Anti-Semitism and the British Left

[bluebeau]

Here they go again. Why does the British Left have such an antisemitism problem?

Labour fringe speaker's Holocaust remarks spark new antisemitism row

A senior Labour MP has said he is shocked at some of the anti-Semitic tweets by party members that come before its disciplinary panel. John Cryer said some of what is written "makes your hair stand up", adding: "This stuff is redolent of the 1930s."

After the Chakrabarti whitewash, I'm not listening to anything Corbyn and the left have to say any more. And don't even get me started on Ken Livingstone. I'll never trust Labour or the left ever again, until they stand up and say, "We allowed anti-semitism to arise within Labour. We just went,'deny, deny, deny' and looked the other way. We were wrong". Then, and only then, will I ever give them the time of day once again.

I doubt it is just coincidental that anti-semitism has only reared its ugly head of late, since Corbyn took over as leader of the Labour party. I'm not saying there was none at all before then, but that was when it got bad. Did you see, a few months back, a Liberal Democrat MP with anti-semitic views started shooting his mouth off? LibDem leader at the time, Tim Farron just turned around and fired him, immediately. That's leadership. Corbyn, on the other hand, has let Labour party anti-semites run riot and basically done nothing. He didn't even deal decisively with Livingstone, who should have been banned from Labour ten times over by now.

Corbyn has damaged forever Labour's reputation as a non-racist party. It took decades to build up that reputation, and just one world class muppet to ruin it.

lizzie If you honestly think that the two situations are comparable and that the Palestinians are the aggressors then I'm sorry but I think you're delusional. Bowing out now.

Thats funny because I know it's a widely held belief Lizzie but heres here's one for you anyway-

HEBRON – After declaring Palestinians “blood-sucking parasites unworthy of life,” prominent West Bank Rabbi Yosef Goepstein has expressed shocked indignation at accusations that he is no different than the Nazis, who described Jews in similar terms.

Goepstein, the chief rabbi of Kiryat Arba and recipient of the 2015 Israel Prize for “Superior Contributions to Jewish Ethics and Talmudic Thought,” was filmed telling his congregation Saturday that “despite their outwardly humanoid appearance, Arabs are actually sub-human beasts addicted to Jewish blood… Trying to contain – let alone tame – these wild hordes of Mohammedogs won’t work: true peace will only prevail once the Land of Israel is once and for all emptied of them…”
www.themideastbeast.com

Good night

Here's some more "not anti-Semitic" Labour party "Friends of Palestine" calling for the "final solution" to the Israel-Palestine problem (the same phrase that got Katie Hopkins fired when she used it) and for all the people who are going to feign ignorance of this term, the "Final Solution" was the name Hitler gave to his policy to destroy the Jews.

order-order.com/2017/09/28/labour-palestine-suggests-final-solution/

statelessprincess, you do realise that's a parody site you've linked to don't you?

A fairly silly parody site - though some of it was amusing. That Rabbi doesn't exist, it was a joke.

And sadly racists exist in every society, but it's the Hamas charter that calls for the annihilation of Israel, not the other way round.

Ken Livingston has been making himself heard once again and I'm sure you can guess what the subject is

He will soon be back in the fold

Here's some more "not anti-Semitic" Labour party "Friends of Palestine" calling for the "final solution" to the Israel-Palestine problem (the same phrase that got Katie Hopkins fired when she used it) and for all the people who are going to feign ignorance of this term, the "Final Solution" was the name Hitler gave to his policy to destroy the Jews.

Exactly the "Final solution" will be broadly brushed under the carpet or tried to be explained away via "context", I am sure everyone who was frothing at the bit to have a go at Katie Hopkins are now very quiet.

I can't quite work out if StatelessPrincess's ridiculous link was attempted irony, an assumption that everyone else is stupid, a weird attempt at humour or something else

Anyway, that's the end of any credibility she may have had ...

Israel's disregards for Palestinian life and its blatant and shameless settlement building does not point to any prospect of peace.

Israel does not want Palestine to exist.

I hear there have been great celebration in Israel over its illegal settlement buildings, you know the ones that are illegally built on occupied land, where Palestinian land gets taken and a house gets built on it by a Palestinian labourer for a settler to live in.

Make no mistake, Israel is carrying out a sustained campaign of eradicating Palestinians through deprivation of food, shelter and basic human rights.

No that was admittedly a massive source checking fail on my part! What a twit. The sad thing is that after everything I've seen and heard it's completely believable because some people do actually think and say things like that. I'm not risking quoting anyone else but they aren't hard to find.
Off to stick some frozen peas on my cheeks now

Israel is a liberal democracy. Free/fair elections, Arab muslims have a political party which came 3rd in their last democratic election. Interesting irony Israel could have a muslim led gov't one day? They've equality between the sexes, gay rights etc etc ...None of that is true of the countries that sponsor the terrorists that attack Israel daily, yet for some bizarre reason the left is full square behind those that would, if the could, impose Shariah law and all its attendant niceties on Israel.

Hamas opposes any form of negotiation with Israel. Unless Israel agrees to except them using any proposed “Palestine” as a platform to attack Israel and wipe out the Zionists. Which hamas have made clear they would...Would anyone agree to negotiate with that? Another problem is: Hamas, Hezbollah and their sponsors Iran, won't shift from this position because they believe they're winning in the court of public opinion. Which to an extent is true. One only has to look at some of the left wing web forums (my fave is thelifeboatnews) to see the drooling obsession the left have with Israel. Meanwhile oppressions, stonings, beheading, amputations, round ups & executions, denial of basic human rights of all people especially gay people and religious minorities, happen in ME countries daily. This never even gets a mention by them. But they're not Anti Semitic, no definitely not.

