948 UK Lobby (including The Economist) bullies Corbyn over 'anti-Semitism', demands he expel Livingstone

UK Lobby (including The Economist) bullies Corbyn over 'anti-Semitism',
demands he expel Livingstone

Newsletter published on 5 April 2018

(1) The Economist come out as part of the Lobby
(2) Corbyn’s dinner with Jewdas - the 'good' Jews
(3) Jewdas the 'good' Jews?
(4) 'Ken Livingstone must go', Jewish leaders tell Jeremy Corbyn

(1) The Economist come out as part of the Lobby

https://www.economist.com/news/britain/21739672-labours-leader-will-not-rid-his-party-scourge-until-he-understands-what-it-means-jeremy

Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-Semitism problem

Labour’s leader will not rid his party of the scourge until he
understands what it means

Print edition | Britain

Mar 31st 2018

JEREMY CORBYN has spent a remarkable proportion of his life on
"demos"—indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that protesting is his core
competence. This week, however, the Labour leader found himself on the
receiving end of a demonstration. Two Jewish groups, the Board of
Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council, organised a
protest in Parliament Square to draw attention to Mr Corbyn’s
anti-Semitism problem.

The demonstration was only about a thousand strong. The organisers
forgot to bring a PA system so it was impossible to hear what was being
said. Only a handful of people joined in with the chant of "Mural, mural
on the wall, who is the biggest racist of them all—Corbyn!" But this was
nevertheless a significant moment: a group of Jews standing outside
Parliament, protesting about the prevalence of anti-Semitism not on the
fascist extreme but at the heart of one of Britain’s two biggest parties.

The immediate cause of the protest was a recently unearthed comment that
Mr Corbyn posted online in 2012 in response to a piece of London street
art. The mural in question is a blatantly anti-Semitic portrait of a
group of capitalists, most of them with hook-noses, playing Monopoly on
a table resting on the backs of naked workers. The local authority
ordered the mural be painted over. Mr Corbyn leapt to the artist’s
defence, writing on his Facebook page: "Why? You are in good company.
Rockerfeller [sic] destroyed Diego Viera’s [Rivera’s] mural because it
includes a picture of Lenin." The discovery of the post proved too much
for many leading British Jews, who have written to Mr Corbyn with three
complaints: that the Labour Party contains pockets of anti-Semitism;
that Mr Corbyn has repeatedly turned a blind eye to such noxious
attitudes; and that previous attempts to deal with it have proved
inadequate.

They are right on all three counts. Jewish Labour MPs such as Luciana
Berger have been subjected to anti-Semitic rants and intimidation from
supporters of the hard left. Jewish students have abandoned Labour
groups because they feel threatened and vilified. One source of the
anti-Semitic infection is the hard left, which is almost defined by its
hostility to Israel and capitalism. There is nothing necessarily
anti-Semitic about either position. But in the heat of political debate,
distinctions can blur and ancient hatreds flame. Hard-leftists
habitually refer to Jews as "Zios". The artist behind the London mural
said it was not an attack on Jews but on capitalists such as Rockefeller
and Warburg.

Another source of Labour’s anti-Semitism is British Muslims. A poll last
September found that 55% of Muslims held anti-Semitic attitudes, with
27% believing that "Jews get rich at the expense of others", compared
with 12% of the general population. Mehdi Hasan, a Muslim writer, says
that "weird and wacky anti-Semitic conspiracy theories are the default
explanation for a range of national and international events." For all
their disagreements on issues like gay rights, hard-leftists and Muslims
forged a lasting alliance in the Stop the War movement against the
invasion of Iraq.

Mr Corbyn has done more than turn a blind eye to anti-Semitism. He has
had tea in Parliament with Islamist radicals such as Sheikh Raed Salah,
who has claimed that "a suitable way was found to warn the 4,000 Jews
who work[ed] every day in the Twin Towers" to stay at home on September
11th 2001. He has appeared on Iranian national television, despite the
fact that the regime issues wild threats to destroy Israel. One of his
old friends, Ken Livingstone, has repeatedly asserted that Hitler
supported Zionism in the early 1930s.

This week’s row was proof in itself that previous attempts to tackle the
problem have failed. Several Labour MPs joined the protests in a public
rebuke to the party leadership. But is there also a chance that it marks
a turning-point? Mr Corbyn has issued a statement recognising that
"anti-Semitism has surfaced within the Labour Party", apologised for his
misjudgment over the mural and offered to meet Jewish leaders. His aides
are reportedly "rattled" by the fallout from the row, which represents
more of a threat to his reputation for sanctity than his links to IRA
activists.

Speak no evil

But there are powerful reasons for believing that the problem will not
be tackled. One is biographical. Mr Corbyn has spent his life moving in
far-left circles since arriving in London in the early 1970s. His
instinct is that there are no enemies to the left—that fellow protesters
in the Socialist Workers Party or International Marxist Group should be
forgiven their peccadillos (such as believing in armed revolution)
because they believe in social justice. Mr Corbyn’s supporters have the
same attitude. This week they rallied to his defence, claiming that the
establishment was conjuring up the anti-Semitism row to discredit their
champion.

