Yes, I really do think Corbyn qualifies as a Zionist! By now I think everyone is aware of the situation in the UK where the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn has a serious problem with anti-Semitism. No Jew, however removed from his or her Jewish identity, feels comfortable with the antagonistic and abusive atmosphere that pervades the Labour Party hierarchy, even when the Jews concerned are either not supporting Israel or critical of its policies. Recordings of the abuse and hatred directed towards those who complain about it have gone viral. And, as is too often the case with rape, the victims are blamed.
It is true that the disease of anti-Semitism is deeply imbedded in British society, despite there being a counter-strain of philo-Semitism. For proof, just read Anthony Julius’s great and comprehensive book Trials of the Diaspora: A History of Anti-Semitism in England. The pathology has equally affected the Right and the Left in the UK, over many years. As we know, much of the aristocracy was favorably inclined towards Hitler and to the Fascist party led by Oswald Mosley, who, with his black shirts, led marches into the heavily Jewish East End of London; and at the other end of the scale, the lower classes keep present-day fascism alive, if marginalized.
The Labour Party always used to be the natural home of Jews. Very much as the Democratic Party in the USA once was. In my youth there were more Jews in the Labour Party than in all the others combined, and double that. Sure, Ernest Bevin the Foreign Minister in the post-war Attlee government was viscerally anti-Semitic and opposed to Israel’s establishment. But the charismatic duo of Aneurin Bevan and Jennie Lee more than compensated, with their passionate support. Hugh Gaitskell, the party leader, was pro-Israel and married to a Jewess; and Harold Wilson was a great supporter of Jewish causes.
In Europe the socialist parties were enthusiastically pro-Israel, because they saw it as socialist state with a socialist government and a strong command economy. The Kibbutzim, the collective agricultural settlements, were idealized socialist havens. This of course was why initially the Soviet Union voted for Israel at the UN despite its intrinsic Marxist opposition to religion and religious states.
That began to change after the Six-Day War, when Israel was no longer regarded as a struggling, endangered state at risk, surrounded by enemies, but rather a militarily successful aggressor. This, combined with the economic need for oil and the massively bigger Muslim markets and bloc vote, led to the alienation of most of the European Socialist world from Israel. One of the most influential anti Zionist figures was the Jewish-born Austrian socialist Bruno Kreisky. This mood of antagonism led to the left supporting the most dishonest and prejudiced resolution at the UN ever, calling Zionism racism, on November 10, 1975. Even in the UN there were enough who realized what a pathetic travesty this was, and the resolution was overturned in 1991.
If we add to this the shift Menachem Begin initiated towards a positively proud Jewish religious and cultural stance and a free, innovative economy, socialism moved further and further away from any sympathy for Israel. All socialist governments, from Scandinavia to Spain, have now adopted an antagonistic stance towards Israel that defies logic, fairness, and truth. Any anti-Israel propaganda is automatically accepted as true, and anything proving the contrary is accepted as a lie. Any action Israel takes is aggression. And anything its opponents do is fighting for freedom. Although there are small signs that some governments are no longer willing to go along with such a one-sided biased narrative.
The success of Jeremy Corbyn’s extreme left-wing takeover of the Labour Party has brought all the subcutaneous cancerous hatred out into the open. Anyone who supports Israel, even with plenty of qualification, is a fascist, imperialist, racist aggressor, and is called a Zio dog or bitch in full hearing and view of the party members.
On June 1, 2017, the European Union, much to everyone’s surprise, voted to adopt a resolution to apply the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of anti-Semitism. The definition includes examples, such as Holocaust-denial and attempts to apply a double-standard to the State of Israel.
The Labour Party has refused to accept any part of the IHRA’s definition that refers to Israel. In other words, one can say what one likes, true or not, and not be accused of being offensive to Jews. Can you imagine if that same position was taken towards Muslims? Imagine that you may not say anything against individual Muslims, but you may say that Muslim states should all be abolished as being racist. Do you really think the Muslim community would tolerate that?
Anglo-Jewry has woken from its stupor. A 1,000-strong protest outside Parliament in March, led by disaffected Jewish members of the Labour Party, resulted in an internal report that almost everyone else agreed was a whitewash. Labour retorted by claiming that a series of expulsions and new rules would demonstrate that Labour, at last, was taking the problem seriously. Instead, its attempt to cover up its anti-Zionism has resulted in Britain’s three main Jewish newspapers giving an unprecedented warning that a Labour government under Jeremy Corbyn would be an “existential threat to Jewish life in this country.” “A lot of Jewish people are genuinely scared of the Labour Party,” says one Jewish member, “and it feels like the leadership doesn’t understand that.”
This has led to the reality that the Jewish community has completely lost confidence in Labour. It has not yet led to confidence in British society. But more and more Jews are seeking escape routes. The numbers making Aliyah to Israel is growing exponentially. Many Jews who never thought much about being Jewish are now combing back into the fold.
This why I say that Corbyn is a great Zionist. He has done more to bring about support for Israel than anyone else. He has generated a change in a lukewarm attitude on the part of most Anglo-Jews. He has inspired more Jews since the Six-Day War to go to Israel, to support Israel, and to fight back. He has done more than anyone else to prove why in a postmodern, supposedly post-nationalist world the Jews have a right and an ongoing need for a land of their own.
