Its not racist at all.
Fair play.
Iâm not here to change your mind, just telling you how one Jewish person reads that statement by Hatton. It was wrong, it was anti-Semitic and ultimately itâs the Jewish community that gets to define that, nobody else.
He shouldnât have said it, he shouldnât have been suspended and it shouldnât have been dug up years later to beat him over the head.
TBH the issue with actual Labour MPs is emotional yet ignorant tweets made by Naz Shah prior to her being a politician during the massacre of 1000s upon 1000s in Gaza. One of the memes she was accused of anti semitism for was created by a Norman Finkelstein, a courageous Jewish Professor of Social Sciences who has been persecuted by Pro-Israeli groups and denied entry to Israel as a Jew for his outspoken views.
He actually caught abuse for this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMYyalNfijg
And he gives his thoughts on the Israeli-Palestine conflict here:
Ex Labour London Mayor came out to defend the daughter of a domestic abuse victim whoâd made it into parliment (Naz Shah) and made some unfortunate comments about Hitler being pro-Israel.
Aside from that antisemtic comments are within Labour members who arenât politicans and make these comments because they are outraged at the treatment of Palestinians. Some of these comments are ill thought out and thus perhaps offensive bu essentially well meaning.
Do you see the problem here?
Iâm not going to retread old ground. It doesnât matter if a Jewish person created the meme or whatever. A Jewish person is totally capable of saying or doing something anti-Semitic. If Naz Shah shared it or Tweeted it or whatever, the fact a Jewish person created it does not give her cover.
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Iâm genuinely trying to be sensitive in this stuff, but is it really up to a community to decide what is or is not offensive / racist? Surely thatâs a human decision for all of us. I mean there are Muslims who would say that a picture of Mohammed is Islamophobic, and clearly that is false.
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Yes it is up to the community to decide, but each community has different mechanisms in figuring out whatâs out of bounds and that differs when youâre talking about a religious community or an ethnic community or a racial minority.
The Jewish community has no central authority. Thereâs no Pope, no President or King of the Jews (shout out to the musical Jesus Christ Superstar). Plus the Jewish community in the United States has enjoyed unprecedented safety and prosperity compared with the Jewish community in France. Those two Jewish communities are going to define their boundaries differently both because of what makes French people different from US citizens and because of how the French-Jewish experience differs from the US-Jewish experience.
But I think while you would have a lot of Jewish people agreeing with the sentiment of what Hatton said (i.e.: Israelâs policies are crap and should be opposed), I think youâd have a lot of people saying that his insistence as an outsider imposing a certain responsibility on Jewish people is a no-go.
Itâs not a perfect standard and it can change over time to be sure. You can even have sort of weird offensive behavior hierarchy. For example I wouldnât treat someone saying âOh hey, youâre Jewish, youâre probably good with moneyâ the same as someone saying âOh hey, youâre Jewish, youâre a k*ke motherfucker.â The first person needs a gentle reminder why thatâs not cool to say, the second person probably isnât worth talking to.
Ultimately each community develops a consensus with respect to what is or isnât cool.
The Black community decided that people outside the community canât use the N-word.
The Gay community has decided that people within the community can use certain language like someone describing themselves as âqueerâ or a âqueenâ but that type of language used by someone outside the community could be viewed as hurtful.
Like I said, itâs messy and fluid but I think the only thing Iâd want from people outside the Jewish community is the willingness to be educated. The problem is we donât necessarily live in a world where the first impulse is to be kind, the first impulse is sometimes to start a mob on Twitter. 
It isnât. In order for a community to be treated as it wishes it needs to either work with all of society to find common understanding, as is the case with say the n-word, or else it tries to enforce its wish by other means - worst case example fire-bombing Charlie Hebdo because you donât like a cartoon. No community gets carte blanch to decide upon expression without general consent.
So is it antisemitic to agree with Mr Hatton? Or just to voice it?
I think weâre going to just disagree on this.
I think youâre putting too much of a burden on a minority community to behave in a certain way in order to gain acceptance from greater society and therefore sensitivity with respect to certain words or phrases.
I never argued that any community gets carte blanch to decide but that consensus forms within that community. It never occurs in a vacuum.
I donât understand the distinction.
Right, but you never look at what actually happened and in what context. Instead you take it as red that something antisemitic definitely happened. Itâs too black and white. In this case it was a picture of Israel fitting into a space in Florida IIRC as an alternative location for a Jewish State, it was originally satirical.
Itâs a good example because thereâs a decent proportion of the Pakistani community who consider blasphemy or drawings of Muhammad to be Islamophobic/racist as well as blasphemous.
