Antisemitism and the labour party – some reflections after the publication of the EHRC report

JVL Introduction

Nira Yuval-Davis has been an active researcher over fifty years and more  on questions of racisms, nationalisms, fundamentalisms, gender and more.

In this article for JVL, following the EHRC report, she raises two important questions.

Why did so many Jews come to fear what they see as the antisemitism of the Labour party?; and why were accusations of antisemitism of the Labour Party so successful in dividing the party and delegitimising the radical left.

She provides tentative answers to these questions to help inform our strategies for responding to the political crisis around “antisemitism”


Nira Yuval-Davis writes:

On 29th October the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) published the report of their Investigation into antisemitism in the Labour Party. The Commission had a specific and limited remit. It was, unfortunately, not its job to contextualise their findings in relation to a) the ways other forms of racisms are dealt with in the Labour party and b) the ways antisemitism operates in the wider British society outside the Labour party. Nevertheless, this is what the Labour party and the rest of us will need to do in order to put the report into perspective and develop ways of dealing with it.

In this short blog, however, I’m not going to embark on this mammoth task, nor carry out a detailed critique of the report[1]. Rather, I’m going to focus on some of the contextual issues we need to be concerned with when reflecting upon the report’s implications. In particular, I want to reflect upon two crucially important questions.

  • The first is why so many Jews, not necessarily religious and not necessarily seeing themselves as represented by the Jewish Board of Deputies, have come to fear what they see as the antisemitism of the Labour party? This is despite the fact that many of them do not seem to fear the much more prevalent antisemitism of the Right, including not just the Extreme right but also as represented by Boris Johnson and his friends and their association with many neo-Nazi parties all over Europe. (By the way they are the same extreme right leaders, like in Hungary and Poland, that Netanyahu, the PM of Israel, has been befriending, to say nothing of Trump et al).
  • The second that I will address briefly, is why accusations of antisemitism of the Labour Party have been so successful in dividing the party and delegitimising the radical left.

As a starting point, I should say that I’ve been concerned with issues of antisemitism all my life, as a daughter of a family most of whose members were murdered by the Nazis and their local helpers in Lithuania. However, after growing up at the heart of the Israeli Labour Zionist establishment and undergoing a long and painful process of transformation, I’ve come to define myself as an ant-Zionist diasporic Israeli Jew, because I’ve realised that racism against one grouping should not – and cannot – be solved by perpetuating racism against other groupings. All forms of racism need to be fought against and not just antisemitism – they all have their own specificities but also their similarities and historical links[2] and anyone, including victims of racism, can become a racist – something I observed a plenty while growing up in Israel.

Living for most of my life now as part of London metropolitan society, working as a sociologist specializing in the field of intersectional nationalisms, racisms and the politics of belonging. I’ve enjoyed the experience of being part of London‘s pluralist, mostly convivial society, in which many of us were able to build bonds of friendship and transversal solidarities across boundaries of race, ethnicity and culture. This, however, has required us to develop a counterculture to the racialised patterns which have been historically inherent in European and other religious and scientific traditions. Anti-Black, anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish as well as other forms of racism have been grounded within these histories.

As mentioned above, the EHRC report does not deal with these issues and has focused its investigation on the ways in which complaints about antisemitism have been dealt with in the Labour Party[3].  It found issues relating to procedures, leadership and culture in the party that affected how issues of antisemitism have been dealt with and which have caused some Jewish members to feel unsafe. Specifically, they investigated 70 complaints and found only 2 cases of unlawful antisemitic harassment although they found 18 more borderline cases and others in social media carried out by ‘ordinary’people who were not official agents of the Labour Party. It is important to point out that the complaints referred to in the report have not been the only complaints of antisemitism by members of the Labour party, especially those made against members on the right of the party (as the ironic letter from the members of JEWDAS has pointed out: https://www.jewdas.org/open-letter-to-keir-starmer-mp/).

