Here’s today’s Labour row, reported in the Evening Standard.
Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell was today caught in his party’s growing anti-Semitism storm after directing people to a website that has carried “tributes” to suicide bombers.
Labour MPs reacted with fury after learning that in 2014 Mr McDonnell linked from his own web page to the site, which once carried sympathetic articles about at least two bombers.
One of the pieces focused on a man who murdered 19 Israelis outside a nightclub.
The Jewish Chronicle has more.
This is the excuse:
A spokesman told the Standard: “John was supporting a peaceful campaign against the bombing in Gaza at the time in 2014. The campaign suggested using the link to this website in order to take part.
“He was obviously not aware of the views this website historically expressed 10 years previously but John’s office has subsequently removed the link in question immediately.
“John has a zero tolerance approach to anti-Semitism and has a record of campaigning against all forms of racism.”
Among other archived articles carried on the site was one posted in 2002 claiming Israel has no right to exist and should be “dismantled”.
Oh come now. The website is run by the Khomeinist outfit “Inminds”. A few seconds are all one needs to see it for what it is – a crude and base hatred site which supports terrorist violence. Try the numerous “Al Quds Day” reports for starters. This is the “We Are All Hezbollah” crowd. In fact, the web archive shows Quds Day reports and pictures of Hezbollah banners on the very page McDonnell recommended.
Or, for more, read this fatwa by the notorious hate preacher Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who has been banned from the UK since 2008.
Question: Are we allowed to buy items from Israeli sources, even though this money may be used to help the Jewish “war machine”?
Answer by Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi:
It is Jihad to liberate the Islamic lands from those who attack or conquer them. These are enemies of Islam. This Jihad is an absolute obligation and a sacred duty; firstly on the people of that land. If the Muslims of that land can’t offer sufficient resistance, then Muslims of neighboring countries are obliged to assist. If this is still not sufficient then all the Muslims of the world must assist.
…
Palestine is the land of the first Qiblah of the Muslims, the land of Isra’ and Mi`raj, the land of Al-Aqsa and the blessed territory. The conquerors are those with the greatest enmity to the believers, and they are supported by the strongest state on earth – the USA, and by the world Jewish community.
So what’s still up on Mr McDonnell’s website? Here you will see that mere trade with Israel is “abhorrent”:
I find it abhorrent that despite the consistent and blatant violations of human rights, Israel is the UK’s 35th largest export market for goods and the 40th largest source of goods import. In 2012 UK exports to Israel were £2.4 billion and imports worth £2.9 billion.
In a post on this page McDonnell calls for support of Interpal, the charity that serves Hamas and is headed by Jeremy Corbyn’s fundamentalist friend Ibrahim Hewitt.
In another post one can see McDonnell bracketing British citizens who serve in the IDF with the worst jihadis in Syria in a letter to the Home Secretary:
Will you be warning any British citizens considering engagement with the IDF that, in line with established British Government practice (e.g. the deprivation of British citizenship from, to date, at least 40 UK passport holders who have been involved in the Syrian civil war), such engagement may put their British citizenship in jeopardy?
The simple truth is that foul Israel hatred is an important cause for Mr McDonnell.
The post which has been removed is part of the story and is shown in full below for the record. It is also available in the web archive (scroll down to August 2014). It’s the usual nasty and thuggish John McDonnell. He even calls on people to hassle local shops selling Israeli goods. Imagine his outrage if a Tory MP had asked shopkeepers to declare they will not stock Palestinian goods…
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John McDonnell’s full blog post of 1 August 2014:
Packed Public Meeting Launches Hayes4Gaza
Posted by John McDonnell 72pc on August 01, 2014
Last night (Thursday 31st July) I convened a public meeting to discuss the situation in Gaza and what we as a community in my constituency could do to end the massacre taking place in Gaza. Over 150 people attended the meeting at very short notice. Jeremy Corbyn MP, chair of Stop the War and frequent visitor to Gaza, addressed the meeting.
Numerous members of the community spoke. The meeting was genuinely representative of our community with a large number of young people, women and people from a wide range of the different cultures that make up our community in attendance.
The meeting heard that so far 1400 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli bombardment of Gaza including 150 children. 7000 have been injured. 56 Israelis have died. Hospitals, medical centres, and schools have been shelled. 250,000 have been made homeless.
Today a welcome 72 hour ceasefire has been agreed but a permanent ceasefire is required and a just and lasting peace is needed.
As a local community we agreed that we can play our part in halting the attacks and promoting peace.
So we have launched #Hayes4Gaza.
To put pressure on Israel to halt the bombing and to commit to peace we are launching a local campaign to boycott Israeli goods sold in this country. Many of these goods are from the Palestinian territories illegally occupied by the Israelis.
So we are calling upon people in our community when you shop locally check whether the goods you are buying are from Israel.
Use these websites www.inminds.co.uk/boycott-israe.php and www.boycottisraelnetwork.net Download the Buycott app onto your mobile phone to check whether a product is from Israel.
Ask your local shops to help us secure peace by not stocking any Israeli goods.
Ask your local shops to display the Poster:
“To Secure Peace, We Don’t Sell Israeli Goods.”
Tomorrow (Saturday) we are all meeting at 10 am at the bandstand in Hayes Town Centre to launch our local boycott campaign and to ask people to visit local shops to ask them to stop selling Israeli goods and to display a poster telling people that to promote peace they do not sell Israeli goods.
Please come along tomorrow.
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