By Pete Gregson, Chair of the Campaign Against Bogus Antisemitism
Contents
- Introduction
- My email to David Collier
- What Mr Collier did next
- I, naively, email Conservative Group at Edinburgh Council about their motion
- How the Conservative Group Responded
- What I did when I learnt that Mr Collier had written to all Edinburgh’s 62 Councillors
- The final riposte from Edinburgh’s Conservative Group
- My final shot back
- Conclusion: Zionists are not Jews
Introduction
I recently had the misfortune to cross swords with David Collier, a rabid UK Zionist, who publishes his pro-Israeli views through his “Beyond the Great Divide” blog, which he presents as a friendship promotional initiative, bringing together Israel and Palestine.
He was incensed by my having the temerity to petition Edinburgh Council to twin with Gaza City (the Council has a formal petitions process whereby requests that secure over 200 Edinburgher’s signatures must be heard).
[My city birthed Balfour and Balfour birthed Israel; I believed we owed it to the Gazans to start repaying the historical debt we owe to the people of Palestine, for the misery our racist colony has inflicted on them. I had proposed twinning as the best way to open trade between our two cities over the internet, with Edinburgh’s businesses employing Gazans through accounting, book-keeping and coding software, all services that can be delivered over the world wide web. Unemployment runs at 50% in Gaza and wages are low; twinning could help pump cash directly into Gazan pockets.]
A pal made me aware that I had made it to the front page of David Collier’s hateful blog.
Here is what that link shows his readers:
My email to David Collier
Upon reading his webpage, I had made a donation to his campaign, so touched was I by his obvious affection for me. I was surprised and pleased when his funding software then offered me his email address. Here is what I wrote to David Collier:
From: kidsnotsuits1@gmail.com <kidsnotsuits1@gmail.com>
Sent: 27 March 2022 22:45
To: david@tillescentral.com
Subject: £1 donation
Dear David,
I have made a donation of £1 today to your wee project.
It is to thank you for brightening up my evening.
Shalom!
BTW, I thought I’d ask you if you really are Jewish?
I looked up Judaism and it says “Judaism has teachings and guidance for its adherents through the Hebrew Bible and rabbinic literature relating to the notion and concept of peace. The precepts of peacefulness and compassion are paramount in Judaism.”
But I can see that you are only interested in the sort of peace where killing 10,000 Palestinians over 20 years (in the time that Hamas have killed 44) is the sort of “peace” you care about. Oooh those naughty Palestinians, feeling sad because their homes and land have been taken by a racist colony. Mustn’t let them get above themselves, let’s just “mow the lawn” as the Israelis say, as those shiny F111 jets carpet bomb Gaza’s beautiful ancient streets (yes, Gaza began in 1500 BC, long before that 13th tribe wandered up through Turkey and Kazakstan to become the Askenazi Jews; only to split into the Zionists and the Bundists – but only the Zionists wanted to move to Israel; the Bundists were happy as they were. So Hitler gassed millions of Jews, only they were the Bundists, leaving the Zionists to crow over their dead ashes and demand a colony of their very own to make amends for their dead brothers and sisters who did not want to live in a racist colony at all, thank you very much.
But why am I telling you all this? You have no interest in peace.
So – what do you have an interest in? hmm
But I really doubt that you are Jewish at all. I mean.. Collier? That’s a coal -miner. I’ve never heard of a coal-mining Jew.
Before I go, I implore you to take a look at www.bogusantisemitism.org/israel-palestine-explained/ – and get yourself an education
Cheers the noo
Pete Gregson (Acting chair)
Campaign Against Bogus Antisemitism
www.bogusantisemitism.org
Contact: info@bogusantisemitism.org
Facebook: www.facebook.com/Bogusantisemitism
Patron: Issa Amro (UN Human Rights Defender of the Year in Palestine)
What Mr Collier did next
This had the intended effect of making Mr Collier foam at the mouth. I have since been rewarded by a veritable storm of abuse on his website. [I maybe failed to appreciate that there were, indeed, coalmining Jews, but I stand by the rest of what I said to him.]
In addition, he sent my email to every one of the 62 Councillors who sit on Edinburgh Council.
This followed the Council decision not to discuss my twinning request, even though it had been assigned to the Policy Committee agenda for the 29th March.
It was withdrawn following pressure from both the UK Lawyers for Israel and when that drew little response, from the Israeli Authorities themselves; both informed Edinburgh Council that if they were to discuss my petition on twinning, even in a negative sense, they would very likely run the risk of prosecution under Priti Patel’s anti-Hamas legislation of November 2021, which declared that anyone showing support for Hamas would face up to 14 years in jail. In addition, they publicly declared that my humanitarian civic request threatened the very existence of Israel. They opined that my request to twin our two cities “promoted the elimination of Israel as the world’s only Jewish state.”
