Stephen Sizer has been active for many years in areas of humanitarian concern for the Palestinian population. I was with him on my recent trip to Baghdad, and I am convinced he is a good man.
Stephen is a Church of England vicar. He is under huge pressure at the moment as he is under a formal complaint from the Board of Deputies of British Jews to the Church of England on a charge of anti-semitism. This is very serious indeed and could lead to the loss of both his job and his home.
The essence of the long complaint is that he has posted links on his website to other websites which contain anti-semitic material. It is not alleged that he has linked to material which is itself anti-semitic; but that elsewhere on websites linked to there is such material.
That may or may not be true. But in the real world, the idea that in posting a link to an article you are endorsing every other article (which in practice you cannot have seen) on a website is nonsensical and would make much current blogging practice impossible.
That Stepehn is not an anti-semite and has not knowingly endorsed anti-semitism, I have no doubt. But what worries me is the growing bravura with which all critics of Israel or supporters of the Palestinians are charged with the – rightfully – damning slur of anti-semitism.
Just as the government of Israel has lurched to the far right, so “official” Jewish institutions in the UK have abandoned their once notable liberalism. The Board of Deputies used to deserve high respect and be a pillar of reason. It is astonishing to me that it has launched this absolutely unfounded attack on an Anglican priest. The Jewish Chronicle has lurched so far to the right as to be off the scale. There seems to be such a disconnect now between these institutions and the views of the Jewish people I know that I hope this state of affairs cannot last.
A list of those who have written in support of Stephen Sizer can be found here.
The formal process in which Stephen is now enmeshed is not only extremely unpleasant, it is also extremely expensive. He has to employ lawyers for his formal defence. A cardinal rule of this blog is never to ask for money, but I ask you now to donate for the defence fund.
Electronic transfers can be made to account name J Moodey, Co-op Bank sort code 08-93-00, account number 80407856. Cheques should be made out to J Moodey and sent to Mr S Leah, c/o York PSC, PO Box 423, York YO24 4WP.
It is important that we do not allow the victimisation of those who try to defend the Palestinians to proceed apace. Please do donate anything you can; if you feel able to add a comment saying that you have done so, that might encourage others.
We’ve been talking all day, Mary. When you consider all the scofflaws (neocons, torturers and their enablers) still walking the streets, smokin’ their cubanos, it makes you want to puke.
It’s my opinion that this is another case of Selective Prosecution, not prosecutorial discretion.
I believe the former is a crime worthy of the name Felony.
Kempe (12 Jan, 2013 – 3:29 pm) says
Well actually the home page is huge – 31 full-page scrolls top to botttom – and contains 4 columns packed with different media and links. My ballpark estimate is 350 different links. If you scroll down 4 pages, your screen will display a jumbled mix of 20 different photo, video, radio and text links. One of them is a 3 liner saying:
This is the only occurrence of the word “protocols” so this must be the “clearly advertised section on The Protocols of the Elders of Zion which Sizer must’ve been aware of.”
I could only find it with Ctrl+f. Come on Kempe, be honest, how long did it take you to spot it.
“RIP Aaron Swartz internet freedom activist aged 26 who took his own life. He was facing trial on hacking charges.”
https://thepiratebay.se/torrent/6554331
Craig.
You will of course know about this…
Research findings on seven lost Robert Burns manuscripts
12 January 2013 Last updated at 00:19 GMT
Research into long-lost Robert Burns manuscripts is to be presented for the first time at a conference in Glasgow. The seven works, which include letters between the poet and his close friends, were found in 2010 inside a study of Burns’ works dating from 1877-79…”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-20991459
I still can’t fathom your fascination with this spy however.
RIP Aaron Swartz
http://boingboing.net/2013/01/12/rip-aaron-swartz.html
http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/40347463044/prosecutor-as-bully
[Apologies if this has been mentioned already, I’m half asleep. Sorry.]
