Conflation of Antisemitism & Antizionism
Since 2019 I’ve learned about this more and am appalled at how antisemitism was used in many instances as unjustifiable smears.
There are real antisemites in Labour and they should not be tolerated. The EHRC report obviously contains real examples of antisemitism but had an analysis of antisemitism in all parties it would have shown what has been evidenced in some polling a few years ago that there is significantly more antisemitism in the Tory Party. An investigation into just one party and none into any other give no sense of the scale of the problem.
Is Labour institutionally antisemitic? All structures with power in our society are institutionally racist so, probably, yeah - just as I suspect all parties are.
In terms of the scale of antisemitism in each party, I believe an investigation into all parties would have revealed, as some previous studies have, far more antisemitic members/ voters in the conservative party than in Labour.
An investigation that confirms the presence of a problem was always going to sway people’s minds even though, had they thought about it, it’s fairly obvious that any institution with any length of history is systemically racist.
IHRA definition of antisemitism
Surely we all now see the issues of having a definition of antisemitism that Israel plays a part in forming. demonstrated by Momentum now has a policy that you can’t call Israel racist even though they call it an apartheid state. (I hope they still do at least that)
How does this not seriously corrode discourse and curtail the pursuit of justice for the people that the state oppresses? Amnesty International has now described it as an apartheid state. #CorbynWasRight to resist accepting the IHRA definition and I will explain why.
Reacting to news that Momentum will take action against members who say Israel is racist in the interest of fighting antisemitism. It is unclear as to if they would take action against those that say Israel is an apartheid state.
You can’t separate the two critiques and say it’s acceptable to call it apartheid but antisemitic if you say Israel is racist.
Remember, apartheid is a racist system so, describing Israel as an Apartheid state is to identify racism in it. So will momentum say it is apartheid or not? They may do, but it would make no sense. Either you can call out and describe racist systems of apartheid properly or you can’t.
Denying the presence of racism in systems of apartheid is only of benefit to the oppressors, it’s doing propaganda for them.
Do not do this.
Conceding the term racist also means you’re failing to fight on the hostile ground and really make the case. Such that it was only by the 2019 election that I realised he was right to have resisted accepting the IHRA as the party’s definition of antisemitism.
As long as you keep all those aforementioned Jews from around the world out of it, I don’t think there’s anything you could say about the State of Israel that is antisemitic.
It is a nation, like any other, and opposing its government’s actions has no bearing on others just because they share a religion.
No one is saying that Israel is oppressive because of the Jewish religion!
Explaining the phrase “Israel was a racist endeavor”
Powerful nations decided among themselves to take a load of land from poor people of colour and give it to white people.
And the truth is, Isreal was an antisemitic endeavor too.
Our powerful nations chose to draw new borders, which by then Britain knew full well the conflict such unilateral actions bring. They chose to do this rather than accepting Jewish refugees into our societies.
None of what I said is antisemitic, it passes no judgment on the Jews all around the world, most of which are not concerned with the reputation of a Nation they don’t belong to. Many of those Jews would be outright offended at the suggestion that they support an apartheid state. No one is putting the blood Israel spills on those Jewish people’s hands but those who have encouraged this conflation of antisemitism and antizionism.
Preempting a strawman:
One can believe the creation of Israel was wrong, this doesn’t mean you necessarily believe that those living there must leave. Perhaps we will write up or discuss on video the ways of resolving this intractable conflict the creators of Isreal condemned both sides too.
We had already caused terrible suffering and violence with Partition in India but despite the terrible consequences, we decided to do it again. Why? All because our countries didn’t want to accommodate Jewish refugees ourselves.