THE NEW ZEALAND LEFT is not alone in being torn apart by what should and should not be tolerated. Only yesterday, the British Labour Leader, Jeremy Corbyn, was publicly upbraided for being “an antisemitic racist” by Margaret Hodge, a senior British Labour MP. Hodge was furious that Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) has refused to accept, in full, the definition of antisemitism issued by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA).
For more than a year now, charges of antisemitism have been driving a debilitating wedge into the British Labour Party. Not that very many people around the world find such charges even remotely credible. The British Labour Party has a long and proud history of standing up for the rights of all Jewish people suffering persecution on account of their religious beliefs and/or supposed “racial” identity. Why, then, are these accusations being made and, more importantly, why are they being taken seriously?
The answer is to be found in the efforts of Zionists (an ideology to be carefully differentiated from the beliefs of Jewish people in general) to expand the definition of antisemitism to include any negative references to the origins, policies and actions of the Israeli state.
On these matters, the British Labour Party can speak with some authority. It was, after all, the 1945-1951 Labour Government, led by Clement Attlee, which withdrew the last remaining British troops from Palestine on 14 May 1948 – clearing the way for the creation of the State of Israel on 15 May 1948.
British military forces, who were responsible for enforcing what was known as Great Britain’s “mandatory power” in Palestine, had come under increasingly violent attack from Zionist terror groups, such as Irgun and the notorious Stern Gang, since the end of the Second World War in 1945. In September 1947, war weary and close to insolvency, the British state announced to the world that it was no longer willing or able to carry out its duties to the Arab and Jewish populations of Palestine.
This did not, however, mean that they were blind to the strategies and tactics of their Zionist antagonists. As the party in power at the time, Labour has always known a great deal more about the nature and birth of the State of Israel than its Zionist defenders would like.
Hence the co-ordinated attack upon the Jeremy Corban-led Labour Party. As a principled leftist, Corbyn has always refused to buy into the Zionist characterisation of Israel as a state more sinned against that sinning. He has never stopped caring about the Palestinians who, for a variety of reasons (some good, some bad) were made homeless by the circumstances of Israel’s bloody birth. Corbyn’s empathy for the people whose survival has, for the past 70 years, depended upon the support and concern of the international community has been unwavering.
The prospect of such a man becoming Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is not something the Israeli Government and its supporters are ready to accept without a fight. Corbyn’s contacts with Palestinian leaders have been challenged.
Does he subscribe to their desire to wipe Israel off the map? Is that why he refuses to declare his unequivocal support for the Jewish homeland. Is he providing aid and comfort to his antisemitic supporters among the Labour Party rank-and-file? And, if he is, doesn’t that prove that he is, indeed, “an antisemitic racist”?
Crucial to the success of this campaign has been the refusal of its promoters to draw that all-important distinction between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. They allow their target audience to assume that their charges relate to behaviour conforming to the traditional definition of antisemitism: hostility to or prejudice against Jews; when what they are really talking about is the IHRA definition of antisemitism – which includes inter alia:
Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.
Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour.
Applying double standards by requiring of it a behaviour not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.
Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.
Small wonder that the NEC balked at accepting such a tendentious definition “in full”. To do so would render criticism of Israeli policy and Zionist ideology virtually impossible.
Confirmation that proscribing criticism is, indeed, the goal of the campaign against Corbyn and his supporters in the Labour Party has been provided by what theGuardian describes as “a coalition of 36 international Jewish anti-Zionist groups”. The latter have released an open letter in which the Zionist-inspired IHRA definition is condemned as a “distorted definition of antisemitism to stifle criticism of Israel”.
Margaret Hodge owes Jeremy Corbyn an apology.
So weird, the new right wing play, is to brand every body anti semitic.
Well Corbyn was supposed to be an IRA sympathiser, then a Russian sympathiser now his views on Palestine label him an anti semitic. Shrug. Maybe he’s a spy for the Chinese too (sarcasm).