After it was nominated for an Oscar, Israel is claiming 5 Broken Cameras as its own, despite its Palestinian origins:
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/oscar-nominated-5-broken-cameras-israeli-or-palestinian-film
I never came across it on the site, but wasn’t looking for it (the PoEoZ), got engrossed in some interesting stuff found there worth a second look: I later sampled Behind Communism by Frank L. Britton, available on hundreds of other websites too, it tries to tell the story of pre, during and post-revolutionary Russian history, not found hardly anywhere else, and can hardly do so without mention of its Jewish population and their huge role, it has a tellingly critical tinge that intrudes on the story, found even when quoting directly from the Jewish Encyclopedia which is relied on heavily, but it builds to greater amounts of reds under the bed hysteria, typical of the 1930s American authorship of the earliest-written and bulk part of the book. If it weren’t for the BoD it would have remained in greater obscurity. It isn’t an impossibility to be anti-jewish with perfect ethical and moral justification, nothing is above criticism, it like all religions simply being a set of madcap ideas, constituting a bogus identity, rammed into impressionable minds and causing permanent damage. It seems any subject matter which mentions the chosen ones, not closed off only for their exclusive consumption, and which isn’t quite the prescribed Hollywood gloss revisionist whitewash version of events -is proscribed reading nowadays.
RIP Aaron Swartz – RSS lives on brother.
I’m with Cryptonym on this one. Thanks BoD and Kempe for the tip-off about this useful resource.
http://www.iamthewitness.com/
Sure there’s some stuff there that’s a bit rabid for my taste, but there is much that seems reasonable comment. There are links to subjects I’m already aware of, and even better, lots more intriguing links to fresh pastures. I’m a big boy, I can work out for myself how much weigh to attach to stuff I read on the internet.
I’ve made a start with a pdf of a book called “The Nameless War” ….
It’s absolutely fascinating and resonates with a lot of my findings elsewhere.
Really, thank you Bod, and particularly you, Kempe, for providing the link.
Posting a link is now an offence? Blimey.
http://www.holocaustdenier.com/
Smell them apples then.
Note: I do not deny the holocaust.
It is almost funny, actually. The idea that posting a link is somehow worthy of anyone’s attention. Authoritarianism is, essentially, obsessive politicisation. Stuff that really doesn’t matter is deemed important in an authoritarian society. So, a grumble about a leader is no longer a natural reaction to an idiot, but ‘dissent’. Or a gathering of people is no longer a community event, but a ‘threat’. Etc etc. And it reaches into everyone’s life, at all levels. I feel it. Society is increasingly the science fictional atomized society so excellently portrayed in a William Gibson novel.
This blog links all too well to the late Aaron Swartz. Apparently he was on charges for attempting to distribute academic material. This is barely a crime, if indeed a crime at all. But he was facing 20 years, so appears to have hanged himself. 20 years for copyright violation? A tragically apt example obsessive politicisation: a small matter blown way out of proportion, with tragic consequences. Sadly, we’re going to see much more of this, now that ‘hackers’ have become the new Red Scare. RIP, Aaron.
Yeah, but it was intellectual property, Brendan. The system charged students 35 bucks per for access to info MIT received for FREE !.
Now that, should be a crime.
Any criticism of barbaric acts of soviets could have branded you anti-communist had you lived in soviet republics. Ironically, a state backed by the west is now branding anyone who criticizes barbaric and inhuman acts of this state as antisemitic and trying to prosecute people globally. Soviets had to be ended to save lives of millions. Something to ponder for the freedom of our children.
Ben 11.22 pm,
Excellent post Ben.
You’re now hitting what F Scott Fitzgerald would’ve called the “high white note”
Or Hunter S woulda called “the high water mark”.
Way to go Ben.
I likey…:.)
Since visiting Iran in 2006, Stephen Sizer has been asked too many times whether he accepted the fact, that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had threatened the existence of the Jewish state.
He has been accused of ‘recognising Ahmadinejad’s antisemitism’, an obviously false double negative.
http://hurryupharry.org/2011/11/10/stephen-sizer-on-his-links-with-irans-khomeinists-ill-go-anywhere-to-share-the-gospel/
In a world that is breathing knowledge from the fruits of a communication eruption, the gift of enlightenment unites us. It was certainly a warm feeling to know Iran did her best to warn America of a terrorist attack and in real good time to prevent it.
