24 aug 2018
It is Israel and its supporters who conflate Israel with all Jews, and then claim that condemning Israel, its laws, policies, actions and ideology amounts to condemning the Jewish people.
See Li CrowdSparkMuch of the ongoing acrimonious and toxic debate in Britain about allegations of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party centers on expressions of opposition to Israeli laws, policies, ideologies, actions and declarations.
No thinking person, for example, is expected to believe that descriptions of Jews as engaging in a “worldwide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization,” as Winston Churchill accused “international Jews” of doing in the Sunday Herald in 1920, are not anti-Semitic.
Similarly no thinking person is expected to believe that statements describing the immigration of East European Jews to Britain as causing “undoubted evils,” as Lord Arthur Balfour warned in 1905, are not anti-Semitic (both Churchill and Balfour were key and powerful supporters of the Zionist movement).
The ongoing fight in Britain is fundamentally not over those few marginal racists who still believe in some Jewish conspiracy to take over the world, but over whether labeling Israel as a colonial-settler state is anti-Semitic, or whether anti-colonial resistance to Israeli settler-colonialism and racist laws constitutes anti-Semitism, or whether questioning the legal and institutional religious, racial and colonial privileges accorded to Israeli Jews over the indigenous Palestinians constitutes anti-Semitism.
This is a most perplexing debate for any political observer, as it is Israel that claims to be “the Jewish state,” and that it represents the Jews of the world, even though a majority of them are not Israeli citizens.
Having it both waysThe contradiction that informs this British debate (or its French, German or US equivalents) is that the pro-Israel side is the side that invites people to believe, alongside Israel’s leaders and ideologues, that Israeli actions are in fact Jewish actions, and that Israel represents the Jewish people.
Note that the Zionist movement chose to name its state “Israel,” which is the name accorded by the Torah to Jacob, wherein the children of Israel, or Bnei Yisrael, become the Jewish people. Thus “Israel” in fact meant and means “the Jewish people.”
In naming its state “the Jewish people,” the Zionist movement conflated and conflates its colonial project with all Jews, even when the majority of world Jewry did not support the movement and continues to refuse to live in, and become citizens of, Israel.
Therefore, it is imperative to emphasize that it is Israel and its supporters who conflate Israel with all Jews, and then claim that condemning Israel, its laws, policies, actions and ideology amounts to condemning the Jewish people. What is elided is that the most anti-Semitic of claims in this debate are in fact those precise claims advanced by the Israeli government and its British supporters.
The majority of those in Britain and outside it who condemn Israeli laws, policies and actions, condemn Israel’s colonial-settler policies and actions and its dozens of racist discriminatory laws – including the Jewish “nation-state” law passed only last month – and not its Jewishness.
However, the nation-state law reaffirms yet again that Israel is “the national home of the Jewish people” and not of Israeli citizens of all ethnicities and religions, and that “The state views the development of Jewish settlement as a national value and will act to encourage and promote its establishment and consolidation.”
Supporters of Israel cannot have it both ways: They cannot claim that the Zionist movement has a right to colonize the land of the Palestinians in the name of Jews, and that the movement has the right to privilege Jews and to oppress and discriminate against the Palestinian people in the name of Jewish people, and that it has the right to pass racist laws in the name of Jews, and that it has a right to name its state “the Jewish people” for whom it speaks, and then after all that advance the claim that those who condemn Israel are condemning Jews.
A proper definition
Ironically, it is the majority of Israel’s critics, in contrast to the majority of its supporters, who reject Israeli claims that Israel represents all Jews and insist that Israeli racist laws and colonial policies represent the Israeli government and not the Jewish people. When Palestinians resist Israeli colonialism and racism, they are not resisting the “Jewish” character of Israel but its racist and colonial nature.
Critics of Israel in Britain and elsewhere must assiduously and vociferously condemn Israel’s leadership and its supporters in Britain and elsewhere for pushing this anti-Semitic line, at the same time as these critics condemn Israeli settler-colonialism and racist laws and practices.
If there should be a definition of anti-Semitism to be adopted by the Labour Party (or any other political party or institution) in Britain today, it should include the condemnation of anti-Semitic and colonial expressions such as: “Israel is the Jewish state,” or “Israel is the state of the Jewish people” or Israel “speaks for Jews,” or colonizing the land of the Palestinians is a “Jewish value.”
It is these anti-Semitic claims that tarnish Jewish communities around the world, and not opposition to Israeli colonialism and racism.
Joseph Massad is professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History at Columbia University in New York. His most recent book is Islam in Liberalism (University of Chicago Press, 2015).
