David Collier: Edinburgh Council want to hug a proscribed terrorist group
On Tuesday – unbelievably -the Policy and Sustainability Committee of Edinburgh Council will debate and vote on a motion to twin Edinburgh with the HQ of a radical Islamic terrorist group. The 17 Councillors on this Committee (5 SNP, 5 Conservative, 3 Labour, 2 LibDem, 2 Green) will debate a petition concocted by an antisemite whose twisted thinking proved even too toxic for the proscribed group Labour Against the Witchhunt. Yes, that’s right, Tony Greenstein, a notorious antisemite himself, kicked this guy out over his antisemitism. That is how bad he is.New book: Arab opposition to Zionism has always been antisemitic
Yet his vile motion, that seeks to give the proscribed terror group Hamas a hug, is going be discussed. And even though it was born from the mind of a clear antisemite, two SNP Westminster MPs, Tommy Sheppard and Philippa Whitford, have disgracefully supported the proposal.
According to the original proposal in 2019, there seems to be a council process which means they have to consider a petition that garners more than 200 signatures ‘unless there is a good reason to oppose it’.
I am sure that if this were a far-right racist, asking for a debate that baited Edinburgh’s black community, the Council would have triggered the ‘opposition’ clause by now. The fact this is still going ahead because it only baits Jews – is just more proof that racism against Jews is still acceptable in Scotland.
The toxic proposer.
Anyone who is familiar with the fight against antisemitism in the Labour Party needs no introduction to Pete Gregson, the key actor behind this debate.
Gregson was expelled by the GMB union for antisemitism. Gregson has expressed a view that the Holocaust had been exaggerated. He added that this was ‘by Israel’, for ‘political purposes’. Gregson has previously made complaints about the way he has been portrayed as an antisemite in the media. IPSO did not agree with him.
He was a member of Labour Against the Witchhunt (LAW), but his association and support for 9/11 truther Ian Fantom and his bunch of extremists, along with his description of Holocaust denier Nick Kollerstrom as not a ‘denier’, but a ”Holocaust sceptic’ – led to him being ousted. It is worth noting that LAW is chock full of antisemites and conspiracy theorists itself, and it has even been proscribed by the Labour Party. Gregson was too toxic even for them.
LAW didn’t even support his twinning ideas. Too toxic for LAW, but suitable for Edinburgh Council. That surely is not something to be proud of.
Arab antisemitism is indistinguishable from anti-Zionism, suggests a new book by Elder of Ziyon, veteran analyst and blogger. Point of No Return reviews The Protocols: Exposing Modern Antisemitism.Golda Meir, reconsidered through a feminist lens
For anyone following Middle Eastern news as it relates to Israel, Elder of Ziyon has long been the go-to blog for up-to-the minute news and analysis. No one knows Elder’s true identity, but his avatar is the supposed likeness of the medieval rabbi and thinker Rashi. Elder uses him to symbolise the cabal purveying one of the most notorious of published conspiracy theories – The Protocols of the Elders of Ziyon. It is a Tsarist forgery hatched in 19th century Russia and still a best-seller in Arab bookshops.
For 14 years now Elder of Ziyon has been stroking his beard and ruminating over modern manifestations of antisemitism, the overarching topic of his blog. Now a book in three sections distils the themes he has been exploring in over 30,000 posts. The result is The Protocols: Exposing Modern Antisemitism.
The book is a welcome addition to any reader’s bookshelf.
In contrast to the Jerusalem Declaration which provides an impossibly narrow definition, Elder offers an even broader definition of antisemitism than the widely-accepted IHRA. Any example aimed at Jews as individuals, people, as a religion or an ethnic group can be antisemitic, he suggests. Elder’s principal preoccupation is with leftwing antisemitism, a phenomenon routinely ignored by progressives and underrated in the USA. The apathy of the Jewish community to this form of antisemitism, he claims, is exacerbated by poor leadership, ignorance, and lack of pride in Judaism and Israel.
If state-subsidized daycare is still a distant dream in most countries, it was a truly radical idea in the 1930s, when few mothers worked outside the home.
Yet that was when this social service was pioneered in Palestine. Jewish women needed safe and affordable childcare as they worked alongside their husbands to build what would become the state of Israel.
One of those women was Golda Meir.
Decades before serving as Israel’s fourth, and only female, prime minister (from 1969 to 1974), Meir was a member of the Women Workers Council and in the 1950s became Minister of Labor.
Believing that work was essential to dignity, Meir engineered Israel’s Social Security Act and guaranteed maternity leave with pay, says Boston University law professor Pnina Lahav.
Based on years of research, Lahav’s book, The Only Woman in the Room: Golda Meir and Her Path to Power, will be released on September 6 by Princeton University Press.
The book is described as a feminist biography, reexamining Meir’s life through the lens of gender.