Jewish groups rally to Corbyn’s side as anti-Semitism row intensifies

Last Updated: March 26, 2018By

This Writer’s Twitter feed was awash with just one issue today (March 26) – the fake claims of anti-Semitism against Jeremy Corbyn, based on a six-year-old Facebook comment.

The worst of it is, if you look at the comment about the then-pending removal of a mural, it seems clear that Mr Corbyn had not even seen it. He was asking why it was being removed; if he had seen it, he would have known.

The letter by the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council has revealed a Zionist, pro-Israel bias to their complaint. They are using anti-Semitism as an excuse to attack a man who opposes the repugnant policies of the Israeli government, particularly in its attempts to displace Palestinians from their homes in what, for the sake of neutrality, I’ll call the Holy Land.

Jonathan Arkush, President of the Board of Deputies and a signatory of the letter, is a right-wing Conservative.

He is pushing a lie in order to harm Labour’s chances in the local elections. I have little doubt that Jonathan Goldstein has similar political views.

And Jewish groups are rallying to Mr Corbyn’s side, proving that Jewish people are not united against him on this matter:

https://twitter.com/J_VoiceUK/status/978166355521359873

Here’s the Jewish Voice for Labour statement:

Undoubtedly there are more.

Many people have ridiculed this as simply the latest attempt to smear Mr Corbyn, launching a Twitter hashtag called #PredictTheNextCorbynSmear. Some of the suggestions are not only funny, but to-the-point:

Here’s one about coincidental relationships:

A comment on the Iraq War that Mr Corbyn opposed:

https://twitter.com/PrettyHatMech/status/978029448619544577

This one refers to a comment by Theresa May about the naughtiest thing she ever did:

How about blaming Tory failures on Mr Corbyn?

This one reminds us all how the media ignore anti-Semitism in other parties to concentrate on Corbyn:

Sticking with the Tories:

This one’s topical:

As is this:

This is very clever:

Here’s the sign:

It’s a reminder that Mr Corbyn has campaigned against all forms of racism (including anti-Semitism) all his life.

This one deserves a prize:

Inevitably, the humorous hashtag attracted vilification from those with an axe to grind against Mr Corbyn.

It, too, was anti-Semitic, they said – and participants were only throwing more hurt at Jews who were offended because of the allegations made by the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council.

But they picked on the wrong target.

One of those taking part was the blogger Tom Pride. Seeing the accusations starting to fly on Twitter, he posted:

He went on to pen an article on the subject, which stated:

I can’t tell you how so, so angry it makes me that someone could cynically use false accusations of anti-semitism, which in living memory produced such terrible suffering, such utter, utter tragedy and mass murder, for petty party political point scoring.

At this point, it’s also worth pointing out that my own great-grandmother and other members of my family were murdered in a Nazi concentration camp for being Jewish.

Here’s what my dad wrote about it on Facebook last Holocaust Memorial Day – he puts it so much better than I ever could:

Today is Holocaust Memorial Day.
I can’t help but get upset and very angry about something that happened so many years ago.
My grandmother on my father’s side a frail, old, innocent, lady, who never did anyone any harm was stripped naked herded into a “shower room” in front of young German soldiers, probably laughing, then gassed, and dumped in a pit! 
I sadly never had the chance to meet her, but I often think of her and wonder how could any other human do that to an old lady.
Very hard to forgive!

So before anyone starts to accuse me of anti-semitism for supporting Jeremy Corbyn – don’t even f*cking think about it.

It won’t stop the attacks from those with an anti-Labour, anti-Corbyn axe to grind. But these people are simply ignorant.

And in this matter, ignorance is no excuse.


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13 Comments

  1. Vanda March 26, 2018 at 12:47 pm - Reply

    But when is Corbyn going to restore order in the party? When? Something needs to be done, and NOW. MPs who constantly look for slurs and smears, in order to discredit Corbyn, need to face reselection. Let the members decide. After all, we are a democracy, and no MP should think they are entitled to the job for life.

    This latest antisemitism slur has been timed specifically to damage Labour at the upcoming local elections. Why on earth would a Labour MP do that? This post is 6 years old. Why did they not ask Corbyn about it years ago, or else wait until after the local elections? It is absurd – Corbyn is the least racist MP you could ever get, and they know it. But they will use any stick to beat him with. He should not put up with it. PLEASE put all this out to members to vote on these issues.

    There is a hidden agenda here, and perhaps it’s leading to another coup attempt. I don’t know. I know I’m fed up to the back teeth of those who seek to damage the party at such a crucial time. These people are playing party politics with people’s lives. People who urgently need a Labour government in power. The orchestrators of these slurs obviously don’t have the good of their constituents at heart, or they would actually HELP Labour to get into power, instead of constantly thwarting our efforts. Perhaps it’s time all those dissatisfied with Corbyn’s leadership simply upped and formed a new centrist party, and let’s see how far they get with it. They won’t be missed. We’ll do far better without them.

    And we won’t win power while they’re around, constantly working against Corbyn. True story.

