Baroness Zionist Royall’s Flawed Report on ‘anti-Semitism’ at Oxford University Labour Club

Now we know why the Labour Party failed to publish the Royall Report

Labour's Baroness Royal

Front cover of Royall Report

Background to the Royall Report on anti-Semitism at Oxford University Labour Club

Earlier this year, as a result of the artificial media manufactured story about rampant ‘anti-Semitism’ in the Labour Party and at Oxford University Labour Club in particular, the Labour Party set up an inquiry under Baroness Janet Royall into allegations of ‘anti-Semitism’.

the good Baroness is not quite with it

Royall, was a former adviser to Neil Kinnock and someone always sympathetic to Zionism and Israel, (she went on a Labour Friends of Israel trip to Israel in 2007).  When the Executive Summary of her Report appeared back in May she wrote on the web site of the Jewish Labour Movement:

 ‘I know that you will share my disappointment and frustration that the main headline coming out of my inquiry is that there is no institutional Antisemitism in Oxford University Labour Club.’ 

This was an extremely strange thing for someone who is genuinely concerned about anti-Semitism to say.  Why on earth should anyone be disappointed with the fact that there is no anti-Semitism at OULC unless they were a Zionist who wanted to find anti-Semitism? 

Chalmers made it clear that it wasn't anti-Semitism that was the problem

The Jewish Labour Movement, on whose web site she wrote, is the British wing of the Israeli Labour Party and it is affiliated to the World Zionist Organisation.  The WZO directly funds the establishment of settlements in Palestine and it is one of the main organisations responsible for the apartheid structures of dispossession, discrimination and ethnic cleansing in Israel. As I wrote in May: [Zionist Royalle Finds What She Wanted to Find]

‘the ‘findings’ from Baroness Royall’s ‘investigation’ into anti-Semitism at Oxford University Labour Club were written before she even entered the hallowed portals of Oxford.  It is fitting that they weren’t accompanied by anything as grand as evidence.  Indeed that was the whole purpose of the report.  It is evidence free.’

Chalmer's Linked In profile

Out of her depth

The overriding impression that comes across is that Royall is simply out of her depth.  By her own admission she was ‘daunted’ by the task.  She not only does not understand the differences between Zionism and anti-Semitism or related issues, she also doesn’t seem to understand that one of the purposes of compiling her Report was to investigate whether in fact there was anti-Semitism at OULC.  Instead she proceeds by assertion and takes for granted that which she is supposed to be proving.  

If there is anti-Semitism at OULC then Royall fails to provide the evidence.  Royall retreats into generalities such as ‘there appears to be cultural problem in which behaviour and language that would once have been intolerable is now tolerated.’ Apart from benefiting from a proof reader the Report substitutes vague generalities and sloppy phraseology for concrete actualities and specifics.  

Chalmers was part of the unsuccessful disaffiliation from NUS campaign

The catalyst for the Royall investigation

It should have been a very simple Report to write.  Asa Winstanley investigated the background to the ‘anti-Semitism’ allegations at OULC.  It is clear that they consisted of nothing but reheated versions of the traditional libel that is levelled against opponents of Zionism and Israel's racism.  In his article  How Israel lobby manufactured UK Labour Party’s anti-Semitism crisis, Winstanley revealed that Alex Chalmers, who resigned as co-Chair of Oxford University Labour Club because of ‘anti-Semitism’ had been an intern in the Israel advocacy and propaganda group BICOM.  

In his resignation statement, which Royall makes Appendix 1 to her Report, Chalmers stated that his resignation ‘comes in the light of OULC’s decision at this evening’s general meeting to endorse Israel Apartheid Week.’  What has this to do with anti-Semitism?  Perhaps Royall considers the fact that more Israeli Jews support the expulsion of Arabs than oppose it to be  irrelevant to the question of whether Israel is an Apartheid state.  More likely she is ignorant about this and other matters, but such a belief isn’t anti-Semitic.  Yet Royall is seemingly incapable of making what is quite a simple judgment, viz. that Chalmer’s resignation was a propaganda ploy.

When Royall produced her original findings, Labour’s National Executive Committee agreed that the ‘evidence’ on which it was based would be printed at the same time as the Chakrabarti Report, of which Royall was a Vice-Chair.

When Chakrabarti reported, there was no mention of Royall’s Report or the evidence it apparently contained.  Clearly a decision had been taken that there was so little evidence and so much conjecture, that it would be best forgotten.  However the Jewish Chronicle, like a dog with a bone, decided that it would publish the Report that Royall herself leaked as part of an article Baroness Royall report reveals Oxford Labour students engaged in antisemitism

As I wrote at the time the Executive Summary was published, one of the more ludicrous findings of the Report was that

"Many students reported that should a Jewish student preface a remark 'as a Jew…' they are likely to face ridicule and behaviour that would not be acceptable for someone saying 'as a woman...' or 'as an Afro-Caribbean…' 

Ludicrous because it begs the question, in what role are Jewish students claiming that being Jewish is relevant?  If it is to do with Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians it is a complete irrelevancy.  After all it is agreed by everyone that holding Jews responsible for the actions of Israel is anti-Semitic.  The Zionist authored Working Definition of anti-Semitism defines one of the manifestations of anti-Semitism as ‘Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.’ 

Why then should it be considered relevant if someone claims to be Jewish in the context of a discussion of Israel or Zionism?  Because this is what Royall’s ‘as a Jew’ finding is about?  Unless of course what is really being suggested is that as Israel is a Jewish state, Jews do have a special role, in which case this is another example of Zionists trying to have their racist cake and eat it!

