Clampdown on Social Media in Britain

When several thousand Muslims crowded into Downing Street to protest the latest anti-Muslim cartoons published by Charlie Hebdo magazine, it was an angry and indignant protest.  But as with gunman breaking into a Paris office and murdering cartoonists, it was a display of powerlessness and political impotence more than anything else.

If you wanted to see real power at work, you only needed to just click on the BBC where it was revealed that an All Parliamentary Inquiry into Anti-semitism had resolved to introduce legislation outlawing “anti-semitism” on social media.

The cross-party inquiry wants prosecutors to examine whether prevention orders like those used to restrict sex offenders’ internet access could be used against “anti-semites”. With the weight and power of the organised Jewish lobby behind it, this now stands a good chance of becoming law and thus another avenue of criticism about Jewish power could be about to be closed off in Britain.

Predictably, the BBC put an optimal spin on this, saying that the Muslims too could benefit as they are under attack from Islamophobes. All this is less than two years after the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby and only a month after Charlie Hebdo.

Indeed, the environment for free speech of all kinds continues to deteriorate in the UK. Just today the Guardian reports that police are questioning newsdealers to get the names and addresses of people who bought the first post-massacre issue of Charlie Hebdo.

After demanding that the laws of the land be changed for the convenience of a community of less than a quarter of a million, the Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis continued to up his demands. He wants “a government fund to be set up to cover the costs of security at synagogue. Fresh research on identifying and explaining anti-semitic language and finally, guidance for teachers on how to handle the Middle East conflict in the classroom” — the last presumably a plea to make the talking points of the Israeli right part of the British school curriculum.

It is interesting to note that the only piece of political violence in Britain of any note recently was inflicted by Jewish Zionists against the pro-Palestinian MP George Galloway. Far-leftist Galloway is one of the oddities of British politics. He was a Labour MP for decades until he was pushed out of the party because of his opposition to the Iraq war. He is now effectively a one-man band and represents an overwhelmingly Muslim constituency in Bradford. He is anti-White and usually to the fore when Muslim issues are concerned, whether it is Guantanamo, education or anything else. While no friend of White nationalist causes, he is a relentless and unstinting critic of Israel on the Palestinian issue.

His strange place in the political firmament — a critic of Israel from  the left — allows him a certain amount of latitude on the political scene. His appearance on BBC’s Question Time was one to remember, not least  because the organised Jewish community tried to get him thrown off the panel, saying it was insensitive to Jews.

He got a rough ride as can be seen in this video from about 39 minutes in. Why is anti-semitism rising in the UK?  The moment he opens his mouth he is shouted down, which shows the limits of discourse about Israel: only from the left and then in only a very circumscribed manner.

He described how he had been assaulted on the street (a Jew has been jailed for the attack) and, while being strongly heckled,  says to the Jews in the audience:

You are in favour of some political violence and against some political violence. You are in favour of freedom of speech for some people but not for all people. Not a single Jewish community spokesman or newspaper has condemned the assaults on me … for which one man has been imprisoned and two fined.

Indeed so. Here is Ben Cohen, an analyst for JNS (Jewish and Israel News).org, in a ‘reflection’ on the Galloway assault:

I will readily admit that, like many Jews, my reaction to the news was one of unbridled joy, tempered by the guilty realization that, in a democracy, violence is rightly frowned upon as a means of dealing with one’s political opponents. However distasteful someone’s views—and Galloway’s views are, without question, highly distasteful—there are legal and constitutional channels available to challenge them.

And here is some more nobility and humanity from the Jewish Press blog. And if you think this is bad, then go and read the comments underneath it.

Galloway has been released from the hospital, but it is doubtful that the attacker was able to beat some sense into his head. The MP, who has built his political career on loving Saddam Hussein and Hamas and hating Jews and Israel, was posing for pictures in west London Friday night when the attacker jumped on him while calling him “Hitler.”

The name of his one-MP party is Respect, which indicates his ignorance of the English language.  The party’s name is a very contrived acronym for Respect, Equality, Socialism, Peace, Environmentalism, Community and Trade Unionism. A more accurate acronym would be “Racist, Extremist, Satanic, Pisher, Ethnic=hating, Crude and Twisted.

We wish Galloway a speedy recovery and hope that some of the medicine he needs is made in Israel.

And remember the Rev Stephen Sizer, the vicar who was suspended from his job after he tweeted his scepticism about Israel and 9/11? Well the joint Board of Jewish Deputies/ Church of England investigation has decided to be lenient on him. He will keep his job but is banned from using social media for six months.

The Diocese of Guildford launched an investigation after the Church of England vicar posted a link to an article entitled “9/11: Israel did it”, and reportedly wrote: “It raises so many questions.” Doubtless the fulsome apology from the Rev Sizer helped him to hang onto his job.

This sustained clampdown on social media is reminiscent of what happened in France in 2013 when French Jewry effectively forced Twitter to begin censoring content critical of Jewish power in that country.

A  Jewish student union asked Twitter to reveal information that could be used to identify what they insisted on calling “anti-semitic” tweeters. Twitter refused; the social-media company prides itself on its protection of free speech, and argued that taking down the individual tweets was enough. The student group took the case to court. Twitter lost and a civil court in Paris ruled that the company must hand over the names, or other identifying information, of the users who had tweeted anti-semitic content, so that they can be prosecuted.

And of course TOO readers will only too readily remember the case of the 21-year-old Merseyside man Garron Helm who made fun of a Jewish female MP who was crowing about Labour’s mass immigration policy. Twitter not only revealed Garron Helm’s identity but he was jailed for a month. For his tweets.

Forget a bloody massacre by unhinged desperadoes. Forcing Twitter to hand over user information, that is real power.