Harry’s Place

Stupid is as stupid does.

Ooppppss! I screwed up. I thought I was a victim but apparently its suicide.

As you ask… The Cambridge Forum is one of the least offensive, least contenscious progressive groupings you might come across normally. It is essentially a monthly meeting with some left/liberal topic - quite often on an environmental theme. The last controversy it had was a couple of years ago when it basically had a pro-nuclear environmentalist speak about climate change… and it’s stretching it to really call that a controversy.

It’s not a campaign group or part of a political party - and generally seems to set speakers by who’s willing to organise one (although this may have changed recently, don’t know)

However the Atzmon thing is different and I’ve had quite few conversations with people in Cambridge before the debate about it - personally I didn’t go (but I haven’t been for some time so shouldn’t be seen as a boycott as such) but I know a number of people were worried about the fact he was due to speak. I had more than one distressed phone call on the theme, although I can’t speak to how well he went down on the night.

One last thing just noticed this in the text: “Clearly, and this must be said, Jews are not necessarily Zionists. They can also be… ordinary human beings” Wow! Jews? Human beings! That’s amazing.

That’s quite a big admission …

I recommend reading Norman Geras on Shaw. He simply shreds him. Great stuff.

Jim Jay, thanks for your info on The Cambridge Forum.

http://www.cambridgeforum.org/cfweb/cfschedule.html

Looking into it, I cannot believe that they (a) they hosted Gilad Atzmon at all, and (b) they let him get away with the crap that he came out with.

Check this one out:

“Interestingly enough, Michael Howard, the ex-Tory leader, though being a Jew, never had come across as a Zionist or a Jewish tribal operator. He was a proud Jew, he would even pepper his political arguments with some Yiddish family tales and the odd misery schmaltz, however, as a political leader he went beyond it all. He was an ordinary man like many other Brits. It never appeared as if he was about to sacrifice the interests of Britain to serve some foreign tribal interests. Blair, on the other hand, is not a Jew, but he consciously sacrificed the interests of Britain while being financed by Levy and his proxy tycoons. Bush did the same by implementing the mantra of his Greenspans and Wolfowitzes.”

The Cambridge Forum seems a worthy, serious-minded affair. It records its speakers for public radio broadcast. Did they really broadcast Atzmon’s speech? Unbelievable.

Would you follow up with the Cambridge Forum and let me know who I can talk to about this event?

Davidt.harryblog@gmail.com

Oxford:

Do you have a link?

Nice to see that the greatest economic turmoil in three generations hasn’t affected this blog’s focus on the all-important issue of demonizing insignificant idiots like Atzmon or laying into the dullard Trots of the SWP. Perhaps one day this wannabe, piss-poor excuse for a tabloid muck-raker will actually attempt to become what it claims to be, a forum for political discussion. We can live in hope, not the least that its regular contributors will receive the urgent medical help they so obviously need for the online OCD.

This is outrageous - isn’t this the 21st century?

I feel, reading this, as though I’ve stepped backwards in time, into the Dark Ages, into the worst days just before WWII - when once again, even the so-called intelligentsia were openly antisemitic.

In combination with other article posted here, about the extremists and the British MP’s, and of course our own dear Jesse Jackson, and of course the horrific UN - where people applaud the Hitlerian Ahmadijenad - this is not something that can be lightly ignored or brushed aside as unimportant fringe blather anymore. It’s becoming mainstream.

There’s another aspect to this kind of hate and it’s showing up here in the US, in the form of mob incitement by the McCain campaign. Up until recently one would have said the far left blogosphere was the site of the worst bigotry and irrationality - of course they often unknowingly overlap with the equally awful far right, like the KKK and Stormfront. One theoretically leftist “artist” portrays Jews morphing into Hitler and he too appears to be pushing the idea that the US, including its economy, is controlled by Jewish power - a classically far right wing concept. Unfortunately his work appears on theoretically progressive websites.

Recent news clips have shown angry, guttural mobs growling epiteths about Senator Obama, it’s a picture of irrational raw hate and ignorance that chills my blood. People in one clip angrily demand that Palin and McCain stop the “socialist”, in others Sarah Palin accuses Obama of “palling around with terrorists,” he is introduced as “Barack Hussein Obama,” as though his middle name were a curse - and there have been open threats against his life, shouted from the crowd.

I don’t care if you are a Democrat or a Republican, if you a thoughtful human being this should scare you. It should be openly condemned.

