Many decent and idealistic Labour supporters are dismayed by the extent to which their party has become associated with anti-Semitism. For them, opposition to all forms of racism is a key part of identifying themselves as “progressive” – it is what spurred their interest and involvement in politics in the first place.
Yet under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, anti-Semites have come to regard the Labour Party as a “safe space”.
This is understandable given Corbyn’s own associations. He described Hamas and Hezbollah as his “friends”.
Yet the anti-Semitism of these groups is explicit and extreme. The Hamas Charter calls for the murder of Jews not just in Israel but around the world. It endorses The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a notorious fraudulent text used by those promoting Jewish conspiracy theories.
Hassan Nasrallah, the Secretary General of Hezbollah, has said: “If we searched the entire world for a person more cowardly, despicable, weak and feeble in psyche, mind, ideology and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew.”
Furthermore Corbyn has been a presenter on Press TV, a propaganda station owned by the Iranian government. It regularly hosts Holocaust deniers – which is no surprise given that Holocaust denial reflects official policy.
These and many other anti-Semitic associations of Corbyn’s were already being widely reported a year ago when he was standing for Labour leader. Yet the membership gave him a thumping majority.
Where action has been taken over anti-Semitism, it appears to have been motivated by media management rather than principle. People are suspended but then quietly are let back in once the dust has settled.
For instance the Labour MP Naz Shah was suspended after tweeting an item that suggested Israelis be deported en masse to the mid-West of America. She has just been readmitted.
Many thanks for all the lovely messages following my reinstatement to the Labour Party earlier today. I will be… https://t.co/TAKEeRwONk
— Naz Shah MP (@NazShahBfd) July 5, 2016
The inquiry by Shami Chakrabarti if anything made matters worse. She felt that the derogatory term “Zio” should not be used and that “excuse for, denial, approval or minimisation of the Holocaust and attempts to blur responsibility for it, have no place in the Labour Party.”
The Shami Chakrabarti Inquiry's report into antisemitism and all forms of racism was published yesterdayhttps://t.co/ytmmD2328w
— Jeremy Corbyn MP (@jeremycorbyn) July 1, 2016
It is excruciating that such statements of the obvious should be deemed necessary.
Then at the launch, Corbyn said: “Our Jewish friends are no more responsible for the actions of Israel or the Netanyahu Government than our Muslim friends are for those of various self-styled Islamic states or organisations.” The analogy was grotesque. Israel is a democracy which operates within the rule of law and civil liberty. A Jewish Labour MP, Ruth Smeeth, left the event in tears after being heckled.
Some might hope that if Corbyn could be ousted the dark cloud would be lifted. But the phenomena of anti-Semitism on the Left is deeper and of longer standing than one individual.
In 2009 a Labour Party member called Elaina Cohen, who was seeking to be selected as a Council candidate in Birmingham, complained that she was told by a sitting Labour councillor that she was “too white and Jewish.”
The outbursts from Ken Livingstone are not new. He has long been fond of making casual references to the holocaust and welcoming as an “honoured guest” the anti-Semite Sheikh Yusuf al Qaradawi at a London Conference. Qaradawi went on to defend suicide bombings.
Indeed we could go back decades. British left wing intellectuals were frequently apologists for the Soviet Union – not just in the 1930s but well after the Second World War. Stalin was, of course, a keen participant in the
Nazi/Soviet Pact, and denounced the Jews as ‘rootless cosmopolitans.’
Karl Marx was a notorious anti-Semite, asking: “What is the worldly raison d’etre of Jewry? The practical necessity of Jewry is self-interest. What is the worldly religion of the Jews? It is the petty haggling of the hawker. What is his worldly God? It is money.”
The trouble is that for many on the Left the application of tolerance and respect to minority groups is applied selectively. Israel – and by extension Jewish people around the world – are regarded as the enemy.
This is the mindset regardless of how much they remember to follow Chakrabarti’s plea for discretion about the language being used. The cancer of anti-Semitism existed on the Left before Corbyn’s leadership and it will continue after he has gone.
