Corbyn condemns Kaufman’s ‘Jewish money’ comment

Last Updated: November 3, 2015By
Sir Gerald Kaufman [Image: Labour Party].

Sir Gerald Kaufman [Image: Labour Party].

Even if Sir Gerald’s remark was correct, the fact is that it doesn’t make anything better, so he would have been well-advised not to articulate it.

As it is, though, he has at least given Jeremy Corbyn a chance to clarify his own position on “all forms of racism” including anti-Semitism, and also Islamophobia, meaning critics will not be able to attack him using that angle.

It’s making a silver lining out of a sow’s ear, but it’s the best that can be gained from this.

Jeremy Corbyn has condemned one of his Labour MPs, Sir Gerald Kaufman, for making “completely unacceptable” remarks about the Jewish community.

Kaufman, the longest-serving MP in the Commons, was hauled into a meeting with the Labour whips after he talked last week about how “Jewish money” was influencing the Tories.

“It’s Jewish money, Jewish donations to the Conservative party – as in the general election in May – support from the Jewish Chronicle, all of those things, bias the Conservatives,” Kaufman said. “There is now a big group of Conservative members of parliament who are pro-Israel whatever government does and they are not interested in what Israel, in what the Israeli government does.

“They’re not interested in the fact that Palestinians are living a repressed life, and are liable to be shot at any time. In the last few days alone the Israelis have murdered 52 Palestinians and nobody pays attention and this government doesn’t care.”

The Board of Deputies of British Jews condemned Kaufman’s comments as “outrageous” and called on the Labour party to “initiate disciplinary proceedings to investigate his disgraceful words”.

On Tuesday, Corbyn released a statement saying Kaufman’s remarks were “completely unacceptable and deeply regrettable”.

“Such remarks are damaging to community relations, and also do nothing to benefit the Palestinian cause,” Corbyn said. “I have always implacably opposed all forms of racism, antisemitism and Islamophobia and will continue to do so. At my request, the chief whip has met Sir Gerald and expressed my deep concern.”

Source: Gerald Kaufman’s ‘Jewish money’ remarks condemned by Corbyn

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28 Comments

  1. Giri Arulampalam November 3, 2015 at 8:19 pm - Reply

    Sir Gerald Kaufman is in a better position to comment on these issues as he is from a Jewish background. Personally, I feel that it is high time that Jews and Muslims should sit around the table and talk to each other. Remember, they have a lot in common!

    • John. November 3, 2015 at 11:59 pm - Reply

      Presumably you mean the architects of the Greater Israel project and the Palestinians whose land is being continuously stolen to create it?

      The talking has been ongoing for decades. The core of the problem is colonial theft and it should be little wonder to any rational observer why that might be proving difficult for the victims to accommodate.

      The so called “peace talks” with the USG acting as a Zionist sponsored dishonest broker, alongside the criminal cult employing them, lasted decades and served a most valuable purpose for garnering sympathy and extracting the all important Western financial billions needed to expand by showing a faux willingness to compromise.
      What the talks really did was provide a most valuable smoke screen, a deflection from the relentless brutal occupation, expansion, theft and annexation of Palestine by the cult which continues to this day.

      The talks achieved as little or as much as the cult intended, precisely nothing.

      The only time the talks ever threatened to deliver a semi-workable solution was Oslo and it resulted in the assassination soon after of the head of the criminal cult at the time, a former colonial insurgent terrorist turned “statesman” no less. A lesson well learned by leaders of the cult ever since.

      • Mike Sivier November 4, 2015 at 1:23 pm - Reply

        Okay, you lost me with “USG acting as a Zionist sponsored dishonest broker”. Proof?
        With rhetoric like that, you paint yourself into a corner. I’ll happily pay attention to evidence. Jargon-stuffed allegations with nothing to support them, on the other hand, I’ve no time for that.
        I can hear it from the Conservative Government, anyway.

  2. Stephen Bee November 3, 2015 at 10:34 pm - Reply

    Its one thing to be anti-semitic and blame Jews..its quite another thing when your direction of blame should have explicitly been towards Zionism. We have Tory Friends of Israel who care more about non offending Israel than they do about not offending the UK and many of them have connections with the City of London. Why should they be allowed such influence to manipulate governments and policies through financial donations. The same is true of the USA where Congress is run by dual nationality Jewish Senators who care more about Israel than they do about the USA and all because they get sponsorship deals at election time thru members of AIPAC who have positions also on the Council of Foreign Affairs. So I support Sir Gerald in his comments about Jewish money creating influence. He should have just been more specific to nail it down Israeli Zionists or Netanyahu supporters!