See Li CrowdSparkMuch of the ongoing acrimonious and toxic debate in Britain about allegations of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party centers on expressions of opposition to Israeli laws, policies, ideologies, actions and declarations.
No thinking person, for example, is expected to believe that descriptions of Jews as engaging in a “worldwide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization,” as Winston Churchill accused “international Jews” of doing in the Sunday Herald in 1920, are not anti-Semitic.
Similarly no thinking person is expected to believe that statements describing the immigration of East European Jews to Britain as causing “undoubted evils,” as Lord Arthur Balfour warned in 1905, are not anti-Semitic (both Churchill and Balfour were key and powerful supporters of the Zionist movement).
The ongoing fight in Britain is fundamentally not over those few marginal racists who still believe in some Jewish conspiracy to take over the world, but over whether labeling Israel as a colonial-settler state is anti-Semitic, or whether anti-colonial resistance to Israeli settler-colonialism and racist laws constitutes anti-Semitism, or whether questioning the legal and institutional religious, racial and colonial privileges accorded to Israeli Jews over the indigenous Palestinians constitutes anti-Semitism.
This is a most perplexing debate for any political observer, as it is Israel that claims to be “the Jewish state,” and that it represents the Jews of the world, even though a majority of them are not Israeli citizens.
Having it both waysThe contradiction that informs this British debate (or its French, German or US equivalents) is that the pro-Israel side is the side that invites people to believe, alongside Israel’s leaders and ideologues, that Israeli actions are in fact Jewish actions, and that Israel represents the Jewish people.
Note that the Zionist movement chose to name its state “Israel,” which is the name accorded by the Torah to Jacob, wherein the children of Israel, or Bnei Yisrael, become the Jewish people. Thus “Israel” in fact meant and means “the Jewish people.”
In naming its state “the Jewish people,” the Zionist movement conflated and conflates its colonial project with all Jews, even when the majority of world Jewry did not support the movement and continues to refuse to live in, and become citizens of, Israel.
Therefore, it is imperative to emphasize that it is Israel and its supporters who conflate Israel with all Jews, and then claim that condemning Israel, its laws, policies, actions and ideology amounts to condemning the Jewish people. What is elided is that the most anti-Semitic of claims in this debate are in fact those precise claims advanced by the Israeli government and its British supporters.
The majority of those in Britain and outside it who condemn Israeli laws, policies and actions, condemn Israel’s colonial-settler policies and actions and its dozens of racist discriminatory laws – including the Jewish “nation-state” law passed only last month – and not its Jewishness.
However, the nation-state law reaffirms yet again that Israel is “the national home of the Jewish people” and not of Israeli citizens of all ethnicities and religions, and that “The state views the development of Jewish settlement as a national value and will act to encourage and promote its establishment and consolidation.”
Supporters of Israel cannot have it both ways: They cannot claim that the Zionist movement has a right to colonize the land of the Palestinians in the name of Jews, and that the movement has the right to privilege Jews and to oppress and discriminate against the Palestinian people in the name of Jewish people, and that it has the right to pass racist laws in the name of Jews, and that it has a right to name its state “the Jewish people” for whom it speaks, and then after all that advance the claim that those who condemn Israel are condemning Jews.
A proper definition
Ironically, it is the majority of Israel’s critics, in contrast to the majority of its supporters, who reject Israeli claims that Israel represents all Jews and insist that Israeli racist laws and colonial policies represent the Israeli government and not the Jewish people. When Palestinians resist Israeli colonialism and racism, they are not resisting the “Jewish” character of Israel but its racist and colonial nature.
Critics of Israel in Britain and elsewhere must assiduously and vociferously condemn Israel’s leadership and its supporters in Britain and elsewhere for pushing this anti-Semitic line, at the same time as these critics condemn Israeli settler-colonialism and racist laws and practices.
If there should be a definition of anti-Semitism to be adopted by the Labour Party (or any other political party or institution) in Britain today, it should include the condemnation of anti-Semitic and colonial expressions such as: “Israel is the Jewish state,” or “Israel is the state of the Jewish people” or Israel “speaks for Jews,” or colonizing the land of the Palestinians is a “Jewish value.”
It is these anti-Semitic claims that tarnish Jewish communities around the world, and not opposition to Israeli colonialism and racism.
Joseph Massad is professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History at Columbia University in New York. His most recent book is Islam in Liberalism (University of Chicago Press, 2015).
20 aug 2018
Left-wing candiate for Labour’s ruling body Huda Elmi wrote that IHRA’s defintion of anti-Semitism will raise tensions in Labour. (Twitter)
While the Israeli campaign of psychological warfare against Labour continues, the UK opposition party’s membership is increasingly disquieted by their leaders’ apparent willingness to capitulate.
