Why so many Jews are voting Labour.

Rabbi Mirvis’s claim to speak for all Jews in Britain has provoked many reactions from a range of Jewish voices: upset, horror, anger and indeed fury.

We have published some already. Here are two more powerful indictments:

Michael Rosen speaks out against the Chief Rabbi’s unfounded allegations against Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party.

And songwriter Leon Rosselson rounds on the Chief Rabbi as he proclaims the core value of  ‘the centrality of Israel in Jewish life’: “Not God. Not justice. Not That which is hateful to you, do not do to another… Israel. Israel, state power, is placed at the heart of religious Judaism. Isn’t this a form of idolatry?”

Michel Rosen’s statement appears on his Blog, 28 November; Leon Rosselson’s on Medium, 27 November.

 

I’m Jewish. I’m voting Labour.

Micael Rosen, 28 November 2019

 

1. I’ve met people who think that there are no Jews left in the Labour Party.

2. I’ve met people who think that the Chief Rabbi is in some way or another in charge of, or a representative of all Jews in Britain.

Neither of these statements is true or anything like true.

There are several Jewish candidates for the Labour Party. There are thousands of Labour Party members who are Jewish. Several times in the media people have said how it’s impossible or ‘not safe’ for Jews to stay in the Labour Party. It’s not impossible. If the media had wanted to, they could have asked Jewish MPs, Jewish candidates in this election ‘Is it impossible or unsafe for you to be in the Labour Party?’ It has been dishonest of them to have not done that.

There are also Rabbis who have either said that they will vote Labour and/or have expressed great concern over the way Jewish religious leaders (Rabbi Romain and the Chief Rabbi) have intervened in this election. You can read about these Rabbis in the Jewish Chronicle online: Rabbi Danny Rich and Rabbi Howard Cooper.

This tells us that within the religious part of Jewish life, there are people who are worried about how religious leaders have politicised religion. In the past this has been levelled at Muslims for having brought in ‘communalist politics’. Commentators like Nick Cohen were particularly scathing about this at the time of, say, George Galloway being elected. The silence in the mass media about the dangers of a religious group saying, in effect, ‘don’t vote for Party X’ are very great. Howard Cooper could see a danger that it could invite persecution.

In this particular election, it is also particularly dangerous because it is a two-horse race. Saying ‘don’t vote Labour’ is in effect saying, ‘Let’s have a victory for the Tories’. This is no surprise, as the Chief Rabbi welcomed the election of Boris Johnson to the leadership of the Tory Party and blessed him.

Johnson is a bigot and a liar. He and the Tories have been quite content to snuggle up to extreme right wing and antisemitic parties in Europe – like Orban in Hungary. He has also kept quiet about the pattern of antisemitism coming from Jacob Rees-Mogg, who has talked of his Jewish colleagues in the House of Commons as ‘illuminati’, questioned whether they ‘understand’ the constitution, he has done the ‘Soros jibe’ (this is an antisemitic ‘trope’ about the financier Soros deemed to be an international wheeler and dealer); Rees-Mogg has also retweeted a tweet from the Alternative für Deutschland – the far-right organisation in Germany and he has had dinner with the far-right British organisation, ‘Traditional Britain Group’. There are other incidents of antisemitism in the Tory party that Boris Johnson has ‘kept silent’ about (Crispin Blunt, Suella Braverman, Toby Young).

Yet, the Chief Rabbi is in effect entrusting those who regard him as their figurehead to a Johnson Tory government!

For clarity’s sake, the Chief Rabbi may ‘speak for’ a majority of Jews in the UK but he does not ‘represent’ them. He is the leader of the United Synagogue which has a congregation of around 40,000. According to the Board of Deputies there are 284,000 Jews in the UK. Half of us are affiliated to synagogues, half of us are not.

