Month: June 2016

The newly released Vice News documentary on Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, contains footage of Corbyn on the phone to Seumas Milne, his head of communications, discussing Jonathan Freedland’s article for the Guardian: ‘Labour and the left have an antisemitism problem.’ The article alleged that “Under Jeremy Corbyn the party has attracted many activists with views hostile to Jews….many Jews do worry that his past instinct, when faced with potential allies whom he deemed sound on Palestine, was to overlook whatever nastiness they might have uttered about Jews, even when that extended to Holocaust denial or the blood libel.” Published in March in the left-leaning paper, it helped kick off the latest smear campaign against Corbyn’s leadership that continues to have a chilling effect on free speech.

Corbyn is filmed saying (see the video below, at 3 minutes 30 seconds):

The big negative today is the Jonathan Freedland article in the Guardian. Utterly disgusting, subliminal nastiness, the whole lot of it. He’s not a good guy at all.  He seems kind of obsessed with me.

While Freedland’s insidious article is frequently cited, forgotten are the several letters to the Guardian repudiating his allegations. This is just one:

As the daughter of a Holocaust survivor I never stop worrying about how we can make “never again!” meaningful. But as an active member of both the Labour party and my Jewish community, I can say that the assertion that “Labour has become a cold house for the Jews” is simply not borne out by the facts. The party has become a much warmer place for everyone, including Jews, since Jeremy Corbyn was elected. However, some people, inside and outside the party, appear to use allegations of antisemitism to pursue other, political ends.
Sue Lukes
London

As Lukes points out, Freedland’s assertions are not borne out by the facts.

Chair of the Jewish Labour Movement, Jeremy Newmark discovered at an employment tribunal in 2013, that giving evidence of antisemitism judged to be “false, painfully ill-judged and preposterous” has consequences for one’s reputation. And so it is with Jonathan Freedland. The examples he provides as evidence of an ingrained problem of antisemitism in the Labour Party would not stand up in court: they would be treated with contempt and the case thrown out. Continue reading “Labour leader calls Freedland’s antisemitism accusations “disgusting, subliminal nastiness””

Letters to the College of Policing and Metropolitan Police Commissioner

23 May 2016

Rachel Tuffin
Director of Knowledge, Research and Education
College of Policing
Coventry CV8 3EN
Cc: Steve White, Chair, Police Federation
Dave Prentis, General Secretary, UNISON

Re: antisemitism as defined in the Hate Crime Operational Guidance

Dear Rachel Tuffin

We are writing to express our concerns about the College of Policing 2014 document, Hate Crime Operational Guidance. It conflates antisemitism with anti-Israel criticism or anti-Zionism, especially boycott activity, which is thereby regarded as a potential crime of race hate. We are concerned that policing activity may apply this definition. We copy our letter to the Police Federation of England and Wales, as well as to UNISON, which jointly helped to establish the College.

The official definition of antisemitism matters for policing and beyond. Some politicians have promoted your guidance document as an authoritative source. For example, on 30.03.2016 Eric Pickles quoted its definition of antisemitism, especially this criterion: ‘Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour.’ See below why this criterion is misguided.

At around the same time Michael Gove denounced the campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) as follows:

But worse than that – worse than libelling the state of Israel – the BDS campaign, by calling for the deliberate boycott of goods manufactured by Jewish people, by calling for the shunning of the Jewish state, and the rejection of Jewish commerce and Jewish thought, actually commits a crime worse than apartheid (quoted in Middle East Monitor, 04.04.2016).

Antisemitic motives are likewise implied by the Hate Crime guidance: ‘Such manifestations could also target the State of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity’ (p.37). Both those statements misrepresent the anti-Israel boycott campaign as targeting Jews; see again our explanation below.

Moreover, Bob Neil MP sent Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe a letter claiming that the website Innovative Minds encourages antisemitism and incites violence (Daily Mail, 08.04.2016), apparently on grounds that its text supports resistance to the Israeli Occupation.

Given the pervasive conflation of antisemitic and anti-Israel views, our letter explains why this is misguided, especially in your guidance document. For other key quotes, our text includes hyperlinks. Our letter concludes with specific requests to you.

False equation: ‘anti-Israel = antisemitic’

The College of Policing guidance wrongly characterises anti-Zionism as a ‘new antisemitism’. The latter includes any statements ‘denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g. by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour’, according to the guidance (p.37). In reality, a significant part of world Jewry has always seen the Zionist project as racist and as jeopardising Jews’ security in the countries where they live.  As regards that threat, antisemites have commonly regarded Jews as a separate nation who belong in Palestine (or later in Israel), thus complementing Zionist views. Continue reading “Hate Crimes guidance criticized for conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism”