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.
Like them I’ve no idea what could be causing the increase in incidents.
ReplyDeleteIn other news it’s getting increasingly difficult for the young to buy houses due to demand and the knock on increase in prices.
Also very puzzling for the experts: resurgence in diseases like TB and scarlet fever...sudden surge in acid attacks...and the rise of modern slavery...
DeleteWe need a new name for experts who scratch their heads about the elephant dung on the carpet...Nonperceptives?
Was it Manson I heard defend Corbyn on the basis that he was socialist and therefore couldn't be racist?
ReplyDeleteI dealt with that elsewhere. Modern anti-semitism actually began in the socialist movement and was later fused with social darwinism, and traditional forms of religious anti-semitism among Lutherans and Roman Catholics in Europe. Obsession with Israel is common to both far left and far right and is an obvious cover for anti-semitism.
Maybe Corbyn’s mind works in a way that I can’t comprehend. I don’t see how its possible to consistently lend your support to openly anti-Semitic groups, deliberately oversee a blatant whitewash of anti-Semitism in his own party, and engage in constant deflections whenever the subject is raised without in some way being anti-Semitic. At first I though it was a simple case of political opportunism, but this affair with the mural removes all doubt.
ReplyDeleteWe must never forget Corbyn refers to Hamas as his friends. Hamas have the most appalling anti-Jewish charter which incorporates the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It's never been removed.
DeleteHas Corbyn never researched Hamas? Not that difficult to do now we have the internet. Anti-semitic? Not very bright? Lazy? Insufferably conceited about his own moral virtue? The options aren't very attractive.
Newnsight gave Labour a very easy ride, not raising issues like Hamas's charter, Islam's views on Jews, the nearly 200 year old tradition of left-wing socialist anti-semitism.
It's outrageous how the liberal-left hide this history of left wing anti-semitism:
"Hyndman [founder of the Social Democratic Federation, forerunner of the Labour Party], along with his closest associates, consistently identified Jews with the universal domination of money and savagely caricatured all aspects of Jewish life whether in England or abroad. When antisemitic riots broke out in Vienna in 1885, Hyndman quickly condoned them, denouncing instead the corrupting influence of Jewish finance capital throughout the world."
The above quote is from a scholarly article:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0031322X.2017.1335029
too have thought about those different options. I think they all apply.
DeleteI read your very thoughtful analysis of left wing anti-Semitism in an earlier comment and would agree with all you say. What does muddy the waters is the way the present day far right so often attack the left in anti-Semitic terms: All the Bolsheviks were Jews, the Russian Revolution was a Jewish conspiracy etc., etc. In fact any political figure they disagree with unexpectedly acquires Jewish lineage. There were very good reasons why many of the early Bolsheviks were Jews that had nothing to do with Jewish conspiracies, but that seems to escape them. This is the other side of the “Jewish bankers” conspiracy theory so beloved of the traditional left. Anti-Semitism masquerading as anti-Zionism and support for a very unpleasant side of Islam is a more recent incarnation.
As you suggest anti-Semitism predates concepts of left and right by a very long time historically. All forms of contemporary anti-Semitism are fed by this much earlier and darker form. This is why I can’t give Corbyn, or for that matter elements of the BBC, a free pass.
I imagine Twitter is now deluged with deluded Corbynistas claiming that poor Jeremy is the victim in all of this.
ReplyDeleteHugh Sykes Twitter
ReplyDelete“#antisemitism.
On a London tube platform, I was once jostled
by a man in a Union Flag t-shirt, who whispered in my ear:
"I thought we'd gassed you lot years ago."
I shouted at him to leave me alone.
He chased me up the escalators shouting "Jew! Jew!"
No one reacted in any way.”
Things must be serious. When the BBC need gravitas to weigh in on the most important issues, they have only one go to person.
ReplyDeleteLo and behold he was spouting forth across main bulletins on the radio this morning.
Speaking with upmost authority, Tony Blair was wheeled out to impart his wisdom on anti -semitisim in the Labour Party.
The BBC do this with absolute sincerity because he is their God. His values are their values - they don’t forgive him for Iraq but can tolerate it because everything else he stands for is good, of the highest order, the gold standard in social liberalism.
Didn't you just want to knock Jenny Manson on the head and shut her up? One of the most tiresome people I have seen for a long time.
ReplyDelete