We’ve been here before.

Remember when Jewish Labour MP Ruth Smeeth lied about receiving thousands of abusive social media messages in a single day?

She claimed in a BBC interview on September 2, 2016, that she had received 25,000 pieces of anti-Semitic abuse since the incident in which she had (falsely) accused Marc Wadsworth of anti-Semitism in June that year – 20,000 in a 12-hour period.

But research by the Community Security Trust showed that over a 12 month period (from October 2015 to October 2016),  there were 2.7 million tweets concerning Jews, of which only 15,575 (0.6%) were considered to be antisemitic.

The maximum peaks the CST team found were around 200 antisemitic tweets a day, and that was for the whole UK.

But the CST is one of the Jewish organisations that have written to Jeremy Corbyn, claiming “unfathomably vast” abuse has been received by Jews on social media this summer, due to the row over anti-Semitism stirred up by – among others – the CST.

Contradiction?

Of course.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Jewish Leadership Council, the CST – and others – have created a fake row, with faked accusations of anti-Semitism.

And if real anti-Semitism is rearing its ugly head now, it is only because these organisations have encouraged the perpetrators to believe that they will be safely hidden among the fakes.

It is therefore disingenuous for Board of Deputies chief executive Gillian Merron to say the Jewish community has “no interest in an ongoing dispute with any major political party about the nature of racism against us”, but that her group has to defend the interests of Jewish people.

Her group has deliberately harmed those interests by stirring up this row.

The JLC and CST followed the well-established pattern of conflating Zionism, Judaism and the state of Israel (they are not the same things), claiming that Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party must accept that most British Jews had close ties with traditional Zionism – support for a Jewish homeland – and Israel.

There is no evidence to suggest that this is true.

And this statement is a flat-out lie: “The current obsessive hatred of Israel and Zionism means that no Jew can be an equal member of the Labour party, because even if they pass an initial loyalty/morality test, they still always remain under suspicion, lest they display ‘Zionist’ or ‘pro-Israel’ tendencies,” the letter said. “This is the current experience of Jews in Labour circles. It is an antisemitic environment.”

The claim of hatred towards Israel is not true. Nor is the claim of hatred towards Zionism.

It is possible that people may hate the policies of the current Israeli government, including its interpretation of Zionism which happens to demand the slaughter of thousands of Palestinian civilians for no good reason at all.

There is no evidence to suggest that Jewish Labour Party members who have not already exhibited loyalty to the Israeli government and its version of Zionism (like certain MPs we know) are likely to.

And let’s be honest, if they don’t demonstrate any such loyalty in their words or actions, there’s no reason to believe they have it – so the claim that Jewish members would always remain under suspicion is a lie (or should be).

So all the organisations writing to Labour are lying. What did you expect? None of them are affiliated to the Labour Party and there is plenty of evidence that some of their members have other political loyalties.

It follows, therefore, that their advice to Labour about ways of fixing the issue is useless – worse than useless, in fact. It will only create more opportunities for the kind of mischief that they have already been making.

So, what advice should Labour, and Jeremy Corbyn take?

Simple.

Check all the facts. Don’t accept any claims on face value. Draw your conclusions from verifiable information – not the unevidenced claims of liars.

And act appropriately, on the conclusions you draw.

Leading Jewish organisations have called on Jeremy Corbyn to end the “impasse” over tackling antisemitism in the Labour party, calling the abuse received by Jews on social media during the row this summer “unfathomably vast”.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Jewish Leadership Council (JLC) and the Community Security Trust (CST) wrote separate letters to Labour’s general secretary, Jennie Formby, accusing the leadership of failing to deal adequately with concerns.

Source: Jewish groups urge Corbyn to end ‘impasse’ over antisemitism | News | The Guardian

Visit our JustGiving page to help Vox Political’s Mike Sivier fight anti-Semitism libels in court

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