In all the surveys of Jewish opinion in the UK, I have never been sure of how the survey of the 142,000 non-religious Jews is done. How do they find us? One survey created a ‘panel’ having found secular Jews by focussing on Jews in areas where there is a high Jewish population and people having ‘Jewish names’. Ahem ahem – apart from Hebrew and Hebraic names there are no Jewish names. Most Jews in this country have German, Polish (if they (we) are ‘Ashkanzim’ or Sephardi names which may be e.g. Italian or Spanish) and/or we have English names! What’s more, since the arrival of many EU citizens, there are many Germans and Poles who have names that before were considered to be ‘Jewish’ like ‘Meyer’ – a standard German name that some Jews have.

The surveys may be accurate – perhaps – but this method of polling looks decidedly dodgy. I have challenged this many times on twitter and no one has successfully defended it so far.

I have been asked several times to come on the radio and TV to talk about supporting Corbyn. I have refused. I have said to the producer – ‘Do the honest thing, talk to a Labour voting rabbi, and/or a Jewish Labour candidate and/or a Jewish Labour Party member.’ The reason why I do that is because

a) I can’t answer any questions that the interviewers ask all the time ‘Is enough being done? Are Jews being bullied in meetings etc’ I don’t want to screw up this matter by appearing on programmes and saying ‘I don’t know…’ or ‘some of my best friends are Jewish and they tell me….x’ It’s a trap.

b) The times I have appeared e.g. on al-Jazeera, the method of dealing with me (or Miriam Margolyes or Alexei Sayle) is to say that we represent no one. At one level, I have to say that that is true. I have never pretended and can’t pretend and would never pretend that I ‘represent’ any other Jews. I have no trouble making another claim that I am entitled to have the my views but again, is not great TV in a 2 minute interview!

For the record, for people who are not Jewish: I am no less Jewish than the Chief Rabbi. I was brought up knowing that I was Jewish, and have participated in all my life (read, studied, reflected on, been particularly interested in ) secular Jewish activities to do with Jewish writers, artists, and Jewish history and have of course reflected on this in my writing in hundreds of different ways. I see myself as a poet and performer who has absorbed many traditions one of which is ‘aggadic’ – that of Jewish story-telling.

To say these things has invited Jews and non-Jews on twitter to call me a ‘kapo’ (a Jewish concentration camp guard), a ‘used Jew’ (that from the editor of ‘Jewish News’), someone who ‘dons the cloak of Jewishness’ (a Jewish DJ and actor), one of the ‘useful Jewish idiots’ (from the commentator Dan Hodges, ‘a cheerleader for Soros’ (from Lee Harpin political editor of the Jewish Chronicle), and a plea to the BBC to not employ me to present ‘Word of Mouth’ (from the QC Simon Myerson and the campaigner against antisemitism (!) Euan Philips.

Clearly some people think that the best way to combat antisemitism is to be antisemitic.

Further: the whole question of ‘antisemitism’ has been fogged by an unknowing or unwilling lack of clarity over distinctions between slurs, prejudice, bias, discimination, persecution, incitement to antisemitic violence, and the violence itself. There are times when you might have thought that UK Jews were experiencing a pogrom.

Secondly, the minimum requirements for a claim that there is a ‘problem’ in a given area (e.g. antisemitism in the Labour Party) is that it is distinctly and measurably worse than in other places or in society as a whole. If that hasn’t been shown , (and it hasn’t been) it’s not a Labour Party problem it’s a societal problem.

I’ve known Jeremy Corbyn for 30 years. He is no antisemite. He has put his neck on the line hundreds of times in opposing racism, antisemitism, far right fascism, holocaust denial.

For the record the sudden loss of Jewish support for Labour came when Miliband was leader who the Jewish Chronicle described as ‘toxic’ for Jewish voters. MIliband is Jewish. It was his support for recognition of Palestine before negotiations that did for him, they said. Being Jewish was no shield against this hostility.