The Israeli intervention had the intended effect on the Council’s Chief Executive, who removed the item from the Policy Committee agenda of the 29th March, whilst the Council “sought legal advice”.
I, naively, emailed the Conservative Group at Edinburgh Council about their motion
A little birdie had informed me that, had the Policy Committee meeting ignored the Israeli authorities and decided that freedom of speech mattered more than crude threats from Zionists, the Conservative Group were going to propose a motion to Policy Committee on the day, after the Mayor of Gaza had made his pitch, claiming that to twin with Gaza was to support Hamas.
They were planning to do this, in spite of the evidence the Mayor’s office and I had given to the contrary, provided to all Edinburgh Councillors, showing that the election of Gaza Municipality’s 11 Councillors was not controlled by Hamas. This evidence is also presented on the campaign Twin Edinburgh with Gaza website.
I therefore wrote to the Conservative group, indicating how disappointed I was at their proposed motion, given that they had all seen the evidence. I pointed out that Hamas existed largely because the UK has failed to take responsibility for (a) the Balfour declaration (b) doing a runner in 1947 (c) looking to support Israel ever since.
I also pointed out that they were out of step with David Cameron and William Hague who had, back in 2010, been telling Israel to lift the blockade because its continuation served only to strengthen Hamas; an accurate observation, as the recent unrest in Israel/Palestine demonstrates.
How the Conservative Group responded
The Conservative group responded by sending me the email which I had sent David Collier. I then discovered that Collier had forwarded my email to every one of Edinburgh’s 62 Councillors, presuming this would then damn me to all eternity. The Conservative Group asked me to confirm that I had, indeed, been the author of the email to Collier.
What I did when I learnt that Mr Collier had written to all Edinburgh’s 62 Councillors
This is how I replied:
Hi John,
Why yes – I sent this to David Collier in response to having made it to the front pages of his hateful blog https://david-collier.com/edinburgh-council/
Here is what that link shows his readers [see image above]
Some of you may have heard that Amnesty International published their 4-year long investigation into Israel – “Israel’s Apartheid Against Palestinians” and concluded it was an apartheid state, on account of the fact that only Jews enjoy civil liberties, and only they have the right to take land from Palestinians through the combined efforts of the Israeli Government and the Jewish National Fund.
So here is what Mr Collier had to say about that Amnesty International admits – it wants the destruction of Israel (david-collier.com) – with the kind of stupid scaremongering that has settlers reaching for their machine guns.
Mr Collier is a supporter of a racist state that urgently needs fundamental reform. Unfortunately, all major UK political parties want a two-state solution, along with the corrupt Palestinian Authority. Israel declares it would accept two states, knowing full well it will never happen, for they will never give up the land they have taken. So what do Palestinians want? They see that the scraps of land spread around the country left to them will never add up to a country of their own. The majority want a single-state solution where everyone is equal, but to racists like Collier that is tantamount to the destruction of Israel.
And Collier is neither religiously or genetically Jewish, in spite of his claims to the contrary. I’d put Naftali Bennet (parents from California) and the rest of his racist Government ministers into the same gang. Wikipedia says a Jew is one who is either a descendant of the ancient Israelite ethnic group – or who converts to Judaism and accepts the Torah – and therefore is a member of the Jewish people. But what if claims to that descendancy are, well, bogus?
For genetically these people are Ashkenazi, so Khazars – a Turkic people. This research work was published by the Oxford University Press in 2012 on behalf of the Society of Molecular Biology and Evolution. It found evidence for the Khazarian Hypothesis, which suggests that most Jews are Khazars, and concluded that probably no more than 2 per cent of Jews in Israel are descended from Israelites.
The people descended from the Jews of 2,000 years ago, are, actually, the Palestinians.
I accept that Jews are an ethnoreligious group. But anyone may convert to Judaism and thereby lay a claim on part of that land. So, just to declare one’s Jewishness is to automatically assume a right that the indigenous people there do not have. To take land in Palestine, one does not have to follow the precepts of Judaism – Matrilineality in Judaism means if your mother was a Jew, then you are too. She might never have been to a synagogue – but there is every likelihood that Mr Collier’s ancestors, back though the matrilineal line, were true Jews in that they followed the tenets of the Jewish faith as written in the Torah – in accepting that they had no innate right to Palestine, for the Messiah had not come.