Ironically, at almost exactly the same time as Royall was reporting, David Aaronovitch penned an article ‘Have I got Jews for you!’ in the Jewish Chronicle of 5^th May 2016.  Aaronovitch waxed lyrical about Jews who spoke up as Jews:

‘my online world was invaded by the Asajews…. The "these people" were the Asajews. I heard quite a few of them on Any Answers last week. "As a Jew myself, I want to tell you that…" And there followed something that would say that the contributor believed that Labour had no antisemitism problem and that the real problem was those who kept on going on about antisemitism when what they were truly objecting to was any criticism of the state of Israel…. The Asajews used in this way are just a stage army and their deployment, frankly borders on the disgraceful.’ 

Of course Aaronovitch was complaining about Jews who spoke out as Jews against what Israel was doing in their name.  Royall is complaining about the reaction to Jewish students who use their Jewishness to justify what Israel is doing. 

As Asa Winstanley comprehensively demonstrated in another article, Instigator of anti-Semitism scam kicked out of Labour one of the other instigators of the anti-Semitism allegations at Oxford, former co-Chair David Klemper, was expelled from the Labour Party for having signed the nomination papers of a Lib Dem candidate at the local elections.  Chalmers left the Labour Party soon after his resignation and he too signed the same nomination papers.  On his FB page he demonstrated that he is an extremely reactionary Zionist operative when he displayed a ‘No thanks NUS’ graphic during the ballot as to whether Oxford University Student Union should remain affiliated to  the National Union of Students.  In fact those supporting affiliation to NUS won the ballot by a thousand votes.

A Shoddy Report

By any stretch of the imagination, Royall’s Report is shoddy and insubstantial.  It is no wonder that according to the Jewish Chronicle report, Chalmers was ‘"disappointed" Royall's report had not gone into more detail about the "problem" at the club.’  The problem was there was no details.

Royall begins with a favourite Zionist meme, namely that anti-Semitism was an ‘ancient virus [that]… had infected our Party’ and for good measure she later repeats the comparison as well as quoting Gordon Brown to the effect that ‘Together our renewed efforts can rid the world of this

ancient virus.”  This is an integral part of Zionist ideology.  An early Zionist, Leo Pinsker, the founder of the Lovers of Zion, wrote in his pamphlet ‘Auto Emancipation’ that 

'Judaephobia is then a mental disease, and as a mental disease it is hereditary, and having been inherited for 2, 000 years it is incurable. [L. Pinsker, Autoemanzipation, ein Mahnruf an seine]

Pinsker was a doctor and therefore defined anti-Semitism as Judaephobia.  It is part of the Zionist fable that anti-Semitism applies to all of history and all classes equally.  It is an incurable disease that may mutate and change its form but it bears much the same characteristics.  And of course, if it is incurable, then why fight it.  Traditionally Zionism represented an abandonment of the fight against anti-Semitism.

According to the Zionists, anti-Semitism and racism don’t have any relationship to class or material factors, they aren’t a product of particular types of societies.  Anti-Semitism although a product of non-Jews and their reaction to Jews must ultimately relate to something about Jews themselves.  Traditionally this was indeed the attitude of Zionism.  Herzl wrote in his pamphlet The Jewish State that

When we sink we become a revolutionary proletariat... when we rise there rises also the terrible power of our purse. [The Jewish State, p.26]

Anti-Semitism was the product of the Jewish presence in non-Jewish society.  In his autobiography, Trial and Error, the President of the Zionist Organisation, Chaim Weizmann, who later went on to become Israel’s first President, wrote that:

Whenever the quantity of Jews in any country reaches saturation point, that country reacts against them. In the early years of this century, Whitechapel and the great industrial centres of England were in that sense saturated... The determining factor in this matter is not the solubility of the Jews but the solvent power of the country. England had reached the point when she could or would absorb so many Jews and no more.

Like all diseases anti-Semitism affects everybody though some non-Jews, for example Muslims, might be more susceptible.  Fortunately today we have strong political retrovirals so this disease can be treated but the main thing is that it is a form of pathology unrelated to society or surroundings.  In other words Royall starts off her Report with a racist analysis of racism.

Royall is nothing if not unoriginal.  She just loves to repeat without question commonly held beliefs, no matter how wrong they are.  She states in her introduction that ‘For many years, Jews of all ages have strongly supported Labour’.  In fact Jewish support for the Labour Party has been declining ever since the 1960’s.  A Jewish academic and Jewish Chronicle journalist, Geoffrey Alderman, explained this in some detail in The Jewish Community in British Politics, in a chapter, ‘Return to the Right’:  As early as 1961 ‘over 40% of Anglo-Jewry was located in the upper two social classes whereas these categories accounted for less than 20% of the general population.’  The conclusion Alderman drew was that ‘at the time of the 1964 general election which Labour won, ¾ the top 2 social classes supported the Conservative Party.’ (p.137)  In other words Jews voted like any other of their social class and predominantly for the Tory Party.  The myth that Jews have always voted for the Labour Party is exactly that – a myth.

This however is but one example of the problems with the Royall Report.  Another example is where Royall declares that she would be bound by the ‘London Declaration (2009) of the Inter-parliamentary Coalition for Combating Antisemitism’. 

You can gauge the nature of this Declaration by the section ‘Challenging Antisemitism’, point 1 of which states that ‘Parliamentarians shall expose, challenge, and isolate political actors who engage in hate against Jews and target the State of Israel as a Jewish collectivity.’  Since, according to the Zionists’ Working Definition on anti-Semitism, it is anti-Semitic to hold Jews collectively responsible for the actions of the Israeli state, then the London Declaration, which declares that Israel is part of a ‘Jewish collectivity’ must by definition be anti-Semitic!

What a muddle Royall gets herself into.  The only explanation of Royall’s logic is Humpty Dumpty’s dictum that ‘Words mean what I want them to mean.  The only question is who is master!’.  If Royall’s report is guided by an anti-Semitic Declaration, then it is clearly not worth the paper it is written on.

Royall accepts that there is no ‘institutional anti-Semitism’ within OULC, but she also makes it clear that she is disappointed by her own finding! 