The latest wave of the “Labour anti-Semitism crisis” fabrication is aimed at attempting to coerce the party into adopting the Israeli government’s preferred definition of anti-Semitism.
But Palestine solidarity activists have described the IHRA “working definition” as a flawed document, which bans key criticisms of Israeli state racism.
On Friday, 84 Black, Asian, Arab and other minority groups in the UK released an unprecedented open letter condemning the IHRA definition as part of the “silencing” of Palestinian colonial history and “a dangerous breach of our own rights, and of the wider British public.”
Antony Lerman, the founder of the Institute for Jewish Policy research, says the IHRA definition “was proposed deliberately to ‘equate criticisms of Israel with hatred of Jews.’” Lerman has written a concise history of how the document was devised and promoted by the Israeli government and its affiliated lobby groups.
Yet recent reports indicate that the party’s ruling national executive committee (NEC) is set to do a U-turn on its new code of conduct against anti-Semitism.
The controversial IHRA “working definition” document was already mostly adopted into the new code in July.
But one of the “examples” of anti-Semitism attached to the document, which forbids criticizing Israel as “a racist endeavor,” was rejected by the NEC on grounds of legitimate free speech.
Amid all this, the party grassroots have begun campaigning against Israeli-government-backed attempts to change Labour’s rulebook.
Activists have established a “Back the Code” website with instructions on how to campaign against the IHRA changes and join a Twitterstorm at 7pm on Monday night by tweeting using the #backneccode hashtag.
Israeli interference
And more questions are being raised about the role of the Israeli government in this summer’s smear campaign against Labour.
Party activists have sent leader Jeremy Corbyn and General Secretary Jennie Formby an open letter calling for an investigation.
The letter calls for them to look at “how much the Israeli government, or the government of any other foreign power, is interfering in the Labour Party.”
The open letter was sent to The Electronic Intifada by one of its authors and is currently circulating online.
Renowned Israeli anti-Zionist Moshé Machover – himself a target of the Labour Party witch hunt against falsely accused “anti-Semites” – is one of the signatories.
The letter asks why no such Labour investigation has been launched, despite Corbyn and his shadow foreign affairs minister Emily Thornberry calling for one last year after the revelation of an Israeli dirty tricks campaign by Al Jazeera.
Another open letter calling on the leadership to “resist calls to adopt all eleven examples accompanying the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism into the party’s code of conduct,” has been signed by more than 5,000 Labour members.
Left-wing group Jewish Voice for Labour has been campaigning in local parties in defense of the code as it stands, and for the NEC to “resist pressure to adopt the full list of examples attached to the IHRA definition.”
Meanwhile, a third open letter has slammed the leadership of pro-Corbyn campaign group Momentum in scathing terms, for what it characterized as a failure to stand up to “the latest iteration of the smear campaign.”
Witch hunt
In the letter, addressed to Momentum’s national coordinating group, 30 members of a local chapter in Camden, North London wrote that “if Momentum’s leadership is not prepared to stand up to the ongoing witch-hunt, it will simply create the conditions for further attacks.”
The letter was reported on by The Skwawkbox and The Electronic Intifada has spoken to one of its backers.
Under pressure, some trade union leaders – whose unions have seats on Labour’s ruling executive, the NEC – have called for Labour to adopt the definition, including all of its misleading “examples” of anti-Semitism, when it next meets at the start of September.
By way of contrast, left-wing activists and Palestine solidarity campaigners have called for the IHRA document to be dropped.
Momentum-backed candidate for NEC Huda Elmi wrote in The Independent last week that adopting the full IHRA document “will only raise tensions further” and “provide a never ending supply of rows and media stories.”
She wrote that “intense disagreement on Israel and on Zionism will continue to exist” in the party even if it adopts the IHRA document.
“We cannot contravene the right of Palestinians to freely articulate their oppression,” she continued. “Our rich history and tradition as a labour movement of standing shoulder to shoulder with Palestinians would be heavily penalized.”
After initially strongly supporting the Labour code of conduct on anti-Semitism Momentum leader Jon Lansman appeared earlier in August to be doing a U-turn.
And in a statement to The Skwakbox last week, Lansman wrote that he now supports adopting the IHRA document in full “subject to the provisions of our agreed code of conduct.”
He told the left-wing news site that he “would absolutely not support interpreting it as preventing BDS,” the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement targeting Israeli crimes against the Palestinians.
Last month Barnet council in North London was set to debate a motion which would have banned supporters of BDS from using council facilities, on the basis that BDS is allegedly “consistent with the IHRA’s guidance on the definition of anti-Semitism.”
The motion was knocked back to a committee meeting which will take place in October.