The EHRC report pointed out that although processes to deal with complaints against antisemitism improved under Corbyn’s leadership, they still remained inefficient, non-transparent and subject to political interference from the leadership. It meant that there were sometimes long delays in addressing complaints and some were left untouched altogether. This obviously is something which needs to be taken very seriously by the Labour party and dealt with properly and transparently. In addition, the report also discusses what it calls a party culture that needs to be tackled and transformed.

It presents a long list of recommendations re the procedures and leadership and recommended training and education to deal with the ways in which antisemitism permeates Labour party culture. However, the definition in the report of what constitutes adequate training and education is not clear beyond the need to apply it to all those who have been found to have engaged in an antisemitic act and all party officials[4]. This is an important question that the party and all of us who are concerned with this issue need to contemplate. However, what the report does specify, and rightly so, is that this (re-) education process needs to be carried out in the context of both the right to free speech and a recognition of the need to ‘engage with Jewish stakeholders to develop and embed clear, accessible and robust principles and practices to tackle antisemitism and to instil confidence for the future.’

The specific perspectives of those who are subject to racist narratives and practices are, indeed, crucial whenever one wants to tackle issues of racism. However, while it is safe to assume that all Jews object to, and feel hurt by, antisemitism, there is no single political or organizational body which unites all Jews. Indeed, constructing them as a homogenous body with one voice in itself might be understood as a racialised construct. It is therefore important that the consultation with Jewish stakeholders should be inclusive and include all major Jewish strands, especially those historically and at present associated with the Labour Party. Within the Party that means not just those Jews in JLM who see Israel as central to their Jewish identity. (I have already described myself an anti-Zionist diasporic Israeli Jew).

This is especially important because the question concerning who should be considered a legitimate Jewish stakeholder is closely related to the definition of antisemitism. The EHRC report does not discuss it explicitly, but although the issues of Israel and Zionism do not occupy central stage in their assessment of antisemitism they do not challenge the controversial IHRA definition that the Labour party has adopted. This definition, via its illustrative examples, attempts to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate critiques of Israel. Problematising the Zionist political project as a settler colonial project, for instance, is considered to be illegitimate. This is something which I and many others object to. Of course, critiques of Israel and Zionism can be antisemitic – but only if antisemitic tropes have been used in this problematisation[5]. Many – although by no means all – of the accusations of antisemitism in the Labour Party stemmed from what were considered to be antisemitic critiques of Israel and Zionism.

This brings me to the first question I consider as crucial to reflect on, i.e., why has the antisemitism in the Labour Party been perceived as so much more threatening to so many British Jews than the antisemitism of the right? To answer this question, we need to relate to the role of Israel in the psyche and identities of the majority of mainstream Jews in the UK (and in other western countries). From a minority movement for many years, Zionism came gradually, after the establishment of the state of Israel but especially after the 1967 war, to play two major roles. First, identifying and supporting Israel has become an easy way to maintain and reproduce a Jewish identity in an age when Jews were not blatantly persecuted for being Jewish – especially for those who are not Ultra-Orthodox Jews, for whom being Jewish is a total way of life. So Israel has become not only a form of collective identity but also a post factum homeland even to Jews who have never lived in Israel or even had any relatives living there. It has also become a sort of insurance policy, a place Jews can escape to if things become too bad in the diaspora. Never mind that for many years Israel has been physically the most dangerous place for Jews to live in. Or that it has been highly dependent on the support of diasporic Jews and the governments of the countries where they live. Or that it was only because of the historical accident of the British defeating the German army in North Africa that the Jews living in Palestine were not exterminated like the Jews in other countries occupied by the Nazis.

So in the post-WW2 era, the antisemitism of the right has mostly caused many Jews feelings of being othered, discomfort and indignation but, except in extreme cases of violence and terrorism, not the real sense of existential fear like they feel when Israel is criticised and its right to exist as an exclusionary Jewish state is questioned. This is a really difficult issue and will take time and patience to deal with. However, ironically, the constant move of Israeli politics to the right has been helping in this. Trump and Netayahu’s rule have opened a real divide within the established Jewish community in the USA, especially among the younger generation, and has problematised their identification with Israel. This has not yet become so widespread in the UK, unfortunately.

