Open Letter to Caroline Lucas MP – You Signed a Letter which led to the dismissal of David Miller, despite him being cleared of ‘anti-Semitism’. Why are you still silent?
Racist MP Bob Blackman and Baroness Cox also signed the letter. Do you really believe that the friends of Dutch fascist Geert Wilders are genuinely concerned about anti-Semitism?
On 4 March Caroline Lucas, Britain’s only Green MP, signed a letter from 100+ Parliamentarian accusing Professor David Miller of ‘inciting hatred against Jewish student’
[the images above of the QC’s Opinion comes from Asa Winstanley’s article David Miller was cleared of anti-Semitism, leaked document shows in Electronic Intifada]
Bristol University set up an investigation and hired a QC who wrote:
‘I conclude that there is no case to answer against Professor Miller in connection with any of the matters I have investigated.’
The sacking of David Miller was orchestrated by the same people who defend the Israeli state’s murder of the child above
The QC also stated that ‘no complaints have been made against Professor Miller to the University by any of his students.’ They were all made by students who had been working with Israeli lobby groups, the Community Security Trust and the Union of Jewish Students.
The Statement by Bristol University dismissing Miller confirmed that:
The investigation included an independent report from a leading Queen’s Counsel who considered the important issue of academic freedom of expression and found that Professor Miller’s comments did not constitute unlawful speech.’
In other words the accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’ against Miller were false. This is not surprising. As Lucas wrote on her blog:
‘After speaking out about Palestine, I have myself been accused of Antisemitism, and i know others experience and fear the same.’
Baroness Deech – another of Caroline Lucas’s racist friends
Why then does Lucas find such difficulty in finding that the charge of anti-Semitism against David was equally false? There isn’t a Palestine solidarity supporter alive who hasn’t been accused of ‘anti-Semitism’.
The fact that the students who complained about Miller were not his students, had not attended his lectures and had been working with the Mossad linked Community Security Trust and the Union of Jewish Students, both Israeli supported organisations, suggests that Miller was the victim of a hit job by Zionist and pro-Israel organisations.
The Opinion of the QC hired by Bristol University
Caroline Lucas also stated that the letter she signed:
Does not call for Miller to be sacked, as many of those criticising me on twitter have claimed. Indeed, if it had done so, I would not have added my support. Rather it is a commitment to due process; a show of solidarity with those who have heard hate speech from one of their lecturers.’
This is disingenous. When Lucas signed the letter she expressed solidarity ‘with those who have heard hate speech from one of their lecturers.’ Clearly Lucas had already made her mind up, yet the QC who examined Miller’s speech concluded that his comments weren’t hate speech. The question therefore is why she refuses to withdraw her signature.
The Opinion of the QC hired by Bristol University
Lucas spoke of a ‘a commitment to due process’ yet the letter she signed said ‘Professor Miller has brought your university into disrepute. You must now act before any further damage is done.’ That sounds more like a lynch mob than a commitment to due process.
What kind of action did Caroline Lucas think the letter was calling for? Obviously these right-wing MPs and Lords were calling for David’s dismissal.
Original letter attacking David Miller that Caroline Lucas signed
Four times theAll Party Parliamentary Group on Anti-Semitism wrote to Bristol’s Vice Chancellor Hugh Bradey demanding that Professor Miller be dismissed (and lecturers at other universities too) yet Lucas decided to put her fingers in her ears and one of those green washed masks over her eyes.
The Opinion of the QC hired by Bristol University
Lucas unwittingly put her finger on the problem when she wrote that a distinction can be made between ‘the existence of a state of Israel [as] inherently racist, and criticising the racist policies of its governments.’ This is nonsense.
One wonders whether Caroline Lucas would have made a distinction between the policies of the South Africa government and Apartheid?
Israel is not a liberal western democracy with some racist policies. Israel has racism embedded in its DNA. A Jewish state cannot be other than a racist state. Lucas’s failure to understand this is what led her to join in the witchhunt of David Miller.
It is widely accepted today that Israel is an apartheid state which one law for Palestinians and another for Jews, even inside Israel.
Zionist students crow over their success in having David Miller sacked – a success that Caroline Lucas contributed to
Ha’aretz’s Editorial The Basic Law on Apartheid described the 2018 Jewish Nation State Law as ‘a legal norm that legalizes Jewish supremacy and Arab inferiority in Israel.’
In January B’Tselem issued a report ‘A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid’. In April Human Rights Watch issued another report ‘A Threshold Crossed – Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution.’ Both organisations concluded that Israel treated Palestinians as Untermenschen.
If there was any doubt then Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu settled the matter when he stated:
“Israel is not a state of all its citizens. According to the basic nationality law we passed, Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people – and only it.’
Just like its predecessor in South Africa, Israel defames and denigrates its opponents by the simple trick of crying ‘anti-Semitism’. This is what the David Miller case is all about.
When Miller called for an End to Zionism he was calling for an end to the ideology of Israeli Apartheid. What is anti-Semitic about this? Many Jews, myself included, also wish to see an end to Zionism.
