On 29 April 2016, the Leader of the Labour Party appointed the former Liberty Director, Shami Chakrabarti, as Chair of an inquiry into antisemitism and other forms of racism including islamophobia, within the party. Jeremy Corbyn also appointed Professor David Feldman. Baroness Janet Royall subsequently accepted an invitation to join the inquiry panel as the other vice-chair. The deadline for submissions was 10th June, and the Inquiry will report back by the end of the month. It will:
- Consult widely with Labour Party Members, the Jewish community and other minority representatives about a statement of principles and guidance about antisemitism and other forms of racism, including islamophobia.
- Consult on guidance about the boundaries of acceptable behaviour and language.
- Recommend clear and transparent compliance procedures for dealing with allegations of racism and antisemitism.
- Look into training programmes for parliamentary candidates, MPs, councillors and others.
- Make recommendations for changes to the code of conduct and party rules if necessary.
- Propose other action if needed, to ensure Labour is a welcoming environment for members of all communities.
Below are just three excerpts from Tony Greenstein’s detailed submission which you can read in full here: Submission to the Chakrabarti Inquiry into Antisemitism. Suspended by the Compliance Unit on March 18, Greenstein was one of first targets of the current witch-hunt. The only reason given at the time, was that it was result of “remarks” he had made. He learnt the nature of these remarks on April 2 from two articles in the Daily Telegraph Activist who derides critics as ‘Zionist scum’ admitted to Labour in latest anti-Semitism scandal to hit Party and The Times ‘Labour welcomes back blogger who compares Israelis to Nazi’. Following the issue of Letters before Action, both The Times and Telegraph retracted any suggestion they had implied he was anti-Semitic. You can read a transcript of his interrogation by the Compliance Unit here.
The context in which the Chakrabarti Inquiry operates
This Inquiry does not take place in a vacuum but as a result of a concerted campaign to suggest that the Labour Party is witnessing a spontaneous upsurge in anti-Semitism. Conveniently this began with the election of Jeremy Corbyn. Those leading the campaign include the media – in particular the BBC, Guardian and Jewish Chronicle – the Zionist movement, Progress and what John Prescott has called the ‘bitterites’ in the Labour Party.
This Inquiry has been put under considerable pressure to conform to the received wisdom that the Labour Party is riddled with anti-Semitism. In Another shameful episode, Jewish Chronicle editor Stephen Pollard wrote of ‘the unsuitability of the inquiry’s vice-chair, David Feldman’ because he was ‘a signatory to Independent Jewish Voices whose evidence to last year’s All Party Inquiry Into Antisemitism insouciantly dismissed almost all accepted definitions of antisemitism.’ The only member of the Inquiry not to have been criticised by the Zionist lobby and right-wing media has been Baroness Royall who has been welcomed by Joan Ryan, Chair of Labour Friends of Israel [LFI].
‘All accepted definitions of anti-Semitism’ revolve around the discredited Working Definition of Anti-Semitism of the European Union Monitoring Committee. The Jewish Chronicle concluded that ‘it is difficult to see how Ms Chakrabarti’s inquiry is not tarnished before it has even begun.’
Joan Ryan is explicit that what she calls ‘virulently anti-israel discourse… cannot be separated from the issue of anti-semitism.’ To Ryan, ‘anti-Semitism’ is not hatred of Jews as Jews or a belief in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, rather it is opposition to Israel as an apartheid state. Ryan is quoted as saying that: “We will judge the success of this inquiry on its willingness to make the case that while there is nothing illegitimate about criticising the actions of the Israeli government, this must not be allowed to cross the red line into denying the Jewish people’s right to self-determination and thus the existence of the state of Israel.”
What Ryan is saying is that the idea that Israel should be a state of all its citizens, rather than a Jewish state representing Jews throughout the world, is anti-Semitic. By the same logic, support for a unitary state in South Africa was an example of anti-White racism.
