On Corbyn and accusations of antisemitism

Editor’s Note: The following letter to the editor was submitted to Jewish Currents who declined to publish it.

In a recent article in Jewish Currents by Joshua Leifer, “The Tragedy of Jeremy Corbyn,” he criticizes those from within the British Jewish community who attacked Corbyn while also perpetuating some of the same rhetoric and pitfalls as the community he critiques. While the author spoke to a number of people, he neglected to include some critical analysis offered by those closest to the situation in the UK and whose positions are different from what he put forth. He included a few quotes with these perspectives but a full story is missing. In a moment when the discourse around Palestinian rights and antisemitism is rife with conflation and omission, it’s critical to challenge this incomplete and distorted analysis.

The author writes that “With only a few words—“yes, I’m sorry”—Corbyn might have been able to avoid bad press in a crucial stretch leading up to the election. Instead, he launched into one of his characteristically long-winded disquisitions about his commitment to fighting antisemitism and “any other form of racism.”

But isn’t it also possible that Corbyn was acting in a principled manner and offering a thoughtful response. As Jewish Voice for Labour member Mike Cushman pointed out to me, “Corbyn was not prepared to do the normal politician schtick and make the statement that would win easy approval. He was long winded because he was trying to give a nuanced response to a complex situation.”This seems like a response to honor and to pay attention to, not to cite as a shortcoming.

The author also writes: “What if Corbyn’s leadership team had anticipated that they would need political capital to pursue an adamantly pro-Palestine politics and tried to address the fears of Jewish leaders in advance? What if, instead of retreating into defensiveness, they had moved to reconcile sooner with the British Jewish communal institutions where reconciliation was possible?”

Those of us who are active in organizations committed to justice in Palestine like Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) are all too familiar with these critiques. What if we only tried to allay the fears of mainstream US Jewish organizations and learn how to talk to Jews, we are told. But talk won’t change those organizations’ determination to undermine all organizing for Palestinian justice. If you are a progressive Jewish group that addresses Palestine, and particularly if you support the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS), no amount of talk will help you avoid being attacked. The same is true in Great Britain. “There was and is no evidence,” Cushman notes, “that the communal institutions wished reconciliation – each move in their direction produced not appreciation but demands for further concessions. They wished not just to be heard on Labour policy, a reasonable request, but to have a veto on it.”

Cushman also added, and I think this is a critical point, “There was indeed a climate of fear among many British Jews, most of whom had no first-hand knowledge of the attitude of the Party towards Jews but had to rely on a steady stream of alarming and inaccurate reports which would have frightened anyone. It is one of the sins of those promulgating the untrue narratives that they made many members of the communities whose interests they claimed to be defending unnecessarily uneasy and reduced significantly their quality of life.”

Leifer continues in the same vein: “What if there had been better organized Jewish anti-occupation groups capable of disrupting the dominant narrative about Corbyn and Labour without replicating the escalatory dynamics that only worsened the problem?” But Leifer has already made clear that there is a well-resourced right-leaning, virulently anti-Palestinian Jewish community that is more politically conservative than in the US. The majority of Jews in the US identify with the Democratic party. That is true of much of the Jewish establishment as well, albeit one that is wedding to their pro-Israel agenda. But in Britain the mass of Jews, over a long period, have quit the Labour party for the Conservatives and have no wish to see a Labour Government elected.

We know of course that one can be well organized and simply be up against a huge propaganda machine involving a well-resourced campaign and a media that shapes the narrative in ways benefiting the powers-that-be and working against those seeking justice. We know that politics is largely about power, and this premise that if they had simply done a better job of persuasion, things would have turned out differently totally ignores the power dimension and is naïve at best.

Similar reasoning is used when the author talks about Corbyn’s stand against the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition that conflates antisemitism with criticism of Israel: “Corbyn and the left’s initial failure to adequately address accusations of antisemitism meant that when he took a stand against the IHRA definition, he had no political room to maneuver.” But what did this have to do with maneuvering? There wasn’t a chance in the world any of these Jewish organizations were going to budge on the IHRA definition, which has become a tool to discredit supporters of Palestinian justice across the globe; that Corbyn stood up to them is a testament to his commitments.

The author also doesn’t explain the problems with the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) report, which investigated allegations of antisemitism within the Labour party. Some of those problems are outlined here: 15 Reasons the EHRC Report can and should be challenged, and are essential to understanding what is really going on. For more information about the EHRC Report, you can also look here: Statements and articles on the EHRC report – a compilation.

Jewish Voice for Labour has also detailed rebuttals of some of the most common false allegations here.

These perspectives and analyses deserved far more attention and focus, and, while the voices of the Jewish establishment were critiqued, they were given much more authority than they deserved. If one is committed to challenging antisemitism together with all forms of injustice, this kind of misrepresentation does not further that goal.