Livingstone on antisemitism
Philip Roddis
Back in April 2016, at the time of the suspension from the British Labour Party of Naz Shah and Ken Livingstone, I wrote:
Thinking people can go into a tailspin of despair when confronted with the stark truth they’ve overestimated the power of reason. Yesterday self righteousness, pack instinct, unthinking emotionalism, malice and rank opportunism swept reason aside in the Labour Party.
I took the matter seriously, but not seriously enough. At the time the brouhaha seemed just one more attack – of a piece with those on bombing Syria, shooting terrorists for Laura, losing Scotland for Labour, Virgin Traingate (did you spot the anachronism there?) and lamentable dress sense – on what Jonathan Cook recently and with characteristic cogencycalled “an old school socialist Labour Leader, whose programme threatens to loosen the 40-year stranglehold of neoliberalism on British society”.
In short I was complacent. I failed to foresee that the antics of John Mann – who under Labour rules should have had the whip withdrawn, while finding himself on the losing end of a slander writ – would prove an opening shot in the most damaging line of attack to date on a leader with the biggest mandate in living memory. That was dim of me. The coming together of two powerful forces, the Israeli lobby and right wing Labour, both with the full blooded support of ‘liberal’ media, should have sounded warning bells louder than they did.
Since Corbyn had few high profile allies, the loss of Ken Livingstone was a serious blow and he’s been on the back foot – too much say many of us – ever since in respect of the antisemite smears. All the more reason then, with the slurs coming much thicker and very much faster than in April 2016, to hear from Livingstone himself, writing today in Russia Today.
Smearing critics of Israel undermines importance of tackling genuine anti-Semitism
Whilst the issue of Britain leaving the EU has dominated our media for the last two years, a close runner-up has been much of the media claiming the Labour Party has a major problem with anti-Semitism.
Last week an opinion poll found that whilst 36 percent of Brits think there is a problem with anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, 38 percent disagree, leaving 26 percent undecided.
In nearly 50 years as a Labour Party member I never saw a Labour MP raise a single issue of anti-Semitism until two and a half years ago when the left-wing candidate for the youth seat on Labour’s National Executive Committee was accused of being linked to anti-Semitism. Weeks later an independent report revealed there was no such problem, but the smears led to the defeat of the candidate.
Eighty Jewish Labour Party members wrote a letter stating that in all their hundreds of years in the party none of them had ever heard or seen a single incident of anti-Semitism. I had been doing many interviews, pointing out that this was a distraction to undermine the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn – our first socialist leader in over a generation …
Postscript the following day, August 29. This morning the Guardian runs a decent opinion piece by Ahmed Samih Khaladi. It’s pretty good and I don’t want to sound churlish, really I don’t. I wasn’t born with a mistrust of the Guardian, you know. I came to it slowly and with reluctance. But this is how liberal media shore up reputations for fairminded and fearless truth-seeking, committed to plurality of viewpoint. They toss a progressive bone or two when it’s affordable and when their reputations have come under particularly heavy fire.
I note too that the piece has not been opened up for comment, but enough of the carping. Here’s a couple of extracts from Khalidi’s piece, which I recommend reading in full.
Jewish opposition to Zionism has a long and distinguished history. Furthermore, the Palestinian historical narrative has been largely vindicated, in part by Israeli and Jewish historians, and Jewish voices in support of Palestinian rights today abound. Using the charge of anti-Zionism as a tool to silence critics of today’s Israel is the last resort of those seeking to deflect attention away from the egregious path that Israel appears to have chosen.
It wants to have it both ways, on the one hand to charge with racism those who conflate anti-Zionism and antisemitism. On the other hand,it accuses those who refuse this conflation, of antisemitism on the grounds that anti-Zionism denies the Jews the right to self-determination. By this token, any criticism of Israel or Zionism becomes a slur on the Jewish people. The insidious goal of the “anti-anti-Zionist” campaign is to silence the Palestinians and their supporters and to smother them with the charge of racism. No one should fall for this or accept it
And a little further down…
The Labour party’s Zionist roots run deep – its intellectuals and party leaders have all been deeply immersed in a Zionist/socialist ethos that has long been bent to defend and serve the Zionist enterprise both pre- and post-state. The party’s 1943 adoption of ethnic cleansing (“let the Arabs be encouraged to move out as the Jews move in”) sent a strong signal to the Jewish leadership as to the boundaries of the possible in Palestine.
Today Corbyn stands alone among Labour leaders for his open support of the Palestinian cause. This is a remarkable historical turnabout and one that the Palestinians should be unequivocally grateful for. The trouble is that he has singularly failed to make the case in his own defence. Under a barrage of attacks on the antisemitism issue, he has retreated and backtracked, mumbled and fumbled as if he has something to hide, thereby undermining his credibility as leader and peacemaker alike.
