Maureen Lipman: You’d think a performer of her standing would know the danger in ill-advised words.

Actress Maureen Lipman gave the fake crusade against anti-Semitism in the Labour Party a shot in the foot on Sunday when she accused Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and his Labour members of opposing – not Jews, but Israel.

Opposition to the actions of the Israeli state is not anti-Semitism and never has been considered to be – at least, not by reasonable people. How could it be, when we see so many examples of Israelis behaving like this? The Campaign Against Antisemitism, which organised the demonstration on Sunday where Ms Lipman made her ill-advised comment, has a somewhat problematic position on the matter – as, of course, must the various Parliamentary ‘Friends of Israel’ organisations which are constituted to support the nation, not the Jewish religious/ethnic group.

Here’s Ms Lipman, talking herself into accusing Mr Corbyn of hating Israel and supporting Arabs:

One of the proposals for future ways in which Labour should tackle anti-Semitism is, of course, education – to ensure that members know what currently constitutes this attitude. But some of us are there already. Not only do we know what it is – we know what it isn’t, and we know what it means when people talk about it in a certain way:

https://twitter.com/TheMendozaWoman/status/983259656133988352

Ms Lipman, of course, courted ridicule at the demonstration when she said Mr Corbyn was the reason she left the Labour Party. She had said the same thing about Ed Miliband in 2014, a fact that was – conveniently? – forgotten by certain newspapers (note the name of the paper mentioned below)…

… but not by members of the public…

…who, of course, found a unique way to remind the mainstream media’s representatives – who should have been reporting this to the public anyway:

https://twitter.com/ArglesJonathan/status/982999139196784640

This issue has always been about misrepresentation, though – misrepresentation of Jeremy Corbyn and notable Labour members (including myself) as aggressors; misrepresentation of Jews as victims (a position against which many right-thinking Jews have taken offence).

Result: British Jews are divided and the British public is disinterested. Who profits from that?

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