Whatever the media throw at him, just makes him more popular. People are tired of fake news, and stupid politicians like Margaret Hodge, are keeping the conservatives in power by fake news against their own leader. What a traitor!
SaveNZ 1000%
Right wing activists are now infiltraing Labour movements all over the world it seems and I wonder if it is being done with corrupt money from George Soros as he has been actively funding political actions for years and taking over even US voting companies we hear now.
He is somehow even involved in the largest global electronic voting systems company centred in Spain now.
https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/item/16724-soros-connected-vote-counting-firm-expands-in-u-s
“A Spanish vote-tabulation firm with ties to billionaire globalist George Soros is purchasing software to give it greater power over the voting in U.S. elections.
In a press release under a Barcelona and Tampa, Florida dateline, Scytl announced”
Soros now has bought the ‘New York Times’ also and sends out his own liesthrough the New York Times where the NZ media picks up his lies and parrots when to us now through our own media.
https://yournewswire.com/george-soros-buys-new-york-times/
“After throwing more than $10.5 million into Hillary Clinton’s failed election bid in 2016, Soros has also made no bones about his desire to see President Donald Trump –who he recently called the “ultimate narcissist”– impeached and removed from office. Trump’s victory reportedly cost Soros almost a billion dollars on the market.
Since Trump’s election, Soros has taken to sponsoring leftist candidates in district attorney races across the country, in a bid to reshape the American justice system in his own progressive image. After donating $50 million to the American Civil Liberties Union in 2014, he has spent over $9 million funding candidates in 14 cities. In San Diego alone, he spent $1.5 million propping up Democrat Geneviéve Jones-Wright’s unsuccessful campaign.
“Soros is well known for his liberal views, however, and publicly supports –and funds– a variety of progressive and neoliberal causes, through NGOs like his Open Society Foundations.”
Infiltration is a well established method of persuasion and control.
Look up Operation Mockingbird,
The same mob
Welcome to the true intent of neoliberal identity politics: a weapon to undermine class solidarity
So as a consequence of writing this you will be persona non grata at whaleoil I presume (hope) as that site is a hotbed of Zionist propaganda .
‘Margaret Hodge owes Jeremy Corbyn an apology.’
Damned right she does.
Israel and its more radical supporters have a tremendous backstory to suit their agenda and I certainly don’t believe they are lily-white in their actions over the decades.
I have only just discovered, by reading ‘I am Pilgrim’ that there was a now little-known Nazi concentration camp that slaughtered Gypsies and French Resistance in the foothills of the Vosges mountains, called Natzweiler-Struthof.
There is no backstory for them; no political influence. ‘The Gypsies lost even more in percentage terms than the Jews. They call it The Devouring.’
“Margaret Hodge owes Jeremy Corbyn an apology.”
Why?
That’s her right to free speech. As you’ve pointed out, Mr Trotter. Doesn’t that free speech suit you now?
you really need to think your analysis through.
I have. You simply couldn’t keep up.
Shall I use single-syllabic words? Would that help, Andrew?
Free speech is one thing and what you say is another..
Try not to make one equal the other .
Simple.
My Facebook feed is full of counters that state “Number of days since last anti-semitic incident from UK Labour Party: 0 ”
I don’t see any “long and proud” history in the Corbynistas. Supporters of Hamas, Hezbollah, IRA and other assorted terrorist groups
The scary thing is that these incompetent cretins stand a good chance of winning the next election. God help us all
God’s help has been curiously lacking for the past several years while the Tories have been driving people to suicide, imposing unnecessary austerity, foisting the like of Boris Johnson on an innocent world, and revealing the true Horror of Rees-Mogg.
I presume the deity is on holiday, or died while laughing at Tories and Trump.
Stop feeding the Counters.
Problem sorted. 😉
Lol!!!