My second question was why accusations of antisemitism have proven to be such a successful strategy for attacking the left in the Labour Party. The answer to this is even more complicated. Part of it is the very efficient machinery which has been mobilised by organisations like Campaign Against Antisemitism, CAA and the Israeli lobby to mount an endless stream of accusations over many years. Only hours after the publication of the EHRC report, the CAA submitted a document of more than 70 pages to Keir Starmer, demanding that he suspend more than 30 main officers of the party including many left MPs and the deputy leader of the party. The document must have been long in preparation, waiting in the wings… Another part of the answer of the vulnerability of the left to accusations of antisemitism has been the fact that often there has been no real understanding in the left of the emotional, as well as normative and political, issues involved in some of the accusations I referred to above.

But part of the answer is that the left has sometimes left itself vulnerable to this kind of weaponisation of accusations of antisemitism. It needs to be extremely vigilant not to give hostages to fortune. Here are a couple of examples. First, there has been the tendency of some in the left to not only defend the rights of all victims of imperialism and colonialism, but also to see them automatically as political allies – the enemy of my enemy is my friend . This has led some to uncritical solidarity with fundamentalist movements, especially in the Muslim world. Second, there has been a remnant of traditional cultural antisemitic stereotypes, which have been strongest in the populist right but prevalent also among what August Bebel has called the ‘socialism of fools’, of identifying all Jews with Capital. This made Corbyn, for example, insensitive to the antisemitic portrayal of a capitalist in the famous Mear One mural.

When I observed the press conference of the CAA after the publication of the EHRC report, they warned against two kinds of responses to the accusations of antisemitism both of which they define as forms of antisemitism, although these are not found in the EHRC report. The first is denialism, whenever people deny that antisemitism exists in a particular context or see certain estimates of its scale as exaggerated whatever the empirical basis of that challenge is (obviously, Keir Starmer has adopted this criterion of the CAA in his suspension of Corbyn). The second practice they warned against is that of investigating the political motivations of those who make the complaints of antisemitism. This is very dangerous and the opposite of what the report warns against, which is political interference with dealing with accusations. Of course, one needs to deal with accusations of antisemitism – and other forms of racism – and establish their validity or not. But not exploring who complains, and why, gives free rein to any malicious force to use antisemitism as a manipulative weapon against the left in the Labour Party and in general, to the detriment of us all.

Antisemitism exists in all parts of British society and the Labour Party is the only mass organisation which is trying to deal with it, although so far not in a very effective way. However, we have to find ways to neutralise this weaponisation of accusations of antisemitism from dividing and destroying the Labour Party at a time that Boris Johnson and the Tories are destroying the UK. We also need to continue to fight antisemitism in the context of fighting other forms of racism and discrimination, within the Labour party and in government and society as a whole.

Links to all JVL statements and other articles on the EHRC report


I want to thank all the friends and colleagues that read and made many helpful comments on earlier versions of the blog, especially Ann Phoenix, Avtar Brah, Ben Gidley, Richard Kuper and Miriam David.

[1] For those interested in such detailed critique, please refer to the excellent work carried out by Jewish Voice for Labour, Statements and articles on the EHRC report – a compilation

[2] See, for example the report by SSAHE (Social Scientists Against the Hostile Environment), Migration, Racism and the Hostile Environment, Jan 2020

[3] They did not look at other forms of racism although I am sure they would have produced similar findings had they done so.

[4] For elaboration of this point please see the blog written by Tony Booth, Miriam David and Naomi Winborne-Idris of the Jewish Voice for Labour Education group

[5] See my discussion of this in ‘Feminism, antisemitism and the question of Palestine/Israel’ in K. Fakier., D. Mulinari and N. Rathzel (eds), Marxist-Feminist Theories and Struggles Today, Zed Press, 2020 pp249-260.