Ask me, who am I ‘safer’ with: a Johnson-led government with its record of the ‘hostile environment’, persecution of Windrush generation, and persistent antisemitic jibes from leading party members or this Labour Party, and I say, Labour every time.

But I don’t look at the election purely through a Jewish prism. It is a clear class issue: a Tory government will continue to ravage the lives of of working class people through attacks on wages, public services, and the disabled. A Labour government will halt these and start to reverse them.

World business (‘capitalism’) is in crisis: huge levels of debt, massive ‘productivity’ problems (in their frenzy to compete with each other) a slew towards ‘economic nationallism’ (the Bannon philosophy ) and Johnson is riding the Bannon bus which is driven by the US. The US are desperate to create a bogus ‘free trade’ world, which in actual fact is a US-protectionist world. Johnson is backing this as a ‘solution’.

I’m voting Labour.


What are you afraid of, rabbi Mirvis?

Leon Rosselson, Medium
27 November 2019

 

It was predictable. In fact, it was inevitable that the allegations of antisemitism against Corbyn and the Labour Party would be ratcheted up during the election campaign. Now the Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, has, not for the first time, added his voice. He claims that ‘a new poison, sanctioned from the very top, has taken root in the party’ and that ‘the overwhelming majority of British Jews are gripped by anxiety’ at the prospect of a Labour government.

Since his accusations consist of unsubstantiated generalisations, they are very difficult to refute. You could point out that, according to the rigorous academic analysis in the book Bad News for Labour, the proven cases of antisemitism in the Labour Party amount to 0.3% of the membership; and that according to Harvey Goldstein, a professor of statistics, ‘there happens to be little sound evidence to back any of these claims’ that there is a ‘scourge of antisemitism’ and ‘institutional racism’ in the Labour Party. You could argue that none of the specific examples of Corbyn’s supposed antisemitism stand up to scrutiny. But it would be pointless. Because this hysterical campaign is not about real antisemitism.

So let us ask instead why, after 36 blameless years as a Labour MP, these accusations only emerged when Corbyn was elected Labour Party leader in 2015; and why the Chief Rabbi is unleashing his attack at this crucial time when it will do most damage to the Labour Party..

The United Synagogue, which, as Chief Rabbi, Mirvis represents, is the Orthodox (i.e. conservative) branch of UK Judaism. It has around 40,000 members out of a total Jewish population of around 250,000 so cannot claim to speak for the overwhelming majority of British Jews. It is a heavily Zionist body, ‘an active supporter of Israel’ (according to Wikipedia), sponsors trips to Israel, distributes ‘information’ packages (i.e. propaganda) about Israel on its website, opposes any recognition of a Palestinian state, rages against the BDS campaign. And proclaims as one of its core values ‘the centrality of Israel in Jewish life’.

Ponder on that. The centrality of Israel in Jewish life. Not God. Not justice. Not That which is hateful to you, do not do to another. Israel. A foreign state. And not any state but a militarised ethnocracy with its nuclear weapons and its helicopter gunships and its theft of land and water and its war against Palestinian children and its cruel collective punishment of the citizens of Gaza and its daily violations of international law; a state founded on the dispossession, expulsion and delegitimisation of the indigenous people, a state whose recently enacted Nation State law confirms its status as a racist state. Israel, state power, is placed at the heart of religious Judaism. Isn’t this a form of idolatry?

Corbyn’s original sin in the eyes of the Zionist lobby is that he has been a campaigner for justice for Palestinians. As far as they are concerned, that’s enough to justify any action that undermines him and that prevents him from becoming Prime Minister. Labour Party policy on Palestine/Israel is not particularly radical. It doesn’t call for the right of return for Palestinian refugees, for example. In parts it is delusional — advocating a return to peace talks and a two-state solution. But it does call for an end to the blockade, occupation and settlements and promises that ‘a Labour government will immediately recognise the state of Palestine’. For the Zionist lobby, for Rabbi Mirvis and the United Synagogue, for the Jewish Labour Movement, for Labour Friends of Israel, for the Board of Deputies, for Zionist hacks like Jonathan Freedland whose snide articles in the Guardian have helped delegitimise Corbyn, this is completely unacceptable.

When Rabbi Mirvis claims that the overwhelming majority of British Jews are ‘gripped by anxiety’ at the prospect of a Labour government, he may not be lying. But not because they fear anti-Jewish discriminatory actions or pogroms or anything like that. They’re not stupid. What they are afraid of is that a Corbyn-led Labour government might hold Israel to account for its crimes, might ban arm sales to Israel, might even support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. That must not happen. So they would far rather inflict a Tory Johnson-led government on the nation than accept as Prime Minister a man who has spoken up against Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians. Boris Johnson, after all, is a firm friend of Israel. And if, as a consequence of that, there are more children living in poverty, more people dying in the streets, more food banks, more NHS crises and privatisations, more carbon emissions — ? Collateral damage in the defence of the Jewish state.

One other possible consequence of this antisemitism smear campaign is that, when the millions suffering from years of Tory austerity find that their dream of a transformed Britain has been shattered partly because ‘the Jews’ have put tribal interests before the interests of the country they live in, there will be a rise in real antisemitism. But the Zionists can live with that. Zionism and antisemitism have always been comfortable bedfellows. After all, they share the same aim. As Ehud Olmert said at the World Zionist Congress in 2006, ‘the question of Zionism will not be resolved until every Jew in the world comes to live in Israel’. Every Jew hater will happily subscribe to that.

Comments (15)

  • Rene Gimpel says:

    Two quite extraordinary contributions to the debate. Thank you.

    Two quite extraordinary contributions to a defence of the Labour Party, of which I have been an active member for 40 years, without ever encountering so much as a trace of antisemitism.

    Thank you.

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  • Further evidence that the Right know full well how to blame ‘the Jews’ for anything and everything, comes in yesterday’s blog by Dominic Cummings in which he railed against the Remain campaign as it was funded by (he claims) ‘the likes of Goldman Sachs writing cheques’.
    Geddit? The LIKES OF….Those of us who got antisemitism from our teachers know this way of talking….grouping us as together as ‘you and your kind’…’You and your little friends…’ ‘Your lot…’
    This kind of sneer fits nicely with Rees-Mogg’s jibes about ‘illuminati’ and Soros.

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  • TM says:

    Thank you both. So good to read your words.

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  • Irena Pribisevic says:

    Thankyou, just thankyou

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  • Dee Howard says:

    I agree wholehearted with both these pieces. I am not Jewish but am married to a Labour Jew, who has faced antisemitism OUTSIDE the party but never INSIDE. He does not hate himself as has been suggested by some and I do not hate myself for being labelled a antisemite member of the Labour Party, because I know I a, not, having fought against all forms of racism since the 1970s. But how in the world can we get to all the ‘ignorant’ voters who believe all this AS claptrap?. I worry for this country and the world if the Tories get in.

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  • sara starkey says:

    Thank you so much. I am outraged that this Rabbi should suggest that our ‘Moral Compass’ basically means you should not vote Labour. As someone married to a Jewish guy – Andrew – for 39 yrs. One of my sister’s married to a Jewish guy and has two children with him. My God father – Leonard Manasseh a well know architect – was Jewish. My boyfriend before meeting Andrew was Jewish….so no one but no one can say I am antisemitic.
    Nor is Corbyn. The hatred towards Corbyn has really got Kafkaesque. 1984 here we come!!

    *Though Andrew was accused of being ‘a self-hating Jew’ for marrying me, a goy! That is the trope; if you are Jewish, and opposed to the horror that is befalling the Palestinians, some Jewish folk will call you a ‘self-hating Jew’. You canny win!

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  • Steve Ollerenshaw says:

    .Anti racism is a lifelong process of checking yourself and educating yourself, you have helped me in this process so thank you. I will pass this on to as many as I can and continue to fight against racism and prejudice. Love and solidarity from a white, gay, non religious Labour Party member.

