Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

News

Labour and anti-semitism

999 replies

LeLaluifleur · 10/04/2016 09:15

Apologies for DF links but ignoring the lowbrow style 'journalism' for a minute, I am perturbed about these reports.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3531852/Labour-councillor-20-suspended-claims-called-Hitler-greatest-man-history-latest-anti-Semitic-scandal-hit-Corbyn-s-party.html#comments

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3532042/Ignorant-Godless-Hateful-Corbyn-s-contempt-Jews-disgrace-withering-attack-Labour-leader-donor-backed-party-400-000-2015-Election.html

I like Corbyn a little bit but judge his cavalier attitude to anti-semitism harshly.

Has anti-semitism become cool among labour supporters or something? What is being done about the anti-semitism coming from some labour politicians and how to deal with the Islamist flavour of anti-semitism as displayed by Labour councillor Aysegul Gurbuz (and others) for examples who posted statements such as this on twitter :

"Ed Miliband is Jewish. He will never become prime minister of Britain."
"Adolf Hitler was praised as the ‘greatest man in history".

Shock Sad

OP posts:
originalmavis · 28/04/2016 09:18

Helmut that made me laugh (not in a good way).

ThisCakeFilledIsle · 28/04/2016 09:21

Not everyone who thinks JEremy Corbyn is pants is part of a right wing plot to do our heroic leader down.

grinkle · 28/04/2016 09:22

Very good article on the Malia/NUS debacle but addresses more generally that old anti-Zionist v anti-Semitic issue.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/22/antisemitism-malia-bouattia-nus-muslim-anti-zionist

Some good comments below the line too.

eg.

I'm not antisemitic, I'm anti-Zionist sounds an awful lot like "I'm not racist, but..." to me.

Some people who say "I'm not racist, but..." genuinely are not racist, but most of them are.

In any case, I'm not entirely clear how or why it's become so readily accepted that anti-Zionism is a noble stance. If I were to go about loudly condemning 'Kurdism', organising boycotts of Kurdish goods or services or people, turning up at Kurdish events with placards condemning the movement for an independent Kurdistan... you'd think I was an absolute wanker, wouldn't you?

Most people are in agreement that the Kurds should have their own state. I don't see people going about condemning Pakistan for making off with a great chunk of North-Western India, either.

Why should Jews, uniquely it seems, be criticised for wanting a homeland?

grinkle · 28/04/2016 09:30

An answer to that last question from the anti-Zionists on this thread would be appreciated.

ThisCakeFilledIsle · 28/04/2016 09:31

I wish Naz Shah well.

I too think her apology seemed genuine and I think even in your 40s your life can expand and old and less well examined attitudes you have carried with you can be challenged and change. Time will tell perhaps.

originalmavis · 28/04/2016 09:34

It shows how easily these ideas and words fall from peoples mouths.

So her family and friends, colleagues have never said 'that's not on, that's racist'?

DarlingCherieLiebling · 28/04/2016 09:39

"Perhaps the offensive mps/councillors need to look at their own communities and see what they are up to."

Absolutely.

oliviaclottedcream · 28/04/2016 09:41

Oh pleeese, links to the Daily Mail ? D'you suppose lefties who are pro-palstiains and anti-zionsit / anti-Semitic as I must be, are going to give them a hit ?

I'm not talking about this thread per se. I'm talking about what's going on the media this morning. I'll state my case, if you can contain your anger and urge to throw around insults for long enough to read? The media as everyone knows, are alleging that Labour has a ‘Jewish problem’. As if the party has become infested with anti-Semitism. This is what's truly appalling.

The bottom line is -- Naz Shah has been suspended over a two-year old Facebook post imagining the relocation of Israel to the U.S. Her comments/proposal were tongue-in-cheek , tasteless? Yes, but that doesn't make them anti-Semitic. To present it as, Labour MP endorses ‘chilling “transportation” policy’, or, Labour MP backs plan to “relocate Israelis to America”’, as if Shah had put her name to some Nazi-like deportation scheme, is obscene and idiotic in the extreme..

The only things remotely anti-Semitism comment she (Shah) made was, during Israel’s 2014 Gaza massacre, she urged her Facebook contacts to vote in an online poll about whether Israel was committing war crimes. It turned out he results were negative, Shah warned her followers then that ‘The Jews are rallying to the poll’. When she should have referred to ‘Israel’s apologists’ rather than ‘the Jews’, and for this - quite rightly - she has apologised..

