An author's evening with Asa Winstanley

Watch my discussion about "Weaponising Anti-Semitism" at the IHRC Bookshop from last week.

Last week I was invited by the Islamic Human Rights Commission’s bookshop in Wembley to an author evening to discuss my new book Weaponising Anti-Semitism.

The event was chaired by David Miller, a world-renowned expert on the Israel lobby and the Zionist movement. It was a fascinating discussion, with lively audience participation. Thanks to the IHRC for hosting it.

The format of the event was a nice change of pace from the other events on current book tour. Among the topics we discussed:

• Why I wrote the book

• The problems I had getting it published

• The Raed Salah case of 2011-2012 and what it told us about how the Israel lobby in the UK operates

• What “the Israel lobby” even is

• The different factions of the Zionist movement

• How the Ministry of Strategic Affairs operated the campaign against Corbyn

• And much more

The event was live streamed and you can watch the whole thing in the video above.

I have also responded on Twitter to the Jewish News’ false reporting about the event. Their disgraced journalist Lee Harpin — who, to say the least, is not exactly renowned for accuracy — incorrectly claimed in his piece that “Winstanley made false claims that the ‘CST or the Israelis’ had fabricated a poem written by Salah, which had been ‘fed to the Home Office’ in an attempt to bar the sheik from entering the UK.”

This is not true: I raised it as possibility that the CST or the Israelis may have fabricated the poem, but I explicitly said that “we don't know for sure that it was the CST or the Israelis who actually did the fabrication.”

Harpin conveniently edited out the first part of the sentence he was quoting because it didn’t suit his false narrative.

I have complained to the Jewish News and asked for a correction, but I am not optimistic they will do so. Their only response so far has been to pass my complaint email onto Harpin, who is doubling down on his misquote in a ridiculous series of emails to me in which, among other things, he astonishingly claims “I do not quote you on this” — a barefaced lie.

Here’s a full transcript of the relevant part of the discussion for context (timecode 14:51 in the video above):

AW: What was really interesting in the documents was that the CST passed on— now we don't know for sure that it was the CST or the Israelis who actually did the fabrication, but there was a fabricated version of a poem that Raed Salah had written in Arabic, and it was mistranslated and a word was inserted to make it look anti-Semitic, look like it was anti-Jewish, when actually it was talking about occupiers. But they inserted the word "Jewish”—

DM: "The Jews," yea.

AW: Somebody, somewhere along the line had done that. And that had then been fed by the CST to the British government, to the Home Office and this was all part of the case against Raed Salah.

My new book is now out in all good bookshops. Buy your copy today direct from ORBooks.com.

“Meticulously researched… probes a taboo topic avoided by the mainstream press and even by some stalwart left-wing activists… required reading” — Morning Star

“A political thriller and real page-turner… an important book… the same blueprint… is now being used here in the United States” — Mondoweiss

“Revelatory… as careful and conscientious a historian as he is a journalist” —Richard Sanders, Middle East Eye

“Vital reading” —Alexei Sayle | “Important” —Peter Oborne

“Must-read” — Ghada Karmi | “Explosive” —Roger Waters

See what people who’ve read the book are saying about it here.