Simon Johnson of JLC Repeats the Same Slurs & Falsehoods About Anti-Semitism
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| Corbyn - in the Stagger's sights |
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| The same nonsense that appears in the Mail and Guardian |
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| Kingsley Martin - the first and longest serving editor of the NS |
For a short period
under Bruce Page and around the time of the Bennite resurgence in the early
1980’s it underwent a left-wing surge but of late it has reverted back to its
earlier right-wing roots under Kingsley Amis and Paul Johnson.
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| The NS's fake left cultural feminist Laurie 'Red' Penney |
The New Statesman has
a number of soft left journalists like Owen Jones, who is rapidly moving to the
Right as he distances himself from the Jeremy Corbyn leadership and Laurie ‘red’
Penney who in America would be called a PEP, Progressive Except on Palestine.
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| First edition of the New Statesman |
My particular ire is
with a particularly outrageous article
by the Chief Executive of the Jewish Leadership Council, a body that is wholly
unelected and represents the major Zionist and Jewish organisations in
Britain. In this absurd piece of writing,
which reads more as a press release than a piece of considered journalism,
Johnson alleges that the booing of Owen Smith, in his debate with Jeremy Corbyn,
for saying the Labour Party was overrun by anti-Semitism was because it was
infested with ‘left anti-Semitism’.
The obvious reason for
the booing was because nearly all Labour Party members (i.e. other than
Progress members) know that allegations of anti-Semitism are a media
manufactured myth weaponised to destroy the Jeremy Corbyn leadership.
I have sent in a long
letter to the New Statesman. I’m sure
they won’t publish it so I am putting it on the blog instead. In fact the only reason I wrote it was to let
the editors and writers at the NS know what I thought of their pretentious
publication.
Monday, 08 August 2016
Letters Editor
The New Statesman
7 Carmelite Street
Blackfriars
London
EC4Y 0BS
Dear Sir or
Madam,
Simon
Johnson of the Jewish Leadership Council complaining about the use of
anti-Semitism as a political football is like an arsonist who complains at the
results of his own endeavours. [New Statesman, 5th August] No organisation has been more assiduous in
weaponising anti-Semitism than the Jewish Leadership Council, a wholly
unelected, unaccountable organisation.
The New Statesman used to be proud of its
independent journalism, bucking the trend, not going along with the received
wisdom of the day. What possible reason
was there for publishing a hack article that repeats the same old lies and
myths about ‘left anti-Semitism’? The
Daily Mail and Guardian provide us with an ample diet of such junk journalism.
Johnson describes the booing of Owen Smith, when
he spoke about anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, as an example of
anti-Semitism. His explanation was
entirely disingenuous. Owen Smith was
booed because the audience knew that allegations of anti-Semitism in the Labour
Party were false. They are a prime
example of a media manufactured, orchestrated series of lies.
Anti-Semitism was used as a means of attacking Jeremy
Corbyn even before he was elected. At
first it was the allegation that he consorted with a holocaust denier and then
it morphed into friendship with ‘terrorists’.
Along the way Oxford University Labour Club was accused of anti-Semitism
because it dared to support Israel Apartheid Week.
What other description is apt for a state that
refuses to allow the Palestinian refugees to return, because they are not
Jewish, whilst allowing me to ‘return’ to a place I have never lived in? There are over 50 specific laws
discriminating against Palestinian Israelis such as refusing to allow them to
live in Israel if they marry Palestinians outside the country. Apartheid?
Perish the thought.
False accusations of anti-Semitism are of benefit
only to anti-Semites who can then hide behind the cloak of anti-Zionism. It is the ‘boy cried wolf’ syndrome.
Opposition to Israel’s racist politics and
apartheid policies have nothing whatever to do with anti-Semitism. Unfortunately the New Statesman doesn’t cover
Israeli racism. The fact that there are
now mobs in Israel who march to the drumbeat of ‘Death to the Arabs’ should
give even Simon Johnson pause for thought.
If Jews in this country were subject to the same treatment as Arabs in
Israel they would be the first to cry ‘anti-Semitism’.
The attack on Shami Chakrabarti because she has
been made a peer and the inference that her report was affected by the promise of
a peerage is pretty despicable and desperate politics.
I am a Jewish member of the Labour Party who has
been suspended in the anti-Semitism furore.
