The IHRA’s Only Purpose is to Prop Up Apartheid Israel, Undermine solidarity
with the Palestinians and Topple Corbyn
At the June meeting of Unite SE/6246 Branch
members learnt of the suspension of one of our members from the Labour Party. She
is an activist in Palestine Solidarity Campaign and her ‘crime’ was tweeting
opposition to Israeli political interference and Zionism.
She has been suspended with a
recommendation for expulsion without a
hearing. All her tweets, without exception, related to Israel and the Israel
lobby. Nothing in them is remotely anti-Semitic.
The branch therefore asked me to
write an open
letter to the General Secretary of UNITE, Len McLuskey, asking for the
Executive Council to withdraw its support for the IHRA’s bogus definition of anti-Semitism.
UNITE has clear policy in support of
BDS and the Palestinians. The IHRA defines it as ‘anti-Semitic’. The IHRA says
that ‘applying double standards’ to Israel
‘by requiring of it a behavior not
expected or demanded of any other democratic nation’ is anti-Semitic. The
problem is that Israel is not like any other democratic state. It is a state of only its Jewish citizens.
However the IHRA starts from the proposition that Israel is a liberal democracy
BDS is only applied to Israel therefore
the IHRA classifies it as anti-Semitic. Applying this logic when South Africa was
an apartheid state, BDS was also racist against White South Africans and when Jews
(except for the Zionists) launched a boycott of Nazi Germany in 1933 that was
racist against Germans!
Only recently the German Bundestag, following
in the tradition of Nazi opposition to Boycotts, confirmed
that BDS is anti-Semitic. We had the spectacle of Greens, Social Democrats and
neo-Nazis agreeing that support for the Palestinians is anti-Semitic!
What is amazing about the IHRA, which
governments have so readily adopted, is that there is no support for the IHRA
from any legal or academic scholars. Even the person who drafted it, Kenneth
Stern in written testimony to the US Congress criticised it for chilling free speech. It is a
worthless definition whose only purpose is to allow supporters of the world’s
only apartheid state to accuse anti-racists and anti-imperialists of ‘anti-Semitism’.
Take Stephen Sedley, a former Court
of Appeal Judge who is himself Jewish. Sedley wrote,
in an article for London Review of Books that the IHRA
Assume(s) that Israel, apart from being a Jewish
state, is a country like any other and so open only to criticism resembling
such criticism as can be made of other states, placing the historical,
political, military and humanitarian uniqueness of Israel’s occupation and
colonisation of Palestine beyond permissible criticism.
The IHRA is based on 2 fallacies: first that Israel and Jews are identical, a position
that is in itself anti-Semitic. And secondly that Israel is like ‘any other democratic nation.’ It isn’t. No other state in the world demolishes the
homes of one section of the population in order to replace them with the
majority ethnic group, Jews.
Even Dr Geoffrey Alderman, a right-wing
Zionist and Jewish academic and historian, a columnist for the Jewish Chronicle
and Jewish Telegraph, has made a submission to the Equalities
and Human Rights Council investigation into the Labour Party criticising
the definition.
In an article This
Labour Party row will not be settled by relying on a flawed and faulty
definition of antisemitism Alderman draws attention to the 11 illustrations
of anti-Semitism in the IHRA definition, focussing on 2 of them.
One example that says it is antisemitic to accuse Jewish citizens
“of being more loyal to Israel, or to the
alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own
nations.” Alderman noted that
‘many Jews who
hold dual citizenship and who, under certain circumstances, would act (and have
indeed acted) in the interests of Israel rather than of Britain. It should not
be deemed antisemitic to point this out.’
The other example he referred to is the
one saying it is anti-Semitic to ‘“draw(ing)
comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.” He observes that people often compare countries,
for example Burma, to the Nazis. Why is
it anti-Semitic to compare Israel’s actions to the Nazis given that Israeli politicians
regularly accuse their enemies of behaving like Nazis?
 |
| The Oxford English Dictionary definition of anti-Semitism is 6 not 500+ words |
Labour’s witchhunters rely on criticism of Israel not Jews
The ‘evidence’ against the UNITE
comrade is an example of how the IHRA has been used, not to combat anti-Semitism,
which is hostility to Jews as Jews but to defend the world’s most racist state.