Jewish Labour Movement

Royall makes a series of recommendations, the most controversial of which is the proposal that 

‘Training should be organised by Labour Students together with the Jewish Labour Movement for officers of all Labour Clubs in dealing with antisemitism.’

The Jewish Labour Movement is an openly Zionist organisation.  According to Wikipedia ‘It views Zionism as the national liberation movement of the Jewish people’.  Zionism is the movement which established the State of Israel.  A state which calls itself a Jewish state which was founded on the expulsion of ¾ million Palestinians and which refuses a right of return to those refugees at the very same time as it encourages Jews who have no connection to Israel to ‘return’ to what it terms their ancient homeland.  Apart from the conflation of Jews and Zionism which Royall otherwise purports to deplore, the very idea that Jews belong, not in the countries where they were born but in Palestine, is itself a racist and anti-Semitic idea.  Despite this, Royall considers that the JLM is a fit body to conduct anti-racist training.  It is like asking the Yorkshire Ripper to take over the management of a woman’s refuge project.

Royall, like Chakrabarti, describes how the Jewish Labour Movement is the successor to Poalei Zion, which affiliated to the Labour Party in 1920.  She seems to think that this is a matter of pride rather than shame.  Poalei Zion in 1920 was a tiny organisation with little implantation in the Jewish working-class in Britain.  Jewish trade unionists, tended, almost without exception, to be hostile to Zionism which posited the struggle for socialism in Palestine rather than where they lived.  Socialist Zionism was thus an eternal contradiction.  The affiliation of Poalei Zion was a measure of the pro-imperialist politics of the Labour Party.  It was because the Labour Party under the Fabians and the Webbs, Sydney Webb later became the Colonial Secretary Lord Passfield, believed in the idea of Empire as a form of trusteeship for the uncivilised natives, that they took so warmly to Poalei Zion with its rhetoric of developing the land for the backward Arabs.

Allegations of anti-Semitism

Intriguingly Royall also mentions one serious false allegation of anti-Semitism that was reported to the Police.  Asa Winstanley suggests that this refers to false allegations against Rachel Bradshaw of Stirling University However Royall gives no further details.

Anti-Semitism

Royall makes a dogs dinner of the question, ‘what is anti-Semitism’.  Zionists of course have difficulty with this because their overriding need is to try and persuade people that opposition to a state, the State of Israel, is anti-Semitic.  The problem with this is that Israel, like any other state, is not a human being.  It is difficult to be racist towards a state.  Anti-Semitism is therefore redefined as hostility to the Jewish state.  According to this not very convincing narrative people oppose Israel not for what it does, the mass murders, the entrenched discrimination, the Occupation, torture and imprisonment of children etc. but because the state is Jewish!

This is the ‘new anti-Semitism’.  What it does is enable all those political forces which have historically been most antagonistic to Jews as Jews to pretend that they too are opposed to anti-Semitism.  It reaches its ludicrous apogee in groups like the BNP or English Defence League which combine traditional anti-Semitism with avid support for Israel and Zionism.

Thus Royall cites the Zionist Community Security Trust’s definition of anti-Semitism as being ‘hostility, phobia or bias against Judaism or individual Jews as a group.’  This is a nonsensical definition.  Hostility to Judaism, a religion, might indeed be a cover for hostility to Jews in much the same way  as opposition to Israel might be a disguise for anti-Semitism.  However it is not very usual and why define individual Jews as a group? 

Defining anti-Semitism isn’t rocket science.  It is hatred or hostility, discrimination or violence towards Jews as Jews.  The more sophisticated anti-Semites hold to a conspiracy theory in which Jews are the ones who control and manipulate world events and countries.  Therefore a belief in a world Jewish conspiracy is normally seen as anti-Semitic.

Reading through this section what I find most startling is how superficial is Royall’s grasp of what racism or oppression is, still less where it comes from.  Royall makes the trite observation that ‘oppression of any sort… (is) the strong oppressing the weak,  the rich oppressing the poor.’  She doesn’t ascribe agency to anyone or anything.  Royall doesn’t see oppression or racism in any context.  It just happens, it exists, it has no social origin or political context. 

Royall also makes the equally trite comment that to some people Jews cannot be the victims or discriminated against, without ever saying who these people are.  Having given us this profound insight she then jumps to observing that there is a ‘view that criticism of the government of Israel is not anti-Semitic (it is not)’ and therefore ‘being anti-Zionist cannot be anti-Semitic.  Yes it can.’  Apart from anything else this is as good an example of a non-sequitur as one is likely to find.  The premise, Royall’s observations on racism and anti-Semitism do not lead to the concluson she draws.  It is an example of the shoddy methodology of her Report.

Clearly there are some people who are anti-Semitic who disguise or hide this as anti-Zionism.  I have some experience of such people for example Gilad Atzmon, the anti-Semitic jazzman.  However they are enormously aided by the false accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’ that are made by Zionists.  As I wrote in The Seamy Side of Solidarity ‘Guardian 19.2.07. ‘Like the boy who cried wolf, the charge of "anti-semitism" has been made so often against critics of Zionism and the Israeli state that people now have difficulty recognising the genuine article.’

The irony is that it is Royall herself who is providing the alibi and rationale for the making of false accusations of anti-Semitism.  What Royall is doing is giving cover to those who are anti-Semitic. If someone is an anti-Semite then they aren’t an anti-Zionist.  The two are mutually exclusive.  If anti-Zionism is a disguise then clearly it cannot be the same as the thing it is disguising.  Otherwise it isn’t a disguise!  It’s a matter of logic but one which seems to entirely escape the good Baroness.

