This is a guest post by Anonyme
George Galloway continues to call his assailant of Aug 29 2014, the Islamophobic Neil Masterson, ‘a Jewish convert‘:
However, the very day of the assault, Masterson continued to describe himself as a ‘Catholic‘, even as he had hitherto only ever described himself as such or ‘Christian‘, or once as, apparently, “not a. [sic] Christian“. However not as “not a. Jew”.
There is, moreover, evidence Galloway knew of Masterson’s Facebook page. On a twitter thread by MPACUK, insinuating Masterson had belonged to a Jewish, synagogual community, one Fatima Fatwa alludes to said Facebook page as evidence contrariwise.
Note Galloway’s response:
@FatimaFatwa @MPACUK this is a lie. He is a vicious hater of Catholics and Muslims. And a fanatic supporter of Israel and Zionism.
Galloway is clearly aware of Masterson’s conflicted feelings about Catholicism, which he could only have gleaned from the above Facebook account, directly or indirectly. Yet, despite his knowing full well of Masterson’s declaring himself Catholic or Christian hitherto, Galloway called such assertions ‘a lie’, nor did he controvert MPACUK’s fundamental assertion, that Masterson was a product of the Anglo-Jewish religious community. This constituted, I think, Galloway’s indirectly support that thesis, as is evinced by Galloway’s subsequent determination to determine Masterson as ‘Jewish’.
But what evidence thereof?
Masterson apparently declared, upon his being charged on Aug 29, ‘I am Jewish‘.
This personal declaration of Jewishness on Aug 29, unprecedented and unique in Masterson’s extant historical record, is the sole evidence presented for his ‘conversion’ to Judaism. This despite there being no evidence for his having undergone or joined any conversion process, in the UK or elsewhere, nor even of having attended or belonged to any Jewish community hitherto, British or otherwise. There is not even evidence for Masterson’s having attended some fringe conversion process online, which would be unacceptable to any British rabbinate or beth din in any case.
One can scarcely convert to Judaism, mere hours after declaring oneself Catholic, by autodiktat alone.
Nevertheless, it seems that Galloway specifically wanted to have Masterson prosecuted for ‘religiously aggravated assault’. This is the clear implication of
‘Had the charge of religiously aggravated assault not been dropped I’m sure [his sentence] would have been considerably longer. I fail to see why that charge was dropped given that he was wearing an IDF (Israel Defence Force) T-shirt and screaming about Israel and me.’ urlm.in/tgbd
The ‘religion’ intended can only have been Judaism. Galloway is desperate to represent his assailant as Jewish, and hence waft blame or culpability in the direction of British Jews.
But look at what Galloway does: he interprets Masterson’s support for Israel as his very Judaism and Jewishness, exactly what he denies he does elsewhere, as we know. Such is ‘a dangerous game’, he glowers at the Jews of Finchley, especially, ‘I beg you‘, in London.
Indeed he subsequently averred of Jonathan Freedland, Non… rien de rien, Je ne pardonnerai rien!, precisely for the editor of the ‘faux liberal Guardian”s suggesting that Galloway’s rhetoric sometimes blurred such bloundaries.
Now Galloway has even insisted the Chief Rabbi take some responsibility, for and because of the alleged Jewishness of Neil Masterson, and intervene on Galloway’s behalf.
In the end, the charge ‘religiously aggravated assault’ was dropped:
‘Prosecuting lawyer Michelle Nelson told the court: “We have decided the religious aggravation element is borderline, very borderline, and we don’t wish to proceed with this charge. We will be offering no evidence”‘
Surely it was the evidence that Masterson was Jewish that was ‘borderline, very borderline’.
That has not yet deterred Galloway, who yet rules Masterson kosher, by his own (doubtless Scots Irish Roman Catholic Christian-Islamic) halachah i.e. that support for Israel = Judaism.
