The antisemitism witch hunt’s despicable attack on Jewish children’s author Michael Rosen

Michael Rosen and Nick Cohen


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The antisemitism witch hunt’s latest target is renowned author and poet Michael Rosen. Rancid hate-goblin and Spectator columnist Nick Cohen is leading the charge. But there are a couple of problems with this. First, Rosen is himself Jewish, and progressive. Second, Cohen regularly contributes to a publication whose editors hang out with literal fascists.

This attack is an outrage, and sheds light on how cynical and detached from reality this witch hunt really is.

The Witch Hunt

It’s been clear for several years now that the witch hunt is a systematic effort to shut down left-wing criticism of Israel by conflating it with antisemitism. The American Right and Donald Trump are deploying the same strategy against the US left.

 

As Jewish comedian Alexei Sayle puts it:

The search for antisemitism in the Labour party is the weapons of mass destruction of our age. I think there is the same absolute lack of evidence. There is the same substitution for emotion rather than rational debate. And in many cases it’s the same… people doing it. …

We are through the looking glass when antiracists are condemned by racists as being racists.

In reality, antisemitism is lower among Labour supporters than most other parties.

ockets of antisemitism - YouGov 2017

One antisemite is an antisemite too many. But facts are important. Especially when Labour’s opposition is the most racist government in a lifetime, and this sickening campaign is enabling it to continue.

Cohen is another of the witch hunt’s self-appointed moral guardians. In reality, he simply despises Corbyn and the left. But rather than oppose them honestly, with a compelling counter-argument, he’s joined the witch hunt. And his latest target is former Children’s Laureate Rosen.

The Chief Rabbi

Recently, the Chief Rabbi publicly urged non-Jews not to vote Labour on behalf of Jews. The intervention infuriated anti-racists, given the ongoing and disgraceful racism of Corbyn’s opponent Boris Johnson. Especially given that the Chief Rabbi considers Johnson “a longstanding friend”.

Chief Rabbi celebrates Boris Johnson

Rosen spoke out against the intervention in a 28 November blogpost entitled I’m Jewish. I’m voting Labour, stating:

1. I’ve met people who think that there are no Jews left in the Labour Party.
2. I’ve met people who think that the Chief Rabbi is in some way or another in charge of, or a representative of all Jews in Britain.

Neither of these statements is true or anything like true.

There has been significant and sustained opposition to the witch hunt by Jewish people. Prominent Jews have demanded the witch hunt cease ‘weaponising antisemitism’ against the left. But those who come forward then face being denounced as antisemites themselves. They’re even having their Jewish identity erased. Rosen describes his own experience of being a Jewish person against the witch hunt:

To say these things has invited Jews and non-Jews on twitter to call me a ‘kapo’ (a Jewish concentration camp guard), a ‘used Jew’ (that from the editor of ‘Jewish News’), someone who ‘dons the cloak of Jewishness’ (a Jewish DJ and actor), one of the ‘useful Jewish idiots’ (from the commentator Dan Hodges), ‘a cheerleader for Soros’ (from Lee Harpin political editor of the Jewish Chronicle), and a plea to the BBC to not employ me to present ‘Word of Mouth’ (from the QC Simon Myerson and the campaigner against antisemitism (!) Euan Philips).

Clearly some people think that the best way to combat antisemitism is to be antisemitic.

He also criticises Cohen’s role in things explicitly.

When Mirror associate editor Kevin Maguire shared Rosen’s blog, Cohen accused him of being ‘corrupted by Corbynism’ and whitewashing racism. And another pile-on began.

Cohen and bigotry

Cohen has no place to be talking about anyone whitewashing racism. His punditry comes off as the ramblings of an Islamophobic, neocon chickenhawk.

He’s one of those Centrist Dads still harping on about the righteousness of the invasion of Iraq that left over half a million people dead and sent the Middle East into chaos. And he’s not a fan of celebrating the history of LGBTQI+ people, once writing:

It’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender History Month. Who on earth is that meant to help?

But his comfort zone is casual Islamophobia, and he’s indulged in the odd anti-Muslim conspiracy theory. Just last year, he wrote:

Just as Viktor Orbán can target Muslim refugees as there are hardly any Muslims in Hungary, so Labour faces few electoral costs from baiting Britain’s tiny Jewish minority.

Labour now needs the Muslim vote, and antisemitic prejudice is higher among Muslims than the general population. Although it is false to say all Muslims are antisemites, it is true to point out that antisemitism is endemic among the political Islamists who back Corbyn.

