The thin veil for Antisemitism in British Labour Party exposed
By Paul Charney, Chairman of the Zionist Federation UK and Ireland
The Labour Party have just announced another new initiative to deal with antisemitism of their members. The UK Jewish community is seething with anger and even Jewish Labour members will be wary and sceptical. Labour cannot spend years allowing an antisemitic culture to flourish under Jeremy Corbyn and expect another plan like this to be accepted with open arms.
True Colours. Jeremy Corbyn at the launch in Bradford of the Labour Party manifesto for the general election in May 2017. The line “FOR THE MANY, NOT THE FEW” has morphed since then into “FOR THE MANY, NOT THE JEW”. See below. Between January and June 2019, Labour received 625 complaints about members relating to anti-Semitism.
The demands by the community for a proper independent process have not been met – just a promise to speed things up.
Recently the UK watched a BBC1 Panorama (broadcasted on the 10th July) exposé about antisemitism within the Labour Party, and what was clear was even the non-Jewish whistleblowers showed little room for optimism as to how this party can comeback from being labelled as the most antisemitic party since the Nazis, and worse yet, as to how they would behave in Government. Furthermore, they are the second party other than the far-right nationalist British Nationalist Party (BNP) to be subjected to a full enquiry by the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission since its establishment.
The BBC Panorama documentary on antisemitism within the British Labour party broadcasted on July 10 2019 exposed Jew-hatred within the party as well as exposing “smokescreening”, i.e. camouflaging its antisemitism. It also revealed that some members of the Labour party are “actual Holocaust promoters” with one former staffer revealing that she was regularly told that “Hitler was right” and “Hitler did not go far enough.”
Regarding Israel, while Labour talks of “two states”, it fails to ever add “an Israel within secure borders”. It talks about Palestinian refugees and their descendants, meaning a Palestinian “right of return” for Palestinian refugees to Israel but always under UNRWA’s endless generation rules. This would translate to the world’s only Jewish State ceasing to exist.
Is this Labour’s aim?
Labour behavior shows it has little time for Israel supporters and certainly only accepts Israel’s legitimacy as conditional.
Jeremey Corbyn has provided a legitimate open space for people to feel safe in expressing not just unmitigated anti-Zionist rhetoric, but also allows for that thin veil of masked antisemitsm to be removed. Once you allow the disease of antisemitism to flourish it becomes very difficult to eradicate it and most Jews will remain sceptical whilst the present leadership remains in place. The rest of us will remain uneasy about the future leaders of a party that we know has been hijacked by anti-Western, anti-establishment extremists.
Whilst Zionism has finally found a safe legitimate and justifiable place within UK politics, education and society – including leaders outwardly expressing their Zionists credentials – there remain the critics who will gladly provide endless condemnation against Israel. “No matter what Israel does its simply not good enough because of the occupation”. We at the Zionist Federation continue to strive to rebrand Israel as it truly is. However, if you start off by hating Israel then you will not be able to see anything else. We must subsequently focus on those that have not been brainwashed and allow them to form a genuine opinion of a complicated issue that is simply not black or white.
Israel and particularly Zionism is now an important issue for the next generation of Jews in the UK. For good or bad, Jewish youth are forced into a position by their peers to either support or condemn Israel. They feel that no matter how far they remove themselves from any discussion, since they are Jewish, then they are seen as representatives of the Jewish homeland.
This compels future generations to identify one way or another.
Whilst the rest of the country remain focused on dealing with Brexit.
Paul Charney was first elected Chairman of the Zionist Federation UK and Ireland in 2012 and has been re-elected three times. He writes and speaks frequently on Israel and represents Zionist supporters across the country. Born in South Africa, Paul lived for many years in Israel, where he served for 4.5 years as a Tank Platoon Officer in the IDF. Having initially studied Law and worked as a lawyer in the UK, he now runs his own Land and Planning Company across the UK.
