>From The Guardian, 12 April:
"This is one of the most disgusting slurs I can remember for a long
time," said John Rees, national secretary of Respect. "George Galloway
and everyone in Respect has a long record of fighting anti-semitism -
longer I suspect than Oona King."
>From The Observer, 17 April:
Gilad Atzmon, a pro-Palestine advocate, gave a talk to [SOAS] students
this month, arguing: 'I'm not going to say whether it is right or not
to burn down a synagogue, I can see that it is a rational act.'
John Rees is a member of the Central Committee of the Socialist Workers' Party, at whose 'Marxism 2004' jamboree Gilad Atzmon was an invited speaker on the subject "How can Palestine be free?" (see here for Socialist Worker's obsequious piece on Atzmon before the event, where his unabashedly antisemitic writings are termed "Gilad's fearless tirades against Zionism"). -- Michael Pugliese