When Len McLuskey did a 180 degree about turn to support the IHRA he fooled himself
into believing it would mean an end to the ‘anti-Semitism’ witchhunt. It hasn’t. It has emboldened and strengthened
it. The cowardice and pusillanimity of McLuskey and the trade union leadership
has increased the crisis around Corbyn and the Labour Party. It is time to tell
the Zionists to get lost and if they are concerned about anti-Semitism then
maybe they will stop justifying what Israel does in the name of the Jews.
 |
| Labour's witchhunters are now openly equating criticism of Israel with antisemitism |
The first piece of evidence against our
Branch member was about her sharing an article by Electronic
Intifada journalist, Asa Winstanley, on how
the Israel lobby manufactured Labour’s anti-Semitism crisis. Asa has also been
suspended in what is a blatant attack on the freedom of the press. Clearly
Labour’s witchhunters think they are in Israel now. Asa has also been denied
press credentials for Labour’s conference. It seems that Jenny Formby’s
administration is now going one worse than the hated Iain McNicoll. As the IHRA’s
author Kenneth Stern has admitted the IHRA
‘chills’ free speech ,.
The fourth piece of ‘evidence’ referred
to an article
in The Independent quoting the late Jewish Father of the House of Commons, Gerald
Kaufman as saying that ‘Jewish money’
had influenced the government. The term ‘Jewish
money’ is widely used in the Jewish community and I found over 600
instances of its use on the Jewish Chronicle website! It is not anti-Semitic per
se.
 |
| Ironically the suspended Labour Party member's tweet 'But shhh, mustn't criticise Israel or you'll be accused of antisemitism' has come truer rather quicker than she expected! |
Asking people to share a petition
calling for an inquiry into Israel’s influence on democracy in Britain was
another piece of ‘evidence’. What has this to do with Jews or anti-Semitism.
Israel is not a Jew.
Al Jazeera’s programme The Lobby covered
in detail how an agent operating out of the Israeli Embassy, Shai Masot had
indeed interfered in British politics. He discussed
how to bring down the Deputy Foreign Secretary, Sir Alan Duncan, who was hostile
to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank. Masot described himself as a political officer
assigned to the Israeli Embassy. How can
it possibly be anti-Semitic to speak the truth?
The person also said it would be ‘interesting to see how the JLM and other Zionist
orgs justify this appalling action’ referring to police brutality against Palestinian
children. Is it anti-Semitic to call out
the abuse of Palestinian children by Israel?
Other things that the comrade said
included telling Brighton’s then leader of the Labour Council, Dan Yates that ‘privileging anti-Semitism above other forms
of racism is nothing to be proud of. Neither is supporting Israeli racism and
apartheid.’ It is an extremely valid question as to why the Labour Party has
been obsessed with non-existent ‘anti-Semitism’ when racism in society and the
Windrush scandal has merited no attention at all.
Or perhaps her crime was referring to
Israel’s most popular rap artist (who has a quarter of a million Facebook fans),
The
Shadow. The Shadow blamed the dead
at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue for their own murder. Their ‘crime’ beingn
to support immigrants in the USA. Normally it is only fascists and anti-Semites
who cheer on those who murder Jews but there is also a number of sick Zionists
who believe that you need anti-Semitism in order to ‘encourage’ Jews to
emigrate to the racial paradise of Israel. Referring to this fact is enough to
be accused of ‘anti-Semitism’ by the morons of Southside.
Supporting an inquiry into the fake anti-Corbyn
‘charity’, the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism
also aroused the ire of Labour’s witchhunters as did mentioning Israel’s
half-hearted probe into the fire bombing of a Palestinian family in the West
Bank, which left both parents and an 18 month old baby dead and a four year old
child with severe burn injuries. The Southside
scum who included this tweet clearly believe it is anti-Semitic to condemn Zionist
child murderers.
The time has come for McLuskey and
other union bureaucrats, like UNISON’s Dave Prentis to abandon the IHRA ‘definition’
of anti-Semitism. Why is a ‘definition’
of anti-Semitism needed anyway if not to protect Israel? My dad did not need a
500 word definition of anti-Semitism in order to fight Oswald Moseley’s British
Union of Fascists at Cable Street. And
when the BUF did attack Jews and try to march in Jewish areas, the Board of
Deputies told them to stay at home. These are the very same reactionaries who cry
‘anti-Semitism’ today whenever Palestine is on the agenda.
Tony Greenstein
Len
McCluskey,
General Secretary,
Unite The Union,
128 Theobald's Road,
LONDON, WC1X 8TN
Tuesday 23rd July 2019
Dear Brother McCluskey,
It’s Time to Scrap the IHRA Definition
which conflates anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism
I am writing to you on behalf of Unite
SE/6246 Branch. We believe that it is time to call a halt to this bogus and
confected ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign.
