Misquoted and misrepresented – NEC’s Pete Willsman

JVL introduction

Jewish Labour Party veteran Walter Wolfgang, with 70 years membership to his name, has defended National Executive Committee member Peter Willsman against malicious charges of antisemitism. We publish Wolfgang’s statement urging party members to support Willsman in the current NEC elections.

Tom Watson and a host of others have piled in to demand that Willsman, long-standing secretary of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy, should be disciplined and ousted from the party’s leading body, because of remarks he made during an NEC discussion about the Code of Conduct on anti-semitism. Willsman admits that he became angry and has apologised for failing to conduct himself “in a fully civil and respectful way.” But the attacks upon him continue, based on a leaked recording of the NEC meeting. We reproduce a detailed analysis from Skwawkbox showing how he has been misquoted and misreported.

Media have gleefully participated in Willsman’s public evisceration, never questioning the ethical credentials of whoever sent the illicit audio recording to the Jewish Chronicle. JVL’s Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi challenged the prevailing narrative in an interview on LBC on Tuesday afternoon. Read more below.

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01 Aug 2018

Walter Wolfgang. YouTube image

Pete Willsman. Huffington Post

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“I WILL BE VOTING FOR PETE WILLSMAN” – A STATEMENT FROM WALTER WOLFGANG

I came to Britain as a refugee from Nazi Germany, with a strong and continuing commitment to Judaism, and still attend my synagogue regularly.  I have been a member of the Labour Party for 70 years. As a former member of Labour’s National Executive Committee myself, I have served with Pete Willsman and know him to be a committed anti-racist and a strong supporter of Jeremy Corbyn. I am dismayed that Pete is under attack at the very time when the ballot for the NEC is taking place, and despite his deep and public apology. Pete Willsman is a staunch champion of party democracy. I will be voting for him, and urge Labour Party members to do likewise.

31 July 2018

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WHAT WILLSMAN ACTUALLY SAID

An illicitly recorded audio file of discussions during the NEC’s meeting on July 17 was leaked to the Jewish Chronicle and published on Monday with an article that quotes Labour MP Luciana Berger expressing outrage at statements Willsman made in support of the NEC’s new code of conduct on antisemitism. Berger called for his suspension, saying that he had directed “venom and fury….at the British Jewish community,” that he accused the Jewish community of falsifying social mediaand being “Trump fanatics” and that he “denied the serious concerns of 68 rabbis.” 

Skwawkbox has listened in detail to the leaked recording, raising a number of questions. Do Willsman’s remarks justify Tom Watson calling him “a loud mouthed bully” on Twitter?  If so, why does Watson not challenge him during the meeting? How does Berger manage to turn a remark about some people in the Jewish community supporting Trump, into a generalised allegation that “the Jewish Community” are Trump fanatics? How does Willsman’s suggestion – borne out by many published examples – that some antisemitism allegations are faked, translate into the charge that “the Jewish community” are “falsifying social media”? How can Willsman be accused of “denying the serious concerns” of  rabbis who attacked Labour, when what he actually did was to ask for evidence of alleged “severe and widespread antisemitism in this party”?

Follow this link to read the Skwawkbox analysis in full.

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DEFENDING ANOTHER CORBYN ALLY UNDER ATTACK – LBC INTERVIEW

In his interview with Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi of Jewish Voice for Labour, LBC’s Iain Dale demonstrates complete absence of interest in evidence contradicting the idea that Corbyn’s Labour Party is awash with antisemitism, of which Pete Willsman is merely the latest example.

Out of the blue, according to Dale, innocent MPs Hodge and Austin are bullied by being investigated for possible breaches of party rules. Dale is not concerned about the last two years during which hundreds of ordinary party members were summarily suspended, without any opportunity to answer the vague charges against them or even to know who their accusers were. He shows not a flicker of interest in the instant expulsion of Israeli-born Jewish professor Moshe Machover, or the summary suspension of Jewish Voice for Labour secretary Glyn Secker, both reinstated after a wave of protest at their  treatment. Dale is unmoved by warnings from Kenneth Stern, author of the first incarnation of the IHRA definition of antisemitism, that far from being a sacred text that may never be challenged, it has become a dangerous instrument for the suppression of free speech about Palestine. Dale’s response is to sneer at mention of Stern’s support for Zionism and then to assert that pointing to evidence contradicting the Labour=Jew-hater narrative is an insult to all Jews. 

Iain Dale is blasé about the fact that dealing with real antisemitism – hostility to Jews as Jews – in the Labour Party and elsewhere, is not served by attacking the most consistently anti-racist British political leader yet. 

The interview can be heard for the next seven days by following this link. Listen about 20 minutes into the programme. 

https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/blog/misquoted-and-misrepresented-necs-pete-willsman/

Editorial 

The Apartheid Prime Minister

Netanyahu has given up on democracy and made it his mission to strengthen international recognition of Israel as 'the state of the Jewish people,' and their state alone

Jul 30, 2018 5:45 AM

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a weekly cabinet meeting at the Prime Minister's office in Jerusalem, July 29, 2018. Sebastian Scheiner /Reuters

There is someone responsible for the nation-state law and that someone is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Although he usually leaves controversial decisions to his political partners, this time Netanyahu positioned himself front and center in support of the constitutional discrimination against Israeli citizens who are not Jewish.

Netanyahu made it clear Friday to Druze leaders who asked him to amend the law that he was prepared to give the Druze economic benefits but would not change the legislation’s discriminatory wording. On Sunday he attacked the left (“They need to do some soul-searching”), and demanded that Likud ministers “fight for the truth,” a barb at his right-wing rival Naftali Bennett, who suggested amending the law to accommodate the Druze.

Netanyahu’s position is not surprising. For years he has described the Arab citizens of Israel as a nuisance. As finance minister, he called them a “demographic problem,” and last Election Day he posted that video in which he warned, “The Arabs are heading to the polls in droves.” As prime minister, Netanyahu has visited Arab communities only rarely, and has never shown any interest in the culture or distress in Arab society here. At most, he is prepared to offer “economic peace,” expressed in the transfer of budgets to Arab communities, while suppressing Arab political expression, with the Nakba Law, for example, or the state’s disregard for this minority’s history and heritage.

The vote on the law has updated the political fault line in Israel: the discrimination camp vs. the equality camp; the supporters of apartheid against the supporters of democracy. It is true that Israel’s Arab citizens have been discriminated against since the state’s establishment by the governments on both the left and right. But liberal basic laws and High Court of Justice rulings during the past generation advanced the drive toward equality and integrating the minority, which Netanyahu is now seeking to destroy.

The opposition, now headed by Tzipi Livni, must unite, as it did in the vote on the nation-state law, and present the public with a strong, simple message: equality. There is no more appropriate foundation for Israel’s future as a prosperous democratic society. Netanyahu must not be allowed to rip the Declaration of Independence to shreds and turn Israel into a whitewashed version of the occupation regime in the territories.

The above article is Haaretz's lead editorial, as published in the Hebrew and English newspapers in Israel.

https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/editorial/the-apartheid-prime-minister-1.6319599