There’s a solid 19-point guide at the This-Is-Not-Jewish tumblr, on how to criticise Israel without being anti-Semitic. I have a quibble only over point 5: “Zionism is no more a dirty word than feminism.”
Feminism is the peaceful worldwide revolution for women’s rights and to end the patriarchy. Zionism is the movement, founded in the late 19th century, for the return of Jews to Eretz Yisrael / “the re-establishment of a Jewish homeland in the territory defined as the historic Land of Israel”.
The two are not the same. The equivalents would be the peaceful revolution to end anti-Semitism worldwide or the foundation of a matriarchal state.
The problem with founding a homeland is that in any habitable part of the world, there are people already living there. (The same tumblr also discusses this in how to support Israel without being racist.)
Deir Yassin was a village in what was Palestine. On 9th April 1948, around 120 fighters from the Irgun and Lehi groups (which were “paramilitary” or “terrorists” depending on your viewpoint) attacked the Deir Yassin village, killing over a hundred people, many of them women and children, and drove out the survivors.
In Kelvingrove Park, there is a plaque in memory of the massacre, unveiled on the 40th anniversary by the then-Lord Provost Robert Gray. At a memorial event on 7th April 2002, during Operation Defensive Shield, the STUC General Secretary Bill Spiers said:
“But in the midst of this brutal madness in Palestine there is a glimmer of hope which links April 1948 to April 2002.
“We know what happened in Deir Yassin in 1948 in part because of the eyewitness testimony of Jewish villagers, who had lived peacefully alongside their neighbours until the Zionist terrorists arrived. And more the slaughter was actually stopped by courageous protesting Jews from the nearby village of Givat Shaul.”
Last Friday night Louise Mensch – former Tory MP, current Sun on Sunday columnist, and author of Sparkles, Glamour, Glitz, Passion, Desire, and Destiny, had an embarrassing incident involving a screenshot and Twitter’s auto-complete function, detailed in part 1. I am posting these as a series of debunking reports of the long blog Mensch posted on unfashionista the Saturday night after her Twitter fail.
Louise Mensch, like the Telegraph, started out seeing Jeremy Corbyn’s bid for leadership as a very good joke, since obviously Labour members and supporters would never actually elect him: and then as it became clear that he might just win, that Jeremy Corbyn could be Leader of the Opposition in September, Mensch and the Telegraph appear to be as one on this one thing: Corbyn must be stopped.
On Thursday 13th August, a follower responding to Louise Mensch’s tweet “Christ on a bike. Antisemites for Corbyn” coined the first use of the hashtag #antisemitesforcorbyn. (In the same tweet, he also coined #inbredforcorbyn and #thickasminceforcorbyn.)
Louise Mensch didn’t immediately pick up on this hashtag. Nobody did.
As of Tuesday 25th August, the hashtag has been used 453 times, 82 times by Louise Mensch. Between 9am Friday 21st August and 9am Monday 24th August, the hashtag was used 348 times: over the weekend Louise Mensch was responsible for about 20% of its use, apparently the largest single user.
So basically #AntisemitesForCorbyn hash tag is @LouiseMensch shouting at herself
— Shakey (@ShakeyStephens) August 21, 2015
Louise Mensch’s interest in calling out anti-Semitism in British politics did not, of course, extend to calling out fellow anti-Corbynist Dan Hodges: her opposition appears to begin and end with smearing Jeremy Corbyn.
No one actually thinks Jeremy Corbyn is anti-Semitic: neither his political opponents nor his supporters. No one who thinks. Because, of course, the relentless recycling of the meme that Jeremy Corbyn is associated with anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers, is creating a larger and larger pool of people who have absorbed without thinking the belief that Jeremy Corbyn is anti-Semitic. (You can read Stephen Daisley (who describes himself as “a Catholic, a Zionist, center-right”) recycling many of these smears again at STVNews website.)
And all this smearing and recycling of smears is quite deliberate: it’s a tactic either to lose Corbyn the leadership election to a more right-wing, anodyne candidate: or, if he wins, to force him to be constantly denying accusations so bizarre and enraging that he fails his first job – to keep the Labour Party together and increase support in time for the Scottish Parliament and English/Welsh council elections in May 2016. Debunking the smears is possible: doing so thoroughly and completely takes time. People who are not checking sources, who are indifferent to what the exact truth is, can write and publish their distortions and lies so much faster than a fact-checker can.
Whether or not you think Jeremy Corbyn could lead the Labour Party to a win in 2020, or improve their odds in Scotland in 2016, he would as Leader of the Opposition have six questions at Prime Minister’s Questions every week: his left-wing Cabinet would be appearing on Newsnight and Question Time: as Tory councillor Oliver Cooper was prescient enough to realise, as early as July:
[Labour]’ll still have the same platform, no matter how [left-wing] their leader’s views. The only difference is Corbyn’s views will be more left-wing, so will shift the entire political debate to the left. Long-term, so long as Labour and the Conservatives remain the two major parties in the UK, the only way to make progress is to persuade Labour to accept our position. Our ideas don’t win just when our party does, but when the other party advocates our ideas, too.
Win or lose in 2020, Jeremy Corbyn as Leader of the Opposition would destroy the posh-boy politics of the Tory front bench that have gone unchallenged since 2010. And Louise Mensch, while she evidently assumes posh-boy politics are the kind of thing Brits will vote for, doesn’t want to see them challenged effectively by Jeremy Corbyn,
The most recent post on Louise Mensch’s blog unfashionista.com consists of earnest concern-trolling to Labour MPs about how if Jeremy Corbyn wins the leadership election they must remove him immediately. This has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the fearful prospect of his very popular views as leader of the Opposition, she assures them, it’s because, she claims, Corbyn donated to a Holocaust denier.