BBC’s Andrew Neil compared Shah to Eichmann ?? This is beyond hysterical.

DarlingCherieLiebling · 28/04/2016 09:55

Olivia

"Oh pleeese, links to the Daily Mail ? D'you suppose lefties who are pro-palstiains and anti-zionsit / anti-Semitic as I must be, are going to give them a hit ?"

You don't need to click but I like to back my statements up. I take the Daily Fail for what it is Smile and i get my information form a range of media sources and academic papers.

"if you can contain your anger and urge to throw around insults for long enough to read? "

What are you on about? I have not insulted anybody, if I did, please report my post, you know how it works.

Her comment were tongue-in-cheek? Like rape jokes and racist hilarity are 'tongue-in-cheek' maybe?

Like I said you don't make the best impression based on your ranting posts so the points you are trying to make are lost on me.

DarlingCherieLiebling · 28/04/2016 10:00

Especially for you olivia
www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/apr/27/naz-shah-suspended-labour-party-antisemitism-row read this instead of the DF if you like to collect your 'good' lefty citizen brownie points. Star

The irony is that all of your posts simply confirm the naive, self-absorbed and uncritical thinking by a lot of people on the left, socially wrt Israel. I also am a born and bred 'lefty' if you want, but thankfully I have learned not to take everything at face value and I don't tend to think in black / white terms where complex political and social issues are concerned. Incidentally, although i don't agree with Claigs post a lot of the time, i enjoy her thought provoking comments, and thinking beyond the obvious.

grinkle · 28/04/2016 10:05

Olivia - why do you think being anti-Zionist is an acceptable position?Could you please answer my previous question about what gives you the right as a non-Jew to hold a position that Jews should not have the right to self-determination? It's clearly not that you're opposed to nationalism on principle, as you think Palestinian nationalism is A Good Thing.

Please explain. It looks pretty racist to me.

samG76 · 28/04/2016 10:09

The other objectionable thing about Naz's post was how it stated "problem solved". Yes, because the rest of the Middle East is such a beacon of peace! If Israel disappeared it would no doubt be replaced by some sort of islamist state, which would be into honour killings, pushing gays and political opponents off high buildings, dragging bodies around behind motorbikes, etc, as already happens in Gaza.

So this would make sense only if the "problem" were the existence of Jews in the Middle East, which is an obviously anti-semitic view. Similarly, if someone suggested that the problems of Bradford could be solved by deporting everyone of Pakistani origin "back" to Mirpur, I don't think they would have many defenders, especially if they said it was only intended to be light-hearted.

grinkle · 28/04/2016 10:16

Also, the phrase 'problem solved' is uncomfortably close to the 'Final Solution' proposed by someone or other... The idea that Jews living somewhere is a 'problem' that needs 'solving' has very uncomfortable echoes.

ThisCakeFilledIsle · 28/04/2016 10:18

I just deleted a long, self indulgent, post about my own journey from living and thinking in a bubble and how I would have laughed along with McDonnell's Thatcher assassination drollery. And now Olivia has brought up the tongue in cheek aspect.

Never mind. I'll summarise to: the best hope for Naz and the rest of us is that we all develop (whatever our age) and Grow up.

DarlingCherieLiebling · 28/04/2016 10:32

"Also, the phrase 'problem solved' is uncomfortably close to the 'Final Solution' proposed by someone or other.."
I agree

DarlingCherieLiebling · 28/04/2016 10:40

Olivia in response to your smug criticism of the daily fail linkage, here, if you like, read some more high-brow articles to get a broader and more factual perspective.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/ae.2005.32.4.499/epdf?r3_referer=wol&tracking_action=preview_click&show_checkout=1&purchase_referrer=onlinelibrary.wiley.com&purchase_site_license=LICENSE_DENIED

www.amazon.com/gp/product/0787978035?ie=UTF8&tag=jrtvre-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0787978035

DarlingCherieLiebling · 28/04/2016 10:41

More information about Cheselr's book linked to above:

