My take on anti, anti-Semitism Starmer

Thanks so much for this Mary.  So sorry - this has turned out to be rather long, instead of a brief acknowledgment!

SUMMARY:

Starmer, to be elected in 2024 must be so strongly anti-anti-Semitic that never again will Labour incur the ire of the Jewish community and our ally, the State of Israel.

I now realise it was inevitable, if ever elected Labour leader (the Shock/Horror of the Century), Corbyn's lifetime sympathy for the Palestinian cause meant that he was bound to be heavily targeted by strong, pro-Israel Labour MPs like Margaret Hodge and Ian Austin, together with our important friend and ally, the State of Israel.  The charge of anti-Semitism is so powerful and horrific with the Holocaust as the 'finest' example of racism, hatred and evil in the history of humankind that the Jewish community, like Margaret and Ian and so many Jewish Israelis, are only too happy to accuse people like me of anti-Semitism so that I/we are never tempted to go down that road to the ultimate Nazi genocide, once again.  'Anti-Semitism' is such an emotive, powerful and so convenient a word to use against me and is a word that no other minority group has.  'Anti-British' or 'anti-black' seems rather tame in comparison.

It looks to me as though Keir Starmer is so anxious to avoid being called an anti-Semite himself that he has to be seen as being a very, very strong anti, anti-Semite by calling both Abbott and Corbyn anti-Semitic.  In the process, I think it makes him look so foolish that he most certainly will not get my vote.

Peter Ustinov once said, I believe, that "the Jews were the first victims of the Nazis and the Palestinians are the second."  And the Nazis were born out of the wreckage of the most stupid and unnecessary war in the history of poor, heaving humanity.  That war was promulgated in the 1914 Cabinet by our very own enthusiastic, war-promoting politician in July and August of that year.  Yet, this man was elected as the UK's Greatest Briton in a BBC TV poll in 2002 (no black Britons and only 13 out of 100 were women).

I don't think there is an anti-Semite bone in either Diane Abbott, Ken Livingstone or Jeremy Corbyn but they, and loony left-wingers like me, are bound to be attacked because we are firm friends of the Jewish people.  As a result, we hate the violent and expansionist policies of the State of Israel that subjugate the Palestinians and so turn them into enemies of Israel with never-ending violence.

Linda and I have Messianic Christian friends who are never prepared to even question or have qualms about the frightful policies of the Israeli government because only Israel has some divine/God-like approval as His One and Only Chosen People out of 193 member states in the UN.  It gives Israel carte blanche to do as it likes because God is on their side.  But, where was Almighty God for the many years of horrors suffered by the Jews in the 1930s and 40s?  Or, did God finally act in 1945 in the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany after six million of His Chosen People had been slaughtered?  Thus, God finally saved them and gave them their home in Palestine that they first fought over and violently won, as the Promised Land, nearly 3,000 years ago, as recounted in the books of Exodus, Joshua and Judges.  But, in 1948, the State of Israel won the Promised Land back through, in 1947/48, very smart dealing, certainly opportunism, coercion with violence against British armed forces and, before the international community had given its blessing - everyone else was fast asleep!  

Here endeth my jaundiced, alternative, non-Biblical Lesson on current affairs.  Dare I send it to our 'Who's Who' Tony who is the family expert on history and a good Christian?!  (I have in the past with my writings on our regional and, indeed, national transport tragedy)

On Inverclyde, anti-Semitism and moles

You have such a beautiful home and I much enjoyed talking to you about our two families, Scotland, politics and much else.

On politics, I was aghast, yesterday at Keir Starmer taking the Labour whip away from Diane Abbott for simply expressing a point of view that should be heard and not punished, I think.  There are degrees of racism, of course, although not one minority group wants to be downgraded from suffering racism to suffering only prejudice and discrimination!  Starmer acted out of all proportion over first a former and, for me, a highly respected Labour leader who was correct in what he said and, now over Abbott.  But, what do you think?  I'm not the best person to pontificate, however, because I have also been called an anti-Semite by former Labour and Dudley North MP, Ian Austin, so perhaps I should be whipped, hung, drawn and quartered into obedience, too.

On the day I left where the car was parked, I took the bus to Johnston, a second, electric bus this time, from there to Largs for lunch in Wetherspoons; a third from Largs, via Gourock to Port Glasgow to get my final bus to Kilmacolm with a slow walk back to the car.  The locals were a great help in doing a wonderful bus tour and all for £8.40 to cover the two zones.  What a beautiful library and community centre in Kilmacolm, too that I was not expecting at all!

Another day saw me walk along the Clyde cycle-walkway from Central Station to the Science Centre and, on another day, I cycled the Greenock Cut that I had never heard of until you told me, John about the regional park and their very fine Visitors' Centre.

The exhibition in the centre was about the 1827 engineering response to what was their equivalent of our climate emergency today. Their economic growth/greed led to misery, disease, death but one wealthy man, Robert Thom got it sorted for that Clydebank town. But, it only enabled yet more growth/greed at the expense of nature!

