I’ve been back and forth and in and out all day, so my TV/radio time was minimal, but here’s what I did catch.
Victoria Derbyshire managed to squeeze an interview with John Mann MP between various other topics. For balance, she read out emails and statements defending Jeremy Corbyn and quoted his now infamous remark:
“Our Jewish friends are no more responsible for the actions of Israel or the Netanyahu government than our Muslim friends are for those of various self-styled Islamic states or organizations.”
Surely Victoria Derbyshire is not so stupid that she thinks that exonerates Jeremy from antisemitism? It has quite the opposite effect, silly. Don’t you see? He equates Israel with Islamic State. Get it?
Next I caught Martin Bashir discussing the matter with … I think it was Joanna Gosling. He had brought a lot of statistics with him about the stark rise in antisemitic incidents, not just in the UK but in the US and Europe. They spoke for some time, puzzling over the possible cause of this. Baffled and flummoxed, they decided it’s something to do with global economic instability and / or societal insecurity.
I waited for The Daily Politics.
Simon Johnson, Chief executive of the Jewish Leadership Council spoke (on a screen) and one of the most unrepresentative specimens of Jewish opinion imaginable (bar Naomi Idrissi Wimborne) sat next to Jo Coburn in the studio. Yes, it was Jenny Manson, co-chair of Jewish Voice of Labour.
Her contribution diminished and derailed the whole debate - not that it was a debate in any real sense. In her mind, a way of establishing her credentials was to keep reminding us that she was speaking as a Jew. So out of touch with reality is this individual that she is unaware that the term ‘asaJew’ will have the opposite effect to the one intended.
As I said in an earlier post - denying that there is antisemitism in: a.) the mural; b.) The Labour Party; c.) Jackie Walker; d.) Jeremy Corbyn’s bones …… is useless. The train has already left that station.
Even Jeremy Corbyn has admitted some of it and what’s more he has apologised, if not for the antisemitism itself, then at least for the hurt, which is weaselly, but it does rather negate Jewish Voice for labour’s point. If there is a point. Incidentally, she doesn’t wish to harm any Israeli Jews, just to end the occupation.
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| " AsaJew I know Jeremy doesn't have a racist bone in his body" |
Why couldn’t they have found someone from the actual Labour Party to defend Jeremy - if sanity is relative - someone sane. Then the item might have been worth watching.