Anyone wishing to understand the contrived and co-ordinated nature of reports of the alleged incidents of ‘anti-Semitism’ in the past six months should read Asa Winstanley’s articles on Electronic Intifada ‘How Israel lobby manufactured UK Labour Party’s anti-Semitism crisis’ and Instigator of anti-Semitism scam kicked out of Labour.
What is remarkable about the present hysteria is how little evidence there is to support the media reports that the Labour Party is riddled with anti-Semitism.
The Jewish Chronicle under its editor, Stephen Pollard, a former editor of the virulently racist Daily Express and member of the cold-war Henry Jackson Society, has been the most prominent of those campaigning around ‘anti-Semitism’ in the Labour Party. It was Pollard and the Daily Mail who first targeted Corbyn as an associate of holocaust denier Paul Eisen in The key questions Jeremy Corbyn must answer It was the Jewish Chronicle which targeted Jacqueline Walker for suspension. Labour suspends Momentum supporter who claimed Jews caused ‘an African holocaust’.
It would appear that this Inquiry is bending over backwards to meet the Jewish Chronicle’s concerns and in the process is discrediting itself.
Academics, priests and intellectuals do not have a good track record historically for standing out against the received wisdom of their age. Pariahs such as Baruch Spinoza, Bernhard Lichtenberg and Hannah Arendt are the exception rather than the rule. The example of Martin Heidegger, who became Nazi rector of Freiburg University, is the norm. Just as German academia rushed to conform to the Nazis’ racial thinking, with Jewish benches and the caricature of Einstein’s ‘Jewish physics’, so today opposition to Zionism is portrayed as ‘anti-Semitism’.
In response to the criticism of Professor Feldman by the Jewish Chronicle, there has been an attempt to dissociate him from the submission by Independent Jewish Voices to the Parliamentary Committee on anti-Semitism. There has been no criticism of Janet Royall’s ties with Labour Friends of Israel or her failure to dissociate herself from them.
[…]
The frequent assertion by Zionists that anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are one and the same can logically only mean that Israel, Zionism and the Jews are one and the same. When the Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, states that ‘One can no more separate it [Zionism] from Judaism than separate the City of London from Great Britain’ no other conclusion can be drawn other than that Jews are synonymous with the Israeli state.
The JLM has proposed, in a rule change to Labour’s constitution, that the MacPherson principle whereby the victim defines a racial incident, be adopted by the Labour Party. This is an attempt to piggy back on Black anti-racist struggles. There is no Jewish Stephen Lawrence. Jews do not suffer from police racism. The MacPherson principle is often misunderstood, not least by the Police. It was never intended to be applicable to organisations outside the Police force. Its purpose was to deal with the problem whereby the Police were refusing to classifying attacks as racial incidents despite them being perceived as such by the victims.
There is no equivalence to the situation in the Labour Party. If someone believes they have been the victim of a racial incident in the Labour Party they have recourse to the Police. We are not talking about racial crimes but political debate and false victimhood. A situation whereby someone who is politically offended can define themselves as a victim of racial abuse, in the course of the cut and thrust of vigorous debate, is unacceptable. A racial incident has to have an objective basis and constitute more than taking offence at someone else’s opinion on the question of Palestine. It is absurd if someone who is defending the Israeli state can turn around and pretend that they are the victim of racism simply because they object to Israel or Zionism being described as racist.
Racism is not in the eye of the beholder. It has to have an objective, not subjective, basis. The MacPherson principle only applies to the initial assessment by the Police. The subsequent decision as to what has taken place is in the hands of the CPS, which applies a test of reasonableness as to what has occurred.
If the definition of an anti-Semitic incident is left to the ‘victim’ then false accusations of anti-Semitism can and will be made for reasons of political convenience. If someone loses a vote they can claim that racism was the reason. Indeed this is exactly what happened when Alex Chalmers lost the vote over whether to support Israel Apartheid Week.