I got home last night after my final night at the Westmorland Hotel, Tebay and a very slow circular walk only to come across these moles hung out to dry near to where two major paths cross at Orton, Cumbria.​

 32 moles hung out to dry.jpg

​Have you ever seen anything like it?  Cumbrian farmers killing not just foxes and badgers but, moles, too!  Have they not heard of animal euthanasia if they really have to be slaughtered, that I doubt?

I hope my tendon will have healed to get some more hills visited in the Southern Uplands in the summer!

Many thanks for everything and very best wishes

to Bishop Martin Gorick - does discipleship involve challenging, querying Dudley's decisions?

"The church playing its part in the regeneration of Britain’s heartland in the West Midlands"  Bishop Martin

Would it be possible, please to have a little time with Bishop Martin to discuss the recent past that has brought about these ideas of mine, below?  I was the old man in the yellow cycling jacket that approached you at the close of yesterday's lovely service.

My wife and I attend Hasbury Christian Fellowship in Halesowen.  When Bishop David Walker was in residence, I attended a weekly Bible study over the years that some took turns to host.  It included Bishop's House that David's wife, Sue hosted.

1.   Regeneration of Dudley town centre by encouraging Dudley Muslim Association to go, once again, for a purpose built Dudley Central Mosque.  To replace the shabby, disgraceful looking, down at heel Victorian primary school building they have to use.

2.   Regeneration of Dudley town centre with the reinstated 120 Kms principal mainline railway on the full 56 Kms for the commuter, regional, intercity trains between Worcester, the Black Country and Derby; instead of the 10.7 Kms tram line that is due to go through Dudley bus station and down Flood Street.  Still time for a rethink.

3.   Regeneration of Dudley town centre with highly well insulated, energy efficient, small to medium size housing for the badly housed, for those on benefit or low incomes and, first time buyers and renters.  At Flood Street instead of having the relocated Dudley Leisure Centre from Wellington Road to Flood St.  All of a 1 Km walk away, Google maps told me! 

4.   Responding to the climate emergency by asking for cycle-walkways down both sides of the Dudley Southern Bypass.

5.   The major 22 Kms Black Country Cycle-Walk Mudway for fossil fuel free transport from Brierley Hill DY5 Enterprise Zone to NW Wolverhampton.

6.   Major Jewish/Israeli concern over holocaust denial and antisemitism but much less concern over very poor relationships with Palestinians/Arabs/Muslims.  Would one help the other?

7.   Bishop Martin's opinion on why the railway line between Stratford and Honeybourne was never reopened.  Or, is it more useful as a cycle-walkway, NCR5 and as a main road? 

Any chance, please?  I would like to hear what he thinks.  To get feedback and to see if there is any support for these ideas.  A one off chat about Dudley politics and priorities!  The Bible in one hand and the daily news feed in the other, following Archbishop William Temple.

With best wishes and every blessing to you both

Justin Welby said, "anti-Semitism is a very unique thing."

Archbishop Justin Welby said, "anti-Semitism is a very unique thing" because (my unique interpretation) it shows you are not fit for high office because you are a friend of "tax collectors and sinners" (Luke 7 v 34) and the hated Samaritans = friend of Irish republicans, of Palestinians and Gazans, to put it in modern dress.  Which very unpopular politician could I be thinking of?

The man was too much pro the poor, the oppressed and the underdog for the British electorate on the 12 December 2019.  Far too sceptical of British military interventions and too enthusiastic for UN settlements, peace keeping missions and for the upholding of international law.

He always maintained that he was anti anti-Semitism but the mud stuck.  He was never believed.
He was anti killing of Gazans and Palestinians but that certainly did not help him when it was Israelis doing the killing.  A very unwise move, indeed.
He was anti killing of people to stop them killing because he was once Chair of Stop the War Coalition.
He was anti militarisation of diplomacy - Afghanistan and Iraq where the West couldn't wait for the UN weapons inspectors to finish their work.  Too desperate for war to let the inspectors to finally and irrevocably declare that Saddam Hussein did not have a single WMD.  The most successful Labour leader in our history, along with an American President, knew better than the gullible weapons inspectors.  But it was the inspectors and Corbyn who turned out to be right, after all.

It reflects badly on my nation that the only Labour leader who won three successive General Elections in a row left parts of the Middle East in turmoil.  Still to this day.  And, Muslims taking revenge on our streets - to this day.
It reflects badly on my nation that this latest Labour leader, who never really wanted the job but found it was thrust upon him, lost two successive General Elections because he was not sufficiently militaristic and war like and, tough like Blair.  Yet, he was shown to have been in the right over our foreign wars.  But, he was branded a Stalinist, a terrorist sympathiser and an anti-Semite because, as an MP, he voted against every foreign war our nation engaged in.
This man stood up for the UN, the rule of law and the International Court of Justice at the Hague.
He wanted war as a last resort, would not retaliate if our nation was attacked with WMD.  Therefore, he was dismissed as unpatriotic, weak, an evil appeaser, a pathetic pacifist and, a friend of the worst kind of people - our enemies.

