Labour & Anti-Semitism.

[littlebabyjesus]

A single, secular, state of Palestine, with a full right of return for all those driven out, and their families. Bog standard stuff.

A single secular state is the only solution.

The two-state solution is what we have now, effectively - ie no solution at all, and never can be given the unequal power relations involved. That's where the comparison with apartheid is valid - the idea of an independent West Bank or Gaza Strip is every bit as much of a joke as the idea of independent bantustans.

Where it then becomes difficult is the idea of full right of return for all those driven out. That's where difficult compromise is going to be needed - Palestinians and Israelis are going to have to coexist, and some of the land taken is not going to be given back. There is no getting around the fact that two groups claim the same land.

Easy to diagnose, hard to be optimistic about any cure, though. Even once a process towards peace is started, it will take generations to resolve.

 

[ViolentPanda]

bog standard for whom?, and what would the non secular Hamas have to say about that?

HAMAS would go with "the will of the people", because they're well-aware that it's easier to change opinion from within, than to force it.

 

[agricola]

HAMAS would go with "the will of the people", because they're well-aware that it's easier to change opinion from within, than to force it.

The rationale for Hamas existing would largely disappear if there were substantive and honest negotiations, just as the rationale for Netanyahu would.

 

[Idris2002]

A single secular state is the only solution.

The two-state solution is what we have now, effectively - ie no solution at all, and never can be given the unequal power relations involved. That's where the comparison with apartheid is valid - the idea of an independent West Bank or Gaza Strip is every bit as much of a joke as the idea of independent bantustans.

Where it then becomes difficult is the idea of full right of return for all those driven out. That's where difficult compromise is going to be needed - Palestinians and Israelis are going to have to coexist, and some of the land taken is not going to be given back. There is no getting around the fact that two groups claim the same land.

Easy to diagnose, hard to be optimistic about any cure, though. Even once a process towards peace is started, it will take generations to resolve.

Given how small the territory that once was Mandate Palestine is, and given how the whole thing sits on one single water source, any 'two state solution' would have to be a 'divorce with bed rights' arrangement.

It would also have to involve some considerable political creativity, which would guarantee the human rights and collective and individual security of everyone in that territory, Israeli and Pal alike. None of the proposals for one or two state solutions that I've seen have shown anything like the level of creativity needed.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Given how small the territory that once was Mandate Palestine is, and given how the whole thing sits on one single water source, any 'two state solution' would have to be a 'divorce with bed rights' arrangement.

It would also have to involve some considerable political creativity, which would guarantee the human rights and collective and individual security of everyone in that territory, Israeli and Pal alike. None of the proposals for one or two state solutions that I've seen have shown anything like the level of creativity needed.

Agreed. I think the only thing you can say with certainty really is that a genuine solution would involve the two sides negotiating an agreement that includes concessions that would sit badly with many or most of their people. It's hard to be optimistic tbh - I wouldn't fancy the life-expectancy chances of the leaders involved in such a deal.

 

[cantsin]

fair bit of detail re: various alleged LP anti semites etc :

How Israel lobby manufactured UK Labour Party's anti-Semitism crisis

 

[Idris2002]

fair bit of detail re: various alleged LP anti semites etc :

How Israel lobby manufactured UK Labour Party's anti-Semitism crisis

Not really a source you could give to someone who was disappointed and disturbed by all this.

 

[cantsin]

Not really a source you could give to someone who was disappointed and disturbed by all this.

wont pretend to know much about EI - that piece seems heavily researched, lots of detail / quotes / sources etc - (also don't think 'Israel Lobby' particularly helpful phrasing at present) but wld be interested if you have more info etc about it ? Or any other reason for questioning the source ?

 

[mk12]

More councillors have been suspended from the LP over social media posts about Israel. One tweeted Yossi Benayoun, an Israeli footballer, saying 'you and your country doing the same thing that hitler did to your race in ww2'.

Labour suspends three councillors over Israel comments
Labour suspends three councillors over Israel comments - BBC News

 

[DrRingDing]

bog standard for whom?, and what would the non secular Hamas have to say about that?

Hamas works along side the likes of the PFLP. Hamas is not ISIS.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

Pretty much the entire PLP, including most the shadow cabinet, are joining in the smearing of their own party over this. I guess this sort of insanity was inevitable given the huge chasm between Corbyn and the utterly useless careerists he's 'leading'. I can't think of the last time a party sabotaged itself in the run up to an election though. It's bizarre and depressing.

 

[DrRingDing]

Pretty much the entire PLP, including most the shadow cabinet, are joining in the smearing of their own party over this. I guess this sort of insanity was inevitable given the huge chasm between Corbyn and the utterly useless careerists he's 'leading'. I can't think of the last time a party sabotaged itself in the run up to an election though. It's bizarre and depressing.

Will this have a large impact on voting? I'm not convinced it will.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Pretty much the entire PLP, including most the shadow cabinet, are joining in the smearing of their own party over this. I guess this sort of insanity was inevitable given the huge chasm between Corbyn and the utterly useless careerists he's 'leading'. I can't think of the last time a party sabotaged itself in the run up to an election though. It's bizarre and depressing.

Around racial wedge issues too ...

