John Wight appears to be the press officer of the ‘Edinburgh Stop the War Coalition’. As such he was central to organizing the demonstrations in the summer of 2006 in which the slogan ‘We are all Hezbollah’ was prominent. Wight is a supporter of ‘BDS’ – Boycott Divestment and Sanctions – against Israel. He hopes to exclude Israelis – and nobody else - from the cultural and economic life of humanity.

On Engage, Wight bragged that in 2006 he played a key role in pressuring the Edinburgh International Film Festival to return sponsorship money from the Israeli Embassy in London, and that he also helped to organise a march demonstration of 8000 through the centre of Edinburgh in solidarity with the people of Lebanon against Israel's criminal attack on that country civilian population."

In the Morning Star, an apparently antiracist newspaper, John Wight wrote the following:

“...the Palestinians hold a unique place as the Holocaust’s forgotten victims, at least in the eyes of those charged with maintaining the objective of colonising the Middle East in the interests of Western neoliberalism.”

“...in short, the long-suffering Palestinians have been sacrificed upon the altar of the West’s continued blind support of that apartheid state otherwise known as the state of Israel.”

I quoted these words on Engage under the provocative title: “Holocaust revisionism in the Morning Star”. It seemed to me that to claim a special place for Palestinians in Holocaust Memorial Day was a form of ‘revisionism’ – since the Palestinians were not victims of the Nazis and have never been victims of genocide. It seemed to me that Wight and the Morning Star, saying that the Palestinians are victims of the Nazis and also ‘uniquely forgotten’, were attempting to de-legitimize Holocaust Memorial Day. Remembering the Holocaust for its own sake was likened by Wight to a sacrifice on an altar – where ‘apartheid’ Israel is ritually killing Palestinians as part of a 'western' project of ‘colonising the Middle East.’ The killing of six million Jews was remembered, by Wight and the Morning Star, with an invocation of antisemitic blood libel rhetoric.

What followed was extra-ordinary. Somebody using the name “John Wight” began posting responses in the comments box on the Engage website. He linked to a website called codoh.com – the ‘Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust’. Anybody can see that the call for ‘open debate on the Holocaust’ is a far-right antisemitic call. It occurred to us that somebody was trying to get John Wight into trouble by dishonestly posting in his name.

Later, the ‘John Wight’ poster wrote a whole antisemitic paragraph:

"The state of Israel is a hydra-headed monster, comprising Zionist ethnic cleansers, US imperialists, and Arab collaborationist regimes. Arrayed against this monster are the forces of human progress."

‘John Wight’ was now claiming that Israel was like a supernatural monster; a monster with many heads; a monster which grows new heads when one head is cut off - an un-slayable monster. He was quite clearly stating the view that the State of Israel is a huge international organization which ‘comprises of’ Zionists, imperialists and Arab regimes. This supranational monster faces an array of ‘the forces of human progress’.

‘John Wight’ went on to say:

"As soon as the scales fall from the eyes of international Jewry with regard to the racist and fascist ideology that is Zionism, the world will begin to emerge from the iron heel of war and brutality in the Middle East."

He holds something he calls "international Jewry" responsible for "this monster" against which is arrayed the forces of human progress. If only "international Jewry" would see the situation clearly then "the world will begin to emerge from the iron heel of war and brutality..."

I wrote, as the editor, to John Wight to inform him that somebody seemed to be trying to present him as an antisemite on the Engage website. Astonishingly, he apologized for linking to the fascist website, saying that it was ‘not his intention to cause offence’. He explained this accident by saying that he had been intellectually lazy and had failed to take sufficient care to substantiate his sources. He says that he opposes the BNP and the far right.

It seems to me that he linked to an antisemitic website because what they were saying was indistinguishable from what he was saying. It was a mistake but it was hardly an accident. This was a fascist website, not a dating website or a gardening website. How can it be coincidence that John Wight, when he wants to articulate antisemitic views, links to an antisemitic website? And then he apologizes, as though the problem was that he might have given offence! But the problem is not that he is offensive. The problem is that he poses as an antiracist, he writes in a paper that poses as antiracist, and he articulates antisemitic views with the help of a fascistic website. And he doesn’t even notice.

He was less apologetic about the antisemitic passage which I had asked him about. He wrote:

The other comment re Israel being a hydra-headed monster I stand by. Without US sponsorship, without Israel's role as a vital US strategic asset, and without the complicity of Arab regimes that would rather accept US money to prop them up and protect them from their own people, the crimes of occupation and ethnic cleansing committed against the Palestinians would not stand.

Here Wight translates his own antisemitic paragraph into a language which is not evidently antisemitic. But the paragraph has the same meaning. Anyway, John Wight thinks it has the same meaning.

Can anybody think of a reason why John Wight should not be thought of, in an uncomplicated way, as an antisemite?

David Hirsh
Editor, Engage

Jon Pike Adds:

Short answer, No. But a couple of points:

1) This material needs to be sent to the labour movement in Edinburgh, to the Morning Star, to the Scottish Left Review, which apparently publishes Wight.

2) This sort of thing keeps happening. Sue Blackwell linked to such sites, then Neumann got into a lengthy discussion with 'Jewish Tribal Review', then someone from the AAUP wanted to send out material from the Barnes Review to invitees to its boycott-fest, and now Wight wants us to look at Holocaust revisionist sites. But still, still, my jaw still drops, every time this happens.

Now, to invoke the principle of charity, I realise it's quite easy to find something online, to cut and paste the url. But anyone can tell, with a seconds perusal, what sort of sites these are. Neumman, Blackwell, the AAUP staffer, and Wight didn't take that second. Why not? Only in one case can this be a genuine mistake - the AAUP staffer.

All three of the others are involved in - what they think of as - a concerted campaign of solidarity with Palestine. All three know that there are anti-semites, in their words, 'at the fringes' of such a campaign. Yet all three can't get over the lowest of thresholds in combatting or even recognising anti-semitism.

All three loudly proclaim their anti-racist credentials.

Give us a break.

Every now and then, serious people suggest to me that Engage is focussing on a relatively minor problem on the Left, or that it is over-sensitive. I think, in the case of some of the material that occasionally crops up in the comments - like the criticism of Michael White - they are occasionally right.

But, then, this stuff keeps on happening.