Harry's Place

Starting our round-up of British far-right views on Gaza, we find that the guys over at Covert Undercover Nuisance Tactics are pretty apathetic:

Well where we stand is well back to enjoy the view because we couldn’t give a shit about either of them, so they can blow themselves all to Hell for what we care … Both are scum in our opinion and support for either side is for lefties and wimps.

After all, ‘its is none of our concern what the yids and ragheads do to each other and the only people who are concerned are the liberal left’.

Not so, apparently.

Nick Griffin, the Holocaust denying BNP leader, former exposer of Jewish media conspiracies and now born again opponent of anti-Semitism, has had his say.

‘The fighting in Gaza is not a proper concern for a British political party’, opines Griffin, before offering his view anyway. Presumably a lot has changed since his book ‘Who are the Mind Benders?’ which alleged ‘Zionist’ control of the media, including the BBC, for he now speaks of ‘the anti-Israeli bias of the leftist BBC’.

For Griffin, it is strategically important to support Israel because its destruction would embolden the Jihadist movement and ‘while we would oppose any move to entangle Britain in war on behalf of Israel, it is in our clear national interest that it should survive’. He expresses the hope that Britain can lose its dependency on oil from Arab nations, but concludes that ‘In the meantime, we will go back to ignoring Gaza and concentrate on the things that matter to our people’.

A commenter, ‘anglo48′, reads between the lines:

The question of whether Israel has a right to exist is largely beside the point. The bottom line is that Israel acts as a vital buffer against Islam in the Middle East, and any enemy of Islam is a friend of mine.

Griffin’s attempt to position himself as a reasonable political figure opposed to Jihadism and in favour of Israel’s existence is central to the attempt to present a modernised BNP which is simply ‘patriotic’ and against Islamist extremism.

Griffin is, of course, a well documented political chameleon and the BNP remains a party whose membership criteria include the requirement that you are a member of ‘the indigenous Anglo-Saxon, Celtic and Norse folk communities of Britain and those we regard as closely related and ethnically assimilated or assimilable aboriginal members of the European race also resident in Britain’. It is also a party that proclaims itself to be ‘wholly opposed to any form of racial integration between British and non-European peoples’.

As recently as 2006, Griffin was happy to attend a conference filled with anti-Semites. As The Nation reported at the time:

Many attendees of the American Renaissance conference were so fixated on the “Jewish question,” they seemed deaf to the latest tactics promoted by the conference’s European speakers … Speaking on the conference’s first day, Griffin suggested his move away from anti-Semitism was purely tactical. “The proper enemy to any political movement isn’t necessarily the most evil and the worst,” he advised. “The proper enemy is the one we can most easily defeat.”

Naturally, Griffin’s stance has not exactly thrilled the BNP’s unreconstructed ‘traditionalist’ wing. Over at the North West Nationalists blog, a haunt for BNP members and supporters with no time for ‘moderation’, tactical or otherwise, Griffin’s piece on Gaza was greeted with disgust:

‘Hamas at this moment are fighting for their lives opposing international Zionism and I personally salute them for that’.

‘Whilst real nationalists are trying to get on with dealing with pressing issues, all Gri££in can do is fabricate wild fantasy stories about militant Islamics taking over the world’.

‘So now its the fault of Moslems and Islam and they not the Zionist Talmudic Jews want to take over the world. Nice shift away from the true enemies of mankind’.

‘Look behind the curtain of Marxism, Communism, Socialism, Feminism, Humanism, Mulitculturalism, Political Correctness, Capitalism, Globalism, Internationalism and all the other evil and pernicious ideologies and philosophies and you will see a Zionist Talmudic believing Jew sitting in the chair controlling them all’.

‘What Nick “Zionist Stooge” Griffin doesn’t tell you is the same people who are carrying out this barbaric assault against the Palestinians are the same people who are running Britain and America from behind the scenes’.

‘Griffins constant about-turns read like a dictionary of Marxist thought!’

