To ask about Jeremy Corbyn and anti semitism

[TheoriginalLEM]

So having decided to vote labour I had a conversation with a Jewish work colleague who said she couldn't vote for him, hated him even. It took me a few seconds and then i realised why. I said that I had stuck my fingers in my ears and my head in the sand somewhat about this, hoping it was just the media etc.

We didn't get into it as I could see she was uncomfortable.

So can someone tell me if and why he is an anti-semite? It doesn't sit well with me to vote for someone like that but I desperately want the Tories gone and my politics is definitely to the left.

I'm honestly not being goady and I know I could google but i wouldn't know where to start to get an unbiased view

obsessive Corbyn fans who deny things that people can see for themselves is really bloody scary. It's like a cult.

This.

I went on Twitter after the Panorama expose. I expected viewers to be as shocked as I was, but no, the Corbynites were out in full. And boy was it ugly. Dismissing it, minimising, whataboutery, denial. It was horrifying.

YY to the cognitive dissonance

Most British Jewish people vote Conservative and always have done.

This simply isn't true.

Watch the panorama program on it!

that doesn't fit the narrative

So there's a conspiracy is there. The old tropes are certainly making a comeback.

Corbyn is 100% anti-semitic.

He is an anti-semite.

If he disagrees with that assessment he's welcome to get my details from Mumsnet and sue me. He won't though, just like he hasn't sued anyone else who's called him anti-semitic publicly. Because he'd lose.

Here is the example that turned even the most die-hard Labour Jews' minds. When discussing some Jews he'd met he said:

"One is that they don’t want to study history and secondly, having lived in this country for a very long time, probably all their lives, they don’t understand English irony either. "

These people were British. They were Jews.

He doesn't see Jews as British (or English) even if they were born here. Of what other ethnic minority would this be an acceptable statement?

He is scum.

Look at #Jewsforjeremy.
There's no evidence that Jeremy Corbyn is an anti- semite. Absolutely none. Unfortunately the right- wing media don't want him in as he wants a fairer society where the rich pay their taxes and the poor/ vulnerable are shown respect.
If you want real evidence and eye- witness acounts of a politician being racist and vile to minority groups, then read up on the current prime minister. Abhorrent behaviour.

Some of the messages in this thread seems quite anti-semetic. Jewish = money is ok on Mumsnet?

RE: the original question. A lot of hardline labour supporters are anti-semetic (look at abuse of Lucider Burger for example), the fact that Jeremy Corbyn turn a blind eye to this makes him just as guilty.

Racism is a slur that is impossible to disprove and an accusation that is easy to make with no actual evidence. It is indefensible because if anyone "supports" a racist they are therefore racist themselves.

If there is evidence that someone has done something that is one thing but if it is a question of the policing thoughts then that is far shakier ground.

(I will no doubt be called racist now)

Most British Jewish people vote Conservative and always have done.

Incorrect. The Jewish community is very much traditionally labour.

And let's not even start on the Conservatives attitude to Muslims.

Yes, exactly that - I could never vote conservative and that is one of the reasons.

However i equally cannot in good conscience vote for an anti-semite. My colleague told me that many of her Jewish friends have experienced racism and it really shocked me.

The "who I should I vote for" app suggested my vote should be green, which surprised me as im not that environmentally aware with lib dems second.

My issue is that those votes would be wasted in my area if we want the Tories out.

Am now seriously considering ruining my ballott, not a decision I'd take lightly :(

There's no evidence that Jeremy Corbyn is an anti- semite. Absolutely none

There is the most insane amount of evidence that he turns a blind eye to anti semitism. He can’t even stand up and support his own Jewish MP’s. Whether he’s anti Semitic personally, I don’t know but he’s not supportive of British Jews and that has NOTHING to do with Israel

There are plenty of examples of Corbyn being anti-Semitic himself

Links, please?
I see the one about tweeting a mural above. What else?

Dismissing it, minimising, whataboutery, denial. It was horrifying.

