Panic drives the smear attack against Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn whose background as a radical socialist, not his criticism of Israel and support for the Palestine, threatens the British establishment’s hold on power, argues Alexander Mercouris.
By Alexander Mercouris
in London
Special to Consortium News
Any discussion of the current “anti-Semitism crisis” in the British Labour Party needs to start with an understanding that there is no “anti-semitism crisis” in the British Labour Party, or in Britain.
Anti-Semitism did once have a place in British society. By way of example, readers of Agatha Christie stories written before World War II will come across stock anti-Semitic representations of Jewish characters. As recently as the 1970s, I can remember what would today be considered Semitic stereotypes being commonly used to represent Jewish people in many of the unfunny comedy shows broadcast by British television in that period, including some the BBC broadcast.
Racist stereotyping of this sort was commonplace in Britain right up to the 1970s, and was certainly not exclusive to Jews, as Irish people, black people and people from the Indian subcontinent well recall. Some still persists today, but by and large racial stereotyping is socially unacceptable, except (worryingly) with respect to Russians.
By comparison with other European countries, anti-Semitism in Britain has, however, not been a major phenomenon in modern British society and recent British history. There has been no official persecution of Jews in Britain since they were allowed to resettle in England by Oliver Cromwell in the 1650s, while the attempt by Oswald Moseley’s British Union of Fascists to stir up political anti-Semitism in the 1930s provoked fierce resistance.
Jewish people now play a full and active role in British life, and this happens without notice or comment.
As for the formal institutions of Britain’s Jewish community, these form an integral part of British life. The chief rabbi has enjoyed a measure of recognition as the nominal leader of the British Jewish community from the British state ever since the 1870s. Since the 1980s, by convention, the chief rabbi has been admitted to the British Parliament as a peer of the House of Lords, though the present chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, has not yet been so admitted. The British Jewish community’s major institution—the Board of Deputies of British Jews—has had a continuous existence since the 1760s.
Mosley with Mussolini, 1936. (Wikipedia)
Though there are anti-Semites in Britain as there are everywhere else, they are very much a minor and ugly fringe, and moreover a generally despised and disliked one, with no influence or traction in British politics or in British life.
Despite lurid claims to the contrary, actual cases of anti-Semitic violence and property damage in Britain are relatively few, and certainly appear to be less than other types of racial violence.
Indeed, Jewish people today are so much an integral part of British society and of British life that I for one question whether it is even accurate to speak of a distinct “Jewish establishment” among British Jews. Rather, it seems to me that it would be more accurate to say that there are some prominent British Jews and some prominent British Jewish institutions—such as the chief rabbi and the Board of Deputies of British Jews—which today form an integral part of the larger British establishment, whose general perspectives and interests they share.
Which brings me to the present “anti-Semitism” campaign against Jeremy Corbyn.
The Left-Wing, Anti-Imperialist Labour Tradition
The British Labour Party was formed in 1900 before World War I, and if there has been one political movement in Britain that has stood rock solid against all manifestations of anti-Semitism in British life (perhaps more than any other group), it is the British Labour Party, and first and foremost its left wing.
This is consistent with the traditional stance of the left wing of the British Labour Party, which can be broadly defined as anti-racist, anti-fascist, and, above all, anti-imperialist. The latter has been important in a country like Britain—historically the preeminent imperialist power—where imperialism was justified in racist terms. British left-wing anti-imperialists, who are mostly drawn from the working class (a fact which gave British anti-imperialism a strong class-conflict character) strongly were predisposed to be anti-racist.
Not surprisingly, British Labour left-wing anti-racism extended to staunch opposition to anti-Semitism, which is, of course, the reason why so many British Jews were drawn to the Labour Party in the first place.
The key point to understand about Corbyn is that it is from within this left-wing, anti-imperialist Labour tradition that he comes. His parents after all first met each other in the 1930s attending a rally in support of the Spanish Republic at the time of the Spanish Civil War. He has been loyal to the traditions of the Labour Party’s anti-imperialist left ever since he began his career in politics, as his long record of opposition to all the West’s interventionist wars shows. Needless to say, that includes strong and consistent anti-racism and the opposition to anti-Semitism which goes with it. Strikingly, Corbyn’s acceptance speech following his election as Labour leader included a declaration of support for refugees.
To insinuate that Corbyn is an anti-Semite—as is increasingly happening—and to insinuate that the left wing of the Labour Party to which he belongs is riddled with anti-Semitism and poses an “existential threat to British Jews” (as several of the British Jewish community’s newspapers have alleged) is more than just absurd. It stands reality on its head. Corbyn is not an anti-Semite. Anti-Semitism, on the contrary, is what he always has defined himself against, and to claim otherwise is dishonest and even surreal.
Corbyn’s well-known support for the Palestinian people’s struggle does not contradict his opposition to anti-Semitism. Rather, it is the product of his consistent anti-imperialism, making Corbyn’s support for the Palestinians and his opposition to anti-Semitism consistent.
All this is well understood by those who are conducting the anti-Semitism campaign against Corbyn within the Labour Party and outside it. Corbyn has been a fixture of British political life ever since he was first elected a member of Parliament in 1983. The British establishment—including those members of the British establishment who are Jewish—know him well, and they know well what his actual beliefs are. It is not credible that they believe him to be an anti-Semite, or that they think that the left wing of the British Labour Party, which supports him, is riddled with anti-Semitism.
The Push to Stop Corbyn
The essential mendacity of the whole anti-Semitism campaign and the true motives behind it is shown by the exceptionally narrow frame of reference in which it is being conducted. It is universally acknowledged that the allegations of anti-Semitism being made against Corbyn and some of his supporters stem from Corbyn’s longstanding support for the Palestinian people’s struggle and his equally longstanding criticisms of Israel’s response to that struggle. As’ad AbuKhalil has discussed this aspect of the affair for Consortium News with great thoroughness and detail.
