Jeremy Corbyn: anti Semite?

[winkywinkola]

My in laws, who are Jewish, believe he is. All their pals and relatives do too.

Friends with Hamas, they say.

Is he? I don't know what to think.

He just tells people what he thinks they want to hear like, you can all have free stuff, we know how much it will cost but we don't have the figure in front of us at the minute lol

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tearful-jewish-mp-storms-out-8317511

It was the fact if i remember correctly Jeremy Corbyn left with the perpetrator like friends.

Stolengoat -

I think he may be anti-Zionist (as in the current political movements by the state of Israel to continue apartheid* against Palestinians because the Jews are the promised people).

Anti-Jewish he's not.

Anti-Semitic he's not.

*a term used by Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Zionism is the belief that the Jewish people should have their own state. Apartheid is not part of the definition, although clearly the Israeli govt. practice that which is beyond appalling.

I HOPE what Corbyn is is anti Israeli Govt. Not anti semetic. Not anti Israel, not anti Zionist. Far too many people get these highly loaded terms muddled.

SufacingTrunk - very pleased to hear he's not an anti-semite. It's unfortunate, though, that his supporters keep sending anti-semitic abuse to Jews (including Emma Barnett), that his ally Livingstone keeps at the very least downplaying the Holocaust,and that his "friends" such as Raed Salah and Hugo Chavez have a long history of anti-semitism.

But most of the Jewish people I know have family and homes in Israel

As BigBiscuits says 'But he shrugs in the face of antisemitism.'

I am Jewish but do not support the right wing government in Israel. However I will not vote for Jeremy Corbyn. He supports Hamas who want the extinction of Israel completely. That is a fact.

OliversMummy I can assure you that most British Jews don't have homes in Israel even if some of the ones you know do.

It seems to me like Jeremy Corbyn has picked a side. That's a problem.

OlversMummy But you are correct about the incident where a Jewish Labour MP was left in tears and Corbyn did nothing to support her. I do believe he is anti Zionist and it is a convenient cover for being anti Jewish (which is something I and both DDs come up against often) :-(

I imagine he's possibly very anti israeli/pro Palestinian given his politics. Whether that colours his view of Jewish folk in general - no idea.

I don't know if he is personally but there is a fair bit of anti Semitism within the Labour Party
He needs to have a zero tolerance approach to it.

FloofyCat Winky I agree with you both.

Livingstone should have been expelled and Corbyn has done very little to stamp out antiSemitism within the Labour Party as a whole.

I said most of the Jewish people I know. I live in a predominantly Jewish area

Supersunshine it was after the incident that appalled me when he went off chatting to the guy who had heckled the Jewish MP. He looked like he was in agreement with the guy not distancing himself

Any criticism of the Israeli state appears to be considered anti Semitic.

Yes oliversmum I was appalled too. It was a turning point for me.

Moomin some people do find criticism of the israeli state to be anti Semitic but by ni means all. However as I posted earlier there are people who hide their anti Semitism behind anti Zionism. That is what is worrying.

I am Jewish by background and culture, but am an atheist.

My Jewish cousins see every issue from the point of view of being pro-Israel. Basically Israel can do no wrong. It is infuriating, but you can not reason with them. I see frustration (with the pro-Israel bias of a lot of British and US Jews) in some Labour supporters, but I don't think Corbyn is Anti-Semitic at all.

claraschu - so when JC invited to tea Raed Salah, a person with convictions for incitement to racial hatred, who had written a poem saying that Jews eat Christian children as part of a festival ritual, and when he kept going along to dos run by a Holocaust denier, you don't see any evidence of anti-semitism there at all.... Is there anything he could do short of goosestepping around wearing a swastika that you would consider anti-semitism?

I cannot understand why he doesn't come out and make extremely clear statements on anti-Semitism and actively work to stamp it out.

I say this as someone who actively supports Palestinian rights, who is actively opposed to the apartheid actions of the Israeli state. Because I'm pro-human rights.

So for JC to say nothing much and do nothing much, regardless of whatever agenda is running against him (and I'm sure there are a few powerful ones), makes me start to question him on this. Were it me, I'd want nothing whatsoever to do with anti-Semitism because it goes against my values. If it doesn't go against his, why is he so little to stamp it out. By doing so little, he's permitting it to happen in his name. I have no respect for that.