Smear #2 is about Paul Eisen and Gilad Atzmon and Deir Yassin Remembered
Jeremy Corbyn acknowledges donating to Deir Yassin Remembered, and attending memorial events for Deir Yassin.
The most recent memorial event for Deir Yassin Jeremy Corbyn’s known to have attended was on Tuesday 9th April 2013, the 65th anniversary of the massacre, at the St John’s Wood Church in NW8 London. The commemorative event was directed by Justin Butcher and Ahmed Masoud. A survivor of Deir Yassin, who was 4 in 1948, Abdallah M. I. Eid, who lost his father and brothers and sisters in the massacre, had come to the UK to attend the commemoration events.
(In Scotland, a 25th-anniversary (of the Kelvingrove plaque) memorial event was planned to be held on Sunday, 7th April 2013 with the current Lord Provost, Sadie Docherty: the noted anti-apartheid activist and Scottish co-ordinator of Deir Yassin Remembered, Bill Filling, was organising this event, but cancelled it on Friday 5th April 2013 – according to Louise Mensch “Jewish groups had succeeded in canceling the antisemitic groups’s event”.)
Louise Mensch has not declared that Justin Butcher, Sadie Docherty, Abdallah Eid, Bill Filling, Robert Gray, Ahmed Masoud, and Bill Spiers are anti-Semitic… or not yet.
But Jeremy Corbyn went along, to an event by the antisemitic DYR, with an antisemitic invitation, and shared a platform with two very well known racists, in 2005. How can he say he did not know? It was his duty to know. And is it true? What correspondence exists? Can he say it was never flagged up to him?
Can Louise Mensch honestly say that Paul Eisen was a “very well known racist” in April 2005? Here in the Jews Sans Frontieres blog you can read – dated June 2005 – a very clear account of the process by which many supporters of Deir Yassin Remembered finally had to conclude that “Paul Eisen has finally come out as, or at least gone over to, supporting a full-blown neo-nazi take on Hitler and the holocaust.”
This isn’t the first time Jeremy Corbyn has been expected to have foreknowledge. As discussed here, Cathy Newman, the anchor of Channel 4 News, insisted that in 2011, Jeremy Corbyn should have known that Raed Salah was to be convicted by the Israeli government in 2014 and not defended him.
Louise Mensch thinks Jeremy Corbyn shouldn’t have attended any Deir Yassin events because the organisation Deir Yassin Remembered had Paul Eisen on their board of advisers (the full list of past and present advisers and directors is here – you have to scroll down to find Paul Eisen, but he’s there).
No-one should share a platform with an avowed racist and a fascist
Jeremy Corbyn told Cathy Newman of Channel Four that when he supported Deir Yassin Remembered it was not anti-semitic. Is that true? Here’s some evidence not so far covered in the press:In 2005, Jeremy Corbyn went to a DYR celebration with Paul Eisen – where the famous anti-semite Gilad Atzmon was performing.
Joel R. Finkel, a member of Chicago JVP (then called Not In My Name, though still the Chicago chapter of Jewish Voice For Peace) wrote of Paul Eisen and DYR:
Paul Eisen is a commendable person, and the Deir Yassin Remembered organization, of which he is a director, is an eminently worthy and important group that keeps alive the truth about the massacre of Palestinians and the Catastrophe that was visited upon them in the creation of the Jewish State of Israel. It is not my goal to argue that Eisen is an anti-Semite. I believe that Eisen has fallen into a trap that entices many activists—particularly Jewish activists—who are enormously frustrated by their impotence to make things better. They lose political clarity and resort to mythmaking. I am responding because I believe that Eisen’s arguments are not only baseless, but dangerously wrong.
I think the essay is worth reading in full – Joel Finkel knew and respected Paul Eisen before what he calls this “sad footnote”, dated June 2005:
Israel Shahak taught us that a search for the non-existent “Jewish essence” could lead in only two directions: Jewish chauvanism or anti-Semitism. Demonstrating the truth of this lesson, Eisen has left no doubt as to his trajectory: he has plummeted into full-blown anti-Semitism.
If Joel Finkel felt that by June 2005 there was no doubt that Paul Eisen had “plummeted into full-blown anti-Semitism”, then should Jeremy Corbyn have been aware of this … in April 2005? Or before?
Asa Winstanley, investigative journalist and associate editor with The Electronic Intifada, points out that the main “connection” between Paul Eisen and Jeremy Corbyn is that Eisen lives in Islington and is therefore one of Corbyn’s constituents.
Eisen claims to have met him in that capacity – as Corbyn is his member of parliament. It is nonetheless odd that the Mail would be so keen to take the word of a Holocaust denier when it comes to his relationship with Corbyn.
(Presumably, when Louise Mensch was an MP, she made a point of never seeing constituents whose views she could not support.)
Left-wing blogger Charlie Pottins also notes, writing about the Daily Mail smear that Louise Mensch also borrows from:
One of the “facts” that the Daily Mail writer found most telling was that when Paul Eisen approached Jeremy Corbyn – his MP – fifteen years ago – about Deir Yassin Remembered, the MP took out his chequebook. It does not seem to occur to the writer Jake Wallis Simons that fifteen years ago, far from Paul Eisen being “notorious”, nobody had heard of him. I doubt whether he’s that famous now. Whereas the massacre at Deir Yassin was well-known, and nobody denied it had happened, even if Simons and the Jewish Chronicle‘s Marcel Dysch seem to think they can relegate it to a “controversy” now.
But is Louise Mensch really trying to argue that anyone who attends a Deir Yassin Remembered event is supporting anti-Semitism? Apparently she is.
