At last! Morning Star takes antisemitism seriously

In an editorial on 3 November, the Morning Star has warned of a “horrifying increase in anti-semitic incidents across Britain since the start of the present Gaza crisis” and stated that socialists “cannot ignore this” even “as we fight for peace in Gaza”.

This is a significant development. The sharp rise in antisemitic incidents that began immediately following Hamas’s pogrom on 7 October (i.e. well before Israel’s attack on Gaza) had previously scarcely been mentioned in the Morning Star.

In fact, between 7 October and 3 November, while the paper frequently, prominently and correctly denounced anti-Muslim racist incidents, there were just two clear condemnations of antisemitism — a quote from an open letter calling upon Keir Starmer to resign, which also condemned “the surge in anti-semitic and Islamophobic incidents in Britain” (October 9) and an editorial (November 1) condemning both antisemitism and Islamophobia that went on to claim that “the Establishment unites in denouncing anti-semitism, where it exists and where it doesn’t [but] Muslim-baiting is positively encouraged”. I don’t think it unreasonable to read into that particular wording the implication that claims of antisemitism are often not genuine and anyway of rather less concern to the left than anti-Muslim racism.

Self-criticism
So the 3 November editorial is significant. It contains several points that go directly against the paper’s previous editorial statements and articles and even notes that “combining the two evils [Islamophobia and antisemitism] as one can lead to overlooking specific features” — an observation that could be read as a very mild form of self-criticism, given that such “combining” is exactly what the paper had previously been doing.

Other points never previously made include:
• “Most, but not all, Jews in Britain feel a degree of affinity with Israel. That is by no means the same thing as endorsing … its far right government.”
• “Some 70 per cent of British Jews in Britain have family living in Israel [and] feel traumatised by the Hamas attack.”
• “The Holocaust is not just history, but a present fear of many Jews.”
• “The attacks on Corbyn’s Labour … have led to an instinctive assumption of bad faith [towards] anyone drawing attention to anti-semitism”
• “Some on the left blunder into anti-semitic attitudes through embracing a conspiratorial rather than a Marxist understanding of the ills of our society. Capitalism and imperialism are organic systems of oppression, not the manipulation of sinister cabals”.

The editorial closes with a call for “a ceasefire in Gaza [and] a democratic solution to the crisis… in the interests of all the people of Israel/Palestine.”

Who could disagree with that last point? The paper probably means a two-state solution, which is Communist Party of Britain (CPB) policy, though the Morning Star rarely mentions it and gives more prominence to articles by writers (Ramzy Baroud, John Wight, Marcel Cartier) who clearly favour “one state” and the destruction of Israel.

And remember, too that the paper has made a point of refusing to “condemn” the 7 October pogrom and has repeatedly referred to the Israeli victims — all of whom lived behind the 1967 “Green Line” and many of whom were peaceniks — as “settlers”.

It is also a publication that has been criticised by prominent CPB member Mary Davis, for carrying antisemitic articles (though she doesn’t publicly use that term), and had to withdraw and apologise for an antisemitic article in 2018 after Davis complained.

I suspect Mary Davis (who has a nuanced article about Zionism and antisemitism in the Summer 2003 issue of the CPB’s theoretical magazine Communist Review) may well be behind the abrupt turn reflected in the 3 November editorial.

If so, good luck to her — though I doubt she’ll thank me for backing her.

• The Morning Star always uses the term “anti-semitism” with a hyphen, unlike Solidarity, which does not use a hyphen.