Labour & Anti-Semitism.

[cantsin]

i reckon the objection may be to the bit that says

• Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour.

that's a line that could be objected to you'd guess...and is problematic

 

[Sifta]

i reckon the objection may be to the bit that says

• Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour.

Also this:

. Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.

is spreading the net wide. Gerald Kaufman, in parliament, compared the actions of Israeli troops in Gaza to the Nazis who forced his family to flee Poland.

 

[frogwoman]

How do you read passages like this one?



Doesn't this equate anti-zionism with an anti-semitism? What room does it leave for people to argue that the state of Israel should be abolished, precisely, because it is conceived of in terms that privilege one ethno-religious community over others?

'conceived as a Jewish collectivity' is really ambiguous though. I took it to mean Jewish people were collectively responsible for it it does say that criticism of Israel as you would every other country is not antisemitic??

 

[eoin_k]

'conceived as a Jewish collectivity' is really ambiguous though.

Deliberately so, perhaps.

It's kind of ironic that when people who claim to be on the left get justifiably called out for using the words 'jewish' and 'Israeli' interchangeably this sort of ambiguity is also being deliberately fostered by a section on the other side of the debate.

 

[eoin_k]

'... it does say that criticism of Israel as you would every other country is not antisemitic??

Can you criticise any country for being conceived on ethno-religious grounds though? And, is there a difference between criticising and calling for the abolition of a state?

 

[frogwoman]

Can you criticise any country for being conceived on ethno-religious grounds though? And, is there a difference between criticising and calling for the abolition of a state?

Yes you can?

Saudi Arabia? Armenia (which also has law of return stuff btw) The Serbian orthodox church which has preached racial separatism in the past? Myanmar... I would say yes of course you could

 

[eoin_k]

Yes you can?

Saudi Arabia?

We're talking at cross purposes due to another layer of ambiguity. My point isn't Israeli exceptionalism, but rather that Israel isn't just 'any' state. It is one of a number of states that are conceived of in ethno-religous rather than civic terms.

 

[frogwoman]

Nobody in their right mind would criticise eg the recent laws preventing Muslims from marrying Buddhists in Myanmar which are specifically described as 'to protect race and religion' from being anti Buddhist

 

[frogwoman]

We're talking at cross purposes due to another layer of ambiguity. My point isn't Israeli exceptionalism, but rather that Israel isn't just 'any' state. It is one of a number of states that are conceived of in ethno-religous rather than civic terms.

Sure, în that case of course you could criticise it, like you would any of the others.

 

[eoin_k]

Sure, în that case of course you could criticise it, like you would any of the others.

Personally, yes I would, and the boundary between civic and ethno nationalism isn't clear cut either. But, is it inherently antisemitic for a member of the Palestinian diaspora to call for the abolition of the state of Israel, specifically, without situating it within an entirely consistent general critique of nationalism? If not, does this wording make this clear?

 

[frogwoman]

Personally, yes I would, and the boundary between civic and ethno nationalism isn't clear cut either. But, is it inherently antisemitic for a member of the Palestinian diaspora to call for the abolition of the state of Israel, specifically, without situating it within an entirely consistent general critique of nationalism? If not, does this wording make this clear?

I took it to mean criticise it as you would every other country. Of course you don't have to mention every other country each time you talk about Israel, in the same way you don't have to list other countries when talking about Saudi Arabia

I don't see how the 'abolition of the state of Israel' is going to occur tbh, but no of course you shouldn't be required to denounce other countries when you talk about it, there's other things that make criticisms of Israel antisemitic.

 

[eoin_k]

I took it to mean criticise it as you would every other country. Of course you don't have to mention every other country each time you talk about Israel, in the same way you don't have to list other countries when talking about Saudi Arabia

Maybe, I've been unclear. From a non-anti-semitic anti-zionist perspective, isn't the specific issue with Israel precisely that it is 'conceived as a Jewish collectivity'.

 

[frogwoman]

Maybe, I've been unclear. From a non-anti-semitic anti-zionist perspective, isn't the specific issue with Israel precisely that it is 'conceived as a Jewish collectivity'.

other countries like the ones I have mentioned, also have that problem. I mean afaik no churches are allowed to be built in Saudi, because of its constitution and basis on sharia law. if you criticised Saudi for being 'Muslim scum' or something then it would be Islamophobic but if you are just criticising it's laws and how it is governed, then it's fine.