The ‘Asset’ – http://www.salon.com/2004/07/22/iran_63/
Certainly I had a cold feeling when successive US Zombie Administrations replied in thanklessness by Iranian sanctions, threats, the murder(ing) of Syrian friends and busting a major Iranian TV world news outlet PressTV by threatening her broadcast satellite owners.
May I say this to you Mr President Obama – it is now Iran’s turn to play with the ball and now show the world proof of the great American treason – then and only then can we evolve.
Mark Golding: It was certainly a warm feeling to know Iran did her best to warn America of a terrorist attack and in real good time to prevent it.
That link doesn’t say what you say it does. It doesn’t detail any warning by Iran, but rather by an “ex-patriot” defector from Iran’s intelligence service who gave some vague assertion that there could be some attack involving “planes and terrorists”. That’s hardly something that you can act on even if you hear about it in “real good time”. In fact, be a little bit careful in your claims as the story is rather about how Iran may have known about the attacks and did not warn “the Great Satan” as you seem to be calling the US these days.
As for Sizer, I have no idea whether he’s anti-Semitic (and, by the way, the word is plain to anyone but the dumbest or playing-dumbest pedants), but I had a look at that I Am The Witness website and it is about as obviously an anti-Semitic and conspiratorial website as there is. If you had difficulty locating the Protocols on that site then the big adverts for “Syanagogues of Satan”, the links to articles on “Jewish Bolshevism”, the accusations that Jews ran the Atlantic slave trade, the accusations that Jews funded the Nazis, the apparent praise for Father Charles Coughlin (if you’ve read Philip Roth’s Plot Against America you will know who he was) sort of give the game away. Same with Veterans Today which is one of the most obsessively anti-Israel Troofer sites.
Of course, it is possible that he’s not remotely anti-Semitic and many of his best friends are Jews, and I also hope that people don’t lose their jobs for their wacky beliefs. That said, I think it was clueless of him to not see something like that coming; if he’s going to link to the rather bizarre conspiracy theory sites, it must, at the least, lose him credibility.
I omitted the link to Kevin Connolly’s propaganda for the Israel ‘state’ on Radio 4 Today yesterday.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/b006qj9z/console
43 mins 30 secs in
Some interesting hypocrisy from Steinhardt. What’s good for the silly geese is not good for the gander.
‘But while Steinhardt is eager for young Americans to leave home and join a foreign state and army, he’s not so keen on doing so himself. Steinhardt said of Israel in 2010:
“Its politicians are, writ large, awful; its businessmen are of less than glorious quality; and when you walk down Dizengoff Street in Tel Aviv and you look around at these people and you say, ‘This is who you admire?’ I often say it’s easier to be a Zionist in Manhattan than it is in Tel Aviv.”
Other big donors to Birthright Israel include Israel firster and Casino-billionaire Sheldon Adelson who bankrolled the Republican campaign in the 2012 US elections.’
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/watch-there-was-no-palestinian-people-big-donor-birthright-israel-tells-max
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Steinhardt
All this conspiracy bullshit is just more smoke and mirrors.
We are all benaficiaries of a beutiful planet,
What a wonderful world it could be if we simplified.
Angrysoba
Do you also deny what Israel is doing now? Their apartheid state with it’s apartheid wall. Their flouting of international law. The illegal siege of Gaza. Their illegal occupation of Palestine and their illegal building of settlements.
Is it anti Semitic to say that what Israel is doing to the Palestinians now is a crime against humanity?
Without wishing to denigrate Mr Sizer, the fact is he believes that there is a magic guy in the sky who implanted himself into a woman in order to adopt the form of a human while at the same time still existing in two other ‘modes’, i.e. the father and the holy ghost, which in itself is a heresy to it’s own claim that there is but one God. Also, the bible makes extravagant claims and promises including the destruction of anyone who alters it, yet it had been considerably altered since 300 AD – which is why the Dead Sea Scrolls are off limits to joe public.
For fear of being censored let me give you an example, and this is totally verifiable to anyone that cares to get off their backsides and have a look. Since the 17th Century various bible societies have promoted not ‘translations’, but ‘interpretations’ of bible text to fit modern language . The most striking feature of these updates has been the abuse of the Latin word “Iudaeus” or “Ioudaios” in Greek. This word means literally a dweller of Judea, nothing more. It is also happens to be the root of the modern word ‘Jew’. This word has been gradually replacing words such a Levite and Israelite in the bible, thereby altering its literal meaning – don’t take my word for it check it for yourselves.