It is worth pointing out, however, that the criticisms being made against Corbyn barely touch on the Palestinian question at all. Anyone looking at these criticisms for a discussion of the Palestinian issue, even one from a position sympathetic to Israel and hostile to the Palestinians, will fail to find it.
The Palestinian struggle, the plight of the Palestinian people, the whole history of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the current policies both of Israel and of the Western governments which support it, are barely mentioned. When Palestinians do get mentioned at all, it is purely as terrorists. The entire campaign is being conducted as if Corbyn and those who support him hate Zionism and Israel and therefore allJews.
It is, of course, impossible that those who are conducting the campaign against Corbyn are any more ignorant of the basic facts of the Palestinian struggle and of the Arab-Israeli conflict than they are ignorant of Corbyn’s actual beliefs. If they are not mentioning these facts, it is not because they are ignorant of them. It is because they choose not to mention them.
Corbyn’s background as a radical socialist makes him a threat to the British establishment’s power. (Chatham House / Wikimedia)
In other words, the campaign against Corbyn has very little to do with the situation in the Middle East. I say this, though I have no doubt that the Israeli embassy is playing an active role in the campaign, a fact which is apparently freely admitted within Israel itself, though not in Britain.
However, it is a mistake to see the campaign against Corbyn as principally Israeli inspired. If it were, I would expect those conducting it to say far more about the situation in the Middle East than they do. Nor, in my opinion, is the campaign exclusively or even primarily the work of British Jews. As it happens, the Jewish community in Britain is far from united behind the campaign, with many British Jews expressing doubts or even outright opposition to it.
Instead, the campaign should be seen for what it is: the latest in a long series of attacks by the British establishment against Corbyn, the one British politician who more than any other embodies the threat to the current status quo and to the British establishment’s hold on power.
These attacks have at various times sought to portray Corbyn as a Communist, a Russian agent, a terrorist sympathizer and a traitor. Adding a charge of anti-Semitism to this catalogue is an obvious further step, and given Corbyn’s well-known advocacy of Palestinian rights an easy one. The only surprise is that it has not happened before.
That the anti-Semitism campaign is the latest in a long series of establishment attacks on Corbyn, which extend all the way back to his election as Labour’s leader, is shown by the sheer breadth of the campaign. The parliamentary Labour Party, the entire Conservative Party and the media (including the BBC and the supposedly left-wing Guardian newspaper) have all embraced it. Certainly, it extends far beyond those members of Britain’s Jewish community who form part of the greater British establishment and who initially spearheaded it. As it happens, the great majority of British politicians and commentators who have joined in the campaign are non-Jews.
A New Political Dynamic
As for the campaign’s greater vehemence by comparison with earlier campaigns, that is the product of the changed political dynamic in Britain since the June 2017 general election.
Before that election, the British establishment did not take Corbyn seriously, since it assumed that the British electorate would reject him in any election which he fought. The horrifying realization following the June 2017 election that the opposite is the case has—not surprisingly—caused panic and has led to the establishment pulling out all the stops. That explains not just the greater vehemence of this campaign but why it has persisted for so long.
In other words, what is driving the campaign is not some overarching loyalty on the part of British Jews to Israel or a belief that Corbyn is an anti-Semite. Rather, it is British establishment panic. As Britain’s Conservative government disintegrates, Corbyn stands poised to become Britain’s next prime minister. That terrifying prospect—of a radical socialist in 10, Downing Street—is one which must be averted at all costs. That is the reason for the anti-Semitism campaign we have been witnessing, and thus all the other campaigns against Corbyn we have witnessed, of which there are certainly more to come.
While the causes of the anti-Semitism campaign are mainly domestic, there is a wide consensus among Corbyn’s supporters that he has not handled his response to the campaign well. The general opinion—that he has been far too accommodating to his critics—has been forcefully argued in Consortium News by Jonathan Cook.
Corbyn himself has conceded too much ground on anti-semitism. As a lifelong anti-racism campaigner, the accusations of anti-semitism have clearly pained him. He has tried to placate rather than defy the smearers. He has tried to maintain unity with people who have no interest in finding common ground with him.
And as he has lost all sense of how to respond in good faith to allegations made in bad faith, he has begun committing the cardinal sin of sounding and looking evasive – just as those who deployed the anti-semitism charge hoped. It was his honesty, plain-speaking and compassion that won him the leadership and the love of ordinary members. Unless he can regain the political and spiritual confidence that underpinned those qualities, he risks haemorrhaging support.
This widespread view that Corbyn has been accommodating to people who seek only his destruction has even produced some curious examples of drafts of “speeches” written for him by some of his sympathizers setting out the sort of things which they think he should say.
While I have considerable sympathy for this view, I think it is only fair to add that Corbyn happens to be one of the most polite and diffident personalities in British politics. The contrast with, say, Donald Trump in the United States, could not be greater. It is not in Corbyn’s nature to respond to his critics with the same forcefulness that they extend to him. While this makes Corbyn an indifferent orator and blunts his impact in debates in the House of Commons, his politeness and diffidence is an integral part of his appeal. To call on him to act differently is to call for a different man, with no guarantee that that man would command anything remotely approaching the level of support that Corbyn has.
Is the Campaign Working?
It is important to stress this point because as of the time of writing it is far from clear to me that—contrary to what Jonathan Cook fears—this latest campaign against Corbyn is succeeding.
The poll numbers barely have shifted, with Conservative and Labour both polling around 40 percent of the vote since the June 2017 general election, and most opinion polls put Labour ahead. Though the anti-Semitism campaign may have lost Labour some Jewish votes in places like the London district of Barnet, the generality of the British voters seem indifferent and unimpressed by the whole affair.
