What leave voters voted for?

[RonnieBird]

Getting tedious again and risks this thread turning into another Groundhog Day. But, anyway....

What do you understand anti-semitism to mean if you think you can claim that 'socialists' defend it? Maybe leave out your warped idea of what socialism is about (collectivism, equality of opportunity, fighting discrimination and exploitation.... you know, what normal people with no mental illness understand by the term) and focus on anti-semitism.

If you mean hatred of and/or discrimination against Jewish people as Jews then you are talking your usual crap.

If you mean opposition to the political ideology of Zionism and criticism not just of the policies of the Israeli state but also the central state ideology (explicitly since the Jewish State bill was passed in July 2018) combined with publicly discussing the terrorist mass murders and ethnic cleansing from the 1948 Nakba - expulsion of 700,000 Palestinian Arabs - onwards, then you are right - a lot of socialists of all kinds defend that view.

Some of the people charged and expelled from the Labour Party were anti-semites or at least made clear anti-semitic comments usually on social media - often repeating age-old racist tropes. Many were anti-Zionists. Many of those are Jewish themselves (like Tony Greenstein) and from families that went through the Holocaust (like Cyril Chilson) - in a few cases the anti-Zionist critics denounced by Margaret Hodge (90% of the names on her lists turned out not to be Labour Party members) and others as anti-semites are Auchwitz survivors (Hajo Meyer for one). Hundreds of people accused in the anti-semitism witchhunt have finally been cleared (again a high proportion are themselves Jewish) but not before they were dragged through the mud.

In my opinion the independent and academic analysis of anti-semitism in the Labour Party shows that it exists and has to be stamped out - and it has not just emerged with Corbyn. Labour (according to the research I have read) is no more at fault here than any other party and racist/anti-semitic attitudes amongst its members are lower than most (certainly than the Tories) and dropping. However, to use the buzz-word, it has been weaponised to achieve the joint objectives of attacking Corbyn and silencing critics of Israel (especially in the DBS movement). Both objectives have been successful.

Corbyn has not handled it well - he cannot always hand-wring and try to avoid conflict, and John McDonnell has been far to keen to appease the LFI and right wing media. It doesn't close the crisis down, it just encourages those who are cynically using it for their own purposes. It also makes it much harder to confront real anti-semitism (not the 'new' anti-semitism of the IHRA definition plus 11 garbled examples that the Israeli government has been pushing for years).

I have little sympathy for some like Ken Livingston but I do for Jackie Walker (mostly), Thomas Suarez and many others who now find themselves libelled and abused because they are anti-Zionists and critics of the Israeli state. In a week when there have been more anti-semitic murders in Germany, and a rising count of incidents from grafitti to verbal abuse to desecration of cemetries,

My understanding of both anti semitism is quite precise, as would yours be if you'd read stuff on the subject.

Socialism as we know it today is defined in the multifarious books of Karl Marx, particularly "Das Kapital" and the "Communist Manifesto". I suggest that you read them and then it will no longer be a matter of debate or opinion to you. Unlike a lot of people here , you'd probably be capable of doing this, so I recommend it.

Given that he invented modern socialism , it's no big surprise that Mark himself was as mad as a badger, and he wrote so many books that I doubt whether he had time to do anything else. Anyhoo...one which pertains here particularly is an entertaining little number called ,
"On the Jewish Question".......
You really should read it, but here's a little snippet,
"Let us consider the actual, worldly Jew – not the Sabbath Jew, as Bauer does, but the everyday Jew. Let us not look for the secret of the Jew in his religion, but let us look for the secret of his religion in the real Jew. What is the secular basis of Judaism? Practical need, self-interest. What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly God? Money. Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist. Money degrades all the gods of man – and turns them into commodities…. The bill of exchange is the real god of the Jew. His god is only an illusory bill of exchange…. The chimerical nationality of the Jew is the nationality of the merchant, of the man of money in general.[...] The Jew has emancipated himself in a Jewish manner, not only because he has acquired financial power, but also because, through him and also apart from him, money has become a world power and the practical Jewish spirit has become the practical spirit of the Christian nations. The Jews have emancipated themselves insofar as the Christians have become Jews. [...] In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism."