Copyright Daniel Waterman, February 1, 2018
This article is really about free speech and the extent to which social media platforms like
Facebook and Twitter have become a new front line in political activism. My thesis is that
the free exchanges of opinion as well as the slanging matches that frequently characterise
posts on Social Media present an important challenge for political parties championing free
speech and more democracy, and that the examples I am about to present, of an
interference by a registered UK charity, pose an extra challenge to those who believe free
speech is more important than strict, ideological discipline along party lines — that it is
actually a fundamental part of the political process that political parties should encourage
and participate in rather that discourage and suppress. Indeed, I will go further and claim
that the transparency of Social Media exposes each and everyone of us to dangerous
levels of ‘thought policing’ and that state political institutions need to adopt rigorous
guidelines on how to respond to this growing potential for frank and direct exchanges as
well as to attempts by various organisations to exploit such exchanges as a way to limit
free speech, monitor and control behaviour.
What follows is an e-mail I received from the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, a registered
UK charity that acts as a self-appointed watchdog. I am not qualified to hazard guesses as
to who exactly funds the CAA however it is well-known that the adoption of the particular
definition of Anti-Semitism referred to in this e-mail (reproduced in its entirety) is
controversial, and that many experts warned the UK government that adopting a definition
that included criticism of Israel would not only increase the number of accusations and their
arbitrariness but also undermine the credibility of the definition to such a degree that it
becomes entirely useless. Lets begin with the CAA’s e-mail and accusations:
The CAA’s accusations
Mr Waterman,
I am writing to you from Campaign Against Anti-Semitism to seek your urgent comment on
a matter about which we will shortly be publishing an article. The matter is set out below.
Please respond by 17:00 UK time on 1st February.
We can reveal that author, Labour Party member and Momentum activist Daniel Waterman
has, for a number of years, been making extensive use of Facebook, posting anti-Semitic
material under the pseudonym Dolong B Blavats.
As long ago as August 2014, Mr Waterman claimed that compulsive behaviour related to
the Holocaust was causing Israelis to behave like Nazis. It is a theme to which he regularly
returns, asserting only last month, while referring to mandatory military service for young
Israelis, that “Our young people are still mindlessly following orders just like the Nazis!”
The International Definition of Anti-Semitism clearly identifies “drawing comparisons of
contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” as a manifestation of anti-Semitism.
In November 2015, Mr Waterman condemned the wearing of a kippah or a star of David in
public, comparing it to the waving of the Nazi flag during the Nazi ascent in Germany, and
demanded that Jews eschew the practice in order to distance themselves from what he
described as “Israel’s terrorism against Palestinians”. He went on to insist that failure to
follow his advice would mark Jews as “provocateurs” and “belligerent fools”, and render
them responsible for any hostility they encountered.
In January 2017, he accused a Jewish journalist and “the entire rest of the pro-Israel pro-
Zionist community” of being “the real self-hating Jews”, and made the assertion that their
protests against the anti-Semitism that is now prevalent within Labour are a conspiracy to
fear-monger and silence criticism of Israel.
In February 2017, he posted an apparent reference to the six million Jews murdered by the
Nazis, writing: “Breaking News: 6 Million Jews Found Unharmed! Apparently it was all a
prank!”
In September 2017, he accused “other Jews” of “s***ting all over the Holocaust”, adding
that he was “ready to give it up and ‘just’ be a human being”.
In the same month he posted what was presumably intended to be a joke: “Hey I have a
good idea! Why don't we have another World War? I missed all the good bits at the end of
the last one!” On being told this was not funny, he replied “Really, I thought WWII was a
gas!”, in an apparent reference to gas chambers used by the Nazis to industrialise the
genocide of European Jewry.
Mr Waterman has also given fulsome praise to Gilad Atzmon, who was disavowed by
Palestinian activists because of the virulence of his anti-Semitism, and whose book, The
Wandering Who, was described as “...quite probably the most anti-Semitic book published
in this country in recent years.” Despite this, Mr Waterman appeared to be overjoyed that
Mr Atzmon had agreed to review the drafts of his new book and at the possibility of his
contributing a chapter.
