We have published a number of critiques of the Home Affairs Select Committee report on antisemitism. This is a summary of the main points made.
David Plank, former Specialist Adviser to the House of Commons Social Services Committee & former Local Authority Chief Executive slates the report for:
- blatant political bias
- bad statistical analysis and bad investigatory practice
- pillorying leading personalities then them denying them the right of reply
- exploitation of a discredited definition of antisemitism
- distortion of the McPherson principle on investigation of racism
- deliberate and hostile focus on the Labour party and its leader
- summary dismissal of the Labour Party’s own report on antisemitism & exclusion of its Chair
- the committee had no terms of reference – so they were free to follow their bias
Systemic weaknesses of the report
Composition of the Committee
5 Conservatives, 3 Labour, 1 SNP, Chair. All, including the Chair, openly hostile to Corbyn, his supporters and policies. Labour MP Chuka Umunna’s questioning of Corbyn was abusive and disrespectful. Umunna was a leader of the no confidence vote against Mr Corbyn and promoted Owen Smith against him for the leadership.
Submissions
The Committee ignored the submissions from Jewish groups and other organisations which contradicted the views of the Jewish establishment.
Oral evidence
All the witnesses chosen were hostile to Corbyn (barring Ken Livingston, also under criticism)
Poor statistics
They use a self-selecting survey of Jews on Labour Party antisemitism. By definition such surveys are unreliable and are rejected by any self-respecting statistician.
Investigatory incompetence and bad practice
- They dismissed the Chakrabarti report on the basis of innuendo and refused its author’s request to give evidence.
- They gave overweening weight to the Board of Deputies of British Jews and The Jewish Leadership Council but ignored the views six UK Jewish groups with opposite points of view.
- Despite identifying the vast majority of antisemitic abuse as being on social media – much from a US neo-fascist group – and not from the Labour party, they then studiously ignored this and devoted all their energies to attacking the Labour Party as the receptacle of antisemitism.
- The Community Security Trust, the source of the figures justified ignoring the online abuse because it would “throw their statistics out of kilter” – in other words it would produce a different result to the one they wanted!
- They observe police recorded antisemitic crime is almost non-existent, and conclude that the police should investigate this under-reporting, thereby inventing offences that do not exist.
- Antisemitic hate crimes were just 1% of 52,000 police recorded hate the crimes for 2016
Flawed logic
They label the Palestine Solidarity Campaign as hard left (which demonstratively is not true) and as anti-the Israeli government, they then quote Jonathan Akush, President of the BoD, as saying their marches have fascist banners, so as to conclude it is the left which is antisemitic. They studiously ignored submissions by Jewish groups that Arkush took a minuscule display of 3-4 fascist banners (which were quickly removed) – to inflate the marches into being neo-fascist. They failed to note the presence of English Defence Leagues banners at many Zionist demonstrations.
Guilt by association
They go on to state that Corbyn attended these demonstrations to imply he is antisemitic. These are the tactics of McCarthyism; appalling practice for a Parliamentary Committee.
Attacks on individuals who had no right of reply
- NUS President, Malia Bouattia, elected on a platform of Palestinian human rights;
- Jackie Walker, a black Jew who stated her ancestors were slave trade merchants.
Use of the discredited EUMC draft working definition of antisemitism
The definition was drafted by the American Jewish Committee but was never adopted by the EU
“Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”
- Thus criticising Jewish property (e.g. the settlements?) becomes antisemitic.
- Criticising non-Jewish supporters of Israel (e.g. US Christian Zionists or Russian emigres) becomes antisemitic. This serves to insulate Israel’s unalloyed supporters from criticism.
They worsened the definition by incorporating into it the EUMC examples:
- ‘Criticism of Israel can be no harsher than of any other democracy’ – a card sharper’s slight of hand: there is not one person one vote for all those governed by Israel in the Occupied Territories, the Israeli Palestinian minority do not have civil rights equal to those of the majority, but to question Israel’s democratic status would be ‘delegitimisation’ and thus antisemitic.
- ‘Criticism of Israel as a racist enterprise is antisemitic’. Quoting Ben Gurion,’The cleansing of Palestine (is) the prime objective”,founding Zionist Weizmann “Not one village not one tribe shall be left” or the 50 laws which discriminate against israeli Palestinians become antisemitic.
c.Israel is the core of Jewish identity, so to act against it (e.g. Boycotts) is antisemitic. This gives Israel impunity in its extensive violations of human rights. But Israel is not core to the identity of many 100,000s of Jews. Stereotyping them in this way is, ironically, antisemitic.
- Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel than to the interests of their own nations. Note the word ‘citizen’ not ‘people’: this means such accusations of any Jewish group or even individuals could be antisemitic. And those groups that do put Israel first cannot be criticised for doing so because such criticism would be antisemitic. This is nonsensical.
Drawing comparisons between Nazis Germany and Israel is antisemitic.
But recently Ehud Barak, former Israeli President and Yair Golan, IDF Major General, have done just that. The Committee demands less freedom of speech in the UK than in Israel!
- Holding all Jews responsible for Israeli policies is seen as stereotyping and antisemitic – but it is the Jewish establishment itself which makes this very conflation of Jewish & Israeli identity. The Committee endorses this hypocrisy.
Distortion of Macpherson
The Macpherson principle has three components: (i) victims of racial abuse should be believed, (ii) their allegations investigated and (iii) if found credible to be referred to the CPS for legal action. The EUMC definition ignores (ii) & (iii) and guilt can be proved on the allegation alone.
Glyn Secker
This paper has drawn on papers by
David Plank: HASC Report on antisemitism is a ‘partisan party political polemic’
Richard Kuper: Crying Wolf
Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi: Zionists’ weapon of mass destruction against UK’s left
Prof. Jonathan Rosenhead: Parliamentary Selective Committee Report
Tony Greenstein: Manufacturing consent on ‘antisemitism’
