Stop the Expulsion Proceedings Against Tony Greenstein, Jackie Walker and Marc Wadsworth

On 3rd October 2017, Professor Moshe Machover, an Israeli anti-Zionist was ‘auto-excluded’ from the Labour Party. Moshe’s offence was to write an ‘apparently anti-Semitic’ article quoting Reinhardt Heydrich in praise of the Zionist movement.  The article itself was true.

Moshe’s principal crime had been to write for Weekly Worker, paper of the Communist Party of Great Britain and speak at their conference. According to Sam Matthews of Labour’s Disputes Committee this indicated support for another organisation.  If Moshe had, like many Labour MPs, written for the Daily Mail or the Sun there would not have been a problem.

Because of the fierce reaction to Moshe’s expulsion, with dozens of Labour Party branches and CLPs passing motions condemning this exercise in McCarthyism, Machover’s expulsion was rescinded. According to Matthew’s ‘logic’ Jeremy Corbyn, a columnist for the Morning Star for 10 years, should also have been expelled! After Labour’s successful conference and its successes in the General Election, members were not prepared to tolerate a renewed witch hunt by Labour’s General Secretary Iain McNicol or the Compliance Unit.

Members have made it very clear that they are sick and tired of supporters of the Palestinians and opponents of Israeli Apartheid being labelled as anti-Semitic. 

McNicol’s witch hunters haven’t given up though. On October 31st the Jewish Chronicle, as a result of a leak from Labour HQ, wrote that Tony Greenstein, Jackie Walker and Marc Wadsworth were going to be facing expulsion imminently. 

On November 2nd Tony Greenstein, a Jewish anti-Zionist and an active anti-fascist, author of the Fight Against Fascism in Brighton (reviewed here) was informed that he would be going to the National Constitutional Committee within 5 weeks. 

It is over 20 months since Tony was suspended and 17 months since his Investigation Meeting yet the NCC have refused to allow him more time to respond to a 190 page dossier despite having been in hospital when he was notified of the hearing.

Tony has been targeted by the Jewish Labour Movement, ‘sister party’ of the Israeli Labour Party. One charge is posting on his blog ‘offensive and derisory’ comments accusing Louise Ellman MP of being a “supporter of Israeli child abuse”.  

On January 16 2016 there was a debate in the House of Commons on Israel’s treatment of Palestinian children. The debate revolved around a UNICEF Report which recorded that Palestinian children experienced treatment akin to torture as well as sexual abuse. During the debate Ms Ellman intervened three times to justify the Israeli Military’s behaviour in gaoling children as young as 9, using physical coercion and depriving them of access to their parents or a lawyer something no Israeli Jewish child would face.  The military courts trying them have a 99.7% conviction rate.

Tony Greenstein is accused of ‘anti-Semitism’ but his charges relate to his criticism of Israel not Jews. According to Professor Brian Klug of Oxford University ‘‘antisemitism is a form of hostility to Jews as Jews, where Jews are perceived as something other than what they are.’  Anti-Semitism has nothing to do with criticism of Zionism or Israel.

We demand that the principles of natural justice and due process, as recommended by the Chakrabarti Report, are adhered to and that the proposed expulsions of Tony Greenstein, Jackie Walker and Marc Wadsworth are withdrawn. 

As Alexei Sayle noted: 

 ‘most of the people who have been suspended from the Labour Party seem to be Jewish’ Sky TV interview