Note those last two sentences. Khalidi elaborates on the point I make about Corbyn being too much on the back foot. Many will see this as a personal criticism. Not me. What I see is a decent and principled man locked in by the painfully narrow limits of the ‘parliamentary road to socialism’. Somebody please help me out here, since (a) capitalism is killing us all, and (b) none of the other roads on offer have a shred of credibility.
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Press Release of Rabbi Alissa Wise, Deputy Director of Jewish Voice for Peace
https://jewishvoiceforpeace.org/jvp-israels-jewish-nation-state-confirms-apartheid/
They’re co-opting Judaism
ISRAEL’S JEWISH “NATION-STATE” LAWS CONFIRMS IT IS AN APART-HATE STATE
We’re just starting to see the real-world impact of the nation-state law – and it’s exactly what we feared.
An Israeli state’s attorney announced plans to use the law …because the nation-state law enshrines promoting Jewish-only settlement as a constitutional value. This law handed a big win to those who want to conflate Jewish identity with a racist apartheid vision of Israel. It’s just the latest in a state-run campaign to define Judaism.
But that’s why it’s more important than ever for us to resist their vision of Judaism and stand up strongly for a different kind of Jewish community: A Jewishness that is incomplete without freedom for Palestinians.
It is important not to exaggerate the importance of this odious ‘IHRA’ definition’s acceptance by the party. Much more important are the concrete steps being taken to re-democratise the Party’s institutions and procedures: the selection of candidates, both municipal and Parliamentary by the membership and the formation of policy by mandated delegates at open meetings are both of much more importance than this obscure regulation. The reality is that the Labour Party now has between half a million and a million registered members, between the local parties and the contracted-in Trade Unionists. In addition there are hundreds of thousands who regiister as supporters and can vote in some elections. This is an enormous improvement and means that the power to implement policies within the party is getting within the reach of the ordinary member. Who can doubt that the nature of the debate over foreign policy and the middle east… Read more »
The British Jewish community have taken quite a risk in their campaign against Palestinian Rights with the completely OTT responses of (expletive deleted) Hodge and the totally potty Sachs. In my youth there was widespread anti semitism; in business they were called ‘Jewboys’ and ostracised. (This week’s Private Eye reminded me of the term). The working class preferred the term Yid (courtesy PE). By the 60’s anti semitism was frowned on, not least by the Labour Party and racist UK had new targets, blacks, Asians and latterly Muslims. But old prejuidices die hard. There is no ‘outrage’ at claims of anti semitism, only amusement at the riduclous claims being made and elderly ladies screaming abuse at elderly gentlemen. There is great support of course in the Jewish community but that’s preaching to the converted and you get the feeling nobody else cares or believes nonsense allegations from the likes of… Read more »
This is no time to indulge in the politics of defeatism and cynicism.
https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political-parties/labour-party/john-mcdonnell/news/98024/john-mcdonnell-completely-condemns
The odious Zionist and Guardian commentator Friedland has published yet another article smearing Corbyn and claiming the witchhunt is not all about Israel (if not, why so many blue star of david flags being waved at demonstrations?) about 45 minutes ago. All the immediate comments are fulsomely congratulatory of Friedland and anti Corbyn. All already got plenty of recommendations. One could almost ask if Friedland coordinated the timing of publication with a heads-up to Hasbara.
Almost has as much stench of corrupt coordination as the sudden publication ot 2 Russian ‘sectret agent’ suspects in the Skripal farce this morning. First day back in Parliament, PMQs… LOL.
“All the immediate comments are fulsomely congratulatory of Friedland and anti Corbyn.” Could have something to do with the fact that almost all anti-Zionist or pro-Corbyn comments in the Guardian are simply not published.
He is – or was – Editor of Comment is Free (do they still call it that?! He gets very emotional and personal if he’s criticised.
How more obvious can you get? Over on Sky News (https://news.sky.com/story/jeremy-corbyn-to-meet-the-national-executive-to-try-to-resolve-the-resolve-anti-semitism-row-11489874) there’s this:
“But in a move that will dismay Jewish groups and anger many Labour MPs, the executive is also expected to include a so-called free speech clause, allowing criticism of Israel.”
ANY criticism of Israel has been bracketed under a “SO-CALLED free speech clause” i.e. ANY criticism of Israel can no longer be defended by calling it “free speech” i.e. there can be NO criticism of Israel.
The ‘Free Speech’ clause as an addendum to the ‘End of Free Speech’ diktat is an injurous insult to free speech. What it says is “I know this is wrong, but …” It is an admonition of capitulation to racism.