    • Mike Sivier November 3, 2015 at 11:30 pm - Reply

      While your words are less inflammatory than ‘John’s, you’re still making unsupported allegations and still providing an opportunity for your opponents in this matter to bite back. That’s unhelpful. You need to create a situation in which these people don’t have a leg to stand on; an argument that they can’t oppose without looking bad in the eyes of the whole world. It’s a big demand, but it’s better than aiming allegations at them.

      • John. November 4, 2015 at 3:02 pm - Reply

        One simple question Mike, do you accept Zionism is a supremacist cult?

        • Mike Sivier November 4, 2015 at 5:22 pm - Reply

          No. Supremacists believe in the superiority of a particular racial group, and you’ve already claimed that Zionists aren’t a race.
          And a cult is a minority religion regarded with disapproval by the majority, and that doesn’t ring true either.

  3. John. November 3, 2015 at 10:50 pm - Reply

    Little wonder there is so much confusion, as usual, about the materialistic tribe that must never be mentioned let alone questioned.

    First of all “Jewish” isn’t a race, it’s a religion. The “Jewish people” is an invention, a Zionist fiction, as documented by Schlomo Sand and others..

    The word Mr. Kaufman should have been using is Zionist, the materialistic supremacist cult that owns USG foreign policy, has embezzled the West for decades and runs a delinquent colony masquerading as something they never were.

    An Eastern European materialistic supremacist cult in the process of brutally occupying, stealing and annexing others land and resources to create a colonial supremacist “state” in it’s own image, that sets about fomenting both the hatred and fear it needs to survive alongside the sanctuary it claims to offer.
    Then using that engineered enmity to embezzle and subjugate further the sympathies of the Western donors and it’s long suffering followers who’ve become little more than useful idiots in the colonial expansion plan.

    There are a great many “Jews” who bravely speak out against the criminal cult that has usurped and assimilated an entire religious group for it’s own materialistic, political and financial gain.

    • Mike Sivier November 3, 2015 at 11:26 pm - Reply

      There’s something I couldn’t be quite sure of in your comment. Are you saying these people are materialistic?
      Seriously, the kind of rhetoric you’re using here actually harms your message – and it’s inaccurate, anyway. The “Jewish people” do exist, just as the “Christian people” or “Muslim people” do. Conversely, Kaufman may well have been shying away from the word “Zionist” because it has connotations of its own.
      Strip down your message and I tend to agree that there is a group of people who have a particular agenda that is causing serious problems. But the way you have stated it is more likely to alienate people from your cause than encourage sympathy and engagement – and Kaufman’s comments suffer from exactly the same problem.
      You don’t stop these people by giving them something to fight; you do it by ensuring they can’t resist your argument. It’s a much harder job but that’s what Jeremy Corbyn was saying and I agree with him.

      • John. November 4, 2015 at 12:25 am - Reply

        Mike, I accept what you’re saying but sometimes it’s better to cut straight to the chase and say uncomfortable things. I need to work on the way they’re said but what’s really happening should be what matters, which is difficult in a Western world that’s had a false ME narrative shoved down it’s throat continually for decades, especially in the US, as prime sponsor of the ongoing occupation, theft and annexation of Palestine.

        The conditioning has been and is to feel nothing but sympathy and never, ever question that narrative much less challenge it, within the mainstream sphere at least, however stretched from reality it becomes.

        The fact remains that the “Jewish people” as a race, which is the theme being highlighted in this article and directed against Mr Kaufman, do not exist. Any more than the Christian, Muslim or Jedi “peoples” exist as a race. They are a tribe, a cult, a religious group.

        The Zionist requirement for this “Jewish peoples” narrative to gain traction is to better fit with their invented state and historic fictions that support it. It’s a very great Irony, perhaps, that it was attempted in the very same way by the Nazis and used to persecute as it is now being used to assimilate.

        • Mike Sivier November 4, 2015 at 1:28 pm - Reply

          Sure, what’s happening is what matters. So demonstrate it in a way that doesn’t show you up in a bad light.
          You state that the US is “prime sponsor of the ongoing occupation, theft and annexation of Palestine”. Can you show us reputable sources for this claim are have you plucked it from thin air, as it appears?
          I think you’re wrong about people being conditioned to feel nothing but sympathy for the Israeli state. When you see Israeli/Palestinian casualty lists, they are so disproportionate that even the most closed-minded person must have a suspicion that we’re not being told the full facts.
          Nobody is referring to the “Jewish people” as a race apart from you. As I stated before, though, there are “Jewish people”, as there are Christian or Muslim people. We’ll leave Jedi for another occasion. Please don’t try to alter what I have said to suit your purposes.