Not only is this diluting the original texts by removing information (although it is claimed that these translations bring new ‘understanding’) but it is reinforcing the idea that the people who call themselves Jews today are the same Jews as in the bible – it is a fact that they are not. The Jews of today are East European’s who ‘converted’ to Judaism (actually they adopted an esoteric version of Judaism) between the 9th and 11th centuries.
A read of the Professor of Hebrew Studies at Tel Aviv University book “The Invention of the Jewish people” will provide much enlightenment. Also Shlomo Sand is a Jew and his book was number one best seller in Israel for a long time and is frankly more believable than the talking bushes, magicians, mediums and psychics that one encounters in the bible.
Mark Golding – Children of Conflict 13 Jan, 2013 – 2:24 am
It is no secret that Ahmadinajad is himself descended from an Iranian Jewish family and that the largest population of Jews in the Middle East outside of Israel is in Iran. Not those East European converts mind but the real deal with Hebrew genes – which may explain their reluctance to embrace the extreme form of racism and hatred of humanity that is the modern state of Israel – and despite the Israeli government offering them piles of money and land (not their own of course).
“Without wishing to denigrate Mr Sizer, the fact is he believes that there is a magic guy in the sky who implanted himself into a woman in order to adopt the form of a human while at the same time still existing in two other ‘modes’, i.e. the father and the holy ghost, which in itself is a heresy to it’s own claim that there is but one God. Also, the bible makes extravagant claims and promises including the destruction of anyone who alters it, yet it had been considerably altered since 300 AD – which is why the Dead Sea Scrolls are off limits to joe public. ”
The story makes a bit more sense if you consider maybe Heaven and Hell were invented by the Romans as a method of getting people to do as they were told. If the early Christians actually believed in reincarnation and that Jesus was Adam reincarnated that would make Adam the father in the father son and holy ghost. It would also explain why Jesus felt personally responsible for all the sin in the world and that he was the only one could atone for it.
m simple terms, how does someone look for information sites for things want to find about? Can any individual figure out how to Read through information sites through subject as well as any about author?
@angrysoba @6:07am I agree the Salon item -I thought too was a bit vague and didn’t support the assertions made here, and the Chicago Tribune article it is based upon cannot be located at the link given. As ‘The Asset’ had been living in the US for twenty five years, he can hardly be considered representative of or speaking on behalf of or for any level of the Iranian Govt. or had much real time information out of Iran, except maybe through sub-agents or contacts he sought or maintained on behalf of the US. The information given in April 2001, that the pilots were under training, is pretty specific and firm and was only one of dozens of indications supplied to the US, sometimes from the highest diplomatic levels, and from scores of countries and agencies that something big involving planes was in preparation. Conventional hijackings as we know them do not or have not included the hijackers taking along their own pilots. US govt. involvement still comes down to two scenarios, let it happen or made it happen. Each is damning enough.
The screen shots shown in the appendix to the BoD rubbish don’t show any link anywhere to either iamthewitness or the other one -windowintopalestine. Even if it does, I’ve seen websites with blog rolls and links off to the side consisting of many dozens of sites, sometimes generated automatically froom even longer lists, it would be absurd to wade through those links, and then several levels of links in depth from there to find if there was anything suspect or with which you did not agree or someone might dislike; that is the web, good bad and ugly, our own innate commonsense is the mediator and filter.
It has simply long been the case that anyone concerned enough to learn the facts about the running sore that is the Israeli state and the enduring racist and genocidal treatment of the Palestinian people is increasing ineffectually smeared as anti-semitic, there is much legitimate and fair criticism of the darkest most abhorrent deeds which can be levelled at the religious/ethnic supremacist state called Israel, its governments, military, predominant or most vocal extremists provide ample evidence in word and deed. There is much history of Eastern Europe and Russia, that does not accord with the post ww2 cold war spin on prior events we have been force fed, the nature of the early revolutionary regimes and new elites that rose there and their epic scale crimes which may even dwarf later events we’ve never been allowed to let fade in the least. Sadly this Hoffman character seems to typify the mindset rather than him being now the blowhard loose cannon exception as attempts are made to dissociate from and marginalise him. This incessant and undue crying wolf when faced the mildest of fact and evidence derived criticism, even honest inquiry, looking for credible explanation, simply serves now to reinforce impressions that those engaging in such tactics have some appalling things to hide and an untenable position to defend. Now simply seeking to find such facts or evidence, much less form any conclusion or express an opinion, is being attacked and denied, though such attempts will, ought to and can only fail miserably.
