Asa Winstanley, Electronic Intifada Fri, 02/27/2015

Two Jewish Defence League UK thugs were today found
guilty of assault after they attacked a panel at a Palestine literary festival
in September.

Roberta Moore was convicted of two counts of assault and
one count of possession of an offensive weapon. Her accomplice Robert De Jonge
was convicted of assault.

Both initially pleaded not guilty to all charges, but De
Jonge on Thursday changed his plea to guilty for reason of recklessness.

De Jonge argued he had only meant to cause a
“distraction” when he rushed the stage and assaulted Andy Simons, the
chairperson of the panel and an organizer with Haringey
Justice for Palestinians.

But district judge Julia Newton ruled today that De
Jonge had acted with full intent to cause injury.

The other man assaulted by Moore was Simon Assaf, who had been invited to the
festival to run a stall for Bookmarks, the socialist bookshop. Moore sprayed
the two men in the face with “Farb
gel” spray paint, which the judge ruled was used in a way consistent with
an offensive weapon.

The two were released on bail until sentencing on
condition they did not attend any event involving Haringey Justice for
Palestinians. Sentencing will take place 23 March. The hearing this week took
place over two days.

Fascist thuggery

Victim Andy Simons reacted with relief today. The attack
briefly hospitalized him and meant he had to miss the rest of the festival on
20 September 2014.

Simons, 62, a retired British Library professor, told
The Electronic Intifada that the attack had taken an emotional toll, leaving
him afraid to do further pro-Palestinian charity work.

But he said he felt he had little choice but to testify
in court this week, despite feeling intimidated by the two thugs. Moore and De
Jonge visibly smirked through much of Simons’ testimony, recounting the
assaults.

Simons said today: “This was fascist, Zionist thuggery …
they’re driven, they’re messianic, it’s their own strange jihad. A prison
sentence, if they get one, will be like a badge in scouts or girl guides. If I
didn’t help the prosecution, when they do it next time there wouldn’t be a
record – and there probably will be a next time.”

Although Roberta Moore has a previous conviction for
fraud, neither of the two have any prior convictions for assault – a relevant
factor the judge said she would will take into account when deciding between a
fine or a custodial sentence.

The Electronic Intifada understands that Moore and De
Jonge have engaged in such attacks before, but that in the past witnesses have
been too intimidated to testify.

The JDL UK

Founded by the ultra-racist rabbi Meir Kahane in New
York in 1968, the Jewish Defense
League has been termed by the FBI a violent terrorist organization. Kahane
was later elected to the Israeli parliament, founding the Kach party, which was banned
as a terror group even in Israel.

Irv Rubin, JDL leader from the late 1980s until his arrest
in December 2001, died in prison in 2002 while awaiting trial for planning a
series of bombings against a mosque and the office of Representative Darrell
Issa, who is of Lebanese descent.

In 1985, with Rubin as JDL leader, Alex Odeh, a
Palestinian-American civil rights leader with the American-Arab
Anti-Discrimination Committee was murdered
by explosion after a bomb was planted in his office.

The prime suspects in the case belonged to the JDL, but
fled to the Israeli colony of Kiryat Arba near the Palestinian city of Hebron
(a hot-spot for Kahanist violence).

The Jewish Defence League UK initially appears to have
no direct lineage from the US organization. However, the group’s website
clearly aligns it ideologically with the JDL, Kahane himself and especially
with convicted JDL bomber Vincent Vancier.

Vancier (aka Chaim ben Pesach) spent five and a half
years in federal prison for no less than eighteen
bombings in New York and Washington in the late 1980s.

Due to this legacy of violence, the JDL
UK website dubs Vancier “a Jewish hero.”

Roberta
Moore was formerly a member of the racist anti-Muslim street gang the
English Defence League, which has always been extremely pro-Israel.

The Brazilian-born fascist infamously founded the EDL’s
supposed “Jewish division” before she left
in 2011 claiming to have suddenly discovered the presence of anti-Semites
in the far-right group. Other accounts say she was kicked out for being too
extreme for even the EDL.

From then on, she started identifying her group as “JDL
UK.” In 2012, Moore expressed
support for Norwegian killer Anders Behring
Breivik, the extremist who in July 2011 massacred dozens of people in the
name of protecting Europe’s Christian identity from an imagined Muslim
takeover.

Moore and De Jonge live together at a flat in Golders
Green, north London. They are a fairly regular presence at Palestine solidarity
protests where they harass, intimidate and attack peaceful campaigners.

De Jonge, who wore a crucifix necklace to court, appears
to be a Christian Zionist. Extreme anti-Muslim and anti-Arab racism clearly
drives them both. De Jonge goes by several different aliases, including “Robert
Bartholomeus” or (on Facebook) “Robert Bartholomew,” “Yoel Yossi” or “Joel
Yossi” and “Joel Ben Shuleman.”

Dangerous

Moore and De Jonge appear to have a lot of enemies even
within the right-wing Zionist movement. The extent to which they really are a
“league” is questionable. However, the agenda of extreme violence and racism is
clear. Will they one day be facing terrorism charges in the UK? Who has been
responsible for their radicalization?

The JDL UK website boasts a photo of Moore
visiting Kahane’s grave in Jerusalem and another of her armed, visiting a
shooting course “at the counter terrorist unit in [an Israeli settlement in]
Hebron.” During his testimony to the court, De Jonge said that Moore had been
in “two different armies, so I know that she can defend herself.”

Perhaps most concerning is the photo at the top of this
article: Moore meeting Moshe Feiglin
during her trip to Israel (along with Meir Weinstein of the JDL Canada).
Feiglin is the deputy speaker of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. During
Israel’s summer 2014 war on Gaza he published a genocidal plan for the total
destruction of the Palestinian people in Gaza.

The
August Facebook post called for the “conquest of the entire Gaza Strip, and
annihilation of all fighting forces and their supporters.”