When Royall say that ‘not all anti-Zionists are anti-Semites and anti-Zionism is not necessarily anti-Semitic’ what she is really saying is that normally anti-Zionists are anti-Semites and that normally anti-Zionism is anti-Semitic.  The  proof for this assertion is a lengthy quotation from John Mann MP’s All Parliamentary Inquiry into Anti-Semitism which manages to find that Zionism was is ‘a movement of national liberation.’  It is a strange national liberation movement which formed an alliance in 1917 with British imperialism in the form of the Balfour Declaration!  A movement that was sponsored by the British occupying power in Palestine.  The Fraser v UCU Employment Tribunal observed of John Mann that

when it came to anti-Semitism in the context of debate about the Middle East, he [John Mann MP] announced, “It’s clear to me where the line is…” but unfortunately eschewed the opportunity to locate it for us. Both parliamentarians clearly enjoyed making speeches. Neither seemed at ease with the idea of being required to answer a question not to his liking.[1]

MacPherson

Like many people, Royall fails to understand the MacPherson principle (which Chakrabarti to her credit did get right).  A racial incident is not, contrary to Royall’s assertion, ‘an incident that is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person.’  MacPherson said that for the purpose of an investigation by the Police, in the specific circumstances of the institutional racism of the Metropolitan Police in the Stephen Lawrence affair, where someone claims to be the victim of a racial incident the Police must record it as such and treat it as such.  That doesn’t mean that it is a racial incident.  Only the courts can make that decision.  The extension of the MacPherson principle to ‘any other person’ demonstrates just how much Royall is at sea.

Oxford University Labour Club

When it comes to OULC and anti-Semitism Royall has virtually nothing to say.  It is no wonder that the NEC didn’t publish her Report.  She found that ‘some Jewish members do not feel comfortable attending meetings.’  Perhaps that is because they are also Zionists who don’t like having to defend Israel.  What has that got to do with anti-Semitism?  Royall accepts that when it comes to a debate on Israel and Palestine ‘the debate is politically chared and robust.’  She alleges, again without any examples, that ‘at least on one occasion the boundaries of acceptability were breached.’  And that is it, no evidence or examples are given. 

Royall says that she regrets that ‘incidences of anti-Semitism’ (Royall doesn’t insert the word ‘alleged’) ‘were not reported to any authority’ and concludes that ‘this makes it very difficult to verify’.  In which case how does she know there were such incidences?  It is such leaps of logic which render this Report so enticing, if only as an example of how not to argue a case.

When it comes to the meat of the Report, specific allegations of anti-Semitism against individual members of OULC there is an even thinner gruel.  She concludes that ‘it is clear to me from the weight of witnessed allegations received  that there have been some incidents of anti-Semitic behaviour and that it is appropriate for the disciplinary procedures of our Party to be invoked.’  At no stage are we given any examples of these allegations still less any detail.  However Royall then goes on to say that ‘it is not clear to me to what extent this behaviour constituted intentional or deliberate acts of anti-Semitism.  This is particularly true of historical hearsay evidence  .’  Which at the very least casts doubt as to whether what is alleged is anti-Semitism at all.  In any event she provides no examples of what she means before concluding that she sees no value in pursuing the very disciplinary cases that she said it would be appropriate to pursue!  Really you couldn’t make it up.

And that is the sum total of the allegations of anti-Semitism in Oxford University Labour Club.  The  clear and obvious conclusion is that the affair was contrived by a manipulator who was co-Chair of OULC, Alex Chalmers, who made allegations of anti-Semitism in the context of support for the Palestinians.  For him ‘Jews’ means supporters of Israel.  It is not surprising that he has refused to answer Asa Winstanley’s questions and has gone to some considerable lengths to cover his tracks, for example deleting his profile on Linked In.  Of Royall’s report it is fair to say that the least said the soonest mended!

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[1]           http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/Resources/JCO/Documents/Judgments/eemployment-trib-fraser-v-uni-college-union-judgment.

Chakrabarti – A Missed Opportunity to Develop an Anti-Racist Policy for Labour

Shami Chakrabarti & Jeremy Corbyn about to present report

The Chakrabarti Report took place in the context of other events

The Chakrabarti Report Fails to Understand how anti-Semitism was Weaponised

On 29^th April, as the media hyped ‘anti-Semitism’ hysteria in the Labour Party was in full swing, with daily revelations from those doughty fighters against racism at the Daily Mail and Sun, Jeremy Corbyn set up an inquiry into racism in the Labour Party under the former Chair of Liberty, Shami Chakrabarti.  Chakrabarti is no radical and when it was announced that Baroness Royall of Labour Friends of Israel was to become a Vice Chair of the Inquiry I feared that this Inquiry would simply become a rubber stamp for the Right of the Labour Party and the Zionist Jewish Labour Movement.

The other Vice Chair, Professor David Feldman, was attacked by the Jewish Chronicle for his links to Independent Jewish Voices, a group which had expressed its concern “at the proliferation of sweeping allegations of pervasive antisemitism within the Labour Party.” ‘Labour inquiry professor has links to group that says antisemitism claims are "baseless",’ Jewish Chronicle 2.5.16.  I made a long submission to the Inquiry  and I gave evidence to the Inquiry two weeks ago.

Jeremy Corbyn and Marc Wadsworth - Black anti-racist activist & victim of racist attack by Ruth Smeeth and Zionists

When I gave evidence to Chakrabarti she made it clear that the Inquiry Report was hers and hers alone.  Baroness Royall of Labour Friends of Israel would not determine its findings or outcome.  She was an advisor, nothing more.  So although my worst fears were not realised and the Inquiry did not become a repetition of Royall’s rubber stamp ‘Inquiry’ into allegations of anti-Semitism at Oxford University Labour Club, the Chakrabarti Report is nonetheless flawed.  

Corbyn and Rabbi Mendy Korer

There is no merit in pretending that Chakrabarti found for the supporters of the Palestinians and opponents of Zionism in the Labour Party.  Whilst there are some welcome recommendations, in particular over disciplinary procedures, the Inquiry clearly falls down on the side of the Zionists politically.  