When I wrote to Caroline Lucas I asked her why she had signed a letter attacking David Miller alongside Bob Blackman, Baroness Cox, Eric Pickles and Ian Paisley. These are four of the foulest racists in Parliament. Lucas had no response. Clearly there are some racists that she doesn’t have a problem with.
Bob Blackman MP has a history of making Islamaphobic comments
Baroness Caroline Cox is a member of the Henry Jackson Society and Gatestone Institute. In February 2009, Cox and Lord Pearson invited the fascist leader of the Dutch Freedom Party Geert Wilders, who supports a ban on the Islamic religion, to show the anti-Islam film Fitna at the House of Lords.
In 2010 Cox and Pearson hosted Wilders and his film with 200 members of the EDL marching in support of the screening. Cox said in a speech:“Islam is using the freedoms of democracy to destroy it”
David Miller has never attacked Jewish students. What he had done is criticise the Israeli Embassy funded Union of Jewish Students which has spent the last 40 years demonizing supporters of the Palestinians.
The reaction of the Jewish Chronicle to David Miller’s dismissal makes it clear what this is really about. On 7 October its Leader stated: ‘Miller’s sacking should be the beginning, not the end’. It also ran an article: ‘Miller is gone but he is only tip of the iceberg’.
What we are witnessing is a government led attack against anti-Zionist academics. Anyone who challenges Zionism and the racist nature of the Israeli state and its apartheid practices is a target for the Israeli lobby. And Caroline Lucas, who was elected in 2010 posing as a radical, has joined this witchhunt.
We should not be surprised. If there is one thing that distinguishes the Green Party it is its lack of principle. It refuses to see a connection between global warming and capitalism. It believes that you can green capitalism. The problem, as COP 26 is demonstrating, is that capitalism puts profit before people and the environment. The Green Party is a Liberal party with a Green tinge. It distances itself from climate activists or those willing to break the law.
In Ireland the Green Party has gone into coalition with 2 conservative parties. In Germany it was part of the first government to sent troops overseas, into Afghanistan. Whenever Green Parties get into power they accommodate to the existing political establishment.
That was why Caroline Lucas signed up to the IHRA misdefinition of ‘anti-Semitism’ that equates anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. Her only defence was that it didn’t prevent criticism of Israel. Which is true as long as your criticism is anodyne. But the IHRA makes it clear that any questioning of Zionism, the idea that Israel is a Jewish settler state and then you are classified as an anti-Semite.
The Green Party’s first loyalty is to capitalism, the very system that is destroying the planet.
Tony Greenstein
My Correspondence with Caroline Lucas can be seen here.
Open Letter to Caroline Lucas
Dear Caroline,
I wrote to you in March regarding the letter you signed on 4th March, with over 100 Parliamentarians. The crucial final paragraph of that letter stated:
“Professor Miller has brought your university into disrepute. You must act now before any further damage is done.”
In your response to my letter of 12th March you referred me to your blog post explaining your reasons for signing this letter. The salient part of your letter stated that this letter:
‘does not call for Miller to be sacked, as many of those criticising me on twitter have claimed. Indeed, if it had done so, I would not have added my support. Rather it is a commitment to due process; a show of solidarity with those who have heard hate speech from one of their lecturers.’
This was, to say the least, naive if not disingenuous on two levels.
Firstly nothing David Miller had said could be remotely classed as ‘hate speech’ i.e. anti-Semitic. As even Bristol University’s own statement said:
The investigation included an independent report from a leading Queen’s Counsel who considered the important issue of academic freedom of expression and found that Professor Miller’s comments did not constitute unlawful speech.
Secondly your fellow MPs were calling for David Miller and other lecturers to be dismissed. For example Jonathan Gullis, a fellow signatory,was quoted as saying
“We need to start sacking people … until we start bringing that kind of scrutiny and action into our university sector, like you would do in primary or secondary school, these incidents will keep happening,”
Your fellow signatories had no doubt at all as to what they were calling for which is why they have uniformily welcomed David Miller’s dismissal.
The All Party Parliamentary Group on Anti-Semitism sent no less than 4 letters demanding David’s dismissal, the latest of which was on 13th August, to Bristol University’s Vice Chancellor, Sir Hugh Brady. They issued a statement saying that:
‘Bristol University’s decision to sack David Miller should be welcomed by all decent people.’
The letter which you originally signed was a roll call of the most racist and bigoted members of Parliament:
1. The anti-gay/anti-abortion Protestant sectarian Ian Paisley.
2. Lord Eric Pickles and Lord Mann, both vehement anti-Roma/Gypsy racists. Mann even produced a pamphlet describing Gypsies/Roma as asocial which is exactly what the Nazis said.