It’s important to understand that Mr Collier is likely to be Ashkenazi which means that further back along the line his family will have come from Khazakstan. In this area the Khazaria people, in the 8th century, converted en masse from paganism to Judaism, at the behest of Bulan, their pagan ruler who converted to Judaism, then had the rest of his country follow suit. In the 10th century, these Khazarian “Jewish” converts emigrated to Eastern Europe, and especially Poland. And so genetically they have as much right to Palestine as you or I. But they were “Bund” Jews and followed the teachings of the Torah, which made them true Jews, in the religious sense.
According to the Torah and the Bible Jews must remain in exile and are not allowed to have a state. The only true traditional Jews that I know of are the Neturei Karta. They maintain the belief that Jews are forbidden to have their own state until the coming of the Jewish Messiah and that the state of Israel is a rebellion against God. Those Ashkenazi emigrating to Israel declare they are returning to their homeland but if they are following their religion, they have no right to be there.
For example, if I claim to be a Catholic but ignore the basic precepts of the Catholic faith, then I am not a Catholic. Zionists do not follow the Jewish faith; they declare Palestine to be theirs but ignore that the Torah says they have no right to be there.
David Collier ignores the basic precepts of the Jewish faith, so I maintain he is not a true Jew. Wearing a kippah and being circumcised does not a Jew make, in as much as swinging a thurible and refusing contraception does not a Catholic make. One is either genetically or religiously a Jew. If you are Ashkenazi and you live in Israel or support it, you cannot claim to either of these. So, what on earth is David Collier? He is as “Jewish” as I. To simply lay claim to a land over 2,000 miles from one’s home does not make one Jewish. To stand up and shout “I’m Jewish” just because one’s mother was, whilst refusing to accept the precepts of the Jewish faith, is to lay claim to a history that belongs to others, others who did stick to the faith – and died for it. My ancestors were Catholics and Baptists and died for their faith, but that gives me no right to claim those religions as my own (..for I do not believe in God, for starters).
Mr Collier declares himself a Jew, but on what evidence? That he can trace his ancestors back to somebody converting to Judaism from Paganism in Khazakstan 1500 years ago? But those converts could claim to be Jewish because they followed the Torah, which declared they were forbidden to have their own state until the Messiah came. As soon as their descendants decided they wanted to take Palestine, because they didn’t want to wait at that poi–nt they betrayed a fundamental aspect that defined their Jewishness. They are not, I maintain Jewish at all – of course they declare themselves to be – for it is only on that basis they can claim the land of Palestine. But do they have any god-given right to be there? Of course not – in fact, since they are not true Jews, they have as much right to be there as you or I.
I declare that Israel is a product of European antisemitism – Balfour, Churchill and Hitler all wanted the Jews out of their countries and by encouraging them to go to Palestine made them, in essence into non-Jews – for neither religiously not genetically did these people have a right to be there. (Did you know that a man, Jan Karski, saw Hitler’s extermination camps and made it to London in 1942, desperate to get Churchill to act? Anthony Eden met him and declared Britain could do nothing to help). Our wartime Government were not concerned about the systematic extermination of the Jewish people – only with defeating Hitler.
Did you know that throughout the 30s, Hitler made a deal with the Zionists in Palestine? They agreed that the wealth from Bundist Jews confiscated by the Nazis would be paid to the Zionists on the condition that they used it to buy German goods – the infamous Haavara agreement. The programme closed at the onset of WW2, after about $35,000,000 at 1939 values had been transferred to the Zionists, which they used to erect the government buildings and power stations of a nascent state. They did this with the support of us British who recognised their institutions, whilst ignoring all efforts of the Palestinians to declare statehood. We British put down the Palestinian rebellions. And we British trained the crack Jewish battalions that fought so bitterly against the Nazis, then moved wholesale to Palestine; they knew how to use all the British weapons and uniforms we left behind, when we ran away in 1947. For evidence, go to www.bogusantisemitism.org/israel-palestine-explained/ and look at the photos. Mr Colllier is well aware of the role that the UK has played in birthing his Eretz Israel and rails bitterly at any move we might make to recognise his sworn enemies – the Palestinians who dare to want their homes back.
Those Ashkenazi and others taking land in Israel can’t have it both way – they can’t take the land, claiming to be Jewish whilst ignoring the most important precept of the Jewish faith – for it declares they cannot move there until the Messiah comes; if they are true Jews they should not be making their homes there. Put simply, as soon as a Jew lays claim to a piece of Palestine, they cease to be a Jew, for they have broken away from a fundamental tenet of their faith. They will claim to be Jewish, but I will not accept them as such.
