Has Camden PSC Lost Control of its FB Page?

This is the facebook group for Camden PSC. The person to contact is Gill Kaffash. According to many sources she was forced to resign from the PSC earlier this year, possibly for her comments to Iran's IRNA:

There is no doubt that a great number of Jews along with other victims of the Nazi army were killed by Hitler. However, historical phenomena need to be further examined to uncover the truth. 

So why is she still listed as the person to contact?

When, in September, the JC reported that the PSC had put a statement on its website distancing itself from Holocaust denial, the Camden PSC organisation posted the following response on its Wall:

I wonder how many Gazans have heard of PSC? How long do you think it will be until the Jewish Chronicle demands that PSC unreservedly condemn Hamas? And how long before PSC complies? After all, Hamas is obviously ant-semitic - most of the people it attacks are Jewish.

These words were later attributed to Ms Kaffash herself by Paul Eisen and Lauren Booth. 

The page is still being updated and yet the details have not changed. Is it possible that the branch has lost control of its facebook page to Ms Kaffash?

Postscript: Sabby Saggal, chair of the Camden PSC branch, "liked" the comment from Gill which was posted on October 1st. Yet just two weeks later an email from Gill regarding her resignation was posted online. It's of course possible that in that short space of time the branch went from supporting her objections to getting rid of her. But is it possible that her resignation was just a publicity stunt and nothing has changed? Maybe the PSC can shed some light on this?

Ibrahim Thompson

Ibrahim Thompson was one of the Durham PSC's representatives at a PSC Branch Forum in March 2011. In a letter to the Guardian, an Ibrahim Thompson from Durham wrote:

Can someone explain why it is that yet again secular Jews, who are recognised as an "ethnic minority" by the race relations act, are exempted from identifying themselves in the census? Has there been pressure from a Jewish lobby conscious of how government statistics can be manipulated?

Mr Thompson also appears to have illustrated a book of poems written by Nahida Izzat. Ms Izzat was recently expelled from the PSC for anti-Semitism. According to a review of the book, entitled "I Believe in Miracles", one poem entitled "The Play"

contains 4 scenes, from 1948, 1967, 1987 and 2004. In each an Israeli soldier is ordered to "shoot them, kill them, burn them, don't leave any of them". "But sir, they're only unarmed civilians". "These are orders". The final scene: "but, sir I DID, and I can't get rid of them".

Maha Rahwanji

A previous post about Ms Rahwanji, an executive committee member of the PSC, is here. Since it was published the account of "Brent Psc" has been deactivated on causes.com. However, Ms Rahwanji's has not yet been and amongst the many causes she supports is one entitled:

Stop calling it Israel..It is PALESTINE!!!!

She has a twitter account. Back in July (on the 22nd) when Anders Behring Breivik launched his terrorist attack against Norway, someone using the name muiz complained (correctly) that people were jumping to the conclusion that it was an Islamist attack. Maha replied:

agreed and yet Norway has been one of the most supportive when it comes to BDS from Israel? Suspicious...

Apparently the irony was lost on her. Two days later she retweeted the following:

Clues keep adding up in #Norway slaughter that #Israel had a hand. A big hand.

Maha also added her name to a petition calling for:

the immediate and unconditional removal of Hamas and all other Palestinian liberation organizations from the European list of proscribed terrorist organizations.

Incidentally, the first signatory from the UK was one Gilad Atzmon.

UPDATE: Maha has deleted her comments about Oslo so here's a screenshot:

She has also deactivated her causes.com account but if you want a screenshot of that page feel free to email me.

Bolton PSC and Innocent Jews

The point of contact for the Bolton PSC branch is someone going by the name John and using the email address "somebody20022003@yahoo.com". The same email address is used on comments by a user called "John Somebody" e.g. here, here and here.

In one comment using that email address and alias, John says:

A pity, that people fail to notice, that if Palestinians had the hi - tech weapons that Israelis have, they could then be more specific in their choice of targets. So, genuinely innocent Israelis, (babies etc.) would be hit less, and more valuable targets, like the Israeli Death Force would be hit more.

It isn't immediately clear who else besides babies are innocent in his eyes but another comment by a user with the same name says:

So, David thinks that Hamas are lobbing Qassams at Sderot. I suppose Israelis have a right to protect their innocent children, but they can do that, by clearing off, out of stolen land. And if we believe that the Israeli state / society has a right to protect itself, then we’d have to believe that a state / society which depends on ethnic ” cleansing”, to exist, has a right to exist. Well, it doesn’t.

