I think you hit on something important. The folks, especially on the right in both the United States and the UK, who have positive feelings towards Israel will often frame it in terms of wanting to be on the side of an oppressed people, speaking specifically about the Jewish People (capital J, capital P), which theoretically includes all Jewish folks in the world, regardless of the countries they reside in.
That doesn’t really wash with me. (Source: I am one of those Jewish people living in a country that isn’t Israel) I think there’s definitely a weird strain of apocalyptic evangelical Christianity that bolsters support for Israel on the right (i.e.: We have to have a strong Israel, get all the Jews to move there and just brace ourselves for the Second Coming. Oh by the way, all those Jews we packed into Israel are going to die and go to Hell. Sorry about that!).
The secretive trips or clubs you talk about are really nothing more than a PR push that we have in the United States as well, but don’t kid yourself, there are plenty of countries other than Israel doing the same thing.
As a Jewish person I agree that there is a reflex to be defense when questioned about Israel. It’s painful to have a country claim to represent you (it doesn’t represent Jewish people) and do awful things to people living there. I also think there can be a great deal of insensitivity when people question Israel’s actions and project its actions onto the Jewish people as a whole, much in the same way people may make awful comments to Muslims if ISIS claims credit for a bomb. But there is definitely an effort (particularly in the USA on the right) to use accusations of anti-Semitism as a weapon to push back against the Left.
It’s infuriating to be used as a pawn by what is largely a white Evangelical Christian political party.
The problem is that if you can’t criticize Israel and his politics, otherwise you sound antisemitic.
The funny thing is that there are a lot of jews who criticize Israel so they can’t be antisemitic lol!
Jewish people definitely can be anti-Semitic! There’s a lot of internal arguing that goes on. Very religious Jews referring to people who may be less religious as non-Jews. People who aren’t religious referring to more religious Jews as wacky cultists. Not to mention the whole JDL/Kahane strain of religious Zionist fundamentalism which doesn’t really have a place for people like myself or my partner.
Bottom line is Labour has an issue with anti-Semitism. If the MPs who quit truly believe that JC can’t lead the party because of it, fair play to them. But I do always get a little uneasy when right wing parties try to position themselves as a welcoming place for Jewish voters. The fundamental tenants of Judaism as a religion align so much more with the left IMO. But I’m just a random guy on the Internet, what do I know?
Yeah, this criticism is more along the lines of “You can’t be Jewish unless you support a particular political ideology” or “You can’t be Jewish unless you observe certain tenants of religious practice and this political ideology” or “If you believe this political ideology you are betraying your status as a Jewish person.”
Right but it needs to have a problem above and beyond what you would expect across general society and across all parties in order for it to be considered a particular problem for Labour. That isn’t the case. It’s not ok for media etc to keep going on about this without proof.
Saying that we have to wait until Labour crosses some sort of general threshold for bad behavior before the people who are the target of that bad behavior are allowed to make their voices heard is not okay.
Is Labour more or less antagonistic towards Jewish people than the Tories? I don’t know. I don’t really care, I wouldn’t vote Conservative anyway. I care about making the Left a safe place for Jewish voters.
Some of this is the soft bigotry of low expectations. I don’t think people would give a shit if there were a bunch of stories about the Tories or Republicans in the USA being anti-Semitic. We expect that (and by “we” I mean, “us”, Jewish folks) from the likes of them.
Saying that Jewish MPs or Jewish members of Labor or the media should not focus on a story because the other party is doing it too is kind of bogus. It also feeds into something I’ve touched on quite a bit which is the gaslighting problem a lot of Jewish people experience when raising concerns. We’re constantly told not to speak up because things “aren’t that bad” or “they’re just as bad in other parties” and if we force the issue we’re labeled as hysterical or whiny. That attitude has filtered down through generations and resulted in a lot of Jewish people being very afraid to call attention to offensive comments and behaviors in political parties for fear of being cast as the “paranoid Jew”
Secularists should be able to mock religious people without being called anti-semitic for it.
The general feeling is those MPs are using it as an excuse to shut up the left wing as a whole. The centre and right of the party were jumping ship on masse way before any mention of ‘antisemitism’.
The real problem for Labour MPs is they have lost complete control over the direction of the party due to Ed Milliband’s reforms. None of them wanted Corbyn but the members of the Labour party within the public did. It’s killed off the power structure of the centre and right wing of the party. With all due respect to antisemitism it pales compared to ‘who has the power now’.
The Labour MPs then tried to force Corbyn out giving him a massive vote of no confidence. They tried to cancel as many left wing Labour members as possible in order to stack the vote against Corbyn. He still won a leadership battle with an overwhelming majority.
I’m personally not a Corbyn supporter but that’s how I see the state of play.
Nothing you say is wrong. What’s wrong is the leap to Labour has a serious problem. It’s one thing for Labour to be dealing with it, which they are, and to call out publicly real examples of it with evidence, and then repeating unfounded shit on loop over and over and over as if to suggest that hating Jews is like policy or something.
Me as left-wing man i am fed up with all these neo-liberals pretending that a centre-left party should adopt centrist and right-wig policies to please the so-called “moderate” voters, when you have far-right gaining votes and after votes among middle-class and workers.
That’s the reason why the left in the world is so fucked up, not only the Labour.
Here’s what was alleged. I can’t find the offending Tweet:
The tweet, which resurfaced after he was readmitted to the party on Monday, said: “Jewish people with any sense of humanity need to start speaking out publicly against the ruthless murdering being carried out by Israel!”
A non-Jew demanding that Jewish people answer for bad policies carried out by a government of a country where they don’t even live is anti-Semitic. It’s not his place to put that on Jewish people. He should stay in his lane. Why not just say that “any people with a sense of humanity” should speak out against Israeli policies? It’s because he’s singling out Jewish people as bearing some sort of responsibility for Israel’s actions. That’s bullshit IMO.
It’s not okay to force that on Jewish people who live in the Netherlands or Canada or wherever. They don’t live in Israel, they don’t vote in Israeli elections, they don’t make Israeli policy.
What Hatton did is conflate membership in a religious-ethnic group with citizenship in a country. It’s not any different from right wing politicians in the United States demanding that Muslim citizens of the USA speak out against Saudi Arabia or the UAE or ISIS.
It’s not the worst example of racism but it’s still offensive…so yeah, I’d say it’s racist.
I’m not saying I’d ban him.
I feel very strongly that Labour’s way out of this is education rather than dropping the ban hammer on people. I’m more of the Uncle Harry arm 'round the shoulder when it comes to educating folks.
My only take on the dissenters leaving Labour/Conservatives is once again the centrist arrogance is amusing, just because you uphold a median position in the ‘political spectrum’ does not give you ownership over what is ‘sensible’. Pure nonsense.
I’ll welcome more parties always if we get them, but the irony isn’t lost on me.