These examples are just a small selection of comments representing views that have no
place in our public life.
The Labour Party and Momentum must now expel Mr Waterman.
Mr Waterman is also manager at Dutch locksmiths Slotenmaker Den Haag.
My response:
Dear all, its great that the CAA finally got its facts right, except for one or two minor issues:
Since I am Jewish, the proper term is not anti-Semite, unless you believe, seriously, that I
hate myself, the proper term to use here is “self-hating Jew” which is, as you know, an
accusation Jews most often use against each other when they have any sort of disagreement, ranging from the taste and temperature of humus to the meaning of the
Holocaust.
Secondly, the way the CAA have quoted my remarks unfortunately does not clarify whether
they were meant in jest, cynically, or responses to things other people on social media
posts were saying which one might echo and amplify to demonstrate how absurd they are.
This is the problem when quoting out of context, as the CAA does in its hysterical witchhunt
against perceived Anti-Semitism.
I had been wondering how long it would take for the witch hunters to finally respond to my
posts and I welcome the opportunity to respond to their absurd accusations any time, as
long as it is in a public hearing and they pay all the expenses for making false accusations.
I hesitate to add that my credentials as a campaigner against the CAA and other
organisations witch-hunt as well as against racism, conspiracy theory, distortion and denial
of the Holocaust are above question. I can refer to any number of online discussions and
publications if you need a more extensive look at my work, my ideas, etc. Critical inquiry is
definitely part of my repertoire but it certainly does not extend to Holocaust denial or anti-
Semitism. Indeed, the casual way in which the CAA makes use of what it terms
“International Definition of Anti-Semitism” is enormously demeaning to the term and the
phenomenon itself. All my grandparents died in concentration camps and my mother was a
‘hidden child’ just like Anne Frank, and I take exception to the distortions inherent in the
CAAs definition of anti-Semitism which extend the term not only to criticism of Israel but
also across the past 80 years, which means they are trying to compare the situation of
Jews prior to and throughout the Nazi reign to that of Jews today, an absurd idea.
Criticism of Jews as Jews is markedly different from criticism of a national entity like a
nation state, especially when one criticises that state for not living up to its obligation under
International agreements. Whether or not a state does actually honour international
agreements is of course one of the criteria for its being considered a legitimate state at all.
But the simple fact is that one can criticise a state without criticising its citizens because
these are two entirely distinct things.
In sum, I urge you to treat the accusations of the CAA as the absurd childish, vindictive
overreactions they are. We have far more urgent matters to take care of in Labour UK.
I hope you will agree with me that cutting words and short sentences out of a persons social
media posts is not exactly a good way to go about establishing anything beyond a shadow
of a doubt as social media is usually conversational, and in conversation people make use
of jargon and all kinds of shortcuts and snappy responses that sound very strange when
taken out of context. I am, and will always be, critical of Israel, as I am critical of all other
countries that regularly flout human rights and international conventions. I also have
certainly made comparisons between developments in Israel and the rise of Fascism in
Europe. I will continue to do so, though not as arbitrarily and without grounds as the CAA
use the term anti-Semitism.
One last point: the CAAs use of the term anti-Semitism is so broad as to discourage Free
Speech. The CAAs snooping around on Facebook to ‘gather evidence’ also acts as a
constraint op Free Speech. As an activist I believe it is good that Social Media provides a
space for confrontation and debate on a wide range of issues, and I do not doubt this
occasionally also includes people who espouse ‘tropes’ and ‘conspiracy theories’. I myself
have confronted such people on many occasions. My exchanges with Gilad Atzmon
concerning some of his more controversial statements have been challenging, but having
read The Wandering Who? I have difficulty imaging that anyone could gather from his
criticism of Israel and the way some groups use the Holocaust to stifle criticism that Atzmon
is an anti-Semite. I have on many occasions taken him to task on his generalisations and
his general lack of knowledge as well as his cynicism, an attitude I am all too familiar with
as I lived in Israel for 5 years and I understand the disillusion that many people there
experience.
