Brian Coleman, Anti Semitism, hypocrisy and lies

A Jewish friend of mine said to me only the other week that if you scratch the surface of some of the polite middle classes living in Barnet you find the anti-semitism just below the surface, sometime they try and dress it up as anti-Zionism which they do not consider the same as anti-semitism but you cannot dispute the fact that those who want the State of Israel to disappear inevitable want the Jewish people to disappear as well.

 This is a quote from a blog by Brian Coleman on Monday. Many people withing the Jewish community in Barnet believe that Mr Coleman is an unwavering supporter of their interests and an unflagging and determined enemy of anti semitism. Mr Jonathan Hoffman of the Zionist league was a stalwart supporter of Mr Coleman throughout his battle with the Barnet Standards committee. Mr Coleman also mentioned this in his blog. He said

Veolia which is involved with excellent new light transit system in Jerusalem which is transforming public transport in that city whilst preserving the historic environment has been a particular target for attack but it is not the only business doing legitimate trade with Israel that has been targeted.The attempts to intimidate me over the North London Waste Authority procurement contract, which have included a series of politically motivated complaints to the Standards Board and an attempt to have me arrested at Camden town hall have just made me more determined to resist this new form of anti-semitism.

Mr Coleman failed to mention that the standards complaint was raised by Mr Rony Cohen, who is both Jewish and Israeli and who's wife had both holocaust survivors and victims in her family. Brian Coleman knows this only too well, as does anyone who has read the details of the standards complaint. In short Mr Coleman is alleging that Israeli Jews are not entitled to an opinion over the way their own country conducts his business, whilst he, who is neither Israeli or Jewish can say what he likes. In my book, by declaring that Mr Cohen is not allowed to have an opinion on the matter, Mr Coleman is clearly behaving in a most anti democratic and anti semitic way. If I were to say a black person is not allowed to hold a view, due to the colour of their skin, no one would deny this is racist, so why has no one challenged Coleman for his revolting and totalitarian view.

For the record, I personally do not support the issue of a boycott of Veolia. I actually agree with Mr Coleman on this issue, but I fully respect Mr Cohen and his genuinely held views. Whilst the issue is complex, on balance I do not think a boycott of Veolia is justified. There are many companies that deal with all manner of regimes, which are not subject to boycotts, especially the banks and oil companies. I think that building a transport system is not, by any stretch of the imagination on a par with some of the activities of other companies.

Mr Coleman is the worst type of politician. He is a hypocrite who gives large on certain issues when it suits him, but turns a blind eye or even worse, colludes when the mood suits him. I know this because that is how this blog came into existence. For those of you who are unfamiliar, I used to write a blog for the Hendon Times, but I got sacked from that. What for? I wrote a blog criticising Barnet Council for posting a video on You Tube which featured a Nazi sympathiser promoting, in crude terms, anti semitism in Barnet.

You may think that a so called champion of the Jewish Community such as Brian Coleman would have been the first person to back my campaign to have the video removed? Sadly, not only did Coleman say nothing at all about the video and take no action at all, he even put pressure on the Hendon Times to silence me. The then editor of the Hendon Times, Phil Crowther confirmed to me that this was the reason for closing down my blog. In his words "I can't afford for the paper to have a PCC complaint, because you've upset Brian Coleman". He explained that this would take two weeks of his time and he considered my blog to not be worth the hassle.

At the time, Brian Coleman was the cabinet member for community safety and community engagement. As such the presence of the video on the Barnet Council website was directly under his jurisdiction.  The video was only removed, when his boss, Mike Freer intervened.

I asked Jonathan Hoffman of his views on Coleman not supporting my campaign. His sole comment was "I was not aware of this issue". It seems that the whole of the Coleman clique develops miopia on the issue of the video. Brian Coleman tried to allege that his criticism of me in the standards case in 2009 was based on the fact I was an anti semite. He made this allegation on the Vanessa Feltz Show on BBC London 94.9. I immediately phoned Vanessa and drew her attention to the relevant blogs. The BBC then went to great lengths to distance themselves from Colemans libellous comments.

To this day, I cannot understand how Brian Coleman allowed himself to put his personal dislike for me above his professed dislike of anti semitism, especially if it is as genuine as he claims. I would never consider compromising my personal principles in such a manner. Until the day that Brian Coleman issues a personal apology to the Jewish community of Barnet for not addressing the issue at the time, I will be deeply skeptical of whether his anti semitism is anything more than the skin deep polite middle class disdain that he describes in his blog.

The offending  blog which caused my demise at the Hendon Times is the second blog I wrote on this website. You can read it by clicking here - Barnet Council's incompetance puts Nazi propoganda...

If you don't believe me, have a look at David Miller's blog. David is Jewish and the son of Baroness Miller of Hendon. He is a one time chair of Chipping Barnet Conservative association.  Here is his blog - Offensive Video

He also posted this blog to welcome the start of this blog - Rog T Is Back!.

It is a free country, Brian Coleman is free to write whatever he likes. It is the duty of the rest of us to point out when his blog is, shall we say, not quite as accurate as it could be.