Comments (21)

  • DJ says:

    A thoughtful article. It’s a shame that the author failed to acknowledge the “one state” solution advocated by many on the left. This distinguishes the left from the fundamentaliststs because it calls for a secular, multi faith and democratic state based on equality to replace the ethnocratic state of Israel.

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  • Tony Riley says:

    Israel isn’t an “ethnocratic” state.

    18% of its citizens are Muslim, & 4% are Christian.

    It’s the safest Middle East country for all religions.

    DJ only wants a one state solution, because he hopes it will eventually lead to the sort of final solution imagined by Hitler.

    The author is kidding herself about the motives of her comrades.

    Her hatred of Israel is based on her dislike of the democratic process there that brought the Right to power, even though it’s due to Arafat’s double-dealing.

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  • Sheldon Ranz says:

    I strongly disagree with the characterization of the Mear One (Ockerman) mural as anti-Semitic. It depicts six bankers seated around a table. While two Jewish bankers are on the side, four Gentile bankers are in the center. The posing of the bankers suggests that while Jewish participation in the ruling class is tangential, the real shotcallers are not Jewish.

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  • Unfortunately Nira, for whom I have much respect, doesn’t answer her own question viz. why certain ‘antisemitism’ ie of the left is of greater concern to most Jews than genuine antisemitism of the Right.

    To do this one first has to ask what is meant by antisemitism and Nira doesn’t do this. You also have to ask how British Jews have changed in the past century because this explains a great deal. For the working class, impoverished Jews of the East End antisemitism needed no IHRA because it was obvious. A fascist in your face threatening your life.

    Todays upper middle class Jews in Golders Green have no attachments to working class culture. They are not threatened by fascist violence. Nor are they the recipient of police hostility. Racism has changed for Jews just as the Jews themselves have changed.

    Today’s Jews would barely recognise their ancestors in the East End tenements. Indeed I would go further they would be repelled by them. Hence antisemitism today is not about a threat to their life and limb but a threat to their identity.

    Couple that with the determination of the Zionist leaders, from the Board to the CAA, to deliberately stoke fears of ‘antisemitism’ and you have your answer!

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  • DJ says:

    I think the author is also guilty of succumbing to the “left wing antisemitism” narrative by suggesting the left associates “Jews with Capital”. This is what the defenders of Israeli Apartheid want people to believe. Anti capitalists are not inherently antisemitic.

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  • Philip Ward says:

    I don’t think it is right to criticise Corbyn about the Mear One mural, though I can understand why people make such criticisms. As far as I know, Corbyn has never given an explanation for what I think was a tweet, which doesn’t help. But we should at least acknowledge that it was something like 6 years between the tweet and his being accused for it and he may not remember the circumstances that well. Secondly, he may not even have seen the mural or a photograph of it and if he did, it could have been on a mobile ‘phone and very small. It’s pretty clear that he was thinking that he was objecting to the removal of an anticapitalist mural and supporting freedom of expression: hence the reference to Diego Rivera.

    BTW, I note that the Tories have appointed 4 unqualified new EHRC Commissioners, including one whose children say he’s a racist…….

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  • Stephen Richards says:

    Nothing to FEAR but FEAR ITSELF…….but you have a right to be frightened without knowing what it is you are frightened of in the MORAL PANIC. Reality itself being defined & redefined by constant media reports & accusations reported by MSM in the Metropolitan media bubble.
    The concept of Jewish ‘Stakeholders’ appears to be a reference made by Tony Blair referring to those having having a vested interest in Society, but who they are & why they are the sole arbiters of anti-Semitism is unclear. It would appear that the McPherson Principle is transferable & can easily be applied to accusations of anti-Semitism.
    The sad truth about the EHRC Report is its secrecy, with an emphasis on anonymity, begging more questions than answers. Why 70 complaints selected; made by whom about what? No transparency; no glasnost; no perestroika. Accusations weaponised & truth no defence? Who are these people who are ‘invited’ to sit in judgement & are they themselves the Jewish ‘Stakeholders’ & whose interests do they represent? Are they part of the gov’t machine?