I suspect that the truth is that Corbyn has been around in British politics for so long that the British electorate long ago formed its view of him. Knowing Corbyn as well as they do—as well as the left-wing tradition from which he comes—the vast majority of British center-left voters who make up Corbyn’s electoral base find the whole idea that he is an anti-Semite just too fantastic to take seriously. Besides the fact that the anti-Semitism campaign is merely the latest in a series of campaigns against Corbyn launched from the moment he became Labour’s leader makes the true motives of his critics in the end altogether too obvious.
The Nuremberg trials, circa 1945-46. (National Archives)
Cook has expressed the fear that if the Labour Party adopts the four additional working examples of anti-Semitism drafted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)—which it has hitherto resisted doing because of the way they limit criticism of Israel—that will make future criticism of Israel by Corbyn and by other members of the Labour Party all but impossible, and will open the way to a purge of Palestinian sympathizers within the Labour Party. [Editor’s note: The Labour Party altered its anti-Semitism definition on Sept. 4 at its National Executive Committee meeting and adopted the four additional working examples of anti-Semitism drafted by the IHRA.]
Similar concerns have been expressed by Norman Finkelstein, who sees the whole attempt to impose any sort of definition of anti-Semitism on the Labour Party as an attack on the party’s traditions and on free speech.
These concerns are far from groundless. On the contrary, there is no doubt that silencing criticism of Israel is very much a part of the agenda of some of the people behind the campaign, with the British establishment (not just its Jewish part) united in support of Israel in the same way as are the political establishments of all the other Western countries. Consider, for example, this extraordinary article by Andrew Feldman in The Evening Standard, a newspaper edited by former Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron’s friend and former Chancellor George Osborne, which contains this passage:
Anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are the same thing. They are two sides of the same coin. Anti-Zionism is the belief that the state of Israel should not exist. That it should be dismantled. This is not the same as saying, quite legitimately, that you disagree with the policies of the current or any other Israeli government; or calling for the reversal of the settlement programme in the West Bank; or demanding a return to earlier borders and the creation of a two-state solution.
Some historical context is important here. Two thousand years ago, at the end of a long and bloody revolt, the Temple was destroyed and the Jewish people were dispersed far and wide, across the Roman Empire and beyond. They settled in many places. Some made them welcome for a time. Others less so. Jewish people lived in a constant state of trepidation. Periods of peace and prosperity punctuated by pogroms, inquisition and expulsion.
In Europe, the Holocaust was the crescendo of centuries of rumbling antipathy. Jews sought to escape the horror but the numbers who found refuge were pathetically small. Even the UK only accepted 70,000 Jewish refugees before the Second World War and 10,000 during it.
Quite simply, there was nowhere for them to go, so six million people perished out of a total global Jewish population of 17 million.
Finally, after this destruction, the world decided that enough was enough. The Jewish people needed their own place to go when things went wrong. And the ancient homeland was chosen. It was to be shared with the Palestinians on lines established by a United Nations resolution in 1948.
This was not the only work for the cartographers after the Second World War. The demise of empire, the calls for national determination and the need for pragmatic solutions brought about the creation of new states in Europe, Africa, the Indian subcontinent and elsewhere in the Middle East. Lines were drawn on maps. Sometimes they respected geographical, religious and tribal boundaries; sometimes they did not. Everyone was doing the best they could to make sense of the cataclysmic events of the previous decades.
The State of Israel served its purpose. A national homeland for the Jewish people existing alongside the Jewish communities that continued to live around the world. And when things did not go well for some of those communities — in Russia, Iraq, Morocco and elsewhere — it was a place of sanctuary. It accepted refugees in huge numbers without question.
Note that the Palestinians are barely mentioned in the whole article, which claims that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism and does so by linking anti-Zionism to the whole history of anti-Semitism in the West, culminating in the Nazis and the Holocaust.
Needless to say, though Feldman appears to admit that it is legitimate to criticize Israel, he makes no criticisms of Israel anywhere in his article. In practice, on the basis of his article, it is difficult to imagine what criticism of Israeli policy toward the Palestinians Feldman would not define as anti-Semitic.
Having said this, it is important to retain perspective. Even though the Labour Party changed its anti-Semitism definition, that will not end criticism of Israel within the Labour Party or in British society. Corbyn himself will not change his views, nor will other supporters of the Palestinian struggle within the Labour Party or in British society.
Ultimately, what is causing the growing criticism of Israel in Britain as elsewhere are Israeli policies, and attempts to silence criticism of those policies by conjuring up the specter of anti-Semitism or by resorting to purges and inquisitions that can only, in the end, threaten to provoke a backlash.
How the Anti-Corbyn Campaign Is Like Russia-gate
The anti-Semitism campaign against Corbyn in Britain bears more than a passing resemblance to the Russia-gate scandal in the United States.
Controversial BBC graphic seeking to link Corbyn to Russia. (BBC)
In both countries, the establishment has been shocked by popular insurgencies on the right and left and the rise of a seeming outsider: Corbyn in Britain, and Trump (with far less cause) in the U.S. In both countries, this has provoked a shrill establishment campaign against the outsider. In both countries, the allegations which form the basis of the campaign—of anti-Semitism in the case of Corbyn, of being an agent of the Russians in the case of Trump—are to anyone with even a basic grasp of reality utterly fantastic. In neither country does the sheer absurdity of the allegations seem to matter for those who have invested in the campaign. Instead, the political class in both countries pretends to believe them, while the media has embraced them. A media effort has been made to link Corbyn to Russia too.
In both countries, interested outside powers are involved in the campaigns— Israel in the case of the anti-Semitism campaign against Corbyn in Britain, Britain and some other U.S. European allies in the Russia-gate scandal against Trump in the U.S. But the origins of both campaigns are domestic.
In both Britain and the U.S., the core electoral base of both Corbyn and Trump remains unmoved by the hysteria and the swirl of allegations, but in the meantime, real damage to the political system is being done. Both countries are unable to formulate rational foreign policies, whether with respect to the situation in the Middle East in the case of Britain, or with respect to relations with Russia in the case of the U.S.