Quite amazing that the Guardian would publish a letter from Ruth Tenne defending antisemitic DYR #Corbyn http://t.co/MpxPLKfVSL
— Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) August 22, 2015
That would be this letter:
I totally reject the suggestion that Deir Yassin Remembered organisation could be regarded as a group whose membership is largely composed of Holocaust deniers. As an Israeli human rights activist, whose grandparents perished in the Holocaust, I strongly believe that the massacre in Deir Yassin and the narrative of the Palestinian people should not be wiped out of history. DYR is commemorative body which is supported by members of civil society all over the world. I hope that the public, including the Jewish community, will support the important work and aims of DYR as well as backing Jeremy Corbyn and his vision of a fairer society.
Ruth Tenne
London
Louise Mensch moves on to Gilad Atzmon.
Further, Gilad Atzmon performed at this event. Was Atzmon a known anti-Semite in 2005? You bet.
Gilad Atzmon was born in Ramat Gan, Israel in 1963. He is a jazz artist (saxophone) and writer.
Gilad Atzmon is one of the world's leading anti-Semites and was known as such in 2005 when Corbyn went to DYR event https://t.co/CHzXULpGma
— Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) August 22, 2015
Sorry, I want to sidetrack a little bit, but it’s relevant.
From 9th July 2009, the first permanent chairman of the European Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECR) (the 21 Conservative Party and the Ulster Unionists MEPs are about a third of the 74-MEP group) was Polish MEP Michel Kamiński: he stepped down as chair on 8th March 2011, but he is still seated as an MEP with the ECR Group. [Correction: since May 2014 he’s been an MEP for Civic Platform/Platforma Obywatelska, and sits with the European People’s Party Group.]
On 10th July 1941, in a small town in Poland called Jedwabne, this happened:
Jedwabne’s Jews had been ordered by the town’s mayor, Marian Karolak, to assemble in the square. They were told to pull grass from between the cobblestones. They arrived in their hundreds with spoons and scissors. Many were whipped and beaten with clubs and farm tools. Some were ordered to pull down a statue of Lenin which had served as a reminder to Poles of the hated, former Soviet occupiers, with whom they accused their Jewish neighbours of having collaborated. The Jews were ordered to carry the statue up the dusty track to the barn, singing “the war is because of us, the war is for us”.
When the procession arrived at the barn, at least 300 Jewish men, women and children were pushed inside. Villagers looked on as others poured in fuel before setting it alight. Screams rang out as they were all burned alive.
In 2001, when President Aleksander Kwasniewski wanted to stage a national apology to mark the massacre’s sixtieth anniversary: to atone, Poland was to beg forgiveness from the world.
Michel Kamiński was the local MP whose constituency included Jedwabne. He argued in an interview with the nationalist Nasza Polska newspaper in March 2001, that “while the massacre could not be defended, Poles should not apologise for what they did until Jews apologised to them for their actions which had included ‘murdering Poles’.”
The accounts of Polish journalists, historians and local people leave no doubt he was instrumental in urging Jedwabne residents to oppose the president’s apology and boycott the ceremonial event in 2001. He pressed his case at numerous meetings in Jedwabne during the first half of that year.
“As a local MP, Kaminski played a key role in the campaign questioning the Polish responsibility for the Jedwabne massacre. The campaign had strongly antisemitic overtones,” said Dr Rafal Pankowski, a member of the Never Again Association and author of The Populist Radical Right in Poland.
In Nasza Polska, Kaminski argued that, while the Jedwabne massacre should cause every man to “bow his head” in shame, it had been carried out by very few Poles – a group of hopeless individuals from the fringes of society, “tramps, bums and outcasts”, as he put it. He felt Gross and his backers were rewriting history in a way that was unfair to his countrymen. “This is an attempt to blame the Poles – or accuse them of complicity – for the Holocaust,” he told the paper.
Louise Mensch has never, to my knowledge, argued that the Conservative MEPs should not share the platform of the European Conservatives and Reformists Group with Michel Kamiński.
But Gilad Atzmon – jazz musician, writer – is “one of the world’s leading anti-Semites” and Jeremy Corbyn, Louise Mensch says, should not attend an event where he is performing.
This is not “whataboutery”. I flatly do not believe that Louise Mensch sudden discovery that the leader of a political party should not be seen to associate with anti-Semites in any way, is anything but a contrived excuse to smear Jeremy Corbyn. Michel Kamiński sits with Conservative MEPs in the European Parliament: Louise Mensch is silent. Jeremy Corbyn watches Gilad Atzmon perform at a Deir Yassin memorial event: Louise Mensch screams outrage.
Louise Mensch asks:
The question is did Corbyn know of Eisen’s antisemitism in advance? Of Gilad Atzmon’s antisemitism in advance? He must either have known or have been criminally negligent.
On Sunday night I had a long discussion on Twitter with Jeremy Duns, who certainly is convinced that Gilad Atzmon is anti-Semitic and a Holocaust denier. I had never heard of Gilad Atzmon before, and what I read of the links Duns sent me didn’t convince me. I certainly dispute – as I think any intelligent person would – that in a world that includes anti-Semitic MEPs in the European Parliament, anti-Semitic historians like David Irving, kings of Saudi Arabia who mandate Holocaust denial in Saudi schools, whether it’s really appropriate to call a jazz performer one of “the world’s leading anti-Semites”.
I’ve read through some of Gilad Atzmon’s essays, and looked at screenshots of his new book (A to Zion, a fictitious alphabetic satirical lexicon illustrated by Italian cartoonist Enzo Apicella), and while this may expose me as an ignorant Gentile, I do not pick up on Gilad Atzmon as anti-Semitic: as a satirist, as a critic of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians, yes; but anti-Semitic? I didn’t perceive his writings that way.