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  • John Hall says:

    I seem to have a different take on “anti-semitism” to many people.
    Nira Yuval-Davis asks: “Why did so many Jews come to fear what they see as the anti-semitism of the Labour Party?”

    Personally I take issue with the basic premiss. I question how many truly “feared” real incidents of anti-semitism – ie prejudice against them purely for their Jewishness. I do know of people, eg journalist and broadcaster Melanie Philips, who equate anti-Zionism with anti-semitism and cannot understand why Israel should be the only country whose people are denied the right to live in their own land – in her case this being Greater Israel including what some people call, Palestine. (I did challenge her on this on her website, suggesting that the Christian/Jewish form of settler-colonial Zionism really should not be abusing the rights of the indigenous Palestinians. I so doing I deflected any accusation that my anti-Zionism was “anti-semitism”).

    For others who understand that criticism of a (probably) mainly Christian movement, (settler-colonial Zionism), cannot possibly be anti-semitic, but hold the view that the Israeli Government is doing the right thing in “taking back” or illegally-settling what was “Jewish” land nearly two millenia ago, then deflecting criticism by accusing opponents of “anti-semitism” has proved pretty effective in silencing those critics.

    Jewish friends of mine, now well past retirement, don’t ever remember anti-semitism as being a problem during their working lives, paticularly before illegal settlement of occupied territory, ie land acquired by force, became unofficial Israeli policy. Could it be that many cases of “anti-semitism” are merely anti settler-colonialism? That is my experience.

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  • dave says:

    I’m surprised that JVL has published this as it’s homogenising ‘the left’ in the same way that the right homogenises the ‘Jewish community’. It also fails to put into perspective the tiny number of real antisemitic incidents in Labour and appears to find a lot more value in the EHRC report than is merited.

    She deals with Jewish attachment to Israel. Here she asks us to reflect on this but says little about the blatant opposition to siding with the Palestinians (who are not mentioned), and embedding Zionism as the dominant political force, which has stoked fear and emotions. In fact there is a strong movement particular in the US for many including Jews and others to distance themselves from uncritical attachment to Israel. It is the right that has weaponised the emotions.

    What she does say is that some have “uncritical solidarity with fundamentalist movements, especially in the Muslim world” – but provides no evidence. This is not what I have seen as context and time are critical when examining this charge.

    Then we get the “remnant of traditional cultural antisemitic stereotypes” and that mural and the assertion that this is why Corbyn was insensitive – which all but says he is antisemitic. This is nonsense and I suspect the author doesn’t know that the mural caused little fuss at the time and was revived to attack Corbyn. Again no evidence is provided of the prevalence of this “remnant” but the hint is that it’s bigger that tiny.

    I do though agree that Labour is not dealing with antisemitism in a very effective way. That’s because the left and Corbyn failed to firmly say what it really is and then we got ran over by the IHRA and the right. And the rest is history – they won and would say they are being very effective indeed.

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  • James Dickins says:

    “there has been the tendency of some in the left to not only defend the rights of all victims of imperialism and colonialism, but also to see them automatically as political allies – the enemy of my enemy is my friend . This has led some to uncritical solidarity with fundamentalist movements, especially in the Muslim world. ”
    _______________________________________________

    I don’t think there is any significant evidence for this. What is incontrovertible is that Western governments have, for short-term political reasons, courted and encouraged the most extreme Islamist movements, from Afghanistan to Syria. Western governments have also allied with states like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which have themselves poured billions into Islamic fundamentalist movements (in the case of Saudi Arabia an estimated $57 billion). For the case of Britain see: Secret Affairs: Britain’s Collusion with Radical Islam, by Mark Curtis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Curtis_(British_author)

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  • Allan Howard says:

    Regards the ‘Mural’ episode, lets look at it from the perspective that Jeremy WAS an anti-semite, albeit a closet anti-semite and well hidden from the likes of John Bercow and the many dozens of other Jewish people who have served as MPs during the time Jeremy has been an MP – ie thirty-seven years. So he picks up on a comment by Mear One on facebook that the mural he has just recently painted is going to be removed, and Jeremy looks at the accompanying picture of the mural and realises almost immediately that its content is anti-semitic and, as such, he thinks it’s outrageous that it should be removed and tweets a comment defending the mural and Mear One…….

