Dave Rich Profile picture
Jul 12, 2017 11 tweets 2 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
Ken Loach is in the news for his #BDS campaign to stop Radiohead playing in Israel, so here’s a little bit of history about Loach. /1
In 1987 Loach directed Perdition, a play alleging Zionist/Nazi collaboration that was cancelled by the Royal Court Theatre. /2
He was very angry about the cancellation and about the suggestion the play was antisemitic. /3
He said: “I hadn’t tangled with the Zionist lobby before… What is amazing is the strength & organisation & power of their lobby.” /4
Loach complained "they want to leave intact...the generalised sense of guilt that everyone has about the Jews.” Here's the full quote. /5
Loach said all this to Newsline, the paper of the Workers Revolutionary Party, printed on presses paid for by Gaddafi. /6
The WRP’s presses also printed Labour Herald, edited by Ken Livingstone & John McDonnell at different times & funded by the PLO. /7
The WRP was the worst of the UK’s Trotskyist sects in the 1980s. It had a taste for conspiracist antisemitism & its leader was a rapist. /8
Still, it’s all about being on the right side of history, isn’t it? /9
Talking of which, in 1993 Ken Loach told the New Statesman the USA is "the greatest threat at present to individual freedom and liberty" /10
I hope this adds some context to Loach’s #BDS campaign. Radiohead: enjoy your gig. History lesson is over. /End

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More from @daverich1

Oct 8, 2018
This week @johnmcdonnellMP is coming to Barnet to help JVL Chair Jenny Manson's campaign to become a Labour MP. What kind of MP would Manson be for Britain's largest Jewish community? The kind who gave evidence in Ken Livingstone's defence. Here's how she did it /1
Manson appeared as a witness for Livingstone in his Labour Party disciplinary hearing last year. I've read the transcript. She said Livingstone's claim that Hitler supported Zionism - for which he was found guilty of bringing the party into disrepute - was "true" /2
Manson said that Naz Shah's "Relocate Israel into United States" Facebook post - for which Shah was suspended, and which Shah accepts was antisemitic - was "quite funny" /3
Read 9 tweets
Sep 26, 2018
Jeremy Corbyn said some positive things about antisemitism, British Jews and the Labour Party in his speech today. Good for him. The problem is that everything else he says on the subject means he can't build any trust in the good stuff. I'll explain why /1
In this interview he is asked about threats to @lucianaberger. He answers by saying there are no threats. This is what Luciana said in Parliament back in April about the antisemitism she faces within Labour. Corbyn heard it all but now denies it exists /2
Here he is asked about appearing on Press TV. He says he stopped in 2009 but this is completely untrue. His own register of interests lists payments up to 2012. Press TV is the state broadcaster of an antisemitic government that denies the Holocaust /3
Read 11 tweets
Sep 23, 2018
Today's Sunday Telegraph reports a story from the new edition of my book, about an antisemitic article that @johnmcdonnellMP had removed from the @LRCinfo website. But who wrote the article? And what happened to its author? /1
The article claimed "The Labour Party has become a pawn of Zionist organisations", amongst other conspiracy nonsense. It was written by Mike Cushman, secretary of Jewish Voice for Labour, and first published by Free Speech On Israel /2
The Labour Representation Committee & Labour Briefing both reposted the article, then removed it at John McDonnell's insistence (he is former Chair & Honorary President of LRC & still influential in them when he wants to be). Then... nothing /3
Read 6 tweets
Aug 6, 2018
In my Guardian article yesterday I claimed that Corbyn and his team want to rewrite @TheIHRA definition on #antisemitism to neuter @UKLabour's own rule against antisemitism. This is key to understanding what they are trying to do and I'll explain it a bit more here /1
If a party member is disciplined for antisemitism it is always under the rule against conduct that is "prejudicial, or... grossly detrimental to the party." This used to be at the discretion of the NEC /2
This changed last September when party conference made the expression of antisemitism and other prejudice an automatic offence. The old rule is on the left, new rule on the right /3
Read 9 tweets
Jul 29, 2018
Today's Observer reports Jeremy Corbyn on Press TV in 2012 saying "the hand of Israel" was behind Jihadist terrorism in Egypt. But there was another interesting guest on that show with Corbyn: a convicted Hamas terrorist called Dr Abdul Aziz Umar /1 theguardian.com/politics/2018/…
Here is Umar ("Brother Amr") via satellite with Corbyn and Lauren Booth. He got seven life sentences for helping to organise a Hamas suicide bombing in Jerusalem in 2003 that killed seven people. He was released in the 2011 Gilad Shalit deal themuslimtv.net/view_video.php… /2
Umar provided an apartment for the bomber to prepare his bomb and stood guard at the door while he got ready. Two of the people killed were a bride-to-be and her father, the day before her wedding terrorism-info.org.il/Data/pdf/PDF_1… /3
Read 9 tweets
Jul 23, 2018
Some people are saying Ken Stern, an author of the IHRA antisemitism definition, thinks Labour was right to change it and write their own Code of Conduct. I've got a paper Stern wrote in 2010 on the definition- let's see what he says (spoiler: it's not what the Canary claims) /1
The paper is on p.32 of this collection, from a conference I was at in 2010 kantorcenter.tau.ac.il/sites/default/… /2
Firstly, Stern didn't write the IHRA definition. He helped to write its predecessor for an EU agency called the EUMC but he was not its sole author: he names 8 other Jewish community reps & academics who contributed & then says "What we produced was changed somewhat by EUMC" /3
Read 7 tweets

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