British Labour Party Anti-Semitism – ‘like lifting up a stone and having insects crawl out’
More proof that leftist hatred of Zionism is just a smokescreen for anti-Semitism
In the latest of a series of damaging embarrassments, Britain’s Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has suspended two Labour MPs for anti-Semitic comments. Naz Shah and Ken Livingstone were suspended for suggesting Israel should be relocated to the United States, and suggesting that Hitler was a Zionist.
Labour and Corbyn
Labour, Corbyn, Shah and Livingstone each have a history of anti-Semitic incidents. In February, Legal Insurrection reported on the Oxford University’s Labor Club (OULC)’s anti-Semitism scandal, including the resignation of its President and a slew of complaints by other OULC members. While the Conservative government ordered an investigation, we wrote in February:
The devil’s in the details, though. Even the good news that the government will investigate apparently rampant anti-Semitism on UK campuses has strings attached. Former OULC member and leader of the national Labor Party Ed Miliband called for current Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn to “personally look into” issues at OULC.
Corbyn, in turn, is very much part of the problem. He calls Hamas “friends” and has met with leaders from both Hamas and Hezbollah. In September he spoke to the Labor Friends of Israel and refused to actually say the word “Israel.” Corbyn’s website still peddles the malicious lie that “Israel must lift the ongoing siege of Gaza.” The idea of Corbyn investigating anti-Semitism by a Labor-ite is insulting.
Things have only grown worse.
UK Labour’s anti-Semitism is ‘like lifting up a stone and having insects crawl out,’ says MP https://t.co/2UYDCtJ9K6 via @timesofisrael
— Legal Insurrection (@LegInsurrection) April 27, 2016
Shah
Naz Shah defeated George Galloway to win the seat in Parliament from West Bradford last year, and it was was seen by many as a victory, since Galloway is an inveterate anti-Semite. In the event, Shah has proven no better. Shah went on Twitter during the 2014 Gaza war:
Naz Shah also asked friends to vote in an anti-Israel poll because "The Jews are rallying" https://t.co/pq1pV8PlK2 pic.twitter.com/s4cl51kXHG
— Guido Fawkes (@GuidoFawkes) April 26, 2016
It was only revealed now that, as the New York Times reports:
In 2014, before being elected, Ms. Shah endorsed a Facebook post displaying a graphic that showed Israel’s outline superimposed on a map of the United States. The map was under the headline, “Solution for Israel-Palestine conflict — relocate Israel into United States,” with the comment, “Problem solved.”
The post suggested the United States had “plenty of land” to accommodate Israel as a 51st state, allowing Palestinians to “get their life and their land back.” It said Israelis would be welcome and safe in America, while the “transportation cost” would be less than three years’ worth of Washington’s support for Israeli defense spending.
Ms. Shah added a note suggesting the plan might “save them some pocket money.”
The times also noted:
. . . another Labour legislator, Lisa Nandy, called on the party to suspend Ms. Shah pending an investigation. “There is a real problem for the Labour Party if we don’t look like we are taking these things seriously,” she told the BBC. “But this is not just about the impact on the Labour Party, there is also the question here about what is the right thing to do.”
In Parliament later in the day, Prime Minister David Cameron said it was “extraordinary” that Ms. Shah was still a full member of Labour’s parliamentary party and also urged suspension. “Anti-Semitism is effectively racism and we should call it out and fight it whenever we see it,” he said.
Oof. Tomorrow's Mail via @suttonnick pic.twitter.com/0c5StirLDZ
— Alex Wickham (@alexwickham) April 26, 2016
Thought you'd had enough of @NazShahBfd? Turns out the @UKLabour MP also compared "apartheid Israel" to… Hitler: https://t.co/tRn0SPq8Wj
— Avi Mayer (@AviMayer) April 26, 2016
After initially resisting, Corbyn relented and suspended Shah yesterday.
Livingstone
Today, Corbyn suspended Ken Livingstone, another Labour MP and the former Mayor of London. The immediate impetus was Livingstone’s attempt to defend Shah in an interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrH0SXGwiPo
You heard that right: Livingstone defended Shah’s relocation plan by saying “When Hitler won his election in 1932 his policy then was that Jews should be moved to Israel. He was supporting Zionism before he went mad and ended up killing six million Jews.” Livingstone went on to accuse Israel of war crimes, blamed the Israel lobby, and suggested Israel should be treated like Iran or Iraq.
But Livingstone also has a history of anti-Semitism:
He was suspended from office as London mayor for four weeks in 2006 for comparing a Jewish journalist to a concentration camp guard – a comment he continues to be unrepentant about, saying it was a “fuss about nothing”. The suspension was overturned in court.
In March, the Daily Mail reported:
A group of very senior members of the Jewish community in London met Mr Livingstone earlier this month to discuss his support for and links with a radical Islamist cleric and the television station that makes propaganda in Britain for Iran.
In a leaked letter to the Jewish Chronicle – more of a communique really – they said Labour’s London mayoral candidate used the words Zionist, Jewish and Israeli as if they meant the same thing and that his language was close to ‘classic anti-semitism’.
They added: ‘Ken, towards the end of the meeting, stated that he did not expect the Jewish community to vote Labour as votes for the left are inversely proportional to wealth levels, and suggested that as the Jewish community is rich, we simply wouldn’t vote for him.’
At some point, you can no longer point to this MP and that MP, or this group of Labour supporters and that one. Anti-Semitism, masquerading as anti-Zionism, has infected the left and its Labour Party.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
The Spectator makes the point that as Labour’s Muslim constituency grows, so does its “problem” with Jew-baiting. For purely political purposes, Corbyn must pretend that this is a bug and not a feature.
Despite its roots in Jewish intellectualism, Socialism in all its permutations has always been hospitable to antisemitism. Lenin’s Bolsheviks barely blinked as they continued Russian pogroms and oppression through the decades, right up to “refuseniks” like Sharansky in the later years.
Socialism itself split over WWI, with Lenin’s “internationalists” opposed to the war while nationalists like Mussolini supported their home countries. Mussolini lost the fight in Italy – which was really over Lenin’s continuing need for foreign funding – and formed his Fascist Party as the first “nationalist-socialist” party.
– –
They became the model for the German Nazis, and were only labeled “reactionaries” by Lenin to stop the loss of cash flow to Russia. They were never really “right wing” but it proved convenient for the Left to pretend they were – but only AFTER the invasion of Poland. Before that, they were allies, if uneasy ones.
Even post-WWII Europe saw a resurgence of antisemitism as “Democratic Socialism” took hold, well before the influx of muslims.