Another SNP member having to resign due to ‘antisemitism’

[Birdsfoottrefoil]

Denise Findley:

www.heraldscotland.com/news/18080232.new-snp-resignation-alleged-anti-semitism/

I suspect it is no coincidence that these posts have come to light when you read who has been supporting her. However, her posts were certainly ill-advised. Israel as a state can be rightly criticise but comparing it to Nazis is never going to read well and your point will immediately be lost in the comparison. Is it antisemitism or just offensive?

The problem is people who speak out and go against the grain to raise genuine issues of concern are also those who are generally less guarded in what they say.

folk don’t seem to have the imagination to realize the extent that trauma and legitimate threat has played in creating the Israeli mindset - seeing your whole family wiped out - having the legitimate paranoia of being surrounded by neighbours who hate you and want to wipe you and your children out, neighbours who raise their children to hate you and want you wipe you out. Most folk in the UK have never faced or had to deal with this level of threat.

This. And then listen to the international community saying 'We are the world's police, we will take care of you. You should wait for us to do sanctions and shit and not go off half cocked'. And then remember what happened to great aunt x and uncle y. And then look at Rwanda and Srebrenica. And then listen to some arsehole wondering 'why the Jews never really had a major uprising in the 1940s' and then conclude that this time you are going to take care of this yourselves because what happened last time was unconscionable.

For all the people bleating that they should be able to criticize Israel without being called anti-semitic, I’d ask you to consider why you’re so emotionally invested in what goes on in Israel/Gaza/the West Bank. Do you spend as much time fretting about any other foreign country? And how would you expect your government to react to kite bombs, rockets landing on homes and kindergartens? We know how the U.K. responds to terrorist incidents and, like the Israeli government, it’s not with flowers and a box of chocolates.

What Ritascornershop said

folk don’t seem to have the imagination to realize the extent that trauma and legitimate threat has played in creating the Israeli mindset...

I think one candidate has been deselected for saying something I have said in seminars, that Israel is an abused child that grew up to be an abuser.

I do not think there is anything wrong with this statement. The problem for the candidate seems to be that some people hear 'child abuse' and think sexual abuse. Anyone who's done the tickbox safeguarding training knows that not to be the case.

A lot of this arguement goes to the acceptance or not of the IHRA definistions of anti semitism.

And whether the campaign to make this the official guide was to stop criticism of Israel and Zionsim.

What is so strange in picking up people in this country who say you shouldn't use the word Nazi in relation to Israel is that papers in Israel regularly use this eg www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-the-contract-on-corbyn-1.8192769/.premium-the-contract-on-corbyn-1.8192769

Unfortunately this is never a straight foward discussion which we should be able to have, not helped that the media loved whipping up the level of feeling because it was a way to attack Corbyn. Please note I am not a Corbyn supporter but when the British media only every reports one side of an arguement common sense makes you think, what's going on here?

Added to which some of the people who were involved in originally drafting it have also said it is being misused by conflating anti semitism with anti Zionism.

And why are so many people in the UK invested in the issue.

Because the British were the colonialists who gave away land that wasn't theirs to give away at the expense of the existing inhabitants, ie the Palestinians.

The long history of european antisemitism that allowed the Holocaust was never dealt with. Rather the europeans thought lets export our problem and let another group of people who weren't part of it, pay the price.

The era when the British (along with the French) carved up the Middle East is the root cause of many of the tensions there. We were arrogant enough to think we could create false nations eg Saudi Arabia to have client states in the region. But equally think who cares about the Kurds lets just draw a line/s through their region and parcel them out to other groups to rule over.

There are nearly 5 million Palestinian refugees who dont have any rights to their home land whilst Europeans and Americans with a homeland are allowed to move and take up residence in the area.

Whatever Europeans owe Jewish people for the horrors of the Nazi regime, it is not clear that by making another group of people pay the price has resolved anything.

The British Empire is constantly being called into account by countries colonised by us. Some people think we should take responsibility for the division and unfairness we created.

The long history of european antisemitism that allowed the Holocaust was never dealt with.

Indeed. Which should give people pause for thought if they think it is the actions of Israel which turns people into antisemites. Why is it that there is rabid obsession with Israel when there are plenty of other horrors going on around the world, human rights abuses, attempts at genocide, concentration camps? Why is it particularly the cause of the Palestinians that stirs the soul of the English guy ranting on twitter late into the night at British Jews who have nothing to do with it?

Is it because the antisemitism came first? In fact was always there? And this is the new excuse that people use to try to justify it?

Given the long and awful history of Jewish persecution, including in England from which they were expelled for over 350 years (they were only allowed back in 1657), without the existence of Israel, this is something that really needs consideration.

I’ve always presumed any anti semitism from the left has been due to their anger and disgust of Israel and it’s treatment of Palestinians- which then spreads to UK jews as deep down many will to some extent support and feel attached in some way to Israel/the jewish state. Lately I’ve also been wondering if anti semitism has always been there, even possibly unconscious for some - and Israel just seals the deal and provides a target to use as a shield.

I'm always very sceptical of the self- congratulatory myth peddled by the SNP about how welcoming and tolerant Scotland is of all ethnicities but the bizarre and depressing fact would seem to be that Scotland did not have a history of antisemitism until fairly recently.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Scotland

Israel just seals the deal and provides a target to use as a shield.

This.

I've been pro-Palestinian and on the left my entire adult life, and this.

Anti-Semitism on the Left goes back to propaganda about Jewish bankers etc. Then in the seventies you have the nexus between Palestinian terror groups and the likes of Baader-Meinhof who were behind the Entebbe hijack in 1976, and the Japanese Red Army Faction who carried out the Massacre at Tel Aviv Airport in 1972. All this at a time when Israel had a Labour govt.

I think there's a lot of anti semitism in society in general and the left is not immune.

What has changed seems to be
People who might have though better of expressing their views a few years back seem to feel its OK to say this stuff
With labour (know this thread is snp) the utter inability to condemn, deal with it.

In a way its good we're finding out these people think like this rather than it being hidden. Otoh if people start feeling it's OK to say anti semitic stuff does that encourage it?

Certainly it was correct this woman was booted.

I mean on this thread people are saying oh but people need to be able to criticise the actions of Israeli govt.

How anyone sees that as a sensible response to what she wrote is beyond me.

What is this "State of Israel" everyone wants to criticise? Who wants to criticise the "State of China," the PRC, or the State of anywhere except Israel?

Back to Entebbe, we have recently had to endure the disgusting new film on the topic which says it was all Israel's fault retrospectively. Worth recalling that Kuhlmann, the German terrorist, separated the "Israelis" among the passengers, missing a few, but including several Belgian and French jews who she assumed were Secret Israelis. One passgenger showed her compatriot Bose the death camp tattoo on his arm and aksed about the irony of this, what with them being German and all, and he replied, "I am no Nazi. I am an idealist."

If there are any posters who are Scottish and Jewish please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong but antisemitism in Scotland seems to me to be a recent phenomenon.

That's pretty worrying.

If it’s caught up with the Israel/Palestine conflict then i remember a distinctly pro Palestine stance back in the 80’s when i was a teenager and first becoming aware of the situation. It seems to have regressed with Hamas and Netanyahu elected and of course Gaza shut off.