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  • Mike Scott says:

    Two very good articles. On the issue of whether antisemitism is taking root in the Labour Party, here’s an interesting example to quote:

    Speaking before the election was called with a local (Non-Jewish) Labour MP who is no friend of Corbyn, she told me that a number of her constituents had contacted to her to say they were worried about antisemitism in the Labour Party. I asked her what had happened to them in our City (Nottingham) to make them feel like that and she replied that none of them had actually been involved in any sort of antisemitic attack or incident, but they were all worried they might be!

    This shows all too clearly that the (almost entirely) groundless accusations against Corbyn and the left generally are creating the very fear they are then complaining about!

    I do think this example needs quoting widely.

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  • John Smith says:

    Great to hear this perspective from Jewish people. I have been so angry and frustrated that the media explosion about Labours deep rooted Anti Semitism has been for too long without clear examples, given it investigated showing clear outcomes.
    I know a few Jewish friends who have unfortunately bought into a lot of the narrative and now are anti Corbyn. This is deeply worrying as in each case they have no real information or evidence to back up there feelings. Hopefully the real truth will out before it’s too late.

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  • JanP says:

    Two excellent and very clear articles from two talented people who are a credit and valuable asset to our society. Your songs, poetry and books have made me and thousands of others very happy. I’m so sorry that you have had to make these statements. But so pleased you have.
    My concern is also that crying wolf by the Chief Rabbi and others will cause reaction against Jewish communities and individuals and only serves to sow confusion.
    In solidarity – from a child of Irish immigrants.

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  • Jim Stockman says:

    Very clearly put, that the allegations of anti Semitism in the Labour Party is nothing but a Zionist ploy to stop a Labour victory, and instead put a right wing racist Tory Party into office.
    Jim

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  • Susan Calvo says:

    I am sorry, I am not a particularly intellectual person. I have enjoyed reading these articles immensely, and they make me feel joyful to have read them. I think the main thing I want to say here, is how very sad it makes me feel to read of the ‘other possible consequence’ of the antisemitism smear campaign’, but fear such a statement has the possibility of being right. Human nature can be so filled with fear, unaccepting of differences etc., I am not religious in any way, belong to no religion, though I have been know to say ‘The Prophet’ by Kahlil Gibran, is my bible 🙂 – I hope Labour wins in the GE, and I worry for the changes in Constitution & democracy etc that the Tories would implement if they get voted back in. Best of luck. Yes, I am a Labour voter

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  • Nazaleen Mohaned says:

    Thank you for speaking out,and you are spot on.

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  • Rory mcleod says:

    When you Zionists call someone a self hating Jew (for being anti Zionist) you are stripping a left wing, Socialist Jew of their identity in a sustained anti Semitic attack on them for political gain. Anti racists are being accused by racists of being racist.

    I know there are conservative Tory Jews
    I would argue with them against their Tory beliefs ideology not because of their race.
    I would argue and fight against any racist views a Jewish person held against Moslems or blacks not because they were Jewish but because they held racist views.

    I remember hearing a racist woman spouting anti ‘black-African’ racist comments. She was married to my great uncle, my Grandpa’s brother…that, I regret to say, made her my auntie, through marriage. The Yiddish word (schwartzers) ‘Blacks’ was the derogatory Word I heard) … a rare racist comment for me to hear from a Jewish person. She was Jewish and it made me realise how impossible it is to ‘stereotype’ any race or religion as a ‘whole’ even ones own race or religion….’ and that racism from anyone should not be tolerated. Actually this woman was a particularly, sour and unpleasant character too, nothing like my Jewish Grandma and pa or Grandma and Pa’s brothers and sisters who fought against fascists and British Nazis in the 1930’s.

