A crisis at the world's oldest Jewish newspaper has exposed the Zionist media web and the ‘Get Corbyn’ campaign
It seems that absolutely nothing is sacred or off limits for some of the most rabid Zionists and their supporters when it comes to leaving a trail of malicious devastation in their wake. I was reminded of this at the weekend when I attended an invitation-only conference in central London where the former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn addressed fellow socialists who want to find an alternative to the ruling Labour Party in the UK which, along with leader Keir Starmer, gives its unstinting support to all things Israel.
Describing the private gathering of The Collective and calling it the launch of a new political party was probably a little premature of the uninvited Guardian newspaper. Corbyn and his supporters were testing the water and had invited probably no more than 60 people, “comrades” from around the UK who are appalled by Labour’s current trajectory.
Significantly, Corbyn himself sat in the front row of the audience and not on the platform, making it clear that this was not his conference, but a gathering of like-minded people who are desperate for the emergence of a new political movement (apparently the influential Gen Z don’t like the word “party”). Corbyn, who enjoys a multi-million following on social media of predominantly young people, is quick to take notice.
The fact that he is a very nice man who cares about his constituents in equal measure is probably why he was re-elected despite the most vicious campaign ever launched by the Labour Party to have him unseated from the Islington North seat that he has held since 1983. In its Zionist-led arrogance, Labour thought it could crush Corbyn after withdrawing the whip in 2020 over unfounded accusations about anti-Semitism — read the Forde report about this — while parachuting committed Zionists into safe Labour seats elsewhere.
In what was the first constituency-specific poll of the campaign, Labour support stood at 43 per cent while Corbyn’s was 29 per cent. However, when voters were asked to pick directly between Corbyn and Labour, he was ahead, by up to 48 per cent.
Sneering comments from Labour Party’s HQ included, “The thing about Jeremy is that he always overestimates how popular he is.” In July’s General Election in which he stood as an independent candidate, Corbyn won 24,120 votes, whereas his Labour rival, a local councillor, fell short with 16,873 votes.
The result was seriously underplayed by most London-based media often suspected of being controlled by Zionists. Suggesting such control would normally attract allegations of anti-Semitism by those who make the mistake of thinking that all Jews are Zionists, and all Zionists are Jews; neither assertion is correct. Even so, such an allegation would not be the first for me. Moreover, something really sinister emerged over the weekend while the Corbynista’s conference was underway.
It all revolves around the savagery and destructive force that is Zionism.
This pernicious political ideology underpins the apartheid, occupation state of Israel. The unrelenting wrecking ball targeting Corbyn through the Zionist media is, and has been for years, led by the world’s oldest Jewish newspaper here in the UK, the Jewish Chronicle. It has covered Jewish life faithfully since its launch in 1841 and used to be a constant source of pride for the journalists who worked on the title.
Today, its reputation is in tatters with some of its finest columnists quitting the newspaper that not too long ago was claiming proudly to have played a major role in Corbyn’s downfall. Craven columnist Stephen Daisley cited this as sufficient reason for saving the newspaper when he wrote in the right-wing Spectator in April 2020: “Had the paper not been in circulation, or had it been edited by someone of lesser nerve than Stephen Pollard, much of what we know about Corbyn and his supporters might never have come to light, or might only have done so once he was in Number 10. There were a lot of rocks to look under and the JC’s reporters did much of the heavy-lifting.”
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It seems that there has certainly been much self-projection by journalists admiring of the JC and its special brand of yellow journalism over this weekend after it emerged that stories published under Elon Perry’s byline sparked an investigation by the Israel Defence Forces after he reported the fake news that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar intended to smuggle Israeli hostages out of Gaza and into Iran. Perry’s report was seen as supportive of wild and baseless claims made the previous day by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a man who, putting it bluntly, would not recognise the truth if it hit him squarely between the eyes.
The revelation that stories published by the JC about Gaza were fake has sparked an ongoing editorial exodus; some of the JC’s highest profile columnists have quit in shock and dismay. According to the newspaper’s right-wing editor Jake Wallis Simons, he was “deceived” by Perry. As someone who has had bad press from his journalists — one of many, it must be said — I must admit to enjoying a certain amount of schadenfreude over this scandal.