There’s no doubt that the ridiculous claims about Jeremy Corbyn being racist (despite him having been the UK’s most virulently anti-apartheid MP at a time when Thatcher supported South Africa’s racist government to the hilt), or that the UK Labour Party has a problem with anti-Semitism, would dry up overnight if UK Labour got itself a new “Israel friendly” leader.
Conflating criticism of Israel’s apartheid policies towards the Palestinians or its wholehearted encouragement of another Middle East conflict with Iran with “anti-Semitism” works wonders for suppressing all legitimate criticism of Israel.
There has never been a UK Prime Minister who was prepared to be even-handed when dealing with Israel and the Palestinians, and as Chris says, Israel and its lobbyists will do everything they can to prevent one coming to power. Accusations of anti-Semitism will be one of their most powerful weapons in meeting this objective.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180515-labour-friends-of-israel-blames-palestinians-for-their-own-deaths/
Right and wrong. This is neo Marxism aka post modernism….I won’t split hairs because regardless of doctrinal nitpicking it’s one and the same. It needs a victim narrative,. It’s not neo Liberal but it’s bloody useful for divide and rule. Hence they tolerate and when useful encourage.
Who remembers now the first ideologically pure revolutionary? Robespierre, the purist of the pure, the new man of reason.
We should remember at our peril. When others failed to meet his rigorous standards the “national barber” awaited. Eventually it consumed him too. And that is the risk the Left runs today as we label and demand uniform adherence with well laid out victim narratives. A church built on many strong pillars is infinitely preferred.
Chris,
An interesting article, but I feel you have made a fatal error in referring to those of the
Judaic faith as a “people”.
I would refer you to the well researched treatises by Israeli historian Shlomo Sand namely The Invention of the Jewish People and The Invention of the Land of Israel.
In any discussion concerning Israel or its state religion it essential to accurately separate history from mythistory as it is the latter that is used in spurious claims of antisemitism
The New Zealand left; That’s got me rolling around on the floor in unstoppable laughter. Where the bloody hell is this mythical beast? Methinks Trotter’s still living in a 20th century fantasy land. All forms of socialism & the western progressive liberal project, which are simply secular forms of Judeo-Christian slave morality, have either been totally dis-credited, or are standing in the way of; the revitalisation of the human spirit, the rekindling of our lust for life & the reversal of our lemming like rush toward extinction.
Zionism = Jewish Nationalism. “The Jewish Century” by Yuri Slezkine, a damn good read.
So how do I stand in accusations of Anti- Semitism ?
1.Many Jews act like their priority is the Zionist State of Israel, rather than their own country.Look at the behaviour of U.S. Jews in particular.
2.I deny the” Jewish people” in Israel their right to self determination in the Zionist State of Israel because they say it is primarily a country for Jews. 80% of them are genetically not Jews, they are converts to Judaism.
3.The existence of the Nazi Zionist State of Israel is a racist endeavor. They are ethnic cleansing the Palestinian people. I have posted in the past and carefully itemised all the similarities between Nazi Germany and the Israeli Zionist state , and come to a clear affirmation that it is a Nazi state.
4. I do not expect Nazi Zionist Israel to behave in a way of any democratic country because it is not a democratic country. In a democratic country all citizens have the same rights, and this is clearly not the case in Israel.
How did I do? !!
Well, uncovering the tip of the iceberg.
Jeremy Corbyn is completely right.
Just because one criticises the political policies of the Israeli state does not necessarily make one anti-Jewish, or anti-Semitic as it is often termed.
I hate the way the Israeli state has gone about some things but I don’t have any personal issue with the Jewish people, culture or religion.
I criticise Donald Trump but I am not anti-American, I often have cordial conversations with American visitors to this country while I carry out my job and I like Chinese people despite not liking their central government.
Yes, the right works in this way by trying to make it into a neat all or none thing. If you are not 100% for us, you are against us, there is no between.
Wasn’t it President Nixon who said something like that?
The usual justification for anything the state of Israel does is that it is necessary for the survival of the state.