And meanwhile, I’ve got to ask our British cousins - good lord - how did it get this far?

Recent news clips have shown angry, guttural mobs growling epiteths about Senator Obama

No they haven’t, recent clips have shown just one person, at one rally, being a jerk. A jerk who has been roundly condemned for his bigotry by supporters of McCain.

The “mobs” you speak of were made up by the likes of Daily Kos and you are simply parroting what you have read there. You readily accept the wet-dream nightmares of these liberal bigots because they fit your own prejudices to a “T”.

Yeeeeeah. I’m sure many of us here have been waiting for the antisemitic explanations of the current financial state to trickle through to the average twat. Thing is it’s not too small a deal Dawn Chorus cos this stuff gets into the consciousness of potentially nice people, and they believe it. The public’s skepticism over the obvious truths about 11th September 2001 should worry you enough. When people are prepared to believe any old shit, you must admit it’s worrying when, once again, they believe that the Jews are to blame.

Thing is it’s not too small a deal Dawn Chorus cos this stuff gets into the consciousness of potentially nice people, and they believe it.

If by “potentially nice people” you mean the ordinary Joe in the street, I think you are wrong. Antisemitism of this kind has very little influence there. But certainly amongst the political Left it has had a great impact, because they are already predisposed to see the world as a conspiracy by a minority against the people. That’s why the so-called “socialism of fools” was remarked upon by the likes of Bebel as far back as the 19th century. What is difficult to explain is why “potentially nice” left-wingers imagine it could ever be anything different, given the centuries-old deep grooves that their limited trains of thought move along.

What utter nonsense. I was at the Cambridge talk. Atzmon is a revolutionary thinker and an emotive orator. Since then I follow his writings with google alert. This is how I happened upon your vile neocon den. It is about time you realise that neocon racists calling a humanist a ‘neo Natzi’ just doesn’t cut it. I just checked Atzmon’s Credit Crunch paper on google and it appears on over 4000 entries which, as far as I can see, are all leftist humanist sites. If I were you I would graciously admit defeat.

However, you want to know how the talk went? Atzmon addressed a full room with a 1 hour talk, followed by questions. Atzmon addressed every single question with the utmost respect and disentangled the differentiations between Jews and Zionists. There was not a whiff of racism in a single remark. None of us had the slightest doubt that the man is humanist. Some of us even followed him to the train station.

I would suggest to you that the amount of bile and energy you expunge on Atzmon is a tragic waste. His popularity is growing by the day, in his concerts, talks and readership.

Good luck, Shana Tova and Gmar Hatima Tova (I happen to have a Jewish wife)

Wow, you learn something new every day…

… Up to now I had no idea that the Icelanders, who seem to have spent all my money, were all Jews.

sorry the other thread is dead. Perhaps davidt will offer a response:

#This is a tendency common to certain white liberals, Islamists, and out and out Islamophobes. They read a piece that, coming from a Christian, Jew, athiest - even Hindu or Sikh - they’d find repellent. However, if it comes from a Muslim, they treat it as the mark of authenticity.

It is noble savagery.
#

The Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph ran the following stories:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-560231/Public-pool-bars-father-son-Muslim-swimming-session.html

Public pool bars father and son from its ‘Muslim-only’ swimming session

A father and his five-year-old son were turned away from their local swimming pool because they were the wrong religion.
David Toube, 39, and his son Harry were told that the Sunday morning session was reserved for Muslim men only.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1895962/%27Non-Muslim%27-father-banned-from-London-pool.html

‘Non-Muslim’ father banned from London pool

By Graham Tibbetts
Last Updated: 2:24AM BST 21 Apr 2008

A father has described his anger after he and his son were refused entry to their local swimming pool because they weren’t Muslims.

The pool also has sessions only for Haredi jewish women

“David Toube is experiencing great problems trying to go for a swim with his son at Clissold Leisure Centre at Stoke Newington, North London. He turned up one Sunday morning only to find that the pool operated a women only policy on Sunday mornings, mainly to meet the needs of Haredi Jewish women. ”
http://athinkingman.wordpress.com/2008/04/20/pandering-to-apartheid/

Now DavidT (David Touble) intially the story appeared in the Jewish Chronicle and concerned your wife- somehow the link to the Jewish Chronicle story stated “page not found”. You also write for the Jewish chronicle.