“Come on Kempe, be honest, how long did it take you to spot it.”
Not long.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en-GB&source=hp&q=iamthewitness&gbv=2&oq=iamthe&gs_l=heirloom-hp.1.0.0l7j0i10j0l2.1005.2376.0.5496.6.6.0.0.0.0.106.518.4j2.6.0…0.0…1c.1.zlZYXF0Z2is
Craig
I am glad you have picked this issue up. The complaint of “anti-semitism” against Stephen Sizer is a pile of pants as anyone looking at the “evidence” compiled by the BoD can easily see. For the BoD to be right you have to believe that by temporarily linking to an otherwise innocuous article or photo on a website which also contained some dodgy material Sizer secretly wanted his readers to be influenced by the latter even though it contradicts all his public statements on anti-semitism.
This is really a political campaign to stop his church funding his international ministry. Sizer travels around the world and is an effective advocate of justice for the Palestinians as part of a peace settlement in the Middle East.
I’ve had some amusing arguments on the Harry’s Place comments thread on the issue. Their guest poster was none other than Nick Howard, the son of the former Conservative leader who was rejected by the Church of England as “unsuitable for ordination”. He is now a “Rev” at some quasi-Anglican offshoot in New York. (The Mailonline archive has an extremely interesting article about why the CofE rejected Howard)
“Joseph W” who Sizer sued is also involved in the campaign. Harry’s Place also hosts regular posts from him, including one where he describes how he rejected Sizer’s efforts at reconciliation. So there are likely to be some personal issues involved there as well.
‘No boots on the ground’. When have we heard that before from Agent Cameron.
This is what the intervention by Monsieur Hollande and his Western pals is really about.
http://www.consultancyafrica.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=565:mali-and-its-mining-sector-a-focus-on-gold-while-minerals-are-unexplored&catid=82:african-industry-a-business&Itemid=266
Gold, iron ore, bauxite etc.
For good measure, this is what Libya was – ‘Africa’s most prosperous democracy’ – before an evil coalition laid waste to it.
http://www.countercurrents.org/chengu120113.htm
The trolls here will not like to read the contents.
From the BoD’s complaint:
“Window into Palestine carries on it’s home page a person with caricatured nose wrapped in an Israeli flag”
What’s funny here is that the cartoon in the screenshot is a caricature of Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister of Canada, who does have a respectably-sized olfactory protrusion (his most caricaturable feature in a rather bland face), and who is not Jewish at all, though his policies are presumably too pro-Israeli for Window Into Palestine’s liking.
Even more ironic is that the cartoon forms part of a link to an article on a report by the Canadian Parliament that apparently conflates criticism of Israel with antisemitism. To one-up the Canadian Parliament, the Board of Deputies has decided that criticism of Israeli-supporting non-Jews should now be considered antisemitic.
Phil W. wrote” It is not a small matter and I think it important that we do support Stephen Sizer whatever we think of his religion.”
Phil my point was directed at the CofE, if it cannot stifle and counter such methods of subverting and undermining one of its own clergy, some who seems to think a little harder than the majority of them, what chance has the public got?
This is an attack on the whole of the CofE, can they not see this, it has nothing to do with religion but ethnicity and rancour.
In no way was I denigrating his religious beliefs.
What support has Mr. Sizer got from his own clergy? cause if he has none, he’s toast.
The links from Richard Armbach showing the clear connection between the EDL, Anders Breivig and Zionists fascists, with Melanie Phillips excuses for blatant murder on the high seas, providing the mood music in Breivigs manifesto, showing how much more influence Zionists have in this country than the CofE. And then there is Pam Geller…..
“Gold, iron ore, bauxite etc.”
Sounds like a job for Dan Gertler.