Douglas Murray: The Party of Left-Wing Anti-Semitism
Readers depressed at the state of U.S. politics can console themselves with the knowledge that however bad off their party might be, it’s not Britain’s Labour. The party of Clement Atlee, Harold Wilson, and Tony Blair now finds itself in the worst crisis in its 116-year history. It has not won a general election for a decade. Its advocacy of mass immigration and the European Union has alienated it from much of its voter base. And worse, it has lost whatever halo-advantage it once had by becoming irrevocably tainted with what was once one of the greatest sins of European civilization. Over the last 15 years, it became increasingly clear that anti-Semitism, which had previously been expected to surface only on the political right in Britain, had traveled around the political circle and snuck up behind the political left. And now it has taken over the Labour Party.Video: Dave Rich examines ‘The Left’s Jewish problem’
Surveying the horrifying news from September’s Labour Party conference, one would have been forgiven for thinking that the biggest question facing Britain is a Jewish one. The place of Jews in the party and in Great Britain altogether seemed to dominate the proceedings. Activists at a “Momentum” grassroots event—Momentum being the group created to promote the leadership of the radical back-bencher Jeremy Corbyn, who won Labour’s top slot in 2015—handed out leaflets calling for the Jewish Labour Movement to be disbanded because its members represented “a foreign power.” Ruth Smeeth, a Jewish member of parliament, found it necessary to bring a bodyguard to protect her from potentially violent anti-Semitic members of her own party. On the main stage of the conference, a Jewish Labour Movement member was heckled from the floor as he was describing how let down many Jews in the party feel. Lord Mitchell, a Jewish peer, resigned from the party. His co-religionists in Labour now find themselves debating whether to stay and fight or declare the party a lost cause. It is not an easy choice.
The story of the takeover of the Labour Party by forces aligned with naked anti-Semitism begins with the aftermath of September 11 and the run-up to the Iraq war. In September 2002, three Jewish leftists who marched in a Stop the War demonstration described in a letter to the Guardian how they became increasingly uncomfortable with the “anti-Israel and anti-Jewish imagery” of their comrades: “Where does that leave us,” the trio wrote, “as Jews who totally oppose the war in Iraq but felt hostility or indifference from many of our fellow marchers?” The open link between leftist politics and the defenders of anti-Semitic terror in the Middle East was made clear by the way that the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament, a Cold War–era radical leftist group, allied itself with the Muslim Brotherhood to form the Stop the War coalition, one of whose leaders was Jeremy Corbyn.
Dave Rich is deputy director of communications at the Community Security Trust (CST), and is the author of a timely new book titled The Left’s Jewish Problem: Jeremy Corbyn, Israel and Antisemitism.
The following is a short clip from Rich’s talk at an Oct. 20th Fathom Forum on: Antisemitism and Labour: where has this crisis come from, how has it impacted the UK Jewish community, what must the party do now to put things right?
Dave Rich | ‘The Left's Jewish problem’
David Collier: The story of a Jewish boy called Haim
Today Haim is a successful and happy adult. If we were to make a list of what constitutes success, Haim would score highly in almost every single one. Yet my word, this Jewish lad has enemies. In a sickening turn of events, some act as if Haim’s life is somehow up for debate. There are actually people who publicly suggest they want Haim killed.
Not the Chinese kid or the boy from Pakistan. Not the Russian or the South African, nor the Brit or the African. They see the little Jewish kid, and it is *only* him they want ‘removed’.
These people are the modern day anti-Zionists.
The Jewish umbrella
This letter in the Guardian is a classic example of twisted logic.
In 1903 the British government offered the early Zionist movement an isolated area of what is now Kenya for a national home for the Jews, a proposal that split the Zionists into opposing camps. One favoured acceptance, but the other insisted that a Jewish homeland, and future Jewish state, could only be in the historic homeland in Palestine. The second camp won, and the proposal was refused. I am one of those who regrets that rejection. Does this make me a Jewish antisemite?
Apparently, because some people opposed a theory in 1903, objecting to today’s reality somehow amounts to the same thing. The Independent are another that throw this false premise around at will.
Radical left and Islamic groups find and use Jewish people willing to promote the smear and elevate them to ‘guru’ status. Ilan Pappe, Max Blumenthal, Ronnie Barkan are a few examples. In the UK, people like Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi are readily sought out by radio stations and newspapers to push this insane idea. As about 90% of Jewish people in the UK see Israel as forming part of their Jewish identity, the tiny minority of ‘opposites’ are rolled out to provide an umbrella against arguments of antisemitism. As if a few Lord Haw Haw‘s could represent the people of Britain in 1940.
It is absurd of course. Whatever theoretical discussions one may have had 80 years ago, it is patently absurd to suggest that anti-Zionism of the 1930’s is the same as opposing Israel today. Israel is not a theoretical discussion; Israel is a vibrant democratic state with a population of over 8 million.
And anti-Zionism TODAY means destroying Israel. It means ignoring the democratic will of 8 million people. Anti-Zionism does not mean having issues with Israeli actions, with Israeli settlements, with Israeli policy. It means taking the only liberal democracy in the Middle East and destroying it.
Which leads to another chronic deception. The people who say criticism of Israel is not antisemitism Of course it isn’t. Criticism of Israel is legitimate, but these anti-Zionists do not want to criticise Israel, they wish to destroy the Jewish nation.