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.

Funny how Israel ALWAYS ends up being dragged in when a discussion on antisemitism starts. Generally brought in by the same people who get angry by shouting that 'being anti Israel has nothing to do with antisemitsm' 😂. And some of the hate that gets spouted on here about Israel you can hear has come second hand straight out of the mouth from some hate preacher. Very one sided/biased and often deliberately tailored. How many of these people have actually lived in Israel or been there or even spoken to any Israelis? I answer yes to all 3 and can tell you that loads of the stuff you hear in the media is bolloks. And for the record, I talk to a lot of random Israelis who HATE what is going on and don't like the politics and are not anti Palestinian. I don't want to discuss politics but I will leave with I would like nothing more than the Palestinians to have their own state plus to be able to have a harmonious existence along side Israel ❤❤❤ fwiw plenty already do although you rarely hear about it over here in the press

Very, you are incredibly selective. The Israeli justice minister in 2015, the day after 3 Israeli teens who had been kidnapped and murdered were found, reposted someone else's article which called some Palestinian children little snakes. Horrible language, but not her own words. But have Palestinian politicians said similar or worse? Absolutely, as a matter of course. As you keep being told, the Hamas charter calls for the murder of Jewish Israelis. That would include children. And, as is the norm, when 3 Israelis (2 Jews, one only 20 years old), and one Arab were murdered last week, candy was handed out in celebration by Palestinians.

And why the obsession with Israel again? I live on unceded territory in Canada. Many Indogenous people here feel there's been a cultural genocide of their people. I have friend and relatives who were taken from their families and sent to Residential school. Are you losing your shit about Canada? No you're not, because there's a double standard when it comes to Israel.

Ohhere, on the flip side, its always the same people who get angry by shouting that 'being anti Israel Is anti semitic' 😂.

Israel has plentiful stock of hate preachers of its own too as you will very well know.

I am glad that you support a 2 state solution, just a shame that Israel talks the talk but doesnt walk the walk.

Isn't that whataboutery?

That was to lizzie re Canada

Lizzie! I assure you, I also 'lose my shit' over the treatment of the First Nations. I have posted about their vile treatment on the relevant thread. Similarly, I have posted about Syrian massacre on the relevant thread. Fot those others full of whataboutery, this thread is not about First Nations, nor Pakistan, nor Rohingyas, nor Syria. If you feel you want to talk about something else then I suggest you start another thread.

For the poster who mentioned that Arab Israelis get the same rights as any other person, this is factually incorrect.

www.nytimes.com/2012/05/24/opinion/not-all-israeli-citizens-are-equal.html

For those singing Israel's praises regarding equality and democracy, the link above might educate you

But you contest that university students understand the horrors of the holocaust because they are critical of Israel

Eh?? I'm starting to wonder if you've confused me with someone else, because I mentioned neither the holocaust nor uni students' criticism of Israel

I said that "while there are countless accounts of uni-based, pro Palestinian activism, I'm struggling to find many reflecting an interest in Israel's interests" and later noted my concerns about the narrow, almost obsessive focus on just one aspect of the problem

I am sorry that you find criticism of Israel obsessive.
Noone should be silenced against an oppressor and aggressor.
As you very well know, the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, is for good men to do nothing.

This is precisely what Israel wants - to maintain the status quo. It wants the world to look on and do nothing.
I will say it again, this is why you have found very few universities (in UK anyway) reflecting an 'interest' in what you term 'Israel's interests'.

I would rather call it what it is - Israeli oppression.

When 86% of the UN General Assembly's resolutions are against Israel, then no, I don't think it's whataboutery to point out that the hysteria over Israel is unbalanced.

And you repeatedly speak of Israel doing this or that as if it's a monolith of action and opinion. I don't think you're naive, I think you know perfectly well that you're trying to construct an idea in people's minds of the cunning, nasty Jewish state, acting as one hive mind with bad intent. Ignoring the reality that Israel is a democracy, the only one in the region, and has a wide variety of opinions held within and a wide variety of political stripes in the Knesset.

I shudder to think what you say in private.

you're trying to construct an idea in people's minds

I shudder to think what you say in private.

Just who is the one trying to construct ideas in people's minds?

It's a thread about anti-semitism. It's hardly whataboutery to wonder why other countries/other peoples don't have the same level of opprobrium levelled at them as the Jewish state.

I would posts on threads about other parts of the world, but you know, funnily enough, there aren't any. There were of course about ten on Israel three years ago. Everyone was v 'engaged'

I have a fb friend, we all know the sort, bit like stateless princess she posts any hate stuff about Israel, without checking her sources. Trouble in Burma- let's talk about Israel, If we were in nuclear war with trump and n Korea, she'd still be posting about the zios.

So I asked her why and of course what eventually came out was the most racist of reasons.

She said didn't actually expect Muslims to act any better but Jews- Jews! "After all they'd been through, you'd think they'd have learned to be nice."

Histiny, nope it is still whatsboutery.

And those threads that you mention, they came about after 1000s of Palestinian children died. Whilst Israel gleefully watched Gaza burn, the world was repulsed by Israel.

Oh yes I see, on a thread about antisemitism we must not talk about our observations of anti Semitism.

