By Les May
AS a Labour supporter I ought to be pleased that Boris Johnson has got different sections of the Tory party at each others throats and embroiled in a row about ‘islamo-phobia’. I’m not!
This row is following an all too familiar pattern. Increasingly we have people trying to grab the moral high ground by claiming that something they read or hear, and do not like, is, racist, anti-semitic, islamo-phobic, mysoginistic, trans-phobic, homo-phobic, patriarchal or in the latest catch all phrase, ‘hate speech’, and should not be said.
This is the ploy Matthew Offord,Tory MP for Hendon, used to try to persuade the government to shut down the Israel Apartheid Week (IAW) events at British universities when he said in March this year, ‘This isn’t about preventing free speech, it’s about stopping hate speech, in this instance anti-Semitic hate-speech’. He wants the UK government to enshrine into UK law both the definition of anti-semitism, which is not controversial, and the examples which are. Some of these would effectively prevent any criticism of the behaviour of the state of Israel towards the Palestinians.
If free speech means anything it means having the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. Some people don’t like what Johnson has had to say so they have called it ‘islamophobic’ and are using it as an excuse to demand an inquiry into ‘islamophobia’. Some people don’t like what some of us have to say about the behaviour of Israel towards the Palestinians and want to label it ‘antisemitic’ so as to shut us up.
Essentially all these people expect their views to be privileged, and the rest of us to sing from their hymn sheet or not sing at all. The Labour party readily accepted the 38 word long working definition of anti-semitism to which I do not think anyone can reasonably take exception.
'Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.'
The sticking point is some of the eleven examples which follow this definition.
This is what the ‘Jewish Voice for Peace’ has to say:
The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which is increasingly being adopted or considered by western governments, is worded in such a way as to be easily adopted or considered by western governments to intentionally equate legitimate criticisms of Israel and advocacy for Palestinian rights with antisemitism, as a means to suppress the former.
This conflation undermines both the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice and equality and the global struggle against antisemitism. It also serves to shield Israel from being held accountable to universal standards of human rights and international law.
Some of the complaints about ‘antisemitism’ in the Labour party seem to start from the presumption that the eleven examples somehow define antisemitism. This would include ‘tweets’ which are thought to cast doubt upon or belittle what is commonly known as The Holocaust. Given the overwhelming evidence in the form of documents, books, court records, films, and interviews with victims and perpetrators, is that Hitler’s Nazi regime did murder 6 million Jews, nearly 8 million Russians, 2-3 million Poles and more than a million others, I find it difficult to believe that such a ‘tweet’ could have the slightest impact on anyone’s belief. The only people who will take it seriously are those looking for something to be offended at. In other words anyone being kicked out of Labour for doing this is being punished for being a fool not for making a serious political comment.
My figures come from:
But see also:
If anyone in the Labour party thinks that meekly acquiescing to the demands of some sections of the press and the party that both the uncontroversial definition of antisemitism and the examples be adopted will end the ongoing row, I think they are mistaken. Corbyn’s efforts so far have merely been greeted with further demands. The sole effect of acquiescing would be that the Labour party would be tied in knots by disciplinary hearings following complaints of antisemitism and that could include legitimate criticism of Israel. The Tory press would love it!
The problem is that the examples following the IHRA definition are prefaced by the words ‘Contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere could, taking into account the overall context, include, but are not limited to:’ What the last five words mean is that the list of ‘antisemitic’ behaviour is infinitely extensible and in the eyes of the beholder.
If you look at the IHRA web pages you will see that they take exception to my deliberately hyphenated ‘anti-semitic’ in the second paragraph, which was done to draw attention to the regularity with which some people use words as a weapon to halt discussion of anything they do not like. I really don’t want people who think like this policing what I say or think.
The word ‘antisemitic’ has strong pejorative connotations. In some cases labelling someone in this way could lead to them being shunned, disciplined or losing their job. It should not be tossed around like confetti such as Margaret Hodge seems to have done after not getting her own way. Any respect I had for this woman is gone.
In the meantime you might like to ponder what Matthew Offord, who seems to want the world to ignore Israel’s policies towards the Palestinians, might have to say about these.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2004/07/108912-international-court-justice-finds-israeli-barrier-palestinian-territory-illegalhttps://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-jewish-nation-state-law-passed-arabs-segregation-protests-benjamin-netanyahu-a8454196.html
As a politician I think Margaret Hodge could reasonably be asked to comment on both of these things. Or would even asking her fall foul of one of the examples tagged onto the definition of antisemitism?
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