    Yes, exactly, it’s so absurd and preposterous on so many levels! If you were a closet anti-semite and had managed to conceal the fact from EVERYONE for some thirty years at that stage, why on earth would you suddenly let the cat out of the bag by posting a comment in defence of an anti-semitic mural?!

    I can only assume Jeremy looked at the picture on a relatively small screen mobile phone, and just fleetingly as such prior to posting his message asking ‘Why’ etc, and as Philip Ward points out in his post above, the very fact that Jeremy references Diego Rivera implies that he thought the mural was making a statement about Capitalism. And if the title of the mural was included and relatively prevalent – ie Freedom for Humanity – then THAT would have just reinforced it in Jeremy’s mind that it WAS a statement about the iniquity and profligacy and destructiveness of Capitalism.

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  • Allan Howard says:

    Continuing the scenario in which Jeremy IS an anti-semite, THAT of course explains why he pronounced Jeffrey Epstein’s name the way he did in the ITV leaders debate last year (and did so, so as to make him sound more Jewish than he actually was!)! As Medialens said in a piece at the time:

    ‘The idea, then, is that Corbyn – who has been subjected to relentless, highly damaging attacks on this issue for years, and who has done everything he can to distance himself from anti-semitism…. was emphasising Epstein’s Jewishness in a deliberate – or, worse – unconscious effort to smear Jews. Of course, only a truly crazed racist would be unable to resist such a patently self-destructive impulse on national TV.

    They then reference John Bercow and what he said in his interview with GQ magazine the month before about Jeremy Corbyn, quoting the relevant passages, and THEN point out that they did a search of the ProQuest media database and ‘found no mention of Bercow’s comment in any UK national newspaper.’

    Yes, and THAT says it ALL!

    https://www.medialens.org/2019/reopening-auschwitz-the-conspiracy-to-stop-corbyn/

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  • Allan Howard says:

    Dave, what do you mean precisely when you say: ‘I do though agree that Labour is not dealing with antisemitism in a very effective way. That’s because the left and Corbyn failed to firmly say what it really is….’

    The left and Corbyn failed to firmly say what it really is? Would you care to elaborate.

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  • Graeme Atkinson says:

    Comment by “Tony Riley”: “DJ only wants a one state solution, because he hopes it will eventually lead to the sort of final solution imagined by Hitler.”

    Disgusting and borderline libellous. Where did “DJ” suggest that? The claim is outrageous and should be withdrawn.

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  • Anti-fascist says:

    Well said, Tony Greenstein. The explanation provided is the key to so much that has happened – in class terms – to the Jewish population of the UK in the period since 1945.

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  • Margaret West says:

    About the mural ..

    In his original denial Corbyn mentioned the depictions of some of the bankers – and that they were supposed to be real people. For some reason
    he thought realism of the portraits significant – but never mentioned the
    context which is – or should be – the determining factor for
    antisemitism.

    After looking at an image of the mural I decided that some of
    the figures looked as if they came from somewhere in the Middle
    East and they were sitting around a sketchy version of a table. I had
    to ask why it was antisemitic for there was no way I could see it. After
    asking I was still not convinced it fully represented what I was told it did –
    but that may be my eye-sight. Maybe that is true of Corbyn and his
    only fault was that he should have asked why it was antisemitic?

    As I recall – apart from Yuval-Davis no-one who has commented and decided the mural anti-Semitic has mentioned the context .. They look at the faces and
    say – hmmm – cruel, hook-nosed – of COURSE it is antisemitic and I wonder how many try to discern the context? There is also the question of why, after looking at the faces of the Mural – they decide that they are Jewish ..

