Labour & Anti-Semitism.

[rummo]

But the fact remains that someone like Solley thinks that the claim by Mirwich to face anti Semitism every day is absurd and is accused of being anti Semitic for telling here so.

 

[Knotted]

I don't like it when the CST issue these stats about the total number of incidents. It's not a useful statistic and it's always going to be a big (and unknowable big) underestimation for the more minor incidents. Looking at trends it would probably be best to stick to stats that are probably near 100% accurate such as attacks on Jewish communal property (which they do record and have alarmingly substantial numbers).

Edit to add: Last time I read a CST report (around 7 or 8 years ago) they said they were not encouraging reports from social media because it was borking their stats.

 

[frogwoman]

I don't like it when the CST issue these stats about the total number of incidents. It's not a useful statistic and it's always going to be a big (and unknowable big) underestimation for the more minor incidents. Looking at trends it would probably be best to stick to stats that are probably near 100% accurate such as attacks on Jewish communal property (which they do record and have alarmingly substantial numbers).

Yeah they break it down by type iirc but I agree.

To be honest I don't like the fact that the state has essentially given over responsibility for this sort of thing to a religious charity (and Tory MPs like Crispin Blunt have been calling to scrap funding for protection of Jewish buildings btw) and basically said 'here's some money lads, good luck' especially with the current government's increasing pandering to the far right and explicit adoption of parts of that agenda.

 

[redsquirrel]

Hello all, and chag sameach to those who are celebrating. Long-time listener (long enough to gather that this place isn't necessarily very welcoming to new posters), first-time caller here. I had pretty much decided I would probably go through life without ever actually signing up to use urban75, and was fine with that, but there has been a lot of speculating about what jews must be thinking and how jews must be feeling over the last few pages*, and a lot of it is quite heavily at odds with my own perspective, so.

By way of introduction, I'm a Jewish anarchist (or libertarian communist or whatever, but most of the alternatives sound even more wanky), have no particular love for Corbyn, think that a Corbyn government would have been cold rainy Syriza at best, spent the Corbyn era banging on about what local Labour councils were actually doing and so on. I do have close relatives who I care about dearly who are JVL supporters - not because they're mad Assadist hospital bombers who luv Chris Williamson or whatever, but because JVL seem to be the main organised group of Jews who are outspokenly defensive of the social democratic redistributive policies associated with Corbyn and of the possibility of there being criticism of Israel that's not automatically antisemitic. I don't agree with everything they say, but I also think it's not a good place if "we" start treating those people as the enemy.

In passing, one thing that I've thought for the last few years, and seems very relevant now, is that if you approach this primarily as a rift within the left then obviously The Enemy are the cranks, crank-enablers, crank-defenders, crank-defender-defenders and so on. In contrast, if you approach this primarily as a rift within "the Jewish community", if your main antagonist is like your tory Zionist relative who you see once a year at seder or people you speak to at synagogue if you go to that, then you're more likely to see The Enemy as being people making dodgy bad faith criticisms of Labour, or as Zionists or the BoD or whoever. I think this has probably helped play into the not very helpful dynamics we've seen over the last few years.

I had thought that pretty much everyone with any sense was agreed that two things are true at once, both that (left) antisemitism exists and that it has been cynically weaponised by centrist wronguns, not too far from what Corbyn said in that apology. Like, the ACG statement mentioned above mentions:
"In the so-called left’s anti-Semitism morass, there are three strands that some people seem to find it difficult to disentangle.

1. The disingenuous labelling of all criticism of the Israeli state, its actions and policies, as necessarily anti-Semitic.

2. The actual anti-Semitism that exists on the left, often associated with Palestinian solidarity (which does not have to be in itself anti-Semitic); the blind eye turned to it; the dodgy alliances thereby arrived at.

3. The use made of both of the above by anti-Corbyn forces inside and outside of the Labour Party."

In this thread, it sort of seems like people are moving towards a position where if you mention 1 and 3, you're automatically doing bad whataboutery and denialism, and I really don't think that's helpful? Like, are we just supposed to forget about all the shit over the last few years, that Daily Mail stuff about Corbyn pronouncing Epstein antisemitically and Jonathan Freedland smearing Majid Mahmood and all the rest of it, and anyone who mentions it is automatically suspect and should be fucked off?

