Facebook post one
Just to say that I have told my MP that following a post on X by the celebrated journalist Nicole Lampert, complaining that someone had graffiti'd the road surface with a pro-Palestinian slogan, the great Zionist Jonathan Glass, made a gag suggesting that I could have done it (fair enough) but then pointed out that the photo was of my road.
The reason why I have notified my MP about this is because the great Zionist Jonathan Glass and the celebrated journalist Nicole Lampert have previous on this. Nicole for example has drawn attention to the fact that I live near her (presumably this is of huge interest to Zionists. Is there a sub-text to do with the fact that neither of us live in Israel? Perhaps not. )And Nicole, I've been told, 'liked' a tweet which said (hysterically funny this one) that if I had been around in Amsterdam during the Second World War, I would have betrayed Anne Frank and her family. Nicole, as I say, is a celebrated journalist.)
Jonathan deserves to be more famous than he is but maybe his day will come now that Netanyahu is taking over Gaza. (That was a big surprise, wasn't it?). Jonathan started noticing me some years ago and made it part of his job to identify where I live (with my family), alleged that our house was largely empty, that he could pop round with some chicken soup (not at all threatening), and that when he saw me in the street, he 'booed' (grrrrrr!!!) and that if his wife hadn't been with him, he didn't know what he would have done. Are there awards for Zionists who say this sort of thing about anti-Zionists? Let's hope so.
Jonathan received a cease and desist letter from my lawyer, which he took as a bit of comedy and indicated that he wouldn't and couldn't hurt a fly. At the time, as my health had turned me into something less powerful than a fly, this wasn't very reassuring. Nevertheless, good Jonathan carried on, regularly talking about our house, and even suggested that when I was going to do a signing at the Muswell Hill Children's Bookshop ('children's', note) he could leaflet the signing. What with? Why? The good news from Israel, presumably?
So there are various ways of fighting for ones' beliefs. Good Jonathan has decided that one way is to keep up a stream of gags (?) about where I live and how he could get to know me better, as it were.
Let's see what my MP makes of it.
Facebook post 2 - slightly adapted
In my last post, I outlined the behaviour of the wise and talented Jonathan Glass with a cameo appearance from the celebrated journalist Nicole Lampert. What I failed to do was provide some context. Can I refer you to Labour Against Antisemitism (LAAS)?
Though I have never been in the Labour Party, my support for Jeremy Corbyn was good enough for LAAS to identify me as a danger to Jews. Several directors of LAAS got to work. One was appalled that I was on Radio 4 and urged the BBC to no platform the 'antisemitism-denier' and 'racist', Michael Rosen. That tweet seemed to me (my honest opinion) to be approved of by Mr Myerson KC (then QC) in his tweet saying that he thought I 'should be placed outside these conversations' [on the radio] on account of my political views (which he got slightly wrong.) Then up popped the great Jonathan Glass, also an LAAS director with the activity I’ve outlined in the previous post. Then this was followed up with a third LAAS director Pete Newbon, posting a photoshopped pic of Corbyn reading ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ to some children, with the book changed to show it as if Corbyn was reading ‘The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion’ - a document that was legendarily horrific in my home when I was growing up, for being at the heart and origins of Nazism, so much so that Hitler mentions it in 'Mein Kampf'. I was disgusted and horrified to see it on the book that Helen Oxenbury and I created with Walker Books.
Accompanying this image was a version of some of the words from the book. I have discovered through Subject Access Request (a bit like FOI) and in the legal Claim made against me that the new words in the 'Bear Hunt tweet' was what Newbon himself described as a ‘parody’ a ‘pastiche’ a ‘corruption’ of my words but, more importantly that he said he had ‘echoed’ my words on account of the use I had made of my parody - namely for ‘political purposes’. In other words, I had once made a parody of my own words in support of Corbyn. Newbon objected politically to this. In other words, I was part of the target of the 'Bear Hunt tweet' as I call it. I'm saying this because 100s of people have claimed that I was not targeted in the tweet. Repeat: Mr Newbon makes clear in these documents that I was a target.