    In short – it takes a lot of time and good eye sight to decide that the mural is meant to be antisemitic. I have met many people who have looked at it and had to have it explained to them. Maybe the originator of it is just not very good at antisemitic murals?

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  • James Dickins says:

    “Tony Riley 14th November 2020 at 22:03 Israel isn’t an “ethnocratic” state. 18% of its citizens are Muslim, & 4% are Christian.”
    ____________________________

    This is a muddle:

    1. ‘Muslim’ and ‘Christian’ are not ethnic groups; they are religions.

    2. ‘Ethnocratic’ does not mean ‘mono-ethnic’ (and even less so ‘mono-religious’). It means that one ethnic group has dominance over all others.

    (Turkey with perhaps “55 million ethnic Turks, 9.6 million Kurds, 3 million Zazas, 2.5 million Circassians, 2 million Bosniaks, 500,000-1.3 million Albanians, 1,000,000 Georgians, 870,000 Arabs, 600,000 Pomaks, 80,000 Laz, 60,000 Armenians, 25,000 Assyrians/Syriacs, 20,000 Jews, and 15,000 Greeks, 500 Yazidis”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Turkey is an ethnocratic state inasmuch as the official ideology of the country involves the dominance of Turks over all other ethnic groups.)

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  • dave says:

    Allan – re “The left and Corbyn failed to firmly say what it really is”

    I mean the same as Tony Greenstein and others including me have said from the start – that we had to say what antisemitism actually is when accused of it and clearly separate that from our politics (such as standing up for Palestinians and against occupation and apartheid). The failure to do that was an utter disaster and resulted in the longest smear campaign I’ve ever seen here.

    But the right – who have redefined antisemitism to fit their anti-left politics – no doubt are privately (or even openly in some cases) very satisfied with the way it’s been handled as it helped to stop a left-wing government and has pushed the Palestinians back to a voiceless and seemingly permanently occupied people.

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  • Margaret West says:

    Well I see that Corbyn has expanded on his original statement .. I just hope that the meeting today has the guts to lift his suspension for they have absolutely zero reasons for proceeding with it.

    Apart from the obvious – that any instance of antisemitism is abominable –
    and that should be the measure – I am not sure what the Commission stated
    about numbers in respect of antisemitism.

    There is also the fact that the results of a serious statistical study were that
    anti-semitism was linked to the right rather than to the left. So why are the EHRC not investigating anti-semitism from the right – viz the Conservatives?

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  • MR MICHAEL K RYAN says:

    The problem from the outset has been the failure of the left to acknowledge they were being attacked for entirely political reasons and the anti-Semitism slur was the product of a rag tail coalition between the Labour right (some staffers, some MPs, some elected officials), pro Netenyahu lobbyists and right wing Jews. As a consequence too much credence has been given to the spurious allegations against left wing members, allowing people to believe the allegations had substance. They didn’t then and they don’t now.
    The EHRC became involved because the same people who were suddenly bombarding Labour Party HQ with complaints were the same people, or aligned with the people who filed the complaints and the people responsible for dealing with the complaints were deliberately not doing so, in order to justify the smear.
    The Formby investigation exposed so much of the story that any one who read it could be in no doubt about what was going on. Evidently the EHRC didn’t bother to read the report, nor practically all the media, probably because it would be more awkward for them to justify their actions if they had.

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  • Allan Howard says:

    Thanks for your response Dave, but say it to WHO exactly?

    Anyway, there are two points you make that I completely disagree with. Do you seriously believe that the smear campaign – the smearers – would have stopped if it had – somehow??? – been dealt with at the start. Of course it wouldn’t have stopped, and there was nothing on this planet that Jeremy and his team could have done to stop the smearers smearing him and the left membership, or brought it to an end when it first began, or at any other point for that matter.

    It’s all very well saying it should have been dealt with at the start, and that if it HAD been, that would have brought an end to it AND, in effect, blame Jeremy for not doing so AND being responsible for the smear campaign relentlessly continuing, but there’s only one problem with all that: It’s ALL pure fantasy, and amounts to blaming the victim for all the brutality done to them.

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