Labour’s retrograde step took the evolution of anti-racism back a hundred years, maybe slightly less, to the interwar years that were the breeding ground for fascism. The Full IHRA is a Fascism of the mind, that has already come to encompass anti-capitalism and 9/11 truth …the subsidiary definition of the ‘new left antisemitism’ is a pre-dispositional thoughtcrime – according to Lansman. How can freedom from oppression dialogically flourish when dialogue is dead? In the terminology of Sartre: Labour has self-inflictedly rendered its universalist cause as ‘practico-inert’. Universalism is now exceptionalism; anti-racism is now racism; etc
It’s hard not feel deflated but the IHRA definition is an instrument that may hamper or obstruct but once you have right on your side it is unlikely to be strong enough to ever subvert calls for justice – in fact it may strengthen them?
The holocaust does not give right-wing Israeli’s carte blanche in Palestine, and attempts to suppress what is going on there will only intensify resistance.
Today may be a victory for Hodge and her right wingers co-travellers but it may ultimately prove Pyrrhic.
The fight against racism is bigger than Labour: it is a significant part of the Master/Slave dialectic of resisting all oppressions …ALL oppressions. By siding with the Master power principle in appeasement CANNOT end oppression. That which cannot end oppression, thus becomes oppression. Are we to be our own oppressors? This is not time limited or an impermanence, this is setting up the political debate for the 21st century. Can you imagine a near future time when the racists will give up their “Pyrrhic” victory (a victory that came at no real cost to the victors racism: and huge cost to the self-vanquished universalism …so is it really Pyrrhic at all?) I’m damned if I do, but I’m more damned if I don’t: Fascism, Nazism, and totalitarianism evolved as creeping gradualisms; absorbing power litlle by little – until they reached a critical mass. Then the realisation of what is upon… Read more »
and taking the grassroots ‘Momentum’ with him
sans Lansman
Sans Lansman for sure!
Thanks, BB, I enjoyed that – your analysis, as usual, is fascinating but at a very basic level Corbyn gets latitude in my book if only because he is a far cry from Blair, Hodge, Chukka or the endless line of body snatchers who have infested the party. For me a Corbyn/McDonnell victory at this moment in time at least sets up a possibility that Labour might revert to its core values rather than the dire form of pseudo-Thatcherism embraced post-Blair which has become responsible for undoing the economic gains fought for by socialists. We know Corbyn is anti-war, we know he is not a racist, we know that he is committed to reinvigorating public services – at the same time it is unrealistic to expect him to single-handedly derail the neoliberal juggernaut (not least because it has been gathering speed for decades), or combat a media that has inexhaustible… Read more »
Corbyn has been leader for three years. There have been major changes throughout the party bureacuracy, right to the top.
Yet the party seems to be going backwards in terms of its ethics. It is now a de facto racist party, that is still putting genuine Leftwing activists under investigation – essentially for being Leftwing..
How much longer, in your opinion, before ‘the Corbyn Left’ can bring the kind of politics that Corbyn himself has championed for decades to an actual political platform?
What is your opinion of Lansman and Momentum and their role in the changes to the party, its democracy and the fake antisemitism story of the past few months?
I don’t think anyone is arguing against the assertion that Corbyn has proved himself a person of integrity and good intention in the past. But his role demands more. Appeasement is not leadership.
The only people who win if we turn against Corbyn are the actors first responsible for manufacturing base, and false accusations against him.
The peerage given to Chakrabarti contributed to a mood whereby Corbyn felt he had to be seen to act more decisively once further allegations of antisemitism surfaced (because of insinuations about Shami being bought off as thanks for conducting a cursory investigation).
Look the whole thing is bollocks and the likes of Marc Wadsworth should receive an apology and be immediately reinstated but don’t forget Corbyn also has to deal with traitors like Tom Watson as well.
But lets say the lobby briefing against Corbyn were to succeed (and he is ousted) – is there a plan B?
Plan B: think radically! The problem as I see it [bracketing off the IHRA] is that Labour’s entire political concept is redundant (the Tories even more so, but I’ll ignore them). We are 18 years into a century were radical change is going to affect humanity, not only do we not have a Plan B, we are not even thinking about the unique set of problems that demand a Plan B. Let’s just analogously call it the ‘environmental bottleneck problem.’ I’m not going to flesh it out, suffice to say: humanity will be going through a bottleneck in the coming decades that requires urgent action NOW. We are already overdue a transition (given the multidecadal timescale for transition). We are not even formulating the ideas that we might enact, and it is not part of the political discourse. It might seem unfair to view the problem through the rubric of… Read more »
“What is your opinion of Lansman and Momentum and their role in the changes to the party”. As a member of Camden Momentum I can tell you that Lansman’s last minute support for full IHRA acceptance in no way a reflects the opinion of the Momentum membership. In a Momentum meeting on Sept. 20th, of over 100 people present all but 2 voted in favour of a motion against full IHRA acceptance (i.e. with ‘examples’). This shocking betrayal of the membership of Momentum by its own leader has served to highlight the urgent need for increased democratisation not only within the Labour party but also within Momentum itself.
