Fighting antisemitism

Israel-Palestine, Islamism and the Populist Left-wing

Since the very first day, when Hamas brutally acted in an inhumane way against unarmed civilians, it’s intuitive that Israel will response with more inhumane war crimes. Given the current Israeli right-wing government with its apartheid history, it’s not to be surprised that the response hits unarmed civilians too. When it comes to a problem, everyone knows the problem is the issue. So, the criticism should be emphasised more to the proposed or self-claimed alternative. Instead of calling for class-solidarity or intersectional solidarity between Israeli and Palestinians or at least peace...

Jews in the anti-racist imagination

In Outcast: How Jews were Banished from the Anti-Racist Imagination , Camila Bassi seeks to reintegrate a critique of antisemitism into a critique of racism. Moreover, she makes a case for a more universalist, humanist anti-racism — a confrontation with racism that is also a critique of race. She does this through a confrontation with left-academic discourse around Jews, antisemitism, and Israel/Palestine. (A disclaimer at the outset: Bassi wrote a foreword for my own book on left antisemitism, and I provided a cover quote for hers. Both our books were published by the same imprint, No Pasaran...

For solidarity, against antisemitism

In Sheffield, Broomhall Social Centre hosted a discussion titled "Muslim and Jew tour: beyond Israel" on 12 May. The speakers and organisers had made repeated antisemitic remarks.

The varieties of racism

In an American television chat show broadcast in February 2022 Whoopi Goldberg argued that the Holocaust had nothing to do with racism

Diane Abbott and racism

Left-wing MP Diane Abbott has apologised unreservedly for what she wrote about “Irish, Jewish and Traveller” people not suffering racism. Even ultra-Blairite John McTernan commented: “Swift and appropriate apology from Diane Abbott. She has been subjected to vile racist abuse throughout her career, and her apology should be accepted in the spirit it is offered”. The Labour leadership, which has largely declined to defend Abbott against racist and misogynist abuse, is opportunist and hypocritical on bigotry and oppression, and will show that again if it doesn’t lift her suspension from the...

The Warsaw ghetto: 27 heroic days

April 19 2023 is the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising. In October-November 1940 the German occupiers herded Warsaw’s 400,000 to 500,000 Jews into a ghetto. From 22 July to 12 September 1942, German SS and police units deported about 265,000 Jews from Warsaw to Treblinka. They killed approximately 35,000 Jews inside the ghetto during this operation. By early 1943, only 70,000 to 80,000 Jews survived in the ghetto. Activists — Bundists, left and right Zionists — organised armed groups. In October 1942 they gained contact with the Polish Home Army and got a small number of weapons...

The "poetry and humanitarianism" of Roger Waters

On Wednesday 7 February, two people made speeches about Ukraine: Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Roger Waters. The Morning Star (editorial 10 February) had no doubt which it preferred. According to the paper, Zelenskyy’s visit to Britain was “to soften up public opinion for escalation of Nato’s proxy war with Russia over Ukraine” and was “carefully choreographed”. It suggested “Zelenskyy may have got some tips from Boris Johnson” about something or other, which the paper didn’t bother to specify. The editorial quoted the Russian embassy in London, warning that “bloodshed and the next round of...

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