Labour Party and anti semitism

Trisher and Easybee -
"Oh for a Labour supporter who believes in Labour values,*
but not watered down conservatism/communism.
But what are those values now? Apart from the rich not being able to fleece the poor.
I would love to know.

Work it out, Michael Foot, far left leader took the party through the 1983 election into 14 years in the wilderness. Tony Blair took the Party through three consecutive elections, and we won them.

Oh for a labour supporter who can accept the voter fears a Trotsky government.

Gordon Brown, a water downed Tory ,

This labour supporter longs for a labour leader not a leader who holds Venezuela as utopia

Oh for a Labour supporter who believes in Labour values, not diluted, thinly disguised communism.

I saw it on a FB page. You can check the dates.

Plenty of Labour supporters around who cannot bring themselves to vote for Corbyn though!

Oh for a Labour supporter who believed in Labour values and not watered down conservativism!

Oh for a leader who can lead, who can cope with media interviews, who would fit on the world stage , a politician and a statesman/woman

Would Wilson, Blair, Becket, Cooper hide behind a glass door

lemon, I knew nothing of anti semitism in the party in 2015, Ed Millibands father was a Jewish immigrant , Ed was Party leader for nearly five years , David Milliband was foreign secretary for three years and if it hadn’t been for the union vote he would have been leader not Ed

Well there you are Annie the leader of the KKK was hoping Corbyn would be PM and would no doubt make things difficult for Jews in Britain.

So now we have reports of a KKK member’s views on the election of Corbyn. Whilst Corbyn cannot in anyway be held responsible for who ever praises him I was shocked that in 2015 this anti Semetic man was pleased Corbyn had been elected, I didn’t think U.K. politics was of interest to Americans

trisher, doesn’t take much to astound you. Both my daughters fathers in law were from Ireland, no connection , just how it is.

As for ‘my connections’, what connections? I have spoken of MP’s I know because I have always been very involved with the Labour Party, attended conferences, South Wales has always had strong Labour loyalty. I may have forgotten to mention an uncle of one of my son in law was a MP for a South Wales constituency. I worked with him and others in the fight to have the Welsh assembly.

I understand it’s difficult for some not to understand Welsh extended families, and the involvement of many in the valleys with the Labour Party.

To astound you a little more, google Sir Horace Evans, another member of my Welsh extended family ?, you may find details of the monument of his father another member of my Welsh extended family. I didn’t chose my family I was just born ?

Where can that list be found PECS?

trisher I empathise with that view. I have stated that I do not tolerate anti Semitism, that I am disappointed in JC leadership style but it is,all overlooked. I just add this short list to illustrate how it is possible to overlook what people say/do if it does not fit your narrative.

Allygran1 you stated that the PLA are larger in number and arms than Israel. Could you tell me where thei information come from? I have looked and most sources agree with Wiki At its largest, the PLA comprised eight brigades with a total of some 12,000 uniformed soldiers. They were equipped with small-arms, mortars, rocket launchers, wheeled BTR-152 armored personnel carriers and T-34/85 tanks. However, the PLA was never deployed in the form of a single fighting unit for the PLO, but instead battalion-size elements were utilized as an auxiliary force by its controller governments.
Absolutely nothing compared with the weaponry -including satellites and remote control weapons, not to mention the numbers of soldiers, Israel commands.
Wouldn't it be nice if the posters on this thread could actually consider my posts on the basis of a life time of belief in peace activism and non-violence instead of attributing my views to some sort of Corbyn worship.
Annie the extent and connections of your relatives always astounds me. But yes I have visited Ireland, researched Irish history and had a dad of Irish decent who was stationed in Belfast during WW2 and was fired at by republican supporters. So I think I see both sides of the discussion. Unlike some.

allygran do you think the IDF ever attack a 'soft target' ?

That makes sense Lemongrove. Not good times for the LP moderates, it must be Hell for them.

Hi OldMeg, yes I would consider that. Your point deserves further consideration:
‘one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter’. Your assumption is that these people who are given ‘a platform’ are indeed the bad guys. I’m not sure I’d be so certain

This statement is two questions. Let's take a look at "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter". I think it is even more than that Meg and you use a great example of Nelson Mandela. It wasn't man that changed him from a terrorist to a freedom fighter, it was time and distance from the terrorist acts, which were vile, read the history.

