By Comrade T

At the Zionist picket of the NEC meeting of 4 September. Jonathan Hoffman, far right Zionist, on the mic. The man in the blue cap is Paul Besser, a far-right Zionist who was Britain First’s “intelligence chief”.

The meeting took place in Mayton Street off Seven Sister Road in Islington and it wasn’t any surprise to see the usual Zionist suspects outside attempting to harass anyone entering and exiting and disrupt the meeting generally. Two individuals were actually successful in getting into the event, which advertised the right to refuse entry and with very good reason. The main agitator who entered was Ambrosine Shitrit, who claimed that the meeting was an antisemitic, apartheid meeting which barred Jews from entering. When she screamed “No Jews allowed in this meeting’’, “who support Israel’’ had to be added when several members of the panel and audience put their hands up to signify that they were Jewish. It was clear that this was not about the debate but a blatant attempt to prevent legitimate discussion around the false claims of antisemitism particularly labelled at Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party.

When the meeting eventually commenced the audience heard from a number of speakers, with a common thread running through the discussion. While anti-Semitism is real, it is not on the scale of what is being claimed. Ian from Socialist Fight raised an important question on why Labour decided to implement the adoption of the IHRA in full, which the panel all agreed on, in that it was purely a defensive reaction from the Labour Party to the onslaught from a politically motivated attack. This capitulation is not one that Socialist Fight agrees with, purely because it has emboldened those that wish to use this smear as a political weapon. It has not alleviated the attack on Corbyn or the Labour Party at all, in fact, it has accelerated in intensity and anyone that dares to raise discussion on the subject are open to being attacked. Members of the panel and the audience were in general agreement with this and it provides a small snapshot of the hostility that a future Corbyn government can expect to receive.

During the two hours, Jonathan Hoffman was outside harassing anyone entering or leaving by shouting out ‘’Scum’’ and ‘’Shame on you anti-Semite’’.  A number of Police officers had to attend to the protest outside after it descended into a ‘fracas’, involving what was presumed to be two local women taking offence at being filmed for having a grievance for the amount of noise that these people were making with megaphones. This was in a built-up area of London where people would have been sleeping.

Joseph Cohen (centre)

Also present was Damon Lenszner and Joseph Cohen from the Israel Advocacy Movement who were filming, and were reprimanded by a Met Police Officer for attempting to claim (on film) that people within the meeting were ‘guilty’ of assaulting a woman sitting outside the event. This is the same Damon Lenszner who was also present at a recent AWL meeting in Kings Cross on ‘Antisemitism, what it is and how to fight it’, who vociferously attacked a Socialist Fight comrade at that same meeting for daring to suggest that the meeting showed no sympathy at all for the plight of the Palestinians, along with a rant attacking Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party. It was very telling that Daniel Randall, who presented the Workers’ Liberty event did not rebut, or even comment on anything in Lenszner’s rant which shows how full on Zionist this ‘left’ group really is.

One thing is now certain, this is clearly an orchestrated attack on the left, in general, to ensure that there is no discussion around the whole antisemitism debate in whatever shape or form. For those on the left to have any reasonable discussion on what constitutes antisemitism when opening up the topic of Israel, these attacks are clearly designed for one purpose and one purpose only……. to stifle genuine debate and legitimate criticism of the Israeli state, its terrible treatment towards the Palestinians and the bedrock that underpins it….. Zionism.

The anti-IHRA picket of the NEC on 4 September