Zionist Labour MP Ruth Smeeth - a False Victim of 'anti-Semitism' as she targets Marc Wadsworth, a Black activist

The Chakrabarti Report has been welcomed by both Richard Angell of Progress, for whom any criticism of Zionism is de facto anti-Semitic Grading the Chakrabarti report, and Jeremy Newmark Chair of the Jewish Labour Movement, who called the report a “sensible and firm platform” to combat anti-Semitism. Report says UK Labour Party not racist,  Jerusalem Post 1.7.16.

The Chakrabarti Report has been welcomed by John Mann MP, the boorish loud mouth who hectored and bullied Ken Livingstone.  It is true that in a Parliamentary Labour Party with an over-representation of the stupid and vain, Mann stands head and shoulders above his compatriots. Nonetheless when he declares that he was ‘delighted that every single one of the proposals I made [to Chakrabarti] in (sic) included in her report’ we cannot just ignore his comments. John Mann: The anti-Semitism report gives a route out of this mess this cannot be ignored.  Mann stated that “For the first time, it makes the use of ‘Zionist’ in a derogatory way a disciplinary offence.’ This is wishful thinking on his part but it is close to the truth.  Even a stuck clock is right twice a day.

Ruth Smeeth MP - US Intelligence Asset who staged incident to present herself as fake victim of 'anti-Semitism'

The best thing about the Report is the first line which states that ‘The Labour Party is not overrun by antiSemitism, Islamaphobia or other forms of racism.’  This is important because it negates the whole campaign which gave rise to this report.  However there are two problems with this.  Chakrabarti immediately rows back on this saying that ‘I have heard too many Jewish voices express concern that anti-Semitism has not been taken seriously enough in the Labour Party and broader Left for some years.’ 

Chakrabarti avoids the central reason behind the setting up of the Inquiry, the false use of anti-Semitism as a weapon against those who oppose Zionism and the Apartheid State of Israel.  Coupled with this is what can be described as ‘false victimhood’.  Although Chakrabarti accepted our submissions over the Zionists’ misuse of the MacPherson principles, she doesn’t draw any conclusions as to why the Zionists have tried to subvert the MacPherson definition of a racial incident.  Why are the Zionists so insistent that only they can define what is an anti-Semitic incident?

What would Chakrabarti have said a quarter of a century ago if opponents of Apartheid in South Africa had repeatedly been told that they were ‘anti-White’ racists?  It is a constant of Zionist discourse that anyone supporting the Palestinians or opposing their treatment by Israel is accused of ‘anti-Semitism’.  An example of this occurred at the Chakrabarti Report press conference itself when Marc Wadsworth, a Black anti-racist activist, accused Labour MP, Ruth Smeeth, a spin doctor for BICOM, the main Zionist propaganda group in this country, of feeding information to The Telegraph. Former Israel lobby spin doctor aims for seat in UK parliament,  Wadsworth made no mention of Smeeth being Jewish, indeed he didn’t know she was Jewish, yet this was spun by Smeeth and the media as being an anti-Semitic incident. 

The problem with Chakrabarti is that false claims of ‘anti-Semitism’ can be directed with impunity at Black anti-racist activists.  It substitutes the subjective for the objective, yet Smeeth proudly boasted on Twitter that Chakrabarti had apologised to her.

The whole Report is suffused with subjectivity.  Instead of defining anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism from the outset and rejecting the ‘new anti-Semitism’ which sees opposition to the Israeli state as anti-Semitic and Israel as the ‘Jew among the nations’, Chakrabarti ignores the issue completely.  There is no excuse for this.  A number of submissions, including my own  and IJV’s, spent some time on defining what is and is not anti-Semitism.  How can you have a report on anti-Semitism which fails to define what it means by anti-Semitism?

The Institute of Race Relations IRR’s submission to the Labour Party Inquiry into anti-Semitism and other forms of racism emphasised the difference between attitude and acts, the subjective and objective.  According to the poisonous logic of identity politics, the rights of every group – be they an oppressor or oppressed – are equally valid.  So the rights of the Zionists are equally as valid as those of the Palestinians.  The rights of ethnic cleansers are as important as those they drove out.  If you challenge this then you are engaging in a ‘hierarchy of oppressions’ which is not allowed.  The subjective demands that you take all claims at face value.  Both bogus claims of racism and actual racism are equal.  It therefore drains racism of any meaning and reduces it to personal antagonism.

The Chakrabarti Report depoliticises racism. Instead of being a product of the power relations in a society built on colonial exploitation, including the slave trade, racism is nothing more than a difference in colour or ethnicity.  Black people can therefore be equally as racist as White people.  Racism is reduced to the personal.  It has nothing to do with imperialism or Zionist settler colonialism.  Indeed the very use of the word ‘Zionism’ is deprecated.

It was Lenin who made a clear distinction between the nationalism of the oppressed and the oppressor:  “The bourgeois nationalism of any oppressed nation has a general democratic content that is directed against oppression and it is this content that we unconditionally support." The Right of Nations to Self-Determination - 4. “PRACTICALITY” IN THE NATIONAL QUESTION  Chakrabarti does not recognise any such distinctions.

The Zionists dress up their chauvinism and racism as the ‘national self-determination of Jews’.  We should reject this.  Jews are not a nation and Zionism is not about ‘self-determination’ of the oppressed.  National self-determination means the right to be free from national oppression.  The rights of Israeli Jews or South African Whites was and is about the right to exploit and oppress. 

Chakrabarti bases her analysis on a subjective understanding of anti-Semitism.  Chakrabarti says that there is ‘clear evidence’ of ‘minority hateful or ignorant attitudes and behaviours’ which she ascribes to ‘incivility of discourse.’  This ‘clear evidence’ is never produced.  It is politics by anecdote.  Chakrabarti doesn’t say which Jewish voices have expressed concern and what is the basis of that concern.  When it comes to concrete acts of discrimination Chakrabarti provides no examples whatsoever.

