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.

You're far more likely to change people's minds with intelligent, mutually respectful debate.

Don't you think it would have been better to post this on page one to everyone generalising and slurring labour and the left with insults? It's almost as if you're totally ok with that...

sideways moving here but am both upset and pissed off. went into large local east london to see someone had deliberately dumped a pack of pork chops in the kosher section. fwiw the meat section is nowhere near the kosher bit. i wish i'd seen the c**t when they were doing it. may sound kind of funny to a non jew but it wasn't. i'm not even kosher but it stunk. i spoke (nice chat, not confrontational as not their fault) to a supervisor who said it happens a lot to both the kosher & halal section

meant to say Sainsburys

Because I've only been posting for the past 2/3 pages and I am not responsible for the "slurs, insults and generalisations" that you feel others have made towards the left.

If those same people, or anyone else intending to commit those sins, are reading this? Kindly cease and desist forthwith !

carefree do you think that Beinazir Lasharie's comments about jews being behind 911/isis are fair?

Just looked up Beinazir Lasharie - that is hair-raising.

www.google.ca/amp/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/01/labour-has-a-serious-anti-semitism-problem---and-jeremy-corbyn-i/amp/

Israel's occupation and pre-occupation with maintaining the status quo is discussed below

www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/16/the-real-reason-the-israel-palestine-peace-process-always-fails

The Peep Show actor Robert Webb, a prominent Labour supporter, has quit the party, saying he is fed up arguing with “the Corbytrons” and “just can’t stick with all the posturing twats”.

And actress Frances Barber has also quit her membership of the Labour Party. After attending their conference last week she said: “Everything was so clinically whitewashed .... anti Semitism is rife but whitewashed.”

The Guardian doesn't know what it thinks about Israel - I can find you Guardian links showing support for Israel as well.

And the Guardian is not exactly an impartial observer (no pun intended) - it's all toing and froing at the chattering classes level. Seumas Milne, associate editor of the Guardian recently being appointed Communications Director of the Labour Party.

I'm not sure any of us are getting anywhere - though perhaps non-contributors to the thread are learning one way or the other. It's getting to be an echoing chamber.

I am going to define not liking Trump as anti Christian.

Cool! Now that's done, I can prove that the UK is largely anti Christian.

Debate over you sinister people. No more talking sectists.

I'm not so sure lizzie. If anything I'd say MN is more balanced these days than it was a couple of years ago. Then, anyone contradicting the 'Israel= cruel oppressors, Palestinians= supine victims' narrative would have been doing so alone.

As for the Guardian, its entitled to its position and I suppose it would argue that its toing and froing is an attempt to achieve balance. My issue with it is that it is very much pro Corbyn and long ago gave up 'proper investigative journalism' in favour of polemicists who simply take facts to mean what they want them to mean. Polly T, Owen J, etc..

Saying that though- most other journals have gone the same way

So now Netanyahu wants to annex part of Palestinian land and make it a part of Israel.

This is why resentment breeds. They keep grabbing Palestinian land little by little and then wonder why the world is disgusted.

This is what has been happening for decades. This is what causes resentment. They keep building illegal settlements in occupied territories and then wonder why there is no peace.

Forgot to link

www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/03/netanyahu-backs-annexation-of-west-bank-settlements

This thread has been interesting.

But something I read on it (can't remember the poster) has been bugging me.
It was about the assertion that the huge number of palestinian civilian deaths was because of choices they had made (about placing of barracks or something?), and that Palestinians "liked", somehow, to parade these deaths for sympathy. Did someone say this? This notion had really stuck with me as a terribly sick kind of victim blaming. Is this attitude widespread or was that just a rogue post?

Hairy, the post in question was referring to Hamas leadership purposefully using Gazans as human shields and then using their deaths for political gain.

Many organizations condemned Hamas' locating rockets and ammunition in schools and hospitals etc, including the UN Commissioner for Human Rights.