Corbyn and the movement he leads have far deeper roots within British society than Trump does in the U.S. There has been a continuous tradition of political radicalism in Britain going back to the period of the French Revolution. Corbyn stands squarely within that tradition, a fact which is perhaps better understood in Britain than it is outside it. That tradition for the moment is rising in the case of younger Britains.
That, of course, is why, against all expectations, Corbyn, was elected leader of the Labour Party, and why, again contrary to all expectations, he increased the Labour’s share of the vote so dramatically in the June 2017 general election.
That is reason for the intensity of the campaign against him, but it also explains why he has been able to withstand it up to now. The shape of British politics in the future will be determined by whether or not he is able to continue to do so.
Alexander Mercouris is a political commentator and editor of The Duran.
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a good article. What the writer leaves out is that the fear of Corbyn is driven by the rich, who under him might have to pay enough taxes for the less well off to have decent health care and education, and for the prisons to be properly staffed. Etc. Corbyn believes, quite sincerely, in the importance of public services, and he is right to do so. He is a bit less “wild” than he was in the 70s, when I was in the same Labour ward as him; but even then he was hard-working, disciplined and genuine. I don’t understand why people are scared of socialism which, after all, is simply about care for all people, not competition to grab the most material stuff (see Kapek’s “Insect Play” for a great version of this way of being.)
Good article. Jeremy Corbyn is a good man. The Labour Party must win the next election or we are all
doomed. He cares about the people not the money, or war against innocent people around the world,
which the Tories along with the USA and Israel want to destroy for their despicable never ending greed.
The (2) men accused by U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May of carrying out the attempted murder of Yulia and Sergei Skripal, Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, have been interviewed publicly (in extreme contrast to the Skripals) and refuted her assertions. Theresa May now has the ball in her court, where her ability, or lack thereof, to provide the world’s people with concrete evidence will determine the continuance or ending of her political life.
***
Jeremy Corbyn can end this ridiculous public relations campaign against him very easily, – by uttering the following (4) simple words to Prime Minister Theresa May regarding the Skripal incident:
“The world is waiting…”
As a co- founder of Wiki Leaks I find Corbyn’s antisemitism disgraceful
This is obviously a “joke”.
I remember a few years ago Gilad Atzmon investigating the claims that Jews in London were more likely to be victims of crime than others were. Actual figures for reported crimes showed a much lower figure for Jews than their proportion in the population. Often ordinary offences are assumed to be anti-semitic if the victim happens to be Jewish, while this is not assumed for other groups. Muslims, Black people, Roma and others stigmatised,quoted by Finkelstein make this clear.
You must have hunted hard for it, and found it where no non-Jew can see it.
have you got any examples of it?
Very good Thank you.
And an elaboration, re: ” That terrifying prospect—of a radical socialist in 10, Downing Street—is one which must be averted at all costs. ” See, to be specific, the British TV movie (there may actually be 2, but I only saw one) called “A Very British Coup.” The plans have already been made, and put on TV, just in case it actually happens.
Excellent article incisive and clear, the first honest and balanced account l have read. Paints the situation as it really is.
No More Nuclear Weapons
Here is a free book on Nuclear Weapons & why we need to Ban Nuclear Weapons.
Only Evil Nations threaten life on Mother Earth with Nuclear Weapons.
https://sun.iwu.edu/~rwilson/nuclearwar-book.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaTvLcO2W0Y
The neoconservative world view has worked its way up the collective memory ladder. Now it is established “common sense” narrative in the UK and US. Neoconservativism In A Nutshell
APAC and powerful Jews did not want Sanders either.
NY democrats smear Progressive Cynthia Nixon with anti Semitic lies
https://youtu.be/mkM9ih-ZwzQ
Jeremy Corbyn is not a anti-Semite, he is not a racist. He has empathy for his fellow humans. He believes in telling the truth. He is a decent man. All of these qualities represent an existential threat to the establishment. They will do everything in their power to remove him. As far as politicians go he is a breath of fresh air and I sincerely hope that they will not succeed in their endeavors.
To those slandering Jeremy Corbyn: “Have You Left No Sense of Decency?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJHsur3HqcI&t=1h20m6s
Mercouris again demonstrates his tremendous analytical talents in this truly comprehensive and, IMO, bang-on, assessment of the Corbyn ‘is an anti-Semite’ trope. Perhaps the linkage, hinted at but not stated outright, between the threats posed to the Atlantacist NeoLiberalCon worldview & agenda posed by Corbyn (and to a far lesser extent, despite the ‘#resistance’ hysteria regarding Trump), could have been emphasized, but it’s also there.
Mercouris does so belong on this website!!
“Mercouris again demonstrates his tremendous analytical talents in this truly comprehensive and, IMO, bang-on, assessment of the Corbyn ‘is an anti-Semite’ trope.”
So true!
Mercouris has been one of my faves since he first came to my attention with his commentaries on Cross Talk.
D’accord…
Since Zionism does not = Judaism
anti-Zionism is not anti-Jewish
never was
what is it then?
anti-colonialism
clear and simple!
Remember the words of Catholic, Democratic Party hack,Delaware (secrecy, money laundering) Zionist Joseph Biden
“You don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist”!!!
I couldn’t agree with you more, Mike. Politics is nothing but scandal-mongering, newspapers have become slander and scandal sheets. The age of Trump has intensified it. Something is going to come crashing down. Earth, interestingly, is having many, many earthquakes, one very deep on 9/7 an 8.0. Change is coming.
Don,t worry about it, its only the establishment, and everywhere, the establishment are failing, ordinary peolle are not buying it, we all know Corbyn is being smeared again, what the establishment should of done is employ the antisemitism smear earlier, before the public became used to the smears, people just don,t believe them anymore.
Politics now has degenerated into baseless name calling. Antisemitism is just a stick to beat one’s enemies with. The real issues in our world disappear in the fog of grade school taunting and false rumors.
