazil –
Jews played a major part in financing this trade.

In an article How
culpable were Dutch Jews in the slave trade?
(26.12.13.) in the Jewish Journal, the largest on-line Jewish paper in the USA
outside New York, a Dutch Orthodox Rabbi, van de
Kamp, stated that “Money was earned by Jewish communities in South America,
partly through slavery, and went to Holland, where Jewish bankers handled
it…. Non-Jews were also complicit, but so were we. I feel partly
complicit.” 

Seymour
Drescher, a well-known historian of the slave trade at Pittsburgh University
estimated that ‘at one point, Jews
controlled about 17 percent of the Caribbean trade in Dutch colonies’.  Jewish involvement in the slave trade has been
the subject of considerable academic debate and to pillory someone, who is
herself partly Jewish, for discussing this privately is outrageous. 

Jackie
Walker has been subject to a continuous stream of racist abuse by Zionists,
with the full knowledge and complicity of the Jewish Labour Movement.  The JLM have deliberately race baited Jackie
and subjected her to the political equivalent of a lynching.  This is totally unacceptable.  The JLM are affiliated,
via the World Labour Zionist Movement, to the World Zionist Organisation, a
body which funds and sponsors settlements in the West Bank as well as the
demolition of Arab villages inside Israel itself.  It is a thoroughly racist organisation which
develops Israel for the ‘Jewish people’ only.

Just
this week, the JLM’s Chair, Jeremy Newmark, was quoted in the Jewish Chronicle as saying in respect of you speaking at
their meeting that ‘“He must explain
his defence of Walker which is inconsistent with his call for zero tolerance.
This raises serious questions. Our members expect him to explain himself.”  We say you have
nothing to explain.

Amongst the vile
tweets Jackie has received have been ones which challenge Jackie Walker’s
Jewishness.  It is a common belief in
Zionist circles that someone who is Black cannot be Jewish.  Other tweets compare someone who has been a
dedicated fighter against the National Front and similar groups to Goebbels and
Torquemada.  This abuse only occurs
because the JLM and similar Zionist groups have waged an unceasing campaign of
vilification against Jackie Walker.

If
the JLM were serious in their opposition to racism, then they would call out
Isaac Herzog, the leader of their sister party in Israel and ask why he
recently stated that ‘ I don’t want 61 Palestinian MKs in Israel’s Knesset. I don’t want
a Palestinian prime minister in Israel.’ 
If someone said they didn’t want a Jewish Prime Minister in Britain who
could doubt that this was anti-Semitic? [Who needs the Right when we have Isaac Herzog?]   Ha’aretz, Israel’s sole liberal daily,
recently reported Herzog’s  warning that
the ILP should not be seen as an ‘Arab lovers party’.  Amid ‘Arab-lovers’ Storm, Opposition Leader
Herzog Defends ‘Zionist Approach’  To appreciate the full flavour of this remark
one need only recall the use by fascists of the term ‘nigger lover’ or ‘Jew
lover’.

In the light of
the JLM’s racist witch hunt of Jackie Walker, we are asking you and other
socialists to withdraw from their fringe
meeting next Sunday at Labour Party Conference. 
I attach copies of some of the tweets that Jackie has received.

With
best wishes