      • Stephen Bee November 4, 2015 at 10:32 am - Reply

        Unfortunately, thats EXACTLY the kind of confusion the Zionist peddle. In fact many are not jewish but descendants of Khazarians from Georgia.and Palestinians have more right to be called semites than Israelis. Its all a very clever smoke and mirrors…complain about anything about israel and your anti-semite? Why? Why is Israel the only country you cannot criticise? Why is israel the only country that can ignore over 60 UN resolutions against them? Why do more than half of congressional senators have DUAL citizenship, ensuring that pretty much any legalities anti israel are voted down or vetoed by USA. With respect Mike..these are checkable facts..not assumptions or allegations. Israel even has its own Hasbara Brigade…students paid & schooled in deflecting or confusing social media people from anything which criticizes Israel such as the BDS movement. There is actually a facebook Anti-Hasbara page which demolishes many of the lies and propaganda told by Israel..with checkable facts!

        • Mike Sivier November 4, 2015 at 1:33 pm - Reply

          I’m aware that anti-Semitism covers Muslims as well as Jews – in fact, I have publicised the fact on this blog.
          Mr Corbyn did not say that Gerald Kaufman was anti-Semitic in his comments, though, so you’re putting out a false signal. Corbyn said he, personally, was opposed to racism of any kind.
          Israel is not above criticism. This site has done so on many occasions. If your facts are checkable, why don’t you say, “[Source A] has shown that [x] is taking place” so we can, you know, check them?

  4. Michelle November 4, 2015 at 9:15 am - Reply

    He said, she said… but are Kaufman’s statements factual and would it have been any less inflammatory if he had presented clear and quotable evidence?

    • Mike Sivier November 4, 2015 at 10:57 am - Reply

      Probably not. The trouble is of course that his comments do nothing to help improve the situation, and in fact may make it worse.

      • Stephen Bee November 4, 2015 at 12:53 pm - Reply

        With respect mIke, just because you don’t agree with the remarks, doesn’t make them any the less truthful in content. I ask again, Why is it that Israel are the only country who cannot be criticised for fear of being labelled anti-semitic? Why is it that Israel has over 60 UN resolutions against it which it continues to ignore with impunity? How can Israel call itself a Democratic State when it practices apartheid within its borders worse than that of Sth Africa.? Just because these questions raise peoples huff n puff sensibilities, does not detract for the need to ask them :-)

        • Mike Sivier November 4, 2015 at 1:36 pm - Reply

          What makes you think I don’t agree? If you have read This Blog – and I know you have – you’ll be perfectly aware that my position is strongly opposed to the behaviour of the Israeli State with regard to Palestinians in particular. Why are you suggesting otherwise? Retract that comment at once.
          If you want your questions to be taken seriously, provide evidence to support them. Otherwise it’s you who’s huffing and puffing.

  5. digger November 4, 2015 at 12:58 pm - Reply

    to see who runs the world see who you cant criticise

  6. Michelle Thomasson November 4, 2015 at 3:19 pm - Reply

    The links between the Conservative party and Zionism appear to go back to the turn of the last century.

    E.G. From Chapter 28 ‘THE ABERRATION OF MR. BALFOUR’ of the book ‘The Controversy of Zion’ by Douglas Reed here are some interesting quotes (pages p224 and page 227)

    “Then in 1906 one Mr. Arthur James Balfour, Prime Minister of England, met Dr. Weizmann in a hotel room and was captivated by the notion of presenting Palestine, which was not his to give, to “the Jews”…

    Dr. Weizmann chose Manchester for his residence. He says “by chance”, but credulity balks. Manchester held Mr. Balfour’s constituency; Manchester was the Zionist headquarters in England; the chairman of Mr. Balfour’s party in Manchester was a Zionist (today the British Conservative Party is still enmeshed in these toils).” Please note the book was written between 1951-1956.

    Notes on Douglas Reed, he was known as a great Times reporter and historical writer, especially about WW2, but his works and reputation were taken from the public scene in the 1950’s after the publication of ‘Far and Wide’ a history of the United States of America set in context, Reed was then banished from bookstands etc. After that he then spent 5 years writing The Controversy of Zion (from 1951) by spending much time in the New York Central Library using their resources.

