(The first half of this article is available here)

The Never Ending ‘New anti-Semitism’ Campaign

Without doubt the most persistent and the most repeated line of attack taken against Jeremy Corbyn is the claim that Corbyn is a closeted anti-Semite, and/or that Labour is, as Dan Hodges puts it, “utterly infested with anti-Semitism”, a theme that has dominated the news cycle for the last two years and continues unabated.

Two weeks ago, senior cabinet minister Michael Gove, (who previously said that the millions who use food banks are just mismanaging their money), attempted to smear Corbyn by association. He shared an anti-Semitic tweet, falsely claiming that the account who tweeted it is a “Corbyn supporter and a Labour member”, without apparently bothering to check when the tweet came from a real person or not.

Guardian journalist Jonathan Freedland the same week falsely accused a Labour candidate of being an anti-Semite, in a case of mistaken identity, without making the most basic factual checks, such as whether the Labour councillor he accused, Majid Mahmood, was not just another Muslim person with the same name. Freedland apologised on Twitter (one can only wonder how many people who saw the false accusation also saw the apology), but within 24 hours had published a new article in The Guardian titled: “Many Jews want Boris Johnson out. But how can we vote for Jeremy Corbyn?”

As part of this narrative, the public are repeatedly told what the “Jewish community” (defined in a very particular way) are thinking and feeling, as though “Jews” are one homogeneous mass all speaking with the same anti-Corbyn voice.

The Times for instance last week dedicated their front page to a story titled: “Jews will leave if Corbyn wins”, basing this inflammatory headline on a statement from the Tory Party Chairman (hardly an impartial authority), who bases his own crass speculation on “friends of mine” he has known “for much of my life”.

Rivkah Brown responded appropriately:

“Is this a joke? A front page based on the feelings not of any actual Jewish people, but of the leader of the Tory election campaign, James “some of my best friends are Jewish” Cleverly?”

In short, the Jewish community are defined in such a way that systematically excludes from the discussion any voices that have a different view of the situation, particularly those who are supportive of Jeremy Corbyn and (like myself) object to having their identity conscripted and used cynically as a weapon for political advantage.

Excluded from the mainstream debate are organisations like Jewish Voice for Labour, Jewdas, Independent Jewish Voices, Jewish Socialists Group, and thousands of British Jews who openly support Corbyn, many of whom have recently pushed back against this narrative with hashtag movements like #JewsforJeremy, #Jews4Jeremy, and #Jews4Labour, housing hundreds of statements, selfies, selfie videos, and an outpouring of mutual engagement and support:

Also excluded are people like Professor Norman Finkelstein, one of the leading authorities on the Israel-Palestine conflict, whose parents survived Auschwitz and Majdanek concentration camps, and whose comments on the matter are worth quoting at length:

“It’s actually a breathtaking sight to behold, because you see it from The Guardian to The Daily Mail, and everything in between. They’re all united in this hysteria; this completely contrived, fabricated, hysteria. It has as much basis in the real world as the Salem Witch Hunts in the United States. There’s nothing there. Now I don’t mean that as hyperbole, or poetically. There is nothing there. If the best you can come up with is Tony Greenstein, and [Jackie Walker]” (both of whom are Jewish)… “that’s very thin gruel, you know. It’s pathetic… Except when you take the classic examples, the Anti-Communist hysteria, the Salem Witch Hunt hysteria, you really can’t come up with parallels. You have to bear in mind, this has been going on for two years. Nonstop. Every day, another poll.”

And elsewhere:

“Corbyn’s the real thing. He actually says what he believes… he holds out the promise of real change in British society. And for those who are comfortable with the status quo, Corbyn poses a real threat… There’s exactly zero evidence. Zero. Yeah there are some fringe members who play into antisemitic views…” Interviewer: “When people hear that and understand where you’re coming from they’ll say hang on, you’ve got a vested interest…” Finkelstein: “That’s totally ridiculous, I read the polls. I read the data. It hovers between 6–8% are hardened anti-Semites in British society. It’s nothing. Yeah, so there are a few crazies, but there’s no institutionalised antisemitism in the British Labour party. There’s no threat of antisemitism in British society. I’ve read all of the data. I’ve studied it closely”.

This question of what the data shows in the Labour party specifically is addressed by Jewish Voice for Labour, who (with Dr Alan Maddison) add some statistical detail:

“Of these 673 [allegations] linked to Labour members, 220 (33%) were rejected because there was insufficient evidence. So in Labour we now have 453 allegations which seem to have been handled correctly and promptly. This represents 0.08% of our 540,000 members. It rather contradicts the myth that in Labour antisemitism is “rampant”, or that it has become a “cesspit of antisemitism” or “an unsafe place for Jews”.

(For those interested, a more detailed breakdown of the evidence and data can be found here).

Despite a hysterical obsession with this topic in the media, including hundreds of articles, interviews, features and discussion over several years, you would be hard pressed to find these views reflected anywhere in mainstream news reporting.