The Political Thread

[The Legendary Shark]

I've recently listened to a series of lectures about the history of Israel, which was quite interesting. For instance, as I'm sure many of you already know, the initial offering for land upon which to create a Jewish state/homeland was in Uganda (or was it Zimbabwe? I forget). How different the world would be if they'd accepted...

[shaolin_monkey]

Jim is spot on. In fact, if you'd like a look at Corbyn's record in these matters this doc is very useful.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vR-tiGv2w89fnqY1_cPygN8VlP4uROfF9ys8THXB1p0r-UTAPgmx5g3pgWfr-aeo3G3Ka1S-bbtmD1w/pub


Corbyn has been the victim of one of the worst media campaigns against him than any leader of the opposition that has come before.

‪Consider this study from the London School of Economics.‬

‪It states no previous leader of the opposition has been the victim of such vitriol. ‬

‪They end by noting our media and journalism can no longer be considered 'watchdogs', but rather 'attack dogs'.‬

‪ http://www.lse.ac.uk/media-and-communications/assets/documents/research/projects/corbyn/Cobyn-Report.pdf



Then there's this study from Birkbeck which shows the media's report on the supposed anti-semitism has been entirely questionable.

https://www.mediareform.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Labour-antisemitism-and-the-news-FINAL-PROOFED.pdf

[JamesC]

Thank you.
If only someone had the balls to say this on the Today programme.

[Jim_Campbell]

The media has been complicit in amplifying the voice of one section of the Jewish community (and pretending that Jews have a homogenous opinion on any subject is, in itself, an antisemitic trope) whilst dissenting Jewish voices feel very strongly that they have been silenced.

The primary source of accusations of anitsemitism come from:

The Labour Friends of Israel group... whose president, Joan Ryan, was filmed taking a million quid bung from a member of the Israeli embassy staff and whose membership lean very strongly towards the 'New' Labour right and, frankly, hate Corbyn. Another member, Louse Ellman, once claimed unchallenged on Radio 4 to be able to read Corbyn's mind, since she asserted that she was certain that he "had antisemitic thoughts."

The Jewish Chronicle... whose editor, Stephen Pollard, has unequivocally declared that the political left in Britain "is the enemy". All of them. Anyone doubting that he is cyncially exploiting this issue on political grounds should consider that the Chronicle was excoriating of Margaret Hodge right up until the point where she started throwing around wildly inaccurate accusations of antisemitism*, at which point she was suddenly wonderful.

The Jewish Labour Movement, an organisation that requires doesn't require its members to be either Jewish, or members of the Labour Party.

The Board of Deputies. Leaving aside the apparent political bias of the BoD (they effusively congratulated both Theresa May and Donald Trump on their election victories), it's worth remembering that their claim to "speak for" the Jewish community is highly dubious. Over half of Britain's Jews are secular/non-observant and thus not able to participate in the BoD's selection process or policy choices. A quarter of British Jews belong to the orthodox Charedi community which has been very vocal in support of Labour and specifically of Corbyn, declaring him to be a friend to their community. Which leaves about a quarter for whom the BoD probably speaks.

If you'd like to see an example of the silencing of dissenting voices, take a look at Michael Rosen's Twitter feed some time. Michael has been called "a cheerleader for George Soros", "Corbyn's useful idiot" and a "kapo"** ... by people who are, supposedly, concerned about antisemitism. If they were that concerned about it, they wouldn't heap antisemitic abuse on a Jewish man for the crime of disagreeing with them about what constitutes antisemitism.

*Her much-vaunted 'dossier' of 200+ antisemitic incidents turned out to relate to about 100 indivduals, 90-odd of whom weren't even members of the Labour Party.

** For those unfamiliar with the term, it refers to Jews who collaborated with the Nazis in the concentration camps. I'm not Jewish, but I can't think of a worse thing one might call a Jewish person, never mind one like Rosen who lost a whole chunk of his parents' immediate family in those concentration camps.

[JamesC]

This is really interesting - thank you.

[Tjm86]

Thanks Shaolin for that.  Some really interesting reading there.  I gave up a long time ago trying to keep up with media distortions on Corbyn's position vis-a-vis Israel.  It's actually got to the point now where it is slightly more than a little tedious and if anything plays into the hands of the likes of Trump and their 'fake news' narrative.

There is a course on the Open University's FutureLearn platform about Antisemitism run in conjunction with an Israeli university (I forget which one).  It is the first one that I have actually withdrawn from because of the general slant of the course.  Balanced it was not.