But I do not and have not ever called for the banishing of the Ashkenazi from the land of Palestine. They live there, they have homes there. I do not expect them to emigrate, were the dream of a state with racial equality at its core to become a reality, with reparations and the right to return honoured. To achieve this, they must learn to share the land with those who are the true descendants of the original Jews – the Palestinians.
The final riposte from Edinburgh’s Conservative Group
Following this email, Councillor John McLellan then got back to me on behalf of the Conservative Group. Cllr McLellan is a columnist for the Evening News in his other life. This is what he had to say:
From: John McLellan <John.McLellan@edinburgh.gov.uk>
Sent: 07 April 2022 10:06
To: Peter Gregson <Peter.N.Gregson@outlook.com>; Iain Whyte <Iain.Whyte@edinburgh.gov.uk>
Cc: Jim Campbell <Jim.Campbell@edinburgh.gov.uk>; Nick Cook <Nick.Cook@edinburgh.gov.uk>; Graham Hutchison <Graham.Hutchison@edinburgh.gov.uk>; Scott Douglas <Scott.Douglas@edinburgh.gov.uk>; Jeremy.Balfour.msp@parliament.scot; Miles.Briggs.msp@parliament.scot; Cameron Rose <Cameron.Rose@edinburgh.gov.uk>; Joanna Mowat <Joanna.Mowat@edinburgh.gov.uk>; hugh.findlay.cm@gmail.com
Subject: Re: Conservatives and Gaza
Thank you, Peter.
That tells me all I need to know.
I might only be a councillor for another four weeks, but I will not be supporting your anti-Semitic campaign to have Israel eradicated.
John McLellan
John McLellan,
Scottish Conservative councillor for Craigentinny/Duddingston.
My final shot back
I replied to Cllr McLellan as follows:
From: Peter Gregson
Sent: 07 April 2022 11:06
To: John McLellan <John.McLellan@edinburgh.gov.uk>; Iain Whyte <Iain.Whyte@edinburgh.gov.uk>
Cc: Jim Campbell <Jim.Campbell@edinburgh.gov.uk>; Nick Cook <Nick.Cook@edinburgh.gov.uk>; Graham Hutchison <Graham.Hutchison@edinburgh.gov.uk>; Scott Douglas <Scott.Douglas@edinburgh.gov.uk>; Jeremy.Balfour.msp@parliament.scot; Miles.Briggs.msp@parliament.scot; Cameron Rose <Cameron.Rose@edinburgh.gov.uk>; Joanna Mowat <Joanna.Mowat@edinburgh.gov.uk>; hugh.findlay.cm@gmail.com
Subject: RE: Conservatives and Gaza
Hi John,
If the Zionists are not Jews, then I am no anti-Semite. Your support for a racist colony undermines Conservative values of fairness and support for law and order. Israel was founded on the Irgun and terrorism (see this).
Everybody, apart from you and the Israeli Government – the UN, the Red Cross, etc (see the list at www.twingaza.com/this-siege-is-illegal/#Illegal-actions yes – even David Cameron’s Government, recognised Israel was in breach of international law and the Geneva convention on so many counts.
But you care little for this. I find your position hypocritical; applying your values to the Ukraine, I would see you on the side of Putin. Invasion, occupation and apartheid are not values that I thought you supported. I guess I’ve been wrong about you.
I see no prospect for peace in the Middle East until Israel is fundamentally reformed, in the same way that South Africa was. Your support for the status quo leads to more terrorism, not less. What was it that led to Osama Bin Laden being turned to terrorism? Why, Palestine. And Palestine is at the root of every Muslim’s anger when it comes to the West. Your ongoing support for Apartheid Israel will lead to more deaths and bombings, whether than be in the Manchester Arena, London Underground or daily, in Palestine (every day for the past few weeks males as young as 14 and as old as 84 have been killed by Israeli police and the IDF).
Best wishes
Pete
Answer came there none!
Conclusion: Zionists are not Jews
So, dear reader, I maintain Zionists are not Jews – they are deluded ex-Turkic colonisers with all the trappings, but none of the soul, of Judaism. Judaism teaches giving, love, goodness, charity … not hatred and death of the other.
These Zionists operate a colonial apartheid system.
And if I say they are not Jews, then I do not think I can ever be an anti-Semite.
And, since they are not Jews either in terms of religion or genetics, Zionists have no valid claim to Palestine.
Related
The world according to UK arch-Zionist David Collier
Twin Edinburgh with Gaza Rally on 23 March 2022
Britain in the grip of the Zionist lobby: Living in an Orwellian dystopia
In “QuickPress”