My aim in these exchanges with Atzmon has always been to encourage reconciliation with
a broader group of left-wing critics who are concerned about Labour policy re. Israel and
the occupation. At no time during these exchanges have I ever made a secret of my
criticism of Atzmon’s more radical statements which the author unfortunately borrows from
the so-called ‘alt-right’. There are others within the circles I frequent on Facebook that
espouse altogether more silly or extreme ideas. The whole idea of social media is that one
frequently rubs shoulders with people one disagrees with. Hardly incriminating stuff, really,
unless we were living in East Germany during the communist era.
Yours sincerely, Daniel Waterman
Preliminary remarks:
The CAAs investigation of my posts on Social Media represent to me an intolerable and
unjustifiable invasion of my privacy, particularly with respect to the potential threat implicit
in their e-mail to ‘expose me to the Labour NEC’ and demand my expulsion from the party.
This represents, in my opinion, an unprecedented level of interference with my political
freedom of choice since political party’s have never before concerned themselves with the
private thoughts of the electorate or even their public statements, nor, quite obviously with
their criminal records, past behaviour, moral status, or what the neighbours say about them.
The policies of the Labour party are public knowledge and one can vote for them or abstain
or vote for another party but they are in any case, we hope, determined on the basis of a
democratic transparent process of debate, reflection and collaboration that would,
hopefully, eliminate anyone who disagrees with their policies or discourage them from
voting. I therefore do not see how it could possibly benefit the Labour party to snoop
around on people’s Social Media posts, or for that matter eavesdrop on their private
conversations, except perhaps in the hope of better attuning policy to the needs and
expectations of the electorate?
The CAA’s use of the term anti-Semitism and its threat to have me expelled from Labour
thus represents a priori, an attempt to interject itself into internal party political affairs which
is at the very least remarkable as this ‘charity’ by no means has any legal authority to
determine who is allowed to be a member of the Labour party or who the party should or
should not accept as a member.
One may argue that the CAA’s role herein is merely advisory, but the amount of snooping
involved in compiling its accusations suggests that the CAA takes its role much more
seriously, that it is actually involved in compiling evidence so as to prepare the way for
legal action or for some sort of exercise of power rather than merely drawing attention to a
matter of Labour internal policy. Its aim is clearly to bring pressure to bear to force the
NEC’s hand.
Be that as it may, and I am by no means condoning or belittling anti-Semitism, I have
already argued in my reply to their accusations that the quotes were taken out of context.
The CAA selectively picked from texts and posts to make their point that I am either an anti-
Semite, or that something I wrote on Facebook is anti-Semitic, or that I am guilty by
association.
I do not intend to counter these accusations as I have already responded to them in my
reply to the CAA and they are completely unfounded and spurious. Neither does the CAA
have any particular authority in the matter of what is or is not anti-Semitic or who is or is not
an anti-Semite. Indeed, being an anti-Semite or making anti-Semitic statements, shameful
and stupid as it is, is not a crime in itself. Incitement to violence and statements clearly
intended to cause harm are crimes. However, here too, a fine lines separates statements
that are merely hurtful or insulting, including criticism, from ‘hate speech’.
The CAA: a self-appointed Watchdog
The problem here is that the CAA is a self-appointed watchdog that is attempting to do the
work of the Labour party itself, not merely by ‘gathering evidence’ and bringing it to the
attention of the NEC, but also by using a contested and overly broad definition of anti-
Semitism that includes legitimate criticism of Israel and Jewish organisations and also
includes jokes, sarcastic statements, and a great deal of other things that political parties
should not, in my opinion, have to police, precisely because these are already policed by
the police, secret services and media, and furthermore because political parties primary
work is to create favourable conditions for the peaceful arbitration of social conflicts, in
other words, conditions that reduce social conflict and racist xenophobia. Policing these
things is not within their ambit.