Israeli children are innocent but Israel has no right to self defence therefore if Israelis want to keep their children alive they must leave Israel. Of course, while John talks about Israelis here he only means Jews since there is little doubt that he is not calling on non-Jews to "clear off" out of Israel. John seems to think that all Jews should leave Israel regardless of their actions or beliefs.

Repeating the suggestion that Israelis have no right to defend themselves, John asks:

I wish some arch zionasty would explain to me how Arabs could not want to drive them into the sea – without being rational enough to accept, that not all Jews, are to blame for invading and theiving, what was never invaded by Palestinians. If Arabs are required to be rational enough, to allow innocent Jews to live in peace, then zio – thugs require those same Arabs to be more reasonable, to have a higher morality, than the aggressive invaders.
Why should a state that depends on racist motivated murder in order to exist, be allowed to defend itself, or anything?

While John appears to accept that Jews ought not to be murdered en masse, he also appears to think that the genocidal wishes of Arabs to Jews is understandable and that Jews really can't complain too much if Arabs want to murder them all.

And what of Jews outside Israel? In a comment after this report on anti-Semitic attacks in Manchester, John (using the email address above) lays the blame on Zionists for making people think that all Jews are Zionists and therefore legitimate targets for attacks.

This does not detract from the fact that racist thuggery, no matter who it's from isn't some thing we can afford to tolerate. But while innocent Jews suffer racism, some of it is a consequence of zionists being so succesful at convincing people that to be Jewish, is to be zionist, and therefore associating Jews with modern state practitioners of genocidal ethnic "cleansing", and with their supporters who behave like brownshirts on the streets of Manchester. That the provocation comes from someone other than innocent Jews, does not detract from the fact, that it sometimes comes from someone labelled as racists, by racist zionists. And even sometimes from someone who has been confused into believing such lies as zionists tell themselves.

Does John think that the only Jews who shouldn't be attacked are those who want a Jew-free Middle East?

PSC is Powerless

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) is in crisis. In recent months, branch after branch has been found to be tainted by antisemitism. The PSC's response has been to quietly encourage certain members to step down but this has been met with vocal opposition. One crucial question is what can the PSC do to rid its branches of those who would deny the Holocaust or who believe in anti-Jewish myths?

Based on my understanding of the structure of the PSC, the answer is not very much at all.

There are three key documents. The first is the Articles of Association of the PSC, the second is the PSC constitution and the third is the constitution of local branches (examples can be found here, here and here).

Local branches are almost entirely independent of the PSC according to 11(b) of the Articles. Their members are to be encouraged to become members of the PSC (see section 3 of the branch constitutions) but need not be. The PSC constitution does try and ensure that at least the officers of local branches are member of the PSC but it doesn't appear to be entirely successful. The relevant clause is 5.3(b) which says that branch constitutions must include:

A requirement for elected officers to be members of PSC.

However, the constitution of the York branch, for one, doesn't appear to contain any such requirement. How many other branches are in breach of this?

So what control does the PSC actually have over a rogue branch? The only thing they can do is disaffiliate, according to 4.5 of the constitution and 3(h) of the Articles. And the only thing that comes from disaffiliation is that branches cannot use the PSC name or logo.

The PSC is powerless, in effect, to control its branches. Disaffiliation is such a major step that it would surely only be used in extreme circumstances. And even if it is used, the local branch retains all the money it previously raised while using the PSC name and its members are still members.

It would appear that even if the PSC did decide to get serious about tackling antisemitism and Holocaust denial in its branches it really can't do anything without effectively closing itself down and restarting. It may be time for those who are genuinely opposed to racism to start considering that option.

Redress Information & Analysis

The Redress Information & Analysis website claims to be:

an independent, privately-funded, non-profit-making website dedicated to exposing injustice, disinformation and bigotry, and to providing thought-provoking interpretations of current affairs.

It publishes numerous articles by Gilad Atzmon, including one where he calls the Nazi death marches:

A slightly confusing narrative. If the Nazis were interested in annihilating the entire European Jewish population as suggested by the orthodox Zionist Holocaust narrative, then it is rather ambiguous as to just what led them to march what was left of European Jewry into their crumbling Nazi fatherland at a time when it was clear that they were losing the war. The two narratives i.e. “annihilation” and “death march”, seem to contradict each other. The issue deserves further elaboration. I would just suggest that the reasonable answers I have come across may severely damage the Zionist Holocaust narrative.

