The British Labour party’s “compliance unit for antisemitism” is exactly as bad as it sounds. Although we are not yet at a point in the US where a commission has been established to render judgement on who is an antisemite, things are certainly developing in that direction.
Haim Bresheeth refers himself to the UK Labour Party’s Compliance Unit for ‘antisemitism’ because his lifetime of activism against Israeli human rights violations would seem to fit their definition.
If there is one issue that denotes the terminal decline of Labour as a force for change – desperately needed social, economic and environmental change – it is not Brexit. It is the constant furore over an “antisemitism crisis” supposedly plaguing the party for the past five years.
Natalie Strecker watched the unfolding of the antisemitism ‘crisis’ within Labour with incredulity. She initially wanted to quit the party, but decided to take a different approach in the hope that others might be inspired to do the same.
Chief Rabbi Mirvis, what is the clear and present danger presented by the Labour party to Jews? Perhaps you can give me a rough idea of what I should expect, so I know whether to be ready to pack my bags when the election results come through. You are right when you say “the soul of our nation is at stake.” But you don’t seem to care about how we treat the poorest and most vulnerable, how urgently we tackle climate change, or our attitude towards human rights and international law. From Robert Cohen’s letter to the Jewish leader.
The role which the Labor Zionist movement has played in establishing apartheid in Palestine/Israel, and the irrelevance of today’s Labor Party in Israel’s right-wing drift, reveal something important about Israeli society.
On “60 Minutes,” Nancy Pelosi called herself a progressive and dismissed leftwing congresswomen as a mere “five people,” and Lesley Stahl never challenged her about the fissure in the party over Israel. Though more and more commentators are saying that Israel support has become the battleground among Democrats, and Pelosi is busy catering to AIPAC and Netanyahu.
UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn called for Britain to cease arms sales to Israel following a UN report that the Israeli army’s actions against Palestinian protesters in Gaza’s Great March of Return could amount to war crimes. “The UK government must unequivocally condemn the killings and freeze arms sales to Israel,” Corbyn tweeted Friday.
A new documentary called WitchHunt points out the narrow room for debate over alleged antisemitism in the British Labour Party. Anti-Zionist Jews are excluded as unrepresentative of British Jews. And why is it okay to talk about antisemitism and Zionism in Britain without asking a Palestinian what their direct experience of Zionism has looked and felt like?
Israeli left Zionist Union lawmaker Ayelet Nahmias-Verbin attended a UK Labour conference, where she said that Jeremy Corbyn is an anti-Semite because he is not “balanced” on the Israel-Palestine issue but that it would be impossible for Benjamin Netanyahu to be a racist.