#75 "Weaponising Anti-Semitism" | Mark Seddon in Conversation with Asa Winstanley

Asa Winstanley has been writing about Palestine and the Israel lobby since 2005. He spent two years living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank as an activist and writer. He has been an associate editor and reporter with the award-winning website The Electronic Intifada for more than a decade. And now the author of WEAPONISING ANTI-SEMITISM: How the Israel Lobby Brought Down Jeremy Corbyn published with OR books. “Jeremy Corbyn . . . so terrified the British establishment that it launched a vigorous campaign to demonise Corbyn personally and crush his effort to democratise British politics. The weapon used was claims of anti-Semitism, wielded with endless deceit and slander, and powerful backing. This revealing record of the sordid story provides much insight not only into the ugly tactics of supporters of Israel’s crimes but also into the deep fear of democracy in dominant elite British culture and their media and other institutions.” — Noam Chomsky “An excellent, easy to read, factual account of the unprincipled witch hunt against Corbyn, the left and supporters of Palestine. A must read.” — Helen Marks, Jewish Voice for Labour and Liverpool Friends of Palestine activist “A must-read, authoritative reference source for the use of researchers, journalists, and all who are concerned about the demise of a once-proud British political party, brought down by the deliberate weaponisation of anti-Semitism in the service of a foreign power. Highly recommended.” — Ghada Karmi, co-founder of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter “Asa Winstanley’s investigative work in exposing the bogus nature of the anti-Semitism smear campaign in the Labour Party has been outstanding journalism.” — John Pilger “An arresting account of the sordid saga of political subversion which dashed the hopes and dreams of millions in this country and beyond.” — Lowkey, musician, activist and scholar “Unfounded smears and allegations became received wisdom and facts, even in liberal papers like The Guardian and especially throughout BBC news and current affairs. The lies worked: Corbyn was crushed; Labour was rendered back to Israel-supporting, neoliberal Blairism. Asa Winstanley tells this story vividly in all its shocking and depressing detail.” — Tim Llewellyn, former BBC Middle East Correspondent “A detailed insight into the deliberate sabotage of a democratic project to elect a political leader who prioritised social justice, brought hope to mil- lions of people and championed Palestinian rights.” — Huda Ammori, co-founder of Palestine Action “Asa Winstanley has left no stone unturned with this utterly compelling and detailed account of the manufactured Labour anti-Semitism crisis and the organised campaign to stop Jeremy Corbyn at all costs.” — Rachael Swindon, BuzzFeed’s “Woman leading Corbyn’s Twitter army” “An invaluable forensic account of how the Israeli lobby provided the British establishment and the Labour Party right-wing with the ammu- nition of false accusations of ‘anti-Semitism,’ deployed in a witch-hunt against the Labour Party left. It has indispensable lessons as a case study of the British sector of a world-wide campaign against the left’s support for Palestinian rights.” — Moshé Machover, academic and Israeli dissident “In his outstanding new book, Asa Winstanley lays out the whole wretched story for the first time—not only providing the definitive account of one of the most intense propaganda campaigns in British history, but also, cru- cially, giving future generations a guide for how to fight back better should the opportunity for a decent prime minister ever present itself again.” — Matt Kennard, co-founder Declassified UK and author of The Racket “Asa Winstanley has done more than any other journalist to expose what really lay behind the anti-Semitism smear campaign against Corbyn and his supporters in the Labour Party. His new book sets out in stark and dis- turbing detail how this assault on democracy was engineered.” — Jonathan Cook, author of Disappearing Palestine “One of the timeliest analyses of how the pro-Israel lobby in the UK manip- ulated claims of anti-Semitism as a tool to undermine the Corbyn project and its support towards the issue of Palestine.” — Zaher Birawi, chair of the Palestinian Forum in Britain “A must read. With his brilliant writing Asa Winstanley captures the tragedy of the deliberate and successful Zionist campaign to bring down Jeremy Corbyn.” — Miko Peled, author of The General’s Son