However, that wasn’t the end of Perry’s dishonesty. He now faces questions over a report in which he alleged to give the inside story of the assassination of Hamas politburo chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, as well as his claims to have worked as a political science professor at Tel Aviv University — which reportedly has no record of him doing so — and to have taken part in Israel’s 1976 Entebbe raid to rescue hostages in Uganda.
As a journalist whose career has thus far covered five decades, I have to say that the pleasure derived from the downfall of the JC was short lived. I genuinely feel for the journalists who are still with the newspaper, which has a print circulation not dissimilar to the community I served as a reporter on a local weekly newspaper in my native North East of England.
Newspapers are supposed to be the guardians of truth and justice, and are there to serve the community.
The JC’s fall from grace, though, is indicative of the media industry in London, which is in crisis, another victim of Israel’s war against the Palestinians in Gaza. The lies and untruths that have tumbled out of the mouths of media personalities, such as Rachel Riley, for example, have largely gone unchecked. Pro-Israel, Zionist attitudes seem to have given the likes of Riley protection to promote well documented lies about 7 October atrocities long discredited by the Israeli media. Look at this interview that she gave the BBC.
The national broadcaster has also been caught up in the JC’s crisis in a no holds barred editorial by The Canary which expresses “no surprise” over the scandal.
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On 1 August, the JC reported that more than 200 Jews employed by the BBC were “furious” at its handling of anti-Semitism. They apparently sent a letter of complaint to the corporation’s board members in early June about perceived bias and anti-Semitism, but it was met with a response that they claimed was “an example of the gaslighting of the entire Jewish community”. The BBC was then hit with accusationsin the Telegraph that it had breached 1,500 of its own guidelines.
However, if the BBC’s top brass thought that they could weather this storm unscathed, they are wrong. Another bombshell dropped this week in the wake of the JC crisis after it emerged that Sir Robbie Gibb is the sole director of the Jewish Chronicle, according to two accounts in the UK Government’s company information service. The accounts are private, but filing is due in October.
Surely there is a conflict of interest hiding in plain sight here.
According to tough-talking radio host James O’Brien, who is also a podcaster, author and former tabloid journalist, as well as a television presenter: “Another element of this shocking story about epic malfeasance at the @JewishChron is that Robbie Gibb, who claims to own the paper, lectures BBC journalists on impartiality in his capacity as a non-executive director and reportedly interferes in recruitment.”
This prompted BBC journalists — presumably not the 200+ who had complained earlier — to scream “Conflict of interest!” Understandably, O’Brien asked how Gibb, a former Downing Street Director of Communications for Prime Minister Theresa May between 2017 and 2019 came to join the BBC Board as a non-executive director in 2021 after a brief stint in public relations.
According to his Wikipedia entry, Gibb led a successful bid to buy the JC by a right-wing Zionist consortium backed by journalist Sir William Shawcross, former Labour MP John Woodcock — suspended from Labour over sexual harassment allegations, which he denied, resigned from the party, then ennobled by Boris Johnson — and journalist John Ware, well-known as a presenter on the BBC’s “Panorama”.
I have written about Shawcross, a former head of the UK’s Charity Commission. He was mentioned in an investigation about neo-con influence in Westminster by the respected Cordoba Foundation. In my article in June 2015 I pointed out that Shawcross was described by his detractors as “Islamophobic in the extreme” after he said that the growth of Islam in Europe is “terrifying”. The foundation’s report revealed that nearly 30 per cent of investigations launched by the charity regulator since his appointment as chair targeted Muslim charities. Both Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs drew attention to their concerns at his pre-appointment hearing, highlighting his extreme right-wing political bias towards the Conservative Party and his resultant perceived lack of impartiality. In a poll in the Guardian newspaper, 77 per cent of readers said that he was “unsuitable for such a strategic role.”
The charity chief executives’ group ACEVO wrote to the Cabinet Office also expressing concern at Shawcross’s re-appointment, questioning whether it was above board and followed due process. Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood, the head of the civil service, responded to ACEVO head Sir Stephen Bubb by insisting that due process was indeed followed.
Bubb had previously suggested that Shawcross’s appointment was made ‘on the quiet’.
Shawcross was also appointed in 2022 to lead the review of the British government’s Prevent counter-terrorism programme. This was criticised as a “supposedly independent” review by many which focused on “Islamic extremism” rather than “right-wing extremism.”