@Joshua knows full well that a certain proportion of the Jewish community consider criticism of Israel and itâs actions to be antisemitic. Which he knows full well is a nonsense, yet he still pedals âitâs for the community to decide and if an individual says there was antisemitism, there definitely was no matter what was said or done in reality.â
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According to Squawkbox it was Joan Ryan who breached Labour data regulations and it happens to be a criminal offense hahaha.
youâre an insider. Can you share just how bad the rank incompetence is within every facet of Labour?
I canât believe my eyes at the shit they do. Makes the Thick of It look soft.
Like the Angela Smith thing, now this data breach. You got any funny stories? Iâd love to hear them.
I think rank incompetence is the definition of British politics 
Iâm not pedaling anything. Just as itâs up to the Black community to decide what racism is, itâs up to the Jewish community to decide what anti-Semitism is.
Iâll set your condescension to the side and address your point with respect to criticism of Israel. There is a segment of the Jewish community that find any criticism to be proof of anti-Semitism, they are not the majority of the community and those views are largely seen within the Jewish community as fringe. Thatâs what I mean by the community coming to a consensus. We moderate it ourselves.
Iâve never said that if a single individual claims certain behavior was anti-Semitic than itâs true. What I do believe is that everyone has their own personal line of what behavior is offensive to them but that it doesnât necessarily correspond to what the community as a whole has decided.
As far as what @JakeyBoy raised above. I probably typed faster than I was thinking. My point was that an individual person within the community didnât have the authority to decide what was offensive for the whole community and that itâs up to the community as a whole to decide. The community may even disagree!
And to @arsenescoatmaker point about the Naz Shah situation. My issue wasnât so much what was posted but the idea that if what was posted came from a Jewish source than it canât possibly anti-Semitic. There are plenty of Jewish academics who peddle some of the most offensive anti-Semitic conspiracy theories in an attempt to win notoriety. Do I think making a joke about fitting Israel into Florida is anti-Semitic? Not really. Do I think itâs particularly clever? Not really. Jewish-Americans live in Florida, especially older ones from the Northeastern United States who tend to be very hawkish on Israel or so the stereotype goes. Israelis donât live in Florida. If anything itâs a cheap attempt at being funny or playing up the stereotypes. I donât think itâs anti-Semitic, I donât think itâs funny. I donât think Naz Shah should have been dragged for it if she posted it years ago. But I also donât think just because she got the meme from a Jewish guy means a damn thing.
I wouldnât say Labour has rank incompetence, in my experience itâs been fairly well run, considering, that is, that itâs mostly run by activists and volunteers. What I feel most is just a complete distain for the self entitlement, hypocrisy and willingness to cheat which I have seen from the right of the party.
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On the Naz Shah thing, I found Norman Finkelsteinâs thoughts on the matter (and his thoughts on other things) to be pretty interesting
Did you create the controversial image that Naz Shah reposted?
Iâm not adept enough with computers to compose any image. But I did post the map on my website in 2014. An email correspondent must have sent it. It was, and still is, funny. Were it not for the current political context, nobody would have noticed Shahâs reposting of it either. Otherwise, youâd have to be humourless. These sorts of jokes are a commonplace in the U.S. So, we have this joke: Why doesnât Israel become the 51st state? Answer: Because then, it would only have two senators. As crazy as the discourse on Israel is in America, at least we still have a sense of humour. Itâs inconceivable that any politician in the U.S. would be crucified for posting such a map.
Shahâs posting of that image has been presented as an endorsement by her of a â chilling âtransportationâ policy â, while John Mann MP has compared her to Eichmann .
Frankly, I find that obscene. Itâs doubtful these Holocaust-mongers have a clue what the deportations were, or of the horrors that attended them. I remember my late mother describing her deportation. She was in the Warsaw Ghetto. The survivors of the Ghetto Uprising, about 30,000 Jews, were deported to Maijdanek concentration camp. They were herded into railroad cars. My mother was sitting in the railroad car next to a woman who had her child. And the woman â I know it will shock you â the woman suffocated her infant child to death in front of my mother. She suffocated her child, rather than take her to where they were going. Thatâs what it meant to be deported. To compare that to someone posting a light-hearted, innocuous cartoon making a little joke about how Israel is in thrall to the U.S., or vice versaâŚitâs sick. What are they doing? Donât they have any respect for the dead? All these desiccated Labour apparatchiks, dragging the Nazi holocaust through the mud for the sake of their petty jostling for power and position. Have they no shame?
Normanâs an interesting guy. Been listening to him for years.
FWIW I think heâs on the money with this particular incident. Nobody would give a shit if a US politician posted something like that, especially in jest.
What really drives me up the wall is people invoking the Holocaust at every turn. It definitely cheapens the gravity of what happened.
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