So I don't get how criticising Israel for religious discrimination is antisemitic because you're criticising it for something loads of places could be attacked for. I don't know how it would come under what's said in that motion.

 

[eoin_k]

other countries like the ones I have mentioned, also have that problem. I mean afaik no churches are allowed to be built in Saudi, because of its constitution and basis on sharia law. if you criticised Saudi for being 'Muslim scum' or something then it would be Islamophobic but if you are just criticising it's laws and how it is governed, then it's fine.

So I don't get how criticising Israel for religious discrimination is antisemitic because you're criticising it for something loads of places could be attacked for.

What if we take the point I'm trying to make in the context of this other line:

• Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour.

This section seems to explicitly link the existence of the State of Israel to the 'Jewish people' legitiamtely exercising their collective right to self determination... which doesn't seem entirely consistent with your reading of the text. I'm not trying to argue with you that anti-Zionist politics are necessarily correct here by the way (wrt to your earlier point about the abolition of the Israeli state) just that they aren't inherently anti-semitic and that this motion suggested otherwise...

 

[frogwoman]

What if we take the point I'm trying to make in the context of this other line:

This section seems to explicitly link the existence of the State of Israel to the 'Jewish people' legitiamtely exercising their collective right to self determination... which doesn't seem entirely consistent with your reading of the text. I'm not trying to argue with you that anti-Zionist politics are necessarily correct here by the way (wrt to your earlier point about the abolition of the Israel state) just that they aren't inherently anti-semitic and that this motion suggested otherwise...

the thing is , every single person knows that it's not anti-semitic to criticise Israel. but it's very obvious there are people who use that criticism as a cover for something else, just as there are a lot of people who use criticism of isis and Saudi to justify prejudiced views of muslims in general. for example i read on the news the other day that a random muslim family were abused by someone calling them an 'isis cunt' now that isn't a political point against the illegitimacy of terrorism is it??

i don't see how Israel is going to be 'abolished' at this point, i also think a lot of the end goals of anti-Zionism are impossible without a massive war at the moment .

i don't think it's intrinsically antisemitic no but i can understand why people say so, especially as you do get a lot of people who aren't palestinian or jewish but are weirdly obsessed with Israel, but don't call for the abolition of states such as say turkey and Saudi that are founded on similar bloodshed, or states that have similar laws that favour a particular religious group (like say Myanmar).

but no of course a palestinian (or anyone else) criticising Israel and being in favour of anti-Zionism doesn't make them automatically anti-semitic if they don't mention other countries as well. i took 'as you would every other country' to mean making the same criticisms that could be made of other countries that are doing the same or similar things

 

[eoin_k]

Hey frogwoman,

What about this section:

• Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour.

This seems problematic on two levels. First, it suggests that the state of Israel represents the collective will of some sort of homogenous 'Jewish people'-i.e. the very thing that you would rightly call out an anti-Semite for doing. Such a definition is, however, at least half accurate: it might be problematic in terms of the assumptions it makes about how representative the Israeli state is of Jewish people, but Israel is self-defined as a Jewish state. Here is where the second problem arises. Anyone who questions the existence of such an ethno-religious state is branded anti-Semitic. Now, I realise that I have glossed over the specific contexts from which both Zionism and then the State of Israel emerged. I'm not asking you to agree that 'the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour', or at least that this makes it somehow uniquely deserving of opprobrium among the community of nation states. But not only does this motion conflate anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism in a manner that should be challenged as robustly as the views of anti-Semites who do the same, it also applies the same standards to any broader perspectives that generally deny ethno-religious nationalism as a legitimate basis for exercising political power.

BTW Palestine isn't something that I obsess about, although I can understand why my neighbour who comes from a family of refugees might hold Israel to account more vigorously than 'any other democratic nation'. To be honest this motion offends me as much because of how it misrepresents the histories and values of my Jewish friends and relatives. Plenty of them could fall foul of its definition of antiSemitism.

 

[frogwoman]

yeah im not disagreeing with you and you'd get no disagreement from me that Israel is a very fucked up state

I guess it depends what was said. having a demo against this motion seems a bit of overkill though to say the least though when all that's needed is a change of wording in one or two sentences .