    My Grandmas brother…. my great uncle Joe was a wrestler. He fought under the name of Joe Gold. I discovered that He and other Jewish wrestlers, who grew up together in the housing estates there (Rothschilds Buildings) and others stood at the barricades as vigilantes at The battle of Cable street against the black shirt fascists to stop them coming through… if the police couldn’t protect the community… the wrestlers would.
    The Daily mail owner Lord Rothmere supported Oswald Mosley’s fascist black shirts and also in favour of Hitlers Nazis and Was sympathetic to Mussolini. Which explains the Daily Mails right wing xenophobic racist stance and bias today.

    I’m not trying to redefine my Jewish identity… as Zionists would try to do.
    I am proud of my British Celtic Jewish culture.
    I don’t hate anyone because of his or her race….
    My beliefs are based on love not hate or oppression.

    The state of Israel has been strengthening its relationship with non-democratic, dictator regimes across the world.
    Israel is strengthening its relationship in Eastern Europe, with countries like Hungary, Poland, and Ukraine, where they have huge problems with anti-Semitism.

    When Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban visited Israel, he did a press event with Netanyahu and President Rivlin. One of his comments was that the anti-Semitism in Hungary is getting smaller, but we know what’s happening in Hungary with the Orban government and in Ukraine, where Israel supplies arms. There are neo-Nazi militias that are part of the government’s regular security forces, and this is very concerning.

    Instead of fighting anti-Semitism in eastern Europe or right-wing populist parties throughout Europe that are popular among anti-Semites, neo-Nazis, anti-immigration activists, and Islamophobes, Israel is choosing to fight this so-called “new anti-Semitism,” which is simply just a criticism against the Israeli government and its policies, it is not anti-Jewish.

    They are not ready to deal with what they call the old anti-Semitism, the people that are neo-Nazis, or their supporters in power. But they are putting all their efforts into fighting any criticism of Israel instead.

    The Netanyahu government itself is actually enlarging the risk for the Jewish people around the world, because they are not dealing with the real problem, just the artificial problem. They are not concerned with real anti-Semitism; they only want to fulfill their political agenda of taking the issue of the Palestinian people off the world stage.

    Re Calling me a Self hating Jew’
    The aim in Doing this seems to be to create “a new definition of anti-Semitism that would equate criticisms of Israel with hatred of Jews…. and to define the state of Israel, so it is perceived as a Jewish collective.
    Just because I was born a Jew…. that doesn’t give me any authority to speak for all Jewish people! Neither do the Israeli government have the authority to speak for all Jewish people.

    The real threat that faces Jews in the UK, Europe and in the USA are, those who wear swastikas as badges of honour. Where is yours and Netanyahu’s concern for our community then?

    The Christian fascists and alt right support Zionism…. not because they are Jewish… but because, their enemy is the Alt rights enemy…. for now….Islamaphobia…
    Those Fascist might talk in support about the state of Israel, i.e.. Britain first, an anti Semitic, loyalist racist organisation, a group ‘opposing’ Muslims more than supporting Jews.
    Zionists Jews seem to ignorantly believe that their enemy’s enemy must be their friend!
    So it is really about the politics of power.

    You find echoes of this anti-Semitic Zionism among some rightwing American Christians who are far friendlier to the Jews of Israel than the Jews of the US.
    In 1980, Jerry Falwell, a close ally of Israel’s then Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, quipped that Jews “can make more money accidentally than you can on purpose”.

    Israel’s current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in 2005 said, “we have no greater friend in the whole world than Pat Robertson” – the same Pat Robertson who later called former US air force judge Mikey Weinstein a “little Jewish radical” for promoting religious freedom in the American military.

    In 2017, Richard Spencer, who leads crowds in Nazi salutes, called himself a “white Zionist” who sees Israel as a model for the white homeland he wants in the US.

    Some of the European leaders who traffic most blatantly in anti-Semitism – Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, Heinz-Christian Strache of Austria’s far-right Freedom party and Beatrix von Storch of the Alternative for Germany, which promotes nostalgia for the Third Reich – publicly champion Zionism too.

