Dave Rich, Deputy Director of Communications for the Community Security Trust, has written in Haaretz about Jeremy Corbyn, Shami Chakrabarti and alleged antisemitism in the Labour Party.
After regretting that Chakrabarti was asked to look at all forms of racism rather than privileging concern about one from of racism, antisemitism, Rich pretends that so-called Labour Party antisemitism has only surfaced following Corbyn’s election to the leadership ignoring that many if not most of the allegations relate to events before his election.
So far it’s only repeating the standard script but Rich then makes an extraordinary admission confirming what FSOI has been saying for months. Rich wrote, “Neither report [Chakrabarti and Royall] truly tackled the underlying question of whether the anti-Semitism in the party is a product of the obsessive mania over Israel that has gripped Corbyn’s part of the left for years.”
Rich admits the Zionist campaign is not driven by attacks on Jews but is about trenchant criticism of Israel. As we have said and Rich now admits the Zionist lobby has abandoned attempting to rebut well-founded criticism of Israeli discrimination, occupation and its apartheid regime about which it has consistently failed to convince most people; instead the lobby is attempting to defame its critics as antisemites.
FSOI and its many allies in the campaign to defend Palestinian rights will not be intimidated by these attacks and will continue to hold Israel to account for its actions against Human Rights and International law.
Mike Cushman
Read Miriam David’s Review of Dave Rich’s new book: A scurrilous and ill-informed attack on the left