Lansman’s full support for IHRA was mirrored by Jeremy Corbyn, just saying, so they should both be named.
https://twitter.com/alexnunns/status/1037090445778726913
bring out your new memes for empty signifiers etc.
While bigger fools look on in amazement.
“To determine the true rulers of any society, all you must do is ask yourself this question: Who is it that I am not permitted to criticize?” Kevin Alfred Strom
Well I for one am looking forward to being arrested as I point blank refuse on principle to eschew criticising Israel where appropriate.
A trial prosecuting someone on this is going to make a prosecuting barrister look so stupid.
The Nakbah is seventy years old and rapidly worsening. It has not, yet, reached the full pitch of exterminationism of the Nazi Judeocide, but if it ever did you can bet that Antonyl will slither out to give it his full propagandistic support.
For got your pills again darling?
At least our resident Mumbler takes the red pills.
🙂
BTW, in case there’s anyone here who still thinks that Ken Livingstone misspoke when he talked about Zionist/Nazi collaboration in the thirties, here’s what Ron Unz had to say about that subject–and other related subjects: http://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-jews-and-nazis/
Labour’s total capitulation to the insanely hate-crazed Zionazis over the sham ‘IHRA definitions’ will CERTAINLY NOT stop the lynch-mob. The execrable Hodge declared, openly, to cheering, that their aim is the destruction of Corbyn. Nothing other.
They hadn’t even left the meeting before the new wave of racist vitriol started. Appeasement leads to the next Auschwitz.
Palestinians are Semites too. Why should this term apply to just one half of the two brothers?
Corbyn can be rightly described as being a pro-Semite, wanting the two halves of Semites to settle their differences and live in peace.
True. And not all Israelis are Semites
Why does anti-semitism get put together with racism? Judaism is a religion, not an ethnicity.
Are the Falasha Jews from Ethiopia ethnically the same as Jews who immigrated to Palestine pre-war, or after?
The whole thing is the ‘establishment’s’ desperate attempt to stop the Labour Party getting to power.
My God, all those lovely private-sector jobs in privatised cock-ups for MPs and ex-MPs, and Lords going away!
BTW, no state or country has a ‘right to exist’.(Or biblical right-to-exist). Only if the guns are big enough does any state survive. Look at Israel’s Nukes…
…
Didn’t I hear lately that the UN has just given the last rights to Capitalism?
In dicussions with a friend over Russia (which I’m still trying to get over), I was gobsmacked with a retort along the lines of ‘Well what do you want, Capitalism or Communism’?
This is a common problem these days. People don’t seem to realise it’s not 1988 any more. I don’t think many people actually know Russia isn’t a communist state and the media don’t appear to be in a hurry to clarify.
In an interview on YouTube recently I noted that the interviewer stated in passing that the Nazis were Russian! Such is the current state of anti-Russian hysteria.
The newly cast as anti-semite, by Corbyn’s Labour (IHRA) defintion anyway, Jonathan Cook has been awake to the developments of the last month:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/08/20/corbyns-labour-party-is-being-made-to-fail-by-design/
By the new definition of anti-Semitism, almost everyone in the world will be anti-Semitic.
Aye, George, well aware of that.
Somebody help me out? No can do, Phillip …the cold light of reason has to dawn from within. I chronicled it all contemporaneously, I have no appetite to repeat myself here …but it was all there in black and white for those with eyes to see: the social history of the Corbyn Experience Sell-Out Tour …which, by now, has well and truly Sold Out. As one stark reminder: I will bring up one such undeniable truth – the fundraising and support for the White Helmets. This happened to coincide with the atrocity of the century …the child massacre at Rashidin. Need I bring up another: like Khan Sheikhoun? The inconvenience of fact: given that it is true. Or then there is the next, in Idlib, perhaps? On the matter in hand: while everyone was ostrich SKWAWKING about the nasty, nasty media …did anyone else notice the JC took an article… Read more »
A previous comment worth re-reading from BigB: In a situation of manipulation, the Left is almost always tempted by a “quick return to power,” forgets the necessity of joining with the oppressed to forge an organization, and strays into an impossible “dialogue” with the dominant elites. It ends by being manipulated by these elites, and not infrequently itself falls in an elitist game, which it calls “realism Paulo Friere. The ‘progressive’ Corbyn Labour movement has led its constituent supporters into a cul-de-sac dead-end progression where they have fallen into framing their collective identity as a victim psychology. There they have been absorbed by the dominant victiim theology of the manipulators and oppressors. Consider that in the last two years: every time Jeremy Corbyn has had the chance to validate the lifelong anti-racist, anti-Zionist activist over the Zionist racist – he chose to validate the Zionist racist instead. He chose Mann… Read more »
“The authentic path to a universal humanitarian future starts from the stirring of conscience within …it starts with the dawning of the cold light of reason…”
More detail please.