Joining him in this Zionist triumvirate is Woodcock, about whom I wrote last month because of his pro-Zionist leanings: “Lord Walney comes in, an unremarkable, modest little man with much to be modest about. To be blunt, this peer, described laughingly as an ‘independent’ government advisor, is nothing but an Israeli lackey who has, in an otherwise bland 100,000-word report, criminalised protest groups active in the UK today.”
Last but not least is the so-called investigative journalist John Ware who wrote an opinion piece in the Jewish News dismissing the Cordoba Foundation and its head Dr Anas Al-Tikriti for suggesting that far-right thug Tommy Robinson was in the pay and sway of Zionist funders.
“This sort of conspiratorial journalism completely ignores the fact that not a single ‘pro-Israel entity’ in the UK wants anything to do with Tommy Robinson,” claimed Ware. “The reverse in fact, and the [Middle East Eye] knows this because these ‘entities’ have gone out of their way to emphasise the fact. Every mainstream UK Jewish organisation here has unequivocally condemned both Robinson personally and last week’s far-right violence with its naked anti-Muslim bigotry.”
Ware’s opinion piece rattles on trying to discredit anyone who suggested that Robinson was indeed paid by the Zionist lobby. If he had bothered to check all sources, though, he would have found corroboration of the Cordoba Foundation’s allegation from the right-wing Times of Israel, no less. The newspaper listed and named Robinson’s backers on 24 January, 2019. “Robinson is more than just an agent provocateur,” it said. “He’s one of the main forces bringing extremist forms of hate and bigotry from the fringes to the mainstream. Why, then, are some of his biggest supporters — financial and otherwise — a loose coalition of reactionary, self-proclaimed pro-Israel backers?”
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Ware might want to use his investigative skills to do a Google search, and then re-write his article. Robinson is bankrolled by a web of global organisations, many of which are part of the American right-wing infrastructure supporting the Israeli cause.
Meanwhile, it is likely that the BBC will come under pressure to ditch Gibb, who refuses to say who really owns Jewish Chronicle Media and coughed up £3.5 million for the privilege. I’m told that Gibb’s pockets are not that deep and it is unlikely that Ware, Shawcross or Lord Walney could or would shell out millions for a title famous inter alia for “Being accused of libel and journalistic malpractice, which has seen 28 recorded breaches of the Editors’ Code and four libel defeats in just three years,” and for paying £50,000 after falsely linking the British charity Interpal (The Palestinians Relief and Development Fund) with terrorism.
The scandal at the JC is set to run, as more people ask who actually owns and controls it.
We will probably be accused of anti-Semitism by its dwindling group of supporters for simply asking. However, every BBC licence fee payer and the million who subscribe online to the Jewish Chronicle, as well as Jeremy Corbyn and his millions of socialist supporters deserve to know the truth. It is doubtful if Sir Keir Starmer will be able to shut down such questions citing anti-Semitism now that he is embroiled in a scandal of his own after allowing a Labour Party donor to buy clothes for him and his wife, in return for which he was given temporary security passes for Downing Street.
I don’t normally write articles this long, but I think that it is important for everyone, including the increasingly beleaguered Jewish community, to get a glimpse of the intricate network of Zionism, politics and US interference at work here in Britain and the damage it can do.
Less than 20 minutes from my base in the Scottish Borders is the home of Sir Walter Scott who once said famously: “Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!” This pretty much sums up what is happening at the BBC and the world’s oldest Jewish newspaper: the lies, distortions, media manipulation and Zionist spin are out of control with links from Westminster to Washington to Tel Aviv and back again.
The truth is that powerful people in powerful places, dark forces and weak leaders try to hide in the shadows, but wrongdoings are exposed eventually. Zionism has lies and deception — as well as terrorism, racism and settler-colonialism — at its heart. Israel is built on them all. Lies and deception have no place in honest journalism. They have to stop, and accepting that the evils of Zionism are responsible for the genocide in Gaza unfolding before our very eyes is the first stage of this process.
If everything at the Jewish Chronicle is genuine and above board, then why is Gibb still refusing to say who funded his £3.5m consortium bid? In his declaration of interest on the BBC website, Gibb states that he owns a 100 per cent holding in Jewish Chronicle Media, but refuses to say whose money is behind the newspaper that he “owns”. Why? This is the question that the BBC Board should be asking, and demanding answers.
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The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.