Smear campaign
Despite the smear campaign, the vast majority of the party’s members reject the “Labour anti-Semitism crisis” narrative. Polling in March showed that 77 percent of members believe it is being “deliberately exaggerated” or “hyped up” to damage Labour and Corbyn.
Likely frustrated by this, the Israeli government has begun to intervene more directly.
Last week Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted to falsely accuse Corbyn of laying a wreath “on the graves [sic] of the terrorist who perpetrated the Munich massacre” and of comparing “Israel to the Nazis.”
Corbyn hit back, saying that Netanyahu’s claims were false, and slamming Israel’s killing of Palestinian protesters in Gaza since March, as well as Israel’s new racist “nation state” law.
Corbyn tweeted that he stood in solidarity with a Palestinian-led protest for equal rights in Tel Aviv the previous weekend.
His office later complained to the UK media’s self-regulated press watchdog IPSO over misleading recent coverage by six newspapers of an old Corbyn visit to a Palestinian conference in Tunisia.
The conference took place in 2014, but the media had attempted to turn it into a smear during last year’s general election, and repeated the attempt this month.
Corbyn had taken part in a wreath laying to pay tribute to those killed in a 1985 Israeli bombing raid on the Palestine Liberation Organization’s compound in Tunis. The raid killed 60 Palestinians and Tunisians, including many civilians.
The UK’s pro-Israel organizations – in alliance with right-wing Labour MPs – have continued their relentless media assault on the party this summer.
Without a shred of credible evidence, they have defamed the party as “institutionally anti-Semitic,” and one right-wing pro-Israel MP allegedly slandered Corbyn himself as a “fucking anti-Semite and racist.”
Most hysterically of all, three pro-Israel newspapers wrote that Corbyn as prime minister would be an “existential threat to Jewish life” in the UK.
This was so egregious a slur that one of their editors publicly denounced it as “repulsive,” in an interview with left-wing news website The Canary.
Those three papers made the aim of the smear campaign clear in a joint editorial in July when it accused Labour of endorsing something it called “political anti-Semitism targeting Israel.”
Yet another reminder that the “Labour anti-Semitism crisis” smear campaign has from its beginnings in earnest in February 2016 been about Israel – and Israel only.
It has nothing to do with protecting Jews from anti-Semitism.
While the Israeli campaign of psychological warfare against Labour continues, the UK opposition party’s membership is increasingly disquieted by their leaders’ apparent willingness to capitulate.
The latest wave of the “Labour anti-Semitism crisis” fabrication is aimed at attempting to coerce the party into adopting the Israeli government’s preferred definition of anti-Semitism.
But Palestine solidarity activists have described the IHRA “working definition” as a flawed document, which bans key criticisms of Israeli state racism.
On Friday, 84 Black, Asian, Arab and other minority groups in the UK released an unprecedented open letter condemning the IHRA definition as part of the “silencing” of Palestinian colonial history and “a dangerous breach of our own rights, and of the wider British public.”
Antony Lerman, the founder of the Institute for Jewish Policy research, says the IHRA definition “was proposed deliberately to ‘equate criticisms of Israel with hatred of Jews.’” Lerman has written a concise history of how the document was devised and promoted by the Israeli government and its affiliated lobby groups.
Yet recent reports indicate that the party’s ruling national executive committee (NEC) is set to do a U-turn on its new code of conduct against anti-Semitism.
The controversial IHRA “working definition” document was already mostly adopted into the new code in July.
But one of the “examples” of anti-Semitism attached to the document, which forbids criticizing Israel as “a racist endeavor,” was rejected by the NEC on grounds of legitimate free speech.
Amid all this, the party grassroots have begun campaigning against Israeli-government-backed attempts to change Labour’s rulebook.
Activists have established a “Back the Code” website with instructions on how to campaign against the IHRA changes and join a Twitterstorm at 7pm on Monday night by tweeting using the #backneccode hashtag.
Israeli interference
And more questions are being raised about the role of the Israeli government in this summer’s smear campaign against Labour.
Party activists have sent leader Jeremy Corbyn and General Secretary Jennie Formby an open letter calling for an investigation.
The letter calls for them to look at “how much the Israeli government, or the government of any other foreign power, is interfering in the Labour Party.”
The open letter was sent to The Electronic Intifada by one of its authors and is currently circulating online.
Renowned Israeli anti-Zionist Moshé Machover – himself a target of the Labour Party witch hunt against falsely accused “anti-Semites” – is one of the signatories.
The letter asks why no such Labour investigation has been launched, despite Corbyn and his shadow foreign affairs minister Emily Thornberry calling for one last year after the revelation of an Israeli dirty tricks campaign by Al Jazeera.
