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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:
YokoUhOh · 28/04/2016 11:24

I think right-wingers on this thread have short memories.

Which rag laid into Ralph Miliband and called him a 'traitor' amongst other slurs?

The Daily Mail (also supporters of Oswald Moseley durinv the Nazi regime).

Wind your necks in.

Helmetbymidnight · 28/04/2016 11:25

Labour's canditate for Mayor, Sadiq Khan, has said that Mr Livingstone's comments were "appalling and inexcusable" and that "there must be no place for this in our Party."

Good on Sadiq Khan.

Helmetbymidnight · 28/04/2016 11:38

Wind your necks in.

Who do you mean?

lavenderdoilly · 28/04/2016 11:39

Yoko. I'm not a right winger. This isn't about left and right it's about antisemitism from the casual to the gross. I won't wind my neck in as a lifelong labour supporter who thinks this shit is appalling.

DarlingCherieLiebling · 28/04/2016 11:40

"I think right-wingers on this thread have short memories."

I am a labour supporter yoko, which is why I am upset about what's happening in the Labour party. Which of the posters here are right-wingers, out of curiosity?

DarlingCherieLiebling · 28/04/2016 11:42

Is Lord Levy a right winger *Yoko&?
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36157027 Please clarify.

CoolforKittyCats · 28/04/2016 11:46

I think right-wingers on this thread have short memories.

Have a crystal ball do you that tells you the political persuasion of posters? No thought not?

Wind your necks in

How about you grow up.

YokoUhOh · 28/04/2016 11:51

Left v right has definitely been an issue on this thread!

And where is your answer for the appalling treatment by the Mail of Jewish immigrant Ralph Miliband?

It works both ways. Clearly, some members of the Labour Party need to re-think the way they handle their opposition to the Israeli government, but that Mail article was heinously racist.

CoolforKittyCats · 28/04/2016 11:53

And where is your answer for the appalling treatment by the Mail of Jewish immigrant Ralph Miliband?

It was wrong.

What do you think about Naz Shah and Ken Livingston?

YokoUhOh · 28/04/2016 11:54

Awful! No time for any racist opinions!!

lavenderdoilly · 28/04/2016 12:00

Yoko. Why is everyone who is not you a DF proponent. Don't be silly.
People who have even a limited knowledge of antisemitism in the UK know all about the DF.

YokoUhOh · 28/04/2016 12:19

I just felt that the 'Labour antisemitism' argument needed to be balanced out with a 'right wing also anti-semitic' reminder.

My views are this:

  1. Livingstone, Shah and fellow left-wing opponents of the Netanyahu government need to fundamentally reassess the way in which they voice opposition to the Israeli government. Their words and actions have overstepped any acceptable boundary.
  1. Supporters of the current Israeli government need to stop conflating criticism of the current Israeli government with anti-Semitism. I would hope that, if I were an Israeli citizen, I would be able to criticise Netanyahu and his policies without being called an anti-Semite, in the same way that I would be inclined to speak out against the Saudi regime.
samG76 · 28/04/2016 12:36

Yoko - your equation of Israel with saudi is ridiculous. What is a supporter of the current Israeli government? The government get some things right and others wrong. A bit like the government in the UK, or in other democracies.

Loads of people, not least in Israel, criticize the Israeli govt without being called anti-semites. But where people do stray into anti-semitic territory, eg by proposing the deportation of an entire population on racial grounds, it's important that they are called for what they are.

YokoUhOh · 28/04/2016 12:41

One final observation, which I hope puts the whole 'Labour is rabidly anti-semitic' argument into a bit of perspective, is that Labour MPs wholeheartedly supported Lord Dubs' child refugee amendment. Lord Dubs, I believe, is a Czech-Jewish refugee from Nazism, and was saved directly from the Kindertransport. Many Conservative MPs voted against the amendment.

grinkle · 28/04/2016 12:45

None of us (all Labour supporters I think? - except for claig, obviously) think that the Labour Party as a whole is rabidly anti-Semitic. But there are certainly Labour individuals - like Naz Shah or Livingstone - who do clearly appear to be. And that needs to be pointed out and dealt with, not ignored just because not all Labour members share their views.

grinkle · 28/04/2016 12:47

If Livingstone is not suspended, I think I shall have to end my party membership.

