Heading Steadily Toward Brexit
"At the end of the day, you're still a bloody Jew. It's a good reminder that you are still a stranger in whichever country you are."
"I'm speaking as someone in his 70s. I don't think anyone in their 20s or their 30s would agree or understand. But, just remember, it's not a permanent home."
Joseph Deutsch, 74, retiree, Orthodox Jew, Golders Green, London
"Literally, if it were anyone but him, [we] would be Labour. He is extremely anti-Semitic."
"[She would be happy to vote for an earlier iteration, a Tony Blair or a Gordon Brown, but voted Conservative in protest]."
Tanya Ohana, 24, retail worker, Golders Green
"Even if Jeremy Corbyn leaves tomorrow or Friday, this could be generations before there's confidence and trust between U.K. Jews and the Labour party."
"The once great anti-racist party has vanished."
"The anxiety is really high, and it's genuine. This really is how the Jews feel. This is not a smear."
"It's heartbreaking to see all this here. We hope for a good outcome, but there's no good outcome. There's no winners, whatever the result of the general election."
Marie van der Zyl, president, Board of Deputies of British Jews
"Anti-Semitism in any form is vile and wrong. It is an evil within our society."
"There is no place for it -- and under a Labour government, it will not be tolerated in any form whatsoever."
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn
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| Jeremy Corbyn (second from left) holding a wreath during a visit to the Martyrs of Palestine, in Tunisia, in October 2014. (Facebook page of the Palestinian embassy in Tunisia) |
Other than for the other very clear messages that have come through to the public and which have riveted Jewish attention to the sentiments, the expressions, the company he keeps and the moods he encourages within the Labour party that convince anyone with eyes to see, ears to hear, and the intelligence to interpret, that the Labour party has been well infiltrated with haters who have followed the example of their leader, a man who consorts with terrorists, finding them fine people, and who personally appears to believe that Jews are an evil menace.
An astounding number of British Jews, of a British community that has lived in Great Britain for at least a thousand years, are convinced there will be no place for them in the country of their birth and heritage, should Labour, with Jeremy Corbyn as its head, lead the country by winning the popular majority vote of the 12 December general election which was supposed to be all about Brexit but which has become suffused with a musty air of anti-Semitism.
When, in 2011 he appeared on Iranian television to state his belief of "bias" by the BBC when it claimed "that Israel has a right to exist", this was one signal, but there were many before that, and many more to follow, none oblique nor nuanced, all clearly 'biased' in favour of rancid anti-Semitism. At the end of the day, however, Britain voted. Jews who despaired that most of their countrymen had no investment in the agony of their exposure to racist tropes that once again targeted Jews, had a reprieve.
The Conservative Party was given a mandate by the British voters to proceed with Brexit, and the European Union knows it now has the opportunity to bargain for a UK-EU trade agreement that will benefit both parties. The sigh of relief exuded by the Jewish community in Britain is echoed by that of the Jewish communities everywhere in the diaspora and Israel. But the bitterness at betrayal by Labour, and the fears that arose when Jews in Britain felt they were being ostracized will remain, and perhaps fade with time.
History...repeating itself...time and again...inexorably...distressingly...does it foretell the future?
"The relief among the Jewish community is palpable. And the gratitude."
"But as the days and weeks move on, there is something on which we will reflect: the willingness of so many of our so-called allies to campaign for and embrace Jeremy Corbyn."
Stephen Pollard, editor, Jewish Chronicle newspaper
Labels: Anti-Semitism, Brexit, Conservatives, General Election, Labour, Majority Government, United Kingdom
posted by Pieface @ Friday, December 13, 2019
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