In a community or society setting: freedom can never be an absolute. Nor can it rightly be an individual freedom (liberalism, libertarianism (personal fascism)). It can only ever be Other-freedom. What is Other-freedom? First, I need a working model of community freedom. Freedom cannot exist on its own; it would have to be generated. The values that generate freedom for the community are empathy/compassion and social responsibility …supported by a core humanitarian ethic. Imagine an equilateral triangle with Freedom at the apex; with Responsibility and Empathy as the corners of the base; and Ethics as the body of the triangle …a bit corny, but this represents the relational FREE triangle. Let’s take a mythical corporate capitalist to see how the current dominant culture produces only a state of unfreedom. The corporate capitalist works from the Cartesian ‘Will to Self’ (W2S) for self-maximising personal gain. Freedom: most briefly, hyper-competitively acquired through… Read more »
Individual freedom of speech, religion and opinion is surely the foundation of any decent society just as the founding fathers said? Trying to limit concepts of freedom to collectives is surely anathema to the very notion of freedom itself?
“”Individual freedom of speech, religion and opinion is surely the foundation of any decent society just as the founding fathers said? What the founding fathers said, and the society that was founded on those Enlightenment values, turned out two be two very different things? The Enlightenment Project that is America turned out to be rotten to the core. So much for inalienable individual rights? What I was trying to address is how to turn those ‘God Given’ absolutised individual rights into genuine community and society producing values …truly social values. That the values you highlight are patently false and inverted – producing their opposite – is self-evident. Is this not because the very ‘individual’ that was guaranteed those inalienable rights is also a falsehood? What is an ‘individual’, a ‘person’, a ‘self’ …an atom of an atomised society? A company? Surely I do not have to point out that the… Read more »
As an adjunct: I forgot about Guattari’s distinction of being ‘singular’ …as opposed to being a fully individuated individual. In my conception, the fully individuated individual is a modern conceptual idealism (a ‘legal fiction’), and a statist dialectical creatrix (the state and its institutions and incorporations impersonate the individual and absorb their rights and wealth. The incorporations become the electorate that creates the powerbase for the state. The state empowers the incorporations in a dialectic of dispossessed material wealth). The incorporated state has replaced family,doctor, educator, and the truly community society that could work for all has become its economic dependency and host. The individual is a totemic impersonator that distracts from the dispossession, repression, and atomisation of anything that could be called community or society. Being singular is being able to deploy ones unique abilities, talents and creativity fully in the reciprocal community of the Other …ones extended kinship… Read more »
Draw up a list with 2 columns – times when Corbs has been right, and times when he perhaps lacked the courage of his convictions..
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/16/jeremy-corbyn-leadership-david-cameron-libya-labour
I’m sure the former is much longer than the later?
By no means perfect but still infinitely preferable to the tory or new Labour alternatives – that at least has to be the starting point until we can persuade a few more comrades that a 1,000 year neoliberal Reich is not in the best interest of most people.
Harry: I’m acutely aware of the list, hence my respect for ‘candidate’ Corbyn (to create a linguistic distinguisher). Now let’s look at ‘leader’ Corbyn, a much shorter list: First, I encounter the problem I call the ‘Corbyn singularity’, which is to look purely at the leader in isolation, and not notice how far to the right candidate Corbyn’s policies have been drawn. If I look at the Labour party as a whole, not as a reduction, which is after all what we will get with a Corbyn government …every one of candidate Corbyn’s policies have flipped, often diametrically. Some examples: anti-EU to pro-EU (particularly if you include Starmer’s POV); anti-NATO to pro-NATO; anti-Russia to anti-Russia (no change, by his own admission); anti-nuclear to pro-nuclear (the party position on Trident and ‘sustainable’ nuclear energy); anti-racist to pro-racist (TBC when the NEC vote comes out later, but really that is a formality,… Read more »
Lansman.
Trojan horse.