The Israel lobby is most probably involved in the smear campaign on Corbyn, the lobby is organized in the UK although maybe not as tightly as in the US.
It’s pretty simple folks: the Zionist power configuration cannot countenance for even a second a head of a major state who’s critical of the racist, paranoid, hegemonic and supremacist Israeli project and who speaks out in favor of Palestinian human rights and against the grotesque treatment the Israeli Defense [sic] Forces carryout daily and the brutal land grabs the Jewish state orchestrates on a routine basis.
The smears, attacks and mockery against the great Jeremy Corban will be relentless; they will persist until his dying breath, they will follow him to his grave, they will dot his obituary.
For further reading:
“Zionism, Militarism and the Decline of US Power” by James Petras
“Wandering Who?” by Gilad Atzmon
“Host and the Parasite” by Greg Felton
“They Dare to Speak Out’ by Paul Findley
“Against our better Judgement” by Alison Weir
and a few other works I’m forgetting at the moment
Important article. However, in order to bring some order in any discussion om “anti-semitism”, please note that this term is quite obsolete and should be generally avoided. Better to say “hatred of yews” or something similar. As noted in the article, Zionists in Israel always equal criticism of the State of Israel with “anti-semitism” but they cannot really do the same if you speak of “hatred of yews”. Of course it’s OK to criticise Israel’s zionist policies without hating yews as a group of people.
The author writes: “It is worth pointing out, however, that the criticisms being made against Corbyn barely touch on the Palestinian question at all. Anyone looking at these criticisms for a discussion of the Palestinian issue, even one from a position sympathetic to Israel and hostile to the Palestinians, will fail to find it.”
Of course that observation is true. .
The author makes valid points but clearly the attack on Corbyn is because of his stance on Palestinians and the reason it is not mentioned in the attack on him is that it is always thus, attacks in defense of Israeli behavior are couched as anti-Semitism.
This approach is acknowledged by the majority of CN readers and writers. That is what the program to equate anti-Zionist behavior with anti-Semitism is about.
The author is correct that others who find their interests threatened find the anti-Semitism ruse as serving their interests but they would not have the media and leaders serving their interests so effectively as when their opponents are tarred with anti-Semitism.
It would be refreshing if the stratagem fails but it is a steep hill to climb. Most politicians just cave. There is a political graveyard for those who don’t.
You well-describe the wellspring of these campaigns as establishment panic. Here in the US populist and progressive sentiment is wide and deep. Yet it is difficult in the progressive community to criticize Russia-gate as baseless propaganda without being tarred as a Trump deplorable. Further, even progressive politicians find it difficult if not impossible to support the BDS movement as they are terrified of the power of AIPAC in American politics. In an astonishing attack on 1st amendment freedoms this powerful Zionist lobby has been attempting here in Massachusetts to pass legislation making it illegal with criminal penalties to either advocate or support a boycott of Israeli products due to its policies of ethnocide against Palestinians.
There is an effort throughout Western countries by officials of Israel to get laws passed making the peaceful form of protest represented by a boycott illegal.
South Africa would still be under apartheid had it not been for boycotts. They are an important tool against injustice.
And just so, there are efforts by Israel to get laws passed equating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, something that is so plainly wrong and prejudiced itself that it shouldn’t need pointing out.
Its an appalling interference in the internal affairs of other states, yet goes on with little criticism while everyone blubbers on about Putin’s supposed (and totally unproved) interference in the internal affairs of others.
Jonathan Cook is a raving anti Semite.Quoting him weakens your article.
British Jews were not fully emancipated until the 1890s, a century after the Jews of France. Of the institutions that symbolize Englishness, Jews are excluded from the monarchy and the state religion by law.
Anti Zionism is anti Semitism. Zionism completed it’s mission with the establishment of Israel in 1948. Anti Zionism is revanchism, inflated into a global passion by the hatred of Jews.
Anti Zionists posit the existence of a virtuous Arab nationalist state in “Palestine” which will eliminate the Israeli state, against the wishes of Israelis. There is no basis in reality in a virtuous Arab nationalist state. All Arab nationalist states run on state and non state violence, and population cleansing. Moreover, the Arab nationalist state in Ramallah and the Islamist state in Gaza both exclude Jews from their definition of the nation. Something that they share with all anti-Semitic states, Christian and Muslim.
The “Palestine Cause” developed during the years in which Christian anti-Semitism was global, loud, and pervasive. Having made common cause with global anti-Semitism, “The Palestine Cause” is irrevocably anti Semitic.
The cant about “reasonable criticism of Israeli policies” is a lie. Such criticism would discuss the rational motivations of Israeli settlement policy, eg. Have ever heard such a discussion? Me neither.
Corbyn is in trouble because he is attempting to make the case that when brown people are racist, and form fascist states, it is “anti colonialism.” It is not anticolonialist, it is fascism.
Sorry, but your words are inaccurate. There’s nothing anti-Semitic about criticizing the behavior of a heavily-armed state. It has nothing whatever to do with being against a religion or an ethnic identity.
You might as well say that criticizing the behavior of, say, the old USSR – and there was plenty to criticize – displayed hatred of Russians, or what we call today Russophobia.
Corbyn already had to stand election twice. He more than passed the democracy test. And he has a lifetime of being decent and respecting people, all people not just some people.
But the name-callers appear to have no respect for democratic values or history of regard for human values.
The real problem is people using the accusation as a cheap attack, a way to libel a decent man – and he is a very decent man – trying to influence a party with a small minority, and doing so regularly over a considerable period of time.
Where was all this “anti-Semitism” hiding in Tony Blair’s day?
Or even after?
It just suddenly exploded into existence under Corbyn? Like a parody of Athena suddenly erupting from the head of Zeus?
No reasonable person can believe that. It’s a bizarre notion.
