A new moral panic about “antisemitism?
JVL Introduction
It is precisely because we recognise the real dangers of antisemitism that we react so strongly to attempts to weaponise accusations of antisemitism to delegitimise criticism of the Israeli regime or expressions of solidarity with Palestinians.
The self-styled Jewish Labour Movement and UK Lawyers for Israel have both been at it recently.
The former has written to the Green Party warning it against “providing a refuge for both the ideas of left wing antisemitism and the individuals involved in the bastardisation of progressive values”. It even has the chutzpah to claim “the Labour Party’s disciplinary processes have been well-tested in court” – tell that to anyone who has tried – and failed – to get an appeal hearing against the most bizarre disciplinary decisions!
It names Jo Bird in Wirral and Heather Skibsted in Peterborough as being “welcomed into the Greens”- as though they were lepers to be shunned for obvious – but unnamed – offences.
And UKLFI has rounded on the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital against a collaborative art project with students from schools in Gaza, enabling Palestinian children to send pictures of their everyday life to Chelsea’s students, who then transferred them onto a set of plates. This a collaborative project which has been going on since 2012!
Aimee Shalan laments the removal of the display which has lifted her sprits on many visits to the hospital over the years.
The reasons given for objecting are bizarre: one plate showed the Dome of the Rock and a Palestinian flag, which UKLFI said implied that Jerusalem and “the site of what had been the Jewish Temple” would be part of a Palestinian state; a second referring to the Palestinian fishing industry showed a shoreline running all the way from the Gaza Strip up to the northern tip of what is today Israel – obviously denying the right of the Jewish state to exist…
Thought crimes, indeed, to justify suppression of an entire project and culture.
The weird thing is that UKLFI is so proud of its achievement…
Update: You can sign a petition to Reinstate children’s art work from Gaza in Chelsea and Westminster Hospital
JLM tells Greens: how dare you welcome Jews we don’t like
Letter from right-wing, pro-Israel group warns Green party leaders not to offer a home to Jews who support human rights for Palestinians – or who dare to say what the Forde report and others already admitted: Labour’s ‘crisis’ was a scam. The Greens will shame themselves if they cave in to this bullying
Jo Bird, the Jewish Greens councillor who suffered horrific smears and abuse from the Labour right and the right-wing press. In the background is regulator IPSO’s judgment in her favour…
Showing no lack of its usual arrogance, the so-called ‘Jewish Labour Movement’ (JLM) – which continues to claim the name despite having a senior officer who openly campaigned for another party during the 2019 general election – has written to the leaders of the Green party to demand that the Greens explain why they have welcomed left-wing Jews and other victims of the great antisemitism scam into their party. [You can see the letter at the vey end of this post.]
The letter names Wirral councillor Jo Bird, the popular former Labour national executive (NEC) candidate who was atrociously and relentlessly smeared by Labour – and by the right-wing media – and repeatedly suspended to prevent her election to the NEC and because she wouldn’t bow to the right’s smear campaign.
Cllr Bird is Jewish – one of the many Jewish victims of the Labour and pro-Israel campaign against Jews and others who speak up for human rights for Palestinians and against the racist assumption that all Jews support Israeli apartheid.
A Jewish News article by – of course – libellous hack Lee Harpin reports the letter – which strikingly, but unsurprisingly, sees JLM figures demanding that another party report to them about why it decided to accept Jo Bird and others who dared to challenge the antisemitism narrative.
That narrative, of course, has long been exposed as a scam designed to damage the left and prevent Jeremy Corbyn becoming Prime Minister – and, no doubt to Keir Starmer’s and JLM’s consternation, even the Starmer-commissioned Forde Report had to conclude that antisemitism accusations had been widely ‘weaponised’ for factional political purposes.
Starmer’s and JLM’s response, like that of almost the entire UK ‘mainstream’ media, has been to simply pretend the report doesn’t exist – Labour even deleted it from their website – just like the years of extensive independent journalism and finally Al Jazeera’s profoundly-evidenced documentary series showing the extent of right-wing abuse and false accusations.
None of this matters, of course, to JLM – which continues to be affiliated to the shell that remains of the Labour party under Keir Starmer despite having at least one senior officer who openly campaigned for the disgraced ‘funny tinge’ CUK party in the 2019 general election – and none of it will be allowed to prevent them from trying to hound out of public life all Jews who challenge the Establishment’s pro-apartheid narrative and fight for human rights for every community, including Palestinians.
If the Greens concede a tenth of a millimetre to this arrogant, entitled bullying, they will shame themselves and damage an already-blighted country.
Lawyers had children’s art banned from a hospital. What has Britain come to?
Aimee Shalan
Chelsea and Westminster Hospital has removed a display of decorative plates
For a number of years, I was an outpatient at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.
On my way to the radiology department, I would pause to look at a display of artwork by children in Gaza titled “Crossing Borders – a festival of Plates”. It put my experience in perspective: imagine living with a much worse diagnosis in Gaza, where life-saving medicines are regularly out of stock, cancer treatment is limited, and patients have died when their permits to get to hospitals beyond the blockade have been denied or delayed by the Israeli authorities.
As a British-Palestinian, it lifted my spirits to know Chelsea Community Hospital School had initiated a collaborative art project with students from schools in Gaza, enabling Palestinian children to send pictures of their everyday life to Chelsea’s students, who then transferred them onto a set of plates. So it was sickening to see a recent statement circulated by UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI), saying they were “delighted” the hospital had removed the display after they made a complaint.
UKLFI has a track record of targeting organisations giving voice to Palestinian experience. It was instrumental in getting educational publisher Pearson to edit school textbooks on Middle East history, with the reissued books having to be paused from further distribution when a group of academics said they distorted the historical record and failed to offer pupils a balanced view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Here is the JLM letter
‘a socialist society … _the_ voice of Jews of Jews in the Party’ – pure hubris. Is there _anything_ socialist about JLM? Do the members of JLM understand the meaning of socialist? -The- voice of Jews in the Party – exclusively? That would be the case by expulsions, yes.
I don’t see one mention that Jo Bird is Jewish
in the JLM letter – and they have a nerve to talk
of Stalinism – given that the Labour Party
discipline processes have resulted in a purge of
Jewish members.
PS Petition to reinstate children’s art duly signed!
After reading the above – I looked at the Forde Report and found this in the Introduction. I wonder what some of it actually
means?
——————————————————-
“Apology from the Leader of the Labour Party, Keir Starmer MP
As Leader of the Labour Party, I want to reiterate that apology to those affected for the culture and attitudes expressed by senior staff in the leaked report. This was unacceptable and they deserve an apology.
I know an apology alone is not enough and that is why, working with the General Secretary, we have taken steps to change the culture of the Party. This work is underway.
The Forde Report provides concrete recommendations to help us achieve that, and I want to work with all those effected to drive this work through our party and ensure this never happens again.”
As soon as they get that letter, they should throw it in the bin.
This letter is rubbish. It reads like a satire. It says nothing, not one thing, that can or should be, taken seriously; yet it has been so taken, because not to take this kind of pressure seriously can result in serious consequences for those who are being pressured. The supporters of Israel, through the most self-righteously determined application of chutzpah, have made moral blackmail work. They have perfectly rationalised their complete irrationality. The word ‘meshuga’ springs to mind.