Who knows where it will end. In the meantime, as someone brought up in a Labour family and who always voted Labour in the past, I never, ever thought I would say this, but thank goodness for the Conservative Party.
Nice. But adopting your paradigm might lead to praise for a certain Chancellor of a certain Middle European country in the last century.
‘Thank goodness for the Tories’ apart from their creation of the economic circumstances that foster bigotry, including anti semitism. If we were living in a pre Brexit age I might be persuaded that the current Labour Party was ‘an existencial’ threat, but we’re not, we’re reading daily of impending economic misery for the majority and especially for the poorest and most reactionary. That is the real threat for us and all other minorities.
I am no economist so really can’t evaluate the extent to which economic woes are self inflicted or external. All I do know is that the Labour party as is currently seems even less capable than the Tories.
I’m not an economist either, that’s why I read economists. This report for example, which shows that people suffering economic hardship due to austerity were inclined to vote Leave. https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/workingpapers/2018/twerp_1170_fetzer.pdf Did Austerity Cause Brexit?
If being an improvement on the Tories is the bar Labour has to reach, I think it might get there, if only by managing to feed UK children. The Tories can’t manage this during the Summer holidays when school meals aren’t available. Food banks have appealed for more donations. The Tories are planning to investigate whether there is a link between cutting social welfare and people going hungry. From memory, it’s budgeted to cost £172k, a metziah.
Yes of course I was being sarcastic but you do have an interesting point! There are many who claim that we only got an Independent Israel because of the Nazis. That of course is the anti Israel claim abd ignores history. And that was a great piece you wrote on the Citizenship Law and Surrogacy. Shabbat Shalom.
Yes my tongue was very much in my cheek. But you know of course that the Palestinian/Left Wing narrative is that Israel only cme about because of Hitler. No Jews were ever involved in the Land of Israel before he came along. As if.
My late Father, God bless him, bore a scar on his head where a mounted policeman hit him with a truncheon at Cable Street while he was protesting against Moseley. Labour, he said, was the only party for the Jews. Now I read that David Duke is endorsing Corbyn and his anti-semitic policies. Why am I not surprised? Sadly, though, I don’t think Corbyn really gives a fig for the 200,000 Jewish vote in the UK because the Muslim population is at least tenfold that of the Jewish and perhaps he sees this as more important to his existence than the Jewish one, especially if you look at his love for people like Hamas and Hezbollah. Anyway, the fact that he has done nothing, other than spout a few platitudes, serves only to endorse our belief that he is no friend of the Jews.
Thank you, Jeremy, for such a brilliant article. Shabbat Shalom.
Shabbat Shalom Leilah and thanks for your comments as ever.
And another thing: there were more incidents of anti-Semitism in London under Boris Johnson than there were under Ken Livingstone (as recorded by the CST), so be careful what you wish for since Boris is widely tipped to replace May. What will the newly amicable Board and the Campaign Against anti-Semitism have to say without Corbyn and the LP to scapegoat? And why the pretence, by us to us, that some of this recent Jewish community unity isn’t expedient PR? Would we be in quite this situation had it not been for a supine Board of Deputies that gave birth to the Campaign Against Antisemitism? If Antisemitism in the UK is alive and well, what was the Board doing all this time and why on earth do we need a separate organisation to combat Antisemitism? Corbyn is the least of our worries.
Surely the inrease in anti Semitic incidents has more to do with a combination of Islamic extremists, fascists and Trots than whover occupied the largely symbolic mayors office. And I am certainly no fan of the BoD or the Anglo Jewish leadership. But thank you so much for a different perpective. Much appreciated and needed.
The mayor of London’s office is not merely symbolic, it has the power, under Boris Johnson, to waste £60m of public money, (I don’t know the political leanings of the Architects Journal but no architect I’ve ever met leant towards the left),
https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/are-boris-johnsons-garden-bridge-claims-true-or-false/10028810.article
For practical enhancement to city life, compare Ken Livingstone’s scheme for subsidised public transport, Fare’s Fair, quashed due to a conflict over who was to fund it.
The point I was making is that if the BoD was not dealing with antisemitism and hence the need for the formation of the CAA, then what was the BoD doing and why was this not part of their remit? Or if it was, and they were doing something, then presumably they were doing it very badly, so badly that they got booed at the demo organised by the CAA in 2014 outside the Royal Courts of Justice. Now suddenly, they’re best mates, united by Corbyn. He’s less of a Zionist than a sticking plaster for Jewish communal organisations. In fact, due to Corbyn (possibly), they compete to get in there first with a blow struck against antisemitism from the LP. It’s almost as if the BoD doesn’t want to be shamed by comparison with the CAA.
As for bewailing the loss of Jewish support for the Labour Party, it’s nonsense. When was the last time the London borsht belt voted Labour? Now they’re hailing Margaret Hodge as a hero, as if they’d vote for her when in all likelihood, they’d no more do that than take a shopping trip to Barking. It’s bad enough that Corbyn is entrenched because of the myths he believes without us making up things too and adding to the rhetoric.
Apart from your justification for the wasted mony on the Mayor’s Office I don’t disagree with the rest.