Racism is treated as an ideological phenomenon not a material force.  Attitudes and prejudice are considered in isolation from the practical day to day reality of racism.  Chakrabarti fails to recognise that anti-Semitism in Britain is extremely low.  The synthetic, media manufactured reports of ‘anti-Semitism’ in the Labour Party owe nothing to anti-Semitism and everything to the desire to remove Jeremy Corbyn as Leader. 

Jewish people in Britain are not economically disadvantaged or oppressed.  They do not do they suffer from institutional racism.  On the contrary Jews are among the most privileged sections of society.  The post-war history of British Jews is the move from the East End of London to the outer suburbs of Hendon, Golders Greet etc..  It was not only a geographic but a political shift as Jews, who had voted overwhelmingly for Labour up to the 1950’s, began to transfer their allegiance to the Conservatives.  In 1945 Phil Piratin became one of only two elected Communist MPs in Britain for the Mile End constituency.  Half his votes were estimated to be from Jewish voters.  It is inconceivable that such a phenomenon could happen today.

This transfer of Jewish political allegiances happened, not because of support for Israel but for socio-economic reasons.[1]  William Rubinstein, former President of the Jewish Historical Society, wrote that: ‘the rise of Western Jewry to unparalleled affluence and high status has led to the near-disappearance of a Jewish proletariat of any size; indeed, the Jews may become the first ethnic group in history without a working-class of any size.’ [2]  By 1961, more than 40% of Jews were located in the upper two social classes compared to less than 20% of the general population.[3] 

Contrast this with the non-White population of Britain.  They experience job discrimination, Police and fascist violence, arson at mosques, demonisation in the press and Parliament with the Prevent programme being directed at Muslims, Stop and Search, targeting by Home Office campaigns against ‘illegal’ immigration etc.  Unlike Jews, Black and Ethnic Minority groups are under represented in Parliament and the upper echelons of society.  There is simply no comparison between British Jews and Blacks, Asians and Muslims in Britain.  

Despite  acknowledging that Labour has not been overrun by anti-Semitism she writes that ‘there is too much clear evidence (going back some years) of minority hateful or ignorant attitudes and behaviours’ which she attributes to a ‘bitter incivility of discourse.’ 

Failing to produce any concrete evidence of anti-Semitism, Chakrabarti constantly refers to ‘courtesy and dialogue’ ‘kindness and civility’ ‘incivility of discourse.’  It is as if the problem of racism can be located in bad manners and thoughtlessness.  What Chakrabarti does is to depoliticise racism and allow the false victimhood and bogus anti-racism of Zionism to be counterposed to those who are active in anti-racist and anti-imperialist campaigns.  It is little wonder that a majority of those who have been suspended for ‘anti-Semitism’ have been Black or Asian activists or councillors.

Everything is rendered subjective.  All that is solid melts into air.  Real political struggles against oppression and deprivation become transformed into the personal.  Far from the personal being political, it is anti-political and ultimately reactionary.  Incivility and discourtesy is held to be as oppressive as the deprivation that comes from poverty.  After all, even the rich and powerful have feelings!

So when someone who is Jewish is offended by solidarity with the Palestinians, as happened when Oxford University Labour Club supported Israel Apartheid Week or comments are made about Zionism and media conspiracies, then this is as valid as outrage over the imprisonment of Palestinian children.  Indeed even the mention of Israeli brutality may be perceived as offending Jewish sensibilities and thus be ‘anti-Semitic’. 

Chakrabarti holds that:  ‘Notwithstanding a vibrant Palestinian solidarity tradition, of all British political parties the Labour Party has the longest and most consistent record of support for Zionism, and the Labour Government quickly moved to recognise the new state of Israel upon its formation in 1948.’  Chakrabarti treats this as a matter of pride rather than shame and regret. 

The Labour Party also has a long standing and consistent record of support for imperialism and the British Empire.  Apart from those around the Movement for Colonial Freedom (Liberation) Labour subscribed to the ‘constructivist’ Fabian notion of Trusteeship, whereby Britain’s African colonies were held ‘in trust’ for the indigenous people who first needed to be ‘civilised’ before they could be allowed self-government.  Racism and imperialism were the handmaidens of social democracy and Chakrabarti pays tribute to it. 

When the Attlee government took power in 1945, the previous Conservative Colonial Secretary, Oliver Stanley, said of the policy of the new Labour Secretary for the Colonies, George Hall that:  ‘I listened to it with great interest, and I must confess with a certain amount of familiarity.  It did not seem to differ greatly in essentials from the policies which have been declared on previous occasions.’ [4]  Bipartisanship with the Conservatives over foreign and colonial policy has always been the order of the day.

Chakrabarti declares in the section ‘History’ dealing with Labour’s past and present relations with minority groups, including Jews, that ‘This Inquiry is not about the wisdom of substantive policy, but rather, about the tone of constructive debate.’  That however is the problem as it is substantive policy from the Iraq War to the Prevent and Domestic Extremism programmes which have led directly to the intensification of anti-Muslim racism.  Black and Asian members naturally feel solidarity with the Palestinians given Israel’s support for Apartheid in South Africa and its repressive role internationally.  The attempt to subsume political differences behind the ‘tone’ of political debate is a mask with which to disguise Labour’s support for the oppressive and racist policies of the British state.

Chakrabarti argues that no one should be required to condemn human rights abuses because of their religion or race.  That is true but it is  besides the point. Zionist organisations, including the Jewish Labour Movement , the British wing of the Israeli Labour Party, have made it clear that passing policy critical of Zionism or Israel is in itself anti-Semitic because it is challenges Jewish identity.  The JLM’s proposed change to Labour Party rules states that ‘it is not acceptable to use Zionism as a term of abuse’.  The problem is that Zionism, the settler colonial movement that ethnically cleansed Palestine of its indigenous population and which holds that Israel is a state of its Jewish citizens as opposed to all of its citizens, is an abusive and racist movement.  How is it possible to employ the term ‘Zionism’ in a non-abusive fashion?  Is there a non-abusive form of Apartheid?