This is not to blame Gazans who were civilians (the majority killed were armed men), but to acknowledge that Hamas cynically used their population as human shields.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_shield#During_the_2014_Gaza_War

That may have been me hairy. Sadly it is true. hamas/PIJ manage to find sizeable dessert stretches to train and equip their armies. Yet when it comes to launching rocket attacks against Israel, they pack them in close to hospitals, schools, residential areas and mosques etc. Why would they do this? Why would they fire makeshift rockets at such an advance fighting force as the IDF when they know so many get shot down during attacks? I believe it is to see their own people killed so it can be used by them for propaganda purposes. Arafat was particularly keen on thois monstrously cynical tactic. But it continues --- tragically.

www.thetower.org/1955-un-report-confirms-hamas-stored-and-fired-weapons-from-un-schools/

They make no secret of it either. Here's senior Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri, admitting as much.

Ban Ki-Moon himself admitted that Hamas/PIJ cynicaly uses civilian infrastructure, including UN facilities, which, according to intl law, renders them valid military targets.

blog.unwatch.org/index.php/2015/04/27/confirmed-un-admits-palestinians-stored-rockets-in-unrwa-schools-and-highly-likely-used-school-premises-to-launch-attacks/

Unless you believe the former UN secretary general has also been engaging in a sick kind of victim blaming?

If that's true it really is shocking (although I have to say, cracked, I really don't think being a former UN secretary general in any way means you're immune to saying some pretty sick stuff. Part of the job, in fact...).

That's a fair point. Criticism of the UN is often justified. Isn't/Wasn't Saudi Arabia chair of their human rights commission?

But the evidence for this policy of Hamas' is considerable and as I've shown, they're quite open about it.

www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/05/gaza-rocket-video_n_5651799.html

Just because Hamas hide weapons in civillian populations, does not absolve Isreal of its responsibility to protect human life. It has a duty as an occupying force.

So Hamas were bad for hiding weapons in a school. Israel then bombs the school. Complete disregard for Palestinian children, but of course, its the childrens own fault for supporting Hamas, so they deserve to be dead.

Isreal has brutally occupied Palestinian land, because
Isreal's hunger for Palestinian land is insatiable. The prolific illegal settlement building, the annexation of Palestinian land is an absolute disgrace from a 'western democracy'. Its actually embarassing that we allow Isreal to align itself with the West. Its human rights are appalling and they love to pint out that they are better than Syria. Isreal is fast racing to the bottom. Palestinians have every right to fight back against oppression from an apartheid state which indiscriminately attacks the Palestinian children in the name fighting 'terror'. We all know where the terror is coming from.

ThatsFunny

So what is your solution. If you were in charge what would you do?

This will be my last post, as its so flipping time consuming and carrying on responding seems to require me to keep repeat myself..It's a long one sorry.

we all know ect Please don't profess to speak for everyone else Thatsfunny..

RE "Occupation". First of all --- The land is not "occupied", it's disputed.

UN resolution 242 - the so-called "land for peace formula". Sets out the rules for how the occupation (100% legal under international law) can be ended. There are things the Israelis should do (mostly have done), things they are perfectly, legally entitled to do (building settlements) and things the Palestinian Arabs have to do, such as: agreeing to secure and fair borders for Israel and accepting Jews have the right to coexist and flourish without the threat of terror. Two things that the PA outright refuse to do. Opting instead for intifada, aka terrorism, sniping, rocket firing, suicide bombing etc etc.

242 also states clearly that Israel's under no obligation to hand over the land it acquired in the 1967 war. Further, any land that is exchanged will come only in return for peace and normalised relations, via direct negotiations. So here's the problem. Decades, and three peace offers by Israel later, and the PA have proved and openly announced they are totally unwilling to live in peace and normal relations with Israel. So, baring those facts in mind, I'm curious as to how Israel can "occupy" its own land. Does the US "occupy" the states within its recognised international borders?