[shaolin_monkey]

Oh dear - here's what it may all be about.

'Mirvis described Johnson as a "longstanding friend".'

https://www.thecanary.co/opinion/2019/11/26/theres-one-crucial-sentence-missing-from-the-mainstream-medias-coverage-of-the-chief-rabbis-comments/

[Jim_Campbell]

Oh dear - here's what it may all be about.

'Mirvis described Johnson as a "longstanding friend".'

https://www.thecanary.co/opinion/2019/11/26/theres-one-crucial-sentence-missing-from-the-mainstream-medias-coverage-of-the-chief-rabbis-comments/

And, of course, there's no political dimension to this. It's a complete coincidence that this gets pushed back to the top of the news cycle on the day Labour launches a 'Faith and Race' manifesto.

[shaolin_monkey]

Also, it's interesting it happens on the same day the UK Muslim Council attacks the Tories for Islamophobia:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50561043

https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political-parties/conservative-party/news/108214/muslim-council-britain-accuses-tories

[shaolin_monkey]

‪Chief Rabbi Mirvis, apparently a good friend of Johnson, attacks Corbyn.‬

Here's a reminder of Corbyn's superb record against racism, plus also sexism and homophobia.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vR-tiGv2w89fnqY1_cPygN8VlP4uROfF9ys8THXB1p0r-UTAPgmx5g3pgWfr-aeo3G3Ka1S-bbtmD1w/pub

(As noted earlier)

‪Now, here's a great reminder of Johnson's record of racism, sexism, and homophobia, with sources, courtesy of @uk_domain_names‬ on Twitter.

‪

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XzAujyzN9JxpUl9rN7EIIX0AlgaXL8rE/view?usp=drivesdk

[Frank]

Can someone please tell me if Corbyn is an anti-semite or not?

That's not the allegation French electronica producer Mirwais made.

In his opinion, the current leader of the UK Labour party hasn't done enough to tackle anti-Semitism among some supporters of the UK Labour party during his time in charge.

There's no way of objectively proving such an opinion is right or wrong. Even if one party can prove they've taken action, the other party can still insist they should have done more.

It's a Rorschach blot - if you already hate Corbyn, you'll think the Rabbi's Burn is valid, if you think he's great, you won't. It's not going to change anyone's mind ^*


* The public have already voted on Corbyn once, so his relative popularity is baked-in. From the vantage point of a tiny village in rural Scotland, the anti-Semitism debate might as well be about jawas, which holds for most of the country. If you're being brutally pragmatic about it, Jezza can afford to lose the votes of every single person who considers themselves Jewish in the UK without worrying about it affecting the outcome of the forthcoming election.

[Jim_Campbell]

If you're being brutally pragmatic about it, Jezza can afford to lose the votes of every single person who considers themselves Jewish in the UK without worrying about it affecting the outcome of the forthcoming election.

Worth noting also that the "Jewish vote" hasn't traditionally been primarily a Labour one for many years and what there was dropped sharply under Ed Miliband, a secular Jew, when he moved the party to an explicitly pro-Palestinian stance, much to the fury of Labour Friends of Israel.

You may also recall that this was the first time Maureen Lipman left the Labour Party, although she's now left so many times I'll admit it can be hard to keep track.

[Steve Green]

The Hindu Council UK and the Sikh Federation UK have their say...

https://twitter.com/PaulBrandITV/status/1199390279876403201

[radiator]

Can someone please tell me if Corbyn is an anti-semite or not?

I usually listen to the Today programme on my way to work. It's probably my main (or at least most regular) source of news. This story comes up time and again - they're always interviewing so called experts and discussing it. Over the course of how ever many months I'm yet to hear any specific examples of anti-semitic behaviour from Corbyn.
I could google it but the question is - should I really have to? If they're going to trot out this accusation time and again they could at least be specific about what the accusation actually is.

It's really all they've got to attack him with, isn't it? It's honestly quite pathetic.

Until someone can point me to evidence of an actual track record of Corbyn publicly or privately saying or writing overtly antisemitic things (say, something along the lines of Boris Johnson's openly homophobic, racist and Islamophobic slurs) - I'm just not buying it, sorry.

[Jim_Campbell]

The Hindu Council UK and the Sikh Federation UK have their say...

I'll confess that this one has come a bit out of the blue but, from a very quick attempt to get up to speed, it appears that 1) the issue of Kashmir is nearly as divisive amongst Hindus as that of Israel is among the Jewish community, and 2) there's a strong suspicion that pro-Conservative figures in the community have been working quite hard to exacerbate those divisions.