Being pro Israel and anti antisemitic is very important for the West.  After all, Israel is our flagship state in the Arab/Muslim Middle East.  Robustly on the side of Team America, perhaps even more than ourselves.  Jews are amongst the very top people in our society.  Therefore, to be critical of Israel, in anyway, is to be disloyal to one's own Western culture and nation.  A security risk.  Disloyal.  Certainly, antisemitic.

They say you can be critical of Israel without being anti-Semitic but I have tried.  Ian Austin the former Labour and then Independent MP said I am anti-Semitic for expressing dismay that our UK Jewish community is more up in arms about antisemitism than their compatriots killing and injuring Gazans in rather large numbers.  It is a clever way to intimidate into silence people's legitimate horrors of, too often, Israel's behaviour towards their neighbours.  Neighbours to whom they should be Good Samaritans - and vice versa, of course.

Clearly, because our top ranking Jewish friends look just like us good white Brits, their sufferings, their Holocaust and that genocide must be put on a pedestal far above any other suffering, or persecution, or racism or genocide.  Israel and all the Jewish community are very special, after all.  They deserve special treatment, as the people of the Bible and with their sufferings in the Shoah (that we Western 'Christians' was responsible for).  Antisemitism deserves tougher treatment than with Islamophobia against the Muslims.  Only prejudice/hatred against the Jewish community must be placed in a unique and top category of racism.

Hence, for the Archbishop, antisemitism "is a unique category of racism ... not the same as other types of racism."  "It's the taproot of all other forms of racism."  "Anti-Semitism is the longest existing and (has given the) worst results of any kind of racism that we have experienced in Europe in the last thousand years. ... So it has a category all of its own."   'The Big Issue - Christmas Special', December 2019.

Anti-semitism is a product of Israeli behaviour to the stranger in its midst

Or, I think, it is a direct correlation to its partly justifiable paranoia that for 67 years has meant periodic bouts of aggression towards the surrounding countries that never agreed to a Jewish state in the heart of the Arab/Muslim Middle East.  A Middle East dominated by the Great Powers, first at the beginning of the 20th century, that was intensified as the Christian West and their empires tightened their hold on the rich oil fields that were so essential for their wars and, from 1945, their ever richer, oil addicted life styles.

In the inter-war years, the UK had the mandate to govern Palestine.  From '45 to '47 Jewish terrorist gangs,with the help of American mercanaries, fought the British Army.  So we saw the State of Israel born out of terrorism, as the Jewish Gerald Kaufman MP once said on 'Any Questions' many years ago.  Since 1948, Israel has been part of the Christian West.  Hence, the Judeo-Christian world has thrown its weight about on holy Muslim soil for the last 67 years with all our many wars and coups.  No wonder, militant, extremist, radical Islam is now the whirlwind of barbarity that was sown by the brutality of domination from the disobedient Christian West.  I say disobedient because of their Master's somewhat different attitude and teaching.  Yet, obedient when it came to Old Testament ethics and the violent jihad and genocide that we read about as Israel claimed Canaan for itself, the first time round, two and a half thousand years ago or more.

For me, anti-semitism is as unacceptable as Islamaphobia and homophobia.  But, for true, born again Christians, love of Israel and the Jews is a lot more prominent than love for Muslims and gays! 

Ben and Sharon

The Liverpool couple, Ben and Sharon, this week, shows that evangelical Christians do seem to have a problem with Islam. A problem, too, with homosexuals, Catholics, evolution and with those who want abortion brought within the law. At one time, it was Jews that Christians had a problem with. Anti-Semitism was rife in Europe. It culminated in Nazism and World War part 2. Now, evangelicals have a special warmth for Jews and Israel, convinced that their divine destiny is wrapped up with their own and the return of Christ. Israel must be specially favoured (and armed to the teeth) by Christians and the West because God does favour His chosen people, Israel. God has promised all Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza to the people of Israel (actually, much more extensive area of land in Joshua 1v4) and no-one can get out of that one or, that God runs the world to fulfill His promises in the Bible.

Once, it was protestant Christian America that believed it was their manifest destiny from the Lord who gave them all the land from the Atlantic to the Pacific. That belief drove them ever onwards and outwards to drive out the Indians, the Spanish and the French. The religious right in Israel is doing the same to this day - claiming, owning and settling ever more of the Lord's promised land. After all, it was promised only to themselves! Non-violence and sharing are alien concepts to these believers!

Yet, for me, the week began with my sitting in the prayer chapel at Russells Hall Hospital in Dudley reading the first three or four pages of the Koran and being astonished at how much the Koran has in common with the Bible. The children of Israel were mentioned, being steadfast in prayer and that Allah is merciful. However, little of this aspect of God seems to be shown by the religious right in the Holy Land who behave in such an unholy way; yet, Jews, Christians and Muslims are all the children of Abraham - and, like everyone else, are all part of the one human family!