![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fridi posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
talkpoliticsIn 2016 a group called the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) met in Berlin and decided to redefine 'antisemitism'.
"Britain will become one of the first countries to use this definition of antisemitism, as agreed last May at a conference of the Berlin-based International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), the prime minister will say in London.
More detailed guidance on this, released by the IHRA in May, said this could include criticisms which target Israel, if this was “conceived as a Jewish collectivity”. It added: “However, criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.”
The guidance says it could be considered antisemitic to accuse Jews of being more loyal to Israel or their religion than to their own nations, or to say the existence of Israel is intrinsically racist."
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/dec/12/antisemitism-definition-government-combat-hate-crime-jews-israel
The past year it has been widely reported that the Labour Party is allegedly "antisemitic" because its leader has spoken up for the Palestinians, the more recent case came when the NEC (National Executive Commitee) adopted the new definition of antisemitism except for a couple of examples referring to the Israeli state which led one senior Jewish Labour MP to call the leader of the Labour party "a fucking antisemite racist".
She also wrote an article in the Guardian (curiously, comments are disabled there) in which she defends her slurs with these rather illuminating sentences:
"How have we got here? Under Jeremy’s leadership, the Palestinian/Israeli conflict has been allowed to infect the party’s approach to growing antisemitism. It appears to have become a legitimate price that the leadership is willing to pay for pursuing the longstanding cause of Palestinians in the Middle East. Because of that, antisemitism has become a real problem in the Labour party."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/18/jeremy-corbyn-labour-antisemitism-margaret-hodge
There it is in black and white, as long as anyone speaks up for the cause of the Palestinians, then that someone is an "antisemite". And unless that becomes law of the land and law of all the parties in the land then we're all apparently "antisemites".
Jeremy and his team have now vowed to take action against the repugnant comments made by this senior Jewish Labour MP as bringing the party and its leader into disrepute is in fact against the rules of the party.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-antisemtism-margaret-hodge-labour-mp-rules-a8452886.html
"The code explicitly endorses the IHRA’s working definition of antisemitism and includes a list of behaviours likely to be regarded as antisemitic copied word-for-word from the international organisation’s document.
But the code omits four examples from the IHRA list – accusing Jewish people of being more loyal to Israel than their home country, claiming Israel’s existence as a state is a racist endeavour, requiring higher standards of behaviour from Israel than other nations, and comparing contemporary Israeli policies to those of the Nazis."
The definition of the IHRA is not something that can be deemed clear and that puts (il)legitimate criticism within a very wide spectrum, the wider the spectrum the easier for it to be manipulated to silence legitimate critics. If one needed any further evidence of such a manipulation one need look no further than the treatment Jeremy Corbyn is receiving; unless you are of the opinion that he has expressed illegitimate criticisms when speaking up for Palestinians.
Basically, the IHRA definition smuggles in anti-Zionism, in the guise of antisemitism, as a means of protecting the Israeli state and thus Western foreign policy.
Mind you, it's also hard to tell the difference between Russophobia, a diverse spectrum of negative feelings of Russia, and legitimate criticism leveled against the state of Russia. Anti-Russia sentiment remains fairly strong throughout Europe. I would go as far as saying that Russophobia (or disparaging and racist comments against Slavs in general) is far more widespread than antisemitism certainly in the UK and definitely actively promoted by the higher echelons of British intelligentsia, academics, journalists, politicians, pundits and TV personas. So here's a rhetorical question: whence the double standard?
"Britain will become one of the first countries to use this definition of antisemitism, as agreed last May at a conference of the Berlin-based International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), the prime minister will say in London.
More detailed guidance on this, released by the IHRA in May, said this could include criticisms which target Israel, if this was “conceived as a Jewish collectivity”. It added: “However, criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.”
The guidance says it could be considered antisemitic to accuse Jews of being more loyal to Israel or their religion than to their own nations, or to say the existence of Israel is intrinsically racist."
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/dec/12/antisemitism-definition-government-combat-hate-crime-jews-israel
The past year it has been widely reported that the Labour Party is allegedly "antisemitic" because its leader has spoken up for the Palestinians, the more recent case came when the NEC (National Executive Commitee) adopted the new definition of antisemitism except for a couple of examples referring to the Israeli state which led one senior Jewish Labour MP to call the leader of the Labour party "a fucking antisemite racist".