There are also screeds of stuff explaining (in this SAR document) what is wrong with my politics. In other words, the motive for doing the 'Bear Hunt tweet' is explained, and described. Rather absurdly, Mr Newbon thought that he could explain to a university hearing that he hadn't attacked Rosen but to do so, he needed to...er...attack Rosen - and attack Rosen at great length with what seems to have been a many-clause tirade aided by Professor David Hirsh. They both seemed to have missed the point that the hearing was over a breach in the university's social media policy but they thought that the best way to defend against that accusation was to repeat and enlarge an attack on me. Surprise: it failed. It failed because Mr Newbon was indeed in breach of the university's social media policy - for the third time, actually. The university had tried very nicely to tell him to stop tweeting stuff that was in ..er.. breach of the social media policy twice before. Of course, all he needed to have done is take the university's name off his profile, and then he wouldn't have been in breach. The huge punishment he got from the university, that Prof Hirsh has complained about was that Mr Newbon should just stop from being in...er...breach of the university's social media policy for one year. Obvs equivalent to a lifetime in the Scrubs, I'd say.
So, to sum this up: Prof Hirsh tried to help someone 'prove' that he wasn't attacking me, by helping to produce (so he says) ...er...many paragraphs that were...er...attacking me. In fact, this actually and surprisingly proved to be...er.... ineffectual.
Professor David Hirsh and I are colleagues at Goldsmiths University of London and Professor Hirsh is the CEO of the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism. He has written two articles in honour of Mr Newbon in which several paragraphs describe what is wrong with my politics and how I 'mobilise my Jewishness' for what he thinks are wrong or even antisemitic reasons. In my view this is just a recycled version of the 'wrong kind of Jew' thesis, or the 'good Jew-bad Jew' thesis in which Professor Hirsh, Mr Newbon, LAAS are the good Jews and Rosen and some others (who are generally dismissed as 'cranks' or 'AsAJews' ) are the bad Jews. Prof Hirsh has also platformed a Rabbi on YouTube who, my lawyer tells me, implies in her lovely talk that I'm in part responsible for ('contributed to..') the death of Mr Newbon. I thought Rabbis didn't write that sort of thing and that they thought carefully about what the Samaritans say about such matters. I have written to the good Rabbi. She hasn't answered yet.
Mr Myerson KC has also written that my use of a children's book 'led to' 'tragedy'. Not 'caused', note, 'led to'. Well, the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs 'led to' me getting Covid. Everything is linked to everything else. The good Mr Myerson was of course not making any kind of allegation in that tweet and I admire him hugely.
(This is all for context.)
This brings us to the heart of the matter: this jolly, laughter-full stuff is political, channelled through the personal, to do with me being on the radio talking about language, living in a house (how dare I ?!) , doing children’s book signings and events - one of LAAS’s former consultants turned up to two of these children's events and heckled me or picketed me or both )- and with writing ‘Bear Hunt’ etc etc. [see link at bottom of this page to an earlier blog I did on the charade that has gone on about people accusing me of not being honest in how 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt' came to be written!]
What happened next is a long story involving me being sued, even as the person suing me was being sued himself for having libelled and endangered someone on account of that accusation about being a 'freak'. Also part of the activity of a director of LAAS, it would seem! Apparently it was OK to suggest (for political reasons!) that someone was a 'freak' and was inappropriately interested in children! Note, that case was won by the person described as a 'freak'. Interestingly, though the case received a lot of publicity in the lead-up, but when it was over, no press covered it. It's almost as if those on the LAAS side of things get good publicity when they're accusing but when they lost this one, no one was interested. Why? I don't know.
The person doing the suing and being sued took his own life. This was a tragedy for all concerned. Many folks who support LAAS leapt into action, ignored Samaritans' guidelines on such matters (as did the good Rabbi platformed by Professor Hirsh, as related above) , and said that the death was either ‘caused’ by me or by the person who was libelled and endangered, or that we 'contributed to' this tragedy.
Please note: the inquest said no such thing, so every comment that claims that Wilson or I were a 'cause' or even implying we are a 'cause' or partly a cause is telling a lie and it's defamatory, so my lawyer tells me. That's why people who say this kind of stuff on social media now, nearly always do it anonymously or from a foreign country! Neat. Safe.