(I could be wrong. And, if I read more, I may change my mind.)
But Louise Mensch seems to feel that Jeremy Corbyn should – on discovering that he was to hear Gilad Atzmon perform at a Deir Yassin Remembered event in 2005 – have then studied Atzmon’s writings thoroughly before attending the performance. And the fact that Corbyn probably didn’t do that is, in Mensch’s view, “criminally negligent.”
I do question Louise Mensch’s methodology and conclusions: she is silent over Michel Kamiński’s presence in the ECR with her fellow Conservatives, her just outrage at the British State’s official presence at the King of Saudi Arabia’s funeral does not reference Saudi anti-Semitism: but she has decided that an Israeli-born British jazz performer is one of the world’s leading anti-Semites and anyone who goes to see him perform is tainted with anti-Semitism or criminally negligent if they didn’t know he is identified as an anti-Semite.
We write as members of a Jewish family, current and former constituents of Jeremy Corbyn. The accusations of antisemitism are, of course, political manipulations (Corbyn faces questions over meeting with alleged extremist, 20 August). Influential sections of the Jewish community, maybe guided by their Israeli contacts, are frightened that a notable critic of Israel’s policies and actions might attain a position of prominence in British politics. There are two background issues to which we would like to draw attention, aside from joining in the increasing number of Jews who say, of Israel’s behaviour, “not in our name”. The first is that the hysterical pressure to desist on anyone who wants to talk to Hamas and Hezbollah has been destructive to the prospects of peace. The second is that the repeated conflation of anti-Zionism and antisemitism is no accident. It is done quite consciously.
Lydia, Joel and Andrew Samuels
Glasgow is twinned with Bethlehem since 2007, and more accusations of outrage were made when Glasgow Council decided to fly the Palestinian flag on City Chambers on Friday 8th August 2014, a month after the Israeli government had launched Operation Protective Edge (or Operation Strong Cliff, in Hebrew).
Amnesty International’s report on Operation Protective Edge says:
Israeli forces committed war crimes and human rights violations during a 50-day military offensive in the Gaza Strip that killed over 1,500 civilians, including 539 children, wounded thousands more civilians, and caused massive civilian displacement and destruction of property and vital services. Israel maintained its air, sea and land blockade of Gaza, imposing collective punishment on its approximately 1.8 million inhabitants and stoking the humanitarian crisis. In the West Bank, Israeli forces carried out unlawful killings of Palestinian protesters, including children, and maintained an array of oppressive restrictions on Palestinians’ freedom of movement while continuing to promote illegal settlements and allow Israeli settlers to attack Palestinians and destroy their property with near total impunity. Israeli forces detained thousands of Palestinians, some of whom reported being tortured, and held around 500 administrative detainees without trial. Within Israel, the authorities continued to demolish homes of Palestinian Bedouin in “unrecognized villages” in the Negev/Naqab region and commit forcible evictions. They also detained and summarily expelled thousands of foreign migrants, including asylum-seekers, and imprisoned Israeli conscientious objectors.
The image to the right is the UN’s infographic on the impact of Operation Protective Edge from the UN Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights report on the conflict.
The British Israel Briefing and Communications Centre (BICOM) notes that Israel refused to cooperate with the UN investigation and quotes Philip Hammond, the Conservative Foreign Secretary, as saying that the UN Human Rights Council’s resolution commissioning the report was “fundamentally unbalanced“. Alan Johnson, who wrote the open letter in Left Foot Forward in June which seems to have been the first attempt to smear Jeremy Corbyn by association with anti-Semitism, is a Senior Research Fellow for BICOM.
What does all of this have to do with Louise Mensch and smears of Jeremy Corbyn?
My point is what many of those smearing Corbyn for association with anti-Semites would like you to forget:
- The Deir Yassin massacre happened, 9th April 1948, and to support its being remembered is not anti-Semitic.
- Failure to support the Israeli government’s actions against the Palestinians or Israeli Arabs is not anti-Semitic.
- Supporting the UN and Amnesty International in their work is not anti-Semitic.
- Believing that the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and the Arab Israelis within Israel’s 1967 borders, are not being treated justly or fairly by the Israeli government and they should be is not anti-Semitic.
Louise Mensch concludes this section of her smear:
On what possible grounds then did Jeremy Corbyn attend another DYR event in 2013?
By now he must have been well aware of his constituent Eisen’s wild antisemitism. Was the eye-watering anti-Semite Gilad Atzmon present again? Atzmon advertises the event here and here. I think not because it seems he was at DYR Glasgow where, damningly for Corbyn, Jewish groups had succeeded in canceling the antisemitic groups’s event. By this time even BDS had disassociated from Eisen.
Again: is Louise Mensch seriously trying to argue that remembering the Deir Yassin massacre is, in and of itself, enough to label someone an anti-Semite and a Holocaust denier?
The invitation to the 2013 Commemoration event was sent out by Palestinian Mission UK, the official representation of Palestine in the UK recognised by the UK government since 1993.
A screenshot of the invitation is below. Louise Mensch will have to explain why anyone receiving should have immediately assumed – as she presumes they should – that this event equates to anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial. Are Justin Butcher or Ahmed Masoud., in her eyes, now “the world’s leading anti-Semites”?
And why is Louise Mensch equating “donated money to commemorate Deir Yassin” with “donated money to a Holocaust denier”? For that’s the essence of this smear.
Edinburgh Eye 
Excellent work and very true points about the relative effort to debunk cheap smear pieces.
