Labour and anti-semitism

[LeLaluifleur]

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".

I listened to the full 30 mins. Sorry just doesn't seem to be in his vocabulary.

But Ricardian, what you said would imply that the definition of anti-semitism must change according to current Israeli policy.

Nick Griffin has this morning been tweeting in support of Ken Livingstone's views. Does that perhaps give anyone arguing that there was nothing wrong with what Livingstone said pause for thought?

"What if (& I'm not saying this is the case, but it must be theoretically possible) there WERE important parallels? "

It is crude, unnecessary and factually incorrect to compare whatever is happening in Israel with what happened in Germany. The Jewish people were nearly wiped out in a most spectacularly cruel and deliberate fashion. People today still bare the consequences, some survivors of concentration camps are alive and of course their children and grandchildren have to live which the horrific events in the past. It's so easy for some lefty who has no personal experience with part of their family being wiped out and who has never been to the middle east or Israel to criticise Israel form the safe comfort of their arm chair. Just think how cruel it is to be compared to the people who killed your family when what Israel does and their political context is something else entirely.

People feel very very passionately about their right to call Jews Nazis.

Hilarious.



Sorry the image didn't show. Just google 'antisemitism bingo'.

"People feel very very passionately about their right to call Jews Nazis."

Maybe people expect Jewish survivors to be morally superior with superior social and political skills to the rest of the world, even if their geographic neighbours intend to wipe every last one of them out; I mean that's really the least we can expect of victims of the Holocaust right?

Loving the anti-Semitism bingo, Marmite! Think we've had a full house over the last few days!

Well, you've got to laugh...

In fact you could make threads like this much shorter (and save some posters a lot of typing) by just listing these in order, numbered. Then the anti-Semites could just come and say: 'Number 1! Ha!'

And we could say: 'Thanks, we'll tick off.' It would save us all lots of time and let me get back to work.

So we've had:

1. Anti-Semitic must also mean anti-Palestinian as they're Semites too.
2. Anti-Semitism doesn't matter as the Palestinians have it much worse. (X 1000)
3. The Jews were complicit in the Holocaust. (A new one - think we need to add this to the old bingo cards. This one's not been on the bingo cards outside of a far-right convention before.)
4. It's not really anti-Semitism, it's only anti-Zionism. And that's OK because the Israelis are Bad People. (X 1000)
5. There's no anti-Semitism, it's all a media conspiracy to discredit the far left. (A variation of it's all a conspiracy to discredit the far-right - see no. 3.)
6. Some of my best friends are Jews. (That old chestnut.)
7. I'm Jewish (well, that's my story and I'm sticking to it), so I can say anything and you can't criticise me.
8. I haven't come across anti-Semitism so therefore it doesn't exist. I say this even though I'm not Jewish, so why the hell would I have experienced anti-Semitism.
9. The "Zionist" lobby control everything. (Or sometimes the "Jewish" lobby, when the mask slips for a second.)

...

Anyone like to add some more?

I am part of 'circles' where we discuss this stuff all the time so I can't be antisemitic.

'Come on, I vote Labour where we all absolutely love an underdog so I can't be antisemitic'.

'I watch movies financed by Harvey Weinstein so I can't be antisemitic'.

It is crude, unnecessary and factually incorrect to compare whatever is happening in Israel with what happened in Germany.

Absolutely (although, strictly speaking, how can you tell if a comparison is inaccurate without knowing what the comparison is? The definition says compare, not equate).
My only question is whether or not it's also necessarily anti-semitic, as the government definitions espouse. Surely if Israeli policy is to be treated the same as any other government policy (and other parts of the government definition imply it's anti-semitic not to treat it as such), it has to be subject to criticism using all types of comparisons and critiques. I think an argument is so much stronger when crudeness and inaccuracies are allowed to speak for themselves, without additional confusing allegations of prejudice which may not be there in that instance.

So how do we create an environment in which one can be very critical of Israel without apologists for Israeli behaviour, (stealing other peoples land and treating the indigenous inhabitants as second class) crying antisemitism?

Grinkle , who has made the argument that the Jews are complicit in the Holocaust? On this thread?

So how do we create an environment in which one can be very critical of Israel without apologists for Israeli behaviour, (stealing other peoples land and treating the indigenous inhabitants as second class) crying antisemitism?

Because that question absolutely deserves to be our top priority, of course! After all, critics of Israel are being attacked in the street and and in their places of worship, and it's just so horribly, horribly offensive to be unjustly accused of anti-semitism - honestly, why can't British Jewish people prioritise that, instead of always selfishly focusing on their own problems.....

Yeah, right. This thread is about anti-semitism, yet time and again we've seen people trying to drag it away from that to a different agenda. Now why would that be?

There is a reluctance to tackle anti-semitsim because the number of Jewish people are so small and whatis more they have not been vocal. Other groups that have suffered prejudice have been defended /cause has been taken up by elements of the Labour Party because they are so vocal. This shows a lack of morality as it only listens to those who shout the loudest.

Anyone like to add some more?

"I know lots of Jewish people who say there's not a problem - so there can't be"

Ah, your back, Professor Forkhandles - the noted professor who thinks the best history is based entirely on tertiary sources.

No-one on this thread has said that. But Ken Livingstone certainly has.

Have you not been reading the news recently?

you're not your.

Oh, the shame.

Grinkle, I didn't assume the comments in your "terminally stupid" post were aimed at me - I hadn't joined the debate at that point.

However, they were directed at other contributors to the thread and are insulting to say the least. It demeans your position and argument when you use those expressions.

"Tanith - how convenient that you see no racism on this thread. Well, you wouldn't, would you, as it's not aimed at you?"
Actually, I said I saw no racists who wished you dead - your justification for the "terminally stupid" "sociopathic imbeciles" post.

"Do you also spend your time telling silly women that it's not misogyny, it's just 'banter'? Or that black people ought to stop complaining about racism and ought instead to talk nicely to the racists? FFS"

This was directly addressed to me - quite aggressively, too. I'm not quite sure why you should have assumed that I would support any position of prejudice, to be honest. Hence my last reply.

twelly - too damn right.

I can't speak for others but for me, this week and Ken's attack has been the final straw. I'm done with being polite to anti-Semites and letting comments go, assuming they must just be uneducated/ill-informed. From now on, I shall shout about - and particularly in Labour and left-wing circles. We on the left have been far too forgiving and quiet of this kind of creeping anti-Semitism, particularly when it comes from those obsessed by the Palestinians.

There is no reason why people shouldn't be able to promote Palestinian rights whilst also avoiding anti-Semitism. But the reality is that many on the right (and I mean the far-right, who unfortunately are the same people who call themselves far-left, because they hide behind a pro-Palestinian banner to come out with their filth), have and continue to use the Palestinian cause as an excuse to attack Jews.

well done Grinkle for getting your teriary sources line from a tertiary source. Ho ho ho. Actually the Harnap is a little more mediated in its condemnations of Brenner....but let's not quibble eh.