The fact that I have been an anti-racist and anti-fascist activist
throughout my life is irrelevant. I drew
the conclusion long ago that if you oppose anti-Semitism then you should be
consistent and oppose all forms of racism, Zionism included. Apparently Simon Johnson and the New
Statesman disagree.
Yours
faithfully,
Tony
Greenstein
Stop
politicising anti-Semitism, or it will become even more embedded in the left of
British politics than it was before.
By Simon Johnson
I
watched the Labour party leadership hustings on Thursday night and was
depressed to hear loud booing of Owen Smith when he told Jeremy Corbyn that
anti-Semitism has been worse in the Labour Party in the last nine months than
at any time he can remember.
I
asked myself, how have the last six months, in which Labour was supposed to be
getting a grip on anti-Semitism, brought us to this point?
Six
months, in which two inquiries have been published – one official, one leaked –
and one still to come, and we are no closer to ridding political discourse on
the left of anti-Semitism. In fact, all that has happened over the last six
months is that anti-Semitism has become a political football, used to divide
people as being loyal to the Leader or disloyal.
What
has happened to the cross-party consensus against racism? Why has a political
party founded on equality and tolerance become the focus for division and
bullying?
On
Wednesday morning, the full version of the Royall Report into allegations of
anti-Semitism among Labour-supporting students at Oxford University was leaked
to Jewish press. Having read the full report, there are no huge revelations or
scandals. So the Jewish community is left to scratch its head and wonder, why
did the Labour NEC try for so long to conceal the full version from the Jewish
community or the students who were the alleged victims of the abuse?
It
was a bizarre move that left the Jewish student movement, especially at Oxford,
feeling isolated. Any real gain from the report – and there would have been
some – has been overshadowed by the pantomime of whether it would be released.
Then
on Thursday came the confirmation that Shami Chakrabarti was to be the only
Labour peer in the new list. After Jeremy Corbyn’s commitment to never make a
peer, the fact he recommended the supposedly politically independent leader of
an inquiry into anti-Semitism has undermined much of the process in the eyes of
the community. Social media is frothing with anger.
Chakrabarti
is a public servant who possibly would have deserved an honour for her work at
Liberty. However, the timing and circumstance of her elevation have undermined
the integrity of the investigation and report in the eyes of the Jewish
community.
Organisations
such as my own engaged in good faith with the inquiry on the basis of
assurances that it would be fearless, robust and independent. It has turned out
to be none of those things. It now confirms our fears that, from the outset,
the inquiry was a device to push damaging allegations off the frontpage.
Chakrabarti
and Seamus Milne now have questions to answer on when the peerage was offered
and whether there was any link to the commissioning or content of the report,
or its aftermath.
The
booing of Smith tells us that one’s view on anti-Semitism now determines where
you stand on the leadership of the Labour party. If you raise the issue of
anti-Semitism in the party, you risk being shouted down as disloyal or part of
a witch-hunt. If you are loyal to the Leader, you condemn the raising of any
such concerns as an act of disloyalty or part of a plot by embittered
Blairites.
I
still don’t understand why anti-Semitism is not clamped down on in the same way
that has been effective for other forms of racism? As Corbyn said, just a
few weeks ago, Jews and Poale Zion (a Jewish Labour Movement) helped found the
Labour party alongside the trade unions over 100 years ago. There are many within
our community who not only associate themselves with Labour; they are actively
part of the movement and embrace all sides of it.
The
Labour party has always taken the lead on equality, tolerance and
discrimination. But for some reason, ancient stereotypes such as the
conspiratorial power of the minority continue and this becomes more intense
when the discourse moves on to the subject of Israel.
The
left cannot see that its constant and disproportionate criticism of Israeli
government policies could ever stray across into anti-Semitism. At least the
Chakrabarti report gave some clear examples of where it does. It’s a good thing
it did, because it is beginning to look as though the Labour party’s problem is
less with anti-Semitism than with the denial of anti-Semitism.
It
is also regrettable that neither report came to grips with the vexed issue of
anti-Zionism and how the denial of the right of Jewish people to
self-determination in a Jewish State could well be anti-Semitic as well.
Many
within the Jewish community would agree that nothing has been achieved in the
last six months. If anything, anti-Semitism has become more embedded in the
left of British politics than it was before.
The
Jewish community does not want to become a football in party politics. We would
all be happy if there was a zero-tolerance, strict liability approach to
anti-Semitism in society, politics and in all political parties.
We
did not need three inquiries to tell us that!
Simon
Johnson is the chief executive of the Jewish Leadership Council.
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