Please continue. I would love to see section on “Dyab Abou Jahjah’s antisemitism” treated with the same rigour as I suspect that given his current employment as columnist on centre mainstream newspaper in Belgium there has been some liberty taken in de-contexualising ‘anti-semetic evidence’, quotes about victory from killing troops, and shocking cartoons made during the tensions around the prophet cartoons.
Jane, you can’t find any antisemitism in Atzmon’s work. Does that mean that all of the anti-Zionists who declare him antisemitic are smearing him? Richard Seymour who in 2004 called him “disgraceful, incoherent” and “a crank”? Tony Greenstein, Moshe Machover, Michael Rosen and Hilary Rose and others who picketed Bookmarks when he appeared there in summer 2005? Charlie Pottins, Jews sans Frontieres and others who exposed his Holocaust denial in this period? Andy Newman who wrote an article attacking Atzmon’s antisemitism for the Guardian in 2011? Owen Hatherley, Laurie Penny, Nina Power, Richard Seymour and other Zero books authors who vigorously complained to their publisher when it published his screed in 2011? Jewish Socialist Group, Bradford Trades Council and Hope Not Hate who tried to get a gig of his in Bradford cancelled in 2011? The ant-Zionists who signed the “Not Quite Ordinary Human Beings” letter against him in 2012, including As’ad AbuKhalil, Max Blumenthal, Joel Finkel and Asa Winstanley? The signatories of the “Granting No Quarter” letter denouncing him in 2012, including Ali Abunimah, Omar Barghouti and Joseph Massad? How do you think these people came to this mistaken impression?
Does that mean that all of the anti-Zionists who declare him antisemitic are smearing him?
No, that’s not what I’m saying at all. My total acquaintance with Gilad Atzmon’s written work is what I’ve read and listened to between Sunday night and now: not a lot.
What I can say honestly is: of the little I have read, I read it as satiric, critical, and at times discomforting: I did not like the form of language he used.
My point was not “Gilad Atzmon is not anti-Semitic” but that “I can’t read what he’s writing as anti-Semitic”. I’m not writing this blogpost to defend Atzmon on charges of anti-Semitism, but to defend Jeremy Corbyn from charges that he should have thoroughly acquainted himself with the writings and beliefs of a jazz performer at an event which Corbyn was attending in April 2005.
Louise Mensch thinks it’s disgraceful that in April 2005 Jeremy Corbyn didn’t know that Gilad Atzmon is “one of the world’s leading anti-Semites”.
Most of the evidence you’re offering is dated, as you make clear, after April 2005 – the only evidence you offer prior to that is Richard Seymour calling Atzmon “disgraceful, incoherent” and “a crank”.
And I do think it is ridiculous to call a jazz performer and writer “one of the world’s leading anti-Semites”. Seriously? Kings and politicians stand aside, here comes a deadly saxophone player?
Those are fair points. But Corbyn is quite active in Palestine solidarity activism and is a full-time politician who lives and breathes this stuff. These issues (Atzmon and to a lesser extent Eisen) were heavily discussed in the first half of 2005, eg on LabourNet, in the period leading up to these events. When serious, respected anti-Zionists like Michael Rosen were saying don’t touch Atzmon and Eisen with a barge pole, it’s hard to believe this didn’t flicker through to Corbyn. Certainly, it must have by 2011 when Corbyn stood by Eisen and 2013 when he was still hanging out with him.
You’re right it’s hyperbole to make out Atzmon is the biggest antisemite in the world. But his Israeli origins and leftist image give him a cache that other antisemites mostly lack; he has brought Holocaust denial into the mainstream of the Palestine solidarity movement, which is why anti-Zionists who take racism seriously have been do vigorous in challenging him.
You’re right that Tory links with Polish racists are also outrageous. The Jewish Chronicle and others who are calling out Corbyn now have attacked these links repeatedly. We should hold Corbyn to this standard, not let him off the hook because the Tories are doing it too.
These issues (Atzmon and to a lesser extent Eisen) were heavily discussed in the first half of 2005, eg on LabourNet, in the period leading up to these events.
Couldawouldashoulda. The evidence against Corbyn is still: He went to the Deir Yassin Remembered event in April 2005. So did many others. To presume that every single person who did so therefore supported Eisen’s anti-Semitism is really absurd: I’ve linked to two blogs from June 2005 that make this clear.
Certainly, it must have by 2011 when Corbyn stood by Eisen
Cite?
and 2013 when he was still hanging out with him.
Cite?
. The Jewish Chronicle and others who are calling out Corbyn now have attacked these links repeatedly.
Really? Stephen Pollard, in the Guardian, 2009: Poland’s Kaminski is not an antisemite: he’s a friend to Jews. And by that Stephen Pollard seems to mean that Kaminski is pro-Israel.
On the Kaminski issue:
Yes, you’re right, Pollard disgracefully justified the Tory link. But other commentators in the JC, who are among those raising questions about Corbyn now (such as David Aaronovitch and Martin Bright – e.g. http://www.thejc.com/comment/analysis/20817/analysis-kaminskis-opinions-should-ring-loud-alarm-bells ) as well as the leadership of the Jewish community DID dwell at length on the problem with Kaminski. I blogged about this at the time too: http://brockley.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=kaminski
Pollard and Mensch may be using antisemitism to attack Corbyn, a politician they don’t like. For others of us, the problem is when we like Corbyn but he keeps making these errors of judgement.
Fair points all. I knew Martin Bright had opposed Kaminski (and I knew he’d clashed with David Pollard over that): I didn’t know about David Aaronovitch (I don’t much care for DA’s politics in general). Will read your blog.