Zionazism is perhaps the most virulent racism extant, which is why they DESPISE Corbyn and all real anti-racists. It’s the old Through the Looking-Glass world where support for the Palestinians suffering under a racist regime of extraordinary brutality becomes a sign of ‘racism’. All confected through straight money power.
Zionazism is the ABSOLUTE ANTITHESIS of human universalism.
Yup, Corbyn is doing an Putin, anying the hell out of me, but “understandable” in this barbaric times. Its an attack, not on Corbyn in general, but since He is on the path upward to rule, He is an easy target foor smear, and to me, thiis is smearing, nothing else than an continuation of present circus we call international politics, where ISISrael have ramped up their propaganda aperatus into warp speed, and is everywhere, some good and others yap the same lame lies, of course, to demonise anyone whom crtizies the Tribe and their petty mafia state ISISrael. The largest org crime family since the dawn of man. And, please, its Britsh trash media, you cant be serious, they are so rotten and corrupt they make me laugh, their propaganda colutions with the present moronic Gov is been exposed to the entire world, thru staggering lousy and when ignorants… Read more »
You almost had me there until your flourish ending ‘Cassius Clay’! Wtf?
He’d have stung you for still calling him that.
You can deny global warming and you are perfectly free to do so.
You can deny the world is round, and you are perfectely free to do so.
But if you question any aspect of the ‘holocaust’ and the ‘6 million’ figure, this is illegal in many countries and you will be cast out of society.
Surely, if the facts are as they are claimed to be by the holocaust industry, there is no need to worry about any questioning of them? The very fact that questioning them is stamped on, makes questioning them even more important.
Ron Unz now shared his opinions on this.
Yes, as ‘mog’ below noted, Ron Unz (who is Jewish himself) recently examined the issue of Holocaust denial in detail. To his immense credit, he was actually extremely fair and meticulous in his research: http://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-holocaust-denial/
Jews have never been safer on Britains streets – in the main it is young black men who have the most to fear when it comes to personal safety The Labour anti-semitism trope is clearly a confection orchestrated by right wing sources and relentlessly promoted by political place men and their allies in the MSM. Funnily enough this article is part of the problem (as is this response) – since antisemitism in reality is a non-existent problem that exists only in the minds of right wing fanatics surely the solution is to no longer provide the oxygen of publicity it requires to perpetuate it? Corbyn when asked should deny antisemitism is an existential problem, allude to the real sources of the hate (perhaps citing some of the poison spewed by Margaret Hodge) while refusing to engage in the game the media is playing which is essentially a form of entrapment… Read more »
Just reading Ash Sakar’s piece in The Guardian of Power, and although it argues against IHRC adoption, it manages to amplify the false narrative that there is a serious antisemitism crisis in Labour.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/03/ihra-antisemitism-labour-palestine?CMP=share_btn_tw
She cites a group CST to make this point.
Look at their reports, and their motivations:
https://cst.org.uk/antisemitism/report-antisemitism
I agree entirely, especially the point regarding young black men. This constant drip of me, me, me, emanating from a faction of self serving bodies denigrates the plight and suffering of so many others, windrush, waspie, grenfell, NHS employees, the list is endless. I commented on a well meaning post written by Robert Cohen last week making pretty much the same point you have – ‘These ‘Theories’ written by well meaning individuals are a waste of thought and time. The attacks on Corbyn are borne out of a greed for (even more) wealth and power, not forgetting the arms! It doesn’t matter to the originator that these attacks are totally un-credible, they are purely a pathetic weapon, borne out of desperation, targeted at the ignorant and deserve to be ignored. The more people discuss, theorise and compare, as you would a revolutionary new materpiece the more successful they become, the… Read more »
I see this whole affair more as an attack on democracy, rather than Jeremy Corbyn per se.
Is today the day when the NEC decide whether to adopt the IHRC in full? If they do adopt, then Labour will effectively be aligned with Netanyahu’s ‘survival of the strong’….
How can someone like Corbyn argue the point down to the fundamentals, without touching upon some deeply taboo matters? I cannot see how.
It’s a warm-up for Bernie in 2020. You wait until his “sordid” and “treasonous” central american support comes (back) to light
The murder of Jo Cox (a staunch supporter of Palestinians) was very suspicious in my view. Not only was the person arrested a very unlikely suspect but his trial was a complete farce. I strongly suspect Israeli involvement which leads me to wonder, as I did below, if Zionists might be against the U.K. leaving the EU. If so, the killing a week before the referendum of the very pro-EU Cox would have served a dual purpose by not only eliminating a strong voice for the Palestinians but also, by framing far-right nationalists for the hit, the expectation would be that Remain would garner more votes (the polls at the time were showing Leave and Remain as neck and neck).
