A manufactured scandal?
JVL Introduction
The opening shot in Labour’s antisemitism wars was fired in February 2016 with the resignation of Alex Chalmers as co-chair of Oxford University Labour Club (OULC) because, he claimed, his colleagues “have some kind of problem with Jews”.
It was a week after OULC members voted to endorse Israel Apartheid Week.
An inquiry into the club was initiated by chair of the right-wing Labour Students, Michael Rubin and poured fuel on to the flames. Not published before, the Electronic Intifada has now obtained the full Rubin report.
Asa Winstanley takes up the story in this Electronic Intifada article.
This article was originally published by The Electronic Intifada on Mon 24 Aug 2020. Read the original here.
This is the bogus anti-Semitism report that sank Jeremy Corbyn
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They don’t want you to know about all of this! As soon as you are informed about what has being going on, they will declare it as just another conspiracy theory.
Hi. I could not find a link to the full Rubin report either on here or on the Electronic Intifada page Is it available in full anywhere ?
[As far as we know it is NOT available in full anywhere at present. – JVL web]
It is important to analyse how and why allegations of A.S. were fabricated but even more relevant might be to consider WHEN these allegations were first spread.
The Labour Party is 130 years old, Corbyn is 70. I have been observing politics and the media for about 50 years. During all this time I had never read or heard by hint or murmur, from any source, that either Labour or Corbyn was antisemitic. I checked this out at Library of Scotland by looking at as many backdated copies of M.S.M. as I could.
It seems that both these venerable entities, Corbyn and Labour, suddenly only “became” antisemitic in 2015. Before this point in time we have to assume that they were either virulently biased and that this was undiscovered, EVEN by eager journalism or that just at 2015 both Corbyn and Labour abruptly changed the beliefs of a lifetime to espouse hostility to Jews.
Either of these scenarios are so improbable that only the uncritical could be persuaded to believe in them.
Michael Rubin will soon be the director of the Labour Friends of Israel (he is currently the political director); Asa Winstanley resigned from the Labour Party after being accused of antisemitism. Such are our times.
There appears to be no reason why the manufacture of false allegations and rumours should now cease. In fact there are many reasons why these highly successful smear tactics will continue and be copied by others aiming to undermine any left-wing or, in general terms, dissenting and progressive groups.
The notion that “Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it,” probably had a long history before 1710 when published by Jonathan Swift.
Nor is there anything new about ‘spy cops’. Although Government funded online troll farms and fake twitter accounts seem to have taken the process to an appalling new level. Exposure of the work of paid secret service personnel might, in itself, almost be designed to undermine trust among otherwise natural allies.
Meanwhile, the formal investigation processes by legitimate bodies like the Labour Party offer little confidence that rules of Natural Justice will be followed. At least to me, regular leaks do not suggest a Presumption of Innocence. Nor the understanding of notions of Due Process and respect for evidence.
But my worries cut both ways. Including concerns about a “Rubin Report” from which I’m invited to read only snippets.
Any accusations of antisemitism against Corbyn were always false. It might be useful to expose the root causes and how it happened but what do we do about the hard to remove smears and how do we tackle the pro Israel players still within the Labour Party and those happy to believe them ?
I have seen the Al Jazeera documentary. It shows clearly how the Israel State has infiltrated the Labour Party and how it has created the astonishing accusation that Labour is institutionally antisemitic. To say that Corbyn is antisemitic is so far fetched it is laughable. He is the last man in the country to be antisemitic or racist in any way.
We must recognise that given the success of this strategy antisemitism accusations against various political players will only end when Palestinians have been entirely removed from their native land and Greater Israel is fully established. One can assume that even then It may be resurrected if the so called “State of Israel“ requires additional self interested advantage.
The hullabaloo over antisemitism was only aimed at Labour when it was prevalent in both Tory and Liberal Parties but ignored. Why? Because both the latter parties supported Israel and did not give a damn about Palestinians.
Labour commited the cardinal sin of caring about Palestinians’ human rights and Israeli abuses. So they were singled out. Antisemitism was their weapon of war.