Dalyell steps up attack on Levy ("Jews have far too much influence in U.S." - unrepentant Brit MP)

Guardian ^ | Tuesday May 6, 2003 | Michael White

[Tarsk]

Dalyell steps up attack on Levy

Veteran MP rejects accusations that he is anti-semitic and renews criticism of Jewish adviser to No 10

Michael White, political editor

Tuesday May 6, 2003

The Guardian

The Labour MP Tam Dalyell yesterday scornfully brushed aside accusations of anti-semitism but stood by the allegation that has landed him in political trouble, that "there is far too much Jewish influence in the United States" and one over-influential Jew in Tony Blair's entourage.

Faced with threats to take "inflammatory remarks" to the commission for racial equality, the MP for Linlithgow raised the stakes significantly by criticising Lord Levy, the music mogul turned Blair fundraiser and tennis partner, whose in timate contacts across the region have made him No 10's envoy to the Middle East.

"I believe his influence has been very important on the prime minister and has led to what I see as this awful war and the sack of Baghdad," said Mr Dalyell, who has long been a critic of Israeli expansionism and insists that many Jews are also "desperately unhappy about it'.'

The father of the Commons, an MP for 41 years and a pillar of the "awkward squad" for most of them, Mr Dalyell qualified his criticisms only to the extent of saying he was not attacking Jewish influence as such, but what he called the "Sharon-Likudnik agenda" of the hardliners - led by Ariel Sharon's Likud party - who dominate Israeli politics.

After Mr Dalyell was indirectly reported by Vanity Fair magazine as criticising "a cabal of Jewish advisers" driving US-UK policy towards Iraq - and now Syria - there were protests, and Professor Eric Moonman, a Labour MP 20 years ago, started legal consultations over a complaint to the CRE.

But Mr Dalyell may be the MP least likely to buckle to pressure. Questioned on Radio 4's World at One, he said: "The cabal I referred to was American," and named seven hawk ish advisers to President George Bush - six of them Jewish - as urging a strike against Syria.

"It's the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs combined with neo-Christian fundamentalists. I think a lot of it is Likudnik, Mr Sharon's agenda, and when it comes to an attack on Syria this is a very serious matter."

Pressed further, the MP conceded he had "picked out one person [in Britain] about whom I am extremely concerned and I have to be blunt about it. That is Lord Levy, Mr Blair's official representative in the Middle East. This has two questions: first, should not this be done by the Foreign Office; second, are special representatives to be accountable or not?"

Downing Street has often been forced to defend Lord Levy, both over aggressive fundraising and as an envoy - welcome in Arab capitals, including Damascus, as well as Tel Aviv - who cannot be questioned by MPs.

Mr Dalyell's career includes a close alliance with the late Richard Crossman, a passionate Zionist who believed that all gentiles - including himself - are anti-semitic at some level. The claim won him the friendship of Chaim Weizman, a president of Israel.

Prof Moonman, president of the Zionist Federation, said: "I do not believe Tam is anti-semitic," but said his "old friend" had used language which could support that view.

Whatever the extent of Lord Levy's influence, Mr Dalyell and his detractors yesterday appeared to make no acknowledgement of the defence lodged by Mr Blair's allies.

They constantly point out that No 10 has helped persuade the White House to promote the latest "road map" version of the Middle East peace plan in the teeth of Israeli opposition.

[Tarsk]

What gets Dalyell's goat is that Bush has not surrounded himself with anti-Semitic advisers who want to destroy Israel. Now that sort of malign influence would be right up the old b*st*rd's street.

[MEG33]

What a dunce.

[monkeyshine]

What a bunch of crap. The man is an anti-semite. If it were really about him hating the politics of Sharon and the Likudniks, he would not say that "there is too much Jewish influence", he would say there is too much right wing Zionist influence. But he can't say that, because he would then be put in the position of defending Israel by saying left-wing Zionism is OK. He can't say that, because he is an anti-Zionist, so he wouldn't be in favor of left wing Zionists either. Being an anti-Zionist is not PC, even if it is as fashionable as all get out among the radical left.

[backhoe]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/898108/posts

MP George Galloway- voice cries "peace," hand in Saddam's till...
various FR links | 04-22-03 | The Heavy Equipment Guy

[inkling]

The liberal mindset, 1942: "We have nothing to fear but fear itself."

The liberal mindset, 1961: "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."

The liberal mindset, 2003: "EEK! IT'S THE JOOS!"

[Stultis]

...when it comes to an attack on Syria this is a very serious matter."

Why, Tam? Is that where your payments are coming from?

[nickcarraway]

Did the people who voted for him, really elect him to do this?

[Tarsk]

"Being an anti-Zionist is not PC, even if it is as fashionable as all get out among the radical left."

Anti-Zionism has nothing to do with being PC and everything to do with gross immorality. Israel is the only country in the world whose destruction is openly called for. The Jews are the only people who are denied the inherent right to self-determination by anti-Zionists.

Of course anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. Can you imagine someone who called for the destruction of let us say for example Sweden not being considered anti-Swedish? What individual outside the confines of a lunatic asylum would claim that "I wish to destroy Sweden but I am not anti-Swedish"?

[nickcarraway]

He hasn't learned how they handle that in the U.S. They use the N-word - neoconservative.

[Tarsk]

"MP George Galloway- voice cries "peace," hand in Saddam's till..."