As an example of the way the mandate for defining something anti-Semitic may become
overly broad and imprecise consider e.g. the name of the US based ‘Anti-Defamation
League’ (ADL) which views its mandate as extending, as its title suggests, to any statement
or communication that can be considered ‘defamatory’ to Jews, Jewish organisations,
Jewish culture, the Jewish faith, Zionism, Israel, perhaps even Jewish cooking.
By formulating a definition of antisemitism in an overly broad manner, the term can refer to
both acts like defacing or damaging tombstones in a Jewish cemetery or encouraging
prejudices and violence toward Jews as well as to referring to someone of Jewish ancestry
as a ‘dirty Jew’ following a disagreement or because the Jew in question is actually ‘dirty’. It
may not be tactful to call someone a ‘dirty Jew’ but it may be factually correct. By blurring
the lines between ‘hate-speech’ and ‘incitement of violence and discrimination’ and mere
insult (defamation) the ADL has granted itself a wide-ranging mandate to police anything
and everything it considers anti-Semitic, including criticism of Zionism and Israel and of
Jewish organisations that fund and support the occupation, that lobby governments and
support all kinds of activities that critics view as perpetuating injustice and suffering of
Palestinians. E.g. calls to boycott Israeli products as a means of bringing Israel to the
negotiating table are now classified as ‘anti-Semitic’ or even ‘enemy actions’ by the ADL
and other Zionist and Israeli organisations.
The International Definition of Anti-Semitism (IDA)
The definition of Anti-Semitism to which the CAA appeals, proposed by the International
Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, is one that has only recently been adopted by the UK
government. The manner of this adoption as well as the contents of the IDA have been
severely criticised as too general and vague to provide an effective means of policing or
identifying anti-Semitism and distinguishing it from ordinary insults that are not of sufficient
gravity to warrant intervention or from legitimate criticism of Israel and of Zionist or
nationalist organisations. The most serious criticism of the IDA focuses on the needless
and illegitimate conflation of anti-Semitism as a form of hatespeech and incitement to
violence and criticism of Israel, subject I and others more qualified than myself have
addressed elsewhere — suffice to say that Jews are human beings while Israel is a nation
state, two different things entirely and that one can perfectly well criticise one or the other
without being anti-Semitic.
The IDA is particularly overreaching its ambit when it refers to the following acts as anti-Semitism:
Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.
Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination (e.g. by claiming that th existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour).
Applying double standards by requiring of Israel a behaviour not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.
Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.
Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.
As this list, from the CAA website shows, Jews and the state of Israel are effectively
construed as being synonymous without reference to the many Jews worldwide and in
Israel who actively protest the current policies of the Israeli state, particularly its occupation
and its violation of Palestinian Human Rights etc. I quote from the Free Speech on Israel
website:
“There are already many examples of attempts to illegitimately stretch the use of the
definition to censor legitimate political and moral debate. A particular target has been the
non-violent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement – a mass non-violent civil society
campaign to hold Israel to account. Already Israel’s UK supporters have rushed to preemptively interpret the Government’s announcement as shielding Israel and its foundational political philosophy of Zionism, rather than protecting Jews.”
To address each of these points specifically:
There can be little doubt that Israeli media and many pro-Israeli, Zionst and or Jewish
institutions do in fact emphasise the Holocaust at every conceivable opportunity. I
feel it would be entirely superfluous to even attempt to substantiate this just use
Google!
The right of Jewish people to self-determination does not extend to the kind of
dereliction of international agreements and violations of Palestinian Human Rights we
are witnessing today in Israel, the West-Bank and Gaza.
I know of no cases where anyone has demanded of Israel any other kind of
behaviour than of any other state. What this point actually refers to is the question of
the extent of Israel’s use of force and whether its responses are warranted,
necessary, proportionate etc. Israel actually demands of the International community
that it turn a blind eye to its continued violations of Human Rights and International
agreements while its policies more and more overtly destroy the chances of reaching
a negotiated settlement.
First of all, Israeli institutions, politicians and Zionist organisations continually draw on
the Holocaust and the sordid memory of persecution of Jews in Europe and
especially during the Nazi era. So, these organisations actually continually make
comparisons to the Nazi era, including associating politicians and Palestinians and
Arabs of collaboration or of somehow perpetuating the policies of the Nazis.