That argument is wearing thinner all the time.
Margaret Hodge needs to stop believing all the hateful lies that the right wing Israeli Nationalists are feeding her.
This will serve only to keep the abysmal Tories in power much longer.
Britain has conservitve estimates of 40 million immigrants to deal with and the ain’t dealing with them. So when nurses unions strike well that’s an excuse for every other union to show solidarity and go on strike. And if that enfluence is that outstanding it will have a global impact.
If the Zionists want criticism to stop, they can pressure the Tel Aviv government to return to their 1948 UN- mandated borders and abandon their colonisation of the West Bank.
Smearing critics as “anti semitic” is a cheap trick.
“Zionist-Inspired Definition Of Antisemitism Deployed Against Jeremy Corbyn.”
But Chris, didn’t YOU deploy the term “free speech denier” against those who did not support those two Canadian neo-fascists to speak in Auckland Council public venues? Pot/kettle when you yourself label those you disagree with with a demeaning term, so as to marginalise their views.
The religious idea of a Jewish return to Palestine had nothing to do with
the political enterprise of Zionism. “Jewish tradition,” writes Rabkin,
“holds that the idea of return must be part of a messianic project rather
than the human initiative of migration to the Holy Land. It then becomes
much easier to understand why the Zionist enterprise, reflecting as it did
Christian motifs, was rejected by the overwhelming majority of Jews at the
turn of the 20th century” Prof Rabkin, Univ Montreal
That oppressed population, which has lived under the occupation for close to 70 years, deprived of political and civil rights, on land that the “state of the Jews” considers its own, remains abandoned and ignored by international politics.
It seems that the zionist jews who make up the ruling class in Israel are squandering the good will of the world that accepted that they should have a place. A base for a nation scattered throughout the world for centuries , and resented everywhere.
The place carved out for them needed to be at a cost to the indigenous population to some extent, there was nowhere that was entirely empty, but it should have been possible to look after the Palestinian Arabs needs to some extent. Buying land from freely motivated sellers seems OK. But they seem to have behaved from the beginning, and worse now than ever, in the most unacceptable and violent manner to their unwilling hosts. Far from showing gratitude and humility.
I don’t think they will survive there. They are making it impossible to support them. Is this how they have always behaved within the communities all over the world where they have lived ? Is this why they seem to have been persecuted throughout history ?
D J S
There are stresses and strains in every broad political party. That said, the left does seem to suffer from this more than the right, possibly because of the inherent contradictions within the movement.
I see several strands to this problem:
Over the years the left has abandoned ‘workers’ and has instead become infested with a mixture of layabouts, academics and arty folk, most of whom have never done a real days work in their lives. Party leaders today are more likely to be the useless offspring of rich families living off trust funds and therefore free to play politics with other peoples lives. This is why reason real workers have abandoned the Democrats in favour of Trump.
Labour UK has been courting the Muslim vote for decades, I think it’s one of the reasons they were originally so keen to allow open immigration: They thought they could tilt the results of elections with a growing and highly fertile immigrant voting block. (This is the real reason Democrats are so keen to swamp the USA with Latinos)
The consequence is that Muslims are now embedded in Labour Party ranks and rising to high office. Unfortunately many hold bizarre views which, when the veneer of religion is scraped away, are a mix of Fascism and Medieval brutality.
So UK Labour base has become infested real, actual Nazis. People who want to kill all Jews. People who want to stone homosexuals to death. People who want to force our women to wear black sacks. People who think gang raping white children is fair game.
This is why the Labour Party in the UK is eating itself alive.
There is a large core of Labour Party members and MPs who belong to the Labour Friends of Israel group, many of whom are the bitter enemies and critics of Jeremy Corbyn and who are feeding the case of antisemitism against him. They would rather uphold the interests of the state of Israel than support their own leader and interests of the Labour Party and wider British values. The now defunct English statute of praemunire (this did for Cardinal Wolsey) should be reinstated!
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