Nation Revisited # 118. August 2016

The Fatal Embrace

Pages 22 - 25 from Jews and the State by Benjamin Ginsberg, published by The University of Chicago Press. Available from Amazon.

(The row in the Labour Party about alleged anti-Semitism has revived interest in the Jews. Professor Benjamin Ginsberg suggests that they grew rich and powerful with the rise of the British Empire. He is a distinguished American political scientist with an objective view of history).

In Britain Jews did not figure in the creation of the liberal state. However, Jewish politicians, publishers and financiers helped to strengthen the liberal regime and expand its popular base between the Crimean War and the First World War. During the mid and late nineteenth centuries, British Jews achieved considerable wealth, status, and political influence. The Rothschilds were one of the most important banking families in Britain. Other important Jewish financiers included the Sassoons, the Cassels, the de Hirsch family, and the Semons. By the First World War, though Jews constituted only 1% of the total population of Britain, 23% of Britain's non-landed gentry were of Jewish origin.

In the middle decades of the nineteenth century, Jews also came to be a major factor in British journalism. The Reuters News Agency, founded by Paul Julius Reuter (whos name was originally Israel Beer Josaphat) in 1848, was the chief purveyor of information on world events to the entire British press and, at times, the government as well. The Sassoons owned and edited the Sunday Times, Harry Marks founded the Financial Times, and Sir Alfred Mons controlled the English Review. Jews were especially important in the popular press. The Daily Telegraph, controlled by the Levy Lawson family, was London's first penny newspaper and, in the 1870s, had a circulation of just under 200,000. The Telegraph appealed mainly to a middle and working class audience and specialized in sensational coverage of both domestic and foreign events. Harry Oppenheim had a major interest in another mass circulation daily, the London Daily News. Sir Alfred Mond published the Westminster Gazette, a paper that provided its popular audience with dramatic coverage of the exploits of British military forces in the far-flung reaches of the empire. 

During the same period of time, a number of Jews served as members of Parliament and rose to positions of considerable influence in the British government. Obviously, the most notable example is Benjamin Disraeli, a converted Jew who served twice as prime minister between 1868 and 1880, and along with William Gladstone was the dominant figure in British politics in the late nineteenth century. Other prominent Jewish politicians in the pre-World War 1 era included GJ Goschen, who served as chancellor of the exchequer from 1887 to 1892; Farrer Herschell, who was lord chancellor in 1886 and again in 1892-1895; Sir George Jessell, solicitor general in 1910, attorney general from 1910 to 1913, and lord chief justice in 1913; and Edward Samuel Montague, who served as under secretary of state for India.

These Jewish political and business elites helped to consolidate the liberal regime in Britain by reconciling conservative forces to democratic politics and by expanding the resources and popular base of the British state. The key figure in this process was Benjamin Disraeli.

In addition, Disraeli helped to fashion an imperialist program that, in the latter decades of the nineteenth century, bound together the aristocracy and the military and administrative establishment with segments of the financial community, the press, and the middle class in a coalition that would support his efforts to strengthen the British state. The Disraeli government's policy of imperial expansion in India, the Middle East, and Africa yielded important political and economic benefits for the participants of this coalition.

Jewish financiers and newspaper publishers were important participants in this coalition. In the late nineteenth century, more than one fourth of all British capital was invested overseas. Long-established financial interests invested primarily in North America and Australia where property owners could rely upon the protection of local laws and authorities. New banking houses, a number of them Jewish, were more heavily invested in the Middle East, India, Asia, and Africa where local laws and authorities offered little security for foreign property. Here, British investors had to depend upon the protection of their own government and its military forces. This dependence gave Jewish financiers a stake in the creation of a strong national government able and willing to project its power throughout the world.

Jewish financial and business interests were important participants in the imperialist enterprise. For example, the Indian railroad network that the Sassoons helped to finance was closely integrated into the imperial administration, and Julius Reuter's wire service functioned as the command and control mechanism of the colonial government. Upon occasion, the British government also turned to Jewish banking houses to finance imperial expansion. Disraeli's purchase of the Suez Canal in 1878, for example, was made possible by Harry Oppenheimer's extensive contacts in Egypt and a four million pound loan from Lionel Rothschild. The role played by Jewish capital in the creation of Britain's nineteenth century empire was not lost on its critics. In his classic work, which became the basis of Lenin's theory of imperialism, JA Hobson argued that "men of a single and peculiar race, who have behind them centuries of financial experience," formed "the central ganglion of international capitalism."

This theme was also prominent in the work of Goldwyn Smith, a noted scholar and opponent of Disraeli's imperialist policies. Smith frequently charged that the Disraeli government's foreign policies were motivated more by Jewish than British interests.

For its part, the Jewish-owned popular press worked to rally public support for the government's imperialist endeavours. The press depicted the conquest and subjugation of foreign territories as a great adventure. Generals like Kitchener and Gordon were portrayed as heroic figures. Journalists captured the popular imagination with accounts of the exploits of British forces in faraway lands.