Another article is written by Paul Eisen (who finds the Holocaust deniers' case "compelling") in which he says:

The Holocaust too has come under assault. Over the last 50 years, revisionist scholars have amassed a formidable body of substantial evidence, which runs in direct opposition to the traditional Holocaust narrative. "Where is the evidence," they say, "for this alleged gargantuan mass-murder? Where are the documents? Where are the traces and remains? Where are the weapons of murder?" These revisionists all acknowledge, of course, that there was a terrible assault on Jews on the part of the National Socialist government, but disagree as to the scale, motive and methods cited in the typical narrative, a narrative that most of us choose or are obliged to accept.

An article by Paul Balles says:

Benjamin Freedman, an anti-Zionist Jew, said in 1961: ”The Zionists and their co-religionists rule these United States as though they were the absolute monarchs of this country."

Freedman went on to explain that the Eastern European Jews who form 92 per cent of the world's population of so-called Jews were originally Khazars, a Mongoloid race forced out of Asia into Eastern Europe. They were Pagans who converted to the Talmudic faith.

To quote Freedman further: "There wasn't one of them who had an ancestor who ever put a toe in the Holy Land. Not only in Old Testament history, but back to the beginning of time. And yet they come to the Christians and ask to help repatriate God's Chosen People to their Promised Land."

"Could there be a bigger lie than that?" Freedman asks. "Because they control the newspapers, the magazines, the radio, the television, the book publishing business, and because they have the ministers in the pulpit and the politicians on the soapboxes talking the same language, it is not too surprising that you believe that lie."

There's also Stuart Littlewood's article about Jewish "over-representation" in the Commons and an article, apparently written by the editor of the site, which says:

Mr Lewis is also a trustee of the Holocaust Educational Trust, a body founded in 1988 by British pro-Israel lobbyists Greville Janner and Merlyn Rees with the aim of maintaining a culture of gentile guilt and Jewish victimhood in British schools.

These are just some of the articles which serve to give a taste of the site.

PSC Branches Linking to Holocaust Denying Website

The Palestine Think Tank website effectively closed down in February 2011. However, while the old website is not available, there is evidence regarding its anti-Semitism.

A video by Anthony Lawson was posted by the Palestine Think Tank in March 2010. In this video, Lawson says:

All over the world Zionists build museums and memorials to their Holocaust and strive to put people in gaol for what is more properly described as historical research but which they call Holocaust denial or revisionism; an attempt to prohibit enquiry into even the more questionable aspects of the alleged events which took place in forced labour camps during the Nazi era.

While he is narrating these lines, the video shows photos of well-known Holocaust deniers Ernst Zundel, Germar Rudolf, Robert Faurisson, David Irving, Sylvia Stolz and Gerald Toben.

The journal of the Anti-Racist Action, Turning The Tide, published the following in its October/December 2010 issue [pdf]:

In TTT Vol. 23 #2, April-June 2010 we printed “International Campaign in Support of Palestinian Political Prisoners” by Yousef Abudayyeh. This article was originally published on the Palestine Think Tank website where Abudayyeh is a regular contributor. That site has published a direct attack against Rose City Antifa and the Anti-Racist Action Network written by the webmaster for Eugene, Oregon’s Pacifica Forum, another pro-Nazi, anti-Semitic project. One of the Think Tank’s founders, “ex-Jew” Gilad Atzmon, has circulated pro-Zündel material. He has written that “throughout the centuries, Jewish bankers bought for themselves some real reputations of backers and financers of wars and even one communist revolution.” (Atzmon’s article was pulled from Palestine Think Tank but remains on his personal site.) A particularly disturbing aspect of Palestine Think Tank is its promotion of “Israeli organ harvesting” allegations, a modern-day variant of the earlier Blood Libel that alleged that Jewish people killed Christian and Muslim children to use their blood in religious rituals. Yousef Abudayyeh, whose article appeared in TTT, signed on to Palestine Think Tank’s promotion of the “organ harvesting” libel. 

A fuller account can be found here .

Despite this (at least) the Bradford and Waltham Forest branches of the PSC linked to it. So do the Halifax Friends of Palestine and the Liverpool Friends of Palestine, both of which are affiliated with the PSC.

The link now redirects to the Sabbah Report. Some of their stuff is posted below.

IMPORTANT: The following is how this post used to read before I found out that the Sabbah Report is not the same website as the Palestine Think Tank.