It's really surpising to me to see people saying that they've become more defensive of the BoD, because I feel like I've had exactly the same response towards JVL. If anything, this has really sharpened up my critique of "community leadership" and similar rubbish - I kind of acquired it secondhand through things like the AYM/Kenan Malik critique of Asian communalism and the critiques of Black counterinsurgency that have come out of the US riots over the past decade or so, but I feel it a lot more deeply after seeing the BoD pull shit like "you're not allowed to talk to Jews who don't like us" as part of their ten demands during the Labour leadership contest.

Good post and welcome to the boards.

 

[rummo]

Does anyone know why the Campaign Against Antisemitism and the Jewish Labour Movement complained to the Equality and Human Rights Commission about anti Semitism in the Labour Party but not in the Conservative Party?

Is it because they were satisfied that the Conservative Party had no, or less of a, problem with anti Semitism, or was it because they were holding then to a different standard?

I'd appreciate any insight that posters might be able to offer.

Maybe it's my own prejudices at play but I've always had the impression that anti Semitism would be more prevalent, and anti Semites would be more at home, in the Tory Party than in the Labour Party.

 

[Serge Forward]

Fucking hell. When will it end?

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

Fucking hell. When will it end?

Yeah, but you started it.
No I didn't.
Yes you did.
No I didn't.
Yes you did, you bastard.
No I didn't, and you're the bastard.
Etc.

 

[steveseagull]

I cannot believe that these people read the full report and reached the conclusions that they have, the skawkbox writer certainly has either not read it or if they have have utterly misunderstood it's findings. And more to the practical point, the labour party had until 5pm yesterday to provide the EHRC with a draft action plan to put right the things that the EHRC found unlawful (none of which are the things above), so bringing a case claiming that they haven't put things right which a) they don't have to and b) even if they did they did not have to complete them within this time frame is absurd. And filing a claim with the high court is not the same as 'going to the high court'.

I got the High Court thing wrong. Fair play. You should maybe speak to a Jew and ask him (or me) why he cannot discuss Corbyn's suspension because it has been banned by a Stalinist diktat and then take a long hard look at yourself and ask yourself how you got to a place where you approve of Jews being censored.

 

[ska invita]

ska invita will reply got to drive the car on a motorway now for first time since March.

are you ready to reply yet?

 

[bimble]

I dont really understand the point your are making here - could you explain it more please?
Isn't the fact that weaponisation hurt Jewish people (and the wider community) objectively true? Are you saying it isnt? Maybe I'm misunderstanding your post. Corbyn didn't just say it was ONLY the weaponsiation that had hurt people in that much longer statement, but it is objectively true that it very much did and continues to do so. Why faux concern?

In fact I remember you being hurt by it yourself and desperately wishing it would stop....>

I remember having an interaction with you a year or two ago where you were saying (paraphrase) in despair "I wish they would just stop stirring up the antisemitism accusations - its just making it so much worse", I responded "its just begun in the US with accusations of Bernie Sanders being anti-semitic, so seemingly this political weaponisation wasn't going to go away, in fact its spreading as a tactic", to which you were despondent.

<<<posted in good faith in case that isnt clear

I get what you were asking - You're saying how come - if I have said myself that I wish the daily mail etc would stop using jews to attack Corbyn - how can I then complain when Corbyn himself says that the weaponsiation (in combination with whatever else) is what hurt jews?

The 'weaponisation' did hurt me, it made me angry and sad, I think it has also led to an increase in antisemitism, but in saying all of that I'm just speaking for myself, Corbyn was speaking for.. Jewish people in his statement? It felt, to me, just totally inappropriate for him to respond to the report with a claim about what combination of things 'hurt jews and must never be repeated'. It's not his job to tell Jews what hurt them.

Also, but here we get into the attempt to guess what his meaning and intention was, when he said that Jews have been hurt by the weaponisation & exaggeration, I don't think that he had in mind the reasons that I am saying for myself (actual increase in antisemitism as a result of it all and the horrible feeling of being used as a football by shitheads who just wanted to get rid of JC).

The more usual rendition of 'weaponisatiuon and exaggeration hurt jews' is the one that says, some Jews were actively part of the lying, whilst others were stupid / paranoid enough to believe the hype, they were fooled by all those headlines into being scared when they had no reason to be. And that (very commonly repeated idea) is condescending as hell, imo.

 

[ska invita]

I get what you were asking - You're saying how come - if I have said myself that I wish the daily mail etc would stop using jews to attack Corbyn - how can I then complain when Corbyn himself says that the weaponsiation (in combination with whatever else) is what hurt jews?