Secondly, comparisons are highly enlightening, especially since they also reveal
significant differences. Since most people would agree that the State of Israel owes
its existence in many ways to the urgency of finding a safe place for Jews, it seems
logical to also consider the ways in which the politics and outlook of Israeli and
Jewish organisations might have been shaped by the Nazi era as well as to consider
the manifold ways in which modern democratic states might actually evolve or
perpetuate mistakes that led to the rise of Fascism.
All of this is of course perfectly legitimate and not implicitly anti-Semitic. One could, for the sake of argument, point out, e.g. that many policies currently implemented by the Israeli state, including segregation, including the de facto creation of Arab “Ghettos” and collective
punishments, isolation, making health care and education unavailable to Palestinians,
etc etc. do resemble closely policies implemented by the Nazi’s prior to their
implementation of the “endlössung”. As Zygmunt Bauman argued in Modernity and
the Holocaust, the Nazi’s “endlössung” required a modern state machinery and
careful gradual dehumanising of the victims through segregation (the construction of
walled ghettos) and the “compartmentalisation” of all measures so that none of those
involved felt personally culpable for the final outcome.
The CAA: not a charity!
I therefore conclude that what the CAA actually has done in their e-mail undermines their
claim to be ‘merely a charitable institution’ — the e-mail and the threat and interference
implicit in it are an attempt to exercise power over free speech and over that of a British
political party. Again, I refrain from any speculation as to the actual motives for such
interference save to say that it is clear to me that engaging in criticism of Israel and
Zionism and particularly of Jewish organisations that support the occupation and the
continuing dispossession of Palestinians and the trampling of their human rights seems to
have incurred the CAAs wrath.
It does not appear incidental to the case that the board members of the CAA, Stephen
Silverman, Nathan Hopstein and Gideon Falter all have their Facebook pages plastered
with material denigrating the current leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, making
false accusations and implying that he is somehow allied to ‘terrorists’ (i.e. Hamas). This
suggests at least the possibility that the CAA is actually less a “Charity” than a political
organisation attempting purposely to harm the image of Labour UK by implying that those
supporting Jeremy Corbyn, or members who are critical of Israel, are anti-Semites and
forcing the NEC to expel them, a strategy that has already led to a number of expulsions
(e.g. Ken Livingstone, a person whose credentials as an anti-racist campaigner are beyond
doubt but who made the unfortunate mistake of mentioning an uncomfortable truth about
relations between Zionist organisations and the Nazis prior to the Second World War).
From Stephen Silverman's Facebook page ...
From the CAA website by Gideon Falter ....
And Steve Silverman ..
The CAAs criticism could discredit me in the eyes of those who have not read my posts or
any of my communications in full and who do not know me, do not know I am Jewish, do
not know I am an Israeli passport holder. Nonetheless, these accusations could get me
expelled from the Labour party, despite my clear and outspoken stand against racism and
for human rights as well as FOR many Labour policies I hope to see fulfilled.
That I occasionally indulge in sarcasm, in reflecting and ridiculing ideas I disagree with,
making jokes, engaging with people whose beliefs and communications are disagreeable to
the CAA, or making legitimate comparisons between political conditions in 1930s Germany
and Israel today, is in my opinion entirely my own business, even though it now, thanks to
social media, occurs in public. Indeed, the CAAs investigation constitutes an illegal and
unethical interference with my political sovereignty, for in order for me to be a political
subject I must also have a right to do more than just vote once every four years, I must also
have a right to engage with others in frank communication, unimpeded by self-appointed
watchdogs.
I hereby request that the Labour party remove the CAA as an advisory on anti-Semitism,
that you declare their use of the International Definition of Anti-Semitism as ‘not fit for
purpose’ (since it is obviously this definition the CAA is employing as a mandate) and that
you act to have the CAAs registration and a ‘charitable organisation’ removed on grounds
of political interference, spying and coercion.
—Daniel Waterman, 1st of February, 2018. The Hague.