Yep. In the past few days on MN I've seen it argued that neither calling a Jewish person a Shylock, nor accusing Jews of using the blood of Christian children to bake bread, are examples of anti-Semitism. The depths sunk to in order to excuse these things would have been funny if it wasn't so awful.

I don't think that Corbyn is personally anti-Semitic. I do also think that the right-wing press have gleefully ceased this as a stick to beat him with while ignoring some pretty abhorrent stuff from the Tories.
He also has a lot of Jewish support ie the group Jewish Voices for Labour, and Miram Margoyles recently endorsed him.

Senior conservatives like Pritti Patel have a very cozy relationship with Netanyahu, in fact she was sacked from her previous post for having clandestine meetings with him. It's hugely in his interests to push the narrative that critisism of Israel = anti-Semitism when the joke is that he and Trump are very cozy indeed and Trump supports some "very fine people" who are blatant neo-Nazis. He's also close to a number of far-right European leaders.

My closest Jewish freinds vote Labour or Lib Dem in fact - but that might just be because of the particular MPs or constituencies. It means nothing other than anecdotally however.

Corbyn is not now, nor ever has been an anti-semite. He is very much pro palestine, and the rights of the palestinian people to not be ground under the heel of an oppressive aprtheid regime, where what few rights they have can be removed on a whim, where innocent civilians and children can be shot, their houses destroyed and their land stolen from them. This attitude pisses of Zionists and the very well funded pro-israel lobby.

This is nothing to do with Israel and Palestine, it’s his inability to act on anti Semitism within his own party, to his own MP’s and in Britain today. Jewish people who have been British for generations. Do not link the 2 together. This is not about Israel it’s about anti semitism in Britain in 2019

The thing that may have started all this was his use of the word Zionist. Corbyn said he had used the term Zionist “in the accurate political sense and not as a euphemism for Jewish people”
He added: “I am now more careful with how I might use the term ‘Zionist’ because a once self-identifying political term has been increasingly hijacked by antisemites as code for Jews.”

I will never vote for a Labour party led by Jeremy Corbyn, because under his leadership those in his party who have made anti-semitic comments have either been tolerated or action has been too little and belated. I would feel it would be insulting the memory of the Jewish ancestors of mine who died in Auschwitz, Sobibor and on forced marches.

He also has a lot of Jewish support ie the group Jewish Voices for Labour, and Miram Margoyles recently endorsed him.

They are a very small minority. He does not have support from the vast majority of the community. There is a very very real climate of fear

Praising a perpetuator of the blood libel as a great man and accusing Jewish media of getting him deported. Writing gushing forwards for anti-Semitic books. Hanging out with Holocaust deniers. 'Othering' British Jews by claiming they don't understand English irony peanut.

For someone who isn't apparently anti-Semitic himself he is very unfortunate to be regularly found in their company, and praising them.

Thanks to those who have answered this thread, I'm in the same position as the OP.

What I don't understand though is that it seems that anti semitism is within the Labour party as a whole, and the racist members are not new, so why is it JC who is taking the flak if previous Labour leaders had the same approach? Or did they deal with it and I've just missed that?

And that's before you look at the inaction on dealing with anti-Semitism within the party, activists and Momentum, Jewish MPs leaving or being deselected and so many new candidates with awful track records of anti-Semitic tweets, statements etc that you'd think the labour party are deliberately seeking them out to stand.

I echo the comments to watch the Panorama documentary. It's a distressing but insightful watch and it features lots of non-Jewish eyewitness accounts.

No one can dismiss nearly the entire Jewish community saying that his attitude is anti Semitic, we know what it looks like. John McDonald admits there is a problem, his solution is that they have 'sent people on a course'. I think if you go into politics you shouldn't need to go on a course to not be racist but hey ho.

And no, not a conservative, always a labour voter although Lib Dem this time. I would still choose a Corbyn government over a Johnson one, because the Tories will cause more damage long term.