The 'weaponisation' did hurt me, it made me angry and sad, I think it has also led to an increase in antisemitism, but in saying all of that I'm just speaking for myself, Corbyn was speaking for.. Jewish people in his statement? It felt, to me, just totally inappropriate for him to respond to the report with a claim about what combination of things 'hurt jews and must never be repeated'. It's not his job to tell Jews what hurt them.

Also, but here we get into the attempt to guess what his meaning and intention was, when he said that Jews have been hurt by the weaponisation & exaggeration, I don't think that he had in mind the reasons that I am saying for myself (actual increase in antisemitism as a result of it all and the horrible feeling of being used as a football by shitheads who just wanted to get rid of JC).

The more usual rendition of 'weaponisatiuon and exaggeration hurt jews' is the one that says, some Jews were actively part of the lying, whilst others were stupid / paranoid enough to believe the hype, they were fooled by all those headlines into being scared when they had no reason to be. And that (very commonly repeated idea) is condescending as hell, imo.

Thanks for the reply
I hear your point but I think you're projecting on to him what you want rather than taking his concern at face value. You "guessed" at his meaning, to me it sounds like the only response possible. You "guessed" "faux concern", I see genuine concern, just as we are all upset and concerned by what has happened

 

[bimble]

Thanks for the reply
I hear your point but I think you're projecting on to him what you want rather than taking his concern at face value. You "guessed" at his meaning, to me it sounds like the only response possible

What do you mean it seems like the only response possible?
Loads of jews feel very differently from me, obviously. The ones who wrote the existential threat headlines for instance.
If he meant exactly the same kind of hurt as I’ve been describing for myself then he’ll have been wrong about a whole load of other Jews won’t he.
I just think It was a mistake to pontificate in a confusing way about what combination of things hurt jews. Didn’t help anyone him saying that did it.

 

[ska invita]

What do you mean it seems like the only response possible?

How does his full response differ from what you would want him to say?
Try reading the statement and taking it as sincere. Do you still have a problem with it?

 

[brogdale]

The fact that Corbyn's words in response to the report's publication are so open to interpretation is a metric of his political misjudgement of the moment.

If, he really wanted to acknowledge that there had been (& is) antisemitism within the LP and, also that he believes the extent of that has been exaggerated by political his opponents & taken together, those realities have hurt* Jews...he could have been far less ambiguous in his expression.

* tbf to Corbyn the report itself does refer to the hurt caused by antisemitism, so his use of the word does not seem wildly inappropriate.

 

[bimble]

I have read it loads of times. It’s not really very important and anyhow I did take care to say that this is how his statement made me feel. That I wasn’t theorising as to what he meant just how it felt to me, one person.

 

[Shechemite]

Why is bimble having to tread on eggshells for the posters here?

 

[bimble]

It’s ok I have good shoes.

 

[danny la rouge]

Chilango’s quote from the other thread works equally well here:

Was trying to write a more eloquent strategical critique, but gave up. Instead, Fuck Corbyn, fuck The Canary, Fuck the Labour Party. It really is time to move on and leave the cranks and the careerists squabbling over the wreckage. There's nothing to be gained but "taint" from hanging around that scene anymore.

 

[hitmouse]

This has some good serious stuff in: Anti-Racism as Procedure


A racism conceived of only as extreme speech acts, as individual crimes, as words and thoughts can never confront the worst work of “race.” This severing of racism in Britain from its roots in colonialism and from the power of the state would help to define it as a timeless, transhistorical phenomenon that could be directed by any individual against any other individual, regardless of social position.

—

A common refrain in recent years has been references to the Labour Party’s “anti-racist” history and traditions. This mythology has been used by those on the center and right of the Party to cast what they saw as the specific antisemitism of the Corbyn era as an aberration. Labour’s “anti-racism” was also spoken of by many on the left of the Party to defend the socialist traditions from which Corbynism emerged. But any claim that the Labour Party, at any point in its history, has been definitively anti-racist comes from the same historical amnesia as the EHRC’s starting point of British “tolerance.” The left in Britain, generally speaking, is remarkably blind, complacent, and moralistic in its approach to racism, which desperately needs to change. Class formation, divisions of labour, electoral coalitions, and national identity are deeply tied to processes of race-making and British white supremacy.