The Employment Tribunal case of Fraser v University College Union highlighted how false accusations of anti-Semitism are made. Many of the actors in that case are today prominent in the anti-Semitism controversy in the Labour Party. The case was brought by a lecturer Ronnie Fraser, who argued that the adoption of a Boycott of Israeli universities by the Universities College Union amounted to racial discrimination because his own Jewish identity was bound up with his support for Israel. The Tribunal disagreed that Zionism was integral to Jewish identity and they were particular critical of the behaviour of the two MPs who gave evidence, John Mann and Dennis MacShane. John Mann is today a strong proponent of the idea that the Labour Party is riddled with anti-Semitism:
The Fraser v University College Union Employment Tribunal found that:
Mr Mann led for them and the more conciliatory tone of Dr MacShane gave way to a somewhat hostile display in which Mr Mann made no bones about his view that the union was operating in an anti-Semitic way and that those at its head must address the problem. He did not explain what the anti-Semitic behaviour was supposed to have consisted of besides referring to the boycott debate and characterising any boycott of Israel or Israeli institutions as itself anti-Semitic. (para. 84)
We did not derive assistance from the two Members of Parliament who appeared before us. Both gave glib evidence, appearing supremely confident of the rightness of their positions. For Dr MacShane, it seemed that all answers lay in the MacPherson Report (the effect of which he appeared to misunderstand). Mr Mann could manage without even that assistance. He told us that the leaders of the Respondents were at fault for the way in which they conducted debates but did not enlighten us as to what they were doing wrong or what they should be doing differently. He did not claim ever to have witnessed any Congress or other UCU meeting. And when it came to anti-Semitism in the context of debate about the Middle East, he announced, “It’s clear to me where the line is …” but unfortunately eschewed the opportunity to locate it for us. Both parliamentarians clearly enjoyed making speeches. Neither seemed at ease with the idea of being required to answer a question not to his liking. (para. 148)
The Tribunal also called the current leader of the JLM, Jeremy Newmark, a liar:
He then tried to push his way in, but was not allowed to do so. Mr Waddup… spoke to Mr Newmark and told him that he would not be allowed in. We reject the allegation that Mr Waddup said, “You’re not wanted here”. We also reject as utterly unfounded the emotive allegation of Ms Ashworth that Mr Newmark was “Jew-baited”. He was not baited at all. Neither Ms Ashworth nor Mr Newmark was a member of the Respondents. (para. 131)
We regret to say that we have rejected as untrue the evidence of Ms Ashworth and Mr Newmark concerning the incident at the 2008 Congress… Evidence given to us about booing, jeering and harassing of Jewish speakers at Congress debates was also false, as truthful witnesses on the Claimant’s side accepted. One painfully ill-judged example of playing to the gallery was Mr Newmark’s preposterous claim, in answer to the suggestion in cross-examination that he had attempted to push his way into the 2008 meeting, that a ‘pushy Jew’ stereotype was being applied to him. The opinions of witnesses were not, of course, our concern… One exception was a remark of Mr Newmark in the context of the academic boycott controversy in 2007 that the union was “no longer a fit arena for free speech” (para 148)
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What is being outlawed is the expression of opinion. We have an absurd situation where the supporters of racism are the ones who are driving the witch hunt of anti-racists. The supporters of Labour Zionism, the so-called Opposition in the Israeli state, who portray Israel’s Arabs as a demographic threat to the Jewish nature of the Israeli state, are to the fore in this attack on free speech.
The open espousal of racist views in the Labour Party should, of course, be subject to disciplinary penalties including, as a last resort, expulsion. Racist views however must be defined narrowly. If someone argues that certain ‘races’ are inherently superior to other ones or that some people are inferior because of their religious or ethnic background, then that is without a doubt racist. If someone argues that people of a certain nationality or ethnic origin have fixed attitudes and behavioural patterns then that too should be grounds for disciplinary action. We should however bear in mind that a mass membership party is bound to attract people who are not politically correct. People who will have backward political attitudes. The job of the Labour Party is to educate its membership not expel them. If we are to seriously attract converts from UKIP, which we should do, we cannot expect them to jettison all of their previously held views overnight.