Another open letter calling on the leadership to “resist calls to adopt all eleven examples accompanying the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism into the party’s code of conduct,” has been signed by more than 5,000 Labour members.
Left-wing group Jewish Voice for Labour has been campaigning in local parties in defense of the code as it stands, and for the NEC to “resist pressure to adopt the full list of examples attached to the IHRA definition.”
Meanwhile, a third open letter has slammed the leadership of pro-Corbyn campaign group Momentum in scathing terms, for what it characterized as a failure to stand up to “the latest iteration of the smear campaign.”
Witch hunt
In the letter, addressed to Momentum’s national coordinating group, 30 members of a local chapter in Camden, North London wrote that “if Momentum’s leadership is not prepared to stand up to the ongoing witch-hunt, it will simply create the conditions for further attacks.”
The letter was reported on by The Skwawkbox and The Electronic Intifada has spoken to one of its backers.
Under pressure, some trade union leaders – whose unions have seats on Labour’s ruling executive, the NEC – have called for Labour to adopt the definition, including all of its misleading “examples” of anti-Semitism, when it next meets at the start of September.
By way of contrast, left-wing activists and Palestine solidarity campaigners have called for the IHRA document to be dropped.
Momentum-backed candidate for NEC Huda Elmi wrote in The Independent last week that adopting the full IHRA document “will only raise tensions further” and “provide a never ending supply of rows and media stories.”
She wrote that “intense disagreement on Israel and on Zionism will continue to exist” in the party even if it adopts the IHRA document.
“We cannot contravene the right of Palestinians to freely articulate their oppression,” she continued. “Our rich history and tradition as a labour movement of standing shoulder to shoulder with Palestinians would be heavily penalized.”
After initially strongly supporting the Labour code of conduct on anti-Semitism Momentum leader Jon Lansman appeared earlier in August to be doing a U-turn.
And in a statement to The Skwakbox last week, Lansman wrote that he now supports adopting the IHRA document in full “subject to the provisions of our agreed code of conduct.”
He told the left-wing news site that he “would absolutely not support interpreting it as preventing BDS,” the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement targeting Israeli crimes against the Palestinians.
Last month Barnet council in North London was set to debate a motion which would have banned supporters of BDS from using council facilities, on the basis that BDS is allegedly “consistent with the IHRA’s guidance on the definition of anti-Semitism.”
The motion was knocked back to a committee meeting which will take place in October.
Smear campaign
Despite the smear campaign, the vast majority of the party’s members reject the “Labour anti-Semitism crisis” narrative. Polling in March showed that 77 percent of members believe it is being “deliberately exaggerated” or “hyped up” to damage Labour and Corbyn.
Likely frustrated by this, the Israeli government has begun to intervene more directly.
Last week Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted to falsely accuse Corbyn of laying a wreath “on the graves [sic] of the terrorist who perpetrated the Munich massacre” and of comparing “Israel to the Nazis.”
Corbyn hit back, saying that Netanyahu’s claims were false, and slamming Israel’s killing of Palestinian protesters in Gaza since March, as well as Israel’s new racist “nation state” law.
Corbyn tweeted that he stood in solidarity with a Palestinian-led protest for equal rights in Tel Aviv the previous weekend.
His office later complained to the UK media’s self-regulated press watchdog IPSO over misleading recent coverage by six newspapers of an old Corbyn visit to a Palestinian conference in Tunisia.
The conference took place in 2014, but the media had attempted to turn it into a smear during last year’s general election, and repeated the attempt this month.
Corbyn had taken part in a wreath laying to pay tribute to those killed in a 1985 Israeli bombing raid on the Palestine Liberation Organization’s compound in Tunis. The raid killed 60 Palestinians and Tunisians, including many civilians.
The UK’s pro-Israel organizations – in alliance with right-wing Labour MPs – have continued their relentless media assault on the party this summer.
Without a shred of credible evidence, they have defamed the party as “institutionally anti-Semitic,” and one right-wing pro-Israel MP allegedly slandered Corbyn himself as a “fucking anti-Semite and racist.”
Most hysterically of all, three pro-Israel newspapers wrote that Corbyn as prime minister would be an “existential threat to Jewish life” in the UK.
This was so egregious a slur that one of their editors publicly denounced it as “repulsive,” in an interview with left-wing news website The Canary.
Those three papers made the aim of the smear campaign clear in a joint editorial in July when it accused Labour of endorsing something it called “political anti-Semitism targeting Israel.”
Yet another reminder that the “Labour anti-Semitism crisis” smear campaign has from its beginnings in earnest in February 2016 been about Israel – and Israel only.
It has nothing to do with protecting Jews from anti-Semitism.
