Does Labour have a problem with Anti-semitism?

Member 581642

Can be read a few ways

Israel commits war crimes in the name of Jews , implying all.

And what is the "should worry" supposed to mean

IronGiant

Maybe the thread should be renamed to Why does Labour (suddenly) think it has a problem with Anti-Semitism?.

krish

Yep, not too far off that "mealy mouthed reply" prick on Twitter

... plenty of similar posters on AVF droning on about Muslims not condemning this, that and/or the other
- no different to this behaviour which seems to be perceived as anti-semitic(ish)

IronGiant

I thought I pretty much implied that

BTW, for future reference, according to the European Parliament Working Group on Anti-semitism:
Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.counts as anti-Semitism.

krish

^^^ I do genuinely wonder if Netanyahu's blaming of the Holocaust on Amin al-Husseini, the Palestinian Grand Mufti of Jerusalem (as I posted about @ Naz Shah), counts as anti-Semitism, since he's re-writing its history and minimizing the Nazis.

I certainly see it as a form of Holocaust denial, since he is now fabricating, without hard evidence, a new story of how it came about.

mikeybabes2

Actually, I amazed this has not been an issue long before now. Most of those statements are from a year or two ago.

Mind you back then, the media were too busy digging up dirt on UKIP members, which as we all know, is absolutely fine. Give it another few months and they'll start on someone else.

Give a human being a couple of social media accounts, a sense of their own importance, and some time, and even perhaps some alcohol, and it won't take long before they've written something the media can't shame you for. It's human nature.

It always seems to start with some pretty objectionable comments being exposed, and often justifiably the people who made them are held to account.

But then the real Salem Witch trials begin, casting around everywhere for more offenders, examining down even to the punctuation of comments to see if things can be interpreted in an offensive way, so we can have yet someone else to demand an insincere apology from.

It's called shaming, and a chap called Jon Ronson wrote an interesting book about it.

Of course, if it goes too far (and it always does), then what you end up with is a bunch of people who speak words with no meanings - as they are afraid to speak their minds as there is always an alternative meaning that can be labelled offensive. These people are often called politicians and 'political commentators'.

The few who do actually speak their minds, are called rude names and often reviled, no matter what side of the political spectrum they are on. It doesn't matter what they say their views are - as of course it's not what they are really thinking. Their real views are hidden - just like all the others.

What I suggest you do is watch an edition of Question Time and then write down the replies to a couple of questions. When you examine what they have said, you will realise that they haven't really said anything at all. It's just noise

So next time you despair of the political class dissembling, remember that very often most offensive thing you can say to someone is the truth as you see it.

EarthRod

There's a lot of truth in that.

Pisto_Grih

Someone forgot to tell the IDF's Deputy Chief of Staff:

IDF general in bombshell speech: Israel today shows signs of 1930s Germany

weaponx031277

Careful you will get called an anti semite for saying that

tapzilla2k

It suits his political purposes and policies. However I believe Israeli's are getting fed up of him uttering stuff like that.

As I said before you can legitmately criticise Israeli Government Policy, but you should always remember that they do not represent Jews as a whole. Anyway the double standard people hold Israel to is getting beyond a joke now and it's wrapped up in anti semitism. The Palestinians are basically pawns between Israel and Arab states. Armed resistance hasn't gotten them anywhere and never will as long as Israel remains as strong as it is.

As for the Labour Party ? There is a latent anti semitism on the hard left of Politics and amongst certain voter demographics. It's a problem for our democracy as a whole and goes beyond the Labour Party. I hope Labour will however get to grips with the problematic members and get things sorted.