The most appalling racist letter ever published in the Guardian

Today  the Labour Party Disciplinary Committee is due to adjudicate on a case of a suspended Labour Party member, Marc Wadsworth,  who allegedly made anti-Semitic comments towards Labour MP Ruth Smeeth, who is Jewish, at the launch two years ago of the Chakrabarti report on incidences of  anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.

It comes the day after Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn met  for several hours with the President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Chairman of the Jewish Leadership Council.

On 18 April I submitted this letter to The Guardian newspaper: it remains unpublished.

I do not think I can ever recall reading  such an incendiary letter published in the Guardian as the one you published  on 17 April from Paul Charney (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/16/israeli-snipers-letter-divides-opinion,) who signs himself as the chairman of the Zionist Federation, UK and Ireland,  (https://zionist.org.uk/) responding to a collective letter from five militarily recalcitrant former Israeli defence force (IDF) snipers on 13 April.

 

Mr Charney mentions he served in the IDF tank corp. His biography on the ZFUKI web site details he hails from South Africa, has lived in Israel for “many years” and now resides in the UK running a property evaluating business after having studied  in Britain earlier.

Writing on behalf of the ZFUKI he justifies the murder of dozens of Palestinian civilian protesters inside their own refugee camp inside the fenced off Gaza strip by IDF  snipers on the asserted grounds these were rioters armed by Hamas with guns and, explosives and Molotov cocktails.

I do not understand why foreign nationals - is he Israeli or South African? - are allowed to promote the murder of civilians in Gaza with impunity with such deeply offensive proclamations as you published on Tuesday

When many backbench Labour MPs spent several hours on Tuesday excoriating their own party leader Jeremy Corbyn in a Parliamentary debate, over concerns of anti-semitic bias in some parts of society, including  claimed to be inside the Labour Party (“MPs accuse Corbyn of lack of leadership over antisemitism,” !8 April), they also appeared to justify  taking a pro-Zionist  political stance, in that they support the right of the state of Israel  to  continue to exist..

I would be greatly encouraged if Ruth Smeeth and Lucian Berger, two Labour MPs who have received totally unacceptable abuse on social media from individuals who appear to  be  political supporters of the Labour leader from their  hashtags - and who received virtually unprecedented Parliamentary applause from MPs colleagues  for their  outspoken speecheshttps://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2018-04-17/debates/9D70B2B4-39D7-4241-ACF8-13F7DFD8AEB2/Anti-Semitism- were to publicly renounce the extreme belligerent and deeply aggressive views and language of the chairman of the ZFUKI, which I think brings  kind humanitarian spirit with which jewish  people have been associated for centuries  into disrepute with his appalling letter.