In 1961 Nelson Mandela went underground, earning a reputation as the “black pimpernel” while evading arrest as commander of the ANC’s armed wing Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation). ^He was imprisoned for life in 1964. www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/winnie-mandela-dead-madikizela-nelson-wife-life-story-obituary-anc-football-club-soweto-apartheid-a8285581.html

Enter the eventual fall guy Winnie Mandela. She was an activist not a terrorist, and through her eventually the ANC became a political party to be reckoned with, once that happens then terrorist, become legitimised.

She made Nelson Mandela, she turned him into a living martyr for a political organisation rather than a bloody terrorist indiscriminately killing and maiming civilians. By the time he came out of prison, he was hailed the natural leader of a political party, which with some not very legitimate methods, indeed some terrorist and murderous methods Winnie had created from a terrorist group and developed into a political organisation which he stepped into, he then of course, this very “nice, kind” man ditched her as soon as he could so that none of the s—t stuck to him.

As with all terrorist groups and let's just define what makes a terrorist group.
^Indiscriminate violence, murder and maiming of civilian population and civil policing, they operate outside the Law. What makes a freedom fighter they use indiscriminate violence, murder and maim civilian populations and civil policing, politicians etc, they operate outside the Law. There is no difference.

How do they become legitimate, they move from violence to poltical activism and then into legitimate political power over time.

Just as it is reported that Hamas is wishing to follow in the steps of Hezbollah who have already become a Political organisation taking on legal status. In doing this of course there is always the risk of a split in the terrorist who wish to remain violently active and those who wish to fight through the ballot box. As with the IRA and SinnFein. Only relatively recently: the last 20 year has the IRA been disbanded.
There has been some research carried out to establish a legal definition for what is a terrorist and what is not, take a look at this:

A correct and objective definition of terrorism can be based upon accepted international laws and principles regarding what behaviors are permitted in conventional wars between nations. This normative principle relating to a state of war between two countries can be extended without difficulty to a conflict between a nongovernmental organization and a state. This extended version would thus differentiate between guerrilla warfare and terrorism. The aims of terrorism and guerrilla warfare may well be identical; but they are distinguished from each other by the targets of their operations. The guerrilla fighter's targets are military ones, while the terrorist deliberately targets civilians. By this definition, a terrorist organization can no longer claim to be 'freedom fighters' because they are fighting for national liberation. Even if its declared ultimate goals are legitimate, an organization that deliberately targets civilians is a terrorist organization.

www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1561426022000032060

There is a lot more to read in the research and it is worth clicking on the link to read it.
The second question about who are the “bad guy’s”?

I hope this helps to determine who the ‘bad guy’s” are. I am pretty certain that once a group indiscriminately attacks ‘soft’ targets, civilian’s or civil police or political figures etc, then they are the bad guys. They cannot call themselves ‘freedom fighters” by the research definition. No matter their cause, the end does not justify the means, ever.

In the case of Arab Muslims from the Lavant area of the Middle East it would seems that Hezbullah has legitimized itself into a Political organisation, whilst Hamas is still struggling with it’s terrorist roots. The PLO also transformed into a Political organisation whilst forming the PLA, the Palestinian Liberation Army, who are larger in numbers and arms than Israel.
There are a dozen or so more Arab Muslim terrorist groups in the Lavant area from Palestine, Lebanon etc.

Please don't leave the thread. We can discuss without falling out. This has been a really good thread, civil and extensive. Amazingly so many issues from the thread title without taking us too far off track.

PECS some of what you say makes sense to me, there are always two sides to every story. However, that is how we got into the antisemitism in the Labour Party on this thread because the only voices were against the Jews and not just the current Israeli Government but Israel very right to exist.

As for the Palestinian voice, my response to that would be that Jeremy Corbyn has often shared a platform with Hamas, Hezbollah and spoke out in support of the PLO and PLA amongst other Muslim Arab groups, who have a stated intention to deny the Jews the right to the State of Israel. It is an interfada of long standing with historical and religious dimensions stretching back more than 2000 years.

Now what I was asking as were other on this thread was not about the Palestinian Arab Muslim voice but where was the Jewish Israeli voice, who was speaking for them in the antisemitic Labour Party of Jeremy Corbyn. All those that did and do are persecuted, threatened with deselection and shouted down to the point where they are forced into silence. Now as you implied and I said earlier there are indeed two sides to every story.