Am trying to write this up now on my blog. I realise my 2011 claim in comment above is wrong (based on Louise Mensch’s confusing chronology) but Corbyn was at the 2013 DYR event.
Written up now: http://brockley.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/strange-alliances-jeremy-corbyn-and.html
Yes, I saw your tweet. Interesting that you’re claiming Joel Finkel and the author of “Jews Sans Frontiers” are both “hardcore Jew haters”. https://twitter.com/bobfrombrockley/status/635496730713321472
Yes, but how does “attended the 2013 DYR event” correlate with “hanging out with Paul Eisen”?
Are you, like Louise Mensch, claiming that everyone who attended the 2013 Deir Yassin events was a pal of Paul Eisen?
Slow response here: http://brockley.blogspot.com/2015/08/strange-alliances-jeremy-corbyn-and.html?showComment=1441719354170#c75520168834861810
This jazz writer had rumbled Atzmon as early as 2005:
http://jazztimes.com/articles/16035-assessing-atzmon
October 2005 . Thanks for confirming again that Louise Mensch’s assertion that Jeremy Corbyn should have known Gilad Atzmon “is one of the world’s leading anti-Semites” before April 2005 is nonsense.
Not necessarily nonsense: if even a jazz writer knew about Atzmon’s antisemitism in Oct 2005, it does not seem unreasonable to expect a politician who specialises in ME affairs to be aware a bit before then. But that’s really besides the point: the simple fact is that JC now has all the relevant information, but still won’t acknowledge that he was wrong to associate with and (in some cases) defend and promote all these anti-Semites. All he does is issue vague statements abhorring racism and anti-Semitism, but never commenting upon the specific examples raised by his critics. Not good enough, and wouldn’t be tolerated by the left if it involved a mainstrea, politician who’d associated with racists of any other kind.
BTW I have just voted for Corbyn, but that doesn’t stop me being appalled by his lousy record on international affairs and, especially, the ME.
Not necessarily nonsense: if even a jazz writer knew about Atzmon’s antisemitism in Oct 2005, it does not seem unreasonable to expect a politician who specialises in ME affairs to be aware a bit before then.
So, please tell me: you research the political background of all the musicians playing at all of the events you are invited to, and you boycott the events if any of the musicians have expressed views of which you disapprove?
I’ll take your word for it, of course. Just confirm that you do this, habitually, as a matter of course, and that everyone you know does it too and no one thinks it a bit weird.
the simple fact is that JC now has all the relevant information, but still won’t acknowledge that he was wrong to associate with and (in some cases) defend and promote all these anti-Semites.
Do you agree with Louise Mensch that it’s automatically anti-Semitic to commemorate the destruction of Deir Yassin?
All he does is issue vague statements abhorring racism and anti-Semitism, but never commenting upon the specific examples raised by his critics.
Rubbish. Jeremy Corbyn has commented upon most of the specific examples raised by his critics. What you want is not for him to “comment” but to go “omg, so sorry, I should have been able to see into the future!” Which is what most of these “examples” require of him.
BTW I have just voted for Corbyn, but that doesn’t stop me being appalled by his lousy record on international affairs and, especially, the ME.
And by that you mean that he’s not knee-jerk pro-Israeli government. Well, as Peter Oborne pointed out in Middle East Eye: Jeremy Corbyn has consistently been a few years ahead of his political contemporaries in advocating peaceful, political solutions: and he’s invariably been right.
1: You ask “Just confirm that you do this, habitually, as a matter of course, and that everyone you know does it too and no one thinks it a bit weird”. Answer: In the case of Atzmon, questions were being raised about him as early as 2003 and I *did* take the trouble to check him out.
2 “Do you agree with Louise Mensch that it’s automatically anti-Semitic to commemorate the destruction of Deir Yassin?”
Answer: of course not! Don’t be silly!
3. “Rubbish. Jeremy Corbyn has commented upon most of the specific examples raised by his critics. ”
Answer: If he has, I’ve not seen it. Please provide specific examples and (preferably) links.
4. “And by that you mean that he’s not knee-jerk pro-Israeli government. Well, as Peter Oborne …”
Answer: I am most definitely *not* “knee-jerk pro-Israeli government” and then idea that questioning Corbyn’s apologies for notorious anti-semites should imply being “knee-jerk pro-Israeli government” is truly extraordinary. But when you go on to quote the old-style right-wing Arabist Tory Oborne approvingly, I’m afraid I begin to become very seriously worried about you.
Answer: In the case of Atzmon, questions were being raised about him as early as 2003 and I *did* take the trouble to check him out.
That doesn’t answer my question, but I’m guessing you don’t ever intend to do so.
Answer: of course not! Don’t be silly!
Not silly at all. Louise Mensch and her supporters have claimed that it’s not only wrong for Corbyn to have gone to the 2005 memorial to Deir Yassin, organised by Paul Eisen with Gilad Atzmon performing, it was also wrong for him to have gone to the 2013 memorial of Deir Yassin, and that furthermore, the Glasgow Deir Yassin Remembered group is also an “anti-semitic group”, though no evidence of this is offered.
So, I’m glad you say this is silly, because I agree.
Answer: If he has, I’ve not seen it. Please provide specific examples and (preferably) links.
I’ve provided a specific example in 3 – Corbyn was asked if he’d met a Lebanese Belgian activist, he said not, and then later that day after his staff did the research, he acknowledged that he had indeed met him six years ago – he just didn’t remember one among so many.
I am most definitely *not* “knee-jerk pro-Israeli government” and then idea that questioning Corbyn’s apologies for notorious anti-semites should imply being “knee-jerk pro-Israeli government” is truly extraordinary.
Corbyn’s offered apologies for “notorious anti-Semites”? Where? Specific examples, with links if possible, thanks.