Hamas were bad for hiding weapons in schools I'll say -

www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/17/unrwa-investigating-20-rockets-empty-gaza-school-palestinian

Hamas stores its military infrastructure in schools, hospitals, mosques, private homes and even callously orders civilians to go back into danger zones, purely to see them killed for the PR opportunities this will give them. I'd go a lot further than say that's "bad".

clarionproject.org/terror-group-tied-turkish-govt-recruits-hamas-human-shields/

Interesting position you take on Israels bombing of Gaza. What do you think precipitated that action by the Israeli's? Was it by chance anything to do with Hamas' relentlessly firing rockets on Israeli civilian homes and their snipers firing high powered rifles at children getting on on school busses perhaps?

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel

Whilst Israel defends its citizens from attack, builds bomb shelters, makes it compulsory for every home to have a secure room, and fights cleanly and morally. Hamas does none of these things. In fact they do the complete opposite. You ignore the relentless Palestinian demand for the abolition of Israel and all that nonsense about 'Palestine will be free from the river to the sea'. All that goes by without a word of condemnation. Why is that? If you live next to an area dominated by an islamofascist, quran inspired, terrorist organisation intent on mass-murder, who have vowed to kill all Jews and take their land, all of it, regardless of what you offer them. You either run away, or stand your ground and fight. I utterly abhor violence of all kinds, yet I'm realistic enough to know which one is the only workable strategy, if a nation state is to survive.

As for this utter codswallop about Israel as an "Apartheid State". I can only assume you've picked this comical notion up from some far left web forum where Jew haters congregate whilst trying to kid themselves and each other that 'they're definitely not antisemitic'?

This is so utterly ridiculous it doesn't really deserve a minutes attention. But I can't help myself. I won't go into too much detail about how Israeli Arabs (who may face discrimination on occasion, but discrimination exists in all countries) have exactly the same rights, guaranteed by law as Jewish Israelis. Arabs serve in parliament, as judges (even on the Supreme Court), as diplomats, academics, hospital doctors, scientists (the head of the country's chief science ministry is an Arab), serve in the army (though not obliged to do so, unlike Jews). Arabs work in television and radio, are gay activists, and live better lives than Arabs in any Arab country, facing none of the restrictions on their lives.I won't go on too much about how Arab women in Israel have far more freedom than their sisters in Saudi, Yemen, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Egypt. When polled, about 70% Israeli Arabs say they prefer to live in Israel to anywhere else. I won't go into detail about how, in Israel you will never see a sign anywhere saying 'Jews only' or 'No Arabs admitted'. Not at a bus stop, restaurant, cinema, swimming pool, beach resort, shop shopping mall, in fact not anywhere. Anyone putting up such a sign would be arrested and taken to court. Because it is against the law. So does that sound like an "Apartheid state" to you?

I wont go into too much detail -- all I ask Thatsfunny, is that you have a look at the Israeli constitution and tell us of a single law therein, that is Apartheid in intent? Then, I suggest you read something (even on Wikipedia) explaining exactly what apartheid was like in SA.

The same staggering ignorance applies to the other claim that Israel indiscriminately attacks the Palestinian children.That really isn't worth a material response.

I wont go into too much detail -- all I ask Thatsfunny, is that you have a look at the Israeli constitution and tell us of a single law therein, that is Apartheid in intent? Then, I suggest you read something (even on Wikipedia) explaining exactly what apartheid was like in SA.

Laws do not always reflect what is actually happening.
Apartheid can be apartheid without looking exactly the way apartheid looked in SA.
You seem like an intelligent, thoughtful, educated and sincere person, so I can't quite believe that you genuinely think that a lack of signage banning a certain group from a facility means members of that group are made to feel as welcome as non members. That would be a staggeringly naive approach to take and you do not seem naive.

what is actually happening. You seem to be conflating 'apartheid'' with "discrimination'? There's no apartheid in Israel according to any comparison with the Apartheid laws and practices of SA. But there is discrimination of several kinds in the country, just as there is in most other countries. I was born in Hungary and lived as a child lived in N Ireland, where there was (still is) some appalling discrimination, discrimination that led to years of violence. I've never heard anyone call NI apartheid?. Though back in the 1950s and 1960s it actually came close, apparently. .

Now I really must go. Work to do.

In 2015 Meir Dagan, a former Mossad head , said that a continuation of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's policies would result in an Israel that is either a binational state or an apartheid state.