Could I ask if you cynically engineered the story about being refused entry to swimming pool becuase you were not a muslim after you wife had been refused intially, given you did not report or make a fuss about not being allowed entry to swimming pool becuase you were not a haredi jewish women?

Perhaps you can link to the story that appeared in Jewish chronicle about your wife and the swimming pool or explain why the link states page not found?

here is the link to JC and the first story:

http://www.thejc.com/home.aspx?ParentId=m11s18&SecId=18&AId=57632&ATypeId=1

David T in “stunt worthy of Galloway” shocker!

I think, to be frank, that we have reached a point at which the thesis that Jews control international finance, foreign governments, communism, and the media, has again become mainstream in parts of the Left.

The variation of this theory - like most conspiracy theories - has the world’s Jews divided into conspirators and dupes. The conspirators are described as ‘Zionists’.

Any attempt to protest or question this thesis will merely endorse it. It will show how Jews use false claims of racism to silence this ‘truth’.

You can expect absolutely no assistance in fighting this racism from groups like Unite Against Fascism, because they also subscribe to a variant of this thesis.

Now, how is it that this marginal neo Nazi managed to be invited as an honoured guest to an apparently middle of the road left-liberal group like this?

This is entirely the consequence of Atzmon’s promotion in the US by journals like Counterpunch, and the SWPs advocacy of Atzmon over the past 4 years.

The SWP will never ever admit this.

But it is true.

Anybody else here want to argue that Atzmon isn’t a Nazi?

Koppers -
it’s the link posted by David:

http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2008/10/on-the-furthest-shaw.html

Jim

I’m not sure what point you are making, but I fear you may be a lunatic.

Well, well, well… what else is there to say?

Capitalism´s collapsing.

George and Gilad are Socialists

I don’t know; cant think of anything else to say Fabian.

will any SWPer be bold (or revolutionary) enough to admit that Gilad Atzmon is a complete anti-Jewish racist?

I doubt it

that site and comments thread are very weird, like neo-nazi central on heat

Perhaps somebody could ask Professor Shaw if he identifies this as the anti-semitism that he thinks is absent in Palestinian solidarity politics?

Nice to see that the greatest economic turmoil in three generations hasn’t affected this blog’s focus on the all-important issue of demonizing insignificant idiots like Atzmon or laying into the dullard Trots of the SWP.

Well, kindly fuck off, then and find one of the myriad news outlets on the Internet which is.

David T,

you might also ask if these people will still be supporting Atzmon’s racism?

http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2008/02/09/petition-support-gilad-atzmon-and-mary-rizzo/

The following presentation is an effort to disentangle the horrifying tribal plot that accidentally led towards the destruction of the American Empire and Western financial hegemony.

Can’t see any disentangling only a row of unproven assertions that there is a mysterious conspiracy by Zionists, a rather incoherent rambling.

One does wonder how the destruction of the American Empire and Western financial hegemony benefit the Zionists tribal plotters.

At the very least, it is contradictory about the myth of Jewish capitalists financing the Bolsheviks. Why on earth would they do that, since the Bolshevik Revolution expropriated both gentile and Jewish capitalist property alike, and made them the property of the Soviet state?

Because they’re manipulative, devious buzzards who just 25 years later sacrificed millions of the fellow Jews for political gain? Do try to keep up!

In other news, Zhang Ziyi is to marry Israeli venture capitalist, Avi Nevo. China and Zionists? What does Andy Newman think?

How exactly do you ‘demonize’ a demented antisemite?

And … I suspect if Shaw has been unable to spot antisemitism by now, he’ll never spot it. And even if he does, he’ll never admit it, for obvious reasons.

Nearly, Tutu’s anti-fascist credentials are a damn sight stronger than yours. Don’t think we haven’t noticed your going from lover or appeaser of antisemites to demented antisemite himself.

Oh, different thread! Sorry, it’s so hard to tell the difference between Nearly’s individual screeds.

“I would suggest to you that the amount of bile and energy you expunge on Atzmon is a tragic waste. His popularity is growing by the day, in his concerts, talks and readership.”

And he’s really helping us through the credit crunch by slashing the price of his records.

David, isn’t it time to ask Alec, ever so nicely, to post less or even to bugger off completely? You must have noticed how he follows me from thread to thread, and posts personally abusive stuff about me in response to my perfectly innocuous comments. I do understand that he has nothing else to give meaning to his sorry life, but even being humane to such creatures must have its limits, surely …
Just a modest proposal, of course.

