antisemitism,  Labour Party

Sameh Habeeb and Labour’s Nadir

Here is a description of ugly antisemitic abuse:

On the train going from London to Manchester one day, an English man and a Jew were having a heated debated [sic]. The English guy seemed to be very angry and abhorred the notion of Jewish separatism in Manchester. He literally said that, “You are a Jew not English. You don’t have a loyalty to England but for your own nationalism.”

Pretty nasty, right? Not for Sameh Habeeb, though, oh no. He uses this passage to illustrate the thinking of the notorious antisemite and Holocaust denier Gilad Atzmon. Writing for Palestine Telegraph, a vicious and crude antisemitic website Habeeb founded, directed and edited, in a paean to Atzmon he says:

Maybe Gilad is very wise to elaborate on the issue of separatism, as it’s [sic] really seems to be deep in the Jewish Dogma. This view can be supported by the calls for a Jewish state. A state built on the Jewish race is a larger example of that which occurred on the train.

You see, Habeeb is pleased to report that Atzmon has the Jews’ number:

The Wandering Who is a courageous book that vividly clears the dust on many issues concerning Israel. It really guides non-Jews to an understanding of the politics behind the Jewish identity.

This is just one episode in Habeeb’s stupendously horrific career. Another which will give you the measure of the man is Palestine Telegraph promoting an antisemitic tirade of David Duke, the racist former KKK leader. This was too much even for Jenny Tonge, who resigned as a Palestine Telegraph patron after the Duke video was published.

For his part, Habeeb remains keen on Tonge and disgraced politicians David Ward and Lord Ahmed too.

There’s much more. Here are some samples from the record.

And this is what Palestine Telegraph thought of this blog – we are an evil Jewish monster. Well done us!

Habeeb puts his base thought into political action on the ground as well as web poison. For many years, he worked for the Palestinian Return Centre, a London outfit that is closely linked to Hamas.

Habeeb also has a line in the lowest grade of fake news, entertainingly reviewed here by Brian Whitaker.

Who would have time for such a man? The dodgy website Middle East Eye is certainly very keen.

And so is the Labour party. Mr Habeeb is a local council candidate in the May elections.

This news prompted Dave Rich of the CST to make a good point:

Rich also situated Mr Habeeb’s operation nicely in the hatred spectrum, saying:

I can’t think of a single UK far right website that was as brazenly antisemitic as Palestine Telegraph at that time.

Is this Labour’s nadir? Habeeb is at the bottom of the deepest of pits, but if there is one field in which Britain’s biggest racist party really excels, it is digging deeper still.


Jeremy Corbyn with Sameh Habeeb (second from right) at a meeting of the self-styled Palestine Solidarity Campaign.