There has been antisemitism and racism across every part of British politics over the course of Labour’s so-called crisis. Britain is a deeply racist and antisemitic country. From the very start, however, the issue was framed almost exclusively in the context of Jeremy Corbyn winning the leadership of the Labour Party. Corbyn’s shock victory for the left of the Party represented an embarrassment and a threat to most of the Party’s MPs, other political parties, and a uniformly and cartoonishly hostile press. A barely concealed civil war raged over the last five years with constant revolts against Corbyn’s leadership and a ceaseless media barrage against him and his supporters. With discussion about antisemitism and racism framed through the prism of Corbyn’s Labour, it could never escape its reduction to a proxy debate, a proxy war. Lines were drawn early, with most involved seeking to confirm or justify what they had already decided. Labour’s so-called “antisemitism scandal” became a battleground for ongoing cycles of rupture, played out across old and new media. It interacted with Twitter’s “take” economy — most evidence in the EHRC report was gleaned from social media — but also showcased the enduring power of legacy media to dominate the agenda and set the terms of debate.

Boxing in the issue of antisemitism within one political party’s power struggle has done immense damage to the cause of anti-racism. It has continually reduced important and complex issues surrounding antisemitism (including left antisemitism), Palestine solidarity and liberation, racism and anti-racism, to matters of internal party management. Internal power struggles, in one of Britain’s two political parties of state, in the exemplar imperial power of modern history, could never be the appropriate context in which to fight racism or gain clarity on how it functions. The unserious, hysterical, and instrumental ways this farce has been conducted is itself dangerous to Jews. After years of turmoil, and interminable “debate,” the very mention of antisemitism increasingly invites scorn from casual observers who are now tired of hearing about it.

Antisemitism is an incredibly adaptable, at times ambiguous, form of racism. Often mobilized today through symbolism, tropes, winks, and nudges, people can often unintentionally reproduce its discourses. Some Jewish people have been targeted for collective responsibility over these five years — a clear form of racism. Many Jews have been associated with or made responsible for the state of Israel by people of varying political stripes. For many Jews, there has been genuine hurt and worry about antisemitism. And there have been enough instances of real antisemitism, if one’s attention is called to all of them, to warrant such worry.

Much of the antisemitism on the left today and in parts of Corbynism comes from networks utterly suffused with conspiratorial, underdeveloped, foreshortened, or overdetermined ideas about power, capital, and world affairs. Such discourses can easily slip in and out of antisemitism, or simply prepare worldviews for it, and are part of a much wider phenomenon of online cultures of conspiracy theorizing that are not exclusively “left wing.”

 

[butchersapron]

The ERHC needs taking down - it's top-down multi-cultural filth. But how can i oppose one thing at the same time as i oppose another?

 

[tim]

He’s (thankfully) not in the LP anymore, but Chris Williamson is continuing to be his charming self.

I'm surprised this prick hasn't got a thread of his own. Does he deserve one?

Anyway, having been "coerced" into voting for the military overthrow of Gadaffi, he's now discovered how amazing Gadaffi and his murderous regime actually were.

 

[Shechemite]

He’ll be ringing up LBC next to talk about the great replacement

 

[brogdale]

I'm surprised this prick hasn't got a thread of his own. Does he deserve one?

Anyway, having been "coerced" into voting for the military overthrow of Gadaffi, he's now discovered how amazing Gadaffi and his murderous regime actually were.

So retro...

 

[Pickman's model]

So retro...

View attachment 244595

the man on the right killed fewer people

 

[bimble]

He did have great outfits though.

 

[tim]

the man on the right killed fewer people

It's not the winning but the taking part that counts

 

[brogdale]

the man on the right killed fewer people

possibly by a factor of >100

 

[Pickman's model]

He did have great outfits though.

he killed fewer people than tony blair but he did wear great outfits. why the though?

 

[cantsin]

I'm surprised this prick hasn't got a thread of his own. Does he deserve one?

Anyway, having been "coerced" into voting for the military overthrow of Gadaffi, he's now discovered how amazing Gadaffi and his murderous regime actually were.

Williamson’s a spineless fraud

 

[Knotted]

Williamson’s a spineless fraud

I always assumed he jumped on the Corbynista bandwagon because he sensed it was where the LP were going at the time and he could carve out a niche rallying the troupes saying whatever he thought might appeal to them. Now he's playing the ex-Labour circuit with the high concentration of loons. An opportunist with no political nowse.