Fighting antisemitism

A racist endeavour?

One of the eleven examples of antisemitism in the IHRA is this: “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavour.” With the IHRA adoption by Labour, some on the Labour left, has asserted their “right” to call Israel a “racist endeavour”. Shortly after the Labour NEC vote a posters carrying the slogan “Israel is a racist endeavour” popped up around London. At first appearance it seems not an unreasonable slogan: Israel’s government is doing a lot of racist things, passing racist laws and occupying...

Yes "smash Israel" is antisemitic

The Labour Party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) has decided to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's (IHRA) definition of antisemitism in full. This is a step forward for Labour but only after weeks of indecision, confusion and lack of leadership in a row which may have caused a great deal of damage. In adopting the IHRA definition, the NEC added a qualifying statement stressing that freedom of speech should be allowed in relation to criticism of the Israeli government. But the IHRA should not be an impediment to free speech unless it is used cynically or...

The development of antisemitism in Hungary

For part two click here Bibó was not a Marxist but a member of the National Peasant Party (NPP) — a party of radical reformists who adhered to a political position which was loosely described as “the third road” (or “third way”): neither Communist (i.e. Stalinist) or capitalist. It was, in effect, left-reformist and probably closer to the politics of Bennism (but with an agrarian orientation) than anything else to which it could be compared in the UK today. That political stream had a short existence from 1939 to 1948. In the Hungarian elections of 1945 the NPP won 42 seats in the National...

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...

IHRA definitions do not exclude criticism of Israeli governments

An open letter (printed in full below) is being circulated which calls on Labour’s National Executive to refuse to endorse the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) examples of antisemitism. Workers' Liberty thinks the Open Letter is based on a misunderstanding of the IHRA and thus will not help Labour's leadership deal with the controversy over the Party's new code on antisemitism. Despite what is said, no IHRA examples, exclude criticism of any racist actions of the Israeli government. Further, Labour’s code makes explicit that the sort of discussions the authors claim will be...

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...

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