No, what has changed since Blair’s day is simply this.
A leader who helped kill about a million people and destroy a society, lying continuously about what he was doing, and received the Israel Peace Prize plus many handsome sinecures for his efforts, stopped being leader.
Another man, a decent man who is fair-minded about the Middle East, as he is about many other matters, became leader.
So, all stops were pulled by interested parties in doing something about it.
He’s been attacked from the beginning. He had to win his leadership vote twice. The attacks, here or there, seem to fade a bit, then, wham!, they’re back, this recent round perhaps the worst ever.
Well, you can have whatever kind of country you like, but this way of doing things is shabby and dishonest and can produce nothing good.
Much as some of Theresa May’s incompetent efforts and unwarranted attacks, all damaging and utterly without evidence.
As a young man, I always thought of Britain as more honorable political society than the United States with its folks like Senator Joseph McCarthy or FBI Director J Edgar Hoover or blood-drenched liar, Lyndon Johnson.
But either I was naive or Britain has changed, and changed greatly for the worse
Corbyn is not liked for precisely the reason I stated previously, he’s a “Leftie,” and the Left is loathed in Israel precisely because they are invariably people who speak to human and democratic rights, something not well received in Israel which holds somewhere around 5 million people with no hopes and no rights against their will, and it has done so for half a century.
You can go on all you want to about “anti-Zionism” and “virtuous Palestine” but it has nothing to do – absolutely nothing – with millions of people’s concerns over what we see today in Israel. The people of Gaza are treated every bit as terribly by the state of Israel as the Rohingya people are by Burma.
Saying that is devoid of attitudes towards any religion or ethnicity. It is simple matter of humanity and conscience.
Absolutely spot on !
Well said indeed
this is the last word on this subject, along with the lead article itself.
So true. I could not even begin to reply to the comment, and you have done a great job which should not have been needed if the person Lenihan did any research and had an open mind!!
…and now, direct from the Hasbara factory in Tel Aviv…
“Jews are excluded from the monarchy and the state religion by law.”
The monarchy is certain anachronistic, but then again so is religion. The monarch is head of the Church of England, which is a protestant sect. Catholics are similarly excluded from the monarchy and the state religion, as are other branches of religion. But anyone can convert to the Church of England so the latter part of your claim is false. As for the former, everyone is excluded from the monarchy unless you came out first from the vagina of the reigning monarch or the wife of the reining monarch or next in line. Monarchy should be abolished, along with religion in public life or politics. What you choose to believe or not believe should be a private matter and not inflicted on anyone else.
The rest of your rant is hasbara boilerplate.
It might aid understanding to examine the explanation often given why opposition to the Israeli government is supposed to equal anti-semitism. The argument dissembles when subjected to historical examination. Here’s a succinct statement of the argument, as given by David Horowitz, an editor with the Israeli Times: [1]
“To endorse a platform that demands the elimination of the world’s only Jewish state, which was revived in 1948 on the basis of a UN vote a year earlier, is anti-Semitism of the first order, prejudice against Jews. To advocate that the Jewish nation, uniquely, does not have any right to sovereignty, that its national movement should be eradicated — that’s discrimination and incitement. To assert that the Jewish people has no right to sovereignty in the only place on earth where it has ever been sovereign, never wanted to leave and always sought to return; to demand, that is, not that Israel live peaceably alongside a Palestinian state, but that it be fully replaced by a Palestinian state — this is unconscionable.”
To begin with, it is inaccurate to say that Israel “was revived in 1948 on the basis of a UN vote a year earlier[.]” That U.N. vote was on the Palestine Partition Plan, which envisioned two nations in the Mandate Palestine Territory. But that Plan, the genesis of the so-called two-state solution, was only a General Assembly recommendation for action to be taken by the Security Council. And the Security Council never acted upon it, largely because of unanimous Arab nation objections that it violated the right of Palestinian self-determination included in the U.N. Charter, equally applicable to all Mandate Territories and former colonies. [2]
That right of self-determination belongs collectively to all residents of the former Mandate Territory of Palestine, not just to a Jewish subset occupying part of that Territory. And General Assembly Resolution 1541(XV) [3] makes it plain that the self-determination the residents of the former Mandate Territory are entitled to is to be arrived at by an “informed and democratic” process applying principles of equal rights. See Principles annexed to the Resolution. Some seventy years after criminal gangs organized as paramilitary forces illegally seized part of the Palestinian Territory, the residents of that former Territory are still denied their immutable right to vote on their form of government.
The two-state solution is nothing but a bad-faith smoke screen deployed to obscure the illegality of the Israeli State. Accordingly, it is the insistence on a criminally-imposed Zionist State in any part of Palestine that it is unconscionable. It denies all residents of the Mandate Territory — regardless of religion or ethnicity — their right to self-determination of their form of government.
It is far from “anti-semitism” to oppose the existence of the racist and apartheid Israeli government. Rather, it is a pro-democracy viewpoint that embraces the equality of all human beings.
There are many places where religious or ethnic communities have no independent sovereignty, the United States of America being an example. The argument that Jews must have exclusive sovereignty in the Palestine Territory as a matter of right is far from compelling; in fact it is false as a matter of law.
———-
[1] David Horovitz, Corbyn, Who Sought Israel’s Demise, Is an Anti-Semite. Labour Must Kick Him Out, The Times of Israel (circa 22 August 2018). https://www.timesofisrael.com/corbyn-who-sought-israels-demise-is-an-anti-semite-labour-must-kick-him-out/
[2] “Members of the United Nations which have or assume responsibilities for the administration of territories whose peoples have not yet attained a full measure of self-government recognize the principle that the interests of the inhabitants of these territories are paramount, and accept as a sacred trust the obligation to promote to the utmost, within the system of international peace and security established by the present Charter, the well-being of the inhabitants of these territories, and, to this end:
“a. to ensure, with due respect for the culture of the peoples concerned, their political, economic, social, and educational advancement, their just treatment, and their protection against abuses;
“b. to develop self-government, to take due account of the political aspirations of the peoples, and to assist them in the progressive development of their free political institutions, according to the particular circumstances of each territory and its peoples and their varying stages of advancement[.]”
