Left antisemitism

On BBC Question Time (Labour leadership debate, 8 September) Owen Smith, in the stream-of-consciousness style that has come to typify Smith's approach to political debate, links the Alliance for Workers' Liberty (as part of the “hard left in our Party” “flooding into the Party”) to those on the left who “associate anti-Zionism, anti-imperialism”, “anti-Israel” perspectives (sic). That is, he implicitly called us anti-semitic. This incoherent tirade against the “hard left” was a disgraceful intervention into an important issue that deserves serious, well-informed debate. Smith's comments...

For post-debate comment see Cathy Nugent's article here Director of Progress Richard Angell debates Cathy Nugent, editor of Solidarity newspaper in this Workers' Liberty London Forum. How should the labour movement tackle anti-Semitism within its own ranks? As debate over left wing anti-Semitism has intensified in recent weeks, different solutions and answers have been proposed.

Ken Livingstone states he gets his evidence and ideas for his comments on Hitler and Zionism from Lenni Brenner’s books. This review of two of Brenner’s books, Zionism in the Age of the Dictators and The Iron Wall: Zionist Revisionism from Jabotinsky to Shamir, was published in Socialist Organiser on 4 October 1984. Denial of the holocaust has become the stock-in-trade of the far right in Europe and the USA, from Richard Harewood’s Did Six Million Really Die? to Arthur Butz’s The Hoax of the Century. That pro-Nazis should seek to excuse their heroes of one of the greatest crimes in history can...

See here for an audio recording of the debate On Thursday 19 May, Workers’ Liberty debated Richard Angell, the Director of Progress, on how best to fight left anti-semitism. Angell has proposed an eight-point list of proposals which, he said, was about “getting this issue under control”.* These proposals include “training for the Labour’s national executive in modern anti-semitism and unconscious bias”, “new capacity for the Compliance Unit” and that “anti-semitism must lead to a lifetime ban”. Defending this last point, Angell said he was supporting a call made by John McDonnell, and it was...

Jackie Walker, a woman of mixed African-Jewish background, and vice-chair of the Labour Party's left-wing group, Momentum, has been suspended by the Labour Party on grounds of anti-semitism. The charge of anti-semitism is based on a fragment of a Facebook conversation from some months ago. Her anti-semitism consisted in the statement that Africa too had experienced a Holocaust. The Labour Party now has a regime of capricious and arbitrary instant exclusions. This paper and its predecessor Socialist Organiser have argued that anti-semitism in the labour movement needs to be rooted out. But this...

Momentum has been operating on the basis of regional delegate meetings (or, in at least one case, a mass members’ meetings) which send policy and elect representatives to the National Committee (NC). On 30 April, London groups sent delegates to the second London region gathering. It was, overall, a positive and productive meeting. Summary of what was agreed (all good things): • Election of a nine-person provisional London steering committee • A London Momentum conference, open to all members, in August • Coordinated London campaigning against council cuts • A motion to the NC calling for a...

On one level the sudden media outcry about Ken Livingstone’s anti-semitism is being used and fed by the Labour right, especially the stupid part of the right — and, of course, the Tories — to sabotage the Labour Party in the London mayoral and other local government elections and to discredit Jeremy Corbyn. Livingstone has been what he is now for decades. He was the same Livingstone when the Blairite right took him back into the Labour Party, in 2004, after his 2000-4 term as London mayor. The bigger truth, however, is that, whatever their motives, those who cry out against Livingstone’s...

A rising mood that cuts are not inevitable, a rising anger against economic inequality, and a rising confidence that alternatives are possible, has damaged the Tories in recent months. Ian Duncan Smith resigned, demagogically spilling the truth that the Tories have been victimising the worst-off to benefit the rich. That was one of the side-products of the Tories’ splits over Europe, which have seen Tory right-wingers suddenly “discovering” that the NHS is underfunded and suggesting Britain’s EU budget contributions could fill the gap. The Tories were forced to retreat on disabled benefits...

Dan Katz compares the Socialist Worker Party′s position on the Livingstone anti-semitism row to what we say. SWP: Anti-Zionism and anti-semitism are not the same thing. AWL: Not necessarily the same; but quite often they are. The anti-Zionists who carry placards equating Israel with Nazi Germany are anti-semitic. The anti-Zionists who oppose Israel by picketing “Jewish” shops like Marks and Spencers are anti-semitic. The anti-Zionists who complain about Zionist-led media are anti-semitic. And the anti-Zionists who pick on Israeli Jews — uniquely — as a people without the right to a state are a...

Ken Livingstone has cited, as evidence for his claim that "Hitler supported Zionism" in getting Jews to "Israel" in "1932", Lenni Brenner's book "Zionism in the Age of the Dictators". Review of Brenner's book by Gerry Ben-Noah .