Last August, in an article
in Huffpost you stated that ‘It would be
for the best if all eleven [IHRA examples] were now agreed, so the party can
move on.’ The Party however did not move on. The whole purpose of this fake
‘anti-Semitism’ campaign was to remove Jeremy Corbyn as leader.
You acknowledged as much in the title
of your article
where you stated that the ‘Jewish community leaders’ ‘have simply refused to take “yes” for an answer.’ You spoke of their ‘Intransigent hostility and an utter refusal to engage in dialogue’. Why
then continue to appease them?
You are right. These Zionist leaders will
always refuse to accept ‘yes’ for an answer as long as Jeremy Corbyn is Leader
of the Labour Party. The primary interest of these people is the defence of the
Israeli state, right or wrong. That is why last summer the Board of Deputies supported
Israel’s massacre of over 200 unarmed demonstrators in Gaza.
The Board of Deputies is not concerned
with ‘anti-Semitism’ From the Battle
of Cable Street to the present day their attitude has been that Jews should
avoid confrontations with fascists.
You stated in your article that ‘it would have been far better for the party
to have adopted at least ten of the eleven IHRA examples’ but you were
willing to give them the whole loaf. We disagree. The IHRA
has only ever had one purpose, to conflate anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. 7
out of the 11 examples of anti-Semitism are concerned with Israel not Jews.
Our union supports a policy of
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. Under the IHRA that is anti-Semitic since we
don’t apply BDS to any other country.
Likewise the IHRA holds it is ‘anti-Semitic’
to claim that ‘the existence of a State
of Israel is a racist endeavor.’ This is palpable nonsense. When Israeli
actress Rotem Sala protested
that ‘Israel is a state of all its
citizens’ she was immediately reprimanded by Benjamin Netanyahu who
declared ‘“First of all, Israel is not a
country of all its citizens. According to the nation-state law that we passed,
Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish nation’.
According to the IHRA telling the
truth is anti-Semitic. The examples of racism are legion from protests
in Afula against the sale of a house to an Arab to the edict, by the Chief Rabbi of Safed
Shmuel Eliyahu, a paid public servant that forbids renting homes to Arabs.
It is claimed that Israel is a Jewish
state. What this means in practice is that Jews receive preferential treatment.
93% of Israeli state land
is barred to Arabs because it is Jewish national land. Britain is officially a
Christian state but the rights and duties of Jews are no different from
Christians. If a Jewish person were told
that they couldn’t rent a house because they weren’t Christian that would rightly
be termed anti-Semitic yet it is ‘anti-Semitic’ to criticise the same thing in
Israel.
The IHRA has been panned by academics
and legal scholars. According to Geoffrey Robertson QC the IHRA
definition is, ‘not fit for purpose’. Sir Stephen Sedley, the Jewish
former Court of Appeal Judge wrote
that the IHRA ‘fails the first test of any definition: it is indefinite.’
Hugh Tomlinson QC declared
that the IHRA had ‘a potential chilling
effect’ on free speech. Even the
person who drafted it, Kenneth Stern, complained in written testimony
to the US House of Representatives that ‘The
definition was not drafted, and was never intended, as a tool to target or chill
speech’.
We understand why you agreed to
endorse the IHRA last August. However appeasement only emboldens the aggressor.
In recent months two
members of Unite locally have been suspended for alleged ‘anti-Semitism’. Both
are anti-racist activists and one is Black.
The time has come to declare that we
are not going to allow this continuing attack on socialists and anti-racists,
in the name of the fight against anti-Semitism. Widening the definition of
anti-Semitism to include criticism of Israel benefits no one, least of all
Jews.
Only last week Panorama broadcast a
vicious, one-sided and blatantly dishonest attack on Jeremy Corbyn. No one from
Jewish Voices for Labour was interviewed.
We therefore ask that Unite
representatives on the NEC are instructed to withdraw their support for the
IHRA.
Furthermore, at the 2017 Labour Party
conference in Brighton you promised that Unite would affiliate nationally to JVL. The time has come to honour that promise.
Yours sincerely,
Tony Greenstein
Policy on Israel/Palestine
Work with other NGOs and all other
supportive bodies in the UK and around the world and develop a Unite
campaigning and leverage strategy around Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS)
within the next 12 months, notably against complicit companies involved in the
occupation, the apartheid wall and the illegal settlements, through workforce pressure,
contracts and pension funds, and encourage members to call on supermarkets and
retailers to stop using companies which export goods from illegal settlements
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