Rachel Riley - Not Waving But Drowning

After being called out for being tough on perceived anti-Semitism, while showing clear sympathy for someone who was not only caught doing it, but published the results to YouTube and thereby ended up in court for his trouble, minor Sleb Rachel Riley could have ignored the call, shrugged her shoulders and said it was a fair cop, or even said sorry for the mistake. Instead, she has gone on an orgy of self-justification.

“Those offended by my speaking out, have gone back over my tweets and found this one from 267 days ago. Let me save them the trouble of sharing it and do it myself” she proclaimed, seemingly unaware that it had already been shared, which was sort of the point. But there was more. “This was the story of the Nazi pug … I read this as a case of the right to offend vs freedom of speech”. The projection isn’t making it.

Ephraim Borowski, director of the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities, “said [Mark] Meechan’s video not only normalised anti-Semitic speech, but provided a platform for sickening comments that ‘praise or deny the Holocaust’ …What we find in many ways even more concerning is the torrent of abusive comments that appear under the original video on YouTube, many of which praise or deny the Holocaust, call for anti-Semitic genocide, and repeat other standard anti-Semitic themes”. There was more.

Borowski “has been flooded with abusive messages since the conviction of Mark Meechan … The community further claim that every time Meechan appeared in court, they received slurs via e-mail, phone, Facebook, and Twitter”. That’s what it’s about. But Ms Riley has, thankfully, now decided “Defending this view is not a hill I will choose to die on”.

Except she then does just that. “The suspected ringleader in this incident has many accounts on social media, shares home addresses of those they disagree with, and is subject of a potential prosecution” she tells, while the first Tweet in that particular thread tags the account @lableftvoice. The response has been swift and forthright.

“Well we hope [you] are not talking about Sally here because we will sue your arse off” was the reply. And then, having smeared her critics as “trolls” and “bullies” without having the courage to name any more of them, Ms Riley makes a worrying admission.

“I appreciate the huge support I’ve had on this, I really do. I think I need a breather. Rest assured I’m going nowhere. Here are some accounts to follow if you want to know more. They’re not always polite. These volunteers are also angry. @LabourAgainstAS @GnasherJew”. Gnasher Jew, eh? Some education is required here.

One of those behind that account was recently revealed to be David Collier, serial harasser, ejected recently from the Labour Party Conference, and notorious abuser of privacy. He has been reported previously for the latter. To quote Asa Winstanley, “Collier said that ‘the Palestinian refugee’ - dehumanized as an ‘it’ - was ‘a weapon’ which was ‘created as an artificial entity’ … Concern for Palestinian human rights - or ‘Palestinianism’ as he calls it – is ‘sectarian identity politics, that are anti-Jewish in nature’ and ‘a disease’”.

If only Ms Riley had done her research beforehand, rather than assuming all her critics were “trolls” and “bullies”. It’s always more complicated than just letters and numbers.

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