Left antisemitism

See our publications and more articles on fighting antisemitism.

Meetings on left antisemitism: what it is and how to fight it

Publication here Workers' Liberty is hosting a series of meetings across the country about antisemitism. If you'd like more information about a meeting or would like us to organise a meeting in your area get in touch with office@workersliberty.org . Lewisham Tuesday 18 September, 7.30, 388 New Cross Road, London SE14 6TY Speaker: Daniel Randall, London Underground worker, RMT activist and Workers' Liberty Facebook event Newcastle Tuesday 18 September, 7pm, Room 2, Good Space, Commercial Union House, 39 Pilgrim Street, Newcastle NE1 6QE Speaker: Michael Elms, Workers' Liberty Facebook event...

Anti-IHRA lobby is defence of left antisemitism

The decision by an “emergency meeting” hosted by Camden Momentum to call a lobby of Labour’s National Executive on 4 September, to oppose the adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism, is toxic. Momentum activists have linked their opposition to the IHRA definition to the lack of internal democracy in Momentum. But justifiable anger about the way Momentum builds and then promotes its slates for the National Executive is being used to promote the worst views of left antisemites. The meeting agreed a statement, of which the only part to suggest any kind of democratic reform is a call for...

Corbyn, anti-Zionism, and antisemitism

In video footage from a speech at a conference in 2013, Jeremy Corbyn accuses “Zionists” of failing to “understand English irony”, despite “having lived in this country for a very long time, probably all their lives”, as well as of not “wanting to study history”. In context, it is clear his remarks refer to a specific group of Zionist activists, who tour meetings associated with the Palestine solidarity movement, often surreptitiously filming them and barracking speakers. It was undoubtedly not Corbyn’s intention for his remarks to refer to all Jews, or even, perhaps, all Zionists...

A reply to some confused critics

Five Labour Party members have written an article ‘The AWL, Zionism and the struggle for equal rights in Israel/Palestine’ ( bit.ly/20ma0WX ) in which they accuse the AWL of being a “Zionist front organisation” outside the Palestinian solidarity movement (defined as being the PSC, BDS campaigns, Jewish Voice for Labour etc). They accuse us of “justifying settler colonialism” and justifying “apartheid”. They accuse “powerful” organisations such as Labour Friends of Israel as organising a witch-hunt in the Labour Party. These writers oppose a two-state settlement and seem to be for a single...

What Labour's code of conduct omits

Antisemitism, in Europe anyway, is thousands of years old, and has taken many different forms. Since the 19th century, it has a “left-wing” variant, in which anticapitalist feeling is directed against Jews as easily-targeted scapegoats for capitalism rather than, or as well as, against the impersonal and relatively-complicated real mechanisms of capitalist exploitation and oppression. The Stalin regime in the USSR coined (in 1949-53), and a range of groups self-defined as left-wing have promoted (especially since the 1970s), a new sub-variant, in which Israel is demonised as the world’s great...

A short reply to some confused critics

Five Labour Party members have written an article ‘The AWL, Zionism and the struggle for equal rights in Israel/Palestine.’ They oppose the Two States solution; they are for BDS; they are “anti-Zionist”. They accuse the AWL of being a “Zionist front organisation” outside the Palestinian solidarity movement (defined as being the PSC, BDS campaigns, Jewish Voice for Labour etc) . They accuse us of “justifying settler colonialism” and justifying “apartheid”. They accuse “powerful” organisations such as Labour Friends of Israel as organising a witch-hunt in the Labour Party. These writers seem to...

Confusion on anti-Zionism

There are lots of positives in Jeremy Corbyn’s article “I will root antisemites out of Labour – they do not speak for me”, which has just been published in the Guardian (3 August). Corbyn condemns attempts to belittle concerns expressed by the Jewish community. He acknowledges that Labour has “a real problem” in that trust between the Party and the Jewish community is at a “low ebb”. He pledges that Labour will take steps to resolve that problem. A Labour government will defend all aspects of Jewish life. Antisemitism will be driven out of the Labour Party for good. Education and training will...

Don't leave fighting Labour Party antisemitism to the right

There is something dreamlike in the turmoil in and around the Labour Party about anti-semitism. Episodes occur — Pete Wilsman on the seventy rabbis are pulled out of the memory hole; the meeting Jeremy Corbyn hosted back in 2010... There are demands for confession, retraction and contrition. Corbyn goes through the motions of responding to the latest revelations, disinterred memory of old events. For sure, his opponents in the party and the Tory press are out to get him. One of two things then: either they’re telling the truth on this matter or they aren’t. Either there is a problem of anti...

Left antisemitism and the "#JC9"

The decision of Momentum to remove their endorsement of Campaign for Labour Party Democracy (CLPD) secretary Pete Willsman from the #JC9 slate for Labour National Executive Committee has exposed fractures between Momentum, its supporters, other parts of the Centre Left Grassroots Alliance, and the Labour Leader's office. Willsman has been dropped because of a rant he made at a Labour National Executive Committee (NEC) in which he says he has seen no evidence of antisemitism in the Labour Party, despite sitting on the Disputes Panel for many years, which is currently dealing with multiple...

This website uses cookies, you can find out more and set your preferences here.
By continuing to use this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.