Another Jewish plot!

Incidentally, there’s also a theory spreading online that Lehman sent billion to Israel, and that’s why it collapsed

Please don’t feud online. Thx.

Oh, put a sock in it, you stupid little child. Your repellent, abusive rants have become simply pathetic.

I notice how you deftly changed the subject when I asked if you were Mick Napier; coming out with an non-sequitur about your having lived in Israel. Granted I will have missed some of your comments, but I am certain you would have touted this more than once had it been true or had you thought of it before. What you forget is that at HP we’re well accustomed to the histrionics of mediocre lecturers (even those who worked for 20 years in two countries) who probably ain’t even research active. We know bullshitters when we see them.

Although you do have the same social skills, and tendency to pepper your posts with abusive epithets, as John Wight, he at least posts under his real name. Napier, as I recall, avoided committing to e-mail like the plague and was a former English lit (?) lecturer for BAe.

Of course, your actual name doesn’t matter. However, I have got the strong impression that you home in on me with a particular passion, as the time Wight asked me out. Furthermore, you are so consistently wrong on everything you opine on, so bombastic in your certitude that it is pertinent to wonder if you’re for real. It’s possible, I suppose, that you’re for real, and simply an ill-mannered, dim tosser as opposed to a deceitful, ill-mannered, dim tosser.

(Monty, are you aware that the First Lady of Iceland is a Bukharian Jew?)

Wight asked you out?

Was he paying?

Nah, he’s a cheap date. He asked me round to the next SPSC stall. He did call me an arsehole, which I thought was sweet.

“Atzmon addressed every single question with the utmost respect and disentangled the differentiations between Jews and Zionists. There was not a whiff of racism in a single remark. None of us had the slightest doubt that the man is humanist. Some of us even followed him to the train station.”

Atzmon,

“Clearly, and this must be said, Jews are not necessarily Zionists. They can also be humanists, universalists, ordinary human beings, plumbers, musicians, shopkeepers and even shoplifters. However, the Zionists amongst the Jews are very easy to trace. They always operate politically as Jews. They run Jewish lobbies, think tanks and pressure groups. For that matter, Jewish American Committee (JAC), AIPAC, Jews For Peace and Anti Zionist Jews are all different forms of Jewish tribal national politics. They are all different forms of racially orientated tribal pressure groups and for that matter they are all rabid Zionists who are set to serve what they regard as Jewish tribal interests.”

btw, does your “Jewish wife” know you whore her out for your own cheap racism?

David T,
Either your update about Lehman Brothers didn’t work, or you didn’t finish entering the text.

But I suspect it was going to say that a load of toxic debt was offloaded onto Lehman UK overnight.

I suppose that Atzmon is just waiting a while to blame the Great War and WW2 on Jews, for a full house and free membership of David Duke’s ranch?

there isn’t much more that Atzmon can say? even the dimmest SWPer must surely see the racism implicit in Atzmon’s comments?

Why is the Prime Minister of Iceland called Keir Hardie, and what do you suppose he has done with all my money?

“I suppose that Atzmon is just waiting a while to blame the Great War and WW2 on Jews, for a full house and free membership of David Duke’s ranch?”

A member of the SPCS started expounding to me a theory of the Rothschilds’ responsibility for the Great War.

KB,

you’re kidding?? right ?

cos the idea that Jews started the Great War is a hard core neo-nazi belief

Yup, this is where we are.

Communists can no longer explain the world in terms of class theory. It has lost confidence in its own ideas, as a product of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Therefore, swathes of it are turning to anti-semitism.

The reaction that this will get on the Left will be a combination of the following:

- Jews are making this up, for their own nefarious purposes
- This is merely criticism of Zionism not Jews
- Mearshiner and Walt have explained that Jewish Power is at the root of the USA’s problems. You cannot criticise Zionism without understanding the Judaic mind.
- It is anti-semitism, but the fact that nobody takes it seriously is the fault of the Zionists for crying wolf.
- How can you talk about anti-semitism at a time at which programmes like Undercover Mosque or the various terrorism trials are a calculate effort to whip up Islamophobia against billions of Muslims?

At the moment, this is what these parts of the Left are saying and publishing in online fora. You’ll soon see this in journals like the London Review of Books.

I’m not kidding Mod. However as soon as he started on this theme instead of staying schtum and listening to the whole theory, asking him where he had got it, and was that what he and his mates discussed at SPCS I told him to shut up as that kind of talk makes me very angry.