In this intensely passionate and compelling book, the best-selling feminist and Jewish writer Phyllis Chesler demonstrates how old-fashioned anti-Semitism has become newly fashionable, even politically correct, and how this plague threatens the Jews of the world, America, and Western civilization. A dangerous, worldwide coalition of Islamic terrorists, well-intentioned but profoundly misinformed students, right wing fascists, left-wing ideologues, pious academics, feminists, opportunistic European politicians, and sensation-seeking international media have joined together to once again blame the Jews and the Jewish state for the current world crisis.Today, lethal activism against the Jews often takes the form of anti-Zionism. Osama Bin Laden, for example, blamed the 9/11 World Trade Center attack on U.S. government support for Israel. Since then, hundreds of synagogues have been burned, cemeteries and destroyed, and Jews threatened, boycotted, beaten, and killed. Jews have been blamed for huge stock market losses and for the decline of the world economy. The long-ago disproven Protocols of Zion, which accuse the Jews of an alleged world-conspiracy to conquer and control the world, have been revived and promulgated in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East.So what must we do? 'Fight against the Big Lies,' Chesler says. (No, the Jews do not control the world's money and media, and the Jews did not kill Christ). Avoid rigid, dogmatic ideologies. Focus on the world's real problems (disease, poverty, illiteracy, violence) instead of scapegoating the Jews and demonizing the Jewish state. Be fair to Israel. Form Jewish-Christian, Jewish-Muslim, and Jewish-Palestinian alliances. Restore campus civility and above all, Jews must stop fighting among themselves.

lavenderdoilly · 28/04/2016 10:43

Jews, eh? Can't take a joke about solving them as a problem. What a load of BS, Olivia. Naz Shah made those comments as an adult not long before she became a candidate for MP. I know MP wannabees, they are very careful about what shit they come out with in advance of selection. She obvious thought it was OK to "make jokes" about relocating Jews . She obviously thought she had a safe space for making such "jokes" in the Labour Party. JC needs to get an unequivocal grip on this.

DarlingCherieLiebling · 28/04/2016 11:03

Another bit of irony.... don't lefty people who are self-declared 'anti-zionists' realise their attitudes are no better than the attitudes of British Colonialists meddling in affairs of far away countries to suit their political, social and economic wants and needs?

Naz Shah suggesting to relocate/transport all Israelis (on a sidetone, does her clever proposal include Arab citizens of Israel, probably not eh?) is a public call for ethnic cleansing. I'd imagine the police should be interested in her comments.

Ethnic cleansing is the deportation or population transfer of part or all of a particular ethnic, racial, religious, or national group.

Shah essentially incited religious hatred by publicly proposing the ethnic cleansing of Jewish people in Israel.
Classy.

claig · 28/04/2016 11:04

Car crash interview of Labour MP, Rupa Huq, on BBC Radio 4 Today programme this morning. "Trial by twitter" and other nonsense.

"Listen: Rupa Huq’s disastrous attempt to defend Naz Shah’s anti-Semitic posts – ‘I retweeted a picture of Boris Johnson on a zip-wire’

blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/04/listen-rupa-huqs-disastrous-turn-on-today/

claig · 28/04/2016 11:15

Now Ken Livingstone

"Ken Livingstone accuses 'Israel lobby' of orchestrating a campaign to smear critics as anti-Semites"

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/28/ken-livingstone-accuses-israel-lobby-of-orchestrating-a-campaign/

Kennington · 28/04/2016 11:18

Labour and the other party's need to address the issue of anti Semitism in the UK which is on a dreadful rise.
What is happening in France with movement out of the country is also very sad.
The comments made by the MP and the NUS president are childish at best. I am suspicious that they would have plenty more unpleasant things to say behind closed doors if they are unable to express their confused views coherently in public.

Helmetbymidnight · 28/04/2016 11:18

Oh I'm sure if an MP had called for Bradford to be transferred to Pakistan or all blacks deported in cargo ships to Africa, Olivia would absolutely be defending them too and calling the views of anyone who didn't like it: appalling, obscene, idiotic or hysterical.

Right, Olivia?

DarlingCherieLiebling · 28/04/2016 11:21

Rupa Huq. interview, yes a total car crash, she didn't even take the time to find a quiet spot to answer the questions. What a 'politician'. Labour really has lost touch.

DarlingCherieLiebling · 28/04/2016 11:23

"A silly moment of sharing a silly picture" is Huq's comment on Shah's public call for ethnic cleansing of Jewish people. With the benefit of doubt she is either utterly clueless or bigoted herself.

Totally apologist.

Swipe left for the next trending thread