You ask an interesting question "why some people are not supportive of the current Israeli government". In an earlier post I put up an article that might help to answer your question from a Jew a young man and a Labour supporter:

^Alastair Thomas writes:

It is not a new problem either. Hannah Arendt, the political philosopher who fled Germany in 1933, wrote that in 19th–century Berlin a Jew could only be accepted into wider society if he rejected his own people’s values and beliefs. He ‘had to stand out — as an individual who could be congratulated on being an exception — from “the Jew” and thus from the people as a whole’.
Strange as it seems, I find the same attitude prevalent in the left today. Jews are expected to apologise for Israel’s wrong-doings, oppose any right to a homeland and condemn the capitalists who rose from Jewish communities. If you do this, then you get to be a ‘good Jew’. But this idea of the ‘good Jew’ is very dangerous. It legitimises and excuses general anti-Semitism. Only a ‘good Jew’ is deserving of protection against hate speech; the rest of us bad Jews can go hang

Corbyn is often described as a nice guy, and I’m sure he is in person. But it’s no coincidence that the anti-Semitism epidemic within Labour really kicked off when he became leader. He appealed to the young, and it’s the young these days who refuse to see Jews as an authentic minority. For them, Zionism is now a synonym for white supremacy, neoliberalism and western colonialism. As the years pass, the historical association changed. So now, for my generation, Jews are not oppressed. They are the oppressors.
Part of the problem is that millennials — especially millennial socialists — find self-reflection very hard. We tweet and post constantly in response to our emotions.

It’s almost painful for net-natives to pause for thought before doing so. It’s this inability to reflect that allows my Corbynite friends to ignore and even defend the most egregious of sins committed in the name of socialism. At university, I met a young Corbynite who wanted to rename the Socialist Society ‘-Jezbollah’. It never crossed his mind that this was hugely offensive.
Why would it? St Jeremy attends rallies that include Hezbollah flags and offers words of solidarity to anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists. This his fans accept as reasonable behaviour^^Nice guy or not, he has turned terrorists into freedom fighters in the eyes of the young and hate preachers into outspoken activists.

Corbyn’s apology spoke of the ‘pockets’ where anti-Semitism exists — but the problem is the party as a whole. Time and time again, Jewish Labour members are threatened and abused at local meetings, conferences or online, while the ‘anti-racists’ turn away in wilful ignorance. To them, Jews are simply not a minority worth caring about As Jewish protestors demonstrate in Parliament Square to declare ‘enough is enough’, it is likely that young Corbynites will continue to ask ‘So what?’

This is the danger, that being antisemitic in the Labour Party becomes acceptable. Those who don't yield to being apologists for being either Jews or supporters of Israel will be excluded as we are already seeing, hence this thread.

Sorry some of this is from a previous post, PECS, but you may not have read it, and it makes an insightful point.

What good advice annodomini!

I don't want to prolong the 'you said/ he said ' style of this thread BUT posters on here have complained that JC only listens to 'one side'... Margaret Hodge is only one side of this and whilst she is a valid voice she is not the only one.
For example, there has been no voice for Palestinians at all as far as I can see and, as many of the accustions of anti Semitism arose because of the perceived support for Palestinian Human Rights, it might be balanced to hear from that perspective too, to help understanding of why some people are not supportive of the current Israeli government.

Today's Woman's Hour interview with Margaret Hodge left me in no doubt about the severity of the crisis within the Labour Party in the unstable hands of Jeremy Corbyn. I advise both sides in this argument to listen to her and then make up your minds.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bcddz7

Allygran as the risk of being accused of talking in clichés etc. consider the idea that ‘one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter’. Your assumption is that these people who are given ‘a platform’ are indeed the bad guys. I’m not sure I’d be so certain.

Was Mandela, as one example, a terrorist or a freedom fighter?

Anyway that’s my last word on this thread. I find that such phrases as ‘devotion to Corbyn’ utterly meaningless and puerile, except inasmuch as they reveal a ‘black and white’ mind set closed to any reasonable discussion. No point.

Until LP members accept there is a problem within ( anti-semitism) which comes from the extreme left of the party,
Those attitudes/rants/ insults to Jewish people will continue to grow.
Until JC grows a pair and actually tackles the anti-Semites head on, those problems will continue to grow.