Incidentally, we’re just looking at this from a UK perspective.

This is a phenomenon that is a worldwide one.

We know that Atzmon and Shamir (and others of a similar ilk) contribute to Counterpunch in the USA

Obviously, this is standard fare in the Arab world.

Atzmon also has his articles translated into a variety or languages, and they’re spread worldwide.

Here, for example, is a piece on me, accusing me of being an Islamophobe, on what apparently is a pro-Chavez (and possibly Government related) website in Venezuela

“Atzmon addressed every single question with the utmost respect and disentangled the differentiations between Jews and Zionists. There was not a whiff of racism in a single remark. None of us had the slightest doubt that the man is humanist. Some of us even followed him to the train station.”

There is something vaguely disquieting about enthusiasts encouraging Jews onto trains, but it temporarily slips my mind…

#Jim

I’m not sure what point you are making, but I fear you may be a lunatic.#

No what you fear is your double standards being exposed.

Did you DavidT do a story about Haredi jewish women only pool sessions in the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph and you being refused access becuase of them?

Tell us why the story featuring one group (muslims) made it on the pages of Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail and not the other group?

In the link from the above article that David gives us, look what I FOUND!

Harry’s Place – Front Page Magazine UK?
A few days ago we posted a link to an article by Julie Burchill from Ha’aretz, in which she described Muslims as “big swarthy men with tea-towels on their heads”. This was taken up at Pickled Politics, where it was suggested that Burchill should join the BNP, who share her predilection for racist slurs of that sort. We have our differences with PP, but at least they can recognise a piece of offensive bigotry when they see it.

Not so the neo-con bloggers at Harry’s Place, which of course claims to be a leading component of the “decent Left”. Burchill’s disgraceful statement has been cited in a comment criticising a post by “Marcus” that depicts Burchill as part of the feminist vanguard in the struggle against Islamo-fascism.

To which “Brownie” replies: “The paragraph in which Burchill writes about ‘big swarthy men with tea-towels on their heads’ doesn’t mention Muslims, only Islamists. Her phraseology is, at worst, a little ignorant, but racist or bigotted it ain’t.”

Yeah, right. I can imagine what the response at Harry’s Place would be if someone posted a comment condemning “hook-nosed Zionists with their ridiculous skull-caps” and then rejected charges of anti-semitism on the grounds that they had referred to Zionists not Jews.

In the interests of transparency, I think it would helpful if Harry’s Place abandoned the pretence that they have anything to do with the Left, or indeed “decency” of any sort, and fessed up to what they really are – a bunch of right-wing racist scum. Perhaps they should consider changing their url to http://frontpagemag.co.uk?

Postscript: I see that David Hirsh, not to be outdone by his Euston Manifesto pals at Harry’s Place, has actually reproduced Burchill’s Ha’aretz piece on the Engage website, with evident approval. (Hat tip: JustPeaceUK.) Yes, that’s the same David Hirsh who has indignantly accused the Mayor of London of “low-level racist abuse against a Jewish journalist”.

Posted on Monday, August 14, 2006 by Martin Sullivan in Right Wing, UK |

This one is good too:

Nazis recommend Harry’s Place
Yes, when it comes to hysterical articles about the supposed threat posed by shariah law, the white supremacist forum Stormfront evidently finds much to admire at the self-styled voice of the “decent left”. Given the readiness of the increasingly unbalanced David T to label political activists from the Muslim communities as fascists, it’s interesting to see how much common ground he and his friends at HP have with actual fascists.

Posted on Friday, June 20, 2008 by Martin Sullivan in UK, Far Right Racists |

Hey, looks as if 92 entries for Harry’s Place on Islamophobia Watch aren’t enough to kind of be good evidence to accuse David T of Islamophobia.

But then again, you persons are the only ones who view yourselves as leftists… so go figure that out.

Jim, the answer is obvious. It’s part of the Jewish Zio-neocon control of the media plot.

Accuse David Toube of Islamophobia? Goodness why? Taking a tour of the link cited in the article David linked here, one need only plug in Harry’s Place to get 92 appearances, including these tasty bits:

Nazis recommend Harry’s Place
Yes, when it comes to hysterical articles about the supposed threat posed by shariah law, the white supremacist forum Stormfront (link) evidently finds much to admire at the self-styled voice of the “decent left”. Given the readiness of the increasingly unbalanced David T to label political activists from the Muslim communities as fascists, it’s interesting to see how much common ground he and his friends at HP have with actual fascists.