U.N. Charter, Article 73, http://www.un.org/en/sections/un-charter/un-charter-full-text/
[3] Id., UNGA Resolution A/RES/1541(XV): Principles Which Should Guide Members in Determining Whether Or Nor An Obligation Exists to Transmit the Information Called for under Article 73e of the Charter (1960), http://repository.un.org/bitstream/handle/11176/204775/A_RES_1541%28XV%29-EN.pdf?sequence=3&isAllowed=y
Israel was born of terrorism, founded by terrorists, governed by terrorists from the get-go, ripped out of the belly of Palestine by terrorist midwives. Terrorist activity in Palestine started long before WW2. The sooner all apologists for Israel get real about their history the better off we all will be.
It is a supreme irony that the modern “terrorism” meme actually saw the light of day in 1979 in Israel at a conference held in memory of Yonathan Netanyahu. Who the hell are the Israelis to squawk “terrorist!” at others when they themselves are the defining principle?
What a ranting pile of disinformation.
Packed with nonsensical theoreticals and invalid syllogisms.
Quite the opposite from the clear thinking and analysis provided by Alexander Mercouris.
This comment ended up in the wrong place.
Sorry. It is meant as a comment on Jon Lenihans rant, above.
I was agreeing with almost everything until I came upon this: “However, it is a mistake to see the campaign against Corbyn as principally Israeli inspired.”
Netanyahu himself has more than once directly entered this matter of internal British affairs.
He spoke out very bluntly directly attributing things to Corbyn, things about which Netanyahu was completely incorrect, as so often happens with this hot-headed ideologue.
So has the leader of Israel’s Labour Party, writing a letter that was published, directly meddling in Britain’s internal political affairs.
Others too have spoken from Israel.
Just totally inappropriate. Talk about Putin, who would never do such crass public acts of interference.
The author talks about Corbyn’s anti-colonialism, and that is right, but he misses the elephant in the room.
Israel’s establishment absolutely hates liberals and “Lefties.”
Why?
Because by their very nature, they criticize abuse of human and democratic rights.
Israel’s government can’t stand that.
It’s interesting the way things sometimes get turned on their heads in history.
Wholeheartedly agree.
Israel’s interference has been exposed and the media have gone into lockdown about it and the disaterous May has refused to take action.
The Conservative and Labour friends of Israel groups have been bought and paid for.
If it wasn’t for all this anti-Semitism Jewish nonsense it would be something else. Corbyn is getting dangerously close to winning the election whenever it comes and this is worrying the ‘elite’ deep state gangsters as well as the US deep state brigade. Maybe we can take heart in the election of Trump which was due largely to the endless hourly media exposure he got for free. The more we hear about Corbyn and the anti Jewish stuff the more we see him and hear his message. By elevating Mr Corbyn to the fore front of the news, the media might be doing Corbyn a favour and us as well.
Too bad the U.S. Constitution precludes it, but I’d try to recruit Corbyn to run for president of this madhouse if the Brits don’t want him around. I’d let him form a “third party,” he could even call it the Labor Party, as it is working people in whose interests he would act, not the plutocrats. Working folks in America desperately need a genuine champion, not the false prophets like the Clintons or Obama. The Democratic Party has already shown it will sabotage any candidate who does not sell out to Wall Street. Ask Bernie about how he was shafted, and then ask him why he rolled over instead of defying them. Even the black civil rights heroes of legend (that’s you John Lewis) have sold out to the establishment. Crazy Maxine Waters has no clue how she plays into the hands of the insider elites with her over-the-top rhetoric. There is NOBODY making himself or herself available to buck that system. They only rush to sell out to it. So straightforward since the Supremes monetized the election process.
Yes, Realist, Corbyn would be good put Putin would be better !! LOL
Excellent article, detailed and spot on.
Alexander Mercouris’s argument that the “anti-semitism” mud-slinging against Corbyn is primarily about domestic British power structures, and “has very little to do with the situation in the Middle East” (and even less so with actual anti-semitism) seems to be well taken, and I’m better informed for having read it.
Nevertheless, Britons devoted to Israel may be doing lasting harm to their cause by being so closely associated with such a highly partisan campaign: it is harder to maintain the visage that being reflexively supportive of Israel’s policies is a fundamentally British, transpartisan position when Zionist advocates are so clearly mobilized against one of the two major political parties (or at least the rising faction within it).
In the U.S., I think that Israel itself is making the same strategic error: Netanyahu’s open hostility to Obama, and now the joined-at-the-hip relationship with the hyper-divisive Trump administration, has worked out for Israel so far, but eventually it will pay the price for being so tightly bound to one – and only one – of the two parties.
The Dems and the Repubs are both inextricably bound to the forces of empire and capital, and it has long seemed that Israel is an integral, eternal part of the suite of unquestionably bipartisan priorities. However, it is possible that Netanyahu’s heedlessness may eventually shift Israel into the limited category of issues where the two parties manifest enough differences to preserve the illusion of political competition, with a corresponding loosening of Israel’s hammerlock on U.S. policy.
Attacks, fair or foul, from his political opponents are to be expected. It is the highly partisan, and mostly foul, role played by the supposed neutral/objective media which really illuminates the situation.
The POLARISATION, obvious most in UK and US, is actually occurring throughout the “west”. It can be described as civil war or potentially as world war. We should look at what the real fundamental division actually is. Each of us will have a different view of this fundamental divide – Jew/non Jew, Black/White, East/West, Right/Left, Feminine/Masculine – It may be worth noting that this clear polarisation is evident predominantly in the West, and not restricted to multi cultural or multi racial societies.
