Rod Liddle and the Campaign Against Antisemitism

This week, Rod Liddle was suspended from the Labour party, allegedly for Islamophobia. When he shared his thoughts with the Sun’s Harry Cole on why he had been suspended following his post on the Spectator Coffee House blog, 3 May, he coyly said that, ‘Perhaps it is my suggestion that many Muslims are not favourably inclined towards Jews that provoked my suspension from the party.’

As Zelo Street pointed out, both Liddle and Cole, as well as the Spectator editor Fraser Nelson, knew there was more; this is what Liddle wrote

Re the anti-Semitism. There are a number of broad points to make. First, it is absolutely endemic within two sections of the Labour Party – the perpetually adolescent white middle-class lefties, and the Muslims – the latter of which now comprise a significant proportion of Labour activists and voters in parts of London and the dilapidated former mill-towns of West Yorkshire and East Lancashire. And Luton. And parts of the midlands.

For many Muslims the anti-Semitism is visceral, an ingrained part of their unpleasant ideology. For the idiotic white lefties it is an adjunct to their self-loathing and hatred of firstly Britain and second the West. In both cases it is predicated as much upon envy – at Jewish success, worldwide and in Israel – as anything else. If you handed over Israel to the Palestinians they would turn it into Somalia before you could say Yom Kippur.

Liddle’s words are uncannily like those of a member of the House of Lords, Baroness Deech. Writing in Haaretz on 4 May, Deech blamed British politicians for ‘appeasing their Muslim voters,’ specifically upbraiding Corbyn for not acknowledging that anti-Semitism is ‘special’ and has ‘roots in the religion and culture of Islam.’ Deech then implied that our government is putting at risk the lives of British Jews by allowing Muslims to make their home here. Like Liddle, she views English towns with large Muslim populations as hotbeds of antisemitism, and has been keeping a wary eye on the census:

The U.K. census of 2011 revealed that Bradford’s population was 24.7% Muslim, and no doubt it’s higher by now. There are wards of Bradford, Blackburn and Burnley (the suspended councilors’ constituencies) where British Muslims reach 70% of the local population.

Even the Independent published an article by the Jewish Chronicle‘s new columnist Ben Judah that implied Bradford is a no-go area for Jews. Liddle has a well-deserved reputation as a foul-mouthed bigot whose opinions are commonplace in the right-wing media. But, as evidenced, you don’t have to look hard to see these views reflected in the liberal press, by Zionists. Pro-Israel groups with charity status are no less impolitic.

The Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) was formed during the attack by Israel on the Palestinians in Gaza in 2014, during which over 2,200 Palestinians were killed, including 551 children. It was born from a desire not to combat anti-Semitism, but to support Israel right or wrong, and to portray anti-Zionism as anti-Semitic.

In April, within 48 hours of the publication of the flawed Channel 4/ICM survey of Muslim attitudes in Britain, CAA had produced a ‘report’ British Muslims and Antisemitism, which included this racist infographic: Caa

If a journalist can be kicked out of a political party for racism, then shouldn’t CAA, which racially profiles Muslims/South Asians in the pursuit of a clearly political agenda, forfeit its charity status?

Elly Fryksos

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