The website palestinethinktank.com redirects to the Sabbah Report. A post on it from May 2008 announces the launch of palestinethinktank.com so it's not clear whether the two were originally separate or not.

In any case, the website hosts holocaust denial material. Numerous videos from Anthony Lawson are embedded on the site including one entitled "Holocaust, Hate Speech & Were the Germans so Stupid?" Whoever embedded it added in the headline "Must Watch". Early on, the video states:

"Having been tortured, Rudolf Höss, who was the commander of Auschwitz from 1940 to 1943, almost certainly lied to save the lives of his wife and children. Even if torture and duress cannot not be proven, the overwhelming reason for recognizing the utter falsity of the Höss confession is that the gassing method he described was not scientifically plausible."

The page includes links to Ernst Zundel's website, the Institute for Historical Review and, amusingly, a website white-history.com among other similar sites.

Another article, written by Gordon Duff says:

"Israel pushes the focus of holocaust denial into worship of Hitler, not accurate documentation of factual history so that innocent researchers like Ernst Zundel are imprisoned."

There are a number of other articles of concern as well.

Despite all this (at least) the Bradford and Waltham Forest branches of the PSC link to it. So do the Halifax Friends of Palestine and the Liverpool Friends of Palestine, both of which are affiliated with the PSC.

Brent PSC Founder and Fake Jews

According to the Facebook group of Brent PSC, it was founded by three people including Maha Rahwanji who now acts as the voice of the Facebook group. The group is really a fake person called "Brent Psc". They have lots of "Activities and Interests". One of these is the cause (on causes.com) "Israel is not a country".

In the "About" section of this group they say:

80-90% of Jews today are “Ashkenazi “ (which is the term for European Jews that are descendants of converts, unrelated to the original tribes of Israel, and speak Yiddish, not Hebrew). 80-90% of all Jews in the world today are not even Semites! In fact, in “Israel” Sefardic and Mizrachi Jews (Arab, Iranian, north African, or middle eastern Jews, for examples), the real Jews of the Torah, are discriminated against heavily in many aspects!

Maha has also signed a petition (number 124) to the Board of Directors of the University of Trondheim which says:

The ready made clarion swords are unsheathed against all who dare criticize Israel using the most vile of words, especially the world’s most intimidating Scarlet Letter, “A”, for “Anti-Semite”, although the far majority of Jews today are not Semites.    The dishonorable use of Holocaust guilt and the false propaganda that Israel is constantly facing an existential threat ensures silence of all debates which only perpetuates the occupation of Palestinian land. [emphasis added]

Maha Rahwanji has her own account on Facebook where her profile picture is:

UPDATE: Maha Rahwanji is a member of the Executive Committee of the PSC.

Southampton PSC

Southampton PSC has a series of videos embedded on their site. One is about supposed pro-Israel bias at the BBC. This video was created by Anthony Lawson. He told an interviewer that:

it seems that there is no solid evidence that Germany put in train a plan to systematically murder Jews using gas chambers. I have no doubt that some Germans were as cruel as some of those bombing-raid planners, and that a lot of unnecessary deaths resulted from that cruel streak, which seems to show itself in so many humans, but I do not think that the facts support the planned systematic-extermination scenario that the ever-growing number of Holocaust museums claim was perpetrated by the Germans.

Lambeth and Wandsworth PSC

On the Lambeth and Wandsworth PSC Facebook group is a discussion entitled "Death Penalty: A Zionist State of Assasins !!" The discussion consists of one post which includes the following paragraph:

Israel is out of this debate [regarding the death penalty], simply because it is so “democratic” and never committed such a punishment but once in 1962 against Eichmann, the Nazi. The human blood and life for Israel is so precious, specially the jewish one as it never executed anyone from the “chosen people”, the beloved sons of God !!! Can you believe this? I don’t, simply because I have witnessed the mass-killing Israel executing the whole people of Palestine. Inside “israel” the conditions are perfect for the jew “citizen” but in the occupied West Bank, it is hell for the occupied natives !!!

Seymour Alexander of Richmond and Kingston PSC

The Richmond and Kingston PSC website was registered by Seymour Alexander. Someone with the same name posted the following comment on the New Statesman website:

Israel has at last perfected the means of murdering the Palestinians without any risk to its own dear soldiers. Jewish mothers can sleep in peace in Tel Aviv whilst their beloved children safely play computer games and the real victims' slaughtered and maimed bodies lie obliterated many kilometres away. No mournful graveside recitals of kaddish to be endured in future wars, no more tears, no flag covered coffins. Rejoice! The Jewish dream has come true. [emphasis added]

When challenged, the response was:

We are allowed to talk of Jewish genius, Jewish generosity, Jewish mothers, Jewish skills, Jewish chochma, Jewish Holidays, Jewish cooking, Jewish good looks, Jewish writers, Jewish scientists, Jewish doctors, Jewish lawyers, Jewish philosophers, Jewish surgeons .... However when there is a negative conotation remember to revert to our Israeli nom de plume.

Another comment from a Seymour Alexander. This time the user puts the Richmond and Kingston PSC website as their website:

Excellent video; one can see why more and more Americans back home such as the Tea Party supporters are becoming less and less enamoured with their Jewish compatriots who put Israel’s interests above those of their own country.

Seymour Alexander has also registered the website accessol.co.uk. That website has (it seems) only one page which says:

The panel meeting with Gilad Atzmon, Alan Hart , Karl Sabbagh and Sameh Habib proved to be a fascinating, outspoken and of course controversial discussion, assisted in the audience by a clutch of some prominent intellectuals in the Palestine solidarity community.
These notes are not intended to represent the view of any particular speaker but are intended to give a flavour of the discussion that took place.

It's not clear whether Seymour agrees with the notes but they say:

What is the difference between an anti-Semite in the past and today? There is a joke which says: in the past an anti-Semite was someone who hated Jews; today it is someone whom the Jews hate. In effect today there is no anti-Semitism in this country; what people object to is Jewish control of the media and the power of Jewish money; they object to our government’s subservience to the interests of the state of Israel. But they do not hate Jews simply because they were born Jewish.

and

we are supposed to believe that in 1933 the cultured German people suddenly changed overnight into anti-Semites and decided they wanted to kill the Jews.

However if one is looking for causes for the Holocaust (and not excuses for it of course) one could mention the perceived betrayal of the German people by the Jewish bankers who (together with the Russian Jewish bankers) were persuaded into using their influence and money to supporting American entry into the first world war on the British side by the promise of the Balfour Declaration, with its notion of a Jewish state in Palestine.

Harry Perry of Leicester PSC

The Leicester PSC website is registered to one Harry Perry c/o Leicester Secular Society. Harry Perry has also posted numerous messages to the Leicester PSC Yahoo Group. Harry Perry is also the editor of the Leicester Secularist.

In the December 2009 edition [pdf] of the Leicester Secularist, Perry discusses a Channel 4 Dispatches programme about the Israel Lobby. He says:

You may be feeling slightly uncomfortable now about such free use of the word ‘Jews’ when the norm in this discourse is to use terms like ’Zionists’ or ’Israelis’. You fear that I am about to launch into a diatribe, Nazi style, about a Jewish conspiracy or even quote the fraudulent Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Well, Oborne was careful to state that they found no evidence of a conspiracy as such and yet there is no doubt that the use of free tours of Israel for hundreds of MPs, the donations from Jewish businessmen to sympathetic parliamentarians and the pressure on media editors from Jews in positions of influence and power does have the nature of a conspiracy. It may not be co-ordinated or directed by any central body but then does it need to be? The clarity of the aims of the Zionist project, for Jews to acquire, in time, the whole of ‘Biblical Israel’ (including ‘Judea and Samaria’ - the West Bank), by any means necessary, is a sufficient organising principle to work from.

later in the same article he says:

This, then, is the new ‘Jewish problem’: how to objectively describe what the Israeli Jews are doing, with the secretive support of a few wealthy Jews here, without mentioning Jews and thereby being accused of anti-Semitism? With Israel officially designated the Jewish state there is no avoiding the fact that the colonisation is being done in the name of Jews. It is therefore impossible to comment on the situation without referencing the fact that Jews of a particular outlook are at the bottom of it.

If declaring that there is "secretive support" from "wealthy Jews" and that this has "the nature of a conspiracy" is not anti-Semitic, it is certainly sailing very close to the wind.

Also of concern is an article in the June 2008 newsletter [pdf] of Leicester Secular Society (also edited by Perry). An article there is about an anti-Trident protest. A press statement is quoted in the name of an unidentified priest:

Under the 1950 Nuremberg principles, companies and their employees are directly accountable for any part they play in committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. After the ‘Holocaust’, businessmen were found guilty of war crimes and executed for the manufacture and supply of the poison gas used in the concentration camps, even though it was their own government that used it. Similarly the managers at Rolls Royce Raynesway may one day be held personally responsible for their contribution towards Trident.