This is precisely what Israel wants

Funny, other countries aren't discussed like this: Trump wants, the republicans want, the cons want, macron wants, the Spanish govt wants, Putin wants, the Chinese govt wants, the Burmese dictatorship wants,

but not Israel- no, nuance there:

Israel wants to Wipe out Palestinians. Israel gleefully watched gaza burn

Mm. Don't worry. I hear you.

Histiny, you do not hear me.

You do not see the Palestinians as humans.

Too caught up in your own self.

What about this, what about that.
You want to deflect and turn the worlds attention away from Israel so that it can merrily carry on its oppression and aggression.

You have Israel apologists on here trying to re-write history and now claiming that settlements are legal and its perfectly fine to kick Palestinians out of their homes to make way for Israeli settlers. When that is challenged, they have the nerve to cry Anti-semitism, because apparently, very valid criticism of Israel is anti semitic.

You will not succeed at shutting down criticism. Boycott of Israel is the best way to protest the abuses and violation of the basic human rights of Palestinians.

you do not see the Palestinians as human

Show me where I've ever said or even implied such a terrible thing.

You can't, can you?

i don't know why you'd even say it. you must be so full of hate. I feel sorry for you.

histinyhandsarefrozen
I don't think VeryInteresting is full of hate, just full of propoganda which lets be right is heavily biased towards the plight of the Palestinians who are by the way Jordanians. I lived in Israel for years and many of the day to day stabbings, rockets, suicide bombings etc never made it the global media so to the outside world it looks like Israel is the bully. Israel responds, no doubt about it but when you've been attacked for millennia and not a few days after you step foot in Israel then what are they supposed to do?? Those early days Israel was extremely generous in the land split, this is historical fact, a factor some of you keep ignoring.......that the consecutive wars and aggression have always been unstigated by the Palestinians, why don't you get that???

histiny it's absolutely whataboutery; it's as clear cut a case of whataboutery as one can get. You took it upon yourself to tell others what issues they do and don't care about, then you use that assumption to claim that criticism of Israel's must be based on prejudice against Jews rather than on a concern about the actions of the state. And then we are back to square one, with criticism of the state being equated with a prejudice against the people. Do you really not see that?

I'm painting the left as this evil group of extremists who are all but planning the next holocaust? A grossly hysterical misrepresentation of what I posted, with a dash of added invective. Well done!... It's notable how you offer no specific counterpoint to any of the points I've made Slarti. Opting instead to just infer that you think I'm bigoted and untrustworthy. Please feel free to do so and I'll endeavour to answer.

I am in fact supportive of the left. I think it's very important we have a left wing in politics that have the ability and integrity to challenge the other side in politics. Its vital we have opposing sides and I'd hate to see the kind of homogeneous mass of political positions we saw during the Cameron, Milliband, Clegg era. But Mr Corbyn? No, never!!! This is a man who has demonstrated some appallingly bad judgements. His contempt for the democratic will of the peoples of NI, Falkland islands, Gibraltar etc prove that. His antisemitism. His encouraging the PIRA, Hamas and Hezbollah. His evasiveness and the outright lies about his past in this regard. As well as his general instinct for Socialistic Authoritarianism, make him (and his front bench) entirely unacceptable to myself and I think so many would-be Labour voters .

A grossly hysterical misrepresentation of what I posted

Earlier on Labour were compared to the Nazis. I thought that was you but perhaps not. Feel free to correct me. Even so, your own posts suggest the left want to "wipe Israel out" and that they base their criticism on whether a state is "pro-Western" and not on whether they think its actions are right or wrong. You seemed to be positively annoyed that "the left" thinks Saudi Arabia is an awful state. Rather than the left choosing their issues based on whether a state is pro Western or not, I think it's you who bases your opinion on a state on whether or not the left are critical of it; if they are, you take the opposing view. I am agog at your claim to be supportive of the left considering the things you have posted in this thread.

You have Israel apologists on here trying to re-write history and now claiming that settlements are legal

So the settlements aren't legal? Please site for us the consensual agreements that state this?

As for Whilst Israel gleefully watched Gaza burn

RE Gaza: Ban Ki-Moon himself admitted that Hamas' and PIJ's cynical use of civilian infrastructure, including some UN facilities, this -- according to intl law, renders them valid military targets.

All areas targeted in Gaza during the conflict were either: tunnel entry points, command and control centres, weapons storage areas, sniper positions. Equally disturbing is the number of hamas/PIJ rockets fired at Israeli civilians that fell short and hit targets in Gaza, including a school, a hospital, and residential areas.

Those Israeli residents (not all of them Jews btw) who sat in chairs on a hill to watch the action in Gaza are families from Sderot, which has been bombarded with rockets, RPGs and sniper fire for many years. Many of them spent weeks in bomb shelters. So you should probably allow them a chance to breath some fresh air again and watch those of Hamas and PIJ who have terrorised them for months finally get what they deserve.

Perhaps you can never cite for us an incident where Israelis danced, handed out sweets, and celebrated whenever civilians on the other side were harmed, as Palestinians do regularly?.

No I don't see that, and coming from the fella who repeatedly tries to make some kind of desperate whataboutery parallel with trump I find it amusing.

This is not, believe it or not, a thread about Israel. It's about antisemitism.

I'm still fucked off that some twat has decided that I - I'm not sure why- think Palestinians are not human. What the fuck is she thinking making up shit like that?
Thank you for your support anyway slarti.