Politic?

Identifying Anti-Semites

"Anti-Zonism is unique because its view is that the Zionist enterprise, that is to say, the state of Israel, is misconceived, it's wrong, and at the end of the day, it isn't simply Israeli policy that has to change, but it is Israel itself that has to go."
"This is unique when you think about other countries around the world. Many of us are critics of China's occupation of Tibet, or Russia's occupation of parts of Ukraine. Some people are aware that Turkey is occupying norther Cypress, in violation of international law and putting down settlements there too. But none of those critiques extend to calls that are now increasingly pervasive around the world, not only for Russia, China, or Turkey to change their policies but for the states themselves to disappear, to be eliminated. So even if you accepted the premise for one second that anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism, you have to come to grips with the eliminationist ideology that is at the heart of anti-Zionism."
Bret Stephens, New York Times columnist, Munk Debates

"[Anti-Semitism is a] poison [within the British Labour party led by Jeremy Corbyn aspiring to the Prime Ministership of Great Britain, raising deep concerns about Britain's] moral compass [should Labour win the scheduled December 12 election]."
"It is a failure to see this [the place of Jewish life in Britain under a Labour government] as a human problem rather than a political one."
"It is a failure of culture. It is a failure of leadership. A new poison -- sanctioned from the top has taken root in the Labour party."
"It is not my place to tell any person how they should vote. I regret being in this situation at all. I simply pose the question: What will the result of this election say about the moral compass of our country?"
Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth

"I'm looking forward to having a discussion with him [Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis] because I want to hear why he would say such a thing [a 'mendacious fiction' to say Labour was doing everything possible to tackle anti-Semitism]."
"He's not right. Because he would have to produce the evidence to say that's mendacious. [Anti-Semitism] didn't rise after I became leader."
"I am determined that our society will be safe for people of all faiths. I don't want anyone to be feeling insecure in our society. Racism in our society is a total poison."
Labour leader Jeremy Corbin

Jeremy Corbyn has said he was present but not involved at a wreath-laying for individuals behind the group that carried out the Munich Olympic massacre Photo posted on the Facebook page of the Embassy of Palestine in Tunisia, in October 2014, of Jeremy Corbyn’s visit to the Cemetery of the Martyrs of Palestine, Tunis. Photograph: Embassy of the State of Palestine in Tunisia

London's Times newspaper published a highly unusual opinion piece, a reluctant one, to be sure, but one the author, the chief rabbi in Britain, felt constrained to write and to find a public space for, to make certain that if there were any lingering doubts that the fewer than 300,000 Jews who are British subjects feel themselves under the oppressive and frightening re-introduction of anti-Semitic fire, those doubts should be put to rest. Labour, once the natural-gravitational-political-pull of Jews, has become a comfortable home under Corbyn for a renaissance of anti-Semitism.

Because the Labour leader is seen to be quite at home among Jew-haters and -baiters, Labour has attracted the new membership of formerly closet-anti-Semites whose rancid hatred and expressions leaving no question of their toxic sympathies having caused staunch former Labour supporters to remove themselves from the once-trusted umbrella of Labour. Prominent Jewish Labour members have denounced the starkly obvious turn the party has taken, have stepped down and the situation has become so dire British Jews feel their future in the country of their birth untenable.

This is not a situation where uber-sensitive Jews whose anti-Semitism feelers are always on high alert have overplayed the situation. It is clear enough to anyone the direction that Labour has taken. In the wake of Rabbi Mirvis's published sentiments, the Reverend Justin Welby, archbishop of Canterbury, spiritual leader of the Church of England, endorsed those views, himself remarking on the "deep sense of insecurity and fear felt by many British Jews", a fear and insecurity that does not emanate from nowhere, with no just cause.

Corbyn's sensitive empathy for the 'plight' of the Palestinians under 'occupation' by Israel has resulted in ample public statements to clarify his sympathies: "We cannot stand by or stay silent at the continuing denial of rights and justice to the Palestinian people. The Labour Party is united in condemning the ongoing human rights abuses by Israeli forces, including the shooting of hundreds of unarmed Palestinian demonstrators in Gaza - most of them refugees or families of refugees - demanding their rights." In a gross, one-sided view of a complex issue of self-defence by the IDF against the violent intentions of Hamas-inspired threats to Israeli lives.

And his very public actions in attending 'Nakba Day' events in memory of the creation of the modern State of Israel, returning as a people to their historical homeland and re-establishing its permanent presence, a contrary devastating blow for Palestinians who refused the United Nation's Partition Plan, has endeared him to the very Palestinian groups that most Western democracies classify as terrorists: "We have received with great respect and appreciation the solidarity message sent by the British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn to the participants in the mass rally", Hamas stated. "We also salute Mr Jeremy Corbyn for his principled position in rejecting the so-called Trump plan for the Middle East."

Mr. Corbyn's support and affection for -- and affiliation with violent Palestinian groups whose actions have earned them the identifying terrorist stamp, is certainly not new; his leftist 'progressive' activism puts him squarely in the camp of any number of brutal tyrants on the left, in support of the former USSR, Cuba's Castro, Venezuela's Chavez among others. He attended a 2012 conference in Qatar whose featured speakers were Palestinian militants released by Israel in exchange for a captured Israeli soldier.

UK Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn (second right) attends a 2012 conference in Doha along with several Palestinian terrorists convicted of murdering Israelis. (Screen capture: Twitter)

Among those speakers was Abdul Aziz Umar, convicted in Israel for his active participation in a 2003 suicide bombing that took place in Jerusalem killing seven people. Along with Husam Badran, a former head of Hamas’s military operations who had engaged in the planning of suicide bombings that destroyed the lives of over one hundred people. Corbyn thought their contributions to the conference to be "fascinating and electrifying".

The kind of 'fascination' that lends ready support to slanderous descriptions of Israel and proposals in support of delegitimizing the state's right to exist. Yet as a result of all the damning publicity that has come Labour's way, Corbyn stated last year a review undertaken of online posts Labour members were responsible for, revealed "examples of Holocaust denial, crude stereotypes of Jewish bankers, conspiracy theories blaming 9/11 on Israel, and even one individual who appeared to believe that Hitler had been misunderstood."

He himself hosted a panel in 2010 where Israelis were described in comparison to Nazis, while in 2012 he spoke of an artist's "freedom of speech", in defending that artist's London mural depicting Jewish bankers playing a game of monopoly with a board balanced on the bent backs of workers. That ages-old accusations of Jews ruling the world of finance, of oppressing ordinary working people, as though the plot for world domination pace The Protocols of the Elders of Zion represented Labour's working manual on addressing the Jewish menace.