A total of 84 British black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) organizations came out strong on attempts in the United Kingdom to silence discourse on Palestine, particularly those critical of Israel and its racist policies against Palestinians.
The letter, published in the Independent, criticized recent attempts by the Labor Party to adopt the 2016 International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) guidelines, which equates criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism in an effort to delegitimize any pro-Palestinian activity or public criticism of Israel.
"We are deeply worried about current attempts to silence a public discussion of what happened in Palestine and to the Palestinians in 1948, when the majority of its people were forcibly expelled,” said the BAME letter. “These facts are well established and accessible, are part of the British historical record, as well as the direct experience of the Palestinian people themselves. The Palestinian community in the UK has raised the disturbing absence of key information about these past and current injustices, and highlighted the racism it exposes then and now."
It added: “Public discussion of these facts, and a description of these injustices, would be prohibited under the IHRA’s guidelines, and therefore withholds vital knowledge from the public. This silencing has already begun. Today we can freely describe the racist policies experienced in the era of British and European colonialism in our countries of origin (indeed it is taught in British schools), but the colonial history of the Palestinians is continually erased. This is a dangerous breach of our own rights, and of the wider British public: we must all hear the full story of the Palestinians in order to make sense of the current discussions about racism and Israel.”
BAME said that while anti-Israel groups are being silenced, right-wing groups that openly advocate hate of Palestinians and Muslims in general are getting funding and support without any problem.
“We also know of the efforts by organizations – including UK-based fundamentalist groups aligned with the far-right in the US – to deny Palestinians’ basic humanity by suppressing their entire history and current plight," it said "At the same time, hardline conservative groups in the US, such as the Middle East Forum, are providing funding and support to anti-Muslim extremist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson), deliberately increasing hatred, fear, and confusion. These coordinated efforts by right-wing extremists are being actively encouraged by President Trump’s racism and fear-mongering, which is now aimed at dismantling UNRWA, the UN agency that protects Palestinian refugees.”
BAME concluded by reminding “politicians and public bodies of their responsibilities to uphold the principles of the Human Rights Act for every British citizen and resident in the UK equally, especially the direct victims of colonialism, racism, and discrimination. As migrant and BAME communities we stand as one, united against all attempts to suppress our voices and our calls for justice, freedom and equality.”
The letter, published in the Independent, criticized recent attempts by the Labor Party to adopt the 2016 International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) guidelines, which equates criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism in an effort to delegitimize any pro-Palestinian activity or public criticism of Israel.
"We are deeply worried about current attempts to silence a public discussion of what happened in Palestine and to the Palestinians in 1948, when the majority of its people were forcibly expelled,” said the BAME letter. “These facts are well established and accessible, are part of the British historical record, as well as the direct experience of the Palestinian people themselves. The Palestinian community in the UK has raised the disturbing absence of key information about these past and current injustices, and highlighted the racism it exposes then and now."
It added: “Public discussion of these facts, and a description of these injustices, would be prohibited under the IHRA’s guidelines, and therefore withholds vital knowledge from the public. This silencing has already begun. Today we can freely describe the racist policies experienced in the era of British and European colonialism in our countries of origin (indeed it is taught in British schools), but the colonial history of the Palestinians is continually erased. This is a dangerous breach of our own rights, and of the wider British public: we must all hear the full story of the Palestinians in order to make sense of the current discussions about racism and Israel.”
BAME said that while anti-Israel groups are being silenced, right-wing groups that openly advocate hate of Palestinians and Muslims in general are getting funding and support without any problem.
“We also know of the efforts by organizations – including UK-based fundamentalist groups aligned with the far-right in the US – to deny Palestinians’ basic humanity by suppressing their entire history and current plight," it said "At the same time, hardline conservative groups in the US, such as the Middle East Forum, are providing funding and support to anti-Muslim extremist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson), deliberately increasing hatred, fear, and confusion. These coordinated efforts by right-wing extremists are being actively encouraged by President Trump’s racism and fear-mongering, which is now aimed at dismantling UNRWA, the UN agency that protects Palestinian refugees.”
BAME concluded by reminding “politicians and public bodies of their responsibilities to uphold the principles of the Human Rights Act for every British citizen and resident in the UK equally, especially the direct victims of colonialism, racism, and discrimination. As migrant and BAME communities we stand as one, united against all attempts to suppress our voices and our calls for justice, freedom and equality.”
14 aug 2018
Frontrunner for England’s Prime Minister spot Jeremy Corbyn has been at the center of controversy over his criticism of the state of Israel, specifically for refusing to adopt certain provisions of a new definition of Anti-Semitism that extends to what he sees as genuine criticism over Israel’s policies.