Note the quotation marks around the word Holocaust. Here's the original press release from Trident Ploughshares and the quote from Angie Zelter. No quotes used and also no priest. So where did the account used by Perry's newsletter come from and who put the scare quotes in?

York PSC - "Genocide Now Not an Option"?

On York PSC's website is an FAQ section. Here's one question and answer (with emphasis added):

Q. Does PSC recognise the State of Israel?
A. Yes we recognize A State of Israel  with the borders that existed before the 1967 six day war. The continuous extension of those borders by war and occupation have been condemned by numerous UN Security council resolutions (beginning with number 242 in November 1967).  Individuals can comment on the right or otherwise of the land grab which created the state of Israel in the first place and its biblical justification,  but we must emphasize that PSC, like Arafat, accepts the inevitable presence of the Israelis and that pushing them all in to the Mediterranean is now not an option.

If one reads "Israelis" as "Jews living in Israel" and "pushing them all in to the Mediterranean" as a euphemism for "murder them", then York PSC is stating that genocide is "now not an option". When was it?

[UPDATE: Harry's Place reveals that Leeds PSC has the same wording in their FAQs.]

York PSC has some history with allegations of anti-Semitism. In 2004 the Chairman of York Jewish Society alleged in a letter to the local paper that:

THE actions of the York Palestine Solidarity Campaign (York PSC) today were nothing short of disgusting.
As chairman of the University of York Jewish Society I organised a walking tour of Jewish Medieval York, followed by a brief ceremony at the foot of Clifford's Tower to commemorate the 1190 massacre.
This was hijacked by York PSC (Letters, March 17) who saw fit to mix the massacre of more than 110 British Jews in 1190 with the present situation in Israel.
At the small ceremony, they tried to provoke arguments with Jewish students, rather than turn-up to remember the massacre.

Terry Gallogly, replying as Chair of York PSC, said:

These allegations have no truth behind them whatsoever. The YPSC York made no contact with its membership about the memorial service, and did not attend.
We, therefore, cannot comment on the views of those who attended as private individuals and who are unknown to us. [emphasis added] Those making these serious allegations obviously made no attempt to verify their facts before contacting the Press. 

However, the previous day Andrew Collingwood told the paper: 

To the best of my knowledge only one of our members was present.
...
Because I wasn't there, I cannot comment on any alleged events which took place at Clifford's Tower. But whatever did take place was the action of individuals and nothing to do with York PSC. 

So we have an admission that at least one member of York PSC felt it appropriate to disturb a memorial service to Jewish victims of persecution. The fact that York PSC did not arrange it doesn't mean it has "nothing to do with York PSC". At least one of their members was behaving in an allegedly disgraceful manner.

Both Andrew Collingwood and Terry Gallogly have been accused of anti-Semitism individually. Harry's Place revealed that when the Jewish Chronicle ran an online poll asking its (presumably Jewish) readers "Should Rabbis work with the EDL?" (after the so-called "surfing Rabbi" had pledged them his support), Terry Gallogly encouraged people to rig the poll to make it look like Jews supported the EDL (despite the rigging the result was heavily against).

In 2009 the York student newspaper accused Andrew Collingwood of being racist because he posted a picture of a placard on facebook. Collingwood replied that:

In response to your story of 13 February, I would like to reiterate my regret that one of the 246 pictures of York Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s public activities posted to the Facebook group has caused offence.
When I found out from the University that this image was causing offence I immediately removed this picture and made it clear that I do not support any anti-Semitic displays and would not have posted the picture if it had occurred to me that it would cause offence. To be clear, this image was not on a University website or uploaded through the University network. The image was clearly found by an individual searching for a reason to label me an anti-Semite. I regard this as the latest move in a campaign to harass me at work because of my connection to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

While it certainly seems unfair to accuse Collingwood of anti-Semitism for merely posting the picture, it is not in doubt that someone was holding this apparently anti-Semitic placard at a York PSC event and no one present thought it needed removing.

Norwich PSC Evidence

Earlier this week an article and video from Norwich PSC's website were highlighted as concerning. They have now posted the following comment:

Norwich PSC announces that the latest 5 hits on our website on the 7th of September came from Tel Aviv and were shortly followed by the usual scandalous accusations of 'holocust deniel/anti-semitism' on some websites and personal blogs, which we believe may be directly linked to these hits. Please check the links below. There was some personal information in addition to offensive remarks about the webmaster published on those websites. The webmaster finds this kind of behaviour offensive.