Dalyell and Galloway have both been accused of treachery with regard to the recent war in Iraq. It's quite obvious that in blaming "Jews" Dalyell is seeking to divert attention away from himself and Galloway and onto history's oldest scapegoat.

[backhoe]

Dalyell is seeking to divert attention away from himself

Absolutely- it's Clintonian Spin Cycle at its finest... I have a number of links regarding Dalyell in that other post- he's quite a piece of work.

[thedugal]

Israel is the only country in the world whose destruction is openly called for.

That is ridiculous. There are still plenty of FReepers who will post a whole slew of nuclear mushroom clouds after the mention of a Muslim name in casual conversation. There was a map floating around on the threads awhile back with most of the middle east renamed as U.S. oil companies (liek Exxon etc.) and I think another with Iraq written as New Texas. There is currently a thread up talking about offering Iraq statehood (nuts, but it would get rid of the country 'Iraq'). Countless countries have been chopped up, renamed, colonized, recolonised, etc. and will continue to be so for quite some time. In Europe many are just itching to get rid of their countries and create a new make believe country called the EU.

I think this MP is blatantly anti-Zionist and quite probably anti-semitic. But the concept that only Jews have been victims of history is asking a bit too much. Ever heard of the Highland Clearances? Probably not, considering it's not even taught in Scottish history books.

Several million Scots killed or forcibly exported, packed on ships 700+ per trip, conditions that were illegal for African slave ships even at the height of the trade. At least half died before landing in America, Canada, and Australia on what were nicknamed "coffin boats". Those who landed were often either bare naked or wearing burlap feed sacks.

You don't hear Scots jumping up and down whining and crying "anti-Scot" everytime something rotten happens to them or any time someone calls a fellow Scot a name or comments on how aweful the bagpipes sound. Moral of the story, we all hate a racist and will help to "out the bastard", but the incessant whining about how the world hates the poor Jews and only the Jews is run out and ragged.

Jews have a wonderful little country called Israel that can easily defend itself against 500 million Arabs, and the diaspora have achieved noted success in countries all over the world. Life is good, enjoy it. Idiots like this MP are what they are, but please, spare me the "only the Jews are hated" melodrama.

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

OY-VEI !

[MadIvan]

As I said, the anti-war left in the process of self-destructing. Galloway took bribes, Dalyell outed as an anti-Semite, and Cook outed as a Saddam coddler. I suspect all will be deprived of their seats in due course. Galloway will likely go to jail.

Regards, Ivan

[MeekOneGOP]

[Tarsk]

"There are still plenty of FReepers who will post a whole slew of nuclear mushroom clouds after the mention of a Muslim name in casual conversation."

I was referring to many members of the Western establishment and not posters on a board.

"I think this MP is blatantly anti-Zionist and quite probably anti-semitic. But the concept that only Jews have been victims of history is asking a bit too much. Ever heard of the Highland Clearances? Probably not, considering it's not even taught in Scottish history books."

What is ridiculous and entirely self-serving is your absurd comparison between a single episode in Scottish history, the Highland clearances, and the persecution suffered by Jews over two thousand years. Anti-Semitism is the oldest and most endemic hatred in the world and comments like yours about "whining Jews" show that it's every bit as bad as ever.

Please note that in the 1930's when anti-Semitism was on the rise throughout the world and Hitler's persecution was already rampant in Germany and Austria, individuals just like you were saying exactly the same things: Jews are always whining - do they think they are the only victims in the world - oh those complaining Jews.

The Holocaust happened not because of the Nazis but because of people like you who encouraged the world to do nothing in the face of the greatest evil the world had ever known.

And I will not choose to forget that most of Europe's Jews were murdered. There are plenty of Scots in Scotland, Poles in Poland, Dutch in Holland but Poland which had the largest concentration of Jews in the world now only has less than 20,000 Jews when it formerly had 3.5 million.

And that even today anti-Semitism should be so rampant, and that inviduals like you should still talk as they do, shows to the Jews that absolutely nothing has changed and given the right conditions exactly the same events could easily occur again.

What is depressing is not just that the Holocaust happened but that people like you learned so little from such a great evil.

[Tarsk]

"Cook outed as a Saddam coddler"

His hero, whose photograph he kept on his desk at the FO, is the noted Jew and Israel hater, the late unlamented Ernest Bevin. What do you expect?

[MadIvan]

What do you expect?

Apart from Tony Blair, sometimes Jack Straw and sometimes Gordon Brown - not much out of anyone in the Labour Party. The sooner we have a Tory Government again, the better.

Regards, Ivan

[Tarsk]

"sometimes Jack Straw"

When he is not comparing Israel with Saddam's Iraq.

[Tarsk]

"Several million Scots killed or forcibly exported, packed on ships 700+ per trip, conditions that were illegal for African slave ships even at the height of the trade"

There are so many outrageous lies in your account that one really does not know where to start. However let's just take your claim of "several million Scots" killed or forcibly exported:

"in a pamphlet published in 1784, it is stated that between the years 1763 and 1775 above *20,000* Highlanders *left their homes to settle on the other side of the Atlantic*."

"The author of the Gartmore paper, written about 1747, estimated that the *population of the Highlands* at that time amounted to about *230,000*"

http://www.electricscotland.com/history/hcbalance.htm


Another kind of anti-Semitism is the type that tries to diminish the suffering of the Jews by flat out lying about other events, like for example here. Ho hum.