Antisemitism claims have one goal: To stop Jeremy Corbyn winning power
Published
by
Richard Kuper
JVL Introduction
“The media and Israel lobby may have been largely successful in recruiting British Jews and many others to their self-serving campaign to stop Corbyn becoming prime minister. But ultimately the Jewish community risks being engulfed by Britain’s expanding “hostile environment” if the Conservatives are allowed to remain in power and continue their drift rightwards unhindered.”
Thus Jonthan Cook, in a wide-ranging overview of the present assault on Labour
This article was originally published by Middle East Eye on Tue 26 Nov 2019. Read the original here.
Antisemitism claims have one goal: To stop Jeremy Corbyn winning power
The Jewish community’s alienation from Labour has been years in the making – but it is Johnson’s Conservatives who have embraced hostility to minorities
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This article deserves to be re-printed as a leaflet, and distributed as widely as possible. That’s the only way that such a sensible and lucid view of the ‘Labour anti-semitism’ issue stands any chance of getting any publicity. As we know, the Times, Mail, Sun, Torygraph et al are hardly likely to publicise it, and neither will the oh-so-progressive Guardian or the BBC. With the honorable exception of the Morning Star, that in practice means the whole of the British media.
Tonight – while interviewing Jeremy Corbyn – Andrew Neil cited the figure of 87 per cent of members of the Jewish community in Britain considering Jeremy Corbyn an antisemite.
As can be seen at https://www.survation.com/new-polling-of-british-jews-shows-tensions-remain-strong-between-labour-and-the-british-jewish-community, Survation polled 757 residents aged 18+ in Great Britain who identify as Jewish. This survey was primarily conducted via telephone; however additional respondents were invited to take part in the survey online. Fieldwork was between 18th February and 15th March 2019.
What is truly bizarre about this so-called “survey” is that 87% of respondents thought Corbyn was antisemitic while only 21% thought Gerard Batten (then UKIP Leader) was antisemitic.
This is what happens when an opinion poll is conducted with a non-random and self-selecting group sample. Also, just how authoritative is one of just 757 residents, all of whom are self-selecting?
The poll was commissioned by the so-called and self-styled Jewish Leadership Council, whose former chairman – Mick Davies – left to take up combined roles of chief executive and Treasurer of THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY.
This ought to make it obvious that this whole fake antisemitism campaign has been orchestrated by the Tories from the outset, based on manipulating small numbers of gullible individuals within the Jewish community.
Andrew Neil and the BBC should be taken to task for using such trashy and baseless material in their programming.
Another brilliantly lucid article by Jonathan Cook. Thank you.
But the question remains – how do we disseminate this information to the wider public? How do we challenge the BBC, The Guardian and other MSM to examine and publicise these facts? Or do we just keep talking to ourselves?
I agree with Tony Dennis and would very much want to help distribute Jonathan’s article wherever we could. Thanks again, Jonathan, for such clarity.
This touches on the one thing that explains this irrational, over the top savaging of a decent, anti-racist left social democrat with a sympathy for Palestine (and adherence to the un-dead zombie 2-state “solution”) which is pretty much mainstream these days: the key words are “British foreign policy on Israel”. This is not about the permitted anodyne “criticism of Israeli government policies”, but the Israeli establishment’s dread of being referred to the International Criminal Court for serious breaches of the Geneva Conventions which forbid the acquisition of land by military conquest. With a vote on the Security Council, would Corbyn be able to limit Israel’s inexorable expansion? Israel pursued and mauled Judge Goldstone, the Jewish South African tasked by the UN to report on the first serious bombing of Gaza’s civilian population (codenamed Cast Lead). And if it had been Corbyn and not Blair in charge in 2002, would Israel have been gifted with the Iraq war? Isn’t this is all vastly weightier than .08% of Labour members indulging in some clumsy Facebook comments?
I print out good articles,to give to people who find it difficult to believe the bias in the media. I send links to my local LP members. Its not enough.
This artcle is one of the best, but I do wish it was in all the newspapers mentioned.
Thank you Mr Cook.
I’m finding this so upsetting, I can’t believe it’s happening, like a train crash in slow motion and it feels like I can’t do anything to stop it. When did fabrication and distortion become the norm and when did honesty and integrity, and more importantly, justice leave the room. I dearly hope Mr Corbyn can weather this storm. I feel the oppression myself if I speak out in support of Corbyn, I actually physically feel it. Is this the start? is this how it feels to be subjugated because of your beliefs?
Thank you for your bravery and leadership in the face of this onslaught and to all the others who are writing and speaking out.
In reply to Roshan Peddler, I think this campaign can only be challenged if Corbyn his supporters in the leadership of the Labour party stop giving these mainly false accusations credibility and openly come out and say that this smear campaign against them is about Israel and explain what the supporters of Israel in the LP and media have been doing. Instead, they have been giving the witch hunters succour by adopting the IHRA definition and disciplining anti-Zionists in its ranks who oppose Israel and its behaviour, so I am not optimistic that the LP leadership will take up this challenge.