@Staying I agree with you completely.

Unfortunately doing and saying nothing is Corbyn's modus operandi in lots of situations. Apparently he's also not helped by the team around him who try and block him from doing some useful things as a constituency MP.

OK... I needed to take a deep breath before addressing some of this stuff (Aphorism, in particular).
I am a practicing Jew. We're not Orthodox but belong to a synagogue and play an active role in Jewish organisations. My DH was a very committed Labour supporter and still belongs to JLM. He knows quite a few of the MPs on both sides from his student politics days. From personal experience, he is in no doubt that Corbyn is an anti-semite. I'm going to lay out the evidence for you but first, I'm going to explain the McPherson Principle. It states that perception of racism must be defined by the group being victimised. That means that if I , being Jewish, am telling you that Corbyn and his acolytes are antisemitic, then they are antisemitic. Would you dare tell a BAME person that they are imagining racism or using it for political gain?
Before you say 'I saw a Jewish person from JVL interviewed who says that Corbyn is being smeared and he isn't antisemitic.', I'll solve this bit of (deliberately designed) confusion. You have seen the sum total of the membership of JVL- and Jews for Jeremy and Jews for Palestinians and FreeSpeech on Israel and Jews Against the Witch hunt and Jewdas. That's it. They aren't representing some significant minority of opinion in the Jewish community. They are a handful of loonies who only identify as Jewish in the service of denigrating Israel and supporting Corbyn. They aren't even clever enough to keep themselves from being recorded admitting it. it.twitter.com/ComiskeyNathan/status/979626247037882368
Every one of these groups has the exact same membership. They are counting on the general public to not realise that those Guardian letters are all signed by the exact same people too. And this matters. It matters because it creates a false impression that there is a plurality of opinion in the Jewish community on Corbyn and that the Board of Deputies is somehow unrepresentitive. Well, I and every other synagogue member voted for our representatives to the Board. My DCs voted for their Student Rep. The Board of Deputies speaks for us.
Would you give any credence to a member of the EDL or the BNP who said they were a legitimate representative of white opinion?
Now before you say 'this is all about Corbyn being anti-Zionist but he isn't anti-semitic', I'll explain that too. Zionism is the belief that Jews are entitled to their historic homeland in the same way as every other group of people on earth. We pray facing Jerusalem no matter where on earth our synagogues are. It is our only holy place. To deny one, and only one, group of people self-determination is racist. Anti-Zionism is a bit like a gateway drug. If you characterise Israel as uniquely evil and ignore other territorial conflicts like Kashmir or Tibet; If you shout about Israel's methods for defending its border but don't employ invective against Assad gassing and bombing his people (or defend it as Corbyn has done); If you characterise Israelis as colonial occupiers instead of a people who have lived in a land in greater or lesser numbers (massacres, crusades and invasions) since long before the Greeks, Romans, Jesus and Mohammed; If you see the only democracy in the Middle East with a free press, independent judiciary, free elections with Knesset representation of all of its diverse citizens and equal rights for women, LGBTetc as uniquely evil and deserving of opprobrium that you would not give to the democracies (not surrounded by countries who would gleefully murder its citizens) of the world that are imperfect but face other less existential challenges then you are antisemitic. Not anti-Zionist. Anti-Semitic. Corbyn's letter in the Evening Standard was a disgusting dog whistle. It permissioned precisely the language and associations that are antisemitic under the fig leaf of antizionism.
So, now I'm going to tell you why I (and every other Jewish person I know) believe that Corbyn is an antisemite and really dangerous.
He has spent his political life campaigning with and associating with antisemites. Guido Fawkes has a very comprehensive list with video of Corbyn and his chums. order-order.com/tag/anti-semitism/
Funny how quickly anyone they suspend for antisemitism gets readmitted.
So, ask yourself this. If a Tory politician spent 40 years hanging around with , giving money to, sitting on committees with and defending the BNP or EDL, you'd call them racist. What's different about Corbyn? Or, do you just not like Jews?