Flimsy and vindictive: the ‘case’ against Ken Loach
JVL Introduction
We recently witnessed accusations by the Jewish Labour Movement that Ken Loach was unfit to act as a judge for Show Racism the Red Card’s (SRtRC) School Competition 2020 for reasons of “antisemitism”.
Antony Lerman prepared an analysis of the accusations levelled against Loach and submitted it to SRtRC, which supported Loach continuing in his role.
This was followed up by a further ferocious and distorted attack on Loach by the Board of Deputies of British Jews. Lerman prepared a further careful refutation.
For the record Lerman has published all these documents on his blog. We reproduce them here.
As Lerman points out: “I could have said much more about the accusations, the profound moral and political errors made by those involved in attacking Ken Loach and SRtRC and the utterly misguided motives of organisations and individuals who are acting against the interests of the very people they claim to represent.”
This article was originally published by Antony Lerman's blog on Tue 24 Mar 2020. Read the original here.
Flimsy and vindictive: the ‘case’ against Ken Loach
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This is a powerful and well-reasoned defence of the much-maligned Ken Loach. Thanks to Antony Lerman for writing it.
The links to the Newsline article are very odd. The first two don’t work, either in this version, or on Antony Lerman’s blog. The BoD, unsurprisingly, has not seen fit to publish its libellous letter itself. The link that does work is just a scan of a couple of paragraphs of the article, with no attribution at all (perhaps someone more tech savvy can trace its origin. It shouldn’t be too hard to find someone who has a copy of the whole article. Perhaps JVL can post a scan of that?
The role of the BoD and its allies in this campaign over the last five years, which has the dual purpose of preventing any significant criticism of Israel and, just as importantly, of delegitimising left wing politics, has been utterly disgraceful. The lies and distortion would, I hope, be deeply shocking to those unfamiliar with the tactics of right-wing Zionists.
You’d think that some of the more independently-minded supporters of the BoD etc. might be swayed by rational discussion of the question “is anti-Zionism really the ‘new’ as anti-semitism” and start to question and organise against the harm their organisations are doing to the fight against real, murderous anti-semitism. It says something deeply disturbing about the level of democracy and political debate in these groups that there is no sign of that at all.
Ken Loach is a Labour member, as I presume is Mike Katz. There is no room in the party for one them.
Brilliant submission from Antony Lerman.
Well done to Antony Lerman in publishing a well-argued and reasoned riposte to the ongoing vile witch-hunt and campaign of lies against the left, be it Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour Party and now Ken Loach, a man further away from the associated poisons of antisemitism, racism and fascism than one could even begin to imagine.
This sordid right-wing onslaught is bringing shame on organisations of the Jewish community that, hitherto, one could respect even if one disagreed with aspects of their politics. In their vendetta against honourable people, they are slowly but surely shredding their own credibility.
Well, Dave, there always has been enough room in the Party for both of them, but that was so long as the right was in the ascendancy and Zionism largely unquestioned. Suddenly, with the tables reversed, those who are unused to being on the losing side of Party and public popularity decide to cry “Foul!”
That there is certainly enough room in the LP for both Zionists and anti-Zionists (not to mention non-Zionists) derives from the fact that although the “endeavour” to create a Jewish state in Palestine necessarily followed a racist trajectory and based itself on widely held racist assuptions, not all those who supported it can reasonably be characterised as racists – least of all in the context of the Labour Party.
The widespread support for the creation of a Jewish state in the wake of the Holocaust brought millions of Jews and, more importantly, non-Jews to support this objective. Did this mean that millions of people in the wake of the Holocaust suddenly became racists? Obviously not. Indeed, probably the reverse is the case.
So, Dave, just in case your ironic remark is meant seriously, I’d rather Ken Loach were in my CLP than Mike Katz but there is room for both of them.
If there is a case to be made against the likes of Mike Katz being in the Party – and it would be a strong one – it is not on the grounds of his Zionism but on the grounds of his repeatedly bringing the Party into disrepute.
Andrew, I am serious about expelling Katz – it’s not about bringing the party into disrepute so much as his campaigning against the party and its left-wing members. But we can’t lose sight of the fact that there is not some kind of benign socialist form of Zionism – that dream died a long time ago – and the JLM as currently constituted should be disaffiliated from the party.
Dave, expulsion for campaigning against the Party’s chosen candidates and disaffiliation of JLM on the same grounds – yes!
According to an article published this month by a publication called ” Redress” Gregson has described the allegations that he is misogynist and antisemitic as ‘hurtful and unfair”. Is it fair for the JVLto publish those allegations without stating whether or not Gregson accepts them as accurate. Is the JVL not conducting itself like the Labour disciplinary body?