Joe Cox was also a staunch supporter of the White Helmets.
But was she targeted by Mossad? It’s not as if they are above such things.
Corbyn, and those around him, don’t think that much can be gained, and probably an awful lot lost, by Corbyn being drawn into a trap of vigorously debating the question of Palestine and the true character of Zionism and the Jewish state of Israel. This may be a mistake. Time will tell. Paradoxically, if Corbyn had the rhetorical gifts, the will and the arguments to defend himself ‘properly’ against the smears of anti-Semitism, this would only make matters worse for him, as a strong defence or counter-attack would been twisted by his opponents and the media to show that he had racist and anti-Semitic views! He literally cannot ‘win’ in a battle with the combined media, arguably no one can. But he can, if he plays his cards right, become PM instead. And I believe that’s his goal and his top priority. I don’t think the smears aimed at him… Read more »
Corbyn will NEVER be allowed to be PM-the Zionazis will ensure that, one way or the other. Hodge was braying, to cheering, just the other day that the Zionazis will accept NOTHING but his removal.
This article, which originated in Le Monde Diplomatique, helps by showing the enormous resources that Israel puts into these campaigns against supporters of Palestine. https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/09/03/the-truths-that-wont-be-told-how-israel-spies-on-us-citizens/ I have no doubt that the campaign against Corbyn was born in the Israeli government and is based on the Embassy in London. There are many indications that it is counter productive in that, by supporting the ludicrous unfair charges against both the Labour Party and its elected leadership, MPs are making it impossible for their CLPs to renominate them while forcing the Party Conference to the conclusion that re-selection must become mandatory again. It is plainly impossible for the Party to continue to give its support and lend its name to MPs, such as Jess Phillips and Ian Austin, not to mention John Mann who started the witchhunt against Livingstone, who consistently work against it and actively seek to prevent a Labour government. In… Read more »
Firstly Corbyn was portrayed by the MSM as bumbling and ineffectual as leader of the labour party. A dinosaur a so called Luddite. Then May called a snap election and all the fake news the MSM could muster fell away. People saw one of those unusual creatures an honest politician. His popularity, not surprisingly soared. In fact he is as Ken Livingston says the the best socialist leader in a generation. The Zionist card is being played now. Will it succeed? I hope not as this is an odious tactic, but one that is used as the Satan Manoeuvre which is where an argument based on no truth or facts is introduced so it is impossible to argue cogently. It’s an old tactic. [Interviewer asks about the discoveries of fossils that were undoubtedly millions of years old; how could the minister account for those age-old fossils? The minister replies simply,… Read more »
True Laura…but alas, most of the manifesto is being crowded out of the MSM by the AS nonsense.
We are not losing members though – 10,000 have joined amid all these smears. Another gem from John McDonnell was his statement explaining that the smears will get much worse the nearer we get to an election
I think Corbyn, despite his strong adherence to principles, is also a realist. With a significant likelihood, he will sooner or later be prime minister of Britain. Corbyn as a prime minister certainly could achieve a lot, not only as far as economic and social policies are concerned, he would probably also be a significant opponent of neoconservative war hawks and to a significant degree turn around the pernicious role Britain has been playing in international politics and wars. He is a much more principled opponent of the neoconservative ideology than, for instance, Bernie Sanders (maybe, if after 2020, Bernie Sanders is US president and Jeremy Corbyn British prime minister, Corbyn might have some beneficial influence on Sanders). But, as far as the Palestinian cause is concerned, Corbyn is probably well aware that he won’t be able to go very far because he would not have enough support in parliament… Read more »
Here we have documentary evidence of the Israeli embassy authorising its senior PR staff members to directly intervene into the internal affairs of a (nominally at least) sovereign state, the UK, by attempting to infiltrate its political parties and political groups and therefore its foreign policy. The 5 part documentary by the Qatari TV station, Al Jazeera ‘The Lobby’ (it’s on you tube) shows how their target was the Labour Party through Labour students and through the zionist front ogranization, ‘Labour Friends of Israel’. The Conservative Party, ‘Conservative Friends of Israel’ being already bought and paid for. But Israel which of course is innocent of all crimes must not be criticised, oh no, that would be ‘antisemitic’. Israel of course is above reproach; this much is axiomatic. So any factual historical crimes which began during the British mandate and after – beginning with the blowing up of the King David… Read more »
Thank you and well-said;
I’m aware of the long history of Jewish opposition to the Zionist Project, from ultra-orthodox Jews to activists on the left. Came to know Ben Gurion’s cousin a while back who alerted me to the problematic correspondence between him and other Zionist leaders advocating ethnic cleansing-‘transfer’ (shades of Eichmann!)
