Nothing To Gain, Everything To Lose by Les May

A JEWISH lady by the name of Jenny Manson had an interesting message left on her answerphone which went as follows, "You fucking Nazi bitch… You should burn in the gas oven. You dirty fucking bitch… Stinking, stinking swine… You deserve … to burn in acid." Even more interesting is that the police tracked down the caller and found him to be a middle-aged Jewish man. He was formally cautioned for the offence of malicious communications in May 2019.

Manson it seems is ‘the wrong sort of Jew’. Her crime is that as a co-chair of Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL) she draws attention to the fact that there is a diversity of opinion amongst British Jews both about the level of anti-semitism in the Labour party and about the behaviour of the government of Israel towards Palestinians.

In November she was interviewed by Kirsty Wark about the decision to readmit Jeremy Corbyn to the Labour Party. According the Jewish Chronicle there were ‘complaints logged with the BBC by Jewish campaigners angry at Newsnight’s decision to invite Ms Manson onto the show only a few weeks after the appearance of another leading figure in JVL Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi.’

Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi was suspended from the Labour party a few days ago. Her crime? There were complaints that she had made some members ‘uncomfortable’ perhaps because she had said, ‘The idea that Jewish people require for their comfort that whole swathes of subjects should not be debated by the membership of this party is insulting to Jewish people.’

The Labour party bars everyone suspended or investigated from sharing any details of their cases. But we do know that Wimborne-Idrissi is not the only Jewish member of the party to have been suspended or investigated on accusations of anti-semitism. The figure now seems to be more than twenty, and includes a significant proportion of the members of the JVL committee. Commenting on the psychological impact on Labour party members who have received Notices of Investigation. She has said: ‘It is Kafkaesque, You are not told who is accusing you. And you are not allowed to discuss it with anyone. So you receive this devastating letter – and are immediately isolated.’

We can gain some insight into what is going on from a comment made about her; ‘She can marry whomever she pleases and hold whatever ideological stance she finds attractive. Naomi Wimborne was free to marry a Muslim, and become Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi... But, given her life choices, is Naomi really in a position to talk publicly as if she is representative of British Jewish identity?’

Some people might find the comment implicitly offensive or suggest it verges on ‘racism’. But the real import of it, as with the complaints to the BBC about interviewing two members of Jewish Voice for Labour on Newsnight, is that it is an attempt to silence people who will not accept that the views presented in Jewish Chronicle and by the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM), are representative of those of all British Jews.

In addition to Jewish Voices for Labour there are a number of other organisations, Independent Jewish Voices, Jewish Socialists’ Group, Jews for Justice for Palestinians, Manchester Jewish Action for Palestine, Free Speech on Israel, which are equally representative of the views of British Jews. The JLM organisation differs from these other Jewish organisations because it has what Jewish Voices for Labour has called a ‘profoundly Zionist orientation’ and seems to be unwilling to be in any way critical of the treatment of Palestinians by the state of Israel.

So anxious is JLM to control the narrative around accusations and definition of anti-semitism, and by inference around Labour’s attitude to the treatment of Palestinians by the state of Israel, that in April 2018 it asked for, and received, a guarantee that JLM would remain Labour's only Jewish affiliate, after suggestions that Jewish Voices for Labour might be allowed to affiliate.

The Jewish Chronicle has described JLM as a 'gathering-place for moderates concerned about the direction the party is taking under Mr Corbyn' and JLM has changed its rules to facilitate this by allowing non-Jews to have affiliate membership so providing a base for attacking him. But the fact that so many Jewish members of the Labour party have been accused of anti-semitism suggests to me that what we are seeing is Labour being the battleground chosen by the Zionist oriented JLM to drown out the voices of protest from other non-Zionist oriented Jews. Corbyn was a reluctant accessory to this; Starmer, Nandy, Long-Bailey and Rayner have jumped in with both feet and embraced it by signing up to the ‘Ten Pledges’ I have written about previously.

Is it not absurd that a definition of anti-semitism is being adopted by the Labour party which can be used against Jewish members on the basis of complaints made by other Jewish members and organisations, some of which like CAA, (Campaign Against Antisemitism) are utterly pernicious and adopt dubious tactics to discredit their opponents? Labour has nothing to gain and everything to lose by allowing this battle to be fought on its territory. Blackmailers always come back for more.

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