 

[ViolentPanda]

Pretty much the entire PLP, including most the shadow cabinet, are joining in the smearing of their own party over this. I guess this sort of insanity was inevitable given the huge chasm between Corbyn and the utterly useless careerists he's 'leading'. I can't think of the last time a party sabotaged itself in the run up to an election though. It's bizarre and depressing.

Most of the PLP Maquis - talk about self-aggrandisement! - are either members of LFoI, or are ideological sympathisers, so it's not particularly bizarre that they'd leap at the chance to further their own agendas, even if it is at the expense of the national party and their constituencies.

It IS depressing, though.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Will this have a large impact on voting? I'm not convinced it will.

Personally, I'm hoping that the opportunism currently on display - not just by the likes of Mann or Streeting, but also by those who fancy themselves as eminences grise like Cooper and Umunna - will have an impact on their mostly "safe seat" majorities, like happened with Balls.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Most of the PLP Maquis - talk about self-aggrandisement! - are either members of LFoI, or are ideological sympathisers, so it's not particularly bizarre that they'd leap at the chance to further their own agendas, even if it is at the expense of the national party and their constituencies.

It IS depressing, though.

It's really fucking depressing, at a time when we need effective opposition to e.g. NHS privatisation and all the rest of the class warfare the government is pushing, to see such agendas dominating the PLP against the interests of the majority of citizens.

 

[free spirit]

Will this have a large impact on voting? I'm not convinced it will.

it means Labour are going to struggle to be getting their message across in these last few days before the election because all the air time is taken up by this stuff.

 

[DrRingDing]

it means Labour are going to struggle to be getting their message across in these last few days before the election because all the air time is taken up by this stuff.

I would be interested in some stats on how floating voters intended to vote before this nonsense and how they will vote now.

 

[Greasy Boiler]

The whole thing just seems so cynically timed and disingenuous. Politics at its grubbiest.

 

[DrRingDing]

The whole thing just seems so cynically timed and disingenuous. Politics at its grubbiest.

Desperate isnt it? Hopefully it will backfire.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

It's really fucking depressing, at a time when we need effective opposition to e.g. NHS privatisation and all the rest of the class warfare the government is pushing, to see such agendas dominating the PLP against the interests of the majority of citizens.

This is the group that needed to be got rid of, though. There was never going to be a point where they magically disappeared; Corbyn being elected wasn't going to do that. If he hadn't been, they'd just be offering support to those programmes right now, tacit or explicit.

 

[Pickman's model]

It's really fucking depressing, at a time when we need effective opposition to e.g. NHS privatisation and all the rest of the class warfare the government is pushing, to see such agendas dominating the PLP against the interests of the majority of citizens.

Yeh. But the PLP has for years been a great disappointment

 

[Diamond]

I completely accept the criticism that I tried to derail the thread somewhat. Casual anti-semitism, of the "he jewed me out of some money" type, is presumably not the issue (it's important to change attitudes there though, too) because you all seem to be talking about the existence or not of a confusion/conflation/nexus between anti-semitism and anti-Zionism in the Labour party. However, to be Labour and even a bit pro-Hamas is to align oneself in part with people who do more than flirt with anti-semitism in terms of their solution, while to be a Socialist friend of Israel is to have another view of the outcome. So it's about the outcome too. It is though too massive to embark on here.

There is no such thing as "casual anti-semitism", in the same way as there is no such thing as "casual islamophobia" or "casual sexism"

 

[free spirit]

I would be interested in some stats on how floating voters intended to vote before this nonsense and how they will vote now.

the real question can never be answered - how would floating voters have voted at the election had this not happened with most of Labour's coms efforts in the last 10 days before the election dedicated to this issue rather than the communications plan they'd have had in place for this period.

They were starting to do pretty well before all this hit, I doubt that the timing is a coincidence. Those posts had sat there on facebook for 2 years and just happen to have been discovered right at the crucial point to completely change the media narrative and derail Labour's big push before the election... nah, someone sat on them until the time was right to put something concrete to the months of press crap about a growing anti-semitism issue for Labour IMO.

 

[Coolfonz]

There is no such thing as "casual anti-semitism", in the same way as there is no such thing as "casual islamophobia" or "casual sexism"

pot kettle black. says the bloke who used the word `yid` and talked about jews having `lavish` weddings, everything an anti-semite would hate.

 

[Diamond]

What do you mean '"yid'" you cunt? What do you mean "lavish"?

Yid is how a lot of Jews in North London would describe themselves (reclaiming prejudicial language etc...)

Lavish because it was held here - Luxury London Hotels, Book 5 Star Hotels in High Holborn, Covent Garden | Rosewood London - and was huge.

 

[William of Walworth]

WRF to the above from free spirit : I haven't properly managed to work out whether the 'someone' who sat on this stuff previously and then timed its' release so well, was Lynton Crosby,or John Mann, or either/any of their friends

 

[Diamond]

Yet to hear how Richard Evans is dodgy yet also

 

[Coolfonz]

Fuck off you anti-semitic cunthole. Why can this guy use abusive words about jews and not get banned? What's with that? Then lay on jew hating bullshit about "lavish" weddings, the whole flash jew trope.

 

[butchersapron]

I think no one should reply to Diamond from this point on unless it's to demand that he clarify who he believes is approaching holocaust denial - and where.

Ignore his irrelevant little memories etc. We need to get this established.