Peter Oborne is am “Arabist”? Interesting. What do you mean by that?
I regard Oborne as that rare critter – a Tory with principles. We disagree politically on most things ,but he isn’t your modern Tory who’ll suck up to anyone wealthier or more powerful.
One observation, for then time being: :
You write (initially quoting me)
“”Answer: If he has, I’ve not seen it. Please provide specific examples and (preferably) links.
“I’ve provided a specific example in 3 – Corbyn was asked if he’d met a Lebanese Belgian activist, he said not, and then later that day after his staff did the research, he acknowledged that he had indeed met him six years ago – he just didn’t remember one among so many.”
But that’s clearly *not* an example of Corbyn explaining, or apologising, for his associations with /support for people who turned out to be antisemities (whether or not he should have known about it at the time): it’s simply him saying he didn’t remember. Which rather goes to prove my point that Corbyn has been systematically evasive on the issue.
On “Corbyn’s offered apologies for “notorious anti-Semites”? Where? Specific examples, with links if possible, thanks.”
Well, calling Hamas and Hezbollah “friends” when he welcomed them to the Commons is pretty well documented, and Corbyn’s answer that he was simply promoting “peace” doesn’t really answer the question about why he was clearly promoting them as progressive forces. Nor does his “explanation” that he was engaged in “diplomacy” -“diplomacy” is the terrain of bourgeois politicians doing deals – Corbyn is a socialist who I’d expect to make clear and frank political statements based on ihis actual political assessment (which I think he really was in the case of Hezbollah and Hamas, despite his evasion and bluster since)
Another example that you can check out for yourself if you so wish: Corbyn described the vicious anti-semite Raed Salah (who, amongst other things, spreads the blood-libel, and also spread the myth that Jews knew about 9/11 in advance and av oided the twin towers on the day) as a “far from dangerous man” and a “very honoured citizen” who “represents his people extremely well.”
On Tory Arabists: this a long-standing and well-known current within the Tory Party (and the Foreign Office), which has manifested itself in sympathy towards the Arab ruling class, hostility to Jews in the ME and specifically, hostility (since it foundation) to Israel. In its most extreme manifestations, it can take the form out outright anti-semitism: I wouldn’t necessarily accuse Oborne of that, but he clearly belongs in that tradition, which these days easily morphs into an “anti-Zionism” that, for practical purposes, is indistinguishable from the “anti-Zionism” of much opf the left.
In a nutshell: while not all “anti-Zionists” are anti-semites, these days *all* anti-Semites are “anti-Zionists.”
But that’s clearly *not* an example of Corbyn explaining, or apologising, for his associations with /support for people who turned out to be antisemities (whether or not he should have known about it at the time): it’s simply him saying he didn’t remember.
You claimed that Corbyn had only ” issued vague statements abhorring racism and anti-Semitism, but never commenting upon the specific examples raised by his critics.”
That is clearly untrue.
You’re now going beyond this to say he should apologise for – for example, inviting a Belgian-Lebanese activist to a debate held in the Palace of Westminster, because he should have known that this activist had done or said offensive things. Or that he should apologise for attending the 2005 Deir Yassin Remembered event in London because it had been organised by Paul Eisen and Gilad Atzmon was performing.
We disagree about that: I can’t see why he should apologise. But you can’t claim that he hasn’t commented on that, because he has: he said that he wasn’t aware that Paul Eisen was an anti-Semite at the time (April 2005), and that seems very likely true.
Well, calling Hamas and Hezbollah “friends” when he welcomed them to the Commons is pretty well documented, and Corbyn’s answer that he was simply promoting “peace” doesn’t really answer the question about why he was clearly promoting them as progressive forces.
Really? Can you cite where Jeremy Corbyn said that he thinks Hamas and Hezbollah are “progressive forces”?
The use of the term “friend” in foreign diplomacy, in the House of Commons, and indeed on Facebook, does not usually mean personal friendship and I am not aware of anyone (except you) who thinks that when a politician refers to “our friends” he means “our progressive forces”.
Corbyn is a socialist who I’d expect to make clear and frank political statements based on ihis actual political assessment (which I think he really was in the case of Hezbollah and Hamas, despite his evasion and bluster since)
Well, if you ignore Corbyn’s clear and frank political statement that he called Hamas and Hezbollah “friends” because that’s the language of diplomacy, which obviously you are determined to do, you are quite correct. Your evasion and bluster on this issue is fairly apparent.
Another example that you can check out for yourself if you so wish: Corbyn described the vicious anti-semite Raed Salah (who, amongst other things, spreads the blood-libel, and also spread the myth that Jews knew about 9/11 in advance and av oided the twin towers on the day) as a “far from dangerous man” and a “very honoured citizen” who “represents his people extremely well.”
I did check it out: smear #3 of my post on The process of political smearing.
For your benefit, though: Raed Salah visited the UK in 2011. The Israeli government convicted him of “blood libel” in 2014 – for a speech he made in 2007. That speech was brought up when Theresa May tried to ban Raed Salah from the UK, but Raed Salah won on appeal because he was able to show that the version of the speech that appeared to show he was spreading blood libel had been edited to include the words “Jewish children” which he had not actually said. In 2014, in a political attempt to crack down on the leaders of the Israeli Arabs, Raed Salah was convicted for the edited version of his words in 2007. Even if you assume that the political conviction was conducted with absolute justice (which seems unlikely to me, given the 7-year delay) I’m not clear how you think Jeremy Corbyn was supposed to know, in 2011, about a conviction in 2014. Perhaps you could explain? No one else has been able to.