If it is a matter of support for racism, then it is the JLM that should be the subject of proscription and disaffiliation. Its parent party, the Israeli Labour Party, is openly racist. Ha’aretz, Israel’s liberal newspaper observed regarding the ILP’s last election campaign:
‘Much has been written about Netanyahu’s “droves” comment about Israeli Arab voters, but Herzog’s own quasi-racist campaign has been all but forgotten. In one ad, his army buddies hailed him as someone who “understands the Arab mentality” and “has seen Arabs in the crosshairs.”
The present constitutional status of the JLM is indefensible. It is affiliated to the WZO, an openly racist body involved in the expansion of the settlements. The JLM is not the Jewish section of the Labour Party but the Zionist section. Large numbers of Jewish Labour Party supporters, quite probably a majority, are not Zionists.
The quinquennial survey of British Jewry, notes that the percentage of respondents who call themselves ‘Zionists’ ‘appears to have declined – 59% compared with 72% in the 2010 JPR survey. 31% do not define themselves as Zionist. This apparently rapid change in the use of the term merits further examination.’ Being a Zionist is getting a bad name amongst British Jews too. Only those who are conducting Labour’s Inquisition seem to regard Zionism as non-toxic. Increasing numbers of Jews in both Britain and the United States are beginning to turn away from Israel’s openly racist militarised society which is Jewish only insofar as it discriminates against its non-Jewish citizens.
We expect that the suggestion in Royall’s ‘Inquiry’ into Oxford University Labour Club, that the JLM will be responsible for anti-racist training with Labour clubs, will be revisited. It is wholly unacceptable that a group whose main purpose is the defence of the racist State of Israel, will be in charge of anti-racism in Labour clubs. It would be like putting the late Dr Harold Shipman in charge of a course in medical ethics.
The JLM’s name is also deceptive. It changed its name in 2004 from Poale Zion, the Workers of Zion. The JLM is not a Jewish group inside the Labour Party but a group of Zionist Jews and non-Jews. It is a political, not an ethnic or religious group. Non-Zionist or anti-Zionist Jews cannot join the group. I am unconvinced that there is any need for a Jewish section of the Labour Party but if it is felt that such a group is required, then it should not be a partisan political Zionist group that excludes Jewish anti-racists.
I note that this Inquiry has taken evidence from a junior war criminal Ivor Caplin, who was a Defence Minister at the time of the Iraq War. I will be more than happy to give oral evidence to the Inquiry to counterbalance this and no doubt other pro-Israeli testimony.
Proposals
- That the Inquiry make it explicit that anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism.
- That the characterisation of criticism of the Israeli state or its actions as anti-Semitic only plays into the hands of the anti-Semites by rendering the term anti-Semitism meaningless. Deliberate attempts to smear critics of Israel or Zionism as anti-Semitic should be considered as bringing the Labour Party into disrepute and as such a disciplinary offence.
- That free speech on Israel and Palestine is to be encouraged.
- That the affiliation of the Jewish Labour Movement to the Labour Party is an anachronism. The affiliation of the JLM to the World Zionist Organisation and the Israeli Labour Party not only excludes Jews who are not Zionists but is contrary to the Labour Party’s values of solidarity with oppressed peoples. The Inquiry therefore recommends that the JLM be disaffiliated from the Labour Party and consideration be given to the formation of a new Jewish socialist society whose membership is open to all those who self-identify as Jewish.
- That the recommendation of the Royall ‘Inquiry’ that anti-racist training for Labour Clubs by the JLM is rescinded as an unfortunate concession to racism.
- That all those who are suspended on the basis of allegations of anti-Semitism are immediately reinstated with an apology. Furthermore that all suspensions in the Party be withdrawn unless there is a clear prima facie case that the individual concerned is guilty of overt racism, unconnected with criticism of the Israeli state or Zionism.
- That the Royall Report and recommendations not be pursued. In particular that the use of the term ‘Zio’ is not anti-Semitic. Zionism is not an ethnic or national category but a political movement.
- That a definition of anti-Semitism be drawn up which has no connection with Zionism and/or the State of Israel.
Tony Greenstein 9 June 2016