The left never seem to even question why it is, or how it is they came to be so obsessed with the worlds only, tiny Jewish state. The answer, in my opinion, is purely because Israel is pro-Western. Simple as that. If it were to change and oppose the West in official terms, the left's loathing for it would cease. Look at how much they foam about Saudi Arabia, yet give the vile theocracy that is Iran, their sympathy. Its obvious should Iran become friendly and pro Western, they'd become, (in the eyes of the left) the pariah state that the Saudi's are.

The left becomes more right wing everyday. How come Corbyn gets praise for associating with vicious racists yet Farage gets ripped apart? They are two sides of the same shitty coin.

And if we don't choose diplomacy, what other processes are available. Should we enforce some sort of economic sanctions on the Palestinians? I think that would be awful.

VeryInteresting RE: settlements -- the left's obsession.. Israel has as much right to be on that land as the many Arabs who live in Israel.

The settlements are NOT illegal under international law. Iinstead of parroting half wits like Owen Jones, go read up on it. The settlements are legal under the League of Nations mandate rules for Palestine: Jews were given the right to live anywhere in the mandate, except for what became Jordan, which was for Arabs only. The League of Nations powers were transferred to the United Nations after WWII, and they too declared open settlement for Jews. They offered a state to the Arabs, who turned it down because they said they wanted the lot. That was a breach of international law. Had the Arabs established a separate state, Jews wold still have had the right to live there, just as Arabs have the right to live in Israel. Following the '67 war, when Israel occupied the West Bank, UN Resolution 242 carefully noted that Israel did NOT have to leave all the territories. Jews moved there voluntary, which means the settlements are not illegal under the Geneva Convention IV either.

Find some sources for this and read them carefully. Then start thinking objectively. Israel has not broken international law, but the Arabs have, they started numerous wars, launched thousands of terror attacks, and carried out intifdada against Israeli citizens for decades: that is ALL ILLEGAL. Why d'you choose to support the side that breaks the law and mistakenly constantly condemn the one side that doesn't?

Interesting cracked. But how do we resolve these conflicts if we don't envolve both sides?

Re pp below who says they believe the obsession with Israel is because it's pro-Western, I actually disagree - I think it's because it's the world's only Jewish state.

Before it existed Jews were like the nerdy kids in the playground, bullied and abused and every 50 years or so someone would try to wipe us out.

The Holocaust is merely the biggest and best-known example of systematic destruction of Jews but it occurred all the time all over the world including but not limited to Vienna in the 1400s, Russian pogroms in the 1800s, Spanish Inquisition in the 1500s and most recently the expulsion of Jews from Iran in the 1970s (yup - Iran had a huge Jewish population; where's the outcry about their homes and human rights?)

Now Jews have a big brother looking out for them in the form of Israel - just as an example look at how Netanyahu welcomed all French Jews last year after multiple attacks on synagogues and kosher supermarkets etc - and it pisses the world off. If Israel had existed in 1939 the Holocaust couldn't have happened; certainly not to the extent it did.

Once Israel is gone it's open season on Jews again - that's why the most virulent anti-semites, especially in the Labour Party, are so anti-Israel.

I'm not sure. A resolution def isn't possible via the oversimplifies memes of the left. Namely "Its all Israel's fault"..

Some of Israel's actions have been deplorable I agree but Israel's security must be guaranteed, something the Arab states have always refused to do -- resulting in violence, wall building and bombings. If the Arabs truly wanted peace based on the 1947 borders then they must agree to establish friendship, and verify the right of Israel to exist, in guaranteed peace. Will they? Of course they wont they have a charter to kill all Jews and anything short of that is a sell out.

No guarantee? No peace! Personally, I don't think the Palestinians understand the concept of peace anymore, sad as that is!

I agree partly with you, but then (if Israel was wiped out) Jews would become "victims" and the left's obsession with them would change from castigation to trying to be their saviours.

Israel is wealthy, democratic, strong militarily,apologetically patriotic, self determining and Pro Western --- all things the left dislike.

I really think it is time for Labour to split. For such a huge country as the UK you really have such a small political field to vote from. Labour are becoming more far left, Tories seem to be leaning more and more to the right so where is the middle ground? Lib Dems seem to have been obliterated and your green party don't seem to make any inroads. In Ireland we have our issues but we have a lot of parties to pick from the traditional old parties such as Fine Gael and Fine Fail, Labour, Sin fein, Greens, People before profit, social democrats and then a lot of strong independents. There is something for everyone but in the UK the choice seems so limited. I wouldn't have a clue who to vote for, none of the current parties tick any of the boxes for me.

If you disagree you can't possibly be a Labour voter

Bit like how if you criticise Israel you're antisemitic, eh? The main difference I see is that if you spend so much time criticising labour then you probably don't support them. Maybe you like the label but don't actually like the ethos when it comes down to it. Or maybe you're one of those people who professes to support Labour to give a bit of credibility to your attacking of them. Who knows?

crackednips - the evidence is that anti-semitism is highest when the Jews are despised for being weak. I think immediately post-Holocaust level much higher than now.

Your point about being everything the left hates is correct, of course.Israel also one of the happiest countries in the world, which the left also dislikes, as the assumption is that the Israelis should all be upset about how much the lefties hate them.

statelessprincess, given that (massive) fact checking error I'm not massively convinced that all you have seen is that reliable either.

There are a hell of a lot of anti-Semitic propaganda sites (including the one you linked to incidentally) which originate from the Arab world and make similar claims without reliable sourcing or much of a reputation. But many of them aren't even parody and pretend to be dead serious.

Given your demonstration of credulity I'm not convinced that you're critical enough of your sources to be seen as a reliable reporter of your experiences.

I really think it is time for Labour to split

In a first past the post electoral system it would be an utter disaster. The result would be a permanent Tory government.