The original article was posted on the 6th September here.

The video and article have been deleted from the site. However, to avoid any accusation that they were never there here are the relevant screenshots:

Waltham Forest PSC and Holocaust Denial

Back in 2007 some Jewish members of the PSC proposed a motion for their AGM, part of which stated:

8. Conference also rejects any attempt by any individuals or group, in particular those around the Deir Yassin Remembered (DYR) Group, to introduce anti-Semitic ideas and discourse into the Palestine solidarity movement. This can only be of benefit to the Zionist enterprise and cannot help but undermine the Palestine solidarity movement. We note that the British Director of DYR has published articles on "Jewish Power" and the "Holocaust Wars" in support of one of the most infamous Holocaust deniers, Ernst Zundel; that Dan McGowan, founder of DYR, has recently visited Zundel in prison, describing him as "a man with strong convictions and the courage to express them"; and that Holocaust denial material by Paul Eisen is available on the DYR website.

In response to this Paul Eisen wrote an article, available on the DYR website, in which he says:

Although I stopped short of coming out in definite agreement with revisionists, I did (and do) find their case compelling.

The motion was effectively rejected, replaced with an amendment proposed by the Executive Committee. A statement from "Jews Against Zionism" says that:

Before the debate on the amendment, moreover, the Executive issued a statement confirming that PSC has never had nor does it now have links with "Deir Yassin Remembered" (DYR), nor has it offered any facilities to DYR.

The Executive Committee might want to speak to the Waltham Forest branch. They link to Deir Yassin Remembered in their list of "Interesting Links".

Gill Kaffash of Camden PSC

Gill Kaffash is the Secretary of the Camden branch of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Here are her comments to Iranian news agency IRNA about the Holocaust:

There is no doubt that a great number of Jews along with other victims of the Nazi army were killed by Hitler. However, historical phenomena need to be further examined to uncover the truth. Therefore banning opposition to the theses termed as `invariable reality` is irrational.

If that looks like she might support Holocaust denial or revisionism then that is because she has done. Here is an article written by Paul Eisen entitled "The Holocaust Wars" which discusses Holocaust deniers and their "work" and concludes:

Although they will never say so, Palestinians must know that they are not just facing the might of the Israeli state but also the power of organized world Jewry and its primary arm, the Holocaust. Perhaps Palestinians should consider lobbing a few stones in that direction. Perhaps we all should.

As a result of his denying the Holocaust the PSC considered expelling him (he resigned before they reached a decision). But, in this article entitled "My Life as a Holocaust Denier", he tells us that (see note 5):

there were some who openly and repeatedly demonstrated their solidarity e.g. ...Gill Kaffash.

Bristol PSC and Cliff Hanley

Cliff Hanley is the Chair or Secretary of Bristol Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Their website is registered in his name and he is also the owner of their Yahoo group, under the username "fagbolt".

He is something of a fan of Holocaust denier Anthony Lawson. He has published two of his videos on his blogs. In his introduction to Lawson's video on wikileaks (which essentially argues that wikileaks was an invention of the CIA/Mossad and by the way 9/11 was an inside job of course) he says:

Anthony Lawson has produced another fine thought-provoking news-bomb

Hanley doesn't just repost extremism from others he also declares it himself. He told a local newspaper that:

Israel is not a true country. It is simply a flawed policy.

And what about Hamas?

Hamas does not want to destroy all Jews. 'All Jews' would include the Israelis who regularly join in the anti-wall, anti-occupation demos with their Palestinian friends, for instance.

But Mr Hanley is not alone among members of Bristol PSC for holding extreme views or indeed liking Anthony Lawson. His video in which he says that Holocaust denial is really "research" into "questionable aspects of the alleged events" is linked to in one message.

Another message is entitled "How the Jewish Lobby Works" and links to a YouTube video of the same name. There are also messages citing material from American Free Press and rense.com.

In this message Mr Hanley links to the (now removed) Facebook group "Third Palestinian Intifada" claiming that:

it's of more than passing interest

The group was removed (at least in part) because it advocated violence and stated:

Judgment Day will be brought upon us only once the Muslims have killed all of the Jews

Another message links to a video entitled "Israeli Terrorism and the Talmud" which opens with a fabricated quote from "Libbre David 37".  No such Jewish book exists but the "quotation" is regularly used by anti-Semites the world over.