Chakrabarti defines ‘Zio’ as a racist epithet.  It’s not a term that I would employ outside Twitter, with its 140 character recognition limit, but it is not a term of racial abuse.  ‘Zio’ is short for ‘Zionist’ i.e. someone who is a supporter of Zionism.  It is not an ethnic but a political category.  As such it cannot be a racially offensive term.  Chakrabarti suggests it should be banned because it will ‘undermine the atmosphere’ of the Labour Party.  In other words we should do nothing to upset Labour’s support for Israel and Zionism.

If Chakrabarti wanted to outlaw racist epithets then the Zionist term ‘self-hater’, which is levelled at Jewish anti-Zionists should be outlawed. German anti-fascists were accused of self-hatred by the Nazis because they were held to hate their race and nation.  Those who refuse to accept this are held to hate their race and nation and thus themselves. 

Chakrabarti’s section on stereotyping is unremarkable except for her comment that ‘I have heard from Jewish students expected to either defend or condemn the policies of the Israeli government.’  This is the exact opposite to what actually occurs. Jewish societies on campus are part of the Union of Jewish Students and as such they are constitutionally bound to advocate for Israel. Those Jewish societies which have tried to resist this have been threatened with disaffiliation. see Rewriting the Holocaust

Chakrabarti’s recommendation that ‘Labour members resist the use of Hitler, Nazi and Holocaust metaphors’ because it is ‘intended to be incendiary rather than persuasive’ should be resisted.  This is a nod towards the issue that led to the suspension of Ken Livingstone.  The Holocaust serves as the primary symbolic justification for the existence of Israel as a Jewish state.  Thousands of young Israeli Jews are taken to Auschwitz each year in order to emphasise the message that only a militarily strong Israel guarantees that there will be no second holocaust.  Auschwitz is used, not as a warning against racism, but as the justification for a Jewish supremacist state whose existence is predicated on a permanent majority for its Jewish component.  Fear of an Arab demographic majority is pervasive and guides Israel’s internal settler colonial policy of Judaisation.  This is what lies behind the Israeli government’s support for campaigns against miscegenation including funding the fascist Lehava group.  Inter-marriage isn’t so much a religious as a racial imperative.  It is this mentality which led to the banning of a book Borderlife from the syllabus of Israeli high schools – it portrayed a relationship between Jewish and Arab teenagers and thus undermine the national Jewish identity that the JLM are so fond of. Israel Bans Novel on Arab-Jewish Romance From Schools for 'Threatening Jewish Identity', Ha’aretz 31.12.15.

When Benjamin Netanyahu addressed  the 37^th World Zionist Congress in 2015, he attempted to shift the blame for the Holocaust from the Nazis to the Mufti of Jerusalem.  Hitler had only been interested in expelling the Jews.  It was the Palestinian leader who persuaded him to murder them.  Despite his historical ignorance, what Netanyahu said was in accordance with existing Zionist propaganda which portrays the Palestinians as the new Nazis. 

Holocaust metaphors are to Zionism what cricket and warm beer is to Britain.  In Israel, as even Chakrabarti acknowledges, the use of holocaust slurs against one’s opponents is second nature.  Outside Israel too the justification for Israel’s atrocities is made with reference to the Holocaust. 

But even if Zionism did not make reference to the Holocaust then use of such analogies would be justified.  There are too many comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany.  One of the reasons for my own suspensions was that I, like Hannah Arendt, had compared Israel’s marriage laws to the Nuremberg laws. 

Chakrabarti recommends that we should ‘leave Hitler, the Nazis and the Holocaust out of it’ and instead use ‘the modern universal language of human rights, be it of dispossession, discrimination, segregation, occupation or persecution’ instead.  This goes to the root of the problem with Chakrabarti.  Israel is not merely a state that abuses human rights.  What makes Israel different is the Zionist ideology that led to a state based on racial supremacy and segregation.  Israel, both ideologically and practically, mirrors many of the practices of the Nazi state prior to the Holocaust.  Indeed there are powerful voices in Israel which advocate the open murder of Palestinians.  No less than 57% of Israelis supported an Israeli soldier Elor Azaria who executed a severely wounded Palestinian lying on the ground, compared to just 20% who opposed his action. Israeli soldier filmed executing wounded Palestinian man  A large Tel Aviv demonstration in his support mobilised under a banner proclaiming ‘Kill them all’.  Amidst the mob that was chanting ‘death to the Arabs’ was a poster that bore the slogan ‘My honour is my loyalty’, the slogan of the SS.

The exclusion of Arabs from 93% of Israeli land mirrors the exclusion of Jews from German land.  It is equally right to compare the sealing off of Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto.  It was Marek Edelman, the last Commander of the Jewish Resistance in Warsaw who, much to the chagrin of Zionism, compared the Palestinian fighters to the Jewish resistance fighters. Letter to 'Palestinian Partisans' Raises International Storm, Ha’aretz 9.8.02,  The ‘death to the Arabs’ mobs in Israel mirror the anti-Jewish mobs in the Europe of the 1930’s. 

Chakrabarti discusses the use of ‘Zionist’ and ‘Zionism’ and advises us to ‘use the term "Zionist" advisedly, carefully and never euphemistically or as part of personal abuse.’  Again she reduces the political to the personal.  Although she doesn’t recommend  that its use be outlawed entirely, as the Jewish Labour Movement would like, she goes more than half-way to meet them.  Of course fascists have long-used the terms Jew and Zionist interchangeably.  But Zionists also do the same, hence their slogan that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. See for example No, Peter Beinart: Anti-Zionism Is Indeed a Form of anti-Semitism, Ha’aretz 20.4.16.  Chakrabarti talks about people ‘redefining their Zionism’.  You can redefine racism as many times as you want but it is still racism, whatever colour you put on it. 