Hey frogwoman,

What about this section:


This seems problematic on two levels. First, it suggests that the state of Israel represents the collective will of some sort of homogenous 'Jewish people'-i.e. the very thing that you would rightly call out an anti-Semite for doing. Such a definition is, however, at least half accurate: it might be problematic in terms of the assumptions it makes about how representative the Israeli state is of Jewish people, but Israel is self-defined as a Jewish state. Here is where the second problem arises. Anyone who questions the existence of such an ethno-religious state is branded anti-Semitic. Now, I realise that I have glossed over the specific contexts from which both Zionism and then the State of Israel emerged. I'm not asking you to agree that 'the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour', or at least that this makes it somehow uniquely deserving of opprobrium among the community of nation states. But not only does this motion conflate anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism in a manner that should be challenged as robustly as the views of anti-Semites who do the same, it also applies the same standards to any broader perspectives that generally deny ethno-religious nationalism as a legitimate basis for exercising political power.

BTW Palestine isn't something that I obsess about, although I can understand why my neighbour who comes from a family of refugees might hold Israel to account more vigorously than 'any other democratic nation'. To be honest this motion offends me as much because of how it misrepresents the histories and values of my Jewish friends and relatives. Plenty of them could fall foul of its definition of antiSemitism.

 

[articul8]

yeah im not disagreeing with you and you'd get no disagreement from me that Israel is a very fucked up state

I guess it depends what was said. having a demo against this motion seems a bit of overkill though to say the least though when all that's needed is a change of wording in one or two sentences .

there's a BIG difference between opposing a particular definition of anti-semtism and being anti-semitic. The IHRA definition is being used to de-legitimise criticism of Israel per se - it's very clear.

 

[frogwoman]

there's a BIG difference between opposing a particular definition of anti-semtism and being anti-semitic. The IHRA definition is being used to de-legitimise criticism of Israel per se - it's very clear.

of course. but I don't see a big problem with most of what's in that motion (is that the same as what's in the definition, dunno) and yeah I agree some of it needs to be reworded as it's a bit confusing.

 

[eoin_k]

It's the wording formulated by an intergovernmental organisation though, rather than just poorly drafted motion by someone at Haringey Council. This definition of anti-semitism is being deliberately rolled out, internationally, by a body that includes the Israeli government among its affiliates.

 

[butchersapron]

They expelled Moshe Machover of all people for anti-semitism this week.

 

[Poi E]

Dear God.

 

[belboid]

They expelled Moshe Machover of all people for anti-semitism this week.

Well, they actually expelled him for being a member of the CPGB, tho it was the ‘anti-semitism’ that kicked it all off.

 

[cantsin]

Well, they actually expelled him for being a member of the CPGB, tho it was the ‘anti-semitism’ that kicked it all off.

Lab and CPGB down here very happily working together it seems, CPGB main face is a local ledge, Union man.

If Iian Mcnicol isnt dealt with soon, it's going to get silly.

 

[teqniq]

Machover expulsion update • Jewish Voice for Labour

The farce continues…
A supplementary expulsion letter from Sam Matthews, Head of Disputes at the Labour Party has “clarified” the grounds for Moshé Machover’ summary expulsion.

He is now being done solely for being in breach of Chapter 2.I.4.B of the Labour Party’s rules. viz. joining or supporting “a political organisation other than an official Labour Group or unit of the Party”. Presumably supporting Compass, or Making Votes Matter, or Labour Friends of Israel, none of which to the best of our knowledge is an “official group or unit of the Party”, are equally punishable by summary expulsion.

 

[Riklet]

What was supposedly said at the conference recently didn't seem very anti-semitic to me. Seems to be the same woeful direction as the USA where one cannot discuss Israel and Zionism without anti-semitism being bandied about. Which ironically is unbelievably insulting to huge numbers of Jewish people, guess that this is lost on these tools.

 

[teqniq]

Facing outcry, UK Labour reverses expulsion of anti-Zionist Moshé Machover

But no apology apparently.

 

[19force8]

If Iian Mcnicol isnt dealt with soon, it's going to get silly.

It seems Tony Greenstein had to get an injunction to stop the NCC railroading him.

Something about 17 months to prepare the case against him, less than five weeks to respond to a 189 page bundle with 50 accusations, only one day for the hearing and a blanket refusal to consider a postponement.

Meanwhile he's trying to crowdfund a libel case against the Campaign Against Antisemtism.

Such fun.

 

[belboid]

Such a shame he's such a shit.

 

[killer b]

I think it's probably fair enough to do whatever is necessary to keep Greenstein out of your political party tbf.