Another reason is strategic. British Jews—particularly those who support
Israel—are being marginalised in the Labour Party. There are 3m Muslims
in Britain compared with about 284,000 Jews, and they are concentrated
in areas vital for Labour’s future, such as Birmingham and Manchester.
The philo-Semitic tradition in the Labour Party, exemplified by Harold
Wilson and James Callaghan, is dying.

The most important reason is philosophical. Mr Corbyn has devoted much
of his life to protesting against racism. But for him, racism is linked
to class and exploitation. It is about privileged people doing down the
marginalised, and saintly activists like Mr Corbyn riding to their
rescue. But the Jews are perhaps the world’s most successful ethnic
minority. They have almost always succeeded by the sweat of their brow
rather than the largesse of activists or government programmes. They are
often hated precisely because they have succeeded where other
marginalised groups have failed. The danger is not that Mr Corbyn will
continue to ignore anti-Semitism after this week’s protests. It’s that
he doesn’t understand what anti-Semitism is.

This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under
the headline "Nothing to see here"

(2) Corbyn’s dinner with Jewdas - the 'good' Jews

https://www.redpepper.org.uk/jewdas-corbyn-and-the-policing-of-jewishness/

Jewdas, Corbyn and the policing of Jewishness

Stop accusing Jewish people of treachery when they criticise Israel,

writes Eleanor Penny

April 3, 2018

On Monday night, Jeremy Corbyn attended a Passover seder hosted by a
left-wing organisation Jewdas – a group known for their pro-Palestinian
politics, their bedazzled Purim cabarets and their insistence that it’s
pronounced ‘beigel’, not ‘bagel’. The group includes Jewish people from
all different backgrounds – ashkenazi, sephardi, middle eastern and
more. They welcome practising Jews, secular Jews, the Jew-ish like
myself and the simply Jew-curious.

Right-wing muckraking site Guido Fawkes gleefully splashed this the news
of Corbyn’s dinner with Jewdas across its front page – as proof that he
was doubling down on his shameless antisemitism. After spending a week
criticising Corbyn for not listening to Jewish people, now he’s being
dragged through the mud for listening to the wrong kind of Jewish
people. Jewdas, we’re told, are a ‘fringe group’, not ‘mainstream Jews’
– not really proper Jews at all.

[...] Jewdas has been viciously criticised for its leftwing stance – its
members have been labelled traitors, kapos and antisemites. This,
despite the fact that Jewdas activists have been on the frontlines of
anti-fascist struggles across the UK, that they count rabbis and
priests-in-training among their number. Despite the fact that they spend
their time educating people about antisemitism, and tirelessly campaign
against antisemitism in the pro-Palestine movement – publishing
literature on ‘How to criticise Israel without being antisemitic’.
Despite the fact that they shouldn’t have to prove their Jewishness to
edgelords looking for their next redbait or clickbait. The verdict is
in: these are the bad Jews, and they don’t count.

Herein lies the problem – that non-Jews and commentators see fit to
adjudicate a public debate on who counts as legitimately Jewish. It
re-plays a tired game of bigot bingo where the ‘good minorities’ are the
ones who comply, who do what they’re told, the ones whose lives and
opinions are tolerable to the people in power. Bad minorities on the
other hand are trouble makers, and they aren’t entitled to public
protection.

It’s surprisingly easy to be a bad Jew – even if you were raised Jewish,
even if you practise faithfully. Disagreement with the Board of Deputies
can land you in the dock – even though they slightly undermined their
ability to unilaterally adjudicate on antisemitism when they publicly
congratulated Donald Trump for a victory he secured with the help of
Nazis and white supremacists. The original sin, though, seems to be
criticising Israel – in the frothing imaginary of the red-baiting press,
all anti-Israeli sentiment is antisemitic, even when coming from Jewish
people. [...]

Passover is a festival which celebrates liberation from oppression. To
commemorate the struggles of the Jewish people fleeing slavery in Egypt,
many people include in their Haggadah contemporary struggles against
oppression and injustice of all kinds. Jewdas’ seder featured a prayer
"for the land and people of Israel-Palestine: ‘Freedom calls: let water
run like judgement upon Jerusalem / And justice like a mighty stream to
Gaza’.

Last week, Israeli soldiers opened fire on Land Day protesters at the
Gazan border wall, killing 17 and injuring hundreds more. They were
demonstrating against the occupation, and against a decade-long blockade
which has brought the territory to its knees – starving it of food,
power and basic medical supplies. Some might want you to think that
being a ‘real Jew’ means turning a blind eye to the daily tyrannies of
life under Israeli occupation. There are many, many Jews who disagree –
and who are (say it with me) no less Jewish because of it. If anything,
the lesson of Passover is that the struggle for liberation still
continues – not in some heavenly paradise, but right here on earth.