    Ref for quotes above: https://ia700707.us.archive.org/25/items/TheControversyOfZion/TheControversyOfZion.pdf
    More on Reed: http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v19/v19n6p33_reed.html

    • John. November 6, 2015 at 12:31 pm - Reply

      Zionism didn’t even exist until the Nineteenth century despite the best efforts of Zionists to rewrite the entire Jewish and more recently M.E. history in their own image over the last sixty years or so. It is a political cult founded by materialistic communist agitators that has successfully infiltrated an entire religion through subversion and coercion by assimilating most of its followers to a nationalistic cause built on others lands.
      In the words of Rabbi Weiss – Zionism is a materialistic sickness.

      • Mike Sivier November 6, 2015 at 12:45 pm - Reply

        Materialistic Communists? Isn’t that a contradiction in terms?
        There’s still a lot of jargon being flung around here, with no attempt made to support it.

      • John. November 6, 2015 at 1:29 pm - Reply

        A communist state envisaged by a political cult cannot be built on others lands without huge resources being brought to bear. That requires money, power, people and violence to force the issue and make it a reality. Materialism.
        The influx of Jewish settlers and their much trumpeted purchasing of Palestinian land during the time of the Ottoman rule and later the British mandate was proving woefully inadequate to achieving anything even close to an autonomous colony.
        Another way had to be found.

        • Mike Sivier November 6, 2015 at 2:05 pm - Reply

          You have defeated your own argument. You cannot have a materialist Communist state. Clearly they aren’t Communists. Find the right word for them.

      • John. November 6, 2015 at 2:56 pm - Reply

        Materialistic and communist are not exclusive. At least try and understand what Israel is and how Zionist duplicity works.

        There are thousands of web pages and resources documenting real Zionist history, duplicity and deceit despite the best efforts to control a false narrative through mainstream media and blogs like wikipedia.

        http://zaprasza.net/a.php?article_id=31867

        a personal Israeli story
        http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/israel.htm

        you only need look at the treatment of dissident Jewish truth tellers such as Gideon Levy, Norman Finkelstein, Gilad Atzmon, amongst a great many and myth busters like Miko Peled telling the real story to understand the nature of Zionism and just how vapid and complicit Western politics is and mainstream media has become.

        • Mike Sivier November 7, 2015 at 12:54 pm - Reply

          But I’m not denying the nature of Zionism – I’m just trying to get you to understand what it isn’t!

      • John. November 10, 2015 at 2:41 am - Reply

        You’ll have to tell me then, because the Zionists running Israel are a criminal cult using all the military might, political deceptions and international trickery at their disposal.

        I have read extensively about Israel and understand the entirely false narrative surrounding the Greater Israel Project that’s been very carefully woven in the controlled Western mainstream sphere by Zionist quislings and their bought and paid for accomplices. A theme that Mr. Kaufman has quite rightly touched on.
        I’m not convinced you do.

        The three links below are a very long read but worth it, with some caveats, it is written with authority by someone who was there or thereabouts during much of the US sponsored fake peace talk era.

        https://consortiumnews.com/2014/10/23/the-battle-for-palestine-2/
        https://consortiumnews.com/2014/10/23/the-battle-for-palestine-part-two/
        https://consortiumnews.com/2014/10/24/the-battle-for-palestine-part-three/

  7. Barry Davies November 5, 2015 at 10:47 am - Reply

    once again you lost me withe the claims of racism I’m sure you meant bigotry as we are one and the same race certainly islam is a religion not a race anyway so how is islamaphobia in any way racist, the Jews have a nation but again they have people living elsewhere and are not a race just a group that has the same religion. Of course the bigots who don’t accept this are entirely oblivious the the simple fact that Jehovah God and allah are actually the same made up entity, so when you get these three religions fighting each other or indeed in fighting with the different factions within their own religion, they are only fighting because they have a different way in which to worship. so please lets not have any more bigotry yelling racist because of this very minor variation.

    • Mike Sivier November 5, 2015 at 11:49 am - Reply

      Bigotry would have been a better word for it but I had to use the words chosen by Mr Corbyn. Islamaphobia is more correctly termed sectarianism. Your definition of race is hard to uphold as the dictionary definition of race is “Any of the groups into which human beings are divided on the basis of particular physical characteristics”. So in fact sectarianism and racism are both factors here.

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