    • vondreassen March 26, 2018 at 2:05 pm - Reply

      odd that the Welsh bloke should suddenly start shouting…

    • Zippi March 31, 2018 at 10:36 pm - Reply

      What I want to know is why any time that something like this happens and the evidence is there for all to find, online, nobody in the party comes forward with the supporting evidence to refute the allegations and why those in the frame open their mouths and make things worse, before they, too, have possession of the facts? Ken £ivingstone would not be in his mess, has he researched properly, before going on that Vanessa programme and Jeremy Corbyn would not have apologised in the way that he did, had he done his homework. Aye, this happened six years since so, why is it news? Where is the artist, in all of this? There is a video, on youtube, of the artist painting the mural and explaining what it is about. The artist is Mear One and the piece is called False Profits. If I could find it, everybody could have found it, if they had WANTED to!

      • Mike Sivier March 31, 2018 at 11:29 pm - Reply

        Ken Livingstone was factually accurate on Vanessa Feltz’s show. SHE was in error.
        Your query about why no party officer comes forward is valid. My understanding is that it’s because there were many right-wingers performing these functions and they simply couldn’t do their job properly, preferring instead to use it to try to undermine people on the left.

      • Zippi April 1, 2018 at 6:28 pm - Reply

        I know that, Mike but that fact that he wasn’t in possession of the facts regarding her posts allowed Vanessa to manipulate him. Had he know that the Israel/ U.S.A. image was a Jewish joke and that the “Nazi” quotation was from Dr. Martin £uther King, he wouldn’t have come a cropper.
        Does Jeremy Corbyn not have a researcher, or publicist? Diane Abbot was quick to condemn Ken £ivingstone and she’s not a right-winger. It took me about 5 minutes to find the video and I have posted it on my facebook page, so that people can see for themselves. I posted a link on another article, here.
        As you know, Mike, the truth isn’t very hard to find so, why is it that, whenever something like this happens, the accused seem totally unable to defend themselves?

        • Mike Sivier April 1, 2018 at 7:15 pm - Reply

          As an accused who IS able to defend himself, I’m afraid you’re asking the wrong person.

  2. Julian March 26, 2018 at 8:18 pm - Reply

    Vanda’s absolutely right.

  3. Pat Sheehan March 26, 2018 at 10:41 pm - Reply

    Why would any decent, self respecting individual pay any attention to, or take any notice of, these ludicrous ‘anti-semitic’ slurs and smears. They are thrown around these days like confetti as a last ditch attempt on the part of certain people and groups in the ‘vain’ hope of easily discrediting those whom they obviously hate or fear a lot but equally obviously don’t have an adequate vocabulary for articulating their particular gripe. Contempt is what they deserve and contempt is what they will bring upon themselves!

  4. royboxer March 27, 2018 at 5:03 am - Reply

    Jeremy should be making these points on the BBC, some people actually believe that they are an actual news gatherer and not the Tory party mouthpiece.

  5. John March 27, 2018 at 11:07 am - Reply

    I think Corbyn Was right to sack those who try to undermine his leadership…i also think Corbyn was sending a clear message to the Blairites that constantly work against him ”do not stand in Labours way or you will be removed

  6. Dr Refael Ezri March 30, 2018 at 12:50 pm - Reply

    This is a little disingenuous – the CE of the BoD is a former Labour government minister and labour MP for the whole Blair/Brown years, before which she was a trade union official. Other prominent and sensible Jews like rabbi laura janner klausner (the head of reform Judaism uk) also supported the protest against anti semitism in the labour party. Corbyn is at best indifferent to anti semitism, in my opinion. Once again, having joined the party again last year- I find myself leaving in protest. How can the NEC head of appeals be supporting a man who claims the Shoah was a hoax? This is part of a bigger picture (Poland, for example lately, and no doubt Hungary). If JC is stupid enough not to be careful about what he ‘likes’ etc on social media – he shouldn’t be the party leader. There have been many incidents like this, and worse.

    • Mike Sivier March 30, 2018 at 2:58 pm - Reply

      Mr Corbyn didn’t ‘like’ the post about the mural – he responded to it, and his response was a question. He asked why the artist’s work was being censored – what the given reason was. That’s not necessarily a statement of support.
      Ms Shawcroft was chair of the NEC’s disputes panel (not head of appeals) – and, from the evidence, the case you mention does not seem clear-cut. As a victim of a false accusation in which my words were twisted by liars, I prefer to await full divulgence of the evidence rather than pre-judging (although I’ll agree that what we’ve seen so far seems damning).
      Your mention of the CE of the BoD being a Labour supporter would carry more weight if she had not been a Blairite; the current row has been manufactured by Blairites to try to discredit Jeremy Corbyn.
      And there are prominent and sensible Jews on both sides of the argument. In fact, the real concern for the Jewish community is that it should not be split against itself for the sake of a petty political point-scoring exercise by Blairites.

  7. Zippi April 1, 2018 at 1:44 am - Reply

    Racism, OR anti-Semitism? Does nobody else see a problem with that? Racism is racism is racism! Any peoples who are affected by it should stand together, not apart!

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