Tony Gratrex of Reading PSC

Most of this has been reported at Harry's Place before. Tony Gratrex is involved with Reading PSC. He's listed as the contact for them in this pdf. Here he's mentioned as representing them at a branch meeting.

In the original report, Harry's Place revealed who Gratrex thought controlled the media and international banking:

You state that the jews do not control the media but that it is under self censorship.
This is patently wrong and only a cursory glance using the internet will show that a majority of the media is jewish owned or controlled.
During the interview you use the expression "who pays the piper calls the tune" and that is precisely the problem when one considers who controls the international banking system.

Here's another comment, not in the original report, that Gratrex left on an overtly anti-Semitic blog:

Not all adherents to the Torah are enemies of humanity.
You are forgetting the Neturei Karta Jews

Aside from the obvious anti-Semitism of calling all but a tiny handful of Jews "enemies of humanity", one wonders what attracted Mr Gratrex to this particular blog...

Holocaust Denial at Norwich PSC

Last week, Harry's Place revealed that the former Chair of the West Midlands Palestine Solidarity Campaign runs a website that publishes Holocaust denial. It turned out that he had been expelled as Chair because of it. Now it's the turn of Norwich Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

An article reprinted on the site is taken from the "Israel's stooges" section of the redress.cc website. It was published in 2009 and refers to the appointment of Ivan Lewis as Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The article states:

Mr Lewis is also a trustee of the Holocaust Educational Trust, a body founded in 1988 by British pro-Israel lobbyists Greville Janner and Merlyn Rees with the aim of maintaining a culture of gentile guilt and Jewish victimhood in British schools.

More worrying, though, is a video posted on the site entitled "Israeli Apartheid and the Nakba". It was created by Holocaust denier Anthony Lawson. Lawson said in an interview that:

it seems that there is no solid evidence that Germany put in train a plan to systematically murder Jews using gas chambers. I have no doubt that some Germans were as cruel as some of those bombing-raid planners, and that a lot of unnecessary deaths resulted from that cruel streak, which seems to show itself in so many humans, but I do not think that the facts support the planned systematic- extermination scenario that the ever-growing number of Holocaust museums claim was perpetrated by the Germans.

In the video, Lawson states:

All over the world Zionists build museums and memorials to their Holocaust and strive to put people in gaol for what is more properly described as historical research but which they call Holocaust denial or revisionism; an attempt to prohibit enquiry into even the more questionable aspects of the alleged events which took place in forced labour camps during the Nazi era.

While he is narrating these lines, the video shows photos of well-known Holocaust deniers Ernst Zundel, Germar Rudolf, Robert Faurisson, David Irving, Sylvia Stolz and Gerald Toben.

The webmaster of the Norwich PSC site is Khaled Sa'aran. He also works for Norfolk County Council (Childrens Services). As the webmatser, he must surely take responsibility for what is published on the site.

Defining Anti-Semitism

It is likely impossible to completely define what is and isn't anti-Semitism and I will not try. I believe that there is a spectrum whereby some statements are very definitely anti-Semitic and others are very definitely not. In between lie a whole range of statements that may or may not be depending on numerous factors.

The Macpherson report recommended that "A racist incident is any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person."

For the purposes of this blog I will follow that recommendation and post material I believe is likely to be perceived as anti-Semitic by others. That is not to say that I consider everything I post anti-Semitic, simply that I consider it likely that others will.

However, I will generally not post things I believe are definitely not anti-Semitic or that can be strongly argued not to be, even if it is likely that many will perceive it to be. Primarily this means that I will in general not consider statements about Israel or Zionists to be anti-Semitic unless their context or content indicate strongly that Jews are intended.

Requesting Evidence

Because most of the evidence relied on by this blog is Internet based it is sometimes the case that websites will change between the time of posting and the time of reading. In some cases this is because the accused deliberately attempts to remove the evidence.

In almost all cases I have taken screenshots of the websites in question at the time of writing and have these stored. I do not include them in the posts because they take up too much space and are not always necessary. However, I am happy to send a copy if requested.

Internet Evidence

Seeing as the vast majority of evidence posted on this blog will be from various Internet sites it is worth making a short note about them.

It is, of course, difficult to be sure that something posted on the Internet was indeed posted by the person whose name is attached to it. For one thing there may be more than one person with that name and for another it might be someone using someone else's name.

Therefore, evidence posted on this blog should not be taken as definite proof that the person making the statement is the same person as the post is about. The reader should take care to examine the evidence themselves before drawing any firm conclusions.