“Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive” wrote Sir Walter Scott. Such is the situation of Gilad Atzmon. In an article on Atzmon’s blog of 26th December, Asa Winstanley-UK charity with Mossad links secretly denounced anti-Zionist Jews to government there is a photomontage of 5 Jewish anti-Zionists – Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi and myself of J-Big, Sara Kershnar and Mich Levy of IJAN and Roland Rance, with a caption ‘the anti-Zionist Zionists’.

This story began with the failure of the British Government, through its own incompetence, to prevent the entry of Raed Salah, a leader of Israel’s Islamic movement into Britain on 25th June 2011, despite having banned him. Three days later he was arrested and on 26th October 2011 there was a hearing of the First Tier Immigration & Asylum Tribunal in Birmingham into the appeal by Raed Salah against the British government’s attempt to deport him. At present their decision to uphold the Government’s decision is being appealed.

Atzmon faced a dilemma. According to him, Jewish anti-Zionists are, by definition, Zionists. In ‘Not in my name‘ he wrote that:

‘To demand that Jews disapprove of Zionism in the name of their Jewish identity is to accept the Zionist philosophy …. Jews cannot criticise Zionism in the name of their ethnic belonging because such an act is in itself an approval of Zionism.’

Why then should one set of Zionists seek to expose another set, the CST? Doesn’t make sense. Atzmon admits, since he has no alternative, that:

‘it seems [my emphasis of the weasel word!] the CST disseminates false information-it produces ‘evidence’ of Holocaust denial and anti Semitism, it vilifies and harasses some Jewish anti Zionists such as Naomi Wimborne Idrissi, Tony Greenstein, IJAN, Torah Jews and others most notably Sheik Raed Salah.’

But then he alleges that

‘Jewish anti Zionists use the exact defamatory tactics against some devoted solidarity activists and thinkers. Like the CST, Greenstein, Idrissi and IJAN also disseminate lies, they falsify documents, they engage in constant harassment of solidarity campaigners whom they don’t agree with.’

But what possible reason could the CST have for villifying and harassing fellow Zionists who are engaged in the same tactics against Palestine solidarity campaigners as they are? Naturally Atzmon provides no answers.

Atzmon describes Asa Winstanley’s article UK government conflates criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism in Salah trial on Electronic Intifada as an ‘outstanding and comprehensive expose’, which it is. What he ‘forgets’ to quote is the section of Asa Winstanley’s article, which states:

‘Although perhaps most famous for its role in recording anti-Semitic incidents, and providing security for the UK Jewish community, the CST has been accused by some in that community of having a deeply pro-Israel agenda. Tony Greenstein, an anti-Zionist activist and blogger with a strong record of criticizing anti-Semites, has written about occasions when CST security have removed or barred Jewish anti-Zionists from public meetings. Greenstein also says the CST refused to record an anti-Semitic attack left on his blog because the commenter was a Zionist.’ (see “CST Thugs Violently Eject 2 Jewish People from Zionist ‘Environmental’ Meeting”, “Community Security Thugs Bar Jewish Opponents of Gaza War from Liberal Judaism Meeting” and “When is an anti-semitic attack not anti-semitic? When it’s a Zionist who is being anti-Jewish,”

This blog has been one of the very few, as a Google search will confirm, to have researched in any depth the shadowy CST, an organisation which works very closely with British State, the Metropolitan and Greater Manchester Police in particular. It is also no secret that it supplies and received information and support from the Israeli Embassy and Israeli Intelligence Services.

I undertook in-depth research of the accounts of the donations of all Jewish charities when researching the financing of the CST, not least the support of right-wing Jewish and Zionist businessman Gerald Ronson, who was sentenced to one-years imprisonment in the Guinness Affair for fraud and theft. We have carried an article of Asa Winstanley on the support of Richard Desmond, who was Britain’s major pornographer, as well as proprietor of the Daily Express and Star for both the CST and the EDL. Desmond’s newspapers have consistently supported both the anti-Islamic politics of the English Defence League including its efforts to set up a new fascist party in Britain.

It was therefore doubly welcome when Asa Winstanley took this issue up, as part of his coverage of the treatment of Raed Salah, and wrote a series of excellent articles.
UK government conflates criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism in Salah trial

EI exclusive: UK charity with Mossad links secretly denounced anti-Zionist Jews to government
Daily Express’s porn baron owner donated thousands to anti-Palestinian group CST

In the last article on Richard Desmond, Asa Winstanley paid generous tribute to the articles on this blog concerning the CST: ‘Thanks to Tony Greenstein whose blog post on the CST’s finances gave me the idea for this post.

But to Atzmon all this is a bit confusing. In his article he writes that

‘As horrific as it may sound, once again we detect a clear and devastating continuum between the militant Zionists and the so- called Jewish Anti Zionists AKA Anti Zionist Zionists. Is it really too much to expect Jewish ‘anti’ Zionists to adopt some basic humanist manners? Is it really too much to expect them to be substantially different from Israel’s Sayanim?’

Sayanim are the unpaid helpers that Israel’s Mossad uses from indigenous Jewish communities. At the same time as I have apparently been working for Israeli Intelligence as a ‘sayan’ I have been one of the few people to expose and investigate a key organisation that Israeli Intelligence works with! Such is the weird and wonderful world of Gilad Atzmon and the anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists!