Too often treatment of black people is “cruel, contemptuous and arguably racist”
JVL Introduction
JVL and most of its supporters have been impressed by Owen Jones’s passionate defence of the Palestinian people as the Israeli genocide against them has escalated over the past eight months. We have shared many of his videos, interviews and social media posts on our own channels as part of our effort to counter increasingly deranged charges of antisemitism levelled against peace marchers, UN institutions, pro-Palestinian academics and artists and of course against Palestinians themselves and any Jews who have the temerity to support them.
It is therefore beyond disappointing to see him dredging up old allegations against our Black Jewish comrade Jackie Walker – one of the most vilified and abused left-wing figures to suffer at the hands of the anti-Corbyn witch hunters.
Since October 7, Jones seemed to have acknowledged – allbeit tacitly – that weaponising antisemitism has long been the favoured tool of those who wish to suppress left-wing voices critical of Israel. In his interview with Curtis Daly on the Turn Left podcast earlier this week, he talked at some length about the absurdity of branding Jeremy Corbyn or the majority of Labour Party members antisemitic. Then he turned on an unnamed but instantly identifiable individual who he accused of causing hurt to Jewish people by suggesting Jews had played a role in the slave trade. This was an allusion to a Facebook post in which Jackie Walker referred to her own Caribbean ancestry.
As JVL co-chair Jenny Manson says in the Skwawkbox article we publish below:
“In our so called liberal society, Black people are shut up when they talk about their own experience of oppression. Take Starmer’s treatment of Diane Abbott and take Owen on Jackie. To me this is cruel, contemptuous and arguably racist.”
NWI
This article was originally published by Skwawkbox on Tue 11 Jun 2024. Read the original here.
Exclusive: left-wing Jews’ fury over Jones’ renewed attack on Black Jew Jackie Walker
Anger at Jones’s comments on Turn Left channel as his failures over antisemitism scam resurface
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So the JVL has been fooled by Owen Jones whose support for the Zionist JLM helped to stick the knife into Jeremy Corbyn! Jones should not be given any praise at all for speaking up for the Palestinians, it’s what all people with an ounce of humanity should be doing.
In this Welsh household Jones has sometimes been described as “Jones the Weathervane” but more often as “Jones the C**t.”
He showed his spots when he put the boot into Corbyn, Livingstone and others. He appears to have finally woken up and smelled the coffee more recently but he remains a deeply untrustworthy figure, capable of flip-flopping at the drop of a hat.
Fool me once…
Owen Jones’ support for the Palestinians and his opposition to genocide since October 7 has been impressive, despite his outright condemnation of October 7. But at the back of my mind has always been the question as to whether he has learnt anything from the Corbyn years and the false anti-Semitism attacks that took place on so many people, not least Jackie Walker.
Allied to this was a question in my own mind as to whether he regretted having cuddled up to the Jewish Labour Movement who have not issued one word of criticism of Netanyahu’s war against the Palestinians. Labour Zionism has been in total accord with Netanyahu and Ben Gvir.
In other words has Owen Jones reassessed his clear support for Zionism and realised that it is inherently racist and Jewish supremacist.
It would appear that Owen Jones has learnt none of these lessons and drawn no conclusions from his past behaviour, not least in his elevation of antisemitism above all other forms of racism.
The Jewish Virtual Library contains dozens of references to the involvement of Jews in slavery: as enslaved themselves in antiquity, and as slave traders and owners in later times. It shouldn’t be a problem to acknowledge that people of the Jewish religion have shared in the history of the rest of humankind in every conceivable way. Why would that not be the case? Except for ignoramuses or cynics who seek to manufacture an artificial image of Jews as exceptionally evil or exceptionally virtuous people. In either case, they, including Owen Jones, are voicing bigotry and exploiting us to pursue their own agendas. To all of them them I politely say “ucfk off”.
“he talked at some length about the absurdity of branding Jeremy Corbyn or the majority of Labour Party members antisemitic.”
In his most recent book, he used the term ‘anti-Semitism crisis’. I thought that this was very unwise.
I see Owen Jones now promotes Jeremy Corbyn’s candidature in Islington North. I guess he is showing his regret for his past misdemeanors.
There’s some interesting research going on led by Neve Gordon, as to the most frequent targets of accusations of antisemitism. So far the largest number are Black women (especially younger ones whose jobs are also targeted).
I was talking recently to a latinamerican woman about the role of Conversos in the conquest and enslavement of the continent. These were her ancestors. along with some openly Jewish ones, and the facts are now pretty well known. What Jackie was exploring would be nothing controversial to historians or honest socialists.
I do not trust Jones. He took to the witchhunt with an enthusiasm that would cause Mathew Hopkins to be alarmed. Jones is right about Israel, and the Labour leadership, but doesn’t instantly excuse his actions and horribleness towards Walker and others. I think he is a professional weathervane, one with a messiah complex and people ought to not give into this. He contributed to the Labour Party antisemitism smear campaign and cynically made accusations whilst being supposedly against the malpractice. Each to their own but I don’t trust him.
All broken clocks display the right time twice a day. Jones is right about Israel; however, he arguably played a substantial role in the AS smear crisis that befell Labour, and has never apologised to Walker, Loach, etc, and that speaks volumes about his sense of entitlement and ‘expertise’.
Asa Winstanley, Tony Greenstein and Jonathan Cook, among many others have documented his actions and it is offensive, Jones is being excused and held up as a role model given that he went out of his way to witchhunt, in a enthuisastic manner that Mathew Hopkins, himself, would find distressing.
We must stop indulging this professional weathervane in his messiah complex.
In the 1980s there were lengthy discussions about the relationship between the women’s movement and the Civil Rights movement which led to the recognition that people and groups could simultaneously be victims in one context and oppressors in another. Since then we seem to have regressed into simple binaries.
Owen Jones’ attack on Jackie Walker is completely gratuitous in the context of the rest of the interview. He does seems to be trying to keep his feet in as many camps as possible.