(3) Jewdas the 'good' Jews?

https://forward.com/opinion/398071/sorry-british-non-jews-you-dont-get-to-decide-who-the-good-jews-are/

Sorry, British Non-Jews: You Don’t Get To Decide Who The Good Jews Are

Keith Kahn-Harris

April 3, 2018

It’s a very strange time to be a Jew in Britain. With the issue of
anti-Semitism in Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party dominating the headlines
for the last couple of weeks, we’ve now reached the point where arcane
questions of Jewish communal politics are now of national interest.

The latest example concerns Jewdas, an irreverent collective of
radically-inclined, (mostly) young Jews. The attendance of Jeremy Corbyn
at their recent third night seder has become a matter of national
debate. At a time in which he is under intense pressure to show he is
serious about tackling anti-Semitism, Corbyn’s choice to attend an event
by a radical Jewish group has been interpreted in some quarters as a
snub (calculated or careless according to your point of view) to the
"mainstream" Jewish community. [...]

Who is right then? The truth about Jewdas is less easy to summarize.

When they emerged over 10 years ago, they were, for some of us on the
Jewish left, what we’d always longed for. Organizing parties, happenings
and "radical Torah" events, Jewdas has always challenged the Jewish
community’s sacred cows — including Israel and Zionism — in an often wry
and provocative manner. And in their "exposés" of Corbyn’s "outrageous"
participation in the Jewdas seder, critics have pointed to some highly
incendiary language about Israel, including a prayer in their 2017
Haggadah: "Please God, smash the state of Israel."

In truth though, the Jewdas collective contains a plurality of views on
Israel, including everything from tortured ambivalence about Israel to
convinced anti-Zionism. Similarly, members have veered wildly between
exposing and confronting left anti-Semitism and supporting some of those
(such as Corbyn) who have been accused of enabling it. Naturally, it is
their more incendiary, often deliberately over-the-top statements that
get the publicity.

The attendance of Corbyn at the seder poses other risks to Jewdas as
well. There is a disturbing whiff here of the kind of Jewish communal
politicking that we find in more mainstream Jewish organizations, where
members of a Jewish organization will preen themselves as the good Jews
that the non-Jewish politicians love; and, in turn, there’s the feeling
of the non-Jewish politicians validating themselves by telling the world
"Look! The good Jews love me!"

The irony is that Jewdas was never supposed to be a collective of good
Jews. Yet that is what they are being turned into by the Corbynistas,
just as Corbyn’s detractors are determined to turn them into bad Jews.
It’s all depressingly familiar and very very non-radical.

These days, pretty much anyone who is accused of anti-Semitism can find
a group of Jews to give them a pass. In the last couple of weeks we’ve
seen the apotheosis of this process, with endless "Jewsplaining" about
who the real, good Jews are, the Jews to whom one should listen to about
anti-Semitism. In their attempt to perform as "woke" opponents of
anti-Semitism, non-Jewish Jewsplainers on the right and left are
recapitulating the worst — and most self-hating — of our traits as Jews.

If Jewdas, and anyone else who thinks of themselves as a Jewish radical,
is seeking something to smash, it should be this. Non-Jews need to be
told to stop picking and choosing which Jews they listen to. Engaging
with Jews and fighting anti-Semitism means recognizing that there will
be Jews who hold positions you disagree with.

Genuine anti-racism means fighting for the rights of people you despise.

I don’t know why Jewdas invited Corbyn to their seder (and I’ve heard
whispers that some of those in attendance weren’t happy about it), but I
wish one of them had had the courage to do something truly
revolutionary. They should have told Corbyn to get out of his comfort
zone and attend a seder held by Jews whose politics he does not agree
with. And instead of hosting Corbyn, Jewdas should have invited a
different kind of non-Jewish politician who claims to oppose
anti-Semitism, one on the right who finds the idea of leftist Jews
baffling or disgusting.

That would have been truly radical.

Dr. Keith Kahn-Harris is a London-based writer and sociologist. His book
on denial will be published by Notting Hill Editions in 2018. His
website is kahn-harris.org.

(4) 'Ken Livingstone must go', Jewish leaders tell Jeremy Corbyn
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/04/04/ken-livingstone-must-go-jewish-leaders-tell-jeremy-corbyn-crunch/

'Ken Livingstone must go', Jewish leaders to tell Jeremy Corbyn at
crunch meeting on anti-Semitism

  Harry Yorke, political correspondent

4 APRIL 2018

Jewish leaders will tell Jeremy Corbyn to prove his "militant"
opposition to anti-Semitism by expelling his old ally Ken Livingstone
from Labour, The Daily Telegraph has learned.

The Labour leader will be told during a face-to-face meeting to bring
the two-year investigation into Mr Livingstone’s conduct to a close if
he is serious about cleansing his party of anti-Jewish hatred.

It comes after Mr Corbyn defended his decision to attend a Passover
event hosted by Jewdas, a left-wing group which has described Israel as
a "steaming pile of sewage" which needs to be "properly disposed of".

His attendance at the Seder celebration on Monday was heavily criticised
by mainstream Jewish groups, who questioned...