Quote Originally Posted by Citizen's Nephew View Post
Interesting quote in the headline piece of the G just now: “He acted very swiftly to do something no Labour leader or no party leader has done before, which was to suspend the campaigning support for our own candidate in the middle of a byelection.”

I see that anyone within earshot is now being targeted as 'unworthy'. Something that has to be challenged regularly is this absurd notion that the critique of Israel is antisemitic. There is no diplomatic way forward with that mindset.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...ochdale-labour
Absolutely.

I was watching Sky and BBC news last night and both - in a single report from a single reporter - chose to describe the Graham Jones comments as 'offensive' at one point, 'inappropriate' at another, and finally felt the need to throw in 'antisemitic'. They may well have been offensive or inappropriate (not to me) but they certainly were not antisemitic.

It has become part of the lazy and politically loaded currency of political parties and media in much of the west (global north) to accept the redefinition of antisemitism that has been pushed by Israel, its lobbyists and proxies for over 40 years - that criticism of Israel or of its state ideology (Zionism) is antisemitic. It is one area where Israel has made progress in the court of public opinion - or at least public discourse. It went the other way when the label of apartheid stuck, and now that the charge of genocide is getting massive traction in the global south and pockets of the global north.

It is using distorted language and warped (IHRA) definitions for political purposes. But it also undermines work to tackle the real antisemitism that has escalated alongside Islamophobia in recent times - and perversely validates those who blame Jews around the world for the crimes of the Israeli state. So we end up in the bizarre place where Israeli and western leaders use antisemitic tropes to justify Israeli political or military actions, where anti Zionist Jews in their tens or hundreds of thousands are denounced as anti semites, and where racists regularly denounce anti-racists as racist!