This debate is centered around an idea known as the ‘New Anti-Semitism’, purporting that criticism of Israel and even criticism of imperialism, in its broadest terms, can be used to demonize the Jewish people as a whole.
Many people such as Jeremy Corbyn see New Anti-Semitism as a means of chilling dissent over policy that disenfranchises Palestinians or dissent by accusing strategic allies to Israel of being accessories to the military occupation against the Palestinian people.
This criticism of New Anti-Semitism has been staunchly fought by leading members of Jewish communities around the world who say that Jews have the same right as everyone else to sovereignty and that the existence of Israel is not a racist act.
Governments that have accepted the New Anti-Semitism stance have found pressure to condemn genuine criticism of Israel as hate-speech. In England, the annual Israel Apartheid Week has been condemned, by lobbyists and affiliated MPs, as hate speech, under the IHRA’s new definition of Anti-Semitism.
This debate is centered around an idea known as the ‘New Anti-Semitism’, purporting that criticism of Israel and even criticism of imperialism, in its broadest terms, can be used to demonize the Jewish people as a whole.
Many people such as Jeremy Corbyn see New Anti-Semitism as a means of chilling dissent over policy that disenfranchises Palestinians or dissent by accusing strategic allies to Israel of being accessories to the military occupation against the Palestinian people.
This criticism of New Anti-Semitism has been staunchly fought by leading members of Jewish communities around the world who say that Jews have the same right as everyone else to sovereignty and that the existence of Israel is not a racist act.
Governments that have accepted the New Anti-Semitism stance have found pressure to condemn genuine criticism of Israel as hate-speech. In England, the annual Israel Apartheid Week has been condemned, by lobbyists and affiliated MPs, as hate speech, under the IHRA’s new definition of Anti-Semitism.
“Our government was one of the first to adopt the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism,” said British MP Matthew Offord. “However, university vice-chancellors across the UK are simply ignoring its provisions. They are allowing Israel Apartheid Week events to take place in campuses that are funded by taxpayers and that is not only unacceptable, it breaches both the PSED and the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism.”
Many see another factor of influence at play in the flack against Jeremy Corbyn. Much like the American Gun Lobby, Israeli corporations have a Pro-Israel Lobby that can pressure political candidates when they are outspoken critics of Israel’s practices.
By creating political pressure against Jeremy Corbyn, members of the Pro-Israel Lobby and other groups can dissuade political action against Israeli injustices, such as the annexation of land in the occupied West Bank.
The Pro-Israel Lobby in the UK is in a unique position that allows them to avoid disclosing their donor base, making it difficult to understand who is holding the greatest stakes in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.
According to the PNN, the New Arab reported a call for greater transparency within the Israeli Lobbying organizations. But, until that comes, we can only wonder whether Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters will be able to decide based on media coverage like Al Jazeera’s investigation of the Israeli Lobby in the UK, instead of blanket accusations of Anti-Semitism by other media outlets.
Many see another factor of influence at play in the flack against Jeremy Corbyn. Much like the American Gun Lobby, Israeli corporations have a Pro-Israel Lobby that can pressure political candidates when they are outspoken critics of Israel’s practices.
By creating political pressure against Jeremy Corbyn, members of the Pro-Israel Lobby and other groups can dissuade political action against Israeli injustices, such as the annexation of land in the occupied West Bank.
The Pro-Israel Lobby in the UK is in a unique position that allows them to avoid disclosing their donor base, making it difficult to understand who is holding the greatest stakes in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.
According to the PNN, the New Arab reported a call for greater transparency within the Israeli Lobbying organizations. But, until that comes, we can only wonder whether Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters will be able to decide based on media coverage like Al Jazeera’s investigation of the Israeli Lobby in the UK, instead of blanket accusations of Anti-Semitism by other media outlets.
22 july 2018
39 Jewish groups from across the world have defended the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement in an open letter released recently.
These left-wing Jewish groups, which are from Sweden, Britain, France, Spain, Belgium, Germany, New Zealand, The Netherlands, US, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa and other countries, affirmed that “BDS should not be defined as anti-Semitic.”
“As social justice organizations from around the world, we write this letter with growing alarm regarding the targeting of organizations that support Palestinian rights in general and the nonviolent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, in particular. These attacks too often take the form of cynical and false accusations of anti-Semitism that dangerously conflate anti-Jewish racism with opposition to Israel’s policies and system of occupation and apartheid.”
“We live in a frightening era, with growing numbers of authoritarian and xenophobic regimes worldwide, foremost among them the Trump administration, allying themselves with Israel’s far right government while making common cause with deeply anti-Semitic and racist white supremacist groups and parties.”
The 39 Jewish groups stated that “from our own histories we are all too aware of the dangers of increasingly fascistic and openly racist governments and political parties.”
Their letter underlines that “it is more important than ever to distinguish between the hostility to or prejudice against Jews on the one hand and legitimate critiques of Israeli policies and system of injustice on the other.”
The letter also states that “the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism, which is increasingly being adopted or considered by western governments, is worded in such a way as to be easily adopted or considered by western governments to intentionally equate legitimate criticisms of Israel and advocacy for Palestinian rights with anti-Semitism, as a means to suppress the former.”
“This conflation undermines both the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice and equality and the global struggle against anti-Semitism. It also serves to shield Israel from being held accountable to universal standards of human rights and international law,” the letter asserts further.
The organizations that signed the letter include Academia4equality (Israel), Boycott from Within (Israeli citizens for BDS), Coalition of Women for Peace (Israel), Collectif Judéo Arabe et Citoyen pour la Palestine (France), Dayenu: New Zealand Jews Against Occupation (New Zealand), Een Ander Joods Geluid (A Different Jewish Voice) (The Netherlands), Een Andere Joodse Stem – Another Jewish Voice (Flanders, Belgium), European Jews for a Just Peace, and Free Speech on Israel (UK).
These left-wing Jewish groups, which are from Sweden, Britain, France, Spain, Belgium, Germany, New Zealand, The Netherlands, US, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa and other countries, affirmed that “BDS should not be defined as anti-Semitic.”
“As social justice organizations from around the world, we write this letter with growing alarm regarding the targeting of organizations that support Palestinian rights in general and the nonviolent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, in particular. These attacks too often take the form of cynical and false accusations of anti-Semitism that dangerously conflate anti-Jewish racism with opposition to Israel’s policies and system of occupation and apartheid.”
“We live in a frightening era, with growing numbers of authoritarian and xenophobic regimes worldwide, foremost among them the Trump administration, allying themselves with Israel’s far right government while making common cause with deeply anti-Semitic and racist white supremacist groups and parties.”
The 39 Jewish groups stated that “from our own histories we are all too aware of the dangers of increasingly fascistic and openly racist governments and political parties.”
Their letter underlines that “it is more important than ever to distinguish between the hostility to or prejudice against Jews on the one hand and legitimate critiques of Israeli policies and system of injustice on the other.”
The letter also states that “the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism, which is increasingly being adopted or considered by western governments, is worded in such a way as to be easily adopted or considered by western governments to intentionally equate legitimate criticisms of Israel and advocacy for Palestinian rights with anti-Semitism, as a means to suppress the former.”
“This conflation undermines both the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice and equality and the global struggle against anti-Semitism. It also serves to shield Israel from being held accountable to universal standards of human rights and international law,” the letter asserts further.
The organizations that signed the letter include Academia4equality (Israel), Boycott from Within (Israeli citizens for BDS), Coalition of Women for Peace (Israel), Collectif Judéo Arabe et Citoyen pour la Palestine (France), Dayenu: New Zealand Jews Against Occupation (New Zealand), Een Ander Joods Geluid (A Different Jewish Voice) (The Netherlands), Een Andere Joodse Stem – Another Jewish Voice (Flanders, Belgium), European Jews for a Just Peace, and Free Speech on Israel (UK).
30 june 2018
The British newspaper The Guardian banned a cartoon criticizing Israel’s killing of Palestinian paramedic, Razan al-Najjar, on the grounds of anti-Semitism.
The rejected cartoon shows British MP Theresa May sitting alongside her Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu in Downing Street, while Palestinian medic Razan al-Najjar burns in the fireplace behind.
Al-Najjar, 21, was shot and killed by an Israeli soldier on June 4 during a protest in Gaza.
In emails sent to staff, Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell said that he had been “unfairly traduced and censored” and accused Guardian editor Kath Viner of not speaking to him because she "did not really have an argument" for spiking his work.
The debate was discussed at the House of Lords by member Tony Graves who said that banning the cartoon was not necessary and that it is time for Israel to be accountable for its actions.
The rejected cartoon shows British MP Theresa May sitting alongside her Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu in Downing Street, while Palestinian medic Razan al-Najjar burns in the fireplace behind.
Al-Najjar, 21, was shot and killed by an Israeli soldier on June 4 during a protest in Gaza.
In emails sent to staff, Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell said that he had been “unfairly traduced and censored” and accused Guardian editor Kath Viner of not speaking to him because she "did not really have an argument" for spiking his work.
The debate was discussed at the House of Lords by member Tony Graves who said that banning the cartoon was not necessary and that it is time for Israel to be accountable for its actions.
