British Jews, Irony and the British Labour Party
"Rightly or wrongly, Jeremy Corbyn is now the figurehead for an anti-Semitic political culture, based on obsessive hatred of Israel, conspiracy theories and fake news that is doing dreadful harm to British Jews and to the British Labour Party."
"Jeremy Corbyn did not invent this form of politics, but he has had a lifetime within it, and now personifies its problems and dangers."
Board of Deputies of British Jews/Jewish Leadership Council
"[Their (British Jews) problem is] they don't want to study history, and secondly, having lived in this country for a very long time, probably all their lives, they don't understand English irony, either."
British Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn
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| Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn | Chris J. Ratcliffe/AFP via Getty Images |
"For a community with a history like ours, you can’t underestimate the need for Jews to feel like they belong, like they are accepted, like they are safe."
"The Jewish newspapers were right. Jews from across the political and religious spectrum — literally ranging from orthodox to completely secular — have said they will not want to stay in this country under a Corbyn premiership. Who knows what would actually happen. But if that’s the case — if Jews leave en masse — how is that not an existential threat?"
Claudia Mendoza, head of policy, U.K. Jewish Leadership Council
"For me, Corbyn’s patronizing, racialized put-down of British ‘Zionists’ and our sense of history and English irony was no surprise."
"His political career has been spent in the company of Holocaust deniers, anti-Semites and terrorist groups, so I don’t need to hear him sounding like an old-fashioned anti-Semite to know exactly what he stands for."
"It’s been interesting to see some commentators say they can no longer defend him after seeing that." "I think it’s telling that they were prepared to defend his support for organizations that literally murder Jews, whether on Israeli buses, in Olympic villages or in Argentinian community centers, but they’re more concerned by a linguistic micro-aggression. Support for anti-Semitic terror groups is fine, as long as you don’t sound like an elderly racist who’s had one drink too many in the process."
David Krikler, Jewish communications consultant, London
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| People hold up placards and Union flags as they gathered for a demonstration organized by the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism outside the head office of the British opposition Labour Party in central London back on April 8, 2018 | Tolga Akmen/AFP via Getty Images |
The more that is revealed about the leader of the British Labour Party, the more obvious it is that the man is the champion of British anti-Semites, given the opportunity by their leader to crawl out from under the dank stones they have taken refuge in to remain sheltered from scrutiny by revelations that they take great pleasure in indulging in the pathology of ethnic/racial hatred. An underlying thread of that indestructible force of human nature, separating the perceived outsider from the mainstream by depicting the outsider as alien and threatening has been whispered in polite society, but now feels free to clamour its accusations against Jews and their fictitious campaigns for world power.
It has been revelatory in the most negative sense that Corbyn's Labour supporters in the wake of news that he took part in a 2014 commemoration of Palestinian "martyrs", inclusive of the terrorists of Black September who engineered the kidnapping, torture and murder of eleven Israeli athletes and their coach at the 1972 Munich Olympics by steadfastly maintaining their support of their leader irrespective of his defence of "I was present when it was laid (a wreath). I don't think I was actually involved in it", as he protested lamely.
A YouGov poll pointed out that of Labour voters who felt there was no reason to think badly of Corbyn, 13 percent held that opinion, with close to 50 percent revealing that their opinion of their man had undergone no negative change, and six percent stated they thought all the more positively about his character as a result of the Daily Mail publishing photographs of Corbyn with PLO leaders at the memorial site, himself handling the wreath he felt he had no involvement with.
Labour happened to be the political party that British Jews traditionally felt most at home with supporting. After a long association with the Labour Party Jewish support has withered to the point where by 2014 a fifth of British Jews felt they no longer had any place in the party. And their alienation from Labour had little to do with its constant criticism of the State of Israel, since British Jews themselves are often critical of Israel. Jewish support of Labour now stands at 13 percent, and descending rapidly.
Labour MPs had voted in a 2016 leadership race no confidence by a 172-40 margin for Corbyn returned him to the leadership with 61.8 percent of the half-million cast ballots; a higher margin than was won by Corbyn in the 2015 victory that took him from backbench obscurity to the top echelon of power in the Labour Party. As head of the Stop the War Coalition where the Communist Party of Great Britain, the Socialist Workers Party and a variety of "anti-imperialist" and "anti-Zionist" groups gathered, Corbyn emerged to lead Labour.
The British Labour Party was once known for its anti-racism among many other virtues, leading Jews to flock to its wide embrace. Jews have considered Britain their home for the past four hundred years. But this is a different Britain altogether, not least with the influx of Muslims from across the Middle East, Southeast Asia and elsewhere, whose influence has altered much that was traditionally British.
And Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party, once home to Jews, basks in the compliments given him by former grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan David Duke, and Nick Griffin, formerly leader of the neo-fascist British National Party.
Labels: Anti-Semitism, Britain, Jeremy Corbyn, Labour Party
posted by Pieface @ Saturday, September 01, 2018