Once again, the personal was used to further the political. People who claim to have high motives and high ideals seem to have no qualms about claiming that they know the nature of people’s personal lives to such a detailed extent that they can say that x caused y. But of course they don’t. And their story has been fatally undermined by facts that I won’t go into now because…they are personal (not mine, I hasten to add!), though they have been posted on social media and are in the public domain. And - but of course again - that’s not why they’re doing it! The purpose of pointing the finger of blame is political and that purpose was at one point to do anything to kick away the pillars of support for Corbyn, and right now to defend Israel’s genocide and land grab. It goes on.
PS. I'll leave you to imagine how much it cost me to defend an 'action' (being sued) over a 7 month period of pointless letters from the suers, which avoided the crucial matter that the person suing me had a) written an apology for having made the 'Bear Hunt tweet' and secondly b) aborted the mediation.
I'll also leave you to speculate what a court would likely make of someone suing another over a document (tweet) that they had already apologised for! The letter of apology would have come to the court for all to see. Also indeed, that the suer had aborted mediation! For reference, courts don't like it if someone sues, having walked away from mediation. (I had accepted that that person walked away, but they chose to sue instead.)
You might also want to have a think about who advised Mr Newbon to withdraw his apology (which would have ended the whole matter, as I made clear in mediation), and who followed that up with the idea of suing me? Why would someone do those things? What was the purpose of them? I'm going to suggest that the reason was political - that is, the priority at the time for LAAS directors was to harass (as with Jonathan Glass), shackle (as with the tweet trying to get me taken off the BBC) and to defeat people (as with suing me) who supported Corbyn.
But perhaps the intention never was for the case to come to court? Perhaps the intention was for me to give in and pay out? And it was only when we asked for 'evidence' for some of the claims made in the legal claim that it became clear that a) we were prepared to go to trial and b) that all the documents would reveal the apology, the aborted mediation, the political intention and motive for the Bear Hunt Tweet, the previous history of disciplinary action taken by the university, AND of course the 'freak' case which at that time was secret and was not a good case if what you have to go to court for is to defend your reputation! Not good for your reputation with it coming up in a trial that you said that someone had an inappropriate interest in children and that this was a lie. These would all have come to light in a trial. I only mention this because both the great Jonathan Glass and the expert on antisemitism Professor David Hirsh have both claimed that Mr Newbon would have won the case against me.
If we want to talk legal stuff, I'm happy to do it. After all, the legal was, it seems, being used for the political, was it not? Is it OK to use the legal system for political reasons? I dunno. But it looks at least a bit as if it's OK. Apparently.
And I haven't even begun to talk about the potential cost it would have been like for Mr Newbon to go to court twice, or lose twice or to imagine you might lose twice. Did he realise what this cost would be? Had he been told by his legal team? Had he shared the fact that he was involved in two cases with anyone, other than his legal team? If not, why would he be keeping it secret? What damage did he think might occur if people other than his legal team would know about these two cases? When my case first hit the press, there was no mention of the two cases running at the same time. Why not?
Just to cut this bit short: to take part in cases that you lose, costs 100s of thousands of pounds , even if your solicitor is acting on a 'no win no fee' basis or something similar. Hundreds of thousands of pounds! Even if you win, you can still come out of a case seriously out of pocket. Remember, one of those cases was a loser for Mr Newbon - the one about someone being a 'freak'. So that was a director of LAAS losing that one. I think I've given enough facts here to show that my case would have been a loser for that same director of LAAS too. And, what's more, we might have 'cross-claimed'! Namely that I was libelled in the first place. We might also have defended on the basis of what's called 'reply to attack'. But hey, all this legal stuff directed at me was in a good cause, apparently. The LAAS cause. It was, as I very boringly keep saying, political not personal.
[Here's the link to the side-story of how people tried to 'reveal the truth' (lols) about the 'true' origins of 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt' - also in the service of this great cause....(er...what cause?)
https://michaelrosenblog.blogspot.com/2024/04/the-true-story-of-making-of-book-of.html