"We're the party that introduced............
Antisemitism. Something “dogging your party” as the Sky anchor put it. The party in question is of course Labour. (Not that antisemitism is exclusive to any one party. It’s not picky. It can dog any party you care to mention, so non-discriminatory is it.) However the ‘problem with Jews’ has been particularly prevalent in the Labour party recently.
Still, too few of his accusers have confronted him head-on by stating that that hanging around mosques and being best friends with devout followers of Islam is giving out some kind of message.
The BBC seems to be waiting for Corbyn to announce something about big noses on the 10 o’clock news while doing an actual nazi salute before grudgingly admitting, loud and clear, that something is definitely dogging something.
When Jeremy Corbyn insists that the Labour party doesn’t tolerate antisemitism he needs to stop coupling antisemitism with Islamophobia. That is not good enough. He seems afraid to acknowledge that some of the people and organisations he habitually associates with and supports are purveyors of the most overt and shameless antisemitic libels and myths, all of which which he turns a blind eye to. He proudly attends rallies and meetings devoted to their cause, for goodness sake. Given the blatant manner with which many of them express their hatred, pretending he doesn’t see it is outrageous. They say he’s a bit dim, but he really can’t be that stupid.
Turning a blind eye is exactly the same as ‘tolerating’. So when will the Labour party stop doing that?
There is definitely anti-semitism lurking in the Labour Party and on the left generally.
ReplyDeleteI recently spoke to someone who had been suckered into one of those "Let's pick olives, Palestinians aren't terrorists etc" events. She really had no answer as to why she was so focussed on this v. minor land dispute in one small portion of the planet while ignoring far more bloody and oppressive conflicts in places like Tibet, Kurdistan, Burundi, Syria, Congo, Kahsmir etc etc.
The BBC (other than Andrew Neil) will have to stop turning a blind eye to anti-Semitism before Labour will think it's worth noticing.
ReplyDeleteMost Anti-Semitism is of the mindless variety, I might even say all - crazy conspiracy theories included. No doubt there are examples of prejudice against Muslims that fall into this category too, but the problem is that that in the eyes of many Muslims any criticism of Islam, however much it is in conflict with modern Western society is regarded as Islamaphobia. By insisting on coupling anti-Semitism together with Islamaphobia Labour are not just turning a blind eye to some of the extreme and unpleasant views of many of Corbyn’s “friends”. They are deliberately deflecting any attention away from them. Deliberately deflecting attention away from the fact that most anti-Semitism today is coming from these very same people.
ReplyDeleteOf course Islamaphobia is an absurd word. There is nothing irrational about a fear of Islamic terrorism or an unease at the stated aim of a large and growing minority of the population to impose Sharia on us all. These are genuine concerns. Conflating Islamaphobia with anti-Semitism is part of the process of promoting the idea of Islamaphobia.
What the new left’s (and apparently the BBC’s) motives are in this enterprise are open to debate. Is it something as crude as chasing votes? Is it the usual destructiveness of the far left? Is it somehow connected to the naive utopian fantasy of a world without borders? Or is it something even darker? I suspect all of these factors play a part.
Could this be the old Beeboid of the same name?:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.change.org/p/sydney-university-venues-management-sydney-university-let-ali-abunimah-speak/c/417062702
Gotta be! Llewellyn loves Ali Abunimah.
Deletehttps://richardmillett.wordpress.com/2012/10/19/tim-llewellyn-zionists-are-scattered-throughout-british-business/
He’s just like former controller of BBC 1, Alan Hart. Peas in a pod.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Hart_(television_executive)
Strange but true.
(Change dot org is such an irritant, isn’t it.)