3. Bob Blackman MP who has a history of Islamaphobic comments, for example:
a. Retweeting Tommy Robinson’s attack on Muslims
b. Hosting an anti-Muslim extremist in parliament, Tapan Ghosh who called for the UN to control the birthrate of Muslims.
c. Shared Islamaphobic posts on Facebook
d. Been a member of Islamaphobic groups on Facebook such as “Britain for the British” which is administered by BNP supporter Steven Devlin.
e. When the Conservative Friends of Kashmir began, Blackman urged Boris Johnson not to recognise them.
f. Has openly campaigned to remove caste discrimination from the Equality Act 2010. He is an open supporter of India’s racist and Islamaphobic Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a supporter of India’s military occupation and martial law in Kashmir.
g. Baroness Caroline Cox. In February 2009, Cox and UKIP peer Lord Pearson invited the leader of the Dutch Freedom Party Geert Wilders, who supports banning the Islamic religion outright, to show the anti-Islam film Fitna at the House of Lords.
h. In 2010 Cox and Pearson successfully hosted Wilders and his film with 200 members of the English Defence League marching in support of the screening. Cox said in a speech that “Islam is using the freedoms of democracy to destroy it”
Other supporters included Jacob Rees-Mogg, who described David Miller’s comments as ‘deeply wicked.’ This is the same Mogg who spoke last year of the “Illuminati who are taking the powers to themselves” in reference to two Jewish MPs, Oliver Letwin and John Bercow. Michael Berkowitz, Professor of Modern Jewish History at UCL, described this as ‘an expressly antisemitic sentiment’.
For full details of the bona fides of your fellow signatories please see my blog post.
The letter you signed was based on a lie. David Miller had never attacked any Jewish students. What he had done is criticise the Israeli Embassy funded Union of Jewish Students which has spent the last 40 years demonizing supporters of the Palestinians as ‘anti-Semitic’.
UJS is affiliated to the World Zionist Organisation via the World Union of Jewish Students. The WZO is a funder of settlements in the West Bank. It has a ‘land theft division’. Point 2.11. of UJS’s Constitution states that its Objects include:
‘inspiring Jewish students to make an enduring commitment to their Jewish identity, Israel, and the community.’
14 years ago I described in an article, Vetting in Practice, for Comment is Free, how UJS had harassed and ripped up posters for a meeting put up by Emma Clyne, the non-Zionist Chair of the SOAS Jewish Society. The meeting was addressed by non-Zionist Jewish academic Brian Klug and Sir Geoffrey Bindman QC from Independent Jewish Voices.
The then UJS Chair Mitch Simmons, made clear ‘”It is the view of the UJS that certain views are not acceptable under free speech.”
I also described how, in 1986, when I was invited to speak to a meeting at the LSE UJS tried to have me banned on the grounds of ‘anti-Semitism’. When the Labour Club investigated the allegations and found them wanting they too were accused of being fascists and anti-Semite!
The whole sordid story of UJS’s McCarthyism can be seen in letters in Beaver, paper of LSE Student Union of 10.11.86. and the accompanying Report.
As an Israeli state sponsored organisation on British campuses David Miller had every right to call them out. There was nothing anti-Semitic in this.
Despite the QC employed by Bristol University confirming that nothing David Miller said was anti-Semitic, he was dismissed. This is nothing less than an attack on academic freedom.
It is unacceptable that a State which B’Tselem and Human Rights Watch have concluded is a Jewish Supremacist Apartheid state should be able to run a campaign which targets dissident academics who, like David Miller, have criticised Israel lobby pressure groups.
I hope that you now accept that you made a serious mistake in signing the original letter.
You can now rectify this by supporting the campaign to reinstate David Miller.
I am therefore asking you to withdraw your signature from that letter and issue a public statement explaining why.
You quoted in your original statement the IHRA definition of ‘anti-Semitism’. This statement was always intended to conflate anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. I would therefore ask you to now disavow it and instead support the Jerusalem Declaration on Anti-Semitism which, unlike the IHRA, does target anti-Semitism.
When Apartheid in South Africa was functioning opponents of Apartheid gave support to the small minority of Whites in South Africa who opposed Apartheid.
I am extremely disappointed that instead of supporting Jews who oppose Zionist racism you have supported our racist opponents.
It is this lack of solidarity which demonstrates to me the hollow at the heart of Green politics. You have nothing to say to the oppressed.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Below is what David Miller actually said at a meeting of the Labour Campaign for Free Speech
Kind regards
Tony Greenstein
David Miller Addressing February 13 Meeting of LCFS
‘The enemy we face here is Zionism and the imperial policies of the Israeli state… an all out onslaught by the Israeli government on the left… it is how we defeat the ideology of Zionism in practice. How do we ensure that Zionism is ended… how we end the material reality of the jackboot of Zionism on the neck of the Palestinians…
I’ve been attacked and complained about by the head of the Bristol J Soc along with the President of the Union of Jewish Students, both of which organisations are formally members of the Zionist movement. J-Socs are part of the UJS, UJS is a member of the World UJS which is a direct member of the World Zionist Organisation. In its constitution UJS mention being pro-Israel. [Davidmentions similar attacks on other academics at Warwick and other universities against anyone speaking out about the Palestinians or criticising Zionism]… We have to fight back against that and the way to do that is to organise proper debate.’