A fucking disgrace.

YokoUhOh · 28/04/2016 12:50

Sam looking at the make-up of the Knesset, it seems clear that Likud is far from universally popular in Israel, and that the system is actually very supportive of pluralism. Therefore, criticism of the government should be taken as a sign of healthy debate within/about healthy democracy, rather than anti-semitism. I agree that no-one agrees wholeheartedly with any government's political agenda.

Bluebolt · 28/04/2016 12:51

The daily politics today was just dreadful, Ken Livingstone just does not know when to stop. Total liability.

YokoUhOh · 28/04/2016 12:51

Livingstone seems to be on a bit of a path to becoming the next Galloway.

AimUnder · 28/04/2016 12:54

Israel as a state has more war crimes on its head than Saudi. Israel wiped out and displaced millions of Palestinians from their homes into refugee camps. It is still refusing to stick to the UN borders and the UN requirement to stop building further settlements on Palestinian land.

I am disgusted with what Naz Shah said about moving Israelis to America. I am also disgusted in the same way with what Israel did in displacing and stealing homes of millions of Palestinians, and its refusal now to take these Palestinians back and stick to UN conventions. The massacres that Israel has perpetrated are just as abhorrent as those currently Saudi are doing against the Yemenis.

Just to be clear, I abhor what Naz Shah said about displacing Israelis to America. I do believe however that criticism of Israel as a state does not equal anti-semitism, just as criticism of Saudi does not equal islamophobia.

AnotherEffingOrangeRevel · 28/04/2016 13:06

A good statement I think. Apologies if it's been linked to already.

www.jewishsocialist.org.uk/news/item/statement-on-labours-problem-with-antisemitism-from-the-jewish-socialists-g#.VyHjOa6FhME.twitter

samG76 · 28/04/2016 13:12

Aimunder - this isn't an area you know much about, is it? millions of Palestinians? - there weren't even a million Palestinians around in 1947/8. As for the UN border, the Israelis gave back Sinai and Gaza, and withdrew from Lebanon. In each case, the area is full of militant Islamists.

Are you seriously suggesting Israel should withdraw from the Golan Heights? To whom (Islamic State, Al Nusra, Assad?), and what about the Druze who would all be massacred as heretics?

And very few people massacred by or even in the vicinity of the Israelis. Far fewer than the number killed in inter-factional fighting between Palestinian groups themselves or in the Lebanese civil war.

But keep up the virtue signalling!

But keep up the sloganeering/

BigChocFrenzy · 28/04/2016 13:16

Israel has not "wiped out" Palestinans. It has caused millions of refugees (whom the neighbouring countries have not helped)
It has ignored UN resolutions, but all binding ones were vetoed by the US, sometimes with other countries. So it has not broken any UN requirement that counts legally, but has lost much moral ground.

Individual Israelis have broken the rules of war, as have individual Americans, British, French in current ME wars.
Tony Blair as a leader is supposedly guilty of war crimes, but the International Criminal Court have no interest in him or in any Israeli leader.
Actions that have terrible outcomes for millions of people, even starvation and anarchy, are not necessarily war crimes, just incredibly incompetent and shortsighted.
There is a very high bar for convicting leaders and in the past this has required ordering mass rape and slaughter of prisoners.
The London Blitz was not a war crime, neither were the Dresden firebombings, although both caused hidous casualties, mostly civilians.

The ME countries involved in civil wars have committed war crimes, slavery, genocide of minorities.
Saudi Arabia does not officially wage war - but in reality it funds those who do, including against the UK, France, USA.
Saudi is a monstrous theocratic dictatorship with mass human rights violations of its own people.
It treats immigrants from developing countries like India & Egypt as slaves to be tortured and raped at the whim of the wealthy.

AimUnder · 28/04/2016 13:20

Israel has caused million of refugees - you said that, i.e displaced millions of people. This is a crime. Taking people's homes and land away from them is a crime!

ME countries have committed crimes, no one is doubting that. However, their crimes doesn't legitimise Israel's crimes. It's childish to use such tit for tat arguments.