This is exactly the language of Nazi Germany’s “great betrayal” conspiracy theory about Jews. The whole argument is intended to leave you uncertain about ‘these people’ as a whole. The #NotAllMuslims qualifier is feigned objectivity in what is simply hate speech.

Funny that he should bring up the far-right government of Viktor Orbán in Hungary too.

Cohen writes regularly for The Spectator, which platforms the racist writings of Rod Liddle and Douglas Murray. The Spectator’s editorial team has also collaborated with a foundation funded by the far-right, antisemitic government of – you guessed it – Hungary.

Hypocrisy

In Cohen’s world, sharing a Jewish person’s opinion about who is qualified to speak on their behalf is racist. But sharing a platform with the likes of Liddle, Murray and Orban isn’t. And neither is sharing anti-Muslim conspiracy theories, apparently.

Nick Cohen is a bigot, and a hypocrite. He is everything Alexei Sayle warned us about; a racist demonising anti-racists as racists.

He’d do best to pack in writing altogether, and opt for a change of career. Perhaps something in colorectal dysfunction. At least then he might have some use for shoving his head quite so far up his own arse.

Featured image via YouTube – Tips 4 Teachers / YouTube – The Rubin Report

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  • Show Comments

    1. On top of that, Mr Cohen is also writing antisemitic stuff. In a column for the Guardian a few months back, he wrote about Shraga Stern:

      “And what a Jew! With his Yiddish accent, black clothes, beard and ringlets, Stern looks like a caricature from the 18th century – and the look does not deceive. ”

      To me, the gentile that I am, this is clear cut antisemitism: “hatred of jews for being jews”.

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    2. If Labour is elected (and we’ve yet to see who the northern Leave voters turn out for), then people like the detestable Nick Cohen and war criminal Blair will try to spoil Corbyn’s efforts, because otherwise they’ll have a very hard time rubbishing noticeable achievements like cuts to household bills and cuts in crime, homelessness, poverty, debt, GP waiting times, in-work hardship, less involvement in wars etc etc. And Britain’s Jews will be safe.

      Even people who are anti-Corbyn will see their quality of life can be improved and question why wasn’t it improved before, and that must scare the elite, who tell us there’s no such thing as Utopia but who made damned sure that’s where they all live.

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    3. Just remembering that Nick Cohen exists is enough to increase my risk of heart conditions.

      If anyone wants to pass a message on to him from me, I would like to quote Sidney Freedman of MASH 4077, and his comments about CIA Colonel Flagg:

      —
      You’re a victim too, Flagg. But you’re such an unbelievable example of walking fertilizer it’s hard for me to care
      —

      Nick Cohen is indeed “an unbelievable example of walking fertilizer”. I will have to put this comment on tvhobo eventually, but I’ll squeeze it in just after I finish filing my taxes, ie I’ll do it during one of those brief moments of the year one likes to otherwise just forget about.

      Been there, done that. Let Nick Cohen’s insane white supremacist nihilistic crusading white jihadism bother me far too much. This article by him in the spectator came about when tvhobo had really been getting on his tits. So the goblin in the image is, it’s fair to say, what Nick Cohen sees when he thinks of the name Shams Pirani!!

      https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2014/01/how-to-kill-a-columnist/

      tvhobo was reaching 100s of 1000s of people at the time imagined I was ‘shouting into a void’ – and linked together all the right groups of readers to Alex Cockburn’s brilliant site counterpunch so as to cause the real momentum behind the rise of Corbyn (as my mates at MI5 will not officially confirm to you, although they’re happy enough to confirm it to me).

      yeah. i really annoyed racist nick there. really made him mad. he had to have someone draw pictures of a goblin so he could say it’s me and feel better about getting himself kicked in the mind by one of his (many) superiors (well, few people are as retarded, intellectually, as jingo-man cohen there).

      they’ve changed the picture, by the way. the goblin featured before was far far less ugly than this one

      i guess things got on his and the spectators’ tits so much they had to try and depict their enemy as even more ugly

      naturally i am, in reality, amazingly good looking, and i even “look white” to ice the cake cohen just can’t digest. still, that’s not really important.

      only publishing the first few lines of this comment on tvhobo. the ego stuff is just for this chatroom world. but, i suppose, in the end, i will have to dig up all i ever wrote about nick there and stick it all together in one grid point. easy enough, when you have talent.

      to get rich nick has to write sensationalist racist crap and become a walking fertiliser. personally i don’t think anyone should sacrifice what he has purely to get paid. but i have to agree with sidney freedman… when it comes to walking fertiliser like cohen it is VERY HARD to care – i guess in a past life he must have raped his own grandmother or something – you have to do something VERY bad to be born as nick cohen. surely?

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