The Reuters news service was particularly important in popularizing imperialism. Reuters specialized in the collection and dissemination of news from the furthest outposts of the empire. Its dispatches, upon which all British newspapers came to rely, emphasized the positive, "civilizing" aspects of British colonial administration and military campaigns. The steady diet of campaigns, battles, and raids in Reuter's dispatches, along with news of the more mundane details of colonial rule, maintained popular interest in the empire and made it an accepted part of British life. The British popular press, like its American counterpart during the Spanish-American War, discovered that exciting tales of empire building gave an enormous boost to circulation and revenues.

Fantasy and Reality

People suffering from schizophrenia can’t tell the difference between fantasy and reality. The rest of us should be able to but politicians confuse things deliberately and ordinary people often drift into fantasy without realising it.

This is clearly illustrated when we come to race and immigration. Parts of the UK that have been settled by millions of Africans and Asians. Some of them have been here for generations and the idea that we could round them up and send them to their ancestral homelands is pure fantasy, but that is the policy of several political parties that contest elections, run websites, and publish magazines and leaflets. This is despite the fact that we haven’t got enough police or troops to round them up, we haven’t got enough ships or planes to transport them, and their countries of origin would probably refuse to accept them.

Undaunted by the impossibility of their task the supporters of mass deportation claim that the majority of British people agree with them. But this too is a fantasy. There are a great many British people with mixed-race grandchildren who would fight to keep them. Some mixed race couples have been together for years and their children have been born in this country. What would the racists do with the white partners in mixed marriages and what would they do with the children? Presumably they would force them aboard their non-existent ships and planes.

Now that we have voted to quit the EU we can stop European immigration and we have always been able to stop non-European immigration. We could also deport undesirables, convicted criminals, illegal immigrants, dole-scroungers, overstayed tourists, and bogus students. We could help failed settlers to go home and we could offer to pay the fares of volunteers. We could also promote the use of English and stop translating government documents into foreign languages. All of this is possible and many of us think that it’s desirable, so let’s concentrate on what can be done.

The non-Europeans already here will be absorbed into the general population. Some will try to keep themselves separate but if the Jewish experience is anything to go by they too will eventually become British. Many of them have contributed to civilisation but some have not. We can only hope that the least gifted will leapfrog evolution through education. Their grandfathers might have been primitive by our standards but most of them are capable of improvement. Their future will be determined by their ability to assimilate. The gangs of feral blacks plaguing our big cities must be dealt with but the majority of non-Europeans will be assimilated.

Believers in the Master Race theory predict the downfall of civilisation if we absorb non-European immigrants. We can only point to countries like Brazil where the whites are only half of the population. Brazil has got problems with poverty and maladministration but she is a first class nation in the fields of science and technology.

We do not need non-European immigration but we must accept the demographic reality of modern Britain – those who prefer fantasy can carry on dreaming.

Going Too Far

The minor political parties always go too far and their leaders are often more extreme than their followers. This ensures that they stay on the periphery and are not taken seriously by the general public.

It’s perfectly reasonable for banks to charge interest on loans. They have staff and premises to pay for and they are entitled to make a profit. But instead of calling for reasonable interest rates the extremists want to hang the bankers and abolish the banking system. They accuse the banks of creating money out of nothing but they never explain why Lehman Brothers didn’t simply create some more money when they ran out of it.

Immigration is another subject where they get carried away. Mass migration drives down wages and aggravates shortages of housing, health care and education. But instead of campaigning for sensible immigration controls they want to round up all the immigrants already here and deport them to their countries of origin.

The extremists go beyond a natural love of race and nation to despise most of humanity. They subdivide Europeans into different races and perpetuate an image of the Jews as moneylenders and criminals that is supported by literature.
Most of us are not anti-Semitic but we are familiar with the Merchant of Venice demanding his pound of flesh, and Fagin leading his gang of pickpockets.

The racial supremacists have not been successful at the polls. Under the British first-past-the-post system the winning party usually gets 30-40 percent of the poll. At the 2015 general election the results were as follows:

Conservative 36.9%

Labour 30.4%

Ukip 12.6%

Lib Dem 7.9%

SNP 4.7%

Green 3.8%

The votes of the BNP and the National Front were too low to figure as a percentage. These results are an accurate guide to the levels of support enjoyed by the political parties in the UK; except for the SNP which only operates in Scotland where they won a landslide victory. The minor parties are wasting their time but they continue to stand in every election.

Ukip got a respectable 12.6% because they are careful not to go too far. People will support immigration controls but not deportation. And they will back financial reform but would not like to see Mark Carney hanging from a lamp post outside the Bank of England.

Everyone has a right to their opinions, If people want to form pointless political parties that is their prerogative. There is a natural constituency for a populist party – like Ukip – of between 10 and 20 percent. In countries with proportional representation that would give them dozens of seats in parliament and the chance to be included in a coalition government. But under our antique system of representation only the big parties can succeed.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain has been campaigning since 1904. They are genuine socialists who never supported the Soviet regime and seek to change society by democratic means. At the 2015 general election their ten candidates only got 889 votes between them. The BNP and the NF are in the same position as the SPGB; dedicated people going nowhere.

