Originally Posted by Yossi Benayoun
I missed the Panorama programme last night but what is the evidence that anti-semitism is rife on the left of British politics and why is a political view on Israel/Palestine/Zionism a cause of that? I was active in left-wing political organisations through my late teens and twenties, and later was in the Labour Party for 27 years (up to 2013) and I honestly never saw anti-semtism. A disproportionately high number of my fellow party members were Jewish, and because of their personal background were often the most active as both anti-Zionists and anti-racists - including the defence of Jewish communities and synagogues from neo-Nazis.
This stuff about anti-semitism being baked in to the 'far left' or 'hard left' or whatever other label is relatively new to me - and counter to all my experience. It seems to have appeared in the last 5 years accompanied by Dave Rich books, Guardian columnists opinion pieces and from the large pool of Blairite MPs who are enthusiastic members of the Labour Friends of Israel group.
What are you calling out as anti-semitism? If it is abuse or hatred or descrimination aimed at Jewish people because of their ethnicity or religion then I agree absolutely. It must be stamped out and anyone in Labour guilty of that should be expelled - and subject to police investigation if appropriate. I have seen examples of this and they disgust me.
But a lot of the examples and most prominent cases I have seen in the past 3 years have been allegations of anti semitism based on opposition to a political ideology (at the heart of the Israeli state that led to and excused ethnic cleansing and apartheid), or the policies of the Israeli government, or satirical social media posts that often come from Jewish critics of Israel but are denounced on a literal reading when re-posted or shared (like the Norman Finkelstein cartoon of Israel as a US state that Naz Shah MP was pilloried for). Many of the high profile cases brought by Labour against its own members had the charge changed from anti-semitism to bringing the party into disrepute - like Marc Wadsworth, Tony Greenstein and Jackie Walker - because once the mud had stuck it was clear that they were not guilty of anti-semitism.
We now have a situation where the Labour Party (and UK government) have adopted not only the IHRA definition of anti-semitism but all the examples attached to it - including a lot that are about Israel and not Jews. The BDS movement (one of the few peaceful forms of resistance open to Palestinians and their supporters) is denounced as anti-semitic (including winning a vote in the German parliament recently - though not yet enacted). Many other forms of solidarity with occupied Palestinians are also condemned in the same way. The Labour right (especially sections of the PLP), Israel and the Israeli Embassy, sections of the media (in my view the Guardian and BBC are amongst the worst when it come to this issue) have acted to move the goalposts and weaponise allegations of anti-semitism with the twin aims of protecting Israel from criticism and deposing Corbyn (either by falsely accusing him of racism or by making his leadership untenable).
One of the most troubling arguments around the conflation of anti-Zionism (opposition to a political ideology) with anti-semitism (racial/ethnic/religios hatred) is arguement from some Jewish organisations and individuals that Zionism is both an integral part of their identity (and so to attack Zionsim is to attack Jewish people) and that it has so many meanings that the term becomes meaningless. As an argument to gag opponents it has been effective - even if many socialist, orthodox and humanist Jewish people are openly anti-Zionsist. But it is also an argument that gets a free pass - as did a similar argument in South Africa for far too long - that separation and white supremacy was an integral part of Boer self-identity.
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