However even in the darkest room there is usually a glimmer of light.  So it is with the Chakrabarti Report.  Under ‘Clear and Transparent Compliance Procedures for Dealing with Allegations’ Chakrabarti makes stringent criticism of the current procedures whereby members are suspended at whim, without even being told the nature of the allegations against them, still less the identity of those making the complaints.  When I gave evidence to Chakrabarti it became clear that this was the area where we could expect the Report to make its most stringent criticisms of the current witch hunt. 

Chakrabarti recommends that ‘those in respect of whom allegations have been made are clearly informed of the allegation(s) made against them, their factual basis and the identity of the complainant’, something which Iain McNicol, the hapless General Secretary of the Labour Party has so far refused to do.

Chakrabarti speaks about ‘avoiding the risk or perception of abuse of power in matters of internal discipline’ as one would expect from someone with her record in a civil liberties organisation.  However at the end of the day it matters little, whether or not there are clear and transparent procedures, if the Labour Party expels someone for being an anti-Zionist.

Perhaps the best part of the Report is when Chakrabarti raises, albeit tangentially, the context of the current witchhunt when she speaks of looking at the motivation of those making the allegations.  She speaks of ‘a hostile journalist or political rival conducting a trawling exercise or fishing expedition in relation to a particular person or group of people within the Labour Party.’  Although this is a tentative stab in the right direction, she immediately backtracks saying that ‘ I am not going so far to say that a politically motivated complaint should always be disregarded, just that motivation may have relevance, as will context’.

Chakrabarti deals effectively with the JLM attempt to distort the MacPherson definition of a racial incident.  The JLM proposed an amendment to the Labour Party’s rule book which would mean that the word of a ‘victim’ of a racial incident would be accepted at face value rather than being objectively tested.  Their amendment reads:

“Where a member is responsible for a hate incident, being defined as something where the victim or anyone else think it was motivated by hostility or prejudice based on…. the NEC may have the right to impose the appropriate disciplinary options…’  According to the JLM ‘the Macpherson definition of a racist incident… places particular value upon the perception of the victim/victim group.’ 

In other words a racist or a Zionist could define themselves as a victim and the NEC would be obliged to expel the ‘perpetrator’ since it would be the victim who defines the incident.  Chakrabarti makes it clear that the ‘purpose of the [MacPherson] approach is to ensure that investigators handle a complaint with particular sensitivity towards the victim…. However it will be for the investigation and any subsequent process to determine whether my complaint was ultimately well-founded.’

Likewise Chakrabarti makes caustic comment about the readiness of the Labour Party’s Blairite civil service to suspend members at the drop of a hat.  She speaks of the principles of natural justice observing that ‘Civil courts do not grant interim injunctions, nor criminal courts issue arrest warrants every time a complaint is made’ and raising the European law concept of  proportionality – which Brexit is no doubt going to eradicate!   There are a number of technical proposals, such as lesser sanctions than expulsion and the introduction of a new legal member of the Labour Party staff which may simply ensure that decisions are more legal proof in the end, thus working to the disadvantage of those subject to disciplinary action.

One of the principal recommendations of Baroness Royall’s ‘Inquiry’ was that the Jewish Labour Movement, which is affiliated to the ethnic cleansers and settlement funders of the World Zionist Organisation, should be responsible for anti-racism training for Labour students.  I remarked in my submission that this was akin to employing the late Harold Shipman to develop courses in medical ethics.  Having racists develop anti-racism courses is indeed a novel proposal. 

 Chakrabarti doesn’t mention the JLM in the Report or Royall’s proposal, despite nearly 90 Jews writing in specifically on the subject of the JLM and its claim to be the Jewish section of the Labour Party.  Chakrabarti speaks of ‘critiques of the idea that anti-racism training can ever be effective and nervousness that one strand or another in the Party's thinking should be given a privileged position in relation to describing and disseminating the boundaries of acceptable attitudes and behaviour.’   This may be a subtle hint that Royall’s proposals re the JLM are a step too far.  Chakrabarti says that ‘On reflection, and having gauged the range of feelings within the Party, it is not my view that narrow anti-racism training programmes are what is required.’  The Institute of Race Relations, which made an excellent submission to the Inquiry, came down firmly against ‘racism awareness training’ which is part of an Orientalist and colonial tradition of getting to know the enemy better.

Chakrabarti ‘s suggestion that in four Birmingham where Muslims predominate, which have been under ‘special measures’ i.e. subject to the whim and dictate of the Labour Party’s unaccountable regional organisers, for up to 23 years, this regime should be reviewed with some urgency.  The original ‘problem’ was the recruitment of Muslims to the Labour Party.    These measures date from the regime of Baron Kinnock.  Chakrabarti also points to the all-white nature of Labour Party staff, and the consequent development of racist attitudes.

The Chakrabarti Report is a mixed bag.  It contains some welcome proposals on procedure but this is offset by its fundamental political weakness when it comes to anti-Semitism.  Its failure to appreciate or understand that the issue of anti-Semitism is nearly always raised, not as an issue in its own right but as a defence mechanism by Israel and Zionism’s supporters, mars the Report. 

Tony Greenstein

[1]           Anyone wishing to understand this issue should consult Geoffrey Alderman’s The Jewish Population in British Politics, Clarendon Press, 1983

[2]           W.D. Rubinstein, ‘The Left, the Right and the Jews’, p.51, Croom Helm, London 1982.

[3]           G Alderman, p. 137.

[4]           COLONIAL POLICY OF THE BRITISH LABOUR PARTY PETER C. SPEERS, p.304, Social Research, Vol. 15, No. 3 (SEPTEMBER 1948)/