Posted on Friday, June 20, 2008 by Martin Sullivan in UK, Far Right Racists |

and
Harry’s Place – Front Page Magazine UK?
A few days ago we posted a link to an article by Julie Burchill from Ha’aretz, in which she described Muslims as “big swarthy men with tea-towels on their heads”. This was taken up at Pickled Politics, where it was suggested that Burchill should join the BNP, who share her predilection for racist slurs of that sort. We have our differences with PP, but at least they can recognise a piece of offensive bigotry when they see it.

Not so the neo-con bloggers at Harry’s Place, which of course claims to be a leading component of the “decent Left”. Burchill’s disgraceful statement has been cited in a comment criticising a post by “Marcus” that depicts Burchill as part of the feminist vanguard in the struggle against Islamo-fascism.

To which “Brownie” replies: “The paragraph in which Burchill writes about ‘big swarthy men with tea-towels on their heads’ doesn’t mention Muslims, only Islamists. Her phraseology is, at worst, a little ignorant, but racist or bigotted it ain’t.”

Yeah, right. I can imagine what the response at Harry’s Place would be if someone posted a comment condemning “hook-nosed Zionists with their ridiculous skull-caps” and then rejected charges of anti-semitism on the grounds that they had referred to Zionists not Jews.

In the interests of transparency, I think it would helpful if Harry’s Place abandoned the pretence that they have anything to do with the Left, or indeed “decency” of any sort, and fessed up to what they really are – a bunch of right-wing racist scum. Perhaps they should consider changing their url to http://frontpagemag.co.uk?

Postscript: I see that David Hirsh, not to be outdone by his Euston Manifesto pals at Harry’s Place, has actually reproduced Burchill’s Ha’aretz piece on the Engage website, with evident approval. (Hat tip: JustPeaceUK.) Yes, that’s the same David Hirsh who has indignantly accused the Mayor of London of “low-level racist abuse against a Jewish journalist”.

Posted on Monday, August 14, 2006 by Martin Sullivan in Right Wing, UK |

brrrrrr

Instead of ‘plantation westworld’ banging on about the descriptive language used concerning Muslims, why doesn’t he or she actually deal with the real world? Explain why it is necessary for Muslims to blow up their fellow Muslims, 26 this evening in Pakistan, earlier today 15 where blown up by a bombmule near the Afghanistan border etc etc. I’d just like to know why they have to kill their fellow religionists like this?

HP=BNP, or whatever you’re calling yourself, I find it nigh on impossible to distinguish between your conjecture and citations. Please demarcate text and provide URLs where available.

Nazis recommend Harry’s Place

Better than HP recommending Nazis.

(Sue, Bob Pitt will be reassured that they’re killing only one another far away.)

KB, not too different from blaming them and the Hanoverian gold-merchants, with their fly-blown phylacteries and shibboleths, for the Boer War.

Okie, Gilad tends to make an appearance in these threads. Is he Spencer? When is he going to start to pretend to be his mum?

Well, Jim

I wrote about both experiences, a few months apart, on this blog.

The first was picked up by the Jewish Chronicle, which as you can imagine, has an interest in disputes involving Jews.

The second was picked up by the Hackney Gazette. From there, it was picked up by the Telegraph and the Mail. It was also picked up by Channel 4.

I expect that the nationals picked up the former story rather than the latter, because what Haredi Jews do in swimming pools is really not of particular interest to anybody other than Jews and secularists, while there are a number of local boroughs which have introduced Muslim Only events. There is also more interest in Muslim segregation rather than Haredi segregation, because there are a relatively small number of Haredim, who largely keep themselves to themselves, and who live in hermetically sealed communities: while Muslim segregation has also an association with radicalisation.

When I was approached by the press over this story, I agreed to participate on the condition that they included the following information:

He added: “I spoke to a number of Muslim friends, and none of them had heard of a religious prohibition on swimming with non-Muslims.

“One friend was so disgusted with Hackney for trying to segregate Muslims and non Muslims that he suggested that he take his little daughter swimming with us, just to prove the point.”

However, Dr Taj Hargey, chair of the Muslim Education Centre of Oxford, said it was not true that Muslims could not swim with non-Muslims.

“There is no Koranic verse or any statement from the sources of Islam that says different religions should be segregated,” he said.

