"We Need to Support Jeremy Corbyn — Back Him All the Way…"

By Daphne Anson

Outside Wembley Stadium in London on 20 August, Israel haters familiar and not so familiar appear in this by no means uninteresting footage by video-maker and staunch BDSer Alex Seymour/Seymour Alexander, according to whom (we don’t see them, unfortunately) pro-Israel passers-by made their feelings known.

There’s the loquacious Irishman who constantly campaigns to have Israel thrown out of Fifa (the campaign literature has now been translated into several languages, we hear him say.

There’s the rather plummy-voiced grey-haired lady who’s a ubiquitous sidekick to Sandra Watfa (the lady seen on many a Seymour video who inveighs against Israel at countless demos in London including, this year, the Al Quds Day excrescence).  Here outside the stadium Sandra’s sidekick is seen handing out leaflets to football fans arriving for the game.

Another familiar Israel-hater is the little lady of Jewish origin whose “Israel is an apartheid state” spiel in front of Seymour’s lens includes a plaintive charge that “The media seem to focus on how wonderful Israel is”.  (Ever watched the BBC, darling?)*

A young woman in sun glasses tells Seymour that she has been “a life-long supporter of Palestine,” that “Unfortunately they [those pesky Zionists] have a lot of support, a lot of power … a lot of lobbying, a lot of power” and asserts that, to turn the tide, “We need to support Jeremy Corbyn — back him all the way …”

But my favourite scene in the video comes when Seymour asks a darkly handsome young man in a keffiyah, who’s expressed appreciation of the demo, “Where are you from?”  

“I’m from Gaza” the smiling young man replies.

“You managed to get out?” 

“Yah!” the Gazan readily assures Seymour.  He’ll be returning home in a month’s time.

 (Not the answer to the Israel-haters’ prayers, eh, undermining as it does the “Gaza is a prison” trope that’s part and parcel of their bag of tricks.)

*Talking of the BBC, see BBC Watch here for the despicable claim of BBC World Service correspondent Max Pearson that “…. Just the phrase ‘tension in the Middle East’ has become shorthand for referencing the decades of mistrust between Jews and Arabs following the creation of the State of Israel, carved – as it was – out of land which had belonged to the Palestinians….“