Accusing Corbyn of antisemitism is just a dirty political lie. End of story. Politicians are all first and foremost liars. To believe them about anything is to be a simpleton. To get your vision of reality through listening to these malignant clowns is to live in delusion.
Another bogus anti-Semitism campaign, this one in Canada.
“Canadian politicians lead unprecedented smear campaign against advocate for Palestinian rights”
https://mondoweiss.net/2018/09/politicians-unprecedented-palestinian/
This Article is really long and while I appreciate its thoroughness the authors indulgence in the fantasies of good intentions during the formation of Israel not to mention his speculations about to British anti-Semitism compared to anti-socialism just seems absurd on the face of it, more or less good writing him but again the author is a slave to a certain narrative that was mostly debunked 50 years ago.
Other than the quoted excerpt by Andrew Feldman, which is clearly included as representative of the problem being addressed here, where in this piece does Alexander Mercouris “indulge[ ] in the fantasies of good intentions during the formation of Israel”?
To be clear I am not saying the author is an apologist for the nakba I’m simply saying the authors seems to be offering a narrative of what were our Lord and Master’s good intentions, on the other hand the holding up of the Labour Party, the grand controlled opposition of of the backside licking Commies I find a bit laughable, Half of these turds denounced Orwell in his time the other half really did invent the brave New World we find ourselves in, if anyone deserves the World we’re currently living in, its the English. On the other hand Mercouris does do a relatively good job of rehashing British subservience to Semitic right think in their imperialist and face-saving way. Then again, I take exception to the authors View that the decline of British racism was a bad thing on the BBC, Vile comedy was probably the best thing the British ever invented, it is this Nancy boy ass kissing that makes me hate them, that and all the imperialism, listen man she doesn’t mind the cursing is the beating she don’t need! Noble words shouted allowed by that Great pop band Squeeze. Britain is sick man and this author missed it.
Mercouris is very good and judicious. This article is a model of good journalism. I often wonder what he makes of his colleagues at The Duran many of whom are adolescent neo-liberals of the sort who call themselves libertarian, as if liberty had anything to do with the powerful laughing at the vulnerable.
Absurd indeed. Does all this not beg the question? Is not using a false accusation of racism, based on its inherent potential to inflame sentiments, itself a form of racism? I recently watched a “Lunch Alert” program sponsored by former Clinton operative turned Republican Dick Morris. He referred to Palestinians as, “those horrible people”, and touted the benefits of completely “defeating” them, whatever that means. Imagine if some American political operative made a similar comment about the African American community in Baltimore or Philadelphia. Israel’s policies are crystallizing sentiments against them, and among those sentiments are those which really and truly constitute anti-Semitism. I note that the comments section on Zerohedge has recently disappeared. While I had tears in my eyes from laughing at the comments under the article about the “front-hole”, I also noted that comments under other articles were rife with overtly anti-Semitic rhetoric. I imagine that those comments – and they were frankly epidemic – caused the comment section to be closed. Unfortunately, that won’t make such sentiments disappear. Hypocrisy fans the flames of such attitudes, and adding fuel to the fire with false accusations is tantamount to “crying wolf”.
England is a completely immoral state, just like the US. All their pretenses of righteousness, democracy, etc. are simply lies to hide who they really are. Their government and their society is corrupt through and through. For them to accuse others of immorality is laughable, but predictable.
If you want a lesson in the real England today that will leave you fuming at the idiocy of the British Nation & it’s status as a Third World Country with it’s bankrupt, Tory, elite establishment, get out a movie called “I, Daniel Blake” by director Ken Loach? It a damning edictment of this crappy Island Nation from the Nation, Margaret Thatcher, that created the poisonous, obnoxious & disgraceful Neoliberal, Privitisation agenda & Economic Policies that has devastated working people’s lives, not only in England but on a Worldwide scale! England has alot to answer for, and Jeremy Corbyn is attempting to readdress the damage of 40 yrs of Thatcherism & the damage this woman did to this Nation!
Hear hear
Any sane Briton who sees this madness for what it is will either fight back or flee to a marginally saner place. In the latter case, how bad is the situation in New Zealand by comparison?
Thatcher was against German reunification. Enough said.
Mike I agree our government in the UK is a rancid sewer pit of snakes and corruption. However, whilst the upper echelons of society are friends of the snake pit dwellers, for the most part the rest of us are just ordinary folk trying to scratch a living and getting along.
Amen John. It is the same the world over. I am a retired merchant seaman, and I have met and worked with all different folks. Most people are good, they are just powerless to stop the evil, and are too busy trying to scratch a living to get involved in fighting the evil that runs our governments, and they are subjected to endless propaganda that they fall for to various degrees.
All Jews should pay attention to the extreme measures being taken to take down opposition to the Israeli position, and think of the ultimate backlash that will result from this. It is just a matter of time until the public gets fed up with this Israeli nonsense, and then all hell will break loose on the Jewish community. Once again all Jews will suffer for the actions of the view Bolsheviks who screwed the world over.
England and the U.S. Establishments are freaking out about all this anti-Establishment noise. Down with any outsider, the system has spoken. Too bad for the Establishment that they can’t provide for their populations, because making bombs is much more profitable. Profits is what’s killing the Western hegemon’s and yet the stupid elites ignore the masses to their own demise.
I’m an American Jew and a Corbyn fan. I also think that the unjustified accusations of anti-Semitism against him will end up hurting Jews and Israel more than they’ll hurt Corbyn. Why make up fictitious anti-Semitism when there’s so much of the real thing?
Leave the Bolsheviks out of this. The ”Jewish Bolshevik” canard was used as a prop by people who already had criminal intentions and racist views. And incidentally, it was used not just against the Jews, but especially against the Russians, whom German nationalists already considered an inferior-grade people.
The Jewish Bolsheviks virtually all opposed Stalin and were virtually all murdered in the Purge years.