Day: 6 May 2016

On Mondoweiss, Donald Johnson asks why no one calls out anti-Palestinian bigotry:

Excerpt: ‘…In the British argument over whether anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism, the pro-Israel side is lumping in defensible statements, dumb or insensitive statements, and actual antisemitic statements from the anti-Zionists into one big pot. And so the well-intentioned commentator, like Gaby Hinsliff, in this Guardian piece (“Antisemitism has rocked Labour’s self-belief”) is too lazy to try and make the distinctions and then screws up herself– when she says it’s anti-Semitic to deny “Israel’s right to exist” without seeming to realize that Israel wouldn’t exist as a Jewish state without ethnic cleansing and discrimination.

Because nobody cares about anti-Palestinian bigotry.

‘No other human rights movement I can think of is automatically accused of being racist. The underlying assumption is that Palestinians just don’t matter that much, so anyone who expresses moral outrage or uses the normal tools of protest, like boycotts, can’t possibly be motivated by human rights concerns. They must be antisemites or at least examined very closely for antisemitism before being given a clean bill of health.

‘Who examines the examiners for their bigotry? No one….’

Continue reading here

Presenting her contribution to the Labour antisemitism controversy as an unpleasant obligation reluctantly fulfilled, Spectator columnist Tanya Gold delivers one of the more muddled opinions on the subject in the Telegraph.

Gold declares that ‘the intensity of the loathing for Israel – the Jewish state – in parts of the far Left is curious.’ Any serious reflection on the subject would lead to the conclusion that it is one of the least curious phenomena in the post-colonial era to – in her emotive language – ‘loathe’ a state that exists because of large-scale, ongoing ethnic cleansing and racial discrimination. It’s what the far Left does, when not cowed by false accusations of racism.

Gold has reduced a righteous anger at the total impunity Israel enjoys for its serial atrocities to an irrational and very personal emotional response to something disgusting.

She then asks a facile question: ‘Where is the similar loathing for hosts of countries who observe no human rights whatsoever, including Israel’s Arab neighbours?’ Her failure to acknowledge the relevance of successive British governments’ consistent and unequivocal condemnation of Israel’s neighbours – backed up by sanctions – is comprehensible only if one accepts her premise that this is about personal hatred, not outrage at impunity. Gold confuses her growing feelings of resentment at outrage on the Left, with a legitimate grievance. Again, this is understandable given she gets the power asymmetry the wrong way round: she thinks she is backing Israel the victim, not the aggressor. Continue reading “Tanya Gold doesn’t want to hear about Israel’s atrocities – the left is just being antisemitic”

Dave Rich is Deputy Director of Communications at the Community Security Trust. CST is a registered charity.

Writing in today’s Jewish Chronicle, Dave Rich provides what he calls a guide to ‘Jew-hate for the perplexed.’ It is impossible to take seriously the views of someone that believes Naz Shah’s satirical Facebook post (shared via American Jewish scholar, Norman Finkelstein’s website) was tantamount to

Endorsing the mass deportation of its citizens – ethnic cleansing, effectively and denying the legitimacy of Jewish sovereignty in the region.

By using the term ‘Jewish sovereignty‘ he – unwittingly – underlines the reality of Israel as an ethnic-supremacist state, like Apartheid-era South Africa.

Rich divides language used to criticise Israel into two types: he reluctantly concedes that although the first type used to criticise Israel, involving ‘human rights,’ ‘discrimination,’ and ‘inequality’ is ‘inaccurate,’ it is more likely to be legitimate.

The second type, he writes, ‘is the reservoir of antisemitic ideas that lies deep in Europe’s culture.’ As an example, he cites the alleged use of “Zio” by members of the Oxford University Labour Club. Electronic Intifada’s investigation concluded that cases of antisemitism at OULC were fabricated.

Rich claims ‘Zio’ is a term ‘only used by people who are hostile to Zionism’:

Jewish students do not call each other “Zio” as a term of endearment…. “Zio” is a derogatory term used in an abusive and bigoted way.

He dismisses the idea that it is ‘simply an abbreviation of “Zionist” with no further meaning.’ He is correct to observe that the term is pre-dominantly (though not exclusively) used by those critical of political Zionism, particularly on Twitter. But his fixation on the abbreviation of ‘Zionist’ serves to obscure his central argument: that it must never be used in a pejorative way. On this, he is in agreement with Momentum’s Jon Lansman. Continue reading “CST implies ‘Zionist’ should only be used as a term of endearment”

John Mann MP has given an interview to the BBC on election night, in which he appears to gloat over losses in Jewish majority wards.

John Mann, the MP for Bassetlaw and chair of the all-party group against anti-Semitism, said the results in Jewish areas had been a “sub plot” of the night – and predicted a similar impact in London.

Jewish News reports that Mann told the BBC:

It is clear the Jewish vote, which for generations in families has been Labour, has gone against Labour tonight. We’ve seen that Bury, in Glasgow, I think we’ll see it in parts of London.

This is going to define Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership – he’s got to get on top of this because Labour is not going to win power of it doesn’t get on top of the problem.

JN don’t add, however, that he also insisted “now is not the time” for any challenge to Mr Corbyn. Continue reading “Labour MP John Mann: ‘The Jewish vote’ has gone against Labour”

Please sign and share petition started by Bridget Chapman on ‘Change’ here

Continue reading “Petition: Reinstate Jacqueline Walker to the Labour Party”

Please read article in full on Middle East Eye here

Excerpt: ‘… Whatever the Zionists in Britain point to, as an expression of anti-Semitism, which in the main are legitimate criticism of Israel, have been said before in the last 50 years. The pro-Zionist lobby in Britain, under direct guidance from Israel, picks them up because the clear anti-Zionist stance of BDS has reached the upper echelons. They are genuinely terrified by this development. Well done the BDS movement!

The reaction, one has to admit, is powerful and vicious. However, succumbing to it by suspending party members, firing student leaders and unnecessarily apologising for crimes not committed is not the right way to confront it.

‘We are in a struggle for a free and democratic Palestine and Israel: fear of Zionist intimidation is not the way forward. The coming days will be very tough and we would need to be both patient and go back to the podium, the website, the radio and television and re-explain what for many of us is obvious: Zionism is not Judaism, and anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism.

‘Zionism was not the antidote for Europe’s worst chapter of anti-Semitism: the Holocaust. Zionism was the wrong answer to that atrocity. In fact, when European leaders lended without hesitation their support for Zionism their motives in many cases were anti-Semitic. How else can one explain a Europe that stood by when the Nazi regime genocided the Jews and asked for forgiveness by supporting a new plan to get rid of the Jews by despatching them to colonise Palestine? No wonder this absurd logic did not kill the anti-Semitic impulse but rather kept it alive. Continue reading “Ilan Pappe: Don’t surrender to Israel’s bullying on ‘anti-Semitism’”