On Tory Arabists: this a long-standing and well-known current within the Tory Party (and the Foreign Office), which has manifested itself in sympathy towards the Arab ruling class, hostility to Jews in the ME and specifically, hostility (since it foundation) to Israel.
Thanks for explaining.
In a nutshell: while not all “anti-Zionists” are anti-semites, these days *all* anti-Semites are “anti-Zionists.”
Well, no, not really. As I outlined in part 3, there are many anti-Semites in the US who are pro-Zionists. But this is a Christian evangelical phenomenon, which is entangled into US Republican politics: as far as I know, it has not become a thing in British politics.
1: You say “You’re now going beyond this to say he should apologise for – for example, inviting a Belgian-Lebanese activist to a debate held in the Palace of Westminster, because he should have known that this activist had done or said offensive things”
My answer: Yes! That’s what I’ve been saying throughout! Haven’t you understood? Of course Corbyn should apologise! That’s the least we should expect! Frankly, I’m not interested in whether he knew, or should have known
, that the vast myriad of anti-semites he’s associated with over the past 20-30 years, were indeed anti-semites. The point is, he knows now and hasn’t apologised as he should.
2. He called Hezbollah and Hams “friends”: are you disputing this? If I was on record calling a right-wing Israeli a “friend” even in the name of “diplomacy” or “peace”, I’d expect top be taken up on it.
3. Are you denying that Raed Salah is a thoroughgoing anti-Semite?
4. On your word-play about anti-Semitism: see Owen Jones’s most recent article in the Guardian (a publication not noted for being pro-Zionist).
That’s the least we should expect! Frankly, I’m not interested in whether he knew, or should have known
, that the vast myriad of anti-semites he’s associated with over the past 20-30 years, were indeed anti-semites. The point is, he knows now and hasn’t apologised as he should.
Why should he apologise?
Before you answer that question, can I ask you one?
Do you want the fighting between Israelis and Palestinians to come to an end? Would you like there to be a Good Friday Agreement / Truth and Reconciliation Commission?
Or do you want to see the IDF against the Israeli Arabs and the Palestinians, forever?
He called Hezbollah and Hams “friends”: are you disputing this? If I was on record calling a right-wing Israeli a “friend” even in the name of “diplomacy” or “peace”, I’d expect top be taken up on it.
Okay, so you’re absolutely uninterested in peace, politics, and diplomacy: that may answer my earlier question.
Are you denying that Raed Salah is a thoroughgoing anti-Semite?
Given that in 1998, following an aggressive Israeli land-grab backed up by a force described as “the semi-military Border Guards”, the Israeli Arab city Umm-al-Fahm – where Raed Salah was Mayor at the time – took part in a joint Arab/Jewish peace protest, yes, I really am. Why would a “thoroughgoing anti-Semite” leader of Israeli Arabs, join with Israeli Jews in a peaceful protest?
On your word-play about anti-Semitism:
So, not interested in finding out that American evangelical pro-Zionists are in fact rootedly anti-Semitic – and their anti-Semitism is a crucial part of their being pro-Israel?
Really, Jim, your utter lack of interest in anything I have to say makes me wonder why you’re commenting here.
Comrade,
I notice you have nothing to say about Raed Salah’s promotion of the blood libel and of the anti-Semitic myth about Jews knowing about 9/11 in advance. If he was behind a joint Arab/Jewish peace protest, excellent: that’s to his credit (though being the Mayor at the time is not evidence that he organised – or even supported it): it doesn’t change his record of anti-Semitic utterances.
Being in favour of peace obviously involves being willing to talk to all parties – including people you may strongly oppose politically (and, indeed, militarily): that’s the a-b-c of bourgeois diplomacy and it’s also a-b-c that socialists broadly support that approach. But that’s a quite different matter to the obligation upon socialists to say what we think about various political forces. Corbyn went further than simply advocating dialogue and peace – called Hanmas and Hezbollah “friends” and has a long record within the labour movement of promoting them.
Mohammed Amin, a blogger of (presumably) Muslim heritage, comments on the tired old point about American “pro-Zionist” evangelical Christians: (quote):
1/ Anti-Semites are almost never Zionists
2/ If someone hates Jews, they are logically unlikely to support the establishment of “a home for the Jewish people in EretzIsrael secured under public law.”
3/ The only exception that I can think of are some extremist Christians, some of whom are antisemitic, who regard the gathering of the Jews into Palestine as a necessary pre-condition for the second coming of Jesus, after which they look forward to the Jews being killed in the conflicts of Armageddon. While there are some such people about, they are few and do not refute the general proposition that anti-Semites are almost never Zionists.
I’m commenting here, comrade, because it’s important that the Corbyn camp (of which I am part) addresses the egregious record on certain issues (mainly international questions, including support for Putin’s line over Ukraine), and the issue of connections with known anti-Semites. To his credit, Owen Jones began to address the question of anti-Semitism in his Guardian piece, but went no where near far enough. The Corbyn camp cannot allow ourselves to be blinded to our man’s serious weakness on this issue, if only because it will inevitably come back to haunt him – and us.
I notice you have nothing to say about Raed Salah’s promotion of the blood libel
I noticed in a previous comment that you are ignoring anything I say on this subject.
With this remark, I further take notice that you have gone from ignoring what I said, to pretending out loud that I’ve said nothing.
There’s really no point in my replying to your comments, since you firstly do not pay attention to what I say in my replies, and secondly pretend that I said nothing.
So *what* have you said about the blood libel and 9/11, comrade? I apologise if I’ve missed your comments on these subjects.
You ignored what I had to say in previous comments, so I presume that if I comment again you’ll still ignore it. You could try re-reading my previous comments, of course, to find out what you ignored the first time I made them.
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