Relieved
Superb article. Extremely clear and well researched. Thank you.
Thank you for some truth and clarity. The article deserves a much wider audience.
What has not been realised is that this concerted drummed up attack on Corbyn and Labour is already stoking up anti Semitism.
Philip (Ward): Given that the corporate media AND the semi-corporate BBC have conspired in the smear campaign against Jeremy and the left, and are totally hostile to him and the left and have no problem whatsoever with demonising and dehumanising him and the hundreds of thousands of party members who support him, how do you think the MSM – along with the so-called moderates, and the JLM and the CAA and LAA and the BoD and the Jewish newspapers et al – would react if Jeremy and the leadership did what you suggest?
Do you REALLY think that the forces who have been working overtime to destroy him these past four years are just going to say “right, OK, you got us” and put their hands up, and let Jeremy (or one of his colleagues) explain it all to the electorate word for word in their newspapers and on their news broadcasts – ie that the whole thing has been a black op smear campaign from the outset, and that they went for Ken first, cos he was the most high profile and well known of Jeremy’s allies, and he didn’t actually say anything remotely anti-semitic, and was in fact alluding to an historical fact when he said what he said about Hitler supporting Zionism, but our enemies all just kept screaming anti-semitism and falsely attacking him and vilifying him, and the whole thing with John Mann being there at party HQ with a camera crew when Ken turned up there some three hours later after doing the interview with Vanessa Feltz was all a set-up so there’d be some visual stuff for the TV news networks and video footage for newspaper websites of John Mann laying in to Ken and calling him a Nazi apologist etc. Etc, etc, etc, etc, etc………………………………….
Yes, of course, I’m sure they’d be more than happy to oblige.
PS And as Tony says at the top of the comments, this article by Jonathan deserves to be a leaflet – and there’s plenty of other material that could be included in such a leaflet, like the paragraph/passage in the Jewish Socialists Group statement (listed on here under the title: Jews For a Labour Victory) that begins:
We can see no evidence that a victorious Labour government would persecute, disadvantage, hurt, oppress or delegitimise Jewish citizens. On the contrary, the party’s commitment to equality and to challenging racism and discrimination, are key to its values and manifesto commitments.
And mention the letters, both published and unpublished by the Guardian by hundreds of Jewish people and academics rejecting the claims AND giving their support to Jeremy (and point out how THEY – the letters – don’t receive any media coverage, unlike the letters attacking Jeremy). There’s literally reams of material to select from. But what I really wanted to say is that A4 is the best size to work with AND that if it’s more than two sides (and I would suggest four sides is good, and six maximum), then hold the sheets together with a pin-clip (as opposed to stapling them), so that anyone who wants to make copies to distribute and circulate can do so simply and easily, and of course underline the heading to the leaflet – and give it a bit of thought before you decide on one – and at the end of the leaflet (underlined again) say: PLEASE COPY AND/OR SCAN AND CIRCULATE TO FAMILY AND FRIENDS AND NEIGHBOURS AND WORK COLLEAGUES ETC. THANKYOU. And right at the end of the leaflet you could say that if everyone (who is able) makes ten copies of this leaflet and circulates them to friends and neighbours etc, and they in turn do the same, and so on, we could reach hundreds of thousands of people prior to election day if everyone does it as soon as they can.
What an excellent article. As numerous comments have said: it deserves much wider circulation. The phrase that keeps coming back to me is: Where’s the evidence for serious or widespread anti-semitism in the LP? Rabbi Mirvis didn’t give a single shred of proof that Jews have anything to worry about from Corbyn or a Labour government.
What about this for an idea – take out full/half page ads in every major newspaper signed by all Jews, artists, sports people, academics who are willing to sign a statement that neither Corbyn or the Labour party are antisemitic.
Another idea – big bill boards with famous names making that statement. Sports people on bill boards near stadiums, academics on bill boards near universities, musicians on bill boards near music venues ……..you get the picture.
In rely to Allan Howard: You are obviously right about the way the MSM etc. will react if the Labour leadership said what I suggest. However, I think that in politics it is right to tell the truth – not to just constantly reiterate that one is not an antisemite (as alleged witches found to their cost, it is impossible to prove a negative) and that antisemitism is a scourge. This task would have been a lot easier if Corbyn and his entourage had responded in such a manner a lot earlier, e.g. to Baroness Royall’s report, or the Chakrabarti report, or to the Al Jazeera documentary etc. etc. Yes, it would have meant a major fight with the JLM and LFI etc., but that is still in the offing anyhow, especially if Labour manages to for a government but also if not.
Interesting article. Helped me to a better understanding and if widely publicised would help others too, I think.
Well done, Jonathan. Calm, rational and well-expressed – a complete aberration as far as British journalists go.
This provides a welcome dose of realism and reasoned argument.