    Anti Semitism exists without anti-Zionism; anti-Zionism also clearly exists without anti-Semitism.

    I repeat…The state of Israel defines itself and so is perceived as a Jewish collective. But that doesn’t give the Israeli government any authority to speak for all Jewish people!
    Consider the Satmar, the largest Hasidic sect in the world. In 2017, 20,000 Satmar men – a larger crowd than attended that year’s American Israel Public Affairs Committee policy conference – filled the Barclays Center in Brooklyn for a rally aimed at showing, in the words of one organiser: “We feel very strongly that there should not be and could not be a State of Israel before the Messiah comes.”

    Trump supporters, who fear a homogenizing globalism, admire Zionist Israel for preserving Jewish identity while yearning to preserve America’s Christian identity in ways that exclude Jews.

    Ultimately I believe any effort to fight anti-Semitism that contributes to the denigration and dehumanization of Palestinians or any other race, is no fight against anti-Semitism at all.

    Zionists elevate and represent the Israeli state to claim ownership of Jewish history. This is Ironic given the Zionists’ extremely patchy record of opposing anti-Semitism and Nazism in the 1930s.

    I am told that to deny the Jewish people, of all the peoples on earth, the right to self-determination surely is discriminatory.
    All the peoples on earth?
    The Kurds don’t have their own state. Neither do the Basques, Catalans, Scots, Kashmiris, Tibetans, Abkhazians, Ossetians, Lombards, Igbo, Oromo, Uyghurs, Tamils and Québécois, nor dozens of other peoples who have created nationalist movements to seek self-determination but failed to achieve it.
    Yet barely anyone suggests that opposing a Kurdish or Catalan state makes you an anti-Kurdish or anti-Catalan bigot.
    You’d think Jewish leaders would understand this. You’d think they would understand it because many of the same Jewish leaders who call national self-determination a universal right are quite comfortable denying it to Palestinians.
    But it is not bigoted to try to turn a state based on ethnic nationalism into one based on civic nationalism, in which no ethnic group enjoys special privileges.

    Just as the versions of self-determination upheld by the Transvaal, the Orange Free State and apartheid South Africa excluded millions of black people living within their borders.
    A civic nationalism that encompassed people of all ethnicities and races.

    Not only did Israel’s leaders choose Trump over American Jews, but they did so easily, naturally, without hesitation, leaping to the defense of a political leader who is actively and openly fanning the flames of hatred that now has an unprecedented death toll.

    I recall, It was a rare moment,
    An American Jew confronting one of the pack of Israeli officials who saw it as their role to act as Trump’s political armor, shielding him from any responsibility for the synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh by a white supremacist Nazi Terrorist.

    The Israeli minister was confronted by 89-year-old Edward Bleier, a former Warner Bros. president, media pioneer and Jewish philanthropist who, disgusted by Bennett’s observation, gave him the schooling he badly needed. He noted that the Israeli minister is poorly educated when it comes to the Jews of the Diaspora, their history and sensitivities.
    “Some of us are older than you are and we recall the pre-war period in America when the Nazis convened in Madison Square Garden and paraded on 96th Street with brown shirts and swastikas. And the rallying cry of the anti-Semites was ‘America First.’ So my hair stands on end when I hear an American president invoke that line,”
    Bleier told him.

    I’ll say it again,
    Anti Semitism exists without anti-Zionism; anti-Zionism also clearly exists without anti-Semitism.
    Criticism of the criminal actions of a state is not anti Semitism… Criticism of the criminal actions of a state whether that state is Zionist British or American or any other is not unpatriotic.
    Those that say it is …are probably fascists or dictators

    right wing Jews Are using the word anti-Semitism as a weapon.
    Health and joy
    From Rory McLeod singer songwriter.

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  • Viv Jane says:

    Thank you. Just thank you both for your illuminating and healing words.

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