She also wrote an article in the Guardian (curiously, comments are disabled there) in which she defends her slurs with these rather illuminating sentences:
"How have we got here? Under Jeremy’s leadership, the Palestinian/Israeli conflict has been allowed to infect the party’s approach to growing antisemitism. It appears to have become a legitimate price that the leadership is willing to pay for pursuing the longstanding cause of Palestinians in the Middle East. Because of that, antisemitism has become a real problem in the Labour party."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/18/jeremy-corbyn-labour-antisemitism-margaret-hodge
There it is in black and white, as long as anyone speaks up for the cause of the Palestinians, then that someone is an "antisemite". And unless that becomes law of the land and law of all the parties in the land then we're all apparently "antisemites".
Jeremy and his team have now vowed to take action against the repugnant comments made by this senior Jewish Labour MP as bringing the party and its leader into disrepute is in fact against the rules of the party.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-antisemtism-margaret-hodge-labour-mp-rules-a8452886.html
"The code explicitly endorses the IHRA’s working definition of antisemitism and includes a list of behaviours likely to be regarded as antisemitic copied word-for-word from the international organisation’s document.
But the code omits four examples from the IHRA list – accusing Jewish people of being more loyal to Israel than their home country, claiming Israel’s existence as a state is a racist endeavour, requiring higher standards of behaviour from Israel than other nations, and comparing contemporary Israeli policies to those of the Nazis."
The definition of the IHRA is not something that can be deemed clear and that puts (il)legitimate criticism within a very wide spectrum, the wider the spectrum the easier for it to be manipulated to silence legitimate critics. If one needed any further evidence of such a manipulation one need look no further than the treatment Jeremy Corbyn is receiving; unless you are of the opinion that he has expressed illegitimate criticisms when speaking up for Palestinians.
Basically, the IHRA definition smuggles in anti-Zionism, in the guise of antisemitism, as a means of protecting the Israeli state and thus Western foreign policy.
Mind you, it's also hard to tell the difference between Russophobia, a diverse spectrum of negative feelings of Russia, and legitimate criticism leveled against the state of Russia. Anti-Russia sentiment remains fairly strong throughout Europe. I would go as far as saying that Russophobia (or disparaging and racist comments against Slavs in general) is far more widespread than antisemitism certainly in the UK and definitely actively promoted by the higher echelons of British intelligentsia, academics, journalists, politicians, pundits and TV personas. So here's a rhetorical question: whence the double standard?
(no subject)
Date: 30/9/18 11:35 (UTC)https://www.thecanary.co/global/world-analysis/2018/07/18/explosive-new-leaks-show-its-margaret-hodge-who-should-be-confronted-on-racism/
(no subject)
Date: 30/9/18 11:38 (UTC)You are completely right about the hijacking of anti-Semitism by the Zionists, but it was a convenient stick for the right and the newspapers of the right (which is all of them excepting the Grauniad and the Morning Post) to beat Corbyn with. It has also alienated a lot of undecided Jewish voters, but they are in quite a small minority considering the general demographics of England and Wales. And it's also turned away ordinary English voters who wouldn't want to be associated with anti-Semitic views.
One of the rules of propaganda is to bulldoze through nuance and present cases as black or white, whilst attaching as much of your own position to the only possible answer to some lawyer's question. The starting conditions (the IHRA's definition in this case) are what have enabled the Zionists to completely control the debate, as the document in question adopts anti-Zionism as being a specie of anti-Semitism - and this hasn't been challenged at all. But to challenge or take it down requires someone Jewish to offer a sensible and rational criticism - because otherwise is to be anti-Semetic as is also implicit in the document.
It's a brilliant piece of political manoeuvring by zionist sympathisers mainly because it wasn't challenged in any credible way. So unless Naomi Klein wants to take the IHRA document to pieces all of our negative analysis of Zionism is actually anti-Semitic. You have to admire the chutzpah.
(no subject)
Date: 30/9/18 11:54 (UTC)Indeed.
(no subject)
Date: 30/9/18 12:43 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 30/9/18 23:14 (UTC)