Now that Labour Against the Witchhunt has gone, who is leading the charge against bogus anti-Semitism? Like many others on the left, pro-Palestine campaigner Pete Gregson was dismayed at the recent news that Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC voted) (by 23 votes to 14) against reinstating Jeremy Corbyn to the party. His crime? Pointing out that the scale of anti-Semitism has been dramatically overstated by opponents inside and outside the party, as well as by much of the media. But Corbyn was simply telling the truth. The interviewees featured in Bad News for Labour, published in 2019, thought that 25-40 per cent of party members had had complaints made about them for anti-Semitism. In fact, only 0.1 per cent had been investigated.

Those who have suffered for criticising Israel face an uphill struggle to regain their reputations as anti-racists. They may have lost round one, but need to be more prepared for round two. The Tory government proposes legislation outlawing local authorities and other public bodies who support Palestine from boycotting Israeli products. Those supporting the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and many against such a clear attack on our local democracy will likely face the slurs of anti-Semitism when they protest.

This will come from MPs who are Friends of Israel, and from groups such as Campaign Against Antisemitism and the Community Security Trust, backed by the Board of Deputies of British Jews. These agencies know that hysteria about anti-Semitism is their most potent weapon in convincing the British public into thinking that boycotting Israel is somehow wrong. With 36 per cent of Labour MPs in Labour Friends of Israel (LFI), including many highly influential ones – party leader Keir Starmer for example, Gregson foresees little opposition to the Tory plans in Westminster. (Notwithstanding last year’s conference motion in support of BDS, condemned by the Labour Friends of Israel chair as “morally repugnant”).

The current demonisation of Amnesty International for its report stating that Israel practises the crime of apartheid is a case in point. (Their 15-minute video summarising their findings, the “Israel Palestine Apartheid Explainer”, can be viewed below. 

BDS supporters need to give politicians and others supporting boycott the confidence to loudly criticise Israel, without fear of being condemned as antisemitic for so doing.

As we all know, the media love to publish tales of anti-Semitism; but there is a need to challenge the many false allegations around. For example, Pete Gregson was criticised by the Guardian for giving a speech on bogus anti-Semitism to the “Keep Talking” group in 2019. The newspaper declared that he had spoken at a meeting alongside holocaust deniers. When Gregson pointed out that he was the only one on the platform that evening and that a holocaust denier had simply asked a question from the audience, the Guardian argued that they were factually correct in that both had actually “spoken” at the meeting. It is this kind of ridiculous guilt by association that needs to be exposed. As Gregson and many others have found, the Independent Press Standards Organisation will rarely act around media slandering. The agency one would have hoped to take a stand, Liberty, steadfastly refuses to get involved.

Thousands have been driven from Labour for campaigning against Israel, and the Labour-affiliated Zionist Jewish Labour Movement continues to agitate for more. Party member numbers have fallen from some 530,000 at the height of Corbyn’s popularity to the 300,000 now. Campaigners believe it’s time to highlight to the wider public that there is little truth in these slurs of anti-Semitism; that the International Holocaust Remembrance alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism used for scapegoating is purposely skewed to undermine criticism of Israel. Therefore, Gregson and a dozen others are launching a new body to challenge the lies propounded by the Campaign Against Antisemitism. They are calling it the Campaign Against BOGUS Antisemitism, or CABA, for short.

CABA will be a volunteer-led group dedicated to exposing and countering bogus anti-Semitism – through education and championing those unjustly accused. It will outline how the IHRA has undermined our rights to speak on Israel, highlight legal battles lost and won, feature a “Rogues Gallery” of those slandered, clarifying what they have actually done to merit Zionist efforts to unjustly “cancel” them. It will endeavour to give support and advice to those who are being “investigated”. It will publish and distribute flyers in support of those attacked at events. It will promote awareness of the Left Legal Fighting Fund. Through press releases and letter-writing campaigns, it will lobby politicians and the media, publishing articles exposing bogus allegations and the real motives of the bodies behind them. It will hold Zoom interviews featuring those in the firing line.

The initiative is being led by Gregson, frequently lambasted as anti-Semitic, but with no evidence ever presented. He was expelled as shop steward from his GMB union for criticising Israel and naming GMB organiser and accuser Rea Wolfson as a raving Zionist. (Wolfson has never met Gregson, but had been emailed by him in her capacity as a Constituency Labour Party representative on Labour’s NEC.) Co-campaigner Ken Loach was supportive at first, having watched Gregson’s video featuring Rabbi Cohen speaking against the expulsion. However, on being told by the GMB that Gregson had also said that Israel had exaggerated the holocaust for political ends, Loach withdrew his support and condemned Gregson as an anti-Semite. Loach appears to be using the much-derided IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, which declares such criticism of Israel to be anti-semitic.

When Labour adopted the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism in 2018, Gregson immediately set up a petition to Labour’s NEC declaring Israel to be a racist endeavour and seeking the rescinding of the definition. The petition now has the signatures of some 2,643 Labourists, with more signing daily. As a result, he, a Labour Party member of some 38 years, was suspended and subsequently left the party. With so many bogus anti-Semitism charges made against him for supporting Palestine, Gregson feels he has little to lose in spearheading the campaign. Others in CABA have suffered for criticising Israel too.

The CABA website at www.bogusanti-Semitism.org was initially blocked by Microsoft due, presumably, to a malicious complaint. Gregson appealed and the warning that Microsoft users saw on visiting the site was lifted. Gregson feels that this is likely to be the first of many attempts to shut the site down, but is determined to persist. He is inviting others to either join CABA (it’s free) or just sign up to an occasional newsletter.

CABA seeks to understand how our 650 MPs feel about the Amnesty International report and the resulting cries of anti-Semitism from some politicians; it has recently called for citizens to write to their MPs and feedback to CABA so that their views can be collated. 

More on the website at www.bogusanti-Semitism.org