“The only requirement is that when women swim they should be modestly clad.”

The Prophet Mohammed is recorded as saying that it is a Muslim’s duty to learn to swim as it could save his or her life.

What I wanted to do was to turn this story from one about radicalised Muslims demanding special privileges, to one about an over-zealous council, imposing on Muslims and non Muslims, a ghettoisation that nobody wants.

In fact, I do now attend this swimming session, regularly. The participants are of all ages: predominantly but not exclusively Muslims, and including a couple of Haredi Jews. It is early in the morning, so it does not prevent non religious families swimming together. I should add that both sessions contain extremely nice people, swimming with their children. Both contain Muslims: the second session includes a number of Turkish families.

Now, I’m assuming that you’re the Jim who runs the Irish Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, who recently engaged in a battle with the zany Tony Greenstein, over a pretty slanderous piece on him by Atzmon-Shamir supporters. Therefore, I guess you’re part of the far Left that has embraced anti semitism and other conspiracy theories. So I fear the answer that you’ll give to the following questions, but here goes:

Could I ask if you cynically engineered the story about being refused entry to swimming pool becuase you were not a muslim after you wife had been refused intially, given you did not report or make a fuss about not being allowed entry to swimming pool becuase you were not a haredi jewish women?

What on earth do you mean “cynically engineered”? How precisely are you suggesting that I managed to control which stories are picked up by which papers? Is this some suggestion that I have the ability to control the national and local press? Why on earth would you think that I possess this power…… oh.

Perhaps you can link to the story that appeared in Jewish chronicle about your wife and the swimming pool or explain why the link states page not found?

Right, I see. I control the Jewish Chronicle. And I ordered this story removed because… What is it you think I hoped to achieve by doing this?

Hint: The JC has just redesigned its website. I expect that’s your explanation.

You’re a Professor, for god’s sake, man!

Have you been drinking?

Makes you wonder who is financing Atzmon, doesn’t it but I don’t want to get conspiratorial…

David, you claim that:
“the thesis that Jews control international finance, foreign governments, communism, and the media, has again become mainstream in parts of the Left.”

Apart from old Dalyell’s mad mutterings about a “Jewish Cabal” and the SWP, who until recently have been welcoming and defending Atzmon as an “anti-zionist” (and it seems they to have finally now dropped him - one of his outspoken critics Mike Rosen was the chosen performer, instead of Atzmon, at the Cultures of Resistance gig that closed Marxism this year), where else has this thesis appeared “in the left?”

As for Atzmon - as well as dabbling in Jewish conspiracy theories he now regurgitates neo-nazi rubbish about jews financing the Bolshevik Revolution. His talent is that he can play his clarinet and talk out of his arse at the same time.

Mind you, back in the 80s I remember the Brtitish Movement stickers saying “Workers beware, the Socialist Workers Party is a Jewish Family Business!” and their other one “communism is Jewish” - (I didn’t know whether to tear that sticker down or write underneath - “Let’s keep it that way.”)

Atzmon, of course, is the Zionist’s favourite anti-Zionist.if he diudn’t exist they would have to invent him. - He hands them ammunition on a plate to throw at the left and critics of Israeli policy in general. As the principled Israeli anti-zionist Moshe machover says “With enemies like Atzmon, Israel doesn’t need friends.”

I imagine this will throw Islamists into a tizz. On the one hand they are overjoyed at the collapse of the Western economy, but then on the other, if they believe it’s all a Jewish plot, they must be a bit miffed as to what to think and how to react

Oh David, I’m so sorry that your concern with Atzmon is that he is giving good folk like you such a bad name. Darn, that must be so tough for you. You have my greatest sympathy.

#Now, I’m assuming that you’re the Jim who runs the Irish Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, who recently engaged in a battle with the zany Tony Greenstein, over a pretty slanderous piece on him by Atzmon-Shamir supporters. Therefore, I guess you’re part of the far Left that has embraced anti semitism and other conspiracy theories.#

Yes DavidT when all else fails accuse others of anti-semitism!

For your information I am not Jim who runs the Irish Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, who recently engaged in a battle with the zany Tony Greenstein.

So DavidT the JC did not cover the story about your wife and the swimming pool first?

Are you denying this?

#What I wanted to do was to turn this story from one about radicalised Muslims demanding special privileges, to one about an over-zealous council, imposing on Muslims and non Muslims, a ghettoisation that nobody wants. #

Ye