‘Griffins snaky road is probably best seen in the context of him trying to find wealthy backers and to get the blessing of a faction within the establishment at what ever price. The Jews are obvious candidates as they are wealthy and have reason to be afraid of Islam’s increasing influence. In addition Griffin probably has never lost his original anti-Semitism and probably sees them as duplicitous and “slimy”. In other words his perfect partners’.

‘It’s not the Arabs who run our country from behind the scenes its the Jews’.

‘Griffin you’re a cunt. Hammas is trying to regain palestine for the palestinians. Hammas and all the fighters trying to regain palestine for the palestinians are true nationalists, not that you would recognise a true nationalist if one kicked you in the bollocks’.

‘Griffin is a traitor to nationalism. BNP members must to remove the cunt’.

The North West Nationalists are clear in their view on Israel, as expounded in this lengthy post, which adopts language more usually associated with the far-left:

The Gaza Strip is a self-governing Apartheid Israeli Concentration Camp … The horrendous devastation and appalling Nazi-style Apartheid Israeli reprisals on the essentially defenceless Gaza Concentration Camp have horrified the World … However the World now has the power to act against this mass-murdering, racist, neo-Nazi, nuclear terrorist state, Apartheid Israel, through the UN and DESPITE the support for Apartheid Israel from the US … The World must act to STOP the current carnage of the Gaza Massacre and the ongoing illegal and abusive Israeli Occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

They even go so far as to re-post an article on Chavez’s condemnation of Israel. The comments for that article include:

‘Good, every single one of them should fuck off to Israel, join the army and get killed’.

‘The English should boot out all the shylocks out the British Isles’.

And, naturally, despite all the hyperbole about Israel being ‘neo-Nazi’ and ‘Nazi-style’, NWN are still clear where they stand on Third Reich atrocities, being loyal fans of David Irving.

Also angered by Griffin’s take on Gaza are his former International Third Position comrades from back in the days when he was an ‘anti-Zionist’ ‘Political Soldier’. For them, Griffin’s comments are ’shameful’ and ‘The BNP has been turned from being an anti-Zionist party to a Neo Con one’. In another post describing Griffin’s comments as ‘disgusting’, we find this in the comments:

its obvious that griffin is trying to position himself as being pro-jewish, anti-muslim, in a vain attemp to curry favour with the pro-zionist media.

we all know that politicians who take a pro-jewish line get their personal profile beefed up by the media. this is what griffin is counting on. this shows that griffin has put his ego and his political career ahead of the truth. the shadow of shame is now being cast over the BNP leadership, the party is losing all credibility.

the BNP has now become griffins vehicle for self-publicity.

those in the BNP who care about british nationalism must form a faction strong enough to oust griffin.

Another post on ‘one of the most shameful statements from any “nationalist leader” that I can recall’ complains about ‘the TV channels and “experts” who continue promoting the “holocaust” and waffle on about “nazi hunting” for aged anti-Communist freedom fighters from the Baltic Nations and elsewhere when we have war crimes being committed before our very eyes in Gaza!’

Griffin is accused of defending a ‘terrorist state’ and Final Conflict wonders ‘is he admitting … that the influence of Israeli Jews over British politics is sufficient enough to warrant his time and energy?’ Could this be why Griffin is ‘Consistantly pouring over “Islamist” affairs, criminality and “war-mongering” and consistantly ignoring Jewish Zionist affairs, criminality and “war-mongering”‘?

Keen to prove its long-running ‘anti-Zionist’ credentials, FC is offering a variety of related products for sale via its website. As a result, neo-Nazi ‘anti-Zionists’ now have the chance to display ‘pro-Palestinian’ stickers with pride. Coming soon to a Gaza rally near you(?) we have:

Unsurprisingly, then, the Israeli operations in Gaza have caused problems for many on the British far-right. The question of who they hate the most has yet again caused violent disagreement in the ranks.

Griffin finds himself in the bizarre position of defending the very people he believes are the secret controllers of the world. For the old fashioned far-right who delight in any opportunity to attack Jews, they also find themselves in the strange position of allying themselves with a cause that is dear to the hearts of the ‘non-whites’ and ‘Reds’ they so despise.

‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend’ makes for strange bedfellows indeed.