I never met a more passionate or dedicated supporter of the Palestinian cause than him, and therefore became immune to the gentile liberalism of those who would soft-pedal their criticisms of Israel.
The Palestinians had their holocaust too, sorry.
When? Their numbers were multiplying very fast.
If you say the Jcws were evicted from their home too, I could agree.
Among other things the “Israelis” stole our beautiful house in Haifa in 1948 and we’re not even Palestinian (nor jews). Daylight theft.
The dispossession of a people from their land, is also, a genocide, as Canadian Indigenous peoples claim. Oh, and ethnic cleansing, or transfer, as if what happened to the Jews justifies what they did to the Palestinians. It takes a special kind of thinking to argue “Their numbers were multiplying very fast”. That’s their survival mechanism, thanks, as demographic realities catch up to the Jewish state.
They call it the ‘Nakba’. https://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/books/review/Margolick-t.html
I don’t see him on the back foot, I see a very strong person who doesn’t see a need to waste his time answering to contrived, divisive, fabrications. His history in politics speaks for itself, he has far more important issues to deal with and why treat these ludicrous claims with any credibility by even acknowledging their existence, furthermore how can you reason with blatant lies. I heard some of John McDonnells speech yesterday, suggesting to Rabbi Sacks that if he has a complaint about JC to come and sit down and talk to Jeremy, he will be more than happy to do so. It really made me laugh because it was such a clever tactic.
If these claims were genuine talking about the way forward is the only answer, I would say he knows exactly what he is doing, he has been in Parliament for 30 years +
I see a very strong leader-whether the party and country deserves him we shall see-whose goal is to defeat the Tories and reverse their ruinous policies.
Yes, he cannot respond to personal attacks, so it is up to us to rebut the lies.
The neoliberals and Friends of Israel are certainly after Corbyn with a vengeance. What I’d like to know is where do Zionists stand on Brexit? Corbyn has always been anti-EU – is this another reason they want to destabilise him?
It may well be a convergence of Blairite and Zionist interests, Ross. though a case might arguably be made that Brexit did more to divide Labour than this farrago of perceived anti-Semitism.
Have you completely missed the Brexit betrayal? According to Starmer, everything, including a Second Referendum, is “on the table” …everything except leaving, that is. This is clearly the Blairite position, and the Blairites and Zionists form a mutually inclusive group.
The City made brexit happen to preserve their age old right to secrecy and unregulation. NuLabInc are City reps pretending to be anti brexit to try and dislodge the Corbynites.
In case everyone has forgotten, the fact sent into the memory hole, JC campaigned for REMAIN, even as he was kept off the mainstream stage by the Blairites plotting the first chicken coup.
These people will use every trick in the book. He’s a ‘nice old man’ but ‘mumbling and fumbling’ doesn’t sound good! The Livingstone story is amazing by any standards. What he said was an historical fact yet that is simply denied. The Nazis sought several solutions to what they called their Jewish problem. Before 1941 that involved schemes of mass deportation to places in S America and Madagasar. Israel was closed by the British who ruled Palestine. The monstrous idea to eliminate the Jews from Europe by mass extermination only came during the drive into Russia and when Germany was esssentially landlocked so far as mass deportations were concerned. A cold verifiable historical fact is denied: isn’t that alarming?
Despite everything we’ve been told, and retold; there is no evidence to support the Jabotinsky propaganda that there was the … “idea to eliminate the Jews from Europe by mass extermination.” Verifiable Red Cross records and population statistics suggest that there was actually an INCREASE in the J3wisch population during the war years. 40-60 million Russians were killed during the B-Revolution, they were predominantly murdered by the very same people bleeting “woe is me.”
https://freespeechonisrael.org.uk/open-letter-joan-ryan-mp-chair-labour-friends-israel/#sthash.Nk52PMtu.TfGJ13eI.dpbs While we are on the subject of the memory hole, your excellent post deserves backing up with another excellent open letter, above, from a couple of years ago on the whole history of the zionist project by Tony Greenstein. What more needs to be said? Lets get on with the real issues of the failed school academy industry, the failed future generations, tied into debt as soon as they can. The seniors and their foresaken carers trapped by home ownership into not receiving adequate care. The failed privatised prisoners for profit. The rip off Health Industry brought in by stealth by having the NHS fail etc. It is flimflam and prestidigitariness that keeps our attention bouncing between AS and Brexit – while the people are failed. Let’s stop listening and dancing to these tunes, ignore them like wrecking sirens and lets get JC tied to the mast to get… Read more »
It’s all really down to who decides on the depth/scope of media coverage your articles get, done it?