If you just want to shout abuse at foreigners and wrap yourself in the Union Jack you can join any one of half a dozen parties of the far-Right. But if you are interested in creating a better Britain you are advised to join one of the mainstream political parties. Their policies hardly matter because they change over the years. The Tories were always the party of big business that resisted every social advance but now they claim to be a ‘one nation’ party that defends the National Health Service. The Labour Party used to fight for socialism but they have been taken over by a gang of affluent intellectuals. The Liberal Democrats have been decimated and are trying to regroup. But all of them have learned that they have to be flexible in order to survive.

Press release from Tru-Aim originally published in Nation July 1974

Below is the text of a letter sent to the Home Secretary about the amnesty for illegal immigrants, the first such Tru-Aim (Trade Union anti-Immigration Movement) communication to the new Labour government – with the old Labour policies.

Dear Sir, The members of this movement wish to register the strongest possible protest at the latest piece of anti-British legislation to emanate from Westminster - the amnesty for illegal immigrants.

Neither this (minority) government, nor any other, has any mandate to carry out arbitrary policies of this nature which will, far from closing any legal loopholes currently extant, undoubtedly increase abuse of, and contempt for the entire British legal system.

Acts of this nature will also do nothing to improve race relations , they will merely further alienate the native British people , as all similar post-war enactments have done, and this government is sadly out of touch with the basic working class ideals of the electorate (which it claims to represent) if it thinks otherwise.

This organization was founded to protect the rights of native British workers, and pledges itself to work for the early repeal of all impediments to those rights, including this latest ill-conceived ‘amnesty’.

Yours faithfully, N Spencer AUEW (Hon.Sec.)

No reply is expected but department D7 at Scotland Yard has no doubt been alerted and subjected our letterhead to ultra-violet tests for finger prints, gunpowder, cannabis, bubonic plague etc.

Other Happenings – Whitehall, London SW1

On Tuesday April 23^rd , St George’s Day, the only day in the British year that most Englishmen seem never to have heard of, and the only day of national celebration that the alien BBC and press dared to treat as a joke was seen by some patriots as a suitable time to demonstrate against this disgusting travesty of a government, recently elected by immigrant votes. The anti-Immigration Standing Committee (AISC), to which Tru-Aim is affiliated, therefore organized a march, open air meeting and various other events, mainly to protest against  the ‘amnesty’ mentioned above. As well as Tru-Aim, members of the Racial Preservation Society, Immigration Control Association, British Campaign Against Immigration, Monday Club, and probably other bodies not known to us, participated, as well as individual members of the National Front. The Chairman and acting Secretary of Tru-Aim carried our banner, which was well received by the other marchers. It is hoped that this will become an annual event. The majority of marcher, as requested, wore red roses, others carried Union Jacks (not strictly appropriate for this occasion), and a picture and small report appeared in the Guardian and the Daily Telegraph.



Is there a Jewish Plot?

In a Youtube video of Nick Griffin being interviewed by Davey Russell of Motivate Radio, he makes it clear that he believes in a Jewish conspiracy to destroy the nation state and the white race. The former leader of the BNP is an educated man who was elected to the European Parliament but his entire worldview is based on conjecture.

Since the collapse of the BNP several little parties have emerged to perpetuate the myth of a Jewish Conspiracy to take over the world. There are individuals within these parties that know better but their overall philosophy is anti-Semitic.

Those of us who were threatened and assaulted by Jewish thugs in the good old days are not exactly pro-Jewish but we don't necessarily subscribe to conspiracy theory. 

It's true that most of the leaders of the Russian Revolution were Jewish but Stalin turned on them with homicidal determination. First he purged them from the Party, then he had Leon Trotsky murdered, and he was about to launch a ‘final solution’ when he suffered a stroke. Mussolini is reputed to have told Hitler that he was wasting his time waging war on Jewish Communists because Stalin had shot most of them.

The Jews have always been prominent in finance since the Christians and the Muslims used them as moneylenders to overcome their prohibition of usury. The Rothschilds and the Warburgs founded financial empires but so did Gentiles like John D Rockefeller and JP Morgan. Everyone has heard of the Hungarian Jewish financier George Soros but few know that Carlos Slim, a Mexican telecoms provider of Lebanese descent, is the richest man in the world.

The Jews have survived by keeping themselves apart from the host community. But in so doing they have made themselves a target and suffered repeated bouts of persecution. As usual Oswald Mosley aptly summed up the situation.

“I will always attack any interest, Jew or Gentile, or any man, Englishman or Eskimo, who in my view attempts to drag Britain into unnecessary wars which will lose British lives in quarrels which are not our own. But throughout these events I have held to our principle of never attacking all Jews and thus becoming an anti-Semite. I criticize Jews only for quite specific and definite activities against our country’s interest.”

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